This was a lot of fun to read. This story doesn't get nearly as many comments and likes as it deserves.I hope you enjoy the thrilling conclusion to Donjon's first multi-part chapter, as well as the primary portion of Arc 1, Collapse! Tune in next Friday for Donjon's first interlude, a look into the head of everyone's favorite mischievous magician.
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I watched with a strange melancholy as some of the first capes I'd met ran off into the distance, leaving me to wait for Bullrush alone. I closed up my little window and started to pace, unwillingly imagining how I'd explain to her that I decided to go on an unauthorized patrol because I was restless and a pretty girl smiled at me. And worse, that I'd screwed up our infiltration by getting caught and forcing Presto to bail me out. It almost made me feel sick, just thinking about it.
Far worse was the uncertainty those creepy vans had planted in my mind when they'd come out of nowhere and made Presto's screens cut out, the feeling I couldn't shake that there was something bad going down in there. Something that might have been stopped if Presto hadn't been drawn away. Ten minutes could be a long fucking time in the wrong circumstances, and every bit of instinct and intuition I had was screaming that those black vans were bad news beyond even what you'd expect for someone involved in human trafficking. I'd said I would stay put, but the last time I'd ignored that gut feeling had ended with my roommates barging into my room and attacking me. Presto might be upset, but I knew I'd never forgive myself if someone got hurt without me having even bothered to look. Besides, more likely than not it would be mundane criminals better dealt with by a professional capable of effortlessly running down vehicles on foot and stopping them in their tracks with her bare hands.
I slid down the outer wall in utter silence, letting the ground flow up to my chest as I reached street level. Concrete and metal parted around me with the ease of a shark slicing through water, only the top of my head visible to allow sight and breathing as I approached my target. The grimy wall of the dilapidated warehouse towered overhead, and I hesitated briefly before parting it like a bead curtain and surveying the interior. The creepy black vans were parked near the garage entrance, a fitting backdrop for the eerily still and well coordinated group of mercenaries opposite the brightly colored Bastards. They were lead by a cold-eyed man in a suit, looking utterly unperturbed at being surrounded by over a dozen power-enhanced mobsters.
"Is this disturbance going to interfere with our transaction?" he asked, sounding like he was talking about the weather. I suppressed a shiver.
The man leading the Bastards shook a head of hair that was more like a mane with an air of impatience. "I told you there's no problem, Shrike chased the magic bitch off. The merchandise is in perfect condition as agreed, not a hair on their heads disturbed."
I slinked around the edge of the warehouse as the suit considered his response, making sure no part of me was easily visible to those inside. The ground beneath one of the mercenary's vans made a suitable hiding place.
"Very well," the suit continued, not bothering with either gesture or inflection. "My employer would prefer me to get visual confirmation before the remainder of the funds are transferred."
"Ah ah, there's rules to these things," said the lion man, waggling a clawed finger. He smiled in a viscerally unpleasant way. "The deal was more than just money. You show me yours, and I show you mine."
The suit was taking some time to think of his response, so I touched the underside of the van to expand my tremorsense. Something I hadn't expected bloomed in my mind, an indecipherably complex device with the shape and dimensions of an egyption sarcophagus. It wasn't built into the van, but it rested on a set of rails carefully fitted for hauling it. I heard a door open and realized I'd missed whatever the suit had to say, too distracted by my power to keep my ear on the ball. Two bedraggled looking people were dragged out of one of the warehouse's side rooms, looking simultaneously terrified out of their minds and utterly drained. It was obvious they hadn't been able to take care of themselves, even from this distance. As I watched one of the hostages -a woman with her hair tied back in a messy bun- tripped and fell before being roughly hauled back to her feet by the bestial Bastards on either side of her.
It took every fiber of my self control not to let my power off its leash, forcibly reminding myself of the consequences not just for the Bastards but to their victims. Even still, the ground around me rippled in a distinctly sharp way, spikes almost but not quite being formed before sinking back into the ground. I tensed, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble, but it didn't seem like anyone had noticed my momentary lapse. A smidgen of my thinker power helped me regain my focus, and with the clarity it granted I realized something that should have been obvious. The strange device in the van above me was perfectly fitted to the woman they were holding hostage, and I'd bet my left boob that one of the other vans had one just like it for the old professor-looking guy they were holding. It wasn't clear what they were supposed to do, but whatever it was probably wasn't going to be good for the poor people getting shoved inside.
"Everything appears to be in order," said the suit, interrupting my thoughts. "My employer will transfer the funds imminently."
The lion man nodded, gesturing for his men to hand over the hostages. There's no way Bullrush is getting here in time to stop this , I realized.
With a deep breath to steel myself, I drew on that clarity of purpose more deeply than I ever had before. Emotion fell away, the soreness I'd felt from leaping halfway across the city folded into a value-neutral awareness of my body. My thoughts shifted all at once, irrelevant priorities set aside in favor of a razor-sharp focus on rescuing the hostages and taking down the individuals responsible for hurting them without death or serious injury. Before they'd advanced a single step, my hand touched the underside of the van once again and I used my power to seal it completely shut. I slipped underground and advanced to the next vehicle in the line, but there wasn't anything inside besides the seats the mercenaries had presumably rode in on. I sealed it anyway, fucking with the engine block for good measure. As I'd suspected, the last van had another tech Sarcophagus perfectly fit for the other hostage. I slipped back beneath the ground before anyone had time to notice my sabotage, head popping back up just outside the warehouse.
The time spent observing with the tinker proved its worth. Memories of each pair's patrol route effortlessly sprung to mind as I slipped from cover to cover. There , I thought, homing in on a pair of enhanced individuals that seemed more focused on speaking to each other than watching for potential threats. The smaller of the two had some mouse in him, rounded ears twitching periodically as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. The individual next to him was more still, sharp teeth and scales akin to a crocodile's giving her a dangerous air. One of her claws rested on the handle of a gun strapped to her hip.
"I'm telling you I smelled something," said the mouse-faced one, wringing his hands in a steady pattern. The motion served no purpose I could discern.
The crocodile person moved her head in a small circle, apparently in response. "And I'm telling you it's gonna be a homeless guy pissing in an alley. Again."
The mouse hunched in on himself further, but he wasn't able to respond before being bowled over and immobilized with a wave of stone. Crocodile was quicker on the uptake, backing off before I could ensnare her. I rushed in before she sounded an alarm, getting close enough that the silencing device's range encapsulated her. With my armor and the awkward angle she couldn't get in more than glancing blows before the ground beneath her became more liquid than solid, disturbing her footing and letting me get in a few solid hits with fists sheathed in metal. Once she was suitably distracted the concrete beneath rose up to immobilize her, successfully this time. Iron tendrils sprouted from the material covering her up to the neck, forming an improvised muzzle to keep her from revealing my presence the second she could make noise again.
I stowed them in one of the nearby abandoned buildings, behind a door that looked like it had rusted shut before I'd been born. Back in the cool night air, I started my search for the next patrol. With my knowledge of their routes the area I had to search was reduced to a fraction of what it would otherwise be, and before too long I came across a pair of nearly identical young men wielding knives and a baseball bat respectively. They slinked more than they walked, graceful in the way a predator on the hunt was graceful. Scales glistened under the streetlights, poking out from beneath sleeves and collars.
There was no reason to rely on my fists, particularly against foes that were armed themselves. I pulled a stout wooden pole almost as tall as I was from the ground as I silently sliced through concrete behind them. With the poor light, my cloak, and the tinker's silencing device sneaking close enough for a solid blow should have been trivial. I'd failed to account for enhanced senses. In a whip crack motion, the knife wielding twin turned around and threw one of his weapons at me with blinding speed.
"Cape!" he shouted, movements smooth enough they seemed languid despite their suddenness.
With my thinker power I could trace the knife's path through the air before it even left his hand, allowing me to completely fail to move out of the way before it rang my metallic mask like a bell. I staggered back, momentarily dazed. Long enough for his accomplice to close the distance, lips pulling back to reveal sharp, stark-white teeth as he probed for weaknesses with his improvised bludgeon. He swung at knees and elbows, seeking to disable them before I found my bearings.
Layers of armor and padding reduced the blows from potentially crippling to largely irrelevant, particularly since he'd lost this fight the moment he'd stepped within a few feet of me. The next swing met wood instead of body, and I felt the vibration travel up my arms as his bat rebounded off an anchored quarterstaff. As with the crocodile, I commanded the ground to liquefy and seize his legs the moment he was most distracted. There was a ping only I could hear as another knife rebounded off of my shoulder, forcing me to take cover behind my assailant's relative while I imprisoned him and took measures against any more noise.
A vibration brushed the edge of my tremorsense, and before I'd fully registered what was happening a wall sprung up on my flank just in time for a third knife to ping off of it. In an instant, I extrapolated the knife snake's position based on the trajectory of the throw. The ground under my feet swelled up, and I rode it like a cresting wave straight through the wall I'd created. Momentum lent strength to the simple wooden pole I swung, but he twisted out of the way like a ribbon in the wind. Another swing was similarly fruitless, and he used the opening to drive a dagger into my unarmored armpit. It caught in the dense weave of my bodysuit, giving me the momentary distraction I needed to form a small field of blunted spikes beneath and around us. He stumbled, and in that moment of weakness I tackled him with the full force of my power behind me. I reshaped the ground as we made impact, preventing the spikes from stabbing into him and potentially causing life-threatening injury. I stepped back from my assailant, breathing far harder than I had from the journey here.
I hid the twin snakes in the dusty basement of a gutted apartment building, climbing up onto the roof once they were secure. I all but collapsed the second I allowed myself to stop moving, greedily sucking in the cool night air. Out of danger for the moment, I let go of my thinker power. A half-yelp, half-groan forced its way out of my throat the second I started feeling the full extent of my injuries. A chill ran down my spine. I sat bolt upright, iron talons clumsily pushing back layers of cloth to check for signs of blood, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw the knife had failed to penetrate the last few layers. I couldn't afford to be that sloppy if I wanted to make a career out of this. Hadn't I promised Ajay I would be careful?
Pushing aside memories of blood and failure, I commanded the concrete I stood upon to come alive with thick tendrils. They surrounded me, embraced me, working to shore up and repair as much as possible in the short time I had before the absences of the people I'd hidden away were noticed. The slash in my bodysuit was sewn up with iron thread and sealed with thick staples, damaged armor plates replaced or bent back into shape. An abortive attempt at shoring up the gaps in my defenses with chainmail made it clear I'd need a lot more practice before I could make something that complicated in a reasonable timeframe. How to protect myself?
I held the quarterstaff I'd made earlier in front of me like a spear, tapping my chin in thought. The end was dipped into the concrete rooftop, emerging with a two-pronged iron head akin to a medieval man catcher. No more personal space invasions, I thought.
Another deep breath, and I snapped back into full Thinker Mode. Fear and pain fell away, leaving only a mechanical clarity sharp enough to cut. Retrieving the binoculars I'd received from the tinker, I walked to the edge of the rooftop and began the search for my next target. Across the street and a block away was a pair of horned Bastards conveniently leaning against the wall of a dilapidated corner store as they conversed, seemingly unaware of the predicament they'd put themselves in. I decided to enlighten them, putting the binoculars away and leaping from building to building in utter silence. Soon I was perched on the roof directly above them, cloak the color of midnight hanging out over open air.
One threw an antlered head back, closing her eyes and making a strange repetitive noise. In that moment of distraction I slid down the side of the weathered brick wall, a wave of conjured stone -chemically similar to basalt, according to the power testers- gathering in my wake. The instant before I would have impacted and revealed my position I came to an abrupt stop, allowing the material behind/above me to continue forward on latent momentum. It parted around me like the course of a stream splitting around a rock, and similarly I reshaped it to immobilize my erstwhile opponents rather than crushing them. Practice made the muzzle set-up a trivial exercise, and before a minute had passed I stowed them in separate rooms and went back on the prowl.
The next group I came across was four strong, presumably a pair of pairs that rendezvoused with each other. Two had wolf-like features, one limber and clawed and the other with sensory organs twisted and augmented by Menagerie's power. The latter was conversing with a short, bird-like individual that shifted in place with sharp, sudden movements. She had a wild head of black feathers instead of hair, hands and feet twisted into wickedly curved talons. Watching over her was a massive individual with equally massive bullhorns sprouting out the sides of his head, muscle piled on more muscle to the point where it would take two of my legs to make one of his arms.
"-don't like how this night smells," sense-wolf was saying, her voice a perpetual growl. "We should've heard from Jaws and Squeak by now, not like them to miss an opportunity to bitch about having to do watch again."
Claws-wolf grunted, apparently in response.
"Those icy-eyed assholes give me the chills," said the crow person, head twisting further than should have been possible to look behind her. "Like they been hollowed out with a spoon or somethin'. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if they got the pigs up in the Needle on our tail with whatever fucked up shit they're doing."
"Do you think Presto might have come back around?" said the bull, voice softer than I'd expected.
Sense-wolf snorted, head moving back and forth. "You wouldn't ask that if you'd fought her. Trust me, if that bitch were here she'd make damn well sure we knew about it. Can't help herself. Hell, there was this one time a few years back-"
She stopped abruptly, ears perking up. Without a word she and her fellow Bastards formed a loose circle in the dimly lit street, each facing out with their backs to the others. A moment later my tremorsense picked up the sound of footfalls, and with my binoculars I could pick out another pair of Bastards coming our way. In the lead was an individual with legs and ears akin to a hare's, an eight-eyed spider person hot on his heels with well timed leaps from building to building.
"Someone took out the Taipan Twins!" he blurted out the moment he was within sight of the other Bastards.
"Holy shit." "What happened?" said the crow and the sense-wolf at the same time.
The rabbit shook his head. "I don't know. I heard a shout and by the time I got there they were just fucking gone ."
The leaping spider arrived and all six of them huddled up, conversing in voices too quiet to pick out even with my tremorsense. I gripped my polearm, considering and discounting different strategies at a mile a minute. They seemed content to stay in one place, so I slipped ahead of them to find the most attractive escape routes. With methodical care, I twisted each road leading away from their current position into a tortured, treacherous landscape indistinguishable from its former shape at a distance. For good measure I hid small pitfalls here and there with no particular pattern, just the right size to catch a foot and not let go. I doubled back, slinking behind them to block off the only other escape route.
My face poked up from the ground, and I noted that they'd formed up and armed those among them with enhanced senses with guns. No time to do this in a subtle way, and I couldn't risk getting shot either. I let go of my thinker power, gritting my teeth against the pain while I thought of a way to send them running. An idea occurred to me, and a grin spread across my face before winking out the instant I reactivated my thinker power. I let my power off of its leash for a short burst, a chaotic collage of iron spikes, wooden limbs and stone bones bursting forth from the ground like a mushroom unfurling in timelapse. The Bastards reacted immediately, just as I'd hoped. But even fully immersed in my thinker power, my entire body froze up when I realized that some of those shapes hadn't come from the statue I'd made earlier.
John…
A crack like a hundred fireworks shattered the stillness in the air, but with my discombobulation it took several precious moments to connect the dots and realize I'd just been shot at. The bullet hadn't gone anywhere near me, bouncing off a human shape I refused to recognize pulling itself out of the ground. I redoubled my efforts, shifting position erratically as I continued to harass them with the images selected to intimidate and baffle. My opponents seemed to be less certain now, so I swept in close and hooked one of the legs of the sense-wolf with my improvised mancatcher. She screamed, and the group broke. The earth I swam in pulled me back, and she was pulled along with me below the street. I stopped before her head was covered, moving to pick off the rest of the ill-begotten gang.
The Bastards and mercenaries in the warehouse had almost certainly heard the gunshot, I didn't have much time. Throwing stealth to the wind, I leapt after the scattered members of the group, harrying them until they stumbled into my traps in a panic. One by one I immobilized them, not bothering to waste time with muzzles or stowing them somewhere they wouldn't be easily found. The bull person actually surrendered, though I still made certain to beef up his restraints in case he decided to try using that raw strength of his.
Five down, I thought, turning toward the warehouse. Should I grab the hostages now? No telling how long that seal will last.
Before I'd taken more than six steps something slammed into my back, sending me sprawling face first into the road. I started reshaping it the moment I made impact, turning around just in time to stop the spider's second leap, pronged polearm catching her on the leg and slamming her down into the ground. I immobilized her with a wave of stone, heading to the warehouse as fast as I could manage.
Two of the mercenaries guarded the entrance, easily dealt with by using the very walls they hoped to protect to hold them still. I ran around the perimeter of the building, sealing every point of ingress and egress. Poking my head inside, I saw that the lion had organized everyone into a defensive perimeter with guns ready to fire at the first sign of trouble. My goal sat in the center, guarded by layers of trained killers and animal-twisted mobsters. I bypassed them, burrowing beneath until I was directly under the two individuals I'd done all this to rescue. A thick circular wall rose up around them, cutting off the access of the mercenaries, and I poked my head above the ground just long enough to take a few deep breaths and offer each of them a hand.
"I'm with the Protectorate," I said, voice cold and flat. "Please take a deep breath first."
They looked at each other with wide eyes for a moment, but eventually took the offered hands. The second I had a good grip I pulled them away, using my power to destroy their bonds in the process. We sank deep underground, propelled forward by the material around us until we eventually surfaced just outside of the warehouse. The individuals I'd just rescued fell more than sat the moment my power wasn't supporting them, staring forward silently. Uncertain what to do, I let go of my thinker power.
"How are you holding up? Is there anything you need?" I asked them, leaning in close enough for them to hear me.
Unexpectedly, both of the middle-aged academics threw their arms around me and started weeping, babbling unintelligibly about what they went through. I comforted them as best I could, repeating that it would be okay in a soft voice again and again, that Bullrush would arrive soon and she'd take care of all of this. My heart nearly broke at the fear in their voices, at how desperate they were that they'd confess their fears to a near stranger. It was distracting enough that I didn't notice the loud cracking sounds in the wall of the warehouse until it was too late.
A chunk of the side large enough for two people to walk through fell outward, crumbling as it hit the concrete. I sent the hostages running with a push, turning to face the new threat. The lion man, larger and more feral-looking than he was before, stood just inside holding a small battering ram. He had the darkest of looks in his eyes as he saw me, savage fury compressed into something that made me take an involuntary step back. I advanced regardless, hoping to cover the hole before we were overwhelmed by greater numbers. My opponent threw the battering ram to the side like a piece of trash and charged, moving far faster and more suddenly than I'd anticipated. I tried twisting out of the way as he attacked, but he adjusted and smacked his fist into my breastplate hard enough to make me see stars.
My back hit the ground with a muffled impact, and I involuntarily curled in on myself with a groan of pain. Immediately following that was a crushing pang of failure at getting Presto's quieting card thing broken. The lion man reacted to the sound, seeming briefly surprised before something clicked behind his eyes.
He spoke, anger turning into smugness. "Of course, the magic bitch sent you in with one of her toys. Was wondering how you'd snuck around all my guys." He cracked his knuckles, that vicious smile making him look more monstrous than the rage had. "Guess newbie needs to learn a lesson about minding her own business."
I stood up with painful slowness, using my polearm for support. I held it out with a wobbly stance. "Not done yet. Think you -ugh- got what it takes, Mufasa? Bring it the fuck on."
"With pleasure," he said, taking a step toward me. On the next, a portion of the street I'd strategically weakened with my power caved in under his weight and dropped him into the sewers below. There was a deeply satisfying splash, some lovely swearing, and a completely repulsive smell.
With grim determination, I advanced on the building without reactivating my thinker power. A portion of the warehouse's wall detached from its surroundings and acted as a piece of mobile cover while I advanced on those inside.
"I'd recommend you surrender," I announced with theatrical projection. "The lion's been caged, and none of your other friends did any better."
One by one the Bastards put down their weapons, leaving only the question of the mercenaries. They weren't making any aggressive motions but they weren't putting their weapons down either. I gave them a challenging look, spikes stabbing out of the ground around me. The suit gave no reaction, slowly turning to survey the scene as a whole.
"Well?" I prompted.
He turned to address the Bastards, ignoring me. "Prodigy will be notified of this failure."
Then all at once he and the mercenaries he brought with them began to twist and shudder like broken engine blocks, smoke and blood pouring from eyes and mouth and spine. They fell like puppets with strings cut, enormous holes in their bodies where parts of them literally disintegrated in front of us.
That, of course, was exactly when the wall burst from outside in. Bullrush skidded across the floor in her slow, invincible form. She was like a statue of black crystal or a low-poly model of herself that reflected the light in strange patterns.
She shifted back into normal form, regarding the Bastards and mercenary corpses with a completely unreadable look. Her helmet slowly turned to look at me. "Sepulcher."
I waved at her, face breaking out into a nervous -almost manic- grin under my mask.
Donjon (Worm OC, Seattle)
- Thread starter Silverstrings
- Start date
- Superhero
-
- Tags
- worm trans protagonist
This was a lot of fun to read. This story doesn't get nearly as many comments and likes as it deserves.
- Location
- New Zealand
I'm guessing that the mercenaries are some sort of corpse army, puppeted around by one cape implanting their own organs in them, acting as a hive mind.
Also, I've forgotten. Who is John again?
Also, I've forgotten. Who is John again?
- Location
- In the mathematical center of your mind palace.
He's the guy from the first chapter that got killed by Carmilla's power. She's still a bit hung up on it, as you might expect.
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
Perhaps the Jon forms infer that she captured his consciousness when her power kills. Make for an interesting Master ability, a minion that doesn't really like you but may help in return for some 'onscreen' time.
Collapse 1-x(Liang Myers)
- Location
- In the mathematical center of your mind palace.
10 Years Ago
Dad taught Liang her first card trick on her sixth birthday. Dead simple, since she was just a kid back then. All it took was some counting and pretending like you were shuffling when you really weren't. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, like mom used to say. All the kids at school loved it, and after she'd showboated a little -or, well, maybe more than a little- she'd taught Maddy and Lee how to do it too. Soon enough everyone that cared to learned it, and she couldn't use it to show off anymore. But she did it first and that made her special.
After that, whenever he really wanted her to be good, Dad would promise to show her another one of his tricks. Like how he'd gotten so many coins out of her ear, or how to shuffle cards so they wooshed between her hands without flying everywhere, or how to hide a ribbon up her sleeve so she could pretend to pull it out of her nose. Whenever mom had one of her 'family gatherings' with everyone in the neighborhood she'd have Liang get in front and show everyone her new tricks. She was all too happy to oblige.
After dad got sick, he couldn't do tricks very well any more. But he could still tell her stories about when he was a sailor, and he could still explain how to shuffle the cards so they ended up where she wanted them. They could both pretend that things were fine, that he'd get better and start showing her tricks and making mom smile again. Pretend like she hadn't seen him sitting on the couch in silence, staring at the ceiling like he thought it might swallow him up and eat him any second. They'd started going to the doctor more and more, and he moved from the couch to a thin white bed.
He didn't get better, and he never showed her any more tricks. There was a moment burned into her memory, one of many visits to the private rooms they gave people who weren't going to be around much longer. She'd struggled to make out the tiny whisper his voice had been reduced to, but she and mom had both noticed when it finally went silent. Something behind his eyes left right then, vanishing like one of his coins. There one moment, and then gone the next.
Mom got her a book of magic tricks, though they'd stopped doing the gatherings a long time ago. Liang read it cover to cover, and when the cover fell off from her reading it too many times mom got her another one. Every time she practiced a new trick she'd imagine him guiding her through each step, teasing her fumbles and praising her successes. She didn't bother trying to be popular anymore, didn't bothering showing any of them off. That wasn't what they were for.
Not too long after dad died, mom started dating a guy named Steve. Steve had a lot of opinions on what was appropriate behavior for a young woman. Like what to wear, who to talk to, how to talk, what to think, and most importantly how to keep her mouth shut and look pretty. The final straw was when he decided her card tricks weren't 'ladylike' enough or whatever the fuck and tried taking them away.
A telltale creak on one of the stairs was her only warning, more than enough time to hide her little rebellions away. Everything in the room was immaculate, her preferred decorations torn down and put in storage during one of Steve's little tantrums. Not that he'd call them that, of course. The cards were placed behind the false back of a desk drawer, along with a tattered copy of her first book of tricks.
Steve opened the door as she was standing up, not bothering to knock. His head swivelled like a desk fan in fast motion as he scowled at every corner of the room. He was white, with balding red hair, and no matter what time of day it was he always smelled like old sweat and cigarettes. Liang pasted on a smile and took on an appropriately fucking ladylike posture as she endured him pawing through all her stuff, opening drawers and turning over covers. She made sure to get in some really nasty looks whenever his back was turned, throwing in rude gestures she'd seen some older kids make every now and then just to spice things up.
He spun around, and she had to work extra hard to keep the sick feeling in her gut from showing on her face. Had he seen? But he just stalked past her, clumsily pulling open her desk drawers. The knot in her belly unfurled a little when he didn't notice the false backs, and the clear frustration in his posture made it hard to keep from smirking. She kept up the pasted, patient smile while he looked for an excuse to punish her. He turned from the desk and loomed over her.
"Do you understand who's in charge of this household little missy?" He said, tone angry.
"Yes sir," she said, keeping the flare of anger hidden behind a brittle smile.
He sneered. "Well who is it then?"
Liang bit back some choice words she'd recently learned. "It's you, sir. You're in charge of this household."
Fucking Steve nodded like the response was barely acceptable. "What are you doing standing around? Get back on your homework."
She'd already done her homework, but she sat down at her desk with an appropriately demure 'Yes sir.' anyway. He didn't like it when she corrected him. The door slammed shut, and Liang listened carefully to make sure he was really going back downstairs.
The second the coast was clear she burst into motion, moving her mattress aside to get to the clothes she'd hidden away. Practical stuff, none of the frilly crap Steve thought girls should wear. A few loose floorboards hid a spare backpack filled with supplies, slowly saved up and hoarded over months. There was money too, but not that much. Having too much cash on her would make her a target, or at least that was what she'd heard.
A few minutes to get changed, a few more to gather up all her supplies. She told herself again and again that the pulse pounding in her ears was from excitement, that the sick feeling in her gut was just nervousness about being caught sneaking out. It was enough that she didn't stop until she stood in front of an open window, the preparations she'd made suddenly seeming woefully inadequate for a life on the streets. But well, she'd always done her best work thinking on her feet. Besides she was ten now, basically almost a grown up.
She tossed five months of work into the night air to force herself to move, quietly closing the window behind her. Careful positioning of her hands and feet kept her perch on the window sill, and little by little clambered down to the ground. Her backpack and duffelbag had landed in a bush, muffling the sound of their fall. There was a hiding spot she'd already picked out for them closer to downtown, though she didn't look forward to the walk there.
Now or never, she thought, treading fearlessly into the dark. She chanced a look back before the house was completely out of sight, knowing it might be the last time she'd ever get to see it. I'm sorry mom.
Her vision blurred and she lost sight of her former home, forcing her to turn back toward the dark. She scrubbed away the dampness in her eyes with a sleeve. No more time for kid stuff.
-||-
8 Years Ago
Grown-ups had no appreciation for the value of money. Take watches, for instance. You could get a perfectly functional watch for like ten or twenty bucks, but apparently that just wasn't good enough for some folks. Like the snooty business man she'd 'acquired' a fancy gem-studded timepiece from, waltzing down the sidewalk without a care in the world. Hopefully this would teach him to be a little more frugal with his accessories in the future.
Liang hid her grin as she pushed open the door to the pawn shop, putting on a pensive, defeated air. It was important not to lay it on too thick, a classic mistake she'd fallen prey to early on was getting so caught up in selling the character that she forgot real people didn't like being seen like that. They tried holding it in, keeping it inside, trying to keep a strong facade even at their weakest. It was those glimpses of her 'true self' beneath the surface that really drew people into the performance.
She made a show of meandering through the small shop, trying to give the impression that she was putting off approaching the counter rather than eyeing the merchandise. It was a pretty typical assortment of ostensibly valuable junk, most of it too unwieldy and distinctive to be worth trying to make off with. There was some jewelry that briefly caught her attention, behind a shoddy glass case she knew would be a cinch to pop open and swipe something from before anyone was the wiser.
Tempting though it might be, she knew it wasn't practical. There weren't that many blasian girls around town, if she got clocked taking something that valuable her distinctive appearance would get the cops on her ass before she could say beluga. Picking pockets and running cons was easier, safer. Less chance of getting caught. If she played her cards right they'd never realize anything was amiss, at least not until she and the rest of her gang were long gone.
Enough dilly dallying. Liang approached the counter with hesitant steps, pawing through her bag like she didn't know exactly where the watch was. At the moment she was dressed in a 'poor but preppy' sort of style, a worn out cardigan over a skirt that was just a tad too big. Her shoes were good for running of course, but they could also pass as dress shoes for someone without much money to spare. The shop's owner was an old balding Asian guy in a dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, wiping at a counter that already looked plenty clean to her. He looked up as she approached, squinting at her behind worn out glasses.
Liang gave him a nervous smile, unwrapping the watch from the cloth that covered it. The other kids made fun of her for always brushing her teeth and flossing and everything even though there wasn't anyone to make her. They didn't get how important it was to not look like an urchin. She made a point of letting her touch linger on the watch just a bit, like it had sentimental value. This was the most important part, whether or not he bought what she was selling. Both literally and figuratively.
"Excuse me mister, can you tell me how much this watch is worth?"
The old man behind the counter leaned forward to examine it, brow furrowed in concentration. "May I see it?" he asked, holding out a weathered hand.
Liang nodded, her reluctance to let go of the expensive accessory only partly feigned. He took it in gentle hands, grey-sprinkled eyebrows scrunching together over thick lenses as he held it up to the light. There was a minute shift in his expression. Surprise.
Next would come the obvious question. Where did an obviously not well-to-do girl get such an expensive watch, particularly one styled and sized for a grown man? The first things most people thought of for an incongruity like that tended to be pretty obvious, driven into them by stereotypes and popular culture. Or life experiences, but those were hard to make use of without a lot of really boring reconnaissance -a word she made sure to teach her whole gang when she learned it last week- or pretending to be their friend long enough to learn something juicy and then stab them in the back. She might have been a thief, a congirl, an urchin, and a wannabe magician, but she'd eat garbage before she'd ever do something that gross .
Thankfully that wouldn't be necessary. This bit would only need to handle one conversation's worth of scrutiny, it didn't need anything but a strong backbone and a little razzle dazzle. She took in a quiet, slow breath, something he'd only notice if he was really paying attention.
"It's- that is, it was my grandpa's," Liang said, striving for a forced casualness. A little more roughness leaked into her voice than she'd intended, making her worry she'd overplayed the part.
He got that look in his eye a lot of grown-ups did when they saw kids like her, that kinda-sad, kinda-helpless look like they wanted to make things better but didn't know how. It was useful -she'd been aiming for it, even- but it hadn't taken long for her to start getting real fucking tired of those looks.
She pasted on a sad little smile, twisting the knife for both of them. "Mom sent me to sell it so she can pay the bills while she's looking for another job."
The old man's face seemed to droop a bit more with each word, a good indication that he'd been hooked. Now all she had to do was reel him in and clinch the deal.
"It's genuine, as far as I can tell," said the squinty old man, which Liang pretended she hadn't already known. He paused just a little longer than felt natural, eyes flickering between her and the watch. "I'd value it at around $5000. I can only part with half of that I'm afraid, have to keep the lights on in here."
Liang tried not to gape at him before realizing that would still be in character, too flummoxed to muster any sort of response. That was over twice what the thing was actually worth, she'd looked it up herself before coming here. There was no way he didn't know that.
"I..." she started, words failing her yet again. "Thank you."
He smiled, counting out the bills with wrinkled hands and pressing them into hers. "Go help your family."
"I will," she said simply, meaning it.
-||-
It was almost dark when Liang got back to the hideout, she'd had a bunch of errands to run once they were finally flush with cash for a bit. Food for everyone, new clothes, Jessie's medicine, it was disheartening how fast it got used up. She fumbled the door unlocked and shouldered it open, blinking at the sudden change in brightness while she tried to close the door behind her with a foot. Laughter drifted from the living room, putting a smile on her face even through the exhaustion that had settled over her like a thick blanket. The seven of them rented space in a shitty house in a shitty neighborhood that didn't bother asking questions about who you were or why you were living there so long as you paid on time.
She set the pizza she'd gotten from the place across the street on their already extremely crowded table, displacing more than a few empty soda cans and other assorted bits of junk onto the floor. She did a sort of squat thing while leaning against the edge of the table, carefully lowering the heavy grocery bags onto the floor next to it. By the time she stood up Monica was leaning on the doorway leading to the family room, giving her another one of those 'concerned looks' she was so fond of. She was a year older than Liang, Mexican, with long black hair she liked doing up in different braids, though right now it hung freely to just below her shoulder blades. Liang idly imagined brushing her fingers through it, remembering the way it always smelled a little like flowers because of her shampoo.
A loud harrumph from Monica brought her back to the present. "Hey dummy, were you listening?"
"Of course I was," Liang lied. "You were asking me about today's haul, which I have to say went swimmingly."
"No you weren't and no I wasn't. Have you eaten today?"
That brought her up short. "Well I had a bowl of cereal and a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast, and earlier today I ate a bag of cheetos."
"Uh huh. Come on, let's get you something to eat."
Liang grabbed a slice of pizza and some breadsticks to mollify both her stomach and her best friend, following her into the living room where a couple of the other kids were hanging out and watching some dumb cape cartoon. She made sure to sit down next to Monica on the big couch, trying not to make too much noise and ruin the show. Jessie had her own chair she liked to sit in while she watched her shows, religiously recording them on tape and drawing pictures of her favorite characters. Alex lounged in the beanbag chair next to her, occasionally scratching at the horns sprouting from his head in between his mocking commentary on the ridiculous situations the characters kept finding themselves in.
She leaned back into the surprisingly comfortable couch, closing her eyes and letting the comforting noises of home wash over her.
-||-
This "Morning"
The harsh blare of her alarm clock almost gave Liang a heart attack. She shot bolt upright in her chair, a half-disassembled card gimmick still strewn across the workbench in front of her. A yawn cracked open her jaw, accompanied with a stretch for her arms and neck.
Christ, she thought. I've got to stop doing this to myself.
Whatever stray bits of sleep she'd managed to steal felt painfully inadequate, but she pressed onward anyway. Take a quick shower, brush her teeth and hair, put in the hair gel, and then all it took was a thought for her suit to snap into being around her body from the pocket of twisted space she'd hidden it in. A device surgically implanted in her left forearm monitored and maintained it, giving her constant access. Minute twitches of her fingers and eyes controlled a heads-up display that jacked directly into her optic nerve, bringing up diagnostic reports from all the devices she had active.
Sensors, trackers, relays and the like she'd scattered across the city formed a sort of mesh network with each other, letting her access basic information from far outside their normal operational range. It had been slow, careful work to extend her network into the territories of nearby villains, listening devices and the like carefully disguised as mundane objects and placed in key locations. Hiding them well enough to avoid Professor Silica's watchful eye had been a particularly interesting challenge, one that would be almost impossible to know whether she succeeded in.
More pressingly, the holding for the displacement engine in her right arm mirroring the specialized space twister in her left had gotten a little loose during the night. With barely a thought she drew a specialized screwdriver from another pocket of twisted space and brought up an augmented view of her arm's internals. The screwdriver was phased just a little bit out of reality, passing through flesh and bone as though they weren't even there while still being able to work with the material making up her cybernetic augmentations. It took a few tweaks to get everything back into working order again, and she wiggled her fingers to make sure there weren't any other issues.
Once that was done she could finally get up to speed on the day's happenings. A message from the Director caught her eye almost immediately, notifying the whole team that they were getting a new recruit today. Liang's eyebrows crawled up higher and higher as she read through the barebones description of the cape's particularly colorful trigger. How the hell had she missed this? Whoever this girl was, she was powerful enough to be really dangerous and either had control issues or a serious temper. A bad combination, either way.
Maybe she was being too pessimistic. The Director had said she'd been cooperative and not much beyond that, but Liang was starting to trust the things the PRT told them less and less as time went on. Had they recruited another villain and hoped to cover it up? Had she been more complicit in the apartment's destruction than the report implied? Liang didn't know, but she might be able to find out.
She retrieved her mask from the coffee table, carefully settling it on her face while she tried to get her head in the game. The beginnings of a plan formed in her mind, and as Presto started the process of chain-teleporting to the Space Needle a smirk slowly worked its way onto her face. Her last stop was a broom closet on the top floor, with just barely enough room for her to appear inside without intersecting anything. There was an automatic position-adjuster built into all her teleportation tech that always popped her in with an appropriate pose, compensating for some of the inherent problems with teleporting blind. She ducked under a broom barring her path, opening the door into one of the Needle's less-trafficked hallways.
Her exit was carefully timed to avoid the gaze of the hall's security cameras, the door opened and closed without a sound. In her eyes the hallway was overlaid with ghostly images representing the ranges of each and every sensor and security device in the building, information she'd painstakingly pieced together over years of working there. A lot of it was her work, or at least based on her work, which was as easy for her to avoid as it was to avoid tripping on her own legs when she walked down the street. She took a moment to refamiliarize herself with this area of the building, bringing up a three dimensional map in the corner of her augmented vision. The moment before a camera swept back to where she was standing she teleported, quick as a thought.
Presto had started implanting tech into herself basically the moment she'd turned eighteen and didn't have to ask permission any more, her first and favorite of which was a series of teleportation relays evenly spaced throughout her entire body. Her initial non-swapping teleporters had been limited to only a few feet for objects as massive as people, but that distance was a lot less limited for small things. After some tweaking, she'd created a design that distributed the work of teleporting her to a network of smaller devices first embedded in her costume and then eventually throughout her body. They had to be perfectly synced up -lest she end up with chunks of her teleported to a bunch of slightly different locations- but her effective range had been increased tenfold. Fifty feet was as far as she could go at the moment without risking desyncing, but she already a few ideas for increasing that even further.
Her first blink was aimed at the wall opposite the door she'd emerged from, appearing standing sideways on the wall while seemingly leaning on the ceiling. The suit she was wearing had some tech based on Snubnose's power, largely negating the planet's pull and creating a weak artificial gravity effect in whatever direction she chose. The weave making up her costume -including her gloves and dress shoes- could shift on a microscopic level, letting her change its surface friction to match anything from oil slick to the pads lizards used to cling to walls. It only took a couple minutes to make her way to the staffroom without being noticed by either man or machine, the relatively small room still crowded with those on a pilgrimage for pastries. Presto popped into an obscure corner of the room, hidden by a vending machine on one side and a beaten up armchair on the other.
Not much time. Presto checked her network again, a grin splitting her face when she saw they'd just arrived in the parking lot. Just as she'd suspected Laura had been sent to pick up their new recruit; the director wouldn't have trusted anyone else with this. There was still a teleportation relay in her car, probably left from when Laura helped her move into her new apartment. Not a calculated move on Presto's part; she'd genuinely forgotten that was still in there. Alright, enough dawdling. She activated the displacement engine in her right forearm, using Laura as a sort of interdimensional counterweight to swap their positions. It still took multiple blinks, but not nearly as many as her other teleporter would have.
She popped in with her feet leaning on the dashboard, which might not give the best first impression. Maybe she should have put her pose-adjuster into serious mode first?
"-be fine," the girl she'd popped in next to was saying, sounding distracted. The young woman Presto had done all this to get a private conversation with was white, almost pasty, wearing a purple jacket that was cut like a light, feminine trench coat, peering out the window from behind a pair of worn out glasses. She was kinda cute, hair cut short on her left side and shoulder length on her right, the bottom half bleached blonde. "Thanks for taking the time to-"
She'd stopped speaking abruptly as she turned Presto's way, freezing up like a deer in the headlights for a full second. Some part of Liang noted that she had a simple piercing in her right nostril, putting another point in the 'probably gay' category. Before Presto could even open her mouth to explain herself, the newly triggered cape next to her let out a shriek of abject terror and somehow pushed through the car's closed door like it was made of jello before jumping directly onto the ceiling.
I'm a fucking idiot, Presto thought.
-||-
Now
I'm a fucking idiot, Presto thought -not for the first or even the twelth time today- as she saw the destruction around the warehouse with her own eyes. Of course she'd go in. Carmilla was a little naive and a lot anxious, but she'd obviously been itching to get out there and do something. The whole point of inviting her on this clusterfuck of a patrol had been to let her blow off some steam in a reasonably safe way, not throwing her into the first deadly situation they came across completely alone. Blinking to the ground, Presto could see that apparently 'doing something' involved making a lot of creepy abstract sculptures.
She found Bullrush talking to a small squad of PRT troops, apparently coordinating with them on how best to contain the zoo people. Presto waited politely for her to finish and emphatically did not teleport in behind the stick-in-the-ass speedster. She really didn't want to risk another reflexive gut punch. Her eyes wandered as she waited, augmented vision showing just enough information from her sensors to pick out Carmilla's slumped form leaning against the wall around the corner. Shit. Was she hurt or just exhausted? Presto blinked, realizing that they'd finished up their brief conversation while she was distracted. Bullrush turned her way, somehow managing to glare at her in a faceless helmet.
"Presto," she said in a flat tone, warm and welcoming as ever.
Presto grinned, slowly counting down from ten in her head and and striving to keep her breathing steady. It wasn't Bullrush she was pissed at tonight. "What the hell happened here? Looks like an art exhibit came alive and decided to try sculpting people for a change."
Bullrush shrugged, seemingly unaware of Presto's agitation. "About what you'd expect. She got restless and decided to scout out the warehouse, allegedly finding incriminating tinker devices concealed in the backs of the vans that would utilize the hostages for some unknown purpose."
"What do you mean, 'allegedly'? You can't check?"
She shook her head. "It's all melted down to slag, Monster Mash is gonna have to take a look at the bodies to figure out whether they're kidnapped people or disposable drones. Anyway, at that point Sepulcher took it upon herself to single-handedly immobilize every Bastard around the warehouse and rescue the hostages from the middle of over a dozen trained killers. Afterwards, one Eric 'the Proud' Jacobson burst through the wall of the warehouse and punched her in the chest, knocking her to the ground. She dropped him into the sewers and went back to the warehouse, at which point the mercenaries started to shake violently before dropping to the ground completely dead right before I burst in through the wall. Other witnesses on the scene have confirmed the timing."
Presto stared at her for a few seconds, completely at a loss for words. "Is she okay?" she managed eventually.
"A little banged up, but she'll mend. Be grateful this didn't go as badly as it should have." The last was said with a nod in Sepulcher's direction, the small gesture almost throwing Presto for more of a loop than her entire last statement. She started to leave, briefly pausing to whisper directly into Presto's ear. "The two hostages weren't supposed to be missing, they've both been seen going to work within the last six hours. We'll learn more at the debriefing."
With that, she shifted. Bullrush's speedy form was insubstantial, almost wispy, and it was sped up enough that it seemed to vibrate constantly even when standing still. She zipped off at just below sonic speeds, effortlessly navigating around cars and crowds like a silent bolt of lightning.
Part of Presto's mind raced with the implications of that; potential avenues for investigation, capes that might be able to pull something like this, brief flashes of inspiration for new scanning tech flickering through her mind. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, centering herself and bringing her focus back onto more important things.
She found Carmilla a little ways away from the larger group of PRT personnel, sinking into a little hump of upraised concrete like it was a beanbag chair as she leaned against the wall of the warehouse. She stared up at the night sky with an unblinking metallic mask, seemingly oblivious to Presto leaning against the wall a little ways away from her. It was hard to reconcile that anxious, vulnerable girl she'd spoken to at the Space Needle with Bullrush's terse summary and the calculated destruction she'd witnessed on her way here. There was something Presto had missed about her, something important. It was time to find out what.
She gently rapped on the wall she was leaning on with her knuckles, causing Sepulcher's head to suddenly whip towards her. "Seems I underestimated you," Presto said, flashing a grin.
"Presto!" said Carmilla, clumsily stumbling to her feet. Even with the wall reshaping itself to support her it was obviously a struggle, the newbie hero heavily favoring her left side and trying to hide quiet grunts of pain behind her teeth. It hurt Liang to see her like this, each uncomfortable shift and sharp intake of breath a pointed reminder that Presto hadn't been there when it really counted. "I didn't- that is, I wanted to say I'm sorry for getting us caught earlier. And uhm, I sort of broke your telekinetic silencing card thing. Or at least got it broken. I'm really sorry." She held out the tattered gimmick, no doubt extracted from a heavily dented breastplate.
Was this bitch seriously apologizing for getting punched in the chest? Presto rolled her eyes violently, unable to contain her frustration. "I didn't come here because I was worried about the damn card gimmick, I came here to ask what the hell lead to this shit. And more importantly, what happened to you? You're hurt."
Carmilla seemed taken aback by her vehemence, spending long moments collecting herself before she managed a response. "Uhm- well first there were these snake guys, I think they were twins. One of them had a baseball bat and he hit me a few times before I managed to grab him, and the other one tried to stab me and I got a couple bruises from that. Or well, he did stab me but it didn't penetrate my bodysuit. Then this lion guy, I think he was the leader or something, burst through the wall like the goddamn kool-aid man. Fucker punched me right in the boob."
"Okay there's gotta be something I'm missing here. Why didn't you just grab them from a distance?"
"My tremorsense- that's the feedback I get from surfaces I'm touching, it only extends six to ten feet away from me. I can still conjure stuff past that but it's slow and clumsy, only limited to a few patterns unless..." Carmilla trailed off. A few long moments passed, Carmilla apparently having completely spaced out.
"Unless?" Liang prompted.
Carmilla shook her head like a dog trying to shake off water, focusing back on Liang. "Unless I let my power just… go. It spreads out in every direction, unpredictably drawing from my emotions or subconscious or whatever. And apparently things it remembers."
Presto quirked an eyebrow. "You care to elaborate on that?"
Carmilla took a slow, deep breath. "I have a perfect or near perfect memory for objects and locations, which works best on things I've sensed with my powers directly. Earlier I wanted to scare a group of Bastards into some traps, so I tried making a bunch of parts from a statue I made earlier and while it did do that it also made uhm- it made other stuff too. I think they're from when I ki- when I found John." She stopped, unwilling or unable to elaborate further.
John? That must have been the guy she couldn't save. "Alright. So what made you go in in the first place? You had a perfectly good hiding spot. And sit down, you look like you're about to fall over."
She sat, flumping onto the ground like a sack of potatoes thrown onto a pile of mud. "Well I was sitting there feeling like an idiot for fucking up and forcing you to come and rescue me, especially since at that point I knew I'd have to explain the whole thing to Bullrush and I get really nervous around strict authority figure types. And it's hard to explain, but those black vans really seemed like bad news to me. So I told myself I'd check it out and decide whether Bullrush would be better suited to handling it or not, and then I checked it out."
"And found weird tinker shit in the vans," Presto added.
Carmilla nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah it was like this weird sarcophagus thing with tubes and wires going into it, I could sense the whole thing with my power."
"Could you draw it out or something?" Presto suggested.
"I can do you one better. Just give me ooooooone second." Carmilla stuck both hands into the wall she was leaning on, forming something just under the surface. It took a minute or two of work, with her occasionally taking out the half formed piece to get a look at it. Eventually she presented a scale model of the fucked up tinkertech coffin with a quarter of it removed to display the interior, casually handing it over.
Presto leaned in for a closer look, her augmented eyes highlighting every key detail. "Sepulcher, this is amazing. Seems you've already found us our first lead."
"Thank you! I'm really glad I can help," she said, sounding genuinely floored by the praise. Then she paused for a moment, seeming to struggle with herself. "So uhm, are you mad at me? For like, sort of breaking my promise."
Is that what she thought? Shit. "No no, not at all. I would have done the same thing and been smug about it afterwards. I'm mad at myself for not being there."
"Oh," said Carmilla, apparently not up to responding.
"Hey," Presto said, giving her a little punch on the pauldron. "You did good tonight, saved two people from a real ugly fate. How about we get you home? We could both use some rest after tonight."
"Uhm," Carmilla said, sound reluctant. "You might have to go without me. I don't think I'm up for anymore rooftop running right now."
Presto shook her head, smiling despite herself. "I meant we hitch a ride on a PRT van, I wouldn't expect any acrobatics from you after your poor tit got caved in."
Carmilla snorted. "That would be totally fine by me. I feel like I could sleep for a week."
Liang helped her new teammate to her feet and headed back towards the Space Needle, tired enough this late in the day that she ended up leaning on Carmilla as much as Carmilla was leaning on her.
Dad taught Liang her first card trick on her sixth birthday. Dead simple, since she was just a kid back then. All it took was some counting and pretending like you were shuffling when you really weren't. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, like mom used to say. All the kids at school loved it, and after she'd showboated a little -or, well, maybe more than a little- she'd taught Maddy and Lee how to do it too. Soon enough everyone that cared to learned it, and she couldn't use it to show off anymore. But she did it first and that made her special.
After that, whenever he really wanted her to be good, Dad would promise to show her another one of his tricks. Like how he'd gotten so many coins out of her ear, or how to shuffle cards so they wooshed between her hands without flying everywhere, or how to hide a ribbon up her sleeve so she could pretend to pull it out of her nose. Whenever mom had one of her 'family gatherings' with everyone in the neighborhood she'd have Liang get in front and show everyone her new tricks. She was all too happy to oblige.
After dad got sick, he couldn't do tricks very well any more. But he could still tell her stories about when he was a sailor, and he could still explain how to shuffle the cards so they ended up where she wanted them. They could both pretend that things were fine, that he'd get better and start showing her tricks and making mom smile again. Pretend like she hadn't seen him sitting on the couch in silence, staring at the ceiling like he thought it might swallow him up and eat him any second. They'd started going to the doctor more and more, and he moved from the couch to a thin white bed.
He didn't get better, and he never showed her any more tricks. There was a moment burned into her memory, one of many visits to the private rooms they gave people who weren't going to be around much longer. She'd struggled to make out the tiny whisper his voice had been reduced to, but she and mom had both noticed when it finally went silent. Something behind his eyes left right then, vanishing like one of his coins. There one moment, and then gone the next.
Mom got her a book of magic tricks, though they'd stopped doing the gatherings a long time ago. Liang read it cover to cover, and when the cover fell off from her reading it too many times mom got her another one. Every time she practiced a new trick she'd imagine him guiding her through each step, teasing her fumbles and praising her successes. She didn't bother trying to be popular anymore, didn't bothering showing any of them off. That wasn't what they were for.
Not too long after dad died, mom started dating a guy named Steve. Steve had a lot of opinions on what was appropriate behavior for a young woman. Like what to wear, who to talk to, how to talk, what to think, and most importantly how to keep her mouth shut and look pretty. The final straw was when he decided her card tricks weren't 'ladylike' enough or whatever the fuck and tried taking them away.
A telltale creak on one of the stairs was her only warning, more than enough time to hide her little rebellions away. Everything in the room was immaculate, her preferred decorations torn down and put in storage during one of Steve's little tantrums. Not that he'd call them that, of course. The cards were placed behind the false back of a desk drawer, along with a tattered copy of her first book of tricks.
Steve opened the door as she was standing up, not bothering to knock. His head swivelled like a desk fan in fast motion as he scowled at every corner of the room. He was white, with balding red hair, and no matter what time of day it was he always smelled like old sweat and cigarettes. Liang pasted on a smile and took on an appropriately fucking ladylike posture as she endured him pawing through all her stuff, opening drawers and turning over covers. She made sure to get in some really nasty looks whenever his back was turned, throwing in rude gestures she'd seen some older kids make every now and then just to spice things up.
He spun around, and she had to work extra hard to keep the sick feeling in her gut from showing on her face. Had he seen? But he just stalked past her, clumsily pulling open her desk drawers. The knot in her belly unfurled a little when he didn't notice the false backs, and the clear frustration in his posture made it hard to keep from smirking. She kept up the pasted, patient smile while he looked for an excuse to punish her. He turned from the desk and loomed over her.
"Do you understand who's in charge of this household little missy?" He said, tone angry.
"Yes sir," she said, keeping the flare of anger hidden behind a brittle smile.
He sneered. "Well who is it then?"
Liang bit back some choice words she'd recently learned. "It's you, sir. You're in charge of this household."
Fucking Steve nodded like the response was barely acceptable. "What are you doing standing around? Get back on your homework."
She'd already done her homework, but she sat down at her desk with an appropriately demure 'Yes sir.' anyway. He didn't like it when she corrected him. The door slammed shut, and Liang listened carefully to make sure he was really going back downstairs.
The second the coast was clear she burst into motion, moving her mattress aside to get to the clothes she'd hidden away. Practical stuff, none of the frilly crap Steve thought girls should wear. A few loose floorboards hid a spare backpack filled with supplies, slowly saved up and hoarded over months. There was money too, but not that much. Having too much cash on her would make her a target, or at least that was what she'd heard.
A few minutes to get changed, a few more to gather up all her supplies. She told herself again and again that the pulse pounding in her ears was from excitement, that the sick feeling in her gut was just nervousness about being caught sneaking out. It was enough that she didn't stop until she stood in front of an open window, the preparations she'd made suddenly seeming woefully inadequate for a life on the streets. But well, she'd always done her best work thinking on her feet. Besides she was ten now, basically almost a grown up.
She tossed five months of work into the night air to force herself to move, quietly closing the window behind her. Careful positioning of her hands and feet kept her perch on the window sill, and little by little clambered down to the ground. Her backpack and duffelbag had landed in a bush, muffling the sound of their fall. There was a hiding spot she'd already picked out for them closer to downtown, though she didn't look forward to the walk there.
Now or never, she thought, treading fearlessly into the dark. She chanced a look back before the house was completely out of sight, knowing it might be the last time she'd ever get to see it. I'm sorry mom.
Her vision blurred and she lost sight of her former home, forcing her to turn back toward the dark. She scrubbed away the dampness in her eyes with a sleeve. No more time for kid stuff.
-||-
8 Years Ago
Grown-ups had no appreciation for the value of money. Take watches, for instance. You could get a perfectly functional watch for like ten or twenty bucks, but apparently that just wasn't good enough for some folks. Like the snooty business man she'd 'acquired' a fancy gem-studded timepiece from, waltzing down the sidewalk without a care in the world. Hopefully this would teach him to be a little more frugal with his accessories in the future.
Liang hid her grin as she pushed open the door to the pawn shop, putting on a pensive, defeated air. It was important not to lay it on too thick, a classic mistake she'd fallen prey to early on was getting so caught up in selling the character that she forgot real people didn't like being seen like that. They tried holding it in, keeping it inside, trying to keep a strong facade even at their weakest. It was those glimpses of her 'true self' beneath the surface that really drew people into the performance.
She made a show of meandering through the small shop, trying to give the impression that she was putting off approaching the counter rather than eyeing the merchandise. It was a pretty typical assortment of ostensibly valuable junk, most of it too unwieldy and distinctive to be worth trying to make off with. There was some jewelry that briefly caught her attention, behind a shoddy glass case she knew would be a cinch to pop open and swipe something from before anyone was the wiser.
Tempting though it might be, she knew it wasn't practical. There weren't that many blasian girls around town, if she got clocked taking something that valuable her distinctive appearance would get the cops on her ass before she could say beluga. Picking pockets and running cons was easier, safer. Less chance of getting caught. If she played her cards right they'd never realize anything was amiss, at least not until she and the rest of her gang were long gone.
Enough dilly dallying. Liang approached the counter with hesitant steps, pawing through her bag like she didn't know exactly where the watch was. At the moment she was dressed in a 'poor but preppy' sort of style, a worn out cardigan over a skirt that was just a tad too big. Her shoes were good for running of course, but they could also pass as dress shoes for someone without much money to spare. The shop's owner was an old balding Asian guy in a dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, wiping at a counter that already looked plenty clean to her. He looked up as she approached, squinting at her behind worn out glasses.
Liang gave him a nervous smile, unwrapping the watch from the cloth that covered it. The other kids made fun of her for always brushing her teeth and flossing and everything even though there wasn't anyone to make her. They didn't get how important it was to not look like an urchin. She made a point of letting her touch linger on the watch just a bit, like it had sentimental value. This was the most important part, whether or not he bought what she was selling. Both literally and figuratively.
"Excuse me mister, can you tell me how much this watch is worth?"
The old man behind the counter leaned forward to examine it, brow furrowed in concentration. "May I see it?" he asked, holding out a weathered hand.
Liang nodded, her reluctance to let go of the expensive accessory only partly feigned. He took it in gentle hands, grey-sprinkled eyebrows scrunching together over thick lenses as he held it up to the light. There was a minute shift in his expression. Surprise.
Next would come the obvious question. Where did an obviously not well-to-do girl get such an expensive watch, particularly one styled and sized for a grown man? The first things most people thought of for an incongruity like that tended to be pretty obvious, driven into them by stereotypes and popular culture. Or life experiences, but those were hard to make use of without a lot of really boring reconnaissance -a word she made sure to teach her whole gang when she learned it last week- or pretending to be their friend long enough to learn something juicy and then stab them in the back. She might have been a thief, a congirl, an urchin, and a wannabe magician, but she'd eat garbage before she'd ever do something that gross .
Thankfully that wouldn't be necessary. This bit would only need to handle one conversation's worth of scrutiny, it didn't need anything but a strong backbone and a little razzle dazzle. She took in a quiet, slow breath, something he'd only notice if he was really paying attention.
"It's- that is, it was my grandpa's," Liang said, striving for a forced casualness. A little more roughness leaked into her voice than she'd intended, making her worry she'd overplayed the part.
He got that look in his eye a lot of grown-ups did when they saw kids like her, that kinda-sad, kinda-helpless look like they wanted to make things better but didn't know how. It was useful -she'd been aiming for it, even- but it hadn't taken long for her to start getting real fucking tired of those looks.
She pasted on a sad little smile, twisting the knife for both of them. "Mom sent me to sell it so she can pay the bills while she's looking for another job."
The old man's face seemed to droop a bit more with each word, a good indication that he'd been hooked. Now all she had to do was reel him in and clinch the deal.
"It's genuine, as far as I can tell," said the squinty old man, which Liang pretended she hadn't already known. He paused just a little longer than felt natural, eyes flickering between her and the watch. "I'd value it at around $5000. I can only part with half of that I'm afraid, have to keep the lights on in here."
Liang tried not to gape at him before realizing that would still be in character, too flummoxed to muster any sort of response. That was over twice what the thing was actually worth, she'd looked it up herself before coming here. There was no way he didn't know that.
"I..." she started, words failing her yet again. "Thank you."
He smiled, counting out the bills with wrinkled hands and pressing them into hers. "Go help your family."
"I will," she said simply, meaning it.
-||-
It was almost dark when Liang got back to the hideout, she'd had a bunch of errands to run once they were finally flush with cash for a bit. Food for everyone, new clothes, Jessie's medicine, it was disheartening how fast it got used up. She fumbled the door unlocked and shouldered it open, blinking at the sudden change in brightness while she tried to close the door behind her with a foot. Laughter drifted from the living room, putting a smile on her face even through the exhaustion that had settled over her like a thick blanket. The seven of them rented space in a shitty house in a shitty neighborhood that didn't bother asking questions about who you were or why you were living there so long as you paid on time.
She set the pizza she'd gotten from the place across the street on their already extremely crowded table, displacing more than a few empty soda cans and other assorted bits of junk onto the floor. She did a sort of squat thing while leaning against the edge of the table, carefully lowering the heavy grocery bags onto the floor next to it. By the time she stood up Monica was leaning on the doorway leading to the family room, giving her another one of those 'concerned looks' she was so fond of. She was a year older than Liang, Mexican, with long black hair she liked doing up in different braids, though right now it hung freely to just below her shoulder blades. Liang idly imagined brushing her fingers through it, remembering the way it always smelled a little like flowers because of her shampoo.
A loud harrumph from Monica brought her back to the present. "Hey dummy, were you listening?"
"Of course I was," Liang lied. "You were asking me about today's haul, which I have to say went swimmingly."
"No you weren't and no I wasn't. Have you eaten today?"
That brought her up short. "Well I had a bowl of cereal and a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast, and earlier today I ate a bag of cheetos."
"Uh huh. Come on, let's get you something to eat."
Liang grabbed a slice of pizza and some breadsticks to mollify both her stomach and her best friend, following her into the living room where a couple of the other kids were hanging out and watching some dumb cape cartoon. She made sure to sit down next to Monica on the big couch, trying not to make too much noise and ruin the show. Jessie had her own chair she liked to sit in while she watched her shows, religiously recording them on tape and drawing pictures of her favorite characters. Alex lounged in the beanbag chair next to her, occasionally scratching at the horns sprouting from his head in between his mocking commentary on the ridiculous situations the characters kept finding themselves in.
She leaned back into the surprisingly comfortable couch, closing her eyes and letting the comforting noises of home wash over her.
-||-
This "Morning"
The harsh blare of her alarm clock almost gave Liang a heart attack. She shot bolt upright in her chair, a half-disassembled card gimmick still strewn across the workbench in front of her. A yawn cracked open her jaw, accompanied with a stretch for her arms and neck.
Christ, she thought. I've got to stop doing this to myself.
Whatever stray bits of sleep she'd managed to steal felt painfully inadequate, but she pressed onward anyway. Take a quick shower, brush her teeth and hair, put in the hair gel, and then all it took was a thought for her suit to snap into being around her body from the pocket of twisted space she'd hidden it in. A device surgically implanted in her left forearm monitored and maintained it, giving her constant access. Minute twitches of her fingers and eyes controlled a heads-up display that jacked directly into her optic nerve, bringing up diagnostic reports from all the devices she had active.
Sensors, trackers, relays and the like she'd scattered across the city formed a sort of mesh network with each other, letting her access basic information from far outside their normal operational range. It had been slow, careful work to extend her network into the territories of nearby villains, listening devices and the like carefully disguised as mundane objects and placed in key locations. Hiding them well enough to avoid Professor Silica's watchful eye had been a particularly interesting challenge, one that would be almost impossible to know whether she succeeded in.
More pressingly, the holding for the displacement engine in her right arm mirroring the specialized space twister in her left had gotten a little loose during the night. With barely a thought she drew a specialized screwdriver from another pocket of twisted space and brought up an augmented view of her arm's internals. The screwdriver was phased just a little bit out of reality, passing through flesh and bone as though they weren't even there while still being able to work with the material making up her cybernetic augmentations. It took a few tweaks to get everything back into working order again, and she wiggled her fingers to make sure there weren't any other issues.
Once that was done she could finally get up to speed on the day's happenings. A message from the Director caught her eye almost immediately, notifying the whole team that they were getting a new recruit today. Liang's eyebrows crawled up higher and higher as she read through the barebones description of the cape's particularly colorful trigger. How the hell had she missed this? Whoever this girl was, she was powerful enough to be really dangerous and either had control issues or a serious temper. A bad combination, either way.
Maybe she was being too pessimistic. The Director had said she'd been cooperative and not much beyond that, but Liang was starting to trust the things the PRT told them less and less as time went on. Had they recruited another villain and hoped to cover it up? Had she been more complicit in the apartment's destruction than the report implied? Liang didn't know, but she might be able to find out.
She retrieved her mask from the coffee table, carefully settling it on her face while she tried to get her head in the game. The beginnings of a plan formed in her mind, and as Presto started the process of chain-teleporting to the Space Needle a smirk slowly worked its way onto her face. Her last stop was a broom closet on the top floor, with just barely enough room for her to appear inside without intersecting anything. There was an automatic position-adjuster built into all her teleportation tech that always popped her in with an appropriate pose, compensating for some of the inherent problems with teleporting blind. She ducked under a broom barring her path, opening the door into one of the Needle's less-trafficked hallways.
Her exit was carefully timed to avoid the gaze of the hall's security cameras, the door opened and closed without a sound. In her eyes the hallway was overlaid with ghostly images representing the ranges of each and every sensor and security device in the building, information she'd painstakingly pieced together over years of working there. A lot of it was her work, or at least based on her work, which was as easy for her to avoid as it was to avoid tripping on her own legs when she walked down the street. She took a moment to refamiliarize herself with this area of the building, bringing up a three dimensional map in the corner of her augmented vision. The moment before a camera swept back to where she was standing she teleported, quick as a thought.
Presto had started implanting tech into herself basically the moment she'd turned eighteen and didn't have to ask permission any more, her first and favorite of which was a series of teleportation relays evenly spaced throughout her entire body. Her initial non-swapping teleporters had been limited to only a few feet for objects as massive as people, but that distance was a lot less limited for small things. After some tweaking, she'd created a design that distributed the work of teleporting her to a network of smaller devices first embedded in her costume and then eventually throughout her body. They had to be perfectly synced up -lest she end up with chunks of her teleported to a bunch of slightly different locations- but her effective range had been increased tenfold. Fifty feet was as far as she could go at the moment without risking desyncing, but she already a few ideas for increasing that even further.
Her first blink was aimed at the wall opposite the door she'd emerged from, appearing standing sideways on the wall while seemingly leaning on the ceiling. The suit she was wearing had some tech based on Snubnose's power, largely negating the planet's pull and creating a weak artificial gravity effect in whatever direction she chose. The weave making up her costume -including her gloves and dress shoes- could shift on a microscopic level, letting her change its surface friction to match anything from oil slick to the pads lizards used to cling to walls. It only took a couple minutes to make her way to the staffroom without being noticed by either man or machine, the relatively small room still crowded with those on a pilgrimage for pastries. Presto popped into an obscure corner of the room, hidden by a vending machine on one side and a beaten up armchair on the other.
Not much time. Presto checked her network again, a grin splitting her face when she saw they'd just arrived in the parking lot. Just as she'd suspected Laura had been sent to pick up their new recruit; the director wouldn't have trusted anyone else with this. There was still a teleportation relay in her car, probably left from when Laura helped her move into her new apartment. Not a calculated move on Presto's part; she'd genuinely forgotten that was still in there. Alright, enough dawdling. She activated the displacement engine in her right forearm, using Laura as a sort of interdimensional counterweight to swap their positions. It still took multiple blinks, but not nearly as many as her other teleporter would have.
She popped in with her feet leaning on the dashboard, which might not give the best first impression. Maybe she should have put her pose-adjuster into serious mode first?
"-be fine," the girl she'd popped in next to was saying, sounding distracted. The young woman Presto had done all this to get a private conversation with was white, almost pasty, wearing a purple jacket that was cut like a light, feminine trench coat, peering out the window from behind a pair of worn out glasses. She was kinda cute, hair cut short on her left side and shoulder length on her right, the bottom half bleached blonde. "Thanks for taking the time to-"
She'd stopped speaking abruptly as she turned Presto's way, freezing up like a deer in the headlights for a full second. Some part of Liang noted that she had a simple piercing in her right nostril, putting another point in the 'probably gay' category. Before Presto could even open her mouth to explain herself, the newly triggered cape next to her let out a shriek of abject terror and somehow pushed through the car's closed door like it was made of jello before jumping directly onto the ceiling.
I'm a fucking idiot, Presto thought.
-||-
Now
I'm a fucking idiot, Presto thought -not for the first or even the twelth time today- as she saw the destruction around the warehouse with her own eyes. Of course she'd go in. Carmilla was a little naive and a lot anxious, but she'd obviously been itching to get out there and do something. The whole point of inviting her on this clusterfuck of a patrol had been to let her blow off some steam in a reasonably safe way, not throwing her into the first deadly situation they came across completely alone. Blinking to the ground, Presto could see that apparently 'doing something' involved making a lot of creepy abstract sculptures.
She found Bullrush talking to a small squad of PRT troops, apparently coordinating with them on how best to contain the zoo people. Presto waited politely for her to finish and emphatically did not teleport in behind the stick-in-the-ass speedster. She really didn't want to risk another reflexive gut punch. Her eyes wandered as she waited, augmented vision showing just enough information from her sensors to pick out Carmilla's slumped form leaning against the wall around the corner. Shit. Was she hurt or just exhausted? Presto blinked, realizing that they'd finished up their brief conversation while she was distracted. Bullrush turned her way, somehow managing to glare at her in a faceless helmet.
"Presto," she said in a flat tone, warm and welcoming as ever.
Presto grinned, slowly counting down from ten in her head and and striving to keep her breathing steady. It wasn't Bullrush she was pissed at tonight. "What the hell happened here? Looks like an art exhibit came alive and decided to try sculpting people for a change."
Bullrush shrugged, seemingly unaware of Presto's agitation. "About what you'd expect. She got restless and decided to scout out the warehouse, allegedly finding incriminating tinker devices concealed in the backs of the vans that would utilize the hostages for some unknown purpose."
"What do you mean, 'allegedly'? You can't check?"
She shook her head. "It's all melted down to slag, Monster Mash is gonna have to take a look at the bodies to figure out whether they're kidnapped people or disposable drones. Anyway, at that point Sepulcher took it upon herself to single-handedly immobilize every Bastard around the warehouse and rescue the hostages from the middle of over a dozen trained killers. Afterwards, one Eric 'the Proud' Jacobson burst through the wall of the warehouse and punched her in the chest, knocking her to the ground. She dropped him into the sewers and went back to the warehouse, at which point the mercenaries started to shake violently before dropping to the ground completely dead right before I burst in through the wall. Other witnesses on the scene have confirmed the timing."
Presto stared at her for a few seconds, completely at a loss for words. "Is she okay?" she managed eventually.
"A little banged up, but she'll mend. Be grateful this didn't go as badly as it should have." The last was said with a nod in Sepulcher's direction, the small gesture almost throwing Presto for more of a loop than her entire last statement. She started to leave, briefly pausing to whisper directly into Presto's ear. "The two hostages weren't supposed to be missing, they've both been seen going to work within the last six hours. We'll learn more at the debriefing."
With that, she shifted. Bullrush's speedy form was insubstantial, almost wispy, and it was sped up enough that it seemed to vibrate constantly even when standing still. She zipped off at just below sonic speeds, effortlessly navigating around cars and crowds like a silent bolt of lightning.
Part of Presto's mind raced with the implications of that; potential avenues for investigation, capes that might be able to pull something like this, brief flashes of inspiration for new scanning tech flickering through her mind. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, centering herself and bringing her focus back onto more important things.
She found Carmilla a little ways away from the larger group of PRT personnel, sinking into a little hump of upraised concrete like it was a beanbag chair as she leaned against the wall of the warehouse. She stared up at the night sky with an unblinking metallic mask, seemingly oblivious to Presto leaning against the wall a little ways away from her. It was hard to reconcile that anxious, vulnerable girl she'd spoken to at the Space Needle with Bullrush's terse summary and the calculated destruction she'd witnessed on her way here. There was something Presto had missed about her, something important. It was time to find out what.
She gently rapped on the wall she was leaning on with her knuckles, causing Sepulcher's head to suddenly whip towards her. "Seems I underestimated you," Presto said, flashing a grin.
"Presto!" said Carmilla, clumsily stumbling to her feet. Even with the wall reshaping itself to support her it was obviously a struggle, the newbie hero heavily favoring her left side and trying to hide quiet grunts of pain behind her teeth. It hurt Liang to see her like this, each uncomfortable shift and sharp intake of breath a pointed reminder that Presto hadn't been there when it really counted. "I didn't- that is, I wanted to say I'm sorry for getting us caught earlier. And uhm, I sort of broke your telekinetic silencing card thing. Or at least got it broken. I'm really sorry." She held out the tattered gimmick, no doubt extracted from a heavily dented breastplate.
Was this bitch seriously apologizing for getting punched in the chest? Presto rolled her eyes violently, unable to contain her frustration. "I didn't come here because I was worried about the damn card gimmick, I came here to ask what the hell lead to this shit. And more importantly, what happened to you? You're hurt."
Carmilla seemed taken aback by her vehemence, spending long moments collecting herself before she managed a response. "Uhm- well first there were these snake guys, I think they were twins. One of them had a baseball bat and he hit me a few times before I managed to grab him, and the other one tried to stab me and I got a couple bruises from that. Or well, he did stab me but it didn't penetrate my bodysuit. Then this lion guy, I think he was the leader or something, burst through the wall like the goddamn kool-aid man. Fucker punched me right in the boob."
"Okay there's gotta be something I'm missing here. Why didn't you just grab them from a distance?"
"My tremorsense- that's the feedback I get from surfaces I'm touching, it only extends six to ten feet away from me. I can still conjure stuff past that but it's slow and clumsy, only limited to a few patterns unless..." Carmilla trailed off. A few long moments passed, Carmilla apparently having completely spaced out.
"Unless?" Liang prompted.
Carmilla shook her head like a dog trying to shake off water, focusing back on Liang. "Unless I let my power just… go. It spreads out in every direction, unpredictably drawing from my emotions or subconscious or whatever. And apparently things it remembers."
Presto quirked an eyebrow. "You care to elaborate on that?"
Carmilla took a slow, deep breath. "I have a perfect or near perfect memory for objects and locations, which works best on things I've sensed with my powers directly. Earlier I wanted to scare a group of Bastards into some traps, so I tried making a bunch of parts from a statue I made earlier and while it did do that it also made uhm- it made other stuff too. I think they're from when I ki- when I found John." She stopped, unwilling or unable to elaborate further.
John? That must have been the guy she couldn't save. "Alright. So what made you go in in the first place? You had a perfectly good hiding spot. And sit down, you look like you're about to fall over."
She sat, flumping onto the ground like a sack of potatoes thrown onto a pile of mud. "Well I was sitting there feeling like an idiot for fucking up and forcing you to come and rescue me, especially since at that point I knew I'd have to explain the whole thing to Bullrush and I get really nervous around strict authority figure types. And it's hard to explain, but those black vans really seemed like bad news to me. So I told myself I'd check it out and decide whether Bullrush would be better suited to handling it or not, and then I checked it out."
"And found weird tinker shit in the vans," Presto added.
Carmilla nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah it was like this weird sarcophagus thing with tubes and wires going into it, I could sense the whole thing with my power."
"Could you draw it out or something?" Presto suggested.
"I can do you one better. Just give me ooooooone second." Carmilla stuck both hands into the wall she was leaning on, forming something just under the surface. It took a minute or two of work, with her occasionally taking out the half formed piece to get a look at it. Eventually she presented a scale model of the fucked up tinkertech coffin with a quarter of it removed to display the interior, casually handing it over.
Presto leaned in for a closer look, her augmented eyes highlighting every key detail. "Sepulcher, this is amazing. Seems you've already found us our first lead."
"Thank you! I'm really glad I can help," she said, sounding genuinely floored by the praise. Then she paused for a moment, seeming to struggle with herself. "So uhm, are you mad at me? For like, sort of breaking my promise."
Is that what she thought? Shit. "No no, not at all. I would have done the same thing and been smug about it afterwards. I'm mad at myself for not being there."
"Oh," said Carmilla, apparently not up to responding.
"Hey," Presto said, giving her a little punch on the pauldron. "You did good tonight, saved two people from a real ugly fate. How about we get you home? We could both use some rest after tonight."
"Uhm," Carmilla said, sound reluctant. "You might have to go without me. I don't think I'm up for anymore rooftop running right now."
Presto shook her head, smiling despite herself. "I meant we hitch a ride on a PRT van, I wouldn't expect any acrobatics from you after your poor tit got caved in."
Carmilla snorted. "That would be totally fine by me. I feel like I could sleep for a week."
Liang helped her new teammate to her feet and headed back towards the Space Needle, tired enough this late in the day that she ended up leaning on Carmilla as much as Carmilla was leaning on her.
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Meridian_Prime
Died an ugly death by back-catalogue.
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is really great so far! All of the oc's seem interesting, and the ones we know more about (mostly Carmilla and Presto so far) have been really engaging. Looking forward to the next chapter, and the rest of the story!
As a side note, it's awesome to have a trans girl as the protagonist. Not enough of those in fiction.
As a side note, it's awesome to have a trans girl as the protagonist. Not enough of those in fiction.
Aftershocks 2-1: A week later, Carmilla is still settling into her new home and new role as a superhero.
- Location
- In the mathematical center of your mind palace.
Donjon has returned! Sorry for the long delay, I'm afraid I wasn't quite able to keep up my writing pace once I ran out of backlog. But fear not, more Donjon is on its way.
-||-
"I'm honestly not sure where to begin," I said, sitting on the supple faux-leather couch the Seattle protectorate's current in-house therapist kept for her patients, mask in my lap. It was sturdy, reinforced inside and out to accommodate capes with particularly heavy bodies or gear. The woman whose couch I was occupying sat cross-legged on a large office chair across from me. She was on the younger side of middle aged, with light brown skin and dark wavy hair tied back into a bun; her look gave off a sort of 'cool english teacher' vibe, thick glasses and a cardigan festooned with pins worn over a brightly colored dress that was nearly a match for my own. "Uhm- what was your name again? I'm sorry, I've just been so busy this last week that I keep losing track of things."
"There's nothing to worry about," she said, waving off my concern with a genial smile. "My name is Dr. Adelina Oliveira, but everyone here just calls me Ina," she continued, seeming completely at ease in her quiet office on the western wing of the Needle's fiftieth floor. It was decorated with the sorts of knick knacks I'd come to associate with therapist's offices, little Buddha statues and uncut gemstones decorating shelves and tables. The only item of note was a small bird skull on her desk, mounted on a metallic stand right next to a miniature zen garden. "Take as long as you need to formulate your thoughts, okay Sepulcher? Or would you prefer Carmilla?"
I shrugged. "Either one's fine I guess, they're both my name," I said, immediately contradicting myself with my next statement. "Let's go with Carmilla for now."
Ina nodded. "Carmilla it is."
I looked down at the golden heart-shaped mask in my hands, impenetrable black lenses meeting me stare for stare. A few meetings with PR had resulted in a look with a lot more thematic coherence, the eyes and nose resembling a barn owl's. The rest of my armor still hadn't been finalized, more because I hadn't really had the time to work on it than anything else, but once it was finished it would be etched on all the edges to resemble feathers.
Right now I was just wearing one of my new dresses for my costume -bright and summery in utter defiance of the season- along with the official security card I'd gotten on my first day here. Laura and Liang had taken me shopping the day after the whole warehouse thing, probably to keep an eye on me as much as anything, but I couldn't deny how nice it had been to be able to just get things I liked without having to worry about scrimping and saving for every purchase. "It all just feels so strange. Like- like this is a dream I'm gonna wake up from at any moment. That's normal, right? After such a big upheaval?"
Ina nodded again, face breaking into a gentle smile. "I think almost anyone in your position would experience some disconnect while they adjusted to their new normal. Considering what you've gone through I'd say you're doing an admirable job of coping."
I smiled back, hesitant. "I'd guess the first thing to note is that I'm trans. Like, a trans woman. There were signs going back as far as I can remember, but I only like consciously realized it when I was eighteen, after high school. I started HRT a bit over a year ago, in March 2008. My parents aren't supportive, and I was basically forced to come out to them when my mom found one of my bras back in January," my voice grew in intensity as I continued, a familiar bitterness rising to the surface. "They don't even say my name, you know. I don't mean they insist on using my dead name, I mean they don't use any name or pronouns for me at all. They do fucking conversational gymnastics to avoid it, since they know if they used my dead name or called me 'he' I'd correct them. It makes me feel like a- a fucking non-person!"
A distinctly sharp ripple moved through the couch at my displeasure, bringing my rant to a sputtering halt. I took a moment to breathe, trying to tamp down the indignation and sorrow to more manageable levels before continuing. "Anyway. I also have a history of depression, with some pretty severe episodes preceding my dropping out of college." I sighed.
"There's nothing for you to be ashamed of, Carmilla," Ina said, frowning in sympathy. "You were going through a tumultuous time in your life, with very little support from your parents, it's understandable if some things fell by the wayside."
"More than some things," I muttered. "Back when I was in the dorms I basically holed up in my room for days at a time. Once I'd missed a bunch of calls from my mom because I was basically only eating and sleeping and she was so worried she ended up calling the campus police to check on me after knocking on our front door failed to rouse me. That was embarrassing, to put it mildly."
"It sounds to me that you were in a pretty severe depression, like you said. Is it really reasonable to blame yourself when you did the best that could be expected of someone placed in, to be frank, really shitty circumstances?"
I frowned in thought. "The thing is that I'm not sure if I did do the best I could have. There were so many times I could have walked a few minutes from my dorm to class and just… didn't. Or even if I did walk to class sometimes I'd just stand outside the door or pace. Or if I did go to class and get myself to go inside I'd find it almost impossible to focus or take notes. And I procrastinated almost all of my homework to death anyway."
You're pathetic, echoed a sneering voice in my mind.
"I just don't understand what's wrong with me," I said, the words popping out of my mouth unbidden. "Why am I such a fuckup?"
Dr. Oliveira frowned, sitting up straight and placing her sandaled feet onto the cheap carpet. "Carmilla, you are not a fuckup. And there is nothing wrong with you. What you've learned is that that's not a good learning environment for you, nothing more and nothing less."
I sat there in silence for several moments, mind whirling in tight circuits of self-loathing, eventually giving her a reluctant nod. "It's just so frustrating when I know what I need to do and why I need to do it but can't bring myself to actually, you know, fucking do it."
With a chill, I wondered if my thinker power had been a twisted way of resolving that frustration. Which, come to think of it, was probably something I should bring up with Ina.
Ina was already responding. "There will always be a gap between what we envision ourselves doing and what is practically possible; expecting yourself to march in perfect lockstep with what you imagine you should be capable of is only going to lead to disappointment."
I tilted my head quizzically. "Well sure, but shouldn't we still strive to be better?"
"There's a difference between setting specific, achievable goals and setting yourself up for failure."
I slowly raised a finger until it was level with my face, slowly lowering it again when I failed to think of an adequate response. Eventually I nodded. Now or never, I thought. If I brought up the emotion damping thing it'd probably take up most of the session, but… it was probably for the best. There had to be someone I could talk to about this, to make sure I wasn't losing perspective.
"Okay," I said, realizing immediately that that probably wasn't the best opener. "So you know how I have a thinker power?"
Ina nodded. "I was sent your file the day you arrived here, I seem to recall you had an enhanced awareness and memory for locations?"
"That's pretty close, yeah. I can also visualize things with almost perfect accuracy and consistency, predicting the arcs of thrown objects and the like." I sat there uncomfortably for a few moments, silently bargaining with myself. I sighed. "There's something I haven't told anyone else about yet. So I can turn its intensity up and down sort of like a dimmer switch, all the way down to almost nothing. The catch is that the more uh, thinker… juice? I use, the more disconnected I get from my emotions. It gets to the point where I can't even interpret expressions when it's all the way up. Or feel pain, or exhaustion, or hesitation. Everything gets reduced down to concrete, specific goals."
Ina nodded, not seeming put off by that little revelation in the slightest. "First I want to congratulate you for reaching out to someone about this, it obviously wasn't easy for you."
I nodded, silent.
"What are you concerned about, specifically? It's not uncommon for powers to have mental or emotional side effects, I know or know of quite a few capes that have learned to live with them in a healthy way."
I took a moment to get my thoughts in order before responding. "It's just, I'm scared of how cold I get when I'm like that. What if I go too far and don't even realize until it's too late?"
"Let's elaborate on that. What would going too far look like?"
"Well… as an example, let's say I set myself the goal of stopping a robbery. Unless I specifically note to do so non-lethally my emotionless self would have no compunctions about just like, stabbing them to death if it's the most efficient option."
Ina made a thoughtful sound, pulling her legs up as she leaned back in her chair. "How much nuance is there in these goals? Could you set a rule that requires you to check with your emotions or a teammate whenever hurting someone seems like a good option, for instance?"
My head tilted as I considered that. "That could help. I'm not sure if there's a limit to the number of conditions or subgoals I can set at once but I'll give it a try."
I closed my eyes, drawing in a deep breath as I drew more deeply on my thinker power. Not so much that I lost myself, just enough to visualize my intentions in full detail. The texture of the world still seemed to change, shifting to something sharper and colder. Alien. I hadn't realized how uncomfortable suspending myself in the middle of the two states could be, still having just enough feeling to realize something was off with my perceptions. Best to make this quick.
Normally when I set a goal with my thinker power I just visualized the result I wanted and used that as the standard to judge potential courses of action. What if I reversed that? Visualizing exactly the result I didn't want and keeping it suspended in my power's 'working memory' as a contingency, applying to every future goal I set.
It was so much easier to set reasonable limits in a specific context, with known variables. How could I explain something as abstract as the value of human life to someone that understood everything in terms of physical systems? It wasn't like there were a whole lot of examples I could pull up from my power's memory, I couldn't sense living things. Maybe it'd be best to wait until I'd studied anatomy and constructed a decent mental model of the human body, unless- I froze.
"That's certainly an interesting expression," Ina teased, bringing me back to the present. She gave me a small smile tinged with motherly concern. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"John," I said, devoid of context. My voice was mechanical, my eyes locked onto the carpet. "I was there when- when it happened. I was kneeling right next to him in a pool of his own blood, and uhm. When he d-died, my power could sense him just like how I can sense the couch I'm sitting on or the floor under my feet, and I never forget anything I sense with my power. Ever."
Ina's voice was gentle but firm. "What happened to him wasn't your fault, Carmilla."
I blinked, shifting back to my normal self. The pain in my heart and the wrenching in my gut sharpened in a distinctly unpleasant way, but fully experiencing it let me understand it. I sighed, almost going limp on the couch. "I know that like, intellectually. Almost none of what my power did when it manifested was under my control, and neither were the actions of the other people in the apartment complex. From an outside perspective I'd consider it a tragic accident."
She nodded.
"But… my power is part of me. Its actions are my actions, and it's my responsibility to keep it from hurting anyone else. If I don't try to learn from every mistake I made, no matter how small or understandable, it's like the suffering I -or at least, my power- inflicted on them was for nothing."
"Please be kind to yourself," Ina said, brows knitted in a serious expression behind her glasses. "Making mistakes is part of being human, you don't need to self-flagellate for not knowing exactly what to do in a completely unfamiliar crisis situation."
After a moment I nodded, managing a smile. "You're right. It's just hard, you know? I think even without my power I'd never be able to forget my roommates attacking me, let alone everything else."
Ina smiled back, though there was a sad look in her eyes. "We have time. You're a kind, intelligent, self-aware young woman, I know you can find your way to a better place."
Something still sat uneasily with me. "I need to tell someone about my power. On the team, I mean."
"Maybe this week you can work on finding someone you're comfortable knowing about your thinker power; not to necessarily tell them right now, just find someone you think would be a good candidate. There's nothing wrong with taking your time on things like this, making certain you have someone worthy of trust."
I gave her a tight smile, trying not to worry about how they'd react.
-||-
I sat alone in the Protectorate headquarter's dining area, a bowl of microwave cheesy spiral noodles and broccoli in front of me. My only company was Gasconade's cat, Merlin, who was currently napping in the box my new desk had arrived in. He was majestic -as fluffy and grey as his namesake- and according to Presto there were persistent rumors that he had powers of his own. Knowing her, she was probably the one that started them.
There was about half an hour left before I had to meet Bolster for my daily humiliation session -or combat training, same difference- and I was struggling to work up an appetite. Maybe it'd be more appealing if I added some spices? I stood up, ambling over to the Protectorate's shared kitchen space. It was bizarre how quickly living in the Space Needle was becoming ordinary, even boring. My standards for normal had gotten a pretty thorough kicking, and I doubted they'd ever be quite the same again.
As if summoned by the thought Gasconade -no wait, Jaager- walked into the kitchen from the PHQ's lobby, wearing a dress shirt and suspenders without his customary hat and jacket. I gave him a smile and wave, uncertain what to say or how to approach him. He seemed distracted, casually waving back as he passed into the dining area.
"Merlin! I was wondering where you'd run off to," sounded his voice through the doorway. Following that were the sorts of gushy nonsense noises any reasonable person made around cats, particularly while petting them. It endeared me to both of them immediately.
The spice cabinet was depressingly bare, something I swore to myself I'd rectify on my next grocery trip. There was salt and pepper at least, and I made certain to add a particularly generous helping of the latter. I needed a ton of the stuff for it to really register as spicy. I warmed it back up in the microwave and gave it a vigorous stir with my fork, nodding in satisfaction when I took another bite. My newly upgraded meal in hand, I made my way back to the lounge.
Jaager was sitting in a booth with Merlin resting comfortably in his lap, typing up what was presumably a report on one of his patrols on a laser keyboard. Clever, I thought, his power obviously doesn't transfer through light, or else anyone that looks at him would get reset. At the same time there was something profoundly sad about it, that he couldn't even type on an ordinary computer without his power undoing all of his work. I wasn't even sure I could call it a power, it was more like a mummy curse or the work of an evil genie. My heart went out to him, but I wasn't sure how to help or what he needed.
For the moment he was as relaxed as I'd ever seen him, judging by his body language and Merlin's persistent purring. Maybe all he needed was another friend? As far as I was aware we were the only two Protectorate capes actually living on-site, so we'd probably be seeing a lot of each other regardless of what I did. Might as well try and get to know him.
-A darker, more cynical part of me figured that if this was another situation like the one with my roommates it'd be best to find out sooner rather than later. Jaager seemed nice but well, Ray had seemed nice too.-
I sat in the booth across from him, carefully setting my food on the table. He was using some kind of holographic screen, presumably provided by Presto, translucent enough for me to make him out pretty clearly through it. More like looking through a tinted window than anything else.
"Hey Jaager," I said once I'd settled down. "What are you working on?"
His head snapped up, seeming to notice me for the first time. "Oh, hello Carmilla. Just some after action reports, nothing too exciting I'm afraid. It's been quiet these past few days."
"Probably for the best."
He 'hmm-ed' in agreement, continuing to type away with Merlin purring up a storm in his lap. I smiled.
"So how did you two meet? We've had a lot of cats over the years, but there have only been a couple willing to sit in my lap like that."
Jaager chuckled, giving Merlin a scratch behind the ears with hands that looked like they'd been painted by Monet. "Well that's a hell of a story."
I shrugged. "I've got time. Besides, it'd be nice to have something to think about that isn't my upcoming combat training."
His face didn't really have expressions per se, but I still got the impression he was smiling. "It was a few years back actually, only a few months after the Leviathan attack in '03. I was on one of my patrols, trying to keep things from getting too out of hand, when I heard a sad little meow coming from a bit of piping that had busted open. There was a kitten stuck inside."
"How did you get him out?" He couldn't very well have just picked him up.
"Time and patience. I couldn't touch him directly, but I could still widen the hole he'd fallen into and coax him out. Took me almost an hour. I'd been intending to call a shelter to take him in afterwards but he wouldn't stop following me."
I smirked at him. "Uh huh, the classic 'he followed me home' line. He's been living with you ever since?"
"Yes ma'am," he said, voice drier than a tundra. "Merlin likes coming with me on my patrols sometimes, I've got a leash for him and everything."
"Aren't you worried about him getting hurt?"
"Of course I am, but there's not much risk when I can just let go of his leash and let my power do its thing."
Oh, duh. "That makes sense. How old is he? About six right?"
"That's a harder question than it sounds. He hangs around me often enough that no one's quite sure how old he really is, regularly getting sent back in time will do that to you."
I 'hmm-ed' in understanding, thinking about the implications of that. "He reminds me a lot of Blazer. Adventurous, friendly, completely covered in fluff. He like playing with laser pointers?"
"Oh he loves the damn things. Or hates them, not totally sure. Haven't met many cats that don't."
"He's- that is, he was a really good cat." I sighed, scrubbing at my eyes with the back of my hand. "I really miss him. Maybe it's silly, but I wish he'd been there to see me finally come out and start being a girl in earnest."
"Sounds like he means a lot to you, I don't think it's silly at all."
I gave him a slightly watery smile. "It's- well. Whenever my dad would get mad and start yelling, which was a lot, Blazer was always there meowing at him and distracting him. It's- it's like he was protecting me. Maybe he didn't understand the significance of what he was doing, but him being there helped get me through some of the hardest times of my life. Without him, I don't know if I'd have made it through high school."
Jaager went silent, apparently not quite sure how to respond to that. There was a pregnant pause, just long enough for me to start wondering if I'd overshared and made everything awkward.
"Do you want a hug?" he asked in a surprisingly uncertain voice, interrupting my frantic mental search for a topic change.
The question threw me for a bit of a loop, but it didn't take long to decide. "I would. Are you sure?"
In lieu of answering he saved his work and started standing up, prompting me to do the same. It was a lot like how I imagined hugging a statue would feel, his body unyielding and slightly cool to the touch. Maybe it wasn't quite on par with the hug I got from Snap, but Jaager made a damn good effort.
-Maybe this wouldn't be like Ray after all.-
"Thank you," I said after we'd disconnected. "Sorry for dumping all that on you."
"Don't worry about it," he responded, waving a hand dismissively. "That's what friends are for, right?"
My response was interrupted by the sound of a door opening on the other side of HQ, just barely picked up by my tremorsense. "Someone's here."
"Oh? I wonder who it could be."
An idea occurring to me, I returned to my spiral noodles and devoured the remainder as quickly as I could before returning to the location I'd be getting reset to. Jaager gave me what I liked to imagine was an amused look.
"I see how it is," he said, voice taking on a wry tone. "You only accepted the hug because you wanted free food."
I very nearly asked him how he ate when he didn't have a mouth or anything, but I had a sinking feeling the answer was he couldn't. Instead I smiled, raising up my hands in mock surrender, "You caught me red-handed chief, but in my defense it was really good."
That prompted a snort from him as he directed his focus back to writing. I'd never seen him eat, drink, sleep, or do much of anything besides working in the week we'd been living in the same space. Most of our interaction before this had been him jokingly offering to help us move furniture before going off on another one of his patrols. My room wasn't all that big, so we'd kicked the boxes out into the lounge while we put the furniture together, which were quickly colonized by Merlin. I could have used my power to make all my furniture, but I could also have chosen to live in the sewers as a mole person. Both scenarios had a similar appeal.
My view suddenly shifted to a slightly different angle, arms awkwardly hugging the air. Part of me was certain whoever it was would walk in at just that moment, but sadly life didn't always have the comedic timing we wished it did. I sat back down at the booth, noticing for the first time that one of the cups scattered about the table wasn't getting picked up by my tremorsense. It was a really fancy chalice, made of what looked like polished metal shaped into elegant patterns and decorative spikes. I leaned in for a closer look, gingerly picking it up.
It was surprisingly light, but covered in sharp edges to the point I was nervous about handling it, let alone actually drinking from the thing. Honestly I was reminded of those stupid "ninja" weapons they sold in malls that were always completely impractical and covered in superfluous spikes. I held the cup into the light, marveling at how intricately put together it was. As far as I could tell it was made entirely of blades, the flat surfaces of progressively finer and finer blades approximating a rounded surface.
Part of the bowl-thing popped out, making me jump a little. It had unfolded into what looked like a mechanical spider leg, and before I'd quite processed that it gave me a little wave. I shrieked, scrambling back with enough haste and raw panic that I tripped and tumbled ass over tit. The first thing Bolster had taught me was how to fall, and with the ground's assistance I was able to turn my bumble into an improvised backwards combat roll. In the same motion I summoned a short wall and pulled a mancatcher out of the ground, coming to a stop in a low stance I'd been practicing for the last few days.
The 'cup' had rearranged itself into something resembling a spider, constantly retracting and replacing its limbs as it moved. Almost like a liquid in how smooth the movement was, how precise.
"Hey Edgar," Jaager said absently, not even looking away from his work.
I growled in frustration, barely stopping another ring of spikes from forming. "What the hell is it with capes and jumpscaring people? I'm getting really fucking tired of the surprise introductions."
I liked to imagine the spider apparently named Edgar looked ashamed, and as he started moving I realized who I'd been yelling at. True to his name, Music Box made almost melodic sounds with every movement, just ever so slightly off from being a true song. Like something halfway between a xylophone and a violin.
He landed on the ground and started reinflating, for lack of a better word. Dozens of tiny limbs constantly retracted and readjusted, bringing his skin back into place and closing up all the gaps. Sharp mechanisms worked beneath the surface, visibly distending the skin of his face as it made the necessary adjustments.
"Gonna be completely honest with you," I said, swallowing uncomfortably. "That was much worse than the cup turning into a spider thing."
"So I've heard," Music Box intoned, a slight accent to his voice. He was tall and spindly, dozens of different tools and implements hanging off of a dark grey costume with white highlights. He sighed, craning his neck down to look at me. "I'm sorry for scaring you, Sepulcher. I have to confess that I'd been planning to play a prank on Jaager, but I hadn't wanted to interrupt your conversation. And then you picked me up and I didn't know what to do, so… uhm. I'm sorry."
I let out a sigh of my own, the tension slowly bleeding away from my shoulders. I smeared the mancatcher into the wall I'd made, moving and reshaping it around one of the room's concrete support pillars where it hopefully wouldn't bother anyone. "You don't have anything to apologize for, really. I'm just… I've been high strung lately. It's been a stressful few days." Stressful few months, I mentally corrected. Years.
"You've had a lot of changes thrown at you at once," Music Box said, "I know a bit of how stressful that can be." He cleared his throat awkwardly, turning toward a deeply unimpressed-looking Jaager. Changing the subject about as gracefully as I would have done. "Gasconade, duty calls. P and B are calling a meeting, I think we're finally getting some new assignments."
"You really oughta leave the pranks to Presto," Jaager said with a wry tone, gently shooing Merlin off his lap while he got up. He put his coat and hat back on, straightening his shoulders and his tie. "It was good talking to you, Carmilla. I'm glad you joined the team, it'll be nice to have some decent company around here for a change."
I smiled, waving the both of them goodbye. They kept up a stream of banter as they exited the PHQ, voices slowly fading from my ears and then my tremorsense. After a few moments I sat back down at the table, poking at the noodles I'd made.
-||-
The gym's double doors were far more imposing than their size would indicate, more because of my knowledge of what was behind them than anything else. I took a deep breath. And then another. One more.
Okay, I was being ridiculous. Setting my jaw, I leveraged a bit of my thinker power to overcome my nervousness and pushed the well-worn wooden doors aside. Bolster stood in the center of the spacious and well-appointed gym, a precariously tall stack of chairs next to him. He looked toward the source of the noise, face changing from careful concentration into a bright grin as he saw me.
"You're late," he said cheerily. "Again."
"I am," I responded, not really sure what else to say. "My only excuse is that I've been exhausted lately, been staying up too late."
He waved away my concern, gesturing back toward his stack. "I'm good at finding ways to amuse myself while you pace outside the door. Now, how about we practice returning to your stance immediately and instinctually?"
I groaned internally, getting my limbs in approximately the right configuration. The very instant my feet were in place he kicked out with eerie efficiency and precision, almost gentle, knocking me back off balance immediately. It was like fighting a chess computer, his power guiding him unerringly toward structural weaknesses with near-perfect accuracy. There was no possible way for me to match his skill in close combat.
I set my jaw, getting back into place.
-||-
"I'm honestly not sure where to begin," I said, sitting on the supple faux-leather couch the Seattle protectorate's current in-house therapist kept for her patients, mask in my lap. It was sturdy, reinforced inside and out to accommodate capes with particularly heavy bodies or gear. The woman whose couch I was occupying sat cross-legged on a large office chair across from me. She was on the younger side of middle aged, with light brown skin and dark wavy hair tied back into a bun; her look gave off a sort of 'cool english teacher' vibe, thick glasses and a cardigan festooned with pins worn over a brightly colored dress that was nearly a match for my own. "Uhm- what was your name again? I'm sorry, I've just been so busy this last week that I keep losing track of things."
"There's nothing to worry about," she said, waving off my concern with a genial smile. "My name is Dr. Adelina Oliveira, but everyone here just calls me Ina," she continued, seeming completely at ease in her quiet office on the western wing of the Needle's fiftieth floor. It was decorated with the sorts of knick knacks I'd come to associate with therapist's offices, little Buddha statues and uncut gemstones decorating shelves and tables. The only item of note was a small bird skull on her desk, mounted on a metallic stand right next to a miniature zen garden. "Take as long as you need to formulate your thoughts, okay Sepulcher? Or would you prefer Carmilla?"
I shrugged. "Either one's fine I guess, they're both my name," I said, immediately contradicting myself with my next statement. "Let's go with Carmilla for now."
Ina nodded. "Carmilla it is."
I looked down at the golden heart-shaped mask in my hands, impenetrable black lenses meeting me stare for stare. A few meetings with PR had resulted in a look with a lot more thematic coherence, the eyes and nose resembling a barn owl's. The rest of my armor still hadn't been finalized, more because I hadn't really had the time to work on it than anything else, but once it was finished it would be etched on all the edges to resemble feathers.
Right now I was just wearing one of my new dresses for my costume -bright and summery in utter defiance of the season- along with the official security card I'd gotten on my first day here. Laura and Liang had taken me shopping the day after the whole warehouse thing, probably to keep an eye on me as much as anything, but I couldn't deny how nice it had been to be able to just get things I liked without having to worry about scrimping and saving for every purchase. "It all just feels so strange. Like- like this is a dream I'm gonna wake up from at any moment. That's normal, right? After such a big upheaval?"
Ina nodded again, face breaking into a gentle smile. "I think almost anyone in your position would experience some disconnect while they adjusted to their new normal. Considering what you've gone through I'd say you're doing an admirable job of coping."
I smiled back, hesitant. "I'd guess the first thing to note is that I'm trans. Like, a trans woman. There were signs going back as far as I can remember, but I only like consciously realized it when I was eighteen, after high school. I started HRT a bit over a year ago, in March 2008. My parents aren't supportive, and I was basically forced to come out to them when my mom found one of my bras back in January," my voice grew in intensity as I continued, a familiar bitterness rising to the surface. "They don't even say my name, you know. I don't mean they insist on using my dead name, I mean they don't use any name or pronouns for me at all. They do fucking conversational gymnastics to avoid it, since they know if they used my dead name or called me 'he' I'd correct them. It makes me feel like a- a fucking non-person!"
A distinctly sharp ripple moved through the couch at my displeasure, bringing my rant to a sputtering halt. I took a moment to breathe, trying to tamp down the indignation and sorrow to more manageable levels before continuing. "Anyway. I also have a history of depression, with some pretty severe episodes preceding my dropping out of college." I sighed.
"There's nothing for you to be ashamed of, Carmilla," Ina said, frowning in sympathy. "You were going through a tumultuous time in your life, with very little support from your parents, it's understandable if some things fell by the wayside."
"More than some things," I muttered. "Back when I was in the dorms I basically holed up in my room for days at a time. Once I'd missed a bunch of calls from my mom because I was basically only eating and sleeping and she was so worried she ended up calling the campus police to check on me after knocking on our front door failed to rouse me. That was embarrassing, to put it mildly."
"It sounds to me that you were in a pretty severe depression, like you said. Is it really reasonable to blame yourself when you did the best that could be expected of someone placed in, to be frank, really shitty circumstances?"
I frowned in thought. "The thing is that I'm not sure if I did do the best I could have. There were so many times I could have walked a few minutes from my dorm to class and just… didn't. Or even if I did walk to class sometimes I'd just stand outside the door or pace. Or if I did go to class and get myself to go inside I'd find it almost impossible to focus or take notes. And I procrastinated almost all of my homework to death anyway."
You're pathetic, echoed a sneering voice in my mind.
"I just don't understand what's wrong with me," I said, the words popping out of my mouth unbidden. "Why am I such a fuckup?"
Dr. Oliveira frowned, sitting up straight and placing her sandaled feet onto the cheap carpet. "Carmilla, you are not a fuckup. And there is nothing wrong with you. What you've learned is that that's not a good learning environment for you, nothing more and nothing less."
I sat there in silence for several moments, mind whirling in tight circuits of self-loathing, eventually giving her a reluctant nod. "It's just so frustrating when I know what I need to do and why I need to do it but can't bring myself to actually, you know, fucking do it."
With a chill, I wondered if my thinker power had been a twisted way of resolving that frustration. Which, come to think of it, was probably something I should bring up with Ina.
Ina was already responding. "There will always be a gap between what we envision ourselves doing and what is practically possible; expecting yourself to march in perfect lockstep with what you imagine you should be capable of is only going to lead to disappointment."
I tilted my head quizzically. "Well sure, but shouldn't we still strive to be better?"
"There's a difference between setting specific, achievable goals and setting yourself up for failure."
I slowly raised a finger until it was level with my face, slowly lowering it again when I failed to think of an adequate response. Eventually I nodded. Now or never, I thought. If I brought up the emotion damping thing it'd probably take up most of the session, but… it was probably for the best. There had to be someone I could talk to about this, to make sure I wasn't losing perspective.
"Okay," I said, realizing immediately that that probably wasn't the best opener. "So you know how I have a thinker power?"
Ina nodded. "I was sent your file the day you arrived here, I seem to recall you had an enhanced awareness and memory for locations?"
"That's pretty close, yeah. I can also visualize things with almost perfect accuracy and consistency, predicting the arcs of thrown objects and the like." I sat there uncomfortably for a few moments, silently bargaining with myself. I sighed. "There's something I haven't told anyone else about yet. So I can turn its intensity up and down sort of like a dimmer switch, all the way down to almost nothing. The catch is that the more uh, thinker… juice? I use, the more disconnected I get from my emotions. It gets to the point where I can't even interpret expressions when it's all the way up. Or feel pain, or exhaustion, or hesitation. Everything gets reduced down to concrete, specific goals."
Ina nodded, not seeming put off by that little revelation in the slightest. "First I want to congratulate you for reaching out to someone about this, it obviously wasn't easy for you."
I nodded, silent.
"What are you concerned about, specifically? It's not uncommon for powers to have mental or emotional side effects, I know or know of quite a few capes that have learned to live with them in a healthy way."
I took a moment to get my thoughts in order before responding. "It's just, I'm scared of how cold I get when I'm like that. What if I go too far and don't even realize until it's too late?"
"Let's elaborate on that. What would going too far look like?"
"Well… as an example, let's say I set myself the goal of stopping a robbery. Unless I specifically note to do so non-lethally my emotionless self would have no compunctions about just like, stabbing them to death if it's the most efficient option."
Ina made a thoughtful sound, pulling her legs up as she leaned back in her chair. "How much nuance is there in these goals? Could you set a rule that requires you to check with your emotions or a teammate whenever hurting someone seems like a good option, for instance?"
My head tilted as I considered that. "That could help. I'm not sure if there's a limit to the number of conditions or subgoals I can set at once but I'll give it a try."
I closed my eyes, drawing in a deep breath as I drew more deeply on my thinker power. Not so much that I lost myself, just enough to visualize my intentions in full detail. The texture of the world still seemed to change, shifting to something sharper and colder. Alien. I hadn't realized how uncomfortable suspending myself in the middle of the two states could be, still having just enough feeling to realize something was off with my perceptions. Best to make this quick.
Normally when I set a goal with my thinker power I just visualized the result I wanted and used that as the standard to judge potential courses of action. What if I reversed that? Visualizing exactly the result I didn't want and keeping it suspended in my power's 'working memory' as a contingency, applying to every future goal I set.
It was so much easier to set reasonable limits in a specific context, with known variables. How could I explain something as abstract as the value of human life to someone that understood everything in terms of physical systems? It wasn't like there were a whole lot of examples I could pull up from my power's memory, I couldn't sense living things. Maybe it'd be best to wait until I'd studied anatomy and constructed a decent mental model of the human body, unless- I froze.
"That's certainly an interesting expression," Ina teased, bringing me back to the present. She gave me a small smile tinged with motherly concern. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"John," I said, devoid of context. My voice was mechanical, my eyes locked onto the carpet. "I was there when- when it happened. I was kneeling right next to him in a pool of his own blood, and uhm. When he d-died, my power could sense him just like how I can sense the couch I'm sitting on or the floor under my feet, and I never forget anything I sense with my power. Ever."
Ina's voice was gentle but firm. "What happened to him wasn't your fault, Carmilla."
I blinked, shifting back to my normal self. The pain in my heart and the wrenching in my gut sharpened in a distinctly unpleasant way, but fully experiencing it let me understand it. I sighed, almost going limp on the couch. "I know that like, intellectually. Almost none of what my power did when it manifested was under my control, and neither were the actions of the other people in the apartment complex. From an outside perspective I'd consider it a tragic accident."
She nodded.
"But… my power is part of me. Its actions are my actions, and it's my responsibility to keep it from hurting anyone else. If I don't try to learn from every mistake I made, no matter how small or understandable, it's like the suffering I -or at least, my power- inflicted on them was for nothing."
"Please be kind to yourself," Ina said, brows knitted in a serious expression behind her glasses. "Making mistakes is part of being human, you don't need to self-flagellate for not knowing exactly what to do in a completely unfamiliar crisis situation."
After a moment I nodded, managing a smile. "You're right. It's just hard, you know? I think even without my power I'd never be able to forget my roommates attacking me, let alone everything else."
Ina smiled back, though there was a sad look in her eyes. "We have time. You're a kind, intelligent, self-aware young woman, I know you can find your way to a better place."
Something still sat uneasily with me. "I need to tell someone about my power. On the team, I mean."
"Maybe this week you can work on finding someone you're comfortable knowing about your thinker power; not to necessarily tell them right now, just find someone you think would be a good candidate. There's nothing wrong with taking your time on things like this, making certain you have someone worthy of trust."
I gave her a tight smile, trying not to worry about how they'd react.
-||-
I sat alone in the Protectorate headquarter's dining area, a bowl of microwave cheesy spiral noodles and broccoli in front of me. My only company was Gasconade's cat, Merlin, who was currently napping in the box my new desk had arrived in. He was majestic -as fluffy and grey as his namesake- and according to Presto there were persistent rumors that he had powers of his own. Knowing her, she was probably the one that started them.
There was about half an hour left before I had to meet Bolster for my daily humiliation session -or combat training, same difference- and I was struggling to work up an appetite. Maybe it'd be more appealing if I added some spices? I stood up, ambling over to the Protectorate's shared kitchen space. It was bizarre how quickly living in the Space Needle was becoming ordinary, even boring. My standards for normal had gotten a pretty thorough kicking, and I doubted they'd ever be quite the same again.
As if summoned by the thought Gasconade -no wait, Jaager- walked into the kitchen from the PHQ's lobby, wearing a dress shirt and suspenders without his customary hat and jacket. I gave him a smile and wave, uncertain what to say or how to approach him. He seemed distracted, casually waving back as he passed into the dining area.
"Merlin! I was wondering where you'd run off to," sounded his voice through the doorway. Following that were the sorts of gushy nonsense noises any reasonable person made around cats, particularly while petting them. It endeared me to both of them immediately.
The spice cabinet was depressingly bare, something I swore to myself I'd rectify on my next grocery trip. There was salt and pepper at least, and I made certain to add a particularly generous helping of the latter. I needed a ton of the stuff for it to really register as spicy. I warmed it back up in the microwave and gave it a vigorous stir with my fork, nodding in satisfaction when I took another bite. My newly upgraded meal in hand, I made my way back to the lounge.
Jaager was sitting in a booth with Merlin resting comfortably in his lap, typing up what was presumably a report on one of his patrols on a laser keyboard. Clever, I thought, his power obviously doesn't transfer through light, or else anyone that looks at him would get reset. At the same time there was something profoundly sad about it, that he couldn't even type on an ordinary computer without his power undoing all of his work. I wasn't even sure I could call it a power, it was more like a mummy curse or the work of an evil genie. My heart went out to him, but I wasn't sure how to help or what he needed.
For the moment he was as relaxed as I'd ever seen him, judging by his body language and Merlin's persistent purring. Maybe all he needed was another friend? As far as I was aware we were the only two Protectorate capes actually living on-site, so we'd probably be seeing a lot of each other regardless of what I did. Might as well try and get to know him.
-A darker, more cynical part of me figured that if this was another situation like the one with my roommates it'd be best to find out sooner rather than later. Jaager seemed nice but well, Ray had seemed nice too.-
I sat in the booth across from him, carefully setting my food on the table. He was using some kind of holographic screen, presumably provided by Presto, translucent enough for me to make him out pretty clearly through it. More like looking through a tinted window than anything else.
"Hey Jaager," I said once I'd settled down. "What are you working on?"
His head snapped up, seeming to notice me for the first time. "Oh, hello Carmilla. Just some after action reports, nothing too exciting I'm afraid. It's been quiet these past few days."
"Probably for the best."
He 'hmm-ed' in agreement, continuing to type away with Merlin purring up a storm in his lap. I smiled.
"So how did you two meet? We've had a lot of cats over the years, but there have only been a couple willing to sit in my lap like that."
Jaager chuckled, giving Merlin a scratch behind the ears with hands that looked like they'd been painted by Monet. "Well that's a hell of a story."
I shrugged. "I've got time. Besides, it'd be nice to have something to think about that isn't my upcoming combat training."
His face didn't really have expressions per se, but I still got the impression he was smiling. "It was a few years back actually, only a few months after the Leviathan attack in '03. I was on one of my patrols, trying to keep things from getting too out of hand, when I heard a sad little meow coming from a bit of piping that had busted open. There was a kitten stuck inside."
"How did you get him out?" He couldn't very well have just picked him up.
"Time and patience. I couldn't touch him directly, but I could still widen the hole he'd fallen into and coax him out. Took me almost an hour. I'd been intending to call a shelter to take him in afterwards but he wouldn't stop following me."
I smirked at him. "Uh huh, the classic 'he followed me home' line. He's been living with you ever since?"
"Yes ma'am," he said, voice drier than a tundra. "Merlin likes coming with me on my patrols sometimes, I've got a leash for him and everything."
"Aren't you worried about him getting hurt?"
"Of course I am, but there's not much risk when I can just let go of his leash and let my power do its thing."
Oh, duh. "That makes sense. How old is he? About six right?"
"That's a harder question than it sounds. He hangs around me often enough that no one's quite sure how old he really is, regularly getting sent back in time will do that to you."
I 'hmm-ed' in understanding, thinking about the implications of that. "He reminds me a lot of Blazer. Adventurous, friendly, completely covered in fluff. He like playing with laser pointers?"
"Oh he loves the damn things. Or hates them, not totally sure. Haven't met many cats that don't."
"He's- that is, he was a really good cat." I sighed, scrubbing at my eyes with the back of my hand. "I really miss him. Maybe it's silly, but I wish he'd been there to see me finally come out and start being a girl in earnest."
"Sounds like he means a lot to you, I don't think it's silly at all."
I gave him a slightly watery smile. "It's- well. Whenever my dad would get mad and start yelling, which was a lot, Blazer was always there meowing at him and distracting him. It's- it's like he was protecting me. Maybe he didn't understand the significance of what he was doing, but him being there helped get me through some of the hardest times of my life. Without him, I don't know if I'd have made it through high school."
Jaager went silent, apparently not quite sure how to respond to that. There was a pregnant pause, just long enough for me to start wondering if I'd overshared and made everything awkward.
"Do you want a hug?" he asked in a surprisingly uncertain voice, interrupting my frantic mental search for a topic change.
The question threw me for a bit of a loop, but it didn't take long to decide. "I would. Are you sure?"
In lieu of answering he saved his work and started standing up, prompting me to do the same. It was a lot like how I imagined hugging a statue would feel, his body unyielding and slightly cool to the touch. Maybe it wasn't quite on par with the hug I got from Snap, but Jaager made a damn good effort.
-Maybe this wouldn't be like Ray after all.-
"Thank you," I said after we'd disconnected. "Sorry for dumping all that on you."
"Don't worry about it," he responded, waving a hand dismissively. "That's what friends are for, right?"
My response was interrupted by the sound of a door opening on the other side of HQ, just barely picked up by my tremorsense. "Someone's here."
"Oh? I wonder who it could be."
An idea occurring to me, I returned to my spiral noodles and devoured the remainder as quickly as I could before returning to the location I'd be getting reset to. Jaager gave me what I liked to imagine was an amused look.
"I see how it is," he said, voice taking on a wry tone. "You only accepted the hug because you wanted free food."
I very nearly asked him how he ate when he didn't have a mouth or anything, but I had a sinking feeling the answer was he couldn't. Instead I smiled, raising up my hands in mock surrender, "You caught me red-handed chief, but in my defense it was really good."
That prompted a snort from him as he directed his focus back to writing. I'd never seen him eat, drink, sleep, or do much of anything besides working in the week we'd been living in the same space. Most of our interaction before this had been him jokingly offering to help us move furniture before going off on another one of his patrols. My room wasn't all that big, so we'd kicked the boxes out into the lounge while we put the furniture together, which were quickly colonized by Merlin. I could have used my power to make all my furniture, but I could also have chosen to live in the sewers as a mole person. Both scenarios had a similar appeal.
My view suddenly shifted to a slightly different angle, arms awkwardly hugging the air. Part of me was certain whoever it was would walk in at just that moment, but sadly life didn't always have the comedic timing we wished it did. I sat back down at the booth, noticing for the first time that one of the cups scattered about the table wasn't getting picked up by my tremorsense. It was a really fancy chalice, made of what looked like polished metal shaped into elegant patterns and decorative spikes. I leaned in for a closer look, gingerly picking it up.
It was surprisingly light, but covered in sharp edges to the point I was nervous about handling it, let alone actually drinking from the thing. Honestly I was reminded of those stupid "ninja" weapons they sold in malls that were always completely impractical and covered in superfluous spikes. I held the cup into the light, marveling at how intricately put together it was. As far as I could tell it was made entirely of blades, the flat surfaces of progressively finer and finer blades approximating a rounded surface.
Part of the bowl-thing popped out, making me jump a little. It had unfolded into what looked like a mechanical spider leg, and before I'd quite processed that it gave me a little wave. I shrieked, scrambling back with enough haste and raw panic that I tripped and tumbled ass over tit. The first thing Bolster had taught me was how to fall, and with the ground's assistance I was able to turn my bumble into an improvised backwards combat roll. In the same motion I summoned a short wall and pulled a mancatcher out of the ground, coming to a stop in a low stance I'd been practicing for the last few days.
The 'cup' had rearranged itself into something resembling a spider, constantly retracting and replacing its limbs as it moved. Almost like a liquid in how smooth the movement was, how precise.
"Hey Edgar," Jaager said absently, not even looking away from his work.
I growled in frustration, barely stopping another ring of spikes from forming. "What the hell is it with capes and jumpscaring people? I'm getting really fucking tired of the surprise introductions."
I liked to imagine the spider apparently named Edgar looked ashamed, and as he started moving I realized who I'd been yelling at. True to his name, Music Box made almost melodic sounds with every movement, just ever so slightly off from being a true song. Like something halfway between a xylophone and a violin.
He landed on the ground and started reinflating, for lack of a better word. Dozens of tiny limbs constantly retracted and readjusted, bringing his skin back into place and closing up all the gaps. Sharp mechanisms worked beneath the surface, visibly distending the skin of his face as it made the necessary adjustments.
"Gonna be completely honest with you," I said, swallowing uncomfortably. "That was much worse than the cup turning into a spider thing."
"So I've heard," Music Box intoned, a slight accent to his voice. He was tall and spindly, dozens of different tools and implements hanging off of a dark grey costume with white highlights. He sighed, craning his neck down to look at me. "I'm sorry for scaring you, Sepulcher. I have to confess that I'd been planning to play a prank on Jaager, but I hadn't wanted to interrupt your conversation. And then you picked me up and I didn't know what to do, so… uhm. I'm sorry."
I let out a sigh of my own, the tension slowly bleeding away from my shoulders. I smeared the mancatcher into the wall I'd made, moving and reshaping it around one of the room's concrete support pillars where it hopefully wouldn't bother anyone. "You don't have anything to apologize for, really. I'm just… I've been high strung lately. It's been a stressful few days." Stressful few months, I mentally corrected. Years.
"You've had a lot of changes thrown at you at once," Music Box said, "I know a bit of how stressful that can be." He cleared his throat awkwardly, turning toward a deeply unimpressed-looking Jaager. Changing the subject about as gracefully as I would have done. "Gasconade, duty calls. P and B are calling a meeting, I think we're finally getting some new assignments."
"You really oughta leave the pranks to Presto," Jaager said with a wry tone, gently shooing Merlin off his lap while he got up. He put his coat and hat back on, straightening his shoulders and his tie. "It was good talking to you, Carmilla. I'm glad you joined the team, it'll be nice to have some decent company around here for a change."
I smiled, waving the both of them goodbye. They kept up a stream of banter as they exited the PHQ, voices slowly fading from my ears and then my tremorsense. After a few moments I sat back down at the table, poking at the noodles I'd made.
-||-
The gym's double doors were far more imposing than their size would indicate, more because of my knowledge of what was behind them than anything else. I took a deep breath. And then another. One more.
Okay, I was being ridiculous. Setting my jaw, I leveraged a bit of my thinker power to overcome my nervousness and pushed the well-worn wooden doors aside. Bolster stood in the center of the spacious and well-appointed gym, a precariously tall stack of chairs next to him. He looked toward the source of the noise, face changing from careful concentration into a bright grin as he saw me.
"You're late," he said cheerily. "Again."
"I am," I responded, not really sure what else to say. "My only excuse is that I've been exhausted lately, been staying up too late."
He waved away my concern, gesturing back toward his stack. "I'm good at finding ways to amuse myself while you pace outside the door. Now, how about we practice returning to your stance immediately and instinctually?"
I groaned internally, getting my limbs in approximately the right configuration. The very instant my feet were in place he kicked out with eerie efficiency and precision, almost gentle, knocking me back off balance immediately. It was like fighting a chess computer, his power guiding him unerringly toward structural weaknesses with near-perfect accuracy. There was no possible way for me to match his skill in close combat.
I set my jaw, getting back into place.
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- Location
- New Zealand
Welcome back. I liked the bit about no-one really knowing how old Merlin is due to the constant time resets.
Aftershocks 2-2: Carmilla goes through a new daily routine and dons her newly finished costume.
- Location
- In the mathematical center of your mind palace.
It's been a few months since Donjon's last update, I felt it was past time to continue Carmilla's story. If you're at all interested in the origins of or process behind Donjon, check out my interview with FrustratedFreeboota here.
-||-
I armored myself in femininity. There was a reason I'd shaved my legs before being driven to the Needle despite not normally bothering. Whenever I felt anxious -which was admittedly most of the time- one of my biggest worries was always whether I was passing or not. Even in the most unfamiliar or uncomfortable situations I could at least touch my chin and breathe a sigh of relief that there weren't any stray hairs poking up. Thing was, I'd been busy these last few days.
On top of the stubble I'd accumulated on my face and legs, I was wearing an uncomfortably tight-fitting set of athletic clothes. Not even I was stubborn enough to insist on sparring in a dress. -Yet.- The clothes fit just fine, it's just that I was used to wearing things meant to hide how I was shaped or emphasize the few parts of my body I liked. I felt exposed, lopsided, distorted, like some horrible gremlin creature meant for hiding under bridges. Bolster's presence was profoundly not helping; a scary bearded man that could shatter my skull like fine pottery with a single superhumanly precise punch.
I stood up from the last set of stretches he and the other coaches worked out for me, trying to contain my nervousness. It wasn't fair and I knew it wasn't fair, Bolster hadn't done anything to hurt or even offend me. It was just… hard to relax around him.
"Finished?" He asked, looking my way. Did he think I'd taken too long? Was he upset?
-"You're like a fucking child."-
"Uh yeah, I think so." I hated the uncertain quaver in my voice, hated that I couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes. I cleared my throat, forcing myself to stand up straighter. "I'm ready. What did you want to cover next?"
He smiled, but it looked fake. Strained. "I was thinking we'd try some basic holds."
I swallowed, my throat suddenly feeling dry. "Alright." I responded stiffly, cringing internally at the awkwardness of the situation. "I know we're probably not far along enough, but I was wondering if you could teach me some momentum redirection techniques? Like you know, someone charges at you and you judo throw them even if they're bigger. I wanna know how to do that."
He blinked. "Do you mean throws? They're easier than they look, once you know the trick to it. You're good with angles and stuff right?"
I nodded.
"That'll help a lot. What's gonna take time is building up your muscle memory so that you do the right motion at the right time automatically, without even a moment's thought."
"That'd be nice," I muttered. I'd never been very physically coordinated, not really taking to any of the little league sports my mom signed me up for and never really having the will or motivation to do more than the bare minimum of athletic activity since then. The best I could say for myself in that regard was that I walked a lot, a consequence of my pacing habit and having to rely on Olympia's painfully inadequate public transportation to get around. At times my body felt more like an overgrown meat-muppet I was clumsily piloting than any sort of extension of myself.
Maybe I could change that? I stood up straighter, deliberately focusing on the practicalities of the situation. Lives, mine and others, were going to rely on my athleticism and endurance. Until I was at least as skilled and physically fit as the average cape I'd be at a constant disadvantage, a half-step behind my peers and rivals in every fight or crisis. I wanted to feel comfortable in my body so very badly, to make up for years wasted in despair, dissociation and daydreaming. I'd do everything I could with training, effort, and conventional medicine.
After that? I thought back to the Bastards I'd fought last week, the huge variety of mutations and body types they'd sported. With the right powers in play I could get exactly the body I wanted, no compromises or years-long waiting lists. A long-term goal maybe, but it was hard to think of a better motivation to push myself.
"Sepulcher? You still with me?" Bolster asked, derailing my train of thought.
I blushed furiously. "Uh yeah, just zoned out. What was that last thing you said?"
He sighed, almost too quiet for me to hear. "I was asking if you wanted a demonstration. You rush towards me, I flip you. I'll explain how I did it and then we'll switch places and run through it a few more times. Make sense?"
I nodded. "You can flip me, my power protects me from fall damage anyway."
"Well ideally you'd go into a roll to disperse the force of being flipped, but we can work on that later. I'll stand at the center of the mat, then on my signal you rush towards me and try to push me over."
I gave him a thumbs up, taking an aggressive stance where he indicated. It was remarkable how he managed to look competent and dangerous even when just standing still and waiting for me to come at him. I was a little jealous, I wasn't very good at being intimidating.
Alright, enough dillydallying. I ran towards him, arms out in the vain hope of pushing him over. The flip happened fast enough that I had to reconstruct it in retrospect; he somehow hooked my leg with his, grabbed one of my arms and leveraged his entire body to send me flying. I did my best to roll with it, reshaping the floor of the gym to soften the impact and slip out of reach. Except I miscalculated or misstepped somewhere, stumbling and tripping instead of falling into a stable stance.
I fell backwards, landing with an audible 'oof'. The fluorescent lighting hanging above us was blurry, appearing more like pools of liquid light than rectangular panels. A moment later I sat upright, still a little dazed from the fall, belatedly realizing that my mask had been knocked off in the process of being thrown. The padding and laminated wood around me moved in a gentle wave, pushing my armor back into reach. I hurriedly put it back on, making doubly sure it was strapped securely this time, hoping that none of the PRT guys training elsewhere in the gym had seen my unshaven face.
I looked up just in time to see Ray looming over me, hand outstretched. I yelped, smoothly shifting into an upright combat stance with my power before I'd even registered what was happening. I was holding a mancatcher I didn't remember making, my hands gripping the worn wood of the polearm like a pair of iron manacles cinched too tightly. Bolster stumbled back, eyes wide behind his dark visor. We stood there staring at each other for long seconds, the rest of the gym eerily silent compared to the earlier clamor.
I was the first to break eye contact, mortification welling up until it felt like I'd choke on it. Everyone was staring at me, and why wouldn't they? I'd just freaked out over nothing and perforated the training mat with spikes. They needed to get cleared up, I knew that, but I found myself unable to move, paralyzed with indecision and anxiety. I squeezed my eyes shut, measuring my breathing as I relaxed shaking hands and slowly lowered my arms to my sides. Another breath and the spikes were pulled down into the floor of the gym, the padding repaired as best as I was able. The mancatcher stayed loosely held in my right hand, a constant reminder of where I was. -And more importantly, where I wasn't.-
My eyes snapped open, taking in the gym with a quick glance. There weren't as many people looking at me, thank God, but Bolster still seemed confused and upset. What should I say? Should I say anything? Fuck.
"I'm sorry," I half-mumbled, not sure how to articulate that it wasn't his fault I was so jumpy. "My power- it flares up sometimes. When I'm..."
"Scared?" He asked in a surprisingly gentle voice, just barely loud enough to hear.
I looked away. "Yeah." Or angry, I added mentally.
"I think I'll demonstrate on someone else next time," Bolster suggested, sounding less confident than usual.
I sighed. "That'd probably be for the best."
-||-
I trudged back toward my room, trying and failing not to focus on my embarrassment and outright anxiety. There was a locker room with a shower and stuff but, well, I really didn't feel that comfortable yet. Besides, my room actually had a bathroom with a showerbath. It was outright luxury compared to my last set of accomodations, I figured it'd be a shame not to make use of it. Afterwards I'd finally have the time to make the finishing touches on my armor, hopefully fast enough for my first official patrol.
My power picked up the sound of voices coming from the kitchen before my ears did, though I had trouble making out exact words unless they were loud or close enough for me to hear anyway. I tried to ignore it, I didn't have any right to overhear conversations not meant for me. -Not that it stopped me from worrying what they were saying about me. I wasn't sure I wanted to know.-
The direct route to my room passed through the dining area, guaranteeing that I'd pass by whoever was talking, possibly more. Being around people -particularly men- was so exhausting, I couldn't stop myself from searching every face for signs of anger, every movement for signs of incoming violence. I didn't know what I'd do if Bolster was in there getting a snack or something, and that thought was enough to make me consider taking the long way around. On the other hand, Presto could be there.
The door to the dining room opened automatically as I approached, making a cute little 'ding' sound to indicate I was authorized. It turned out Presto was there, but so was Music Box and their teammate Djinn. The latter two were in the kitchen, presumably making small talk while they were cooking a meal I didn't recognize. Smelled good though.
Presto sat in the booth much like Gasconade did, typing something up on a holographic keyboard with a mug of coffee next to her. She and caffeine were constant companions, it seemed.
"Hey," I said, trying not to sound as exhausted and anxious as I felt.
Liang looked up, a genuine smile lighting up her face when she saw me. I tried to respond in kind, belatedly realizing I already had a slightly dazed looking grin plastered on my face. And then a moment later I realized it didn't matter either way, since I was wearing a mask. "You sound tired," She said, somewhat hypocritically. "Why don't you stay for lunch? Music Box is helping Djinn make a pot of his famous Maqluba, and there's always plenty left over."
"I'd love to, but I just got back from combat practice and I'm all clammy and gross. I was heading back to my room to take a shower. Maybe I can come back after? There's still some time before my first official patrol with Gasconade."
"I'd like that," Presto said, and then she smirked. "And you can sit next to me, if you want. I remember you had some questions about my tech."
I swallowed, abruptly clearing my throat. "Uh yes, I did. And I… I really like hanging out with you. You're nice, and funny, and when you're around all this terrifying power shit feels a little less overwhelming. I guess what I'm saying is thank you."
"You don't need to thank me, I like hanging out with you too," Presto said after a moment, sounding strangely uncertain. "You're one of the nicest people I've ever met, even with all the shit you've been through. That's worth a lot."
Not knowing how to respond I smiled awkwardly and nodded, turning somewhat abruptly and starting back toward my room. I gave the cooks a wave as I exited.
My room was just down the hall, along with the other guest rooms. Most were unoccupied, but I'd heard it wasn't uncommon for heroes to sleep here after a late shift rather than going home. The short walk was still long enough for doubts to start creeping in, whether I'd misstepped and made Liang uncomfortable or bothered her. They stayed with me as I took a perfunctory shower, followed up with a painstakingly thorough face shave and a hasty combing to get my hair in order.
All-in-all it was about half an hour before I returned to the Protectorate's kitchen/dining area, hair still damp. I'd switched out my workout clothes for one of my new dresses, closely fitted on the bust and rib cage but flaring out along the waist. It was purple and knee
length, perfect for spinning in. Liang helped me pick it out, and I had to admit part of my motivation for wearing it was the way she'd looked at me after I stepped out of the changing room.
The three of them were sitting at the same booth Presto was working in earlier, a big platter of fried rice and vegetables taking up the center of the table. It smelled delicious, garlic and onion and unfamiliar spices layered over each other. Liang looked up as I entered, eyes lingering on my new dress for a moment before she cracked a smile and waved me over. I waved back and approached, blinking in surprise when she extracted herself from the booth to greet me.
"Love the look," she said with surprising sincerity. "Damn shame you can't wear that dress on patrol."
I smiled, blushing under my mask. "I'm hoping my armor isn't too much of a downgrade; I've been putting a lot of effort into styling and shaping it."
"You'll look great, I'd bet money on it." She gestured to the booth behind her. "Wanna take a seat? We were just about to start eating."
"How chivalrous," I observed, scooting in front of an empty plate. Liang sat down next to me, and I was quietly grateful I'd gotten a seat on the inside of the booth rather than the edge.
"I am very glad you could join us Sepulcher," said Djinn, holding out a hand to shake over the table. I took it, a little bemused. "I had hoped to speak with you earlier, but this week's schedule conspired against me."
"It's okay," I said, finding myself reminded of Snap for some reason. "I've been pretty busy this week, I'm not sure if I'd have been a very good conversationalist for most of it." I paused, pointing at the platter of food between us. "Is that vegetarian?"
Djinn nodded enthusiastically. "It's what's called vegan here, I think. No meat, no eggs. My mother taught me the recipe before we left Palestine."
"Cool. Can I have some?"
He laughed. "Of course, why else would I have put a plate out for you?"
"Fair point," I conceded.
"You planning on eating with your mask on?" Presto asked, audibly smirking.
I rolled my eyes at her, exaggerating the head motion to make it obvious despite my mask. I undid the straps at the back, careful to avoid tangling them in my hair as I took it off. The room immediately went blurry without the benefit of corrective lenses, but that
didn't last long before I returned my glasses to their customary perch. "Hey, I'm Carmilla. Nice to meet you again."
Djinn grinned, taking off his goggles and headwrap. He was dark skinned, his hair black, curly and long enough to touch the nape of his neck. "My name is Amir. I suspect we'll be working together quite a bit in the coming months."
The last was said with a knowing look at Liang, and in case that was too subtle he playfully elbowed Music Box-or Edgar now, I supposed- in the side. I blushed, and this time there wasn't a convenient mask to hide it. Failing to come up with a suitable retort, I instead covered my embarrassment by shoveling some of the delicious-smelling rice-and-whatever-else onto my plate.
Liang removed her own mask to give Amir a thoroughly unimpressed look, flashing him a mirthless smirk that gave nothing away. "More talk like that and Carmilla might be the one doing your job. You wanna end up like Overpass?"
"We both know you're bluffing, Liang," Edgar piped in, oddly normal looking when he wasn't a weird spider blade robot thing. "You can't even make a sandwich without setting something on fire."
"Oh for fucks sake!" She snapped out, sounding more exasperated than angry. "You gotta bring the grilled cheese thing up again? That was years ago. And besides, it only happened once. Not like I go around burning sandwiches everywhere I go."
"You burned a lot more than a sandwich," Amir added, further stoking my curiosity. "As I recall they had to cancel the next two tours to the wards headquarters while they replaced the cabinets and wallpaper. And the couch."
"How the hell did you end up burning the couch when making a grilled cheese sandwich?" I asked, hesitant.
Liang groaned aloud, burying her face in her hands. "You're damn savages, all of you. I'll talk, but don't think you boys are getting away with ratting me out to the new girl."
I felt a small thrill, knowing she cared about my opinion of her. Hearing her call me a girl was just icing on the cake.
"It happened four years ago," Liang said, sounding like a woman forced to read her own execution writ. "The three of us were all Wards back then, Bullrush too; we'd just moved into our new headquarters in the new new needle. I had this plan, you see? I got out ahead of everyone and started putting together a surprise lunch thing, nothing too fancy. Just some grilled cheese sandwiches."
"Well," Amir said after a moment's pause. "You certainly surprised us."
Edgar snorted, loud enough to make me twitch a little in reaction. "I'm still surprised a time traveller didn't appear to warn you of the terrible consequences." He paused. "Not that it would have stopped you, mind."
"Gasconade was out of town," Liang deadpanned. "We were under the not-so-watchful eye of Snubnose that day."
The kitchen door beeped, smoothly sliding open to admit none other than Gasconade himself. I hadn't heard him approaching the door with ears or tremorsense. Not even Liang walked that quietly most of the time.
"Speak of the devil," I quipped, almost immediately regretting my phrasing. "We were just talking about you, Jaager."
"Well I'd say my ears were burning, but I don't think I really have ears anymore." His phrasing and dry tone startled a laugh out of me. "Your first official patrol is in twenty minutes, Sepulcher; I'd suggest you start getting ready."
I swallowed, suddenly nervous in a way I wasn't even when sneaking around a warehouse full of atavistic mobsters. I'd only barely started on my food, so I made a little wooden container for the leftovers with my power and replaced my mask and jacket. "I've gotta head out," I said, surprised at the genuine regret in my voice. "But it was really nice talking to you guys, even if it was only for a bit. Let me know if you've got time later, okay?"
"Still curious about all the mischief Liang got up to in the Wards?" Edgar asked, sharing an amused look with Amir. "But don't let us keep you, I'm sure you're very eager to answer the same four or five questions for four hours."
Liang moved out of the way, offering a hand to help lift me out of the booth that I accepted in a properly ladylike manner. That is to say, blushing furiously under my mask.
"Where are you headed?" She asked, surprisingly mellow and low-key compared to how she acted as Presto. The contrast was stark enough to make me wonder which persona hewed closer to her true self. Of course it could just as easily be that they were both her true self, or neither were, or the idea of a singular immutable self was complete nonsense in the face of minds as dynamic and multifaceted as ours were. "Carmin?"
"What? Sorry, I got distracted. I was gonna go put the finishing touches on my armor before my patrol."
She smiled. "Mind if I tag along? Maybe my tinker brain'll come up with some improvements."
"Not at all, I'd actually been hoping to get your feedback on it."
Liang smiled lazily, gesturing toward the doorway. "Then lay on, Macduff."
I paused just before I'd activate the sensor that automatically opened the door, four feet and three inches away. My head turned toward Liang with deliberate slowness. She looked back, quirking an eyebrow at me while she struggled to keep a straight face. Or a serious expression, rather, given that neither of us had ever been very good at keeping straight.
"You were a theatre kid, weren't you?" I asked, striving to keep my voice deadly serious.
Liang smirked. "As a matter of fact, I was."
"That's awesome! What plays were you in? Did you do any musicals?"
"I'm not really the type to sing in front of other people," she admitted. "I did have a lead role in a lesbian version of Romeo and Juliet, though."
"Wow, that's way cooler than anything my school would have been willing to do. Is there a story behind that?"
"It wasn't gonna be a lesbian production orginally, but I auditioned for the part of Romeo and stuff kinda proceeded from there. Aside from switching pronouns and calling the play Romana and Juliet it was pretty much the same as usual. The real trouble was getting them to let me audition for the part in the first place."
I gave her a searching look behind my mask. "And how did you pull that off?"
"A true magician never reveals her secrets," she replied airily. "But I didn't blackmail anyone, if that's what you're wondering."
"That's an oddly specific denial," I said in a dry tone, putting my hand on a scanner to open the door to my workshop. It wasn't like the movies, with a slow line moving up and down the palm; instead the moment after I pressed my hand to the pad it beeped, and the door slid open. I could have just walked through the door, of course, but this was less liable to set off alarms and/or get both of us doused with containment foam. "I guess I'll just have to take your word for it."
I walked through the doorway, holding up a hand when Liang made to follow. She stopped, giving the offending appendage a distinctly unimpressed look. "I wanted to get ready first," I explained. "Don't want you to take any peeks before curtain call."
"Your wish is my command," she said, giving me a lazy smile while she sat down in one of the chairs across from my workshop. The door closed behind me as I fully entered the room, my steps quick so as not to keep Liang waiting too long.
My armor was holding vigil to my right, just outside of view from the doorway. I'd worked hard to make sure it had a feminine silhouette without compromising its protective ability, giving it an hourglass shape in the bust and hips and a nearly knee-length skirt of plates. It was gold-colored except for the edges of each plate, which were purple and etched with geometric feather patterns. Each of the larger plates was connected to the next with progressively smaller ones, fine enough to cover each joint of each finger without a single gap that needed to be shored up with chainmail or leather. Another benefit was that the armor could hold up its own weight, with no need for a stand to keep it in place.
The only major blemish was the big hole in the front of my armor's helmet where my mask was supposed to go; aside from that, all that was left to do was finishing up the edges on a few of the chest plates and adding moisture and temperature regulating systems. Finishing up the last few edges only took a few minutes with the prep and design work done and my power to assist, but there wasn't nearly enough time for everything else. Thankfully I'd come up with an ad-hoc solution to my moisture and temperature problems; I just repeatedly opened and closed all the plates, fanning myself. It made me look a bit like a bird ruffling its feathers, but it was better than getting a heat stroke or smelling like old socks the whole day.
I undid the straps holding my mask to my face, pulling out the improvised ribbon-based construction to keep it from getting in the way and tossed it on a cluttered work table without fanfare. The floor rose up around my armor and popped open the back, utilizing a mechanism I'd hidden under the core backplate. I hiked up the skirt of my dress and stepped into the armor, my power sealing it shut behind me. With a gauntleted hand, I picked my mask back up and put it into place on my helmet with an audible click.
-||-
I blinked my eyes open, readjusting to viewing everything through the darkened lens of my mask. There was a mirror on the wall to the right of the door; I had to make sure I hadn't missed anything important before I showed it to Liang. Stepping in front of it, I found my eyes were drawn to the long black hair attached to my helmet. It was a high quality synthetic wig, practically indistinguishable from just having natural hair poking out. PR had suggested adding it as a way to make me seem more "relatable" or whatever, but I had to admit it really rounded out the whole "femme knight" thing I had going on.
People had been calling me Sepulcher all over the place, but this was the first time in over a week I'd actually felt like her. Me.
Alright, enough dillydallying. I opened the door, making sure to keep my hand on the pad for a few seconds so that it would stay open, and then struck a heroic pose. Hands on hips, long black braid flipped over my shoulder, feet shoulder-width apart.
Liang practically leaped out of her chair when she saw me, breaking out into the biggest, goofiest grin I'd ever seen on her. She seemed lost for words for several long moments, apparently overwhelmed with admiration for my craftswomanship. "You look amazing! God I love the owl thing, it's so adorable." She paused, giving me a searching look. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of knight wizard? Where's your cloak?"
"Oh, right," I said, running back into my workshop to grab it off of a coat rack I'd made with my power. I threw it on over my head, pulling my braid out through the neck hole. "I've got it right here."
Liang nodded appreciatively. "Very nice, very nice. Got a logo on your chest and everything. I like the geometric designs around it, very mysterious. They supposed to be wing-shaped?"
"Yeah," I said, glancing at the clock nervously. There were still a few minutes left. "Didn't want to lay it on too thick, though."
She made a thoughtful sound. "Looks fine to me. Can I see your hair?"
"Sure," I said, pulling my braid back over my shoulder. Liang reached forward, her fingers stopping just short of the thick black hair and staying there for a long moment. "Uh, Liang?" I asked.
She shook herself like she'd just woken up from a nap, taking a deliberate step back. "Oh, what? I'm fine. You should probably get going on your patrol thing, don't wanna keep Jaager waiting too long. I'll catch up with you later, okay? See ya."
I blinked, struggling to keep up with the deluge of words. "Oh okay, bye," I said, but by the time I'd managed a response she was already gone. What the hell had that been about?
With nothing else to do, I started making my way towards the Protectorate headquarter's lobby area where Gasconade was waiting to accompany me on my first official patrol.
-||-
I armored myself in femininity. There was a reason I'd shaved my legs before being driven to the Needle despite not normally bothering. Whenever I felt anxious -which was admittedly most of the time- one of my biggest worries was always whether I was passing or not. Even in the most unfamiliar or uncomfortable situations I could at least touch my chin and breathe a sigh of relief that there weren't any stray hairs poking up. Thing was, I'd been busy these last few days.
On top of the stubble I'd accumulated on my face and legs, I was wearing an uncomfortably tight-fitting set of athletic clothes. Not even I was stubborn enough to insist on sparring in a dress. -Yet.- The clothes fit just fine, it's just that I was used to wearing things meant to hide how I was shaped or emphasize the few parts of my body I liked. I felt exposed, lopsided, distorted, like some horrible gremlin creature meant for hiding under bridges. Bolster's presence was profoundly not helping; a scary bearded man that could shatter my skull like fine pottery with a single superhumanly precise punch.
I stood up from the last set of stretches he and the other coaches worked out for me, trying to contain my nervousness. It wasn't fair and I knew it wasn't fair, Bolster hadn't done anything to hurt or even offend me. It was just… hard to relax around him.
"Finished?" He asked, looking my way. Did he think I'd taken too long? Was he upset?
-"You're like a fucking child."-
"Uh yeah, I think so." I hated the uncertain quaver in my voice, hated that I couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes. I cleared my throat, forcing myself to stand up straighter. "I'm ready. What did you want to cover next?"
He smiled, but it looked fake. Strained. "I was thinking we'd try some basic holds."
I swallowed, my throat suddenly feeling dry. "Alright." I responded stiffly, cringing internally at the awkwardness of the situation. "I know we're probably not far along enough, but I was wondering if you could teach me some momentum redirection techniques? Like you know, someone charges at you and you judo throw them even if they're bigger. I wanna know how to do that."
He blinked. "Do you mean throws? They're easier than they look, once you know the trick to it. You're good with angles and stuff right?"
I nodded.
"That'll help a lot. What's gonna take time is building up your muscle memory so that you do the right motion at the right time automatically, without even a moment's thought."
"That'd be nice," I muttered. I'd never been very physically coordinated, not really taking to any of the little league sports my mom signed me up for and never really having the will or motivation to do more than the bare minimum of athletic activity since then. The best I could say for myself in that regard was that I walked a lot, a consequence of my pacing habit and having to rely on Olympia's painfully inadequate public transportation to get around. At times my body felt more like an overgrown meat-muppet I was clumsily piloting than any sort of extension of myself.
Maybe I could change that? I stood up straighter, deliberately focusing on the practicalities of the situation. Lives, mine and others, were going to rely on my athleticism and endurance. Until I was at least as skilled and physically fit as the average cape I'd be at a constant disadvantage, a half-step behind my peers and rivals in every fight or crisis. I wanted to feel comfortable in my body so very badly, to make up for years wasted in despair, dissociation and daydreaming. I'd do everything I could with training, effort, and conventional medicine.
After that? I thought back to the Bastards I'd fought last week, the huge variety of mutations and body types they'd sported. With the right powers in play I could get exactly the body I wanted, no compromises or years-long waiting lists. A long-term goal maybe, but it was hard to think of a better motivation to push myself.
"Sepulcher? You still with me?" Bolster asked, derailing my train of thought.
I blushed furiously. "Uh yeah, just zoned out. What was that last thing you said?"
He sighed, almost too quiet for me to hear. "I was asking if you wanted a demonstration. You rush towards me, I flip you. I'll explain how I did it and then we'll switch places and run through it a few more times. Make sense?"
I nodded. "You can flip me, my power protects me from fall damage anyway."
"Well ideally you'd go into a roll to disperse the force of being flipped, but we can work on that later. I'll stand at the center of the mat, then on my signal you rush towards me and try to push me over."
I gave him a thumbs up, taking an aggressive stance where he indicated. It was remarkable how he managed to look competent and dangerous even when just standing still and waiting for me to come at him. I was a little jealous, I wasn't very good at being intimidating.
Alright, enough dillydallying. I ran towards him, arms out in the vain hope of pushing him over. The flip happened fast enough that I had to reconstruct it in retrospect; he somehow hooked my leg with his, grabbed one of my arms and leveraged his entire body to send me flying. I did my best to roll with it, reshaping the floor of the gym to soften the impact and slip out of reach. Except I miscalculated or misstepped somewhere, stumbling and tripping instead of falling into a stable stance.
I fell backwards, landing with an audible 'oof'. The fluorescent lighting hanging above us was blurry, appearing more like pools of liquid light than rectangular panels. A moment later I sat upright, still a little dazed from the fall, belatedly realizing that my mask had been knocked off in the process of being thrown. The padding and laminated wood around me moved in a gentle wave, pushing my armor back into reach. I hurriedly put it back on, making doubly sure it was strapped securely this time, hoping that none of the PRT guys training elsewhere in the gym had seen my unshaven face.
I looked up just in time to see Ray looming over me, hand outstretched. I yelped, smoothly shifting into an upright combat stance with my power before I'd even registered what was happening. I was holding a mancatcher I didn't remember making, my hands gripping the worn wood of the polearm like a pair of iron manacles cinched too tightly. Bolster stumbled back, eyes wide behind his dark visor. We stood there staring at each other for long seconds, the rest of the gym eerily silent compared to the earlier clamor.
I was the first to break eye contact, mortification welling up until it felt like I'd choke on it. Everyone was staring at me, and why wouldn't they? I'd just freaked out over nothing and perforated the training mat with spikes. They needed to get cleared up, I knew that, but I found myself unable to move, paralyzed with indecision and anxiety. I squeezed my eyes shut, measuring my breathing as I relaxed shaking hands and slowly lowered my arms to my sides. Another breath and the spikes were pulled down into the floor of the gym, the padding repaired as best as I was able. The mancatcher stayed loosely held in my right hand, a constant reminder of where I was. -And more importantly, where I wasn't.-
My eyes snapped open, taking in the gym with a quick glance. There weren't as many people looking at me, thank God, but Bolster still seemed confused and upset. What should I say? Should I say anything? Fuck.
"I'm sorry," I half-mumbled, not sure how to articulate that it wasn't his fault I was so jumpy. "My power- it flares up sometimes. When I'm..."
"Scared?" He asked in a surprisingly gentle voice, just barely loud enough to hear.
I looked away. "Yeah." Or angry, I added mentally.
"I think I'll demonstrate on someone else next time," Bolster suggested, sounding less confident than usual.
I sighed. "That'd probably be for the best."
-||-
I trudged back toward my room, trying and failing not to focus on my embarrassment and outright anxiety. There was a locker room with a shower and stuff but, well, I really didn't feel that comfortable yet. Besides, my room actually had a bathroom with a showerbath. It was outright luxury compared to my last set of accomodations, I figured it'd be a shame not to make use of it. Afterwards I'd finally have the time to make the finishing touches on my armor, hopefully fast enough for my first official patrol.
My power picked up the sound of voices coming from the kitchen before my ears did, though I had trouble making out exact words unless they were loud or close enough for me to hear anyway. I tried to ignore it, I didn't have any right to overhear conversations not meant for me. -Not that it stopped me from worrying what they were saying about me. I wasn't sure I wanted to know.-
The direct route to my room passed through the dining area, guaranteeing that I'd pass by whoever was talking, possibly more. Being around people -particularly men- was so exhausting, I couldn't stop myself from searching every face for signs of anger, every movement for signs of incoming violence. I didn't know what I'd do if Bolster was in there getting a snack or something, and that thought was enough to make me consider taking the long way around. On the other hand, Presto could be there.
The door to the dining room opened automatically as I approached, making a cute little 'ding' sound to indicate I was authorized. It turned out Presto was there, but so was Music Box and their teammate Djinn. The latter two were in the kitchen, presumably making small talk while they were cooking a meal I didn't recognize. Smelled good though.
Presto sat in the booth much like Gasconade did, typing something up on a holographic keyboard with a mug of coffee next to her. She and caffeine were constant companions, it seemed.
"Hey," I said, trying not to sound as exhausted and anxious as I felt.
Liang looked up, a genuine smile lighting up her face when she saw me. I tried to respond in kind, belatedly realizing I already had a slightly dazed looking grin plastered on my face. And then a moment later I realized it didn't matter either way, since I was wearing a mask. "You sound tired," She said, somewhat hypocritically. "Why don't you stay for lunch? Music Box is helping Djinn make a pot of his famous Maqluba, and there's always plenty left over."
"I'd love to, but I just got back from combat practice and I'm all clammy and gross. I was heading back to my room to take a shower. Maybe I can come back after? There's still some time before my first official patrol with Gasconade."
"I'd like that," Presto said, and then she smirked. "And you can sit next to me, if you want. I remember you had some questions about my tech."
I swallowed, abruptly clearing my throat. "Uh yes, I did. And I… I really like hanging out with you. You're nice, and funny, and when you're around all this terrifying power shit feels a little less overwhelming. I guess what I'm saying is thank you."
"You don't need to thank me, I like hanging out with you too," Presto said after a moment, sounding strangely uncertain. "You're one of the nicest people I've ever met, even with all the shit you've been through. That's worth a lot."
Not knowing how to respond I smiled awkwardly and nodded, turning somewhat abruptly and starting back toward my room. I gave the cooks a wave as I exited.
My room was just down the hall, along with the other guest rooms. Most were unoccupied, but I'd heard it wasn't uncommon for heroes to sleep here after a late shift rather than going home. The short walk was still long enough for doubts to start creeping in, whether I'd misstepped and made Liang uncomfortable or bothered her. They stayed with me as I took a perfunctory shower, followed up with a painstakingly thorough face shave and a hasty combing to get my hair in order.
All-in-all it was about half an hour before I returned to the Protectorate's kitchen/dining area, hair still damp. I'd switched out my workout clothes for one of my new dresses, closely fitted on the bust and rib cage but flaring out along the waist. It was purple and knee
length, perfect for spinning in. Liang helped me pick it out, and I had to admit part of my motivation for wearing it was the way she'd looked at me after I stepped out of the changing room.
The three of them were sitting at the same booth Presto was working in earlier, a big platter of fried rice and vegetables taking up the center of the table. It smelled delicious, garlic and onion and unfamiliar spices layered over each other. Liang looked up as I entered, eyes lingering on my new dress for a moment before she cracked a smile and waved me over. I waved back and approached, blinking in surprise when she extracted herself from the booth to greet me.
"Love the look," she said with surprising sincerity. "Damn shame you can't wear that dress on patrol."
I smiled, blushing under my mask. "I'm hoping my armor isn't too much of a downgrade; I've been putting a lot of effort into styling and shaping it."
"You'll look great, I'd bet money on it." She gestured to the booth behind her. "Wanna take a seat? We were just about to start eating."
"How chivalrous," I observed, scooting in front of an empty plate. Liang sat down next to me, and I was quietly grateful I'd gotten a seat on the inside of the booth rather than the edge.
"I am very glad you could join us Sepulcher," said Djinn, holding out a hand to shake over the table. I took it, a little bemused. "I had hoped to speak with you earlier, but this week's schedule conspired against me."
"It's okay," I said, finding myself reminded of Snap for some reason. "I've been pretty busy this week, I'm not sure if I'd have been a very good conversationalist for most of it." I paused, pointing at the platter of food between us. "Is that vegetarian?"
Djinn nodded enthusiastically. "It's what's called vegan here, I think. No meat, no eggs. My mother taught me the recipe before we left Palestine."
"Cool. Can I have some?"
He laughed. "Of course, why else would I have put a plate out for you?"
"Fair point," I conceded.
"You planning on eating with your mask on?" Presto asked, audibly smirking.
I rolled my eyes at her, exaggerating the head motion to make it obvious despite my mask. I undid the straps at the back, careful to avoid tangling them in my hair as I took it off. The room immediately went blurry without the benefit of corrective lenses, but that
didn't last long before I returned my glasses to their customary perch. "Hey, I'm Carmilla. Nice to meet you again."
Djinn grinned, taking off his goggles and headwrap. He was dark skinned, his hair black, curly and long enough to touch the nape of his neck. "My name is Amir. I suspect we'll be working together quite a bit in the coming months."
The last was said with a knowing look at Liang, and in case that was too subtle he playfully elbowed Music Box-or Edgar now, I supposed- in the side. I blushed, and this time there wasn't a convenient mask to hide it. Failing to come up with a suitable retort, I instead covered my embarrassment by shoveling some of the delicious-smelling rice-and-whatever-else onto my plate.
Liang removed her own mask to give Amir a thoroughly unimpressed look, flashing him a mirthless smirk that gave nothing away. "More talk like that and Carmilla might be the one doing your job. You wanna end up like Overpass?"
"We both know you're bluffing, Liang," Edgar piped in, oddly normal looking when he wasn't a weird spider blade robot thing. "You can't even make a sandwich without setting something on fire."
"Oh for fucks sake!" She snapped out, sounding more exasperated than angry. "You gotta bring the grilled cheese thing up again? That was years ago. And besides, it only happened once. Not like I go around burning sandwiches everywhere I go."
"You burned a lot more than a sandwich," Amir added, further stoking my curiosity. "As I recall they had to cancel the next two tours to the wards headquarters while they replaced the cabinets and wallpaper. And the couch."
"How the hell did you end up burning the couch when making a grilled cheese sandwich?" I asked, hesitant.
Liang groaned aloud, burying her face in her hands. "You're damn savages, all of you. I'll talk, but don't think you boys are getting away with ratting me out to the new girl."
I felt a small thrill, knowing she cared about my opinion of her. Hearing her call me a girl was just icing on the cake.
"It happened four years ago," Liang said, sounding like a woman forced to read her own execution writ. "The three of us were all Wards back then, Bullrush too; we'd just moved into our new headquarters in the new new needle. I had this plan, you see? I got out ahead of everyone and started putting together a surprise lunch thing, nothing too fancy. Just some grilled cheese sandwiches."
"Well," Amir said after a moment's pause. "You certainly surprised us."
Edgar snorted, loud enough to make me twitch a little in reaction. "I'm still surprised a time traveller didn't appear to warn you of the terrible consequences." He paused. "Not that it would have stopped you, mind."
"Gasconade was out of town," Liang deadpanned. "We were under the not-so-watchful eye of Snubnose that day."
The kitchen door beeped, smoothly sliding open to admit none other than Gasconade himself. I hadn't heard him approaching the door with ears or tremorsense. Not even Liang walked that quietly most of the time.
"Speak of the devil," I quipped, almost immediately regretting my phrasing. "We were just talking about you, Jaager."
"Well I'd say my ears were burning, but I don't think I really have ears anymore." His phrasing and dry tone startled a laugh out of me. "Your first official patrol is in twenty minutes, Sepulcher; I'd suggest you start getting ready."
I swallowed, suddenly nervous in a way I wasn't even when sneaking around a warehouse full of atavistic mobsters. I'd only barely started on my food, so I made a little wooden container for the leftovers with my power and replaced my mask and jacket. "I've gotta head out," I said, surprised at the genuine regret in my voice. "But it was really nice talking to you guys, even if it was only for a bit. Let me know if you've got time later, okay?"
"Still curious about all the mischief Liang got up to in the Wards?" Edgar asked, sharing an amused look with Amir. "But don't let us keep you, I'm sure you're very eager to answer the same four or five questions for four hours."
Liang moved out of the way, offering a hand to help lift me out of the booth that I accepted in a properly ladylike manner. That is to say, blushing furiously under my mask.
"Where are you headed?" She asked, surprisingly mellow and low-key compared to how she acted as Presto. The contrast was stark enough to make me wonder which persona hewed closer to her true self. Of course it could just as easily be that they were both her true self, or neither were, or the idea of a singular immutable self was complete nonsense in the face of minds as dynamic and multifaceted as ours were. "Carmin?"
"What? Sorry, I got distracted. I was gonna go put the finishing touches on my armor before my patrol."
She smiled. "Mind if I tag along? Maybe my tinker brain'll come up with some improvements."
"Not at all, I'd actually been hoping to get your feedback on it."
Liang smiled lazily, gesturing toward the doorway. "Then lay on, Macduff."
I paused just before I'd activate the sensor that automatically opened the door, four feet and three inches away. My head turned toward Liang with deliberate slowness. She looked back, quirking an eyebrow at me while she struggled to keep a straight face. Or a serious expression, rather, given that neither of us had ever been very good at keeping straight.
"You were a theatre kid, weren't you?" I asked, striving to keep my voice deadly serious.
Liang smirked. "As a matter of fact, I was."
"That's awesome! What plays were you in? Did you do any musicals?"
"I'm not really the type to sing in front of other people," she admitted. "I did have a lead role in a lesbian version of Romeo and Juliet, though."
"Wow, that's way cooler than anything my school would have been willing to do. Is there a story behind that?"
"It wasn't gonna be a lesbian production orginally, but I auditioned for the part of Romeo and stuff kinda proceeded from there. Aside from switching pronouns and calling the play Romana and Juliet it was pretty much the same as usual. The real trouble was getting them to let me audition for the part in the first place."
I gave her a searching look behind my mask. "And how did you pull that off?"
"A true magician never reveals her secrets," she replied airily. "But I didn't blackmail anyone, if that's what you're wondering."
"That's an oddly specific denial," I said in a dry tone, putting my hand on a scanner to open the door to my workshop. It wasn't like the movies, with a slow line moving up and down the palm; instead the moment after I pressed my hand to the pad it beeped, and the door slid open. I could have just walked through the door, of course, but this was less liable to set off alarms and/or get both of us doused with containment foam. "I guess I'll just have to take your word for it."
I walked through the doorway, holding up a hand when Liang made to follow. She stopped, giving the offending appendage a distinctly unimpressed look. "I wanted to get ready first," I explained. "Don't want you to take any peeks before curtain call."
"Your wish is my command," she said, giving me a lazy smile while she sat down in one of the chairs across from my workshop. The door closed behind me as I fully entered the room, my steps quick so as not to keep Liang waiting too long.
My armor was holding vigil to my right, just outside of view from the doorway. I'd worked hard to make sure it had a feminine silhouette without compromising its protective ability, giving it an hourglass shape in the bust and hips and a nearly knee-length skirt of plates. It was gold-colored except for the edges of each plate, which were purple and etched with geometric feather patterns. Each of the larger plates was connected to the next with progressively smaller ones, fine enough to cover each joint of each finger without a single gap that needed to be shored up with chainmail or leather. Another benefit was that the armor could hold up its own weight, with no need for a stand to keep it in place.
The only major blemish was the big hole in the front of my armor's helmet where my mask was supposed to go; aside from that, all that was left to do was finishing up the edges on a few of the chest plates and adding moisture and temperature regulating systems. Finishing up the last few edges only took a few minutes with the prep and design work done and my power to assist, but there wasn't nearly enough time for everything else. Thankfully I'd come up with an ad-hoc solution to my moisture and temperature problems; I just repeatedly opened and closed all the plates, fanning myself. It made me look a bit like a bird ruffling its feathers, but it was better than getting a heat stroke or smelling like old socks the whole day.
I undid the straps holding my mask to my face, pulling out the improvised ribbon-based construction to keep it from getting in the way and tossed it on a cluttered work table without fanfare. The floor rose up around my armor and popped open the back, utilizing a mechanism I'd hidden under the core backplate. I hiked up the skirt of my dress and stepped into the armor, my power sealing it shut behind me. With a gauntleted hand, I picked my mask back up and put it into place on my helmet with an audible click.
-||-
I blinked my eyes open, readjusting to viewing everything through the darkened lens of my mask. There was a mirror on the wall to the right of the door; I had to make sure I hadn't missed anything important before I showed it to Liang. Stepping in front of it, I found my eyes were drawn to the long black hair attached to my helmet. It was a high quality synthetic wig, practically indistinguishable from just having natural hair poking out. PR had suggested adding it as a way to make me seem more "relatable" or whatever, but I had to admit it really rounded out the whole "femme knight" thing I had going on.
People had been calling me Sepulcher all over the place, but this was the first time in over a week I'd actually felt like her. Me.
Alright, enough dillydallying. I opened the door, making sure to keep my hand on the pad for a few seconds so that it would stay open, and then struck a heroic pose. Hands on hips, long black braid flipped over my shoulder, feet shoulder-width apart.
Liang practically leaped out of her chair when she saw me, breaking out into the biggest, goofiest grin I'd ever seen on her. She seemed lost for words for several long moments, apparently overwhelmed with admiration for my craftswomanship. "You look amazing! God I love the owl thing, it's so adorable." She paused, giving me a searching look. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of knight wizard? Where's your cloak?"
"Oh, right," I said, running back into my workshop to grab it off of a coat rack I'd made with my power. I threw it on over my head, pulling my braid out through the neck hole. "I've got it right here."
Liang nodded appreciatively. "Very nice, very nice. Got a logo on your chest and everything. I like the geometric designs around it, very mysterious. They supposed to be wing-shaped?"
"Yeah," I said, glancing at the clock nervously. There were still a few minutes left. "Didn't want to lay it on too thick, though."
She made a thoughtful sound. "Looks fine to me. Can I see your hair?"
"Sure," I said, pulling my braid back over my shoulder. Liang reached forward, her fingers stopping just short of the thick black hair and staying there for a long moment. "Uh, Liang?" I asked.
She shook herself like she'd just woken up from a nap, taking a deliberate step back. "Oh, what? I'm fine. You should probably get going on your patrol thing, don't wanna keep Jaager waiting too long. I'll catch up with you later, okay? See ya."
I blinked, struggling to keep up with the deluge of words. "Oh okay, bye," I said, but by the time I'd managed a response she was already gone. What the hell had that been about?
With nothing else to do, I started making my way towards the Protectorate headquarter's lobby area where Gasconade was waiting to accompany me on my first official patrol.
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- Location
- New Zealand
Glad you're back. So does Liang have some sort of over-attachment issues she's still working through, trying to stop herself from getting too friendly with people too quickly?
I think you mean 'peeks', unless Liang is in the habit of nicking the tops of mountains.
Aftershocks 2-3: Sepulcher goes out on her first official patrol with Gasconade and learns more about what's going on in Seattle.
- Location
- In the mathematical center of your mind palace.
"Killer!" sounded a voice thirty three feet and eight inches to my left, with a tone that could have been accusatory.
The word cut through my train of thought, leaving me floundering mentally and nearly making me trip over my own feet in front of Seattle's esteemed public. Well, not all of them, but Gasconade and I were making our way through one of the really crowded plazas in downtown Seattle. Being capes in full costume, with one of us looking like a Picasso painting that had a bad run in with a glitch artist, we naturally attracted a lot of attention. I'd been focusing on the beautiful newly constructed skyscrapers around downtown Seattle as a way to distract myself from the churning crowds surrounding us, but I found my gaze pulled inexorably toward the source of that damning voice.
It was a man in his mid-to-late twenties, six and a half inches taller than me. He was looking at me with a big smile on his face -I suppressed a shudder.-, excitedly waving for my attention. I swallowed, closing the distance just enough to talk comfortably, "Wha- what was that?" my voice came out quieter than I'd intended, less confident, but I was honestly proud that I'd managed to speak at all.
He laughed. "I said, 'Your costume is killer!'. That cloak is dope as fuck."
Relief washed over me like a bucket of cold water, stark enough that I laughed out loud. "Thank you! Or rather, thank the tailors that worked so hard to finish the embroidery in time for my first patrol." My first official patrol, rather, I thought. But eh, toh-may-to toh-mah-to.
"Did they design it, then?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious.
I stood up straighter, placing my hands on my hips heroically. "It was a team effort. I did the initial designs and got feedback on them, and then made adjustments in response to their suggestions. The embroidery was done by the very talented people working in the Space Needle's branding and costuming department, but the armor was made by yours truly."
I demonstrated by lifting both arms in front of me and wiggling my fingers, showing off the fine mechanisms at each joint. After how important stealth had been to my success at the warehouse I'd gone through considerable effort to make certain the action of my armor was almost completely silent; the result of well oiled joints and carefully placed padding wherever plates intersected.
He whistled appreciatively, in what I dearly hoped was enthusiasm for the quality of my armor. "Very impressive. What's your superhero name?"
"I am Sepulcher, heroine extraordinaire," I announced theatrically, smiling under my mask.
"Sepulcher, huh?" he said, rubbing his chin in thought. "What kinda power goes with a name like that?"
I smirked. "Let's just say the walls have my back," I replied airily, leaning back on a short stone fence that hadn't been there a second ago.
"Woah!" he all but yelped, taking a step back and leaning forward for a closer look at the same time. "That's amazing, you can just make walls out of thin air?"
"Well, only from solid surfaces actually," I corrected instinctively. Almost immediately after the thought occurred to me that it would be useful for people to misunderstand exactly how my powers worked. Oh well, I guessed I'd just have to keep it in mind for the future. "But essentially yes. Anywho, I'm afraid I must be off; Gasconade and I have a city to protect and whatnot."
"Oh, no problem," he said, sounding like he genuinely meant it. "Thanks for taking the time to talk."
I nodded. "It was no trouble, I promise. Have a good rest of your day!"
I waved him off, joining back up with Gasconade. He'd been hovering just inside of hearing range, apparently content to let me handle the conversation while he kept watch and took pictures with people. His expression was unreadable, of course. He didn't really have a face, just a collection of features scrapbooked together seemingly at random. A nose that looked drawn on in pencil here, an eye there, part of a mouth somewhere else, covering his oddly proportioned body like a broken texture.
"You handled that well," he said once there wasn't anyone in earshot. "I know how much you hate crowds."
"It's easier when I think of them as an audience," I said, just loud enough for him to hear. "Performing in front of a crowd doesn't drain me in the way that being part of one does. Maybe it's because I can perceive them as a single abstract entity instead of trying to track every individual."
He 'hmmed', keeping up his fast walking pace as he thought. Gasconade had a way of looking like he was on his way to an important meeting everywhere he went, which had the useful side effect of repelling all but the most determined picture seekers. "You sound so much more confident now, you've even been walking more self-assuredly."
"Thank you," I chirped cheerily. "I guess it's a lot easier to feel impressive and heroic when I look impressive and heroic. And no one's misgendered me today, which I consider its own sort of victory."
Gasconade chuckled. "Well I'm glad you're having fun, at least."
"I guess this isn't your favorite part of the job," I noted, not quite a question.
"I can't say it is, no," he said quietly. Then he sighed, gazing at the crowd around us. "It just… it feels like I'm an animal in a petting zoo sometimes. Everyone wants to touch me, everyone wants a picture, and no one seems very interested in what I have to say."
"I think I get that, a little. A lot of people treat trans folks like we're circus freaks or something, figures of ridicule and pity rather than full members of society. It sucks." I paused. "Do you want a hug?" I asked, not sure how else to offer support.
"I kind of do, actually," he said, surprising me. "But now probably isn't the best time. We don't want people getting the wrong idea."
I nodded, making a mental note to give him a really good hug when we got back to the Needle. "So where were we supposed to go next? Please tell me it's somewhere with less people."
He chuckled. "So not completely immune to crowds now, are we? We're gonna be skirting the edge of Westlake territory, I wouldn't expect quite as warm a welcome as you got in the touristy areas."
"Good to know," I said, considering the implications of that. "Do you think we'll be attacked?"
"Probably not. We might run into some petty crimes, though."
I nodded. "Is it weird that that's almost a relief?"
We'd left the crowded plaza behind a few minutes ago, taking crosswalks and occasionally answering questions or signing autographs for passersby. It seemed strange that anyone would be interested in my autograph before I'd actually done anything of note, but I supposed they were just planning for the future. Or they thought my armor looked cool? I'd take it either way. We passed by a beautiful looking library building with glass panes for walls, arranged like polygons on an early 3d model. I made another mental note to go inside there at the first available opportunity and memorize every inch of it with my tremorsense.
It was going to take a while before I filled out my mental map of Seattle in full detail, potentially months or years of work even with my power. Thankfully these regular patrols were a goldmine for new locations and architecture. Even after hours of walking around downtown Seattle I still found myself constantly craning my neck up at the absurdly tall buildings surrounding us. Their sheer mass and scale and number left me awestruck, my thinker power letting me know precisely how much larger the city was relative to me. Parts of the city I'd glimpsed in the distance during my little foray to the top of the Needle were still represented in my internal map of Seattle, but most of it was hidden behind buildings and so far away that even the parts I could see were vague blurs at best.
It was still enough to make me uncomfortably aware of just how small I was in the grand scheme of things, even when just considering Seattle and its surrounding locales. On impulse, I tried visualizing the entire earth relative to me. It didn't matter that I couldn't actually fill it out with more than outlines, since I was just trying to visualize exactly how large a not-quite-sphere with a circumference of 24,901 miles around the equator was relative to me. Shockingly, it turned out to be really fucking big. The image my mind kept circling back to was a single mote of dust compared to an entire mountain, the intellectual knowledge that the vast mountain was made up of innumerable tiny particles comparable to the dust mote becoming concrete fact as certain as the concrete I walked on. It was akin to walking through the shallow waters next to a beach and finding the soft sand under your feet drop off abruptly into a seemingly endless black abyss.
"Oh yeah?" A man snarled nearby, making my heart skip a beat and startling me out of my thoughts. "If you care about the city so much why haven't you liberal 'heroes' locked up that damned hippy Lenin statue haunting Fremont in the birdcage where it belongs?"
I blinked. "I'm sorry, the… Lenin statue? Why would we lock up a statue?"
Gasconade sighed audibly. "A couple years back the quote unquote League of Insidious Villainry rigged up the hollow bronze statue of Lenin in Fremont with a robotic frame, and then subsequently programmed it to rampage through the Westlake Center while shouting communist slogans in a bad russian accent. Thanks to the efforts of Presto and the other wards we were able to remove the tinker device before anyone was seriously hurt. Afterwards we repaired the statue as best we could and returned it to its former post, though not before being thoroughly examined for further tampering."
The slightly grubby bearded man confronting Gasconade snorted, folding his arms. "You expect me to believe that horseshit? Everyone knows the PRT's been in cahoots with the commies since day one."
"I'm still confused about why there's a statue of Lenin in… Fremont, you said?" I added, ignoring the conspiracy theorist.
"It's a long story," Gasconade said. "But suffice it to say it's on private property, so the Protectorate and PRT can't do anything about it being there."
I turned to face the 'concerned citizen'. "I'm sorry, sir," I lied, affecting a grave tone. "But our hands are tied, there's nothing we can do."
"Oh I see, you capes flaunt the law all you like and smile for the cameras; a guy like me points out a weapon in the middle of the street and suddenly the law says it's supposed to be there?" he harrumphed, pushing past us and continuing along the busy sidewalk lined with trees.
He'd presumably reappear there half a minute later, given that he'd shoulder-checked Gasconade. We didn't bother staying to find out, picking up our walking pace in unspoken agreement as we continued up the street. Wandering around a couple hours in downtown Seattle had lead to a delightful discovery; walking up hills was almost effortless for me now, since I could use the ground under me like an escalator to lift my feet up with each step. I'd even figured out a gait that barely relied on muscle movement at all while still looking natural. It helped that my armor could stand on its own and had enough cushioning inside for me to lock the joints and rest my weight on it like a really weird chair.
Even with the occasional weirdo and the constant, nerve-wracking presence of crowds I still found myself enjoying my time patrolling the city. Gasconade's presence was a big help, he knew Seattle in a way I wasn't sure I could ever match and had a sense for when and how to step in and defuse a situation. Whether it was a brewing fistfight or an interaction with a civilian taking a bad turn, he knew what to say to get everyone to calm down and go their separate ways peacefully. I admired how patient and on task he was even after hours of being gawked at and asked profoundly stupid and/or intrusive questions about his life and power.
I turned toward him, a question about his plans for after this shift on the tip of my tongue. Before I could voice it the commlink in my ear buzzed with a harsh staticy sound, startling me enough to make me jump a little.
"We've got a reported sighting of a known Westlake enforcer a few blocks from you," said the PRT officer on the other end. "He was on 6th Avenue and Prospect Street, headed North. He's a giant half-lion guy, you can't miss him."
"Did you hear that?" I asked Gasconade, trying to contain my nervousness.
He nodded. "Go get him, I'll finish up here."
"See you back at the Needle," I said, giving my partner a quick salute before leaping onto the side of the nearest skyscraper, cloak fluttering in the wind. I'd never been to the area the comms guy had mentioned, but thankfully I'd taken the time to encode the names of most of Seattle's major streets into my mental map.
To my dismay, it turned out I couldn't use my power to interpret text; it memorized the shapes of letters just fine if they were engraved or scratched into a surface, but in order to understand what they spelled out I needed to physically recreate the object and then read them normally. That wasn't practical in a situation like this, so I'd been forced to come up with another way to reliably store speech with my power. Numbers were translated into simple blocks with the appropriate amount of grooves in them, the oft accompanying 'th' sound represented by a twisted shape resembling a snake's tongue stabbing upward. Each phoneme in the english language had its own distinct shape, forming a sort of cipher for translating specific words and ideas into something my power could understand and remember. My mental map of Seattle had sequences of these shapes lining every street I knew the name of, abstract sculptures being used as a glorified labeling system.
With this technique translating the sounds of a street name into a specific location I could route to was a cinch. It wasn't too far away, all things considered; before more than a couple minutes had passed I was already honing in on the Bastard's last known location. Skyscrapers and shopping centers transitioned abruptly into patchwork suburbs punctuated by the occasional low-rise apartment or strip mall, forcing me to adapt my movement style. I focused on long jumps with low arcs, getting as much horizontal distance as possible to pass between more distant buildings. My thinker power was indispensable for planning out movements in unfamiliar terrain, it was probably the only thing keeping me from accidentally launching myself through someone's kitchen. Again.
Unsurprisingly there was no lion man to be found at the intersection we'd been given over comms, which meant I'd need to track him down. The report said he'd been heading north, so I continued up the street with renewed fervor, keeping my eyes peeled for any sign of mob-affiliated lion men. I was in Westlake territory now, which meant every second I stayed here increased the odds that one of the Bastards would try and pick a fight with me. As confident as I felt in my new armor, I wasn't willing to risk engaging in fisticuffs with some of the deadliest capes in the city.
It turned out that Menagerie was a rather prolific cape. I'd heard that he didn't keep his power exclusive to the Westlake Bastards themselves, but I hadn't expected minor animal traits to be as common here as tattoos or piercings were in most places. Individuals or small groups bearing more extreme mutations appeared on occasion, the crowd usually parting around them to leave a small bubble of walking space. It wasn't clear whether it was out of fear, reverence, or both. After several minutes of frantic searching I was nearly ready to call it quits, my eyes sweeping across a busy street one last time. A group of feline… mutates (would it be mutates? I wasn't sure what term they preferred) caught my eye, one of them seeming strangely familiar even this far away.
He shouldered past a pedestrian that had failed to move out of the way fast enough, knocking her onto the street. The memory clicked into place, and just like that I knew the Bastard enforcer I'd been hunting was the same lion guy that punched me in the boob last week. Before I quite realized what was happening, I launched myself from the building I'd been perched on with a trajectory that would land me right between Mufasa and the woman he'd just pushed over. My landing was a classic three-pointer, though somewhat rougher than I might have hoped. It was forceful enough to create a visible ripple in the ground that disturbed footing and upturned old newspapers on the other side of the street.
"Mufasa! Fancy meeting you here," I quipped. "How've you been? Didn't spend too long trapped in the sewers, I hope."
He growled and took a swipe at me the second he regained his composure, but this time I was ready. A clawed hand collided with the stone wall I'd raised to block it, sinking into it like clay as I manipulated its material properties with my power. He remained in the suddenly resolidified stone when I stepped away, shifting the ground under his feet to entangle him and draw him further under.
"What are you doing to him?" asked a scandalized voice behind me, drawing my attention away from the struggling lion man. It was the woman he'd knocked over, her face subtly elongated with two stubby horns poking out of her forehead. The legs peeking out past the hem of her skirt were digitigrade and covered with soft fur, ending in cloven hooves like a deer's rather than feet. I offered her a hand up, making an effort not to stare. It was probably nearly impossible to tell where I was looking with my mask on, but that was no reason to develop bad habits.
She gave me such a sour look I could swear she'd have sooner spat on my hand than taken it, but after a few tense moments she begrudgingly accepted my assistance. Gasconade really hadn't been kidding when he said we wouldn't have a warm reception here. The second she was on her uh… hooves again she wrenched her hand back toward her like it had been burned by the brief contact with me.
"Well?" she demanded. "You Flats are always barging in, patting down anyone with a blessing, taking fathers from sons and mothers from daughters. Now this? You demean him, constrain him, joke about trapping him in the sewers. Is this your idea of being a hero?"
"Didn't he just knock you down?" I asked, uncertainty leaking into my voice and bearing.
"I mean, yes. But it wasn't..." She sputtered for a moment, and in that pause we seemed to simultaneously realize just how many people were looking at us. A loose ring had formed around the restrained Bastard, locals staring us down with at least a half-dozen different kinds of eyes all bearing the same resentful expressions. The deer girl regained her composure, squaring her slender shoulders as she faced me. "That's not the point. He's one of us, that means we stick up for each other. I bet you think you're so original with that 'Mufasa' bit, you have any idea how many people just decide they can call me Bambi? It really pisses me off. Bambi was a boy!"
I raised my hands in surrender, taken aback by her vehemence. "Alright, I admit that Mufasa comment earlier was over the line. I know it's not much of an excuse, but I genuinely hadn't considered how hurtful it would be. I'm sorry."
She went silent for a few moments, eyeing me skeptically as if to determine whether I was sincere. "Not a lot of people do," she groused. "But I guess it means something that you're willing to try. Not that it's not appreciated, but shouldn't you be apologizing to him? Or explaining why you attacked him with the sidewalk?"
I looked back over at the leonine mafioso to make sure there was no chance of him escaping again, briefly watching him futilely trying to pull his limbs from the architecture they were embedded in. "Yeah, I'm not gonna apologize to him. He's an enforcer for the Westlake Bastards with a criminal record longer than your average airport novel; just last week he punched me hard enough to lay me out flat and put a dent in my breastplate shaped like his fist. I've still got a big bruise from it, the PRT doc said I was lucky my ribs didn't crack."
She stared at me wide eyes as I spoke, not even seeming to blink until after I'd finished. "Oh," she said. "Is that why you trapped him in the sewers?"
"Sort of?" I responded, moving my gauntleted hand in a so-so gesture. "It's more that I needed him out of the picture as quickly as possible. There were hostages I had to protect, and every moment I spent dealing with him could have been when the rest of his goons came bursting out to perforate us with bullets."
She blinked again, absentmindedly moving a lock of hair behind a distinctly pointed ear while she collected her thoughts. "Alright, that does sound pretty serious. How do you know you got the right guy? And how do I know you're telling the truth?"
"Same gait, same weight, same height, same style of mane," I rattled off absentmindedly, shifting the lion man's bonds to make him easier to transport. "And besides, I've got a lot of experience with guys like him. I recognized the way he liked throwing his metaphorical and literal weight around. As for your other question… I guess you don't. I wish I could do more to help reassure you, but I can't stay here too much longer without risking a cape fight."
The deer lady's brow furrowed for a few moments as she thought it over, eventually letting out a soft sigh. "I guess that's fair enough," she allowed. "You're not as bad as most of the Flats that come barging into our neighborhood. Could I at least get your cape name before you go? I'm Adeline."
"It's Sepulcher," I said, handing her one of the business cards with my logo and work number on it from the stack PR had given me. "Let me know if you ever need help, have questions about power stuff or just need a listening ear. I'll do whatever I can."
Adeline nodded, looking a little thrown by the gesture.
"Just one last thing," I added. "What exactly is a 'Flat'?"
Adeline winced a little at the question, the one ear not hidden by her hair drooping a little. "A Flat is like most folks not from around here; someone that keeps their body the way they got it and thinks other people should too. I didn't mean it as an insult or anything, I just got so frustrated with all the people who won't let us be who we are that I painted all outsiders with the same brush."
I took a moment to process that. "Well it's not really… accurate, for me. Being a trans woman, I've spent most of my adult life desperately trying to get my body into a shape I'm comfortable with. It hasn't been easy. If getting a 'blessing' from Menagerie is what makes you happy, I say go for it."
"Trans folks have always been welcome here," she said, giving me the first genuine smile I'd ever seen from her. "I guess you're not an outsider after all. Goodbye, Sepulcher. Be safe out there."
I nodded, giving her a quick salute before carting off the Bastard lion man somewhere more secure. As I was leaving I added a life-sized statue of Adeline to my mental map of Seattle, labelled with the shapes I used to store speech with my power. I'd made a sufficiently shaky (Shakery?) first impression that I didn't want to risk forgetting her name on top of that.
-||-
A few minutes later I stood waiting on a rooftop on the edge of Protectorate-controlled territory, waiting for a van to come pick up the lion man. He hadn't been very forthcoming while we were travelling here via the Sepulcher Underground, generally grunting or telling me to fuck off when I tried prodding him for information.
"So," I said, breaking the awkward silence. "How did you become part lion? Is there like a waiting list or something for Menagerie's services?"
He continued pouting in stubborn silence.
"I have to admit I'd be tempted if he offered me the chance to become a bird woman. Not that I'm not one already mind you, but I'd appreciate being able to actually fly and turn my head a hundred and eighty degrees." Not to mention getting to be slender and graceful for once, I thought wistfully, thinking back to Adeline and others I'd seen with one of Menagerie's 'gifts'.
The lion man audibly grit his teeth, leaning his head back against the wall he was bolted to.
I decided to continue talking. "On the other hand, the shedding would probably be its own special kind of hell. Just growing my hair out is bad enough, I can't imagine dealing with having feathers always floating around my room. Would I have a beak? Would I want a beak? This is probably gonna take some serious thinking to figure out." I took on a theatrically contemplative pose, resting my right elbow on my left hand and tapping my chin with a repeated clink. "Any thoughts? I'm all ears."
"Eat shit," the lion man spat, following it up with more literal spit that fell well short of my armored feet.
"Now is that any way to treat a lady?" Presto chided, perched on the short wall next to him. She gave his ear a light flick as if to emphasize her point and casually dropped onto the gravel rooftop, waltzing over to stand next to me like she didn't have a care in the world.
I surprised myself by not yelping or jumping at her unexpected appearance, instead shifting instinctively into a defensive stance with mancatcher in hand. It was a struggle not to make more, not to surround myself with layers and layers of defenses until nothing could possibly get through and no one could hurt me. Keep steady Sepulcher, I thought, don't let your fears control you.
I reasserted control over my power inch by careful inch, my armor helping to anchor me in the present moment. The only visible sign of my internal struggles was a distinctly sharp ripple that dissipated just before reaching Presto's feet. She tensed, briefly freezing in place mid-stride before recovering and taking the last couple steps to stand awkwardly besides me.
"Presto," I said, voice pitched to keep the lion man from hearing us. If it also helped disguise some of the reproach in it that was just a bonus. "I see you're as skilled at communication as ever. It was so courteous of you to let me know you were gonna pop in like that instead of say, suddenly appearing out of nowhere and nearly giving me a heart attack. Again."
She winced, raising up her hands in surrender. "I should've called ahead, I won't lie about that."
"Yeah," I said, voice flat and cold, "you should have. We're going to have a discussion about this later, but for now you should probably tell me why you're here. "
Presto grinned, though it was noticeably dimmer than usual. "Ah, well I was thinking I'd help you ask Eric here a few questions while we're waiting for the PRT vans to arrive. Don't take this the wrong way, but I get the impression you ain't got much experience with interrogations."
As upset I was, I found myself returning her smile. Not that it mattered, really, with my mask. "Well you're not wrong, I haven't gotten anything out of him except swearing so far. Wait... his name is fucking Eric?"
She chuckled. "What were you expecting, Lionel?"
"I don't know, I guess I just figured he had a cape name or something. It feels less lame to get knocked off my feet by like… Claw or whatever the fuck than some two-bit loser named Eric." Or Ray, I added mentally. "And besides, doesn't he have powers? They're not quite as dramatic as ours, but he's still definitely stronger than a normal person." My hand drifted unconsciously toward my breastplate, where I could feel the still-healing bruise Eric had given me last week.
The lion man in question sat quietly in his power-made bonds, his expression dark and shuttered. I wondered if he had enhanced hearing. The sky over us was grey and cloudy, casting the whole city in a diffuse light. Presto stared at him with a hard expression, holding the wand in her left hand with a white knuckled grip. She stood eerily still, like a cat getting ready to pounce.
"So you're that Eric," she said, flashing him a smile that was more like baring her teeth. She circled around him like a cat playing with a cornered mouse, her wand flicking back and forth unpredictably. I found myself transfixed, face heating up in defiance of the chilly breeze whipping at my cloak and cooling the metal of my armor. "You make a habit of arranging kidnappings?"
He snorted. "I know better than to talk to cops."
"Not a fucking cop--"
"--We're not cops," Presto and I said at the same time, voices overlapping each other. We stopped talking, sharing a brief surprised look before turning back toward Eric. I gestured for Presto to continue.
She flicked her wand at him, making his bonds disappear. He immediately lunged for her, but before he'd crossed half the length she sent him back to where he'd started with another flick. It took him about ten tries before he finally sat back down, somehow managing to make his exhausted panting sound angry. "Starting to get the picture, pal? You're outmatched."
"This supposed to scare me?" he asked breathlessly, leaning on the wall of the roof.
"Nah," Presto said, gesturing with her wand again. The next instant Eric was ten stories above us, screaming as he fell back toward the hard gravel rooftop. The second before he made impact she used her wand to teleport him upward again, making him fall in a continuous loop for the equivalent of hundreds of feet before he appeared safely back on the building with none of his latent momentum. "That was supposed to scare you. Ready to talk yet?"
"Eat..." he wheezed out, between desperate gulps for air. "Shit..."
She raised an eyebrow at him, idly fiddling with her wand. "Is that your final answer?"
He held up a clawed hand, taking a few more moments to catch his breath. "Fine," he grumbled, sounding like he was getting his teeth pulled. "What do you want to know?"
I took a step forward, standing alongside Presto. "When the creepy suit was paying you guys you said the offer was for more than just money. What else did this… 'Prodigy' person give you?"
He was silent for a few moments, long enough that I started to worry he'd changed his mind. "The suit, he was giving us dirt on the other gangs on an encrypted hard drive. Weaknesses, plans, secret headquarters, shit like that."
Presto shook her head, quietly chuckling. "I gotta appreciate the balls it takes to try and con me of all people, but you really ought to leave it to the professionals."
"The fuck are you talking about?" Eric demanded, his anger hiding an undercurrent of worry in his voice.
She rolled her eyes at him. "I have lie detector tech, numbnuts. How about we try this again?" Another flick of her wand and he was sent high up into the air yet again, falling back down over and over and over again. His screams shifted in pitch and volume as he fell, the genuine terror in his voice sending chills down my spine.
"Presto," I said, voice coming out quieter than I'd intended.
She turned away from the eternally falling lion man, seemingly having no trouble timing his teleports while looking at me. "You need something, Sepulcher?"
I took a deep breath, steeling myself. "Can we… can we talk about this? It doesn't feel right."
"Sure," she said, sending Eric back to his place on the rooftop. He laid flat on his back, greedily sucking in air. "You just sit tight, the two of us are gonna have a little chat and then we'll be right back with you."
I stepped away from him, toward the other side of the rooftop where he'd be less likely to hear us. Presto followed, looking bemused. "Can you make it so he can't hear us?" I asked when she got close enough.
"Already done," she said casually, spinning her wand around her fingers. "So what's the problem? You worried I'll slip up and make him go splat?"
"I… well, kind of," I said, struggling to get my thoughts into order. "But that's not really the primary issue."
She 'hmmed', tapping a finger on her chin. "If it makes you feel better I'm not actually teleporting him with the wand, I slapped a device that does all of that on him when I flicked his ear earlier. It's got a bunch of redundant safety features, I had it vetted by the PRT and everything."
"That's a relief to hear," I said, wondering if the wand actually did anything or if it was just a prop. "But like I said that's not the primary issue. It's more that this whole method of interrogation seems kind of… fucked up. Isn't this essentially threatening him with death in a really visceral way?"
She snorted. "I think this guy can take it. You realize he's a killer, right? More than a few people on the Bastards' shitlist ended up mauled to death while he was in the area, not to mention participating in kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment of innocent people. Oh and yeah, he almost caved your fucking ribs in!"
"Well yeah," I said, finding myself strangely warmed by Presto's protectiveness. "But… that still doesn't give us the right to hurt him more than strictly necessary to protect others."
"It's not like I'm beating the shit out of him," Presto said, impatience leaking into her voice. "I'm just scaring him a little. Besides, it's not like I get off on terrifying people or something. This is important information, shit that can save lives. Why should this asshole's convenience get a higher priority than that?"
"I'm not saying it should," I said, keeping my voice level with an effort. "It's just that I think we should exhaust more options before resorting to something that seems like a short step from waterboarding someone."
Presto groaned aloud, violently rolling her eyes. "What 'options'? I don't recall you having any particularly useful ideas before I showed up to interrogate him for you. And seriously, this is coming from the girl that gave a half dozen Bastards the Hannibal Lector treatment last week? Where the fuck is this coming from?"
I froze, replaying the actions I took while in the throes of my thinker power in my mind's eye. Suddenly everything shifted, taking on an entirely new light. I thought I'd managed to reign my power's worst tendencies in sufficiently, but in retrospect it was obvious that my lack of emotion had colored every choice I'd made that night. Fuck, it was no wonder the Bastards I'd captured had all been so strangely cooperative afterwards. I'd terrorized them into compliance.
"That's not..." I started, voice coming out weakly. There really wasn't any way forward aside from telling her about my thinker power, but I just couldn't think of what to say. Would she think I was frightening? Inhuman? I didn't know if I could stand getting rejected like that.
She sighed and squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing her forehead. "I'm sorry Sepulcher, that wasn't fair. You were in a life or death situation for the f- for one of the first times. There wasn't time to carefully plan everything out, you had to go on instinct. I get it."
"No, you have a point," I said, gathering my strength for what came next. "There's a reason I acted so… differently last week. It's not that I panicked, the truth is actually sort of the opposite. It's that when I use my thinker power, my thoughts and actions get disconnected from my emotions. The more deeply I use it the stronger the effect is, to the point where when it's all the way up I'm sort of like a Terminator. Just single-mindedly pursuing the goals I set for myself, with no concern for fear or pain or hesitation."
Presto rubbed her chin. "A Terminator… you mean the movies with those robots from the future that look like Sylvestor Stallone?"
I nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, from the 80's."
"I kinda see what you mean. So you didn't actually realize you were scaring the shit out of them?"
I made a so-so gesture. "It was partly that and partly that I'd tunnel visioned on rescuing the hostages to the point where the Bastards didn't really register to me except as obstacles. Even when I turned my power off briefly to check myself for injuries I still didn't think of it."
"That… explains a lot, actually. You've been using this pretty regularly while we talk, haven't you? I remember a lot of times you got this weirdly distant look in your eye."
"Well, yes," I said, blushing under my mask. "It's useful when I need to think clearly or talk myself down from a panic attack."
"Does that happen often?" she asked, voice oddly gentle.
"Yeah," I said. "More since… since my roommates and everything. Are you worried? About how my thinker power works, I mean?"
Presto shrugged. "Nah, I figured there was something like that going on. Sometimes with powers you just gotta accept that things ain't always gonna be clean and pretty. And besides, if there's anyone I'm not worried about having a power like that it's you."
"You really think so?" I asked, completely failing to hide the skepticism in my voice.
"Of course," she said, fondly rolling her eyes at me. "You're one of the nicest people I know. And maybe more importantly, you actually think shit through before you do it. Unlike some other folks also standing on this roof."
"Are you referring to yourself or Eric?" I asked, amusement coloring my voice.
She smirked. "Can't it be both? Anyway, you wanna keep going? You can lead the rest of the interrogation."
"Sure," I said, walking back toward the lion man and taking up what I hoped was a sufficiently intimidating heroic pose in front of him. "Are you ready to talk now? Presto's awfully eager to practice some more of her juggling, I'd suggest you cooperate."
He sighed, head leaning back against the short concrete wall. "It was some kind of tinker shit. It's shaped kinda like a gun, you're supposed to jab it into someone's neck to copy skills from them and then give them to someone else. I swear that's all I know, now could you please stop it with the fucking teleporting?"
"Well if you insist," Presto said, practically radiating smugness. "Just sit tight and the vans will be here before you know it."
I leaned back on the concrete railing, mentally preparing myself for the talk I'd promised her once we got back to the Needle. I had a feeling it was gonna be a real doozy.
The word cut through my train of thought, leaving me floundering mentally and nearly making me trip over my own feet in front of Seattle's esteemed public. Well, not all of them, but Gasconade and I were making our way through one of the really crowded plazas in downtown Seattle. Being capes in full costume, with one of us looking like a Picasso painting that had a bad run in with a glitch artist, we naturally attracted a lot of attention. I'd been focusing on the beautiful newly constructed skyscrapers around downtown Seattle as a way to distract myself from the churning crowds surrounding us, but I found my gaze pulled inexorably toward the source of that damning voice.
It was a man in his mid-to-late twenties, six and a half inches taller than me. He was looking at me with a big smile on his face -I suppressed a shudder.-, excitedly waving for my attention. I swallowed, closing the distance just enough to talk comfortably, "Wha- what was that?" my voice came out quieter than I'd intended, less confident, but I was honestly proud that I'd managed to speak at all.
He laughed. "I said, 'Your costume is killer!'. That cloak is dope as fuck."
Relief washed over me like a bucket of cold water, stark enough that I laughed out loud. "Thank you! Or rather, thank the tailors that worked so hard to finish the embroidery in time for my first patrol." My first official patrol, rather, I thought. But eh, toh-may-to toh-mah-to.
"Did they design it, then?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious.
I stood up straighter, placing my hands on my hips heroically. "It was a team effort. I did the initial designs and got feedback on them, and then made adjustments in response to their suggestions. The embroidery was done by the very talented people working in the Space Needle's branding and costuming department, but the armor was made by yours truly."
I demonstrated by lifting both arms in front of me and wiggling my fingers, showing off the fine mechanisms at each joint. After how important stealth had been to my success at the warehouse I'd gone through considerable effort to make certain the action of my armor was almost completely silent; the result of well oiled joints and carefully placed padding wherever plates intersected.
He whistled appreciatively, in what I dearly hoped was enthusiasm for the quality of my armor. "Very impressive. What's your superhero name?"
"I am Sepulcher, heroine extraordinaire," I announced theatrically, smiling under my mask.
"Sepulcher, huh?" he said, rubbing his chin in thought. "What kinda power goes with a name like that?"
I smirked. "Let's just say the walls have my back," I replied airily, leaning back on a short stone fence that hadn't been there a second ago.
"Woah!" he all but yelped, taking a step back and leaning forward for a closer look at the same time. "That's amazing, you can just make walls out of thin air?"
"Well, only from solid surfaces actually," I corrected instinctively. Almost immediately after the thought occurred to me that it would be useful for people to misunderstand exactly how my powers worked. Oh well, I guessed I'd just have to keep it in mind for the future. "But essentially yes. Anywho, I'm afraid I must be off; Gasconade and I have a city to protect and whatnot."
"Oh, no problem," he said, sounding like he genuinely meant it. "Thanks for taking the time to talk."
I nodded. "It was no trouble, I promise. Have a good rest of your day!"
I waved him off, joining back up with Gasconade. He'd been hovering just inside of hearing range, apparently content to let me handle the conversation while he kept watch and took pictures with people. His expression was unreadable, of course. He didn't really have a face, just a collection of features scrapbooked together seemingly at random. A nose that looked drawn on in pencil here, an eye there, part of a mouth somewhere else, covering his oddly proportioned body like a broken texture.
"You handled that well," he said once there wasn't anyone in earshot. "I know how much you hate crowds."
"It's easier when I think of them as an audience," I said, just loud enough for him to hear. "Performing in front of a crowd doesn't drain me in the way that being part of one does. Maybe it's because I can perceive them as a single abstract entity instead of trying to track every individual."
He 'hmmed', keeping up his fast walking pace as he thought. Gasconade had a way of looking like he was on his way to an important meeting everywhere he went, which had the useful side effect of repelling all but the most determined picture seekers. "You sound so much more confident now, you've even been walking more self-assuredly."
"Thank you," I chirped cheerily. "I guess it's a lot easier to feel impressive and heroic when I look impressive and heroic. And no one's misgendered me today, which I consider its own sort of victory."
Gasconade chuckled. "Well I'm glad you're having fun, at least."
"I guess this isn't your favorite part of the job," I noted, not quite a question.
"I can't say it is, no," he said quietly. Then he sighed, gazing at the crowd around us. "It just… it feels like I'm an animal in a petting zoo sometimes. Everyone wants to touch me, everyone wants a picture, and no one seems very interested in what I have to say."
"I think I get that, a little. A lot of people treat trans folks like we're circus freaks or something, figures of ridicule and pity rather than full members of society. It sucks." I paused. "Do you want a hug?" I asked, not sure how else to offer support.
"I kind of do, actually," he said, surprising me. "But now probably isn't the best time. We don't want people getting the wrong idea."
I nodded, making a mental note to give him a really good hug when we got back to the Needle. "So where were we supposed to go next? Please tell me it's somewhere with less people."
He chuckled. "So not completely immune to crowds now, are we? We're gonna be skirting the edge of Westlake territory, I wouldn't expect quite as warm a welcome as you got in the touristy areas."
"Good to know," I said, considering the implications of that. "Do you think we'll be attacked?"
"Probably not. We might run into some petty crimes, though."
I nodded. "Is it weird that that's almost a relief?"
We'd left the crowded plaza behind a few minutes ago, taking crosswalks and occasionally answering questions or signing autographs for passersby. It seemed strange that anyone would be interested in my autograph before I'd actually done anything of note, but I supposed they were just planning for the future. Or they thought my armor looked cool? I'd take it either way. We passed by a beautiful looking library building with glass panes for walls, arranged like polygons on an early 3d model. I made another mental note to go inside there at the first available opportunity and memorize every inch of it with my tremorsense.
It was going to take a while before I filled out my mental map of Seattle in full detail, potentially months or years of work even with my power. Thankfully these regular patrols were a goldmine for new locations and architecture. Even after hours of walking around downtown Seattle I still found myself constantly craning my neck up at the absurdly tall buildings surrounding us. Their sheer mass and scale and number left me awestruck, my thinker power letting me know precisely how much larger the city was relative to me. Parts of the city I'd glimpsed in the distance during my little foray to the top of the Needle were still represented in my internal map of Seattle, but most of it was hidden behind buildings and so far away that even the parts I could see were vague blurs at best.
It was still enough to make me uncomfortably aware of just how small I was in the grand scheme of things, even when just considering Seattle and its surrounding locales. On impulse, I tried visualizing the entire earth relative to me. It didn't matter that I couldn't actually fill it out with more than outlines, since I was just trying to visualize exactly how large a not-quite-sphere with a circumference of 24,901 miles around the equator was relative to me. Shockingly, it turned out to be really fucking big. The image my mind kept circling back to was a single mote of dust compared to an entire mountain, the intellectual knowledge that the vast mountain was made up of innumerable tiny particles comparable to the dust mote becoming concrete fact as certain as the concrete I walked on. It was akin to walking through the shallow waters next to a beach and finding the soft sand under your feet drop off abruptly into a seemingly endless black abyss.
"Oh yeah?" A man snarled nearby, making my heart skip a beat and startling me out of my thoughts. "If you care about the city so much why haven't you liberal 'heroes' locked up that damned hippy Lenin statue haunting Fremont in the birdcage where it belongs?"
I blinked. "I'm sorry, the… Lenin statue? Why would we lock up a statue?"
Gasconade sighed audibly. "A couple years back the quote unquote League of Insidious Villainry rigged up the hollow bronze statue of Lenin in Fremont with a robotic frame, and then subsequently programmed it to rampage through the Westlake Center while shouting communist slogans in a bad russian accent. Thanks to the efforts of Presto and the other wards we were able to remove the tinker device before anyone was seriously hurt. Afterwards we repaired the statue as best we could and returned it to its former post, though not before being thoroughly examined for further tampering."
The slightly grubby bearded man confronting Gasconade snorted, folding his arms. "You expect me to believe that horseshit? Everyone knows the PRT's been in cahoots with the commies since day one."
"I'm still confused about why there's a statue of Lenin in… Fremont, you said?" I added, ignoring the conspiracy theorist.
"It's a long story," Gasconade said. "But suffice it to say it's on private property, so the Protectorate and PRT can't do anything about it being there."
I turned to face the 'concerned citizen'. "I'm sorry, sir," I lied, affecting a grave tone. "But our hands are tied, there's nothing we can do."
"Oh I see, you capes flaunt the law all you like and smile for the cameras; a guy like me points out a weapon in the middle of the street and suddenly the law says it's supposed to be there?" he harrumphed, pushing past us and continuing along the busy sidewalk lined with trees.
He'd presumably reappear there half a minute later, given that he'd shoulder-checked Gasconade. We didn't bother staying to find out, picking up our walking pace in unspoken agreement as we continued up the street. Wandering around a couple hours in downtown Seattle had lead to a delightful discovery; walking up hills was almost effortless for me now, since I could use the ground under me like an escalator to lift my feet up with each step. I'd even figured out a gait that barely relied on muscle movement at all while still looking natural. It helped that my armor could stand on its own and had enough cushioning inside for me to lock the joints and rest my weight on it like a really weird chair.
Even with the occasional weirdo and the constant, nerve-wracking presence of crowds I still found myself enjoying my time patrolling the city. Gasconade's presence was a big help, he knew Seattle in a way I wasn't sure I could ever match and had a sense for when and how to step in and defuse a situation. Whether it was a brewing fistfight or an interaction with a civilian taking a bad turn, he knew what to say to get everyone to calm down and go their separate ways peacefully. I admired how patient and on task he was even after hours of being gawked at and asked profoundly stupid and/or intrusive questions about his life and power.
I turned toward him, a question about his plans for after this shift on the tip of my tongue. Before I could voice it the commlink in my ear buzzed with a harsh staticy sound, startling me enough to make me jump a little.
"We've got a reported sighting of a known Westlake enforcer a few blocks from you," said the PRT officer on the other end. "He was on 6th Avenue and Prospect Street, headed North. He's a giant half-lion guy, you can't miss him."
"Did you hear that?" I asked Gasconade, trying to contain my nervousness.
He nodded. "Go get him, I'll finish up here."
"See you back at the Needle," I said, giving my partner a quick salute before leaping onto the side of the nearest skyscraper, cloak fluttering in the wind. I'd never been to the area the comms guy had mentioned, but thankfully I'd taken the time to encode the names of most of Seattle's major streets into my mental map.
To my dismay, it turned out I couldn't use my power to interpret text; it memorized the shapes of letters just fine if they were engraved or scratched into a surface, but in order to understand what they spelled out I needed to physically recreate the object and then read them normally. That wasn't practical in a situation like this, so I'd been forced to come up with another way to reliably store speech with my power. Numbers were translated into simple blocks with the appropriate amount of grooves in them, the oft accompanying 'th' sound represented by a twisted shape resembling a snake's tongue stabbing upward. Each phoneme in the english language had its own distinct shape, forming a sort of cipher for translating specific words and ideas into something my power could understand and remember. My mental map of Seattle had sequences of these shapes lining every street I knew the name of, abstract sculptures being used as a glorified labeling system.
With this technique translating the sounds of a street name into a specific location I could route to was a cinch. It wasn't too far away, all things considered; before more than a couple minutes had passed I was already honing in on the Bastard's last known location. Skyscrapers and shopping centers transitioned abruptly into patchwork suburbs punctuated by the occasional low-rise apartment or strip mall, forcing me to adapt my movement style. I focused on long jumps with low arcs, getting as much horizontal distance as possible to pass between more distant buildings. My thinker power was indispensable for planning out movements in unfamiliar terrain, it was probably the only thing keeping me from accidentally launching myself through someone's kitchen. Again.
Unsurprisingly there was no lion man to be found at the intersection we'd been given over comms, which meant I'd need to track him down. The report said he'd been heading north, so I continued up the street with renewed fervor, keeping my eyes peeled for any sign of mob-affiliated lion men. I was in Westlake territory now, which meant every second I stayed here increased the odds that one of the Bastards would try and pick a fight with me. As confident as I felt in my new armor, I wasn't willing to risk engaging in fisticuffs with some of the deadliest capes in the city.
It turned out that Menagerie was a rather prolific cape. I'd heard that he didn't keep his power exclusive to the Westlake Bastards themselves, but I hadn't expected minor animal traits to be as common here as tattoos or piercings were in most places. Individuals or small groups bearing more extreme mutations appeared on occasion, the crowd usually parting around them to leave a small bubble of walking space. It wasn't clear whether it was out of fear, reverence, or both. After several minutes of frantic searching I was nearly ready to call it quits, my eyes sweeping across a busy street one last time. A group of feline… mutates (would it be mutates? I wasn't sure what term they preferred) caught my eye, one of them seeming strangely familiar even this far away.
He shouldered past a pedestrian that had failed to move out of the way fast enough, knocking her onto the street. The memory clicked into place, and just like that I knew the Bastard enforcer I'd been hunting was the same lion guy that punched me in the boob last week. Before I quite realized what was happening, I launched myself from the building I'd been perched on with a trajectory that would land me right between Mufasa and the woman he'd just pushed over. My landing was a classic three-pointer, though somewhat rougher than I might have hoped. It was forceful enough to create a visible ripple in the ground that disturbed footing and upturned old newspapers on the other side of the street.
"Mufasa! Fancy meeting you here," I quipped. "How've you been? Didn't spend too long trapped in the sewers, I hope."
He growled and took a swipe at me the second he regained his composure, but this time I was ready. A clawed hand collided with the stone wall I'd raised to block it, sinking into it like clay as I manipulated its material properties with my power. He remained in the suddenly resolidified stone when I stepped away, shifting the ground under his feet to entangle him and draw him further under.
"What are you doing to him?" asked a scandalized voice behind me, drawing my attention away from the struggling lion man. It was the woman he'd knocked over, her face subtly elongated with two stubby horns poking out of her forehead. The legs peeking out past the hem of her skirt were digitigrade and covered with soft fur, ending in cloven hooves like a deer's rather than feet. I offered her a hand up, making an effort not to stare. It was probably nearly impossible to tell where I was looking with my mask on, but that was no reason to develop bad habits.
She gave me such a sour look I could swear she'd have sooner spat on my hand than taken it, but after a few tense moments she begrudgingly accepted my assistance. Gasconade really hadn't been kidding when he said we wouldn't have a warm reception here. The second she was on her uh… hooves again she wrenched her hand back toward her like it had been burned by the brief contact with me.
"Well?" she demanded. "You Flats are always barging in, patting down anyone with a blessing, taking fathers from sons and mothers from daughters. Now this? You demean him, constrain him, joke about trapping him in the sewers. Is this your idea of being a hero?"
"Didn't he just knock you down?" I asked, uncertainty leaking into my voice and bearing.
"I mean, yes. But it wasn't..." She sputtered for a moment, and in that pause we seemed to simultaneously realize just how many people were looking at us. A loose ring had formed around the restrained Bastard, locals staring us down with at least a half-dozen different kinds of eyes all bearing the same resentful expressions. The deer girl regained her composure, squaring her slender shoulders as she faced me. "That's not the point. He's one of us, that means we stick up for each other. I bet you think you're so original with that 'Mufasa' bit, you have any idea how many people just decide they can call me Bambi? It really pisses me off. Bambi was a boy!"
I raised my hands in surrender, taken aback by her vehemence. "Alright, I admit that Mufasa comment earlier was over the line. I know it's not much of an excuse, but I genuinely hadn't considered how hurtful it would be. I'm sorry."
She went silent for a few moments, eyeing me skeptically as if to determine whether I was sincere. "Not a lot of people do," she groused. "But I guess it means something that you're willing to try. Not that it's not appreciated, but shouldn't you be apologizing to him? Or explaining why you attacked him with the sidewalk?"
I looked back over at the leonine mafioso to make sure there was no chance of him escaping again, briefly watching him futilely trying to pull his limbs from the architecture they were embedded in. "Yeah, I'm not gonna apologize to him. He's an enforcer for the Westlake Bastards with a criminal record longer than your average airport novel; just last week he punched me hard enough to lay me out flat and put a dent in my breastplate shaped like his fist. I've still got a big bruise from it, the PRT doc said I was lucky my ribs didn't crack."
She stared at me wide eyes as I spoke, not even seeming to blink until after I'd finished. "Oh," she said. "Is that why you trapped him in the sewers?"
"Sort of?" I responded, moving my gauntleted hand in a so-so gesture. "It's more that I needed him out of the picture as quickly as possible. There were hostages I had to protect, and every moment I spent dealing with him could have been when the rest of his goons came bursting out to perforate us with bullets."
She blinked again, absentmindedly moving a lock of hair behind a distinctly pointed ear while she collected her thoughts. "Alright, that does sound pretty serious. How do you know you got the right guy? And how do I know you're telling the truth?"
"Same gait, same weight, same height, same style of mane," I rattled off absentmindedly, shifting the lion man's bonds to make him easier to transport. "And besides, I've got a lot of experience with guys like him. I recognized the way he liked throwing his metaphorical and literal weight around. As for your other question… I guess you don't. I wish I could do more to help reassure you, but I can't stay here too much longer without risking a cape fight."
The deer lady's brow furrowed for a few moments as she thought it over, eventually letting out a soft sigh. "I guess that's fair enough," she allowed. "You're not as bad as most of the Flats that come barging into our neighborhood. Could I at least get your cape name before you go? I'm Adeline."
"It's Sepulcher," I said, handing her one of the business cards with my logo and work number on it from the stack PR had given me. "Let me know if you ever need help, have questions about power stuff or just need a listening ear. I'll do whatever I can."
Adeline nodded, looking a little thrown by the gesture.
"Just one last thing," I added. "What exactly is a 'Flat'?"
Adeline winced a little at the question, the one ear not hidden by her hair drooping a little. "A Flat is like most folks not from around here; someone that keeps their body the way they got it and thinks other people should too. I didn't mean it as an insult or anything, I just got so frustrated with all the people who won't let us be who we are that I painted all outsiders with the same brush."
I took a moment to process that. "Well it's not really… accurate, for me. Being a trans woman, I've spent most of my adult life desperately trying to get my body into a shape I'm comfortable with. It hasn't been easy. If getting a 'blessing' from Menagerie is what makes you happy, I say go for it."
"Trans folks have always been welcome here," she said, giving me the first genuine smile I'd ever seen from her. "I guess you're not an outsider after all. Goodbye, Sepulcher. Be safe out there."
I nodded, giving her a quick salute before carting off the Bastard lion man somewhere more secure. As I was leaving I added a life-sized statue of Adeline to my mental map of Seattle, labelled with the shapes I used to store speech with my power. I'd made a sufficiently shaky (Shakery?) first impression that I didn't want to risk forgetting her name on top of that.
-||-
A few minutes later I stood waiting on a rooftop on the edge of Protectorate-controlled territory, waiting for a van to come pick up the lion man. He hadn't been very forthcoming while we were travelling here via the Sepulcher Underground, generally grunting or telling me to fuck off when I tried prodding him for information.
"So," I said, breaking the awkward silence. "How did you become part lion? Is there like a waiting list or something for Menagerie's services?"
He continued pouting in stubborn silence.
"I have to admit I'd be tempted if he offered me the chance to become a bird woman. Not that I'm not one already mind you, but I'd appreciate being able to actually fly and turn my head a hundred and eighty degrees." Not to mention getting to be slender and graceful for once, I thought wistfully, thinking back to Adeline and others I'd seen with one of Menagerie's 'gifts'.
The lion man audibly grit his teeth, leaning his head back against the wall he was bolted to.
I decided to continue talking. "On the other hand, the shedding would probably be its own special kind of hell. Just growing my hair out is bad enough, I can't imagine dealing with having feathers always floating around my room. Would I have a beak? Would I want a beak? This is probably gonna take some serious thinking to figure out." I took on a theatrically contemplative pose, resting my right elbow on my left hand and tapping my chin with a repeated clink. "Any thoughts? I'm all ears."
"Eat shit," the lion man spat, following it up with more literal spit that fell well short of my armored feet.
"Now is that any way to treat a lady?" Presto chided, perched on the short wall next to him. She gave his ear a light flick as if to emphasize her point and casually dropped onto the gravel rooftop, waltzing over to stand next to me like she didn't have a care in the world.
I surprised myself by not yelping or jumping at her unexpected appearance, instead shifting instinctively into a defensive stance with mancatcher in hand. It was a struggle not to make more, not to surround myself with layers and layers of defenses until nothing could possibly get through and no one could hurt me. Keep steady Sepulcher, I thought, don't let your fears control you.
I reasserted control over my power inch by careful inch, my armor helping to anchor me in the present moment. The only visible sign of my internal struggles was a distinctly sharp ripple that dissipated just before reaching Presto's feet. She tensed, briefly freezing in place mid-stride before recovering and taking the last couple steps to stand awkwardly besides me.
"Presto," I said, voice pitched to keep the lion man from hearing us. If it also helped disguise some of the reproach in it that was just a bonus. "I see you're as skilled at communication as ever. It was so courteous of you to let me know you were gonna pop in like that instead of say, suddenly appearing out of nowhere and nearly giving me a heart attack. Again."
She winced, raising up her hands in surrender. "I should've called ahead, I won't lie about that."
"Yeah," I said, voice flat and cold, "you should have. We're going to have a discussion about this later, but for now you should probably tell me why you're here. "
Presto grinned, though it was noticeably dimmer than usual. "Ah, well I was thinking I'd help you ask Eric here a few questions while we're waiting for the PRT vans to arrive. Don't take this the wrong way, but I get the impression you ain't got much experience with interrogations."
As upset I was, I found myself returning her smile. Not that it mattered, really, with my mask. "Well you're not wrong, I haven't gotten anything out of him except swearing so far. Wait... his name is fucking Eric?"
She chuckled. "What were you expecting, Lionel?"
"I don't know, I guess I just figured he had a cape name or something. It feels less lame to get knocked off my feet by like… Claw or whatever the fuck than some two-bit loser named Eric." Or Ray, I added mentally. "And besides, doesn't he have powers? They're not quite as dramatic as ours, but he's still definitely stronger than a normal person." My hand drifted unconsciously toward my breastplate, where I could feel the still-healing bruise Eric had given me last week.
The lion man in question sat quietly in his power-made bonds, his expression dark and shuttered. I wondered if he had enhanced hearing. The sky over us was grey and cloudy, casting the whole city in a diffuse light. Presto stared at him with a hard expression, holding the wand in her left hand with a white knuckled grip. She stood eerily still, like a cat getting ready to pounce.
"So you're that Eric," she said, flashing him a smile that was more like baring her teeth. She circled around him like a cat playing with a cornered mouse, her wand flicking back and forth unpredictably. I found myself transfixed, face heating up in defiance of the chilly breeze whipping at my cloak and cooling the metal of my armor. "You make a habit of arranging kidnappings?"
He snorted. "I know better than to talk to cops."
"Not a fucking cop--"
"--We're not cops," Presto and I said at the same time, voices overlapping each other. We stopped talking, sharing a brief surprised look before turning back toward Eric. I gestured for Presto to continue.
She flicked her wand at him, making his bonds disappear. He immediately lunged for her, but before he'd crossed half the length she sent him back to where he'd started with another flick. It took him about ten tries before he finally sat back down, somehow managing to make his exhausted panting sound angry. "Starting to get the picture, pal? You're outmatched."
"This supposed to scare me?" he asked breathlessly, leaning on the wall of the roof.
"Nah," Presto said, gesturing with her wand again. The next instant Eric was ten stories above us, screaming as he fell back toward the hard gravel rooftop. The second before he made impact she used her wand to teleport him upward again, making him fall in a continuous loop for the equivalent of hundreds of feet before he appeared safely back on the building with none of his latent momentum. "That was supposed to scare you. Ready to talk yet?"
"Eat..." he wheezed out, between desperate gulps for air. "Shit..."
She raised an eyebrow at him, idly fiddling with her wand. "Is that your final answer?"
He held up a clawed hand, taking a few more moments to catch his breath. "Fine," he grumbled, sounding like he was getting his teeth pulled. "What do you want to know?"
I took a step forward, standing alongside Presto. "When the creepy suit was paying you guys you said the offer was for more than just money. What else did this… 'Prodigy' person give you?"
He was silent for a few moments, long enough that I started to worry he'd changed his mind. "The suit, he was giving us dirt on the other gangs on an encrypted hard drive. Weaknesses, plans, secret headquarters, shit like that."
Presto shook her head, quietly chuckling. "I gotta appreciate the balls it takes to try and con me of all people, but you really ought to leave it to the professionals."
"The fuck are you talking about?" Eric demanded, his anger hiding an undercurrent of worry in his voice.
She rolled her eyes at him. "I have lie detector tech, numbnuts. How about we try this again?" Another flick of her wand and he was sent high up into the air yet again, falling back down over and over and over again. His screams shifted in pitch and volume as he fell, the genuine terror in his voice sending chills down my spine.
"Presto," I said, voice coming out quieter than I'd intended.
She turned away from the eternally falling lion man, seemingly having no trouble timing his teleports while looking at me. "You need something, Sepulcher?"
I took a deep breath, steeling myself. "Can we… can we talk about this? It doesn't feel right."
"Sure," she said, sending Eric back to his place on the rooftop. He laid flat on his back, greedily sucking in air. "You just sit tight, the two of us are gonna have a little chat and then we'll be right back with you."
I stepped away from him, toward the other side of the rooftop where he'd be less likely to hear us. Presto followed, looking bemused. "Can you make it so he can't hear us?" I asked when she got close enough.
"Already done," she said casually, spinning her wand around her fingers. "So what's the problem? You worried I'll slip up and make him go splat?"
"I… well, kind of," I said, struggling to get my thoughts into order. "But that's not really the primary issue."
She 'hmmed', tapping a finger on her chin. "If it makes you feel better I'm not actually teleporting him with the wand, I slapped a device that does all of that on him when I flicked his ear earlier. It's got a bunch of redundant safety features, I had it vetted by the PRT and everything."
"That's a relief to hear," I said, wondering if the wand actually did anything or if it was just a prop. "But like I said that's not the primary issue. It's more that this whole method of interrogation seems kind of… fucked up. Isn't this essentially threatening him with death in a really visceral way?"
She snorted. "I think this guy can take it. You realize he's a killer, right? More than a few people on the Bastards' shitlist ended up mauled to death while he was in the area, not to mention participating in kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment of innocent people. Oh and yeah, he almost caved your fucking ribs in!"
"Well yeah," I said, finding myself strangely warmed by Presto's protectiveness. "But… that still doesn't give us the right to hurt him more than strictly necessary to protect others."
"It's not like I'm beating the shit out of him," Presto said, impatience leaking into her voice. "I'm just scaring him a little. Besides, it's not like I get off on terrifying people or something. This is important information, shit that can save lives. Why should this asshole's convenience get a higher priority than that?"
"I'm not saying it should," I said, keeping my voice level with an effort. "It's just that I think we should exhaust more options before resorting to something that seems like a short step from waterboarding someone."
Presto groaned aloud, violently rolling her eyes. "What 'options'? I don't recall you having any particularly useful ideas before I showed up to interrogate him for you. And seriously, this is coming from the girl that gave a half dozen Bastards the Hannibal Lector treatment last week? Where the fuck is this coming from?"
I froze, replaying the actions I took while in the throes of my thinker power in my mind's eye. Suddenly everything shifted, taking on an entirely new light. I thought I'd managed to reign my power's worst tendencies in sufficiently, but in retrospect it was obvious that my lack of emotion had colored every choice I'd made that night. Fuck, it was no wonder the Bastards I'd captured had all been so strangely cooperative afterwards. I'd terrorized them into compliance.
"That's not..." I started, voice coming out weakly. There really wasn't any way forward aside from telling her about my thinker power, but I just couldn't think of what to say. Would she think I was frightening? Inhuman? I didn't know if I could stand getting rejected like that.
She sighed and squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing her forehead. "I'm sorry Sepulcher, that wasn't fair. You were in a life or death situation for the f- for one of the first times. There wasn't time to carefully plan everything out, you had to go on instinct. I get it."
"No, you have a point," I said, gathering my strength for what came next. "There's a reason I acted so… differently last week. It's not that I panicked, the truth is actually sort of the opposite. It's that when I use my thinker power, my thoughts and actions get disconnected from my emotions. The more deeply I use it the stronger the effect is, to the point where when it's all the way up I'm sort of like a Terminator. Just single-mindedly pursuing the goals I set for myself, with no concern for fear or pain or hesitation."
Presto rubbed her chin. "A Terminator… you mean the movies with those robots from the future that look like Sylvestor Stallone?"
I nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, from the 80's."
"I kinda see what you mean. So you didn't actually realize you were scaring the shit out of them?"
I made a so-so gesture. "It was partly that and partly that I'd tunnel visioned on rescuing the hostages to the point where the Bastards didn't really register to me except as obstacles. Even when I turned my power off briefly to check myself for injuries I still didn't think of it."
"That… explains a lot, actually. You've been using this pretty regularly while we talk, haven't you? I remember a lot of times you got this weirdly distant look in your eye."
"Well, yes," I said, blushing under my mask. "It's useful when I need to think clearly or talk myself down from a panic attack."
"Does that happen often?" she asked, voice oddly gentle.
"Yeah," I said. "More since… since my roommates and everything. Are you worried? About how my thinker power works, I mean?"
Presto shrugged. "Nah, I figured there was something like that going on. Sometimes with powers you just gotta accept that things ain't always gonna be clean and pretty. And besides, if there's anyone I'm not worried about having a power like that it's you."
"You really think so?" I asked, completely failing to hide the skepticism in my voice.
"Of course," she said, fondly rolling her eyes at me. "You're one of the nicest people I know. And maybe more importantly, you actually think shit through before you do it. Unlike some other folks also standing on this roof."
"Are you referring to yourself or Eric?" I asked, amusement coloring my voice.
She smirked. "Can't it be both? Anyway, you wanna keep going? You can lead the rest of the interrogation."
"Sure," I said, walking back toward the lion man and taking up what I hoped was a sufficiently intimidating heroic pose in front of him. "Are you ready to talk now? Presto's awfully eager to practice some more of her juggling, I'd suggest you cooperate."
He sighed, head leaning back against the short concrete wall. "It was some kind of tinker shit. It's shaped kinda like a gun, you're supposed to jab it into someone's neck to copy skills from them and then give them to someone else. I swear that's all I know, now could you please stop it with the fucking teleporting?"
"Well if you insist," Presto said, practically radiating smugness. "Just sit tight and the vans will be here before you know it."
I leaned back on the concrete railing, mentally preparing myself for the talk I'd promised her once we got back to the Needle. I had a feeling it was gonna be a real doozy.
Meridian_Prime
Died an ugly death by back-catalogue.
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I genuinely don't understand why this isn't more popular. It's so damn good.
Excellent chapter as always, I'm totally engrossed in Sepulcher and her story.
Excellent chapter as always, I'm totally engrossed in Sepulcher and her story.
- Location
- New Zealand
Presto really is one of those people with boundary issues, dealing with someone who has personal space issues.
You know, canonically the Terminator was played by OJ Simpson. They mentioned it in Department 64 Quest.