Ch. 8
Fencer
Writer
- Location
- 2nd shift
- Pronouns
- He/Him
AN: I'd just like to preface that the likely biggest reason I didn't actually get to dealing with Bakuda is got caught up in all the talk about flame types and the logic behind them... and I started reading Russian Roulette: Reloaded....... Anyway enjoy! Also fuck, I forgot SV doubles up the line breaks when I copy paste from word.... fuck.
{}{}{}{} Undersider's Loft
Looking through the eyes of an owl as it swoops over the city at night is an interesting experience. I'm sitting still not moving a single muscle and yet at the same time I'm flying three stories up scanning the streets looking for anyone or anything that seemed out of place. All the while my reserves slowly dwindled. Distance made things harder, but with all the practice I had been getting the past three nights I'd gotten pretty good at mitigating that cost. It was… an odd sort of trick. Normally when I made a construct I powered it constantly. The farther away the construct the more power it took to maintain. Now I'd figured out a workaround. I wasn't sure if it would be more cost effective for fighting up close but it was definitely better for long range.
The trick was to make the construct with its own reserve of energy, to supercharge it and set it up to feed off of that energy to maintain itself. Then I only needed to keep a small trickle of power flowing to the construct, a connection, if I wanted to control it directly or borrow its senses. If I didn't need to do either of those I could simply let it act out according to my orders. Granted those orders could only be so complex before I started running into issues, but that was just one more thing for me to train and practice.
I was starting to think I hadn't properly understood my indigo fire. When I had started out right after getting out of the hospital I had called it illusions because all I'd been able to do was cast illusions on people's senses. The illusions that everyone could see, the ones that weren't directly projected onto a person's senses had come later, and then the ability to make them solid had taken longer still. But this? I was essentially making fire and forget minions. Constructs seemed like a much more accurate term. And now… Now talking with Lisa, I was starting to think I would need to redefine the damn flames abilities a third time.
"Taylor," Lisa's voice had a hint of warning to it. "Answer the question. "How is your owl flying around, barely flapping its wings I might add, with a seven pound camera strapped to its chest."
"I'm trying to work that out myself to be honest." I responded quietly. I didn't open my eyes to look at Lisa I was distracted enough by controlling my construct and borrowing its senses that trying to pick apart exactly what it was I was doing was hard enough already.
It had to be something along the lines of how the owl's night vision just worked. I knew that owls have great night vision, I needed my construct to have the same so it did, simple as that. I needed my construct to be able to fly so it did, easy peasy. But Lisa was right. I wasn't having it flap its wings terribly often. Only when I wanted it to fly a bit higher if I was being realistic, the rest of the time it was just gliding. Which was impossible because it meant most of the time my bird wasn't actually generating any lift at all. So then what the hell was I actually doing, and how the hell was I doing it?!
To my senses the construct was a shell filled with power and a thin connection between us. But there was something about the shell, something I had never paid attention to before. With an idle thought I summoned up a dog between Lisa and I. I brought the owl above a building and told it to circle before cutting off the connection to its senses. Without any distractions I focused on the differences between the two constructs. Both were solid shells imitating the creature they represented, both had a reserve of power they drew from to sustain themselves and both had a connection to me, but the owl was consuming power faster than the dog. Like the difference between a tap only open enough to allow a trickle of water and one open a quarter of the way. Neither was a huge drain but it was markedly more. It wasn't the distance, it was some aspect of the constructs shell, something about the two was different.
With a subtle mental twist, I copied the difference from the bird to the dog. Immediately the dog started to drain energy even faster than the owl. I frowned. That didn't make sense, unless.... I shrunk the dog down to the size of the Owl and the drain evened out. Alright so size, or possibly weight, mattered with what I was doing. Now, I just had to test it. I opened my eyes and directed the dog to jump. It sailed clear across the room and bounced off a wall, then kept going. With a mental flex I took control of it the same way I controlled the owl only a few moments earlier. And the dog started flying around the room acting like it was running on solid ground.
"I, uh… I seem to be telling gravity that it doesn't work on my constructs."
Lisa said nothing only continuing to follow the dog with her eyes. A moment of thought later and I was floating a few inches off of the floor as I applied the same trick to myself. I giggled lightly over the fact that yes, I was in fact flying. But grimaced at just how fast doing so burned energy. I was a lot bigger than my constructs, and I had actual weight, or maybe mass is what mattered? It made sense, but still. I would have to play with this more when there weren't more important things to do. Maybe I could use some of the other flames to augment the effect? Or at the very least spread the cost around so I wouldn't risk depleting my most versatile flame?
Paying attention to my constructs once more I realized that the owl's reserve of energy was starting to run low. Glancing at the clock I growled that it was already three. If we hadn't found any leads by now it was probably time to call it a night. Another mental command called the owl back to the loft and I dismissed my connection to the bird entirely even as I dissolved the dog construct.
Lisa finally shook off her stupor long enough to glare at me. "Every time I turn around your power just gets more and more bullshit, you realize that, don't you?"
"Believe me Lisa, I'm just as surprised as you are." I responded as I rubbed tiredly at my eyes. "Three months I've spent trying to get a handle on just what the ever loving fuck it is that my powers actually do, and every single time I think I've finally got a handle on them there's something new. Some new ability I didn't know they were capable of, some way I can be more efficient with them, some weird off the wall trick I can combine them for that by all rights just shouldn't fucking work but…" I trailed off. There was no frigging way what I was thinking could actually work.
I made myself float again, just a few inches off the floor. It was draining, something I wouldn't be comfortable holding for more than a dozen minutes or so. Then I fed the red fire into that subtle twist that told gravity to fuck off… The energy requirements dropped like a stone, and just like that I was sure I could hold this for at least an hour. Yes, I was in fact disintegrating the effect of gravity. Groaning in abject frustration I let go of the effect and sprawled out on the floor cursing my insane nonsensical abilities under my breath the entire time. I'd bet it would be even easier once I multiplied the effects.
I was going to fly. And that was so insanely cool, but I just did not understand how the fuck any of what I was doing worked in the first place!
Lisa must have noticed the owl's camera feed was heading for home because she shut the laptop the thing was connected to and sprawled out on the couch. It had taken a lot of persuasion and a declaration that I would do this on my own if I had to, but Lisa had finally agreed to help me. The others were less onboard. Rachel and Alec just didn't care the way I did. Brian wasn't willing to get in between the clearly insane bomb tinker and the Empire no matter how distasteful he found Bakuda's methods. Truthfully neither was Lisa, but she was at least willing to help me search. That was fine though. I'd been on my own for almost two years. I didn't like it, but I could handle this on my own.
But I had to move fast. The whole damn city was on a deadline. Everyone knew it. Just waiting for the fireworks to kick off. The Empire had declared what Bakuda had done online, and Spitfire from Faultline's crew had confirmed it. Everyone knew no one was safe now. The Empire had a deluge of new recruits who signed up chasing the illusion of security that being in the Empire and getting their hands on a gun would give them. The PRT were trying to lock down the tinker's location and making a show of having lots of visible patrols just to keep the masses from rioting about how they weren't doing their jobs. And while the Empire rushed to arm and train and organize their new recruits before making their inevitable attack on the ABB... Bakuda had bought herself time to work.
Time for her to work meant more bombs for her grunts, more people abducted, and more unwilling suicide bombers. Brockton Bay had often been called a powder keg in the past but it had never been so apparent as it was now. The city could burn for all I cared, that wasn't my issue. After all it's just a place. The inevitable deaths would be horrible, but that was only part of my issue, the gang bangers could rot and everyone else was living on borrowed time anyway. No, my real issue was what Bakuda had done to a perfectly innocent little girl, what she was doubtlessly already doing to who knows how many more kids and bystanders in preparation. Every time I thought about it I could only see one acceptable course of action. I would protect those kids. I would send a message for the whole world to see that what Bakuda had done would not be tolerated.
I couldn't stop things like this. But I would remind all those who did similar or worse that even among criminals there were standards. I would show them that those who ignored said standards had a great deal more to fear than just what the law would do when they were discovered.
I would take this on myself so no one else would have to.
My power spiked within me like an answer to my thoughts. I growled again. That was another aspect of my powers that I was starting to consider more complicated than I originally thought.
Red always responded to the urge to attack or fight. Just the idea of it agitated that aspect of my power. It was destruction, plain and simple.
The purple fire was more finicky but it seemed to like the idea of handling things on my own. The old adage of 'if you want something done right, do it yourself' fit the purple fire to a t. Having to handle this on my own seemed to make it burn all the brighter.
The green fire was harder to lock down… I didn't have as much experience to draw on for it. But I was starting to get a handle on it. It liked the idea of, gah how to phrase it properly? It liked the idea of keeping others out of danger. If that meant I had to take some risk so be it, so long as I kept what I cared about safe, Dad, the Undersiders but more than anything the thought of protecting kids seemed to kick it into gear. It made sense. I knew Dad and the others could handle themselves but kids? They needed to be protected.
Still I couldn't get much out of the green fire, not yet. My reserves were growing but for now I could barely call up enough for a handful. That was fine though. I'd been through this before after all. All it would take was time and practice.
My final flame, my first flame was an odd duck. It was all for fighting but it seemed to love coming at problems from odd angles. Deception, misdirection, tricks, that was what made it respond most strongly. I was fine with that though, I liked working that way after all.
There was nothing quite so satisfying as thinking on my plan and feeling all four flames hum in sync with one another. All aspects of my power agreed with my course of action. Now if only I could find the damn woman!
With a light snarl I stood and began to pace. Tattletale had narrowed the search down to only a portion of the ABB's territory. That helped. Unfortunately, the area she narrowed the search down to was still almost a third of the ABB's territory. Searching with my projections had narrowed it down to perhaps a quarter of their territory, but the ABB were being exceptionally cautious. This slap dash observation method just wasn't cutting it. I needed to stop banging my head against the wall and think. Just because I had access to a thinker who could infer information from near nothing was no excuse to stop thinking for myself!
Now, Bakuda needed materials and space to work. Space should only be a minor issue. Any basement or apartment would likely be enough for a small lab. Materials though were trickier. Electronics, metals, chemicals, tools. And she would need lots of the first three. But if she was being constantly resupplied the protectorate would have caught on already.
She needed some place that would already be full of materials to set up shop or somewhere that new materials coming in wouldn't raise any extra attention. Someplace people could go for normal reasons to pick up her bombs for distribution as well. There weren't any junk yards in ABB territory… But I was willing to bet there were a few electronics and pawn shops. Maybe even a hobby shop?
I grabbed Lisa's laptop and pulled up her map of ABB territory. I highlighted the area we had narrowed down and ran a search for the kind of places I suspected. That got me seven hits. Now those were numbers I could work with.
{}{}{}{}
Yawning I glanced at the clock. It was five AM, but at least I'd finally found the bitch. She had chosen hobby shop with a massive basement as her lab. Variety over quantity I guess. She was keeping her hostages above the shop along with what looked like a slap dash operating room. I didn't think the place was rigged to blow, but who knew how small her explosives could be?
I wanted to move on her right then and there. But I was tired, and I'd burned through more than half of my indigo fire confirming her location. Much as I hated to give the woman more prep time I needed to rest before I pulled what I was planning. I'd hit her in the afternoon then. Possibly the early evening if Lisa was convinced the fighting would hold off that long.
I grinned toothily into my pillow as I imagined Bakuda pointlessly begging for mercy. It was a wonderful thought to fall asleep to.
{}{}{}{} Undersider's Loft
Looking through the eyes of an owl as it swoops over the city at night is an interesting experience. I'm sitting still not moving a single muscle and yet at the same time I'm flying three stories up scanning the streets looking for anyone or anything that seemed out of place. All the while my reserves slowly dwindled. Distance made things harder, but with all the practice I had been getting the past three nights I'd gotten pretty good at mitigating that cost. It was… an odd sort of trick. Normally when I made a construct I powered it constantly. The farther away the construct the more power it took to maintain. Now I'd figured out a workaround. I wasn't sure if it would be more cost effective for fighting up close but it was definitely better for long range.
The trick was to make the construct with its own reserve of energy, to supercharge it and set it up to feed off of that energy to maintain itself. Then I only needed to keep a small trickle of power flowing to the construct, a connection, if I wanted to control it directly or borrow its senses. If I didn't need to do either of those I could simply let it act out according to my orders. Granted those orders could only be so complex before I started running into issues, but that was just one more thing for me to train and practice.
I was starting to think I hadn't properly understood my indigo fire. When I had started out right after getting out of the hospital I had called it illusions because all I'd been able to do was cast illusions on people's senses. The illusions that everyone could see, the ones that weren't directly projected onto a person's senses had come later, and then the ability to make them solid had taken longer still. But this? I was essentially making fire and forget minions. Constructs seemed like a much more accurate term. And now… Now talking with Lisa, I was starting to think I would need to redefine the damn flames abilities a third time.
"Taylor," Lisa's voice had a hint of warning to it. "Answer the question. "How is your owl flying around, barely flapping its wings I might add, with a seven pound camera strapped to its chest."
"I'm trying to work that out myself to be honest." I responded quietly. I didn't open my eyes to look at Lisa I was distracted enough by controlling my construct and borrowing its senses that trying to pick apart exactly what it was I was doing was hard enough already.
It had to be something along the lines of how the owl's night vision just worked. I knew that owls have great night vision, I needed my construct to have the same so it did, simple as that. I needed my construct to be able to fly so it did, easy peasy. But Lisa was right. I wasn't having it flap its wings terribly often. Only when I wanted it to fly a bit higher if I was being realistic, the rest of the time it was just gliding. Which was impossible because it meant most of the time my bird wasn't actually generating any lift at all. So then what the hell was I actually doing, and how the hell was I doing it?!
To my senses the construct was a shell filled with power and a thin connection between us. But there was something about the shell, something I had never paid attention to before. With an idle thought I summoned up a dog between Lisa and I. I brought the owl above a building and told it to circle before cutting off the connection to its senses. Without any distractions I focused on the differences between the two constructs. Both were solid shells imitating the creature they represented, both had a reserve of power they drew from to sustain themselves and both had a connection to me, but the owl was consuming power faster than the dog. Like the difference between a tap only open enough to allow a trickle of water and one open a quarter of the way. Neither was a huge drain but it was markedly more. It wasn't the distance, it was some aspect of the constructs shell, something about the two was different.
With a subtle mental twist, I copied the difference from the bird to the dog. Immediately the dog started to drain energy even faster than the owl. I frowned. That didn't make sense, unless.... I shrunk the dog down to the size of the Owl and the drain evened out. Alright so size, or possibly weight, mattered with what I was doing. Now, I just had to test it. I opened my eyes and directed the dog to jump. It sailed clear across the room and bounced off a wall, then kept going. With a mental flex I took control of it the same way I controlled the owl only a few moments earlier. And the dog started flying around the room acting like it was running on solid ground.
"I, uh… I seem to be telling gravity that it doesn't work on my constructs."
Lisa said nothing only continuing to follow the dog with her eyes. A moment of thought later and I was floating a few inches off of the floor as I applied the same trick to myself. I giggled lightly over the fact that yes, I was in fact flying. But grimaced at just how fast doing so burned energy. I was a lot bigger than my constructs, and I had actual weight, or maybe mass is what mattered? It made sense, but still. I would have to play with this more when there weren't more important things to do. Maybe I could use some of the other flames to augment the effect? Or at the very least spread the cost around so I wouldn't risk depleting my most versatile flame?
Paying attention to my constructs once more I realized that the owl's reserve of energy was starting to run low. Glancing at the clock I growled that it was already three. If we hadn't found any leads by now it was probably time to call it a night. Another mental command called the owl back to the loft and I dismissed my connection to the bird entirely even as I dissolved the dog construct.
Lisa finally shook off her stupor long enough to glare at me. "Every time I turn around your power just gets more and more bullshit, you realize that, don't you?"
"Believe me Lisa, I'm just as surprised as you are." I responded as I rubbed tiredly at my eyes. "Three months I've spent trying to get a handle on just what the ever loving fuck it is that my powers actually do, and every single time I think I've finally got a handle on them there's something new. Some new ability I didn't know they were capable of, some way I can be more efficient with them, some weird off the wall trick I can combine them for that by all rights just shouldn't fucking work but…" I trailed off. There was no frigging way what I was thinking could actually work.
I made myself float again, just a few inches off the floor. It was draining, something I wouldn't be comfortable holding for more than a dozen minutes or so. Then I fed the red fire into that subtle twist that told gravity to fuck off… The energy requirements dropped like a stone, and just like that I was sure I could hold this for at least an hour. Yes, I was in fact disintegrating the effect of gravity. Groaning in abject frustration I let go of the effect and sprawled out on the floor cursing my insane nonsensical abilities under my breath the entire time. I'd bet it would be even easier once I multiplied the effects.
I was going to fly. And that was so insanely cool, but I just did not understand how the fuck any of what I was doing worked in the first place!
Lisa must have noticed the owl's camera feed was heading for home because she shut the laptop the thing was connected to and sprawled out on the couch. It had taken a lot of persuasion and a declaration that I would do this on my own if I had to, but Lisa had finally agreed to help me. The others were less onboard. Rachel and Alec just didn't care the way I did. Brian wasn't willing to get in between the clearly insane bomb tinker and the Empire no matter how distasteful he found Bakuda's methods. Truthfully neither was Lisa, but she was at least willing to help me search. That was fine though. I'd been on my own for almost two years. I didn't like it, but I could handle this on my own.
But I had to move fast. The whole damn city was on a deadline. Everyone knew it. Just waiting for the fireworks to kick off. The Empire had declared what Bakuda had done online, and Spitfire from Faultline's crew had confirmed it. Everyone knew no one was safe now. The Empire had a deluge of new recruits who signed up chasing the illusion of security that being in the Empire and getting their hands on a gun would give them. The PRT were trying to lock down the tinker's location and making a show of having lots of visible patrols just to keep the masses from rioting about how they weren't doing their jobs. And while the Empire rushed to arm and train and organize their new recruits before making their inevitable attack on the ABB... Bakuda had bought herself time to work.
Time for her to work meant more bombs for her grunts, more people abducted, and more unwilling suicide bombers. Brockton Bay had often been called a powder keg in the past but it had never been so apparent as it was now. The city could burn for all I cared, that wasn't my issue. After all it's just a place. The inevitable deaths would be horrible, but that was only part of my issue, the gang bangers could rot and everyone else was living on borrowed time anyway. No, my real issue was what Bakuda had done to a perfectly innocent little girl, what she was doubtlessly already doing to who knows how many more kids and bystanders in preparation. Every time I thought about it I could only see one acceptable course of action. I would protect those kids. I would send a message for the whole world to see that what Bakuda had done would not be tolerated.
I couldn't stop things like this. But I would remind all those who did similar or worse that even among criminals there were standards. I would show them that those who ignored said standards had a great deal more to fear than just what the law would do when they were discovered.
I would take this on myself so no one else would have to.
My power spiked within me like an answer to my thoughts. I growled again. That was another aspect of my powers that I was starting to consider more complicated than I originally thought.
Red always responded to the urge to attack or fight. Just the idea of it agitated that aspect of my power. It was destruction, plain and simple.
The purple fire was more finicky but it seemed to like the idea of handling things on my own. The old adage of 'if you want something done right, do it yourself' fit the purple fire to a t. Having to handle this on my own seemed to make it burn all the brighter.
The green fire was harder to lock down… I didn't have as much experience to draw on for it. But I was starting to get a handle on it. It liked the idea of, gah how to phrase it properly? It liked the idea of keeping others out of danger. If that meant I had to take some risk so be it, so long as I kept what I cared about safe, Dad, the Undersiders but more than anything the thought of protecting kids seemed to kick it into gear. It made sense. I knew Dad and the others could handle themselves but kids? They needed to be protected.
Still I couldn't get much out of the green fire, not yet. My reserves were growing but for now I could barely call up enough for a handful. That was fine though. I'd been through this before after all. All it would take was time and practice.
My final flame, my first flame was an odd duck. It was all for fighting but it seemed to love coming at problems from odd angles. Deception, misdirection, tricks, that was what made it respond most strongly. I was fine with that though, I liked working that way after all.
There was nothing quite so satisfying as thinking on my plan and feeling all four flames hum in sync with one another. All aspects of my power agreed with my course of action. Now if only I could find the damn woman!
With a light snarl I stood and began to pace. Tattletale had narrowed the search down to only a portion of the ABB's territory. That helped. Unfortunately, the area she narrowed the search down to was still almost a third of the ABB's territory. Searching with my projections had narrowed it down to perhaps a quarter of their territory, but the ABB were being exceptionally cautious. This slap dash observation method just wasn't cutting it. I needed to stop banging my head against the wall and think. Just because I had access to a thinker who could infer information from near nothing was no excuse to stop thinking for myself!
Now, Bakuda needed materials and space to work. Space should only be a minor issue. Any basement or apartment would likely be enough for a small lab. Materials though were trickier. Electronics, metals, chemicals, tools. And she would need lots of the first three. But if she was being constantly resupplied the protectorate would have caught on already.
She needed some place that would already be full of materials to set up shop or somewhere that new materials coming in wouldn't raise any extra attention. Someplace people could go for normal reasons to pick up her bombs for distribution as well. There weren't any junk yards in ABB territory… But I was willing to bet there were a few electronics and pawn shops. Maybe even a hobby shop?
I grabbed Lisa's laptop and pulled up her map of ABB territory. I highlighted the area we had narrowed down and ran a search for the kind of places I suspected. That got me seven hits. Now those were numbers I could work with.
{}{}{}{}
Yawning I glanced at the clock. It was five AM, but at least I'd finally found the bitch. She had chosen hobby shop with a massive basement as her lab. Variety over quantity I guess. She was keeping her hostages above the shop along with what looked like a slap dash operating room. I didn't think the place was rigged to blow, but who knew how small her explosives could be?
I wanted to move on her right then and there. But I was tired, and I'd burned through more than half of my indigo fire confirming her location. Much as I hated to give the woman more prep time I needed to rest before I pulled what I was planning. I'd hit her in the afternoon then. Possibly the early evening if Lisa was convinced the fighting would hold off that long.
I grinned toothily into my pillow as I imagined Bakuda pointlessly begging for mercy. It was a wonderful thought to fall asleep to.
Last edited:
