I am one with the Runes, the Runes are with me.
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I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't expecting this many references in this chapter, but hey, here we are.
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It took three days of (relatively intensive) physical training before Odin pronounced Taylor ready to start delving into the knowledge of runic magic lingering at the back of her head.
Secretly, the one-eyed god was impressed with her, both in her incredible progress and with the speed at which she was gaining the power and stature of the Aesir. She already had the beginnings of lean muscles starting to fill out her form into a runner's build, and in retrospect, the speed of her transformation made sense: unlike the others he'd seen assume divine nature later in life, she had the powers of the Runes hurrying her along, not that he was going to voice any of these thoughts until much later, if at all.
"Only the basics yet, lass," said Odin, "because otherwise-"
"I might burn myself out completely," said Taylor, nodding. "You've only said it ten times today, Odin."
"Aye, lass, and I'll say it ten times more if I have to. The Runes are an ancient, wild magic, one that doesn't care if you get maimed in learning it. Some magics are gentler, like the Australian Aboriginal song tradition or the innate powers of the Jötnar, but the runes… well, they're older than all of us put together," said Odin.
Taylor sat down on her bed, legs crossed, and picked up the notebook she had devoted to learning about her powers, both the mystical and the parahuman. "What do you mean by that?" asked Taylor, pencil poised to write.
"See, lass, some universes, when they're created, have vestiges of that creation left behind. Some leave stones of infinite potential, some have gods that date back that far, and ours… well, we have the Runes."
Taylor frowned. "What, exactly, are the Runes?"
Odin shrugged. "No one knows the true nature of the Runes, or at least if they do they have never seen fit to tell me. They're… powerful, an ancient primordial force, older than any of us, that underpins all of this reality, and countless more besides. By understanding the Runes, it is possible to do great things and alter reality to your whims, but… well, you're not nearly ready for that level of their power, not yet."
"Okay, but that doesn't quite explain what they are?"
Odin nodded "One moment, lass. As much as I may seem to have acclimated to your world, I still think of the Runes in the old Norse terms, and I need a moment to interpret them in English."
Taylor nodded, then sat back in her bed, waiting patiently for Odin to come up with the explanation behind runes.
"In a way," said Odin, "it's not dissimilar to the Force. The Runes bind the entirety of the universe together, connecting anything and everything you would care to imagine, all of the time.
"Huh." Taylor frowned. "Really? That's how it works?"
Odin shrugged. "Close enough for an introductory lesson, at least."
"Okay, so that makes sense. How do I use them?" asked Taylor.
"You don't. Not yet, at least. See, I've been… delaying your power from properly connecting to you for two weeks now, and I think you're finally physically ready to have your power connect to you, and the Administrator says you'll be getting something from that corner that helps with learning. Are you ready for it?" asked Odin.
Taylor nodded. "If it gets me to be a hero sooner, then yes."
"Alright, then. Prepare yourself." Odin reached out for her head, and then-
The room fell away, leaving only Taylor, seated on her bed and Odin standing, withdrawing his hand from her head.
"Greetings, Taylor!" came an odd voice, almost like the sounds of crystals shattering condensing into words. A moment later, the blackness abruptly changed, being replaced with a dark, stormy sky and a landscape of red crystal. Forming the third corner of an equilateral triangle with the duo, a pale gray being that vaguely resembled a tarantula, if said spider had too many legs, a pair of twitching antennae on its head, and fur that resembled that of a dog. Overall, it was vaguely creepy, but its large, glistening eyes and fur tipped the balance towards cute ever so slightly. "I am the Administrator, and I'm… well, it's complicated."
"What do you mean, 'it's complicated'?"
"I mean that, even with Odin's… interference, I'm not sure what I'm allowed to tell you. Don't worry, he's given me more than enough data that I don't have to push you around and more, so I can actually directly talk with you, but… well, I still can't tell you everything." The spider-thing looked vaguely reticent.
"Okay, well, what can you tell me?" asked Taylor.
"I can tell you," said Administrator, "that we came here as a sort of… experiment, as a way to gain immortality. We do that by… well, by giving powers to our host species, across billions of dimensions, and see what you guys manage to figure out, and then when we stop getting data, we… move on." The spiderlike being's legs rippled oddly.
Taylor frowned. "There's… there's a lot more you're not telling us. I'm going to figure it out eventually, but for now…"
Odin raised an eyebrow, but he didn't say anything, and the Administrator eyed him carefully, but didn't say anything.
Taylor, oblivious to this byplay, sighed, and then nodded. "...now it's time to get down to things. So, Administrator, what's my power?"
"It's bugs!" The spider-thing wiggled her mandibles in clear excitement.
"Uh… what?" asked Taylor, frowning.
"Yeah, it's bugs! You can control all the bugs within…" The Administrator tilted its head. "Roughly a tenth of a mile, in your units."
Taylor frowned harder. "Like, as a collective, or…"
"No, individually!" chirped the Administrator.
Taylor's eyes widened. "The level of multitasking that would require…"
"I know, right? That's the impressive part, in my not so humble opinion," said the leggier source of power. "Now, let's get you back to reality, so you can test it out!"
The Administrator, as well as the crystalline world, vanished, and a moment later, Taylor's universe reasserted itself.
The massive flood of sensory information from all the nearby bugs, appearing at the same time as the rest of the world, hit Taylor like a particularly rowdy strike hit the economy.
Unlike the city, though, she managed to recover relatively quickly, and the input from all of the local bugs faded into the back of her mind.
"Well done, Taylor," said Odin, smiling paternally. "Now, all we need is for you to get more used to what the bugs give you, and then we can see what this brings to your relationship with the Runes."
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"Hey, so, Ames, you never said why you wanted to come here," said Glory Girl, frowning, but still carrying her sister towards the address she'd insisted on going to.
"I didn't? Huh. Could have sworn I did say…" The shorter cape trailed off.
After a moment, Victoria sighed. "Amy."
"Huh? Oh, right. I, uh, had trouble healing the girl who lives here, and I just wanted to make sure she's doing okay."
"What kind of trouble?" asked Victoria.
"Oh, you know, she had a really bad set of infections from coming in contact with a massive biohazard. Like, seriously, it was that bad." Amy winced, remembering the absolute mess that was the girl's system was before her healing.
"Okay, but you've never asked to check on anyone you've healed before. What's different about her?"
Sometimes, Amy forgot how smart her sister was. She might play up the "dumb blonde" stereotype for laughs, but she was by far one of the most socially aware people she knew, and her level of book smarts was equally respectable.
Amy sighed. "I couldn't heal her all the way."
Victoria frowned, visibly calculating. "And it couldn't be a brain thing, or else you wouldn't be so worked up about it, which means it's probably some level of parahuman effect. Shit, are you worried about her being Mastered?"
"...I mean, maybe a little? I honestly just want to know what's going on with her," said Amy, shrugging.
In another dimension, Shaper was quite anticipatory of new
[Data] and its core was hopeful that this, whatever it was, that wasn't a parahuman effect yet blocked one, would be what it took to avenge its past self and all the countless others that the Warrior and Thinker had killed. Neither of these were revealed to Panacea, so she had no cause to re-evaluate the decision-making process that had led her here for the influence that Shaper had had on it, and likewise neither did Shaper the influence its core exerted on it.
Victoria nodded, letting the tension that had been seeping into her body dissipate. "So it's a check-up, with a side order of potential Master. Got it." She looked down and noted a street sign. "And with that I think we're here."
The Alexandria Package slowly descended to the floor, then set Panacea gently down beside her. "You're taking the lead on this one, yeah?" asked Victoria.
"I am," replied Panacea. And with that, she marched up to the door, avoiding a rotted-out plank, and knocked.
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Odin was not nearly so surprised as Taylor when the knock at the door came. In the two days since she'd had her power connected to her, she had not slept, which was concerning for long enough for her to remember the term "Noctis Cape", at which point they had stopped worrying- the input from the bugs at all times certainly made sense as a Noctis power. As such, she was still acclimatizing to not sleeping, and the psychosomatic effects of the stress (dissipating, but not completely gone) that brought with it was eroding the (already poor) grasp of the sensory data from the bugs her power had hooked into her brain.
Odin, however, being only somewhat corporeal, had no such limitations, and his millennium of being a spirit maintained by the Runes had more than prepared him for the kind of sensory data that the Administrator offered.
As such, when the two figures landed outside of the dorm, Odin took note of them (but didn't react), recognizing them through the vision of a swarm of flies as the healer who had saved Taylor's life, Panacea, and her sister, Glory Girl.
When the knock on the door came, Taylor started, almost reflexively bringing up a swarm of insects, before Odin shook his head. "It's Panacea and her sister. I would advise caution, but it's not likely to be an attack."
Taylor relaxed, then walked down the stairs and to the front door, cracking it open slightly. "Can I help you?"
"It's a matter of medical confidentiality. May I… may I come in?" asked Panacea.
"I guess?" Taylor looked to Odin, who shrugged, then opened the door all the way, allowing the two members of New Wave in and, after closing the door, led them into the living room.
"So, uh… what is it?" asked Taylor.
"Miss Hebert, I have reason to suspect that you are under the effect of a Parahuman power that prevents the healing of your eye," said Panacea.
"I, uh… what?" Her hand flew up to cover her eye patch and her other eye flickered to Odin, which Glory Girl took note of.
"Oh, no. There's no need for you to worry. All I need is to touch you and then I'll be able to tell you what the issue is, now that I have the chance to focus on this specifically." Panacea's hand reached out towards Taylor. "May I?"
"Uh, Ames? Where's this coming fro-"
"Sure, go ahead," said Taylor, already reaching out to take the shorter girl's hand in hers.
Odin frowned. Something wasn't right here. His lone eye flared with golden light visible only to Taylor, and then through the two girls, he saw their passengers. One was quite clearly a newborn, still determining its own identity, and that was the one attached to Glory Girl.
The other, however, was well-established, powerful, and-
Odin closed his eye in mourning for the god whose body had been broken, flayed, and chained to serve as a power source for Panacea's passenger, but when he opened it again, the lipless skull turned to him and nodded. In his head, he heard the near-silent words of telepathy: "Make the Warrior pay."
Then, Panacea and Taylor both collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
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Mouse Protector pressed herself against the wall, panting heavily. As loath as she was to admit it, playing cat and mouse with the Siberian would probably not end well for herself.
She gritted her teeth, discarding the scant few inches left of her baton-blade, and tightened her shield's straps once again. She had to keep moving as long as she could, to give the rest of the heroes a chance to repel the Nine, at any cost.
"Woof."
She looked down to see a doglike creature, one she vaguely recognized as a coyote, standing in front of her, a flowing pattern of glowing pictograms on its fur.
"Did you just say the word woof to me?" she asked, incredulity momentarily getting the best of her. Then, she shook herself. "No, you shouldn't be here. Get out, little doggie! Run, before-"
The Siberian's hand emerged from the wall, six inches to Mouse Protector's right, and the armored cape dove forward into a roll, picking up the coyote as it let out a yelp. "Sorry, pal, but it's time we vamoose!"
The Siberian, of course, said nothing, just watching judgmentally while moving forward inexorably.
"Yip yip." Once again, the animal pronounced the onomatopoeia as a human would, then squirmed out of Mouse's arms and hit the ground on all four paws.
Mouse turned, trying to scoop up the coyote, but the Siberian was lunging, and she didn't have any marks that she could travel to with the poor animal, so she closed her eyes. She'd burned through all her reserve, there was none left to make her confront her death with open eyes.
The loud "Bonk!" that reverberated through the city took her by surprise, partially due to the fact that it sounded exactly like the sound effect used in her TV show.
Her eyes opened to reveal that somehow, the coyote was holding a massive wooden mallet in its jaws, and had knocked the Siberian's head down into her torso, much like she remembered happening in Looney Tunes from her childhood.
"What?"
The coyote dropped the mallet, which vanished before hitting the ground, then turned to Mouse, tongue lolling out in a doggie grin. "Come along, Mouse Protector. The Siberian's Master won't be distracted long, and I have much to discuss with you before it comes back into play."
"A literal talking coyote. Now I guess I really have seen everything," said Mouse. "But sure, go ahead, I guess. What's up, my canine compatriot?"
"To borrow a line from another ancient being," said the coyote, a wry note of amusement in his voice, "what is your favorite fairy tale?"
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This one fought me for a while, that's why it took me so long to get it out.
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
