Let's Read Ward (Sequel to Worm)

dragonkid11 · Jan 7, 2018

You...did notice that your statement is self-defeating, right?

You said that I was wrong because I assumed lack of ambition on Tattletale because I didn't see part of the chapter that implied Tattletale has planned something for the city and you just assumed a lack of planning on Victoria because you didn't see what I see in the past few arcs.

I think we can agree to disagree at this point because we are speaking past each other.

dragonkid11 · Jan 9, 2018

Well a new chapter has arrived! But first...

Yeah, I really need to apologize on what happened on the last review where ended up having my review filled with hate and sarcasm instead of, you know, actual review.

After some advises and suggestions from a friend, I decided to change the way I do the review around a bit.

Which is probably not gonna be much of a difference but at least and hopefully I won't get so mad that I can't actually write it?

...Yeah, that's not reassuring but whatever, let's get on with it!
------

"Hey, Victoria, you're strong right?" Kenzie asked.

"Kind of," I said. "I'd be worried about breaking whatever it is I'm handling."

"It's pretty durable."

I thought about my forcefield. "I totaled the last car I lifted."

"I brought things, and I thought maybe Chris could lift some or Tristan could, but Tristan doesn't think he's strong enough and Chris doesn't want to."

She turned stick out her tongue at Chris.

"Limited duration," Chris said.

Well, guess we know a bit of Chris breaker power (If I remember correctly) limit now even if it's still a bit vague.

But really though, what kind of gear did Kenzie bring that she need a brute to carry it around? (Or maybe those guys are just complaining too much)

"I can take a look, where is this?" I asked Kenzie.

"At the street. Black van. I'll show you."

"Yeah, that'd help. I'll probably have questions."

I turned to the others, pointing at the treeline. "If you guys want to head over that way, stop at the rocky outcropping on the hill. We'll meet you there."

Kenzie walked with me. She was wearing black overalls and a pink tank top, a red apple clip in her hair, and red sneakers. Her hair was in much the same style as before, but the buns were set higher.

I paid more attention to her fashion choice because so much about it seemed deliberate, from color scheme to running theme. During the last meeting it had been a star on her dress, partially on her shirt, and in her hair.

Hmm, I guess being the daughter of a politician does have some benefit in getting nice matching clothing in this time of poor economy, even if they look very...bright.

Yeah, bright and fancy and looking like a My Little Pony fangirl.

"My dad gave me a ride today, because he needs to buy a suit and more work clothes," Kenzie said. "Please don't judge me too harshly if he acts really lame."

"I won't," I said. "You said Tristan and Chris could have helped. Tristan has increased strength?"

"Just a little. Very very little."

"I guess we'll find out soon."

"Sveta could have helped too, we think, she's really strong if she uses her real body, but it would have meant dragging it and that would have hurt the grass."

"How big is this thing?"

Huh, I was actually wondering how would Sveta even fight because with her full body prosthetic, she's basically just a normal human strength robot (Unless the prosthetic has more fancy stuff in it), and using just her tentacles might horrifically maim someone again.

I guess at some point, she finally learnt how to fully control her tentacles or maybe there's something else assisting her?

Still wondering what exactly is Tristan's power though. Slightly increased strength, a minor power in full set of power? Does he technically count as a cluster trigger group too because both him and his twin were struck by the same trigger?

Hmm, no, Fenja and Menja has the same exact power but maybe it's different for case 70?

I guess we will figure that out sooner or later.

"How big is this thing?"

"I'll show you," she said. She sprinted the last little way to the sleek van that was parked on the street in front of the library, hopping up to the passenger side window, clinging to the bottom edge of the open window so she could stick her head in. The back door of the van popped open, and Kenzie's father stepped out, walking around the van to the sidewalk.

He was almost as meticulous in appearance as Kenzie. He was very lean, with pronounced cheekbones and a long face that was made to look longer by the goatee that extended an inch from his chin. He wore a short-sleeved work shirt with a pinstripe pattern on it, and slim jeans that looked like they had cost a pretty penny. Shoes, belt, and watch, all expensive-looking.

The beard and his longer hair weren't as tidy as Kenzie was, but I was hardly about to judge, given how it was probably a day off for him and he was sitting in the sun.

"Dad, this is Victoria. She's the coach I was talking about. Victoria, this is my dad."

"Hi, Mr…" I extended a hand.

"Julien Martin," he said. He shook my hand. Both handshake and his tone were stiff, but it was a different kind of stiffness than I was used to seeing in Dean's family. I was well aware of how easily I'd slotted him onto that same mental shelf.

"You can call him Julien," Kenzie said.

Julien Martin is...

Actually not in Interlude 2 (Crystalclear) at all, is he really trying to be the mayor or am I misremembering thing?

But anyway, it seems like he was still a wealthy person even if he was driving a van right now of all vehicles.

"Nice to meet you. What do you do?"

"Realty."

"Dad only got into realty a year and a half ago, but he's really good at both the buying and selling sides of things. I don't really get it all, but his boss seemed pretty happy with him. You got a promotion, right?"

"I did."

"He's doing it ethically, too, which is so important, with so many shady people out there."

"I'm trying," he said.

"I can respect that," I said. "Thanks for bringing Kenzie out this far, and for bringing her stuff."

Kenzie rolled her eyes. "We should go take a look so we don't keep the others waiting."

Huh, realty. I guess Earth Gimel should have tons of free land to take as your own properties to get as long as you get the first stake first and have the power to keep it.

And well, I really hope Kenzie's dad is going it without being illegal and stuff because a future chapter involving Kenzie going 'Oh no, you are evil capitalist.' might be a bit too predictable.

Julien followed us around to the back of the van, standing back while we opened the doors. A black box that was a bit larger than a washing machine was sitting in there, strapped down ten ways from Sunday, to keep it from sliding around when the vehicle moved. More boxes were sitting at either side of the van, with straps to keep them flush against the wall, but they weren't any larger than a backpack or suitcase.

"We got the van because some of my stuff is hard to move," Kenzie said.

"Okay," I said. The box had a metal frame around the edges, with a crossbar running diagonally along each face. "What do I need to know?"

"Pick it up and move it."

"It's tinkertech, right?"

"It is."

"Is there a chance of a misfire if it's moved in the wrong way, if something's crushed or broken?"

"No."

"Will I hurt anything if it's turned on its side?"

"No," Kenzie said. "Hm. It's best if you don't turn it upside down."

"Where should I grab it, to best carry it?"

"Geeez," Kenzie said. "It's not going to blow up or anything. Or if it did, it wouldn't be a big enough explosion to hurt anyone. Not unless very specific conditions were met."

"Right," I said. I had an issue with my power, where I wasn't sure I trusted the forcefield to simply hold the box and not crush or dig into it. It was only about a minute of flying to get to where I wanted to go, but even if everything went according to plan, I was worried that handling the box for more than a couple of seconds would leave handprints or gouges in it.

Well that confirmed my fear and prediction. Victoria's forcefield is okay to be projected to protect people for seconds but any longer and her 'oldself' projection would go random and messy and it might get bloody if she's close to people.

And it's no wonder Kenzie asked for someone with brute power to move this...device. A washing machine is heavy but even then it's still hollow to shove the clothing in, and this thing doesn't look hollow at all.

But still, Kenzie, you can never be so sure about tinkertech and their tendency to explode.

Especially when they are made to explode.

While I investigated, Kenzie climbed in beside me, peering at the box and watching me.

"Give me some space?" I asked.

Kenzie grabbed some smaller things on her way out.

It took a few minutes, but I unclipped the straps that were securing the box in place, and laid them across the ground. I lifted the box, and set it down on the straps. I connected them, wrapping them around the box, then slid it around so I could reach the ones at the back. There was a ramp built into the truck, and I could see where the box could slide along the tracks, but it seemed like more of a hassle to use the ramp and unload that way.

Aha! That's one way to get it moving without having 'old Vicky' damaging it. Nice.

"How dangerous is this team business going to be?" Julien asked, behind me.

"Dad," Kenzie protested. "Don't embarrass me."

"If I thought it was going to be a serious danger, I wouldn't be helping," I said, still working on the straps. "But I can't guarantee anything."

I fastened the straps, then hauled the entire thing out, forcefield up, gripping the box. It thudded against the street. Dense.

"Is it a problem?" I asked Julien.

"It's not a problem," Kenzie said, firm. "I can handle myself. I've trained more than a lot of heroes, because I did a year going to all the practice events and stuff."

"I'm more interested in what your dad has to say. I don't want to step on toes, and your parents get the last word."

"It's fine," Julien said. "If it wasn't this, she would would be something else. I prefer this team idea."

"You should," Kenzie huffed.

"Do you need to be picked up?"

"Yes, please. In…?" Kenzie looked at me.

"Two hours?" I asked. "Is that okay?"

"It's fine," her dad said. He still had that tone, which came across curt, inflexible. I had a hard time imagining him as a salesman. Accountant, maybe.

As much as Kenzie wants to join in the action, I think her father is right in worrying about this.

I meant, it's definitely not a normal thing for kids to get superpower and then fight on the street with a chance of dying.

Her father seems to be very reasonable about getting his daughter some training already, so I would support his willingness for this decision for now.

"Before you do anything, can you go to the train station? Rain had to take the train and he's running late. Bring him here?" Kenzie asked.
Her dad frowned.

"Please," Kenzie said.

"Where am I going?" he asked.

"Give me your phone, I'll put it in there."

While they fussed, I checked and fixed the remainder of the straps.

Yup, that definitely sounds like something a young girl and her father would talk about with the father being real annoyed about the whole thing.

"I'll be right back," I said.

The straps served to let me hold the box without actually holding it. I flew, holding the length of straps that I'd wound together and attached at the tail end. The box made for unwieldy flying, swinging below me.
Could the forcefield potentially claw through them? Yes. I hoped I'd be able to see it before it managed to succeed.

I flew in the direction I'd sent the others, leaving Kenzie behind.

My phantom self gripped the length of straps, scratched, squeezed, and twisted it, periodically making the ten foot length of cords bend in unusual shapes.

I hadn't interacted with it much. I hadn't seen the limits of its intelligence or lack thereof. This one minute of flying might have even been the longest period I'd properly used my strength in two years.

I sighted the others, sitting on the rocks and talking. I dropped low, and I set the box down on the ground. Even with the care I was taking, it made a noise on landing.

"Wow," Tristan said. "How heavy is that thing?"

"No idea," I said. "If I had to guess, maybe three hundred and fifty pounds?"

"I can see why she has a hard time moving those things around."

"She described them as being bigger," Chris said. "Others, I think. I think they start at that size and get larger."

No fucking wonder why PRT want to keep her around in the Watchdog group.

Most of her tinker techs are large and heavy as hell, even if they are something like giant laser cannon or shield generator, they just gonna keep her around the base and get a bloody truck to more the damn thing to the battlefield.

And wow, it seems like not even one minute is safe for the forcefield to be up. I'm not even gonna doubt that it would make a different on whether it was a steel cord or normal straps holding up the tinker box with its immense strength bending it into unrecognizable shape.

That's dangerous as hell.

"Did her dad leave?" Sveta asked.

"Not yet," I said. "They're figuring out logistics. He's going to go pick up Rain at the station. Be right back."

I flew over to where Kenzie and her dad were. Kenzie's dad was in the driver's seat, and Kenzie was closing the rear doors. A series of bags and boxes were unloaded, all packed together.

As I landed, her dad pulled away. Kenzie raised a hand in a wave.

I was aware of the lack of a wave in response. From the way she lowered her hand and glanced at me, Kenzie was too.

"Want to fly over?" I asked.

Her eyes lit up with excitement as she nodded.

There were very few people in the world who didn't like flying.

...Hm, wait.

If she was afraid of getting claw mark onto the tinker box when she carried it around with her forcefield on for strength. How did she manage to carry people around safely?

That's actually kinda confusing.

It was, in a way, almost as much of a pain to bring Kenzie, two cases and two boxes without my strength active, as it had been to move the one cube. I ended up lifting her by the straps at the back of her overalls, my hand also wrapped around the strap of one bag, while Kenzie held other things.

Well that's one way to do that I guess. But how exactly did Victoria carry those kids back in the hospital safely?

We arrived at the hill with the rocks. There was light overgrowth, a fairly loose distribution of trees for the fact that it was untamed wilderness, and thick grass. A surveying team had passed through at one point, and they had disturbed earth here and there, felled a few trees, and spray painted the face of one of the larger rocks before leaving.

A bit of a shame, but I could understand the need for a quick and easy label. No minerals or stone of any particular value here.

Chris, wearing his headphones again, was wearing what looked like the same shorts as he had worn at the meeting, and a different t-shirt. He was examining the box, while keeping at least two feet away from it at all times. He had a bag with him, a travelers' backpack that was packed full, but he'd put it down.

"You don't have to keep your distance," Kenzie said. "It's not dangerous."

"It's tinkertech. It's science that gets at least some of its functionality from interdimensional fuckery, built by cooperation between you and the unfathomable, menacing thing that chose you as its host."

"It's a camera, Chris. It records and projects."

That 350 pounds box is a camera!?

It better have some real fancy features because that's ridiculously heavy for a camera.

And Chris, erm...

You do know that unfathomable, menacing thing is in your head too, right? That's kinda like...saying that an Asian that is born in America isn't true Asian.

"It's a camera built with collaboration between you and a unknowable, violence-driven multiversal horror."

"My multiversal horror is pretty tame, I think. She just likes to build things and gather information," Kenzie pressed buttons on the side of the box. A triangle between reinforcing bars lit up.

A hologram appeared a number of feet away. A potbellied rat with a crooked nose.

"…And you're using it to make cartoons," Chris said.

"Plump Rat King," Sveta said. "Some of the kids at the hospital liked that one."

"It's okay," Kenzie said. "Only the first season was really any good."

I think we have crappy hologram projector that is way lighter than that tinker box but I guess that passed as enough feature to justify its weight.

But now I do wonder a bit on the quality of Earth Bet cartoon. Plump Rat King, does every single episode end with the king tricking the cat so he can steal the food from the fridge? Was Warner Bros attempting to sue it for copyright issue before Golden Morning happened?

"What's it good for?" Ashley asked. She was taking things a step further than Chris' wearing of the same shorts. She wore the same dress she had worn at the meeting, the damage at the corner mended imperfectly. One of the straps, I realized, had been damaged and patched, but her hair masked much of it. She had a black mask in her hand, but she hadn't put it on.

"Stuff. Loads of stuff. I'll show you some later," Kenzie said. She started opening boxes.

Tristan, much like Kenzie, was unpacking a bag. His costume was armor. It struck a balance between function and appearance, but it looked like it was a pretty good quality. Each segment was framed with ram's heads and horns, spirals and ridges. Where it wasn't brushed metal, things were painted or tinted red or light red. He saw me looking and smiled.

"Byron is the fish theme, then?" I asked.

"Water as much as fish. Yeah," Tristan said.

"You have some kind of superstrength, right?"

"A very small amount. Helps when you're wearing armor as heavy as this, or when you're using a power that can make heavy things."

"Seems like a good place to get us started," I said.

Tristan turned around, seating himself firmly on the sloped ground, his armor partially unpacked and arranged beside him. Some bits were already fastened into place on his arms and legs, over a bodysuit that seemed designed to go between him and his armor.

He held up his hand, and produced three motes of orange-red light. As each one moved through the air, it left a trail behind it, like the afterimage of a sparkler waved through the darkness. They traced a circle and as the moving points of light connected to the end of each trail, a shape came to life. A discus, with a slight peak on one side.

I extended a hand, and he passed it to me.

Dense, heavy, very solid. Matter creation.

"You can throw it," he said.

I threw it. It wasn't as aerodynamic as a frisbee, but it did catch the air. It wobbled mid-flight and veered off course, crashing into a tree before disappearing into a patch of grass.

Ohhh, matter creation. Neato.

But is that all he can do? Making just high density objects do not sound very useful unless he can combine martial art to use those object well.

Wait...

Discus...is a fish. And he just tell Victoria that she can throw it away.

While Byron has fish themed costume and is inside his head.

Wow Tristan, dick move. Now I feel bad for laughing about this.

Tristan was already making something else. Twelve or more motes of light traced the shape. "Requires a bit of concentration, I can rush it or force it to come into being early, but you get weirdness like… this."

It materialized. A hammer or a mace, long-handled. The weirdness was in how the shape finalized its form, drawing pretty creative curves and hooks. Spikes, horns, thorns, and other slightly curved growths stood out. It looked unbalanced.

"Are they permanent?" I asked.

"They can be. Depends if I keep the sparks alive or not. I can create a lot of sparks, but it requires more time, more concentration."

"What's the difference between keeping it alive or not?" I asked.

"Ah," he said. He pushed himself to his feet, shifting his footing to make sure he wouldn't slide down the hill. He held out the mace, and started to form the motes for another. He rushed this one even more than he had the last. The shape was more unwieldy, less balanced. "Byron, you want to help with demonstrations today, or do you want to be left alone?"

Tristan blurred, features distorting, his eyes flaring with the same light as the sparks had. The light turned blue, and then he was Byron, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and jeans.

Oh huh, so I got it wrong too on how they have two hour rotation each when they could just change around like that.

I guess Tristan do combine some sort of martial art to use the object he made, otherwise the first thing he made casually won't be some sort of heavy mace.

One of the two maces exploded into a spray of water. Sveta made a noise of surprise, and Chris, still mostly fixated on examining Kenzie's cube, jumped back from the cube in surprise.

Byron turned his head so the backspray hit him in the side of the face, rather than right in the center of it. He dropped the still-intact mace he held with his other hand.

"Hi Byron," Kenzie said.

"Hi," I added my greeting to Kenzie's. "We haven't formally met."

"We haven't. I got the basics," he said.

"So I gathered."

"This is a terrible idea," he said. "Tristan being involved, this team concept, the potential for disaster, and this thing with Tattletale?"

"I don't see anyone changing their mind. Mrs. Yamada couldn't convince them, I don't think I can. If they're going to do this or something like this, isn't it better that they do it smart and informed?"

Annnd he quickly gone to full depressed sappy mode. But Victoria still has a point there. They are definitely not gonna change their mind on forming a hero team, so might as well teach them how to get smart about it.

It's kinda like how Yamada talk on how therapy works. You help out the patient, and give them the best chance to survive out there.

But you can't give them 100% success, and it's the same for this case.

I do have a feeling Byron is more pissed about getting involved in this 'mess' because Tristan most probably started it more than anything else though.

"I don't know," he said. "But if you're enabling them, you should know you own a share of what happens."

"I don't think that's fair," Sveta said.

"It might be fair," I said.

"My voice doesn't matter either. I tried, nobody listens. Maybe I own a bit of what happens for not trying harder to stop Tristan from going forward with this."

"You sound pretty certain something bad is going to happen."

"I was there for all the therapy sessions, even if I didn't participate," he said. He looked at the others. "Don't worry, I'm not going to say anything. But I am going to say, again, this is a trainwreck waiting to happen."

"We got it," Chris said. "Saying it over and over doesn't change anything."

"Be kind, Chris," Sveta said. "There's a lot playing into Byron's concerns."

There might be a high chance that Byron and Tristan triggered because Tristan fucked up in something and Byron got both figuratively and literally dragged into the mess if he was this worried about a trainwreck occurring.

He just sound like a person that think everything in life fucked him over and now he just don't want to try anything so he won't even fail at it.

Maybe some successes in this hero team thing would help him up.

Byron shook his head. He glanced at me.

"You need anything, while we're talking?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No. Um. You seem alright, so… be safe. Be wary. And for the record, since you're going to ask…"

He showed me his power. Motes of light, like Tristan's, blue. He drew them in the air, two expanding, abstract shapes, not closed like Tristan's had been. He positioned them so there was one on either side of him, then clenched his fist. The lines that were drawn became water, buckets worth, spraying out in the direction the lines had been drawn. He had drawn them out as expanding spirals, and the resulting water flew out in circular sprays.

"You can use me if you need to clean up, Tristan," Byron said. "I'll do the quick swaps if you need them."

The water was still spraying when Byron blurred, features distorting and smearing together, the two lighted eyes peering through the shadows between folds and smears, going from blue to orange-red.

One of the sprays of water lost all of its oomph, the remaining water striking the ground to flow through grass and between rocks. The other diagram became a solid object, a wheel spikier and cruder than what Tristan had made. It hit the ground and stuck there.

The water that Byron's power had produced rained down on us for several seconds.

"It's not going to hurt the box?" Chris asked.

"Nope," Kenzie said. "Waterproofed just in case Byron visited. It was good to see you, Byron, by the way. I hope to prove you wrong."

"Yeah," Sveta said. "That's a good way of putting it, Kenzie."

So Tristan can create dense solid matter while Byron can create water from line he draw in the air.

I have absolutely no bloody clue on how to use Byron power properly in a fight. Maybe by creating water flow on the ground to cause the opponent tripping balls from the slippery ground.

...Wait, the mace Tristan newly made turn into water when Byron appears and water Byron made from new line become heavy dense solid when Tristan appears.

Oh boy, oh boy.

That has a lot of potential.

Tristan's face was at an angle that saw him looking down at the ground. At first I thought he was trying to keep the water out of his face. Then, as he changed the angle of his head a little, I saw his face.

"For the record," Tristan said, "If it's my two hours and I ask you a question and then pass the baton, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't take up extra time and use it to try and sabotage me."

"I did say hi to him," I said.

Tristan shrugged. "He didn't have to say all that. He's quick to say there's a problem but he doesn't suggest alternatives. He whines about the circumstances but he won't attend the therapy and he doesn't want to work on figuring out better courses of action. It pisses me off sometimes, especially when he elbows into my time to make what I'm trying to accomplish harder."

His tone was hard. Pissed off seemed like an apt description. I'd seen Tristan, casual and smiling some before he'd changed, and now this felt like a complete, sudden shift.

It was easy to forget that he was in there while Byron was out here, feeling things, thinking, his mood changing during that short conversation.

I could see the expressions of others. The sympathy on Sveta's face, the tilt of Chris' head.

Ashley looked especially focused and attentive, her pacing around the hill having come to a stop. One of her hands was at her hair, pushing it back out of her face, the water helping it stay there.

Byron really sounded like how a depressed would act like, saying that everything is going to go horribly wrong but won't do anything to help at all.

And i can see that it's not the first time shit exploded from Sveta and Chris expressions.

Meanwhile Ashley just walked around the side and sang 'I absolutely don't give a shit~ About all these dramas around me~"

"It seems like hard feelings are inevitable," I said.

"Yeah," Tristan said. He looked away. "I can keep my shapes 'alive'. If they're still alive when I change, they become water. If they aren't, they're there to stay. Same for Byron's water. It's effective if he makes water, sloshes it over someone, and then changes, to make it solid. We've tagged a good dozen villains that way."

"A dozen is a really good number for a teenage hero."

"Yeah," Tristan said.

"You're pretty lucky, getting a name that fitting for a power like that."

"Constellations forming rock and water?" Tristan asked. He snorted air through his nostrils. "Want to know the hilarious thing?"

"I do," I said. I wasn't sure whatever he was going to say was 'hilarious', given his tone, but I'd hoped today would be a lighter endeavor, and any humor would help.

"We weren't even rock and water, originally. Reach bought the name from the last Capricorn. She got wounded in battle and she retired. Win-win. We got settled into the role, got our name, our armor, our brand, and… power changed to match."

12, that's pretty damn good for a teenager hero.

Tristan and Byron would be a non lethal powerhouse for sure with the power they have but...

What did Tristan mean by 'power changed to match' and they weren't originally rock and water?

Could they make something else or they just found this combination very useful?

Inb4 plot demands new power and Tristan and Byron pull new shit out of their ass, literally.

"That's really interesting," I said. "There's a lot of potential there."

"There is. Absolutely. And not all of it's good," Tristan said.

"But some of it is," Sveta said.

"Some of it is, yeah," Tristan said. He offered her a small smile.

So that might be true, they can make more than just rock and water.

Really wonder we will see those combinations happen in the future.

I could see the concerted effort he was making to pull out of the funk. A few words from his brother and he was upset enough that it showed in his tone and the direction of what he was talking about.

Tricky, that kind of negativity sitting just under the surface.

"Sveta," I said. Change of topic. "I'm guessing you've worked on control enough that you feel okay letting loose in limited ways?"

"Kind of," she said. "I don't want to go all-out in a combat situation. I don't want to do anything that would risk people getting hurt."

"Okay," I said.

"I figured I would mostly stay in the suit. I can do this…"

She didn't touch or move anything external, but the joints of her elbow shifted, and the forearm and hand dropped. Ten or so tendrils extended between elbow and forearm, like a muscle with gaps between strands.

She moved it, tendrils bending, flinging her hand and the attached segment of arm out fifty feet. She tried to grab a branch, missed it, grabbed another, and seized it, before pulling her body to follow. I saw her turn her head away as she pulled herself through the intervening twigs and leaves.

She twisted around, pointed a hand, and used tendrils to push her fist out.

She seized the wheel that Byron had left embedded in the earth, and pulled herself to it.

There was a bit of gracelessness to the landing, her pants leg and the side of her body rubbing against the grass, a few clumps of earth flying, but it served to put her in our midst again. She wobbled as she stood and Tristan and I caught her between us.

She made a small 'phew' sound.

"You're made of grappling hooks, basically," Chris said. Kenzie, sitting on her box, stuck out her toe to jab Chris in the shoulder.

"I can get things for my body. Weld and I were talking about getting a second body for cape things. If I had hooks I could unfold I could more reliably grab things. And I'll get better with practice," Sveta said. "And I really want extra shielding for my joints because they're the easiest part to break, and I don't want to have to send it out to be repaired and be unable to walk or do things in the meantime."

Oh wow.

A hero made entirely out of grappling hooks. Why the heck did nobody think of this before!?

Sveta just kept getting adorably awesome!

Or horrifying to the enemy since she detaches her limbs to attack and stuff.

...

I wonder if she can do a rocket punch.

"What happens if the suit gets broken?" I asked. "As in broken enough that it doesn't keep you contained?"

"Um. I have a collapsed hamster ball in here. I can spit it out, unfold it, shove myself in there and bring the lid behind me. It's a bit cramped, it's not the biggest, and it might not always work, but I've also been working hard at keeping myself under control."

I suppressed a wince. Sveta had worked hard for as long as I'd known her, and I knew that the anxiety was tied into the lack of control in a feedback loop, and that her being so much more confident and happy would mean she had more control, but all it took was one bad incident.

"Workable," I said. "We'd have to be really, really careful."

"Absolutely," she said, with dead seriousness. "The way I see it, my body is pretty hardy. To break containment, it would take something that would maim an ordinary person."

"Yeah," I said. But if they think you're durable, they might not hold back.

We'd address that when it came to it.

Hopefully the person that break her containment is a brute so Sveta can test out how durable they are too!

Okay yeah that probably won't do well for Sveta's mind...

"Alright," I said. "So, my line of thinking was that instead of explaining, we'd do a little bit of a team exercise."

I heard a faint groan from Chris.

"It should be fun, and it should be relatively low-key," I said. "We split everyone into teams of three, and we play a small game of capture the flag, here."

"See, that's playing dirty," Tristan said. "You're playing into my love for competition, here."

"It's fun," Kenzie said. "I really like this."

It seemed Kenzie could be counted on to be positive. I said, "I'm hoping it's fun. Does anyone else need to explain their powers or cover anything before we get into it? I know what Ashley can do, unless something's changed."

Ashley shook her head.

"We'll see you in action when we have our competition, then. That leaves Chris and Kenzie, kind of."

Hmm, team exercise.

Well, let's hope nothing go absolutely wrong about this because it sounds fun!

I do worried about Ashley going overkill though considering her power ignores all forms of defense and just bore through them and people.

"I've got some things," Kenzie said. She opened a case. "Two of these things I had as just-in-case things when I was a Ward. I got them fixed up recently, and I even made an improvement. Eye hook-"

She pulled out a coil of metal. She stuck it on the corner of her cube, then held her phone in one hand, moving her thumb around. The coil unfurled, prehensile, and its tip unfolded from its teardrop shape. Three claws, extending from around a circular lens with a pupil. Kenzie moved her head and body in time with the movements of the thing.

The thing moved closer to me, until it was two feet from my face, the three claw-blades opening and closing a little. It blinked at me, shutter closing momentarily.

"It was made to look through vents, to start with. it's delicate enough it can turn screws and drill holes, and I can swap out the lens for others. And I've got this flash gun too."

This sounds like those disaster rescue snakebots some companies have been developing to get to victims trapped in enclosed space.

But this one sounds like a good espionage tool.

She held up something that looked like a child's toy, squat, blunt, with a lens on the front.

"It's for when I had to get closer to the scene when I was with the Baltimore Wards. They wanted me to be able to protect myself and they wanted nonlethal."

"What does it do?" I asked.

"Makes light," she said. She aimed it off to the side and pulled the trigger.

It looked and sounded like a camera flash going off.

Well that just...sad.

But maybe she could have made it into a flashlight that blind people temporarily from pulses of bright light to get people away from her?

"And the other stuff?"

"Mask with a few settings," Kenzie said. She pulled out a high-tech mask, metal around the edges to give a general circular shape to the clear pane for her face, but she didn't put it on. She held up a disc, then clipped it to the front of her overalls, so it was directly over the pocket at her chest. "This is kind of a costume thing I haven't finalized."

"Good," I said. "Great."

I bet the costume is going to get finished very soon.

"I transform," Chris said. "Changer."

I made a motion for him to continue.

He sounded aggrieved, like it was my fault he had to explain at all, "I don't know what else you want. I have a few different forms. They're inspired by my moods and mental states."

"You give them names based on what mood or state they're from," Kenzie said. "Like Creeping Anxiety and Wistful Distraction."

"Yeah," Chris said. "Look, the rest of you know. Explain. I'm going to go change."

He grabbed his bag and hefted it over one shoulder, then began trudging uphill.

"These forms reflect the feelings?" I asked.

"Very much so," Sveta said.

"It sounds like he has more than a few forms," I said.

"Eight or more, as far as I've counted," Kenzie said. "He said a few, but I think he loses track. There's wiggle room in each form, too. It depends on a lot of factors. Diet, time since he last used a form, if he pushes for something in the middle."

"He's strong," Ashley said.

"He might be," Tristan said.

Kenzie continued to volunteer information. "The forms tend to come with pretty heavy weakness. Anxiety is quick but fragile. That sort of thing."

Oh, emotional based changer. Or breaker, just, those two power ratings are confusing as fuck as often mix together in nearly every single case.

The only problem was that he seems to be stuck in groomy mood constantly so I don't think other forms will be utilized often.

"I think I get it," I said. "Can I ask why he's in the group?"

"The drawbacks," Tristan said.

"The fragility isn't a drawback?" I asked.

"It's one. He doesn't change all the way back."

"What?" I asked.

Tristan explained, "He changes to one, he gets a little taller, a little stronger, a little more sluggish. He changes to another, gets better eyes, ears…"

"Thus the headphones," Kenzie said.

"…and less responsive in hand-eye coordination to go with it. He tries to balance, but lately it's been getting worse."

"What happens if he doesn't change?"

"The body stays the same," Sveta said. "He doesn't change physically."

"Which is good."

"But he doesn't change mentally either. He says he can't tap those emotions he's not using, he can't think as clearly, his thoughts go in circles."

"Lose-lose," I said.

"Something like that," Ashley said.

Well guess that explains his mood when his power got mentioned and how he feels about the shard.

His shard clearly want him to be in his changer form constantly and beat the shit out of people with it.

I could hear Chris' approach, now. The sound of branches breaking underfoot, the rustling of under- and over-growth.

He'd grown. He'd shucked off his clothes and he'd donned what looked like an oversized pair of shorts in a coarse cloth. They had to have taken up most of the bag's space. He was twelve feet tall, with skewed proportions. Large legs, large around the middle, large hands, all with coarse hair. His shoulders seemed somewhat narrow, his neck long, his head only a little larger than normal, with faintly pronounced tusks. His hair, wild before, was just a bit longer than it had been.

"He chose one of the more pleasant looking forms," Kenzie said, cheerful. She grabbed her stuff.

How in the fuck was I supposed to make someone like Chris marketable? How was I supposed to wrangle Ashley or handle Tristan's issue?

Fuck he looks like Slenderman's hobo cousin with no job and no money.

Getting people to think he's a hero is going to be incredibly hard and they can't just dress him up nicely because his changer form kept changing too.

"Twenty minutes," Tristan said. "Then he changes back. We should hurry."

Capture the flag. Right. A part of me wished I hadn't brought it up. I could have left things at this, with powers explained and demonstrated in brief, and then I could have taken a few days to think.

I needed a few days to think, so feelings wouldn't be hurt, damage wouldn't be done.

I didn't have it. I'd lose too much stock with these guys if I changed my mind. Chris and Ashley especially.

And he has time limit issue too, twenty minutes should be alright for a short fight but not exactly good for longer one...

"Who wants to be team leaders?" I asked.

Tristan raised one hand. Ashley raised another.

"Ashley, you want to pick first?" I asked.

"Kenzie."

"Woo!" Kenzie cheered.

"Sveta," Tristan said. "You'd be my second pick, after Rain. Weld fan club."

"Chris," Ashley said. She pulled on her mask. It was v-shaped, covering the nose, ears, and eyes, leaving just a hint of her eyebrows visible above.

"You guys set up over there, opposite side of the hill, then," I said. Ashley and the two youngest members of the team.

"You're filling in for Rain?" Tristan asked me.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm mostly interested in seeing how you guys operate, so I'll mostly stick to playing defense and keeping an eye on things."

"Alright. I don't think that'll be a problem," he said.

The team is set, with Ashley, Kenzie and Chris on one side and Tristan, Sveta and Victoria on another.

REALLY hoping nothing goes wrong with this absolutely, friendly battle.

I wasn't so sure. I could see the way he set his jaw, before he pulled his horned helmet on. I had an idea of his disposition already. I could see the look of Ashley's eyes behind her mask, too. She wanted to be leader, by the looks of things, and that meant she had something to prove. I saw Chris as the giant, properly smiling for the first time since I'd met him, as he looked back over one shoulder, lumbering away. It made me more concerned, rather than less.

Sveta took my hand, squeezing it. Off to the side, Tristan was drawing something out of motes of light, ten feet tall and twenty feet wide. A wall.

I'd wanted to test them, to see how they functioned as discrete units, and possibly to highlight difficulties.

The more I saw, the less sure I was that these guys were equipped to handle even a friendly contest. There were so many messy parts to this. Above all else, the ones with the power seemed least suited to wield it.

"Believe in us," Sveta said, her voice soft.

I wanted to. I really did.

"I think," I said, and I said it to Tristan, "You should take this opportunity to explain your game plan."

And the planning stage is set. With Victoria being worried as hell about every single one of them.

Dysfunctional hero squad, yay.

Hopefully nothing absolutely fucks up. Hopefully.

Anyway, I'm seeing you guys in the next chapter.

Later!

Ridtom · Jan 9, 2018

dragonkid11 said:
If she was afraid of getting claw mark onto the tinker box when she carried it around with her forcefield on for strength. How did she manage to carry people around safely?

She turned her forcefield off. She said as much multiple times.

Mook · Jan 9, 2018

Ridtom said:
She turned her forcefield off. She said as much multiple times.

Yup. Vicktoria's flight isn't tied to her force-field anymore than her Aura is. Though without the Aura active she probably can't fly at full speed due to wind resistance, bugs and the risk of crashing into birds and stuff. Pity the new field is about as aerodynamic as a Sherman Tank.

Still.... Flight. Force-field. Emotion Aura. Empathy-blocking. Resistance to Emotion Effects.

Vicky has a bunch of powers in her arsenal. A lot of capes do. Kind of makes the whole Grab Bag classification feel a bit arbitrary.

RareDivine · Jan 10, 2018

Mook said:
Yup. Vicktoria's flight isn't tied to her force-field anymore than her Aura is. Though without the Aura active she probably can't fly at full speed due to wind resistance, bugs and the risk of crashing into birds and stuff. Pity the new field is about as aerodynamic as a Sherman Tank.

Still.... Flight. Force-field. Emotion Aura. Empathy-blocking. Resistance to Emotion Effects.

Vicky has a bunch of powers in her arsenal. A lot of capes do. Kind of makes the whole Grab Bag classification feel a bit arbitrary.

The last three are basically extensions of the same power, and beside that having multiple smaller powers comes with the territory of being a second gen parahuman.

From the old weaverdice handbook on Multi-Triggers
Though distinct and not simultaneous, siblings born to the same cape parents show the same trends, with biases in what powers manifest and more small powers.

It seems that mechanisms behind multiple triggers are similarly stimulated by second gen capes.

dragonkid11 · Jan 13, 2018

New chapter is here and I absolutely did not forgot to review it while having my extreme moment of procrastination!

*Coughs*

Let's get it started.

------

"You want a game plan?" Tristan said. "Do you mean for here or for the big picture?"

I was thinking big picture, I thought, I have doubts right now and a plan would help.

Without voicing that, I said, "Here, but I'm open to hearing about either. if you have something in mind."

"I want to wait on the big picture stuff so we can include Rain into the discussion. He and I chat regularly, and he's heard some, but Ashley and I were talking while we waited for you and there's bits to discuss. Comfort levels."

"Okay," I said. "We'll focus on this for now."

Definitely not fair to Rain if they started this talk now, it's something that everyone needs to take part in.

And besides, Chris only has 20 minutes of transformation time, so let's not waste it and get the hopefully safe capture the flag game going!

"I'm in charge, then?" Tristan asked.

"If Sveta is okay with it, you can give it a shot."

"I'm okay with it," Sveta said.

He made a small amused sound, his face obscured by his helmet, his hands busy adjusting the fit of his armor as he paced. "There was a time I thought I might end up being in charge of Reach. Things fell through before then. I don't know if my current mindset works for it, but let's give this a try."

I had my own bag, which I'd brought with me. My computer, masks, and the flags, one red and one blue. I fished out the flags, holding both in one hand, and put on one of the masks.

"Victoria, you and I are on defense, then," he said. "Ashley is going to go hard offense, that's who she is, and I don't see Chris holding back. Sveta, you're going on the attack. You loop around, go the long way if you have to. You might have to dodge Kenzie, but I think you can manage that okay. It's only her hook thing and flash gun."

"Sounds like a plan," Sveta said.

"Alright," I said.

Sounds like a plan at least. Sure, no plan survives in contact with the enemies but it still okay to have something.

If anything, this plan sounds quite solid. Ashley would most likely focus on Tristan because both seems to want to be the top of the group and Chris, well, probably have a bit of hard feeling for Victoria from her asking him to show his power.

Sveta would at least get by safely and quickly while the two are distracted and Kenzie...well, she probably can't even run fast enough to guard the flag.

At least on paper it sounds like it will work.

"I think the benefit here is that we all have some experience," he said.

"Kind of," Sveta said.

"They're young. Ashley too, in a weird way. They're led by Ashley and we know how she thinks. I can put my confidence in you, Sveta, if you're going for their flag."

"I hope I deserve it."

Uh huh yeahhhh.

Ashley is like, 2 or 3 years old. So definitely young.

This is another match on strength and experience again, isn't it? With Victoria, Tristan and Sveta being the experience team and Ashley, Chris and erm... the two are strong but inexperienced here, Kenzie have basically no power to aid in the match nor the experience for it.

"I'm confident in myself and my ability to hold up against a two-person rush, assuming that's what they do, and I know you've got a background, Victoria."

"Yeah. Confidence goes before the fall, though. I think one of the things I regret most in the past is my overconfidence."

"This is just an exercise. If I'm wrong on this, I'll own it. Let me plant our flag and get my stuff to adjust my armor, I'll be right with you."

I'm not the only one that feel that Tristan's death flag is getting higher and higher with each chapter? Right?

As he said it, another wall materialized behind us. A fort with ten foot walls was slowly forming. Tristan wasn't even focusing that much on the construction, attention-wise. He took the flag before walking off.

Hmm...I really wonder how Earthbend-y can Tristan go with his power because it seems like he can just straight up making a goddamn fort out of the ground like nothing.

...And Bryon can do waterbender stuff...And apparently they can somehow 'change' their powerset.

Hold the hell up, are they basically Korra the avatar with a dick?

I had intentionally chosen a less level area. We were on a hill, playing on a bit of a slope, roughly a ten degree decline with taller grass, weeds, and some pebbly dirt covering the area. Some trees and rocks dotted the space between where their group would set up and where we would.

I had a few reasons for choosing the area. Part of it played off something I had experienced with New Wave. The team had always been split between the fliers and the people on the ground. Me, Aunt Sarah, Crystal and Eric had all been airborne, while my Uncle Neil, Mom, and Dad had all been landbound. It created a dilemma in logistics, and this slightly sloped ground and uneven terrain emphasized that logistics in a way that having to go through and around buildings might in the city.

Sveta functionally had a mover ability, I wasn't sure about Chris' capabilities, and Damsel and Rain both had some capabilities in that realm. Supposedly. I wanted to see how the more mobile members of the group worked in coordination with the others.

It was interesting that Tristan had picked both Sveta and I. We were both mobile and Tristan wasn't. Ashley's team had three people on foot.

Hmm, make sense. Capes with flight power just have incredible mobility over nearly all other capes. But at the same time, this mean they will have to be first responded while others have to catch up quickly before the threat runs away or gets worse. It would be bad in either the flying capes get overwhelmed, or the groundbound members couldn't support their team in time.

So hopefully this exercise could teach them something about it.

And really, I'm not so sure if Tristan was that immobile though since he might just use his power to surf on a moving bed of rock.

Another reason for this particular location was Rain's power. It helped him keep his balance, and that was supposedly the extent of it. When he arrived, I wanted to see if it factored in here.

Finally, there was the fact that it put us out of the way. No bystanders, no property to damage.

Huh, Rain trained here often to get a hang of his power? That's interesting.

And well, no bystander and property to damage, but I don't think the hill would appreciate about being demolished and set on fire.

Kenzie had her head down, her attention on her phone. Ashley and Chris were both smiling. All three were talking. I waited a short bit for them to finish.

"I'm so unbelievably nervous," Sveta said.

I glanced at her, and confirmed that Tristan had stepped away, rummaging in his bag. He was out of earshot.

"I definitely hear you on that," I said.

"I really want this exercise to work somehow, like Tristan said, but for different reasons. The way you were brought in, you might have come in looking for the bad, and it's… it's not all bad. Really. I always wanted a team and the idea of finding one and fitting myself to that team with all of my problems, it seemed impossible or far away."

"Yeah," I said. "You talked about it in the hospital. That you'd talked to Mrs. Yamada and other people about how, putting aside all your issues, you wanted to be a hero."

"And I wanted a boyfriend, and I wanted to be functional again, and I wanted friends," she said, staring off at the other three. "And I have almost all of it, but I feel like it could slip out of my grasp if things go wrong. If thisgoes wrong. I don't know what I can do if that happens. I'm worried this is going to be a disaster, and that's making me so anxious."

"What can I do?" I asked. "I don't want you to be unhappy."

"Like I said before, I really want you to believe in us here. I want you to give us a chance. Even if this is bad to start."

"Okay," I said.

"And- I'm sorry if this is pushing a line or if you have reasons, but don't be so stiff?"

She sounded so uncertain as she said it. I drew in a deep breath and smiled at her.

"I'm the one with a prosthetic body. We're friends, right?" She smiled, uncertain, and I smiled at her. "So I don't want you tense around me."

"I'm nervous in my own way, and I think that's how it shows," I said. "It's not you. Can I give you a bit of a hug, here, emotional support?"

"Please."

I put one arm around her shoulders and squeezed. Sveta moved her head in my direction, I moved mine in her direction, knocking heads with her a bit.

Off in the distance, even though she was more than a hundred feet away, I could hear Kenzie cooing and 'aww'ing over the hug, as she looked at us.

Awwwww~

*Coughs*

Sveta unfortunately is still one of the more volatile member of the team, if not, the most of the team. She's going to need a lot of emotional support just to make sure her power doesn't accidentally kill someone gruesomely.

Let's hope this team stuff works out for her.

"What did I miss?" Tristan asked.

"I'm anxious," Sveta said.

"Me too," Tristan said. "Your control gets bad when you're nervous, right? You have more reflexive movements?"

"It gets so fucking shitty," Sveta said. "I'm sorry. I'm worried I'll be terrible because I'm all over the place inside here. I don't know if you can hear it, but I keep fumbling because I'll reflexively reach out to grab something off in the distance and hit the wall of the suit instead, and then I have to reach for the right control ring again."

"Do the best you can," Tristan said.

"This isn't about grading you as an individual," I said.

"It's about the team," Sveta said. "I don't want to let the team down. Can we start? I'll get more nervous if we wait."

"Sure," I said.

The other three weren't wrapped up in their discussion anymore. I called out, "You guys want your flag?"

"Here," Sveta said. She held out her hand. I passed her the blue flag.

She passed it to the others, hand and forearm gripping the flag, tendrils pushing the hand and forearm. She stopped short, relying on only the momentum so it only punched him lightly in the man-boob. He caught her hand and arm in one large hand, plucking the flag free before releasing her hand. He smiled as he held it up, then he reached low to hand it to Kenzie. The two of them went to plant it, with Chris picking up a fallen tree on the way.

It seemed Chris and Kenzie got along better like this.

Ashley didn't join them. Instead, she started walking toward us, picking her way through weeds and grass. She still had a partial smile on her face from before.

I flew to meet her partway.

It seems the current form Chris has is basically just brute strength all the way, wonder what Ashley has to say though.

"Ground rules?" she asked, when I was closer.

"Place your flag. You grab ours and bring it to yours, or vice-versa. Whoever has both flags at their starting point wins. Try to avoid hurting the trees. No personal injuries that aren't going to heal in a day. Bruises and scrapes are inevitable, but let's avoid them if we can."

"Understood." She turned to walk away, one hand raised to give me an over-the-shoulder salute as she did.

In4 mass forest destruction with Greenpeace attempting to sue the team before they even started.

Sure hope this game doesn't end up with someone getting severe injured though.

Tristan began altering the battlefield behind her, drawing out fifty little sparks to move along the surface of our side of the hill.

The other team was just on the other side of a trio of trees. The nervousness we all felt was apparent as Kenzie's cube lit up, making a deep beep sound.

All three faces of the cube that I could see had lit up. Numbers were apparent. '10'… '9'… '8'…

"It's worth remembering that she can remotely control the cube," Tristan said. "Hm."

"Just the flashlight gun and the eyehook, right?" Sveta asked, giving Tristan a look.

Tristan moved his hand, and finalized his alteration to the slope between our fort and the halfway point of the battlefield. Uneven ground, raised segments and lowered ones. Most of it was flat, the spikes sticking out of the sides or toward the ground at an angle. The material was solid, white with orange-red in the crevices, running through it like ore in rock.

The timer continued. '3'… '2'… '1'… 'Go'.

And the game, BEGIN!

It seems even Sveta couldn't resist learning the art of sarcasm.

They came out of the trees. As Tristan had suggested, Ashley's plan was to go on the attack.

All three of them. Kenzie had changed, overalls gone, replaced with a skintight suit that mirrored her outfit in color and where it changed from black to pink to red. Chris had his head turned, and he was using one hand to cram the last few feet of the dead tree into his mouth.

Okay so all three of them are going on off-WHY IS CHRIS EATING THE TREE!?

You can't just eat a dead tree just like that, there's could be fucking parasites and bugs in there! That's unhygienic!

Ashley was on foot. White eyes were wide open behind her mask, the pupils not visible from this distance.

"This is fine. Same plan," Tristan said, not sounding bothered in the least.

Two versus three, while Sveta grabs their flag.

Sveta reached for a tree and found her grip, hauling herself away.

Tristan began creating barricades and obstructions, aimed at being knee-height, to slow them down.

Ashley hurdled the first two. Chris trampled his way through the three that had been put in his way.

Kenzie turned, aimed, and fired her flash gun in Sveta's direction. She missed, aimed again, and fired. The second shot caught Sveta in its area.

"You take Chris and Kenzie, I'll work on Ashley," Tristan said. He sounded confident. "Keep an eye on Kenzie, make sure she doesn't fall."

'Oh yeah, it's totally not like Kenzie could be a problem!'

I can see that idea going bad real fast already. Wonder if Sveta could read their flag in time.

I flew to intercept. Chris had one hand full with the tree, mouth distended with a fat tongue sticking out, apparently to keep the tree from rubbing against his lower row of teeth; his hand served to protect the other teeth.

I was put in mind of the man I'd seen during the broken trigger, who'd had a tree come out the other direction.

Chris laughed, deep and booming, tree digested. He lowered his chin, mouth closd, hands and arms up to protect his face and guard Kenzie.

I could deal with big and strong. I flew closer- saw Kenzie turn, aiming her gun at me, and changed course, covering my face and head, my forcefield up.

Even turned partially away, my arms up, the momentary flash of light blinded me. A full second passed, and my sight didn't return. I could hear Chris' laugh, Kenzie's amusement. My forcefield hadn't helped.

Oh wow that flashgun is pretty fucking strong with its effect. That's just bullshit, wonder if Kenzie can make shit load of drones armed with those flashguns though...

I felt the forcefield meet resistance, and I forced it to shut off before Chris' hand could close around me. I pushed out with my aura to try to throw him off balance and buy myself a second, and changed course. I felt his fingers graze my back, dragging against cloth and not finding enough slack to get a grip.

Blindness was disorienting. Blindness when flying made it hard to tell which way was up and which way was down, and I knew it would get worse before it got better.

I flew away and at the ground, forcefield up, and landed hard. I felt Tristan's creation shatter under and around me as my power absorbed the hit, fragments bouncing off of me, dust collecting on me.

"Are you okay!?" I heard Kenzie call out.

"I'm fine!" I replied.

"Don't give away your position if you've blinded them!" I heard Ashley.

'Don't be nice to your enemy!'

'But Ashley, it's not polite to take advantage when your enemy makes a mistake!'

I heard a noise, and at first I thought it was Chris dismantling the fort. It sounded like someone was tearing the world's largest sheet of paper paper, nails on a blackboard, an alien's scream from a science fiction movie that echoed far more than it should, a sharp explosion, and any number of other things, all overlapping and working against one another.

I opened my eyes and tried to make out the surroundings despite the spots of light that were exploding against the backs of my eyeballs.

Chris was large enough for me to make out his general shape. I could make out Ashley and Tristan's positions, but the only reason I could distinguish the two was because Ashley dressed in black and Tristan had more color to his costume.

Right. I had a few tricks up my sleeve I'd been considering. This was an opportunity to try one.

I took off, and I activated my forcefield momentarily as I did it, pushing out at the cracked chunks of stonelike ground, sending pieces rolling and sliding in the wake of my takeoff. I needed their attention. I saw Chris slow momentarily, mid-stride as he walked toward the fort.

I didn't fly straight for them, but around, circling closer to the fort. I paused, giving them time to see me, and then flew straight for Chris' face, full speed.

I stopped only a few feet short, hitting him with my aura instead of my fist. Full-strength, point-blank, a hit to the emotional rather than the physical.

The reaction was much the same as if I'd punched him. Forward movement stopped, reversed, an off-balance stumble backward.

Emotional dive bomb, hell yeah!

It's like suddenly you were forced to watch tragedy romance movie twenty times in less than one second, all hitting as hard as the last one.

"Holy fuck," I could hear Tristan.

I heard Damsel's response, but I had other focuses than making out the words. It might have been 'pay attention to your opponent' or 'pay attention to who you're fighting'.

Sure sounds like something Ashley would say.

I was busy flying around Chris, one hand extended so it maintained contact with him, let me gently push him, all while helping me to navigate while still partially blind. Before he fully had his balance, I caught him by the shoulders and pulled him back and down toward the ground.

He walked backward rather than topple, helped by the fact that his head was small, his shoulders and neck narrow relative to his lower body. It was part of why his center of balance was low to the ground, with his weight gathered around gut, butt, and legs.

Kenzie's pincer-claw grabbed for my arm, then pulled my arm away from Chris. I let it, grabbing the prehensile length of it between Kenzie and I. Not a huge factor. One hand still on Chris' shoulder, I activated my forcefield, using the added strength to pull at Chris. He continued his backward walk until he stumbled into one of Tristan's sections of raised ground.

He toppled, and I shifted my position to guide his fall for the first half of the way. The focus on the latter half of the way was letting my forcefield down and catching Kenzie.

Chris fell flat on his back. Kenzie wriggled momentarily, and I deposited her on Chris' chest, to make getting to his feet just a little bit harder. The claw slipped free of my arm.

My vision was clearing enough for me to see vague expressions, without precise detail. Chris was grinning, shaking with a laugh or chuckle.

Chris sure looks like he's having the time of his life right now.

I can imagine Victoria just lifted up Kenzie like how one would grab a cat and just dump her onto him.

"Come on, get up, get up!" Kenzie goaded him.

"Get off me then!" Chris boomed.

Orange motes were starting to surround them.

"Victoria!" Tristan called out. "Switch with me!"

Wow Tristan, seriously? You can't even handle one cape while Victoria just handed their asses on a silver platter while being partially blind?

The words were barely out of his mouth when Ashley used her power again. It was noisy to the point I worried my ears would be ringing an hour after this exercise. I could see it as a visible blur of shadow aimed behind her and toward the ground. She used the recoil to launch herself off to one side, to help her get around and past Tristan. More orange motes appeared in the direction she was going.

She used her power again, changing course to fly straight for Tristan. She planted one foot on his shoulder, stepped down so her back grazed against his, her long hair draping over his head and shoulders, aimed forward with both hands, and used her power a third time just as she touched ground, her back to his.

A power-augmented body-check. The recoil of her power pushed her in the opposite direction she fired, but because she was in contact with Tristan, she pushed him too. She stumbled, but he sprawled to the ground, his armor striking the hard platform he'd created on the slope, metal screeching and clashing against stone.

The orange motes that had started to appear around Chris and Kenzie came to life around them, an especially spiky, irregular outcropping with a thin ridge extending out to the growth he'd been making in front of Ashley's original course, which became its own vaguely pineapple-shaped formation.

He'd wanted me to deal with Ashley. Okay. She was rolling her shoulders, rubbing at one, while she stalked toward the fort.

Hmm, two capes on Ashley's team out. Kinda feels like Ashley just 'sacrificed' them just to get to the flag.

At least Tristan is doing what his power do the best, capturing capes.

I could see better, so I could possibly pull this technique off better. I flew at her, and she barely seemed to pay me any mind.

My feet touched ground, helping to stop me as I reversed my direction of flight to cancel out my forward movement. I'd wanted to avoid all physical contact, but I did bump my shoulder into hers as I went from flying at near-top speed to a full stop, my face a couple of inches from hers, well inside her personal space.

As with Chris, I used my emotion aura.

As had been the case with Chris, the effect was immediate and profound. She stumbled back much as if I'd flown into her and given her a strong shove, her eyes wide.

I'd barely found my own footing when she found hers. Another blast, jarring for my ears, and my vision was already affected, and it produced a plume of dust and debris around and to one side of her. She used the blast and a push of her legs to throw herself at the wall.

The moment she made contact with it, she used her power again, flinging herself out into empty space, hair and dress fluttering.

My first instinct was that she was going to have a rough landing, that I might need to catch her. Before I'd even figured out how I might do it, she used her power once more. She was aiming up at an angle, so that meant she was pushed down by the recoil.

It wasn't a mere drop-kick or a fall, but a spearing plunge. I did much as she'd done, pushing out with my legs in conjunction with a use of my power, my flight, to get out of her way.

With the speed and general profile of a pickaxe head driven into the ground, she landed on hard ground, in the same spot I'd been standing. There was a second where she stood there, hair draping down, hands out at her sides with fingers splayed, and then one of her legs wobbled and she dropped to one knee.

"Are you-" I started. I thought I saw her move and paused. "Are you okay? That landing looks like it hurt."

Ashley is definitely not doing this casually and is way more seriously about it than she needs to be.

At this point, I'm more worried about her severely injuring herself than others.

Seriously, shotgun blasting behind you to propel yourself is a videogame thing that's going to be amazingly difficult to pull it on in real life safely without a bunch of bullshit to help.

She raised her face and looked up at me. White eyes behind a black mask, behind white hair.

She used her power again. Cords, columns, and shaped explosions of lensing, bending, and darkening within the roughly cone-shaped area, over the one or two seconds that she was creating each blast. She didn't even rise from her kneeling position. She threw herself at me, and this time she caught me entirely off guard. Her knees hit my shoulders, at least one of her arms caught me around the head, the fabric of her dress pulling against my face as she tried to fold herself around my head.

Holy shit, was my first thought. She was not letting up. Every time she acted, it was with the energy of a sprinter taking off from their starting position, except her power gave her more of a push, and the jarring noises only magnified the surprise of it.

My second thought was that she had seized my head. She wanted to take me down to the ground, much as I'd toppled Chris. There were two ways I could go. To roll with the movement and use it, or to fight against it.

My instinct was to fight against it. I used my flight, going up when she wanted to take me down. I used my aura, which was more effective when people were close, and she was wrapped around my head. I used my forcefield, only for one moment, while reaching up, putting my forearm against her ribs, and pried her off of me.

She used her power in the same instant she was pried off- fast enough that I was left with the feeling she had expected to use it while still holding onto me. Her landing looked like a rough one, sprawling, one shin, one foot, one hand bracing against the ground as she skidded.

I saw her slowly clench and unclench her hands, rolling one shoulder. She didn't stand.

"Hoo," I said. My heart was pounding, and I fanned myself a bit with my hand. "You do remember this is a training exercise, right?"

"You do realize my team is going to win this?" she retorted. Her hands shifted position slightly.

Damn, Victoria just escaped a shotgun piledriver there. That's fucking brutal.

But Ashley, two out of three members of your team are down, so your chance of success isn't exactly high unless they have more tricks up their sleeves.

Her face gave away nothing, I realized. It didn't help that with the dust, her hair across her face, and the last remaining spots of light in my vision, I couldn't make out her pupils. Her hands and where they were pointing were one of her tells. Her shoulders another. She was thin, but especially as she crouched there, hands slightly behind her and at her sides, shoulders pointing forward, I could see the muscles underneath the skin around her shoulder and shoulder blade.

Was there power or Manton protection there, keeping her from dislocating her shoulders when she used the recoil to move around like that? Was it just strength and practice?

I highly doubt its strength and practice. People are going to dislocate their shoulder when they fire a 50 cal rifle in an awkward angle, which most definitely cannot launch people across the sky from either feeling the recoil or getting shot.

Definitely Manton bullshit there.

I'd relied on instinct to respond to her, and I didn't love that I'd relied on that instinct. I wanted to be careful and thoughtful about the moves I made and Ashley's approach allowed absolutely none of that. I was left to digest that I'd reacted to her by fighting, going the opposite direction instead of the Judo-like approach of using the enemy's strength against them.

Was I okay with that? If I had to rationalize my choice, I'd fought her because I could only use the enemy's momentum against them if I knew which way they were going, and Ashley was hard to predict.

Well, just a bit less difficult now, as I stopped looking for more obvious tells. She had stopped rolling her shoulder. I saw the muscles tense.

"Victoria!"

The shout interrupted both of us, as she planned her next move and I readied my response. It was Tristan calling. Ashley and I both looked.

"Come and help!" he called out.

Argghhhh, TRISTAN COULD BE YOU MORE FUCKING USEFUL!?!?

I flew back and away, out of Ashley's reach, looking.

Chris, legs embedded in spiky rock, was using both hands to haul what looked like a long, thin rod out of his throat. He'd swallowed the length of the dead tree like a sword-swallower swallowed a blade, and now he was drawing it back out, changed.

Narrower, thinner, smoother, and slick with fluids.

Chris, it seemed, wasn't just the kind of changer who could adapt his form. He was the kind of changer who gained new sorts of powers while in an alternate form.

He hauled the last of the tree free of his mouth. Fifteen feet long, thicker at the end he had just removed than at the end he held, now that he was turning it around to get it in a position he could wield it. Too long to be a proper club, not quite a rod either.

That's a neat aspect of his power but erm...

Won't it be better if your change the tree into a reinforced bo stick before the match started? What if your hands got sealed and you couldn't get it out?

I guess it's hard to actually figure out how to use your power properly when you get a new one like nearly every time.

Kenzie had her flash gun out. Tristan had thrown up a short wall, just tall and wide enough that he could hide behind it. Kenzie's eyehook had a grip on his leg. She was simultaneously trying to circle around to get at an angle where she could shoot and blind Tristan and she was using the claw at the end of the prehensile arm to try and drag him out of the cover.

It left Chris entirely unmolested as he brought his weapon down, shattering Tristan's created ground, freeing himself.

"Leave her!" Tristan ordered. "We'll let her get the flag, deal with these two, and catch her on her return trip!"

I flew a little further away.

Sveta- I looked off in the direction of the enemy's camp.

Little blue flags decorated the landscape on their side of the playing field. They were situated on every rock, in every crevice, on every flat expanse of ground, on every tree branch. Sveta was perched on a rock in the midst of it all.

I looked at Kenzie's cube. One face of it was glowing. The projector.

That would be why they had been smiling, then.

Well, guess that's one way to keep the flag away from your opponent's hand.

I started my flight toward toward Tristan.

"You'll regret ignoring me," Ashley said, behind me.

Pride, respect, they were key factors here. I could remember the meeting, the narrowing of the eyes. I knew Tristan was in a tough spot, but I paused, turning around in the air. I had to raise my voice to be heard with the distance between Ashley and I, as I said, "We're not ignoring you. We're dealing with you two against one."

It's almost like Victoria is playing a brand new version of Persona where not only you have to make sure you get as many social link as possible to get the best ending, but also that you have to maintain these social links in mid-combat!

Good fucking luck on that!

I left her to limp toward the wall while I flew to Tristan's side. I landed beside Kenzie, hard, pushing out with my aura.

She twisted around, gun in hand, and I caught the gun, snatching it out of her hand.

"Hey," she said. She reached out with her hand, and I pulled the gun away. She let go of Tristan and reached out for the gun with the eye-hook. I grabbed the eye-hook, and then wrapped the length of the prehensile arm around her upper body, tying her up with it.

There's the tinker issue of standing in front of someone with an actual power, someone could just take you little toy and use it against you.

"Hey!" she said, again. She laughed. "Chris help!"

I didn't need to ask, and I liked that I didn't need to ask. Orange motes began to surround Kenzie.

"No, no, no, no!" Kenzie said. "Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris!"

The head of the long club was poked out between Kenzie and I, separating us. Kenzie started to back away, and the orange motes became solid rock, encapsulating her legs. Tristan lunged forward to catch her before her upper body came down and her head cracked down against his rocky terrain.

I flew up a little ways, putting myself between them and Chris. Chris drew the fat end of the club back, and then smacked it against his palm. He laughed, deep and low, and pointed at Kenzie.

"Stop laughing at me and help, you doofus!"

Pft, oh Chris is being helpful alright, helping at making this fight partly comedic.

I had Kenzie's gun in hand, I could have shot Chris, but I had my deep reservations about using a tinker's stuff, even a nonlethal gun that temporarily blinded.

Ashley used her power. I could hear the sound of it, and I saw the wall break.

"By the way," Tristan said, looking in that direction. "We're not catching her on the return trip."

He blurred, and with that blurring, the rock blurred too. White with orange-red veins became clear water, reflecting the blue of the sky and the green of the trees above and grass below. The front wall of the fort that Ashley had just penetrated and the platform that Kenzie and Chris were standing on became frothing water.

With the slope, that water flowed downhill, carrying Ashley and Kenzie down to the base of the hill, amid branches, mud, and sticks. Ashley used her power at the start and toward the end, to little effect.

Aw yeah! Are those all part of his planning or he's just winging it there?

Chris brought his rod down, stabbing it deep into the ground, and held onto it for leverage. It had to be sturdier than the dead tree had been, because it didn't bend and it didn't break. Condensed down, maybe, shaped to be hard.
He reared back, and he blew. He'd broken down and processed more of the dead tree than what he'd used to condense it into a giant club-staff. He exhaled a cloud of wet sawdust.

I didn't want to put up my forcefield if it would catch the sawdust, so I endured it, flew closer, and used my forcefield for only as long as it took to kick the stick he was holding onto with all of my strength.

It broke, and with it breaking, Chris fell down the hill, rolling over wet grass and weeds, until he came to a stop against a cluster of two trees that had grown next to one another.

He began to pick himself up, working his way up the hill, stabbing down to pierce the ground with his half-stick and plant it there like an ice-climber might use a piton. The slope was just a little steeper at the base of the hill, and the water had become rock again, smooth and with the spikes all pointed downward, not good grips.

He swallowed hard, and I had a suspicion about what he was about to do. He spat out a ball of wood pulp and phlegm, and I flew to one side, letting it sail past me.

I was put in mind of Crawler – the changer power, the spitting, the joyful monster. Crawler had laughed too.

Crawler had critically injured me with his acid spit, and that had let Amy get her hands on me the second time.

It was a dark, unpleasant thought.

I think that's pretty much that one lesson Victoria will never forget permanently.

Still, Chris was quick to use his brute strength there to just stab the rod into the ground. But then again anyone watched enough movie or anime would do that as soon as they get the chance to do it...

Tristan was focused on a point off to the side. I turned to look, and I saw that he was creating orange motes around the projector box.

The motes solidified, and the box was encased in a thorny encasement of rock.

I turned to look, keeping one eye on Chris, and I saw the flags were still there.

"Nope! That's not going to work! Good luck finding our flag!" Kenzie called out. She loosed an over the top, mocking laugh.

Bullshit tinker tech, how does it even project the hologram!?

Tristan turned the encasement to water.

"I said it was waterproofed before! That's not going to do anything!" Kenzie called out, before doing her level best to laugh harder, even though she had already been laughing at her limit.

"It doesn't matter," Tristan said, loud enough for them to hear.

Sveta made her way back in three moves, from the other team's camp to a rock, rock to tree, tree to our camp.

She hauled herself up to the top of one of Tristan's walls and she held up the two flags.

And they won, looks like Tristan could actually work well as a strategist since his plan actually worked there.

As long as he doesn't get over confidence and shit.

Ashley and Chris, who were making their way up the hill, stopped climbing.

"Yes! Yes! That was so great, that was fun, we have to do this again!"

From what Kenzie was saying, she didn't seem to mind losing much. She practically bounced with excitement.

Tristan created stairs on the slope.

Sveta joined Tristan and I as the others climbed the stairs. Tristan put out one gauntlet, and she tapped her prosthetic hand against it. I offered my own fist to her, and she tapped her fist against it, before wrapping her arms around me in a brief hug.

A stoic Ashley had Kenzie clinging to her as she reached the top.

"-were so cool, it was like how you were in the videos-"

"Ease up, Kenzie," Tristan said.

Kenzie let go of Ashley, bouncing on the spot before reaching up to her lens-mask and pulling it off. With the mask's removal, her costume flickered in places, like an image that had been badly compressed, with heavy artifacting.

"This was everything I wanted it to be and more," Kenzie said. "I can't believe you found the flag."

"I-" Sveta started.

"Waitwaitwaitwait," Kenzie said. "Wait. Um. Okay. I have this covered."

"Okay," Sveta said.

Kenzie pulled out her smartphone.

The projector made a sound, and then images streaked the hill, before correcting. Ghostly images of all of us, life-size. The images included the constructions Tristan had made.

It looked like where we had all been standing earlier in the match, when I had been facing down Ashley.

Oh wow, the projector even record every tiny bit of detail throughout the match? That would make it very easy to analyse the match and break it down.

The images zipped around as Kenzie changed the time, blurring and streaking before correcting into their proper shapes.

"I saved everything, so we can look back and watch how things played out or compare notes," Kenzie said. "So we can do stuff like this…"

The images blurred and moved, then shifted, so the scenes that were projected no longer lined up on the battlefield.

It was Sveta, perched on a branch, flag in hand. Another blur, moving the clock back.

Sveta removed one of her prosthetic hands. Fifty or more tendrils snapped out.

"You grabbed every flag," Tristan said.

"I grabbed at every flag," Sveta said. "I had to reposition a few times, so I probably grabbed at some fake ones several times. It didn't help that I couldn't see that well after being shot."

Fucken genius, Sveta.

If there's too many objectives to grab, just grab all of them at once!

Kenzie cackled. Chris smothered her cackling with a large hand. Kenzie fought back, trying to get out from under Chris' hand, and she did a pretty poor job of it.

It was weird and good to see her finally acting like an actual kid. Too much excitement in her system, but that wasn't a bad thing.

Considering this was possibly the first training fight she ever have, it's no wonder why she's so happy.

Once Kenzie had settled down more, we walked through the entire fight, focusing on each person. Sveta was first, easy enough.

Tristan was next, and he made mention of the platform, and how he'd wanted to make sure nobody had footing when the rock turned to water, so he'd raised the ground some. He had obviously plotted the trap from early on.

I guess this would make sense as to why he picked Sveta and Victoria and asked Sveta to go away to get the flag as soon as possible.

Victoria can fly and just ignore all the flowing water while Sveta, can't.

I guess he is dependable after all.

"Kenzie? Do you want to report what you were doing?" Tristan asked, once he was done explaining what he'd done to Sveta.

"Wait," Kenzie said. "Rain's here. I'll point the way."

It took a couple of minutes before Rain and Kenzie's camera-drone arrived at the base of the hill.

Chris was half the size he had been, and his proportions were returning to normal. As he shrank, he rearranged the voluminous shorts he'd been wearing, ensuring his modesty was protected. His old outfit was contained within a pocket on the inside of the shorts, and he gathered it together, folded up, the clothes piled on his lap, along with what looked like a pencil case.

Even though he was returning to the person he'd been, physically, his smile lingered.

And now he's emotion is fully stuck in being happy (Or at least that's how I think it worked), I guess this match isn't all bad for him after all?

Oh, and Rain is finally here so that's nice too.

"Rainnn!" Kenzie called out, while Rain was still making his way to us. "Did you bring tinker stuff!?"

"Yeah!" Rain responded.

"Yusss," Kenzie said. "This is the best day."

"You could have waited twenty seconds for Rain to show up and asked him in a normal volume," Chris said.

"I wanted to know now."

Chris groaned at her, putting his face closer to hers.

Kenzie groaned louder, exaggerated, putting her face closer to his.

Chris groaned even louder, guttural, using some of the residual transformation to play up the sound. His forehead pressed against hers, hard enough she had to push back to avoid being pushed over.

Rather than try to top it, Kenzie sat back down. "I like you when you're like this."

"Naked?" Chris asked.

"No!" Kenzie said. "Geez."

"Why does it feel like every time I enter a conversation, it's a weird topic of conversation?" Rain asked, joining us where we sat on Tristan-created seats and benches.

"I like you when you're happy," Kenzie said. She fussed with her hair, looking down. "I like you a lot like this."

I was put in mind of her comments about Chris before she'd gotten in Erin's car, after leaving the group meeting. Like she didn't have the worldly experience to know people didn't say stuff like that in such an unguarded, dead obvious way.

I can see that yet another ship has set sail into the deep blue ocean.

I approve of this pairing!

"I still think you're annoying as shit," Chris said.

Sveta kicked him.

Kenzie snorted, smiling as she looked up at him. "I know."

"Nah. I'm joking. You're fine. I think we did pretty good."

"I think we did too. It would have worked except Tristan and Byron are strong and Victoria is oof and Sveta was the best counter to what we were doing. We should fill Rain in."

"That would be nice," Rain said. "It was you two and…"

He turned to look around the group, saw Ashley, and didn't finish the sentence.

"And me," Ashley said.

"Here, I can show you the replay," Kenzie said. "But I want to see your tinker arms too, before we run out of time."

"There's plenty of time," Tristan said.

Come onnnn, we readers want to know how does Rain's power works too! Show usssss!

"Wait, here, you take the remote, and Rain, you can hand me the arm, I won't break anything, I promise."

Rain rummaged in his backpack, "I wouldn't blame you if you did, it's fragile and shitty. You think it would help your eyehook?"

"It might! But I'm really interested in the interface. You like to have multiple arms, you said?"

"Yeah. For what little it's worth."

"And you control it with your brain, once it's plugged in?" Kenzie asked. When Rain nodded, she asked, "How does the brain now how to control it?"

"I map the brain patterns for input and output and the panel here, between the attachment and the actual arm, it acts like an extension of the brain."

"That doesn't make any sense," Sveta said.

Sveta, it's tinkertech. They don't have to make sense to work, even less so than actual fucking power.

Tristan was fiddling with the remote, and seemed to be having trouble with the progression of time, with images jumping all over the place. Sveta, Kenzie, and Rain were all focused on the arm, with Ashley periodically joining in when prodded.

Chris was sitting on the bench, cloth around him as he shrunk down to a more ordinary size. He was smiling more than before as he rummaged for his headphones and a chocolate bar.

"Your mood seems better," I said to him.

The smile dropped away. He looked at me and shrugged. "It's different. I feel more human, mentally and emotionally."

The change hadn't seemed to make any difference in how he looked, either. Were the changes subtle?

"I'm not sure I grasped it all," I told him. "Once you change, it's…?"

I trailed off.

"It's like a hit of a drug," he said. "Focus, surprise, sadness, appreciation, disgust, fear, anger, and then this one."

"Joy?"

"I call this particular flavor of it Wan Indulgence," he said. He bit down on the chocolate bar, then closed his eyes, clearly enjoying it. He talked with his mouth full, "Can be enjoyment. I'll feel it more normally for a few days now that I've changed."

Still, it looks like Chris will be enjoy his next couple day for quite a bit more than usual.

"Oh my god," Kenzie said. "Tristan, give that back, you suck at it."

Tristan was still fiddling with Kenzie's remote for the projector box.

"It doesn't make any sense. Why isn't it easier to move forward and back in time?"

"Because the box doesn't perceive time, you dummy. It perceives images."

"Why not have it perceive things like time, so you can go backward and forward in time without doing… whatever arcane thing you're doing right now?"

"Because if it perceived time," Kenzie said, patiently, her focus on the smartphone remote, "Then it wouldn't perceive images. And that would be a dumb thing for a projector box that works with images. Dummy."

"You can stop calling me a dummy now."

"I will if you stop being dumb. This stuff is obvious."

"It's really not," Chris said.

I'm not even gonna try make sense of this.

Kenzie sighed, very dramatically. "Who are we following next?"

"It'd be nice to show Rain the entire thing," Tristan said.

"It works best with a point of view," Kenzie said. She looked at Tristan and rolled her eyes a little.

"If you keep that up, you're going to see orange lights swirling over your head. Then a rock is going to fall on you or, more likely, I'll swap out and you'll get a spray of cold water."

Kenzie stuck out her tongue at Tristan.

I was aware that Ashley hadn't participated enthusiastically in the conversation. I suspected why. I hesitated, then ventured, "I'd really like to see how Ashley approached things."

"Why?" Ashley asked.

My suspicions were stronger. I went on, "Frankly, I hope this isn't taken the wrong way, but you're really intimidating to go up against."

"It's fine," she said. "It's the intention."

Hmm, I wonder what her suspicions are about...

Is this about Ashley and her wanting to be scary stuff again?

"A big part of the reason I swapped out with Victoria is that I had no idea what to do," Tristan said. "I couldn't catch you with my power, and you're faster than me on foot."

Kenzie was changing the perspective. She created a projection of the hillside and shrank things down, then created more projections, showing an image off to one side of our gathering, showing a zoomed in portion of what the little diorama-sized projection was showing as a whole. The focus started with the three emerging from the trees, trampling through and hurdling the barriers Tristan created.

She jumped to Tristan trying to deal with Ashley.

"Those blasts are as scary as shit," Tristan said. "Every time you used one, even if you were five feet away and you weren't aiming at me, I was flinching. I saw what it was doing to my powerstuff, and I did not want that to happen to my bodystuff."

He'd realized what I was doing, and why, I realized. Ashley was dejected at losing and we could give her a bit of a morale boost. She seemed to like being scary.

I wasn't wholly sure it was good to feed her ego on that front, but I wasn't sure I liked the alternative, either.

Yup, it is.

Ashley is basically like...a puppy.

A puppy that instead wanted to be patted, it wanted to be told it's absolutely the Death, destroyers of world and not being called adorable fluffy ball of poopiness.

"I have better control than that. I'm not an idiot," Ashley said.

"I'm not saying you are," Tristan said.

"It's obvious you have control," I said. "Kenzie, can you show the walljump?"

"There are two."

"The one with me," I said.

Kenzie jumped to the scene. Ashley leaping off of the wall with one foot, her power just starting to explode out from her hands. The power looked more solid in projection than it did in reality.

"For the record," Kenzie said. "If I was moving through this recording in time and not space, then I'd have to fast forward and rewind and skip around to find this, but I don't, so I hope people are realizing why this is better."

"I'm fully in support of dumping water on Kenzie's head," Chris said.

I'm in too just so I don't need to try make sense of what she's even trying to explain about.

"The walljump," I said. "The sequences of blasts to maneuver and the whole-body coordination it must take. That, to me, says control."

"All for nothing," she said.

"It was not for nothing," I said. "I got to see and experience what you do, I respect the spatial awareness. The instinct-"

"I fell for a trap," she said. "I knew there would be water and I thought I could avoid it if I used my power in time, I didn't expect there to be so much."

"We've never seen each other's powers in action," Tristan said. "Surprises are inevitable. You surprised the shit out of me, many times, and I got one good surprise off. When we do it again, we'll know each other's powers better. It's part of why we're doing the exercises in the first place."

"I failed," Ashley said. She stood up, and she rubbed one shoulder. "I was tested and I failed."

"Right from the start," Sveta said, jumping into the conversation "When we were standing around figuring out what we'd do, Victoria told me that this wasn't a test of us as individuals. It's a test of our coordination as a team."
"I can find that on the recording," Kenzie said. "It'll be hard to find, though."

"Hah," Chris said. Kenzie pushed his shoulder.

"My team failed," Ashley said, oblivious to the pair. "No. My team was set up to fail."

"Wait, woah," Tristan said.

Ashley clenched one hand into a fist. "You realize if I hadn't been holding back, I could have annihilated each and every one of you?"

"Woah," Tristan said, with emphasis. "Ashley-"

She whirled on him, pointing, and he flinched, going silent. I stood from my seat.

To quote a certain someone.

'That escalated quickly.'

Because sweet fucking Jesus, what the hell, Ashley!?

"Ashley," I said, because I wanted her attention off of Tristan.

"I'm not Ashley," she said, her voice hard. "Nobody has called me that in a long, long time. I'm only Ashley because the therapists insisted and the others needed an actual name to put on the paperwork. I'm Damsel of Distress!"

"Okay," I said. "Can we-"

I was spoken over. "I was a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. They selected me. They had me kill and maim people. I didn't mind doing it then, and I could do it here without blinking."

"I don't believe you," Sveta said.

"I've died and I came back with only the vicious parts of me intact! All of the warmth, the good memories the family, they're just a fuzzy, indistinct dream. Those memories have no hold on me. The killing? Taking people's arms and legs and watching them bleed out? That's clear as anything. I could do the same to any of you."

I wanted the younger and more vulnerable members of the team to back away, to get clear of trouble, but I worried that if I tried to indicate that, it might provoke her. Everyone was still, and nobody, myself included, was really breathing.

"This was an idiotic game, and I. Don't. Play. Games."

"Count down from ten," Rain said.

Ashley whirled on him. I left the ground, flying closer, stopping when things didn't escalate further.

"Count down from ten," Rain said. "That's what Mrs. Yamada says, isn't it? When you're wound up."

"It's fine when she says it."

"It should be fine when any of us say it," Rain said. "Count."

Ashley tensed. I could see it in her shoulders and the way the tendons stood out in her hands.

Everyone was silent.

I waited. Ten seconds passed. Then the fifteenth, then the twentieth.

"Feel better?" Sveta ventured.

Ashley turned, staring Sveta down. "No."

"Count down from a hundred," Rain said.

"I'm not going to-"

"Count," Rain said, his voice soft. "Please. You've said before, when you get like this, there's a part of you that's saying you don't want to act this way, and you can't listen to it. So listen to the numbers first, then listen to that part of you."

"It's not that easy."

"It's-"

"It's not that easy," she said. "And I'm going to walk away. You do your thing. Let me do mine."

"Okay," Rain said.

She limped away, hands in fists at her side. We were silent as we watched her go.

She walked up the hill, found a rock, and leaned against it, her back to us, and I let my feet touch ground.

"We knew it was coming sooner or later," Chris said.

"Spooky," Sveta said."I expected a small outburst to start with. That was-"

"Medium-small," Tristan said.

She had the same outburst from before?

I guess even her own experience with the Slaughterhouse 9 have traumatized her to a certain degree.

Kenzie stood up, gathering her things.

"Stay, Kenzie," Sveta said.

"It's fine."

"She wants to be left alone."

"This thing?" Kenzie asked. "It's not you guys being the adults and me as the kid, listening to what adults say. We're all equal members of this team. And this is what I'm going to do, and if I get hurt that's fine, but this is right for me. You can tell me what to do with some other stuff but not this stuff."

"It's dangerous," I said. "Leave her be."

"No," Kenzie said, voice firm. She put her hand on her flash gun. She looked at all of us, then said, softer, "No."

Kenzie, I don't think that's a really good idea to poke at a volatile psychopath.

Please no. Don't sink my ship so fast.

"Okay, Kenzie," Sveta said. "Go. Be careful."

"You're sure?" Tristan asked Sveta.

But Kenzie was already jogging off in Ashley's direction.

When Kenzie was out of earshot, but before she had reached Ashley, Sveta raised one hand and said, voice quiet, "If there's a problem, I'll haul her back."

"That takes a second or two," I said. "Sparring with Ashley, I gotta say she moves faster than that."

"And your grip isn't a hundred percent," Tristan said.

Sveta set her jaw, hand pointed at Kenzie.

Kenzie reached Ashley, and with Ashley's movement, we all tensed, preparing to act.

Ashley turned back to look out at the distance, and Kenzie climbed up on the rock Ashley was leaning against.

A moment later, Kenzie had her headphones out of a pocket. She plugged it into her phone, reached down, and put an earbud in Ashley's ear, then put another in her ear, before lying down on the rock.

Slowly, Sveta lowered her hand.

Yeah Sveta, that isn't exactly good planning there...

But it seems Kenzie has used the power of music to successfully calm her down, so that's good.

"Why?" I asked.

"I gave my reasons before, so did Rain, so did Kenzie," Sveta said. "We've had this discussion. This isn't news."

"It's one thing to know it and see it in therapy, it's another to experience it in the wild," Rain said.

"Why?" I asked, again. "You can't- I understand reaching out to people, but can you really reach out to people who aren't reaching back? Can you give forgiveness and understanding to someone who isn't looking for it?"

"I think she is," Sveta said.

"I don't know what you guys talked about, but I discussed this with the others, and I have an idea what they probably said. Do you know how many appointments and meetings she goes to?"

"It came up," Rain said.

"Okay, good. But did you talk about why?"

"Because she needs careful handling?" I asked.

"Because," Tristan said, "She's a special case. She's not the original Ashley, I'm not sure if you picked up on that."

"I got the gist of it."

"Like she said, her memories aren't hers. She was cloned, they took her and they made up composite memories, but they had no reason to give her those fuzzy memories of other, nonconfrontational stuff. That wasn't Bonesaw's work. It's the agent."

Wait, the agent?

The agent is the one giving those memories on family and stuff?

What are they planning to do right now!?

I drew in a breath and I sighed.

"The world ended, and it ended because of them. We can't have a sit-down talk with Scion because we killed him. We have a shitton of questions and the only kinds of people who can answer them are the people who got reallyclose to the agents, like Bonesaw, who made Ashley-"

I felt a chill.

"-and the people like this. Who are very little of the human, shadows of the human, and a lot of the agent. All of us have problems, and a big part of those problems are the agents, handling their side of things. I know I've talked to Rain about this, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but when I'm talking to her I'm also talking to the agent that's very close to the surface. I feel like if I can get along with that agent, I can get along with mine."

"Yeah," Rain said.

"I want to get along with the human," Sveta said. "I don't want to define her as the monstrous half."

"That's fair too," Tristan said.

So essentially, this Ashley is pretty more shard than anyone else...

Well, we all know what happened the last time when someone went 100% shard, so that can't be that good either.

I folded my arms. I looked down at Chris, and I saw that he was half-asleep.

He saw me looking, and he said, "The world was invaded by aliens. People don't know it, we don't like to think about it, but they're here, they're a part of things. Getting along with the most accessible of them makes sense."

I didn't like it, but I wasn't sure how to articulate it. My own agent had a hand in my life. It was the wretch, the sapience behind the forcefield. I had seen what Amy's had done to her.

Thinking too hard about it stirred up countless ugly feelings, and those feelings choked out and clouded the words I wanted to articulate.

"Let's leave them be," Rain said. "Let's assume we're not going to have our second exercise, and walk me through how things went."

"Alright," Tristan said.

As the discussion continued, I didn't take my eyes off the pair in the distance.

And thus the chapter ended annnd...

Not really sure how I feel about this.

Is the shard trying to communicate back or something? What are they trying to do and how much do they actually understand how humanity works?

So many fucking questions and I doubt many of them will be answered soon.

Anyway, see you guys in next chapter.

Mook · Jan 13, 2018

I have to drastically revise my estimate of Cap's power level. I assumed he could only make those motes of light with his hands and that they were fairly small and only really good for making handheld objects. A low-mid Striker/Blaster if you will.

But with this it's revealed that not only can he make pretty damned big stuff really quickly but he can also create objects at significant ranges away from himself. That makes him a pretty powerful Shaker and far more of a threat.

devas · Jan 13, 2018

Mook said:
That makes him a pretty powerful Shaker and far more of a threat.

King of battlefield control and all that, yeah.

Amusingly, his power is one that benefits a LOT from even a small amount of prep, while heroes are generally reactionary in battles as a general rule.

Mistborn · Jan 13, 2018

dragonkid11 said:
So essentially, this Ashley is pretty more shard than anyone else...

Well, we all know what happened the last time when someone went 100% shard, so that can't be that good either.

Taylor: You went full shard. Never go full shard.

Exejpgwmv · Jan 13, 2018

I'm still wondering how Kenzie is gonna use that box in the future.

It's way too versatile and powerful to not play a part when they officially become Heroes.

Maybe set it up in their Base and have Victoria air-drop one in when they get into fights?

Mook · Jan 13, 2018

Exejpgwmv said:
I'm still wondering how Kenzie is gonna use that box in the future.

It's way too versatile and powerful to not play a part when they officially become Heroes.

Maybe set it up in their Base and have Victoria air-drop one in when they get into fights?

Gonna be inconvenient in running battles though. Unless its sturdy enough that Chris or Victoria can just carry it around with them, though that has its own problems.

dragonkid11 · Jan 16, 2018

Yet another chapter has arrived annnd...

*coughs*

Okay, I'm sick as fuck today so my commentary might not be up to par (assuming if it's even up to par in the first place)

So anyway, let's start.
------

Kenzie sprinted toward the wall, and took a flying kick at it. The wall broke, split at a diagonal, the upper half sliding down the split until the corner stabbed the ground. Kenzie backed up swiftly before the section of wall toppled and fell to the ground.

"I'm clearly the strongest member of the team," she said.

"You're the lamest," Chris said.

That's so fucking anime!

What is this, did Ward just went Naruto?

"Can I try it again?" Kenzie asked, ignoring Chris. "Rain?"

"Be careful," Sveta said.

"I will. I want to test stuff. Can I try it again?"

Rain stood from the rock he was sitting on, and held one hand out to the side. The silver-white blade he created had a slight crescent shape to it. He swung his arm and threw it, for lack of a better word. It traced an arc, more a boomerang in flight than an arrow or thrown weapon, and cut deep into the wall that Tristan had left as a permanent fixture. A silver-white line was left along the length of the wall.

Kenzie raised her flash gun, and she shot the wall. Nothing happened.

She approached the wall, and she had her eyehook snake out from where it was attached to her belt, pincers open, slapping against the wall. She pushed with the eyehook.

"Hurry," Rain said.

Kenzie continued using the eyehook to push, to no avail. She moved the hook around to the wall's edge, grabbed the length of the eyehook, and pulled, adding her strength to the mechanical arm's.

Stone slid easily against stone, and the wall was pulled down, cleanly cut where the silver line had been drawn.

So Rain can make a cutting point with his tinker tech? That's neato, but you still need to push the object in time for it to slice apart.

That is honestly the most anime power of the group though.

"I could do this all day," Kenzie said.

"It's not a bad power," I said.

"I never said it was bad," Rain said. He sat back down. "It's mediocre. On certain days, it's a little better."

"Better how? Size, speed, effectiveness, number you can throw?"

"All of the above, except maybe effectiveness. And duration, I'd say. Ten, twenty percent increase, if I had to guess."

"Duration?"

"How long after I shoot stuff the line lasts."

I turned to my laptop and I started typing that up.

"Not effectiveness?" Kenzie asked, as she rejoined us. She had her phone out and walked without looking where she was going.

Sveta and Tristan were having a conversation off to one side, Ashley had gone back to the library to use the washroom, which had freed Kenzie to rejoin us, and Chris was getting dressed again while under the cover of the giant-size shorts.

"It's kind of one thing or the other," Rain said. "Either it breaks or it doesn't."

"I'm looking at the data from my eyehook," Kenzie said. "It didn't work with your power until after I started helping it. Twenty point two pounds of force total, that's nine point one six kilograms, and then the break happened. What if it's easier to break things when your power is better?"

"It could be," Rain said.

"It's good thinking," I said.

Hmm, it really sounds like online gamer discussing on how to get better stats in some aspect with that discuss up there.

Except of course, Rain can't even tweak his power there and would be ind trouble if he fights on day where his power is not at its best.

Kenzie nodded, eyes still on her phone, and said, "Can you throw another?"

"More tests?" Rain asked.

"No. Breaking stuff like this is a ton of fun," Kenzie said.

Rain stood, looked around, and then created another blade of silver-white light. He threw it at the half-stick Chris had left impaled in the hillside. The blade passed through the dead-tree stick, leaving a white line in it a good few feet above the ground, and continued forward as two separate segments flying in parallel, with a narrow gap in the middle. One hit a tree, and the other hit the ground.

Kenzie ran off, handing her phone to her eyehook.

"What happens if you hit a person?" I asked.

"I tried on livestock, a goat. Silver line."

"And?"

"The goat ran off, jumped up onto a tractor tire, then jumped down. The impact as she jumped down was what did it. Clean cut."

"Possibly over twenty pounds of force in that impact?"

"I guess," Rain said.

Well, guess we know what will happen when he tries his power on people now.

Kenzie had reached the rod and found the silver line was higher than she could reach. She began rolling a nearby rock closer, to give herself a leg up.

Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling.

Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a prepubescent girl could, and drew her flash gun. She began shooting Chris repeatedly, while he rolled in the grass, laughing, arms around his face.

Pft, this ship of mine is sooooo going to sink considering how much WB is emphasizing it right now.

Oh, this is not me being permissive, this is just me bracing myself for inevitable tragedy.

Hahaha...

"What happens when you hit the ground?" I asked.

"Not much, most of the time. I guess you get a fissure, but it doesn't really do much, because the line is so clean."

"Kenzie!" I called out.

She stopped shooting Chris and turned to look.

"Stomp on the line on the ground? I'm curious!"

She ran off, leaving Chris where he was.

"Can you explain the schedule, then? The powers wax and wane?"

Rain sighed.

"Sorry, if I'm grilling you a little too much. I'm trying to get my head around this."

"I see them in my dreams. I never a good night's sleep, never dream normally. Just… them. And they see me. We take turns, and when my turn comes up, I get a bit of a power up."

"That's how you knew Snag's description, before you knew his name."

Rain nodded.

Off in the distance, Kenzie stomped on the silver line in the grass. There was a bit of dust, and some grass stalks fell, but I didn't see anything else. She looked at us and shrugged.

Huh, so he can see them in his dream too...

Is this some Mirai Nikki shit? It's disturbingly similar to that considering the players in that anime can know each other is still alive in their dream and have to kill each other to gain the power of God?

...

Oh wow, Rain totally has his own yandere.

And it seems Rain can cut the ground too, wonder if he can cause a landslide this way...

"Every five days, I get my turn, and I'm a little bit stronger. There are other times I'm stronger, but it's complicated."

"Every five? There's four others?"

"Three others," Rain said.

"What's…?"

"The day in the rotation after me, it's a blank space. My running theory is that there was a fifth member of the cluster, but they died before the powers set in. Free power-up, goes to someone random. Doesn't always line up with our power, so on those days, I can sometimes have more tinker power, or more mover power, more emotion power. A taste of what I could be."

"Once every twenty days, on average."

"Never lining up with my days," he said. He sighed. "Through the dreams I've seen them unmasked and they've seen me. They hate me and I'm not overly fond of them. They're always there, every night, and it's pretty obvious how much they despise me. It's where Tristan and I have that shared experience, kind of."

"People you can't get away from," I said.

This is really like some kind of gaming shit what's with the rotating power level stuff.

And it seems the party will have to deal with three psychopaths, well, hopefully they don't bring out more firepower than that.

"You're talking about your cluster?" Tristan asked, joining the conversation. Sveta was behind him.

"Yeah."

Tristan sat down on the rock beside Rain. I scooted over so Sveta could sit beside me.

"These people want you dead? How likely is it they go forward with this hit?"

"Ninety-nine point eight percent likely," Rain said.

"What's the point two?" Sveta asked.

"They all die or get arrested before they get around to it," Rain said.

Did Rain have a phone call with Dinah? Those percentage sounds really accurate.

"You seem pretty cavalier about traveling into the city," I said. "You caught a train today?"

"Yeah," Rain said. "Again, it's the dreams, I can pick up a little, and I can throw them off a little. The thing about being outnumbered in this situation is that I have a lot of opportunities to pick up details. One clue from any of them can help a lot."

"Details like?"

"The woman is injured, and Snag wants to repair the arm you trashed. That buys me a few days. So, uh, thank you."

"The third one won't come after you alone?"

"He's a guy, a little older than me. Glasses. He's the person with the tinker power. I haven't picked up much about him, but he doesn't interact with people much. Less than Snag or the woman, and Snag is an asshole and the woman is mute, so that should tell you something."

"There's an advantage in that," Tristan said. "If they aren't socially adroit and you are-"

"I'm not," Rain said.

"You're better off than they are and that counts for something," Tristan said.

It's not like people can be more socially inept than monkey fuckface and mute yandere.

Totally.

At least Victoria's action there bought the team some times.

"They have money and resources, and that more than makes up for it," Rain said. He looked at me. "We're suspicious they hired Tattletale to track me down."

"Ah," I said. I thought about that. "I honestly can't think of someone worse to have on your trail."

"She's good enough to take over a city and get away with it," Rain said.

"That's not even it," I said. "She destroys people."

"Are we talking about group members behind their backs?" Kenzie asked, as she joined us.

"No," Tristan said. "We're talking Tattletale."

Over near the staff that had been made with the dead tree, Chris was lying in the grass, arms and legs spread, staring up at the sky.

"He's okay?" I asked.

"He's fine," Kenzie said.

As if responding, Chris chuckled to himself, lying in the grass near the base of the hill.

"The Undersiders took over Brockton Bay, and they did it with Tattletale on point for most of it. I'm not a hundred percent sure on any of this, but you can look at the events in the city starting with her taking power. Bank robbery, Undersiders succeed, they run into the Wards, me, and my sister. Tattletale insinuates knowledge of my sister's deepest secrets, and mine. My sister goes off the deep end. ABB are provoked following an arrest of their leader and an interaction with the Undersiders, with Tattletale. They're toppled with a concerted effort on the part of the villains, with intel passed to the heroes by the villains."

"By Tattletale," Tristan said.

"In large part. Empire Eighty-Eight get outed, secret identities revealed. Undersiders are the focus of the blame, and a number of people die in the ensuing rampage. Weeks and months of violence and chaos in Brockton Bay feed into the Endbringer attack on the city. Half of my family died because of that."

"I'm so sorry," Sveta said.

I reached out for her hand and gave it a waggle. "It should be noted that in the hospital after the attack, Tattletale talked to the leaders of various hero teams about Leviathan's strengths and weaknesses. Info that was then used to beat down Behemoth enough to let Scion finish him off."

"That could be a coincidence," Rain said.

He didn't say it in a dismissive way. He said it like he was a little scared, and he wanted something to cling to.

I wanted to drive reality home, though. Better to scare him and have him alive than the alternative.

"Possibly. But I'm more inclined to see her as a force multiplier or a kind of thinker version of what you do with your power, creating weak points for others to capitalize on. We see a lot of these coincidences. After the Endbringer, the Slaughterhouse Nine visit and do a hell of a lot of damage, but they also lose several key members. The weaknesses of several key members are revealed and the members are removed."

"You might want to go easy on talking about those guys when Ashley gets back," Kenzie said.

"Okay," I said. "It's just one data point in a series. The last remaining mastermind of the city falls, Coil. The PRT directors die. Twice, in quick succession. Weaknesses are targeted and capitalized on. Alexandria dies in Brockton Bay, at the hands of a girl who had apparently wanted to be a hero, but who was converted to the villains' side. Flechette, a hero, a minor friend of mine? Apparently converted. Accord edges into the Undersiders' turf. He dies when the Behemoth fight happens. What do you think happens with his resources and power? Because I'm betting it's the same as what happened with Coil's."

"And now she runs one of the major settlement points," Rain said. He still sounded spooked.

Honestly, looking from in-universe view, Tattletale really looks like she is the mastermind behind everything.

Taylor looks like she was set up as the biggest tykebomb in the history of mankind possible and actually fucking exploded with full fuckforce onto everything.

Flechette got taken and later become instrumental in finally killing off Scion.

Every single mastermind supervillian got close to the group, dead and got their territory taken by her.

I'm not even gonna be surprise if civilian figures out Cauldron used to exist and think she ran the whole thing in the background.

Contessa is gonna be pissed when that happened.

"Yeah," I said. "I don't have all of the information, but she got to that point by being one of the masterminds and playing the game well. She was aggressive when the city was vulnerable and she was passive when it wasn't. The moment Gold Morning came around, I get the impression she mobilized hard, she was ready to expand and capitalize on the situation with more of that aggression. Again, I'm not 100% on all of that. But I can say with reasonable confidence that she's one of the most dangerous, capable people on Gimel."

"What am I supposed to do, then?"

"I don't know," I said.

Sveta elbowed me. "You have to give him more than that. You can't scare him and not give him something."

"Please," Rain said.

I thought for a few seconds.

"She bleeds," I said. "She gets tired, and she looked really fucking tired when I saw her. She has a lot on her plate, and I don't think you're a primary focus. Which is good. You don't want to be her primary focus, because people who are tend to end up in pieces, one way or another."

"Alright," Rain said, sounding anything but.

"She…" I started. I bit my tongue.

"What?" Tristan asked.

"I don't want to jump to conclusions. I don't want to give you the wrong impressions, either."

"Any impressions help," Tristan said.

"I don't know," I said. "But what she said when I talked to her, the way she wanted to make herself out to be one of the good guys, bringing good things to others…"

"Oh," Kenzie said. She fiddled with her phone.

"It doesn't necessarily jibe with her working with people who are out for blood and murder. She seems to want to be a very low-key villain or even a Robin-Hood type desperado while simultaneously leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, or she wants to portray herself as such," I said.

Tattletale: "I JUST WANT TO BE A SMALL TIME CRIMINAL FOR FUCK SAKE, WHY DOES THIS HAPPENS TO ME!?"
*Holy light came down from the sky with holy grace playing in the background by a Mexican mariachi band as Victoria dressed in angel costume flew down from it*
"Because you fucked up on every possible thing you shouldn't fuck up and you didn't fuck up on every possible thing you want to fuck up."

"I'm now sharing the love and bringing some of that security, stability, and safety to others, in my very, very roundabout way," Kenzie's phone said, in Tattletale's voice.

"Yeah, that's it, thank you," I said. Kenzie gave me a thumbs up. I felt a bit of the heebie-jeebies at having heard Tattletale's voice without being braced for it. It took me a moment to gather my thoughts before I added, "It makes me wonder what she would say if she were told that Snag and the other two were out for your head."

"She could be full of shit," Sveta said.

"She could be," I admitted. "Trouble of dealing with masterminds is you can't ever know."

"Makes me think," Tristan said. "We really should have that talk about our group's game plan."

"We can't have that talk without Ashley," Kenzie said.

"Or Chris," Sveta said.

Kenzie turned to look at Chris, before giving us a very unenthused, "Yeah."

"Pretty quick turnaround on your opinion of Chris," I said.

"It's not turned around. It's a love-hate relationship," Kenzie said. "Sometimes I really like him and sometimes I really don't. Right now is one of those times I really don't. I was having fun."

"There will be other times you can fool around with my power, and with others," Rain said.

"Yeah," Kenzie said. She looked at Rain and smiled. "We're gonna help you with your thing."

A bit of a non-sequitur, but I wasn't going to draw attention to it. "Do you want to call Ashley or see what's holding her up? If she's not up to having this conversation, that's okay too."

"I'll call her," Kenzie said, hopping up from her seat. She wandered off, her eyehook holding her phone to her ear.

"I'll get Chris," Sveta said.

And now the team is talking about their group plan, what exactly is their full plan though?

As Sveta vacated the space on the bench to my left, I turned to the laptop to my right. I typed up a few things about Rain's power, then paged up and down some to look at the entries for the individual powers. There was a lot more to write up before I had an actual outline I could pitch to the Wardens. If they were even interested in working with the overarching cape community on that level.

I hoped they were. The villains had a lot of advantages, from the fact they often had the initiative to the fact that their work often made money, and the fact that the chaos and damage they wrought often created more opportunities, henchmen, and money for them. Heroes who did well, conversely, often put themselves out of work.

One of the few advantages our side had was that the heroes tended to work together. If we did it right, we walked away with allies. I had people like Gilpatrick, Crystal, and Mrs. Yamada.

Yeah, it turns out that making heroes depended on a limited salary to do hero stuff isn't exactly a good thing when supervillain can just punch into IRS headquarter and steal the people's taxes from it.

...

But seriously though, it doesn't really work this way in real life. Turns out unstable economy is unsustainable when you are destroying everything. Chaos and damage do not earn shit, establishing whorehouse and drughouse works.

Even supervillians need stability to survive.

"How's Erin?" Tristan asked.

"She's good. She's applying for jobs today. We're in an awkward spot for it, though, not many locations, a lot of people around our age want those jobs, and it's a long drive in to get to work. I think those places open at six. It might mean waking up at four to get to work on time."

Sveta dragged Chris to the collection of rocks, benches, and seats. Chris climbed up to his seat, sitting on the rock Kenzie had been using. I was pretty clear he was still blind, from the way he stared off into space.
"There are times I don't get to sleep until four," Chris said, talking to the open air.

"That's not good," Sveta said. "Don't do that."

"It's a chance to be independent," Tristan said. "If she can get the job. She gives off a good impression, so I can imagine it happening."

"Yeah," Rain said.

"Who is she?" I asked. "Can I ask?"

"Just a friend," Rain said. "I've always grown up in the middle of nowhere, so when my family was getting settled after Gold Morning, we saw all the incentives they were offering to people willing to get a headstart on agriculture and it seemed natural, you know?"

"Sure," I said.

"Erin's parents were kind of the opposite. City people through and through, something in them broke after Gold Morning. They couldn't bring themselves to join the rat race again, I think. They were given the option for the simple life and they took it. Erin got dragged with."

"And you connected."

"She was having a hard time, because y'know, she stands out when a lot of people are hurt and angry and looking to lash out. She went looking for a hiding place and she stumbled on my workshop. She's been a real help, from before I even had the therapy, helping me get figured out, listening to me, helping me research. I… don't really know what she gets out of the deal, from me."

"I can think of a few things she gets from you," Tristan said.

"I appreciate you saying that, I'm not sure I see it though," Rain said.

I saw Kenzie react to Ashley's appearance before I saw Ashley. She made her way up the less sloped side of the hill, holding a pair of water bottles.

"Having a friend with powers is pretty neat," I said to Rain.

"Yeah. For sure," he said.

"And while I don't know you that well, you seem very thoughtful."

"And there's the brooding, mysterious part of it," Kenzie said. "Girls like that. You and Chris are similar like that."

"I see," Rain said. He frowned a bit.

I think there's like, a shit load of foreshadowing on who Erin is at this point.

A lot of us have guessed that she could be March, a fellow cluster in Lily, Flechette's group. At this point, I think it goes kind like this.

1. Erin and Rain met each other with both of them helping each other out, they get together and stuff because power.
2. Erin needs money and so she might or not have been going back as a supervillian.
3. She found out about the rest of Rain's cluster group on how they want to kill him, so she took up another secret identity on the PHO and told Rain about it.
4. At this point, either Rain knew who she really is, or don't as Erin still want to do her supervillian stuff after this and know he's going to join a hero team.

...Man, this is some fanfic material but if it's true then holy shit.

"I'm picturing the expression on your face," Chris said, before laughing.

"How long's he going to be blind?" I asked.

"Could be ten minutes, could be an hour or two," Kenzie said, as she skip-walked over to sit down at Ashley's side as Ashley took her seat.

An hour or two?

"You got anywhere to be, Chris?" I asked.

"No family, nobody that cares that much," he said. "I'm one of the lost boys, living in the institution."

"I know what that's like," Kenzie said. "The institution. It's not fun."

"Personally? I don't give a shit, and they don't give a shit about me, I could disappear tomorrow and nobody would blink."

"We'd blink," Kenzie said.

"You would," Chris said. "But you're lame like that."

"I'm sorry to hear about your situation," I said.

"It's fine," Chris said, with emphasis, still staring off into space. Blindly, he rummaged in one pocket, pulling out a plastic kit. "It's- it's freeing. All I care about is that I eat three square meals, since nourishment matters for my power, and having a place to sleep. Strip away everything else, and it's all any of us want."

"Some of us want people to keep close to us," Kenzie said.

"Not me," Chris said. He opened the kit and drew out a pair of pliers.

"Your opinions may change as you hit puberty," Tristan said.

"I'm already started on that, I'm not going to go into any details, and I really don't think my feelings are going to change," Chris replied. He seemed to reconsider, then said, "I really hope they don't."

I glanced at Ashley. She'd been quiet since sitting down. The last time I'd reached out hadn't ended well. Was I supposed to ignore her now, leave her alone while she wound herself down?

Oh, so Chris is an orphan with power. Hard to say, but he probably got lucky there since there's high chance that he would have been kidnapped and made into a supervillian's tool already.

"How about we talk about your idea, Tristan?" I asked.

"It's getting later in the afternoon," Sveta said. "And Kenzie has dinner with her parents. It would be good to get it out of the way."

"I can skip it if I have to," Kenzie said.

"You shouldn't," I said.

Tristan shifted position, metal sliding against smooth stone. "The plan. We've only got the broad strokes worked out, so if you want to help hammer it out, Victoria, it would really help."

"Okay."

"Protecting Rain in the coming weeks is essential. My starting point for thinking about this plan was thinking how we might cover all the bases we want to cover. We need to keep the older members of the group free enough to help Rain with whatever he needs help with. Kenzie wants to do something integral to the group, and while she can help keep an eye out, it's easy for her to take too much of a backseat role."

"Am I taking a frontseat role then?"

"I'm- not exactly. There's a lot about this that's counterintuitive. My first instinct is to think, hey, I want to make money, I want to be out there doing things. But that leaves us open to interference and distraction. So… what if we go covert?"

.....Is this going to be the start of another 'A Guide on How NOT to Do Covert Ops 2.0, Bug Free Electric Boogaloo' written by totally_not_Taylor?

I'm going slightly skeptical as to whether this story is going in a good direction right now.

"Covert?" I asked.

"Nobody knows Ashley is on the side of the good guys for the time being. She's really good at the villainous persona and atmosphere."

"Thank you," Ashley said.

"And then there's Chris, who can be monstrous, appear, disappear, then show up again as someone or something else."

I glanced at Chris. Chris had two sets of pliers in his mouth. He was readjusting his braces.

"The masterminds and the organizations are masterminding and getting organized. Hollow Point is one example of that, and Tattletale's degree of involvement, that's another example. I didn't get the impression Tattletale was really aware that we were a team, so I think this works."

"Take all things mastermind with a grain of salt," I said.

"Of course," Tristan said, quickly enough that I wondered if he'd bothered with that grain of salt. "Okay, so what if we do like- actually, it's like Victoria was saying a few minutes ago, about creating and capitalizing on weak points-"

"She was telling us more about Tattletale," Kenzie told Ashley.

"Yeah," Tristan said. "Look, no rush, we do this slow and careful. We put you guys out there, Ashley and Chris can plant cameras, Kenzie handles backend, we gather all the data we can, and we find out what the masterminds are doing and where the organizations are most vulnerable."

"Then we hit them," Ashley said.

Erm, Ashley is good at villain persona and atmosphere because she wants to be a supervillian.

Seriously, even if she remains on the side of hero during undercover ops, she has a high chance of exploding if some supervillians decided to boss her around and tell her she's weak.

Of course, if the universe works so well in reverse logic for Taylor, Ashley might even accidentally converts a whole team to the hero side while actually trying to go full villain.

Chris might actually works better in this case, but he's a 12 years old so that didn't really sound well either.....

Best case would be to have Kenzie made stealth gear for literally everyone in the team and went full Solid Snake mode.

"Maybe," Tristan said. "Maybe. We assess the situation, we maybe even spread disinformation, and then we have discussions, involving other cape teams, maybe. If it seems doable, we hit them. We have a lot going for us if we want to blitz the enemy or ruin a plan in progress. When it's time to make our play, we can do big, we can hit hard, and we can move fast. If it doesn't seem doable, we sell the info to another cape team."

"I like that you're thinking about the money," I said. "How do you sustain things if you're going ahead and handling the mission on your own?"

"I'm thinking we don't," Tristan said. "I'm not wanting to set up a headquarters, we wouldn't necessarily have employees or staff, we can figure something out for costume."

"It's a long, hard road to gather that kind of intel and then act on it at just the right time. It's a test of patience," I said. "That patience gets tested further when your pockets are empty."

"I hear you," Tristan said. "It helps some that we have a lot of people here who are subsidized or not entirely out on their own. Kenzie gets money from her parents, Chris has his meals and shelter through the institution.
"I think we have an advantage there," Sveta said, quiet. "Because the thing that defines us, and I don't think it defined the Irregulars like this, and it didn't define the Wards, like Weld described them… we all need to be out there. We need this. That makes us stick it out."

There were nods around the group. Even Chris. The heads that weren't nodding were smiling, like Ashley's, or looking very serious in a way that made me sure they were in agreement, like Rain was.

I allowed myself to nod as well.

"Okay," I said. "I might be able to make some recommendations about funding, so you won't be too starved. If you think you can gather intel that others might be interested in, I can talk to other teams on your behalf, or I can point you in the right direction if you want to handle that yourselves. You'd tell them you have the capacity to get intel. You may or may not want first dibs on these villains, but whatever happens, if they'll pay a token amount, you'll give up the info. It serves a double purpose if you set it up as a dead man's switch. Worst comes to worst, the authorities get an email letting them know what you were up to and who you were up against."

"They'd pay for that, you think?" Rain asked. "Even if it's us saying we're taking first dibs, but we'll give the info anyway?"

"I think it could be sold to them," I said. "Information comes at a premium, and every single team out there is wanting as clear a picture of where things stand as possible."

"I do my thing, Chris does his thing, Kenzie does her thing," Ashley said. "Sveta, Tristan and I help Rain in the meantime. When we have the intel, we hit them. Take out key players, interfere with a key part of their business, and we leave them ruined."

"We maybe hit them," Tristan said, with emphasis on 'maybe'.

"If we spend the time to get that far, you'll be itching to see it the rest of the way through," Ashley said.

Honestly, looking at this plan from Tristan's perspective, it looks like he was doing the same thing as in previous episode.

A lots of planning, getting intels on power capability, then hit them as hard and dramatic as possible with one clean swoop by either sending their intel to the authority or jump on them themselves.

I just hope somewhere between planning and success, anyone in the team didn't get hurt in the process.

"And then what?" I asked, before they could get in an argument.

"Hm?"

"Let's assume it's a success, or you hand off the intel. What follows?"

"Depends on a lot of factors," Tristan said. "We could take another piece of data collected on the way and jump off from there, or we don't just take money, and we go to another team and we trade intel for intel. They tell us if they've got more tough nuts or tricky areas to tackle, and we use that as our next starting point."

I nodded.

"What are you thinking?" Tristan asked.

"I… admit this makes a lot of sense. It may be harder than you're picturing. Masterminds cover their asses, organizations have a lot of tools at their disposal."

"If we get six pieces of a twenty-piece puzzle and we realize we can't take things any further, we can still sell that intel," Tristan said.

"Absolutely,' I said. "I'm trying to think about how that plays out in the long-term."

"I don't know," Tristan said. "There's the stuff I just said, but I was mostly thinking about the next few steps. I'd rather make calls based on the now and adapt later, depending on what comes up."

"That's fair," I said. "I'm trying to be mindful of consequences, these days. You'd be making enemies, once people realized what you were doing and the role you'd played. If you're not careful, Ashley and Chris as background observers are cards you can only play a few times, in a limited fashion."

"You can play me eight times," Chris said, pulling the pliers out of his mouth, "After that they'll probably catch on."

"If you don't change your head that much, then they'll catch on sooner than that," Tristan said.

"On that topic, I'm not sure I like Chris being out in the field like that," Sveta said.

"I'm fine," Chris said. "I can handle that much."

"I'm thinking Chris gets involved as a distraction. A few minutes at a time, a monster shows up, overturns the status quo. The kind of thing we do once every two weeks or once a month."

"Yeah. I'm good with that," Chris said.

"I like it," Rain said. "I hate that I'm a burden at this stage."

"Don't worry about that," Kenzie said. She reached out to give Rain a pat on the knee with her eyehook. "We're all burdens in our own screwed up ways."

There's still high amount of danger with this plan even if it's 'just' covert action, and frankly, it really won't work that often until people catches on about it.

I'm just not if this is the right way for them to do it.

My expression might have betrayed something, because Tristan looked my way.

"Yea or nay?" he asked.

"It reminds me of the Las Vegas capes," I said. "And a bit of Watchdog."

"Is that a bad thing?" Tristan asked.

Las Vegas had been damned effective, as had Watchdog. But where Las Vegas had been a subtle, careful player with a few questionable, mysterious individuals in their ranks making the most of their backgrounds and skills, much like this team in disposition and direction, they'd also been a team that had turned villain at a critical time. Watchdog had been careful and scrupulous, making measured moves with the best intel and agents had at their disposal, and Watchdog hadn't survived Gold Morning as an organization.

Those were the only two data points I had, for teams like this. Corruption and annihilation.

I couldn't say for sure that it was a bad thing, but I couldn't say it was a good thing either.

"It's a thing," I said.

Las Vegas was completely made out of Cauldron members in the first place and Gold Morning fucks up everything.

Definitely looks like a bad thing but...it's not like your team is consisted of 100% spies and another Gold Morning is looming around the corner, right?

Right?

...

Anyway, review for Glare 3.4 done, now I gotta...get some sleep because my head hurts.

devas · Jan 16, 2018

dragonkid11 said:
Well, guess we know what will happen when he tries his power on people now

Fun fact: when someone pointed that Rain's first kill with his power was a goat, and Tristan/Byron are goat themed, Wilbibble replied with:

Yeah. Totally not foreshadowing, like Game of Thrones opening with a dead deer and wolf.

Reveen · Jan 16, 2018

Victoria is very good at acting like she knows what she's talking about when she really, really doesn't. Which isn't a good thing, that kind of shit can kill people.

Ridtom · Jan 16, 2018

Reveen said:
Victoria is very good at ~~acting like she knows what she's talking about when she really, really doesn't.~~ telling people that her information is limited and to not take her word as gospel, only to use as a consideration going forward.

FTFY

Like come on Reveen, she literally points this out nearly every time she gives advice.

You ragged on @dragonkid11 for bashing TT, which was fair, but now your basically doing the same to Victoria. And the fact of the matter is, so she's been far more reasonable than you give her credit for: all her info comes from experience, studies, and mistakes/successes from the field... but she doesn't preach herself as a bastion of perfect answers.

Even here, with serious concerns about Ashley and about their covert plan, she can't outright dismiss it because even if history to her seems to point it going bad in some way, she understands that it's limited and decides to remain ambivalent for now.

Both of you need to lighten up on the poor blondes, honestly.

Hotdog Vendor · Jan 16, 2018

I didn't get the impression Tattletale was really aware that we were a team, so I think this works.

"Tattletale didn't seem to know" is basically like saying "Skitter? Meh, we can take her."

Mook · Jan 17, 2018

Hotdog Vendor said:
"Tattletale didn't seem to know" is basically like saying "Skitter? Meh, we can take her."

Not really. Tattletale has a tendency to miss crucial details like that and screw up in massive ways because she makes huge assumptions on faulty premises. Its the fandom that has flanderized her into being this omniscient being that knows all and can process infinite amounts of information.

Hotdog Vendor · Jan 17, 2018

Mook said:
Not really. Tattletale has a tendency to miss crucial details like that and screw up in massive ways because she makes huge assumptions on faulty premises. Its the fandom that has flanderized her into being this omniscient being that knows all and can process infinite amounts of information.

I mean she's gonna figure out what's going on a lot sooner than they hope.

EDIT: oops I forgot I had the previous chapter's response open on a different computer, so I replied to the latest one already.
In response to what you said about Ashley as a puppy:
So she's basically

Asriel Dreemurr, The Absolute GOD of Hyperdeath!
except not a goat

from Undertale.

dragonkid11 · Jan 20, 2018

Argh, sickness has subsided, mostly, still feeling it dulling my brain and all the stress with college shit lately isn't helping at all.

Anyway, hopefully this chapter will at least do something to distract myself from my real, actual problem with fictional, lethal danger.

Let's get it going.
------
After 3 hours of constant struggle in writing later
------
Erm, sorry guys. But my sickness is still affecting my mind greatly even after it subsided thanks to the low but constant throbbing pain on my stomach.

For the first time, the biweekly review will be delayed by more than day because of my health issue.

I might be able to get the review up tomorrow or next week because I now have more free time than ever due to my semester end exam starting on the next friday which gives me a week to procras-I meant study.

Thank you for your patience.

dragonkid11 · Jan 21, 2018

Okay let's get it started for real this time.
------

The van bobbed with the added weight as I set Kenzie's projector-recorder box down. As I moved back, I nearly tripped over Kenzie, who had climbed into the van right behind me.

"I've got the straps, I'll tie it down," she said. "Thank you for doing the heavy lifting. It really helps."

"Sure," I said. I squeezed past her and climbed down from the back of the van. "For the future, if I'm using my strength, you probably want to keep more of a distance. I wouldn't want to bump into you with my power up."

"Oh, okay."

Probably a very good time to warn people of her power before having them being gently caressed by the many, many hands of her phantom self.

By that I mean being brutally ripped apart and turned into a modern art.

With Tristan having laid out his plan, the meeting was done, Tristan's creations had been dismantled, the rocky walls and barriers broken down and placed with other rocks, and I had my laptop with my gathered notes in my bag.
Kenzie's dad was standing by the door to the van. The others were gathered on the sidewalk in front of the library.

"Are you going to be okay going home alone?" Tristan asked Rain.

"If you'd asked me earlier, I'd have said yes. I'm less sure now," Rain said.

"Sorry," I said.

"No need to be."

"I want you to know what you're up against. I didn't do it to scare you, exactly."

"Knowing what I'm up against and being scared go hand-in-hand," Rain said. "Right now I'm telling myself we don't think Tattletale is free enough to be tracking me down right now, and the others are injured or preoccupied. I'm probably safe to get home like this, right?"

While it's probably safe to think that Tattletale couldn't give much of a fuck about the team enough to care about them, those kind of thoughts certainly won't do well for Rain's stress level for the next couple days or weeks even.

"I'd think so," Sveta said. "I'd offer to come with you, but it's a bit of a long trip."

"Yeah," Rain said. "I wouldn't want you to go to that trouble, either way."

"Have you given any thought to moving?" Tristan asked.

Rain shrugged. "Every day. Being where I am is tolerable for now, I think. The commute to the city is a pain, but if I imagine they're hiring a dozen mercenaries and a few others, then it could be a bigger pain for them."

"Hey Flays-Alive-Man, for this job, we're going to need you and your ten superpowered friends to catch a train and spend three and a half hours traveling to the middle of nowhere, and then you have to find our target," Chris said.

"God," Rain said. "Don't fire up my imagination with names like that."

Well, seems like even if he has a complete mood change, Chris is still filled to the brim in snark and sarcasm.

Good to know something remains constant with his mind, at least.

"We should figure something out, cover any surprises in the short-term while plotting out something workable in the long-term," I said.

"I agree. You can send them the wrong signals, but they could try tripping you up too," Tristan said.

"I know, really," Rain said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like he was about to say something, then said, "Yeah."

"I could come with and fly back, or fly over the train and keep an eye out for trouble," I said.

I could see Rain's reaction, the kneejerk resistance.

"Oh! I have cameras," Kenzie said, "And you could use them to communicate. They're not too obvious."

"I could carry a camera," Rain said. "Just so long as I could turn it off when I need to."

"Why would you need to turn it off?" Kenzie asked.

"Because I have to go to the bathroom sometimes."

"Why would anyone use a camera to watch someone go to the bathroom?" Kenzie asked. "No, wait, I don't want to know. I've learned my lesson about those sorts of questions. But you can trust me, that's not what I'm about."

Okay, good. I don't need to do an out of universe snarky comment then because Kenzie, you do not want to know about the horror of humanity deepest secret.

But yeah, I doubt Rain will be happy about having his privacy invaded either way even if it is necessary for his safety.

...

I do found it slightly funny that only the girls tried to look after him while the guys didn't say anything except for a joke. Truly, Rain is an anime main character.

"I'm glad. I still want an off switch."

Kenzie rummaged in the back of the van and pulled out a bag. She handed over something looked like a smoke detector in brushed black metal, with a lens in the center. "Here. A camera. You can press down on the lens in the middle and it will alert me. I'll set it up so it lets the others know too, but I can pick up sound and visuals and pass it on to the others if you need it. This is the battery pack. You can pull it out and the camera won't work."

"Seems simple enough."

"Whatever you do," Kenzie said, reaching out to touch Rain's forearm. "Do not put the battery pack in backward, when you re-insert it."

Rain looked down at the camera he held with a little bit of trepidation.

What will happen? Explosions? Electric burn? A sudden case of portal to the tentacle dimension?

"Why?" I asked.

"Because then it won't work," Kenzie said.

Oh, duh.

"You said it in an ominous voice," Chris said.

"It'll help Rain to remember not to put it in backward. Duh."

"It's not going to misfire or blow up?" I asked.

"Why do you keep asking that? No. It's a camera. There is a very small chance of it blowing up, and if it does then it's going to be a very small explosion. Unless you're very unlucky and a lot of the things that could make it blow up all happen at once."

Even a small amount of explosion could kill people, Kenzie.

That's why firework has caused quite a bit of annual casualty rate, even cherry bomb can pack a punch.

"I guess I trust your tech more than I trust the people who are after me to leave me alone," Rain said. He held up the camera. "I'll hold onto this, then. Thanks."

"Cool," Kenzie said. "You're welcome."

"You're not going to be looking through it and checking in on me at random, right?"

"Not if you don't want me to," Kenzie said.

"I don't want you to," Rain said. "No offense. It's just that the less you know, the less likely it is that one of the people after me decides to come after one of you to try to get info."

"Okay," Kenzie said. "Not a problem."

It's a bit of a problem, I thought. But not like you're imagining.

Kenzie, you really gotta be careful there.

A bit of a overlap here but I'm afraid Kenzie is having thinker tunnel vision there even if she's a tinker. Kinda thinking like how they can see more than what others do, therefore they definitely know more than others do.

Which could be really bad in their mission later on.

Kenzie looked back toward her dad. "And I should go. You know how to get in contact if you have questions. Do you want a ride? Does anyone?"

"No thanks," Rain said.

Kenzie double and triple checked with the rest of us, then looked over at her dad, who was waiting with barely any change in expression. "I'm going to head out then. Bye guys."

"Bye," Sveta said.

"Talk to you again soon," I said.

Kenzie climbed into the passenger seat. Her dad glanced over the group, briefly making eye contact with me, before taking a seat behind the wheel. She stuck her hand out the window to give us a bit of a wave as her dad pulled away.

"Most uncomfortable car ride," Rain said, watching them go.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Julien Martin, giving me a ride earlier. Kenzie sent me a text letting me know he was on his way to pick me up. I would have said no if she'd asked beforehand. He turned up, let me into the car, then the entire way here, didn't say a single word. I didn't say a thing either."

"Am I missing context?" I asked.

"Yeah," Rain said.

"It's context for Kenzie to share," Sveta said, her voice firm.

"Yeah," Rain said, again.

"Fair," I said, even though I wasn't sure it was. Not a hundred percent. There was a point where I couldn't do everything I needed to do if people were keeping secrets. I didn't want to press any buttons or tread on anything sensitive, and there were a lot of buttons and a lot of sensitive points.

Well, from his perspective, he have to hand his daughter to a potentially dangerous activities because his daughter kept insisting to be in the action.

So yeah...I think having the parent reaction being cold and non-talkative is probably the best reaction you could ge-

...Wait, wait wait wait wait.

What if this wasn't her dad and it's actually a tinker android she made!? Oh god, the speculations.

"We'll get you up to speed soon," Sveta said. "But we have to be fair."

"Out of curiosity, Sveta, how much wear and tear did your body take out there? Or is it bad of me to ask?" Tristan asked.

"It's not bad at all," Sveta said.

The conversation turned to armor and costumes. I listened with one ear, but my thoughts were on Sveta's defense of Kenzie's background, and how careful Tristan was in asking about Sveta's body.

There was something I'd noticed with the group, and it was something I'd fallen prey to myself. When the group was talking, it was almost always in a guarded way. Even Chris did it to a small degree. Ashley too. Conversations were meted out with care, not necessarily so each person was protecting themselves, but so they protected each other. We often slipped back into talking like we were in therapy.

There were cases where individuals protected themselves and cases where individuals were also protected by others. Kenzie had a role as the baby of the team, in a way. There were things she didn't disclose and things she was intentionally or unintentionally coy about, despite her overly open personality. That was compounded by how others were ready to step up for her and defend her. That was the security they'd given her.

I glanced over my shoulder at Ashley, who was hanging back, finishing the second of the bottles of water she'd brought back with her after going to the library. Ashley was very similar to Kenzie in that department. Unguarded in terms of how open she was about many things, but she had things she didn't talk about, and she benefited heavily from the group's defense of her.

It was the contract between them, the language they used and their habits, it carried over from the group. It was going to change over time, I was sure, especially if their therapy with Mrs. Yamada ran its course. I wasn't sure if that meant the dialogue would become natural, if the contract would be betrayed in small ways, or both.

I was, as much as they'd asked for my help, the interloper. They protected each other from me, even if it meant Sveta was protecting someone as troubled as Ashley from someone she saw as a friend. I suspected it ran deeper than her wanting to see Ashley's humanity win out over the monster.

Getting the information on powers and on the most important things like Ashley's situation was easily doable, because it was need-to-know. Where I ran into a stumbling block was that their view on need-to-know and my view differed.

I worried they had too light a view of things. The ones who didn't were among the more guarded, and they were being guarded too.

It all knotted together. Was I supposed to be patient and wait for the information to come out? Would it come out only as each crisis reared its head? Or did I push and risk doing damage?

Hmmm... where do I start with this...

Personally speaking, it was a good idea for them to form a tight knitted relationship to protect each other and make them more open.

But unfortunately as seen here, it might also goes so far that they went further beyond in protecting each other which might have also reinforced their behavior.

People tends to have a hard time with change after all, even when it's change for a better way.

...Actually, that does kinda explain a few things with parahumans and how they tend to not make a team with more than half a dozen people.

They form a group, they protect each other, fight as a team, and with things tend to go south for most group and having them go villain and do bad things, their bad behaviors got reinforced by the same bad behavior from their team members.

Certainly explains a lot.

I could push lightly. I waited for Tristan to stop talking about his armor, and the tools he used to fix the scuffs.

I wasn't the only one waiting for a break in the conversation. "I should probably go or I'm going to miss my train."

"My offer stands," I said. "An eye in the sky, if you think you'll need it."

"No," Rain said. "I'd rather-"

He stopped at that.

"What?" Tristan asked.

Rain went on, "It's my experience that when you're in trouble, people are usually pretty good about offering help and support. People are good like that. I've seen it with family members that had babies, and people who lost loved ones. Everyone turns up and offers their support, they bring food, they say they'll be there. And they are, at first."

"You think we'll get bored of this and not help you later?" Tristan asked.

"Not bored," Rain said. "Shit happens. Everyone has their issues, things come up, and then they lose sight of the promises made to new parents, the bereaved, or whoever else."

"I think that's pretty unfair," Tristan said.

"It's reality," Rain said. He looked at me, "It's nice of you to offer, Victoria, but I'd rather have you come and keep an eye on things when I feel like I'm actually in danger, instead of coming now, realizing what a huge pain in the ass it is to fly that far out of your way, and then feeling reluctant when it counts."

I thought about reassuring him, pointing out that I'd traveled from the Bridgeport span to the portal in New Haven to Brockton Bay, several times a week, to get notes, check on the wreckage of the house and visit Crystal's family. I didn't.

"Gotcha," I said. I'd pushed, I wasn't going to push harder now that the boundary had been raised.

...Yeah I'm not gonna talk much about this, hitting way too damn close to home here.

But Rain does feel like he was sorta...deflecting? It's one thing to get used to the issue but this is still a life and death situation here.

Even if Victoria only patrols on him for a couple weeks, it's still better than nothing.

"You're still blind, Chris?" Sveta asked.

"Yep. It's starting to come back, though. Thirty minutes to an hour, I think."

"Do you want someone to stay with you?" Sveta asked.

"No. Hell no. Then I'd feel obligated to make conversation and shit," Chris said. "It's a sunny day, there's a breeze, the weather is perfect. I'm going to sit outside and wait and then I'll make my way back to the institution."

"They won't be bothered if you're late for dinner?" I asked.

"So long as I'm there by lights out, they don't care. They've got twenty staff and over a thousand kids in the building with dead or missing parents. I eat or I feed myself, I mostly do the chores I'm assigned, I'm there when I'm supposed to be. There's lots of others who demand more attention than I do."

"It sounds like the children at your institution are pretty vulnerable," Sveta said. "Nobody paying attention to what they're doing with their days. Any of you could be pressed into work or preyed on or you could end up disappearing, and nobody would know."

"Not me," Chris said. "They'd regret it if they tried with me. With triggers being a thing, they might regret it whoever they try it with."

I was put in mind of my mom. "It doesn't mean the damage isn't done before powers come into the picture."

"Yeah, well, I dunno," Chris said. "I'm going to relax and wait until my vision comes back. If it takes too long or if I run into trouble, I've got another change I was wanting to make today. Keen Vigilance. Perception focused. It'll give me a fresh set of eyes."

"Okay," I said.

The others got themselves sorted out. Rain, Sveta, and Tristan started their walk to the train station. Chris retreated toward the library.

Goddammit those kids have it rough.

But really Chris, you will be surprised by how suicidal some supervillians could be in getting 'recruits'.

Ashley remained by the sidewalk, drinking her water. She'd been dead quiet.

"You good?" I asked her.

"I was dead for years. I've been operated on, feeling every last movement of the scalpel, several times. This is nothing, so yeah, I'm good."

She put a curious inflection on the word.

It was eerie to think of Bonesaw's involvement in things. Her handling of Ashley here, how the Slaughterhouse Nine had got Blasto which had led to Fume Hood's downward spiral. It made me think of Crawler, and it made me think of what had happened to my home town.

To my home, my living room shattered with monsters left lying in places where childhood memories were supposed to be. Monsters that had once been people, a few of them genuinely good and decent.
Heroes, even.

To my family. To the person who had once been closest to me.

"Right. Good to hear," I said.

"We're similar, I think," she said.

I paused. I'd been taking a second to think about how I would gracefully exit. Now I was left to process what she'd said, and figure out how to gracefully answer that.

"Should I take that as a compliment?" I asked.

"Take it however you like. Them? They've experienced hurt. They've known horror. Maybe not so much for Kenzie, but she experienced enough hurt that it balances out."

"I probably shouldn't be hearing this," I said.

"They haven't seen the worst of it. They haven't seen rock bottom and then had someone or something reach up from below and drag them deeper. The Slaughterhouse Nine were that for me. I got the impression from how you talked about Tattletale that she was that for you."

No, I thought. Only in small part.

"My first take on you was that you knew enough to be useful. Then you talked about Tattletale, and your reaction to someone who has the information, who's careful, and who has resources? You're afraid."

"I'm concerned," I said.

"I respect it, that fear."

"Concern," I said. "If it was just fear for myself, that would be one thing. But I'm concerned about the others here."

"It's a very concerning world, isn't it?" she asked. "There's a lot to be concerned about. You and I, we have our eyes open about that, even if we're taking it in very different directions."

I gotta be honest, at some points of this chapter and a couple chapters before, there's a sheer amount of conversations inside those chapters just to build up to a moment and occasionally it seems to just drag on and on even if it's necessary for it.

This is one those conversations.

It just kinda... repeating things we know. It doesn't really make my think and trying to figure out what's behind the message besides the obvious.

"Are we?" I asked. "Aren't you giving this hero thing an honest shot?"

"I am. It's not going to work out, but I'll be here until the end."

"You sound pretty sure about the fact that it's going to go south."

She tipped back her water bottle, finishing it off, and without even lowering the bottle from her mouth, used her power. Shorter than her prior uses, abrupt. It made its usual cacophony of noise, my ears ringing faintly in its wake, and it pushed her hair up and back, so it took a second to fall back into place.

She caught her balance, taking a second before she stood straight again. Then she looked at me with eyes that had no pupils, no irises, only the white, and only the dark makeup to draw out the eyelashes. Slowly, her pupils faded back in.

All to dispose of a water bottle, apparently, or to make a point.

"I'm not even the most fucked up person on this team, Victoria," she said. "I might not even be in the top two. Our therapist knows, and that's why she was concerned enough to reach out to you. They, the really fucked up ones, they probably know. But I know it too, which makes me pretty certain."

"Yet you're still here," I said.

"So are you."

"I'm cursed with an impulse to help people," I said.

"It's an epidemic," she said.

Well, I have a feeling Kenzie is up there on the list at least, same goes for Chris who is almost completely apathetic to things.

Rain and Tristan seem just like your normal troubled kid while Sveta is... well... still can go completely fucking wrong within moment of panick.

And right, if the world has an epidemic from people trying to help each other, it certainly won't be this shit for sure.

"Guess so," I said. I used my flight, my feet rising an inch or two off the ground. "I think I'm going to take off."

She gave me a small salute, her expression dispassionate.

I didn't want to give the impression I was running, so I asked, "See you in a couple of days, then?"

"Yeah."

I flew skyward, at the speed and angle that made even my stomach do that overly light flip-flop at the distance between myself and solid earth. I came to a stop when I couldn't see the library anymore.

I didn't fly home. I had too many thoughts in my head, and after seeing the others, seeing personalities and outbursts from Tristan's comments for Byron to Ashley's more dire threats, the powers, the secrets that were being kept or barely suppressed…

I remained in the air, the ground a blur beneath me, the clouds not all that far above me. The city was painted in its golds, its concrete and pavement with yellow paint, its grassy patches, its fields of wheat and corn.

Just me up here, the wind in my ears.

I believed Ashley. It wasn't that she was honest, she wasn't. She bluffed and she bluffed often. I suspected the bluffs were because she'd been telling me the truth when she'd remarked on the common thread between us: we'd seen some of the worst the world had to offer and we had reason to be afraid.

I believed her when she said there were people on the team who she saw as more 'messed up' than herself. I had my suspicions about who.

Something was up with Chris. Mentally and emotionally he was compromised. Physically, compromised. Socially, in terms of where he fit into the world, again, he was compromised. He'd almost revealed the least of himself of anyone present.

Rain was another issue.

The team supported and insulated its members, they protected one another from the interlopers and the outside stresses. There were times and places that could be good, but I could just as easily see things go in a direction where outsiders weren't sufficiently protected from the group, while the group carried on like this.

My job, in a way.

I'd keep an eye on all of them, of course. Kenzie could be a danger, and I could see even Sveta going to a bad place, however much I liked her. Tristan was strong, and he spent half of his life locked away in a lightless, motionless prison, only a window that looked out through his brother's eyes and listened through his brother's ears. It would be so easy for him to go off the deep end. Ashley was unpredictable and dangerous, pure and simple.

Pretty much just took the words out of me there and repeating stuffs here.

Chris I could only keep an eye on. Rain-

I didn't fly back to Crystal's.

I flew to the train station, and I held a position where I couldn't make out the people, but I could make out the train.

I was paranoid, and too many things today had prodded at my paranoia. There were many I was helpless to do much about, but I could act on these suspicions.

A train came, traveling west-to-east. I knew Sveta and Tristan would be boarding it. Had I been on foot, it was the one I would have caught.

When the other train came, traveling the opposite direction, I followed it. I had a pit in my stomach, doing it, but I had a gut feeling that this was part of why Jessica had reached out to me, and why she had been relieved that I was keeping an eye on things.

Yes, they knew things about each other. But they kept secrets. There were evasions, walls that were thrown up.

I just didn't understand what Rain was doing. To have a hit out on his head and reject an escort, holding firm to that rejection even after having the danger driven home?

"What's going on, Rain?" I asked. Where I was, suspended in the sky, wind rushing past me, there was nobody to hear.

Huh, she didn't fly back home and tried to observe Rain?

Alright, time for some covert action!

I was prepared to follow him to Greenwich. It was a lengthy trip, and it left me to think about grabbing dinner, possibly on the trip back. I tempted myself with thoughts of a burger or a good souvlaki roll. Something warm, as I thought on it. This high up, there was no heat radiating up off the ground or nearby surfaces, less sunlight bouncing around with light energy dissipating and becoming heat, and the steady wind flowed past me to swipe the warmth that my body put out. As stakeouts went, this was liable to be cold, and I'd have to figure out something for bathroom breaks.

As self-imposed missions went, it wasn't just hard for me to justify doing this, it was a pretty rough experience. The mind-numbing dullness of a sit-and-watch stakeout combined with the hypnotic nature of a long-distance drive. Drivers, at least, had to watch the road and be mindful of other drivers. I had nothing to help keep my thoughts centered.

From Stratford to Bridgeport. I had my binoculars out, and I watched for trouble, studying the people boarding the train.

Nothing obvious.

The train carried on its way, traveling from the Bridgeport neighborhood to Fairfield span, past the community center that had been attacked at Norfair, and then onward to Norwalk station. Kenzie's neighborhood.
There were stops where only a pair of people left, stops where only a few got on, and Norwalk, unfortunately, was one of the major stations. I couldn't track everyone that boarded.

My thoughts were preoccupied, thinking about what I was doing, my doubts, my frustration that I couldn't effectively watch out for trouble while doing this the way I was doing it. It was too easy for someone with powers to board the train and go after Rain while uncostumed. Was it likely? No. But I wanted to justify what I was doing.

There was a chance, though, that when Rain got off the train, he would be followed by fellow passengers until he was in a place where he could be attacked. I could watch out for that.

I could watch out for any unexpected stops, and I could keep an eye out for the old staples of railway robberies and ambushes – trains moved slowest when they went around corners, so I could keep an eye out for ambushes and unexpected boardings that took place in those locations.

With my thoughts caught up in things as they were, I nearly missed it.

The train was old-fashioned in look, cars linked by couplings, and passengers could move between cars, with the space between each car being open to the air. Periodically passengers would step out to smoke or get fresh air. Most were parents with kids.

At the caboose, a figure had stepped out onto the back. Rain.

Ah, there he is.

He climbed over the railing and jumped, while the train was going well over a hundred miles an hour.

Hands out to his side, his bag in one hand, other empty, his feet touched the slope, and he stopped. No momentum, nothing to suggest he'd been on a speeding train a matter of seconds ago. The fact he stood on a slope didn't seem to matter, as he didn't slide, slip, or fall.

He looked around, but he didn't look up, and I wasn't sure he would have seen me if he had. He jogged down the slope, and walked across a field. Past the field was mostly wilderness and dirt road.

Keeping balance my fucking ass, that's fucking ninja bullshit.

He can fall straight from the 10th floor and he probably didn't even need to land on a three pointer for cool pose and shit.

Rain walked for ten minutes to get where he was going. Erin had parked under a modest little bridge in a town with one gas station.

I didn't feel good, watching them interact. I felt guilty for spying, even though his actions proved he was being dishonest. I watched Rain make conversation with his friend. Minutes, where he did most of the talking, pacing some, while Erin leaned against the side of the vehicle.

He must have asked something, because Erin shifted position, reaching through the window. A second later, she drew her hand out. She had a handgun.

Well, I guess whether Erin is March or not, that does confirm part of my theory of Rain know more about Erin than we, the readers, do.

It didn't mean anything. This was justifiable, given his situation. Lying about where he lived and where he was going was justifiable. Even his friend carrying a gun made sense, when he was being hunted.

His story about how they met and where she came from… I wasn't sure. It didn't feel like I knew the whole of it.

If they'd traveled again, I might have watched to see where they went. If they'd gone to one of the smaller equivalents of Hollow Point, it might have told me something. If they met certain people, it might have proven out my suspicion.

They went to get ice cream in the dinky one gas-station town, and I couldn't conscience staying to watch.

I flew home.

Victoria is starting to have some suspicion! I wonder when we will find out about the whole story.

I let myself into Crystal's apartment through the sliding balcony door.

"…ave site?" a male voice.

"Whenever I'm traveling in that direction," Crystal said.

"That's good to hear. I keep meaning to travel out that way, but…"

"It's a universe away. I can go with you sometime, if you want."

"That might be nice."

I shut the balcony door. I could have closed it silently, but I didn't.

Crystal, standing at one corner of the living room, had the door open, but she stood in between the door and doorframe in such a way that her body filled the gap. She twisted around to look at me, and I saw a forcefield start to be painted out.

"It's okay," I said.

The forcefield winked out.

"You sure?" she asked.

I nodded.

She opened the door wider. My dad was in the hallway, wearing a sleeveless top with a hood, in a very light fabric, and yoga pants of similar light weight. A gym bag sat on the floor by his feet.

Alright, family reunion 2.0 is here!

And hopefully it won't go to shit this time.

"You've been flying," he said.

"Yeah," I said.

"That's good," he said. "That's really positive."

"I guess," I said. "How are you?"

"I'm noticing how empty my apartment feels, a lot. That's not me trying to guilt you. It's me realizing where I've wound up and wondering how I got myself here."

"Yeah," I said.

"Do you want to invite him in?" Crystal asked. "I can fuck off if you need me to. Or you can take over door duty?"

"I wouldn't ask you to fuck off in your own place. Are you getting tired of standing guard?" I asked.

"A bit."

"We can invite him in."

My dad entered the apartment. "Sorry to drop in."

"Is that what this is?"

"I worry, when you drop all communication. I thought I would at least ask Crystal if you were okay."

"I see," I said. I walked around behind the couch, putting it between myself and him, and leaned forward on the back of it.

He took a seat on the armrest of the armchair, one foot on the ground. "I want you to know that what happened at your mom's house, I'm sorry about that. It wasn't right."

"I appreciate that. I… I wish I could tell you that I was sorry for how I reacted there. But I don't know if I can."

That takes gut there, Mister Mark Dallon, to apologize.

The last time I actually saw a father apologizing to their children is on TV, that should tell you something here.

"I wouldn't ask you to," he said. "I think any and all of us should be understanding when it comes to old wounds."

Old wounds, I thought.

Were they that old? Didn't 'old' presume they'd healed over or that things had been addressed or mended somehow?

Still count as old in a way, it has been two years already, after all.

"I guess," I said. "What mom did, I was pretty vocal about why I was upset about it. Did Crystal explain why I was bothered by what you did?"

"She deflected my question when I asked."

"If you noticed it was a deflection," Crystal said, "I need to work on my patter more."

"Just a bit more," my dad said, smiling slightly.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said.

"It's okay," I said. I paused. "You realize, dad, the reason I felt betrayed wasn't that I thought you were in on it or anything, right? I felt betrayed because you let yourself believe mom's words more than you believed everything you saw in years of living with me, after visiting me in the asylum, after seeing how I function and how I don't function."

"I'm not going to try to defend myself," he said. "You're absolutely right. I let myself be stupid. I have a way of doing that when I'm around your mom."

"I just don't understand how you wouldn't just stop and realize it doesn't make sense. When you know about the nightmares and the fact I hadn't flown in months, and the fact I don't even want to talk about her, you'll believe I'd be willing to meet her face to face and have a meal?"

"It's not that clear cut. Your mother is a clever woman, to the point she can outsmart herself. She has good instincts when it comes to getting people on her side, too. I've been missing home, the past few years, and seeing the woman I still love being warm for the first time in…"

He trailed off.

"Since twenty-eleven," I said.

Can I just say how annoyed I was in WB using word instead of number for years and date? I know it's a minor nitpick but it took me several times just to even understand what those number means when they are written in words.

But anyway, it's understandable why Mark would be like this, especially for someone suffering in depression for so long.

Any signs of warmness would feel fucking amazing to people suffering from depression, who felt like shit everyday.

"Yeah," my dad said. "With food I've been aching for for just as long already cooking, the kitchen and barbecue rich with that smell. Things, like I said, that make me stupid."

"What food was it?" I asked.

"Laser seared kebabs," Crystal said.

I bit my lip. Family recipe. With my lip still between my teeth, I said, "Okay."

And apparently Carol is actually a good cook! I thought she being busy as a lawyer would have prevented her from doing so, though that's probably a stereotype.

"I'm not making excuses," my dad said. "I should have clued in. When Amy turned up and I knew you were coming, it wasn't framed like a reconciliation. It was framed as you knowing everyone was coming and you would have things to get off your chest. Carol said she would referee and I knew it would go poorly if it was just her, so I offered to help. While I was offering I wasn't stopping to think."

"Was a part of it you just wanting things to be normal again? The four person nuclear family back together?"

"Yes," he said. "I'm not about to lie here. I- yeah. Yes."

It hurt, hearing that. Knowing my dad and where he wanted to be were that far away from where I was and where I wanted to be.

Once again, the theme of normalcy is all over the place. Whether is normalcy as in going back to the old day or a new normal way, it seems the theme is here to stay.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I let my guard down when I should have had it up to protect you. I wanted you to hear that apology, and I wanted to make sure you were alright."

"Crystal and I are looking after each other," I said.

"Absolutely," Crystal said.

"That's great," my dad said.

I rubbed my arm, wrist to shoulder. "I'm giving some limited direction to a team of heroes right now. It's messy."

"Any team is bound to be. It's good that you're doing that."

"Messier than most," I said. I paused. "Top one percent of messy."

"Ah, I see," my dad said. He rubbed his chin. It was late enough in the day that the stubble he usually had on his chin was more of a shadow. "The Dallon-Pelham family never does anything the easy way, does it?"

"No we don't," I said.

"Can I help?" he asked. "Advice, support? I don't have a lot of money, but…"

"I've got the team outlined on my laptop. Six people, either under eighteen or in the vicinity of eighteen. One complicated case, age-wise. Um, this doesn't leave this room, right?"

Nods from both Crystal and my dad.

And now we are getting more talks on the new team! Will the New Wave able to help them out even more?

"They'll probably go covert. Gather and sell info. I think I can pitch that to the big teams and get the initial funding. I might be able to get costumes through them as well."

"They have the infrastructure set up for costumes," my dad said. "They've got most current members outfitted, and I've heard rumor of them branching out to supply other teams and heroes. I would be very surprised if they said it wasn't doable."

"Perfect," I said. That helped if and when it came to negotiating. I held up my hand. "Funding, costumes, target… target is hard to pin down. A lot of low-level threats out there, banding together."

"If you're keeping an eye out for the criminal populations that aren't joining larger groups, the places you want to keep an eye on are the Cabin, the Tea-Shop, the Pitstop, the Rail, and the Greens. Those last three places are pretty seedy and traditional villain bars. The others are villain bars without the bar part."

Surprise that Mark could know the new villian bar locations so damn fast.

It mean, sure it has been years but Mark hasn't exactly get into the superheroing business lately, right?

"What about the ones who are hooked into bigger groups?" I asked.

"That gets more complicated, and it's less about the places to watch and more about the names to keep an ear out for," my dad said. "Marquis, Goddess, Lord of Loss, Mama Mathers, the Crowley brothers, Deader and Goner, Barrow."

I knew the names and I knew where they were situated. No big surprises there. I nodded to myself. Marquis. So casually mentioned.

Well Victoria nearly managed to beat one of them soooo...

*Coughs*

Still a lot of big targets to be wary of anyway, wonder if the New Wave have casual relationship with Marquis or he's just another name on the list.

"How messy is it?" my dad asked, his voice softer.

"They're young, some of them are kids, and I'm not positive they're all going to survive the next two weeks," I said. "And that's not even- there's enough other mess I could almost forget about that danger hanging over their heads."

"You've taken them under your wing?"

"Yep. I'm going to at least point them in the right direction, I hope. I might be the wrong person for the job, but someone has to do it, right?"

"Wow," my dad said, barely audible.

"What?"

He shook his head. "It's hard to articulate."

"I'm trying to play this slow, keep it calm. I know a lot and I've been down some of these roads. I'm hopeful I can at least keep things from getting out of control."

"That may be a tall order," Crystal said.

"Maybe," I said. "If they absolutely insist on getting out there and mixing things up, I'll point them in the direction of the asshole villains who are ramping up their activity and taking things over. The nascent Tattletales and Marquises. Kneecap them or their plans before they can get too big."

Yeah, this hero team is still honestly a complete mess but then again, which parahuman team isn't?

"You really are your mother's daughter," my dad said.

My eyebrows went about as high up as they could as I turned my full attention toward him.

"What you said before, and what you said just now. Those words could have come from her mouth in a different time and place."

"This isn't winning points with me," I said.

"I'm not here to win points," he said. "I want to make sure you're safe, sane, and healthy."

I noticed the implication of what he was saying. That taking this course might not be one of those three things.

Pretty much, Victoria. Pretty much.

This team is still fragile as all hell and have an incredibly high chance of exploding right in their first ops.

And well, as much as I want to see Tattletale get punched in the face, I think it's best if you don't focus so overly on battling her operation, Victoria.

That's not healthy and you do remember who your mom so focused on to before, right?

"What should I be doing different?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't think any of it is wrong, but I haven't always been the best judge in the moment. I'd say CYA."

"On what front?" I asked.

"Do you have counsel on call?"

"I wasn't aware we even had a legal system yet."

"We don't, but it's coming soon."

Counsel on call. It was common for new teams of heroes to have a lawyer available, who they could call and outline the situation to before they took action. Covering their asses, making sure the arrests could stick, that there was a voice with the authority and knowledge to talk to the police and courts if and when the heroes' actions were questioned in more depth.

It wasn't a bad idea. It hobbled things, slowed them down, it was a bit of a headache… but having a lawyer as a hoop to jump through could restrain some of the more impulsive parts of the team. I'd have to run it by them, but it made sense.

"I could ask around," my dad offered. "But if you really wanted a good perspective on who you could talk to, there are better people to ask."

"You mean mom," I said.

My dad nodded.

"Yeah," I said. I clenched my fist and relaxed it. "I'll talk to her."

Oh God, family reunion 3.0 is coming soon and it has a high chance of exploding.

"You really want this."

I thought of the team when it had been operating together, playing off one another, being good at what they did. I thought of Tattletale and her version of my hometown and how much I really wanted her and people like her to lose every reason they had to be smug and confident.

I wanted to bring those two ideas together into a concrete reality, and I wanted it badly enough I was willing to go have a conversation with my mom when I was really fucking pissed at her.

If it meant wrangling this team that was going to do what they were doing whether I was involved or not, I'd do that.

"I feel like whatever I say, you're going to say I'm just like mom again, and then I'm going to be mad at you," I said.

"Can't have that," my dad said.

"Putting all of that stuff aside," I said. "If I walked away, if I left it alone, I'm scared of what would happen to people who didn't deserve it. I can't do that. I don't know if that's the Carol in me talking, but it's the truth."

My dad nodded to himself. "That's not your mom talking, I'm pretty sure. Similar, but… not your mom."

He didn't even need to say it. The moment I'd seen the look on his face as he'd opened his mouth, I'd realized who I'd been echoing.

So it seems the theme of normalcy isn't the only thing being pasted everywhere, the theme of the new old or the old new are being put on everywhere as well.

Victoria, this is a very dangerous place you are potentially going down there.

Anyway, I'm gonna go take a rest and try to study for my exam while still feeling like shit so later.

Exejpgwmv · Jan 21, 2018

I'm not sure if Rain's Mover power would protect him from such high falls.

Seems more like it just stops lateral momentum and keeps him from slipping.

Mook · Jan 22, 2018

Exejpgwmv said:
I'm not sure if Rain's Mover power would protect him from such high falls.

Seems more like it stops just stops lateral momentum and keeps him from slipping.

I wonder if he could use it for grappling? Sort of a "haha! you can't push me!" kind of thing. If he had been a Brute he could pull some immovable object shenanigans.

dragonkid11 · Jan 23, 2018

And we are off to another chapter!

Let's go!
------

Group Text (@ Ashley Stillons, Chris Elman, Kenzie Martin, Rain Frazier, Sveta Karelia, Tristan Vera)

Me: Morning, everyone. I'm planning to swing by the Wardens HQ today. Some Qs for people, going to talk to a family member about what you guys might need to do legally.
Me: In interest of not taking over your thing, anyone want to come with? You can make calls & be involved

Ashley S: I have appointments

Sveta K: I can come. I know my way around.

Kenzie M: I'll come! are you going in the morning or afternoon?
Kenzie M: I can have my parents call in to school and get me out for the day if I have to

Sveta K: I don't want your schoolwork to suffer

Me: Afternoon

Kenzie M: I'm an A+ student I can miss a day

Sveta K: No you can't.

Me: It's best to stick to the rules of the old days. Try to keep grades where they were before you joined a team. If you can miss your study group for this that's ok. We meet at 2

Kenzie M: coo

Rain F: Can't make it

Tristan V: count me in

Me: Sveta, Tristan, Kenzie, & me then. Chris is welcome if he wants. 2pm at the front doors. Take extra time to travel, P.transportation strike may futz things up

Hmm, looks like we finally get to see how Warden HQ looks like.

And the painful family reunion 3.0 returns very... soonish and painful.

Still, I was kinda wondering where would her mom be working as a lawyer before, guess I got that answered.

I'd had to take the train to get to the Wardens' HQ. It was a fortress of a building, indomitable, and it was situated near the largest cluster of portals in Gimel, very possibly the largest cluster of portals in all the known worlds.

I looked up at a knight in plate armor with his bowed head, both hands on the pommel of a sword, with the tip resting on the ground. A cloth wrap partially covered the legs, like a flag worn around the waist, long enough to reach the knees in front, and to drape near the ankles at the back. Two shields stood behind the figure, hanging in the air at a height and position reminiscent of folded wings.

It was typically simplified when shrunk down for website images and badges, the position of arms, hands and shields suggesting the lines of a 'W' for the first letter of 'Wardens'. Here, it was four stories of statue, built into the front face of the building.

It put me in mind of Gilpatrick's speech. Five pounds of gun, fifteen pounds of armor? No. Here, at this scale, it was fifty tons of sword, a hundred and fifty tons of armor and shield. Every inch and pound of its composition was symbolism.

Awesome.

......

It's gonna get vandalized or fall down in the future, isn't it?

"It's something, isn't it?" Tristan asked.

"Yeah," I said. "It's something."

I turned to look at him. He'd just walked up to stand beside me. He'd tidied his hair some. I had the impression he'd started to dress up for the occasion and his other impulses stylewise had taken over. His shirt was a button-up, red silk, with buttons in twos at the regular intervals. He wore it very casually, with the sleeves rolled up and the buttons undone at the collarbone. He'd paired it with a nice pair of black jeans, and he'd painted his hair a red that more closely matched his shirt.

"Reminds me of that video that circulated online for a bit. Chevalier and the last fight against Behemoth," Tristan said.

"Absolutely," I said. "Probably intentional. It's a good mental image to have, the hard fight and the great improvements that follow."

"And the disaster that followed that?" Tristan asked.

I frowned at him.

"It's reality," he said.

Tristan, it would be a good to keep that in mind for your hero team plan too.

You aren't the protagonist of a story, nobody is. Tristan mindset of distancing himself from other's failure will bite him one day.

"It's a little pessimistic," I said. I glanced back. I spotted Sveta making her way up the steps from the sidewalk to the raised bit of ground in front of the building. "Hey!"

She wore a black dress that gathered together as a halter neck, with tights covering the legs. She'd redone some of the paint on her arms and shoulders, the paint around the ball joint and along the shell that encased each arm fresh and glossy.

"You guys dressed up a bit," I said.

"We exchanged some texts," Tristan said. "I think we psyched each other up some."

"I was redoing my paint after all the running around and tree climbing yesterday," Sveta said. "I started overthinking things."

"You look good," I said.

"Thank you. You too." I was wearing a very similar outfit to when I'd been job hunting.

Kenzie was last to catch up to us, running up the stairs. Knee-high socks, a skirt with overlapping stripes, and a blue sweater in a light material, worn over a shirt with the collar poking up through the neckhole. The pin in her hair looked like a bow, but it was two-dimensional and metal.

"Did you go home to change?" Tristan asked.

"No," Kenzie said.

"You actually wore that to school?" he asked.

"It looks nice, thank you very much," she said.

"I agree," I said. "I might have worn something similar when I was around Kenzie's age."

"I can understand you not getting bullied," Tristan told me. "Your parents are superheroes."

"I don't get bullied either," Kenzie said. "I wouldn't mind if I did. It would at least mean my classmates would pay attention to me."

"They don't?" Sveta asked.

"Feels like everyone's busy with their own thing," Kenzie said. She looked up at the statue that stood in relief from the front of the Wardens' headquarters. "Still hurting from recent losses."

"We'll see what we can do to keep future losses from happening," I said.

"Absolutely," Kenzie said.

... Wait, do people actually wear like that?

Do kids actually wear like that in the west or is WB channeling his inner anime there?

Inside the building, statues of key members stood off to either side of the lobby. Chevalier, Narwhal, Valkyrie, Legend, Cinereal, Stonewall, Topflight and Miss Militia. The building was set up so the people on the second, third, and fourth floors could stand at the glass railings and look down at the lobby, and vice versa. People in business clothes were walking every which way, upstairs, and people on the ground floor were free to peruse the gift shop or wait for tours.

I'm not noticing Defiant or Dragon here... odd.

There were larger display boards set up around the edges of the lobby, much like the maps that were stationed around malls, but these showed off the icons for each of the teams under the Wardens' umbrella. They might have been touchscreens. There were screens for Advance Guard, Foresight, the Attendant, the Shepherds, and smaller teams like the Kings of the Hill, the Wayfinders, and the Navigators. The screen for the Attendant was still up, but it was dark, only the faint outline of the Attendants' icon on the screen. The Shepherd's screen had been moved forward and to a position of more prominence.

...Did Victoria say the four teams are condensed into three?

Or maybe Attendant is being absorbed into the other teams? But considering Crystalclear's question back in his interlude, it kinda suggested that Shepherd was the one being absorbed since he didn't bother ask about it.

So...what's going on?

It was darker than the PRT offices had been. The aesthetic of the PRT of yesteryear had always been predominantly white, with black stenciled letters and icons, the periodic bit of chrome or mirror when tech was required. Here, it was dark stone, lined in gold or brass, and the lighting made me think of a cinema with lights set on high ceilings and tuned to be unobtrusive. It was transparent and open in layout and the suggestion of there being very few barriers, like with the glass railings, or the way that it really looked like anyone on the ground floor could go anywhere without checkpoints or security.

"Where are we going?" Sveta asked.

"I should check on my mom first, see if she's free for a short conversation."

"Where is she?"

"Legal or Liaison. I've been here twice before, but the first time they were still getting everything put together, and I don't remember much from the second."

Sveta turned around slowly, then pointed.

"Good," I said. "Thank you."

"Are you on good terms with your parents these days?" Sveta asked.

"I'm…" I started. "No."

"Is she going to help?" Tristan asked.

"I don't know," I said. "It's not that kind of bad terms, where she'd say no, I don't think."

"Is it the kind of bad terms where you invite someone to come with you so you don't have to worry about the 'rents being super embarrassing and lame?" Kenzie asked.

"If I had any idea on what she might say or do then this would be easier," I said. "I think it'll be fine."

One day someone should buy a pico hammer and then smacks her head with it every time she asks these kind of personal questions out of nowhere without hesitation.

The stairs led from either side of the front desk to the second floor, going around the statue-in-relief that mirrored the one on the front of the building. The security checkpoint was on the second floor, more or less hidden behind the statue and the slab it stood out from. Glass walls separated the walkway from the offices and departments around the building exterior.

"Names?" the man at the desk asked.

"Victoria Dallon, Sveta Karelia, Kenzie Martin, Tristan Vera," I said.

"Intentions?"

"We have an appointment with Foresight on the fifth floor. I was also hoping to stop in and see my mom at her workplace. I'm not sure if she's at Legal or Liaison right now."

"Her name?"

"Carol Dallon."

"One second."

The person made a phone call. I waited, a little nervous, emotions stirred up. Anger, frustration, disappointment, worry.

Kenzie had her chin at the top of the railing, as she looked down at the lobby. Sveta stood next to her, with Tristan off to one side.

"Is Weld getting a statue?" Tristan asked.

"Not for a while," Sveta said. "That's more for people who've put in the years, and he only just got in. He's got a preliminary thing in the gift shop."

"No shit? Awesome. We should stop in at the gift shop before we leave."

"You're such a kid," Kenzie said, sticking out her tongue at Tristan. He reached out to muss up her hair and she ducked back out of the way.

"Victoria, was it?" the person at the desk asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Your mother says you can go up. She's at Legal on the third floor. She'll take her break when you arrive, so you'll have about fifteen minutes."

I resisted the urge to wince. Fifteen minutes was too much. Still, saying that would cause problems. "Great."

Greattttt, even before it started, family reunion 3.0 just upgraded to a new shitty level.

"Give me five seconds, and I'll give you your guest ID cards. Can your friends come to the desk?"

We lined up in front of the desk. The printer didn't take long, spitting out four cards in four seconds.

"Check your names are accurate, please, and- there seems to be a problem with miss… Kenzie?"

He turned the card around. A slash of distortion masked Kenzie's face, tracing from her cheekbone to one corner of her forehead. It looked like the heavy compression artifacting that came with any image that had been compressed too many times, but it was dense to the point that her eyes, nose, and cheekbone were almost completely covered.

"Do you want to try again?" Kenzie asked. She had her phone in her hand as she clasped her hands behind her back. I saw the screen momentarily light up.

The man tapped at the keyboard for a few seconds, then turned around to grab the card as the machine spat it out. He gave a singular nod and passed the card with its attached lanyard to Kenzie. Picture normal.

We headed for the stairs up to the third floor.

"I didn't know they were going to take our photos," Kenzie said.

"What are you even doing, obscuring your face like that?" Tristan asked.

"It's not on purpose, obviously, it's a byproduct of tech I'm wearing."

Man, Kenzie can basically defeat any video camera from taking clear shot at her? She's practically the antithesis to Imp here, their conversation is going to be so swell if they ever met each other.

Once we reached the third floor, there was less in the way of civilian-facing offices, and there were more people in suits and business clothes. The glass wall had letters applied to it. Just '303 – LEGAL'.

My mom had had a study back at our house, with the hundred or so legal tomes with all of the case history, precedent, and whatever else, on top of the books we'd fashioned ourselves, binding in a variety of ways, saving team stuff, parahuman case files we'd printed off the net, and more.

This was that, it was the same kind of heavy oak desks that my mom had had in her study, the shelves, the desk lamps and the scattered paperwork that had yet to be gathered together and bound. It was files and filing cabinets, a storm of legality as if a giant had sneezed in a legal office.

My mom might have been one of the older people around. A lot of the lawyers looked young, and at two in the afternoon, jackets were off and slung on the backs of chairs, sleeves were rolled up and perfect hairstyles were just a little bit messed up. She was doing a lot of the talking, taking charge and getting people organized.

A young lady approached us at the doorway. "If you're wanting to lay charges against the Wardens, or if you have witness testimony to give, you'll want to go to Casework on the second floor. I know it's confusing."
"My mom is Carol Dallon, I'm just stopping in to ask a question. The people at check-in said it was okay."

"Oh wow, yeah, look at you. I definitely see the resemblance. Your mom is awesome, you know."

"I know," I said, my eyebrows going up momentarily.

Swelllllll.

The lady stepped away to fetch my mom.

The feeling of trepidation got worse as I watched my mom walk toward me. It was hard to divorce this scene and image with my memory of being on the street outside my mom's house, the hurt and the feelings there.
My mom smiled, acknowledging the other three. "Victoria. This is a pleasant surprise."

"I had a conversation with dad last night. He suggested that you might be the person to ask for this thing these guys are doing."

"Ah," my mom said. She barely seemed fazed by that. "Just business?"

"More or less," I said.

Man, I was still so pissed at her. I was more pissed somehow that she was being nice and casual.

Carol, you really should have at least apologized to her.

That might help a lot more.

"I'm happy to help however you need it," she said. "The only issue is I can't step away right this minute. We're waiting on a phone call from some people in the would-be government, and my coworker is away on a late lunch."

"I don't need you to step away," I said. "These guys are starting up a team. Dad suggested they'd do best if they had someone legal to call up before any big moves. Make sure charges stick."

My mom looked over at the three. Kenzie put her hand up in a small wave.

"Is that Sveta?"

"Hi, Mrs. Dallon."

"I didn't recognize you at first. I can't believe it," my mom said. She approached Sveta, taking Sveta's hands and lifting them up. "What beautiful work."

"I'm pleased with it," Sveta said, ducking her head a bit.

"And the art- is this yours? It reminds me of what I saw you working on during one of my visits."

"It's mine."

"It's stellar," my mom said.

"I don't suppose you'd know someone you could put us in touch with?" I asked, more tense than I'd wanted to sound.

"I can ask around. Are you paying them?"

"I think we'd have to," I said.

"We're pretty overloaded right now. I can't make promises."

"I don't think the team has any major moves planned for early in their career," I said. "Having someone available a month from now or two months from now might be good."

"I'll see what I can do, but I wouldn't be surprised if we're still moving at this clip two months from now."

"What do you do?" Tristan asked.

"We're lobbying on behalf of the Wardens. The government is figuring out the law as we speak, and we're trying to figure out the most effective approach to handle law and parahumans and how they interact in the new world. A lot of precedent, citing past history, pulling from the law of Earth Bet."

"It sounds heavy," Tristan said.

"We're deciding the legal fabric of the new world. It is," my mom said.

"Can you sound some people out?" I asked. "Having someone we could trust to be discreet would be ideal. It wouldn't be heavy."

"I'll ask around. I know we've got a few ex-law students who are in limbo," my mom said. She gave me a look. "They could use the extra funds, and they should have enough knowledge of the system as it stands. They're even on the ground floor for the legal system we may end up with, if we're successful here."

"Thank you," I said. "We'll discuss and I'll look at the books, and we'll see if we can pay them something fair."

Keep it business.

Frankly, I wasn't entirely sure what I'm reading here because I'm not exactly fluent in the language of THE LAW.

But I guess, problem solved?

"Would you come to dinner tonight?" she asked. "We can talk. If I have a better idea of what you're doing, I can find you a better fit."

"I'd really rather not," I said.

"Communication is key. We should talk."

"Another time," I said. Weeks or months from now.

"Okay," she said. "I'd like to invite your sister to a sit-down."

My dignity and grace were dashed away, just like that. A startling, painful jar from reality to somewhere else. The lights of the brightly lit legal office seemed too bright and the dark shadows and the dimly lit building interior of the Wardens HQ and its lobby seemed too dark.

It was very, very hard, in the moment, to separate my recollection of being outside the house with her inside that house, from this, and to convince myself that she wasn't here, somewhere nearby.

"Nah," I said. My voice too soft.

"Victoria-"

"Mom," I said, my voice sharp. "Do you want this conversation to go in the same direction as the one at the barbecue?"

"That's up to you," she said.

I thought about saying something regrettable.

"Bye mom. Good luck with your thing."

She looked like she might say something, but she smiled instead, and said, "Good luck with yours."

I turned to go, and the others followed.

Operation 'Fuck This Shit, I'm Out!' is a go!

That... could have gone worse really.

We walked a little way around the circumference of the floor, between the offices to our right and the railing to our left, until we were a distance away from the legal department. I leaned on the railing, and wrapped one of my hands around the other, squeezing it.

Sveta put an arm around me, and then Kenzie walked up to the other side of me and put a hand on my back.

"I'm okay," I said.

There wasn't an immediate response.

"She was never my favorite person," Sveta said.

"You seemed to get along with her before."

Sveta shook her head, hair flying out a little ways. "You were always really down when she was due to visit, and you were down when she missed visits. And you were down after she came."

"I was down all the time."

"It was different kinds."

"Family's hard," Tristan said. "It really sucks sometimes."

"Yeah," Kenzie said. "Family can be the best and it can be the worst."

Sveta let her arm slide off my shoulder. It settled on Kenzie's head with a faint clack.

"Ow," Kenzie said.

Sveta's fingers lifted up, then came down, in a pat.

Thank you, Sveta.

Alright, moving on.

I stood straighter, and Sveta moved a bit away, her arm reeling in, giving me freedom to stand back. "Hopefully this gets you guys one step closer to being a team with everything you need. We should go talk to Foresight and see if we can get you the rest of the way."

"What're we talking about with Foresight?"

"Jurisdiction," I said. "There might be a few other pieces of ground to cover, finances, selling info."

"Sounds good," he said. "You up to talking about the kind of info you can gather, Kenz?"

"I think so."

The fifth floor wasn't built around a hole in the floor like the bottom four were. There wasn't a view of the lobby, a railing, or anything of the sort. Another security checkpoint was set up at the base of the stairs. With our lanyards and guest IDs, we were clear to go. Our arrival was preceded by a shift in lights visible from the stairwell.

Masks on.

The floor plan was closer to a proper office building, with hallways studded with posters and pictures of team members and leaders, teams, and framed news articles. The hallway to the right of us had 'SHEPHERDS' and a shepherd's crook running down the length of it, a burgundy stripe of paint lit up by lights on the underside of the crook. Red-brown colors to the wall, and the articles and pictures were all for the Shepherds.

In the hallway to our left, Foresight, blue and black paint and lights, Foresight members and victories on the wall opposite.

A door opened and a few Shepherds stepped out into the hall.

"Holy shit," one said.

"Fuck," Tristan said, under his breath.

It was the moon girl, from my job interview with Attendant. She was the one who had urged me away from the Fallen. I was hardly enthused to see her either.

Next station of the fucktrain trip, The Unexpected but Inevitable Reunion Shit Show!

Tristan, you're up to handle this shit!

"Tristan," she said. "Tell me you're not interviewing for a team."

"I'm not," he said. "I've got the team already."

She pursed her lips together.

"History, Moonsong?" someone asked.

"Yeah," Moonsong said. "Tribute knows."

"Yeah," the guy who was apparently 'Tribute' said. He wore what looked like a hypermodernized version of the suit of armor with the cape over one shoulder. It wasn't old fashioned armor, though. It was panels on a bodysuit, and the cape was cut to cling close to his body, angular for flowing cloth, with glowing lines where the sharp angles were. "History is putting it lightly."

"We're late for an appointment," Tristan said.

"You're the guys who are talking to Foresight," someone else said. "They mentioned something like that."

"Yeah," I said. Then, aware of the opening in the conversation, I elaborated with, "Hello again, Moonsong."

"Hello," she said. "What was your name again?"

"Victoria."

"You seemed cool, Victoria. What are you doing with this bastard?"

"Wow," Tristan said.

"Just helping out," I said.

"He doesn't need it, and he doesn't deserve it."

"Whatever's in the past, he gets his second chance, like anyone. He wants to help people, and I'm going to help him do that."

"He's one of the monsters you help save people from," Moonsong said. "You get that, right?"

"That's not fair," Kenzie said.

She stopped as Tristan put one hand out in front of her, keeping her from jumping forward in his defense.

"Tribute and I arrested him," Moonsong said. "You know that, right?"

I could see the lines in Tristan's jaw standing out. He said, "I know. I remember."

"I want to see Byron," Moonsong said.

"Not your call. His turn isn't until later."

There was a shudder, and then my hair started to move. The light further down the hallway seemed to grow darker, and my stomach lurched in a sensation that I connected to a lot of aerial acrobatics.

"You want to pick a fight here?" Tristan asked.

At the way this is going, the next time the team visited a hospital, they are going to meet Amy somehow and shit will unexpectedly not explode because it got dull after the first few times.

Tristan, please handle this shit ASAP.

Tribute shifted his footing, stepping forward a little, and clasped his hands in front of his groin. With his head bowed slightly, he was faintly reminiscent of the Wardens' emblem.

I stepped forward, ready to put myself between them, and I felt the stomach-lurching sensation again. My leg buckled, and I nearly fell.

My hair was floating now, and my legs were straining, almost locked in position with the stress of keeping me upright.

Gravity manipulation, but somehow a mix of zero-grav and enhanced gravity.

I flew instead of walking, and it was hard to keep my position. I stopped when I was between Tristan and the other two. "This isn't helpful."

Ah whatever, Tristan is being useless at the start again as Victoria throws out her banter dice.

"Victoria," Moonsong said. "I'm going to tell you how this goes."

I felt the gravity shift again, an attempt to put me down against the floor, and threw up my forcefield to avoid twisting my ankle or hitting the ground too hard. I was glad my skirt wasn't the kind that could flip up, as it hugged my thighs, but my midriff was exposed now.

"Tristan joins the team, and he charms the pants off of everyone he meets. He's good at the stuff he does in front of the camera, he's good at the hero stuff, he's strong. He gets decent grades, he makes friends, he finds allies and he works on them. Because that's what sociopaths do. He doesn't actually care about them."

"Sociopath?" Tristan asked. "You're as deluded as ever."

"He jokes and acts all cute about how he's competitive, he likes to win, and he tends to win so you don't really see how sore of a loser he is when things go bad. He sets his sights on something he wants, he gets it. Sets his sights on something else, he gets it. Until he doesn't get what he wants. Like being team leader or getting a key role in an event that's coming up. That's when he starts using the people he's been working on. They're usually desperate people. Vulnerable ones."

I thought of Rain, who Tristan had called a friend. Or did the whole team count?

"It's called leaning on people when you're struggling."

"It's called manipulation. And you're good at it," Tribute said.

"Fuck off," Tristan said. "Drop the power use and let us go. We've got things to do."

"Moonsong," Sveta said. "I don't think you know Tristan as well as you think."

"Same," Moonsong said. "I feel really sorry for you if he's already got into your good graces. Because that bastard is the kind of guy who hires someone who kills people by looking at them to cover his ass, and uses them against teammates. He likes to win and he wins at any cost."

Okay this shit just got real, Tristan, what the fuck did you do!?

"We know the story," Sveta said.

"I doubt you know the entirety of it. Have you split the discussion fifty-fifty between listening to him and Byron?" Moonsong asked. She didn't even wait for a response before deciding, "No. Because it doesn't work that way."

"I gave Byron the opportunity," Tristan said.

"Yeah," Moonsong said. "I know how that goes. Like with Team Reach's therapist, right? You get your turn, Byron gets his, you go in for extra advice, you take over, and somehow the team's therapist gets weird ideas in his head about Byron. You suggest things and then when Byron gets his turn he's having to play defense, get rid of these preconceived ideas. He gets no time of his own with the therapist, because he's stuck trying to undo the damage Tristan did during his time."

"All I did," Tristan said, lines standing out as his neck, "Was try to figure shit out. There's a lot to figure out with the situation being what it is, and somehow I end up doing the legwork."

"It's a lot of work to manipulate everyone around you, isn't it?" Moonsong asked.

Okay, I'm gonna put this straight but let's just I would fucking hate to join this therapy group if everyone is hiding secret of this magnitude.

People have secret they would like to keep, I understand. But this is therapy group session and shit like those secrets might be the main reason why you are so fucked up in the first place.

I don't like people hiding shit from me, no way of changing that. And this goes double for the group because there's a high chances that these secret will cost someone their bloody lives.

"Stop," I said. "Stop this. Now."

I pushed out with a faint hit of aura.

"Please," Sveta said, adding her voice to mine.

"I want to hear that Byron is okay, from Byron's mouth. I don't give a shit about Tristan's time."

"Fuck this," Tristan said. "Fine."

He blurred, his eyes becoming crimson points, then transitioning to become teal.

Byron, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans.

The gravity effect dropped away.

"Hi Byron," Kenzie said, her voice small.

"Hi Kenzie."

"You okay?" Moonsong asked.

"I've had better weeks, but things with my brother are as tolerable as they get," Byron said. He slouched, sticking his hands in the pocket of the sweatshirt. "You kind of went overboard."

"I had to check."

"I know," Byron said.

Well, Byron managed to keep things down at least, but seriously what the fuck happened between them and it's a bad fucking idea to continue hiding this shit considering Moonsong nearly attacked people because of it.

There was a noise behind us, and I turned to look.

Foresight. Anelace and someone I hadn't met.

"Why don't you come on in? Step into the office," Anelace asked. "Moonsong? Can I have a word?"

Foresight's administrative office wasn't the same office I'd been in when I'd interviewed with them. Their headquarters was situated elsewhere, and this was something else, a space set up for meetings, for paperwork, interactions with other teams and more. Much like the hallways had, it looked like an office.

Right away, Moonsong, Tribute, and the member of Foresight stepped into an office, closing the doors. The blinds were at an angle where I could see where they stood, but not their expressions or what they might be saying.

Anelace stepped into the back, then came back to the sitting area. He looked at us, then at the other members of Moonsong's group. "Come on. Let's keep everyone separate until things are settled."

Our group walked into a back room, a single table and some nice chairs in a room with a coffee maker and microwave.

"I was looking forward to seeing you again, Victoria," Anelace said. "Sorry it's not under better circumstances."

"Yeah," I said.

"I'm going to go talk to the others. There won't be a problem if I leave you guys here?"

"Not at all," I said.

Anelace left us in the room. Kenzie flopped forward, forehead hitting the table, arms extended all the way in front of her.

Byron changed back to Tristan.

"No," Tristan said, quiet. "So long as I'm here, Moonsong is going to be frothing at the mouth. I'm trading out until she's good and gone."

They swapped back. Byron slouched into his seat.

"I didn't know that about the therapy, Byron," Sveta said.

Byron shrugged.

"It's why you don't want to sit in for Mrs. Yamada's?"

"It's part of it," he said. "Look, I don't want to demonize Tristan or anything, like Moon is so good at doing. He has his good side, but a lot of the time, I've got to conserve my strength for dealing with the rougher patches. Minor, basic stuff."

"Do you think he's a sociopath?" I asked.

"No," Byron said. "But I think… he's got to be the worst possible person to end up sharing a body with."

"Is there anything I or we can do to make it easier?" I asked.

"I'm working on a camera that looks inside Tristan to find Byron, or vice-versa," Kenzie said, without raising her head. "It's not going so well but I'm going to figure it out."

"Thanks Kenz. No, nothing makes it easier. You can… tackle the broad strokes, you can be careful not to talk past my face to say something to Tristan and never do the opposite when Tristan's the one in front. It doesn't make a difference with the stuff that really matters. That's my stuff to deal with."

"What stuff?" I asked.

"He's… stubborn, destructively stubborn, he holds this idea of what should happen in his head, and if that doesn't work for you then you're probably going to be pretty unhappy, because you aren't going to change anything about it."

"Reminds me a bit of my mom when you describe it that way," I said.

"Yeah, but you can walk away from your mom, can't you?" Byron asked.

"Yeah," I said. I sighed.

"I really appreciate that sigh. Maybe you get it," he said, leaning his head back until it rested against the wall, his face turned skyward. "He thrives on competition, you know. He'll be a terrific hero, probably. Put a challenge in front of him, and he'll give his all to kick its ass."

"But?" I asked.

"That's him. That's who he is, intrinsically. I don't know if there's a but. It's reality, and it's reality that I'm the challenge and he's energized when it comes to the tug of war over this one body we share. He thrives on it in a way, and I'm… drained, beaten down."

"We have your back," Sveta said. "Not just Tristan's. We're backing Capricorn, and we're invested in finding answers for both of you."

"I appreciate that. But I don't like this. At best, it's… more draining. More of me being beaten down and left more exhausted. At worst… Moonsong might be right."

"At best," I said, "It's Tristan doing what he's good at doing. What happens if he doesn't have that outlet?"

I didn't get a response.

My bet on first death on the team still rest firmly on Tristan.

Which just got even firmer... which is probably a very weak ass adjective for this but yeah, I think he's going to fucking die if he doesn't wise up soon.

There was a knock on the door. Anelace, the dagger-themed member of Foresight.

"Can you join us?" he asked.

We migrated from the team's lunch room to the office where the team leader, Moonsong and Tribute were seated.

The leader stood by his desk, one foot on his chair. He looked larger of frame, and had Foresight's symbol on an eye patch. A bit of a corsair look, with a jacket and lots of belts, and long black hair tied back into a sailor's ponytail. Veins of gold decorated his costume.

"Sorry for the hassle," Tribute said. "History. Things never really resolved so much as we all walked away with the situation left halfway through a disaster."

"It's alright," I said.

"We've been having a conversation with the Shepherds," the leader of Foresight said. "They've explained some of the history. It muddies the waters."

"We understand," Sveta said. "Sorry about this."

"They had the suggestion that we make sure both of the Capricorn twins are on board with this plan of yours."

"Why'd you have to drag me into this, Moonsong? This doesn't help. I don't want to own any part of this, whatever they do."

"I will always fight to give you your voice."

"I don't want to speak," Byron said. "I want to ignore this side of my reality and conserve my strength for the fights that need it."

"Is that a no, then?" the leader of Foresight asked.

"No," Byron said. He seemed to flounder for a moment. He looked at me. "Fuck."

He didn't break that eye contact with me as he said it. My eyebrow went up.

"Don't let me get in the way of you giving these guys their chance," Byron said.

"You're vouching for them?" the Foresight leader asked.

"Yeah."

Byron punctuated the sentence by changing into Tristan.

"I'm good with this," Tristan said, shifting his posture to avoid looking at Moonsong.

"Good," the Foresight leader said. "Thank you for your time, Shepherds."

Tribute and Moonsong left the office. Just Anlace, the leader, Kenzie, Byron, Sveta and I, now.

I swear, if Byron said that when he was thinking with his dick at that moment, I'm gonna fucking punch him through the screen.

I looked around the office and saw an article. The leader was on the cover, with the name 'Brio'.

"You really want to do this?" Brio asked.

"They're suited for it," I said. "They have the ability to gather the information and figure out how to crack the toughest nuts. Tinker devices and people on the ground who won't get a second look hanging around Hollow Point. They get the info, they sell it to you guys, and if you want it, they work with you on the actual cracking of the nut. Joint operation, or it can be solo, one way or the other."

"Are you participating?" he asked.

"If I'm wanted, I'll add my strength to theirs for the big plays."

"To be honest, there's a lot about this that could work," Brio said. "When the Wardens gathered us all together, they assigned territories by lottery. We've got other things we're focusing on, and Hollow Point is in a bad way."

"If you'll pay a modest fee, enough to cover their lawyer, buy the info, keep them supplied, they'll bring you in for the actual arrests. It's a win for you guys, while these guys do the leg work."

"If it works," Brio said.

"Yeah," I said.

"We're hard workers," Kenzie said. "We're really good at what we do."

"I don't doubt that," Brio said. His voice had a tone shift that suggested he was used to talking to kids in a certain context. "You have a lot of hurdles."

Well, I'm starting to doubt that, honestly.

This shit is going to be so hard when everybody is trying to figure out what the hell they are doing.

"We've been doing our initial research," Anelace said. "Figuring out how we might fix Hollow Point. They're tied into some bigger-picture stuff."

"Tattletale," I said.

"Her on one end," Anelace said. "But she's more the kind of person you have to deal with further down the road. Once you scare them, they'll call her. They already called her once about us, and she reached out to try to convince us to leave the area alone."

"And?" I asked.

"And we're leaving it alone, or we were, until you sent your proposal," Brio said.

I nodded. Not good to hear, but understandable. I wondered what played into that decision.

Argh dammit, Gimel is rotting too damn fast already and this is not helping at all.

This is the exactly same thing I talked about before, about either dealing with bigger fishes or small flies that will latch onto the very foundation of your society forever.

"On the front end, you've got some others to deal with. You'll have to get past them before you can even start on the project."

"Who?"

"Speedrunners," Anelace said. He turned around, reached for a file, and put it on the desk, pushing it in our direction.

"I know them," I said. I left the file for Sveta, Tristan and Kenzie to look at.

"A couple of times a day, they use their time powers. Sweep the area, search every nook and cranny. You won't be able to set up shop."

"That'd be Secondhand," I said.

"They use Final Hour to cover other business. Even if you avoid being caught in the sweeps, you won't be able to look or listen in if they're conducting meetings in banked timestreams."

"And Last Minute is still with the group?" I asked.

"Yes."

Fucking time manipulators. "Something to work out in advance then."

"They've got two thinkers, Braindead and Birdbrain, working as a team. You won't be able to have undercover agents if they're checking things. You will be tracked and your agents will be thoroughly investigated."

What the fuck is this bullshit!?

Where the fuck are these motherfuckers in Golden Morning!? They could have been so fucking useful and they are somehow fucking together in one singular team?

Low level mook town, my fucking ass. They are fucking stupid powerful for a bunch of small crooks.

Okay, what's next because apparently this isn't enough pain in a fucking ass.

More folders hit the table.

"Powers complicate things, and they've got a lot of powers there," Anelace said.

"Bitter Pill, tinker," Brio said. "A lot of the people in Hollow Point are expected to partake, and that means truth serums, just to start with."

Is this a fucking crook town or a fucking KGB superhuman division, the fuck is this shit!?

*sighs*

Okay, let me just, try thinking of tactics here.

You have a guy that can look for a wide spread area in a very short amount of time, Kenzie might be able to managed it if her tech is that stealthy.

You have another guy who can somehow make a enclosed time limited space for behind the door talk, maybe Kenzie could bug him and hope tech can work in time wonky area.

And then the Last Minute guy, not sure what he's deal is but it sounds like he can reverse time to a point or something in emergency-wait a fucking minute.

If that guy's Cody then I hope the team can fuck the shit out of his ass.

As for the truth serum shit, I would think that criminals would like to hide their shit more than others do and this would make them go working in other areas instead.

Or maybe those wanting to get the fuck out already did.

And all these people in a single fucking location?

Really?

This is bullshit.

I looked at the other members of the group.

"You really think you're up for this?" Brio asked.

"Just speaking for myself, I'm more excited to do this than I was before you started talking about what we're up against," Tristan said.

"I already have some ideas," Kenzie said. "Not about the time guys, but I have ideas."

"We knock the time guys down first," Tristan said. "Without a question. We'll have to. We can do this."

I looked at Sveta, who had been quiet.

"I want to do this," she said, meeting Brio's eyes.

"Then we'll give you our files as starting points. You guys own this if it ends up being a disaster, you keep us informed, and-"

"In exchange," I interrupted, "You guys give us access to your costume sourcing."

"I can do costumes," Kenzie said.

"Without battery lives?" I asked.

"Oh."

"Give us access to your costume manufacturing. I know you have it and I know you're branching out to share it."

Anelace and Brio exchanged a look. Brio nodded. "Okay."

"And you give us your blessing to operate in this territory," I said.

"I don't know if I like what I saw earlier," Brio said. "Blessing might be a strong word."

"All parahumans have their issues," I said.

Brio seemed to consider for a moment.

He extended his hand to shake.

We shook it, each of us in turn.

No name yet, costumes to be decided, codenames to be determined.

But we were a team with a mission. We were doing this.

If you guys are really doing this, then good fucking luck cuz you will need it.

Well with that done, see you guys this Saturday.

Hotdog Vendor · Jan 23, 2018

dragonkid11 said:
Wait, do people actually wear like that?

Um, do you mean, "Do people dress like that?"

dragonkid11 · Jan 23, 2018

Hotdog Vendor said:
Um, do you mean, "Do people dress like that?"

Erm yeah, that.

English is my second language here, what's with being actual Asian in Asia and all.

Let's Read Ward (Sequel to Worm)

A random creator

A random creator

Good. Bad. I'm the man with the Wand.

It sounds so pretentious when you say it like that

A random creator

A random creator

Castro-Trudeauist

Good. Bad. I'm the man with the Wand.

Author of 'Sisters of Rail'

Author of 'Sisters of Rail'

A random creator

A random creator

A random creator

Author of 'Sisters of Rail'

A random creator