Let's read Worm and its sequel Ward by Wildbow (One chapter/every day)

blackarrow · Nov 14, 2018

Hello, beautiful souls. Time for the start of Protectorate/Wards/Undersiders against Noelle and her Army of Vistas. Or Scapes, how people (or the author) called them. I like more Huggles Vistas than Scapes but if they're called Scapes then I guess I'll use the same codename for them. But now I can't make enough Vista jokes and this bothers me.

I can't say something like this...Skitter is going to kill "Vista" by infecting her with so many bugs that she'll crash and burn. Or...."Vista" is crap anyway so everyone will do a very good job if they'll get rid of her as soon as possible.

See, no more Vista jokes if the clones are called Scapes. But I think that some jokes will work too, depends of my inspiration of moment.

So, let's start watching:
Noelle Wars: Episode 1: Attack of the Scapes and see who's gonna win Queen 18.6

"Help is on the way," Miss Militia's voice came over the armband.

"Three Vistas," I said. "And Noelle is probably north of our location, going after-"
"Skitter!" Tattletale shouted, interrupting me, "lose it!"
"What?"
"The armband! Toss it!"
I pulled at the straps. As I gathered bugs onto the armband to get a better sense of what I needed to do with the straps, I could tell that the entire thing was swelling, distorting. I could hear the screen crack.
I pulled it free and threw it, simultaneously climbing to my feet and scrambling away.
"Grue! Cover it!" Tattletale shouted. "Use your power on anything that one breaks down!"
Grue threw out a stream of darkness, then dissolved the darkness that wasn't covering the area where the armband had been. Without the ability to see, I had only my bugs' senses to go by, but I could track where he'd laid down the darkness by the way the air seemed thicker.
From Tattletale's words, I'd expected an explosion, but it simply twisted away into wisps of thick smoke.
"It's radioactive," Tattletale intoned. "Everything she's dissolving like that."

Great start of the first episode. One of the Scapes seems to have radioactive powers and she affected armbands, trying to irradiate their wearers. Thanks to Tattle-pedia here (USEFUL as usual), Skitter survived to radiation poisoning as Grue managed to use his darkness powers to nullify the effects of the radiation (if I remember correctly his darkness affect radiation too, right? This is excellent, given the situation of a psycho Scape attacking them with radiation). So, each land-Scapes have a part of Vista's powers/or mutated Vista's powers? One manipulates the land-scape, the other one uses radiation poisoning in fight? I wonder if the third one can create black holes or can manipulate the gravitation itself. That would be so cool (yet scary/extremely dangerous for our heroes/sympathetic villains) for the whole battle in general. Noelle is a tragic/pathetic supervillain, but she creates some really badass and interesting monsters.

"Unless I cover it?" Grue asked.

"Unless you cover it. Should cancel out the effects. But you did want me to let you know when I'm making an educated guess. This is one of them."
Tattletale said. "I hope I'm right. We could win this fight and still wind up dying in a hospital bed a few years from now, because we got too close as that stuff dissolved."
Oh shit.
"Doesn't matter, does it?" Regent said. "World's ending in a few years anyways."
"Let's avoid the extreme radiation poisoning," I said. "Regardless of whether the world's ending or not."
The other Undersiders and the Chicago Wards were out of the van, and we were collectively backing away from the nega-Vistas. More specifically, we were retreating from the one who was creating the radioactive dust.
The first one I'd noticed was still on the rooftop, spreading out her efforts, thinning walls and twisting supports. Her progress was slow, but I was willing to bet that half of the city block would be collapsing onto us in a matter of minutes. If not sooner. If I had to guess, her power operated in a different manner than the original Vista's. It affected a wider area, it was slower, and she didn't seem to be suffering for our presence.
The bugs that I was sending her way were having a hard time approaching. They kept veering around so they flew clockwise around her instead of straight. I had only a few bugs attacking her, but the same effect that I'd seen with her face had hardened her skin and there weren't many places left to attack. Her mouth was little more than a lipless slit across the lower half of her face, firmly closed, and only the smallest bugs could get at her eyes. She barely flinched at the bites and stings my swarm was delivering.
Meagre as my efforts were, they still should have left her blind, filling her eye sockets with ants and no-see-ums, but her power was still steadily working on the buildings around us. Another peculiarity of her abilities? The ability to sense the layout of whatever structures she was affecting? Did that extend to sensing us?
The second one had arrived, creating footholds and handholds to ascend the section of road she'd raised into a vertical wall, twelve feet high. She was now perched on top, crouching. In the time that it had taken me to lose the armband, she had started to work on cutting off our best avenue of retreat. The road we'd traveled on to get here was raising behind us, bulging upward into a similar barrier. As far as I could tell, her powers were most in line with the regular Vista, and she seemed to be reacting most to the bites and stings. I wished that would make me feel more confident about these circumstances.
That left the freakishly tall one. The Vista with limbs that zig-zagged, who was apparently turning matter into radioactive dust. She'd climbed past the wreckage of the fallen building and now stood on solid ground again, facing us.
"We off the radioactive one first?" Tecton suggested.
"No," I said. I used my bugs to draw an arrow in the air. "Priority's the one on the roof, over there."
"There's a third one?" he asked.
Apparently he hadn't caught my message to Miss Militia.
"She's going to bring down more buildings if we don't take her fast," I said.
"Raymancer," Tecton ordered, "handle it."
Raymancer stood like he had before, feet together, one arm extended. I didn't sense any energy blast or ray from his hand. The Vista didn't act as though she'd been shot either.
"She bends light!?" Wanton asked.
"She's bending space," Tattletale said. "You won't get a straight shot."
"Don't need one," Raymancer said. His second shot left a shallow crater in the Vista's chest. She sprawled onto the roof, hands pressed to the injury.
The thinning of the walls didn't stop.
"How the fuck does that work?" Regent asked. "The laser didn't even-"
"She's still alive!" I called out, interrupting him. There was a small explosion as Raymancer directed a shot at the Radioactive Vista and missed. I could sense how the barrier behind us abruptly stopped growing and how the space to one side of her warped to let her evade more easily.

Looks like: Scapes continue to make the physics laws their bitches, bending space, air, light, everything they can, contaminating the entire area and turning it into another part of Brockton Bay where nobody can live anymore (I wonder if there are parts of this City left where people- parahumans or normal humans- can actually live), Regent continue to fight by not giving any fucks

, Raymancer's power is apparently shooting energy beams from his hands, Skitter hates ~~window~~ Vista so much that she can't stop herself from attacking it with bugs everytime when she gets the chance and Tattletale is a sweetheart like always, informing everyone about every movement of the enemy. And I'm sitting here, enjoying this fight quite a lot.

"Vista to our three o'clock is assisting her!" I said.

"Grace!" Tecton shouted. "Leaving rooftop to you! Launch!"
Grace leaped toward him, onto the back of one outstretched hand. She had no trouble maintaining her balance as she placed the other foot on the back of his other gauntlet.
She bent her knees, and extended them to jump in the same instant the piledriver attachments on the gauntlets extended with explosive force.
Most of the bugs I'd placed on her were torn free by the force of the wind ripping past her, as she turned into a human projectile. She had to have used her selective invincibility to augment her feet and legs so they weren't annihilated by the piledrivers, and she would be using her enhanced agility to ensure she stuck the landing.
Except the landing wasn't going to happen as planned. If I'd understood what they'd planned, I would have warned her. Her trajectory shifted as she ran into the rooftop-Vista's power. Grace fell short of reaching the rooftop. Veryshort. She hit the ground with both feet together, arms spread, and left a shallow crater around her impact site, a half-block away from the building. Grace was running toward her target a heartbeat later, unhurt.
Some of the flying capes that had been assigned to watch over us were targeting the Vista on the rooftop, and I saw that as excuse enough to focus on other, more immediate problems.
Rachel and her dogs went for the Vista to our right, with Regent doing what he could to hamper their target's movement, forcing her to use her power to maintain the distance from the beasts.
Which left the rest of us to face off against the radioactive one.
"One on the rooftop's occupied," I said. "Now we can fight her."
She extended her hand toward us, and the ground between us and her bulged, as though a cartoon mole had crawled beneath the pavement. Raymancer fired at her, clearly hoping to distract her, but each shot missed by a fair margin.
My bugs were covering every inch of her skin, and I had them biting and tearing at her flesh. Her skin was hard, gnarled, and calloused, but I did the damage where I could at the elbows, knees and neck, drawing blood. I tried to tell myself that she was a monster, a mockery of a real person, and she was too dangerous to be allowed to live. With that kind of unhinged mental state, and her ability to irradiate people… I grit my teeth. No choice.
Grue finished covering the bulging ground with darkness. Tall-Vista didn't react. Her hand was still pointed at us.
"It's a feint!" Tattletale shouted. She spun around. "There!"
My swarm moved in the direction Tattletale was looking. I found the bulge, a basketball-sized blister on the side of the containment van, felt it erupting a mere foot from Raymancer's head a half-second before Grue's darkness covered it.
Too late. Raymancer stumbled, coughing.
Grue turned and extended a hand toward the tall Vista. With my swarm spread out around her, I could sense miniscule explosions appearing all around her, see the flashes of light with the bugs' distorted vision. The individual detonations weren't much larger than golf balls, and even the direct impacts weren't enough to kill my larger bugs.
"How the fuck do you use Raymancer's power?" Grue asked.
"You copy powers?" Wanton asked.
"Thought you guys read up on us," Tattletale quipped. "Grue, focus the beams with the lenses. The beam appears from the center, so line them up to refine the beam into something more effective."
"In case you haven't noticed, I've only got the one lens there."
Lenses? My bugs weren't sensing anything.
Wanton was closing the distance, now that the other Vista was distracted trying to avoid Bentley and Bastard, still hobbled by Regent's power. As he got halfway to her, the ground around her began to distort and twist into curls. Wanton disintegrated as he entered the area.
For a heartbeat, I thought she'd used her power on him. When the debris, dust and chunks of building began stirring and orbiting a central point that continued his general trajectory, I realized it was his power.

OMG, Raymancer was exposed to radiation!!! I hope that they'll manage to heal him once the Scapes are killed (its impossible for Chicago Wards/Protectorate to not have their own healers or medical Tinkers) because I'm gonna feel sorry for him if he'll die. These Chicago Wards are cool, I already like them.

Especially Grace and Raymancer. Wanton can turn into a telekinetic storm, maybe in this form he'll be immune to Radioactive Scape. I like Wanton's reaction when he found out that Grue can copy powers. They still don't trust Undersiders but they have to fight alongside them and right now....must be even worse for them (in terms of trust) when they know that an Undersider can copy powers.

I understand Chicago Wards, I'd have reacted in the same way in their place.

Wanton didn't hesitate as radioactive dust exploded around and inside his new body. If anything, it proved an advantage, as the dust provided more material to work with and the damage to the street let him pull up chunks of pavement. He closed the distance to our opponent and began thrashing her. One of her arms snapped and dangled as one large chunk struck her.

Grue's attacks weren't terribly effective. There were only half the number of explosions, but they were sufficient to kill bugs if they happened to hit one. He abandoned Raymancer's power and cast out his darkness toward the Vista. A moment later, the ground under her feet was contorting, and dust was rising around her.
To our right, Rachel and Bastard were closing in on the Vista. Her foot was contorted by Regent's power, and her neck was craning at awkward angles, making it harder for her to focus on them and use her own abilities.
She backed away, raised her one good hand in their direction, and promptly bumped into Imp. Before the pseudo-Vista could react, she had a taser pressed to her neck.
Rachel closed the distance, Bentley loping forward. My bugs caught her voice. An order, not too hard to make out. Not with the context.
"Kill," Rachel said, her voice quiet. The bulldog picked up the Vista in his jaws and bit down until an audible series of cracks marked the breaking of a dozen major bones. He shook her like a rag doll, no doubt snapping her neck and aggravating every injury he'd just inflicted. The girl was dead in an instant.
Rachel's ordered him to drop the body, ordered Bastard to back away from the carcass, and then took hold of Bastard's chain. She started to wheel Bentley around to rejoin us, but I was already drawing arrows in the air. Wanton wasn't at risk from the radiation in his new form, apparently, but Rachel and her dogs were. There was nothing saying that any radiation wouldn't be able to penetrate the monstrous flesh and hit the dog nestled in the core.
Kicking Bentley into an all-out run, she led Bastard in an all-out toward the one on the rooftop. No hesitation. No apparent remorse.
Rachel and I had grown closer, to the point of maybe being friends on top of being teammates. Whatever rifts had formed between us were largely mended, and she trusted me as a leader. With all that in mind, it was sometimes hard to remember that she was still Rachel at the core of it. If her psychological wiring didn't give her any real empathy for her fellow human beings, it wasn't about to give her any for human-esque beings.
Tecton slammed one gauntlet into the ground, creating a crack that rushed toward the taller Vista. It exploded in a geyser of debris and dust as it reached her. She staggered, then staggered again as Grue landed a shot with Raymancer's power. She tried to raise one hand to defend herself, but the thin, curved bone of her upper arm had been shattered. Her broken arm dangled in front of her.
With the topographical map my swarm provided, I noted the presence of thick veins standing out on her arm, where the weight of the dangling limb pulled the skin tight against the shattered bone. I barely thought about it, sending my bugs to the area, biting deep into the largest one, working together so that one hornet might pull one way, a beetle pulling another, to better rend the flesh or positioning it for a stronger bug to bite into.
She jerked in reaction, and blood began flowing. Beads of it at first, but the skin was pulled tight and the bugs were relentless. It virtually tore between the combination of damage and strain. A small river of blood flowed, intermittently spurting.
That would be an artery, not a vein. Fuck me. I tried to suppress the quiet horror that took hold of me as my bugs tracked the blood pouring down her arm, trickling off her fingertips in individual streams.
Still fighting to avoid being brained by Wanton's telekinetic storm, the tall Vista let out a drawn out half-moan, half-scream, equal parts despair and anger. It didn't sound exactly normal, but that didn't surprise me. What made my blood run cold was that she almost sounded like a young girl might. A little too close to reality for comfort.

Wanton is so freaking badass and the radioactive dust have no effect while he's in this form. As I read more about the Chicago Wards'actions, the more I like them. Bitch ordered her dogs to kill one of Scapes and Skitter proves to be merciless by sending her bugs to destroy the Taller Scape. Well, her scream creeped me out too. Its too close of how the original Vista would have acted if a Swarm would have bite into her arteries.

Scapes are living beings and...they're pretty similar with their original but only when it comes to powers, pain and mortality. They're still UNLIKE Vista in terms of emotions and morality, their brains are collectively controlled by Noelle, they share the same emotions of hate and anger with Noelle, they express Noelle's violence and thirst for revenge. Vista is NOTHING like them. She's incapable to kill heroes (she killed a hero, Bastion, yes, but she did at his own request) even villains like Undersiders, she's incapable to kill her own family; despite being fatalistic, she's a kind and heroic child. While Scapes are little monsters controlled by a bigger monster.

Don't let yourself influenced by their screams of pain, Skitter.

She went all-out with her power, aimless, directionless. Street signs, mailboxes, piles of debris, walls and sections of road began twisting and bulging. Grue laid down a blanket of darkness all around us, aiming to dampen the spread of the radioactive particles. I wasn't sure how that worked, but Tattletale thought it did, and I wasn't about to complain. I'd settle for a white lie if it meant we were able to stay focused on fighting, rather than the cancer we'd have five years from now.

It took ten seconds before the Vista collapsed. Only ten seconds to bleed out to the point of unconsciousness. The blood continued pumping free, and nobody leaped forward to staunch the flow.
I sensed some of the faster capes from Miss Militia's group making their arrival on the scene.
The wound the rooftop-Vista had sustained from Raymancer was shallow, the majority of it consisting of surface damage to her artificially smooth, thick skin and to her ribs. I'd only peripherally been aware I was doing it, but my bugs had seized on the opportunity to dig in and attack the more vulnerable flesh of the open wound. She barely seemed to care, focusing her efforts on diverting incoming fire and trying to distort the rooftop to force Grace to fall off. That changed when several bugs found a hole leading into the empty space surrounding her lungs.
In that same moment, the Vista started trying to claw the bugs out of the shallow cavity. The distraction afforded one of the heroes a chance to catch her in the head with a gobbet of foam. A smaller containment foam blaster?
Flying capes closed the distance and settled around her. There was a brief dialogue that I couldn't make out with the unfamiliar voices. Someone said something about foam, there were a few words of argument from a pair, and one pressed a finger to their armband, saying something about a captive.
It was Miss Militia who responded through the armband. She gave a curt order, and several capes turned away. One of the capes who hadn't took aim and shot the fallen girl between the eyes.
The fight was over. The heroes were already moving north in pursuit of Noelle. I signaled for Rachel to return.
That moan-scream the tall Vista had made was still ringing in my ears. It had been way too human for my tastes.
There was no doubt she'd been going all out. Raymancer was on his knees, supported by Tecton. He'd taken a hit of the dust straight to the face. If Tattletale was right… he'd just taken a lethal dose of radiation. The clone hadn't even flinched in delivering the attack.
I'd had fights like this. Dealing with the Nine had been much the same, had demanded we hold nothing back, had involved enemies who didn't hesitate. The difference was that the Nine had demanded it because anything less wouldn't cut it. Fighting these clones, they were vulnerable. They only defended themselves so they could keep causing damage. When I tried to hurt them, they got hurt. It sounded so lame when I framed it like that, but… it shook me.
Even knowing they were deranged, that Tattletale had confirmed they weren't really people, I couldn't ignore how brutal we'd been. My actions. The clones weren't innocent, but they were innocents. If that made any sense.

Yes, I can understand that the clones are innocent, its not their fault because Noelle decided to create them and use them as her personal soldiers in this POINTLESS FIGHT. Its only Noelle's fault because she's blinded by her hate and can't understand that this revenge will not change anything regarding her physical/mental state. Besides, nobody from the present people is guilty for what happened to her/for her hopeless future, she's getting revenge exactly on the wrong people. But, in her twisted mind, they're guilty and they must pay for their imaginary sins towards her.

Unfortunately, even if Scapes were innocent, it was a necessity for heroes/Undersiders to kill them because they're murderous and cruel and...Fuck this shit, I feel kind of bad for Scapes but I feel more bad for Raymancer, who doesn't deserve to die from radiation poisoning.

Yes, I agree with Skitter, fighting S9 is like fighting with some OP Psychos Assholes. They're bone-safe guarded to the point of becoming almost immortals, they're former victims (most of them), yes, but right now they're merciless and ruthless psychos with no care and consideration for human life+ they're not influenced or controlled by anyone and they're in full control over their actions (I still think that Bonesaw is half influenced by Jack but I'm not entirely sure). When they die, I'm extremely happy because they're a restless threat to humankind.

While Scapes can be killed easily, they're not crazy criminals because they want to be but because their creator wants them to act like this. They're full of hate and malice because this is how their creator is and they're shaped according to her primal emotions. They're more like Noelle's extensive limbs rather than their own persons. Even their powers don't belong to them but to Noelle- Noelle copied Vista's powers and used them through Scapes (or rather, her Passenger copied Vista's passenger's powers). Noelle is STILL a victim (not a former victim turned into a monster, but a victim- monster) When they die, I feel both happy and sad because they're innocent criminals.

This is the DIFFERENCE between S9 and Noelle/clones.

And I knew I'd have to do it all over again, the next time we ran into a clone.

Tattletale touched Grue's arm, and he banished the darkness around us.
"I'm going to die," Raymancer said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"There's a good chance, yeah," Tattletale said.
"Hey," Tecton said, "Don't be a bitch."
She didn't respond. Instead, she touched her armband, "Raymancer down. He needs immediate medical attention for acute radiation poisoning. Quarantine this location, you'll want stuff for radioactive decontamination, mobile showers if you've got them. Oh, and Skitter's armband is out of commisison, we need a replacement before someone mistakes her for a clone."
"Keep close to her, Tattletale," Miss Militia said. "And we'll deliver one shortly. Quarantine, civilian evacuation and decontamination are en route."
"We're moving on to check on Ballistic. Your man can meet us there."
"If they can track us with the armband, they can follow us to his headquarters," Grue commented.
"He can move bases," I said, "Finding him fast is a bigger priority."
"He won't like that," Grue said. "Going from a well set-up base of operations to some place improvised?"
"He didn't want to come today, he deals with the fallout," I said. I waved as Rachel approached. She was still holding Bastard's chain. "Let's go."
"Tecton?" Tattletale asked.
"I… I can't leave Raymancer here," Tecton said.
"Wanton can watch him," she said.
I looked at Wanton. He was still in his telekinetic form. To my swarm sense, he gave me the impression of a miniature galaxy, with dust and various objects orbiting a central point. When he moved, the outer edges took longer to catch up than the bits closer to the center, almost like a jellyfish in water.
"Hey, W," Tecton said. "Fight's over."
"He can't change back," Tattletale said. "If he does, that dust he drew into his t.k. body is going to settle, and then he'll be in the same shape Raymancer is. Maybe everyone in his vicinity will."
"But-"
"But they can stick him in a decontamination shower," Tattletale said. "Just needs to hold himself together long enough for that to happen. Not to worry. Fifteen minute decontamination and he's clean."
"Longest he's ever held that form was twelve minutes."
"Then he'll need to hold together for longer. But we've got to get ahead of Noelle before the next trap is set up. We need you to come with us."
"You want me to leave my team," Tecton said.
"We could run into more Vistas. She warps space, distorts architecture. If the next batch is organized enough to cut off all avenues of retreat while keeping their distance, or drop more buildings on us, we'd need you to help. Rachel's dogs aren't going to be able to get us free if Vista buries us, or if she traps us under some bubble of stretched building."
"Go, T," Raymancer said.
"But you-"
"I'll get looked after, and I'll give Wanton he encouragement he needs to break his old record. Get Grace and go."
"You heard the man," Tattletale said. "You want to drive?"
"You go ahead," Tecton said. "Driving with the suit is a hassle."
"All the better," Tattletale said, cheery.
Tecton didn't reply as he got into the van. I climbed onto Bentley's back.
The van had to take a detour, given the three sections of road that had been raised as barriers and the one fallen building. Bentley wasn't so disadvantaged.
We crossed the ruins of the toppled building.
I could smell the thick, metallic scent of blood in the same moments that his hot breath wafted past me.
I wondered if I should be in the van. I could communicate with Tattletale and Grue if I was, and it would mean I wasn't experiencing an agonizing pain in my side every time he set his feet down with too much force or leaped an obstacle.
That said, I wasn't sure I wanted to turn Rachel away if she was being friendly.
The van stopped to pick up Grace. They traveled down a different street, moving parallel to Rachel and I.
"…so fast?" Tecton asked. I couldn't make it all out.
I caught the tail end of Tattletale's reply: "… a trap."
I drew out letters on the dashboard with my bugs: 'Trouble?'
She shook her head. I didn't catch what she said. She repeated herself. "…ventative measure."
Preventative measure. She was picking up the speed so any other enemies that were lying in wait would have less time to spring any surprises on us. I scattered the bugs, left a brief 'ok' and then removed those. I caught Tecton saying something, but couldn't make it out. His mask didn't help.
I redoubled my efforts to check our surroundings and find any possible clones of Vista, Uber, Leet or Circus.
We caught up to a group of the faster-moving heroes who'd flown ahead. They were dispatching another Vista. She was shorter, thicker in the arms and legs, with a neck as thick around as her head was. The space around her was twisted into jagged shapes, with some raised into points. Two of the capes had been injured but were still fighting.
We rode past, and the van with the others gave chase.
The flying capes weren't moving with purpose. They were roving the area, going west-to-east and back again as they moved in a general northerly direction.
We were nearly at Ballistic's base when a digitized voice sounded over the armband. Not Miss Militia. Dragon's A.I. "We have a sighting. All cooperating capes are ordered to stand down. Remain at your present coordinates until further notice."
Stand down? I tapped Rachel on the shoulder, and she pulled Bentley to a stop.
The armband buzzed again, but it was Miss Militia's voice this time. "Eidolon has found our primary target. He has requested that all capes in the area remain in position."

Aww, Chicago Wards are such brave sweethearts. I'm already in LOVE them in such a short time.

Even if Raymancer is fucked and Wanton will be fucked if he turns back into his human form, they still encourage Tecton to go and stop Noelle/more of her Scapes because they care for the other heroes/civilians' lives more than their care for their owns. Tecton obviously cares for his team as he hesitates to start the second round of fighting against Scapes and Grace is a badass girl. They make such a good team, I pray for Raymancer and Wanton to survive (I'm gonna be seriously upset if one of them/or both will die

).
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, EIDOLON?

Another one of my predictions that turned to become true. Eidolon decided to get involved in this fight because he wanted to prove everyone how awesome and cool he's. He reminds me so much of old Armsmaster....Well, he's the strongest parahuman in the world (Scion doesn't count because he's not a human), unlike old Armsmaster, but he is still too arrogant and his arrogance might bite him in his ass (and everyone else alongside him). Imagine Eidolon touching Noelle by mistake and Noelle getting her claws on a couple of "Eidolons". ARMAFUCKGEDDON. A single mistake, Eidolon. A single fucking mistake....

I caught Tattletale pressing the button on her armband. She asked, "Why?"

Whatever program was managing communications, it didn't see fit to convey Tattletale's message.
The van caught up to us. Tattletale rolled her window down, and opened the back. The others climbed out to join the conversation. Grace folded her arms and hung back.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Don't know," Tattletale said. "But if Eidolon is fighting Noelle…"
Regent finished her sentence for her, "We might not have to worry about the end of the world happening in two years."
"Why is Miss Militia letting this slide?" I asked. "She has to know the risk. Everyone has to know the risk."
"She's letting this slide because Eidolon outranks her and she has no choice," Tattletale said. "And he's doing this because he's got an agenda."
"An agenda?" Grace asked.
"Yeah."
"He's the top hero in the Protectorate. His agenda is doing the right thing. Is this what you guys do? You analyze the situation until you've twisted it into a scenario where you just have to do something?"
"Yeah," Regent said. "We're really good at it, too."
"Ha ha," Grace said, without any humor.
"Look," I said. "Fine. You guys are helping us, so you get a say. If you guys are willing to hear me out and you decide that there's no merit to what I'm saying, we can go along with what you want to do."
"Hear you out?"
"Yeah. Look, you can't deny that putting one of the most powerful people in the world in close quarters with someone who could turn Vista into those things is a fucking bad idea."
"Sure I can."
"Play nice, Grace," Tecton said.
"No, I'm going to make my arguments. He's not stupid. He knows what he can do, and he's heard what she can do. You don't get to be a member of the Triumvirate if you're an idiot."
"He's desperate," Tattletale said, "He's losing his powers. He knows putting himself in dangerous situations makes his power stronger, like how one of my teammates gets a little stronger when outraged, and another gets a little stronger when feeling protective. Fighting Noelle is nearly as dangerous as fighting Endbringers."
Endbringers. When Leviathan had attacked, it had been destruction layered on top of more destruction. Noelle was being pretty damn subtle for someone who could tear vault doors apart and generate an army of superpowered soldiers.
Even in terms of the overall impact of her assault, as far as I knew, it had been limited to one fallen building, two injured capes and one in critical condition. It felt like too little.
Then again, the sun wasn't up. Dinah had said Noelle wouldn't do any realdamage until dawn. Would things get worse?
"How long until sunrise?" I asked, cutting Grace off just as she started to voice a response.
"Nine minutes," Tattletale answered.
"Dinah said the situation doesn't start getting really bad until dawn…" I trailed off.
"You think this is why the situation goes south," Grue said.
"It's a possibility."
Tattletale pressed the button on her armband. "This is really bad timing on Eidolon's part, M.M.. Shit's due to go down at sunrise. Can you call him off? Remind him?"
There was no indication the message went through.
"Fucking computer," she said. "Let's go."
"No," Grace said. "You said it was our call. I don't buy the argument. We stay put."
"Tecton?" I asked.
He was still in the passenger seat. "I don't know. Are you willing to disobey the order and have Miss Militia okay a kill order on you?"
"Try to okay a kill order on us," Imp said."Oh, well then," Tecton said. "That's not a problem."
I thought about the possible scenarios that could unfold. Deranged Vistas had been brutal enough. Deranged mutant Eidolons?
"Yeah," I said. "If it comes down to it, I'm willing."
"Be it on your heads," Tecton said.
"Get in if you're coming," Tattletale said. "Get out if you're not."
Tecton hesitated, but he stayed in his seat.
"Tecton?" Grace asked.
"They believe it enough to go this far. They've either got an unhealthy amount of conviction or they're insane-"
"Or both," Imp said.
"Or both. If it's conviction, I can accept that they might know what they're doing. The same argument you made about Eidolon being an upper echelon member of the Protectorate applies to them. They didn't get here by being terrible at what they do."
"They did get to the point where they're about to get kill orders put out on them, and you stand to get in trouble with the Wards."
"What's the worst they could do? As a tinker, I'm a protected species. Not like they're going to fire me. If these guys are right, they might need our help. If they're wrong, maybe I get in a bit of trouble. I'm willing to take that bet."
"And if they're trying something? Or if they are insane?"
"Then it's better I'm along for the ride, isn't it?"
Grace didn't respond. Instead, she turned around and walked away.
When she reached the back of the truck, she hopped in. "You fucking oweme, Tec."
She slammed the one door closed, as if to punctuate her irritation with the situation, leaving the other open for my teammates.
Tattletale dropped her armband out the driver's side window. The rest of the Undersiders discarded theirs. There was a pause before Tecton and Grace followed suit, throwing theirs free of the van.
That done, Tattletale put the van in gear. It was already starting to move by the time Imp and Regent had climbed in and slammed the doors behind them.
With Tattletale's ability to identify Eidolon's general location and my ability to narrow the result down with my bugs, it only took a few minutes to find them.
The issue was that we only had a few minutes to begin with.
Eidolon was in the air, flying a safe distance above Noelle. And Noelle…
I couldn't get a read on Noelle. My bugs disappeared into her as they made contact, their signal distorting and cutting off. It left me with a hazy picture. She was big. African elephant big. I didn't get much more than that.
They were talking.
Eidolon had his hands folded into his sleeves, like an ancient sensei, legs dangling, his costume billowing around him. His voice was calm, quiet, in stark contrast to the hot breath that billowed around Noelle as she panted with no less than five mouths. Four of the mouths were considerably larger than the one owned by the rough human shape on top.
I only caught two words as he spoke to her. Coil was one. Cauldron was another.

Ha ha ha, Grace is so much like ME.

She doesn't trust Undersiders but she understands that they can be helpful (and they're helpful) against Noelle and her clones, she admires big heroes like Eidolon (but she kind of trust him blindly because even great people like him can make mistakes, especially if they're acting so arrogant and desperate to prove themselves. I wonder how Grace will react if she'll find out that her idol is not so honest like she believes him to be, especially since he's working for something STINKY like Cauldron. Poor Grace, she'll be crushed

). But anyway, we're pretty similar, especially given our lack of trust in new people and our unwillingness to listen when someone tells us to do something and we're not sure if is a good idea (well, she listened Tecton, but not before arguing with him

). Chicago Wards are FANTASTIC, hope that they'll not disappear once Noelle Wars series will end.
Eidolon is trying to convince Noelle to accept Cauldron's help? I don't think you have a chance with her, man, she'll not believe you because she's too disappointed and hopeless to believe anyone anymore, no matter how nice their promises sound. Besides, your boss, Doctor Mother, would rather use Noelle as as another supervillain working indirectly for Cauldron (under the pretext of attracting new heroes, just like she said about Manton/Siberian) than to be willing to cure her.

Why do I have a bad feeling that Trickster will appear and teleport Eidolon in a way that he'll touch Noelle's skin and get absorbed in her stomach before he'll have time to use his powers? Maybe because this shit will happen in the next Chapter(s)?

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

blackarrow · Nov 14, 2018

10moorem II said:
Unfortunately the concept of normal parents in a world full of genocidal monsters, world ending threats and general despair is a tad skewed.

I think that even in such a crapsack world we can meet kind and normal parents. Its impossible for a whole world to be filled only with evil people, no matter how bad it is. Look at our own world, at countries ravaged by civil/proxy wars. There are still people who want to help the victims of war, there are victims who help other victims and so on. Even during WW2, people were united and risked their lives to protect their countries/save unfortunate victims targeted by nazis (for example people who protected jews or people who stood against their oppressors despite not having too many chances to defeat them). We live in world that is far away from perfection yet we didn't lost our humanity or the will to fight. Why can't be the same for a world threatened by supernatural disasters? But I think that Wildbow personally decided that is more interesting to have most of his characters (especially parents) assholes or assholes wanna be in order to show how dark this story can get. Like it isn't dark enough even without asshole parents and divided families.

But this is one of the very few things that I don't like at his story anyway.

blackarrow · Nov 14, 2018

Vayhle said:
I don't think this is true, that J. C. McCrae is a self-proclaimed misanthrope, not in the slightest. He is a genuinely nice guy who helps people in areas he has some expertise, spends time with readers constantly, and is always dealing with bullshit like being called names for the things he writes.

He is an author and a human being. He is not the stories he writes.

He seems like such a sweetheart guy <3 If he's helping people and is nice with his readers then he's a sweetheart. He reminds me of George R. R. Martin, who's a genuinely nice man in his real life yet he have this annoying habit to kill almost everyone in his books and create some REALLY repulsive characters. Don't judge writers after their books.

ImperatorV · Nov 14, 2018

blackarrow said:
I think that even in such a crapsack world we can meet kind and normal parents. Its impossible for a whole world to be filled only with evil people, no matter how bad it is. Look at our own world, at countries ravaged by civil/proxy wars. There are still people who want to help the victims of war, there are victims who help other victims and so on. Even during WW2, people were united and risked their lives to protect their countries/save unfortunate victims targeted by nazis (for example people who protected jews or people who stood against their oppressors despite not having too many chances to defeat them). We live in world that is far away from perfection yet we didn't lost our humanity or the will to fight. Why can't be the same for a world threatened by supernatural disasters? But I think that Wildbow personally decided that is more interesting to have most of his characters (especially parents) assholes or assholes wanna be in order to show how dark this story can get. Like it isn't dark enough even without asshole parents and divided families. But this is one of the very few things that I don't like at his story anyway.

The thing you have to remember is, most of the characters in Worm are parahumans. And remember, all parahumans except the Cauldron ones went through a trigger event - something incredibly traumatizing. Furthermore, remember the Crusader interlude with Theo? Trigger events mostly come to people who are isolated, who have no one to turn to.

This creates a screwed perspective. Almost all of the important characters in the story are ones that had something horrible happen to them, and who were alone in the world at one point. You see a lot of bad parents in Worm because good parents don't let their kids be alone and traumatized enough to be parahumans. So the people with good parents don't become important to the story.

When a lot of your important characters had to have their lives suck by definition, of course the world looks bleak and dark. We're seeing the very worst of it, all the time.

blackarrow · Nov 18, 2018

Hello, my adorable readers. I'm so glad when I have more free time for me because I can read/watch my favorite things. One of them is, you know, Worm. So, this is the right time for more Worm and for another episode of Noelle Wars: Attack of the Scapes. I'm in love with Chicago Wards, they're all so great

and I'll feel sad if Wanton and Raymancer will not survive

. My favorite Chicago Ward is the gracious badass Grace because she's so freaking awesome, so much like me. Cause I'm an awesome person but I think you already know this.

So, I click the next Chapter and...ANOTHER INTERLUDE. Gosh, I wanted to see more of Noelle/Eidolon/Scapes clusterfuck, this Noelle Wars Arc is already so freaking TENSE, SCARY, CREEPY, AWESOME, BADASS, I'd be very ok if it will last until the ending of the Worm (even if I know that this is not possible because Noelle is not the only dangerous supervillain in this story). Anyway, the coolest battles so far (and also the coolest supervillains- in terms of powers/danger/excitement they have/represent) were ANYTHING with S9 and the actual one with Noelle.

Not even Endbringers were as exciting as S9/Noelle....sorry Simurgh, sorry Leviathan (now I miss those fuckers from S9. Come on, Defiant/Dragon, find them already. I want an entire Arc with your fight against them). Or, I'll be ok with just an Interlude. Hope this Interlude will be the one where I'll get to see S9 again and cheer for Defiant/Dragon to finish them off. The last Interlude was so fucked, like any Interlude were the main characters are fucking nazis (I really have a very personal hate for nazis/fascists :rage:

but I think that any sane person dislike them) and I pray that this one will be better. Even if S9 will win and kidnap Defiant/Dragon, it will be still a better Interlude than the previous one

Interlude 18 (Donation Bonus #3)

Thursday, June 16th, 2011, 22:11

"Are you comfortable? Is there anything I can get you?" Jessica Yamada asked.
"A… okay," the staff employee said. What had her name been? Worthwhile? No. Worth-something. She was elderly, and took more time than was necessary to go through the letters, "M… okay. M, n, o, p, q, r,s t, u…"
A… M…
"Stop," Jessica said. "I can guess."
"I have to continue," the older woman said. "Patient's right to communicate. T, u, v, w, x, y… Y. Third letter is Y."
"We've been over this, Victoria," Jessica said. "You know that's something I don't have any power to give you."

Oooooooooooooooooooh, this is that Asylum for Parahumans were Broken Victoria was brought. An Interlude about Broken Victoria in the Parahumans Asylum? This is better than anything I could have asked for.

Oh, God, I'm so sorry for her, she can't use any other way of communication except for Morse code (she either taps the letters with her fingers or she blinks them with her eyes). She can't speak anymore, her whole body is composed of lots of heads and hands and fingers and legs (its a possibility that her vocal cords are severely affected by this transformation), anything that Amelia saw beautiful at her and in her madness she repeated them over and over again.

I wonder if she can use her powers, maybe she can communicate her feelings through her aura (so doctors should now when she feels sad, angry, scary...I highly doubt that she can feel happiness anymore given her situation) or she can move around using her flight. Hi, Jessica Yamada, I suppose you're her doctor. I hope you're patient and nice enough with her, right now she lost everything and deserves all the care and patience in the world.

Victoria blinked three times, the signal for the alphabet. The older woman started. As Victoria's right eye was the only one open, she started with the second half. "M, n, o, p… P, okay."

Victoria switched eyes, closing one and opening the other. First half of the alphabet.
"A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h…"
Another blink.
"H. Okay."
"Phone?" Jessica interrupted, before the reading started again.
A blink. Affirmation.
"I've explained you can't phone her. She's gone to the birdcage-"
Jessica paused. Her own heart rate was climbing, her breathing involuntarily quickening. She felt a bead of sweat running down the back of her neck. The old woman had stepped out of her chair, backing away.
"Stop that," Jessica said, her voice firm. She'd managed to keep her voice from trembling.
The sensation didn't fade.
"She went to the birdcage because she wanted to," Jessica said. "And we let her because there were serious concerns about her unleashing an epidemic if she had another psychotic break."
Three blinks. To the old woman's credit, she stuck to doing her job. "A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i… I, okay."
"Victoria," Jessica said, and she wasn't able to hide the tremor this time, "if you want to communicate with me, I'm going to insist that you turn your power off."
Victoria reduced the effect of her power, scaling it down to a general sensation of unease.
"Thank you. Returning to our previous topic, Amy had to be contained somewhere. Everyone involved agreed on that point. There was too much danger, otherwise, with the possibility of uncontrollable, incurable plagues that could eat through plastic or metal."
Jessica waited patiently as the staff member went down the list. I. D. O. N. T. C. A. R. E.
I don't care.
"Others do care, Victoria," Jessica Yamada informed her patient. "Amycared. She knew her own limits and her own potential, for good or for ill. It wasn't an easy decision, for her or for the authorities, but that decision was made with everyone's best interests at heart."
Again, the letters.
N. O. T. M. I. N. E.
Not mine. Not in my best interests.
"She didn't feel that she could fix you, or that it was right to use her power on you again."
Two blinks. Negation.
"You… that's not what you meant?"
Blink. Agreement. Three blinks to signal for the board.
A. L. O. N. E.
"Not entirely, Victoria," Jessica said, her voice gentle. "There are others who care about you."
No blinks, now. Long seconds passed.
"Back to my original question. Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?"
B. A. T. H.
"Excellent," Jessica said. "We'll see what we can do. Anything else?"
Two blinks. No.
"I'll be seeing you for a longer appointment next Tuesday, then," she said. "Tell any of the staff if you would like to get in touch with me before then. I'm on-call, twenty-four-seven."
One blink.
Jessica exited the room. The door sealed shut as it closed behind her.
"Well?" the head nurse asked.
"Some headway," Jessica said. She took off her suit jacket and folded it over the nearest chair. Her back was drenched with sweat, shoulder-blade to belt.
"Hard to endure."
"She's upset. Understandably."
"I know. But I'll take her on as a patient, and hopefully we can get her in a better head space. Thank you again, for letting me overstep my duties. It helps me to open a dialogue if I can offer her something she wants or needs."
"You can't offer her what she really wants."
"But a bath is a good starting point. Is it doable?"
"Yes. We're well equipped for disabled patients. We'll lower her in with hoists."
"She won't break? Or tear?"
"No. She's far more durable than she appears. For better or for worse, she retains her invincibility."
"I see."
"Who's the next patient on your caseload?"
"Sveta."
"Garotte. I know you've heard the instructions about the protective safeguards a thousand times-"
Jessica sighed.
"-But I have to go over them anyways. There are regulations, Jessica, as you well know. You'll be wearing a type-C reinforced protective suit. The suits include both an inner and outer layer, the inner layer-"

Gosh, Amelia pulled a Bonesaw and threatened everyone with a PLAGUE just to be send at Birdcage. She was so eager to punish herself that she was ready to kill people only because she wanted to see herself locked for life inside the inescapable prison.

Amelia, why are you keep hurting my poor heart like this? Broken Victoria (sorry, guys and gals, I can't call her Victoria anymore because...the old Victoria is no longer "alive" anymore and I prefer to believe that this is a different Victoria than to make myself immensely sad everytime when I remember her cruel and unfair fate- how she was before and how she's now. Its an exercise of mind that help me feel less sad everytime when I call her Broken Victoria and not Victoria. I know its stupid but...

) is lucky to have such a nice and compassionate doctor like Jessica. She seems like a doctor who really cares about her parahuman patients (I wonder if Jessica is a parahuman herself) and her caring side already make me like her. She only appeared in this story for a couple of paragraphs and I like her. Because we need more people like Jessica in our life.

So, Broken Victoria still have her powers but I guess she can't fly properly anymore because of possible lack of coordination.

"Has a button in the palm. I can withdraw my fingers from the outer glove and press the button. At random intervals, you'll buzz me surreptitiously…"

"And we expect you to press the button to verify that you're okay. You can press it twice in the event of an emergency."
"The damn thing has malfunctioned and interrupted three of my last seven sessions with her."
"It's what we have for the time being. If you don't verify your own safety or if you signal an emergency, we'll employ containment foam through the sprinkler system."
"And I'll be stuck here for another hour, with another four pages of paperwork after the fact."
"Is she your last patient for the day?"
"No. I'm scheduled to see Nicholas after."
"Sadboy."
Jessica didn't correct the head nurse. She hated using the codenames; it reinforced the idea of the patients being less than human. "Yes. I'll see him, then I'm done for the day. I'm on rotation with the PRT for Friday-Saturday, then I have Sunday all to myself."

This Sveta/Garotte seems dangerous as fuck if Jessica should wear a special suit before meeting her. Her codename suggests a parahuman who can kill people by summoning/shooting wires or cords around their necks and strangling them. Either she's nuts and kill everyone in her sight or she can't control her power, which would make her situation pretty sad.

Jessica's suit protects her against any attack coming from Sveta. Hope that Sveta will not hurt Jessica, despite her suit because this doctor lady is a very cool character, she's not only caring and compassionate with her patients but she's also brave as fuck. Even if she'll turn out to be a parahuman herself, she's still brave for dealing with so many broken/crazy parahumans. She already have all my appreciation for her qualities. She's my new favorite character.

And I absolute agree with her HATING codenames. I hate them too but I have to use them everytime when the parahumans are in their missions (because I have to respect the author's choice of using them not because I like). Codenames make everyone feel less human, they almost depersonalize anyone who's using them. Jessica is my spiritual animal. If she's not a parahuman herself, she's even BETTER, because they're so few non-powered humans who treat parahumans like they're normal people too, not monsters. I'm one of them, personally, Jessica is another one.

Nicholas/Sadboy must have some emotions related powers, like making people sad or MASTERING them according to his own emotions. Wait a minute....when Cherish visited her "beloved" brother, she told him that their cunt of a father send two of their brothers after her, Guillaume and Nicholas. Nicholas can induce fear in people. Sadboy codename expresses an emotion: sadness. What if this Nicholas is Cherish/Alec's brother? Gosh, if its true then the world is not such a big place like it appears to be.

"Any plans?" the head nurse asked.

"I've learned not to make any. There's always a crisis of some sort."
They'd reached the changing room, and Jessica pulled on the protective inner-suit. The suit fit close to her body, smelled faintly of someone else's sweat, and consisted of a stretching mesh covered in fine chain link. The entire thing was reinforced by a grid of metal bars, complete with oiled hinges at each joint, so she had a near-full range of motion. Zipping it up, it went straight up her neck, the bars running vertically down her throat. She couldn't look down without getting jabbed in the soft flesh beneath her jaw.
It made it harder to get the outer suit on. The entire thing was one piece, like footie-pyjamas, and the fabric was heavy, with alternating layers of insulated fabric and more chain mesh.
She liked to go into situations armed with knowledge. When she'd been new to the job, fearing her first week of work at the asylum, she'd researched all of the protective measures, even running down the patents that were public access to see what they entailed.
Odd as it might have sounded, she'd stopped doing that as of late. It wasn't due to a growing confidence. Just the opposite. Now that she had a better grasp of what her patients were capable of, it was easier to hope the people designing the safeguards were doing everything they needed to. It was better than researching it and knowing they weren't.
The heavy fabric exterior suit fit her like hazardous materials gear, bulky, broad, leaving a great deal of empty space between her body and the fabric.
Protective airbags of more reinforced cloth inflated to fill that space.
She stepped into the dock, and the door behind her shut. The next door opened.
The room was empty. The wall had a mural painted on it, ocean waves and beautiful architecture that Jessica couldn't place as belonging to any particular era or culture. There was a short, translucent table littered with painting and drawing supplies, and what looked like a cat's tiered scratching post, extending floor to ceiling, securely bolted to both. Mirrors were fixed to the wall, to show that the room's resident wasn't hiding behind it.
"Come on out, Sveta," she said. She clenched her teeth and braced herself for the ambush.
Sveta had been waiting above the door. Tendrils snaked around the neck of the protective suit, and cinched tight in a moment.

Despite being so freaking brave, Jessica is still afraid of Sveta, who seem to have tendrils strong enough to crush a human body if it wasn't for the protective suit. And even with the protective suit, she's still afraid that Sveta can kill her by crushing her inside it. This Sveta is very dangerous but I like her room, its so nice for a patient's room. I wonder if Sveta painted the wall- maybe she's an artist. Maybe she's not dangerous either, but she doesn't have enough control over her power. Btw, this whole Parahumans Asylum Interlude reminds me of a TV series I'm currently watching. Its called Legion (2017) and its a very weird and surreal spinoff for one of X-Men characters, David Haller, a mutant with dissociative identity disorder (and with God-like reality warping/telepathy powers) living in a psychiatric hospital for mutants. Its a GOOD series (for anyone who like weird and sometimes confusing stuff about insane superpowered people) but its interesting to see what's going on inside the mind of such a troubled mutant.

I recommend this series to anyone interested. Ok, enough talking about random things and back at meeting Sveta.

Deep breath.

Her breath caught in her chest as she heard the faintest, almost inaudible sound of metal creaking.
More tendrils had caught her legs and arms, and even lashed across the room to catch the only points available to hold, the two-inch diameter bolts that held the scratching post 'bed' to the ground.
"So sorry," Sveta whispered. "Sorry."
Jessica felt her arm jolt as one set of tendrils lashed up the length of her right arm to catch her gloved fingers. Each finger was pulled in a different direction, but the metal reinforcement in the outer glove held, and her handwasn't crumpled like tissue paper.
"Relaxation exercises, Sveta. Don't try to fight the instincts all at once, don't worry about me…"
Sveta convulsed, contorted, and every part of her drew tighter. Jessica heard something metal give way, felt a small component tap her shoulder, bouncing around the interior of the outer suit before settling in her boot.
Calm. Sound calm. "…Just focus on your extremities. Flex them, release them, repeat."
Another contortion. Jessica forced herself to take a deep breath, simultaneously cursing whoever had let this defective equipment go back in the changing room.
"I'm so sorry," Sveta said. "I'm trying, but it's making it worse."
"Take your time," she replied, defying every instinct that was telling her to get out of this dangerous situation: to press the button, fight or panic. Like
Sveta's, her instincts weren't serving her best interests here. Unlike Sveta, she could fight them.
Sveta contorted, and an airbag gave way in the suit's midsection.
"Oh!" Sveta said. She'd noticed, and the realization coincided with further constriction. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs. Yamada! No, no!"
"It's fine," Jessica lied. Too many things were going wrong with the suit, all at once. Why? There had to have been an altercation between another staff member and a violent patient. The only reason this many safeguards would be giving way would be if the suit had sustained recent damage.
Except it had gone unreported, and the suit had gone back on the shelf.
"Should have- we should have done this through the glass," Sveta moaned. "I'm sorry. I like you. I don't want you to die."
"We're striving to socialize you, right? That's our goal? We can't do that without regular human contact."
"I'm going to kill you. I don't want to but I'm going to. I'll-"
"Hush," Jessica said, sounding far, far calmer than she felt. "Take-"
She nearly said take a deep breath. She corrected herself. "-a few seconds and keep doing your relaxation exercises. Flex your extremities, relax them.
Flex, relax, steadily work your way up, inch by inch. Look at me. I'm not worried. I'm in this suit. I feel safe. Okay?"
"O-okay."
"I want you to think of all the progress we've made since the start of the year."
"But something popped in the suit just now."
"We wear the same suits for multiple patients. That was a safeguard to protect any patients that might collide with us. It's not meant for you. Don't worry."
Jessica hated lying to her patients.
"It's not- it's okay?"
"It's okay," Jessica soothed. "You remember our goal, right?"
"Christmas?"
"I think you're well on your way to your goal. That's what you think of when you're trying to be positive, right? You can celebrate Christmas with a few other patients, people who you can't hurt. I just met one of them, I think. A new patient of mine. She's someone who could use some friends."
Like a dozen frog's tongues, tendrils snapped across the length of the room to the 'bed', encircling it. In another second, as though each tendril were elastic bands stretched to their limits, Sveta had shifted there, her tendrils gripping the post as she hung from it. Jessica was free.
Sveta was little more than a very pale face with thin tendrils streaming around it like hair. Small organs dangled from the largest of the tendrils that extended from the back of her face. A small symbol marked the girl's cheekbone: a stylized 'c', in black.

OMG....I have to take a break because I'm....I'm crying right now.

Sorry....Ok, I'm back. Poor soul Sveta. She's not evil neither crazy but she can't control her tendrils, she doesn't want to hurt Jessica but its very hard for her to act like a normal human when she's not exactly normal. I mean, normal looking. She's just a head without body but with tendrils and organs, that's all. She's a FUCKING Cauldron experiment. One of many Cauldron innocent victims.

They probably kidnapped her (like did with others) and turned her into...THIS, destroying her entire life. OMG, poor Sveta, this scene is so damn painful to read. Fuck you, Doctor Mother, you destroyed so many lives for your purposes, whatever they're. I don't care what you want to do anymore, you're a heartless bitch and you're not very different from Jack. :rage:

He mutilates and kills people, you mutilate and destroy people lives forever. At least Jack admits that he's a monster, he's honest with himself. I never heard you admitting what you truly are. You're worse than Sveta or Noelle. They're victims (besides, Noelle is a Cauldron creation too, indirectly, let's not forget this) but you're the one responsible for everything they did, they're doing, they'll do. I don't want death for Doctor Mother, I want to be forced to drink a vial with a very broken power and turn into something like this http://gamingtrend.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1368481039401-1.jpg This is the Karma she deserves for her sins. Yes, I'm starting to hate Doctor Mother as much as I hated Coil and if someone will ask me why, I'm gonna tell them just a single name: Sveta (and many others but Sveta's fate hurts me the most).

It took Sveta a second before she relaxed enough to let the tendrils uncoil from the post. The tendrils settled in the air, in a rough facsimile of where a person's limbs might be. She'd positioned herself so that the organs could rest on the 'shelves' on the post.

"I'm sorry," Sveta said, eyes downcast.
"I'm fine. I understand," Jessica soothed. She shifted position, and one tendril snapped out to catch her leg, gripping her around the knee, squeezing and twisting with a strength that could have torn every ligament in her knee and wrenched Jessica's calf from her upper leg. Sveta flinched, closed her eyes for a second, and the tendril moved back to the post. The suit had held. No damage done.
"Can… can you tell me about her? The girl you just saw?"
"I can't talk to you about my patients, just like I couldn't tell them about you."
Sveta clutched the pole harder. "I understand. Was she… was she a bad guy? Like me?"
"Do you think you were a 'bad guy'?"
"I killed people. Yes."
"It wasn't you. It was your power."
"I still killed people."
"I think that's a good topic for today's session. But there's a few things I want to cover first, before we get into the meat of it, so let's put a pin in that topic for now."
"Okay."
"She was a superhero, I can say that much without betraying any confidence." And you'll hear it from the staff sooner or later. Better to hear it from me.
"There may be wiggle room. Maybe I could convince one of the hospital staff to stop by, and she could tell you a bit about the new patient through the intercom? If the patient gives consent?"
Sveta's eyes lit up. "Yes please."
"I can't make any promises."
"I understand."
"Now, have you been keeping that journal?"
Sveta snatched a notebook off of the small table with the art supplies, reaching out and bringing it to her faster than the eye could follow. She passed it to Jessica with just as much speed and force. Even with the air bags filling the void in the protective suit and offering a cushioning effect, Jessica had to take a step back to catch her balance.
"May I?"
Sveta nodded, bobbing the mask with the mass of tendrils behind it.
The bed-post contorted into an 's' shape as the girl twined around it. It indicated some kind of negative emotion. Jessica paged through the recent entries. The letters of the words were exaggerated, and they got more so as the writer got agitated. Worries, daydreams about being human, the vividness of her imagination when she pictured places like she'd drawn in the mural, her day-long spell of depression after waking up from a dream where she'd been human, in bed with a boy…
Jessica closed the book. None of this was so unusual, capable of explaining the sudden anxiety she saw now. "Can I ask what's bothering you?"
"I… why aren't you scared of me?"
"Because I have no reason to be," Jessica lied, meeting the girl's eyes.
The truth is that it's because I've spent more time in the company of monsters than Legend, she thought. Trust me, honey, you aren't the scariest I've run into, not by half.

Jessica is a fucking SAINT. I love her so much already, she's the perfect therapist and a great human being. I like Sveta too and I don't give a fuck that she killed people (she did it accidentally and their blood is on Doctor MotherFucker's hands, not on her tendrils). She doesn't want to kill, she fights with herself to learn how to control her power and to stop killing people and I like her friendship with Jessica. She's a good HUMAN BEING, she's a talented artist and I wish her to have (someday) a normal life like she deserves.

I don't know, someone should make for her a robot/prosthetic body once she'll be in full control of her tendrils and stop them from killing people. I want for her to live like any normal girl of her age, I want all her wishes to become true, fuck, I want to give her ONE BIG HUG.

Jessica, will you borrow me, please, your suit? I just want to hug Sveta, I want to do it from all my heart.
I'm gonna continue this marvelous, yet sad Interlude tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. I wonder if there are people who like Jessica (and Sveta) as much as I do.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

AmbarGriss · Nov 18, 2018

Do you remenber the therapist I mentioned whem the Let's Read was starting? It was Jessica.

KnownParadox · Nov 18, 2018

Jessica best girl.

Currently.

Vayhle · Nov 18, 2018

Jessica is a favorite of mine, beautiful character.

blackarrow · Nov 20, 2018

Hello, my marvelous friends. Ready for the second part of one of my favorite Interludes lately? I'm sure you're ready, I have no doubts about. So, last time, there was this BEAUTIFUL (inside) doctor called Jessica Yamada working in an Asylum for Parahumans and taking care of her patients just like a lovingly mother takes care of her children. She's my new favorite character, I don't even know if she's a parahuman herself (please, don't tell me if she's one, I want to have the pleasure to discover it myself) or a non-powered human who just happen to dedicate her life to curing/saving parahumans, but she's a FANTASTIC character, even if she appeared in just one Interlude so far (and I still didn't finished it yet).

She's everything I love in a human being.

Another great character is Sveta, the UNFORTUNATE Case 53. She's such a good girl and all she wants is to live like any normal girl. She HATES killing people and she makes some admirable efforts to control her tendrils-"body" even if its so damn hard for her. I also noticed something else at Sveta. She's the second Case 53 so far who embraced a human name, not just a codename. I mean, Weld, Newter, Shamrock, Matryoshka, all of them prefer to be called on their codenames as they refused to choose for themselves a real name (since they can't remember their birth names). But Gregor and Sveta prefer to be called on human names, their preference showing how much they want to become normal looking humans again and how much they hate their current situation.

And both of them are such KIND and good-natured people. If only they can get their hands/tendrils on the woman responsible for their broken lives...I'm gonna cheer for them to fuck her up as much as I'll cheer for the D+D Avengers to fuck S9 up.

Case 53 HUMANS have all the rights to get their sweet, sweet revenge

Interlude 18 (Donation Bonus #3)

Friday, June 17th, 2011, 10:15

"You're not the person that was here last week," the redheaded boy said, shutting the door behind him.
"We rotate. The PRT doesn't want any therapist developing a bond to the point that they could manipulate a cape. By rotating through three or four for a given area, they can ensure that one therapist will be able to identify manipulations on the part of any of the others."
"Doesn't that kind of defeat the point? Not letting us develop a bond, no trust?"
Yes, Jessica thought, but she said, "It's not my place to say. Is that what you're hoping to get, here? A one-on-one relationship? A bond of trust?"
"And now it begins," he said. "Answering questions with questions."
"An unfortunate fact of the job. Would you like to sit?"
The boy let himself sink into the chair.
"What should I call you?" Jessica asked. "I prefer to use real names wherever possible, but I understand if you'd prefer the confidentiality of a codename."
"Clockblocker. Dennis. Whatever. You get crucified, drawn and quartered if you betray our secret identities, right?"
"Nothing that graphic, but the penalties are severe, and they include extensive jail time, and forfeiting the credentials it took me eight years to get. You strike me as someone who's paying a great deal of attention to the workings of the system. Where people are, how they're operating."
"I have to, don't I? You ignore that stuff, you get fucked," Dennis said.
"That's the second time in two minutes you've brought up consequences. Is that something that concerns you? Consequences?"
"In the last three months, my dad's leukemia came back, Leviathan destroyed a third of my hometown, the Endbringer killed my best friend and teammate, and another of my teammates, the Undersiders abducted one of my teammates-"
"Shadow Stalker."
"Yeah."
"I talked to her after that incident. Anyways, I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm trying to frame it all in my head."
"They left her so fucked up she went and broke her parole. Um. It's all been unravelling. People I care about and rely on are getting knocked around, screwed over by dumb luck or because they let their guard down. Aegis, Gallant, Amy and Victoria, Battery, Shadow Stalker…"
"Did you care about Shadow Stalker?"
"She was a teammate."
"I know. But the way your thoughts seemed to connect there, it sounded like something more."
Dennis shrugged. "It makes me sound like a sleazebag if I say it, but I can get away with that here, right?"
She let herself smile a little, "Yes."
"She was hot, and when you spend four or five hours a day with the same people, and you're a guy, and the one girl in the group that's around your age is that good-looking, maybe you look forward to seeing her."
"That doesn't make you sound like a sleazebag. It makes it sound like a perfectly normal teenager with a mild crush."
"Maybe? Not really; I couldn't stand her as a person. It still sucked balls, hearing what I did about her going to juvie, on top of everything else."
"Did you see yourself in her shoes, at all?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're very mindful of consequences and the dangers you're facing. Are you afraid you'll suffer a similar fate?"
"I dunno. No. If I'm worried about anything like that, it's that there's a worse fate waiting out there for me."
"A worse fate?"
"With all the stuff the capes bring to the table, there's a hundred bad endings that are possible that wouldn't have been possible thirty years ago. You hear about what happened to Victoria and Amy Dallon?"
Victoria. The vivid mental picture disconcerted her briefly. "Um. Yes I have."
"Case in point," Dennis shrugged. "And there's all the stuff that went down with the Slaughterhouse Nine, too."
"Scary business."
Dennis shrugged.
"Are you sleeping well?"
"Way I've been working, sleep isn't a problem. Head hits the pillow, I'm out."
"And the stress of all of this, it's not affecting your diet?"
"No. I mean, my diet's not great, but that's just trying to work around shift schedules and crap, you know?"
"I know," Jessica smiled. "Work makes it hard on me too. I was going to walk you through some coping methods for anxiety, but it seems like you're getting by."
"Too busy to think, really. I prefer it that way. I don't know if anxiety's the right word."
"No? What word would you choose?"
He paused. "I dunno."
"Take your time. It's not a big deal if you can't come up with one."
"It's… I feel like there's probably a word, in another language, but English doesn't have it. Not despair, but… that feeling you get when you're losing?"
"You feel as though you're losing?"
Dennis nodded, leaned back in the leather seat. "We're fighting a war. The consequences don't seem to hit the bad guys as hard. We fight Leviathan, and people act like we won, because the casualty rates were lower than they've been in nine years. Slaughterhouse Nine come, and again, there's a lot of people who act like it was a victory because only half of them made it out of the city. Nobody but me seems to notice that, hey, those guys still lived. They escaped."
"Maybe they share the same thoughts you do, but they don't want to face that reality because it scares them."
"Maybe."
There was a long pause.
"Looking at the general notes from your last appointment, you gave the a-okay for him to mention that you were working on some coping mechanisms for your anger?"
"Yeah."
"Do you want to keep working on that, or do you feel like it's more under control?"
"It's pretty much under control. I was… my dad was dying, then. Amy healed him."
"I see."
"I… I regret this."
"Regret what?"
"Joining the Wards. The rules, the bureaucracy. It's… fuck, I mean, I appreciate having the resources. Guys to make the costume, even this."
"Talking to me?"
"Sure. Make sure my head's screwed on right. But at the same time, being stuck in a classroom after Leviathan attacks, because the rules say I have to be in school a certain number of hours a day? It's fucked. I wonder if the villains are winning because they don't have to worry about that stuff."

Therapy sessions with Wards/Protectorate heroes. Session with Dennis alias Clockblocker. So, Jessica is not only the doctor of the broken/crazy parahumans but she's also the therapist for heroes. Awesome, she must be so freaking busy yet she doesn't seem to care. She loves what she's doing so much, such a dedicated doctor to her job and her patients.

This woman never cease to surprise me, I swear. Dennis is so freaking frustrated with rules and regulations, he feels like he can't do any shit without having to respect the rules and bureaucracy and I agree with him. Too many rules, indeed, this is one of the reasons why heroes are not very effective against criminal elements. And this is one of the reasons why criminal elements are so damn victorious most of the time. Since they don't have to many rules to follow, villains enjoy that heroes are so busy with rules because the final victory is more easy to be achieved by them than by the good guys.

I know, Dennis, its not fair, I'm with you and I think you're a nice enough person (you're also very blunt and you like to speak your mind, even when you might be wrong- like you did in the van, with Skitter. I admire this frankness at you). I also like how, even he had a crush on Shadow Stalker (physical attraction), Dennis admitted that he didn't liked her at all as a person. He can be an asshole at times, but he's a honest hero who really care for his teammates and this is all that matters.

"Could be."

"I don't get it. I almost think I could be okay with things if I understood them. Why the fuck do they get away with this shit?"
"I can't give you the answers you want, and I'm afraid that answers to questions of that magnitude aren't going to appear nearly as fast as we want them to."
"I know."
"But you're very observant, Dennis. I've already said as much. I find that we often find what we're looking for the moment we stop actively searching for them. Perhaps spend less time looking for the answer, and keep an eye out for opportunities to learn the answer."
"Psychobabble," he said, smiling a little.
"Sorry," she said, returning the smile with one of her own.
Friday, June 17th, 2011, 13:01
"Jessica?" Weld asked, peeking his head in the door.
"Come in," she said. "It's good to see you, Weld. It's been a little while."
Weld closed the door and settled in the reinforced chair she'd brought into her office in anticipation of the appointment.
"Have you picked a name?" she asked.
He chuckled lightly. "I'm Weld. That's it for now."
She nodded. Studied him, at ease in his chair, hands folded across his stomach.
"So. A lot's happened," she said.
"Endbringer, Slaughterhouse Nine. Losing control of the city. Did you come from out of town?"
"Yes."
"Was it on the news? What's been going on here?"
"It has been. I try to catch the eleven o'clock news, and it seems there's a new story every night, detailing recent events in Brockton Bay."
"What kind of picture does it paint?"
"Of?"
"Of the city. Of us? The villains?"
"Things look worse than they are, if you go by what's on television. It paints a positive picture of the local heroes, I have to say. Not entirely undeserved, if you ask me."
"Thanks for saying so," Weld said.
"You don't sound convinced."
"I'm not. It's only been five days since the Slaughterhouse Nine fled. Smoke's clearing, and I'm not liking where we're at."
"Where are you at?"
"Villains who took territory before everything went to hell are still holding the territory after. Us? We're not in good shape. We lost Battery."
"I heard. I'm sorry."
"We got hit harder, and while they're picking up the pieces, nobody's jumping to help us."
"No?"
"Flechette's going back to New York before too long. Nobody's replacing her, or any of the ones who died. Maybe they think we're cursed, or maybe it's career suicide to try to help a city that can't be helped."
"Does that matter to you? Career?"
"Some. There was mention of me maybe climbing the ranks. I'm marketable, but I'm a freak, too."
She thought of Sveta. "It sounds like you're being unfairly harsh on yourself."
"It's how it was explained to me."
"I see. That's unfortunate, that a colleague would make you out to be a freak."
"Water off my back. Honest. It doesn't bother me."
"Is there anything-"
She stopped as his phone rang.
"Sorry," he looked genuinely guilty as he reached for the phone, "Way things are-"
"I totally understand. Please, go ahead."
He answered. "Weld here… yes. Skitter? With Parian. I understand. No, I get it. We'll see if we can track her."
He was already out of her seat. "If it's okay-"
"Go. You have a team to lead."
"Flechette said the local villains in power just made a move on a Rogue friend of hers. I'll… could I wrangle a longer session next week?"
"That could be arranged. Go," she said.
He was at the door when she called after him, "and Weld, I want you to pick aproper name!"

This Interlude is a TREASURE for my eyes and my heart. I love so much to see inside characters' mind, to analyze them, I'd read an entire Arc with Jessica being a therapist for every single hero and villain who appeared in this story so far.

But I think that Jessica will lose her own mind trying to analyze people like Taylor or Jack. Or, to give Jessica more credit, they might be the ones to start questioning their life choices. Taylor might start loving herself a little more and Jack might start seeing people more than just pieces of meat good for him only to be manipulated/stabbed to death. Anyway, back to Weld, my knight in the shining...metal <3 <3. No, but seriously, he's my favorite hero out of everyone ~~plus I'm in love with him~~ . He doesn't seem too interested to get a human name, maybe he likes more to be Weld, the heroic metal boy than to be someone like Bill, Bob, Hank, etc, a random human. I don't know, man, but if you don't want, you don't need a human name. You're already more HUMAN than lots of characters who call themselves humans but their behavior don't honor them. Its your choice. I can compare Weld with...Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz (one of my favorite fairy tales of all times), but with some differences between them. There, Tin Man wanted to have a heart, despite being the kindest and most compassionate of Dorothy's companions. He wanted to be a human but he was actually more human than he through to be, despite his metallic body. Here, Weld is ok with what Cauldron did to his body and biology (he's even ok with people calling him a freak), he doesn't see himself as a human anymore, despite being a very human character. Weld is a Tin Man who accept himself without asking for more. He embraced his cruel fate without any struggle or indignation. And this is one of the infinite reasons why I like him so much, even if I can't stop- inside my heart- to feel sorry for him.

Friday, June 17th, 2011, 18:01

"Fuck them! Fuck her!"
"Lily-"
"Fuck! Fuck!" Lily paced.
"Lily, please, could you sit?" Jessica asked.
Lily stopped, resting her hands on the back of the armchair.
"It's clear something happened," Jessica said. "You ask me to come, and that's totally, one hundred percent okay, but I can't do anything to help until you explain what happened."
"They got her."
Jessica felt her heart sink. "Who?"
"Parian. Skitter got to her."
"The Rogue your teammate mentioned. Was she hurt, or killed, or-"
"Turned."
"Turned?"
"She changed sides. Ran into Skitter, with Ballistic wreaking havoc in the background. Knew something was up. Tattletale fucking with our heads or something. Then Skitter goes into this good cop bad cop routine, but she's using Ballistic as the bad cop, the idea that if we don't go along with her plan, he'll try to kill us. Makes Parian an offer she can't refuse."
"Power? Money?"
"Money. Two hundred thousand dollars, so that Parian's friends and family who were mutilated by the Slaughterhouse Nine could pay for surgery. So Parian could go to school."
"A lot of money."
"And she asks Parian to leave. And it's… it rips my heart out, because she's my one good friend here. Because she's more, I… I can't remember if I've talked to you about it. You PRT therapists all sort of blend into each other."

Lily, you're a great gal and I like you but I think you're a bit selfish here and you don't trust Parian that much. I mean, Parian wasn't turned into a villain, she's still a Rogue (I don't think she'll ever become a villain, not even a sympathetic villain, she's way too nice for this shit; but I'll not say no if there's a little possibility for her to become a villain as long as she doesn't change the way she's. Actually, it will be interesting to see Parian TRYING to act like a villain

). Parian accepted Skitter's money because she cared for her people enough to go against her own morals (not accepting anything from villains) but she's NOT a villain. She loves her people and Lily have to understand this and stop judging her (and/or Skitter) for her own choice. I know that Lily loves Parian more than like a friend but she have to understand that Parian have her own responsibility (just like Lily's responsibility is to protect the city against villains) and she can't turn her back to them because....a villain offered her some money and a territory after her previous one was destroyed. Try to be more understanding, Lily, things will get better with time.

"We've talked about it. You had feelings for her."

Lily folded her arms on the back of the chair, rested her forehead against her wrists.
"Did you tell her about those feelings?"
"No. No I didn't. I was thinking about it, but now I can't ever, because if it pushes her away, she'll be totally, completely beyond my reach. Completely on their side."
"Do you think she reciprocated?"
"I don't know. Sometimes, I thought yes. Other times, I thought yes, but not nearly as much as I had feelings for her. And there were other times I thought definitely no. But I couldn't ask because by the time I got up the courage, the Slaughterhouse Nine had murdered most of her family and her friends, and the ones who weren't dead were… altered. Fuck, my feelings weren't even on the third page of the list of priorities there. It was about taking care of her,helping her. It's what you do for friends."
"It is. It sounds like she was lucky to have you."
"And then Skitter waltzes in and… it's like, she slithers right past your defenses."
"How's that?"
"I can't even put it into words. You run into her, and you can't even look straight at her without feeling your skin crawl. Like when someone's got something wrong with their eye and your own eye starts watering… only with her it's because of the bugs."
"Okay."
"And then she talks, and she sounds so idealistic, and naive. I don't knowhow you sound idealistic and naive with a swarm of cockroaches and bees crawling over your face, but she does. And so you let your guard down. And then she starts making sense. And that was the point where Sab- where Parian started lapping it up."
"Did she make sense to you?" Jessica asked.
"I had a feeling about what was happening, said as much. Now, I don't know. There's only two good answers for it."

Lily didn't confessed her romantically feelings for Sabah because she didn't have enough time for this mundane activity. Maybe one day, when she'll be less busy and more daring with her feelings, she'll let Sabah know that she loves her. I'm sure that Sabah feels the same for her, since she already accepted Lily's protection and she seems to consider her more than just a heroine who's eager to fight for her and keep her enemies away from her.

I really want for these two girls to find their happiness in each other arms, because they'd make a very nice couple. But everything depends of Lily (if she'll be more bold and more understanding towards Sabah's choices, then they'll have plenty of chances to be together). No, I don't think that Skitter is so naive like you believe her to be. She's idealistic (but not all the times because she had her ugly moments when she acted like a person who saw only the bad side of the world

), yes, but not naive. Well, she was naive during her Arc with Coil, but she seems to me more of a pragmatic type than a naive girl in general. But Lily is right when she admits that Skitter makes a lot of sense in most stuff she's saying. This is another trait of a pragmatic individual. They make a lot of sense even when you don't like what they're saying. Dennis is another example of a pragmatic person.

Lily walked over to the door and picked up the satchel she'd brought into the office. She returned to the chair and sat, plopping the satchel down on the coffee table.

"What is it?" Jessica asked.
"The thing that lets me know which of the two it was."
"And what are those two answers?"
"Either my gut was right, and Skitter was just feeding us info that Tattletale prepared, just to fuck with us… or Skitter was right."
"And this satchel contains the answer?"
"It does."
"May I?" Jessica leaned forward.
"No."
Jessica stopped.
"I can say no, right? You don't have the right to search my things."
"You can," Jessica said, leaning back. "And I won't touch it. What are you going to do?"
"I don't know," Lily said. Her eyes were damp. "Doesn't matter. Doesn't change what happened with Parian. Won't change the choice she made."
A tear fell free, and Lily wiped it away with her sleeve.
"Fuck, so stupid. I go up against Leviathan, go up against the Slaughterhouse Nine, and this is what fucks with my head? This is the moment I want nothing more than to go home, to go home and just crawl under the covers?"
"You could."
"Can't. I… It'd mean I couldn't do the costume thing again. Not the same way. Gotta tough it out."
Lily didn't look tough, Jessica observed She looked like a heartbroken, homesick teenager.
She couldn't say that, though.
Jessica stood from her chair and approached the girl. When Lily realized what Jessica was doing, she gratefully accepted the offer of a shoulder to cry on.

Lily, you're allowed to be vulnerable. More than that, you're ENCOURAGED to show your vulnerable side and even to cry on the GOOD Doctor's shoulder, like any normal human being. You're not a robot, neither an Endbringer or Scion, you're a human being who happen to have superpowers and be a hero. That's all. You should act like any normal human teenager who feel like she can't face anymore all the problems that her life is throwing in her way, starting with her overwhelming duties as a hero, her fear of losing the girl she loves and her frustration with Skitter and all other villains who seem so successful while heroes are doomed to lose in any situation. On top of everything, she misses her home, her family, her friends, she's just a teenager who already faced more shit than a mundane old person faced during their entire life.

If someone DESERVES a shoulder to cry on, Lily is the right person.

"Are you going to answer?" Jessica asked.

"Can't. Not like this."
"May I? I'm not sure if it's against the rules, but-"
"Yes. Please. But-" Lily paused, and the cell phone rang again before she spoke, "Don't mention I was there? With Parian? I wasn't supposed to be."
Jessica nodded and answered. "Mrs. Yamada answering for Flechette."
"Miss Militia here. Could you please inform Flechette that Triumph has been hospitalized? Anaphylactic shock."
"Which hospital?"
"Oh god," Lily said, eyes going wide.
"The one attached to the PRT headquarters. Flechette knows where."
"We're in the building," Jessica said. "I understand if you're busy, but could you contact me in my office, when you have a free moment?"
"I will."
Jessica hung up and returned the cell phone. "The hospital in this building. It's Triumph."
Lily stood, pocketing the phone. "What happened?"
"Anaphylactic shock," Jessica answered.
"Skitter."
Jessica didn't answer.
Lily wiped the tears from her face. She drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Her expression hardened, her shoulders squaring. There wasn't a trace of the emotion she'd shown just moments before. "Do I look okay? Presentable?"
Jessica nodded.
"Thank you." Lily was already moving, snatching the satchel from the table, striding for the door. It slammed shut behind her.
Jessica sat in her chair and tried not to dwell on just why it bothered her that Lily had been able to switch personas so easily. Did the career demand it? Why couldn't a teenager just be allowed to be vulnerable, at a time they felt vulnerable?
The phone rang five minutes later.
"It's Miss Militia. You wanted me to contact you?"
"Yes. I just… I've seen half your Wards today. They aren't doing well."
"I know," Miss Militia said.
"They're losing faith."
"I know."

They're losing fate but you're here to help them getting it back, right, Jessica? I know you can help them because you're so GOOD in what you're doing, the best therapist and the best friend that anyone can count on.

I know that you'll do whatever is in your powers to support these teenagers, to reassure them and raise their confidence and show them that Hope is one of the few things in any world that will never die. I trust you, Jessica, and this statement comes from a person who usually have a very hard time to trust people (real or fictional).

Jessica Yamada....thank you for creating such a great and memorable character, Wildbow. Hell, this Interlude is so perfect from all points of view, one of them being something very obvious: its filled with characters I like/I love/I admire. All of its characters.

This Interlude is like a Heaven to the Hellish previous Interlude.
But I have to continue it another time, sorry.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

blackarrow · Nov 20, 2018

KnownParadox said:
Jessica best girl.

Currently.

<3

blackarrow · Nov 20, 2018

Vayhle said:
Jessica is a favorite of mine, beautiful character.

Truly beautiful. She's like a rare gem in a world filled with supervillains/monsters/shitty parents/shitty politicians. But I think our OWN world needs people like her too.

Vayhle · Nov 20, 2018

This interlude was/is my favorite chapter up to this point in the story. So many things about it are wonderful. One favorite aspect is we see Skitter from another point of view again, (you just read that) she now regularly covers herself in swarms of bees and cockroaches, when I read that it struck me pretty hard. Made me think about where she's really at mentally.

Assembler · Nov 21, 2018

blackarrow said:
AllFATHER (the deceased leader of the nazis and Theo's grandfather, if I'm not wrong)

Allfather took a title given to Odin, king of the Norse gods of Asgard.

blackarrow said:
Poor daughter of his. I have a weird theory about her. What if she is....Bonesaw? This explains the emotional connection between him through Siberian and Bonesaw. She actually got her power right but she went nuts then ran away with her father, both of them being recruited by Jack. Yep, Bonesaw must be his daughter and he's using Siberian to hold her in her arms and take good care of her because he can't do this himself- he's too ashamed of what he did to his daughter that he can't bring himself to touch her personally . And when Bonesaw said that she wants a family, she was referring at her father who can't be close to her in person and her mother who ran away from her family. Ok, if this theory is true, I feel a bit of pity for this little monster . Plus the fact that Siberian resembles his daughter...maybe this insane man imagined how his daughter will look like as an adult.

Manton's daughter is not Bonesaw. He took to her because he saw her as a substitute.

blackarrow said:
He's not officially destroyed but he's finished. He's out of action. He was defeated and he'll probably never come back again to hunt my days and night with his nightmarish and UNWANTED presence in this story. Unless S9 will hear about his fate, will want him back, Manton will send Siberian to break him free and Bonesaw will find a method to reverse the silicon transformation process, bringing him back to life. I just hope that this scenario will never happen because I want this character to be completely gone, I'm sick and tired of being frightened by him and I want to feel a little better when reading about S9 without Mannequin.

Mannequin is dead and gone. That doesn't mean we won't see more of him. Flashbacks are a thing.

rafuki22 said:
Considering that no Tinker has built a Gundam or a Evangelion, I suppose they can not break the law of the cube squared.

There are Tinkers who can build mechs, but none of them are important.

blackarrow said:
Ok, so Rinke doesn't turn people into monsters, he only creates monsters from thin air, just like Rachel creates additional flesh around her dog from nothing.

He takes existing biomass, which he had a lot of thanks to all the corpses, absorbs it into his body, and then emits it as independent creatures loyal to him. He had some spare material preset so he could make more goblins on the fly.

blackarrow said:
The only character who belonged to a snake themed "organisation" (Slytherin House) and who was a really good person despite all the contrary appearances, a character I liked a lot, being one of my favorite characters in Harry Potter, was Severus Snape, but he's the only example of a positive snake themed character that came into my mind . I can't think at other positive examples.

There was also Horace Slughorn from the same series. When Hogwarts was invaded, he trusted the other teachers to hold the line while he went and gathered reinforcements.

Another snake-themed good guy is Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper from A Song of Ice and Fire.

blackarrow said:
Jess didn't changed, apparently. She still supports her friends and tries to be as nice as possible. She's also pessimistic as fuck.

The pessimism is how she's changed. She used to be the dreamer, the optimist, the one who was excited about powers. But it's because she's so invested in them that she's pessimistic now, because she immediately knew how fucked they all were as soon as she heard the Simurgh's scream.

blackarrow said:
Luke probably always hated cars. He got the power to literally destroy what he hates the most. CARS. :lol

He held the team together before. Now he can't do anything but break things.

blackarrow said:
Hunch seems to rate using percentages, kind of like Dinah.

Actually, he gave a general feeling of "bad". Miss Militia had to convert that into a percentage.

blackarrow said:
Why you didn't choose Tattletale as the main character, oh, god Wildbow?

Because portions of the plot depend on the protagonist not knowing everything immediately.

blackarrow said:
A kill order? This is...BETTER than I expected. Miss Militia took the same decision that I would have taken myself. Come on, Skitter, a kill order is much better than being eaten alive and cloned by an insane parahuman. Anyway, once the heroes will be content with your help, they can simply lift the kill order and then you'll be free to do whatever you want, as long as is not too villainous.

The kill order won't even go into effect unless the Undersiders actually do break the truce.

rafuki22 · Nov 21, 2018

Assembler said:
Allfather took a title given to Odin, king of the Norse gods of Asgard.

Manton's daughter is not Bonesaw. He took to her because he saw her as a substitute.

Mannequin is dead and gone. That doesn't mean we won't see more of him. Flashbacks are a thing.

There are Tinkers who can build mechs, but none of them are important.

He takes existing biomass, which he had a lot of thanks to all the corpses, absorbs it into his body, and then emits it as independent creatures loyal to him. He had some spare material preset so he could make more goblins on the fly.

There was also Horace Slughorn from the same series. When Hogwarts was invaded, he trusted the other teachers to hold the line while he went and gathered reinforcements.

Another snake-themed good guy is Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper from A Song of Ice and Fire.

The pessimism is how she's changed. She used to be the dreamer, the optimist, the one who was excited about powers. But it's because she's so invested in them that she's pessimistic now, because she immediately knew how fucked they all were as soon as she heard the Simurgh's scream.

He held the team together before. Now he can't do anything but break things.

Actually, he gave a general feeling of "bad". Miss Militia had to convert that into a percentage.

Because portions of the plot depend on the protagonist not knowing everything immediately.

The kill order won't even go into effect unless the Undersiders actually do break the truce.

Are spoilers what I'm reading?

KnownParadox · Nov 21, 2018

rafuki22 said:
Are spoilers what I'm reading?

I.... don't think think so? It is however; heavy use of WOG and info learned elsewhere, so a warning should probably be issued at the top of there post.

blackarrow · Nov 21, 2018

Vayhle said:
This interlude was/is my favorite chapter up to this point in the story. So many things about it are wonderful. One favorite aspect is we see Skitter from another point of view again, (you just read that) she now regularly covers herself in swarms of bees and cockroaches, when I read that it struck me pretty hard. Made me think about where she's really at mentally.

I'm afraid that Taylor is losing her mind- slowly but surely. She NEEDS a therapist for herself before she'll go completely nuts and lose everything that make her such a compelling character who still keep her morals intact, despite everything. I'm worried for her sometimes.

blackarrow · Nov 21, 2018

"Assembler, post: 11662649, member: 13126"]

Allfather took a title given to Odin, king of the Norse gods of Asgard.

I didn't know this, despite being passionate by mythology. Thank you.

Manton's daughter is not Bonesaw. He took to her because he saw her as a substitute.

Now I know this but back then I was under impression that Bonesaw was his daughter.

Mannequin is dead and gone. That doesn't mean we won't see more of him. Flashbacks are a thing.

I know that he was turned into a silicon statue by Bakuda's bombs, but knowing Bonesaw, I'm still afraid that she'll find a way to put her hands on his statue and bring him back to life somehow. There's nothing Bonesaw can't do when it comes to biology. Or she can simply clone him if she have a piece of his DNA (I'm surprised she didn't cloned former S9 members like Winter and Chuckles yet. Or maybe Jack deemed them useless and decided that their cloning wasn't necessary).

There are Tinkers who can build mechs, but none of them are important.

He takes existing biomass, which he had a lot of thanks to all the corpses, absorbs it into his body, and then emits it as independent creatures loyal to him. He had some spare material preset so he could make more goblins on the fly.

So, he needs existing biomass to create his creatures? He can't summons it like Rachel is doing with the additional mass of her dogs? I didn't know this, thank you for clarification.

There was also Horace Slughorn from the same series. When Hogwarts was invaded, he trusted the other teachers to hold the line while he went and gathered reinforcements.

Another snake-themed good guy is Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper from A Song of Ice and Fire.

The pessimism is how she's changed. She used to be the dreamer, the optimist, the one who was excited about powers. But it's because she's so invested in them that she's pessimistic now, because she immediately knew how fucked they all were as soon as she heard the Simurgh's scream.

Didn't noticed, thank you.

He held the team together before. Now he can't do anything but break things.

I noticed that he was a friendly guy before and now he doesn't care about any of his friends anymore. But i didn't know that he was the one who held the team together. I thought that Noelle was the team's glue.

Actually, he gave a general feeling of "bad". Miss Militia had to convert that into a percentage.

Because portions of the plot depend on the protagonist not knowing everything immediately.

I know man, but Wildbow could have used Lisa as his main character with different power (having Taylor's power, for example, not super-intuition) and still be as awesome as the actual Lisa.

The kill order won't even go into effect unless the Undersiders actually do break the truce.

rafuki22 · Nov 21, 2018

blackarrow said:
I know man, but Wildbow could have used Lisa as his main character with different power (having Taylor's power, for example, not super-intuition) and still be as awesome as the actual Lisa.

Lisa?With the power of taylor?
To put it in perspective,Lisa would have died fighting against lung.
Unless you're saying that wildbow should have written a different story with different circumstances.
And no,the protagonist Lisa would not have been as great as the current Lisa,Lisa without her thinker power would not be a presumed smart-ass know-it-all.

blackarrow · Nov 21, 2018

rafuki22 said:
Lisa?With the power of taylor?
To put it in perspective,Lisa would have died fighting against lung.
Unless you're saying that wildbow should have written a different story with different circumstances.
And no,the protagonist Lisa would not have been as great as the current Lisa,Lisa without her thinker power would not be a presumed smart-ass know-it-all.

I don't find Lisa great because of her superpower (even if I like her power btw), I like her so much because she's such a good and CONFIDENT person and a loyal friend. She have something that Taylor doesn't have, unfortunately. Confidence in her own powers (and when I said "powers", I'm not referring here at superpowers, but at her strength of character) and she'll never put herself down (even when she's making mistakes) like Taylor is doing all the freaking time. In Taylor place, I think she'd have been even more victorious against enemies because she'll never go like this...God, I suck, I let my people to dieeeeeee, I'll never be good at anything "sob"....and so on. On the other side, her confidence might turn into arrogance and we know that arrogance usually leads to disaster. But anyway, I'd like her more than I like Taylor as a protagonist. Btw, do you have a favorite character that you think would have made a better protagonist than Taylor?

rafuki22 · Nov 21, 2018

blackarrow said:
I don't find Lisa great because of her superpower (even if I like her power btw), I like her so much because she's such a good and CONFIDENT person and a loyal friend. She have something that Taylor doesn't have, unfortunately. Confidence in her own powers (and when I said "powers", I'm not referring here at superpowers, but at her strength of character) and she'll never put herself down (even when she's making mistakes) like Taylor is doing all the freaking time. In Taylor place, I think she'd have been even more victorious against enemies because she'll never go like this...God, I suck, I let my people to dieeeeeee, I'll never be good at anything "sob"....and so on. On the other side, her confidence might turn into arrogance and we know that arrogance usually leads to disaster. But anyway, I'd like her more than I like Taylor as a protagonist. Btw, do you have a favorite character that you think would have made a better protagonist than Taylor?

Ok, what's going on?
Maybe I'm getting confused, but what you've written is almost exactly the same as another answer you gave me.
Like I said, maybe I'm confused,but I'd like an answer.
By the way, Protagonist?Weld.

KnownParadox · Nov 21, 2018

Aegis as Protag? If Wildbow thought he would be good, it probably would've been good.

AmbarGriss · Nov 21, 2018

I would love a spin-off about Glaistig Uaine.

blackarrow · Nov 22, 2018

Hello, my beauties. Back with the third part of this looooooooooooooooooong Interlude "scrolls down", yep, looks like its the last part. So, one of the best characters of this story (she's almost close to Lisa Level of Best Character and this tells a lot about my liking for her), Jessica Yamada, being therapist for Wards.

Dennis was very bold as always, Weld was very ok with himself, Lily showed her vulnerable side that she usually like to keep hidden from people, and now its time for Missy and Chris, I suppose, since they're the last remaining Wards who have to see Jessica (this therapy with Jessica happened before the whole Noelle Wars so Missy is still ok at that time). I suppose that she'll complain to Jessica how she believes that everyone will die soon or later and there's no hope left for her and for her teammates. Cause Missy is a sweetheart, but she's also terrible fatalistic.

Chris will probably feel like a loser because he thinks that his own issues keep him from creating some really cool weapons/gadgets that can help heroes in their fight again evildoers. He'll feel useless and unable to walk on his idol, Hero, footstepts. Chris is a good kid but he doesn't have a very good opinion about himself, unfortunately.

Alright, enough with imagining how the things will go between these kids and Jessica and lets read the actual story Interlude 18 (Donation Bonus #3)

Saturday, June 18th, 9:01

There was a knock on the door.
"Come in?"
"Hi. I'm Kid Win," the boy said. He wasn't in his suit, though. He looked like he'd just come from the shower, and his brown hair was still damp. He extended a hand and Jessica shook it. "Clockblocker said we had a different therapist this week."
"Protocols. Can I ask how Triumph's doing?"
"He's okay. Recovered. Assault and some of the others are more upset over it. We're calling in the big guns."
"That must be a relief. To have others pick up the slack. To deferring some responsibility, after having a heavy burden on your shoulders for some time."
Kid Win shrugged. "Dunno. I am excited to see Dragon's stuff."
"I can imagine."
A silence stretched on. Jessica tried to get a grasp on this boy, reconcile him with the one filled with self-doubt that she'd read about in Mr. Camden's files.
"Um. I still don't really get what we're supposed to do here," Kid Win said.
"We talk. It's safe territory. A place where you can vent about your issues."
"I kind of prefer to work through problems on my own."
"It's very common for tinkers to be introverts. But sometimes we all need a person to bounce ideas off of. Non-tinker ideas. Sorry, it's a rule I have."
Kid Win smiled sheepishly, "I kind of subjected Mr. Kiles to a rant about types of modular equipment, a few days ago. I think he needed therapy by the time I was done."
"Do you have any ideas you want to bounce off me? It's been a rough month."
Kid Win shook his head.
"Nothing?"
"I don't know if this is me."
"If what's you?"
"Needing to bounce ideas off people. Needing therapy. All my problems so far, they've stemmed from me trying to fit myself into everyone else's mold. It's only when I broke away from that, started thinking on my own, that things started to make sense, all the pieces of the machine working in unison."
"Given your tinker background, I'm not sure I can tell: is that a metaphor, or a literal machine?"
"Metaphor."
"Okay. Your life didn't start making sense until you stopped worrying about what others think. But I'm not being judgmental, and I don't intend to change your mind about anything. I don't want to make you conform."
"I'm… I still don't think I want the therapy," Kid Win said. "Can I opt out?"
"I'm afraid not. Why don't you want it?"
"I'm more comfortable going the other route. I'd rather walk my own path and be a little screwed up, than walk everyone else's path. I'm okay with thinking in a way that's outside of the norm. I've been happier since I started down that road."
"How does that impact your duties with the Wards?"
"It doesn't. I mean, I stick to the rules," Kid Win said, with a measure of confidence. "Funny, how it's easier to do that when I'm being more unconventional."
"I'm still not sure I understand. Can you give me an example of what you mean by unconventional?"
"It's like… if I did this therapy thing, and I mentioned how I'm not bummed and pissed off about what's going on with the villains and all that, if I talked about how I'm actually happier now, when everyone else is miserable and stressed, I feel like you'd talk me out of it."
"I don't want to do anything like that."
"If you ask me a question," he asked, "Do I have to answer?"
"You wouldn't get in trouble, no. Is there a particular question you don't want to answer?"
"It's not that. I… I guess I'm saying I'm done here." He reached into his pocket and withdrew a pair of headphones. "No offense. But I feel like having thirty minutes to kick back and take some notes on stuff is going to be a hell of a lot better for my mental health than talking. No offense."
She was offended, but she didn't say so.

I'm SPEECHLESS. I just found the answer at the question: HOW MANY FUCKS CHRIS IS GIVING? The answer is: ZERO FUCKS. I didn't expected him to be so...HAPPY with everything.

I mean, all his teammates are incredible frustrated and angry or simply worried because of the shithole that Brockton Bay is since....forever, but he's like...not just ok with his life, but strangely joyful. Well, I guess that Legend is a pretty good therapist too since right after he talked with Chris and encouraged him to become more confident in his abilities and qualities, Chris CHANGED, evolved into a much better individual.

Well, thank you for helping him, Legend. I'm proud of Chris, even if he's disrespectful towards Jessica and I don't agree with this kind of behavior, I can't stop being proud of his evolution. And I can't stop smiling.

I feel sorry for Jessica but I'm smiling.

Funny scene. Chris just won the title of the most happy go lucky Ward.

Saturday, June 18th, 11:06

"Um? Hi?"
"Please come in. Would you rather me call you Vista or Missy?"
"Vista."
"Vista it is. Nice to meet you."
Vista sat down in the armchair. It took her a second to get comfortable. Her feet didn't touch the ground if she sat all the way back, and she was forced to sit awkwardly upright if she couldn't lean against the chair back.
"I heard they called in the big guns."
"Dragon."
"Pretty big as guns go," Jessica said.
"Are you doing that on purpose?"
"What?"
"Talking down to me."
"No. I didn't think I was talking down to you."
"It sounded condescending."
Jessica took a deep breath. "What can I do for you, Vista? Is there anything you want to share?"
"Have you been here?"
The non-sequitur caught Jessica off guard. "I'm not sure I follow."
"Have you been in Brockton Bay since this all started?"
"No. I travel for work, and stay in hotels. On the weekends, or when I'm not working, I stay in Boston."
"How are you supposed to help when you don't understand?"
The question might have sounded accusatory, but it rang as more curiousinstead.
"Why do you ask?"
"Because I've been trying to help the others, and a lot of the time I can't. So how can you do it, when you don't even know? When you have no idea what we're talking about?"
"I went to school for a long time."
"Does that teach you how to talk to someone when their mentor's just been attacked?"
"Are you talking about Triumph?"
"Is it why you ask a lot of questions? Because you don't know?"
"I ask questions," Jessica said, "Because only you can give your perspective on things. I know a lot of what's happened. Some from research, some from your colleagues. But the only opinion and viewpoint that matters to me when you're in that chair is yours."
"Hmph," Vista huffed..
"Where do you stand?" Jessica asked. "What's your view on things? Summing it all up?"
"Sucks," Vista said.
"I can believe it."
"When I go on patrol, I can't go alone, not until I'm fourteen. So I spend the most time with everyone. I hear what they say, and we talk about everything."
"If there are doctors and field medics, maybe you're the equivalent of a field therapist?" Jessica suggested.
Vista wasn't amused in the slightest. "Don't be condescending."
"I'm talking the same way I would with anyone else. I promise."
There was a pause. Jessica sat quietly, letting it stretch on. In a pinch, a resounding silence could prompt a patient to open up.
Vista finally said, "Weld said I'm the team's heart."
"I can imagine him saying it."
Vista gave her a dirty look. "I couldn't help Shadow Stalker, but Weld said she was beyond helping."
Jessica nodded.
"…But I think I got through to Clockblocker. For a while I thought he'd fly off the handle at Weld."
Jessica almost replied, but kept her mouth shut.
"I feel like there's two ideas and they're playing tug of war with my head," Vista confessed. She gave Jessica a look, as though she were daring her to say something. "Yeah. One part of me, it's like… I want us all to stay together. Aegis died. Gallant died. Battery died. Velocity died. Dauntless died. Browbeat left, Armsmaster retired and Shadow Stalker went to jail. And now even after it's all over, Triumph gets hurt?"
"I think I'd feel pretty spooked, after all that," Jessica said. "It's a lot of people to be losing, in the space of a month."
"I just… I want to do what I can to keep us together. Keep people fighting. But.."
"But what?"
"The other part of me? The colder part that's being very logical, very rational? It says that won't happen. We won't stay together. Can't. One by one, horrible things will happen to us. My friends will die, and if they're lucky, they'll die fighting. And I'm somehow okay with it. What does it really matter when the world's supposed to end in two years?"
"I… I've heard about that. It's pretty strictly limited to the PRT, though, and there hasn't been any strict confirmation."
"We don't have very good precogs," Vista said. "Not ones that can see that far ahead and still make sense of it all."
"Does it… are you bothered? Looking at things that way? Thinking that your friends will die violently? That the world will end?"
"No. I'm… very okay with it, when I think about it clinically. It's the way things are, isn't it? The way the world works."
"I don't think so," Jessica confessed.
"That part of me, that feels like that? It's telling me I'm going to die. It's inevitable, it's soon, and it'll be horrible," Vista said. "Therapy that."

I was wrong about Chris and I'm happy because of this but I was right about Missy so I'm becoming sad.

Missy is still the same fatalistic, pessimistic and morbid young lady we know she's. And this is before she'll be eaten by Noelle and cloned. Imagine how she'll feel after they'll manage to save her. She'll need a lot of therapy after that. Missy is trapped between her idealistic wish to help people and fight against evil and her resignation to what she perceives as being her fatalistic fate (she also believes that everyone else will share the same fate as hers, being doomed to fail, no matter how hard they'll fight. This girl have an even more pessimistic view of life than Taylor- at least Taylor believes that its still worth to keep fighting against all odds even when everyone else lose their hopes. She don't trust herself, but her will to fight is restless and formidable.

) But Missy struggles between wanting to keep fighting and giving up and I don't judge her for this. She's just a kid who doesn't like the life she have, but she also doesn't want to completely give up at her fight, because she cares for her teammates and for innocents that she have to protect. She challenged Jessica to help her stop thinking about the inevitability of death and destruction. I don't like the way Missy treats Jessica but I think that the good doctor can handle anything coming from her patients without bothering so much.

Was she serious, or was it a challenge?

"Okay," Jessica said, somber "I'll try."
"Just like that?" Vista's eyes widened a little.
"Just like that. Believe it or not, I've handled worse things than a young woman torn between fatalism and wanting to help her friends stick together. I can't tell you anything about your teammates, but I can arm you with some tools, so your field-therapy is more effective. If that part of you is better equipped, maybe it'll get a bit of an edge in that tug of war that's going on inside your head. Sound good?"
Vista nodded.
Sunday, June 19th, 17:39
Jessica fumbled to find the ringing phone. She had to move the pizza box and the bag of chips to reach it, reclined back on her bed the second she hit the call button, muting the television. The pants she'd put on only for long enough to answer the door and pay the delivery guy slipped to the floor.
"Yeah," she said, suppressing a sigh. "No, I'm not busy. Isn't he Richmond's patient, though? He's away? Fuck me. Okay. I'll be there in an hour."
Monday, June 20th, 12:50
Jessica paced back and forth in her office.
Somehow, when she'd left after seeing the Wards on Saturday morning, she'd let herself believe that things were largely resolved. Dragon had been en route.
Not just one suit, either.
When she'd heard, on Sunday, that the suits had left the city, unsuccessful in their mission, she'd allowed herself to believe that things, at least, hadn't gotten worse.
She'd seen Clockblocker in the morning. There had been a shift conflict with Weld having to watch Vista on her shift, and he'd rescheduled for the afternoon.
Now this. She'd never felt more useless. The Wards had intervened to stop a mad villain from attacking the local debate, and it had all gone tragically wrong. They hadn't finished tallying the dead.
The Wards were okay, at least. Physically.
Nobody came to her office all day. Too much to be done.
Waiting nervously, restless in her inability to offer any assistance at all in a crisis like this, she headed up to the roof and bummed a cigarette from one of the interns, smoking for the first time since grad school.
Tuesday, June 21st, 6:10
Jessica sat on the edge of the roof, legs dangling. She was on her fifth cigarette.
"Mrs. Yamada?"
The voice startled her, because it didn't sound quite human. She turned around.
Oh. Wow.
Eidolon.
"Could I ask for a few moments of your time?" he asked.
"I… yes. I should warn you I predominantly work with juveniles."
"I know. I'm not looking for therapy."
"Oh."
He didn't say anything as he crossed the rooftop. Somewhere downstairs, the local heroes were gathering. The Undersiders were present as well. Another threat. Flechette had been right. It didn't end.
She felt a pang of sympathy for her Wards. Vista had asked her how she could dispense advice, when she hadn't experienced it for herself. The response that Jessica had been unable to frame was just this. That if she did, if she found herself under that same pressure, she wouldn't have the objectivity. Besides, if she was unbalanced, how could she hope to offer any aid to another person?
It was a bittersweet thing that nobody had asked her to. She wanted to help, but she was glad she didn't have to, because she wasn't sure of her own emotions, now.

Jessica wasn't bothered at all by Missy's challenge, as I predicted, and she accepted it. She's going to help Missy with her issues whatever the girl likes or not. Jessica doesn't give a fuck if you want or not her help. From the moment you stepped in her office, she's decided to help you whatever it takes and SHE'LL HELP YOU.

She's a woman of word. But she have her own problems too, she's not exempted from them. She wants to much to help her patients that she feels weak and useless everytime when she believes that what she's doing is not enough for them and she can do more. She tries to put herself in their shoes, to experience what they feel and think during their everyday job but she can't exactly because she's not a Ward with the power to fight for the security of the City and its citizens, she's a therapist with the power to mentally heal parahumans so they can further fight for the City and people. And this feeling of uselessness bothers her a lot even if she's just as useful as the other heroes, if not even more useful. I wonder what Eidolon have to say to her (their meeting happens right during Noelle's rampage, before Eidolon will decide to get involved by convincing Noelle to accept Cauldron's "help"). I just hope that he's not going to make her more upset than she's already because...I really hate to see Jessica being upset, sad or hurt. I'm gonna kick you ass if you'll be a jerk towards her, Eidolon, I'm warning you, man.

Except Eidolon was asking. One of the most powerful men in the world.

He sat down beside her. He pulled his hood back, letting it fall around his shoulders, then undid the clasp for his mask. He set the glowing mask down on the edge of the roof, beside her cell phone and cigarettes.
He looked so average. Heavy cheeks, thinning hair, a big nose, thick brows. More ugly than attractive, but not so much that he'd draw attention walking down the street.
And still, she felt like it was hard to breathe, as though his very presence sucked the air away. She felt like she might if someone had a gun to her head, with no intention of pulling the trigger. It was there, devastating power that could end her existence in a heartbeat. The fact that he didn't plan to use it didn't matter.
This, Sveta, she thought, is why I can be around you and be so calm. Because I've been around monsters like this.
"I wanted to talk to you," Eidolon said, sounding very normal, "because there are few I can trust to listen. I might have found a priest, but it's late, and there are so few good ones out there. I've used psychometry to view the past few days of your life. You'll do what I need you to do."
How am I supposed to respond to that? "I… okay."
"I'm losing my powers. Slowly but surely. If this goes much further, mankind may lose this war."
"I don't understand."
"Against the Endbringers, there are really only two individuals who can stop them, drive them away. Scion is one. I'm another. Each of us is worth a hundred other capes, if not more. I'm not boasting when I say this. But my powers are getting weaker every day, little by little. Whatever vast, improbably deep well parahumans tap into to use abilities, I suspect mine is running dry."
"And only Scion will be able to stop them, after you've lost your powers? I'm sorry. I'm thinking slowly tonight. Been awake for a long time."
"It's fine. You're exactly right. They really only need two or three critical victories, and it all ends. And they will win more without me there."
Jessica nodded. I can't process all this right now.
"When I fight, Mrs. Yamada, I feel as though my lost power is somehow within reach. Reserves I have not yet touched, maybe. Or a fresh well. It is something, but it is there. The problem is that I rarely get to truly fight. Do you understand?"
"Yes. I think so."
"I hope that tonight is one of those moments. I hope to fight, to fightseriously. With the information we have about this threat, I can feel confident that the situation would be salvageable if I fail. Even in the worst case scenario, this could be ended with a strategic missile strike. In my absence, the heroes would have weeks to adjust, to change their battle plans and compensate, before the next Endbringer arrived."
"You're talking about dying?"
"Here, at least, I can fight this monster, and where I might never make the gamble against an Endbringer, I hope to fight this thing to the death. Hers or mine."
To the death.
He continued, "If I can find that untapped well of power, then it will be worth it. If I can't, then there's no point to me existing anyways."

Gosh, Eidolon is even more FATALISTIC that Missy. He's not expecting to die during a fight or when the world will supposedly end, he WANTS to die during his fight with Noelle. He doesn't care at all about his life, all he wants is to fight, fight, fight. He doesn't have any other purpose in his life than to die in a huge fight.

He doesn't want to find a nice woman (or a nice man if he prefers), get married, have kids, enjoy his life, nope, normal life is not for him. Life itself is not made for him. I kind of feel sorry for this guy, yes, he's a corrupt hero and a liar, but he's very troubled and he can't see any other way to solve his personal problems than a honorable suicide in order to stop a mad Proto-Endbringer. He's the strongest parahuman yet he's a coward at heart. He can't accept that he's losing his powers and is getting weaker (despite Doctor Motherbitch providing countless vials for him) and he prefers to rather die in battle than to live as a mundane man. I call it cowardice (even if he obviously wants to save people and to stop Endbringers/Noelle, he also runs away from life and can't tolerate the idea of being weak one day). He's very proud and dedicated to his heroic side, but he's still a coward deep inside.

Look at Jessica. She doesn't have superpowers (as far as I know), she have her own issues, she feels like she can't help everyone, yet she never give up and continue to do her job, trying to hold herself together and help as many patients as possible at the same time. The WTF but amazing moment when Jessica is STRONGER that the strongest man in the world.

"Surely you have something else to live for."

He gave her a look that was both incredulous and pitying. She felt a pang of sympathy for Vista, and how she'd reacted when she felt like she was being condescended to.
Maybe life doesn't offer anything suitably interesting or profound to a man who's been as powerful as Eidolon is, she thought.
"I…" Jessica said, "Why me? What am I doing?"
"You know, now. If I die, you can explain what happened. But I've read you, and I don't think you will tell others until the fight is over, and you won't tell others what I planned if I succeed, tonight."
She stared at him.
"If you were a priest," he said, "I would have you say a prayer and bless my endeavor tonight. I will settle for having you wish me luck."
"Good…" she had to get her words in order, "Good luck."
He nodded.
Then he took off.

I don't like...I actually hate the fact that he's working for Cauldron, but I kind of feel pity for Eidolon, despite that. He's like a finished person- he's hopeless, he doesn't have dreams anymore to make him keep going, doesn't have reasons to live, all he cares is to fight until death. He'd like a hollow shell of a person- outside, he appears to be a God, all powerful and great and magnificent, inside he's completely empty, as empty as the lowest human being.

Or maybe he feels guilty for everything he did for Cauldron, for betraying the moral values that a hero should stand for. He feels so guilty that he prefers to die in the fight rather than to continue to be tormented by qualms of conscience (just like Jamie regretted her involvement with Cauldron on her death bed).

I don't know exactly what is going on with him, but I know something for sure: Eidolon became the most interesting Triumvirate member thanks to this Interlude. Legend is my favorite member because he's a true hero despite everything+ he's a sweetheart, but Eidolon is an enigma and I'm eager now to know more about him.
Jessica is now my third favorite character in general, right after Tattletale and Weld. Move away, Skitter, Jessica just stole your podium.
Tattletale+ Weld+ Jessica= The Triumvirate of the BEST CHARACTERS.

I can't believe I got so attached by Jessica after just a single Interlude featuring her and her therapy sessions. This tells a lot about Wildbow's capacity to create some really great characters.
I told you that I like to analyze characters.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

AmbarGriss · Nov 22, 2018

But what do you think about Alexandria?

blackarrow · Nov 22, 2018

rafuki22 said:
Ok, what's going on?
Maybe I'm getting confused, but what you've written is almost exactly the same as another answer you gave me.
Like I said, maybe I'm confused,but I'd like an answer.
By the way, Protagonist?Weld.

Maybe I repeated myself, I probably wasn't aware of this because I didn't changed my opinion about Lisa and when I have the same opinion about a certain character I tend to repeat myself. I don't change my opinions so fast as you probably already noticed. As for Weld as a protagonist? I PRAY for Ward to have Weld as its protagonist (especially since he's a Ward). That would be the best thing ever <3 <3 <3

Let's read Worm and its sequel Ward by Wildbow (One chapter/every day)

The Laughing One

Totally not four rats in a trench coat

Not a sphere

Rocking the life

Anti-nihilist(maybe).

Not a sphere

Anti-nihilist(maybe).

Anti-nihilist(maybe).

Not a sphere

Totally not four rats in a trench coat

Totally not four rats in a trench coat