- Pronouns
- Male
Oh dear...this has...implications. I'm not really sure which way you're gonna go with this but it should be interesting if sad
Orderly (Worm Semi-SI)
- Thread starter Obscura
- Start date
- Superhero
4-1 Incriminating
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"Mos Winslow High School. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." I mused, half to myself, half to the Taylor, who had decided to accompany me and Danny on the drive to school. Apparently I was supposed to go, and Taylor wasn't. Not sure why, really.
"This is not the Taylor you are looking for. Move along" she uttered with a wave of her hand, jedi-mind-tricking some imaginary bullies. Or so I assumed, she didn't exactly explain everything. Explanations are usually bad for humor. Usually. There are ways around that.
No, I'm not going to explain what they are. A girl's got to have some secrets.
Not like I can keep any of the ones I really want hidden. Stupid mandatory reports.
And then it was time. Into the breach.
The breach, in this case, being the front doors of the school. There was an actual breach, but it wasn't big enough to go through. Using a back door would have been better, but the only doors into the school that could be opened from the outside without a key were the front doors and the roof door, and the latter was only because the lock was broken. Too many delinquents doing too many sneaky things. Not that the door thing helped in the slightest, but it let the administration at least pretend to be addressing their institute of "education"'s problems.
I didn't go to my locker. Way I saw it, it was a lot safer to carry all my possessions with me or stash them in various obscure locations than to trust Winslow's locks. Today, I'd left most of my clothing at the Heberts', so my load was lighter than usual. Taylor had had a lot of stuff stolen from her locker, so I felt vindicated in not using mine.
There was also the other thing with her locker, but thinking about that wouldn't help. Not like the enemy had had the time to set up something like that little masterpiece of inhumanity.
Hopefully.
First class today would be English. My second-weakest, although it still wouldn't be hard. Not exactly ivy league junior, remember? Actually, given a certain merger, it might not be weak anymore.
There was a boy watching me as I made my way through the halls. Nothing blatant, but he really wasn't good at hiding it. Lingered way too long, looked a little too curious, that sort of thing. Old Colere's skills came in handy. There were, of course, all sorts of reasons he might be doing so. It was possible he was minioning for one of the bullies, but they weren't the only clique he could be working for. Not white enough to be Empire, but he could be ABB or a Merchant. Or one of the various petty gangs. Maybe PRT, a Ward or something? I'd heard (well, read) rumors they all went to Arcadia though. He could have just heard about yesterday and been curious, actually. It was possible he could have a crush, though he was barking up the wrong tree if he did. And he was old enough for that to be pretty creepy. There were probably other possible reasons he might be watching me, not that I could think of any offhand. I'm not exactly an intelligence analyst.
English was alright. Treasure Island seemed a bit simplistic for high school, but there was actual analysis and everything, and the book was actually pretty good. I didn't share the class with any of the bullies: almost all of them were tenth-graders or higher and I was in ninth. I was easily smart enough for their level, in my arrogant opinion, but Winslow didn't encourage skipping grades. Not going into the details, but the process was way harder and more expensive than it needed to be.
I hear in Arcadia they just check up on your learning every year and assign classes accordingly. No fees at all. I bet that's great.
Next was Maths. That boy was in the hallways along my way again, whispering with some girl I didn't recognize. Dirty blonde hair, or possibly dirty-blonde hair, and white enough that they probably weren't ABB. I'm not really sure what the difference between dirty and blonde and dirty-blonde is. They tried to keep it subtle, but the "discreet" glances they kept throwing my way made it clear what the topic of conversation was. Something to watch out for.
Maths itself was sheer drudge work. The subject can be taught well, and can be actually interesting, but Mr. Golem wasn't up to the task. At all. "Mr. Golem'' was written on a piece of tape placed over the actual nameplate so it probably wasn't his real name. You wouldn't be able to tell from his teaching methods, though. The sheer level of monotone to his voice as he read straight from the textbook was actually kind of impressive, but it meant absolutely nobody was paying attention. Including me. Not like I really needed to for the likes of 2x+2= 6 solve for x.
Instead, I was preparing myself for confrontation. And to avoid confrontation. Preferably the latter, really, but it's better to not be caught off guard. And I wasn't all that good at avoiding confrontation. Cell phone, hidden in a pocket but entirely accessible, with two little buttons carefully set up for when things went down. Steel-toed boots on properly. Clothes rearranged so as not to hinder running. Pepper spray positioned so that it was just barely visible if you were looking. Not that even half the people here who were likely to start a fight would look first, but the ones who did might be inclined to back down. First Aid kit in easy reach. Inkpot in pocket.
I even managed to do the homework assignment while I was at it. Golem (and I should probably know his real name, but I just don't remember it. He's really boring.) didn't give those out until the end of class, but when it's the exact same "Do the odd numbered questions from the textbook" assignment as every week for the last couple of months anticipating it isn't exactly brain surgery.
If you replaced the guy with a VCR and a tape, the change in teaching quality would be negligible at most. Unless it was one of the better-made math teaching videos, in which case it would be a very large, and entirely positive, difference. Maybe they should, then the administration might have the money to actually address the school's many, many, issues. Some of them, anyway. Teachers didn't get paid that much.
Anyway, maths class went without issue. Besides really bad teaching, which was only to be expected. Winslow. Not exactly ivy league junior.
Lunch next. I had a cafeteria pass thingamajig, so I wasn't worried. In retrospect, I probably should have been, at least a bit.
Actually getting lunch wasn't hard. There wasn't anything that really appealed, but frankly that was also only to be expected. Winslow. Not exactly ivy league junior. There were worse hardships.
One of those aforementioned worse hardships accosted me as I was eating. Not that much worse, but still a bit worse than a poor cafeteria selection.
Bullies.
Now bullying can be a serious, even life destroying issue, but the ones who had targeted me really weren't up to the exalted standards of schoolyard torment set by Mademoiselles Hess, Barnes, and Clements. These four weren't nearly the social manipulators those three were, and Taylor, unlike myself, was a soft target. Not in the sense of being a weak person, or of being stupid, but she had no real skill or confidence in the social arena. Someone like Emma Barnes, who was not only a prodigy in the field herself but who also knew all of Taylor's weaknesses, was someone who could overrun her very quickly. Emma's betrayal had put Taylor on the back foot, and between her and Sophia they had very efficiently cut apart anything that could let her regain her footing. Until some nosy no-good busybody came in and tore the whole house of cards apart anyway.
I don't remember exactly what the four were saying when they surrounded my little table, but it was hostile enough for me to decide to enact my devious plan. Muah ha ha. I thumbed one of my cell-phone buttons, and responded in the most reasonable tone I could manage: "Do you always walk up to complete strangers and insult them?"
That was enough to put them on the back foot. Preparation matters, kids. They rallied, of course, but I simply kept being entirely reasonable. Things like "You are perfectly welcome to think so, but must you keep bringing it up?, "Oh, I do apologize, I didn't quite catch that" and "You aren't being very nice. Could you please stop?". Responding that way to their increasingly unsubtle attempts to insult me naturally infuriated them, so they kept escalating, to which I kept being reasonable, which infuriated them further, causing them to escalate further, etc. I didn't even sound snide or sarcastic, which was a job of work, let me tell you. So they kept getting worse and worse, far more than any of them would have been willing to risk when they set out, and I kept being reasonable. A vicious cycle, but one I had planned for.
It took a while, and a lot of false (but convincing) reasonableness, but eventually one of them got fed up and slapped me. Harder than I think was intended, actually. There was a disturbing amount of blood in my mouth. I'm not entirely sure, but she looked an awful lot like the girl who that mysterious boy had been talking to before math.
The slap, of course, was what I was waiting for. Not that I would have been too disappointed if it didn't happen. I did the responsible thing, and pulled my phone out of my pocket and called emergency services, seeing as I had just been assaulted. Thanks to the wonders of high-end prt-issue phones, that didn't even require dropping my previous call. Naturally, they didn't just let me call the cops, but I was able to keep my phone out of reach long enough for the call to connect. Thus, the good operator at the other end heard what happened next perfectly well. Including the several attempts to grab my phone, my protests, a few punches being thrown and the girl who'd slapped me yelling about how "You're just being a big baby, it was just a little slap." While throwing said punches. It certainly wasn't "just a little slap" now.
Just a bit under an hour later, we were all in the principal's office, explaining things to Principal Blackheart (not her actual name, but it sure does fit her a lot better) and a nice officer from the Brockton Bay Police Department.
"It was so scary, they just kept getting meaner and meaner and I tried to be nice to them I did but they just seemed to get mad and they wouldn't stop and then she slapped me really hard and my mouth was full of blood and mommy told me to call you guys if something like that happened so I did but they just got worse and they tried to take my phone and I asked them not to and she kept hitting me and then Mrs. Knott stepped in and took her off me and then she took to different rooms to wait and we waited for like half an hour and then you arrived and you asked me to explain first and there's cameras in the cafeteria and I checked my phone and the call I was making to Taylor went to voicemail so most of it should be on her voicemail-thingy if you need it."
Panicked rambling to the rescue again! It was even mostly true. I implied I was calling Taylor to actually talk to her, rather than to make sure there was a recording, and I wasn't quite as scared as I was pretending to be, but everything else was entirely true.
Efforts to deny it were ineffectual, given the overwhelming amount of evidence. Especially since several students, mostly the ones with grudges, came and delivered their own reports. And one of the non-slapping girls (a "Julia North") decided to put all the blame on the girl who'd actually done the assaulting (whose name is redacted to protect the guilty, and so as not to interfere with the prosecutor's office). She was just protecting herself, of course, but it didn't help the slappy girl's case.
Our violent little delinquent screeching incoherently at being betrayed really didn't help her case either. Principal Blackheart tried to downplay things, but apparently that doesn't actually work when there is that much evidence and the police are actually there.
All in all, it wasn't exactly the Black Dahlia murder case. Within an hour of the meeting starting, one girl was in handcuffs, three had suspensions, and one totally innocent little homeless orphan girl was accompanying an officer to the Hebert home to pick up their voicemail records. That boy was watching again as we left the school, but still didn't say anything to me.
Hopefully, the same supremely pitiable little orphan girl getting brutally assaulted twice in as many days would put some critical eyes onto the wretched hive of scum and villainy that was Winslow High School. Maybe it would be ivy-league junior one day. Probably not, but it could be a lot better.
"This is not the Taylor you are looking for. Move along" she uttered with a wave of her hand, jedi-mind-tricking some imaginary bullies. Or so I assumed, she didn't exactly explain everything. Explanations are usually bad for humor. Usually. There are ways around that.
No, I'm not going to explain what they are. A girl's got to have some secrets.
Not like I can keep any of the ones I really want hidden. Stupid mandatory reports.
And then it was time. Into the breach.
The breach, in this case, being the front doors of the school. There was an actual breach, but it wasn't big enough to go through. Using a back door would have been better, but the only doors into the school that could be opened from the outside without a key were the front doors and the roof door, and the latter was only because the lock was broken. Too many delinquents doing too many sneaky things. Not that the door thing helped in the slightest, but it let the administration at least pretend to be addressing their institute of "education"'s problems.
I didn't go to my locker. Way I saw it, it was a lot safer to carry all my possessions with me or stash them in various obscure locations than to trust Winslow's locks. Today, I'd left most of my clothing at the Heberts', so my load was lighter than usual. Taylor had had a lot of stuff stolen from her locker, so I felt vindicated in not using mine.
There was also the other thing with her locker, but thinking about that wouldn't help. Not like the enemy had had the time to set up something like that little masterpiece of inhumanity.
Hopefully.
First class today would be English. My second-weakest, although it still wouldn't be hard. Not exactly ivy league junior, remember? Actually, given a certain merger, it might not be weak anymore.
There was a boy watching me as I made my way through the halls. Nothing blatant, but he really wasn't good at hiding it. Lingered way too long, looked a little too curious, that sort of thing. Old Colere's skills came in handy. There were, of course, all sorts of reasons he might be doing so. It was possible he was minioning for one of the bullies, but they weren't the only clique he could be working for. Not white enough to be Empire, but he could be ABB or a Merchant. Or one of the various petty gangs. Maybe PRT, a Ward or something? I'd heard (well, read) rumors they all went to Arcadia though. He could have just heard about yesterday and been curious, actually. It was possible he could have a crush, though he was barking up the wrong tree if he did. And he was old enough for that to be pretty creepy. There were probably other possible reasons he might be watching me, not that I could think of any offhand. I'm not exactly an intelligence analyst.
English was alright. Treasure Island seemed a bit simplistic for high school, but there was actual analysis and everything, and the book was actually pretty good. I didn't share the class with any of the bullies: almost all of them were tenth-graders or higher and I was in ninth. I was easily smart enough for their level, in my arrogant opinion, but Winslow didn't encourage skipping grades. Not going into the details, but the process was way harder and more expensive than it needed to be.
I hear in Arcadia they just check up on your learning every year and assign classes accordingly. No fees at all. I bet that's great.
Next was Maths. That boy was in the hallways along my way again, whispering with some girl I didn't recognize. Dirty blonde hair, or possibly dirty-blonde hair, and white enough that they probably weren't ABB. I'm not really sure what the difference between dirty and blonde and dirty-blonde is. They tried to keep it subtle, but the "discreet" glances they kept throwing my way made it clear what the topic of conversation was. Something to watch out for.
Maths itself was sheer drudge work. The subject can be taught well, and can be actually interesting, but Mr. Golem wasn't up to the task. At all. "Mr. Golem'' was written on a piece of tape placed over the actual nameplate so it probably wasn't his real name. You wouldn't be able to tell from his teaching methods, though. The sheer level of monotone to his voice as he read straight from the textbook was actually kind of impressive, but it meant absolutely nobody was paying attention. Including me. Not like I really needed to for the likes of 2x+2= 6 solve for x.
Instead, I was preparing myself for confrontation. And to avoid confrontation. Preferably the latter, really, but it's better to not be caught off guard. And I wasn't all that good at avoiding confrontation. Cell phone, hidden in a pocket but entirely accessible, with two little buttons carefully set up for when things went down. Steel-toed boots on properly. Clothes rearranged so as not to hinder running. Pepper spray positioned so that it was just barely visible if you were looking. Not that even half the people here who were likely to start a fight would look first, but the ones who did might be inclined to back down. First Aid kit in easy reach. Inkpot in pocket.
I even managed to do the homework assignment while I was at it. Golem (and I should probably know his real name, but I just don't remember it. He's really boring.) didn't give those out until the end of class, but when it's the exact same "Do the odd numbered questions from the textbook" assignment as every week for the last couple of months anticipating it isn't exactly brain surgery.
If you replaced the guy with a VCR and a tape, the change in teaching quality would be negligible at most. Unless it was one of the better-made math teaching videos, in which case it would be a very large, and entirely positive, difference. Maybe they should, then the administration might have the money to actually address the school's many, many, issues. Some of them, anyway. Teachers didn't get paid that much.
Anyway, maths class went without issue. Besides really bad teaching, which was only to be expected. Winslow. Not exactly ivy league junior.
Lunch next. I had a cafeteria pass thingamajig, so I wasn't worried. In retrospect, I probably should have been, at least a bit.
Actually getting lunch wasn't hard. There wasn't anything that really appealed, but frankly that was also only to be expected. Winslow. Not exactly ivy league junior. There were worse hardships.
One of those aforementioned worse hardships accosted me as I was eating. Not that much worse, but still a bit worse than a poor cafeteria selection.
Bullies.
Now bullying can be a serious, even life destroying issue, but the ones who had targeted me really weren't up to the exalted standards of schoolyard torment set by Mademoiselles Hess, Barnes, and Clements. These four weren't nearly the social manipulators those three were, and Taylor, unlike myself, was a soft target. Not in the sense of being a weak person, or of being stupid, but she had no real skill or confidence in the social arena. Someone like Emma Barnes, who was not only a prodigy in the field herself but who also knew all of Taylor's weaknesses, was someone who could overrun her very quickly. Emma's betrayal had put Taylor on the back foot, and between her and Sophia they had very efficiently cut apart anything that could let her regain her footing. Until some nosy no-good busybody came in and tore the whole house of cards apart anyway.
I don't remember exactly what the four were saying when they surrounded my little table, but it was hostile enough for me to decide to enact my devious plan. Muah ha ha. I thumbed one of my cell-phone buttons, and responded in the most reasonable tone I could manage: "Do you always walk up to complete strangers and insult them?"
That was enough to put them on the back foot. Preparation matters, kids. They rallied, of course, but I simply kept being entirely reasonable. Things like "You are perfectly welcome to think so, but must you keep bringing it up?, "Oh, I do apologize, I didn't quite catch that" and "You aren't being very nice. Could you please stop?". Responding that way to their increasingly unsubtle attempts to insult me naturally infuriated them, so they kept escalating, to which I kept being reasonable, which infuriated them further, causing them to escalate further, etc. I didn't even sound snide or sarcastic, which was a job of work, let me tell you. So they kept getting worse and worse, far more than any of them would have been willing to risk when they set out, and I kept being reasonable. A vicious cycle, but one I had planned for.
It took a while, and a lot of false (but convincing) reasonableness, but eventually one of them got fed up and slapped me. Harder than I think was intended, actually. There was a disturbing amount of blood in my mouth. I'm not entirely sure, but she looked an awful lot like the girl who that mysterious boy had been talking to before math.
The slap, of course, was what I was waiting for. Not that I would have been too disappointed if it didn't happen. I did the responsible thing, and pulled my phone out of my pocket and called emergency services, seeing as I had just been assaulted. Thanks to the wonders of high-end prt-issue phones, that didn't even require dropping my previous call. Naturally, they didn't just let me call the cops, but I was able to keep my phone out of reach long enough for the call to connect. Thus, the good operator at the other end heard what happened next perfectly well. Including the several attempts to grab my phone, my protests, a few punches being thrown and the girl who'd slapped me yelling about how "You're just being a big baby, it was just a little slap." While throwing said punches. It certainly wasn't "just a little slap" now.
Just a bit under an hour later, we were all in the principal's office, explaining things to Principal Blackheart (not her actual name, but it sure does fit her a lot better) and a nice officer from the Brockton Bay Police Department.
"It was so scary, they just kept getting meaner and meaner and I tried to be nice to them I did but they just seemed to get mad and they wouldn't stop and then she slapped me really hard and my mouth was full of blood and mommy told me to call you guys if something like that happened so I did but they just got worse and they tried to take my phone and I asked them not to and she kept hitting me and then Mrs. Knott stepped in and took her off me and then she took to different rooms to wait and we waited for like half an hour and then you arrived and you asked me to explain first and there's cameras in the cafeteria and I checked my phone and the call I was making to Taylor went to voicemail so most of it should be on her voicemail-thingy if you need it."
Panicked rambling to the rescue again! It was even mostly true. I implied I was calling Taylor to actually talk to her, rather than to make sure there was a recording, and I wasn't quite as scared as I was pretending to be, but everything else was entirely true.
Efforts to deny it were ineffectual, given the overwhelming amount of evidence. Especially since several students, mostly the ones with grudges, came and delivered their own reports. And one of the non-slapping girls (a "Julia North") decided to put all the blame on the girl who'd actually done the assaulting (whose name is redacted to protect the guilty, and so as not to interfere with the prosecutor's office). She was just protecting herself, of course, but it didn't help the slappy girl's case.
Our violent little delinquent screeching incoherently at being betrayed really didn't help her case either. Principal Blackheart tried to downplay things, but apparently that doesn't actually work when there is that much evidence and the police are actually there.
All in all, it wasn't exactly the Black Dahlia murder case. Within an hour of the meeting starting, one girl was in handcuffs, three had suspensions, and one totally innocent little homeless orphan girl was accompanying an officer to the Hebert home to pick up their voicemail records. That boy was watching again as we left the school, but still didn't say anything to me.
Hopefully, the same supremely pitiable little orphan girl getting brutally assaulted twice in as many days would put some critical eyes onto the wretched hive of scum and villainy that was Winslow High School. Maybe it would be ivy-league junior one day. Probably not, but it could be a lot better.
4-2 Ink (Interlude: Taylor)
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Taylor:
Taylor Anne Hebert (an official Jacqueline Colere certified Good, Strong, Person) felt a little better when she woke up the day after Jacqueline Colere came into her life. Yesterday hadn't been easy, but Taylor felt that the worst was over. She'd come clean to her father, law enforcement was investigating the Trio, and Jacqueline had somehow not been horribly traumatized (again) by her spiders. They'd even spent the evening acting like a normal, healthy, family. It could have gone so wrong in so many ways, but they hadn't argued over anything worse than Pizza toppings. And the smell of pure deliciousness was wafting up from downstairs, stirring Taylor to wakefulness. And hungriness. Taylor could guess why dad wasn't in the room. She wasn't stupid. Even if yesterday had given her a few reasons to question that.
Taylor dressed, took care of herself, and made her way downstairs. There was Jacqueline, watching with wide eyes as Dad cooked breakfast. Dad almost never cooked breakfast. Maybe he was getting better too. Taylor hoped so. He'd been through enough.
Yesterday had been bad. Well, not exactly. Almost all of the problems that yesterday had exposed had been building up for far too long, and bringing them out into the open was definitely necessary, but that didn't make it easy. Jacqueline had come into the Heberts' lives like a wrecking ball, not that it was the poor girl's fault. Yesterday had been hard. On all of them, Jacqueline included.
Breakfast had been good at first. The food was delicious (and fattening, but Taylor couldn't bring herself to care right then and there), Dad and Jacqueline were happy, and bonding was done. Then Jacqueline asked about school. That killed the good vibes pretty darn quickly.
Going and raising [h-e-double-hockey-sticks], going and pretending that everything was normal (normal, in this context, meaning utterly and depressingly awful), and skipping altogether seemed about equally unappealing. Mom hadn't raised her to be a truant, and Dad couldn't plausibly call Taylor in sick under these circumstances, let alone Jacqueline. There was a lot of discussion with no real answers, although Taylor could admit to herself that the idea of just burning Winslow down had its appeal. Way too much appeal, honestly. Her incredibly awful time there might have left her with a few issues. Eventually she suggested asking the PRT just so she could get a definite no on the "Can't we just set Winslow on fire" plan so it would leave her alone.
While Dad had gone and done that, Jacqueline had started brooding. Again. The younger girl was definitely good at brooding, or at least losing herself in thought. Taylor had seen her just stop paying attention to the outside world enough to just let it happen. After less than 24 hours of acquaintance. That's how often it happened. Jacqueline didn't even seem to notice when Taylor started braiding her hair. Taylor wondered what she was thinking about.
Eventually Dad came back with an answer, and Jacqueline would be going to school. Dad would have to drive her, since she didn't know how to get to school on her own. And because neither Hebert wanted to leave the girl alone for too long. Taylor volunteered to come along, both out of solidarity and to finish up her hair-braiding. Which Jacqueline still hadn't noticed. Or maybe she just wasn't reacting on purpose, to mess with Taylor. That didn't sound likely, but the alternative was that Jacqueline Colere had all the situational awareness of a particularly unwary tree.
By the time they arrived at the school, the younger girl was back to earth, or at least close enough to earth to make a Star Wars joke. Taylor hoped it was a joke, anyway. She responded in kind, using the Force to mislead an imaginary Sophia.
As Jacqueline went off into the accurately described wretched hive of scum and villainy, Taylor was worried. But the girl had been taking care of herself at Winslow for months, so Taylor reluctantly let her go.
And then she went home. To her room. Where Jacqueline had slept. And, apparently, done a whole bunch of research, judging by the notes all over Taylor's desk. Good notes, too, although their organization left a lot to be desired. Taylor was particularly interested in the one sketch of the bunch, a quick doodle of a girl in black and yellow armor, surrounded by wasps. Not that Jacqueline was good at drawing wasps. Taylor would have assumed they were bees, except for the name emblazoned beneath the figure: Vespiary. Taylor rather liked the sound of that. The day was going entirely too well so far.
She also liked reading Jacqueline's thoughts on the various villains of Brockton Bay. Taylor had found more and better sources during her own research, but Jacqueline had extrapolated further than Taylor had ever dared, and she'd done more looking into the minor villains. Jacqueline was more worried about the minor villains than she was about the ABB or Merchants, which surprised Taylor. The Empire were a group Jacqueline clearly was deeply afraid of, for good reason. Taylor shuddered to imagine what they'd do to the poor girl if they ever got ahold of her.
Jacqueline's concerns about Coil were entirely understandable as well, though Taylor did think she was grossly overestimating Uber and Leet. Taylor hadn't even heard of the "Undersiders" before, but they seemed like a nasty bunch. Grue was probably more dangerous than Jacqueline thought, and the rest were apparently terrifying. Taylor wasn't as afraid of Tattletale as Jacqueline obviously was, but only because she was furious. The blonde's behaviour and the apparent powerset Jacqueline had noted reminded Taylor far too much of Emma, except Tattletale could use everybody's secrets against them.
Taylor set some bugs to redyeing her bodysuit black, and wondered about where she could obtain armor plates, before diving back into research. It was a wonderful distraction for a few hours, and then Dad called her down to lunch.
Halfway through Taylor's first grilled cheese sandwich, the doorbell rang. Dad got it, and there was Jacqueline, being escorted by a police officer. Taylor had known the day was going too well.
Taylor Anne Hebert (an official Jacqueline Colere certified Good, Strong, Person) felt a little better when she woke up the day after Jacqueline Colere came into her life. Yesterday hadn't been easy, but Taylor felt that the worst was over. She'd come clean to her father, law enforcement was investigating the Trio, and Jacqueline had somehow not been horribly traumatized (again) by her spiders. They'd even spent the evening acting like a normal, healthy, family. It could have gone so wrong in so many ways, but they hadn't argued over anything worse than Pizza toppings. And the smell of pure deliciousness was wafting up from downstairs, stirring Taylor to wakefulness. And hungriness. Taylor could guess why dad wasn't in the room. She wasn't stupid. Even if yesterday had given her a few reasons to question that.
Taylor dressed, took care of herself, and made her way downstairs. There was Jacqueline, watching with wide eyes as Dad cooked breakfast. Dad almost never cooked breakfast. Maybe he was getting better too. Taylor hoped so. He'd been through enough.
Yesterday had been bad. Well, not exactly. Almost all of the problems that yesterday had exposed had been building up for far too long, and bringing them out into the open was definitely necessary, but that didn't make it easy. Jacqueline had come into the Heberts' lives like a wrecking ball, not that it was the poor girl's fault. Yesterday had been hard. On all of them, Jacqueline included.
Breakfast had been good at first. The food was delicious (and fattening, but Taylor couldn't bring herself to care right then and there), Dad and Jacqueline were happy, and bonding was done. Then Jacqueline asked about school. That killed the good vibes pretty darn quickly.
Going and raising [h-e-double-hockey-sticks], going and pretending that everything was normal (normal, in this context, meaning utterly and depressingly awful), and skipping altogether seemed about equally unappealing. Mom hadn't raised her to be a truant, and Dad couldn't plausibly call Taylor in sick under these circumstances, let alone Jacqueline. There was a lot of discussion with no real answers, although Taylor could admit to herself that the idea of just burning Winslow down had its appeal. Way too much appeal, honestly. Her incredibly awful time there might have left her with a few issues. Eventually she suggested asking the PRT just so she could get a definite no on the "Can't we just set Winslow on fire" plan so it would leave her alone.
While Dad had gone and done that, Jacqueline had started brooding. Again. The younger girl was definitely good at brooding, or at least losing herself in thought. Taylor had seen her just stop paying attention to the outside world enough to just let it happen. After less than 24 hours of acquaintance. That's how often it happened. Jacqueline didn't even seem to notice when Taylor started braiding her hair. Taylor wondered what she was thinking about.
Eventually Dad came back with an answer, and Jacqueline would be going to school. Dad would have to drive her, since she didn't know how to get to school on her own. And because neither Hebert wanted to leave the girl alone for too long. Taylor volunteered to come along, both out of solidarity and to finish up her hair-braiding. Which Jacqueline still hadn't noticed. Or maybe she just wasn't reacting on purpose, to mess with Taylor. That didn't sound likely, but the alternative was that Jacqueline Colere had all the situational awareness of a particularly unwary tree.
By the time they arrived at the school, the younger girl was back to earth, or at least close enough to earth to make a Star Wars joke. Taylor hoped it was a joke, anyway. She responded in kind, using the Force to mislead an imaginary Sophia.
As Jacqueline went off into the accurately described wretched hive of scum and villainy, Taylor was worried. But the girl had been taking care of herself at Winslow for months, so Taylor reluctantly let her go.
And then she went home. To her room. Where Jacqueline had slept. And, apparently, done a whole bunch of research, judging by the notes all over Taylor's desk. Good notes, too, although their organization left a lot to be desired. Taylor was particularly interested in the one sketch of the bunch, a quick doodle of a girl in black and yellow armor, surrounded by wasps. Not that Jacqueline was good at drawing wasps. Taylor would have assumed they were bees, except for the name emblazoned beneath the figure: Vespiary. Taylor rather liked the sound of that. The day was going entirely too well so far.
She also liked reading Jacqueline's thoughts on the various villains of Brockton Bay. Taylor had found more and better sources during her own research, but Jacqueline had extrapolated further than Taylor had ever dared, and she'd done more looking into the minor villains. Jacqueline was more worried about the minor villains than she was about the ABB or Merchants, which surprised Taylor. The Empire were a group Jacqueline clearly was deeply afraid of, for good reason. Taylor shuddered to imagine what they'd do to the poor girl if they ever got ahold of her.
Jacqueline's concerns about Coil were entirely understandable as well, though Taylor did think she was grossly overestimating Uber and Leet. Taylor hadn't even heard of the "Undersiders" before, but they seemed like a nasty bunch. Grue was probably more dangerous than Jacqueline thought, and the rest were apparently terrifying. Taylor wasn't as afraid of Tattletale as Jacqueline obviously was, but only because she was furious. The blonde's behaviour and the apparent powerset Jacqueline had noted reminded Taylor far too much of Emma, except Tattletale could use everybody's secrets against them.
Taylor set some bugs to redyeing her bodysuit black, and wondered about where she could obtain armor plates, before diving back into research. It was a wonderful distraction for a few hours, and then Dad called her down to lunch.
Halfway through Taylor's first grilled cheese sandwich, the doorbell rang. Dad got it, and there was Jacqueline, being escorted by a police officer. Taylor had known the day was going too well.
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4-3 Infuriated
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Surprisingly, showing up at the door of someone who cares about you with a police officer and explaining that you were back from school early because you'd just been assaulted for the second time in as many days isn't exactly reassuring. Go figure.
Hugs, especially crushingly-tight-because-they-are-worried-about-you hugs, weren't something I'd had a lot of lately, at least pre-merger, but it turns out they're like riding a bicycle. More muscle memory than anything. Two hugs at once was not like trying to ride two bicycles at once, fortunately. I hadn't ever been quite stupid enough to try that, but I'd seen someone else be that stupid once, and it hadn't exactly gone well for them. I'd been told they'd make a full recovery, but I have my doubts. People aren't always honest about bad news, especially with the young.
The two situations had little in common beyond the factor of inordinate amounts of force being applied to ribcages, but that was enough for me to squawk in protest. Or squeak, really. I didn't have enough air or a deep enough voice for a proper squawk. The Taylor and her father didn't let me go, but they did loosen their grips a little. Not enough, really, but I could sort of breathe, and that would have to do.
There are worse hardships than having people care about you, after all.
Danny was furious. He was adamant neither of his girls would be going back to that expletive laden excuse for an institute of education.
He said a lot more than that, actually, but I was sort of caught up on the idea of him referring to me as his. It was in the heat of the moment, and he probably didn't even notice, but both of us girls caught it.
I wasn't opposed to the idea, and from what I could see neither was Taylor, but it was going awfully fast. We silently agreed not to mention it to him. I think. Maybe she thought we were agreeing to duel for his affection as soon as he looked the other way. Head shakes and nods are kind of ambiguous that way. I'm pretty sure I would lose if that was the case. She had better reach and her bugs weren't something I could reasonably counter. One bug in my eye at the wrong moment and it'd all be over. But it was probably the not mentioning it to him thing. Hopefully.
A lot of things had shoved the three of us together unnaturally fast. Homelessness, orphanness, perceived parental failure, being the first person to stand up for Taylor in far too long, universe deprivation derived stress, desperation for affection and probably some more things that I am forgetting. A lot of things. While that wasn't exactly bad, it wasn't the most stable basis for a family. Especially since Taylor had been stabbed in the back hard by the last girl she'd thought of as family. None of those things were guaranteed to last, and most of them probably shouldn't, and we hadn't built any of the things that would last as of yet. Or maybe a little, but not nearly enough.
Rushing into a familial relationship on that shaky foundation would not be half as bad as rushing into a romantic relationship based on those things, but any or all of us could still easily end up getting hurt. It would be a lot safer to take things slow and let any relationship between us build naturally.
I'm not sure if letting Danny get mad on my behalf counted, but I certainly wasn't going to get in his way. He was, after all, right. It was absolutely ridiculous that the various bullies had gotten away with their plethora of crimes for so long, the attacks against me did paint a deeply unflattering picture of the administration's ability to keep order, and Winslow was a pitiful excuse for an institute of education. The man had every right to be angry.
And while I was hoping to force Winslow to shape up, pulling myself and Taylor out was the sane response to the situation. Especially Taylor. I had been doing mostly okay until I had tried standing up for Taylor, while she had been systematically torn down on every level for no reason since she started there. Being Taylor Hebert was apparently a massive bad-things-magnety-thingy. Or something like that. I'm sure there is a pithier way to express it, but I can't think of any.
Huh, my hair was wet. I was pretty sure I knew why, but pretending not to notice seemed like the nice thing to do. It is actually possible to cry furiously, my research indicated. That fact had stuck with me quite well, although I really wasn't sure why. Maybe something to do with what I was doing at the time, not that I remembered what I was doing at the time.
Anyways, I was being furiously-crying worried hugged. That wasn't a common occurrence for either me, but it wasn't the first time. Unless it was, because I wasn't the old Jacqueline or the trans-dimensional kidnapee. I'm actually pretty sure I'm not one xor the other, but I still might be both. Or someone entirely new. Or somewhere in-between. Things are complicated. I blame "Patron". Though I guess old-Jacqueline was supposedly doomed to perish during the course of events, so maybe they saved my life? Sort of? And in an incredibly callous and damaging manner? That's almost as confusing as figuring out who exactly I am, and I had totally forgotten about it.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, that "xor" isn't a typo. It's a simple way to designate an exclusive or, rather than an inclusive or or an ambiguous or. An exclusive or reads true only if one, and only one, of the possibilities is true, while an inclusive or reads true if any of the possibilities is true. It may seem pedantic, but the distinction is sometimes extremely important. In my case, I was definitely sure I'm not one exclusively, but I'm not sure I'm not both. Thus a xor, or rather a negation of xor possibilities but not of inclusive or possibilities. For more on the subject, consult a close family member or friend, preferably one whom you haven't spoken to in a while. They probably won't know either, but the discussion will be fascinating and it might bring you closer together, and I like to encourage that sort of thing.
Outside the interesting but largely irrelevant world of formal logic, there was communication, honest and emotionally deep in ways I can't really convey here. So I'm not even going to try. Whoever's getting these reports knows way too much about way too much personal stuff. Yes, that means you. I know you're reading this, and it's frankly quite an invasion of privacy. I don't get to decide to share this stuff or with who, you know. Stupid nails driving into my brain. I shouldn't even be able to feel you! Brains don't have nerves! I checked it on the internet!
Sometimes it's hard to forgive. Especially when the things that you need to forgive are still hurting you.
Sorry if that's not up to my usual exalted standards of wisdom.
Hugs, especially crushingly-tight-because-they-are-worried-about-you hugs, weren't something I'd had a lot of lately, at least pre-merger, but it turns out they're like riding a bicycle. More muscle memory than anything. Two hugs at once was not like trying to ride two bicycles at once, fortunately. I hadn't ever been quite stupid enough to try that, but I'd seen someone else be that stupid once, and it hadn't exactly gone well for them. I'd been told they'd make a full recovery, but I have my doubts. People aren't always honest about bad news, especially with the young.
The two situations had little in common beyond the factor of inordinate amounts of force being applied to ribcages, but that was enough for me to squawk in protest. Or squeak, really. I didn't have enough air or a deep enough voice for a proper squawk. The Taylor and her father didn't let me go, but they did loosen their grips a little. Not enough, really, but I could sort of breathe, and that would have to do.
There are worse hardships than having people care about you, after all.
Danny was furious. He was adamant neither of his girls would be going back to that expletive laden excuse for an institute of education.
He said a lot more than that, actually, but I was sort of caught up on the idea of him referring to me as his. It was in the heat of the moment, and he probably didn't even notice, but both of us girls caught it.
I wasn't opposed to the idea, and from what I could see neither was Taylor, but it was going awfully fast. We silently agreed not to mention it to him. I think. Maybe she thought we were agreeing to duel for his affection as soon as he looked the other way. Head shakes and nods are kind of ambiguous that way. I'm pretty sure I would lose if that was the case. She had better reach and her bugs weren't something I could reasonably counter. One bug in my eye at the wrong moment and it'd all be over. But it was probably the not mentioning it to him thing. Hopefully.
A lot of things had shoved the three of us together unnaturally fast. Homelessness, orphanness, perceived parental failure, being the first person to stand up for Taylor in far too long, universe deprivation derived stress, desperation for affection and probably some more things that I am forgetting. A lot of things. While that wasn't exactly bad, it wasn't the most stable basis for a family. Especially since Taylor had been stabbed in the back hard by the last girl she'd thought of as family. None of those things were guaranteed to last, and most of them probably shouldn't, and we hadn't built any of the things that would last as of yet. Or maybe a little, but not nearly enough.
Rushing into a familial relationship on that shaky foundation would not be half as bad as rushing into a romantic relationship based on those things, but any or all of us could still easily end up getting hurt. It would be a lot safer to take things slow and let any relationship between us build naturally.
I'm not sure if letting Danny get mad on my behalf counted, but I certainly wasn't going to get in his way. He was, after all, right. It was absolutely ridiculous that the various bullies had gotten away with their plethora of crimes for so long, the attacks against me did paint a deeply unflattering picture of the administration's ability to keep order, and Winslow was a pitiful excuse for an institute of education. The man had every right to be angry.
And while I was hoping to force Winslow to shape up, pulling myself and Taylor out was the sane response to the situation. Especially Taylor. I had been doing mostly okay until I had tried standing up for Taylor, while she had been systematically torn down on every level for no reason since she started there. Being Taylor Hebert was apparently a massive bad-things-magnety-thingy. Or something like that. I'm sure there is a pithier way to express it, but I can't think of any.
Huh, my hair was wet. I was pretty sure I knew why, but pretending not to notice seemed like the nice thing to do. It is actually possible to cry furiously, my research indicated. That fact had stuck with me quite well, although I really wasn't sure why. Maybe something to do with what I was doing at the time, not that I remembered what I was doing at the time.
Anyways, I was being furiously-crying worried hugged. That wasn't a common occurrence for either me, but it wasn't the first time. Unless it was, because I wasn't the old Jacqueline or the trans-dimensional kidnapee. I'm actually pretty sure I'm not one xor the other, but I still might be both. Or someone entirely new. Or somewhere in-between. Things are complicated. I blame "Patron". Though I guess old-Jacqueline was supposedly doomed to perish during the course of events, so maybe they saved my life? Sort of? And in an incredibly callous and damaging manner? That's almost as confusing as figuring out who exactly I am, and I had totally forgotten about it.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, that "xor" isn't a typo. It's a simple way to designate an exclusive or, rather than an inclusive or or an ambiguous or. An exclusive or reads true only if one, and only one, of the possibilities is true, while an inclusive or reads true if any of the possibilities is true. It may seem pedantic, but the distinction is sometimes extremely important. In my case, I was definitely sure I'm not one exclusively, but I'm not sure I'm not both. Thus a xor, or rather a negation of xor possibilities but not of inclusive or possibilities. For more on the subject, consult a close family member or friend, preferably one whom you haven't spoken to in a while. They probably won't know either, but the discussion will be fascinating and it might bring you closer together, and I like to encourage that sort of thing.
Outside the interesting but largely irrelevant world of formal logic, there was communication, honest and emotionally deep in ways I can't really convey here. So I'm not even going to try. Whoever's getting these reports knows way too much about way too much personal stuff. Yes, that means you. I know you're reading this, and it's frankly quite an invasion of privacy. I don't get to decide to share this stuff or with who, you know. Stupid nails driving into my brain. I shouldn't even be able to feel you! Brains don't have nerves! I checked it on the internet!
Sometimes it's hard to forgive. Especially when the things that you need to forgive are still hurting you.
Sorry if that's not up to my usual exalted standards of wisdom.
4-4 Integration
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There were four high schools in the fair city of Brockton Bay. (City may or may not actually be fair. Visit at your own risk.) Well, three high schools and the wretched excuse for an institute of education that was Winslow. Arcadia almost lived up to its name, that place was an actually good school, and I don't even mean by the low, low, standards of Brockton Bay. Teachers who actually cared, solid funding, a broad array of after-school programs, a student body that was actually respectable (and not in the all life is worthy of respect way that I tried to apply to Winslow) and programming to die for.
Not literally.
Hopefully.
Immaculata wasn't bad, but it wasn't up to Arcadia's standards. It was also a Catholic school, and I wasn't a Catholic, or even a Christian. Not even in the way most westerners get lumped or lump themselves into christianity by default but don't do anything more than the occasional Christmas and/or Easter service. I doubted they'd ever heard of my religion, so I doubted it would be respected by a religious institution, or at least one that was here. Not sure if my faith actually existed on this earth, in point of fact. Aside from me, obviously.
Clarendon was a bad school by the standards of places with a functional education system, by which I mean it had some obvious gang presence, mediocre to poor student grades, and teachers who failed to put in the effort far too often. Compared to Winslow's virtual gang omnipresence, abysmal student grades, and teachers who almost never did put in the effort, it was practically competent. It was a fairly typical American inner city high school, from what I'd read.
Four might seem like nowhere near enough high schools to serve an entire city, and to be fair that was largely correct. Brockton Bay wasn't much of a city though. Even with the influx of refugees after Kyushu was sunk, it didn't actually have enough people to become a city, since this world and area's requirements for such were awfully high compared to home. Official cities required an actual PRT presence and at least one Protectorate member, the PRT was constantly underbudgeted and the Protectorate was constantly understaffed, so there weren't a whole lot of them anymore. Brockton Bay shouldn't qualify, too many people left after the boat graveyard and the various other bits of awfulness that defined Brockton Bay. Since it was already a city though, charter, PRT division and all, that didn't matter, and it remained officially a city. And Brockton Bay definitely needed the help more than most would-be cities.
The four high schools were also big, even Arcadia and Immaculata. Winslow, and to a lesser degree Clarendon, were massive schools that would still be grossly overcrowded if all the registered students actually showed up. Which they didn't. Again, more so at Winslow than Clarendon, but also at Clarendon. Add in the large number of people who dropped out of high school or never went in the first place, and you had a school system that wasn't actively collapsing under the weight of numbers.
Don't get me wrong, the school system, aside from the mostly privately-funded Arcadia, Immaculata and their junior high and elementary equivalents, was collapsing, but that was more because of the issue of having no budget, an administration that didn't do its job (at least not at Winslow), and with just about everybody giving up on it. Having way too many students was merely an aggravating factor. One of the many, many, aggravating factors. Winslow exemplified all the problems with the system, but it was merely the worst case among many.
Danny didn't want either of us going to Winslow any more (and who could blame him?), which left one of the other three highschools. He might have been able to homeschool one girl, but he certainly couldn't handle two, or even homeschool one while actually paying attention to the other's regular schooling. Not to mention him homeschooling me would be incredibly suspicious. It was already kinda fishy that I was staying here. Child Protective Services hadn't placed me here, after all. Not that they'd done anything about my case.
If this wasn't Brockton Bay, I'd find that deeply suspicious. As it was, I was black (half, anyway, and for some reason that generally counted as much as full despite it not working that way for other races. Not even gonna go into the complicating factors of transdimensional merging, since nobody on this earth knew about it, and the other me's racial heritage was now essentially irrelevant to how I'd be treated) and a refugee, so it wasn't all that surprising that they wouldn't do anything. Not all the xenophobes are in the Empire.
Not that it was impossible that some Empire members worked for the local branch of CPS. That particular toxic ideology was deeply rooted in the bay.
So that left getting into one of the three other high schools in the city. Arcadia would be tricky at best, although there was a possible way around that. Both of us had the junior high grades for the place, but neither of us had gone, for different reasons. Taylor had been offered a scholarship, but had turned it down to stick with her bestest friend, Emma. The one who would repay that decision with betrayal and torment, to be clear. Now her grades, thanks to broad-ranging academic sabotage, weren't good enough for a scholarship. (Although Emma and her ilk sabotaged poor Taylor in a lot of ways it was the academic stuff that was really relevant to the matter of Arcadia.) Actually, her grades probably weren't good enough to get into Arcadia at all, but since she couldn't afford to attend without one it didn't matter anyway. My grades, now and then, were well beyond what was needed, but the scholarships were only available to US citizens, and I wasn't one. Leviathan was and continues to be raw awfulness incarnate. I couldn't even afford to travel to Arcadia, and I don't mean as a daily expense. One bus ride would cost more than I had. Being a homeless orphan sucks.
Immaculata was right out. Not only was it more expensive than Arcadia, despite not being as good a school, it was further away and faith-based in a faith that neither of us had any faith in. They did have an excellent scholarship program, but that was also faith-based, so we didn't qualify. That wasn't actually illegal here, or maybe it was and nobody cared. It would not be even remotely close to the first time illegal discrimination was practiced despite being illegal. On either Earth I had experienced, in point of fact.
Clarendon was mediocre at best, if one was being generous in one's description, and the commute was the longest of the four, but it wasn't Winslow, and that was what was really important. Still there was a way to get into Arcadia. Maybe two, depending on how you looked at it. You see, it was a (probably deliberately) poorly kept secret that the Wards went to Arcadia. So did the New Wave children (aside from Laserdream/ Crystal Pelham, who'd graduated from Arcadia), though they weren't secret. No secret identities and all that. Joining with either group could get them to pull the right levers to get us in.
Naturally, that conversation about what to do with our powers happened a little earlier than planned. What follows covers the results of that conversation fairly well, but do understand the actuality wasn't as neat and tidy.
My plan for myself was what I outlined earlier. Join New Wave, be a healer, mend things one piece at a time. Maybe put my power up for a lot of charity auctions. That'd let me fix things on a much bigger scale than I could do on my own, even if indirectly. Plus, being a model parahuman healer while black and gay would do more to undermine the Empire and their ilk than a dozen warehouse raids. You can't kill an idea with violence. Not if you want society to still be standing afterwards, anyway.
Taylor and Danny were worried about my safety, naturally. Outed capes could be targeted in ways that simply weren't possible if your attacker didn't know your civilian identity. I felt I was less likely to be targeted in my civilian identity if I was known to be a cape, for a number of reasons. My cape identity would be a healer, with a sideline in repair, not somebody going out and picking fights. Healers were extremely valuable, and everybody needed them. Targeting a healer would bring down the wrath of the cape community like very few things could, as long as the healer didn't start things. Attacking somebody in their civilian identity likewise. Nobody had ever done both in the same act, but that would be at least as bad. Meanwhile, my civilian identity was poor, black, young, without legal guardianship, and a lesbian. Any one of those things could easily get me targeted. Put them all together and they were practically a death sentence in a place like Brockton Bay. Put simply, I was safer as a known, open cape with a team than as a civilian. Safer, not safe, I should note. It was very much a matter of relative danger.
My hosts weren't happy about my argument in the slightest, but they did concede the point. Neither of them seemed to take my sexuality as a problem, except for the possibility of being targeted for it, which I was grateful for. You see, I had totally forgotten they hadn't known that about me before. I was bad at secrets. One more reason to go with New Wave rather than, say, the Wards. Plus the Wards had to fight, if only in the least dangerous fights, and I didn't want to. At least I managed to keep being trans to myself. They probably had a right to know, but I'd scout that issue out first. Homosexuality might be almost a non-issue thanks to Legend, but being transgender wasn't all that much more accepted than in the other world circa 2011.
Taylor did want to fight, which made things like ensuring her safety immeasurably more complicated. Apparently I was the odd one out, since most parahumans wanted to fight, but that didn't change the fact that fighting was risky. Wards in other cities got injured in the line of duty about once or twice a year on average, and Brockton Bay was a lot worse. Heroes were outnumbered by villains everywhere, but Brockton Bay had one of the worst ratios. Of the places that actually had heroes, anyway. There were places that didn't, and most of them weren't pretty. And there were a lot more violent non-parahuman criminals as well. Wards here got into fights more often than they did just about anywhere else, and into parahuman fights far more often than their counterparts anywhere else.
Panacea both did and didn't help with that. She made the injuries much less of a concern, but that let the Wards just leap right into the fight without learning anything, and their handlers did not take Ward injuries as seriously as places without a Panacea to lean on. Independents got hurt way more often than Wards, at least the ones who were entirely independent instead of with groups that were independent of the PRT, but not from having support from teammates, like New Wave.
None of the New Wave kids had ever gotten hurt in a fight, at least as far as the public record showed. Still, Danny and I suspected the reasons why none of them had gotten hurt wouldn't apply to Taylor if she joined them.
First off, the existing New Wavers were all family, and they were very used to working together in a way few teams could match. Lots of coordination and familiarity in the most literal sense, both in and out of combat. They had reached a level of group fighting that most Protectorate divisions couldn't match, let alone Wards.
Secondly, all four New Wave kids had powers that meant they were unlikely to get hurt, albeit for different reasons.
Panacea was a healer, safe for pretty much the same reasons I hoped to be. Though if she did get hurt she couldn't heal herself, while my aura was always healing me.
Laserdream was a Blaster, one of the longest ranged ones short of Legend himself, and she didn't need to get anywhere close to a fight. She was also a flyer, so she could avoid fights that didn't have other flyers or similarly long-ranged blasters pretty easily, with or without shooting the participants, and her shields helped a little. It was a very useful combination of abilities.
Shielder was as much a flyer as his sister, though not as fast, and one of the most powerful defensive capes on the east coast. It's easy to not get hurt if you have enough impenetrable forcefields in place, and he was careful and cautious in a fight.
Glory Girl was just plain impossible to actually hurt. She'd gotten into situations where she should have been hurt more than just about any other cape, since anyone who wasn't a major Brute wouldn't survive doing what she did, but nothing got past her invincibility.
Yet.
An awful lot of parahumans had proven to only be invincible until they suddenly weren't, when something finally got past their defenses and killed them. Even Alexandria, the namesake and exemplar of the "Alexandria Package" combination of Flight, Toughness, and Strength that Glory Girl possesed, had lost an eye to the Siberian.
Nobody had found something to get past the Siberian's defenses yet, but an awful lot of people were trying. I couldn't think of anything, but I was hopeful that someone would.
Thirdly, and this one was pure speculation, if any of them besides Panacea (who couldn't heal herself) had gotten hurt, they had the best contender for the position of world's greatest healer living in the same house/a few blocks away.
Only the third of those would apply to Taylor if she joined. Which was still infinitely (figuratively) better than just going out on her own. Still, Panacea couldn't touch brains, and like me, she couldn't fix dead.
Nobody could.
So it fell upon us to prevent death. By any means necessary.
Anyway, that's where the conversation was, dramatic statement and all, when the PRT guys came and very politely took us in for Master/Stranger screening.
Not literally.
Hopefully.
Immaculata wasn't bad, but it wasn't up to Arcadia's standards. It was also a Catholic school, and I wasn't a Catholic, or even a Christian. Not even in the way most westerners get lumped or lump themselves into christianity by default but don't do anything more than the occasional Christmas and/or Easter service. I doubted they'd ever heard of my religion, so I doubted it would be respected by a religious institution, or at least one that was here. Not sure if my faith actually existed on this earth, in point of fact. Aside from me, obviously.
Clarendon was a bad school by the standards of places with a functional education system, by which I mean it had some obvious gang presence, mediocre to poor student grades, and teachers who failed to put in the effort far too often. Compared to Winslow's virtual gang omnipresence, abysmal student grades, and teachers who almost never did put in the effort, it was practically competent. It was a fairly typical American inner city high school, from what I'd read.
Four might seem like nowhere near enough high schools to serve an entire city, and to be fair that was largely correct. Brockton Bay wasn't much of a city though. Even with the influx of refugees after Kyushu was sunk, it didn't actually have enough people to become a city, since this world and area's requirements for such were awfully high compared to home. Official cities required an actual PRT presence and at least one Protectorate member, the PRT was constantly underbudgeted and the Protectorate was constantly understaffed, so there weren't a whole lot of them anymore. Brockton Bay shouldn't qualify, too many people left after the boat graveyard and the various other bits of awfulness that defined Brockton Bay. Since it was already a city though, charter, PRT division and all, that didn't matter, and it remained officially a city. And Brockton Bay definitely needed the help more than most would-be cities.
The four high schools were also big, even Arcadia and Immaculata. Winslow, and to a lesser degree Clarendon, were massive schools that would still be grossly overcrowded if all the registered students actually showed up. Which they didn't. Again, more so at Winslow than Clarendon, but also at Clarendon. Add in the large number of people who dropped out of high school or never went in the first place, and you had a school system that wasn't actively collapsing under the weight of numbers.
Don't get me wrong, the school system, aside from the mostly privately-funded Arcadia, Immaculata and their junior high and elementary equivalents, was collapsing, but that was more because of the issue of having no budget, an administration that didn't do its job (at least not at Winslow), and with just about everybody giving up on it. Having way too many students was merely an aggravating factor. One of the many, many, aggravating factors. Winslow exemplified all the problems with the system, but it was merely the worst case among many.
Danny didn't want either of us going to Winslow any more (and who could blame him?), which left one of the other three highschools. He might have been able to homeschool one girl, but he certainly couldn't handle two, or even homeschool one while actually paying attention to the other's regular schooling. Not to mention him homeschooling me would be incredibly suspicious. It was already kinda fishy that I was staying here. Child Protective Services hadn't placed me here, after all. Not that they'd done anything about my case.
If this wasn't Brockton Bay, I'd find that deeply suspicious. As it was, I was black (half, anyway, and for some reason that generally counted as much as full despite it not working that way for other races. Not even gonna go into the complicating factors of transdimensional merging, since nobody on this earth knew about it, and the other me's racial heritage was now essentially irrelevant to how I'd be treated) and a refugee, so it wasn't all that surprising that they wouldn't do anything. Not all the xenophobes are in the Empire.
Not that it was impossible that some Empire members worked for the local branch of CPS. That particular toxic ideology was deeply rooted in the bay.
So that left getting into one of the three other high schools in the city. Arcadia would be tricky at best, although there was a possible way around that. Both of us had the junior high grades for the place, but neither of us had gone, for different reasons. Taylor had been offered a scholarship, but had turned it down to stick with her bestest friend, Emma. The one who would repay that decision with betrayal and torment, to be clear. Now her grades, thanks to broad-ranging academic sabotage, weren't good enough for a scholarship. (Although Emma and her ilk sabotaged poor Taylor in a lot of ways it was the academic stuff that was really relevant to the matter of Arcadia.) Actually, her grades probably weren't good enough to get into Arcadia at all, but since she couldn't afford to attend without one it didn't matter anyway. My grades, now and then, were well beyond what was needed, but the scholarships were only available to US citizens, and I wasn't one. Leviathan was and continues to be raw awfulness incarnate. I couldn't even afford to travel to Arcadia, and I don't mean as a daily expense. One bus ride would cost more than I had. Being a homeless orphan sucks.
Immaculata was right out. Not only was it more expensive than Arcadia, despite not being as good a school, it was further away and faith-based in a faith that neither of us had any faith in. They did have an excellent scholarship program, but that was also faith-based, so we didn't qualify. That wasn't actually illegal here, or maybe it was and nobody cared. It would not be even remotely close to the first time illegal discrimination was practiced despite being illegal. On either Earth I had experienced, in point of fact.
Clarendon was mediocre at best, if one was being generous in one's description, and the commute was the longest of the four, but it wasn't Winslow, and that was what was really important. Still there was a way to get into Arcadia. Maybe two, depending on how you looked at it. You see, it was a (probably deliberately) poorly kept secret that the Wards went to Arcadia. So did the New Wave children (aside from Laserdream/ Crystal Pelham, who'd graduated from Arcadia), though they weren't secret. No secret identities and all that. Joining with either group could get them to pull the right levers to get us in.
Naturally, that conversation about what to do with our powers happened a little earlier than planned. What follows covers the results of that conversation fairly well, but do understand the actuality wasn't as neat and tidy.
My plan for myself was what I outlined earlier. Join New Wave, be a healer, mend things one piece at a time. Maybe put my power up for a lot of charity auctions. That'd let me fix things on a much bigger scale than I could do on my own, even if indirectly. Plus, being a model parahuman healer while black and gay would do more to undermine the Empire and their ilk than a dozen warehouse raids. You can't kill an idea with violence. Not if you want society to still be standing afterwards, anyway.
Taylor and Danny were worried about my safety, naturally. Outed capes could be targeted in ways that simply weren't possible if your attacker didn't know your civilian identity. I felt I was less likely to be targeted in my civilian identity if I was known to be a cape, for a number of reasons. My cape identity would be a healer, with a sideline in repair, not somebody going out and picking fights. Healers were extremely valuable, and everybody needed them. Targeting a healer would bring down the wrath of the cape community like very few things could, as long as the healer didn't start things. Attacking somebody in their civilian identity likewise. Nobody had ever done both in the same act, but that would be at least as bad. Meanwhile, my civilian identity was poor, black, young, without legal guardianship, and a lesbian. Any one of those things could easily get me targeted. Put them all together and they were practically a death sentence in a place like Brockton Bay. Put simply, I was safer as a known, open cape with a team than as a civilian. Safer, not safe, I should note. It was very much a matter of relative danger.
My hosts weren't happy about my argument in the slightest, but they did concede the point. Neither of them seemed to take my sexuality as a problem, except for the possibility of being targeted for it, which I was grateful for. You see, I had totally forgotten they hadn't known that about me before. I was bad at secrets. One more reason to go with New Wave rather than, say, the Wards. Plus the Wards had to fight, if only in the least dangerous fights, and I didn't want to. At least I managed to keep being trans to myself. They probably had a right to know, but I'd scout that issue out first. Homosexuality might be almost a non-issue thanks to Legend, but being transgender wasn't all that much more accepted than in the other world circa 2011.
Taylor did want to fight, which made things like ensuring her safety immeasurably more complicated. Apparently I was the odd one out, since most parahumans wanted to fight, but that didn't change the fact that fighting was risky. Wards in other cities got injured in the line of duty about once or twice a year on average, and Brockton Bay was a lot worse. Heroes were outnumbered by villains everywhere, but Brockton Bay had one of the worst ratios. Of the places that actually had heroes, anyway. There were places that didn't, and most of them weren't pretty. And there were a lot more violent non-parahuman criminals as well. Wards here got into fights more often than they did just about anywhere else, and into parahuman fights far more often than their counterparts anywhere else.
Panacea both did and didn't help with that. She made the injuries much less of a concern, but that let the Wards just leap right into the fight without learning anything, and their handlers did not take Ward injuries as seriously as places without a Panacea to lean on. Independents got hurt way more often than Wards, at least the ones who were entirely independent instead of with groups that were independent of the PRT, but not from having support from teammates, like New Wave.
None of the New Wave kids had ever gotten hurt in a fight, at least as far as the public record showed. Still, Danny and I suspected the reasons why none of them had gotten hurt wouldn't apply to Taylor if she joined them.
First off, the existing New Wavers were all family, and they were very used to working together in a way few teams could match. Lots of coordination and familiarity in the most literal sense, both in and out of combat. They had reached a level of group fighting that most Protectorate divisions couldn't match, let alone Wards.
Secondly, all four New Wave kids had powers that meant they were unlikely to get hurt, albeit for different reasons.
Panacea was a healer, safe for pretty much the same reasons I hoped to be. Though if she did get hurt she couldn't heal herself, while my aura was always healing me.
Laserdream was a Blaster, one of the longest ranged ones short of Legend himself, and she didn't need to get anywhere close to a fight. She was also a flyer, so she could avoid fights that didn't have other flyers or similarly long-ranged blasters pretty easily, with or without shooting the participants, and her shields helped a little. It was a very useful combination of abilities.
Shielder was as much a flyer as his sister, though not as fast, and one of the most powerful defensive capes on the east coast. It's easy to not get hurt if you have enough impenetrable forcefields in place, and he was careful and cautious in a fight.
Glory Girl was just plain impossible to actually hurt. She'd gotten into situations where she should have been hurt more than just about any other cape, since anyone who wasn't a major Brute wouldn't survive doing what she did, but nothing got past her invincibility.
Yet.
An awful lot of parahumans had proven to only be invincible until they suddenly weren't, when something finally got past their defenses and killed them. Even Alexandria, the namesake and exemplar of the "Alexandria Package" combination of Flight, Toughness, and Strength that Glory Girl possesed, had lost an eye to the Siberian.
Nobody had found something to get past the Siberian's defenses yet, but an awful lot of people were trying. I couldn't think of anything, but I was hopeful that someone would.
Thirdly, and this one was pure speculation, if any of them besides Panacea (who couldn't heal herself) had gotten hurt, they had the best contender for the position of world's greatest healer living in the same house/a few blocks away.
Only the third of those would apply to Taylor if she joined. Which was still infinitely (figuratively) better than just going out on her own. Still, Panacea couldn't touch brains, and like me, she couldn't fix dead.
Nobody could.
So it fell upon us to prevent death. By any means necessary.
Anyway, that's where the conversation was, dramatic statement and all, when the PRT guys came and very politely took us in for Master/Stranger screening.
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4-5 Interminable
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Master/Stranger screening was boring.
That was probably intentional, since constant new interactions and interesting things would change a person's behaviour and throw off any actual screening, you know? Still, knowing why you needed to be bored didn't make it any less boring. (Okay, it made it a little more tolerable, since I knew they weren't just being mean, but it was still boring).
Something similar applied to why I was in Master/Stranger screening. Knowing why could throw off the results. Presumably. I hadn't actually been told anything. I hadn't asked to be told anything. I knew exactly how dangerous human Masters could be. Or, rather, I didn't. I knew how dangerous Speakeasy was, but Speakeasy wasn't the worst of the bunch, or even anywhere close to it. Maybe Sophia had some sort of Master component to her powers?
On a mostly unrelated note, whoever was running the screening (monotone machine tones didn't convey a lot of information, which I suppose was the point) was probably scratching her head. (I was just guessing about them being a her, in point of fact) I wasn't exactly the ideal M/S screening subject.
They didn't have a baseline model of me. At all. Anyone who could have given them one was dead. The Hebert's might have had an image of my behaviour, but I'd only met them extremely recently, and under deeply unusual circumstances. Nobody could give them an accurate impression of Jacqueline Colere.
Which was probably for the best, since I only sort of acted like her. At least a third of myself was entirely foreign to old Jacqueline, with the rest being either her or the things my two past selves had in common. I think. I have no real way of knowing if "Patron" gave me a few extras. Anyway, having another person shoved into your brain/being shoved into another person's brain was a Master effect, one they had no reasonable way of knowing about, and I should probably keep it that way.
Jacqueline Colere was also known to have been traumatized by a human Master before: Speakeasy had at one point forced/Mastered her/me into his gang/Mastered thralls for a few days. Nothing especially bad, not like Speakeasy had done to far too many others, but bad enough. That couldn't have made the testing easier, even though I'd given them the whole story.
Finally, as far as I know, there were my particular religious practices. That didn't have anything to do with parahuman powers, aside from being from another world and getting shoved into my/Jacqueline's brain, but the issue was confirming that. I was able to claim I'd picked it up back in Newfoundland, where it was only a particularly small religion rather than something only I did. They probably wouldn't find any other Newfoundlanders following that faith, but then there weren't a lot of us left anyways. An exceedingly minor regional faith having only one (or two, counting my mother, who didn't actually follow anything of the sort, but was secular and private enough that such a claim was plausible) faithful survivor(s) after Leviathan would be more notable for having any survivors than for having too few. Still, a disturbing number of Masters had used religion as a screen, so they had to check out pretty much every detail. That took a while, and a lot of explaining on my part, but my obvious enthusiasm at preaching might have made it less unpleasant. Entirely genuine, I assure you. It was exciting spreading the Manifold Paths to a new world. Also, I was really bored otherwise.
Master/Stranger screening was very boring. Earnest discussions on faith and philosophy (the two aren't the same, but they do tend to intermingle) were one of the few exciting things available. Beyond that, not sure what to tell you.
The cell had a fairly spiffy bed, actual good-quality plumbing, and lots of paper and writing implements, along with a few carefully-selected books. I'd slept better than last night. After all, it wasn't someone's fault if they needed to be screened. Probably. Usually. Maybe someone had done some really stupid prank at some point? I could see that happening at least once. Most people who ended up in here weren't at fault, at least. They could just have less nice M/S cells for people who were at fault.
Still, it was a cell, and thus boring. Fresh Air was not to be had. Space to run, even less so. Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring.
Did I mention it was boring? It simply cannot be overstated how boring it was.
They did ask a lot of questions, but I had no context for anything and I can't remember most of them. I did learn something neat about my powers, at least. You see, somebody authorized a Tinker Ward known as Gallant to shoot me with "emotion beams" to see if I'd respond normally, and apparently they couldn't enter my aura. The emotion part, anyway. The physical stuff went through just fine. They checked it by shooting at me, at other people within the aura, and at people who were outside the aura but with the aura between them and him. And probably some other stuff they didn't tell me about. That was the only time I'd left the cell, and the testing room was right next door. Someone was whispering about trying it with other Masters, but I probably wasn't supposed to hear that. I think older people sometimes underestimate just how good young ears are, especially young ears that are in a healing aura 24/7.
Everything else was boring. Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring...
Chanting the word boring over and over a coupla hundred times probably wasn't the most mature response ever, but I was barely fourteen (sort of) and I had to act like a kid sometimes. Much better now than in a crisis. I'm sure it wasn't the first time somebody had done that. M/S had to be boring for everybody. If I was the only one they'd bored like this, somebody was getting an inkpot to the face.
At least it gave me plenty of time to come up with newer and shinier cape names, which the M/S running individual (whoever they were) was kind enough to record for me:
Clockwyrk (funetik spellin kn b kool) (But it can also be annoying, no.)
Clockwork (Kinda boring)
Watchwoman (heh)
Orderly (likewise)
Restorationist (Dull, but it got the point across)
Pax Medicae (Should probably have someone check that latin)
Kindly (that one was probably too sinister, but I did like greek mythology)
Adjuvant (Medical and purely supportive, which was nice. Obscure term, especially over here, but that's not a bad thing)
Mending (Even more on-the-nose than La Mademoiselle de Ma'at, but shorter)
La Restauratrice (Accurate and french, which was nice, but meant restaurant owner as well as a restorer.)
Concordiat (Leans too much on social order, rather than the physical "in working order" I could provide. Apparently there is also a notorious crimelord who goes by "Accord", so no)
Working Order (A bit too masculine)
Patchup (Implies a level of sloppiness I don't possess, could make people uncomfortable)
Fixup (...Better. Technically.)
Stabilité (Prétentieux, non?)
La Réparatrice (C'est bonne?)
The Maiden Resplendent in Brass (This wasn't Exalted) (Hopefully) (Creation was even more broken than this place.) (I really had no desire to see it.)
Orderzone (Something is wrong with that name. I'm not sure what, exactly, but something. No.)
Medic (That's got to be taken. Doesn't really describe what I do all that well, anyway)
Medivac (All the same problems)
Tindalos (I have no explanation. I think I might have confused it with something else, but I have no idea what )
Asclepius (Name of a deity, and mortals taking those never ends well. Also too masculine)
Asmodeus. (No. Just no.)
I think I'm just gonna end this here. Come back and make a decision later.
That was probably intentional, since constant new interactions and interesting things would change a person's behaviour and throw off any actual screening, you know? Still, knowing why you needed to be bored didn't make it any less boring. (Okay, it made it a little more tolerable, since I knew they weren't just being mean, but it was still boring).
Something similar applied to why I was in Master/Stranger screening. Knowing why could throw off the results. Presumably. I hadn't actually been told anything. I hadn't asked to be told anything. I knew exactly how dangerous human Masters could be. Or, rather, I didn't. I knew how dangerous Speakeasy was, but Speakeasy wasn't the worst of the bunch, or even anywhere close to it. Maybe Sophia had some sort of Master component to her powers?
On a mostly unrelated note, whoever was running the screening (monotone machine tones didn't convey a lot of information, which I suppose was the point) was probably scratching her head. (I was just guessing about them being a her, in point of fact) I wasn't exactly the ideal M/S screening subject.
They didn't have a baseline model of me. At all. Anyone who could have given them one was dead. The Hebert's might have had an image of my behaviour, but I'd only met them extremely recently, and under deeply unusual circumstances. Nobody could give them an accurate impression of Jacqueline Colere.
Which was probably for the best, since I only sort of acted like her. At least a third of myself was entirely foreign to old Jacqueline, with the rest being either her or the things my two past selves had in common. I think. I have no real way of knowing if "Patron" gave me a few extras. Anyway, having another person shoved into your brain/being shoved into another person's brain was a Master effect, one they had no reasonable way of knowing about, and I should probably keep it that way.
Jacqueline Colere was also known to have been traumatized by a human Master before: Speakeasy had at one point forced/Mastered her/me into his gang/Mastered thralls for a few days. Nothing especially bad, not like Speakeasy had done to far too many others, but bad enough. That couldn't have made the testing easier, even though I'd given them the whole story.
Finally, as far as I know, there were my particular religious practices. That didn't have anything to do with parahuman powers, aside from being from another world and getting shoved into my/Jacqueline's brain, but the issue was confirming that. I was able to claim I'd picked it up back in Newfoundland, where it was only a particularly small religion rather than something only I did. They probably wouldn't find any other Newfoundlanders following that faith, but then there weren't a lot of us left anyways. An exceedingly minor regional faith having only one (or two, counting my mother, who didn't actually follow anything of the sort, but was secular and private enough that such a claim was plausible) faithful survivor(s) after Leviathan would be more notable for having any survivors than for having too few. Still, a disturbing number of Masters had used religion as a screen, so they had to check out pretty much every detail. That took a while, and a lot of explaining on my part, but my obvious enthusiasm at preaching might have made it less unpleasant. Entirely genuine, I assure you. It was exciting spreading the Manifold Paths to a new world. Also, I was really bored otherwise.
Master/Stranger screening was very boring. Earnest discussions on faith and philosophy (the two aren't the same, but they do tend to intermingle) were one of the few exciting things available. Beyond that, not sure what to tell you.
The cell had a fairly spiffy bed, actual good-quality plumbing, and lots of paper and writing implements, along with a few carefully-selected books. I'd slept better than last night. After all, it wasn't someone's fault if they needed to be screened. Probably. Usually. Maybe someone had done some really stupid prank at some point? I could see that happening at least once. Most people who ended up in here weren't at fault, at least. They could just have less nice M/S cells for people who were at fault.
Still, it was a cell, and thus boring. Fresh Air was not to be had. Space to run, even less so. Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring.
Did I mention it was boring? It simply cannot be overstated how boring it was.
They did ask a lot of questions, but I had no context for anything and I can't remember most of them. I did learn something neat about my powers, at least. You see, somebody authorized a Tinker Ward known as Gallant to shoot me with "emotion beams" to see if I'd respond normally, and apparently they couldn't enter my aura. The emotion part, anyway. The physical stuff went through just fine. They checked it by shooting at me, at other people within the aura, and at people who were outside the aura but with the aura between them and him. And probably some other stuff they didn't tell me about. That was the only time I'd left the cell, and the testing room was right next door. Someone was whispering about trying it with other Masters, but I probably wasn't supposed to hear that. I think older people sometimes underestimate just how good young ears are, especially young ears that are in a healing aura 24/7.
Everything else was boring. Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring...
Chanting the word boring over and over a coupla hundred times probably wasn't the most mature response ever, but I was barely fourteen (sort of) and I had to act like a kid sometimes. Much better now than in a crisis. I'm sure it wasn't the first time somebody had done that. M/S had to be boring for everybody. If I was the only one they'd bored like this, somebody was getting an inkpot to the face.
At least it gave me plenty of time to come up with newer and shinier cape names, which the M/S running individual (whoever they were) was kind enough to record for me:
Clockwyrk (funetik spellin kn b kool) (But it can also be annoying, no.)
Clockwork (Kinda boring)
Watchwoman (heh)
Orderly (likewise)
Restorationist (Dull, but it got the point across)
Pax Medicae (Should probably have someone check that latin)
Kindly (that one was probably too sinister, but I did like greek mythology)
Adjuvant (Medical and purely supportive, which was nice. Obscure term, especially over here, but that's not a bad thing)
Mending (Even more on-the-nose than La Mademoiselle de Ma'at, but shorter)
La Restauratrice (Accurate and french, which was nice, but meant restaurant owner as well as a restorer.)
Concordiat (Leans too much on social order, rather than the physical "in working order" I could provide. Apparently there is also a notorious crimelord who goes by "Accord", so no)
Working Order (A bit too masculine)
Patchup (Implies a level of sloppiness I don't possess, could make people uncomfortable)
Fixup (...Better. Technically.)
Stabilité (Prétentieux, non?)
La Réparatrice (C'est bonne?)
The Maiden Resplendent in Brass (This wasn't Exalted) (Hopefully) (Creation was even more broken than this place.) (I really had no desire to see it.)
Orderzone (Something is wrong with that name. I'm not sure what, exactly, but something. No.)
Medic (That's got to be taken. Doesn't really describe what I do all that well, anyway)
Medivac (All the same problems)
Tindalos (I have no explanation. I think I might have confused it with something else, but I have no idea what )
Asclepius (Name of a deity, and mortals taking those never ends well. Also too masculine)
Asmodeus. (No. Just no.)
I think I'm just gonna end this here. Come back and make a decision later.
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4-6 Inconquerable (Interlude: Emily)
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Emily:
The Master/Stranger results were interesting. In the "may you live in interesting times" sense, wherein "interesting" is a codeword for completely and utterly awful. Like when you've got a medically fascinating terminal disease. That sort of "interesting". Emily Piggot hated that sort of "interesting".
Sophia Hess had apparently reverted to 7th grade. Last thing she remembered before waking up in M/S confinement was being taken by some "scary men" to meet a man in a black bodysuit. A black bodysuit with the bone white snake emblem of Coil emblazoned upon it.
Emma Barnes and Madison Clements had been taken in almost immediately after that little revelation. Clements didn't show any signs of Mastering, or even any unusual behaviour, but Barnes was another story. She'd gone into the same screaming fit almost half an hour before Sophia. Her parents had been transferred to the PRT by a 911 operator a minute or so before the squad showed up at their door, once the different emergency services realized they were interested in the same person. If she was telling the truth, and Armmaster's little scanner had shown she at least thought she was, she'd been "rescued" by Shadow Stalker and then, a week later, been dragged off by Sophia to meet the same man as from Shadow Stalkers' own report. Events after that were "fuzzy", but she'd apparently been ordered to do all sorts of unsavoury things, and done them. She didn't know why. It said something that subjecting her best friend to years of torment and attempted homicide via biohazardous waste was quite possibly not the worst of what she'd been made to do. She could barely remember most of it, but there were glimmers of depravity and torture on a level that made even the seasoned PRT veteran interviewing her shudder. Emily hoped very much that a lot of it was just the fervid imaginings of a girl missing over a year of her life, but the (confirmed) "Locker Incident" didn't give her much hope of that.
Both girls had obviously been Mastered. Coil, or someone doing a very convincing job of mimicking him, had apparently been Mastering the girls for his own twisted amusement.
Emily Piggot was held back from immediately issuing a kill order, at least an internal one, only by the necessity of getting it approved by at least three other Directors and a high-level judge first. She was still pushing for it as fast as possible.
It all seemed pretty clear cut. Sophia Hess and Emma Barnes, along with God knows how many others, had been Mastered by the so-called "minor villain" Coil into doing all sorts of awful things for his amusement. The Mastering had been subtle enough that they just looked like terrible people, rather than the unfortunate Mastering victims they actually were, but Jacqueline Colere's "Clockwork Aura" had interacted with it oddly. Only a few hours after encountering the Aura, which was now known to have anti-Master effects (she'd signed off on testing with Gallant, and Glory Girl's aura had been discovered to be canceled out by Colere's), the girls were free, though seriously messed up. Fortunately Colere herself was cleared of being a Master or being under Master influence, as much as they could clear someone they had no baseline for of being under Master influence, anyway. It'd have to do.
Coil's power appeared to be degenerative, since both known victims had damaged memory, although that could be a side effect of however the Clockwork aura broke the effect. Sophia, who'd been under longer than Emma Barnes, appeared to have no memory of the time she was under the effect at all. She didn't even recognize the name "Shadow Stalker". Unfortunately, that was the least of their problems right now.
Coil had been active for years. It was impossible to know just how many people he'd grabbed, he had dozens of mercenaries who might or might not be under his power, and his limitations were a complete mystery.
Emily Piggot was calling in every favour she could burn and every resource she could draw upon. She'd contacted several other PRT regional directors and a number of Protectorate members, including Dragon. Not much luck so far, but she was confident. Coil had, at a minimum, Mastered a Ward into committing attempted murder, along with sundry other crimes. If some of the glimmers of memory were accurate, he was planning on taking over all of Brockton Bay. If Emily Piggot had her way, he'd never see the sun rise again. That wasn't likely, but she hoped he wouldn't see May.
Some of the pieces she needed were already on the board. Colere would be immensely valuable in any anti-Master operation, and she was almost absurdly pliable. Piggot wasn't going to complain about getting lucky there. Jacqueline was almost certain to go along with whatever Emily needed her to do.
Taylor Hebert wasn't, but she'd have excellent reasons to go after Coil once Emily revealed the truth to her. And the despicable negligence of her underlings could be pinned on the [blaggard] as well. That wouldn't save them from Emily, but it would save the rest of the division. Taylor Hebert also had an immensely useful power, insect Mastery, with enough fine control and awareness to find wherever Coil was hiding. That hadn't been a pleasant discovery to make, but it paled in comparison to Coil. Taylor Hebert was going to help catch the [blaggard].
Emily wasn't about to give in. No [funtime] cape who thought his powers put him above the law would ever conquer her city. Emily Piggot was determined.
[REDACTED] :
A certain ridiculous letter was not, in point of fact, found solely in two copies. Rather, there were three copies, identical in content, but not in purpose. The first was merely what it appeared to be, a device for letting a certain individual know what was going on. Not that it did all that good a job, but intended purposes and what actually ends up happening are not synonyms.
The second and third were a little different. In purpose, if not in substance. Like the first, they would have no effect on those who hadn't been exposed to them. Unlike the first, no one who read them was meant to understand that they were real, as opposed to being some jape or roleplay aid. There was another effect to the second and third, and technically to the first, though with the first it would probably never come up. That effect's nature was something in the line of an oxidizer composition in a binary explosive, something without effect until it encountered a catalyst. Some people would be affected, since a certain something about them acted as a perfect catalyst. For everyone else, the effect was negligible at most, but for those who were affected, the result was something like a binary compound, conceptually similar to Tannerite. Like Tannerite, it would remain inert until something triggered the explosion. Like a high-velocity bullet, or a certain parahuman's aura rearranging certain things into a more orderly state. At that point, or technically a cosmically insignificant amount of time after that point, boom. Then they were vulnerable.
All according to plan.
The Master/Stranger results were interesting. In the "may you live in interesting times" sense, wherein "interesting" is a codeword for completely and utterly awful. Like when you've got a medically fascinating terminal disease. That sort of "interesting". Emily Piggot hated that sort of "interesting".
Sophia Hess had apparently reverted to 7th grade. Last thing she remembered before waking up in M/S confinement was being taken by some "scary men" to meet a man in a black bodysuit. A black bodysuit with the bone white snake emblem of Coil emblazoned upon it.
Emma Barnes and Madison Clements had been taken in almost immediately after that little revelation. Clements didn't show any signs of Mastering, or even any unusual behaviour, but Barnes was another story. She'd gone into the same screaming fit almost half an hour before Sophia. Her parents had been transferred to the PRT by a 911 operator a minute or so before the squad showed up at their door, once the different emergency services realized they were interested in the same person. If she was telling the truth, and Armmaster's little scanner had shown she at least thought she was, she'd been "rescued" by Shadow Stalker and then, a week later, been dragged off by Sophia to meet the same man as from Shadow Stalkers' own report. Events after that were "fuzzy", but she'd apparently been ordered to do all sorts of unsavoury things, and done them. She didn't know why. It said something that subjecting her best friend to years of torment and attempted homicide via biohazardous waste was quite possibly not the worst of what she'd been made to do. She could barely remember most of it, but there were glimmers of depravity and torture on a level that made even the seasoned PRT veteran interviewing her shudder. Emily hoped very much that a lot of it was just the fervid imaginings of a girl missing over a year of her life, but the (confirmed) "Locker Incident" didn't give her much hope of that.
Both girls had obviously been Mastered. Coil, or someone doing a very convincing job of mimicking him, had apparently been Mastering the girls for his own twisted amusement.
Emily Piggot was held back from immediately issuing a kill order, at least an internal one, only by the necessity of getting it approved by at least three other Directors and a high-level judge first. She was still pushing for it as fast as possible.
It all seemed pretty clear cut. Sophia Hess and Emma Barnes, along with God knows how many others, had been Mastered by the so-called "minor villain" Coil into doing all sorts of awful things for his amusement. The Mastering had been subtle enough that they just looked like terrible people, rather than the unfortunate Mastering victims they actually were, but Jacqueline Colere's "Clockwork Aura" had interacted with it oddly. Only a few hours after encountering the Aura, which was now known to have anti-Master effects (she'd signed off on testing with Gallant, and Glory Girl's aura had been discovered to be canceled out by Colere's), the girls were free, though seriously messed up. Fortunately Colere herself was cleared of being a Master or being under Master influence, as much as they could clear someone they had no baseline for of being under Master influence, anyway. It'd have to do.
Coil's power appeared to be degenerative, since both known victims had damaged memory, although that could be a side effect of however the Clockwork aura broke the effect. Sophia, who'd been under longer than Emma Barnes, appeared to have no memory of the time she was under the effect at all. She didn't even recognize the name "Shadow Stalker". Unfortunately, that was the least of their problems right now.
Coil had been active for years. It was impossible to know just how many people he'd grabbed, he had dozens of mercenaries who might or might not be under his power, and his limitations were a complete mystery.
Emily Piggot was calling in every favour she could burn and every resource she could draw upon. She'd contacted several other PRT regional directors and a number of Protectorate members, including Dragon. Not much luck so far, but she was confident. Coil had, at a minimum, Mastered a Ward into committing attempted murder, along with sundry other crimes. If some of the glimmers of memory were accurate, he was planning on taking over all of Brockton Bay. If Emily Piggot had her way, he'd never see the sun rise again. That wasn't likely, but she hoped he wouldn't see May.
Some of the pieces she needed were already on the board. Colere would be immensely valuable in any anti-Master operation, and she was almost absurdly pliable. Piggot wasn't going to complain about getting lucky there. Jacqueline was almost certain to go along with whatever Emily needed her to do.
Taylor Hebert wasn't, but she'd have excellent reasons to go after Coil once Emily revealed the truth to her. And the despicable negligence of her underlings could be pinned on the [blaggard] as well. That wouldn't save them from Emily, but it would save the rest of the division. Taylor Hebert also had an immensely useful power, insect Mastery, with enough fine control and awareness to find wherever Coil was hiding. That hadn't been a pleasant discovery to make, but it paled in comparison to Coil. Taylor Hebert was going to help catch the [blaggard].
Emily wasn't about to give in. No [funtime] cape who thought his powers put him above the law would ever conquer her city. Emily Piggot was determined.
[REDACTED] :
A certain ridiculous letter was not, in point of fact, found solely in two copies. Rather, there were three copies, identical in content, but not in purpose. The first was merely what it appeared to be, a device for letting a certain individual know what was going on. Not that it did all that good a job, but intended purposes and what actually ends up happening are not synonyms.
The second and third were a little different. In purpose, if not in substance. Like the first, they would have no effect on those who hadn't been exposed to them. Unlike the first, no one who read them was meant to understand that they were real, as opposed to being some jape or roleplay aid. There was another effect to the second and third, and technically to the first, though with the first it would probably never come up. That effect's nature was something in the line of an oxidizer composition in a binary explosive, something without effect until it encountered a catalyst. Some people would be affected, since a certain something about them acted as a perfect catalyst. For everyone else, the effect was negligible at most, but for those who were affected, the result was something like a binary compound, conceptually similar to Tannerite. Like Tannerite, it would remain inert until something triggered the explosion. Like a high-velocity bullet, or a certain parahuman's aura rearranging certain things into a more orderly state. At that point, or technically a cosmically insignificant amount of time after that point, boom. Then they were vulnerable.
All according to plan.
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- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well remember that Patron, unlike Jacqueline, seems to have actually read the story. That means path to victory is hardly necessary for this kind of plan.
Jacqueline's power is just the aura, although not everything about the aura has been shown yet.
5-1 Introductions
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I was rather surprised that Director Piggot came to let me out of Master/Stranger confinement herself. Not as surprised as I was at the deathly serious expression frozen on her face though. Something was obviously up.
The Master/Stranger confinement might also have hinted at that possibility.
Just maybe.
I revert to cold understatement in times of awe. Inside my head of course. On the outside I looked the very picture of solemnity and careful consideration.
Okay, fine. I looked like a cute little kid trying to look the very picture of solemnity and careful consideration. I didn't even look my body's age. I was freaking adorable. The mirror in the meeting room the director ushered me into showed that very clearly. Not that I was going to let on that I knew I didn't actually look solemn. It was a lot better for the image I was trying to project that way.
Sometimes I have trouble keeping up with all the little games of image I'm playing, but they are my main advantage and my main relevant skillset. I am, after all, just one person, with an incredibly useful ability that is still steeply limited in scope, and no particular skill at or useful powers for combat or evasion. Image is my best defense and my best tool for achieving my goals.
Parahuman powers can let someone do a lot, but the reputation, the raw archetypical force of personality, that parahumans tend to accumulate (whether they want to or not) spreads far beyond them. For example, Lung's raw power wasn't what kept the ABB untouchable. He couldn't be everywhere, after all. No, the fear of Lung was the sword that kept his enemies at bay. New Wave was meant to be a shining beacon of transparency and openness, and if they'd succeeded at that the world would look very different today. The Empire's PR game was disturbingly good for a bunch of self-described Nazis, which was a big part of why they still existed. My own PR game was aimed at them first and foremost.
Nothing undermines bigotry, or at least the more pervasive, subtler, kind, better than a paragon of society being part of the "inferior" group. Look at what Legend had done for gay rights without lifting a finger in that direction. Didn't do much to persuade the bitter hardcore, but without the support, tacit or otherwise, of the broader population, they became a lot less effective. Even the Empire didn't get too loud about the subject. They were still vile bigots in that direction, mind you, but not enough people agreed with them and too many disagreed for them to advertise the fact. Beyond the advertising of the fact implicit in openly being Nazis, anyway.
Hopefully something similar would work for me. I was pretty much everything the Empire hated (I wasn't Jewish) (I wasn't Romani, either, or Eastern European, but unlike the original generation Nazis the Empire didn't really care), and I would be standing tall as a veritable, and adorable, pillar of society. That'd gum up their works right quick if I had anything to say about it, and what were they gonna do about it? Complain about someone doing the right thing when their stereotypes said they'd do otherwise? If they did that, or if they struck at me for it it'd just make them look worse.
"I like your attitude kid, but right now we have a crisis on our hands" a familiar voice startled me out of my revelry. The director was talking to me!
Director Emily Piggot looked amused for a fraction of a second, then resumed that impressive iron-hard solemnity. Like she wanted to tousle my hair but now really wasn't the time. The situation must be very serious.
Not serious enough to stop me asking myself "How long was I talking?" though. It probably should have stopped me, but it didn't.
"From 'I am pretty much everything the Empire hates'" said another familiar voice, this one with a teasing tone. The man in the red-everything costume was right behind me, and I hadn't noticed. He actually did tousle my hair, and his expression was light.
Probably had as much idea of what was going on as I did, but with less ability to notice that impressive seriousness. Either that or he was a massive goofball even in the face of something able to scare even the hardened veteran director. It could honestly go either way. I really am not as sure about the matter as I was at the start of this paragraph.
Assault was kind enough to introduce everybody who came in after him, even when he didn't know who they were. In hindsight, "kind" may not have been the right word for that. Irreverent, maybe.
Assault was irreverent enough to introduce everybody who came in after him:
"Armsmaster, Head of the Protectorate East North East and my other boss. No sense of humor, may actually be a robot."
"Puppy, occasionally known as Battery, my partner and fellow member of the Protectorate East North East."
"Triumph. The new kid in the Protectorate in these here parts, just recently promoted up from the Wards. Don't ever give him a reason to shout at you"
"A kid in a standard issue full-face mask. Don't recognize her" That was Taylor. The hug she gave me was brief, but appreciated.
"Velocity. The fastest man alive, except not really. A sort of discount fastest man alive."
"Paul Renick, Piggot's deputy director. Boring."
"Commander Awesome. That's his real name. He's not a cape, just a guy whose last name is Awesome and who is a PRT commander. He's the one directly in charge of the PRT Troopers."
"His name isn't Awesome, Assault. It barely even sounds like Awesome. Shawson isn't that hard to remember. And he's only in charge of some of them." scolded Assault's oddly named partner. What kind of cape name is "Puppy", anyway?
"Don't take this away from me, Puppy!"
"Some guy." I didn't recognize him either. He was droning on to some poor unfortunate over the phone, in a tone that sounded pretty much exactly like Mr. Golem's. Guess there were two extraordinarily boring people in town.
"Some other guy" That was Danny. He patted me on the head, which was nice.
"Dauntless. Really, really boring guy, but he's a good hero"
"Mara Sorrows, the local M/S expert. Sort of. They cycle around pretty often. It's a security precaution. That's not her real name, all the M/S experts get assigned pseudonyms by Watchdog. That's also a security precaution"
"Gallant, one of our most promising Wards. Sometimes he even keeps those promises."
That last half was done in a stage whisper. Sort of like what Danny was doing about 15 reports ago, but faking whispering rather than restraining shouting.
"Miss Militia, the woman with all the guns, deputy head of the branch. Wow, that's all of us. Piggot must be having a real conniption about whatever this is."
"Yes." said Piggot, sitting at the head of the table, well within hearing range. "Sit down, Assault."
"Activate seclusion protocols by my authority. Access code:THISISTOTTALYNOTAREALACCESSCODENOWAYIAMGOINGTOSHARERESTRICTEDPRTACCESSCODESWITHALLANDSUNDRYITISMORETHANBADENOUGHTHATIHAVETOREVEALASMUCHASIDOPATRONISAJERKYJERKOFAJERK"
That's when the door, floor, ceiling and all the walls (there were no windows) suddenly had steel shutters slide over them. Within a minute, we were all trapped in a metal box. Nobody was visibly panicking, but pretty much everybody looked confused. Everyone except Piggot, Sorrows, and Armsmaster.
What in the worlds was going on here?
The Master/Stranger confinement might also have hinted at that possibility.
Just maybe.
I revert to cold understatement in times of awe. Inside my head of course. On the outside I looked the very picture of solemnity and careful consideration.
Okay, fine. I looked like a cute little kid trying to look the very picture of solemnity and careful consideration. I didn't even look my body's age. I was freaking adorable. The mirror in the meeting room the director ushered me into showed that very clearly. Not that I was going to let on that I knew I didn't actually look solemn. It was a lot better for the image I was trying to project that way.
Sometimes I have trouble keeping up with all the little games of image I'm playing, but they are my main advantage and my main relevant skillset. I am, after all, just one person, with an incredibly useful ability that is still steeply limited in scope, and no particular skill at or useful powers for combat or evasion. Image is my best defense and my best tool for achieving my goals.
Parahuman powers can let someone do a lot, but the reputation, the raw archetypical force of personality, that parahumans tend to accumulate (whether they want to or not) spreads far beyond them. For example, Lung's raw power wasn't what kept the ABB untouchable. He couldn't be everywhere, after all. No, the fear of Lung was the sword that kept his enemies at bay. New Wave was meant to be a shining beacon of transparency and openness, and if they'd succeeded at that the world would look very different today. The Empire's PR game was disturbingly good for a bunch of self-described Nazis, which was a big part of why they still existed. My own PR game was aimed at them first and foremost.
Nothing undermines bigotry, or at least the more pervasive, subtler, kind, better than a paragon of society being part of the "inferior" group. Look at what Legend had done for gay rights without lifting a finger in that direction. Didn't do much to persuade the bitter hardcore, but without the support, tacit or otherwise, of the broader population, they became a lot less effective. Even the Empire didn't get too loud about the subject. They were still vile bigots in that direction, mind you, but not enough people agreed with them and too many disagreed for them to advertise the fact. Beyond the advertising of the fact implicit in openly being Nazis, anyway.
Hopefully something similar would work for me. I was pretty much everything the Empire hated (I wasn't Jewish) (I wasn't Romani, either, or Eastern European, but unlike the original generation Nazis the Empire didn't really care), and I would be standing tall as a veritable, and adorable, pillar of society. That'd gum up their works right quick if I had anything to say about it, and what were they gonna do about it? Complain about someone doing the right thing when their stereotypes said they'd do otherwise? If they did that, or if they struck at me for it it'd just make them look worse.
"I like your attitude kid, but right now we have a crisis on our hands" a familiar voice startled me out of my revelry. The director was talking to me!
Director Emily Piggot looked amused for a fraction of a second, then resumed that impressive iron-hard solemnity. Like she wanted to tousle my hair but now really wasn't the time. The situation must be very serious.
Not serious enough to stop me asking myself "How long was I talking?" though. It probably should have stopped me, but it didn't.
"From 'I am pretty much everything the Empire hates'" said another familiar voice, this one with a teasing tone. The man in the red-everything costume was right behind me, and I hadn't noticed. He actually did tousle my hair, and his expression was light.
Probably had as much idea of what was going on as I did, but with less ability to notice that impressive seriousness. Either that or he was a massive goofball even in the face of something able to scare even the hardened veteran director. It could honestly go either way. I really am not as sure about the matter as I was at the start of this paragraph.
Assault was kind enough to introduce everybody who came in after him, even when he didn't know who they were. In hindsight, "kind" may not have been the right word for that. Irreverent, maybe.
Assault was irreverent enough to introduce everybody who came in after him:
"Armsmaster, Head of the Protectorate East North East and my other boss. No sense of humor, may actually be a robot."
"Puppy, occasionally known as Battery, my partner and fellow member of the Protectorate East North East."
"Triumph. The new kid in the Protectorate in these here parts, just recently promoted up from the Wards. Don't ever give him a reason to shout at you"
"A kid in a standard issue full-face mask. Don't recognize her" That was Taylor. The hug she gave me was brief, but appreciated.
"Velocity. The fastest man alive, except not really. A sort of discount fastest man alive."
"Paul Renick, Piggot's deputy director. Boring."
"Commander Awesome. That's his real name. He's not a cape, just a guy whose last name is Awesome and who is a PRT commander. He's the one directly in charge of the PRT Troopers."
"His name isn't Awesome, Assault. It barely even sounds like Awesome. Shawson isn't that hard to remember. And he's only in charge of some of them." scolded Assault's oddly named partner. What kind of cape name is "Puppy", anyway?
"Don't take this away from me, Puppy!"
"Some guy." I didn't recognize him either. He was droning on to some poor unfortunate over the phone, in a tone that sounded pretty much exactly like Mr. Golem's. Guess there were two extraordinarily boring people in town.
"Some other guy" That was Danny. He patted me on the head, which was nice.
"Dauntless. Really, really boring guy, but he's a good hero"
"Mara Sorrows, the local M/S expert. Sort of. They cycle around pretty often. It's a security precaution. That's not her real name, all the M/S experts get assigned pseudonyms by Watchdog. That's also a security precaution"
"Gallant, one of our most promising Wards. Sometimes he even keeps those promises."
That last half was done in a stage whisper. Sort of like what Danny was doing about 15 reports ago, but faking whispering rather than restraining shouting.
"Miss Militia, the woman with all the guns, deputy head of the branch. Wow, that's all of us. Piggot must be having a real conniption about whatever this is."
"Yes." said Piggot, sitting at the head of the table, well within hearing range. "Sit down, Assault."
"Activate seclusion protocols by my authority. Access code:THISISTOTTALYNOTAREALACCESSCODENOWAYIAMGOINGTOSHARERESTRICTEDPRTACCESSCODESWITHALLANDSUNDRYITISMORETHANBADENOUGHTHATIHAVETOREVEALASMUCHASIDOPATRONISAJERKYJERKOFAJERK"
That's when the door, floor, ceiling and all the walls (there were no windows) suddenly had steel shutters slide over them. Within a minute, we were all trapped in a metal box. Nobody was visibly panicking, but pretty much everybody looked confused. Everyone except Piggot, Sorrows, and Armsmaster.
What in the worlds was going on here?
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5-2 Insidious
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well this could turn into a right proper mess real quick.
Scratch that.
This was already a right proper mess. It simply also had the potential to turn into a much, much bigger mess. This was already the kind of mess that ruined lives and shattered souls. Worst case scenario, apply that same kind of damage to the entire city. I'm pretty sure I know why I was sent to the time and place I was.
I should probably explain. Let me start at the beginning.
So, remember Coil?
The so-called "small-timer" with the small but well-trained and extremely well equipped troops?
The one I'd thought was a much bigger threat than he appeared to be because he was obviously competent (or well-advised) and in possession of some truly impressive resources?
That guy.
Well, it turns out he's a lot scarier than I thought he was. Given how scary I'd thought he was, that was saying something.
Okay, that's not actually explaining. I think the situation merits a little panicked rambling, but it's not helping. This isn't my information, by the way. I'm mostly going off what the Director explained to everybody. She was so calm and in control, and it was really inspiring, but not enough to make me not afraid, and everybody else was taking it really well. Even Taylor. Cool as a cucumber. That's my girl. Still takes a licking and keeps on ticking, even though I'm still the one who resembles a Rolex.
So it all started back in Winslow's bathroom.
I hadn't been aware of it, but Sophia and Emma had apparently been exposed to my aura. Not a lot of my aura, but it seems they didn't need to be exposed to a lot of my aura.
Several hours later, they'd both had (pseudo-)psychological breakdowns and started screaming. Believe it or not, this was actually a good thing. Fevers are an immune response to subtler diseases, and apparently screaming, raving, breakdowns are an immune response to mind-shattering Master powers.
Piggot and Sorrows concluded, and after hearing their reasons I agreed, that my aura's already Gallant-tested anti-Master properties extended to this effect. Incidentally, that's why they tested my Aura with Gallant. One common thread between the shattering of the Master effect on both victims at nearly the same time was that they'd both met me for the first time that lunch hour, which was enough for them to suspect something. New powers often had unforseen elements, after all.
Both victims remembered just enough to point to the Master: Coil. Neither remembered much else, although Sophia was apparently worse off. Poor girl couldn't remember anything past the middle of 7th grade. Seems however that psycho's power works it hinders and destroys memories formed while under its effects.
And I use the word "psycho" advisedly. Sophia apparently had no idea what they'd done to Taylor while under his influence, and Emma only had a few glimpses and a lot of horrible feelings about it. Since they'd been under his control, Coil was the obvious person to blame for the "harmless schoolyard teasing". Maybe the sole person responsible, maybe just the main driving force, but either way it was highly disturbing. Sophia was apparently actually a very nice, if deeply confused, individual, and I'd always had a hard time believing someone would actually betray their best friend, their sister in all but blood, for no reason. Although that deeply held belief hadn't really come up all that often before what happened to Taylor was revealed. A Master being behind it made much more sense, though it was no less infuriating.
Taylor was stoic, but I leaned over and held her anyway. Danny was already doing that, so good on him.
Discovering Sophia Hess was a member of the Wards would be extremely concerning under normal circumstances, but frankly that little tidbit wasn't anywhere near as bad as the rest of what I was learning. Plus a clever Master/Stranger of Coil's apparent level could conceal horrible behaviour in any number of ways, so it made sense that they didn't know anything about the bullying until I came to them.
I'd made my concerns about Coil's resources and apparent competence heard when his name was brought up for the first time ("What do you know about Coil?"). They seemed to respect my analysis, and it was pretty impressive for my apparent age, but I'd severely underestimated the problem. Coil did have all that, yes, and that was bad enough, but he also had an unknown number of Mastered victims, probably supplemented with willing, conventionally coerced or unknowing servants if he was smart (and we knew he was), and at least one victim (Sophia) who'd had access to classified information. And we had no idea where his base was. Or how to find it. Or anywhere near enough about him in any number of areas.
How did he apply his power? How many people could he have under it at any given time? How quickly could he grab and process victims? Who would he target? Sophia had been a Ward eventually, apparently on probation for a crime it was looking like Coil was really the one to blame for, but she'd been grabbed well before that. It wasn't even clear if she'd had powers when she'd been grabbed.
Either possibility was disturbing, for entirely different reasons. Either Coil could identify new triggers well before anybody else, before they'd actually done anything with their powers, and had grabbed a potentially useful parahuman, or he was enough of a psycho to grab a random girl, give her powers (and nobody would tell me how that worked, but it was apparently awful) and force her to act like an antisocial bully/horrifyingly violent vigilante. Either would be a massive problem, and since we didn't know which was the case, we had to plan for both. Or at least try to. If he was a psycho we'd just have to take him down fast, and, if he had information on new parahumans, the PRT didn't have that information, so they couldn't move to protect people. So we really couldn't plan for either. That being said, all was not lost, the forces of law and order still had some tricks left, and Coil didn't know that we knew about him.
And now for the really important part of the meeting: The Plan. Saying it like that, in the way that I've translated to writing with the expedients of italics, big thick letters, a colon, and capitalization, made it seem more real, more solid, and more like something that would actually work. Dramatics may be insubstantial, but they work.
Most of the Protectorate, and all the Wards except Gallant (and Sophia, presumably), would be showing the flag, making a series of flashy patrols, raids, PR events, and similar attention-grabbing moves. An obvious crackdown, one that would deliberately leave Coil and his operations entirely untouched, not to mention being largely ineffectual and unsustainable in the long term. But they didn't need to actually accomplish anything. It'd draw attention away from the shadow war and keep the big gangs from taking advantage of the chaos to come, and it would look like the heroes were ignoring Coil to all and sundry.
Taylor, who had apparently told the PRT about her powers at some point (I honestly have no idea when that happened), would be tasked to search for Coil's base and other assets. There was a lot more said about the matter than that, but I was honestly just holding her to prevent her breaking down and screaming in all-consuming rage. Not that she didn't deserve a chance to rant, but it wouldn't help the situation.
Gallant and I would be working together, hunting moles, along with Sorrows and Armsmaster. Technically, Piggot had zero authority to make me do anything (though she could order me not to do something, especially if it was illegal), but I trusted her judgement, and so did everybody else. Except maybe Danny and Taylor. I had no idea what he was thinking. Taylor had her usual authority issues, but that was only to be expected. All the others were used to working under her, so that meant they trusted her.
The plan was simple: Sorrows would go into PRT meetings, either normal meetings or ones set up for the purpose, and spin a tale about an out-of-town Master coming into town and how all PRT employees needed to take a short M/S examination or take a leave of absence. After anyone who wouldn't left, and everybody else had been moved to a secure room (or the shutters came down), I'd hit them with my aura at full blast, then she'd explain everything about Coil. That'd normally be very illegal, since they wouldn't give consent or even know it would happen until after it did happen, but the director could authorize it under the auspices of Master Stranger screening, and she had already filled out the paperwork. During all that Gallant, who could apparently see as well as shoot emotions, would check their emotional responses, to detect anything suspicious. Tinkers really can do anything. Armsmaster, who had a Tinkertech lie detector built into his helmet, would question everybody. Hopefully, that'd get all the moles without Coil catching wise. Though I was asked to hit everyone at the meeting just in case. Nobody objected.
I closed my eyes and focused inwards, focusing my fury at Coil's actions and my fear into an all-consuming need to overcome his efforts, to undo all the evil that had been done. Skin changed to brass, glimmering as if under the noonday sun. Pupil and Iris were swept away, to be replaced with the exacting precision of perfect clocks as my eyes opened again. The steady sound of ticking filled the air. Phantom cogwheels churned in perfect order. Gouges and scrapes disappeared in short order. All the aches of being cooped up in a cell waned. Dozens of minor imperfections in the furniture, walls, floor and ceiling were corrected. Then, once again, the aura faded as I released it, and the world was mundane and imperfect once more.
Nobody broke down screaming. Everybody was just a bit astonished at what'd just happened, but apparently nobody was under Coil's power. That was a relief. Unless it always took time before the breakdown happened, regardless of the amount of aura exposure, but I was sure the Director had thought of that. Piggot still had everybody explicitly deny working for or cooperating with Coil in any way shape or form, while Armsmaster's helmet was looking at them. It was pretty obvious why. She even made Armsmaster give his helmet to Miss Militia and make the statement to her. It was fortunate he had an under-helmet mask on, but apparently he was prepared for everything.
I just bet in the original story none of this would be revealed until something ridiculously tragic had happened. Maybe Taylor killed Emma after her friend-turned-unwilling-tormentor was forced to do something even more horrible than the locker, only to learn far too late that none of it was Emma's fault. That seems like the sort of ridiculously horrible thing that would fit into this universe. Maybe Sophia acted like a psycho cause of his influence at the worst possible time and the whole city was destroyed by an Endbringer. Maybe Taylor tried to join the Wards, Sophia was there, and the resulting mutual breakdown ended up with way too many people dead. Maybe some other thrall did something and started a massively destructive gang war that went way out of hand. Maybe all of the above. This was supposed to be a "ridiculously depressing" story, after all. Hopefully I'd stopped all that.
Then Taylor, Danny and I were released, along with Gallant. From the room anyway, I wasn't supposed to leave the building. I'd have to stay here for a while, and there were apparently other things to be discussed. Probably the homeless orphan thing. I just know that's gonna come up again. Not like my parents are gonna come back to life.
Scratch that.
This was already a right proper mess. It simply also had the potential to turn into a much, much bigger mess. This was already the kind of mess that ruined lives and shattered souls. Worst case scenario, apply that same kind of damage to the entire city. I'm pretty sure I know why I was sent to the time and place I was.
I should probably explain. Let me start at the beginning.
So, remember Coil?
The so-called "small-timer" with the small but well-trained and extremely well equipped troops?
The one I'd thought was a much bigger threat than he appeared to be because he was obviously competent (or well-advised) and in possession of some truly impressive resources?
That guy.
Well, it turns out he's a lot scarier than I thought he was. Given how scary I'd thought he was, that was saying something.
Okay, that's not actually explaining. I think the situation merits a little panicked rambling, but it's not helping. This isn't my information, by the way. I'm mostly going off what the Director explained to everybody. She was so calm and in control, and it was really inspiring, but not enough to make me not afraid, and everybody else was taking it really well. Even Taylor. Cool as a cucumber. That's my girl. Still takes a licking and keeps on ticking, even though I'm still the one who resembles a Rolex.
So it all started back in Winslow's bathroom.
I hadn't been aware of it, but Sophia and Emma had apparently been exposed to my aura. Not a lot of my aura, but it seems they didn't need to be exposed to a lot of my aura.
Several hours later, they'd both had (pseudo-)psychological breakdowns and started screaming. Believe it or not, this was actually a good thing. Fevers are an immune response to subtler diseases, and apparently screaming, raving, breakdowns are an immune response to mind-shattering Master powers.
Piggot and Sorrows concluded, and after hearing their reasons I agreed, that my aura's already Gallant-tested anti-Master properties extended to this effect. Incidentally, that's why they tested my Aura with Gallant. One common thread between the shattering of the Master effect on both victims at nearly the same time was that they'd both met me for the first time that lunch hour, which was enough for them to suspect something. New powers often had unforseen elements, after all.
Both victims remembered just enough to point to the Master: Coil. Neither remembered much else, although Sophia was apparently worse off. Poor girl couldn't remember anything past the middle of 7th grade. Seems however that psycho's power works it hinders and destroys memories formed while under its effects.
And I use the word "psycho" advisedly. Sophia apparently had no idea what they'd done to Taylor while under his influence, and Emma only had a few glimpses and a lot of horrible feelings about it. Since they'd been under his control, Coil was the obvious person to blame for the "harmless schoolyard teasing". Maybe the sole person responsible, maybe just the main driving force, but either way it was highly disturbing. Sophia was apparently actually a very nice, if deeply confused, individual, and I'd always had a hard time believing someone would actually betray their best friend, their sister in all but blood, for no reason. Although that deeply held belief hadn't really come up all that often before what happened to Taylor was revealed. A Master being behind it made much more sense, though it was no less infuriating.
Taylor was stoic, but I leaned over and held her anyway. Danny was already doing that, so good on him.
Discovering Sophia Hess was a member of the Wards would be extremely concerning under normal circumstances, but frankly that little tidbit wasn't anywhere near as bad as the rest of what I was learning. Plus a clever Master/Stranger of Coil's apparent level could conceal horrible behaviour in any number of ways, so it made sense that they didn't know anything about the bullying until I came to them.
I'd made my concerns about Coil's resources and apparent competence heard when his name was brought up for the first time ("What do you know about Coil?"). They seemed to respect my analysis, and it was pretty impressive for my apparent age, but I'd severely underestimated the problem. Coil did have all that, yes, and that was bad enough, but he also had an unknown number of Mastered victims, probably supplemented with willing, conventionally coerced or unknowing servants if he was smart (and we knew he was), and at least one victim (Sophia) who'd had access to classified information. And we had no idea where his base was. Or how to find it. Or anywhere near enough about him in any number of areas.
How did he apply his power? How many people could he have under it at any given time? How quickly could he grab and process victims? Who would he target? Sophia had been a Ward eventually, apparently on probation for a crime it was looking like Coil was really the one to blame for, but she'd been grabbed well before that. It wasn't even clear if she'd had powers when she'd been grabbed.
Either possibility was disturbing, for entirely different reasons. Either Coil could identify new triggers well before anybody else, before they'd actually done anything with their powers, and had grabbed a potentially useful parahuman, or he was enough of a psycho to grab a random girl, give her powers (and nobody would tell me how that worked, but it was apparently awful) and force her to act like an antisocial bully/horrifyingly violent vigilante. Either would be a massive problem, and since we didn't know which was the case, we had to plan for both. Or at least try to. If he was a psycho we'd just have to take him down fast, and, if he had information on new parahumans, the PRT didn't have that information, so they couldn't move to protect people. So we really couldn't plan for either. That being said, all was not lost, the forces of law and order still had some tricks left, and Coil didn't know that we knew about him.
And now for the really important part of the meeting: The Plan. Saying it like that, in the way that I've translated to writing with the expedients of italics, big thick letters, a colon, and capitalization, made it seem more real, more solid, and more like something that would actually work. Dramatics may be insubstantial, but they work.
Most of the Protectorate, and all the Wards except Gallant (and Sophia, presumably), would be showing the flag, making a series of flashy patrols, raids, PR events, and similar attention-grabbing moves. An obvious crackdown, one that would deliberately leave Coil and his operations entirely untouched, not to mention being largely ineffectual and unsustainable in the long term. But they didn't need to actually accomplish anything. It'd draw attention away from the shadow war and keep the big gangs from taking advantage of the chaos to come, and it would look like the heroes were ignoring Coil to all and sundry.
Taylor, who had apparently told the PRT about her powers at some point (I honestly have no idea when that happened), would be tasked to search for Coil's base and other assets. There was a lot more said about the matter than that, but I was honestly just holding her to prevent her breaking down and screaming in all-consuming rage. Not that she didn't deserve a chance to rant, but it wouldn't help the situation.
Gallant and I would be working together, hunting moles, along with Sorrows and Armsmaster. Technically, Piggot had zero authority to make me do anything (though she could order me not to do something, especially if it was illegal), but I trusted her judgement, and so did everybody else. Except maybe Danny and Taylor. I had no idea what he was thinking. Taylor had her usual authority issues, but that was only to be expected. All the others were used to working under her, so that meant they trusted her.
The plan was simple: Sorrows would go into PRT meetings, either normal meetings or ones set up for the purpose, and spin a tale about an out-of-town Master coming into town and how all PRT employees needed to take a short M/S examination or take a leave of absence. After anyone who wouldn't left, and everybody else had been moved to a secure room (or the shutters came down), I'd hit them with my aura at full blast, then she'd explain everything about Coil. That'd normally be very illegal, since they wouldn't give consent or even know it would happen until after it did happen, but the director could authorize it under the auspices of Master Stranger screening, and she had already filled out the paperwork. During all that Gallant, who could apparently see as well as shoot emotions, would check their emotional responses, to detect anything suspicious. Tinkers really can do anything. Armsmaster, who had a Tinkertech lie detector built into his helmet, would question everybody. Hopefully, that'd get all the moles without Coil catching wise. Though I was asked to hit everyone at the meeting just in case. Nobody objected.
I closed my eyes and focused inwards, focusing my fury at Coil's actions and my fear into an all-consuming need to overcome his efforts, to undo all the evil that had been done. Skin changed to brass, glimmering as if under the noonday sun. Pupil and Iris were swept away, to be replaced with the exacting precision of perfect clocks as my eyes opened again. The steady sound of ticking filled the air. Phantom cogwheels churned in perfect order. Gouges and scrapes disappeared in short order. All the aches of being cooped up in a cell waned. Dozens of minor imperfections in the furniture, walls, floor and ceiling were corrected. Then, once again, the aura faded as I released it, and the world was mundane and imperfect once more.
Nobody broke down screaming. Everybody was just a bit astonished at what'd just happened, but apparently nobody was under Coil's power. That was a relief. Unless it always took time before the breakdown happened, regardless of the amount of aura exposure, but I was sure the Director had thought of that. Piggot still had everybody explicitly deny working for or cooperating with Coil in any way shape or form, while Armsmaster's helmet was looking at them. It was pretty obvious why. She even made Armsmaster give his helmet to Miss Militia and make the statement to her. It was fortunate he had an under-helmet mask on, but apparently he was prepared for everything.
I just bet in the original story none of this would be revealed until something ridiculously tragic had happened. Maybe Taylor killed Emma after her friend-turned-unwilling-tormentor was forced to do something even more horrible than the locker, only to learn far too late that none of it was Emma's fault. That seems like the sort of ridiculously horrible thing that would fit into this universe. Maybe Sophia acted like a psycho cause of his influence at the worst possible time and the whole city was destroyed by an Endbringer. Maybe Taylor tried to join the Wards, Sophia was there, and the resulting mutual breakdown ended up with way too many people dead. Maybe some other thrall did something and started a massively destructive gang war that went way out of hand. Maybe all of the above. This was supposed to be a "ridiculously depressing" story, after all. Hopefully I'd stopped all that.
Then Taylor, Danny and I were released, along with Gallant. From the room anyway, I wasn't supposed to leave the building. I'd have to stay here for a while, and there were apparently other things to be discussed. Probably the homeless orphan thing. I just know that's gonna come up again. Not like my parents are gonna come back to life.
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5-3 Invisible
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Being a homeless orphan with no legal guardian wasn't a situation that could last forever, at least not when you come to the attention of a government agency. Actual attention, I mean, not the sort where you technically fall under their aegis but they don't actually care, even though it's their job to care. If you're just another faceless bit of paperwork you can slip through the cracks pretty easily. I think it's pretty obvious how I know that.
Legally speaking, my situation was a complete Mike-Echo-Sierra-Sierra, pardon my phonetics. At least none of it should splash on me. A child really couldn't be held responsible for being abandoned by child protective services. Scratch that. A child couldn't reasonably be held responsible for being abandoned by child protective services. That wouldn't stop a deeply unreasonable person, of which there were plenty on Earth Bet. Luckily for me the PRT ENE was pretty reasonable.
It shouldn't have surprised me that they'd look into my background and situation, but it did. I have no excuse.
It should have surprised me that Director Piggot decided to talk with me about it herself, but it didn't. She'd been really nice to me. Maybe something struck a chord or something. I did have a lot of deeply unfortunate things in my past. Or it could be that I had a really useful power she wanted on her side. I was also a lot more reasonable than most parahumans, if my research was correct, so that could be it. Or it could just be that I was freaking adorable. Probably that last one. Never underestimate the power of being adorable!
Or overestimate it. That can get you killed really quickly. Endbringers and the real psychos of the parahuman world don't care about adorableness. And now you know. And knowing is a moderately decent starting point for preparing for the battle. Nowhere near halfway though. No, even when you think you know, there is always more to know. You know?
No?
Well, that's too bad.
Anyway, I was adorable, and that might be why Emily Piggot, Regional Director of the Parahuman Response Team East-North-East was being nice to me. As part of her being nice to me, a meeting would be called to sort out my living and legal situation as soon as possible. Unfortunately, under the current situation, everyone involved would have to be vetted first. Not only was I a minor, but I was the only one on hand who could even detect Coil's influence. Letting Coil get any sort of leverage on me wouldn't end well for anybody. Except maybe Coil, I guess, but he doesn't count. I wasn't an invisible, inconsequential orphan girl anymore.
That was why the first meeting to discuss my status would also be the first meeting to be swept by myself, Gallant, and Armsmaster. That'd be tomorrow though. Monday, April the 12th at 9:30. I'd apparently been in M/S screening longer than I'd thought. That's actually deliberate, Emily informed me. It's a little morally iffy, but a lot of the same things that made it easier to manipulate people by non-parahuman means also made it easier to tell if they were being manipulated by parahuman means, and one of those things was messing with their sense of time. It wasn't nice, but it meant they could check faster and more conclusively, so they went through with it pretty often. They did always apologize for the necessity afterwards, and it did beat the alternative, so I wasn't about to hold it against them. Jet lag (sorta) isn't nice, but it sure beats an extra day (at least) in M/S.
Moving on, as both a minor without a legal guardian and an important part of what was to come, I wasn't allowed out of the PRT building til they found some sort of guardian for me. That might or might not take a while, though I was planning on cooperating, which would probably make it go faster. In the meantime, I'd be getting what I needed here. Dinner would probably be a good place to start. Deputy Director Renick handed me a meal ticket, or maybe it was a chit. I'm not really sure what the difference is. I was more used to annual plans or just every-student getting lunch schemes than the sort of one-use thingy-ma-bob he gave me.
The cafeteria was a masterpiece of order and organization. Some might call it dead and lifeless, but I could almost see the complex interplay of schedules and logistics that would need to go into maintaining a 24-hour kitchen and eating area that could handle nearly a thousand people at a time while keeping everything clean, on budget, and healthy. Winslow's cafeteria couldn't even manage one of the three, and they were only open for an hour a day, except for a small side area. The selection was a lot better than Winslow's too, as was the food quality. I mean, it was still a government cafeteria and not a Michelin star restaurant, but compared to Winslow's it might as well have been. Very soon I was in Tortellini heaven.
"Tortellini heaven?" inquired my gallant babysitter, Gallant.
Mine answer:
"It's like regular heaven, but with all the perfect happiness replaced by tortellini, and instead of lasting for all the compounding eternities, you're done in about an hour if you go slow. So it's not all that much like regular heaven at all, come to think of it. Still, it's a lot more fun to say than just 'in front of the pasta area, which is serving tortellini today', don't you think?"
Silly boy didn't have an answer to my brilliance, so I just took the opportunity to reinforce my image of adorable precociousness in his mind with earnest puppy dog eyes. Positive opinion, my power, and intelligence were my only real advantages right now, and I wasn't about to let any of them slip away. Then I went back to tortellini. I know what is best in life, and Conan's psychotically violent little set of life goals wasn't it. I'm pretty sure that it was Conan first, the thing with Genghis Khan was probably apocryphal. I may have had to get the shredded cheddar from the salad area, but I was doing pretty well for dinner. They even had a nice drinks selection.
The actual dinner was more than a little bit awkward. The food was good, but the conversation wasn't. Gallant was probably a better meal companion when he hadn't just learned that a teammate of his had been Mastered for years without him noticing. Into commiting quite a few awful crimes, no less. Meanwhile I kept teetering between the cheerful child I wanted to be and the Mastery-paranoid and overwrought wreck the circumstances were pushing me towards becoming. If he could see my emotions this conversation was probably even worse for him. That's gotta be an awful power. I mean, it's actually useful, but it's got to be awful to have to live with, especially if you're trying to keep a secret identity.
At least there were no notable incidents. That I noticed, anyway. For once, I wished that I was as ignorable as I had been before the merger and acquisition of powers. Alas, twas not to be. Lots of people were looking, gallant Gallant included.
And then it was time to go to bed.
Legally speaking, my situation was a complete Mike-Echo-Sierra-Sierra, pardon my phonetics. At least none of it should splash on me. A child really couldn't be held responsible for being abandoned by child protective services. Scratch that. A child couldn't reasonably be held responsible for being abandoned by child protective services. That wouldn't stop a deeply unreasonable person, of which there were plenty on Earth Bet. Luckily for me the PRT ENE was pretty reasonable.
It shouldn't have surprised me that they'd look into my background and situation, but it did. I have no excuse.
It should have surprised me that Director Piggot decided to talk with me about it herself, but it didn't. She'd been really nice to me. Maybe something struck a chord or something. I did have a lot of deeply unfortunate things in my past. Or it could be that I had a really useful power she wanted on her side. I was also a lot more reasonable than most parahumans, if my research was correct, so that could be it. Or it could just be that I was freaking adorable. Probably that last one. Never underestimate the power of being adorable!
Or overestimate it. That can get you killed really quickly. Endbringers and the real psychos of the parahuman world don't care about adorableness. And now you know. And knowing is a moderately decent starting point for preparing for the battle. Nowhere near halfway though. No, even when you think you know, there is always more to know. You know?
No?
Well, that's too bad.
Anyway, I was adorable, and that might be why Emily Piggot, Regional Director of the Parahuman Response Team East-North-East was being nice to me. As part of her being nice to me, a meeting would be called to sort out my living and legal situation as soon as possible. Unfortunately, under the current situation, everyone involved would have to be vetted first. Not only was I a minor, but I was the only one on hand who could even detect Coil's influence. Letting Coil get any sort of leverage on me wouldn't end well for anybody. Except maybe Coil, I guess, but he doesn't count. I wasn't an invisible, inconsequential orphan girl anymore.
That was why the first meeting to discuss my status would also be the first meeting to be swept by myself, Gallant, and Armsmaster. That'd be tomorrow though. Monday, April the 12th at 9:30. I'd apparently been in M/S screening longer than I'd thought. That's actually deliberate, Emily informed me. It's a little morally iffy, but a lot of the same things that made it easier to manipulate people by non-parahuman means also made it easier to tell if they were being manipulated by parahuman means, and one of those things was messing with their sense of time. It wasn't nice, but it meant they could check faster and more conclusively, so they went through with it pretty often. They did always apologize for the necessity afterwards, and it did beat the alternative, so I wasn't about to hold it against them. Jet lag (sorta) isn't nice, but it sure beats an extra day (at least) in M/S.
Moving on, as both a minor without a legal guardian and an important part of what was to come, I wasn't allowed out of the PRT building til they found some sort of guardian for me. That might or might not take a while, though I was planning on cooperating, which would probably make it go faster. In the meantime, I'd be getting what I needed here. Dinner would probably be a good place to start. Deputy Director Renick handed me a meal ticket, or maybe it was a chit. I'm not really sure what the difference is. I was more used to annual plans or just every-student getting lunch schemes than the sort of one-use thingy-ma-bob he gave me.
The cafeteria was a masterpiece of order and organization. Some might call it dead and lifeless, but I could almost see the complex interplay of schedules and logistics that would need to go into maintaining a 24-hour kitchen and eating area that could handle nearly a thousand people at a time while keeping everything clean, on budget, and healthy. Winslow's cafeteria couldn't even manage one of the three, and they were only open for an hour a day, except for a small side area. The selection was a lot better than Winslow's too, as was the food quality. I mean, it was still a government cafeteria and not a Michelin star restaurant, but compared to Winslow's it might as well have been. Very soon I was in Tortellini heaven.
"Tortellini heaven?" inquired my gallant babysitter, Gallant.
Mine answer:
"It's like regular heaven, but with all the perfect happiness replaced by tortellini, and instead of lasting for all the compounding eternities, you're done in about an hour if you go slow. So it's not all that much like regular heaven at all, come to think of it. Still, it's a lot more fun to say than just 'in front of the pasta area, which is serving tortellini today', don't you think?"
Silly boy didn't have an answer to my brilliance, so I just took the opportunity to reinforce my image of adorable precociousness in his mind with earnest puppy dog eyes. Positive opinion, my power, and intelligence were my only real advantages right now, and I wasn't about to let any of them slip away. Then I went back to tortellini. I know what is best in life, and Conan's psychotically violent little set of life goals wasn't it. I'm pretty sure that it was Conan first, the thing with Genghis Khan was probably apocryphal. I may have had to get the shredded cheddar from the salad area, but I was doing pretty well for dinner. They even had a nice drinks selection.
The actual dinner was more than a little bit awkward. The food was good, but the conversation wasn't. Gallant was probably a better meal companion when he hadn't just learned that a teammate of his had been Mastered for years without him noticing. Into commiting quite a few awful crimes, no less. Meanwhile I kept teetering between the cheerful child I wanted to be and the Mastery-paranoid and overwrought wreck the circumstances were pushing me towards becoming. If he could see my emotions this conversation was probably even worse for him. That's gotta be an awful power. I mean, it's actually useful, but it's got to be awful to have to live with, especially if you're trying to keep a secret identity.
At least there were no notable incidents. That I noticed, anyway. For once, I wished that I was as ignorable as I had been before the merger and acquisition of powers. Alas, twas not to be. Lots of people were looking, gallant Gallant included.
And then it was time to go to bed.
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5-4 Insecurity (Interlude: Sophia)
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sophia:
Sophia Hess was a very confused girl. One day she'd been an ordinary schoolgirl with nothing to do with Capes and a perfectly normal fear of violence, and the next she was apparently a borderline psychotic "vigilante" who'd been pressganged into the Wards after she'd almost killed someone. And then she'd almost killed someone else, by way of shoving them into a locker full of rotting tampons, as if that wasn't completely insane. And committed a great many other crimes. Except she hadn't, because that had never happened. Except it did happen. But it wasn't her. Sort of. Shadow Stalker did it. The whole thing was very confusing.
She started again.
Her name was Sophia Hess. That much was clear and simple. Up until 7th grade, she'd been a fairly normal, healthy schoolgirl. As healthy as she could be, anyway, given that she lived in Brockton Bay. And was black and poor. And didn't live nearly far away enough from Empire territory. Though it hadn't been the Empire that got her in the end.
During 7th grade, two life changing, life destroying things had happened. Not that she could remember either of them, she didn't even know which happened first, but she knew they did happen. She'd gotten superpowers somehow and Coil had gotten his claws into her. Somehow. And Coil was a colossal [aurochs]. And that was it for Sophia Hess. Then it was Shadow Stalker's turn.
And Shadow Stalker was a [bear]. That was the plain and simple truth of the matter. As a cape, she'd been "heroic" only by the slimmest of technicalities, and when she was pretending to be Sophia she was worse. Sophia couldn't be her, that was impossible. Definitely.
It was all Coil's fault. Coil was a colossal [aurochs].
And now Sophia was left with…
What, exactly, was she left with?
All her friends had been scared away by Shadow Stalker. Her mom hadn't noticed her being replaced. Her brother hadn't either, and probably hated her. Her little sister was very little, too little to be of much help. And then there were the people Sophia had never met, but whom Shadow Stalker knew. And, even more importantly, who knew Shadow Stalker. And Shadow Stalker was a [bear].
Emma Barnes was apparently in the same boat as Sophia. She wasn't a parahuman, but Coil had replaced her with a [bear] too. They had that much in common. Beyond that, Sophia didn't know a thing about her.
Then there were the people who'd been forced to tolerate Shadow Stalker. The Wards, Miss Militia, a few PRT members. They were obligated to support her, but they didn't know her and she didn't know them. Sophia was technically a Ward, but she'd never meet any of her supposed teammates and they'd spent over a year reluctantly tolerating the [bear] who'd worn her face. That couldn't be a great first impression.
Not that Sophia would have made a great first impression herself, she was just ordinary. Boring. And they were professional heroes. She barely even knew how to activate her Breaker state. But she couldn't have made a worse first impression than the one Shadow Stalker had made for her.
Miss Militia had been nice. Told her she wasn't holding Shadow Stalker's actions against her. Told her they were working on clearing her name, stopping her from paying for Shadow Stalker's crimes. She was very much welcome with her, and that if she ever needed to talk to someone, her door was always open. Metaphorically, a literal open door was a security risk. Sophia thought that was a joke, but she wasn't sure.
Shadow Stalker's own "friends" were awful. They'd helped Shadow Stalker perform more than one vicious bullying campaign, including that awful thing with the locker, and Sophia was sure they'd turn on her if she was any less horrible than Shadow Stalker had been. Best to avoid them entirely.
School would be hard. The PRT was prepared to help her, including a desperately needed transfer, but she'd still lost years of education. And she'd been a middling student at best before all of this happened. About all that stuck with her was her expanded vocabulary. Which contained way more profanity than was reasonable. She didn't know what they were going to do about it. She didn't know what she wanted them to do about it. Either it.
She didn't know what she wanted in general, really. She'd been told that was only natural after what she'd been through. She wouldn't know. Now she was leaving the Master/Stranger screening cell for the first time. The world outside of it was big and scary, and a large part of her wanted to run back in and hide, but she was a big girl (a lot bigger than she was comfortable with, actually), and big girls didn't do that. They faced their problems, even when it was scary. Especially when it was scary, if they were heroes. And even though Sophia wasn't really a hero yet, that's what she'd do to.
Miss Militia took her to the Cafeteria. She'd never seen it before, although it had seen her lots of times. Or, rather, it had seen Shadow Stalker lots of times. That was a weird feeling, although Sophia was going to have to get used to it. Shadow Stalker had been to lots of places.
Getting food from a cafeteria was weird. She hadn't done that before, and Miss Militia had to show her how. She wasn't sure if she'd done it right. Miss Militia said there was no wrong way to do it, but maybe she was just lying to make Sophia feel better. That was something grownups did.
Seeing Jacqueline Colere was also weird. Miss Militia hadn't pointed her out, but who else could it be? There weren't all that many little girls in PRT headquarters, and Vista had a different skin colour. Sophia hadn't heard a lot about the girl, but Miss Militia had let slip that Jacqueline's power was the reason Shadow Stalker was gone and Sophia was back. Even if she desperately wished the whole thing hadn't happened, Sophia was grateful for that. And she sort of liked Jacqueline, even if they hadn't actually met. The girl was genuinely and ridiculously nice, by all accounts, despite all the awful things that had happened to her. Shadow Stalker among them. Sophia felt bad about that, and more than a little bit bad for the girl in general. And Jacqueline was ridiculously cute. Sophia wanted to be friends with her, a lot, and not just because she didn't have any friends of her own.
But what was she gonna say?
"Sorry my super scary [bear] of a Mastered replacement of me beat you up, wanna be friends?"
That wouldn't do at all. This time, Sophia chickened out. She'd have to figure something out. Coil and Shadow Stalker had broken Sophia's life into itty bitty pieces, and now she had no idea how to put it back together.
Coil was a colossal [aurochs]. And Shadow Stalker was a [bear]. And Sophia Hess was a very confused girl.
Sophia Hess was a very confused girl. One day she'd been an ordinary schoolgirl with nothing to do with Capes and a perfectly normal fear of violence, and the next she was apparently a borderline psychotic "vigilante" who'd been pressganged into the Wards after she'd almost killed someone. And then she'd almost killed someone else, by way of shoving them into a locker full of rotting tampons, as if that wasn't completely insane. And committed a great many other crimes. Except she hadn't, because that had never happened. Except it did happen. But it wasn't her. Sort of. Shadow Stalker did it. The whole thing was very confusing.
She started again.
Her name was Sophia Hess. That much was clear and simple. Up until 7th grade, she'd been a fairly normal, healthy schoolgirl. As healthy as she could be, anyway, given that she lived in Brockton Bay. And was black and poor. And didn't live nearly far away enough from Empire territory. Though it hadn't been the Empire that got her in the end.
During 7th grade, two life changing, life destroying things had happened. Not that she could remember either of them, she didn't even know which happened first, but she knew they did happen. She'd gotten superpowers somehow and Coil had gotten his claws into her. Somehow. And Coil was a colossal [aurochs]. And that was it for Sophia Hess. Then it was Shadow Stalker's turn.
And Shadow Stalker was a [bear]. That was the plain and simple truth of the matter. As a cape, she'd been "heroic" only by the slimmest of technicalities, and when she was pretending to be Sophia she was worse. Sophia couldn't be her, that was impossible. Definitely.
It was all Coil's fault. Coil was a colossal [aurochs].
And now Sophia was left with…
What, exactly, was she left with?
All her friends had been scared away by Shadow Stalker. Her mom hadn't noticed her being replaced. Her brother hadn't either, and probably hated her. Her little sister was very little, too little to be of much help. And then there were the people Sophia had never met, but whom Shadow Stalker knew. And, even more importantly, who knew Shadow Stalker. And Shadow Stalker was a [bear].
Emma Barnes was apparently in the same boat as Sophia. She wasn't a parahuman, but Coil had replaced her with a [bear] too. They had that much in common. Beyond that, Sophia didn't know a thing about her.
Then there were the people who'd been forced to tolerate Shadow Stalker. The Wards, Miss Militia, a few PRT members. They were obligated to support her, but they didn't know her and she didn't know them. Sophia was technically a Ward, but she'd never meet any of her supposed teammates and they'd spent over a year reluctantly tolerating the [bear] who'd worn her face. That couldn't be a great first impression.
Not that Sophia would have made a great first impression herself, she was just ordinary. Boring. And they were professional heroes. She barely even knew how to activate her Breaker state. But she couldn't have made a worse first impression than the one Shadow Stalker had made for her.
Miss Militia had been nice. Told her she wasn't holding Shadow Stalker's actions against her. Told her they were working on clearing her name, stopping her from paying for Shadow Stalker's crimes. She was very much welcome with her, and that if she ever needed to talk to someone, her door was always open. Metaphorically, a literal open door was a security risk. Sophia thought that was a joke, but she wasn't sure.
Shadow Stalker's own "friends" were awful. They'd helped Shadow Stalker perform more than one vicious bullying campaign, including that awful thing with the locker, and Sophia was sure they'd turn on her if she was any less horrible than Shadow Stalker had been. Best to avoid them entirely.
School would be hard. The PRT was prepared to help her, including a desperately needed transfer, but she'd still lost years of education. And she'd been a middling student at best before all of this happened. About all that stuck with her was her expanded vocabulary. Which contained way more profanity than was reasonable. She didn't know what they were going to do about it. She didn't know what she wanted them to do about it. Either it.
She didn't know what she wanted in general, really. She'd been told that was only natural after what she'd been through. She wouldn't know. Now she was leaving the Master/Stranger screening cell for the first time. The world outside of it was big and scary, and a large part of her wanted to run back in and hide, but she was a big girl (a lot bigger than she was comfortable with, actually), and big girls didn't do that. They faced their problems, even when it was scary. Especially when it was scary, if they were heroes. And even though Sophia wasn't really a hero yet, that's what she'd do to.
Miss Militia took her to the Cafeteria. She'd never seen it before, although it had seen her lots of times. Or, rather, it had seen Shadow Stalker lots of times. That was a weird feeling, although Sophia was going to have to get used to it. Shadow Stalker had been to lots of places.
Getting food from a cafeteria was weird. She hadn't done that before, and Miss Militia had to show her how. She wasn't sure if she'd done it right. Miss Militia said there was no wrong way to do it, but maybe she was just lying to make Sophia feel better. That was something grownups did.
Seeing Jacqueline Colere was also weird. Miss Militia hadn't pointed her out, but who else could it be? There weren't all that many little girls in PRT headquarters, and Vista had a different skin colour. Sophia hadn't heard a lot about the girl, but Miss Militia had let slip that Jacqueline's power was the reason Shadow Stalker was gone and Sophia was back. Even if she desperately wished the whole thing hadn't happened, Sophia was grateful for that. And she sort of liked Jacqueline, even if they hadn't actually met. The girl was genuinely and ridiculously nice, by all accounts, despite all the awful things that had happened to her. Shadow Stalker among them. Sophia felt bad about that, and more than a little bit bad for the girl in general. And Jacqueline was ridiculously cute. Sophia wanted to be friends with her, a lot, and not just because she didn't have any friends of her own.
But what was she gonna say?
"Sorry my super scary [bear] of a Mastered replacement of me beat you up, wanna be friends?"
That wouldn't do at all. This time, Sophia chickened out. She'd have to figure something out. Coil and Shadow Stalker had broken Sophia's life into itty bitty pieces, and now she had no idea how to put it back together.
Coil was a colossal [aurochs]. And Shadow Stalker was a [bear]. And Sophia Hess was a very confused girl.
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5-5 Incursions
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
PRT headquarters had beds, of course. It was like a normal police station in that all the troopers, officers, agents, and staff had their own homes to go back to, but it was also like a normal police station in that sometimes they just couldn't or didn't go home, and they still needed places to sleep. There were also beds in most of the cells (except for a few specialized ones that didn't need them) and some of the offices, as well as quarters for some of the higher-ups and all the parahumans under the Director's authority. It was to one of the last category that my gallant babysitter escorted me after dinner. The bunks weren't secure or private, at least not when the PRT might have been infiltrated, and throwing me in a cell was probably something Ms. Emily wanted to avoid.
Probably.
Hopefully.
I had absolutely no reason to suspect she'd turn against me, and indeed I had a great deal of admiration for the woman, but I also had a great deal of faith in Earth Bet's ability to be awful, even if I was careful not to say anything about it out loud. She wasn't likely to be plotting against me, I just sort of expected it anyway. It was a lot more likely that she was plotting how to leverage me to fix this broken city though. That was alright, I was also plotting how to leverage myself to fix this broken city. And this broken world, but Brockton Bay was enough for now. Way more than enough, really. The big differences between our modes of thinking were that she was way more experienced with the likely pitfalls than I was, and she knew the city a lot better. I could work with that.
I may also have an unhealthy tendency to latch on emotionally to any vaguely parentesque figure who was nice to me. Or possibly a normal one, given my particular family circumstances. Or even both, since it wouldn't be the only normal bit of the human psyche to be unhealthy. The addiction mechanism is one of the better arguments against intelligent design. I hoped my aura worked against it, since there was a better-than-average chance that somebody would try to use drugs to control me, but I really had no idea.
Anyway, gallant Gallant escorted me to the section where all the personal quarters were. Aside from the Ward quarters, which were in Wards HQ, down below ground level, under the parking garage. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to know that, but loose lips sink ships and all that. It's amazing what you can learn just by staying quiet and being unremarkable while other people are talking.
Of course, it was entirely possible that the location wasn't secret at all and I was just generally ignorant about non-Newfoundland heroes. Somehow they'd seemed less important to know about than the various stone-cold killers and violent bigots of Brockton Bay. Imagine that.
These were Battery's quarters, according to the sign on the door. Apparently "Battery" was her actual cape name, and "puppy" was just an affectionate nickname. Or maybe a mocking one. It was hard to tell. Either way, "Battery" made a lot more sense as a cape name. "Assault and Battery" sounded like a cape duo (even if it was pretty villainous sounding), while "Assault and Puppy" sounded like a probably-offensive comedy act. Or maybe one of those adult things I'm no longer supposed to know about, but still totally know about.
In case you're wondering how I discerned "Puppy" wasn't the actual name, and that "Battery" was, it was from the fact the "Battery" was on the actual sign, and "puppy" was written in crayon on a post-it note. Not an actual post-it note, one of the really cheap off-brand equivalents. The whole thing reeked of childishness and lack of effort, to a degree that had to be deliberate. That sounds like something Assault would do, right? Paying attention to the little details is a key part of superhero work. I read that somewhere. No idea where, but somewhere.
Paying attention to the little details is, unfortunately, very much not a skill that can be applied retroactively. Unless you're a postcognitive thinker. On the off chance I need to specify, I'm not. Though I do have a pretty good memory and I do occasionally go over my own notes. And other people's notes.
Knowledge is a particularly useful form of power.
The quarters were pretty nice, sort of like a mid-level hotel. There was very little to indicate they'd ever been used, but that was honestly only to be expected. All the full Protectorate members (as opposed to Wards) could stay at their own headquarters out in the bay, and Battery presumably had a home of some sort. Most people did, especially the ones with high-paying jobs like being a member of the Protectorate. Even in Brockton Bay, I was more the exception than the rule.
20 minutes after entering the pseudo-dormitory, I had showered, brushed my teeth and hair, and changed into a pair of pajamas that had mysteriously appeared outside the bathroom. Only the last was strictly necessary, since I wasn't dirty or smelly in the slightest and my teeth were pristine even when I went in. I hadn't done anything about them since Thursday, but my power apparently considered dirtiness or contamination things to be fixed, and I was constantly inside my aura. I'm probably gonna lose the habits of grooming pretty quickly, if this is the results I get for utterly neglecting them. That did leave me some time to spend with Ms. Phoneyface, my loyal communications and network accessing device.
Assault had slipped me a page of stickers on his way out of the meeting, and I took full advantage. Of both the phone and the stickers. Things had been happening while I was locked up. Nothing in the same league of awfulness as why I'd been locked up, but still rather important things.
The Undersiders had hit an ABB casino, the Ruby Dreams, and gotten away clean for now. But Lung was furious, and he was the most powerful cape in the city by a fairly wide margin. If the Undersiders were smart they'd never show their faces in Brockton Bay again. These were parahuman supervillain teenagers we were talking about, so them being smart was not a guarantee, but hitting an ABB casino was the only real slip up they'd made so far. That the PRT could tell me about, anyway.
Villains don't exactly stand in the middle of the town square announcing their screwups like pre-newspaper town-square news shouting guys. Some of them do that for their atrocities, like the Slaughterhouse Nine, but never their screwups. Town criers, that's the word. Or pair of words. Phrase. Whatever. We could hope the smash-and-grab artists wouldn't start a major incident, and that they wouldn't get themselves caught and killed by Lung or his minions, but we couldn't count on it. Either it.
Circus had stolen a bunch of jewelry from some rich guy. Various Empire members had committed 12 muggings and 7 racially motivated beatings that the PRT knew about, along with the dogfighting, drug selling and smuggling that made up the bulk of their illegal activities. The ABB had continued their usual criminal operations even as Lung's retaliatory rampage was impending. Coil's troops had struck at an accounting firm looking for data, and the man himself was presumably committing his atrocities against peace and sanity. The Merchants were being the Merchants. None of that stopped the usual plethora of non-parahuman related crimes. Just another day (and a bit) in Brockton Bay. None of it was likely to make the front page, and most of it wouldn't make it into the news at all.
The non-Sophia girl who'd assaulted me had been booked, processed and released into her parents' custody. Actual charges and juvenile detention would take a while, but she'd been expelled already, and the aforementioned parents probably weren't happy with her. Somebody had probably gone over Blackheart's head. I'd still take her current parental situation over mine though. Hers were still alive and probably loved her, even if they were mad at her.
My absences from Winslow had been excused by the PRT, along with Taylor, Sophia and Emma's, and none of us would be expected back there for quite some time. Maybe not ever. What an absolute shame. The PRT was quite upset with Blackwell and the administration, since they hadn't been informed about Sophia's behaviour, and with her handler, who had apparently never bothered looking into why a known troubled teen had supposedly never so much as shown up a few minutes late for class. Both would have to be checked before any action would be taken against them though. People under Master effects couldn't be, and shouldn't be, legally held to account for actions done while Mastered and/or crimes committed against their wills. The "and/or" pseudoword is a nice shorthand for an inclusive or, by the way. Tell your friends and/or family.
Taylor had texted me, and we had a lengthy chat. By which I mean she text-ranted furiously for at least a couple thousand words. Mostly about Coil. I mostly just reassured her that nothing was her fault and applied various platitudes. Coil definitely deserved it, but I had to look up an awful lot of bad words. Apparently Danny worked on the docks or somesuch. He'd also objected to her new PRT-issue phone, and Taylor wasn't too happy about it herself, but apparently Assault had persuaded them that her safety was more important than whatever issue they had with cellphones. It was clearly a sensitive subject, so I left it alone. Instead we talked about the notes I'd apparently left on her desk. Doing some ranting of my own was surprisingly cathartic. Taylor seemed restless though, and I didn't think ranting was going to fix it. I just hoped she didn't do anything stupid.
After that, the time for sleep came upon us. Sleep is for the living, as Von Carstein taught us, and I rather like being part of that group. My decision making may have been helped by the fact that undeath wasn't an option here though. As far as I knew, anyway. Earth Bet was more than a little bit weird.
Probably.
Hopefully.
I had absolutely no reason to suspect she'd turn against me, and indeed I had a great deal of admiration for the woman, but I also had a great deal of faith in Earth Bet's ability to be awful, even if I was careful not to say anything about it out loud. She wasn't likely to be plotting against me, I just sort of expected it anyway. It was a lot more likely that she was plotting how to leverage me to fix this broken city though. That was alright, I was also plotting how to leverage myself to fix this broken city. And this broken world, but Brockton Bay was enough for now. Way more than enough, really. The big differences between our modes of thinking were that she was way more experienced with the likely pitfalls than I was, and she knew the city a lot better. I could work with that.
I may also have an unhealthy tendency to latch on emotionally to any vaguely parentesque figure who was nice to me. Or possibly a normal one, given my particular family circumstances. Or even both, since it wouldn't be the only normal bit of the human psyche to be unhealthy. The addiction mechanism is one of the better arguments against intelligent design. I hoped my aura worked against it, since there was a better-than-average chance that somebody would try to use drugs to control me, but I really had no idea.
Anyway, gallant Gallant escorted me to the section where all the personal quarters were. Aside from the Ward quarters, which were in Wards HQ, down below ground level, under the parking garage. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to know that, but loose lips sink ships and all that. It's amazing what you can learn just by staying quiet and being unremarkable while other people are talking.
Of course, it was entirely possible that the location wasn't secret at all and I was just generally ignorant about non-Newfoundland heroes. Somehow they'd seemed less important to know about than the various stone-cold killers and violent bigots of Brockton Bay. Imagine that.
These were Battery's quarters, according to the sign on the door. Apparently "Battery" was her actual cape name, and "puppy" was just an affectionate nickname. Or maybe a mocking one. It was hard to tell. Either way, "Battery" made a lot more sense as a cape name. "Assault and Battery" sounded like a cape duo (even if it was pretty villainous sounding), while "Assault and Puppy" sounded like a probably-offensive comedy act. Or maybe one of those adult things I'm no longer supposed to know about, but still totally know about.
In case you're wondering how I discerned "Puppy" wasn't the actual name, and that "Battery" was, it was from the fact the "Battery" was on the actual sign, and "puppy" was written in crayon on a post-it note. Not an actual post-it note, one of the really cheap off-brand equivalents. The whole thing reeked of childishness and lack of effort, to a degree that had to be deliberate. That sounds like something Assault would do, right? Paying attention to the little details is a key part of superhero work. I read that somewhere. No idea where, but somewhere.
Paying attention to the little details is, unfortunately, very much not a skill that can be applied retroactively. Unless you're a postcognitive thinker. On the off chance I need to specify, I'm not. Though I do have a pretty good memory and I do occasionally go over my own notes. And other people's notes.
Knowledge is a particularly useful form of power.
The quarters were pretty nice, sort of like a mid-level hotel. There was very little to indicate they'd ever been used, but that was honestly only to be expected. All the full Protectorate members (as opposed to Wards) could stay at their own headquarters out in the bay, and Battery presumably had a home of some sort. Most people did, especially the ones with high-paying jobs like being a member of the Protectorate. Even in Brockton Bay, I was more the exception than the rule.
20 minutes after entering the pseudo-dormitory, I had showered, brushed my teeth and hair, and changed into a pair of pajamas that had mysteriously appeared outside the bathroom. Only the last was strictly necessary, since I wasn't dirty or smelly in the slightest and my teeth were pristine even when I went in. I hadn't done anything about them since Thursday, but my power apparently considered dirtiness or contamination things to be fixed, and I was constantly inside my aura. I'm probably gonna lose the habits of grooming pretty quickly, if this is the results I get for utterly neglecting them. That did leave me some time to spend with Ms. Phoneyface, my loyal communications and network accessing device.
Assault had slipped me a page of stickers on his way out of the meeting, and I took full advantage. Of both the phone and the stickers. Things had been happening while I was locked up. Nothing in the same league of awfulness as why I'd been locked up, but still rather important things.
The Undersiders had hit an ABB casino, the Ruby Dreams, and gotten away clean for now. But Lung was furious, and he was the most powerful cape in the city by a fairly wide margin. If the Undersiders were smart they'd never show their faces in Brockton Bay again. These were parahuman supervillain teenagers we were talking about, so them being smart was not a guarantee, but hitting an ABB casino was the only real slip up they'd made so far. That the PRT could tell me about, anyway.
Villains don't exactly stand in the middle of the town square announcing their screwups like pre-newspaper town-square news shouting guys. Some of them do that for their atrocities, like the Slaughterhouse Nine, but never their screwups. Town criers, that's the word. Or pair of words. Phrase. Whatever. We could hope the smash-and-grab artists wouldn't start a major incident, and that they wouldn't get themselves caught and killed by Lung or his minions, but we couldn't count on it. Either it.
Circus had stolen a bunch of jewelry from some rich guy. Various Empire members had committed 12 muggings and 7 racially motivated beatings that the PRT knew about, along with the dogfighting, drug selling and smuggling that made up the bulk of their illegal activities. The ABB had continued their usual criminal operations even as Lung's retaliatory rampage was impending. Coil's troops had struck at an accounting firm looking for data, and the man himself was presumably committing his atrocities against peace and sanity. The Merchants were being the Merchants. None of that stopped the usual plethora of non-parahuman related crimes. Just another day (and a bit) in Brockton Bay. None of it was likely to make the front page, and most of it wouldn't make it into the news at all.
The non-Sophia girl who'd assaulted me had been booked, processed and released into her parents' custody. Actual charges and juvenile detention would take a while, but she'd been expelled already, and the aforementioned parents probably weren't happy with her. Somebody had probably gone over Blackheart's head. I'd still take her current parental situation over mine though. Hers were still alive and probably loved her, even if they were mad at her.
My absences from Winslow had been excused by the PRT, along with Taylor, Sophia and Emma's, and none of us would be expected back there for quite some time. Maybe not ever. What an absolute shame. The PRT was quite upset with Blackwell and the administration, since they hadn't been informed about Sophia's behaviour, and with her handler, who had apparently never bothered looking into why a known troubled teen had supposedly never so much as shown up a few minutes late for class. Both would have to be checked before any action would be taken against them though. People under Master effects couldn't be, and shouldn't be, legally held to account for actions done while Mastered and/or crimes committed against their wills. The "and/or" pseudoword is a nice shorthand for an inclusive or, by the way. Tell your friends and/or family.
Taylor had texted me, and we had a lengthy chat. By which I mean she text-ranted furiously for at least a couple thousand words. Mostly about Coil. I mostly just reassured her that nothing was her fault and applied various platitudes. Coil definitely deserved it, but I had to look up an awful lot of bad words. Apparently Danny worked on the docks or somesuch. He'd also objected to her new PRT-issue phone, and Taylor wasn't too happy about it herself, but apparently Assault had persuaded them that her safety was more important than whatever issue they had with cellphones. It was clearly a sensitive subject, so I left it alone. Instead we talked about the notes I'd apparently left on her desk. Doing some ranting of my own was surprisingly cathartic. Taylor seemed restless though, and I didn't think ranting was going to fix it. I just hoped she didn't do anything stupid.
After that, the time for sleep came upon us. Sleep is for the living, as Von Carstein taught us, and I rather like being part of that group. My decision making may have been helped by the fact that undeath wasn't an option here though. As far as I knew, anyway. Earth Bet was more than a little bit weird.
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5-6 Inferno (Interludes: Various)
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Vespiary:
Taylor had known full well that she was doing something stupid, but it hadn't really sunk in just how stupid it was to go patroling alone until her bugs found a bunch of people bunching together, she'd investigated, and found herself looking at a bunch of armed Azn Bad Boys. And Lung. Probably should have mentioned him first. She'd just wanted to get away from all the confusing emotional (profanities deleted). Maybe spending most of that time in Master-Stranger screening practicing seeing through her minions eyes wasn't the best idea, and what she'd learned afterwards was definitely upsetting.
Sophia was a Ward. Emma hadn't betrayed her willingly. Both of them had been Mastered, and Taylor hadn't been able to tell. (more profanities deleted) Taylor felt that she had failed Emma, like how she failed at everything. Including superheroing, apparently, since she was about to get herself killed. Taylor just hadn't been able to take the guilt any more.
Jacqueline had helped Taylor a lot, but she'd given Taylor virtually nothing in regards to the matter of fighting. Jacqueline had also left her notes behind, but they weren't at all helpful in this situation. They had sort of gotten her into this situation, actually, since they'd been where she got her revised costume idea and name. Jacqueline's plan regarding the matter of fighting Lung, in its entirety, was "Don't". But Taylor couldn't back down or sneak away, because Lung was talking about killing kids. She was kinda stupid that way. Jacqueline had warned her about going it alone, and Taylor had ignored her advice, and now she was about to do it again.
The armed gangsters were already way more than she'd been expecting, but Lung was in an entirely different league altogether. The man had gone toe to toe with entire teams, heroes and villains alike, and come out on top pretty much every time. The constant growth and high-level regeneration as long as he was in a fight were more than bad enough, but he also had pyrokinesis, which also scaled up with him, which would pretty much make "Vespiary's" already weak power entirely useless against him. Jacqueline might have helped immensely with school, but she couldn't help Taylor now.
Or maybe that wasn't quite true. Going to the PRT had been Jacqueline's idea, and getting involved with the PRT had gotten her one extremely valuable piece of equipment that might just let Taylor live through this. One highly advanced piece of Tinker-derived technology that could give a scrappy teenager a fighting chance.
That piece of technology being, of course, a PRT-issue cellphone. Which she wasn't really comfortable with, but was currently very glad to possess.
Boldly, the cunning Vespiary hid herself inside the sturdiest-looking building that was close enough but not too close to Lung, and called the proper authorities, ordering various arthropods to watch the situation. Lice were nice, at least for that purpose, but they weren't alone. Bees, wasps, hornets, beetles and other fliers waited on the walls, ready to swoop into ambush, the largest among them carrying venomous spiders. A precious few scorpions scuttled into ambush positions, ready to strike at a millisecond's notice. More spiders took up positions above the criminals, for dropping purposes. Countless insects and arachnids prepared themselves to strike if and when it became necessary. "Countless" being purely figurative, since Taylor knew not only exactly how many there were, but also where each one was and what it was doing. Also she had one crab, ready to pinch anybody who stepped into its reach. The crab probably wouldn't be much use, but Taylor would take what she could get. Mr. Pinchy was part of what she could get. Even if Taylor had no idea what he'd been doing on that rooftop in the first place.
Just because her name and theming were wasp-based didn't mean she had to stick to just wasps. If anything, being more versatile than her name implied would let Taylor get the drop on her enemies more easily. As would having allies around to back her up, and the conversation with the authorities was actually going really well. Three protectorate heroes would be there within minutes, and things might actually go well. Armsmaster himself was nearby, and would be the first on the scene. Apparently the "big sweep" was already starting and the docks were one of the first targets. Taylor knew full well that the sweep wasn't actually intended to accomplish anything, but she doubted anyone would be too upset if it did. She stepped into a nice, safe, dark basement below the building, and waited patiently.
Lung:
Kenta was not a stupid man, although he allowed his enemies to think otherwise. His eyes and ears were as sharp as his fangs and claws, and his current enemy was not as subtle as he thought he was. Kenta knew an ambush was coming, and from where. Lung couldn't see or hear all of the Mastered swarms waiting to ambush him, but he could see enough of them to assume there were more. Lung would wait, pretending he hadn't noticed anything, and then, when they came into range, they would burn. Lung could feel his power growing, but slowly, slowly. He carefully and slowly searched for the bugs' Master, following tiny movements and subtle hints in the air, looking for all the world like he was merely pacing furiously, letting his power build up before going on a rampage. Which he was doing, he was just also focusing on the subtler signs and traces, in order to find the Master.
Lung, in fact, was so focused on finding the Master by the subtler signs and traces that his attention was diverted away from the relatively obvious. The relatively obvious, in this case, being a bike-mounted Armsmaster barreling towards him at well above the speed limit. That was kept from being "blatantly obvious" only by the complete lack of noise from the bike's engine and the sheer speed of the approach. Kenta noticed only a fraction of a second before contact. He wondered why Armsmaster had his halberd couched in his arm instead of in its holster, but then it hit him.
Armsmaster:
Using his halberd as an improvised lance was the efficient option in this situation, seeing as he was mounted and facing an opponent who was looking away and who was known to possess frankly absurd levels of toughness and regeneration. He'd considered making an actual lance once, but a true lance would be heavy and inefficient, and his halberd served the purpose well enough. He almost never fought from his bike anyway. It was fast, and it let him put a lot of momentum behind a charge, but it severely limited his ability to dodge. And it put his bike at a lot of risk. In this fight, though, neither factor would hinder him to any significant degree. If things went right.
Within a fraction of a second massive amounts of powerful tranquilizers, which he had designed specifically for Lung, were pumping through the villain's body. It didn't take much longer for the fight to be over, thanks to the newly named Vespiary. Massive amounts of tiny bites and stings in a very short amount of time, all perfectly executed and aimed. Admirable. Between that and just a little more violence on Armsmaster's part, Lung went down hard, and stayed down. His minions didn't try to resist after that. Armsmaster had been briefed about Taylor Hebert's power, but he hadn't realized just how impressively efficient it could be until he'd seen it in action. Armsmaster could see the possibilities already.
His specialization was miniaturization as well as efficiency, and he knew full well not to underestimate small things. Thousands of individual insects and arachnids could be seen working at restraining the criminals with an astounding degree of coordination and precision. Armsmaster was already mentally designing tiny insect-transportable tracking devices for search and rescue purposes, and he knew that was only the beginning. Taking down Lung would be great for his reputation, enough to secure his position at the head of the Protectorate East North East, and Colin Wallis saw the opportunity for a lot more if he could get Vespiary into the Wards. Yes, the girl could be very good for his reputation.
Vespiary:
HOLY BLEEP. Armsmaster was awesome!
And he was congratulating her!
Taylor couldn't hear very well through her bugs yet, like the great hero seemed to assume she could, but the PRT operator was passing on his words.
Also, she was alive!
That was good.
Dad would kill her if she got herself killed.
Taylor was panicking and fangirling, but somehow none of that was hindering her bugs in the slightest. Good to know, she guessed.
Eventually Lung was secured and on his way to the cells at PRT headquarters, and Taylor could relax.
For all of 10 seconds before authority started badgering her for a debriefing and "subtly" pushing the benefits of the Wards program.
Being Taylor Hebert is truly suffering.
Grue:
Brian didn't know why Lisa had told the rest of the team to hold back, but he was glad she did. They'd approached the scene under cover of darkness, generously provided by his power, and seen Lung and at least 8 lesser ABB members being taken into custody, with Armsmaster overseeing the whole thing. The man didn't look like he'd so much as broken a sweat. Grue had no idea what had happened, but he didn't have to fight Lung, so he wasn't about to complain. He decided to sneak back to his teammates, tell them about it, then go home and hug Aisha. She would very much not appreciate it, and he couldn't tell her why he was doing it, but he'd do it anyway.
Taylor had known full well that she was doing something stupid, but it hadn't really sunk in just how stupid it was to go patroling alone until her bugs found a bunch of people bunching together, she'd investigated, and found herself looking at a bunch of armed Azn Bad Boys. And Lung. Probably should have mentioned him first. She'd just wanted to get away from all the confusing emotional (profanities deleted). Maybe spending most of that time in Master-Stranger screening practicing seeing through her minions eyes wasn't the best idea, and what she'd learned afterwards was definitely upsetting.
Sophia was a Ward. Emma hadn't betrayed her willingly. Both of them had been Mastered, and Taylor hadn't been able to tell. (more profanities deleted) Taylor felt that she had failed Emma, like how she failed at everything. Including superheroing, apparently, since she was about to get herself killed. Taylor just hadn't been able to take the guilt any more.
Jacqueline had helped Taylor a lot, but she'd given Taylor virtually nothing in regards to the matter of fighting. Jacqueline had also left her notes behind, but they weren't at all helpful in this situation. They had sort of gotten her into this situation, actually, since they'd been where she got her revised costume idea and name. Jacqueline's plan regarding the matter of fighting Lung, in its entirety, was "Don't". But Taylor couldn't back down or sneak away, because Lung was talking about killing kids. She was kinda stupid that way. Jacqueline had warned her about going it alone, and Taylor had ignored her advice, and now she was about to do it again.
The armed gangsters were already way more than she'd been expecting, but Lung was in an entirely different league altogether. The man had gone toe to toe with entire teams, heroes and villains alike, and come out on top pretty much every time. The constant growth and high-level regeneration as long as he was in a fight were more than bad enough, but he also had pyrokinesis, which also scaled up with him, which would pretty much make "Vespiary's" already weak power entirely useless against him. Jacqueline might have helped immensely with school, but she couldn't help Taylor now.
Or maybe that wasn't quite true. Going to the PRT had been Jacqueline's idea, and getting involved with the PRT had gotten her one extremely valuable piece of equipment that might just let Taylor live through this. One highly advanced piece of Tinker-derived technology that could give a scrappy teenager a fighting chance.
That piece of technology being, of course, a PRT-issue cellphone. Which she wasn't really comfortable with, but was currently very glad to possess.
Boldly, the cunning Vespiary hid herself inside the sturdiest-looking building that was close enough but not too close to Lung, and called the proper authorities, ordering various arthropods to watch the situation. Lice were nice, at least for that purpose, but they weren't alone. Bees, wasps, hornets, beetles and other fliers waited on the walls, ready to swoop into ambush, the largest among them carrying venomous spiders. A precious few scorpions scuttled into ambush positions, ready to strike at a millisecond's notice. More spiders took up positions above the criminals, for dropping purposes. Countless insects and arachnids prepared themselves to strike if and when it became necessary. "Countless" being purely figurative, since Taylor knew not only exactly how many there were, but also where each one was and what it was doing. Also she had one crab, ready to pinch anybody who stepped into its reach. The crab probably wouldn't be much use, but Taylor would take what she could get. Mr. Pinchy was part of what she could get. Even if Taylor had no idea what he'd been doing on that rooftop in the first place.
Just because her name and theming were wasp-based didn't mean she had to stick to just wasps. If anything, being more versatile than her name implied would let Taylor get the drop on her enemies more easily. As would having allies around to back her up, and the conversation with the authorities was actually going really well. Three protectorate heroes would be there within minutes, and things might actually go well. Armsmaster himself was nearby, and would be the first on the scene. Apparently the "big sweep" was already starting and the docks were one of the first targets. Taylor knew full well that the sweep wasn't actually intended to accomplish anything, but she doubted anyone would be too upset if it did. She stepped into a nice, safe, dark basement below the building, and waited patiently.
Lung:
Kenta was not a stupid man, although he allowed his enemies to think otherwise. His eyes and ears were as sharp as his fangs and claws, and his current enemy was not as subtle as he thought he was. Kenta knew an ambush was coming, and from where. Lung couldn't see or hear all of the Mastered swarms waiting to ambush him, but he could see enough of them to assume there were more. Lung would wait, pretending he hadn't noticed anything, and then, when they came into range, they would burn. Lung could feel his power growing, but slowly, slowly. He carefully and slowly searched for the bugs' Master, following tiny movements and subtle hints in the air, looking for all the world like he was merely pacing furiously, letting his power build up before going on a rampage. Which he was doing, he was just also focusing on the subtler signs and traces, in order to find the Master.
Lung, in fact, was so focused on finding the Master by the subtler signs and traces that his attention was diverted away from the relatively obvious. The relatively obvious, in this case, being a bike-mounted Armsmaster barreling towards him at well above the speed limit. That was kept from being "blatantly obvious" only by the complete lack of noise from the bike's engine and the sheer speed of the approach. Kenta noticed only a fraction of a second before contact. He wondered why Armsmaster had his halberd couched in his arm instead of in its holster, but then it hit him.
Armsmaster:
Using his halberd as an improvised lance was the efficient option in this situation, seeing as he was mounted and facing an opponent who was looking away and who was known to possess frankly absurd levels of toughness and regeneration. He'd considered making an actual lance once, but a true lance would be heavy and inefficient, and his halberd served the purpose well enough. He almost never fought from his bike anyway. It was fast, and it let him put a lot of momentum behind a charge, but it severely limited his ability to dodge. And it put his bike at a lot of risk. In this fight, though, neither factor would hinder him to any significant degree. If things went right.
Within a fraction of a second massive amounts of powerful tranquilizers, which he had designed specifically for Lung, were pumping through the villain's body. It didn't take much longer for the fight to be over, thanks to the newly named Vespiary. Massive amounts of tiny bites and stings in a very short amount of time, all perfectly executed and aimed. Admirable. Between that and just a little more violence on Armsmaster's part, Lung went down hard, and stayed down. His minions didn't try to resist after that. Armsmaster had been briefed about Taylor Hebert's power, but he hadn't realized just how impressively efficient it could be until he'd seen it in action. Armsmaster could see the possibilities already.
His specialization was miniaturization as well as efficiency, and he knew full well not to underestimate small things. Thousands of individual insects and arachnids could be seen working at restraining the criminals with an astounding degree of coordination and precision. Armsmaster was already mentally designing tiny insect-transportable tracking devices for search and rescue purposes, and he knew that was only the beginning. Taking down Lung would be great for his reputation, enough to secure his position at the head of the Protectorate East North East, and Colin Wallis saw the opportunity for a lot more if he could get Vespiary into the Wards. Yes, the girl could be very good for his reputation.
Vespiary:
HOLY BLEEP. Armsmaster was awesome!
And he was congratulating her!
Taylor couldn't hear very well through her bugs yet, like the great hero seemed to assume she could, but the PRT operator was passing on his words.
Also, she was alive!
That was good.
Dad would kill her if she got herself killed.
Taylor was panicking and fangirling, but somehow none of that was hindering her bugs in the slightest. Good to know, she guessed.
Eventually Lung was secured and on his way to the cells at PRT headquarters, and Taylor could relax.
For all of 10 seconds before authority started badgering her for a debriefing and "subtly" pushing the benefits of the Wards program.
Being Taylor Hebert is truly suffering.
Grue:
Brian didn't know why Lisa had told the rest of the team to hold back, but he was glad she did. They'd approached the scene under cover of darkness, generously provided by his power, and seen Lung and at least 8 lesser ABB members being taken into custody, with Armsmaster overseeing the whole thing. The man didn't look like he'd so much as broken a sweat. Grue had no idea what had happened, but he didn't have to fight Lung, so he wasn't about to complain. He decided to sneak back to his teammates, tell them about it, then go home and hug Aisha. She would very much not appreciate it, and he couldn't tell her why he was doing it, but he'd do it anyway.
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5-7 Initiative (Interlude: Coil)
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Coil:
Thomas Calvert slumped back in his (extremely expensive and ludicrously comfortable) chair, and considered the night's events. In the other timeline he was busy doing the dull but necessary paperwork that came with running a large criminal organization. He'd keep that one, he certainly didn't want to do it twice, but his attention was on this one and the details to be examined. Both the details that would be in the newspaper and the ones no one else would ever know about. The timeline he'd kept was bad enough: Lung captured, the Hebert girl drawn closer to the PRT, and Armsmaster looking better than ever. Piggot would be a lot harder to replace as PRT director after today, especially since Calvert couldn't take credit for any of it.
But that was still a little better compared to the timeline where he'd told Tattletale to press the attack. He'd been prepared for that not to go well. Four teenagers against Lung? They'd be lucky to survive. And they had survived, because Lung was already down.
Tattletale had been taken out first. She'd led her team to the Hebert girl's hiding place, and the instant "Vespiary" noticed Sarah Livsey (as he made a point of occasionally calling her), she crammed his pet's mouth full of bugs. Grue had had to grab his teammate and make a rapid retreat, but they'd been pursued for two blocks straight, and all the way they'd had to fight off constant attack by thousands upon thousands of insects. They'd all survived, although Thomas doubted they would have if the bug-Master had been trying to kill them. Lindt's dogs had managed to get them away, being less vulnerable to the biting and stinging than the humans, but it still was far from ideal.
Nobody captured or dead was better than he'd expected once it became clear Vespiary wasn't going to listen to them, but all of them would need weeks of serious medical attention before they could go out again, and Coil needed them to act as a distraction next week. So he'd been forced to close that timeline.
It wasn't the only annoyance of the day either. Piggot had called a secret meeting, and Thomas Calvert hadn't been invited. Nor had any of his moles. He hadn't been able to find out the subject of that meeting. Whatever it was was important enough to call in the entire local Protectorate, that pointless paper-pusher Renick, and Piggot herself. If there was a big operation coming, Thomas Calvert needed to know about it.
Then there were his longer-term headaches. Taylor Hebert and Jacqueline Colere. Hebert had been involved in a lot of his more recent headaches, but she was also a headache in her own right.
Taylor Hebert should have been easy for him to get under his thumb. A powerful Master with no social skills, one who had a Ward cause her trigger event no less, should have loathed the PRT with a useful passion. Such a person seemed like they would be simple to convince to serve him, either directly or through the Undersiders. Instead, Taylor Hebert seemed to be nervous about the PRT at worst, and strongly inclined to heroism. After last night, Coil would bet dollars to donuts the girl would end up in the Wards if he didn't do something to stop it, and he didn't know what to do to stop it.
He had a lot of options of course, but he didn't think any of them would work. The best one would have been to expose Shadow Stalker's civilian identity to her, but when he'd ordered one of his moles to "accidentally" disclose that information in a throwaway timeline she'd barely reacted. Almost like she'd already known, but if that was the case where was the anger? And why had she spent a day in M/S screening?
Thomas Calvert loathed not knowing.
Jacqueline Colere was, if anything, worse. He knew her power was more dangerous than it seemed, but he had no idea how. She hadn't shown anything more than gradual repair and maintenance of herself and the area around her, plus a few flashy but apparently purely aesthetic effects. But all parahuman powers were dangerous. He'd never encountered, or even heard of one that wasn't. The dangerous truth could be almost anything, and he needed to know.
Maybe she was a Master, altering the minds as well as the bodies of anyone in her "clockwork aura". It would certainly explain a few things. Maybe she could reverse its effect, spreading ruin and decay in a random fashion. A brain aneurysm could be caused by less than a thousandth of an ounce of force in the wrong place. Maybe the aura was a side effect of something else entirely. Maybe those "purely aesthetic" effects weren't. Until he found out he couldn't defend himself against her properly, but he had no way of knowing until power testing happened.
He'd sent three different teams to capture her for interrogation in 5 different throwaway timelines, and none of them had succeeded. And the girl hadn't used her powers against any of them. 2 attempts at the Hebert home had been foiled by Vespiary, the PRT arriving quickly in both cases. Attempting to kidnap her from the PRT headquarters hadn't gone well, with the girl ceasing to fall for the team leader's lies the instant he'd ordered her to leave the building. She'd kicked the unfortunate man in the crotch and ran away screaming for help, which, it being the PRT building, had arrived swiftly. That had happened twice, with two different team leaders, so she clearly wasn't leaving the building willingly. And she clearly had a vicious streak.
Thomas had screwed up with Winslow. (He could admit that to himself, though he never would to anybody else) He'd decided, once she was there, away from the Heberts and the PRT, to make a grab in an alternate timeline, but she'd been with a policewoman dealing with the fallout of another of his own plots, and a cop getting shot had made sure Velocity was on the scene within a minute. Between him and girl's kicking and screaming, the grab had been unsuccessful.
He could kill the girl easily enough, but that would draw far too much attention. Piggot actually seemed to like her for some reason, and her powers were as valuable as her story was sympathetic. Killing her would force the PRT to take him seriously, and that was the last thing he wanted. Well, not the last. Crossing Cauldron would be a lot worse. Still, he did have an idea as to how to get the girl on terrain friendlier to him.
None of the problems were crippling, or even seriously dangerous to him or his plans, but they were definitely immensely frustrating. He decided to torture Tattletale to death in a throwaway timeline, maybe spread a few more vicious rumors (lies) about her evilness on the internet. That always made him feel better.
Thomas Calvert slumped back in his (extremely expensive and ludicrously comfortable) chair, and considered the night's events. In the other timeline he was busy doing the dull but necessary paperwork that came with running a large criminal organization. He'd keep that one, he certainly didn't want to do it twice, but his attention was on this one and the details to be examined. Both the details that would be in the newspaper and the ones no one else would ever know about. The timeline he'd kept was bad enough: Lung captured, the Hebert girl drawn closer to the PRT, and Armsmaster looking better than ever. Piggot would be a lot harder to replace as PRT director after today, especially since Calvert couldn't take credit for any of it.
But that was still a little better compared to the timeline where he'd told Tattletale to press the attack. He'd been prepared for that not to go well. Four teenagers against Lung? They'd be lucky to survive. And they had survived, because Lung was already down.
Tattletale had been taken out first. She'd led her team to the Hebert girl's hiding place, and the instant "Vespiary" noticed Sarah Livsey (as he made a point of occasionally calling her), she crammed his pet's mouth full of bugs. Grue had had to grab his teammate and make a rapid retreat, but they'd been pursued for two blocks straight, and all the way they'd had to fight off constant attack by thousands upon thousands of insects. They'd all survived, although Thomas doubted they would have if the bug-Master had been trying to kill them. Lindt's dogs had managed to get them away, being less vulnerable to the biting and stinging than the humans, but it still was far from ideal.
Nobody captured or dead was better than he'd expected once it became clear Vespiary wasn't going to listen to them, but all of them would need weeks of serious medical attention before they could go out again, and Coil needed them to act as a distraction next week. So he'd been forced to close that timeline.
It wasn't the only annoyance of the day either. Piggot had called a secret meeting, and Thomas Calvert hadn't been invited. Nor had any of his moles. He hadn't been able to find out the subject of that meeting. Whatever it was was important enough to call in the entire local Protectorate, that pointless paper-pusher Renick, and Piggot herself. If there was a big operation coming, Thomas Calvert needed to know about it.
Then there were his longer-term headaches. Taylor Hebert and Jacqueline Colere. Hebert had been involved in a lot of his more recent headaches, but she was also a headache in her own right.
Taylor Hebert should have been easy for him to get under his thumb. A powerful Master with no social skills, one who had a Ward cause her trigger event no less, should have loathed the PRT with a useful passion. Such a person seemed like they would be simple to convince to serve him, either directly or through the Undersiders. Instead, Taylor Hebert seemed to be nervous about the PRT at worst, and strongly inclined to heroism. After last night, Coil would bet dollars to donuts the girl would end up in the Wards if he didn't do something to stop it, and he didn't know what to do to stop it.
He had a lot of options of course, but he didn't think any of them would work. The best one would have been to expose Shadow Stalker's civilian identity to her, but when he'd ordered one of his moles to "accidentally" disclose that information in a throwaway timeline she'd barely reacted. Almost like she'd already known, but if that was the case where was the anger? And why had she spent a day in M/S screening?
Thomas Calvert loathed not knowing.
Jacqueline Colere was, if anything, worse. He knew her power was more dangerous than it seemed, but he had no idea how. She hadn't shown anything more than gradual repair and maintenance of herself and the area around her, plus a few flashy but apparently purely aesthetic effects. But all parahuman powers were dangerous. He'd never encountered, or even heard of one that wasn't. The dangerous truth could be almost anything, and he needed to know.
Maybe she was a Master, altering the minds as well as the bodies of anyone in her "clockwork aura". It would certainly explain a few things. Maybe she could reverse its effect, spreading ruin and decay in a random fashion. A brain aneurysm could be caused by less than a thousandth of an ounce of force in the wrong place. Maybe the aura was a side effect of something else entirely. Maybe those "purely aesthetic" effects weren't. Until he found out he couldn't defend himself against her properly, but he had no way of knowing until power testing happened.
He'd sent three different teams to capture her for interrogation in 5 different throwaway timelines, and none of them had succeeded. And the girl hadn't used her powers against any of them. 2 attempts at the Hebert home had been foiled by Vespiary, the PRT arriving quickly in both cases. Attempting to kidnap her from the PRT headquarters hadn't gone well, with the girl ceasing to fall for the team leader's lies the instant he'd ordered her to leave the building. She'd kicked the unfortunate man in the crotch and ran away screaming for help, which, it being the PRT building, had arrived swiftly. That had happened twice, with two different team leaders, so she clearly wasn't leaving the building willingly. And she clearly had a vicious streak.
Thomas had screwed up with Winslow. (He could admit that to himself, though he never would to anybody else) He'd decided, once she was there, away from the Heberts and the PRT, to make a grab in an alternate timeline, but she'd been with a policewoman dealing with the fallout of another of his own plots, and a cop getting shot had made sure Velocity was on the scene within a minute. Between him and girl's kicking and screaming, the grab had been unsuccessful.
He could kill the girl easily enough, but that would draw far too much attention. Piggot actually seemed to like her for some reason, and her powers were as valuable as her story was sympathetic. Killing her would force the PRT to take him seriously, and that was the last thing he wanted. Well, not the last. Crossing Cauldron would be a lot worse. Still, he did have an idea as to how to get the girl on terrain friendlier to him.
None of the problems were crippling, or even seriously dangerous to him or his plans, but they were definitely immensely frustrating. He decided to torture Tattletale to death in a throwaway timeline, maybe spread a few more vicious rumors (lies) about her evilness on the internet. That always made him feel better.
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6-1 Inadvisability
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
For the record, I would like to state that Taylor Anne Hebert, daughter of Danny Hebert and somebody else, is a reckless, stupid, dummyhead. I do not do this without due care and consideration, but instead accuse her by the evidence of her actions.
Seriously, not only did she go out alone after pretty much everybody explained how stupid that is, she also picked a fight with a dragon. That's rank stupidity on about the same level as dancing the sisal two-step on top of the electric lines. In an Antarctic winter. She won, somehow, and Lung was in custody, but I very much did not think that it somehow wasn't still obscenely reckless.
Me finding out from a newspaper really didn't dissuade me from the "Taylor is a reckless idiot" theory. They didn't mention her real name, of course, but when LUNG CAPTURED BY ARMSMASTER was followed with NEW HERO VESPIARY I didn't need to be a postcognitive to know that Taylor was involved. Which was for the best, I suppose, since I still wasn't one. It's a little hard to believe that she actually used the name from my little sketch, but it did make more sense than was apparent at first glance.
Vespiary didn't sound comedic, lazy, or evil, which put it above a lot of insect based names. She sounded capable, competent, and efficient, and it didn't really have a moral bias. At least it wasn't Bugout, Lady of the Flies, or Skitter. I'm pretty sure any of those would have gotten her branded a villain or a joke by a lot of people regardless of how heroic, which in this context means stupid and insanely reckless but also benevolent and brave, her actions were. By the way "brave", in this context, means reckless, but in a nicer tone.
Names and titles are pretty much one of the core pillars of public relations, cape names more than others. How one is to be addressed is a core part of how one is perceived, and it's matched in terms of quickly establishing an image in people's heads only by one's appearance. It's not just the symbolism behind a name that matters, though that is very important. Being short and understandable is just as key. That was my mistake with "La mademoiselle de Ma'at", it was long and couldn't be shortened all that nicely without becoming generic or blasphemous. "Adjuvant" would work a lot better for my purposes, and it would fit in better with other capes than "La mademoiselle de Ma'at" or even my second choice "La Réparatrice". I checked last night and it was available. So "Adjuvant" it was. Not that I had told anyone else.
Vespiary, for a name that took literally 5 seconds of thought and one internet search to come up with, worked surprisingly well. Not outright heroic, but not villainous either, and it didn't sound like someone to be pitied, despised or ignored. Still, she could have found something just as good with one good search. Either Taylor was supremely uncreative, which she wasn't, or her problems finding a name had more to do with lack of confidence than any actual difficulty with the task. It would certainly explain why she'd leapt on my suggestion so quickly.
I'd slept reasonably well, and I awoke naturally, with no interruptions. That's one of the better ways to wake up. Battery's quarters were new to me, but so was every other place I'd slept since the merger. I was used to not being used to things like that.
My hair was perfectly clean and as non-tangled as it would ever get, rendering my brief effort at brushing it entirely pointless. Woe is me. I put it up in nice high pigtails anyway. Playing up the cute element couldn't hurt. I wanted people to have my best interests in mind.
Have to say I never really "got" the whole teenage push for independence thing. Honestly, I'm not sure if it's really as consistent and prevalent as fiction depicts it as. In any case, I was barely a teenager, so they wouldn't be expecting it. If Jacqueline-me hadn't skipped a grade or if Brockton Bay wasn't one of those places where 9th grade is grouped with 10-12 instead of 7-8 I'd be in junior high, or middle school as it was called here. I was just barely 14, the youngest in my grade by a few months.
The way middle school sounds way less "grown up" and mature than junior high, despite being exactly the same thing, is another fine example of the power of names. If Miss Militia had been called "Trigger Happy" no PR department in the world could convince the public to let her near a school, but the actual Blaster did that at least once every 3 months.
For similar reasons, I tried to dress cute. Not cutesy, there is a difference. I was trying to look cute, not like I was trying to look cute. Cuteness works a lot like coolness that way, but I was way better at cute than cool. Probably a consequence of naturally being freaking adorable. There were worse fates. Locket, beret, and standard black and white top, plus steel-toed boots and skirt/shorts. Not the best outfit I could imagine, but that's what happens when you have no money and need to carry everything you own in a backpack.
I reiterate, being a homeless orphan sucks.
By the time I finished getting dressed I still had a few hours before the meeting. I have sometimes been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so I went to the cafeteria, grabbing another meal ticket from where it had been left outside Battery's door. Probably meant for me. I certainly didn't see anyone else it could be meant for. The intended occupants of these rooms had standing permission for meals. When I got to the cafeteria, and after I presented my ticket and was let through, there was a guy reading the newspaper sitting at one of the closer tables, and the headlines were clear enough to see, and that's when I learned about Taylor's reckless stupidity.
Speaking of Taylor's reckless stupidity, she had better have a good explanation. I couldn't very well demand one right now, since she was probably asleep, but sooner or later she would answer for her actions.
For the moment it was breakfast time. Breakfast at the PRT building was like breakfast at any other institutional cafeteria. Or at least the ones that trust the diners to self-serve. Indifferent eggs, toaster with store-bread, cereal and milk, juice bar with 4 different options (two of them being apple and orange, of course), an excellent selection of mediocre pastries, lots of standardized breakfast sausage patties, bacon, and a truly impressive amount of coffee were the main options. Oh, and there was fruit, pretty much an afterthought, in a little basket.
I didn't drink coffee, mistrusted pastries and didn't like eating bacon straight, but the other options were nice to have. I filled a plate, put cereal and milk together in a bowl, grabbed some juice (which was not apple or orange), and acquired a banana. You never ,know when you might need a banana.
It was while I was sitting at one of the tables, starting at my breakfast, that I met Thomas Calvert for the first time. Guy just came right up and introduced himself. Ways, I wish I had that kind of confidence.
Thomas Calvert was a consultant with the PRT, having retired from their ranks with a respectable record, as well as one of the richest men in Brockton Bay. He was the CEO of Fortress Construction, a firm that specialized in building shelters against Endbringer attacks. Neither of Newfoundland's Endbringer shelters had been of any use whatsoever, but that was hardly the builder's fault. They'd held out longer than anything else, but when the air ran out everyone inside suffocated. There were systems in place to prevent that, but all of them depended on there being some air on the outside.
If you're wondering how I knew that in such detail, he told me. I'd muttered something about wishing the shelters would have helped back home, and he started talking about what went wrong and how he intended to do better. I was pretty sure it would eventually lead into how my powers could help with that, so I wasn't wondering what he was up to. But it probably would look weird from an outside perspective.
"Processing carbon dioxide into oxygen doesn't require expensive technology, even a houseplant can do it, but converters that can do so fast enough to meaningfully prolong a shelter's ability to support the tens to hundreds of thousands of people they are meant to hold are quite expensive and require significant amounts of power. That's where you come in"
Called it.
"Batteries, even the expensive ones we use, have minor manufacturing faults. Your aura, according to your file, allows for the automatic correction of such faults. Hopefully, if you assist us, we will be able to"
"Build a giant robot horse and take over the world," said the pale incarnation of death itself. That horrible white armoured bodysuit was surprisingly quiet, is what I was thinking as I very quietly extracted myself from the situation, careful not to draw attention, and then that eerie not-clock head turned in my direction.
I squeaked and bolted. A few random turns to throw off pursuit and then I carefully concealed myself in a maintenance closet to wait for that time-stopping nightmare to go away...---...---...---...---...---...---...---...---...---..
Seriously, not only did she go out alone after pretty much everybody explained how stupid that is, she also picked a fight with a dragon. That's rank stupidity on about the same level as dancing the sisal two-step on top of the electric lines. In an Antarctic winter. She won, somehow, and Lung was in custody, but I very much did not think that it somehow wasn't still obscenely reckless.
Me finding out from a newspaper really didn't dissuade me from the "Taylor is a reckless idiot" theory. They didn't mention her real name, of course, but when LUNG CAPTURED BY ARMSMASTER was followed with NEW HERO VESPIARY I didn't need to be a postcognitive to know that Taylor was involved. Which was for the best, I suppose, since I still wasn't one. It's a little hard to believe that she actually used the name from my little sketch, but it did make more sense than was apparent at first glance.
Vespiary didn't sound comedic, lazy, or evil, which put it above a lot of insect based names. She sounded capable, competent, and efficient, and it didn't really have a moral bias. At least it wasn't Bugout, Lady of the Flies, or Skitter. I'm pretty sure any of those would have gotten her branded a villain or a joke by a lot of people regardless of how heroic, which in this context means stupid and insanely reckless but also benevolent and brave, her actions were. By the way "brave", in this context, means reckless, but in a nicer tone.
Names and titles are pretty much one of the core pillars of public relations, cape names more than others. How one is to be addressed is a core part of how one is perceived, and it's matched in terms of quickly establishing an image in people's heads only by one's appearance. It's not just the symbolism behind a name that matters, though that is very important. Being short and understandable is just as key. That was my mistake with "La mademoiselle de Ma'at", it was long and couldn't be shortened all that nicely without becoming generic or blasphemous. "Adjuvant" would work a lot better for my purposes, and it would fit in better with other capes than "La mademoiselle de Ma'at" or even my second choice "La Réparatrice". I checked last night and it was available. So "Adjuvant" it was. Not that I had told anyone else.
Vespiary, for a name that took literally 5 seconds of thought and one internet search to come up with, worked surprisingly well. Not outright heroic, but not villainous either, and it didn't sound like someone to be pitied, despised or ignored. Still, she could have found something just as good with one good search. Either Taylor was supremely uncreative, which she wasn't, or her problems finding a name had more to do with lack of confidence than any actual difficulty with the task. It would certainly explain why she'd leapt on my suggestion so quickly.
I'd slept reasonably well, and I awoke naturally, with no interruptions. That's one of the better ways to wake up. Battery's quarters were new to me, but so was every other place I'd slept since the merger. I was used to not being used to things like that.
My hair was perfectly clean and as non-tangled as it would ever get, rendering my brief effort at brushing it entirely pointless. Woe is me. I put it up in nice high pigtails anyway. Playing up the cute element couldn't hurt. I wanted people to have my best interests in mind.
Have to say I never really "got" the whole teenage push for independence thing. Honestly, I'm not sure if it's really as consistent and prevalent as fiction depicts it as. In any case, I was barely a teenager, so they wouldn't be expecting it. If Jacqueline-me hadn't skipped a grade or if Brockton Bay wasn't one of those places where 9th grade is grouped with 10-12 instead of 7-8 I'd be in junior high, or middle school as it was called here. I was just barely 14, the youngest in my grade by a few months.
The way middle school sounds way less "grown up" and mature than junior high, despite being exactly the same thing, is another fine example of the power of names. If Miss Militia had been called "Trigger Happy" no PR department in the world could convince the public to let her near a school, but the actual Blaster did that at least once every 3 months.
For similar reasons, I tried to dress cute. Not cutesy, there is a difference. I was trying to look cute, not like I was trying to look cute. Cuteness works a lot like coolness that way, but I was way better at cute than cool. Probably a consequence of naturally being freaking adorable. There were worse fates. Locket, beret, and standard black and white top, plus steel-toed boots and skirt/shorts. Not the best outfit I could imagine, but that's what happens when you have no money and need to carry everything you own in a backpack.
I reiterate, being a homeless orphan sucks.
By the time I finished getting dressed I still had a few hours before the meeting. I have sometimes been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so I went to the cafeteria, grabbing another meal ticket from where it had been left outside Battery's door. Probably meant for me. I certainly didn't see anyone else it could be meant for. The intended occupants of these rooms had standing permission for meals. When I got to the cafeteria, and after I presented my ticket and was let through, there was a guy reading the newspaper sitting at one of the closer tables, and the headlines were clear enough to see, and that's when I learned about Taylor's reckless stupidity.
Speaking of Taylor's reckless stupidity, she had better have a good explanation. I couldn't very well demand one right now, since she was probably asleep, but sooner or later she would answer for her actions.
For the moment it was breakfast time. Breakfast at the PRT building was like breakfast at any other institutional cafeteria. Or at least the ones that trust the diners to self-serve. Indifferent eggs, toaster with store-bread, cereal and milk, juice bar with 4 different options (two of them being apple and orange, of course), an excellent selection of mediocre pastries, lots of standardized breakfast sausage patties, bacon, and a truly impressive amount of coffee were the main options. Oh, and there was fruit, pretty much an afterthought, in a little basket.
I didn't drink coffee, mistrusted pastries and didn't like eating bacon straight, but the other options were nice to have. I filled a plate, put cereal and milk together in a bowl, grabbed some juice (which was not apple or orange), and acquired a banana. You never ,know when you might need a banana.
It was while I was sitting at one of the tables, starting at my breakfast, that I met Thomas Calvert for the first time. Guy just came right up and introduced himself. Ways, I wish I had that kind of confidence.
Thomas Calvert was a consultant with the PRT, having retired from their ranks with a respectable record, as well as one of the richest men in Brockton Bay. He was the CEO of Fortress Construction, a firm that specialized in building shelters against Endbringer attacks. Neither of Newfoundland's Endbringer shelters had been of any use whatsoever, but that was hardly the builder's fault. They'd held out longer than anything else, but when the air ran out everyone inside suffocated. There were systems in place to prevent that, but all of them depended on there being some air on the outside.
If you're wondering how I knew that in such detail, he told me. I'd muttered something about wishing the shelters would have helped back home, and he started talking about what went wrong and how he intended to do better. I was pretty sure it would eventually lead into how my powers could help with that, so I wasn't wondering what he was up to. But it probably would look weird from an outside perspective.
"Processing carbon dioxide into oxygen doesn't require expensive technology, even a houseplant can do it, but converters that can do so fast enough to meaningfully prolong a shelter's ability to support the tens to hundreds of thousands of people they are meant to hold are quite expensive and require significant amounts of power. That's where you come in"
Called it.
"Batteries, even the expensive ones we use, have minor manufacturing faults. Your aura, according to your file, allows for the automatic correction of such faults. Hopefully, if you assist us, we will be able to"
"Build a giant robot horse and take over the world," said the pale incarnation of death itself. That horrible white armoured bodysuit was surprisingly quiet, is what I was thinking as I very quietly extracted myself from the situation, careful not to draw attention, and then that eerie not-clock head turned in my direction.
I squeaked and bolted. A few random turns to throw off pursuit and then I carefully concealed myself in a maintenance closet to wait for that time-stopping nightmare to go away...---...---...---...---...---...---...---...---...---..
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6-2 Instantaneous
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They found me pretty quickly, of course. "They" being the PRT and it's associate parahumans of course. Specifically a bright-eyed female staffer and gallant Gallant. But they didn't bring Clockblocker (shudder) with them, so that was alright. Apparently my aura is extremely distinctive to Gallant's emotion sense. Gleaming like polished brass was apparently not just limited to my skin under its effects, it actually looks like that to him. Not sure if he could see through it, actually. It'd be pretty obvious if I could tell whether he was looking at my eyes, or at the space covered by my aura in general, but his helmet gave no indication of where his eyes were pointing. But it sufficed for him to find out where I was very quickly. Maybe his emotion-sight wasn't blocked by walls, or maybe my aura wasn't. They probably could have just checked the cameras, but that would have taken longer. I assume. I'm not terribly familiar with that sort of thing. For all I knew it would have taken 2 seconds and Gallant was just showing off. Didn't seem like him, but I didn't really know him all that well.
Granted, I didn't really know anyone all that well. Nobody who lived in this world anyway. I knew plenty of people who were dead in this world, but that didn't really help. It was probably actively detrimental, actually. I'm not a psychiatrist, or a psychologist, or even a grief counsellor, but I'm pretty sure losing everyone you care about isn't exactly great for your mental health. And, because of my unusual circumstances, I'd lost two entirely different sets of "everyone you care about". In two entirely different ways, even.
Long story short, it's not entirely surprising that I have issues. Golly, it's almost as if stealing a person away from everything they know, shoving them into an orphan's horribly traumatized mind and giving the resulting mess superpowers doesn't magically make everything okay. Who knew?
Besides anybody with the slightest little glimmer of understanding about how people work, that is?
Bitterness is a perfectly understandable and reasonable emotional response in this situation. Trust me.
Guess Gallant can't read my emotions, since he just kept the same "soothe the frightened child" line of dialogue up the whole time, even as I shifted to bitterness and anger. Not that it wasn't appreciated.
I needed all the kindness I could get.
So, anyway, Gallant and Stone (according to her nametag) found me, and eventually managed to calm me down. Headpats, hair stroking and/or cuddles may or may not have been involved. I deny any and all allegations that I was picked up and given a piggyback ride. Yep, denied.
Anyway, I arrived at the meeting room in a distinctly non-piggyback manner, only to find I was a bit over two hours early. I didn't have a lot to do. Reaming Taylor out would have to wait until everyone else was done reaming her out. Danny alone would probably take a few hours.
If that seems like overkill, kindly remember that Lung has a bad habit of applying actual overkill to anyone who tries to stand up to him. Sometimes his fires have been hot enough to burn the bones of people who've crossed him. Taylor could have been killed pretty much instantly, bugs or no bugs. Except for Brutes, like Lung, and some Breakers, like Sophia, parahumans are just as squishy as everyone else.
The PRT, unlike Winslow, had actual whiteboards instead of blackboards and chalk. The benefits of having an actual budget and an administration worth the name. So the elaborately patterned maze I drew in the conference room felt very different from Winslow's, although I don't suppose it matters too much to you, since you can't actually see either. But that's what I was doing when people began to turn up for the meeting.
Gallant was already there, of course. So was Stone, who was apparently involved in this somehow. A man from Child Protective Services was the next to arrive, although he was only half an hour early. He didn't say anything to me, which didn't exactly speak well of his ability to be responsible for children. Given that at least some of those children weren't white, cisgender, and heterosexual, his phone being open to a neo-nazi-friendly news site didn't bode well either, not that he saw me looking. If this guy was supposed to be in charge of my case, a lot of things suddenly made sense.
On a side note, Brockton Bay is just awful.
Next to arrive were the Heberts, with the matter of Taylor's poor decision making set aside for the moment. Since not everybody at the meeting knew that she was Vespiary, especially not crypto-bigot-child-services-guy, that issue would have to be postponed. I managed to sneak in a little glare when we hugged anyway. She seemed suitably apologetic. We talked a little, but there was a lot that couldn't be said. Fortunately, hugs do not require words. That's science.
After the Heberts, New Wave were the next ones to show up. I was honestly surprised that they'd been invited. I knew they'd been invited because they were walking in calmly, and not bursting in with containment foam and lasers flying everywhere. Lady Photon and Manpower greeted me and everyone else politely, while Brandish was glaring suspiciously at everyone, especially me. Wonder what that was about. Their children were presumably at school (said school being a university in a different city in Laserdream's case), and Flashbang was probably holding down the fort.
Not literally. Fortifications really hadn't been the same since the advent of modern explosive deployment methods. It was a shame, aesthetically, but military technology rarely waits for the tastes of the artists. New Wave didn't really have a viable use for fortifications anyway, they were closer to cavalry than infantry in terms of tactical deployment, and while they did take prisoners, they didn't keep them, generally turning them over to the PRT or regular cops.
The Director arrived with Sorrows a minute or so before the meeting was scheduled to begin, and Armsmaster arrived at precisely the moment where he would be neither early nor late. So precisely that he pretty much had to be making a statement of some sort. There is absoulte no possible way that his timing could possibly be remotely that good naturally. With his arrival, the Director cleared her throat and the meeting began. Sort of. You'll see.
Granted, I didn't really know anyone all that well. Nobody who lived in this world anyway. I knew plenty of people who were dead in this world, but that didn't really help. It was probably actively detrimental, actually. I'm not a psychiatrist, or a psychologist, or even a grief counsellor, but I'm pretty sure losing everyone you care about isn't exactly great for your mental health. And, because of my unusual circumstances, I'd lost two entirely different sets of "everyone you care about". In two entirely different ways, even.
Long story short, it's not entirely surprising that I have issues. Golly, it's almost as if stealing a person away from everything they know, shoving them into an orphan's horribly traumatized mind and giving the resulting mess superpowers doesn't magically make everything okay. Who knew?
Besides anybody with the slightest little glimmer of understanding about how people work, that is?
Bitterness is a perfectly understandable and reasonable emotional response in this situation. Trust me.
Guess Gallant can't read my emotions, since he just kept the same "soothe the frightened child" line of dialogue up the whole time, even as I shifted to bitterness and anger. Not that it wasn't appreciated.
I needed all the kindness I could get.
So, anyway, Gallant and Stone (according to her nametag) found me, and eventually managed to calm me down. Headpats, hair stroking and/or cuddles may or may not have been involved. I deny any and all allegations that I was picked up and given a piggyback ride. Yep, denied.
Anyway, I arrived at the meeting room in a distinctly non-piggyback manner, only to find I was a bit over two hours early. I didn't have a lot to do. Reaming Taylor out would have to wait until everyone else was done reaming her out. Danny alone would probably take a few hours.
If that seems like overkill, kindly remember that Lung has a bad habit of applying actual overkill to anyone who tries to stand up to him. Sometimes his fires have been hot enough to burn the bones of people who've crossed him. Taylor could have been killed pretty much instantly, bugs or no bugs. Except for Brutes, like Lung, and some Breakers, like Sophia, parahumans are just as squishy as everyone else.
The PRT, unlike Winslow, had actual whiteboards instead of blackboards and chalk. The benefits of having an actual budget and an administration worth the name. So the elaborately patterned maze I drew in the conference room felt very different from Winslow's, although I don't suppose it matters too much to you, since you can't actually see either. But that's what I was doing when people began to turn up for the meeting.
Gallant was already there, of course. So was Stone, who was apparently involved in this somehow. A man from Child Protective Services was the next to arrive, although he was only half an hour early. He didn't say anything to me, which didn't exactly speak well of his ability to be responsible for children. Given that at least some of those children weren't white, cisgender, and heterosexual, his phone being open to a neo-nazi-friendly news site didn't bode well either, not that he saw me looking. If this guy was supposed to be in charge of my case, a lot of things suddenly made sense.
On a side note, Brockton Bay is just awful.
Next to arrive were the Heberts, with the matter of Taylor's poor decision making set aside for the moment. Since not everybody at the meeting knew that she was Vespiary, especially not crypto-bigot-child-services-guy, that issue would have to be postponed. I managed to sneak in a little glare when we hugged anyway. She seemed suitably apologetic. We talked a little, but there was a lot that couldn't be said. Fortunately, hugs do not require words. That's science.
After the Heberts, New Wave were the next ones to show up. I was honestly surprised that they'd been invited. I knew they'd been invited because they were walking in calmly, and not bursting in with containment foam and lasers flying everywhere. Lady Photon and Manpower greeted me and everyone else politely, while Brandish was glaring suspiciously at everyone, especially me. Wonder what that was about. Their children were presumably at school (said school being a university in a different city in Laserdream's case), and Flashbang was probably holding down the fort.
Not literally. Fortifications really hadn't been the same since the advent of modern explosive deployment methods. It was a shame, aesthetically, but military technology rarely waits for the tastes of the artists. New Wave didn't really have a viable use for fortifications anyway, they were closer to cavalry than infantry in terms of tactical deployment, and while they did take prisoners, they didn't keep them, generally turning them over to the PRT or regular cops.
The Director arrived with Sorrows a minute or so before the meeting was scheduled to begin, and Armsmaster arrived at precisely the moment where he would be neither early nor late. So precisely that he pretty much had to be making a statement of some sort. There is absoulte no possible way that his timing could possibly be remotely that good naturally. With his arrival, the Director cleared her throat and the meeting began. Sort of. You'll see.
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6-3 Insular
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
In theory, this meeting was called in order to determine the guardianship of one Jacqueline Colere: Leviathan Survivor, Orphan, Parahuman, and Freaking Adorable, amongst sundry other great and noble titles. In practice, it had the major secondary purpose of testing out Emily Piggot's mole-hunting scheme, which made the presence of so much of New Wave problematic. It wasn't all that likely, but if they were working for Coil, and weren't incapacitated by the breaking of his Master effect, they were three rather powerful parahumans in the same soon-to-be sealed room as the director of the PRT.
And me, though I was more likely to be a target for kidnapping rather than assassination. Which was just as bad, given Coil's abilities. Technically there were four parahumans known to be not Mastered in the room as well, but Gallant was out of his league and I didn't even know how to play the sport. Armsmaster was one of the best, but all three New Wavers had defensive powers that would, at best, seriously hinder him. Taylor would take our side, but she wasn't in costume or at all prepared for close in work, and there were very few bugs inside the building. Especially since it was regularly cleaned and swept for bugs of a more electronic nature. And even she had been totally ready, she wasn't exactly all that experienced.
Meanwhile, Brandish was a seasoned melee combatant, who also had a breaker state Armsmaster and Taylor couldn't really affect, nor could the rest of us, Lady Photon could generate shields as well as being a high-level blaster, and Manpower was a pretty powerful brute. Lady Photon wouldn't be at her best in close quarters, but Gallant would be worse off and Armsmaster nearly as bad as him: halberds, like other polearms, need a lot of space to wield properly. Taylor wouldn't technically be hindered by fighting up close, but she'd be very vulnerable. Meanwhile, I had no offensive or defensive powers, and about all I had going for me was a willingness to put heavy things into sensitive areas at high speeds, which wasn't really up to the combat-readiness standards of parahuman violence.
The director was a seasoned PRT veteran, but she was also severely debilitated and unarmed. And way out of shape, thanks to the aforementioned debilitation. Her PRT service record was seriously impressive; she'd survived Ellisburg after all. If you're not familiar with why that's impressive, just take my word for it. Don't ask.
Seriously, don't.
But her kidneys hadn't been so lucky, and she was seriously overweight and required regular dialysis as a result. She'd been promoted on merit, and done an excellent job as an (underfunded) administrator, but she wasn't field-capable anymore.
This was all a matter of public record, by the way. The biographies of all the PRT directors were, although they were in a poorly-maintained and not at all advertised part of the public record that nobody seemed to care about. I looked it all up Sunday night. The injuries she'd taken earning her various medals (that she didn't wear) meant she probably wasn't anywhere near as good in a fight as she should be. If she'd been in fighting shape, I'd be a lot less worried, but she wasn't.
Stone and Danny were reasonably fit, but I had no idea whether they actually knew how to fight, and Stone hadn't been checked. If anyone in the room was working for Coil, it was probably her or the CPS guy. I would not be inclined to trust him in the slightest. Sorrows could be trusted, but she was also more than a little bit overweight, though not to the same degree as the director, and showed absolutely no signs of any sort of combat training whatsoever. She'd most likely be almost as useless as me if it came to blows.
In short, if New Wave had been subverted we would have a very serious problem. I was probably just borrowing trouble though. I didn't have much to do during this part, so I was at a bit of a loose end. Sorrows was explaining the elaborate tale that was the first step of The Plan, or at least the first step that was part of the relevant part of The Plan. There was at least one part of The Plan that had already been kicked in, that being the flashy raids and door kicking, and there was likely more to The Plan than I had been told about. And it wasn't like I had understood all the parts of The Plan that were explained to me. On a side note, it really was comforting to refer to The Plan as The Plan. Dramatics save lives.
This was a Master/Stranger situation: The Master designation referred to parahumans who could control minions, animals, projections or humans, the last being the relevant kind of Master (and the main reason why Masters had such a fearsome reputation). Strangers were parahumans who could hide themselves somehow (by parahuman means, not natural ones), some created illusions, some erased bits of memory or perception, some were just hard to detect. Master/Stranger, put together, almost always referred to parahumans who could mess with people's minds, generally in particularly difficult ways.
Cedric Devins, temporarily designated "Ditch" by the PRT, was a classic example of how power can corrupt. He was a typical young Cornell university student till the bombing incident, then he triggered with the ability to make anyone who had looked him in the eyes for too long forget him entirely. Worse, any "suggestions" he gave while someone was looking him in the eyes would linger subconsciously until the right circumstances came up, at which point they'd be followed immediately. He was also interested in me, in a definitely creepy (and possibly sexual, if only by implication) way, and had used his power to gather information on me before. Thus, anybody in the room who wanted to know where I would be going would have to undergo an abbreviated test to check if they were affected, as well as the normal need for secrecy. Cedric Devins was a deeply unnerving, even terrifying threat.
He was also entirely fictional, something I was immensely glad for. There probably was a guy by that name somewhere, but everything else, except the bomber incident, was entirely made up for the purposes of not tipping off Coil or anyone associated with him as to what we were up to.
It was, however, a disturbingly plausible story, something that sounded just like a lot of other villain origins, and the power he didn't actually have (because he didn't actually exist) was something that easily could exist. "Ditch" would hardly be the first Master/Stranger combination parahuman, (though most of the others used Master powers to create Stranger effects rather than the other way around), and he'd be far from the worst.
The worst being Heartbreaker. Or the Simurgh, but that particular vile monstrosity against sanity and hope didn't really disguise or conceal herself, just what she was planning, so she didn't really qualify as a Stranger. Heartbreaker was different.
Physically human, for one thing, and technically human altogether, although his monstrous behaviour certainly put a little doubt in my mind. Heartbreaker was probably the most powerful emotion manipulator on the planet, able to twist just about anyone into a totally loyal slave in less than a second, along with believing that people, especially pretty female people, existed only to serve him and his depraved wants. That was a bad combination, to say the least. Heartbreaker had Mastered and kidnapped hundreds of women last I'd heard, and was probably on to four digit numbers by now, along with countless other lives ruined or ended. And that's not an exclusive or. Heartbreaker hadn't been caught for a number of reasons, none of which felt good enough on a visceral level, since he was just that despicable.
With his power, it was easy for him to muddle up reports about him, making anyone who he noticed working against him a potential brainwashing victim, making it almost impossible to know where he was at any given moment, and he not only had way too many directly Mastered hostages, he'd also set up a dead man's switch system composed of concealed, Mastered, government employees to devastate Canada if he ever went down.
Everyone in North America knew about and hated Nikos Vasil, but nobody could do anything about it. No matter how much they, how much we wanted to.
That was the worst known Master/Stranger parahuman. And no, he wasn't a worst case scenario, he was merely the worst so far. He was far too powerful and depraved in all the worst ways, but he wasn't trying to Master entire cities.
Coil, if Emma's reports were to be believed, might be the very case where Heartbreaker's atrocities were exceeded for the first time. By a human, that is. The Simurgh did even worse at least once a year. Coil was planning to take over the city, but none of us knew how much of that would be directly Mastering everyone and how much would be by more mundane means. Either way would be awful, but knowing would help counter it. Coil, not Heartbreaker or the Simurgh. Their awfulness would continue regardless of what happened here.
In case I haven't mentioned it before, Earth Bet is just awful.
And me, though I was more likely to be a target for kidnapping rather than assassination. Which was just as bad, given Coil's abilities. Technically there were four parahumans known to be not Mastered in the room as well, but Gallant was out of his league and I didn't even know how to play the sport. Armsmaster was one of the best, but all three New Wavers had defensive powers that would, at best, seriously hinder him. Taylor would take our side, but she wasn't in costume or at all prepared for close in work, and there were very few bugs inside the building. Especially since it was regularly cleaned and swept for bugs of a more electronic nature. And even she had been totally ready, she wasn't exactly all that experienced.
Meanwhile, Brandish was a seasoned melee combatant, who also had a breaker state Armsmaster and Taylor couldn't really affect, nor could the rest of us, Lady Photon could generate shields as well as being a high-level blaster, and Manpower was a pretty powerful brute. Lady Photon wouldn't be at her best in close quarters, but Gallant would be worse off and Armsmaster nearly as bad as him: halberds, like other polearms, need a lot of space to wield properly. Taylor wouldn't technically be hindered by fighting up close, but she'd be very vulnerable. Meanwhile, I had no offensive or defensive powers, and about all I had going for me was a willingness to put heavy things into sensitive areas at high speeds, which wasn't really up to the combat-readiness standards of parahuman violence.
The director was a seasoned PRT veteran, but she was also severely debilitated and unarmed. And way out of shape, thanks to the aforementioned debilitation. Her PRT service record was seriously impressive; she'd survived Ellisburg after all. If you're not familiar with why that's impressive, just take my word for it. Don't ask.
Seriously, don't.
But her kidneys hadn't been so lucky, and she was seriously overweight and required regular dialysis as a result. She'd been promoted on merit, and done an excellent job as an (underfunded) administrator, but she wasn't field-capable anymore.
This was all a matter of public record, by the way. The biographies of all the PRT directors were, although they were in a poorly-maintained and not at all advertised part of the public record that nobody seemed to care about. I looked it all up Sunday night. The injuries she'd taken earning her various medals (that she didn't wear) meant she probably wasn't anywhere near as good in a fight as she should be. If she'd been in fighting shape, I'd be a lot less worried, but she wasn't.
Stone and Danny were reasonably fit, but I had no idea whether they actually knew how to fight, and Stone hadn't been checked. If anyone in the room was working for Coil, it was probably her or the CPS guy. I would not be inclined to trust him in the slightest. Sorrows could be trusted, but she was also more than a little bit overweight, though not to the same degree as the director, and showed absolutely no signs of any sort of combat training whatsoever. She'd most likely be almost as useless as me if it came to blows.
In short, if New Wave had been subverted we would have a very serious problem. I was probably just borrowing trouble though. I didn't have much to do during this part, so I was at a bit of a loose end. Sorrows was explaining the elaborate tale that was the first step of The Plan, or at least the first step that was part of the relevant part of The Plan. There was at least one part of The Plan that had already been kicked in, that being the flashy raids and door kicking, and there was likely more to The Plan than I had been told about. And it wasn't like I had understood all the parts of The Plan that were explained to me. On a side note, it really was comforting to refer to The Plan as The Plan. Dramatics save lives.
This was a Master/Stranger situation: The Master designation referred to parahumans who could control minions, animals, projections or humans, the last being the relevant kind of Master (and the main reason why Masters had such a fearsome reputation). Strangers were parahumans who could hide themselves somehow (by parahuman means, not natural ones), some created illusions, some erased bits of memory or perception, some were just hard to detect. Master/Stranger, put together, almost always referred to parahumans who could mess with people's minds, generally in particularly difficult ways.
Cedric Devins, temporarily designated "Ditch" by the PRT, was a classic example of how power can corrupt. He was a typical young Cornell university student till the bombing incident, then he triggered with the ability to make anyone who had looked him in the eyes for too long forget him entirely. Worse, any "suggestions" he gave while someone was looking him in the eyes would linger subconsciously until the right circumstances came up, at which point they'd be followed immediately. He was also interested in me, in a definitely creepy (and possibly sexual, if only by implication) way, and had used his power to gather information on me before. Thus, anybody in the room who wanted to know where I would be going would have to undergo an abbreviated test to check if they were affected, as well as the normal need for secrecy. Cedric Devins was a deeply unnerving, even terrifying threat.
He was also entirely fictional, something I was immensely glad for. There probably was a guy by that name somewhere, but everything else, except the bomber incident, was entirely made up for the purposes of not tipping off Coil or anyone associated with him as to what we were up to.
It was, however, a disturbingly plausible story, something that sounded just like a lot of other villain origins, and the power he didn't actually have (because he didn't actually exist) was something that easily could exist. "Ditch" would hardly be the first Master/Stranger combination parahuman, (though most of the others used Master powers to create Stranger effects rather than the other way around), and he'd be far from the worst.
The worst being Heartbreaker. Or the Simurgh, but that particular vile monstrosity against sanity and hope didn't really disguise or conceal herself, just what she was planning, so she didn't really qualify as a Stranger. Heartbreaker was different.
Physically human, for one thing, and technically human altogether, although his monstrous behaviour certainly put a little doubt in my mind. Heartbreaker was probably the most powerful emotion manipulator on the planet, able to twist just about anyone into a totally loyal slave in less than a second, along with believing that people, especially pretty female people, existed only to serve him and his depraved wants. That was a bad combination, to say the least. Heartbreaker had Mastered and kidnapped hundreds of women last I'd heard, and was probably on to four digit numbers by now, along with countless other lives ruined or ended. And that's not an exclusive or. Heartbreaker hadn't been caught for a number of reasons, none of which felt good enough on a visceral level, since he was just that despicable.
With his power, it was easy for him to muddle up reports about him, making anyone who he noticed working against him a potential brainwashing victim, making it almost impossible to know where he was at any given moment, and he not only had way too many directly Mastered hostages, he'd also set up a dead man's switch system composed of concealed, Mastered, government employees to devastate Canada if he ever went down.
Everyone in North America knew about and hated Nikos Vasil, but nobody could do anything about it. No matter how much they, how much we wanted to.
That was the worst known Master/Stranger parahuman. And no, he wasn't a worst case scenario, he was merely the worst so far. He was far too powerful and depraved in all the worst ways, but he wasn't trying to Master entire cities.
Coil, if Emma's reports were to be believed, might be the very case where Heartbreaker's atrocities were exceeded for the first time. By a human, that is. The Simurgh did even worse at least once a year. Coil was planning to take over the city, but none of us knew how much of that would be directly Mastering everyone and how much would be by more mundane means. Either way would be awful, but knowing would help counter it. Coil, not Heartbreaker or the Simurgh. Their awfulness would continue regardless of what happened here.
In case I haven't mentioned it before, Earth Bet is just awful.
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6-4 Inquisition
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Mara Sorrows knows how to put a story together, you have got to give her that. She managed to create a compelling, sometimes even chilling, account of the rise of Cedric Devins and his gradually-increasing depravity and cruelty, all the while sounding like she was actively trying to be as blandly professional as humanly possible. The whole thing, mind you, less than a day after the plan was shared and working from an entirely fictional basis. Cedric Devins didn't actually exist, after all. She was probably recycling something, but it was very impressive work.
I'm not sure what acting or writing has to do with being a Master/Stranger screener, but Sorrows could have done either professionally. Unless somebody else was behind the writing part, which I guess was totally plausible. That was still some very impressive acting though.
New Wave raised no objection to a quick screening, given the circumstances. The director pushed a button and gave an access code, which will not be revealed here, and the seclusion protocols began. Sheets of metal covered the walls. A different sheet of metal covered the ceiling. Yet another sheet of metal covered the floor. There was probably more to it than that, and what more there was may or may not have involved sheets of metal covering things. I really had no way of knowing.
Though I do like to think that hundreds of sheets of metal were covering hundreds of things. I have absolutely no idea why I like to think that, but I do.
I blame "Patron".
I have no particular reason to think "Patron" was behind it, to be clear, but under the circumstances they're just the obvious person, if they are a person, to blame for everything. If you have to ask why, you may need to work at understanding people a bit better. I recommend studying a smidge of psych.
So, anyway, I meditated on broken things. There were a lot of broken things. The broken front step on Taylor's house. The broken architecture of Winslow. The broken port that ruined the city. My mother's broken corpse, her eyes screaming at me to do something, anything, as I quail helplessly, unable to answer her. That sort of thing.
Maybe meditating on what's broken instead of on my determination to fix it or the better place the world could be wasn't exactly great for my issues. Bad idea, all round, really. Not gonna try that again, if I can help it. It worked though. Skin like brass. Gears turning behind my shoulders and head. A clock's relentless tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock filling the air. Eyes like clock faces. Which I could still see through, oddly enough. It hadn't occurred to me before, but if my eyes were changing into pupilless clock-faces I really should be blind, since there was nowhere for the light to pass through. Maybe the side-effects of my aura were purely illusory, or maybe it was a minor Breaker effect. Powers are nonsensical.
Okay, they are probably just following rules that I have no way of knowing, since they were a little too self-consistent to be entirely random, but they definitely seem nonsensical.
Anyways my aura ran over everybody for at least a solid minute. Unfortunately, we didn't know how long it took to undo existing Master effects, as opposed to blocking Gallant's emotion beams. That's the problem with having a sample size of two, though I was quite frankly hoping the sample size would stay small. Everyone who'd been checked yesterday had been monitored and required to stay either within the building or in constant contact for at least two hours longer than the time it'd taken Sophia to break down. Taylor and Danny hadn't because they'd been in the aura before, but everyone else had eyes on them during that time, and most of them were involved in keeping an eye on the others as well. None of them showed any unusual signs. Unusual for them anyway, which was an important distinction. Particularly in the case of Assault, who was usually unusual, and continued to be so, in his usual manner. Capes in general tend to be pretty unusual, for that matter.
Nobody in the room showed any immediate reaction, which could mean they weren't under Coil's grip, or it could just mean that it took time to undo. Then Stone was taken to one side by Armsmaster and Gallant, presumably to be questioned as to whether she was working for (or with) Coil. The director followed them at a slightly longer distance. The rest of us were left sort of standing around awkwardly.
Yes, there were chairs. No, we did not use them. Yes, we were kinda dumb. No, it wasn't for no good reason.
You see, for us to sit down would require somebody to sit down first, and nobody did. In my own case, taking the lead on that would go against the image I was trying to create. I was trying to look meek and pitiable, so that people would look after me, and taking the lead wouldn't jive well with that. I also sort of wanted to be underestimated, since that would cause people to be less cautious about what they said around me. Or what they did, for that matter, like the CPS guy not hiding what he was looking at on his phone. So someone else would have to take the lead on that.
Trick was, nobody else was taking the lead. I could guess at most of their reasons: Taylor wasn't comfortable with attention, Danny was probably distracted by Taylor almost getting herself killed, and New Wave were guests and, as an independent team, needed a very polite reputation with the PRT. Not sure about crypto-racist CPS guy though.
His probably-bigoted mind was a mystery. All I knew about him was that he thought that browsing the slightly less blatant Earth-Bet equivalent of Stormfront inside the PRT building, in a city full of outright Nazis who were practically at war with the PRT, was a good idea. And what he looked like, obviously, plus what I could deduce from those two things. I took a bit to start thinking things through, plus a bit of extra observation.
He still hadn't actually said anything, but his appearance said a lot for him. For the record, that was shaved bald (he was old enough that it could just be him giving in to the inevitable, but given the website I didn't think that was likely), in an ill-fitting and wrinkled but expensive suit (according to the still-attached label anyway), with the tie not done properly, along with his accessories. I may not know how to tie a tie, but I can recognize when somebody else does it wrong, the back part of the tie isn't supposed to stick out the bottom. His diamond cufflinks and Rolex weren't the best quality, and they didn't work with the rest of the outfit at all (word to the wise, wrinkled greenish-brown doesn't go with (poorly-)polished gold), but they were still a lot more expensive than I would have expected on a government salary. Either this guy was spending most of his pay on fashion he didn't understand, or he had some other way of paying for his luxuries.
Frankly I felt that anybody who cared enough about fashion to spend most of his money on it wouldn't show up to a meeting in an ill-fitting and wrinkled suit, so I assumed it was probably the latter. There were any number of possible sources for that money, but this was Brockton Bay, so it was probably bribery and/or other types of corruption. Given the website, he was probably selling information to the Empire, probably along with using his authority on their behalf. It wasn't hard to figure out, but proving it would be a whole nother kettle of fish. Well, there was a simple way to check.
I waited until the official people were done with Stone and were moving on to the CPS guy. I should probably learn his name at some point, but for the moment I didn't need to. I waited until Armsmaster and Gallant were both focusing on him and there was a lull in the "conversation" (questioning), then casually walked up and, in my most innocent, most worried voice (lip quivering and all) and asked:
"Um, by any chance are you gonna sell me out to the Empire? Cause that would be really bad for me?"
I'm not sure what acting or writing has to do with being a Master/Stranger screener, but Sorrows could have done either professionally. Unless somebody else was behind the writing part, which I guess was totally plausible. That was still some very impressive acting though.
New Wave raised no objection to a quick screening, given the circumstances. The director pushed a button and gave an access code, which will not be revealed here, and the seclusion protocols began. Sheets of metal covered the walls. A different sheet of metal covered the ceiling. Yet another sheet of metal covered the floor. There was probably more to it than that, and what more there was may or may not have involved sheets of metal covering things. I really had no way of knowing.
Though I do like to think that hundreds of sheets of metal were covering hundreds of things. I have absolutely no idea why I like to think that, but I do.
I blame "Patron".
I have no particular reason to think "Patron" was behind it, to be clear, but under the circumstances they're just the obvious person, if they are a person, to blame for everything. If you have to ask why, you may need to work at understanding people a bit better. I recommend studying a smidge of psych.
So, anyway, I meditated on broken things. There were a lot of broken things. The broken front step on Taylor's house. The broken architecture of Winslow. The broken port that ruined the city. My mother's broken corpse, her eyes screaming at me to do something, anything, as I quail helplessly, unable to answer her. That sort of thing.
Maybe meditating on what's broken instead of on my determination to fix it or the better place the world could be wasn't exactly great for my issues. Bad idea, all round, really. Not gonna try that again, if I can help it. It worked though. Skin like brass. Gears turning behind my shoulders and head. A clock's relentless tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock filling the air. Eyes like clock faces. Which I could still see through, oddly enough. It hadn't occurred to me before, but if my eyes were changing into pupilless clock-faces I really should be blind, since there was nowhere for the light to pass through. Maybe the side-effects of my aura were purely illusory, or maybe it was a minor Breaker effect. Powers are nonsensical.
Okay, they are probably just following rules that I have no way of knowing, since they were a little too self-consistent to be entirely random, but they definitely seem nonsensical.
Anyways my aura ran over everybody for at least a solid minute. Unfortunately, we didn't know how long it took to undo existing Master effects, as opposed to blocking Gallant's emotion beams. That's the problem with having a sample size of two, though I was quite frankly hoping the sample size would stay small. Everyone who'd been checked yesterday had been monitored and required to stay either within the building or in constant contact for at least two hours longer than the time it'd taken Sophia to break down. Taylor and Danny hadn't because they'd been in the aura before, but everyone else had eyes on them during that time, and most of them were involved in keeping an eye on the others as well. None of them showed any unusual signs. Unusual for them anyway, which was an important distinction. Particularly in the case of Assault, who was usually unusual, and continued to be so, in his usual manner. Capes in general tend to be pretty unusual, for that matter.
Nobody in the room showed any immediate reaction, which could mean they weren't under Coil's grip, or it could just mean that it took time to undo. Then Stone was taken to one side by Armsmaster and Gallant, presumably to be questioned as to whether she was working for (or with) Coil. The director followed them at a slightly longer distance. The rest of us were left sort of standing around awkwardly.
Yes, there were chairs. No, we did not use them. Yes, we were kinda dumb. No, it wasn't for no good reason.
You see, for us to sit down would require somebody to sit down first, and nobody did. In my own case, taking the lead on that would go against the image I was trying to create. I was trying to look meek and pitiable, so that people would look after me, and taking the lead wouldn't jive well with that. I also sort of wanted to be underestimated, since that would cause people to be less cautious about what they said around me. Or what they did, for that matter, like the CPS guy not hiding what he was looking at on his phone. So someone else would have to take the lead on that.
Trick was, nobody else was taking the lead. I could guess at most of their reasons: Taylor wasn't comfortable with attention, Danny was probably distracted by Taylor almost getting herself killed, and New Wave were guests and, as an independent team, needed a very polite reputation with the PRT. Not sure about crypto-racist CPS guy though.
His probably-bigoted mind was a mystery. All I knew about him was that he thought that browsing the slightly less blatant Earth-Bet equivalent of Stormfront inside the PRT building, in a city full of outright Nazis who were practically at war with the PRT, was a good idea. And what he looked like, obviously, plus what I could deduce from those two things. I took a bit to start thinking things through, plus a bit of extra observation.
He still hadn't actually said anything, but his appearance said a lot for him. For the record, that was shaved bald (he was old enough that it could just be him giving in to the inevitable, but given the website I didn't think that was likely), in an ill-fitting and wrinkled but expensive suit (according to the still-attached label anyway), with the tie not done properly, along with his accessories. I may not know how to tie a tie, but I can recognize when somebody else does it wrong, the back part of the tie isn't supposed to stick out the bottom. His diamond cufflinks and Rolex weren't the best quality, and they didn't work with the rest of the outfit at all (word to the wise, wrinkled greenish-brown doesn't go with (poorly-)polished gold), but they were still a lot more expensive than I would have expected on a government salary. Either this guy was spending most of his pay on fashion he didn't understand, or he had some other way of paying for his luxuries.
Frankly I felt that anybody who cared enough about fashion to spend most of his money on it wouldn't show up to a meeting in an ill-fitting and wrinkled suit, so I assumed it was probably the latter. There were any number of possible sources for that money, but this was Brockton Bay, so it was probably bribery and/or other types of corruption. Given the website, he was probably selling information to the Empire, probably along with using his authority on their behalf. It wasn't hard to figure out, but proving it would be a whole nother kettle of fish. Well, there was a simple way to check.
I waited until the official people were done with Stone and were moving on to the CPS guy. I should probably learn his name at some point, but for the moment I didn't need to. I waited until Armsmaster and Gallant were both focusing on him and there was a lull in the "conversation" (questioning), then casually walked up and, in my most innocent, most worried voice (lip quivering and all) and asked:
"Um, by any chance are you gonna sell me out to the Empire? Cause that would be really bad for me?"
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6-5 Intrigant (Interlude: CPS Guy)
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Warning: This Chapter is an interlude from the perspective of an Empire Eighty Eight sympathizer, and contains some amount of said sympathizer thinking awful things. If this a problem for you, this chapter has also been arranged so that you can skip it without missing too much.
William Kerry:
William Kerry was not a good man, except perhaps by the rather warped (and rather inconsistent) standards of the Empire Eighty-Eight. He was pretty racist, a bit of a misogynist, rather homophobic and his views on transgender people don't bear repeating. Don't ask.
Seriously, don't.
He'd joined Child Protective Services solely because his uncle was the boss there, although said uncle had since retired. William Kerry did his best (or at least put in a bit of effort) for all the children whose files crossed his desk, as long as they were white (of the right type of white), male, cisgender (not that William Kerry knew the word) and straight. "The right sort" in his mind. Otherwise, he was negligent at best and outright malicious at worst.
William Kerry wasn't a member of the Empire Eighty Eight, but that wasn't because he disagreed with them. Quite the opposite really. He was just too well off and too comfortable to want to go through their initiations or participate in the dirtier (or bloodier) work. He was a sympathizer, and one who was in deeper than most. He'd been paid rather a lot of money to back or propose a few investigations into parents or "guardians" who weren't the right sort and put the kids into better, whiter, hands, including at least one member of Brockton Bay's elite. He didn't know what the Empire had against Kayden Anders, but he wasn't paid to care. He'd also sold them the info on a few likely recruits, a bit of blackmail material, things like that. It was all for a righteous cause, after all, and his life was a lot more comfortable because of it. He'd even been able to buy some nice clothes and accessories his wife wanted, and a few for him because why not, and they'd moved to one of Brockton Bay's nicer (relatively) neighbourhoods, well within the Empire's protection.
Being called to the PRT building for a meeting was a new one, but William saw it as an opportunity. There was only one reason why a CPS agent would be called to the PRT, and it wasn't to play ping-pong. No, there was a vulnerable parahuman child, and his Empire contact needed to know everything. He'd already called him last night, and Krieg himself was interested. Now William Kerry, CPS agent, just needed to get through the meeting, get the kid as far away from the PRT as possible, and let his contact know. Ideally the child would be the right sort, and eventually see the light, but even an enemy taken out before they could do anything would be a major gain for the Empire. And for his wallet. All was well with the world.
All was not well with the world. He'd shown up half an hour early, to give the impression of dedication and concern, and not at all because he didn't do much for most of his cases so he had a lot of spare time on the job. That would be absurd. Since then, it had just been one problem after another.
First, the kid he'd been sent after had been a [dawn] [ninja] so recruitment wasn't an option. Then he realized he'd forgotten to close his favourite newsite, so there was probably a record of him visiting the known "dogwhistle" site, and he'd had to go and close it. Which had taken way longer than it should have because his last phone had been stolen and he wasn't really familiar with its replacement.
And then New Wave showed up. "Bunch of no good race traitors", he groused internally. It wasn't like he'd have the courage to say anything about the matter to their faces. They were capes, after all, and rather experienced ones. Any one of them could easily kick his [ox]. Their presence meant they were interested in the girl somehow, which wasn't good at all. He'd have to cover his tracks even more thoroughly than he'd have to already, and he hated having to make that effort. Especially since he never knew for sure that he'd done a good enough job. William swore extensively, but purely on the inside. He couldn't afford to draw attention.
And all that was before the meeting had even begun.
It didn't get any better for poor, horribly racist William once things actually started, just so you know. No, you should not feel sorry for him. He's just awful.
William Kerry was a very scared man by the time Mara Sorrows was done presenting her briefing on Cedric Devins. Human Masters creeped him the [fun] out, especially ones who had no compunctions about using their power for their own ends.
Incidentally, that was one area where it's perfectly acceptable to agree with William Kerry. Just because somebody has some really abominable ideas, or even has done some really horrible things, doesn't mean they're wrong about everything. Like how William Kerry was afraid of human Masters, or how Hitler advocated for an end for smoking along with all his monstrous ideas, or even how Jack Slash felt that a bit of showmanship helps you make your point more effectively. No matter how awful their actions or opinions might be, that doesn't discredit unrelated beliefs of theirs. That being said, it's generally better to just discount their positions as a source of advice entirely, not actually take them as a credible source. And now you know. And knowing is one step forward in the ceaseless, vicious, marathon that is the great game of parahuman society.
William agreed to a quick M/S check, spooked as he was. No point in selling the girl's location to Krieg if he got himself grabbed by some creepy-[ox] ghost first. Ugh. The very idea still creeped him out. So there he was, standing around like an idiot because he hadn't sat down as soon as he could because he was distracted, and nobody else had sat down, and now he couldn't do so first because he'd look like a massive jerk.
He was still standing there when Armsmaster grabbed him and dragged him over to the other side of the room. The questions were a little unusual, but he assumed Armsmaster had his reasons. Then things went straight to h-e-double-hockey-sticks when the girl, he should probably learn her name at some point, snuck up behind him, and, in a ridiculously innocent voice, straight up asked him if he was selling information to the Empire.
[Exclamations of Shock and Anger]
William Kerry:
William Kerry was not a good man, except perhaps by the rather warped (and rather inconsistent) standards of the Empire Eighty-Eight. He was pretty racist, a bit of a misogynist, rather homophobic and his views on transgender people don't bear repeating. Don't ask.
Seriously, don't.
He'd joined Child Protective Services solely because his uncle was the boss there, although said uncle had since retired. William Kerry did his best (or at least put in a bit of effort) for all the children whose files crossed his desk, as long as they were white (of the right type of white), male, cisgender (not that William Kerry knew the word) and straight. "The right sort" in his mind. Otherwise, he was negligent at best and outright malicious at worst.
William Kerry wasn't a member of the Empire Eighty Eight, but that wasn't because he disagreed with them. Quite the opposite really. He was just too well off and too comfortable to want to go through their initiations or participate in the dirtier (or bloodier) work. He was a sympathizer, and one who was in deeper than most. He'd been paid rather a lot of money to back or propose a few investigations into parents or "guardians" who weren't the right sort and put the kids into better, whiter, hands, including at least one member of Brockton Bay's elite. He didn't know what the Empire had against Kayden Anders, but he wasn't paid to care. He'd also sold them the info on a few likely recruits, a bit of blackmail material, things like that. It was all for a righteous cause, after all, and his life was a lot more comfortable because of it. He'd even been able to buy some nice clothes and accessories his wife wanted, and a few for him because why not, and they'd moved to one of Brockton Bay's nicer (relatively) neighbourhoods, well within the Empire's protection.
Being called to the PRT building for a meeting was a new one, but William saw it as an opportunity. There was only one reason why a CPS agent would be called to the PRT, and it wasn't to play ping-pong. No, there was a vulnerable parahuman child, and his Empire contact needed to know everything. He'd already called him last night, and Krieg himself was interested. Now William Kerry, CPS agent, just needed to get through the meeting, get the kid as far away from the PRT as possible, and let his contact know. Ideally the child would be the right sort, and eventually see the light, but even an enemy taken out before they could do anything would be a major gain for the Empire. And for his wallet. All was well with the world.
All was not well with the world. He'd shown up half an hour early, to give the impression of dedication and concern, and not at all because he didn't do much for most of his cases so he had a lot of spare time on the job. That would be absurd. Since then, it had just been one problem after another.
First, the kid he'd been sent after had been a [dawn] [ninja] so recruitment wasn't an option. Then he realized he'd forgotten to close his favourite newsite, so there was probably a record of him visiting the known "dogwhistle" site, and he'd had to go and close it. Which had taken way longer than it should have because his last phone had been stolen and he wasn't really familiar with its replacement.
And then New Wave showed up. "Bunch of no good race traitors", he groused internally. It wasn't like he'd have the courage to say anything about the matter to their faces. They were capes, after all, and rather experienced ones. Any one of them could easily kick his [ox]. Their presence meant they were interested in the girl somehow, which wasn't good at all. He'd have to cover his tracks even more thoroughly than he'd have to already, and he hated having to make that effort. Especially since he never knew for sure that he'd done a good enough job. William swore extensively, but purely on the inside. He couldn't afford to draw attention.
And all that was before the meeting had even begun.
It didn't get any better for poor, horribly racist William once things actually started, just so you know. No, you should not feel sorry for him. He's just awful.
William Kerry was a very scared man by the time Mara Sorrows was done presenting her briefing on Cedric Devins. Human Masters creeped him the [fun] out, especially ones who had no compunctions about using their power for their own ends.
Incidentally, that was one area where it's perfectly acceptable to agree with William Kerry. Just because somebody has some really abominable ideas, or even has done some really horrible things, doesn't mean they're wrong about everything. Like how William Kerry was afraid of human Masters, or how Hitler advocated for an end for smoking along with all his monstrous ideas, or even how Jack Slash felt that a bit of showmanship helps you make your point more effectively. No matter how awful their actions or opinions might be, that doesn't discredit unrelated beliefs of theirs. That being said, it's generally better to just discount their positions as a source of advice entirely, not actually take them as a credible source. And now you know. And knowing is one step forward in the ceaseless, vicious, marathon that is the great game of parahuman society.
William agreed to a quick M/S check, spooked as he was. No point in selling the girl's location to Krieg if he got himself grabbed by some creepy-[ox] ghost first. Ugh. The very idea still creeped him out. So there he was, standing around like an idiot because he hadn't sat down as soon as he could because he was distracted, and nobody else had sat down, and now he couldn't do so first because he'd look like a massive jerk.
He was still standing there when Armsmaster grabbed him and dragged him over to the other side of the room. The questions were a little unusual, but he assumed Armsmaster had his reasons. Then things went straight to h-e-double-hockey-sticks when the girl, he should probably learn her name at some point, snuck up behind him, and, in a ridiculously innocent voice, straight up asked him if he was selling information to the Empire.
[Exclamations of Shock and Anger]
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6-6 Investigation
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
CPS guy was nowhere near as good an actor as Mara Sorrows was an actress. To be fair, very few people were as good at the noble art of acting as Mara Sorrows, but CPS guy was just awful. At acting, not in general, to be clear.
Actually, given that website, the way he hadn't said a word to the child he was supposed to be protecting and serving, and what I was accusing him of I'm gonna correct that to him being both awful at acting and just awful in general. That's better. I may be being a bit petty, but as a 14 year old I'm allowed, even expected, to be a bit petty. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
Huh, I can't even write that with a straight face. Moving on.
Anyway, he tried to deny it, and we all knew he was lying even before Armsmaster actually said "That's a lie". What an absolute shock.
Well it probably was a shock for everyone else. Especially Nazi-informant guy, but he can go to jail. Hopefully directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, all that jazz.
So anyway, Armsmaster proceeded to put the pressure on the guy.
"This will go a lot easier for you if you cooperate" he said, his monotone laced with just the right threatening undercurrent. You could tell that he had a lot of experience in intimidation, as was only natural.
Intimidation is an important, even vital part of the toolset of a combat parahuman. Image isn't all sweetness and light, even if I was trying for an all sweetness and light image. Fear is an immensely useful tool for both sides of the hero/villain divide, although it's definitely a double edged sword.
For heroes, fear is only useful when it's in people who are considering crime and/or villainy or are actively engaged in such. A hero needs to be careful that the fear of them is only fear of fighting them, not of them in general. It does no good if a villain won't surrender because they're afraid of the hero. Thus, most heroes only engage in two types of fear creation. Well, most heroes only intentionally engage in two types of fear creation.
It's an important distinction. Trust me.
The first type of fear creation that heroes deliberately engage in is pretty simple: they create the impression of competence, ideally of extreme competence, particularly in the field of combat. This serves a dual purpose: Reassuring the public that their protectors are up to the task, and telling would-be lawbreakers, especially supervillains and violent crooks, that the forces of order can beat them, so they don't try.
It's a very benign type of fear spreading, at least when done right, because it creates fear of doing something wrong and facing the hero, while reassuring people that those who aren't doing wrong are safe. The PRT puts a lot of money and thought into this type of work for the Protectorate, and Armsmaster was a natural at it. Probably because he really was extraordinarily competent and professional. The public had never caught him slacking. And he'd been in the Protectorate for over a decade. And the public loved catching heroic incompetence. Or at least the portion of the public that hangs out at PHO loved (and still loves) catching heroic incompetence.
The second type of fear creation that heroes purposefully engage in is more targeted, more precise. Intimidating tones, glares, slightly threatening displays, combined into the implicit threat that if you don't start cooperating, things will not go well for you. You may recognize this as the "bad cop" of the "good cop / bad cop" technique, although there are more brutal methods of being bad cop. Heroes can either let the bad cop technique stand on its own, or have others play good cop. In this example, Armsmaster was the bad cop and Gallant was the good cop, although they probably had a more professional name for the technique.
The neat thing about the good cop/bad cop technique is that it is immensely flexible. It can be used for just about any situation where you need to persuade someone to do something. Heroes tend to use it for things like getting a villain to surrender rather than fight, or getting a crook to roll over on his fellows. It's also very good for getting confessions.
Too good, actually. Like most persuasive techniques, using it in an interrogation tends to get people to tell you what (they think) you want to hear rather than what's true. Using it without a way to check the information you receive can get you a lot of false confessions. Bad cops in the non good cop/bad cop sense tend to use it anyway, since it's really convenient. Even actually good law enforcement can forget the risk of false confessions. There weren't really any good answers to the problem on a large scale, but it wouldn't be a problem here because of Tinkertech. Gallant's tech could read the interrogatee's emotions, while Armsmaster's could recognize lies. Thus, the usual central problem of interrogations wasn't a problem here.
Honestly, the whole setup, because it had obviously been practiced in advance, was probably overkill for "William Kerry" (the first question had been the standard "What is your name"), who sang like some sort of singing creature.
"Sang like a canary" had really been ruined as an idiom when the singer Canary had been put into the coincidentally named "Birdcage", the most secure prison on earth, for singing/Mastering a guy into doing something anatomically impossible, with tragic results. Don't ask about the details, they're rather unpleasant, but the old phrasing just wasn't kosher anymore.
Anyway, Kerry's story really wasn't all that interesting. He was a sympathizer, approached at first to rig a few cases in the Empire's favor, then later becoming an informant as well. His contact, and his contact's boss, Krieg, knew that he'd been called to a meeting, but not about me specifically. Which was good. That's all the stuff that was immediately relevant, though he'd be pumped for a lot more information later. For the moment, the meeting would have to go on.
"How'd you know?" asked the monotone of Armsmaster.
"He was looking at a dogwhistle site and his accessories were way too expensive for a government salary. And the man from Child Protective Services looked at the child in the room only once, with obvious disdain. Being where he is, selling information was the obvious source for his funds. I'd have asked about Coil if it hadn't been the Empire, but with that website the Empire seemed more likely"
That's when Stone came over, ruffled my hair, and called me "very clever". That was nice. Although she may have actually been referring to my reasoning. It was still nice though.
Actually, given that website, the way he hadn't said a word to the child he was supposed to be protecting and serving, and what I was accusing him of I'm gonna correct that to him being both awful at acting and just awful in general. That's better. I may be being a bit petty, but as a 14 year old I'm allowed, even expected, to be a bit petty. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
Huh, I can't even write that with a straight face. Moving on.
Anyway, he tried to deny it, and we all knew he was lying even before Armsmaster actually said "That's a lie". What an absolute shock.
Well it probably was a shock for everyone else. Especially Nazi-informant guy, but he can go to jail. Hopefully directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, all that jazz.
So anyway, Armsmaster proceeded to put the pressure on the guy.
"This will go a lot easier for you if you cooperate" he said, his monotone laced with just the right threatening undercurrent. You could tell that he had a lot of experience in intimidation, as was only natural.
Intimidation is an important, even vital part of the toolset of a combat parahuman. Image isn't all sweetness and light, even if I was trying for an all sweetness and light image. Fear is an immensely useful tool for both sides of the hero/villain divide, although it's definitely a double edged sword.
For heroes, fear is only useful when it's in people who are considering crime and/or villainy or are actively engaged in such. A hero needs to be careful that the fear of them is only fear of fighting them, not of them in general. It does no good if a villain won't surrender because they're afraid of the hero. Thus, most heroes only engage in two types of fear creation. Well, most heroes only intentionally engage in two types of fear creation.
It's an important distinction. Trust me.
The first type of fear creation that heroes deliberately engage in is pretty simple: they create the impression of competence, ideally of extreme competence, particularly in the field of combat. This serves a dual purpose: Reassuring the public that their protectors are up to the task, and telling would-be lawbreakers, especially supervillains and violent crooks, that the forces of order can beat them, so they don't try.
It's a very benign type of fear spreading, at least when done right, because it creates fear of doing something wrong and facing the hero, while reassuring people that those who aren't doing wrong are safe. The PRT puts a lot of money and thought into this type of work for the Protectorate, and Armsmaster was a natural at it. Probably because he really was extraordinarily competent and professional. The public had never caught him slacking. And he'd been in the Protectorate for over a decade. And the public loved catching heroic incompetence. Or at least the portion of the public that hangs out at PHO loved (and still loves) catching heroic incompetence.
The second type of fear creation that heroes purposefully engage in is more targeted, more precise. Intimidating tones, glares, slightly threatening displays, combined into the implicit threat that if you don't start cooperating, things will not go well for you. You may recognize this as the "bad cop" of the "good cop / bad cop" technique, although there are more brutal methods of being bad cop. Heroes can either let the bad cop technique stand on its own, or have others play good cop. In this example, Armsmaster was the bad cop and Gallant was the good cop, although they probably had a more professional name for the technique.
The neat thing about the good cop/bad cop technique is that it is immensely flexible. It can be used for just about any situation where you need to persuade someone to do something. Heroes tend to use it for things like getting a villain to surrender rather than fight, or getting a crook to roll over on his fellows. It's also very good for getting confessions.
Too good, actually. Like most persuasive techniques, using it in an interrogation tends to get people to tell you what (they think) you want to hear rather than what's true. Using it without a way to check the information you receive can get you a lot of false confessions. Bad cops in the non good cop/bad cop sense tend to use it anyway, since it's really convenient. Even actually good law enforcement can forget the risk of false confessions. There weren't really any good answers to the problem on a large scale, but it wouldn't be a problem here because of Tinkertech. Gallant's tech could read the interrogatee's emotions, while Armsmaster's could recognize lies. Thus, the usual central problem of interrogations wasn't a problem here.
Honestly, the whole setup, because it had obviously been practiced in advance, was probably overkill for "William Kerry" (the first question had been the standard "What is your name"), who sang like some sort of singing creature.
"Sang like a canary" had really been ruined as an idiom when the singer Canary had been put into the coincidentally named "Birdcage", the most secure prison on earth, for singing/Mastering a guy into doing something anatomically impossible, with tragic results. Don't ask about the details, they're rather unpleasant, but the old phrasing just wasn't kosher anymore.
Anyway, Kerry's story really wasn't all that interesting. He was a sympathizer, approached at first to rig a few cases in the Empire's favor, then later becoming an informant as well. His contact, and his contact's boss, Krieg, knew that he'd been called to a meeting, but not about me specifically. Which was good. That's all the stuff that was immediately relevant, though he'd be pumped for a lot more information later. For the moment, the meeting would have to go on.
"How'd you know?" asked the monotone of Armsmaster.
"He was looking at a dogwhistle site and his accessories were way too expensive for a government salary. And the man from Child Protective Services looked at the child in the room only once, with obvious disdain. Being where he is, selling information was the obvious source for his funds. I'd have asked about Coil if it hadn't been the Empire, but with that website the Empire seemed more likely"
That's when Stone came over, ruffled my hair, and called me "very clever". That was nice. Although she may have actually been referring to my reasoning. It was still nice though.
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6-7 Intrepidity
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
After all the drama with William Kerry (who was currently restrained and waiting to be dragged off to a holding cell), New Wave still needed to be cleared. "No rest for the wicked" was intended to apply to the afterlife: in this life rest was something for people who didn't have fragile social constructs to maintain. You know, things along the lines of "Justice", "Law and Order", "Basic Human Decency", or "Functional Society". Things like that.
Fortunately for me, I didn't need to be part of the process of clearing them. Even the last time I wasn't supposed to be involved, I just sort of jumped in on my own initiative. Instead, I was free to do whatever I wanted!
Provided that what I wanted could be done inside the still-sealed room and wouldn't disturb anybody. The sealing, I should note, did more than just prevent people from going in or out. It also kept signals, including wi-fi and phone signals, from going in or out. It wouldn't exactly serve its purpose if it didn't. If Kerry could have called or texted out when he was busted, that wouldn't be good. If one of Coil's theoretical moles could, that'd be a lot worse. So a rather limited definition of "whatever I wanted". I'd be a touch irked about that definition if "whatever I wanted" hadn't been my own turn of a phrase. Rather makes it difficult, you know?
You probably don't, but that's okay!
My situation is kinda hard to relate to.
I assume.
It's a little hard for me to look at it from an outside perspective.
Part of the human condition, I suppose.
Anyways, I went off to pester Taylor.
Pestering Taylor is also part of the human condition.
"Jacqueline, I am not a mime," the Taylor stated, confusedly.
"Not yet." I said.
"Not ever." She responded.
"But you'd be so good at it." I whined.
"What?" She exclaimed.
"You're good at staying quiet, and you've got that classic mimely figure," I continued.
"You're messing with me"- Taylor
"And your hands are so very expressive,"-Me
"Definitely messing with me now."-Taylor
"And you are so very, very, very, perceptive." I finished.
That's when she leapt at me. And started tickling.
What an absolutely unforeseeable turn of events. I totally did not see it coming, nor did I deliberately engineer it into existence after deciding to give Taylor a break because things had been hard for her lately. That would be ridiculous.
But if I had done such a thing, it would have been really clever and awesome of me.
While I was very definitely not manipulating Taylor into feeling better, Brandish had been questioned and presumably cleared, and Lady Photon took her place.
That's when things started getting iffy. Beyond the general iffyness of the entire situation, and in a different way than all the numerous times things had started getting iffy ever since that first, extremely iffy, arrowgram between the eyes. Iffyness was afoot.
The problem was Brandish. Or me. Or both. Probably both, to be honest, but she just rubbed me the wrong way. Not literally, she didn't try to touch me. Thankfully. She was already deeply unnerving, and touching would just make that worse. She was just poking and prodding at me, metaphorically speaking, acting like I was some terrible threat that needed to be dissected and analysed. Basically, she's a meanie.
The way New Wave had been called to this meeting was suspicious. The situation with Devins was suspicious. Me knowing Kerry was selling out to the Empire was suspicious. The clockwork aura was very suspicious. The way I did my hair was suspicious. The woman was determined that I was a threat, and no matter how many things I could explain or deflect, she wasn't budging on the matter, regardless of her lack of evidence, or that I'd already gone through Master/Stranger screening ending yesterday, or that I had literally everybody in the room except Kerry and her team willing to testify as to my good character. Ugh.
Yeah, that wasn't nice. All "What are you plotting" this and "assault with a parahuman ability" that. You'd think a lawyer would know that the aura thing was legal, having been specifically signed off on by the regional director, or that even if it wasn't the responsibility would be the Director's, not mine, but no. She had to blame me, vociferously and at length. Manpower silently tried to reel her in a few times, but she ignored him. Or just failed to notice the hand signs. It could have been either, but I suspected the former.
She didn't seem to be the type to quit harassing someone just because her brother-in-law told her to. Or to quit harassing someone for anything less than that person dropping dead on the spot, for that matter, but I was probably being uncharitable.
You see, Jacqueline's Colere's experience with hostility was a little off. She didn't engender a lot of bad feelings herself, being almost absurdly nice, studious, and pliable, but she did have a lot of hostility aimed at her for being who she was. Being black and trans meant she had to be constantly aware of the risks of being those things, and she'd encountered those risks fairly frequently after Leviathan. Or at least the risks of being black and female, since nobody except her mother knew she was trans. So pretty much every hostile encounter she'd had had been based in bigotry (or "normal" street crime on a few particular occasions), and her instincts towards hostility were skewed towards that sort of thing. Even though Brandish's response to her was probably not based in that sort of thing, the part of me that was Jacqueline instinctively wanted to avoid her.
Compounding the issue was my (post-merger "my") own experience. Everybody I'd ever had significant interactions with had been positive, or openly, aggressively, hostile. More the former than the latter, but it was enough to create a bit of a false binary. Taylor, Danny, and the PRT people were nice to me, Mastered-Sophia, Mastered Emma, Malady, and the other four were quite the opposite. I knew, intellectually, that that wasn't how it worked, but knowing that you have a bias doesn't let you instantly overcome it. So my subconscious was screaming that Carol Dallon, Esq, was an enemy and up to no good.
I don't know what was up with her, but it was probably something vaguely similar. It'd be pretty unreasonable of me to assume she just hated me for no reason.
While we were being hostile and scared of each other, her teammates finished their own questioning, and after that Lady Photon was able to peel her sister off me. Again, not literally.
Somehow, I don't think this meeting was getting off to a great start.
Fortunately for me, I didn't need to be part of the process of clearing them. Even the last time I wasn't supposed to be involved, I just sort of jumped in on my own initiative. Instead, I was free to do whatever I wanted!
Provided that what I wanted could be done inside the still-sealed room and wouldn't disturb anybody. The sealing, I should note, did more than just prevent people from going in or out. It also kept signals, including wi-fi and phone signals, from going in or out. It wouldn't exactly serve its purpose if it didn't. If Kerry could have called or texted out when he was busted, that wouldn't be good. If one of Coil's theoretical moles could, that'd be a lot worse. So a rather limited definition of "whatever I wanted". I'd be a touch irked about that definition if "whatever I wanted" hadn't been my own turn of a phrase. Rather makes it difficult, you know?
You probably don't, but that's okay!
My situation is kinda hard to relate to.
I assume.
It's a little hard for me to look at it from an outside perspective.
Part of the human condition, I suppose.
Anyways, I went off to pester Taylor.
Pestering Taylor is also part of the human condition.
"Jacqueline, I am not a mime," the Taylor stated, confusedly.
"Not yet." I said.
"Not ever." She responded.
"But you'd be so good at it." I whined.
"What?" She exclaimed.
"You're good at staying quiet, and you've got that classic mimely figure," I continued.
"You're messing with me"- Taylor
"And your hands are so very expressive,"-Me
"Definitely messing with me now."-Taylor
"And you are so very, very, very, perceptive." I finished.
That's when she leapt at me. And started tickling.
What an absolutely unforeseeable turn of events. I totally did not see it coming, nor did I deliberately engineer it into existence after deciding to give Taylor a break because things had been hard for her lately. That would be ridiculous.
But if I had done such a thing, it would have been really clever and awesome of me.
While I was very definitely not manipulating Taylor into feeling better, Brandish had been questioned and presumably cleared, and Lady Photon took her place.
That's when things started getting iffy. Beyond the general iffyness of the entire situation, and in a different way than all the numerous times things had started getting iffy ever since that first, extremely iffy, arrowgram between the eyes. Iffyness was afoot.
The problem was Brandish. Or me. Or both. Probably both, to be honest, but she just rubbed me the wrong way. Not literally, she didn't try to touch me. Thankfully. She was already deeply unnerving, and touching would just make that worse. She was just poking and prodding at me, metaphorically speaking, acting like I was some terrible threat that needed to be dissected and analysed. Basically, she's a meanie.
The way New Wave had been called to this meeting was suspicious. The situation with Devins was suspicious. Me knowing Kerry was selling out to the Empire was suspicious. The clockwork aura was very suspicious. The way I did my hair was suspicious. The woman was determined that I was a threat, and no matter how many things I could explain or deflect, she wasn't budging on the matter, regardless of her lack of evidence, or that I'd already gone through Master/Stranger screening ending yesterday, or that I had literally everybody in the room except Kerry and her team willing to testify as to my good character. Ugh.
Yeah, that wasn't nice. All "What are you plotting" this and "assault with a parahuman ability" that. You'd think a lawyer would know that the aura thing was legal, having been specifically signed off on by the regional director, or that even if it wasn't the responsibility would be the Director's, not mine, but no. She had to blame me, vociferously and at length. Manpower silently tried to reel her in a few times, but she ignored him. Or just failed to notice the hand signs. It could have been either, but I suspected the former.
She didn't seem to be the type to quit harassing someone just because her brother-in-law told her to. Or to quit harassing someone for anything less than that person dropping dead on the spot, for that matter, but I was probably being uncharitable.
You see, Jacqueline's Colere's experience with hostility was a little off. She didn't engender a lot of bad feelings herself, being almost absurdly nice, studious, and pliable, but she did have a lot of hostility aimed at her for being who she was. Being black and trans meant she had to be constantly aware of the risks of being those things, and she'd encountered those risks fairly frequently after Leviathan. Or at least the risks of being black and female, since nobody except her mother knew she was trans. So pretty much every hostile encounter she'd had had been based in bigotry (or "normal" street crime on a few particular occasions), and her instincts towards hostility were skewed towards that sort of thing. Even though Brandish's response to her was probably not based in that sort of thing, the part of me that was Jacqueline instinctively wanted to avoid her.
Compounding the issue was my (post-merger "my") own experience. Everybody I'd ever had significant interactions with had been positive, or openly, aggressively, hostile. More the former than the latter, but it was enough to create a bit of a false binary. Taylor, Danny, and the PRT people were nice to me, Mastered-Sophia, Mastered Emma, Malady, and the other four were quite the opposite. I knew, intellectually, that that wasn't how it worked, but knowing that you have a bias doesn't let you instantly overcome it. So my subconscious was screaming that Carol Dallon, Esq, was an enemy and up to no good.
I don't know what was up with her, but it was probably something vaguely similar. It'd be pretty unreasonable of me to assume she just hated me for no reason.
While we were being hostile and scared of each other, her teammates finished their own questioning, and after that Lady Photon was able to peel her sister off me. Again, not literally.
Somehow, I don't think this meeting was getting off to a great start.
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6-8 Inquisitive
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I wasn't the only one who felt the meeting hadn't started well, apparently. Emily unsealed the room temporarily, and Sorrows, Armsmaster and Gallant left the room, Armsmaster carrying Kerry off to whatever fate awaited him. Good riddance. Then the room was re-sealed, and the part of the meeting that was an actual meeting started. With a general feeling of "Okay, that was a terrible start, but let's move on and get through this", we moved on.
Getting through this would take a bit longer.
Emily opened the conversation: "This meeting is supposed to be about getting Jacqueline under the guardianship of somebody suitable. Hopefully we can do that."
No one argued. I was wide eyed and tearing up a bit.
Then Brandish had to ruin the moment. Meanie.
"Why are you, of all people, so concerned about the kid, Emily? What are you plotting?"
Double meanie.
"I have a responsibility to any Parahuman within this city, especially children, Brandish."
Okay, so it seems the Director doesn't like her any more than I do. I could certainly see why. Case in point, she just kept pressing.
"Bovine feces, you never do anything for a parahuman unless it's in your own best interests"
Except she said it much less politely. Not quite bad enough to upgrade/downgrade her to triple meanie, but I'd be keeping an eye on her.
Eventually Lady Photon interceded: "Carol, that's enough. You're scaring the girl".
Carol was, in point of fact, scaring the girl (me), although I hadn't noticed I was getting scared until it was pointed out. I am not exactly the most in tune with my emotions sometimes, mostly when I'm focused on something else. Sue me. I'll get therapy when I can afford therapy. Stupid American "healthcare" system.
So, anyway, we got to the actual point of the meeting eventually. Which, if my notes are correct, was settling custody of one Jacqueline Colere, a.k.a Adjuvant, a.k.a. me, a.k.a the person (people) who is being forced to write these reports to "inspire" you with "Patron's" "Generosity". Nails in my brain and all that. Yes, it is pretty unpleasant. Go figure. Settling that custody stuff, that's the point here.
Probably. Things have gotten rather off the rails.
I quickly sketched up my theories about what everyone wanted:
Taylor, Danny and Emily definitely had my happiness and safety as their #1 and #2 priorities. I'm not sure which they wanted more, but they definitely wanted both. Beyond that, my guesswork got a little shakier.
Emily probably wanted me with someone friendly to the PRT, so she could use my abilities to shore up this dumpster fire of a city. Who could blame her? Brockton Bay desperately needed shoring up, and she didn't have nearly enough resources, not that she'd told me that herself. She'd been putting on a strong face, but everyone knew the PRT ENE wasn't big enough to deal with its formidable enemies. It was a professional, disciplined, and efficient force, but it was caught at an awkward place between paramilitary and normal law enforcement, and both the Empire and Coil's organization were paramilitary forces in their own right, not to mention the actual supervillains. The good guys were good in more than just being on the right side, but they were seriously outnumbered and frequently outgunned.
So I was pretty sure Emily Piggot wanted me around for my powers, even more sure than I was that she wanted me around because she liked me. Or possibly pitied me. I honestly have no idea how to tell the two apart. I guess it could be a mix? I play with my image and how people see me a lot, but looking into what someone is feeling is not my forte. Anyway, she'd want to keep me where she could reach me.
Stone would probably go along with her boss, although I didn't actually know why she was here.
Taylor and Danny had already taken me in once, and I had little doubt that they'd do it again, or at least try. They seemed to like me. Taylor was a reckless idiot (no, I had not forgotten what happened last night), but she was an otherwise good person, and Danny seemed nice. If they got their way, I'd probably be going back to the Hebert home. Though I hoped I would not end up in Taylor's bed again. Or at least not kicking Taylor out of her room. I'd heard things about sleepovers, although I didn't have any practical experience with the subject.
I had no idea what was going on in Manpower's head. The hulking man had a reputation for being a lot smarter than the term "Brute" implied, but he hadn't said anything noteworthy in any direction this whole time. Except for answering Armsmaster's questions, I don't think he'd said anything at all, actually. Seems he was emulating the old "strong silent type" archetype. Or he had a sore throat. Could go either way, really. Yeah, Panacea was in the family, but sore throats could come up suddenly, and she had to touch someone to work on them, which meant they had to be in the same room, and the Pelhams lived a few blocks away from the Dallons. And it was a school day.
Lady Photon had held her sister back before, so she probably had benevolent intentions for me. Or she was just trying to keep her family from looking bad. Or worse, rather. Brandish had already made them look pretty suspicious.
I wanted to be with people who cared about me, which meant anything to do with Brockton Bay's branch of CPS was right out. I wanted as little to do with them as possible. As for New Wave, I was having second thoughts. The Dallons were definitely not a good fit, if only because of one Dallon in particular, and the Pelhams socialized with them extensively so not them either. The PRT as an organization legally couldn't take sole responsibility for me, since they weren't the right part of the government. Emily Piggot was very nice, but even if she was inclined to take me she was extremely busy. Of the options I knew about, the Heberts definitely seemed like the right choice.
Finally, Brandish most likely wanted me kept under extremely strict supervision, so she'd probably advocate sending me to Juvenile Detention or something else that was ridiculously harsh and blatantly illegal. Maybe the Birdcage? I'd be concerned if I thought anyone would actually go along with her. If she actually tried anything like that I'd definitely designate her as Triple Meanie, maybe even Quadruple. She wouldn't actually try anything like that, since it would make her look ridiculous, but she'd insinuate a lot.
Now to see how my projections lined up with reality.
So it turns out my wild unfounded speculation about everybody's positions were right on the money, except for Stone. And Manpower, I guess, since I hadn't really had a snapshot of him to begin with. 5 out of 7 wasn't bad. At least by normal human standards.
Normal human standards tended to be pretty low by cape standards. There were a lot of Thinkers whose abilities could let them do better. Quite a few, including all known non-Simurgh precogs, weren't precise or non-oblique enough for that sort of thing, but there were also quite a lot of Thinkers who could do better. Uber came to mind, as did Victor of the Empire, who could steal people's skills. Gallant's tech could probably do it if he had the proper background knowledge, but he'd never met the Heberts so I knew he was missing at least some of it.
Meh. I was pretty much just spitting in the wind at that point.
Anyways, for the one's I'd missed, I wasn't that far off. Stone actually took the lead, and pushed for me to remain with the Heberts. The Heberts, naturally, agreed with her. Piggot was obviously pleased with that, but said nothing. Manpower also said nothing, continuing to be the strong silent type. I assumed. Lady Photon questioned a few things, obviously concerned about their ability to handle me, but acquiesced pretty quickly. Brandish just glared. It still took like half an hour, just to be sure of everything, but the actual meeting part of the meeting was pretty anticlimactic.
With the approval of an outside trusted authority, (New Wave), a registered and licensed child therapist (Stone, interestingly enough. In hindsight she was a lot better with me than could reasonably be expected of a random staffer), the child in question, and the would-be guardian, the Director was able to put a (parahuman) child into a home without needing the approval of CPS. They could still object, mind you, but they didn't have a valid reason to do so (as far as I knew), and the fact that the only reason they hadn't been consulted was that their representative was a Nazi spy wouldn't do their case any favors if they did. Unless the judge was a Nazi, which was unfortunately all too possible. But for now, I was officially under the care of Daniel "I probably have a middle name but Jacqueline has no idea what it could be" Hebert.
This is Jacqueline "Maybe I should get a middle name" Colere, signing off. Remember, kids, always obtain informed consent before completely uprooting people's lives.
Or just don't completely uproot people's lives, but what do I know?
Getting through this would take a bit longer.
Emily opened the conversation: "This meeting is supposed to be about getting Jacqueline under the guardianship of somebody suitable. Hopefully we can do that."
No one argued. I was wide eyed and tearing up a bit.
Then Brandish had to ruin the moment. Meanie.
"Why are you, of all people, so concerned about the kid, Emily? What are you plotting?"
Double meanie.
"I have a responsibility to any Parahuman within this city, especially children, Brandish."
Okay, so it seems the Director doesn't like her any more than I do. I could certainly see why. Case in point, she just kept pressing.
"Bovine feces, you never do anything for a parahuman unless it's in your own best interests"
Except she said it much less politely. Not quite bad enough to upgrade/downgrade her to triple meanie, but I'd be keeping an eye on her.
Eventually Lady Photon interceded: "Carol, that's enough. You're scaring the girl".
Carol was, in point of fact, scaring the girl (me), although I hadn't noticed I was getting scared until it was pointed out. I am not exactly the most in tune with my emotions sometimes, mostly when I'm focused on something else. Sue me. I'll get therapy when I can afford therapy. Stupid American "healthcare" system.
So, anyway, we got to the actual point of the meeting eventually. Which, if my notes are correct, was settling custody of one Jacqueline Colere, a.k.a Adjuvant, a.k.a. me, a.k.a the person (people) who is being forced to write these reports to "inspire" you with "Patron's" "Generosity". Nails in my brain and all that. Yes, it is pretty unpleasant. Go figure. Settling that custody stuff, that's the point here.
Probably. Things have gotten rather off the rails.
I quickly sketched up my theories about what everyone wanted:
Taylor, Danny and Emily definitely had my happiness and safety as their #1 and #2 priorities. I'm not sure which they wanted more, but they definitely wanted both. Beyond that, my guesswork got a little shakier.
Emily probably wanted me with someone friendly to the PRT, so she could use my abilities to shore up this dumpster fire of a city. Who could blame her? Brockton Bay desperately needed shoring up, and she didn't have nearly enough resources, not that she'd told me that herself. She'd been putting on a strong face, but everyone knew the PRT ENE wasn't big enough to deal with its formidable enemies. It was a professional, disciplined, and efficient force, but it was caught at an awkward place between paramilitary and normal law enforcement, and both the Empire and Coil's organization were paramilitary forces in their own right, not to mention the actual supervillains. The good guys were good in more than just being on the right side, but they were seriously outnumbered and frequently outgunned.
So I was pretty sure Emily Piggot wanted me around for my powers, even more sure than I was that she wanted me around because she liked me. Or possibly pitied me. I honestly have no idea how to tell the two apart. I guess it could be a mix? I play with my image and how people see me a lot, but looking into what someone is feeling is not my forte. Anyway, she'd want to keep me where she could reach me.
Stone would probably go along with her boss, although I didn't actually know why she was here.
Taylor and Danny had already taken me in once, and I had little doubt that they'd do it again, or at least try. They seemed to like me. Taylor was a reckless idiot (no, I had not forgotten what happened last night), but she was an otherwise good person, and Danny seemed nice. If they got their way, I'd probably be going back to the Hebert home. Though I hoped I would not end up in Taylor's bed again. Or at least not kicking Taylor out of her room. I'd heard things about sleepovers, although I didn't have any practical experience with the subject.
I had no idea what was going on in Manpower's head. The hulking man had a reputation for being a lot smarter than the term "Brute" implied, but he hadn't said anything noteworthy in any direction this whole time. Except for answering Armsmaster's questions, I don't think he'd said anything at all, actually. Seems he was emulating the old "strong silent type" archetype. Or he had a sore throat. Could go either way, really. Yeah, Panacea was in the family, but sore throats could come up suddenly, and she had to touch someone to work on them, which meant they had to be in the same room, and the Pelhams lived a few blocks away from the Dallons. And it was a school day.
Lady Photon had held her sister back before, so she probably had benevolent intentions for me. Or she was just trying to keep her family from looking bad. Or worse, rather. Brandish had already made them look pretty suspicious.
I wanted to be with people who cared about me, which meant anything to do with Brockton Bay's branch of CPS was right out. I wanted as little to do with them as possible. As for New Wave, I was having second thoughts. The Dallons were definitely not a good fit, if only because of one Dallon in particular, and the Pelhams socialized with them extensively so not them either. The PRT as an organization legally couldn't take sole responsibility for me, since they weren't the right part of the government. Emily Piggot was very nice, but even if she was inclined to take me she was extremely busy. Of the options I knew about, the Heberts definitely seemed like the right choice.
Finally, Brandish most likely wanted me kept under extremely strict supervision, so she'd probably advocate sending me to Juvenile Detention or something else that was ridiculously harsh and blatantly illegal. Maybe the Birdcage? I'd be concerned if I thought anyone would actually go along with her. If she actually tried anything like that I'd definitely designate her as Triple Meanie, maybe even Quadruple. She wouldn't actually try anything like that, since it would make her look ridiculous, but she'd insinuate a lot.
Now to see how my projections lined up with reality.
So it turns out my wild unfounded speculation about everybody's positions were right on the money, except for Stone. And Manpower, I guess, since I hadn't really had a snapshot of him to begin with. 5 out of 7 wasn't bad. At least by normal human standards.
Normal human standards tended to be pretty low by cape standards. There were a lot of Thinkers whose abilities could let them do better. Quite a few, including all known non-Simurgh precogs, weren't precise or non-oblique enough for that sort of thing, but there were also quite a lot of Thinkers who could do better. Uber came to mind, as did Victor of the Empire, who could steal people's skills. Gallant's tech could probably do it if he had the proper background knowledge, but he'd never met the Heberts so I knew he was missing at least some of it.
Meh. I was pretty much just spitting in the wind at that point.
Anyways, for the one's I'd missed, I wasn't that far off. Stone actually took the lead, and pushed for me to remain with the Heberts. The Heberts, naturally, agreed with her. Piggot was obviously pleased with that, but said nothing. Manpower also said nothing, continuing to be the strong silent type. I assumed. Lady Photon questioned a few things, obviously concerned about their ability to handle me, but acquiesced pretty quickly. Brandish just glared. It still took like half an hour, just to be sure of everything, but the actual meeting part of the meeting was pretty anticlimactic.
With the approval of an outside trusted authority, (New Wave), a registered and licensed child therapist (Stone, interestingly enough. In hindsight she was a lot better with me than could reasonably be expected of a random staffer), the child in question, and the would-be guardian, the Director was able to put a (parahuman) child into a home without needing the approval of CPS. They could still object, mind you, but they didn't have a valid reason to do so (as far as I knew), and the fact that the only reason they hadn't been consulted was that their representative was a Nazi spy wouldn't do their case any favors if they did. Unless the judge was a Nazi, which was unfortunately all too possible. But for now, I was officially under the care of Daniel "I probably have a middle name but Jacqueline has no idea what it could be" Hebert.
This is Jacqueline "Maybe I should get a middle name" Colere, signing off. Remember, kids, always obtain informed consent before completely uprooting people's lives.
Or just don't completely uproot people's lives, but what do I know?
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6-9 Incomplete (Interludes: Various)
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sophia:
After a night's rest, one that wasn't in a Master Stranger screening cell, Sophia Hess woke up a slightly less confused girl. Oh, her problems definitely hadn't gone away overnight, but they were just a little bit more distant, a little less overwhelming. Shadow Stalker wasn't going to take Sophia's life away from her!
That confidence lasted right up until the moment she left the bed. This wasn't her room, these were Shadow Stalker's quarters. Puppies. Of course they weren't Shadow Stalker's actual quarters, the PRT wasn't that insensitive, but they were pretty much the same as how Sophia imagined Shadow Stalker's quarters would look like. She bolted from the room, grabbing the bag her mother had brought her last night as she went.
Changing in a public bathroom, or rather a semi-public bathroom, seeing as PRT headquarters wasn't open to the actual public, wasn't ideal, but Sophia couldn't be in there any longer. She'd been too tired last night to notice, but now she was fully awake and that room brought up a lot of bad non-memories.
Sophia had seen Jacqueline Colere in the cafeteria, again. The girl didn't seem to notice her, again, and Sophia hadn't been able to bring herself to talk to her, again. Maybe next time. Sophia could only hope. Apparently the girl was terrified of the guy in the white suit for some reason, which was good to know. Now she just had to find out why. Sophia knew what she'd be spending the rest of the day doing. Not like she had any friends to spend it with. Not anymore.
Taylor:
Jacqueline was mad at her, Taylor knew. But Taylor also knew that Jacqueline was mad at her because she cared, and that made all the difference. Something similar had already happened with Dad when she came home last night, but they'd already forgiven each other. She was still grounded though. Until she was 60, apparently. She doubted it'd really last that long, but she got the point.
Jacqueline also wasn't nearly as subtle as she thought she was. The whole cockamamie scheme to convince Taylor to be a mime was very obviously just done to make Taylor feel better. Not that knowing that stopped Taylor from feeling better. The ensuing "argument" had been just what she'd needed. Jacqueline turning out to be freakishly un-ticklish had been very disappointing though. Jacqueline had tried to make it look like she was affected, but she was, once again, not as subtle as she thought she was. Taylor could tell she was faking, but she did appreciate the effort. Taylor very much hoped she'd be able to keep Jacqueline. She was still a little upset about that cat.
Brandish was not nice, and Taylor considered making sure she got stung by a bee on the way out, but she decided that would be childish. In the bad way, not in the fun, calming, way that Jacqueline wore like a cloak. Taylor liked Jacqueline's way, even if she was pretty sure it was a coping mechanism. The poor girl had been through a lot, and in hindsight losing Taylor just a few days after the tumultuous culmination of their relationship would have absolutely destroyed the unfortunate little orphan child. Going out on her own had been really stupid of her, and picking a fight with Lung over what the PRT had told her was probably the Undersiders was worse. Taylor really needed to apologize to a lot of people. Starting with Jacqueline and Dad. She'd already apologized to the latter, but reiterating it would be for the best.
Taylor had learned from her mistakes.
Alice Stone:
Alice Regina Stone was not a stupid woman. She'd made Kerry within 30 seconds of him coming into the room. Proving it would be an entirely different matter. Kerry was acting all sorts of suspicious to her trained eye, but nothing he did was outright criminal. He was untouchable for the moment, until the seasoned PRT investigator/Child Therapist got something on him.
Then Jacqueline Colere played him like a fiddle. The girl had acted incredibly innocent (far too innocent for someone who'd seen what she'd seen), gotten close and very underestimatable, then tore the rug out from under William Kerry by just straight up asking if he was corrupt. And the shock had been enough to rumble him almost instantly. If an adult had asked him, he would have denied it, and Armsmaster's helmet wasn't evidence.
It was a very smooth, and very concerning, bit of work. The girl was clearly smart, and was equally clearly cool under pressure. Stone wasn't fooled by the innocent front, but she wasn't about to say anything about it. The girl had every reason to want to be liked. Hopefully she'd be able to address it in session.
The Heberts certainly seemed to like her, especially the daughter. Alice prided herself on her ability to read people, and they seemed to have bonded remarkably well during the short time they'd known each other. The mime trick certainly worked like a charm. Overall, Alice was inclined to let them stay together, and she was pretty sure her boss was leaning the same way. Hopefully the two girls would join the Wards, but even if they didn't they'd be a lot better off in a group than apart.
Clockblocker:
Dennis didn't know what to do. He hadn't meant to scare the mysterious girl who'd shown up for two meals in a row at the PRT cafeteria, he was just curious. So he'd come up while some guy was blathering on and on at her, and took the first straight line the man dropped.
The joke wasn't very good, Dennis would freely admit that. He'd rushed things, and as a result it really wasn't up to his usual standards. And his teammates regularly told him his usual standards weren't anywhere near high enough. Feh, what did they know?
But the girl had been startled, which Dennis guessed he should have foreseen, and terrified, which he couldn't have possibly seen coming. Right? The "Really, Dennis?" Dean had whispered to him as he left to go after the girl had been so disappointed, and Dennis didn't know how to deal with that. He had to make things right, but he didn't know what he needed to know in order to do so. It might surprise his non-Dean teammates (especially Missy) if they ever learned about it, but Dennis wasn't a complete idiot when it came to feelings. If he rushed in without knowing something important, he could easily traumatize the girl.
Or re-traumatize the girl, anyway. If she'd reacted like that to something that simple she was probably already traumatized. So he needed information. Dennis knew what he'd be spending the rest of the day doing. Aside from school. And his shift on the console. And messing with people. Dennis knew what he'd probably spend a bit of time doing today.
Manpower:
God, Neil was tired. He wasn't showing it on the outside, but he'd patrolled last night and things had gone south at a robbery he'd stepped into, with one of the robber's shooting his partner by accident while trying to shoot him (which didn't work), so he'd had to save the guy's life, fill out a bunch of reports, and then somehow get home from the police station at 4AM. Which was halfway across the city from his house. Neil definitely didn't resent his wife or children, but he did sometimes envy their ability to fly. So he was totally out of it when the meeting came, and just tried to stay awake and look like he was paying attention. Sometimes that's all you can do.
Coil:
He didn't show any sign of it on the outside, but Thomas Calvert was more than a bit frustrated. He'd gotten Jacqueline Colere isolated and listening, and then that blasted Clockblocker had jumped in and frightened her away. That ridiculous name definitely felt appropriate at the moment, although he'd never admit it out loud. He didn't need that kind of blot on his reputation.
Well then. That was unfortunate.
But he did have a few other ideas.
One of his moles in the payroll department noted that Jacqueline Colere had no bank account, and clearly that just wouldn't do. She was, after all, owed a certain amount of recompense for damages done by a Ward, and that certainly wasn't the kind of money you could just hand a homeless orphan. Perhaps a trust fund. Brockton Bay Central Bank was probably a good choice. Perhaps an appointment was in order? Next Thursday, around noon or so?
Tattletale:
He was up to something. Lisa intended to find out what.
After a night's rest, one that wasn't in a Master Stranger screening cell, Sophia Hess woke up a slightly less confused girl. Oh, her problems definitely hadn't gone away overnight, but they were just a little bit more distant, a little less overwhelming. Shadow Stalker wasn't going to take Sophia's life away from her!
That confidence lasted right up until the moment she left the bed. This wasn't her room, these were Shadow Stalker's quarters. Puppies. Of course they weren't Shadow Stalker's actual quarters, the PRT wasn't that insensitive, but they were pretty much the same as how Sophia imagined Shadow Stalker's quarters would look like. She bolted from the room, grabbing the bag her mother had brought her last night as she went.
Changing in a public bathroom, or rather a semi-public bathroom, seeing as PRT headquarters wasn't open to the actual public, wasn't ideal, but Sophia couldn't be in there any longer. She'd been too tired last night to notice, but now she was fully awake and that room brought up a lot of bad non-memories.
Sophia had seen Jacqueline Colere in the cafeteria, again. The girl didn't seem to notice her, again, and Sophia hadn't been able to bring herself to talk to her, again. Maybe next time. Sophia could only hope. Apparently the girl was terrified of the guy in the white suit for some reason, which was good to know. Now she just had to find out why. Sophia knew what she'd be spending the rest of the day doing. Not like she had any friends to spend it with. Not anymore.
Taylor:
Jacqueline was mad at her, Taylor knew. But Taylor also knew that Jacqueline was mad at her because she cared, and that made all the difference. Something similar had already happened with Dad when she came home last night, but they'd already forgiven each other. She was still grounded though. Until she was 60, apparently. She doubted it'd really last that long, but she got the point.
Jacqueline also wasn't nearly as subtle as she thought she was. The whole cockamamie scheme to convince Taylor to be a mime was very obviously just done to make Taylor feel better. Not that knowing that stopped Taylor from feeling better. The ensuing "argument" had been just what she'd needed. Jacqueline turning out to be freakishly un-ticklish had been very disappointing though. Jacqueline had tried to make it look like she was affected, but she was, once again, not as subtle as she thought she was. Taylor could tell she was faking, but she did appreciate the effort. Taylor very much hoped she'd be able to keep Jacqueline. She was still a little upset about that cat.
Brandish was not nice, and Taylor considered making sure she got stung by a bee on the way out, but she decided that would be childish. In the bad way, not in the fun, calming, way that Jacqueline wore like a cloak. Taylor liked Jacqueline's way, even if she was pretty sure it was a coping mechanism. The poor girl had been through a lot, and in hindsight losing Taylor just a few days after the tumultuous culmination of their relationship would have absolutely destroyed the unfortunate little orphan child. Going out on her own had been really stupid of her, and picking a fight with Lung over what the PRT had told her was probably the Undersiders was worse. Taylor really needed to apologize to a lot of people. Starting with Jacqueline and Dad. She'd already apologized to the latter, but reiterating it would be for the best.
Taylor had learned from her mistakes.
Alice Stone:
Alice Regina Stone was not a stupid woman. She'd made Kerry within 30 seconds of him coming into the room. Proving it would be an entirely different matter. Kerry was acting all sorts of suspicious to her trained eye, but nothing he did was outright criminal. He was untouchable for the moment, until the seasoned PRT investigator/Child Therapist got something on him.
Then Jacqueline Colere played him like a fiddle. The girl had acted incredibly innocent (far too innocent for someone who'd seen what she'd seen), gotten close and very underestimatable, then tore the rug out from under William Kerry by just straight up asking if he was corrupt. And the shock had been enough to rumble him almost instantly. If an adult had asked him, he would have denied it, and Armsmaster's helmet wasn't evidence.
It was a very smooth, and very concerning, bit of work. The girl was clearly smart, and was equally clearly cool under pressure. Stone wasn't fooled by the innocent front, but she wasn't about to say anything about it. The girl had every reason to want to be liked. Hopefully she'd be able to address it in session.
The Heberts certainly seemed to like her, especially the daughter. Alice prided herself on her ability to read people, and they seemed to have bonded remarkably well during the short time they'd known each other. The mime trick certainly worked like a charm. Overall, Alice was inclined to let them stay together, and she was pretty sure her boss was leaning the same way. Hopefully the two girls would join the Wards, but even if they didn't they'd be a lot better off in a group than apart.
Clockblocker:
Dennis didn't know what to do. He hadn't meant to scare the mysterious girl who'd shown up for two meals in a row at the PRT cafeteria, he was just curious. So he'd come up while some guy was blathering on and on at her, and took the first straight line the man dropped.
The joke wasn't very good, Dennis would freely admit that. He'd rushed things, and as a result it really wasn't up to his usual standards. And his teammates regularly told him his usual standards weren't anywhere near high enough. Feh, what did they know?
But the girl had been startled, which Dennis guessed he should have foreseen, and terrified, which he couldn't have possibly seen coming. Right? The "Really, Dennis?" Dean had whispered to him as he left to go after the girl had been so disappointed, and Dennis didn't know how to deal with that. He had to make things right, but he didn't know what he needed to know in order to do so. It might surprise his non-Dean teammates (especially Missy) if they ever learned about it, but Dennis wasn't a complete idiot when it came to feelings. If he rushed in without knowing something important, he could easily traumatize the girl.
Or re-traumatize the girl, anyway. If she'd reacted like that to something that simple she was probably already traumatized. So he needed information. Dennis knew what he'd be spending the rest of the day doing. Aside from school. And his shift on the console. And messing with people. Dennis knew what he'd probably spend a bit of time doing today.
Manpower:
God, Neil was tired. He wasn't showing it on the outside, but he'd patrolled last night and things had gone south at a robbery he'd stepped into, with one of the robber's shooting his partner by accident while trying to shoot him (which didn't work), so he'd had to save the guy's life, fill out a bunch of reports, and then somehow get home from the police station at 4AM. Which was halfway across the city from his house. Neil definitely didn't resent his wife or children, but he did sometimes envy their ability to fly. So he was totally out of it when the meeting came, and just tried to stay awake and look like he was paying attention. Sometimes that's all you can do.
Coil:
He didn't show any sign of it on the outside, but Thomas Calvert was more than a bit frustrated. He'd gotten Jacqueline Colere isolated and listening, and then that blasted Clockblocker had jumped in and frightened her away. That ridiculous name definitely felt appropriate at the moment, although he'd never admit it out loud. He didn't need that kind of blot on his reputation.
Well then. That was unfortunate.
But he did have a few other ideas.
One of his moles in the payroll department noted that Jacqueline Colere had no bank account, and clearly that just wouldn't do. She was, after all, owed a certain amount of recompense for damages done by a Ward, and that certainly wasn't the kind of money you could just hand a homeless orphan. Perhaps a trust fund. Brockton Bay Central Bank was probably a good choice. Perhaps an appointment was in order? Next Thursday, around noon or so?
Tattletale:
He was up to something. Lisa intended to find out what.
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