Identity (by Parabola)
Three hours after the memorial
You are Noelle Han, though you prefer 'Ellie'.
You stare at the screen of your screen. The screen stares back, mockingly.
After the whole debacle with Monarch, and learning that Steelheart had apparently been behind some
extremely shady shit, you'd stomped off, seeking your bed. Resting is also an important part of being a hero. You… still have mixed feelings about your mother, but the least you can do is not be a hypocrite. You must not overwork yourself. So you took a shower, got into your sleeping clothes, organized your room (
you actually have a new room all to yourself now) and then realized you had nothing to do. Normally you'd exercise a bit to tire yourself to sleep more easily, but you just can't be bothered after... everything.
So you did the only thing you could: you started doomscrolling.
This has proven to be a mistake.
It feels like every news regarding the memorial and Monarch's appearance can't help but interject White Hawk's interview spiels, and beneath every single forum topic or social media post regarding this, there's ongoing fights about what 'really' happened. Why is the world like this? Why are people inclined to believe an asshole who protects the richest bigwigs in the world over the people who were actually there in the Movement? PR machine or not, why are you just barely fending off Crusade's attacks?
…Admittedly, of Justice Unlimited, only Chatelet and Lady Leizhi came back alive from the QZ. The rest of the current team wasn't present there - you're all quite literally newbies. Perhaps that's why their speeches being talked about more than the rest of the memorial's incidents? Looking at it that way, you can feel better about it all. Just a bit.
Having rationalized your cope away, you type your way to the Hero for Hire website, sighing as you do.
@Ellie_Starfish23 got banned on Hero for Hire a while back for reposting some of Valiant Silver's epic-scale smut. Annoying though that may have been, it's just as well - you need a different account for official PR stuff anyway.
Tomorrow you're all getting interviewed. You don't really like it - you'd prefer being out in the field, doing something more productive - but just like the rest of the team, you can recognize a necessary evil when you see it. The longer you have before you are forced to reveal Project Prometheus, the better, but that'll be harder the more Crusade and its PR team bangs on the drum that Nora caused the Movement and Project Prometheus is continuing Leviathan-experimenting research.
To fend Crusade off, you need as much goodwill as possible, and on top of counterattacking their claims, that means you must all appeal to as much of the public as you can. You all have a lot of variety, thankfully - you appeal to several age groups, several of you are gay, and perhaps most importantly, you all still have a soul, not a chain leading to some impersonal set of PR quotes.
It was a bit touch-and-go for a moment on whether someone would be held back, though. Lady Leizhi was very clear that everyone who would be going would be coached by her on likely attacks on your characters, and how the more people got interviewed, the more likely it would be that someone would ask a question she overlooked. But in the end, she was persuaded to have everyone go.
Thankfully, everyone's covers are pretty solid. It would take a truly awful slip of the tongue or malicious question for someone to say something which Crusade could use against you or would investigate. Lady Leizhi seemed to think that your capacity to lie in particular is questionable, so you two rehearsed a partial truth: You do not actually have metahuman powers, you are merely the specialized wielder of Nora Kim's final armor, which no, does not run on the Leviathan, it runs off of a specialized connection with you and your own psychic potential. If forced to, you might have to give the excuse that because of the possibility of Monarch and other Wonderland escapees seeing the broadcast, you cannot give too many details about the armor. But you discussed the possibility of disclosing that the armor cannot be wielded by any metahuman, at least, as a safety measure.
Technically Dr. Ibis and Nora's manual say you
are a metahuman, just one whose power is wielding EXCEED-BEYOND... but you feel like that's splitting hairs. What really matters is that you wield someone else's legacy to protect others, not powers which are wholly yours. And more than that, you are someone who strives to make this world right.
Perhaps one day you'll comfortably call yourself a 'hero' without feeling fake. Perhaps.
But for now, you put these thoughts out of your mind and make your new account - and you hurry a bit, because now that you think about it, it's possible that Crusade could end up stealing the username you intend if you don't hurry, or at least make the process of getting it back a hassle. And that will just not do.
This name, after all, is one you
can call yourself without feeling fake.
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