- Location
- Auckland
Actually, it does make some sort of sense- if your neighboring country produces a lot of supervillains, you'll get desperate, trying to protect your country by doing whatever you think is necessary. The project that gave Wolverine his adamantium skeleton and amnesia was a Canadian project. Hell, even James McDonald Hudson experimented on a convict in order to activate that person's latent superpowers. (And wound up creating a powerful supervillain in the process).
Shelter 2.9
==========
Ereshkigal looked down at the groaning pile of neo-Nazis and grinned. She hadn't managed to find a cape, but there'd been more than enough hate crimes going on that she could interrupt a couple over the course of the day - this was going to be the last, it was past dark and she should maintain a modicum of a sleep schedule.
She'd turned an attempted murder by a gang into a total rout; the would-be victim (middle-aged black woman) had made her escape, and Ereshkigal now got to decide how to handle a half-dozen E88 members, most of whom were either unconscious or wishing for it.
"...You know, I think you might have gotten a bad rap," a voice whispered into her ear.
Ereshkigal's reflexes had improved since her last attempt at a cape fight - her uninvited guest's shadow was already moving with her as she turned around, grabbing for ankles even as Ereshkigal whipped an extension of her costume around at her assailant.
Both missed. In fact, the shadow of whoever had spoken was gone, along with the physical person themselves.
Ereshkigal could hear it this time. It was almost a detonation, a crack of air vacating the premises as the voice's owner occupied its space - above. There was no way she wouldn't have heard that, so how did she sneak up on her before? "Ooh, faster than last time… 'Ereshkigal'." Still brash and confident, untroubled by the attempted attack. Almost tasting the name, the way she pronounced it. "Queen of the Underworld, huh?"
Finally, Ereshkigal got a good look at the owner of the taunting voice. A familiar blonde woman, tall, very fit, in urban camouflage, standing comfortably on a fire escape and looking down into the alley through a wraparound visor. Her rifle was slung on her back, and her hands were empty for the moment.
Overwatch. Ereshkigal had looked her up since their last encounter. Protectorate member, her power was teleportation, which she supplemented with a military arsenal and a clear comfort with using it. The wiki had noted her teleportation shoved things out of the space she was teleporting into, a fast and rough process that created loud cracks of air, but offered no certainties on why she could sometimes teleport noiselessly. There had been a theory in the discussion page that it was a matter of initiating her teleport early, but engaging it late - allowing the air to slowly be pushed out of her target point in advance of her arrival, rather than the usual detonation.
"That's right," she answered the hero's question. "I don't suppose you're here to 'rescue' these poor innocent Nazis?" Ereshkigal nudged one of the skinheads with her foot, provoking a whimper.
Overwatch laughed. "Honestly, that's probably what they were hoping for when they called in your attack here. But I've got eyes and even without evidence of whatever exactly prompted you to go at 'em, gang membership is a federal offence. We got cells for the lot. And this is a cape-related incident, so we've got the jurisdiction to put 'em in ours. May surprise you to know, our cells are capable of holding Nazis." She paused, holding up a finger. "But there's one with your name on it too. We can't exactly overlook grand larceny, even if we prefer it to hate crimes."
Ereshkigal sighed. "More's the pity. And after you stepped into my fight with Heritage, I could have sworn you were different…" She turned away, skirt and hair whirling, and as they settled left a thin shell of shadow behind as she sunk into the shadow beneath her. Even if she wasn't still there, her costume and a facsimile of her hair was, and her absence shouldn't be that easy to notice from behind.
"What is that supposed to mean? I was helping him against you, remember?" Overwatch asked. It wasn't a genuine question, she was smirking even as she asked it.
"No need to be coy." It was satisfying to see Overwatch jump a bit as Ereshkigal emerged from the hero's shadow, though before Eresh could do anything with the proximity she'd already repositioned to the rooftop above with a loud snap-crack of teleportation. Not that she'd have started the fight - she was perfectly happy to chat with a handsome woman even though the lack of direct action from Overwatch made it really obvious she was buying time here. "I heard the way the two of you spoke to one another. You were basically doing me a favour, trying to get me away from that brute. I could have handled it, but it was sweet of you." Well, 'handled' as in safely escaped. She still hadn't really found a satisfactory solution to brutes like that, so she probably wouldn't have actually taken Heritage down in the moment.
"...are you seriously flirting with a woman who tazed you?" Overwatch asked, patting the device in question where it rested on her hip.
She laughed out loud. "Of course I am. You're exactly in my strike zone. Tall, buff, hot, heroic…" Ereshkigal began to list.
Overwatch snorted before she could get into mentioning she was absolutely okay with masochism in reasonable doses. "Okay, Ms. Villainess. I think you might be a liiiiittle in over your head here."
She absolutely was, but certainly not in her taste in women. Only her taste in enemies. Ereshkigal raised her hands in a supplicating motion. "Ah ah ah, before you continue with the unfair and unwarranted accusations, you do still have a pile of Nazis that are going to be waking up soon." She gestured. "I'm happy to continue keeping them… tied up for you, of course. Until your backup arrives. It should be soon, I'm guessing?" Unless Overwatch was enjoying the banter just as much as she was - hopefully that was also true - there was no way she'd just sit here chatting without going in for the arrest. That and she could feel their shadows arraying themselves outside the alley, fiddling with some kind of machinery.
Finally, Overwatch grinned. "Smart cookie. They're already putting a cordon up. We have a pretty good idea of what your power can do." She shrugged. "Broad strokes at least. You've showed off a lot, lately."
Right, that's what they were doing. Bringing in extra lights. Banish the shadow and the darkness she was using. Turn the night into day. Ereshkigal returned the grin.
"Ah. That's my cue to run, then."
Overwatch was already behind her with only a light hiss of air, but Eresh had learned a bit more than just falling into her own shadow - yanking herself down was faster, and her head was already beneath the arc of Overwatch's gloved hand, and she was already gone.
The hero instantly repositioned with another loud teleport - yeah, the difference definitely was based in how long she'd had to prepare for and plan her teleportation - and back to the end of the roof, floodlights flicking on and backing her.
Ironically, it actually helped Ereshkigal. They'd thought her power worked with darkness, and banished most of that. But she couldn't use darkness at all. She used shadow - the darkness created after a source of light was blocked. Late at night like this, she'd been limited to the shadows created by streetlights, completely unable to use the darkness of places completely unlit. And they'd just given her a far stronger light, and blocked it with Overwatch's body. The shadows were firmer and denser than ever.
So Eresh reached out of Overwatch's shadow, lightly tapping her leg - she'd like to do more but consent was important, and Overwatch's reflexes had her already jumping back off the roof anyway. "Tag!"
Overwatch crack-teleported back to the ground, in among the heavily-armoured PRT officers, foamsprayer barrels pointing up, while Ereshkigal submerged into her underworld and pushed herself quickly through it, emerging a few roofs away in the shadow of an air conditioner, smiling. "You're it!"
"Oh, it's on." With a hiss, Overwatch was directly in front of her, but her hand was low and tagged Ereshkigal even as she escaped into her shadow, even with the increased speed.
Whew. She'd have to vary up her patterns more, she got predicted. If that'd been more than a game of tag, it would have been dangerous. Ereshkigal decided to lurk in her underworld a bit, planning out her next approach and evasion.
"We're pretty sure you can hear us from wherever you are," Overwatch said into the night sky. "You came out that first time ready and spoiling for a fight, so you must've seen whatever happened to piss you off. Gimme a sign though, I've got a bit to say and I'd rather only do it once when you're definitely listening."
Overwatch's shadow rose up in the shape of a hand making a thumbs-up.
"Good, good. So, here's the deal. We were hoping to lock you down with floodlights and make this statement from a stronger position, but you got out before we were ready to move in with that. So I'm just going to say it." She drew a pistol-like weapon - a grenade launcher? - from her hip, loading a titanically thick shell into it. "You've done some crime, and you're going to do the time. Make no mistake, we will catch you. Maybe not tonight, maybe not this month, but you don't have a lot of support and you've tangled with the law. There are a lot of us and you're a smart cookie, but you're not that smart. Mass will tell. You're not our highest priority, but you're on the list, and we will get to you. When we catch you, you're looking at up to twenty-five years in prison for grand larceny - and if the Empire catches you, you'll be wishing for that. So you need to consider real carefully whether it's worth it."
"Sounds like you're about to offer another option," Ereshkigal said, voice drifting up out of Overwatch's shadow. "There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of 'considering' I can do if those are the consequences for what I've already done."
"Don't get me wrong, you will do the time. But it doesn't have to be in prison or as long as all that. Most of what you've been doing sure looks to me like heroics, and you can keep doing that with the Protectorate. Doing that for a living ain't gonna be all that onerous. And if it's money you've been going for, even as a probationary member you'd earn as much as you stole every two months. Half-again that, when you get out of probation. It's not as lucrative but on the other hand, no one wants to arrest me for it, and when I make enemies, I've got friends to smack them down with. Pretty good deal, honestly."
It was. Ereshkigal had been considering whether she wanted an organization's support for facing this 'Cauldron', and this outlined it real starkly. She could get it, and the money to live off of besides. The window was still open. She'd just have to give up her freedom. She wouldn't be able to face Cauldron by solely her own judgement. She wouldn't be able to protect the people she wanted to protect - the queer community was only incidentally protected by the cops at best, and she would be sent to guard the Boardwalk and goddamn banks while the siege of the Village continued.
It was a hell of a lot to give up. The Protectorate was better for her in every material way, but it would deny her the right to live and cape according to her own values. Everything outside her own body and her desire for revenge would take a back seat.
"... I wouldn't be doing those heroics here, now would I?" May as well confirm. Best not to lock off a possibility for the sake of an assumption.
"... mostly not," Overwatch admitted. "You would add to the coverage we can do of areas like this, but not one-to-one. You'd be added to the general patrol schedule, and that would increase overall coverage, free up more assets, some of which'd be going here."
"So you want me to stop protecting people like me - people no one does - in favour of protecting your priorities." Not that she wasn't rich and white, people like her in that respect were kind of the focus. But queer… police protection always fell flat when it came to queers, when it wasn't outright police assault.
Overwatch shrugged. "You're not wrong. But you forfeited your right to choose targets freely when you hit that bank, I'm afraid. Now you either serve the government or you go to jail."
The way Overwatch phrased it made her feel momentarily dumb for it, but on consideration… no, her problem with going Protectorate was the same whether it was probational or not. Robbery was the only option for keeping herself supported if she didn't go Protectorate, her legal identity was gone and she needed to stay in hiding. She wouldn't have been eating for the past week if she hadn't been stealing shit. Robbery hadn't worsened her position, it was her position. It was her only option other than the Protectorate, even if it drew the Protectorate down on her.
"Or," Ereshkigal mused, letting her voice float out from the shadow, "I do neither."
The woman shook her head sharply. "Not an option. Not long-term. You will get caught, Ereshkigal. You have no win condition, not against the law. When you win, you get to carry on as you are one more day. When we win, you're behind bars. When the Empire wins, you're dead. You have to win every time, every day, every encounter. When you lose once, it's over for good. Do you really think you can pull that off? Beat anyone and everyone that comes after you, no matter who, no matter how many, every single time?"
"I mean, I've been doing pretty good so far." While outright victories had yet to happen in capefights, she'd certainly made it home every time. That was victory enough, by this standard.
"You have, yeah. You're a new cape. You're a mystery. We haven't fully worked out how to pin you down, I'll cop to that. But the thing about mysteries is they get solved. You will get figured out. And you don't have a solution to our training or numbers."
… it was a fair question on its own. Could she even carry on with this, could she keep it up in the face of everything the authorities and the Nazis wanted to throw at her? Her power was well-suited to escape, and she was a smart little bitch, but she was a college girl that'd never thrown a punch before. Could she keep this up? Could she really stay ahead of the authorities not just for now, but for good?
… not without friends and allies. She was already feeling the authorities at her heels and she hadn't gotten any progress on Cauldron yet. She was ahead of the game for the moment, and she was getting better at it, but if Overwatch was right, so were they. If she joined The Man, she'd have those allies, in the Protectorate. But that cost was steep.
"This isn't a one-time offer," Overwatch noted into the night air. "You can think about it. But the longer you take, the less generous it's gonna get. And what you do stands real chances of closing it for good. So bear that in mind."
And then she vanished, reappearing with a crack over the original alleyway. She'd clearly decided this encounter was over.
… honestly, it was. Ereshkigal had only really been planning to play with Overwatch, and she wasn't in the mood anymore. She had a lot of thinking to do. And Overwatch couldn't continue the encounter if Ereshkigal didn't come out.
==========
Ereshkigal looked down at the groaning pile of neo-Nazis and grinned. She hadn't managed to find a cape, but there'd been more than enough hate crimes going on that she could interrupt a couple over the course of the day - this was going to be the last, it was past dark and she should maintain a modicum of a sleep schedule.
She'd turned an attempted murder by a gang into a total rout; the would-be victim (middle-aged black woman) had made her escape, and Ereshkigal now got to decide how to handle a half-dozen E88 members, most of whom were either unconscious or wishing for it.
"...You know, I think you might have gotten a bad rap," a voice whispered into her ear.
Ereshkigal's reflexes had improved since her last attempt at a cape fight - her uninvited guest's shadow was already moving with her as she turned around, grabbing for ankles even as Ereshkigal whipped an extension of her costume around at her assailant.
Both missed. In fact, the shadow of whoever had spoken was gone, along with the physical person themselves.
Ereshkigal could hear it this time. It was almost a detonation, a crack of air vacating the premises as the voice's owner occupied its space - above. There was no way she wouldn't have heard that, so how did she sneak up on her before? "Ooh, faster than last time… 'Ereshkigal'." Still brash and confident, untroubled by the attempted attack. Almost tasting the name, the way she pronounced it. "Queen of the Underworld, huh?"
Finally, Ereshkigal got a good look at the owner of the taunting voice. A familiar blonde woman, tall, very fit, in urban camouflage, standing comfortably on a fire escape and looking down into the alley through a wraparound visor. Her rifle was slung on her back, and her hands were empty for the moment.
Overwatch. Ereshkigal had looked her up since their last encounter. Protectorate member, her power was teleportation, which she supplemented with a military arsenal and a clear comfort with using it. The wiki had noted her teleportation shoved things out of the space she was teleporting into, a fast and rough process that created loud cracks of air, but offered no certainties on why she could sometimes teleport noiselessly. There had been a theory in the discussion page that it was a matter of initiating her teleport early, but engaging it late - allowing the air to slowly be pushed out of her target point in advance of her arrival, rather than the usual detonation.
"That's right," she answered the hero's question. "I don't suppose you're here to 'rescue' these poor innocent Nazis?" Ereshkigal nudged one of the skinheads with her foot, provoking a whimper.
Overwatch laughed. "Honestly, that's probably what they were hoping for when they called in your attack here. But I've got eyes and even without evidence of whatever exactly prompted you to go at 'em, gang membership is a federal offence. We got cells for the lot. And this is a cape-related incident, so we've got the jurisdiction to put 'em in ours. May surprise you to know, our cells are capable of holding Nazis." She paused, holding up a finger. "But there's one with your name on it too. We can't exactly overlook grand larceny, even if we prefer it to hate crimes."
Ereshkigal sighed. "More's the pity. And after you stepped into my fight with Heritage, I could have sworn you were different…" She turned away, skirt and hair whirling, and as they settled left a thin shell of shadow behind as she sunk into the shadow beneath her. Even if she wasn't still there, her costume and a facsimile of her hair was, and her absence shouldn't be that easy to notice from behind.
"What is that supposed to mean? I was helping him against you, remember?" Overwatch asked. It wasn't a genuine question, she was smirking even as she asked it.
"No need to be coy." It was satisfying to see Overwatch jump a bit as Ereshkigal emerged from the hero's shadow, though before Eresh could do anything with the proximity she'd already repositioned to the rooftop above with a loud snap-crack of teleportation. Not that she'd have started the fight - she was perfectly happy to chat with a handsome woman even though the lack of direct action from Overwatch made it really obvious she was buying time here. "I heard the way the two of you spoke to one another. You were basically doing me a favour, trying to get me away from that brute. I could have handled it, but it was sweet of you." Well, 'handled' as in safely escaped. She still hadn't really found a satisfactory solution to brutes like that, so she probably wouldn't have actually taken Heritage down in the moment.
"...are you seriously flirting with a woman who tazed you?" Overwatch asked, patting the device in question where it rested on her hip.
She laughed out loud. "Of course I am. You're exactly in my strike zone. Tall, buff, hot, heroic…" Ereshkigal began to list.
Overwatch snorted before she could get into mentioning she was absolutely okay with masochism in reasonable doses. "Okay, Ms. Villainess. I think you might be a liiiiittle in over your head here."
She absolutely was, but certainly not in her taste in women. Only her taste in enemies. Ereshkigal raised her hands in a supplicating motion. "Ah ah ah, before you continue with the unfair and unwarranted accusations, you do still have a pile of Nazis that are going to be waking up soon." She gestured. "I'm happy to continue keeping them… tied up for you, of course. Until your backup arrives. It should be soon, I'm guessing?" Unless Overwatch was enjoying the banter just as much as she was - hopefully that was also true - there was no way she'd just sit here chatting without going in for the arrest. That and she could feel their shadows arraying themselves outside the alley, fiddling with some kind of machinery.
Finally, Overwatch grinned. "Smart cookie. They're already putting a cordon up. We have a pretty good idea of what your power can do." She shrugged. "Broad strokes at least. You've showed off a lot, lately."
Right, that's what they were doing. Bringing in extra lights. Banish the shadow and the darkness she was using. Turn the night into day. Ereshkigal returned the grin.
"Ah. That's my cue to run, then."
Overwatch was already behind her with only a light hiss of air, but Eresh had learned a bit more than just falling into her own shadow - yanking herself down was faster, and her head was already beneath the arc of Overwatch's gloved hand, and she was already gone.
The hero instantly repositioned with another loud teleport - yeah, the difference definitely was based in how long she'd had to prepare for and plan her teleportation - and back to the end of the roof, floodlights flicking on and backing her.
Ironically, it actually helped Ereshkigal. They'd thought her power worked with darkness, and banished most of that. But she couldn't use darkness at all. She used shadow - the darkness created after a source of light was blocked. Late at night like this, she'd been limited to the shadows created by streetlights, completely unable to use the darkness of places completely unlit. And they'd just given her a far stronger light, and blocked it with Overwatch's body. The shadows were firmer and denser than ever.
So Eresh reached out of Overwatch's shadow, lightly tapping her leg - she'd like to do more but consent was important, and Overwatch's reflexes had her already jumping back off the roof anyway. "Tag!"
Overwatch crack-teleported back to the ground, in among the heavily-armoured PRT officers, foamsprayer barrels pointing up, while Ereshkigal submerged into her underworld and pushed herself quickly through it, emerging a few roofs away in the shadow of an air conditioner, smiling. "You're it!"
"Oh, it's on." With a hiss, Overwatch was directly in front of her, but her hand was low and tagged Ereshkigal even as she escaped into her shadow, even with the increased speed.
Whew. She'd have to vary up her patterns more, she got predicted. If that'd been more than a game of tag, it would have been dangerous. Ereshkigal decided to lurk in her underworld a bit, planning out her next approach and evasion.
"We're pretty sure you can hear us from wherever you are," Overwatch said into the night sky. "You came out that first time ready and spoiling for a fight, so you must've seen whatever happened to piss you off. Gimme a sign though, I've got a bit to say and I'd rather only do it once when you're definitely listening."
Overwatch's shadow rose up in the shape of a hand making a thumbs-up.
"Good, good. So, here's the deal. We were hoping to lock you down with floodlights and make this statement from a stronger position, but you got out before we were ready to move in with that. So I'm just going to say it." She drew a pistol-like weapon - a grenade launcher? - from her hip, loading a titanically thick shell into it. "You've done some crime, and you're going to do the time. Make no mistake, we will catch you. Maybe not tonight, maybe not this month, but you don't have a lot of support and you've tangled with the law. There are a lot of us and you're a smart cookie, but you're not that smart. Mass will tell. You're not our highest priority, but you're on the list, and we will get to you. When we catch you, you're looking at up to twenty-five years in prison for grand larceny - and if the Empire catches you, you'll be wishing for that. So you need to consider real carefully whether it's worth it."
"Sounds like you're about to offer another option," Ereshkigal said, voice drifting up out of Overwatch's shadow. "There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of 'considering' I can do if those are the consequences for what I've already done."
"Don't get me wrong, you will do the time. But it doesn't have to be in prison or as long as all that. Most of what you've been doing sure looks to me like heroics, and you can keep doing that with the Protectorate. Doing that for a living ain't gonna be all that onerous. And if it's money you've been going for, even as a probationary member you'd earn as much as you stole every two months. Half-again that, when you get out of probation. It's not as lucrative but on the other hand, no one wants to arrest me for it, and when I make enemies, I've got friends to smack them down with. Pretty good deal, honestly."
It was. Ereshkigal had been considering whether she wanted an organization's support for facing this 'Cauldron', and this outlined it real starkly. She could get it, and the money to live off of besides. The window was still open. She'd just have to give up her freedom. She wouldn't be able to face Cauldron by solely her own judgement. She wouldn't be able to protect the people she wanted to protect - the queer community was only incidentally protected by the cops at best, and she would be sent to guard the Boardwalk and goddamn banks while the siege of the Village continued.
It was a hell of a lot to give up. The Protectorate was better for her in every material way, but it would deny her the right to live and cape according to her own values. Everything outside her own body and her desire for revenge would take a back seat.
"... I wouldn't be doing those heroics here, now would I?" May as well confirm. Best not to lock off a possibility for the sake of an assumption.
"... mostly not," Overwatch admitted. "You would add to the coverage we can do of areas like this, but not one-to-one. You'd be added to the general patrol schedule, and that would increase overall coverage, free up more assets, some of which'd be going here."
"So you want me to stop protecting people like me - people no one does - in favour of protecting your priorities." Not that she wasn't rich and white, people like her in that respect were kind of the focus. But queer… police protection always fell flat when it came to queers, when it wasn't outright police assault.
Overwatch shrugged. "You're not wrong. But you forfeited your right to choose targets freely when you hit that bank, I'm afraid. Now you either serve the government or you go to jail."
The way Overwatch phrased it made her feel momentarily dumb for it, but on consideration… no, her problem with going Protectorate was the same whether it was probational or not. Robbery was the only option for keeping herself supported if she didn't go Protectorate, her legal identity was gone and she needed to stay in hiding. She wouldn't have been eating for the past week if she hadn't been stealing shit. Robbery hadn't worsened her position, it was her position. It was her only option other than the Protectorate, even if it drew the Protectorate down on her.
"Or," Ereshkigal mused, letting her voice float out from the shadow, "I do neither."
The woman shook her head sharply. "Not an option. Not long-term. You will get caught, Ereshkigal. You have no win condition, not against the law. When you win, you get to carry on as you are one more day. When we win, you're behind bars. When the Empire wins, you're dead. You have to win every time, every day, every encounter. When you lose once, it's over for good. Do you really think you can pull that off? Beat anyone and everyone that comes after you, no matter who, no matter how many, every single time?"
"I mean, I've been doing pretty good so far." While outright victories had yet to happen in capefights, she'd certainly made it home every time. That was victory enough, by this standard.
"You have, yeah. You're a new cape. You're a mystery. We haven't fully worked out how to pin you down, I'll cop to that. But the thing about mysteries is they get solved. You will get figured out. And you don't have a solution to our training or numbers."
… it was a fair question on its own. Could she even carry on with this, could she keep it up in the face of everything the authorities and the Nazis wanted to throw at her? Her power was well-suited to escape, and she was a smart little bitch, but she was a college girl that'd never thrown a punch before. Could she keep this up? Could she really stay ahead of the authorities not just for now, but for good?
… not without friends and allies. She was already feeling the authorities at her heels and she hadn't gotten any progress on Cauldron yet. She was ahead of the game for the moment, and she was getting better at it, but if Overwatch was right, so were they. If she joined The Man, she'd have those allies, in the Protectorate. But that cost was steep.
"This isn't a one-time offer," Overwatch noted into the night air. "You can think about it. But the longer you take, the less generous it's gonna get. And what you do stands real chances of closing it for good. So bear that in mind."
And then she vanished, reappearing with a crack over the original alleyway. She'd clearly decided this encounter was over.
… honestly, it was. Ereshkigal had only really been planning to play with Overwatch, and she wasn't in the mood anymore. She had a lot of thinking to do. And Overwatch couldn't continue the encounter if Ereshkigal didn't come out.
==========
blueJane
Artist
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
Oh my gosh I absolutely loved this chapter. Its so nice to see Ereshkigal actually interacting with someone else! And she gets to play Catwoman!
A game of cat and mouse where both participants can teleport... it's a good thing they seem to enjoy each other's company, because that seems like it could go on for a while.
I wonder what groups Eresh would consider joining up with. Euphoria is the obvious one, but the Undersiders are active at this point, right?
A game of cat and mouse where both participants can teleport... it's a good thing they seem to enjoy each other's company, because that seems like it could go on for a while.
I wonder what groups Eresh would consider joining up with. Euphoria is the obvious one, but the Undersiders are active at this point, right?
This was really enjoyable! I really enjoyed the conversation with Overwatch, and the flirtation (although I don't remember if you've established Overwatch's age, she might be too old for Ereshkigal - plus the problem that Overwatch is kind of a fascist).
I like the problem you've set up for her. Overwatch is exaggerating a bit - there are certainly examples of criminal capes who basically seem to get along indefinitely without being either put in prison or killed by gangs, like Uber and Leet and the Undersiders. And their powers aren't as well set up for getting away as Ereshkigal's.
On the other hand, those are both groups - someone having your back makes a big difference. (At the very least, it's someone to help break you out if you get caught). I'd love it if she ended up joining Euphoria, just because I'd love to see that group in the narrative and learn more about them.
Possible minor corrections:
While not literally wrong, to my ear this is a very odd way to put it. "she'd gotten predictable" would be a more natural way to phrase it.
Should this be "time will tell"?
I like the problem you've set up for her. Overwatch is exaggerating a bit - there are certainly examples of criminal capes who basically seem to get along indefinitely without being either put in prison or killed by gangs, like Uber and Leet and the Undersiders. And their powers aren't as well set up for getting away as Ereshkigal's.
On the other hand, those are both groups - someone having your back makes a big difference. (At the very least, it's someone to help break you out if you get caught). I'd love it if she ended up joining Euphoria, just because I'd love to see that group in the narrative and learn more about them.
Possible minor corrections:
While not literally wrong, to my ear this is a very odd way to put it. "she'd gotten predictable" would be a more natural way to phrase it.
Should this be "time will tell"?
Last edited:
- Location
- Earth
I think this was meant that the massive number of PRT/Protectorate vs only one of her will tell.
Oh, I get it now - that does make sense. Thanks. I wonder if I'm going to be the only one not to get it, though.
blueJane
Artist
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
Yeah I think Overwatch is basically asking if she wants to potentially be facing down the *entire* Protectorate, as opposed to just one teleporting cape and her backup. Obviously Eresh isn't a match for their heavy hitters.
I feel like the main reason Uber and Leet haven't been taken out yet is a combination of having just enough capability to avoid mundane law enforcement, being too unimportant for most other capes to bother with, and generally pulling jackass stunts rather than crimes that affect "people who matter."
By contrast, Ereshkigal has both the capability and the intention to become much more of a threat to people the government cares about.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Oppress minorities, run sex slave organizations, and sell drugs to poor people and the government somehow won't really do anything to you. But do one crime that affects a big bank and well...
Tbh Uber & Leet have been taken out, too.
They've been arrested twice. They escaped since, because a tinker that can craft with literally anything is kinda hard to contain when the loser can turn his goddamn food into acid to destroy the bars or whatever, but they did get arrested. One more and Three Strikes Act kicks in and they go to the Birdcage, and they're not getting out of that.
Even as low-value losers who aren't antagonizing the mega-wealthy and the Empire, the Protectorate basically snapped them up instantly when they got around to having A Resource to throw at it.
The Undersiders have been active for ~8 months. And they are actively recruiting and seeking to expand their capabilities, with a focus on someone who can give them a modicum of firepower 'cause right now the entirety of the Undersiders' firepower is Rachel's dogs and Brian's fists. Even when you're heist-focused, firepower helps, makes you less likely to snap in half the moment the heroes actually manage to touch you. A little bit of stiffness helps a heist-oriented team more than it would a fightier one.
And Ereshkigal, powerwise, is decent firepower in a really slick and heist-ey package.
To be fair, even if there were age questions I'd be hard-pressed to call out Overwatch for anything she's done or said here. Her tone's been friendly but it's at that level of friendly where it could be flirty or could not. The rampantest lesbianism has been coming from Ereshkigal and I'm not gonna call out an older woman for getting flirted at.
Age hasn't been ICly stated yet (it's a bit harder to eyeball ages when all the face you're seeing is chin), by voice and features Ereshkigal estimates early 20s.
And OOCly, Overwatch is 22. With Ereshkigal at 18, I would put it on the border of sketchy if Overwatch were initiating or pursuing - it's not a big difference and Ereshkigal is an adult, but she hasn't been one very long so one should probably be a bit stricter about it. But it's not an age where you've gotta hit the brakes on reciprocating.
I think calling her a bit fascist is... not entirely fair but not entirely uncalled-for. Like, she's operating as a cop rn. She's not stating her own opinions, she's stating the opinions of the institution she's working for - that Ereshkigal has in fact robbed a bank and needs to pay accounting for that, which means sentencing and either jail or working off that sentence in the Protectorate.
On a moral level I wouldn't call the theft that objectionable - Ereshkigal has taken pains to focus on douchebags who don't deserve to have money, and she does need an income - but on a legal level one theft is the same as the next. Her position is sympathetic but nobody knows it, and from a law enforcement officer's perspective, even one that is The Legendary Good Cop, those sympathies come into play at the level of judgement, which happens in court. Law enforcement's job is not to judge, it is to stop bad behaviour and bring the one doing it in to be judged.
We can argue for days over how fair or just that judgement would be, and how the laws are written to advantage the people least needing or deserving of protection, and there are absolutely flaws in the law. So you can certainly say that Overwatch is willing to serve the law - exactly how cop-brained she is and how certain she is that that is in fact the correct solution in any given case is an open question, but she at least seems to believe she can do more good working within it even with its flaws, since if that willingness were based in the paycheck she wouldn't bother interfering with the Enforcers.
And whether she's willing to bend or break the law for the sake of a better result is pretty unknown, because while her interactions with Ereshkigal have been friendly, she hasn't really seen any indicator of what Ereshkigal's situation is. So who knows how she'd calibrate with any level of knowledge.
To be fair the first ones are really much more of interest to the PRTectorate. They are the focus of most of their attention, and they're why Ereshkigal isn't getting a manhunt after her right now - the resources for that kind of operation are focused on the real bad guys. But even while maintaining a particular focused stance, they're not gonna just not respond to call-ins and not jump on opportunities. Ereshkigal's much lower on the list but she is on it.
They've been arrested twice. They escaped since, because a tinker that can craft with literally anything is kinda hard to contain when the loser can turn his goddamn food into acid to destroy the bars or whatever, but they did get arrested. One more and Three Strikes Act kicks in and they go to the Birdcage, and they're not getting out of that.
Even as low-value losers who aren't antagonizing the mega-wealthy and the Empire, the Protectorate basically snapped them up instantly when they got around to having A Resource to throw at it.
The Undersiders have been active for ~8 months. And they are actively recruiting and seeking to expand their capabilities, with a focus on someone who can give them a modicum of firepower 'cause right now the entirety of the Undersiders' firepower is Rachel's dogs and Brian's fists. Even when you're heist-focused, firepower helps, makes you less likely to snap in half the moment the heroes actually manage to touch you. A little bit of stiffness helps a heist-oriented team more than it would a fightier one.
And Ereshkigal, powerwise, is decent firepower in a really slick and heist-ey package.
To be fair, even if there were age questions I'd be hard-pressed to call out Overwatch for anything she's done or said here. Her tone's been friendly but it's at that level of friendly where it could be flirty or could not. The rampantest lesbianism has been coming from Ereshkigal and I'm not gonna call out an older woman for getting flirted at.
Age hasn't been ICly stated yet (it's a bit harder to eyeball ages when all the face you're seeing is chin), by voice and features Ereshkigal estimates early 20s.
And OOCly, Overwatch is 22. With Ereshkigal at 18, I would put it on the border of sketchy if Overwatch were initiating or pursuing - it's not a big difference and Ereshkigal is an adult, but she hasn't been one very long so one should probably be a bit stricter about it. But it's not an age where you've gotta hit the brakes on reciprocating.
I think calling her a bit fascist is... not entirely fair but not entirely uncalled-for. Like, she's operating as a cop rn. She's not stating her own opinions, she's stating the opinions of the institution she's working for - that Ereshkigal has in fact robbed a bank and needs to pay accounting for that, which means sentencing and either jail or working off that sentence in the Protectorate.
On a moral level I wouldn't call the theft that objectionable - Ereshkigal has taken pains to focus on douchebags who don't deserve to have money, and she does need an income - but on a legal level one theft is the same as the next. Her position is sympathetic but nobody knows it, and from a law enforcement officer's perspective, even one that is The Legendary Good Cop, those sympathies come into play at the level of judgement, which happens in court. Law enforcement's job is not to judge, it is to stop bad behaviour and bring the one doing it in to be judged.
We can argue for days over how fair or just that judgement would be, and how the laws are written to advantage the people least needing or deserving of protection, and there are absolutely flaws in the law. So you can certainly say that Overwatch is willing to serve the law - exactly how cop-brained she is and how certain she is that that is in fact the correct solution in any given case is an open question, but she at least seems to believe she can do more good working within it even with its flaws, since if that willingness were based in the paycheck she wouldn't bother interfering with the Enforcers.
And whether she's willing to bend or break the law for the sake of a better result is pretty unknown, because while her interactions with Ereshkigal have been friendly, she hasn't really seen any indicator of what Ereshkigal's situation is. So who knows how she'd calibrate with any level of knowledge.
To be fair the first ones are really much more of interest to the PRTectorate. They are the focus of most of their attention, and they're why Ereshkigal isn't getting a manhunt after her right now - the resources for that kind of operation are focused on the real bad guys. But even while maintaining a particular focused stance, they're not gonna just not respond to call-ins and not jump on opportunities. Ereshkigal's much lower on the list but she is on it.
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blueJane
Artist
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
Yeah. It's probably a situation where Overwatch was on call for the next Eresh sighting (since Overwatch is hyper-mobile and has the most experience with Ereshkigal so far), and when the call went out that Eresh was in E88 territory raising hell the PRT put together a quick response team with some floodlights and sent Overwatch out to observe and try to stall her long enough to get those lights in place. Of course, now they can probably infer that floodlights are counterproductive in anything less than 'Daylight' quantities, that Eresh is at the very least a flirt which is something they can potentially utilize when interacting with her, and that she does, in fact, have an ideology; her targeting of the E88 is specifically about protecting the queer community. That's a lot more information than they had before, and they might adjust their next pitch to her to account for that. It's in their interest to make Ereshkigal think that her negotiating position isn't that strong, but I think they'd be willing to present some pretty good perks if it gets her to formally join up (since it gets a potentially lethal villain off the streets and a potentially very strong hero onto their roster.)
They need to at least maintain the appearance of caring about her less-than-legal activities but considering the kind of deals that get cut in legal circles and the attitude of the PRT in Pale's particular version of the universe, joining the PRT could work out very well for Ereshkigal...
Except, of course, for the whole part where they're ultimately controlled by Cauldron. That will probably be a pretty big problem for her.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
When they met, Ereshkigal was protecting the girl, and Overwatch was protecting the Enforcers who were preying upon her. I think that makes Ereshkigal the more heroic of the two, regardless of the laws the Enforcers' masters had passed. Ereshkigal's murderous intentions and criminal means of survival don't change that.
blueJane
Artist
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
I mean, Overwatch only arrived on the scene after the girl had been saved, and her intervention in the fight was (from her persepective) for Ereshkigal's safety, since Heritage probably would have tried to beat her to a pulp rather than take her.
Still, that could form the basis of Eresh trying to lure Overwatch to the villsin/independent side. "Join me and we can thrash these pigs." Sort of thing.
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
@Southern Cross:
That's an interesting point.
I don't know who James McDonald Hudson is, though, sorry.
Well, I think Ereshkigal may have just been convinced, at least once the pondering is finished, that she needs allies.
Now, whether those allies are from the PRTectorate, however...
After all, you mentioned earlier that a certain "gang" was likely to show up more in this story, and their goals would seem to conflict with Ereshkigal's much less than the PRTectorate's do.
That's an interesting point.
I don't know who James McDonald Hudson is, though, sorry.
No crack of air filling the space she vanished from, either; interesting...Pale Wolf said:
Well, I think Ereshkigal may have just been convinced, at least once the pondering is finished, that she needs allies.
Now, whether those allies are from the PRTectorate, however...
After all, you mentioned earlier that a certain "gang" was likely to show up more in this story, and their goals would seem to conflict with Ereshkigal's much less than the PRTectorate's do.
Ehh. Interesting point, but I don't really see her going for the Undersiders. Sure, they could provide a source of funding, but they're even less interested in protecting the people she wants to protect, or indeed anyone other than themselves, than the PRTectorate. Add in the mysterious backer with unknown goals, who for all Ereshkigal knows is actually Cauldron itself, and it doesn't seem likely to me.blueJane said:
Well... aren't they, though? After all, there are resources to tinker with in the Birdcage, and a lot of people who'd be very interested in seeing their new inmate the build-anything-once-tinker's skills applied a portal or teleport pad or whatever out. Unless I'm missing something, the only thing special about the Birdcage that might stop them escaping is Glaistig Uaine (sp?), if she decides to act preemtively. Or am I missing something?Pale Wolf said:
And that's also if Overwatch isn't guessing Ereshkigal's age incorrectly high; Ereshkigal's wearing a pretty concealing costume too, after all.
- Location
- Earth
The Birdcage has a lot of defenses which are only mentioned sparingly in canon.
But they do include defenses against known forms of teleportation and portals.
Now Leet might find a new one. His shard might indeed be one of the few ones who could.
But even then it'd be hard. They give a lot of thought to what to include in the birdcage resource deliveries, because Tinkers in general are the biggest escape risk.
Who has already used the majority of actually useful anything's already and can't use them again. There's constant surveillance that would catch an amateur like him trying to tinker something serious in a heartbeat so that's also an issue.
But really the problem with Leet is that he didn't realize the limitations on his power until late in his career so he burned through the base of a bunch of skill trees in ways that cut him off from a lot of future potential.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
I thought the biggest problem with Leet is that his shard fucking hates him and tries to kill him whenever it can?
In terms of power, I mean.
Honestly that is a bit unfair, as Jane says. Overwatch never saw the girl, she discovered her existence through Claire's post-encounter interviews. Overwatch was called in to save the Enforcers from what she was told was an assault, but by the time she got there, Heritage had the situation well in hand. Overwatch intervened to undercut Heritage - end the fight, arrest the girl, and keep the Brute who might well be a highly-experienced ex-E88 member from having any excuses or chances to do anything to Ereshkigal. Sort it out at the station rather than in the street fight.
Like, you can probably tell from the report, but if they had captured Ereshkigal she probably would've been let out within a day. Long enough to investigate, determine that the situation was legitimate defense of the innocent, hiss through their teeth as this is gonna pull things with the Enforcers much closer to the surface, give Eresh a Protectorate recruitment pitch and a warning that this situation is politically fraught, get her contact information, and let her out the door.
The longer term would be more fraught, because the Enforcers would probably press charges, and it'd turn into a court/political battle where, frankly, the PRTectorate is actively providing free legal counsel to Eresh and trying to stay on her side, keep themselves from getting the order to actually take her in, and use the situation and what witnesses they can scrounge up (including Ereshkigal) to try and expose and bring down the Enforcers legally.
And as Jane says, the big seduction point you can use on Protectorate members is "if you're willing to ignore the law, you can just do justice, not fight political games for it".
Tbh yeah, it's a double-ended crack - if she's gotta go fast and can't do it as a wind effect, one end turns into a complete vacuum bubble that promptly collapses, while the other basically has a tall woman's volume of air rammed out at supersonic speeds.
It's pretty basic teleportation but because telefragging is not something a shard likes to do to its host, that's necessarily accompanied by a telekinetic pulse that shoves matter out of the space where the person is gonna teleport into. ('cause if it didn't, welcome to the kind of health problems you can only have when you and an air conditioner are suddenly occupying the same space. Even air poses hazards on this front, let alone physical objects) That pulse can be gentler if she initiates the teleport early, but it's gotta be out by the time she gets there so the less time she has to plan out her teleport, the faster everything needs to be gone, and the harder the pulse has to be.
And back at the origin point, no matter what there's a vacuum bubble left behind, that air is gonna collapse into to equalize the pressure. This is where you tend to see all kinds of hilarious cavitation effects. But, if Overwatch has saved power on the telekinetic pulse by making it slow and gentle, there's power left over to slow the bubble collapse and make it a wind effect, which allows stealth teleports on both sides. That stealth can be pretty relative depending on how fast it is - a gust of wind is still pretty noticeable, even if it isn't a concussion wave - but it can head up there.
Well, I think Ereshkigal may have just been convinced, at least once the pondering is finished, that she needs allies.
Now, whether those allies are from the PRTectorate, however...
After all, you mentioned earlier that a certain "gang" was likely to show up more in this story, and their goals would seem to conflict with Ereshkigal's much less than the PRTectorate's do.
That's absolutely true, but there's another angle to look at it from that's gonna make Persephone hesitate.
She is bringing problems. She's looking for friends to help with her problems. So the question is, with how strapped Euphoria is, and their age, can she justify that to herself? Can she add more problems onto young and already-overburdened shoulders?
She definitely wants to help them, but can she add her Cauldron issues on top of what they already have to deal with? Or is it better to do that from outside, as an independent with a separate team?
Tbh she doesn't necessarily need to find people that want to protect the people she wants to protect. She really only needs someone that'll protect her. She can protect the people she wants to protect herself, she just needs to be able to eat, not get arrested, and not get killed by the Empire in the process. Ideally help her out with Cauldron, but failing that, just keep her safe from law and Empire so she can work on the problem without having to push herself to deal with the side shows.
So if Euphoria's off the table, crooks are her ideal here. People who'll help her get living expenses, avoid the law, and avoid retaliation from the enemies she's racking up. Though she would prefer ethical crooks - not necessarily a super high standard thereof, but some standard, some preference for minimal-harm tactics and maximally-deserving targets. She's new to this, she would rather not have victims, she already has enough trouble sleeping at night. (This is one of the points the Undersiders might fall down on. Not the only but certainly one of them)
There are resources, yeah. And there might be something Leet could pull off. But do remember we're talking about abrasive fuckwit gamerbros in a kingdom ruled by the strongest and meanest. Before building a way out of there, they have to survive a day.
And we're talking about fuckwits. The Birdcage's defences are layered. Teleporting out of the walls means you run into the next layer, the one that might explosively decompress you. This place was built fully knowing that it would have to restrain Movers too. Leet could potentially come up with a layered solution that would slip through all the layers, but that requires him to think, use the peanut that is his brain, to figure out ahead of time what every single layer is. And he has to do it perfectly the first time, because a lot of the outer layers are lethal, if he gets hung up on one he's dead.
The two come around to build on one another. Dragon does tell people that might think they have an escape about the layer that'll kill them if they try it, so it might be possible to ask around and get a perfect map of all the layers Dragon has informed people about (that probably isn't everything, a lady's gotta keep some secrets), but that requires faces and personalities that don't scream out to the world, begging to be punched.
And Dragon is passively monitoring the whole time, regularly catching up actively, has specifically placed them to minimize their odds of escape, and is periodically adjusting things to drop it further.
They do have a chance, but it's still not a large one, and the fact that it exists means Dragon's gonna make sure to be on top of it.
The Birdcage isn't just a sealed environment with walls, it's surrounded by a vacuum and an absurd amount of drones that will jump on anyone that punched through the walls and survived explosive decompression. The inner layers of the mountain it's built into are lined with tinkertech ceramics that almost certainly block all kinds of signals and all known forms of teleportation. The entire thing may be spatially warped, compressed, and twisted, so god knows what happens when you get out of that. The entire thing may be pressurized like a deep-sea submersible so even if you get out into normal atmosphere you still explosively decompress. There are a lot of 'may's, there are a very small amount of people who know the full structure of the place, and none of them are inside it.
I was gonna say, the biggest problem with Leet is that he's a gamerbro so his brain is a walnut and he's undeserving of love or empathy and people can see that
But, honestly his shard didn't initially hate him. It's not like it started out sabotaging him.
Basically, he explored widely to see what kind of tinker he was, which planted a whole bunch of failure-chance landmines in his tech tree. Then he figured out what was going on, and he kinda freaked. Closed off, started applying a cautious approach to what he was making, keeping careful lists and graph charts. And that meant he stopped giving his shard interesting projects. Bored the fuck out of the shard, so the shard started spiking the failure chance so it could move on to someone that didn't make it die of boredom.
It's a relationship that broke down for what are kinda understandable reasons on both sides - the shard found itself married to a boring-ass coward that just wants it barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, while on Leet's end the sudden switch to extreme caution is a pretty reasonable response to 'oh fuck what I do with the power permanently limits it in the future'.
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blueJane
Artist
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
The best relationships are built on communication, trust, and compromise... and, obviously, most shards don't bother with any of those to begin with, putting aside that most Capes don't even realize their powers basically have a mind if their own. (Seph technically briefly did when wondering why the fuck her shadow suit was conductive.)
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
You know, I want to believe you didn't just say that every guy that likes to play video games as his main hobby is as much of a piece of shit as Leet and Uber. But I'm having a bit of trouble doing so.I was gonna say, the biggest problem with Leet is that he's a gamerbro so his brain is a walnut and he's undeserving of love or empathy and people can see that
Gamerbro is a specific type of gamer. Leet & Uber were written to exemplify that kind, and we saw them rampage across the internet during Gamergate. The kind of toxic gamer that makes the hobby hard to access, that spews vitriol over teamchat and rape threats if he thinks he's been slighted. Uber & Leet are bad but it's not an individually shitty people kind of bad, they're literally just direct portrayals of a very real and very significant force of douchebaggery in nerd culture.
It's not any male gamer, it's just the kind that makes gaming worse for everyone.
UrbanDictionary has apparently opted to append an extra word, to distinguish it from all the other arrangements of 'gamer' and 'bro'.
In this context 'bro' doesn't mean 'male' (though they usually are), it means they're engaging in 'bro culture', which the link defines pretty well: This kind of machismo where people get real rowdy, party as hard as they like, throw their fists wherever they like, and don't really care about who might get hurt by their behaviour. Actively get offended when it's suggested they should.
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blueJane
Artist
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
Rereading for bits I liked
I feel like we're only seeing the beginning of the kind of misdirection shenanigans Seph can pull. With the ability to effectively teleport while leaving behind duplicates that can mimic at least surface-level traits of her costume, with some good planning and improved training she'll rarely need to worry about getting hit.
Didn't she have a poster of Narwhal in her room? It'd be fun to see how other female heroes deal with her. I don't suppose there are any other lesbians/bisexual women on the Brockton PRT roster right now?
I feel like we're only seeing the beginning of the kind of misdirection shenanigans Seph can pull. With the ability to effectively teleport while leaving behind duplicates that can mimic at least surface-level traits of her costume, with some good planning and improved training she'll rarely need to worry about getting hit.
Didn't she have a poster of Narwhal in her room? It'd be fun to see how other female heroes deal with her. I don't suppose there are any other lesbians/bisexual women on the Brockton PRT roster right now?
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she is exactly the same age as laserdream and there are light powers/darkness powers juxtapositions that are gonna amuse her endlessly
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
@LightLan and @Mook re Leet escaping:
Ah, thanks; I may have been overestimating him based on the potential capabilities of his power.
@Pale Wolf re Overwatch's teleportation:
Ah, thanks; that makes sense.
re Persephone bringing trouble to anyone she joins up with:
Ahhh, good point, aye.
re what she needs from people she'd be working with and the resultant selection criteria:
And makes sense; thanks.
But yeah, I still think the Undersiders don't look like a very good prospect there, since in addition to the issue you mention, I expect the "mysterious crime backer" thing would be just too much of a concern.
re Leet escaping the Birdcage:
Well, as for surviving a day, I was guessing that could be because other inmates wanted to use the escape route too. And that the two of them wouldn't be fatally stupid.
...I gather, though, that in addition to being somewhat blinded by the potential of Leet's power, I may have overestimated their competence. By a lot.
I was basically thinking that Leet's power was capable of building a "teleport the user all the way out of here and do whatever's needed to make that safe" machine, and that as far as I know Dragon doesn't actually have any way to act within the prison environment, rather than around it, and neither does anyone else except the inmates; therefore, the only people who could stop Leet from successfully getting people out are the people in, and of them, he'd only be at risk from those who for some reason don't want a new escape route and have the power to enforce that on all the people who do.
Ah, thanks; I may have been overestimating him based on the potential capabilities of his power.
@Pale Wolf re Overwatch's teleportation:
Ah, thanks; that makes sense.
re Persephone bringing trouble to anyone she joins up with:
Ahhh, good point, aye.
re what she needs from people she'd be working with and the resultant selection criteria:
And makes sense; thanks.
But yeah, I still think the Undersiders don't look like a very good prospect there, since in addition to the issue you mention, I expect the "mysterious crime backer" thing would be just too much of a concern.
re Leet escaping the Birdcage:
Well, as for surviving a day, I was guessing that could be because other inmates wanted to use the escape route too. And that the two of them wouldn't be fatally stupid.
...I gather, though, that in addition to being somewhat blinded by the potential of Leet's power, I may have overestimated their competence. By a lot.
I'm not sure what you mean by this, though, sorry.
I was basically thinking that Leet's power was capable of building a "teleport the user all the way out of here and do whatever's needed to make that safe" machine, and that as far as I know Dragon doesn't actually have any way to act within the prison environment, rather than around it, and neither does anyone else except the inmates; therefore, the only people who could stop Leet from successfully getting people out are the people in, and of them, he'd only be at risk from those who for some reason don't want a new escape route and have the power to enforce that on all the people who do.
Yikes. Okay, yeah, my impression of the "average Uber and Leet" as it were gathered from what I've read wasn't super great, but it was a lot better than that.Pale Wolf said:
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
When the hell did "bro" change from "good friend" to "the kind of guy that turns you into a misandrist"?