After Scion. After the Titans. After everything the world had been through... They aren't done. Destiny is not yet done with them. After all, the Shadow is rising.
Not many people got to see the end of a single Age. She had seen four now. The Age she had been born into had long ago been forgotten, its wonders lost to the ravages of time and the drums of war. She had people of all walks of life, from the greatest to the least, seen empires rise and fall, seen humanity take themselves to the stars only to flame out upon establishing colonies. Still, since the ending of the Third Age, she had not seen any evidence of her Great Lord, beyond herself.
Surely, the Great Lord could not have been brought low by a pitiful excuse for a human being such as that man. He was eternal, after all, as was she, despite many setbacks. Of the Chosen, she knew that she was likely the last one alive, and she planned on remaining so until her master came again—until the Great Lord would reveal himself and break the Wheel itself. Not that many people of this Age believed in the Wheel.
The Fifth Age had been one of technological advancement without the use of the One Power. Frankly, it had amazed her how much humanity had managed to accomplish. No reaching for the Dark Lord, no trappings of destiny and no use of any sort of Power beyond human ingenuity. Sure, even now, there were ta'veren, or there had been, people who simply gathered those to themselves and gained power. The touch of destiny had been upon them, and they had chosen to use it in this way.
She walked through the streets of the burning city, keeping hold of Saidar as she did. Minor weaves of Air kept the smell of burning flesh from reaching her nostrils, and she simply strode around the crashed and still-burning vehicles. The drivers' bodies had long-since been fully engulfed during the initial burn of the city. It was amazing the fuel sources that they had been able to come up with, that they would continue to burn this long, even after others would have been exhausted.
She stepped into a building that the flames had seemingly left untouched, but on closer look, she could see where the fire had licked away the paint, revealing the pure alabaster white stone beneath it. The building was one of the oldest ones in this city, and nobody alive now knew why it existed, but she did. She had met the architect that designed the building in the Fourth Age, and the woman had ensured that her vision would survive into the Fifth and beyond. Deep within the building was something she needed.
The heels on her boots clicked as she walked down the stone halls, ignoring the mutilated and desiccated corpses that lined the edges. People had run here, hoping to escape the catastrophe, but while the building had survived, they had not. Pity. If they had only given themselves over to the Great Lord, perhaps they would have lived. Of course, given how little the Great Lord had actually been active over the last two Ages, she was uncertain of that.
As she rounded the corner into the next room, a small break room with a bar counter, she heard a noise, different from the rumbling and crackling of flames outside. Shallow breaths, from the room's corner, drew her attention. She made her way over, brushing a strand of her raven hair back, still retaining its color after all this time. A smile played upon her face as she walked around the counter to find a small red-haired girl, perhaps ten or eleven summers old. She wore a long set of denim pants and a blouse that might have once been white, now turned gray from the soot that she must have had to climb through. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was lying down carefully behind the bar. Perhaps she'd been hiding from the outside.
"Well, hello there," she said, intentionally taking on a local accent. The lilt to her voice would hopefully place the girl at ease. "Aren't we a lucky one?"
The girl eyed her suspiciously with jade orbs and shifted her grip as she stood, revealing a slug-throwing firearm that the girl aimed at the woman. The determination on the girl's face made her even more adorable.
She spread her arms, revealing empty hands even as she began to weave Air and Spirit together, adding to her voice. It was a familiar Weave, one she'd done numerous times before. A light Compulsion to help the girl help herself. "I am unarmed, little one. You will face no harm from me."
She watched as the Weave took effect, wrapping strands of Air and Spirit around the girl's head. The girl slowly lowered her weapon. "But… you… who are you?"
"You may call me the Lady Moiral," she said, continuing with the intricacies of the Weave. It had been a long time since she had used the name of her birth, thousands of lifetimes, perhaps tens of thousands, she'd honestly lost count, but here, in this moment, it felt right. "As for you, little one, what do you call yourself?"
"M-M-Mira, my… lady," the girl said, practically shrinking in on herself. The level of Compulsion that she had used on Mira would ensure that the girl would be compliant but did not completely erase any feelings of nervousness she had. No, for the purposes that the woman needed her for, having Mira anything more than merely compliant would be too much. "What's happening? Is it the end of the world?"
"No, child," she said, approaching Mira closer. She helped pull the young girl to her feet. "There are neither beginnings nor endings to the weavings of the Wheel. But this is an ending. The end of life as it is known currently, the introduction of something new."
"New?" Mira asked. "What do you mean?"
The Lady Moiral held out a hand, and Mira took it. "The world is changing, as is custom when the Ages shift, and you, my dear, get to witness it alongside me. Together, we will allow ourselves to ring in the new Age, bring it to bear."
"What about the other people?"
"What about them?" asked the Lady Moiral. "The ending is their fault. The bombs, the firestorm, the eruptions? All caused by people." The Lady Moiral snorted. "The Great Lord would have done things far cleaner, saved those worth saving."
"Great Lord?" Mira asked. "Who is he?"
"The greatest being, completely worthy of worship," said the Lady Moiral. "Please him, do his bidding, and life eternal shall be yours in his arms."
Mira blinked, and perhaps it was the Compulsion she was under, but the girl's eyes seemed to light up. The Lady Moiral had only to dangle the idea of living through this, all of this, in front of the girl, and she could even ease up on the Compulsion.
"Truly?" Mira's amazement filtered through her voice. It had been a while since Lady Moiral had taken a pet. It would amuse her for a time, surely. "This Great Lord can stop… that?"
"He has dominion over Death," she said. She gave Mira a once-over as another explosion resounded outside. At this level of Compulsion, Mira still flinched. The girl was passable. Young, but she would do for the purposes that Lady Moiral chose. "Your death. Mine. All of theirs. If He so chose, many people would survive this. Unfortunately, they all have rejected Him. Ignored His attempts to reach out to them."
"How could they?" Mira asked. "If He was to try and help all of us…"
Lady Moiral smiled. "I have questions about that as well. Fortunately, the place we can go to get the answers is not far."
"What do you mean, my Lady?" Mira asked.
A smile played on Lady Moiral's lips. She always did love when the chattel referred to her as royalty. It warmed what was left of her heart. Additionally, the young girl's lack of knowledge would prove to be a significant boon here.
"Perhaps you may have played the game, Snakes and Foxes?" asked the Lady Moiral. It was one thing that had almost certainly been passed down through the Ages, a children's game to keep them safe. The only way to truly win, of course, was to not play.
Many never realized that fact. While long ago, the Lady Moiral had realized that point, it had come to this. Reaching out to the denizens of Sindhol would be necessary, to help keep her from tarrying in the Age to come. She had yet to die, and she assumed that meant that the Great Lord wanted her around for a reason.
"I have! Why, are the answers there?" Mira asked. She then tapped her chin. "Courage to strengthen, fire to blind, music to dazzle, iron to bind. Is that helpful?"
"Yes," said the Lady. "We will not bring fire, nor music, nor iron with us on this trip. So before you go through the gate, you will have to make sure to take any away from yourself."
"The gate?" Mira asked. "What gate?"
"Follow me, little one," said the Lady Moiral. A simple gesture had the girl climb to her feet. The Compulsion laid upon her would help keep the girl pliable enough to enforce her will. It was not so much as to make her completely witless, however. Unlike some of her former colleagues, the Lady Moiral had some class.
"Yes, my Lady," Mira said. She tilted her head ever so slightly, curious as she joined Lady Moiral's side. The Lady knew that the girl couldn't possibly know what was to come, but to be perfectly honest, neither did she. As she led the girl through the building, she had to be careful. Men and women had driven themselves mad, had started to kill one another.
If she was correct, very few members of humanity would survive this cataclysm. However, enough would, somehow. Humanity always made it through the end of an Age, even if the source of the ending was Humanity itself.
This day was not the Final Battle. It wasn't even a skirmish in that war. Tarmon Gai'don had come and gone two Ages hence. Humanity still lived. The Great Lord had hidden himself once more, perhaps re-sealed, yet as she was still alive, the seal was not as strong as it could be.
"The entrance should be down in the first basement," said the Lady Moiral. "The stairway down this hall should lead us there."
"How do you know this, my lady?" asked Mira. "I haven't seen you here until today."
"I designed this place," she said. "The creation was defined by my hand, and I have been here since."
Mira looked around, clearly wondering how that could be possible. The Lady Moiral doubted that, even with the Compulsion upon her, the girl believed in the gift that the Great Lord gave her. Between the gift of the Great Lord, the One Power, and the varying advances in medical technology that came at the end of the Fourth Age and the middle of the Fifth, she looked now much like she had when she'd originally been in her twenties. It was no wonder the small girl was confused.
Ultimately, that did not matter much to the woman who called herself Lady Moiral. No, what mattered to her was just down this corridor. As she approached the end, she reached out with weaves of Fire, Spirit, and Earth together with a touch of the True Power. Flecks of black entered her eyes as she channeled the power bestowed on her by the Great Lord, and runes hidden by a complex weave lit up, each in turn.
A simple line drew itself in a vertical direction along the center of the stone, and it split, swinging outward in a pair of double doors. There was little lighting behind the doors, but the light that seeped in from the hall revealed a staircase that spiraled downward. The gasp that the revelation drew from Mira brought a smile to Lady Moiral's face.
Despite not being accessed for many years, the Power-wrought staircase remained pristine, and as the Lady Moiral touched the wall, the ter'angreal embedded at strategic points along the way lit up with a flickering cool light.
"Wow…" Mira gasped.
"Come now, walk with me to my parlor," said the Lady Moiral, and she led the girl down the stairs. She made sure the door shut behind them. It wouldn't do for any of the people still fighting to find this place, and while she could kill them herself, doing so in front of this uninitiated child might not be wise. No, better to make sure that they were uninterrupted in this process. Mira would be helpful.
The stairs terminated at a larger room two stories below, where the Lady Moiral kept many treasures. From Power-wrought blades, to Power-boosting items such as angreal and sa'angreal, to items forged uniquely without the use of Power, neither of the One nor the True. However, the important item in the hidden vault she kept in this city stood a scant quarter of a meter away from the far wall. In all appearance, it was a free-standing door frame made of twisted redstone. While the original had long since been destroyed, and in fact, both had, some time late in the Fourth Age, the covenant had been re-established. A covenant now forgotten save for a select few, like herself.
Like the original, this door frame was carved with three sinuous lines running vertically along the frame, identifying whom it connected with. Across the room was a matching doorway carved with inverted triangles. The Lady Moiral barely gave that one a passing glance as she came up to the one with the lines. What she was planning here was dangerous to her continued existence, but then, she had yet to die. Whatever the Great Lord had planned for her, she needed to be ready to execute it.
"My Lady, what is this place?" Mira asked. "How long has it been down here?"
"This is my parlor, as I said before," said the Lady Moiral. "Welcome to it, my dear. Is it not the most beautiful parlor you ever did spy?"
"Yes, my Lady, it is very beautiful, including these frames," said Mira. "How long has it been here?"
"Many years," said the Lady Moiral. "Many years, my dear Mira. We mustn't stay long. For there is much to do."
"But where is there to go?" Mira asked.
"Through that doorway," she said, gesturing to the twisted doorframe ahead of them. "Hold my hand, Mira, before we go through. Make sure you have nothing on you that produces light, makes music, or is made of iron."
"I don't think I do," Mira said, taking the hand of her lady. The Lady Moiral was happy that the Compulsion held, even as lightly as it did. She had no reason to release the girl. Not yet. And if they both survived this, training up the potential she saw in her was something that would go well.
"Very well then," said the Lady Moiral, her grasp of the girl's hand tight. She led the girl through the redstone doorway, knowing that it would work, despite all appearances. The walls of her parlor faded as she and Mira passed through the doorway, and the two of them, together, found themselves in a room that was only barely lit. The Lady Moiral's eyes adjusted to the limited light, and she could see them.
Three Aelfinn stood in the room, humanoid creatures with large reptilian eyes. Their heads were completely free of hair, and their ears were pointed, dipping beyond their heads. They wore black silken outfits that resembled fashion that wouldn't be out of place in the Age of her birth.
The Lady Moiral felt the tingling begin as the first of the Aelfinn started to speak.
"Visitors!" said the Aelfinn. "It has been so long since we have had to entertain. You have kept the ancient covenant, correct?"
"No music, no light, no iron," said the Lady Moiral.
"None at all," echoed Mira.
The Aelfinn all looked at Mira. "Two at once is not usual. The youth may ask her questions first."
The second Aelfinn, perhaps a female, held up a hand. "Free of influence, she shall ask. The sensation is stronger that way."
Then the weave of Compulsion over the girl fell. Disappeared, as if it had never been in the first place, and the woman who called herself Lady Moiral had a brief bout of fear that gripped her heart. The Aelfinn all hissed in delight as they turned toward Mira.
"Ask your questions, Mira Thome."
Mira looked to the woman who called herself Lady Moiral with new eyes, more focused ones. More fearful ones. The Aelfinn hissed in delight again. "W-Who are you?"
While the Lady Moiral could have answered that question, she was beaten to the punch.
"She has many names," said the first Aelfinn.
"Lilen Moiral is the name of her birth," said the second.
"But she took the name of the Spider as she lived her life," said the third.
"As she entered the service of the one who tainted her," said the first again.
"What did she do to me?" Mira asked.
The Aelfinn smiled widely, revealing fangs. The Lady Moiral almost interrupted, in case they found the question frivolous. However, as they did nothing to Mira, clearly they did not see it as such.
"Compulsion, a weave of the One Power," said the first Aelfinn.
"It controls your actions and your thoughts," said the second.
"Why?" Mira asked, looking at the Lady Moiral again.
"Because I needed to speak to them," said the Lady Moiral, gesturing to the Aelfinn. They hissed in annoyance, perhaps at their inability to answer the question before she could.
"But I don't get what's happening. Why now?"
"The Age is ending," said the third Aelfinn again. "As the Wheel of Time turns, so too do the inhabitants of the Pattern."
"But the Spider still lives," said the second Aelfinn.
"Moghedien does," said the first, directly addressing her once more. "And she had intent. To discuss the forbidden."
"The Shadow's taint lies within her," said the second Aelfinn.
"The Great Lord lies within me, as he does all living things." The Lady Moiral crossed her arms, staring down the Aelfinn.
"Ask your questions, Chosen of the Shadow," said the third Aelfinn.
"But be warned," said the first. "The answers you seek have their price."
"I am ready and willing to pay," said the Spider. "The first question is simple, really. With the ending of the Fifth Age, how long before my Great Lord is able to affect the world again?"
"Many years," said the first snake. "But the seal will loosen again as the Sixth Age dies."
"The great giants will unwittingly release the Shadow's influence into the world once more," said the second.
Good. Assuming she still lived to see it, that was something to look forward to. The next question was something that she needed to know again. "Will the Dragon be reborn in time to oppose the Great Lord once more?"
"Not at all," said the third snake, and at the jump of glee she felt, all three Aelfinn took a step back. The tingles underneath her skin only grew stronger. Still…
"Without the Dragon, who could possibly stand and oppose the Great Lord?" asked the Spider.
The Aelfinn smiled eerily in unison. It was at this point that the Spider quickly thought of a way out. Running out of the room wasn't exactly an option, as it would just lead further into Sindhol. The old covenant allowed for three questions, but questions relating to the Great Lord and the Shadow were dangerous. The Aelfinn and their ilk, the Eelfinn, disliked anything relating to Him.
"This is your third question?" asked the Aelfinn in unison, but each one addressed her differently. The first addressed her as "Lilen Moiral," the second used "Spider," and the final one used "Moghedien."
The third answer would free her to leave, so she nodded.
"The sensation…" murmured one of the Aelfinn. "The taste…"
"The answer is true," said another. "You will live to see it, Moghedien."
"To see the opposition," agreed the third. "The retired queen and the warrior monk."
Moghedien bowed her head. "Come, Mira, we can leave now…"
Mira nodded warily, stepping toward the exit.
"Oh, dear Spider," said the Aelfinn. "That was the old covenant. You have yet to pay the price for the new."
"You said that I would live!" Moghedien accused.
"You will…" chuckled the Aelfinn darkly. "You will."
The trains hadn't been running again for long, but now that they were, Presley took one as she had before. Schools were starting up again, and she'd convinced her parents that she wanted to attend one in the city proper, even with its issues. She couldn't help but look out the train's windows as the tracks went over one of the cracks, hoping to get a glimpse into what she now knew as the source of powers. They'd done a good job of paving over most of them, but here and there, Presley could spot the holes, even if the crystals didn't glow anymore. Her friends had stopped that. Saved them. Even if Breakthrough wasn't really a thing anymore, they were still the best team in her heart.
"You've seen those how many times now?" asked the woman sitting across from her. Her dark hair was pulled back into a braid that went to the small of her back, and she wore a long-sleeved black blouse and black slacks. Her glasses reflected the light a little as she looked at Presley.
"Too many times to count," Presley said, turning back. "It's still so hard to believe what happened here. How close we were to losing everything."
The woman nodded. "Smart words from someone your age."
"I talk with Antares and Lookout a good amount of time," Presley said. "They gave a lot."
The woman's eyes flicked outside for a second, though she didn't look down at the crystals. She focused more on the sky before turning her attention back to Presley. "They did. They all did, this time."
"This time?" Presley asked.
The woman waved a hand. "Doesn't matter. So, why are you so interested in the crystals anyway?"
"It's not them," Presley said. "It's what they represent. What was done by all of them. What they did for us, what we did for them. They gave their all, and they trusted their lives to our hands. How can you not look at that and get some sort of sense of awe or… anything?"
"I didn't say that I didn't," said the woman. A brief smile played on her face. "You really like them. Capes. Heroes."
"Yeah," Presley said, nodding rapidly. "I met them, you know. Antares and some of her team."
"You mentioned that you talk with them," said the woman. "You actually talk with them, not some PR rep?"
"Of course it's them!" Presley couldn't believe that this woman would question it. They were Breakthrough. "They're good people, and they wouldn't just pass me off to some person. I mean, I've spoken to their team lawyer a bit too. They all did so much for the city. For all of us. From Gold Morning to the thing with the Titans."
The woman held up the same hand, and Presley couldn't help but glance at the other one that hung low at her side. "Easy, kid. You don't really need to go on like that. I believe you."
Presley crossed her arms. "I just don't like the idea of downplaying what they did. Any of it. I'll leap to their defense every time."
"And I bet they're happy for that fact," said the woman as she glanced behind Presley. "Having someone in your corner's always a good thing."
Presley nodded.
"Especially someone like you, without powers," said the woman.
"Kinda wish I could help them in other ways," Presley said. "Join them, maybe."
"No, you really don't," said the woman. "And while they'd probably take you if it were to happen, believe me. You don't want to go through--"
"A trigger?" Presley shook her head. "No, I don't. Not after what Antares said about them. Having one of those agents latch on… But having powers? That'd be cool. Being able to help people out with them, that'd be cool."
The woman smiled. Maybe she'd thought that way at some point. Presley glanced again at the hand that hung limply at her side. It looked similar in quality to the one that Tress had had at one point, but Presley couldn't be sure.
"Powers can be pretty cool," agreed the woman. "But dealing with them, the burden of having them, it's probably not something worth it to everyone. You'd probably make good friends with other capes, heroes or villains, but there's a disconnect with the normal people too. It's good to see some heroes reaching out to fans."
"Not all of Antares's team wanted to," said Presley. She flicked a bit of her white hair back out of her eyes. "But they warmed up to me."
"I can see," said the woman. "I bet she'd be glad you're keeping up the hair."
"You recognize it?" asked Presley. She hadn't really expected someone to do so. The woman was full of surprises, and it warmed Presley's heart to see someone recognizing what the hair meant. "I mean, I dyed it initially because it looked cool, but I keep it--"
"To honor her," said the woman. "I'm sure Damsel of Distress--no, Swansong, right? She would appreciate it. From what I heard, she was that kind of person. Seeing any part of her legacy living on beyond her would bring a smile to her face."
"She had prosthetics too," said Presley, gesturing to the woman's arm. "Her hands and forearms. She said that they were cut off by the Slaughterhouse Nine."
The woman nodded.
"Can I ask what happened to you?" asked Presley.
"Well, you can and did ask," said the woman. "But as for an answer… it happened as a result of Gold Morning. I didn't get out of the way of something in time and lost the arm."
Presley frowned. The poor woman, but at least she was alive. Presley knew that many people had lost their lives that day to Scion, and many capes had worked together to beat him. Somehow, they'd managed to kill that being, which admittedly only delayed things to what had happened nine months ago.
"I'm sorry," said Presley finally, as the train came to a stop. Presley looked outside, wondering why there hadn't been an announcement of where they were stopping. Usually before they came into a station, someone would come on over the loudspeaker alerting to which station it was.
But outside the train were crystals and an inky blackness. The darkness dripped down onto the crystals, pooling on them and spreading along them like spiderweb cracks. Bits of it traced around the crystal in a shape similar to an eye. A chill went down the young girl's spine. That darkness, that shadow, felt wrong. Felt like it didn't belong, but it was there.
"Don't," said the woman, grabbing Presley's shoulder. She pulled her to her seat. "Don't look at it. Don't even think about it."
"How can I not?" Presley asked. "What is that? Where did the city go?"
"It's still there," said the woman, as she glanced out the window. "Well, not there, but it's where it always was."
"Then where are we?" Presley asked, a bit of fear dripping into her voice. She looked around the train. Where were the other people? Why was it just her and this woman? She could have sworn that there were more people on the train when she got on it earlier. The shadow started to creep toward the train, along the crystalline ground outside.
Presley heard a dripping sound, and she looked up. Bits of inky black shadow dripped down into the train car from the roof.
The woman frowned as she looked at it. "Listen closely to me. Do not look at it. Do not acknowledge that it is there."
"But you're doing it," said Presley. She wasn't going to let herself be scared by this. "Why can you do it but not me?"
"I'm not acknowledging it. Because it's not here, and it can't affect us," said the woman. She frowned and said something that sounded remarkably like "I hope," under her breath.
"What is it?" Presley asked.
"Something that's not supposed to be there," said the woman. "That shouldn't be here."
"Yet it is," said a voice familiar to Presley. She turned to find Swansong in full costume, aiming one of her hands at the pooling shadow. Presley had to look away as Swansong used her power, creating what Presley could only describe as a screaming explosion. When she looked again, the pooled shadows were no more, just a hole in the bottom of the train car. Slowly, surely, the train car sealed over, giving no evidence it was ever damaged. Swansong vaulted over the seat, and she looked directly at the woman across from Presley, aiming her other hand. "Just as you are. You've brought her into danger."
The woman cocked an eyebrow, staring down the hand. "I didn't bring her here. She showed up on her own."
"Danger? I'm not sure I understand, Swansong…" Presley said. "How are you here? Where exactly is here anyway? What's going on?"
"You're asleep," said the woman. "At least I assume you are, anyway. Like me."
"I'm here because my excellence is too much for Death to constrain," Swansong said. "Neither of you should be here."
"Yet we are," said the woman. "You didn't really answer her question."
"You don't get to ask me questions, Khepri," said Swansong. "Not when you sat out this most recent apocalypse."
Wait. Khepri? Presley knew that name. While she didn't really know much about the person, she did know that she'd been both a hero and a villain, in a similar manner to Swansong. She was supposed to be dead, just like Swansong, but both were here. Wherever here was. Khepri had said that she was asleep, dreaming.
She could buy that she was just dreaming about Swansong. She was a cool hero who Presley hadn't gotten enough time with. But why would she be dreaming about Khepri, of all people? Why not anyone else in Breakthrough? Where was Antares? Capricorn Blue or Red? Precipice? Lookout? Even Natalie would have made some sense. Khepri didn't. This inky black stuff that was outside, dripping over the crystals… made no sense at all.
"Can I ask questions?" Presley asked.
Swansong smiled. "You can, Presley."
"What's the stuff you blew up? That stuff outside?"
"Corruption," Swansong said. "It seeps into every orifice, tainting it. Changing it. Only the weak let it in. You aren't weak, are you, Presley?"
She shook her head.
"Good," Swansong said. "Hold on to that in the coming days."
"Why are we seeing this?" Khepri asked. "Seeing you?"
"Because someone couldn't leave well enough alone," said a voice that Presley couldn't recognize. It belonged to an older woman who stepped into the train car from further up. She had long blonde hair bunched into a braid that terminated at the small of her back. She wore a red leather jacket and brown pants. She eyed Khepri with what appeared to be familiarity and gave her a smile. "Swansong did not trust that you could handle it yourselves. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps she was wrong."
"The corruption?" Khepri asked. The woman nodded in response.
"I am always right, Silverbow," said Swansong. "Antares knew that. You should as well."
"You shouldn't be interacting with the living," the now identified Silverbow said. Her accent was hard to recognize.
Presley pursed her lips. Silverbow must have been another cape that was supposed to be dead and gone, but she hadn't heard of a cape by that name. She'd done a lot of research with Breakthrough, but the name just wasn't familiar. Still, she was claiming that Swansong shouldn't interact with her or Khepri, implying that Khepri was alive. Presley wasn't sure how to feel about that.
Instead, she asked a question she felt might be more obvious. "If she's not supposed to interact with us. Why are you?"
For a second when Khepri smiled at her with that too-wide mouth, Presley was afraid, but that fear gave way to pride. Pride at getting the approval of such a cape, especially when Swansong gave a similar smile.
Silverbow, for her part, looked out the train's window. "Because someone needs to give warning to the unprepared. Prophecy is a part of the world, and while this isn't mine, it needs to be passed on."
"What sort of prophecy?" Khepri asked. She glanced over to Presley, who could only imagine what the woman must be thinking. Was Khepri actually worried about her? Did that matter?
Of course, Presley was curious about the prophecy herself. It wasn't often that someone normal managed to get directly involved with cape things. From what she understood, it wasn't usually healthy for it to happen either, but here she was. However she was here, she would bear witness.
Silverbow produced a literal scroll of paper and unfurled it before her. She glanced at Swansong, Khepri, and Presley each in turn, and then she started to speak. "The Shadow rises to meet the Suns--"
Silverbow's voice was cut off by the squealing of the train's brakes as they released and the train started to move again. She wobbled in place from where she stood as the train gained momentum.
Khepri murmured something under her breath, glancing around. It seemed like the cape was trying to memorize what Silverbow was saying, and Presley wasn't sure if she should do the same.
"Looks like we don't have much more time here," Swansong said before Silverbow could start up again. She met Presley's eyes. "Presley, Khepri was right about one thing that she said earlier."
"Only one?" Khepri asked.
"Only one that matters," Swansong said, glaring at the cape. She softened her gaze as she looked back at Presley. "I am happy with how well you managed to do your hair. Your fashion choices are… passable, I suppose, though they would look more at home on Lookout than on someone who is trying to imitate me."
"She helped pick them out," Presley said.
Swansong smiled. "Of course she did. Regardless. Good choices. I am glad that something more of me than my idiot sister remains on Gimel. Between you, Lookout, and Antares, there seems to be."
"We don't have much more time," Khepri said, looking back over to Silverbow. "Can you finish the prophecy?"
"No," Swansong said. "She doesn't have time, not this time. But you do."
"What do you mean?" Presley asked.
"There is a cape that you call 'Kid Cassandra,'" said Silverbow. "Ask her of the Shadow. You may be surprised at what you end up hearing."
Khepri pursed her lips, but she nodded. Presley guessed that perhaps the woman knew this Kid Cassandra personally. She might have known all of the capes, given what Khepri supposedly was capable of. That she didn't appear to know Silverbow, but it did appear that the reverse was true. Silverbow clearly knew Khepri.
"Will I see you again?" Presley asked Swansong.
"Perhaps," Swansong said. "I've been told that Death is not a bar to me under the right conditions."
"Hush," Silverbow said. "Let them return to the land of waking without issue."
The train continued moving, but the surroundings seemed to fade away. Presley closed her eyes for half a second, and when she opened them, she could feel the blankets on top of her body. She could hear the chirping crickets outside, and she sat up in her cot.
She needed to warn someone. To tell someone about what she'd seen. What was that prophecy again? "The Shadow rises to meet the Suns." Even incomplete, it said something. Something that made her want to help, anyway. She'd do everything she could.
And that meant contacting Antares. As soon as she could.
The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Sixth Age by some, the Bronze Age of Parahumans by others, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the mountainous reaches of Gimel's Adriondack. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
The wind swept its way down the mountain that rose about a half hour north of New Brockton. It swept through the woodlands and the tent city that had been set up, carrying the chill of a winter yet to come. The wind continued along the streets of a city mid-reconstruction, still rebuilding, repaving, even now, nine months after the most recent disaster. It blew across the crystalline cracks that ran through the Hartford way, curving around buildings, mostly finished skyscrapers, prefabricated households, and the few buildings still being repaired after the events of that disaster. The wind blew further southwest, across the water and into Hollow Point. It brushed through the hair of various people going about their days, passing further south into New York Central, and then further along the train tracks leading into it.
Taylor Hebert felt a bit of the wind as it caught her hood while she waited patiently at the train station. Her thin lips quirked into a smile as she watched the various people milling about. Some were capes in civilian clothing, she knew, not that it mattered so long as they didn't just identify her. Everyone here just needed to get somewhere, and they waited for the trains to arrive from the various Earths that they were connected to. That focus, plus her simple outfit would keep the attention off of her. She pulled her hood tighter over her head as she glanced over to her traveling companion.
Unlike her, Malan, son of Koimal, son of Senar drew a good amount of attention. To the average person Taylor just looked like a relatively tall young woman or a slightly effeminate man of above-average height. She'd long-since gotten over that insecurity about herself, and given that she wore a hoodie and jeans, it wasn't like she wanted to draw attention. Malan, on the other hand, drew attention just by his very nature.
Malan was an Ogier, after all, a member of a race of giants that somehow had gone undetected when Labyrinth had connected Earth Gimel to Earth Bet. Some of that was probably due to how steddings interacted with powers, but it was possible that Labyrinth just couldn't tell that there was a race of eight-foot tall humanoids due to how her power worked. Who knew?
If pressed, Taylor would say that Malan was probably handsome, for an Ogier. He stood just over nine feet tall with very striking features. His wide nose was framed by dark stormy eyes the size of teacups and a thin-lipped mouth appropriately sized for his head. His brown hair was cut short, save for a thin tail of hair that curled down the back of his neck. He had long tufted pointy ears that stuck out from his hair and beyond the top of his head, and he wore nicer clothing than Taylor did. He wore some tanned leather pants and a button-up white cloth shirt with a green hempen jacket overtop.
He stood out like a sore thumb at the train station, and people couldn't help but stare at him. They kept their distance, but it was very obvious where their focus was drawn. He seemed a little uncomfortable at the attention, even though he had prepared for it.
"Take a deep breath, Malan," Taylor said, just loud enough to be heard over the bustle. She didn't want her friend to get too nervous. While she wasn't actually certain if Ogier were even capable of triggering, she didn't want to find out the hard way in this situation. Assuming triggers still happened, anyway. "Nobody here's going to do anything to you."
"That's easy for you to say," Malan said. "You're not the one everyone is staring at. And while some of the whispers are about you, they're mostly in relation to me."
Taylor reached up and patted her friend on his arm with her good one. "Now you know a little how I felt at Stedding Tsaris. They won't do anything, Malan. They probably just haven't seen an Ogier before. Not up close, anyway."
Malan shook his head and glanced down the tracks for the train. "I don't understand humans. I know you've tried to explain…"
"Some you'll learn by interaction," Taylor said. "With humans other than me. Believe me, Malan, I'm probably not one of the greatest exemplars of our species. Human or parahuman."
"Who would you say is a better example? Maybe I should try and find them to learn from," Malan said in a casual, almost joking tone.
"You're getting better at that," Taylor noted. English wasn't the native tongue of the Ogier, though they did learn it as a second one for a reason that eluded her. Given how long Gimel had been without humanity, there was little reason that she could think that English would even develop, let alone along the same paths that it did on Earth Bet. Perhaps that understanding of English was a reason that Contessa had placed her with the Ogier to heal. Perhaps it was more than that. "Elder Hardwick would be proud that his lessons stuck."
"They aren't all his lessons," Malan said. "I had to learn quickly for your sake, Taylor."
Taylor nodded as she heard the train's whistle coming from further up the tracks. Their train into the city was almost here. Figuring out where to stay in the city was going to be her first priority. After all, she couldn't just impose on people. Not that she knew where any of her… anyone she had known… lived. It probably wouldn't be all too hard to get some sort of hotel or room for the first night. She had enough money for that, both in New and Trading Dollars, whichever they ended up taking. The train tickets were cheap enough too. That the train didn't have as many people waiting for it, even at this price, said a lot about how people felt about the city.
"You still haven't said why we're going into The City to begin with," Malan said.
It wasn't entirely true. Taylor had mentioned a vague reason, but admittedly, she hadn't fully explained. Of course, it wasn't like she had a very good explanation other than a vague need to go. She'd give an explanation that seemed viable, at least.
"Some of my friends are in the City," Taylor said, after a few more seconds of thought. "Alive, and they don't really know that I'm alive or back at all."
"I'm sure they'll be happy to know you are," Malan said. "How could they not?"
Taylor snorted. "Maybe…" She glanced down the track and watched the train pull into the station ahead of them. The screeching of the brakes made her wince slightly, and Malan winced even more. Ogiers had far better hearing than an unpowered human, after all.
The train would end up going through New York Central, and from there, up into Greenwich, which was where they were going to get off. Taylor led Malan into the train, wincing again as she watched him have to duck down to make it through the doorway. Trains just weren't built for people his height to walk around easily in. Luckily, once inside the passenger car, Malan didn't have to duck down at all. Instead, the two of them quickly made their way to their seats.
Taylor frowned at the familiarity. Her dreams had been haunted lately by a train, and a few nights ago, it was even more than that. The dreams were oddly clear, and unlike most dreams, she had no trouble remembering these in the morning. It was weird to her, to have such clarity in her dreams, but the past few weeks had changed that. She wouldn't bother Malan with that, not right now, anyway. Maybe once she found Dinah and asked the questions she needed to, then she would tell her friend some more.
The trick would be locating Dinah. It wasn't like the young cape was actively looking for her, after all. Taylor didn't know the lay of the land, had no costume, and in theory, she was presumed dead and gone. Surprising people with the fact that she wasn't was a card that she could only play a limited amount of times, and she didn't want to waste it this early. If she actually had her powers, the bug control, not the person control, she'd use her bugs to scour the city bit by bit until she figured out where Dinah was hidden, and then she'd ask the questions and leave her be.
Instead, she was going into this city of parahumans as a normal person without powers. She knew her limits, explored them, and she determined that even were she to regain her powers, she would probably need to let others do any necessary work. Her passenger was no longer with her, and she knew it.
"So, what kind of people are your friends?" Malan asked after they took a seat in a relatively unoccupied part of the train. He took up most of a bench all by himself, and Taylor had to sit at an angle to keep her legs out of the way of his.
"Several of them are capes," Taylor said, keeping her voice low. "Which you knew already."
It wasn't like she hadn't described them before. Taylor doubted that Malan would be quite as interested in hanging out with her if it weren't for the stories she had. It was something she'd noted about his people. They liked stories. The longer, the better. She'd told her story in as truthful a manner as possible, and Malan still stood with her. She'd deserved several of the poor judgements that she'd been given, but the Ogier had helped her heal.
"Tell me again," Malan said. "These friends that we're visiting, which are they?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure who we'll find first," Taylor said. Locating Dinah was a priority, if only to assuage how the dreams had gone, but when it came to actually interpreting the dreams, Lisa probably was best. Then again, it was possible that she could reach out to Dragon and Defiant, but from what she'd seen reported on the Internet, the two were now a part of what had replaced the Protectorate on Gimel. The Wardens had their hands full dealing with the aftermath of nine months ago, and there was the chance that she'd be arrested on meeting with them. What Taylor had done in order to save the world… worlds, really… had been necessary, but at the same time, it had been a violation of many people's free will.
Taylor regretted the necessity, but she didn't regret that she'd done it. Since redoing it wasn't an option, only accepting it would work.
"Do you even know where to look?" Malan's brows had furrowed. Were he human, Taylor might have thought that he was being condescending toward her, but in her experience, Ogier weren't really like that. It probably came from their ages. Every truly adult Ogier she'd met was over a century old, and some were even two or three centuries. The elders were even older. Malan, by contrast, was a bit over eighty-five, relatively a teenager in their terms, and despite everything, he was a little naive. "I just want to make sure we're not looking for too long."
Taylor shrugged. "Worse comes to worst, I'll find a public terminal and make a post on PHO that draws attention. The issue is, it might not draw the right people out, and if people work out who I am…"
Malan nodded. "Judging from what happened, it could be dangerous."
"Especially if people are still keyed up after the titans," Taylor said, and when Malan cocked his eyebrow, she sighed. "Worked up, agitated…" She then said a word that meant something similar in Malan's native tongue.
Dawning realization came over him, and his bushy eyebrows raised. "Ah, that makes sense."
Taylor glanced around the train car again. A mixed race family of three had taken the seat across the aisle from them at a diagonal. The father was a Hispanic man with dark hair in his thirties with a bit of muscle, dressed in jeans and a blue polo. The mother was a dark haired South Asian woman dressed similarly, only her polo was black and cut appropriately for her body. Their little girl, with an expression that reminded her all too much of Aisha, was standing up on the seat and looking at Malan. Taylor wasn't certain if that look meant mischief or what it meant. Ultimately, it didn't matter.
"I just hope that they're not too hard to get a hold of," Taylor said, frowning. There, of course, was the other elephant in the room. Facing her friends, after leaving them for so long… She'd left them even before the end of the world. The Wards she'd worked with, Theo, Everett, Ava, Olivia… Theo'd been close to being a friend, but… she never really gave them much of a chance. She knew Theo was active in the Wardens, but she hadn't seen much about the rest of her second team.
"We'll find them, somehow," Malan said. "Preferably without having to use this Internet thing."
"You just don't want to try typing again," Taylor said with a smile.
"Your keyboards are not made for my fingers," Malan said, waving some of his thicker digits. "Maybe someone will come up with one made for Ogier, but until then, give me a good grove any day."
Taylor smiled wider for a few seconds, but then her look sobered. "I'm not sure if there are any groves in the City… Especially not after what happened."
"What's a grove?" asked a small voice, and both Taylor and Malan turned to look. The little girl from across the aisle had approached. Neither of them were truly surprised by her being there. Malan likely heard her crossing the car, and Taylor knew it would happen at some point.
Taylor gestured to her friend. This was his purview after all. Plus, this way, she was less likely to be recognized.
"Groves are a special way for trees to be arranged," Malan said. "And they usually have a great many of them."
"Like a forest?" asked the little girl.
"Sort of, but not quite," Malan said. "Forests usually have things underneath the trees, and sometimes are too dense to safely walk through. Groves are usually sculpted in such a way that there's no underbrush, just trees that are arranged in a way that is comforting to walk under. Most forests are not also groves, but it might be fair to call groves small forests, the way you are a small human."
"I'm gonna be super powerful when I grow up," said the little girl. She couldn't have been more than six. Taylor looked over to her parents, the light catching on her glasses.
The girl's mother had gotten up out of her seat.
"Oh?" Malan asked. "What do you mean?"
"I'm gonna be like 'tares!" said the girl. "She was awesome!"
Taylor's lips quirked. Give her lighter skin and a redheaded best friend, and the girl could have been her, with Alexandria, of course. Every kid wishes they could fly or have super strength. Taylor really had been no different. When her powers came in the way they did, Taylor dealt with it the best way she knew how.
"Lexi, you shouldn't bother the nice…" The woman trailed off as she took her daughter's hand, looking over Malan.
"Man works," Taylor said. "He's definitely a male Ogier."
"I am," Malan said. Then he bowed his head toward the young girl and spoke to her in a jovial tone. His right ear twitched a little as he did. "Malan, son of Koimal, son of Senar, at your service, Miss Lexi."
The little girl, Lexi, giggled, and she looked back at her mother. "He called me Miss!" She turned back to Malan. "Are you a cape, Mister Malan?"
"Not precisely," Malan said. "These are my normal clothes. And this is how I usually look."
"Oh…"
"Lexi, dear, he's an Ogier," said her mother. "Right?"
"An Oh-geer?" Lexi asked.
"Close enough," Taylor said, and both Lexi and her mother seemed to notice her for the first time. Taylor smiled at them. "Malan's a friend of mine."
The mother looked Taylor over a little, and when no light of recognition came to her face, Taylor internally breathed a small sigh of relief. If she had recognized Taylor, who knew how the woman would have reacted? Taylor definitely didn't want to get in some sort of fight in the middle of the train especially with children on it.
"It's good to have friends, Mister Malan," Lexi said. "Miss… who are you?"
"Call me Anne," Taylor said. She gave another smile to the girl. "So, seen a lot of capes, then?"
Lexi giggled. "Yeah! Per… Per… The City is full of them! Momma and Daddy work with some…"
Taylor's eyes flicked to Lexi's mother. The woman shrugged. "I work as medical support for the Wardens. Her father's involved with the legal department."
"And I've seen all sorts of capes!" said Lexi. "They're all so cool! You're cool too, Mister Malan. And if Miss Anne is your friend, she must be cool."
"Cool's been her favorite word for a little while," said her mother. "Sorry if she's being a bother."
"It's no trouble, ma'am," Malan said.
Taylor merely shrugged in response. If Malan wasn't bothered, then she wasn't going to make any sort of stink about it. It wasn't all that strange for someone to be curious about him. After all, Ogier were new and not hostile at all.
"I'm glad," said the mother, and she glanced back toward the man she'd been with. Taylor assumed he was her husband. He glanced up from his phone and met his wife's gaze for a second, and the woman moved back to her daughter. "Come on, Lexi. We'll let the two of them be."
"But I wanna know more about Mister Malan, Mom!" The little girl whined.
"We don't want to bother them more," said the mother, as she looked at Taylor. "Say goodbye to them, Lexi."
"But I don't wanna--"
"Say goodbye, Lexi," the mother repeated more sternly. Taylor wondered what changed about things. It wasn't like she was likely to be recognized by just anyone, especially with her hood up, but something clearly did.
"Fine," Lexi said as she puffed out her cheeks. She looked up at Malan and Taylor and murmured. "Bye."
"Goodbye, Miss Lexi," Malan said, and Taylor waved.
"Be good for your parents," Taylor said.
Her mother shepherded her away from the two of them, but instead of stopping by the seat where her father had been, they kept going, taking a seat on the far side of the train. Lexi's father stood up and walked over to join them. It wasn't extremely quick, but the movements looked purposeful. Lexi seemed a little agitated by the movements though, looking back at Taylor and Malan. Cute kid.
"Wonder what that was about," Malan said. He shifted in his seat and let out a short grunt. "Something between them?"
Taylor glanced down toward the family again, frowning a little. "I'm not sure. But we'll have to be careful when we get off."
"Weren't you planning to be so already?" Malan asked.
"I was hoping we'd have a bit more time before being noticed," Taylor said. Her eyes flicked to Malan. "Well, me being noticed, anyway. You kind of can't help it."
"What makes you think you were noticed?" Malan asked.
"The change in attitude. Lexi's mom knew something, or maybe the dad did. Regardless, they moved about as far from us as they could without changing cars." Taylor frowned again and stood up. Something caught her eye in the seat the family had come from. She walked her way over to the seat to get a better look.
Sitting in the middle of the bench that the family had vacated was a smartphone, one of the relatively newer models that had come out just before the Gold Morning. It had one of those circular screens, and when Taylor went to pick it up, she noted the hand-holder on the back. The phone lit up as she looked at it, and written on the screen were two words.
"FOR KHEPRI."
Taylor let out a small curse under her breath, and she glanced over to the family again before heading back to her seat with Malan, phone in hand. "Well, I've been recognized by someone. I'm not sure what exactly it means just yet."
Malan frowned. "What are you going to do?"
The phone rang just then, and Taylor answered it, holding up her prosthetic hand to silence Malan as the train started to slow.
The moment she brought the phone up to her ear, a female voice that Taylor had heard only a couple times in person before came out the receiver. "Hello, Khepri."
Of course, Taylor recognized it. How could she not? She'd heard the recordings on the Internet. "Hello, Antares."
Victoria looked over the stack of papers that sat on her desk at the front of the classroom. It wasn't really a tough assignment, but already she was dreading having to grade some of them. Idly, she contemplated what would happen if she just let the Fragile One try to grade them herself, but she quashed that thought. As funny as it probably would be, she doubted her students would understand much about what her partner thought of their write-ups. The assignment was on Endbringer fights and statistics, and really, the only reason she had assigned it was she was hoping for an interesting take on it rather than how depressing it was.
She still remembered the fight against Leviathan, after all, and the loss of Uncle Neil and Eric. And now, she was making herself more depressed over even more recent things. She made a mental note to give her mother a call later along with the therapist as she started to reach for the first of the papers.
Her phone rang. Victoria frowned as she checked her jacket's pockets. She could have sworn that her phone had been on silent, given that she'd been teaching, but still it rang, insistently. She managed to pull it out, looking at the caller ID.
The caller ID said, "PLS PICK UP THE PHONE," and Victoria frowned. Well, at least she knew who was calling now and why the phone was ringing despite being set to silent. Not that she couldn't have guessed it, but there were at least two others she knew of who could and would override the silent mode on the phone if they felt it necessary.
Victoria pushed a bit back from her desk and looked over the empty classroom as the phone continued to insistently ring. She activated her flight, pushing a bit out of her seat, and she answered the phone.
"Hello?" Victoria glanced back at the whiteboard. She'd made sure to clean off unnecessary items from the class, and she contemplated whether she'd need it during the call she was on.
"Finally!" Kenzie sounded exasperated. "You took your time answering."
"Good to hear from you too, Kenz," Victoria said. She winced after she said it. Victoria wasn't as annoyed as she'd come off, and really she didn't want to hurt her friend's feelings.
"Oh. I'm not interrupting a class, am I?" Kenzie asked. She didn't seem to notice Victoria's tone, or at least, she didn't comment on it.
Victoria knew that she had noticed though, and Victoria made sure to modulate her tone as she replied. "Not at the moment, no. You knew that though, Kenz. I know you know my schedule."
"Did class go okay today?" Kenzie asked.
Victoria glanced at the stack of papers on her desk and then scanned the room a little. There weren't any cameras in there other than the one on her phone and on her computer, but that didn't mean that Kenzie didn't have something. She knew how her friend operated. "Class went fine, but Kenzie, you didn't call me to ask how class went. You'd have waited until tonight to do that. What's going on?"
"Can you get to a computer? It'll be easier to show you," Kenzie said.
Victoria lowered herself back into her seat and carefully had Fragile One open the laptop on the desk. Idly, she played with the braid of her hair with her free hand. "What do you need to show me?"
She made sure to boot up the computer and sign-in. She and Fragile One were getting better at touch-typing together, and it certainly helped her with multitasking. Very quickly, a few windows popped up on her computer. One showed what appeared to be surveillance footage from a train station. Victoria couldn't tell which train station, but her eyes were drawn to the very tall being standing amidst the hustle and bustle. He wore no costume, just what looked like somewhat anachronistic clothing, and he definitely had no mask. Of course, the lack of mask didn't really mean much on its own.
Victoria had heard about the Ogier, some from the Patrol, some from the contacts she had that looked into things at the various camps, but she hadn't actually seen one until today. His clothes matched the styles she'd heard about.
"You see?" Kenzie asked.
"The Ogier?" Victoria asked. "Yeah, I see him. Where was this?"
"Near the area that they're calling the Woodbridge Township, just east of the Earth N portal," Kenzie replied. "But that's not the important thing. Look at the person next to him."
Victoria did. The footage didn't really catch much about the person standing next to the Ogier. Victoria was sure the companion was female, but she kept the hood of her sweatshirt up, not really looking at any of the cameras directly. There wasn't really any good angle that Victoria could see to try and get at what Kenzie was looking at.
"Not seeing it," Victoria said. "This isn't clear enough footage."
From the snort on the other side of the line, Victoria could tell that Kenzie was preparing to do something. "Try moving the mouse around. The footage has in-built 3D modeling."
"Your work?" Victoria asked, but she started adjusting.
"Some," Kenzie said. "Dragon worked on it with me, and we had tried it out a few times. It's a composite image of multiple camera angles along with some predictive software loaded into a central box."
The image rotated around so she could get a look at the woman's face. It was a little blurry at first, but some lines scrolled down the woman's face a few times, clarifying it. Pretty soon, it was almost perfectly clear. The woman's glasses, wide mouth with thin lips, and the fact that she had a prosthetic sticking out of her right sleeve sent a chill down Victoria's spine.
"You see her now, don't you?" Kenzie asked.
Victoria swallowed. "Yes. I do."
The woman in the image could only be one person. The image of her had burned itself into Victoria's mind long ago. She'd seen her in the news, and she'd seen her in the crystal caverns when Aiden had come to get them. This was Taylor Hebert. Khepri. Weaver.
"I ran some facial recognition on them both, and the giant man didn't get anything, but she did," Kenzie said. "The facial recognition got me a redacted file on her, but Chicken Little knows her."
"I don't doubt it," Victoria said. "That's…"
"Taylor Hebert, right?" Kenzie asked. "Khepri? I don't feel like I'm being controlled. At least I don't think I do."
"Alone, the power she has as Khepri isn't as strong as if she has help," Victoria said. She looked around the footage and did some mental calculations. As she watched the footage, she noted that Khepri was talking with the Ogier, and people were walking past her without any sort of pause in their steps. "But maybe… how long ago was this footage?"
Kenzie took a breath on the other side of the line. Victoria knew the footage wasn't likely realtime, but it might have been close to it. "Twenty minutes ago. Her train came, and she got on."
"Are there any cameras in her train that you can get a look through?" Victoria asked. Honestly, in this case, she was glad Kenzie had called her first. There were a number of people who would be interested to find out that Khepri was back, and most of them definitely would not have the cape's best interest at heart. That said, she wasn't entirely certain just how much of a problem Khepri would be. Her power to control everything was limited in some ways, but she had drawn on a cape that could make portals to extend it.
The image on screen shifted to the interior of a train car. Khepri and the Ogier with her were very obviously having a bit of discussion about something. Even if Kenzie wasn't recording audio, Victoria was reasonably certain that she had some program that was good at reading human lips, at the very least.
"That… Ogier… doesn't seem to be under her control," Kenzie said.
"It might be that Ogier are different than parahumans in that way," Victoria said. "Not enough is known about them yet, but they claim that they have their own society."
Victoria looked elsewhere in the car. The only other people there were a small family that sat relatively close yet out of what Khepri's range would be. She recognized the woman there as someone who had been in the medical wing with the Wardens, but the man she had sworn she'd seen before. She just didn't recognize him directly.
"Kenzie, who's in the car with them?" Victoria asked.
"That would be Alejandro Rodriguez and his wife Lin. It looks like their daughter, Lexi, is there on the train with them too," Kenzie said.
"Rodriguez…"
"He looks familiar," Kenzie said. "I think he's the civilian identity of someone. If you give me a minute or so, I can find out who."
"Don't," Victoria said. "His identity is his business. I don't know if this is the case, but do either Khepri or the Ogier have any phones on them that you can tell?"
"Not at all," Kenzie said. "I'm not sure how they can live without it, but neither has any sort of electronic device on them that I can tell."
Victoria heard the sound of rapid typing. "Chicken Little wanted to bring this up with Tattletale first, but she's not reachable at the moment."
"So I was the second choice?" Victoria asked.
"You were my first after my team," Kenzie said. "I can maybe try and contact Rodriguez to give Khepri a phone, if you want."
"Can you afford to reimburse him for a missing phone?" Victoria asked, only to be greeted by a small chorus of affirmations. The rest of the Tenders were listening in, apparently. "Do it. If you can get him to leave either his phone or a spare that he might have, you can reimburse him, and I'll reimburse your team."
"Sending him some initial texts… now," Kenzie said, and on screen, the man's position changed as he looked at his phone.
The little girl had disappeared, but when Victoria moved the mouse around, she was able to find her. She'd gone to investigate the Ogier, and it looked like he was all too delighted to talk with her. Khepri seemed wary in how she was handling the little girl and her mother as the mother approached the two. The mom stood right within the Khepri danger zone, but nothing seemed to happen. Victoria never fully understood the mechanics of how Khepri's power interacted with non-parahumans, but from what she could tell, they too would fall under her thrall if she needed them for whatever reason.
That the two hadn't fallen under Khepri's power was a good sign. Perhaps the power she'd used in the fight against Scion wasn't active for whatever reason. Maybe she'd learned how to turn it off in a similar way that Victoria had learned to work with the Fragile One. Of course, it was possible that both Lexi and Lin were under Khepri's control and she was just making them look like they were acting natural.
With Masters as strong as Khepri was, all actions were suspect.
"How's he responding?" Victoria asked as she looked over to Alejandro. He'd taken to furtively typing on his phone likely in an attempt to hide from Khepri.
"He's a bit nervous, mainly for his family," Kenzie said, zooming the camera in on Lexi and how close she was to both Khepri and her Ogier companion. "Khepri's supposed to be a master, right?"
"Yeah, bugs originally," Victoria said. "Then people during Gold Morning."
"It doesn't seem like she's doing anything to the girl or her mom." Kenzie brought another feed up on Victoria's laptop, this one showing another angle of the train. This one showed a focus on Lin as she met Alejandro's eyes. Something unspoken seemed to pass through the two of them, and Lin led her daughter away from Khepri and the Ogier. "What was that range that Khepri was supposed to have?"
"A little under sixteen feet," Victoria said, and she scanned over the footage. Alejandro's seat was just a bit more than that away from where Khepri sat, and where Lin was leading their daughter was even further away. That their behaviors didn't change after leaving that radius showed that either Khepri's range had increased or she wasn't controlling them at all. The former was concerning, but the latter was not. "Have Alejandro leave the phone behind when he goes to join his family. We can reimburse him for it and swap it to another number."
This would be easier if Tattletale were able to be on the line too. Victoria wasn't sure why Lisa wasn't able to come to the call, but she suspected that if she did know, she might feel like throttling the Thinker. As smart as she was, sometimes she made stupid decisions.
Alejandro left the phone in his seat as he walked away to join his family. Victoria didn't have to wait long before Khepri stood and walked over. She found the phone in the seat and picked it up, seemingly raising an eyebrow when she looked at the screen.
"What did you send there, Lookout?" Victoria asked.
"A greeting, something to get her interested." Kenzie spoke quickly. "It was Syndicate's idea."
Victoria tried not to let out a sigh. It wasn't that it was a bad idea, and acting on their own volition was a good thing. However, this was a delicate situation that needed to be handled with care. Khepri was potentially one of the most dangerous capes out there, and she was just sitting on a train with an Ogier. Speaking of, she'd returned to her seat now, phone in hand, and she was talking to said Ogier.
"Please connect me to the phone she has, Lookout," Victoria said.
"Do you think that she can answer it?" Kenzie said. "She only has the one working hand. I might not be an arm tinker, but I can see that her right arm needs work."
"She'll figure it out," Victoria said. "Connect the call."
"Okay," Kenzie said, and Victoria heard some rapid typing over the phone, which then started to ring.
After the third ring that Victoria heard, Khepri visibly picked up. Watching her do that was an adventure and a half, but it looked like she was bringing the phone up to her ear now with her good hand.
"Hello, Khepri," Victoria said as calmly as her body would allow her. The presence of the Fragile One lightly brushed against her back in a comforting manner.
"Hello, Antares," said Khepri in an even tone. Victoria wasn't sure what she was expecting from the call, but she certainly hadn't expected Khepri to be this nonplussed. "I assume you're watching me from somewhere."
"Camera feeds. Each train car has multiples," Victoria answered.
Khepri nodded on the footage, as if she had been expecting that answer. "Makes sense. I'd hoped to stay anonymous for a little longer, but that doesn't seem possible."
"Most capes would recognize you on sight, Khepri," Victoria said, pushing down a bit of the fear that gnawed at her stomach.
"Taylor." Khepri's voice was sharp.
"Hmm?"
"Taylor," Khepri repeated. "Not Khepri. Not Weaver. Not Skitter. My name is Taylor Hebert, not one of those. Not anymore, anyway."
"Sorry," Victoria said. "What do you mean 'not anymore'?"
"You're a smart woman, Antares," Kh--no, Taylor--said. "Along with whoever else is listening on the line. I'm sure you can figure it out."
Victoria frowned as Taylor turned to look directly at the camera. Her eyes, even with the glasses, even through the screen, seemed to be staring directly into her own. "You don't have powers anymore?"
"You said it, not me," Taylor said. "I heard what you and yours did. Thank you, for finishing the job. I'm glad you were able to work together."
"You're welcome, I suppose," Victoria said. "If you don't have powers anymore, why are you going into the City? What are you hoping to find?"
"Answers, mainly," Taylor said. "I have questions that can only be answered by the right people."
Victoria paused. There were implications to the way she worded that, and while they weren't horrible ones, necessarily, having Taylor walk around the City was problematic, to say the least. Even if she didn't have powers. Possibly especially with her being without powers.
"What sorts of questions?" Victoria asked.
"Questions that I'd rather not ask over the phone," Taylor said. "Never know who could be listening in."
Victoria nodded. She'd expected that sort of thing. From what little she knew about Taylor Hebert, the girl was scarily good at what she did. Without her power available to her, she probably would still be good, and given that she was a Ward, she likely still knew all the PRT and Protectorate practices. Not that either organization was truly around anymore anyway.
"Who's that with you?" Victoria asked.
"My friend, Malan," Taylor replied. "Son of Koimal, son of Senar. He's from Stedding Tsaris."
"He's a young-looking Ogier," Victoria said, adjusting some of the footage to get a better look at Malan. His body lacked some of the musculature that she'd seen on the videos of older Ogier as they helped out at some of the tent cities. Ogier-wrought stone homes really had started to help give some of the former City citizens a place to call their own.
"Yes. He's only eighty-nine," Taylor said. "Which I'm told is pretty young for Ogier, roughly a teenager equivalent."
Eighty-nine. Wow. Victoria really didn't know how to take that.
"Antares," Taylor said after a second. "I just want to clarify. You were Glory Girl, correct?"
"I was, at one point," Victoria said. "Just like you were Skitter. I remember that bank robbery."
"Bank robbery?" Kenzie piped in. "I didn't see that in the file."
"I wouldn't be surprised if most of my file was expunged," Taylor said. She tilted her head. "So, who was that, exactly?"
"Lookout, of the Chicken Tenders," Victoria said. "Old teammate of mine."
Taylor let out a short laugh. "That's a horrible name. Not the cape name, the team."
Victoria smiled. "It grows on you and is kind of fitting."
"I have so many things to ask you, Kh--"
"Taylor. Just Taylor, Lookout," she said. "And maybe after I get my answers first."
"I have an idea of who you might need to talk to," said Victoria. "I might be able to get you to them without too much of an issue."
"Not going to bring me in?" Taylor asked.
"I'm reasonably certain that the Amnesty still applies to you as well, Taylor," Victoria said. "So, there's no real reason to turn you into the Wardens unless that's where you want to go."
"But you can get me to the people I want to talk to," Taylor said. Victoria watched her look away from the spot she was staring at to look at Malan. She offered him a smile with her wide lips. Pulling the phone slightly away from her, she spoke to him. It was barely audible, but she could hear it. "Antares offered to help contact Dinah."
Malan nodded and said something that was not picked up by the phone's microphone.
Taylor answered with her own nod before putting the phone back by her face. "You'd better be able to deliver. It's important."
"I'm sure she'll want to meet with you when she finds out it's you," Victoria said, frowning after a second. There was a niggling feeling about meeting up with Dinah Alcott. Something that had come up recently. She pulled up her email client on her laptop and started to scan through it. There. An email from Presley that had been a little on the weirder side sat marked unread in her inbox. She opened it again and looked it over. "The Shadow rises…"
"To meet the Suns," Taylor finished. "Seems like you might have some questions too, Antares."
"Victoria," she said. "You can call me Victoria, Taylor. Turnabout's fair play."
"You still have powers," Taylor said.
"But I never really had a secret identity to begin with," Victoria said, and she saw Taylor nod again. "And you're right. I do have some questions I need to ask. Several, for her, for you, and for an old teammate of yours."
"Okay," Taylor said. "I understand that, Victoria."
Victoria wasn't sure this was going to be a good idea at all, but it was probably the best she could do under the circumstances. "I'll ask one of them now."
"I wait with bated breath," Taylor said.
"Do you and Malan need a place to stay for the night?"
A feeling of immense relief went through Malan as he followed Taylor off of the mechanical monstrosity that she called a train. There was something unsettling about how fast it moved and the way it made his stomach feel. Sure, he put on a brave face for his friend, but if he never had to ride a train again, it would be too soon. Sadly, he was certain that he would not have a way to avoid it. Perhaps, given time, he would get used to the feeling.
Humans were strange creatures. So hasty, compared to others of his kind. Taylor and her father had explained that it was, at least in part, because human lives were so much shorter than those of Ogier, and while that explained many reasons behind the haste, for most of Malan's family and fellow Ogier, it colored their expectations of humanity. It had taken many voices at the Stump to even allow the travel out of the steddings in the first place.
When the masons found out that there were humans in trouble in the middle of winter, they did what they could to help them. Working with the humans at the camps near the western edge of Perpetuity allowed the building of a number of homes. Malan and Taylor had walked through newly built homes on their way to the train station, after all.
Here, however? Within the metaphorical walls of the City, Malan found himself missing the trees that grew outside the city. He saw spots of trees here and there, somewhat decimated, but for the most part, the way the buildings grew out of the ground disturbed him. Steel and artificial stone that Taylor had called concrete made up the buildings rather than wood. Malan might not have been a mason, but he understood that normally, such buildings would take years to put up, at least in the volume he could see. Perpetuity seemed like a city that had been around for a while, but if Taylor was correct, this was likely the work of what she called tinkers or other so-called superpowered people.
Malan had yet to encounter someone who was actually parahuman, rather than just someone who claimed she had had powers in the first place. Still, judging from the way the young human girl had reacted to him, there was no doubt in his mind that people with powers did exist. It wasn't that he had disbelieved Taylor's stories, but they were fanciful in a number of ways. Could someone truly physically change themselves into a giant lizard-like creature for real? Or turn into a bundle of swords shaped into a wolf?
Then there were the cracks. Those felt wrong to his senses, like they not only weren't supposed to be there, but something lurked behind them, waiting, watching. When he looked into them, he could see nothing but a crystalline landscape, slowly being paved over up above.
"You okay, Malan?" Taylor asked, likely noticing where he was staring.
He shrugged. "The city is a lot. The trees here have suffered and need proper tending in order to grow back better."
"I guess I can see that," Taylor said as she took a look around as well.
The leaves on a nearby tree that was missing half of its limbs had started to turn to brilliant orange and yellows. Malan couldn't help but think that it would be even prettier if the tree were at its full growth. The song coming from it was faint, but it was there. He was half-tempted to sing to it, to bring it back to its full growth, but right now didn't seem to be the best time for that. Perhaps if he spoke with the mayor of the city first, got permission, he would go through the city and bring many of its trees back to full health. Perhaps he would even be able to help establish a grove here.
"Where are we going next, Taylor?" Malan asked.
"We're waiting on Victoria Dallon," she said, waving that circular device around with her good hand. Cellular phones were not made for Ogier hands, so he didn't bother to ask if he could hold it. She knew more or less what she was doing with the phone anyway. "She said she would be coming from the university."
"Do you know how far that is?" Malan asked.
Taylor snorted. "I'd know if this was Brockton Bay or Chicago, but this is neither. I've heard a few names for the city, ranging from some silly ones to some better ones. I'm not sure whether it actually has an official one yet."
"Why not just call it something related to where you came from? Somewhere on Earth Bet?" Malan asked.
Taylor shrugged. "That wasn't my call. Plus, there's a lot more going on here on Gimel than Bet had, and we had Endbringer attacks."
And Scion, Malan dared not to repeat that out loud. Sure, someone may have recognized Taylor on the train, but the average person didn't even look twice at her. He, on the other hand, drew several looks by curious people. Many of whom likely never saw an Ogier in person before, and others probably thought he was just another parahuman, given that the city was supposedly chock-full of them.
"I hope that she doesn't just fly over," Taylor said. "Neither of us are really dressed to go flying with someone, and I think it would be a little awkward for her to carry both of us."
Malan blinked. How large was this Victoria Dallon to be able to carry them both? Yes, she supposedly had powers that normal humans did not, but surely she had some size to her. Taylor was not a small woman, and he towered a good meter over her in height. To be able to lift the both of them, even in an awkward manner, was this Victoria Dallon closer to him in size?
Idly, he debated asking Taylor that question. While he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know if there was an oversized human woman out there, he did know that if he continued to think about it, he really would need to find out the answer. Letting out a sigh, he decided to voice his confusion. "So, she must be pretty tall for a human then, right?"
"Hmm?" Taylor asked, turning to face Malan.
"This Victoria Dallon woman, tall for a human? You said that it might be awkward for her to carry us both, but it would be awkward for a normal sized human to carry me by themselves anyway," Malan said. "So, wouldn't she have to be at least as tall as Jesan?"
Taylor let out an entirely unladylike snort at that. Malan felt blood rushing to the tips of his ears in embarrassment, but Taylor held up her good hand. "Thanks, Malan. I really needed that one. No, Victoria Dallon is nowhere near as tall as Jesan. She's actually a little shorter than I am, believe it or not. But that your first thought was of Jesan… Maybe when we eventually go back to the stedding, I can suggest she and you get some alone time together."
Malan's ears burned a little warmer. Jesan, daughter of Maira, daughter of Nirol was a beautiful woman, and he'd gotten to know her quite well since the both of them were in their early forties. The last half-century had flown by, and he was taking his time in reaching out to her.
"That's not the point… Wait, if she's smaller than you, how could she pick the both of us up?" Malan asked.
"You remember the bank story?" Taylor asked, and Malan nodded. How could he not remember the story? It was an interesting part of Taylor's past, even if she likely embellished much of it. "She's one of the capes from the story. Back then, she was calling herself Glory Girl. Not long ago, she was calling herself Antares. I wouldn't be surprised if she picks up that mantle again at some point."
"So, she's stronger than a normal human and can fly like a bird," Malan said.
"Well, it's more floating than flapping wings, but yes," Taylor replied. "She's not the only one. There are quite a few capes that can fly in a similar manner."
Malan frowned, and he looked out to the street. Cars were another human invention that seemed perhaps a bit more than necessary. The speed at which they moved just emphasized the hastiness inbuilt into human cultures. Malan was curious as to how they worked, and unfortunately, Taylor didn't really know anything beyond some basics about a combustion engine and locomotion. Most of them out there didn't seem like they were built for someone his size.
A rather large, box-shaped one with an open roof and two empty seats in the back came to a complete stop in front of the train station. Sitting in the driver's seat was a blonde woman, clearly a few years older than Taylor, albeit likely shorter than her by a bit, wearing a red jacket with a patch that looked like it once had letters on it, but all that was left was a black scorch mark. Sitting next to her, dressed in a light jean jacket, was another blonde with her hair in a braid that went over her right shoulder. The two looked blood related, likely either sisters or cousins, but Malan had an issue telling how close the relation was when it came to humans, given that Taylor was the only one he'd interacted with over long periods of time.
"Oh, good, they brought a Jeep," Taylor said, glancing back over to him. "You should be able to fit in the back there. It might be a tight squeeze, but at least you won't have to duck down much."
Malan nodded. "That's who we're waiting for?"
"Yes," Taylor said. "The one in the passenger seat is Victoria. The driver, I think, would be her cousin. The only time I really interacted with her was during the Leviathan attack."
"She fought one of your Endbringers?" Malan asked.
"She's a cape too," Taylor said as the two blondes started to climb out of the vehicle.
The two women, Victoria and her cousin, approached Malan and Taylor, and once they were a little under five meters away, Victoria held up a hand, stopping her cousin from approaching further while also stopping as well.
Taylor frowned slightly, but she nodded as if this was something she was expecting. "Trust but verify?"
"The last time you were around people, your powers were absolute," Victoria said, looking directly at Taylor.
Her cousin, on the other hand, was torn between looking at Malan and looking at Taylor, seemingly unsure which of them to stare down.
"She's Khepri?" asked the cousin.
"We've actually met before, Laserdream," Taylor said. "During Leviathan. You carried me to where I needed to be."
Laserdream stiffened, and she held up her hands. Light started to gather at the edges of her hands, and she pointed the palms of them both at Taylor.
Taylor held up her good hand in a gesture of surrender. "I'm not Khepri anymore. To prove that, how about one of you walks into what would have been my range? If you get controlled for whatever reason by me, I'll walk you back out of the range. If I don't, maybe you can just blast me, Laserdream."
"How do we know you're not controlling him?" Laserdream asked.
"You don't," Taylor said. "But given that he isn't human, even if I'm not controlling him, that doesn't mean my powers are gone completely. The only way to check is for Victoria to come into the radius my power would work. If I still had them."
Malan looked between the three women and sighed. "She really has displayed no powers around me, and I've gotten to know her quite well."
Victoria lightly tugged at her braid for a second. "If you do have your power, and it does work on me, you'll send me right back out of the range, then?"
Taylor nodded. "But I'm not controlling anything anymore. You can walk in and walk out just to prove it. Worst comes to worst, your cousin blasts me, and then she probably blasts Malan because I'm not sure he would like that much."
"Not at all, actually," Malan said. "If it can be avoided, I really would like to avoid any sort of blasting of my friend."
Laserdream sighed. "Victoria. You don't have to do this."
"I feel like I do," she said, and she stepped a bit closer. First, she took two and a half steps into the five meter radius around Taylor, and then she immediately stepped back out of it. Lightly tugging her braid again, she brushed it back behind her shoulder, and she stepped further into the radius, this time walking closer to the pair of them. "I didn't expect either of you to be as tall as you are. I mean, I knew you were a tall woman, Taylor, but not that tall."
"Malan puts both of us to shame," Taylor said. "He's at least eight feet tall, and then with some theories out there… he might even grow taller as he gets older."
Victoria nodded. "Crystal, you don't need to blast her. She's not controlling me at the moment."
"How do I know that?" Laserdream asked.
"Because if she were controlling me, she wouldn't know about the way you keep your apartment," Victoria said. "I doubt she knew that the two of us lived together for a while, and there's no way she knows how messy you are, given your cape persona."
Taylor blinked. She probably didn't actually know any of those things, and judging from the look of approval coming over her, she liked the way Victoria had approached things. "Thank you, Victoria, for helping me prove the point."
Victoria gave a half-shrug. "Everyone deserves a true second chance, and what you did saved a lot of people, giving us time to figure out what to do with the leftovers."
Taylor nodded. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you're… more or less back to your old self."
Victoria shivered for a second, but she offered a smile. "More or less, yeah. It's a bit more complicated than that."
"Always is," Taylor said. "You should probably get back to your cousin so she doesn't just blast me though."
Victoria nodded and, rather than walking back, she floated a few centimeters off the ground. Malan let out a small gasp at that.
"I told you, Malan. They have powers," Taylor said, and she turned to the two blondes, as an aside. "Not much from the outside works inside a stedding, at least as far as I can tell. Radio signals seem to stop, and I'm not really sure if parahuman powers would work there. Near as I can tell, no Ogier have triggered."
Once Victoria made it the requisite distance away, she spoke. "Either her powers have changed from what they were at Gold Morning, or she's telling the truth about not having them anymore, Crystal."
"You weren't controlled at all?" Laserdream asked.
"I didn't feel that way," Victoria said. "We may want to enact some Master/Stranger just in case, but it seems like it's safe."
"Safe enough," Taylor said. "If you feel like you need those protocols, I do understand, but I'm sure you both remember what it felt like then. Victoria, you offered a place to stay, is that offer still open?"
Victoria nodded. "I'm not sure how well Malan will fit on the guest bed, but he's welcome to it."
"Thank you, Miss Dallon," Malan said, finally finding his voice. "Allowing us to stay at your place is very generous."
"It's not entirely generosity," Victoria admitted, glancing over to Taylor.
Malan's friend nodded. "Well, shall we before we attract even more attention?"
"I'm not sure I like this, Victoria," Crystal said. "I know you can take care of yourself, but she's--"
"Powerless," Victoria cut her cousin off. "And even if she wasn't, doesn't she deserve some benefit of the doubt?"
"I'd like to avoid being incarcerated, if possible," Taylor said.
"She didn't control Miss Dallon," Malan said. "And there's a lot more to the story."
Crystal let out a sigh. "Fine. Get in the Jeep, you two. Do you have any luggage that you need to grab?"
"Just what we have on us," Taylor said. "Malan's got my bag and his."
Malan nodded as he followed Taylor and the two blondes back toward the vehicle. "How long of a ride will it be?"
"We're about ten minutes from my place," Victoria said, pulling open the door for Taylor. She helped Malan's friend into the back seat of the car, and then moved aside so Malan could sit down as well. She frowned a little at Malan once he sat down. "You're pretty tall. Let me know if the seat's too uncomfortable on your legs when I push it back."
Malan nodded. "I will, Miss Dallon."
"Please, call me Victoria, and my cousin is Crystal," Victoria said.
Crystal had yet to actually get into the driver's side seat. She kept looking at Taylor, even as Victoria carefully pushed the seat back into position. Malan's knees were touching the fabric of the seat in front of him, but he pulled them a little closer to himself, reaching up with one of his hands to the metal bar. Victoria sat down in the seat in front of Malan.
"Come on, Crystal," Victoria said. "You can't be that scared of her. She's not even wearing a costume."
"I can't even control bugs anymore, Crystal," Taylor said. "You don't have to be afraid."
Crystal nodded and climbed into the Jeep's driver seat. She turned back toward Taylor, and she frowned. "Nothing. Seriously nothing at all?"
"Nothing. I don't know if you've heard of Contessa…"
"Titan Fortuna," Victoria said, and as Taylor winced, she continued. "She was key in stopping the Titans and the Simurgh at the end of the Titanomachy."
Taylor nodded and brushed a little bit of her hair back, revealing a scar on her forehead. "She shot me here, twice. I haven't had powers since the connection with my passenger was severed."
"Oh," Crystal said.
"We found her just outside Stedding Tsaris," Malan said. "Injured and bloody but not bleeding, and we nursed her back to health. It took her a bit to recall how to talk at all, and the language barrier didn't help much either. She was the first human that my kind had seen in centuries."
"But the Ogier have been helping the settlements," Victoria said.
"We wouldn't have even been looking if not for Taylor," Malan said. "There's some… prophecies that my people have regarding humanity. Many thought they would never come to pass."
Taylor shook her head. "I really am beginning to dislike that sort of thing."
"Prophecies?" Crystal asked as she started the car.
"We have people who have near-perfect precognition, and you doubt the validity of prophecy?" Taylor asked.
"We know where their precog comes from," Crystal said. "How they got their powers, and where the powers come from. Prophecies from before Scion, from another world entirely?"
Taylor gave a half-shrug. "Would you have believed in a nonhuman sapient species being on Earth before the Ogier were encountered? Aleph had humans, and from what I understand, so do Cheit and Shin."
Crystal pulled into the street as she made a small noise of consideration. "I suppose that's true. And the Ogier do many things that are unique but aren't actually parahuman, as I understand it."
"There's a lot we'll need to talk about at my place," Victoria said. "And I've sent a request message off to Dinah Alcott, for her to call me and set up a meeting."
Taylor nodded. "That'll be good. I really want to figure this out."
As the Jeep went over a bridge, Malan looked out the side. Below the bridge was a glimpse into a cavern full of crystals, and a dread chill went down his spine as he watched it. As Crystal pulled into an intersection, coming to a stop, he felt many eyes on him, likely due to his size and looks. There were a good amount of humans just milling about, walking around in everyday clothing, but he spotted the occasional person dressed in some sort of fancier outfit, leaping between buildings.
As the conversation continued on between the three girls, Malan kept watching the people as the Jeep passed them. At the next stop, Malan felt the dread chill again, but this time, he looked to see a man dressed all in black. He wore a hooded cloak that didn't move in the wind, and what skin he could see on the man was pale white. The light changed ever so slightly, revealing the man's eyeless face. Where his eyes would be were instead sunken holes filled with pale white skin. Malan let out a sharp gasp as his gaze seemed to be met by the eyeless one, but then a larger vehicle, used for public transport passed between the two of them. And when the vehicle was no longer there, neither was the man.
"Malan, are you okay?" Taylor asked.
"Thought I saw something," Malan said, but he shook his head. "Right out of a story. Just like the capes."
Taylor nodded. "Well, you'll get to meet more of them soon enough. Victoria's inviting some of her old team over as well."
"Some of yours too," Victoria said. "I figure we can put our heads together on this."
"Which team?" Taylor asked.
"The Undersiders."
Malan raised an eyebrow. That would certainly be interesting.
A team of heroic parahumans that were active in the City prior to the Titanomachy.]
Brockton Bay
A city in New Hampshire on Earth Bet that had a large population of capes. Operating center of the Undersiders and New Wave pre-Gold Morning.
City, The
Established after Gold Morning on Earth Gimel, this is the primary location of where most teams operated.
Dallon, Victoria (DAL-lon vic-TOR-ia)
A parahuman from Brockton Bay, New Hampshire on Earth Bet. Former leader of Breakthrough, current Parahuman Studies professor.
Earth Bet(earth BET)
The Earth variant where Scion made his first appearance in the 1980s.
Earth Gimel (earth GIH-mel)
The Earth variant where the City is located.
Gold Morning
The battle against the Scion entity that ended up with billions dead on multiple Earths.
Hebert, Taylor (HEE-bert, TAY-lor)
A former parahuman from Brockton Bay, New Hampshire on Earth Bet. Formerly a member of the Chicago Wards and formerly a member of the villain team, the Undersiders.
Khepri (kehp-REE)
See Hebert, Taylor
Lookout (LOOK-out)
See Martin, Kenzie
Malan (MAHL-an)
An Ogier from Stedding Tsaris.
Martin, Kenzie (MAR-tin, KEN-zee)
A young parahuman formerly part of Breakthrough. A camera tinker, currently part of the Chicken Tenders.
Parahuman (pair-ra-HU-man)
Humans with abilities beyond that of a normal human
Humans with a connection to an alien being that grants abilities beyond that of a normal human
Ogier (OH-gehr)
A non-human race, characterized by great height (ten feet is average for adult males), broad, almost snout like noses, and long, tufted ears. They live in areas called stedding.
Perpetuity (PER-peh-TOO-ih-TEE)
See City, The
Scion (SIE-on)
The golden superbeing that ended up being a major source of superpowers on multiple Earths.
Skitter (SKIH-ter)
See Hebert, Taylor
stedding (STEHD-ding)
An Ogier (OH-gehr) homeland. Many stedding have been abandoned since the ending of the Third Age, but they have started to become repopulated over the last few centuries. Powers that draw upon external sources tend to not work within the boundaries of a stedding.
Titanomachy (TIE-tan-oh-MACH-ee)
The battle between the parahuman residents of the City and those who turned into Titans. The parahumans won by creating a stalemate.
Titan(TIE-tan)
When a parahuman undergoes a change into a giant creature, merging more with the source of their power, they become this.
Kenzie tapped at her keyboard, making adjustments to her drone's position from her desk in the Chicken Tenders' lair. Victoria was going into the metaphorical lion's den, and she was going to make sure she kept an eye on her as she did so. One screen in front of her displayed the fly-by cube drone's camera output. The screen next to that showed the CCTV footage of the train station Victoria was heading to, a third screen showed the City's map tracking between the station and Victoria's apartment, and a fourth screen had the file open that Kenzie had cracked. Officially, she didn't break the encryption until Victoria was on the phone with her, and she undid the redactions once it was confirmed. Yes, Aiden had confirmed that Taylor Hebert was there, but it wasn't until she'd been able to see the full file and had the secondary confirmation from Victoria that she was certain.
Tattletale would have been helpful there, but whatever was keeping her occupied kept her out of contact. She'd left several texts on the Thinker's phone along with sending two images of Khepri along with timestamps.
"Should Victoria really be the one doing this?" Candy asked, playing with her braid. Today, she was wearing a blue and yellow blouse and a pair of jeans. Like Kenzie, she was not wearing a mask. "If Khepri has her powers, isn't she putting herself at risk?"
"Taylor wasn't lying," Aiden said definitively. He too wasn't wearing his mask, but he was wearing the rest of his costume, which today was just his coat over a nice shirt and matching pants. His eyes never left the screen with Khepri and the Ogier she was traveling with. "She doesn't have her powers anymore."
"You're certain?" Darlene asked. She glanced between the screens, and then she looked over to her cousin. "Candy, is he right? Was she lying?"
"No, I don't think she was," Candy said. "But this is Khepri. She controlled all of us at one point."
"To fight Scion," Kenzie said. "And with her help, we won. And then we won against the Titans and the Simurgh. Though we did that without her help. But if she doesn't have powers, then she might not have been able to help."
Candy stepped up beside Kenzie, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Still, shouldn't we be contacting the Wardens about this? Or the rest of the Undersiders? Khepri's kind of a big deal."
"She isn't controlling anyone," Aiden said. "Kenzie, you've been watching. Has anyone acted any different in her presence?"
Kenzie shook her head. "Not that I can tell. But I don't really know how her power works."
"Distance," Aiden said. "Her power was a lot like mine when she was Skitter and Weaver, from what Tattletale said. I think that, as Khepri, she had a smaller area she could affect. That's why she needed the portals."
"That makes sense," Darlene said. "So, has anyone gotten close to her?"
"On the train, there was a little girl and her mother," Kenzie said, calling up the footage that she'd shown Victoria earlier. "It looked like the little girl got very close.
Candy sighed. Kenzie knew that her teammate was probably worried overall, but it wasn't really about Victoria, at least not the way she was. She worried about Aiden and Darlene. For the longest time, Aiden asked about Taylor, trying to find out more about the woman he so looked up to. He'd seen things in the cracks that reminded him of her, and while it seemed like he had somewhat let her go after that point, here she was. While she might not have had her power as a parahuman, she still held some power, some hold over Aiden. The Heartbroken lived by one, very important, rule.
Nobody hurts the Chicken. If this really was a powerless Taylor Hebert returning, there was no way that any of them could justify keeping Aiden away from her, but if it was Khepri… Yes. Kenzie very much understood where Candy was coming from. It would be much easier to keep Aiden from being hurt if it was Khepri that had returned.
As for Candy's worry about Darlene, it matched up with the worry about Aiden. All four of them had, at times, been connected together thanks to her power, and they knew how each of them thought and worked. Darlene was fiercely protective of her friends and family, and she would not let Aiden walk into anything alone. If Aiden got hurt, Darlene would hurt.
Kenzie would hurt too. Yes, she understood exactly where Candy was coming from, but she trusted Victoria.
"How are they going to fit him in their car?" Candy asked, looking away from Taylor for a second and to the Ogier. "He has to be nearly three meters tall."
Kenzie gave her friend a sharp look. Yes, metric was pretty good for scientific things, and there were times when it made sense to use them for engineering, but three meters simply did not convey the gravity of how tall the Ogier was. "He's barely nine feet tall, and Crystal's driving a Jeep."
"Barely, she says." Candy snorted. "That does not make it much better, Kenzie. His head will--"
"Jeep," Kenzie said, bringing the vehicle into focus as Victoria got out of it. She had her drone circle the vehicle, showing that there wasn't any roof, and then she had the drone follow Crystal as she followed Victoria. She made sure to pull the footage up from the CC camera as they had their first encounter with Taylor Hebert.
All four of them held their breath when Victoria got close enough that she should have been controlled, but when she was able to leave the area without any issues, they released it.
"She wasn't lying," Aiden reaffirmed. "Either she doesn't have her power at all, or at the least, she doesn't have the same power she had on Gold Morning. Either way--"
"That's not Khepri anymore," Candy finished. "She may even just be a civilian."
A red light lit up on Kenzie's keyboard screen, and she turned around in time to catch an older dark-skinned woman stopping dead in her tracks, looking at the screen setup.
"Holy fucking shit." Imp. Aisha was wearing her dark costume, but her demon-faced mask was pulled up, revealing her face as she stared at the screen directly. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes with gloved hands. As she looked at the screen again, she shook her head. "Holy. Fucking. Shit. Peep, is that shit on screen real?"
"It's real," Kenzie confirmed, turning her seat back to face the screen. "Victoria even spoke to her. She says she doesn't have powers anymore."
"No shit?" Aisha asked. "Peep, you should have called me and Brian. Tell me you at least called Lisa on this. This is kind of big news."
"I tried to reach her," Kenzie said. "And I even left a message once Aiden identified her."
Aisha glanced over at him, and when he nodded, she let out a sigh as she looked back at the screen, watching as Taylor and the Ogier followed Victoria and Crystal back to their Jeep. "Keep trying. Lisa needs to know, and I'm going to shoot Brian a text to get in here."
"He's outside?" Kenzie asked. Idly, she gave a quick glance to the bottom part of her screens. Yes, the alert that Aisha hadn't arrived alone was lit, but she'd been so focused on Khepri that, for once, she was surprised.
"You knew we were coming today, Peep," Aisha said, pulling out her phone. She started to type out a text. "But I can see what might have had your attention."
"It's really her." Aiden looked over at Aisha. "I think we should see her."
"Hold on there, kiddo," Aisha said. "Peep, does Antares have the same number as before?"
"Yes," Kenzie said. "But she's not going by Antares anymore. She doesn't go out in costume."
"Not what I asked," Aisha said, messing with her phone some more. "She's with Taylor, and she's got a bit more insight into this."
Kenzie nodded. She figured there was probably a lot that the Undersiders were going to end up asking Taylor, the least of which being where she had been. There were a number of other questions that she was sure would pop up. For Kenzie, at least one was probably going to be if she could help her with something again. When Khepri had used her expertise, that had been some of the best tinkering she had ever done. If Taylor needed something, some sort of tinkering help, Kenzie was sure she'd be able to help her.
Aiden probably would ask about his powers, at least in part. He was a second generation cape, and they had come from Taylor, after all. Of course, he controlled birds, not bugs or people.
"Peep, I'm giving you permission to put my call on speaker," Aisha said, and she waved the phone at Kenzie. "This is likely to affect all of you, and it'll be important."
"Who are you calling?" Candy asked.
"Victoria," Aisha said. "Since she's not going by her fancy-pants new name. Just have to wait for--" the door opened. "That."
Brian Laborn stood at the opened door for a second, looking over the room. Unlike Aisha, he was just wearing casual clothing, jeans and a light jacket over a white T-shirt. His slightly discolored eyes locked onto the screens for a second before he stepped further into the room. "Everything okay?"
"Brian, you're seeing the same shit everyone else is, right?" Aisha asked as the drone circled around the Jeep once more, and Kenzie had the image zoom in on the back seat's smaller occupant.
"Taylor," Brian said. His voice was steady and even. Brian had told Kenzie before that he had actually dated Taylor at one point, albeit for a short amount of time. "So, it's like Valkyrie thought, then. I suppose that makes sense, but I really didn't think that she would be here in the City."
"She just got in," Kenzie said. "With the giant."
"Ogier," Darlene said. "That's what Victoria called him."
"Heard about those," Brian said. "They're helping with the outer settlements, getting them some proper housing. Have you called Lisa?"
"Bro, I already asked all those questions," Aisha said. "I'm getting ready to call Victoria so we can coordinate what we're doing. Also, Tenders, consider yourselves hired."
"We get to vote on the jobs," Candy said, giving Aisha a bit of a defiant look. "And we can reject them if we want."
"But I'm not sure we should reject this one," Darlene said. "Not without hearing what exactly we're being hired for."
"I'm not sure on the specifics just yet," Aisha said. "But I want to make sure that you four are on retainer in case the reason Tay's back is something more than just coming to visit after being gone so long."
Kenzie kept quiet about that. It might end up coming out eventually, but when Victoria had opened up that email from Presley, she'd been able to read it. She stored a copy of it on her own harddrive locally, and she'd made sure that the file was properly encrypted in such a way that it wouldn't look interesting to Dragon. The limited description that she'd managed to read had mentioned Swansong and something about death not being a bar to her. What that meant specifically, Kenzie didn't know.
When she'd spoken to Ashley the last time she'd been able, she was content ot not return to the land of the living unless Damsel did something stupid. Thus far, that wasn't what happened. Not since the time before Victoria had spread her plague, anyway. Still, that Presley and possibly Taylor had actually seen Ashley in their dreams, it boggled the mind. Presley didn't have any powers that Kenzie knew of, and Taylor had admitted to no longer having powers. Was there some kind of power that the two of them had that related to dreams? That sounded nearly impossible. No two people had the exact same powers, even if they came from the same source. Well, that wasn't entirely true, but it was usually people that were nearly genetically identical. Of course, that didn't explain why both Presley and Khepri… Taylor shared the same dream.
At least, assuming they actually did and it wasn't a normal dream.
Aisha dialed the number, and with a trivial use of her keyboard, Aisha's phone's audio came out of the speakers surrounding Kenzie and the Tenders. It rang twice before Victoria answered. Kenzie made sure the drone focused on her.
"Hello?" Victoria said in a slightly questioning tone. It wasn't likely that she received calls from Aisha all that often. Kenzie intentionally didn't know how often the two of them spoke. It was one of the newer rules she'd set on herself, under Brian's advice. She was still working out this privacy thing, and making sure that her favorite people could at least expect that from her was good in the long run. "Is there anything wrong?"
"Hell yes, there's a problem," Aisha said, pacing a little as she watched the screen with Victoria on it. "But it's not with Peep. Not really, anyway. Did you tell them not to contact anyone else about your fellow passengers?"
"I said that she didn't need to contact the Wardens, especially if there were no powers involved," Victoria said.
When Crystal's sharp "What?" came over the speakers, they could see Victoria visibly wince on screen.
She covered the mouthpiece of the phone and turned to Crystal. Kenzie dutifully turned up the sensitivity of Victoria's microphone so that they could hear properly. "The Amnesty applied across the board, Crystal. As far as I know, Taylor hasn't done anything since Gold Morning."
"You know who she was before and how many people died while under her control," Crystal said. "Even if she doesn't have those powers now…"
"I am sorry about your mother, Crystal," Taylor said. "When I was Khepri, I wasn't really in control of myself as much. I had goals and one method for accomplishing them. I'm not sure what I would have done differently, had I been able to, but I would have tried to avoid getting as many killed as what happened."
"You say that now," Crystal said.
"She gave up a lot and saved all of you," said the Ogier with his slight accent. "Perhaps Victoria should get back to her phone call, and we can discuss this when the world isn't swiftly going by."
Victoria nodded and uncovered the phone. Kenzie adjusted the volume so she wouldn't be overpowering. "Sorry about that, Aisha."
"No, interruptions happen. The big guy seems a little protective of Taylor," Aisha said.
"Seems that way." Victoria looked out the Jeep's window, looking directly at the drone's camera. She cocked an eyebrow. "I'm taking them both to my place. I have some space that they can stay while they get settled, and if the Wardens do find out about Taylor, I think it'd look better on her if she was with me than with some known villains, even ones with your reputation."
Aisha snorted. "How much of that was your idea, and how much was hers?"
"I was the one who suggested it," Victoria said. "After… we determined a couple of things together."
"And what was that?" Aisha asked.
Taylor's voice could be heard over the speakers now. "You can let her know. Is Lisa there with her?"
"Tell her that Tats isn't here at the moment," Aisha said. "But you can sure as shit believe that she's getting told as soon as possible."
"That's good," Victoria said. "Actually, I'd like the Undersiders and the Tenders both to come by my apartment. I'll be getting in contact with the rest of my former team as well. Things are a little strange with the circumstances surrounding this whole thing."
"No shit. Not going to lie, I thought Taylor was dead and gone," Aisha said. "When do you want everyone to show up?"
"We should be there in about fifteen minutes, and I'd like to give Taylor and Malan a little time to settle in. Maybe an hour or two might be good," Victoria said. She frowned a little. "I hope that my shower is big enough for him."
"Don't worry, Miss Victoria," said the Ogier. "In the worst case, I can crouch down to wash."
"I'm looking forward to hearing all about how Taylor and this guy met," Aisha said. "He's a little big to be a rebound guy after Brian."
"Plus it's been almost five years, Aisha," Brian said. "And it really doesn't look like he's that for her."
"Pretty sure they aren't dating, Aisha," Victoria said, almost at the same time as Brian. The speakers delayed the audio slightly, though. "If you could get Lisa to join us--"
"And Rachel too," Taylor said.
"--and Rachel too," Victoria said. "That would be appreciated."
"Sure. I'll do what I can. You want me to see if I can get Parian and Foil?" Aisha asked. "Or would that be too much?"
"I was assuming they would end up coming with Rain anyway," VIctoria said. "This isn't a party though, not really. Though… there may be some food involved."
Aisha snorted. "Sure. Now, I need you to do something for me."
"What do you need?"
"Make sure that nobody takes her from you," Aisha said. "There's a few people who would be very upset if that were to happen."
"I can see that," Victoria said, glancing back toward Taylor again. "Do you want to talk to her?"
"Not over the phone," Aisha said. "Tell her that she'll see me soon. Bye."
She disconnected the phone before Victoria could answer back, and she waved her hand toward the screens again. "Peep, let them have their privacy for now. Keep an eye on the streets and such, and do what you can to keep notice of the Jeep on the DL. We want them to make it to Vic's apartment unmolested."
Kenzie nodded. "You don't want to keep watch on them directly?"
"Taylor's with Antares and Laserdream. I'd say she's pretty safe," Aisha said. "Plus, you four have work to do."
"What do you mean?" Aiden asked. "Aren't we going to Victoria's with you? I want to go see Taylor."
"You're going to," Aisha said. "But there's something that I need to check first. Peep. Pull up the footage from the drone from just before the call, please."
Kenzie nodded, doing so. As she did, she started running isolation protocols and various additional scanning items that she had loaded into her computer. "What are you looking for, Aisha?"
"That." Aisha pointed, not at the Jeep itself, but something beyond. A man in the background that disappeared as a bus passed. "Rewind it again and see if you can freezeframe him."
As Kenzie did so, both Candy and Darlene stepped up closer to the screen with the footage. Meanwhile, Kenzie also had her programs scanning for more events like this in the cameras set up throughout the city.
"That's strange," Candy said as the footage from the drone seemed to warp and pixelate as Kenzie slowed it down. "Your cameras don't usually do that."
"No, they don't," Kenzie said, and she immediately started typing something, reversing and advancing the frames, such that she could try to clear up the static. "It didn't do that when the drone was recording… this is something after the fact."
"Do you need an extra pair of hands, Kenz?" Darlene asked.
"It might help," Kenzie admitted. This wasn't tinkering, not directly, and with another keyboard going, she might be able to advance things quicker. Plus, she did like being connected with her friends.
Darlene nodded and activated her power. Immediately, Kenzie could feel her presence and Aiden's as he pulled a chair up for Darlene to sit in next to her. Darlene let Kenzie guide her movements as the two of them worked together on the footage.
"There!" Brian said. "Freeze that, and zoom in."
Kenzie nodded, following instructions with Darlene's help. Together, the two of them managed to zoom in on the disappearing cape's body and face, cleaning up the image in the process. The fact that the cape in question appeared to not have any eyes on his pale face wasn't lost on them, yet at the same time, it felt like the cape was staring right at the camera. A shiver went down Kenzie's, Darlene's, and Aiden's spines simultaneously.
"What is that?" Brian asked.
"Isn't that a cape?" Candy asked. "Maybe a Case 53 or some other kind of monstrous cape?"
The footage flickered for a second, and though the timestamp didn't change, the cape partially disappeared, fading into the background a bit.
"That's not possible," Kenzie said as she rewound a bit and then moved the footage forward. With each changing of the frame, the cape faded out more, no matter which direction the footage moved. This wasn't right.
"It's like he knows that he's being watched," Aisha said. "The fucker wasn't even looking at the camera originally, and here he's posing before he disappears."
"But the footage is from the past," Candy said. "How could this happen? Even with powers?"
"My power fucks with electronics and people both," Aisha said. "Electronics take a little longer, but footage of me usually gets corrupted. This? This blows my shit out of the water. It's not normal, and that's a part of what I'm hiring you for."
"What? I thought that you were hiring us because of Taylor," Aiden said. "Something to do with her."
"Chicken Little," Aisha said. "Victoria said there were strange circumstances surrounding this whole situation, and I agree. I'm hiring you four to get information that we can feed to Lisa and get this shit sorted out. That fucker? He's a part of this. He's new to town, and he doesn't feel right. Fading out from the camera like that? It's a new mystery."
"I've seen him," Brian said. "Or at least, I think I did. He was staring at the Wardens' holding cells, where they keep Cryptid and they kept Bonesaw. I tried to approach him, but he disappeared before I even got close."
A word came to mind for Kenzie. Given what had happened on screen, it was the only one that made sense. "Fade. He faded. So that's who he is."
"Works," Aisha said. "These weird circumstances. This Fade. Your job, Chicken Tenders, is to look into anything you can find out on him without putting yourselves in danger. And looking into this shit with Tay from an outsider's perspective. We all have some emotional shit when it comes to her, and it will make dealing with some things harder… So, your questions, your perspective will be important."
"You don't trust her?" Candy asked.
Brian stepped up to his sister's side and placed a hand on Aisha's shoulder. "That's not the problem, Decadent. It's not a lack of trust."
"Not in her, anyway," Aisha said. "We can always trust that Taylor Hebert will do what she sees as the right thing. That's the problem."
The newly remodeled Wardens HQ building had done away with much of the building's former foibles. Gone were the painted white walls and glass ceilings that gave the former Cauldron base its spartan feel. Admittedly, most of those had been gone even before the Wardens had taken the base from Teacher, but as a part of the remodel, the walls had been repainted with murals honoring fallen heroes, depicting some of their most heroic moments. There were even a couple villains who had gone out in a heroic way that were honored on some of the walls, but for the most part it was just the heroes. At least it was a way to honor the dead. The floors below similarly had murals to honor those who had fallen against the first major apocalyptic event that they had faced. Snuff was even on the mural, guarding people against the Impaler Titan.
Located in what was ostensibly the building's lobby was a large plaque with the names of those who had died in the Titanomachy, at least those whose names were known. The scrawled "and countless others" in the bottom corner felt a little slapdash, but overall, the memorial was appropriate. The pictures of the Titans themselves and the capes they had been, on the other hand? That was perhaps less so. That was one reason among many that Lisa didn't really like coming to the Wardens HQ. It wasn't even really the largest one, but it was the most obvious when entering the building.
Her new bodyguard had been unable to come with her due to the flu, of all things, so Rachel had elected to step in,Yips in tow. The small chihuahua stayed close to Rachel's jeans as she walked next to Lisa, hands in her jacket's pockets. The auburn-haired woman glowered at anyone who dared to give Lisa or her a second glance. From what Lisa knew of Rachel, as far as she was concerned, this whole thing was stupid. She didn't even need to use her power for that determination.
Like the rest of the building, the conference room had been remodeled as well. The room had been widened a bit, and the furniture within it had been acquired from Shin as a small part of their apology for "following the direction of a volatile parahuman." Most people knew exactly how inaccurate that was, but the fact of the matter was that after the Titanomachy, Gimel was not in any place to start something with another Earth. It was luck that Shin didn't seem to want to continue what they started. Then again, the backfiring of at least the Goddess Giant probably had a large part to do with that.
Sitting at the conference table were several capes that Lisa knew. Dragon, in her green power armor sat next to Defiant, dressed in his matching armor. Next to them was Legend, wearing his normal blue and white costume with flame designs, and his face was masked. Lisa barely glanced at the multitude of screens, but she knew that representatives from other hero teams were there along with Perpetuity's mayor, Jeanne Wynn. Ultimately, she didn't care about them. She wasn't here to deal with the other hero teams, really, and her power worked better on people if they were actually there rather than simply on screen.
"So, we're the last to arrive then?" Lisa asked. Her eyes flicked around the table before taking a seat directly across from Legend. Rachel sat down next to her.
Open spot next to Legend means someone who was expected to be here wasn't.
Meeting is not to arrest Tattletale-self or teammate.
Two more screens unlit.
One for a hero team, one for Bluestocking.
This is important.
Missing team representation from Erring Right.
Should likely have been Brandish.
Focus is on screens, not empty seat.
Erring Right representative unlikely to show up.
"We're waiting on the Majors to dial in, and Bluestocking should be connecting as well," Legend said. "Thank you for coming, Tattletale, Hellhound."
"Just use Rachel," she said. She thrust her chin at Lisa. "I'm just here for her sake."
"Rachel, then," Legend said.
"Bluestocking, hmm?" Lisa glanced at the mayor's screen, allowing a bit of mirth to come to her face. "Guess that deal is still going strong."
"This affects everyone," said Mayor Wynn. "Legend, give them two more minutes, and then feel free to begin. We can catch them up afterward if needed."
Legend gave a partial nod. Whatever they had been called here for, it was important enough to gather all of them together. Lisa looked back to the Wardens' second in command and had to blink for a second. It might have been an artifact of his power, but briefly, she saw some sparks of something around him, along with a fading image of a golden helmet and a bluish halo. She blinked a couple more times and the images faded completely.
"You okay?" Rachel asked.
"Fine," Lisa said immediately, and happily, Rachel didn't press further. She needed to make sure that her power was available to use to analyze whatever data Legend was about to give here at this meeting. Ignoring the random image artifacts was something she'd been starting to have to do lately.
Helmet might mean--
Ignoring the random image artifacts was something she'd been starting to have to do lately. The problem was her power wanted to pay attention to them, even the brief glimpses that she'd seen. She had yet to really determine if there was any relevance to the images, and right now, there were more important things to pay attention to.
One screen had flickered on, showing Caryatid of the Majors, and then the remaining one flicked on seconds later, showing Bluestocking.
After verifying their presence, Legend gave a brief smile. "Thank you, everyone for coming to this. I know that we're all busy dealing with… well, everything, but we in the Wardens felt that it was in everyone's best interests that this meeting be held." Legend gestured to Lisa and then to Bluestocking on the screen. "Tattletale and Bluestocking were invited as representatives of the villain community under truce rules because this information is something that affects everyone."
"Is it about the cracks?" asked one of the capes onscreen. Judging from the voice, it was whoever Advance Guard had decided was their patsy for this meeting. Siren was his name, but he really wasn't all that important in the grand scheme of things. "The Titans aren't coming back, are they?"
"As far as we can tell, no," Legend said. "There have been no signs of the Titans returning or more Titans coming. Some of the cracks have sealed over naturally, and others we are able to work around. No, that's not really what this meeting is about."
"If I may, Legend?" Mayor Wynn asked. At his nod, she continued. "The City is being rebuilt and there has been a good amount of progress over the past months, and thanks to some help that has been given from the representatives of Stedding Chirna and Stedding Mihoku, much work has been done to build up the infrastructure of the outskirts of Perpetuity as well. Thankfully, the Ogier seem to be friendly to us and willing to trade."
"But they're not what this meeting's about," Lisa said. She wasn't using her power, just common sense here. There was no way that they would call a meeting with this many representatives just to talk about the city's rebuilding status. If anything, that was something more appropriate for a press conference with the mayor. No, the meeting definitely was about something else, something that had come up and was possibly a worry. It definitely wasn't Earth Shin. Without Red Queen or Cryptid at their sides, they weren't interested in expanding into Gimel. Not without consolidating what power bases they had that existed over there, anyway. Most of the truly bad villains were still in Warden Custody, remanded there for now. That left one possibility, at least in her mind. "This is about Earth Cheit."
Lisa looked from Legend to Defiant and Dragon, watching the two of them. Briefly, some sparks appeared around them, and she could see a connection between the two of them, a red strand stretching between their chests. She also saw an all-too familiar pair of glasses and head of curly black hair behind Defiant's shoulder. Dragon had some sort of golden sparks near her, and a ghostly image of two dark-haired children next to her, a boy and a girl. Lisa blinked and the images faded. Defiant's eyes narrowed slightly, and Dragon didn't move.
Children Tattletale-self saw likely represent… adoption, perhaps?
Sight of Taylor indicates connection to her.
Strand between likely indicates some sort of attachment. Love?
Dragon is not human, but--
Lisa forced her power to break the focus loop. This was not what she wanted to focus her power on. She wanted to make sure she was right. This was about Earth Cheit.
Lack of surprise. Defiant knows what Legend is going to say.
Dragon does as well.
Lisa rubbed her forehead a little.
"Are you okay, Tattletale?" Legend asked.
"Fine," Lisa said. "Go on. Tell us all about Cheit's issues."
Legend nodded, and he pulled out a remote, clicking it. Another screen lowered, and… oh God, this was a slideshow, wasn't it? Legend was going to give a slideshow presentation on Earth Cheit and the threat that they were posing toward Gimel. Why was he going to give the information as a slideshow?
He pulled up the first slide. "As all of you are aware, Earth Cheit is still accessible by portal from Earth N, and there is still some trade that goes on between us. We all know that they are a highly religious world, but what some of you may not know is that a short while before the Titanomachy, there was a civil war that started there when Teacher was taken captive."
Legend advanced the slide. "Intelligence reports from Thinkers dedicated to it indicate that the likely winners will be at least somewhat amiable toward Gimel. However, they seem to be following up with imposing some of their cultural requirements upon trade. After having dealt with their own Titan, they seem to be doing what they can to get their parahumans under control. The new leadership calls them something that seems to translate, more or less, to 'leashed.' And parahumans that are not under control of the government are 'unleashed.'"
"Let me guess," Lisa said. "They don't like the idea of negotiating with unleashed parahumans."
"Some seem to be willing," Legend said. "But there's an undercurrent of tension that has appeared in recent weeks."
"The sentiment is starting to spread out among some of the unpowered population here as well," Defiant said. "We've all encountered anti-parahuman sentiment, but this flavor… it definitely seems like it's Cheit's influence."
"If we weren't sure that Teacher was in custody, I would almost be sure it was his influence," Dragon said. "But he hasn't had the opportunity to create any new thralls. Not from where he's been held."
"You called all of us here just because Cheit is pushing some anti-parahuman propaganda?" Bluestocking asked. "I deal with worse than that every day."
"It's more than just that," Legend said, advancing the slide.
Lisa's pocket buzzed for a second. She quickly reached in to silence her phone completely. Whoever it was could wait until after the meeting was finished. If it was an emergency, the Tenders had Lookout who could get around things, and her people had her other phone's number.
The new slide showed images of people of Cheit, arming themselves with Cheit-manufactured weaponry ranging from firearms to weapons that looked almost tinkertech. They also had these creatures that they were saddling up. They were about the size of a horse, albeit with grey leathery-looking skin and large wings. They had two legs with six-taloned feet at the end of them, four at the front and two at the back. Their thin tails wrapped around a couple things. Their heads were at the ends of long necks and had a long horny snout at the end.
"You may have seen beasts like these in the mountains west of Perpetuity," Legend said. "Cheit seems to have them natively like Gimel, and they seem to have tamed them. We haven't had the opportunity to study these creatures or their larger cousins, but information admittedly acquired from Teacher says that the Cheit leadership actively uses riders on these as scouts, more so than any sort of planes or flying capes."
"They look almost like mythical wyverns," said Moonsong. "I didn't know that they were in the mountains."
"They don't bother with people much," Rachel said, and Lisa looked over to her friend and teammate. She frowned as ghostly images started to appear around her too. A wolf, a ram, and a large tree that she hadn't seen before floated around Rachel along with an encroaching blackness. Unlike the other visions, this one remained. "Ran into a couple of 'em with my dogs, and the grey ones snapped at them. They backed off when my dogs got bigger than they are."
Wolf could be Bastard, maybe.
Ram… Capricorn Red makes sense.
The tree… Tattletale-self would need to investigate more.
The visions weren't the important bits right now. Especially the ones on Rachel.
The blackness encroaching… shadows…
Lisa frowned. Her power was hers, and right now it needed to focus on what was going on with Cheit. She looked back over to Legend just in time to catch him nod.
Legend nodded. "That matches with some of the behavior we've seen."
Worried. Cheit is building an army.
Preparation for something.
Invasion?
Lisa felt a tugging to look back at Rachel, an urge, but she forced her attention onto the slides. Immediately, pain spiked in her skull, and she found herself gritting her teeth. As she turned back to look at Rachel and the visions came back into her sight, the pain faded some.
Tattletale-self needs to understand.
Visions mean something.
Wolf does not resemble Bastard.
"Tattletale," Defiant said. "Do you need to step out?"
"I'll be fine. Cheit's building an army. With some weird creatures that appear to be native to there along with Gimel," Lisa said, still not looking back at everyone. Her power was right, after all. The visions she was seeing were unique, and she didn't know why she was seeing them. That her power wanted to focus on them so much told her it wasn't a change to her power the way others had seen after the shardspace attacks. "Go on."
"Ultimately, we all need to be ready, and the Wardens wanted everyone to be on the same page. If Cheit attacks, they likely won't discriminate between hero or villain," Legend said. "Not after what they dealt with and who."
"I can't promise anything," Bluestocking said. "But I'll keep my eyes and ears open. Tattletale, we'll talk later."
Lisa waved a hand in acknowledgement. She then reached into her pocket to glance at the phone, quickly checking her messages. There were… seven hundred eighty-four from Lookout, fifteen from Chicken Little, ten from Decadent, five from Syndicate, two from Imp, and there was one from Victoria Dallon. At least her power wasn't giving her a headache for looking at her text messages, though she was certain that if she tried to read the sheer amount from Lookout, she might get one on her own. Not power induced.
She'd start simple. Victoria. There was a simple message there inviting her and Rachel to come by her place to discuss something important.
Related to other texts.
Chicken Little's next. The first few were simply some questions on when she would return, and then the next were a set of images. She opened one of the images to look at it closer and then immediately shut her phone.
Oh. Yes. That was something that definitely could not get out here at this meeting.
"Important texts?" Legend asked.
"Somewhat," Lisa said. "There's something that's come up. Rachel and I need to go handle it, if you don't mind. I wouldn't mind a copy of your slideshow and a transcript of the meeting."
Lisa glanced significantly to Dragon after saying that.
"Of course, Tattletale," Dragon said. "I'll make sure you get it." A pensive look came to her face, and the sparks around her appeared, intensifying with the two children. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Sparks represent power?
Not agent-based.
New power?
Two children. Perhaps with Defiant?
Visions associated with capes.
Visions depict power associations?
Non-agent powers are new.
Explore more, Tattletale-self.
"Just some strange power interactions," Lisa said. "Thinker headache." She was lying about the headache. The pain that had happened earlier just wasn't there, now that she was looking more into the visions, and really, it wasn't just her power that was curious about them. She needed to know more, but that could wait, for now.
"We're leaving," Rachel said, helping Lisa to her feet and supporting her as the two of them made their way to the room's exit.
"Good to see all of you in a peaceful context," Lisa said, offering her best smile. "Cheit's not going to make a move before they're ready. However you got that intelligence, Legend, you'll have to keep an eye on them. Make sure they don't end up being leashed."
Legend nodded. "Stay safe."
"You too," Lisa said, and then she and Rachel left the conference room, heading to where they parked.
Lisa didn't dare to tell Rachel what was really going on while they were in the Wardens HQ, and Hell, she wouldn't dare to tell her until they were actually back in the City. She didn't want there to be any chance that the Wardens would find out about the image she saw until after she had managed to verify everything in person.
Rachel got into the driver's seat when they got back to the car, and, given that she'd given a Thinker headache as to what was wrong with her, she needed to keep up appearances and not drive herself. It wasn't like Bitch was a bad driver, but she didn't know exactly where they were going.
The moment they crossed the portal into Gimel, Lisa looked at the messages from Imp. There was the warning about the images that the Tenders were going to send her or had already sent her, and then she dropped the bombshell about Victoria's place. That was where they needed to go, then.
"We're not going straight back home," Lisa said. "Victoria wants to see us."
"Why?" Rachel asked. Lisa knew that Rachel actually liked Victoria some, but that didn't mean that she liked doing things she saw as unnecessarily bringing her away from her dogs.
"She has a guest," Lisa said. "One that's important to both of us, and she wants us to meet with the guest."
Rachel snorted. "Words. Who is it?"
Lisa paused for a second. She wasn't really sure how Rachel would react. Hell, she wasn't even really sure how she was reacting to this news. Was it good news? Bad news? She really didn't know one way or the other, but the more she thought on it, the more mixed her feelings got. Her power wasn't really helping with this sort of thing, given how focused it was at trying to figure out what the ram and tree were or the shadowy darkness.
Lisa let out a sigh. "Taylor. It's Taylor."
Rachel pulled over to the side of the road so quickly that the tires screeched on the stop. "You're shitting me."
Lisa pulled the image up from Chicken Little's message. "Taken this morning at New York Central. She's back, Rachel."
Rachel's eyes narrowed a little, but she got back on the road without saying anything. Lisa didn't need her power to know that the reddish tint to the sparks around Rachel now intermixed with some green probably meant that Rachel was angry. But she was also probably about as relieved as Lisa felt.
It wasn't long before the two of them made it to Victoria's building, and as they got out of the car and made their way up the stairs, Lisa noted that a few familiar cars were already there. Neither was wearing their masks at the moment, and Lisa had pulled a jacket on over her costume. They walked the halls of the building, and they finally got to the door to her apartment.
The apartment's door opened, revealing Crystal Pelham. She looked Lisa and Rachel over and let out a sigh. "You may as well go in. She's not Khepri, or at least she doesn't have those powers anymore."
"Didn't think she was," Lisa said. The fact that the images had her standing less than fifteen feet away from some people proved that the Khepri power wasn't active, and that was good enough for her. She pushed into Victoria's apartment and walked into the living room.
Sitting on one of the couches in the living room was the Ogier from the picture, clearly Taylor's friend. Judging from that, she was probably staying with Ogier this whole time, but that wasn't an explanation of why.
Victoria was reclining against the ceiling, using her power to keep herself up there, and sitting on Victoria's other couch was Precipice, dressed in costume. His hood was down, but his mask was still on as he looked at the Ogier. Next to him, on the same couch, was Cassie, her blue eyes twinkling a little as she looked around the room, and Chastity was on Precipice's other side. Her hair was pulled back into a braid today. Standing behind the couch were Sabah and Lily, both staring at the one person Lisa was almost afraid to look at.
But when she stood from the chair, leaving her prosthetic arm leaning against it, Lisa couldn't help but look. It was Taylor, her friend, whom she had not seen since she had taken the actions she did to kill Scion. Taylor, whose sparks glowed brighter than any she'd seen today, save perhaps those that she saw around Victoria as well. The images she saw with the sparks… a white flame, a shattered prosthetic arm, a skull with sharp teeth and goatlike horns distracted her for a second. For Victoria, she saw a silvery-white flame, a giant gun, and a sea of arms reaching out of a pool of blood. Both had deep shadow encroaching on their sparks, facing off against it.
She focused on Taylor. What did the visions around her mean?
Shattered prosthetic could mean a new one is needed.
"Lisa, Rachel… I'm glad to see you," Taylor said. "Thank you for c--"
A loud crack echoed through the room, followed by a bark. Rachel had smoothly crossed the room and punched Taylor across the jaw, interrupting whatever Lisa's power was going to muse about next.
If pressed, Taylor would say that Malan was probably handsome, for an Ogier. He stood just over nine feet tall with very striking features. His wide nose was framed by dark stormy eyes the size of teacups and a thin-lipped mouth appropriately sized for his head. His brown hair was cut short, save for a thin tail of hair that curled down the back of his neck. He had long tufted pointy ears that stuck out from his hair and beyond the top of his head, and he wore nicer clothing than Taylor did. He wore some tanned leather pants and a button-up white cloth shirt with a green hempen jacket overtop.
Yips continued barking, clearly sensing Rachel's mood when she punched her old friend. It had been far too long since she'd last seen her, and what she'd pulled was, for lack of any better term, complete and utter shit. Rachel needed her to know exactly how she felt, and this was far quicker than any yelling could be. The giant… Ogier, whatever, clambered to his feet, clearly distressed over what Rachel did. Good. If he was Taylor's friend, he'd want to make sure she was safe. A new friend didn't excuse what Taylor did, nor did it mitigate it.
Rachel met Taylor's eyes once she finished steadying herself. She held up her hand, gesturing in a stopping motion to the Ogier.
"Desta, Malan," Taylor said, and she rubbed her jaw. She opened her mouth and closed it for a second, keeping her eyes locked on Rachel's. She swallowed. "Good to see you too, Rachel."
Rachel stepped toward Taylor once more, but she encountered resistance. Something held her in place, and she let out a short growl as she looked up to where Victoria was floating. "Let me go."
"You're both guests in my home," Victoria said. She didn't sound like she was especially angry, perhaps just annoyed. "I do not want to have to clean up any blood."
"She's not going to hit me again," Taylor said, looking at Rachel. "Are you?"
Rachel shook her head, and when she no longer felt the invisible grasp of Victoria's power, she got right next to Taylor and wrapped her in a hug. "Stupid."
Taylor returned the hug, placing her chin on Rachel's shoulder. "Needed to. I'm sorry."
Rachel sniffed, but she didn't say anything. She had opinions on how much of what Taylor did was actually needed, but she could admit that she was wrong in some aspects. At least she apologized. After a few more seconds of hugging, she pulled apart so Lisa could do what she wanted. "Don't again."
Taylor smiled. She still had that wide mouth.
"Looking good for someone supposed to be dead," Lisa said. "Other than the obvious."
"I probably should have been," Taylor said, looking over the room. Rachel followed her gaze. Taylor knew Cassie, Lily, and Sabah, but Precipice and Chastity were new to her. She met Lisa's eyes afterward and brushed some of her bangs away from her forehead. Two scars were clearly visible, each approximately the size of a dime, possibly smaller.
"You were shot?" Lily asked.
Victoria floated down, probably to get a better look, and she let out a low whistle, shaking her head. "I didn't even notice those before. You do a good job of keeping them hidden, even without using makeup. They're small enough…"
"Precise too," Lisa said.
"Who shot you?" Rachel asked, rather than letting Lisa do her thing. Given the headaches that she'd seen Lisa having earlier, it would be better to have her save her power use for something that Taylor wouldn't tell or something else more useful.
"Contessa," Taylor said, and a hush settled over the room. Taylor glanced over to the Ogier and gave him a smile. "I wasn't really in the best of shape when it happened."
"I can imagine," Precipice said. "Well, not really, but I've seen it happen a few times. Mostly to Victoria, but there have been a few others."
"Thank you, Rain," Victoria said. She seemed a little agitated at her former teammate, but Victoria was professional enough to contain it. "Taylor, do you think you are up for answering some questions?"
"Imp's supposed to be coming, isn't she?" Taylor asked. "And I assume more of your old team will show up."
"At least tell us where you've been, Taylor," Lisa said. She glanced at the Ogier. "I mean, I can guess a little, but…"
"It'd be easier to tell," Taylor said with a nod. "After what Contessa did, I woke up in the care of the Elders at Stedding Tsaris, but like I said, I wasn't really in the best of shape. I spent most of my recovery there."
"Whatever she did, you're clearly not controlling any of us," Lisa said. "But it doesn't look like she just got rid of Khepri."
"Powers gone?" Rachel asked as she looked around. There hadn't been any weird bug things that usually accompanied Taylor back when she was active, and Lisa was right. They weren't under the control of whatever Taylor had become there at the end. Rachel remembered that the powers were usually connected to them by something in the brain. If Contessa's shots had kept Taylor alive but gotten rid of that…
"Yeah," Taylor said. "Can't control even a fly."
"I would not say that you are completely powerless, Taylor," said the Ogier. "Your skills have not degraded, and…" The Ogier trailed off.
Lisa narrowed her eyes at him. "Something you're not telling? Something about Taylor." The Ogier shifted in his seat a little bit. "Not just about Taylor. It's relevant to your people?"
"Lisa, turn it off for now," Taylor said, authoritatively, and even Rachel felt the need to just stay quiet. "I should have done this sooner. Malan, this is Lisa Wilbourn and Rachel Lindt. Tattletale and Bitch, my old teammates when I was a villain. Lisa, Rachel, this is Malan, of Stedding Tsaris. He's a friend."
"Technically neither of us are villains anymore," Lisa said. "It just doesn't make any sense after what happened."
"Lisa's helping the Wardens on some things and occasionally coming in as a guest lecturer for my class," Victoria said. "Rachel has a small town west of the City where she's mostly raising dogs."
Lisa held up a hand. "One time does not make it occasional, Dallon."
"You enjoyed it," Victoria said with what was probably a smile in her voice. Rachel knew that despite some of the protests that Lisa put up, she probably did consider Victoria to be a friend. Frankly, Rachel had a good amount of respect for her as well. The shit that she'd been able to pull together had been impressive, and the idea behind that plague had worked. "I did say that you were welcome to come back when you wanted."
"Only if I don't have to spar with you again," Lisa said.
Taylor snorted. "Wait. You actually managed to get Lisa to spar? I don't even think Grue was able to do that."
"A lot's changed, Taylor," Sabah said. "Some of it after you left the first time, but more after… Gold Morning."
"Bad people do bad shit," Rachel said simply. "Stupid people, and so on. But when powers get involved, shit gets weird."
Taylor sighed. "I did miss you. Just…"
Malan stood up, and the top of his head was only just barely below the height of the ceiling. He stopped by the chair where Taylor had been and picked up her prosthetic before walking over to her. He placed his empty hand on her shoulder and handed her the prosthetic so she could attach it. "When she first got to our stedding, it was a surprise to all of us. I actually found her just outside, lying on a cot with a bandaged head. My first encounter with a human… really, most of us hadn't seen any humans at all. Elder Senchal says that she saw one when she was a child, but that was a long time ago."
"Not really all that relevant," Taylor murmured. Rachel didn't have to strain too much to hear her, but she suspected most people in the room did. "I'm not sure that we should go into too much before the others get here."
"Who else is coming?" Precipice asked. "The rest of the Undersiders and the Chicken Tenders?"
"Sveta's not able to come today," Victoria said. "Neither are the Capricorns. Blue's with Vista for today, and Red's with their parents. Sveta has something with the Majors."
Lisa snapped her fingers and her face scrunched up. Rachel met Taylor's eyes and nodded. Without showing any teeth, Taylor smiled warmly. It wasn't often that Lisa missed things, but when she did in a harmless manner, it was amusing.
"Caryatid was representing the Majors at the meeting earlier," Lisa said. "Normally that would be either Tress or Withdrawal, but it wasn't either of them."
"What was the meeting about?" Victoria asked.
"Earth Cheit and their building army," Rachel said. She glanced toward the door just in time to hear a light rapping on it. Yips yapped his whole way over to the door, ready to greet the next people to come through it.
The door opened on its own, and standing outside were all four Chicken Tenders, escorted by Grue and… Well, it looked like Grue was there. Brian, anyway. He wasn't in costume, and he even had that stuff on his face to hide the skull markings.
Lookout bounded into the room once it was open, and, despite her mask, it was easy to see how eager she was. The others weren't really far behind her, and Rachel forced down a sigh when she saw them. She still remembered what the kid had done, even if she'd apologized. Yes, it wasn't likely that the kid meant trouble, but given her attitudes…
"Oh my gosh, you're really her, really really her," Lookout started. "I mean, I knew you were because of the cameras and Victoria, but you're her. Chicken Little will be so happy. I have so many questions. Where were you? Why did you leave? Why are you back? Do you really not have powers anymore? How did that happen?"
"Peep, you'll need to breathe," said Aisha as she allowed herself to be noticed. She was standing in the middle of the group, not far from Taylor and Rachel. Malan's eyes widened slightly on seeing her. Taylor, for her part, didn't even flinch on Aisha's appearance. When Aisha met her eyes, she was met with a smile that Aisha returned. "Good to see you in person, boss. And not in the world-domination sort of way."
Taylor snorted. "I haven't been your boss for almost six years now, Aisha, and it wasn't like you really listened to me much anyway."
"She barely listened to me," Brian said. "We're working on that now."
"Why only now?" Taylor asked, tilting her head in curiosity. Oh. Given when Brian had died, Taylor might not have known it even happened. "She's older now, anyway."
"We're more rebuilding things," Aisha said, carefully.
Rachel shook her head. Dancing around this sort of thing was a way to just get Taylor confused. She deserved the truth, and then they deserved it. Whatever was going on that had Taylor back was important. Otherwise she probably would have been away longer or she would have been back sooner.
"Brian died." Rachel crossed her arms. "Gold Morning. Wasn't your fault."
Taylor blinked. "But…"
"Valkyrie, some biotinker shit, and powers," Rachel said. "He's back. Wearing makeup right now, but he's back."
"I didn't know," Taylor said. "Nobody told me then."
"You had a lot on your plate," Lisa said, her voice softening. She gave both Brian and Taylor a pitying look. It was almost pathetic, but Rachel knew Lisa was trying to defuse things. "You were dealing with regrowing half your body, and then more things kept happening. It was better to keep you focused."
Taylor looked at Brian. "I still should have known. Maybe… No, I probably would have still made the same decision, but I don't know."
"You should have told her," Victoria said. "I know I would have wanted to know. I didn't like finding out that Dean died, but I mourned him and focused on what needed to be focused on. I'm still mourning him, in a way."
"This Dean was a cape?" Taylor asked. Then she paused for a couple seconds. "Gallant? Dean Stansfield?"
Victoria nodded.
Taylor reattached her prosthetic arm and then rubbed her forehead. "I'm sorry, Victoria. I might not have known him, beyond having fought him, but he seemed decent."
"He was, even being what he was," Victoria said. She looked over at everyone. "I suppose that the rest of the introductions can happen now. Taylor Hebert, meet Lookout, Decadent, Syndicate, and Chicken Little, the Chicken Tenders. You also met Precipice and Chastity Vasil."
"Rain," Precipice said, pulling off his mask. "It's my given name. Since I have yours and Sabah and Lily came unmasked."
Taylor nodded.
"I'm Kenzie," she said as she pulled off her own mask. "And I really really want to thank you for what you did. And again ask how I can help you now."
"Let's hold off on that," Taylor said as the rest of the Tenders removed their masks.
"Candy," said Decadent. "Vasil, but you can probably tell that."
"I'm Darlene." She gave a small wave from her place next to Aiden, who was in the process of removing his own mask.
Taylor gave a sharp breath as she watched him unmask. "Aiden. You're a cape."
"A hero," Aiden said. That was right. Aiden had been under the care of Skitter back in Brockton Bay. Maybe that was why his powers were similar. "With the rest of my team."
Taylor nodded. "You came because you wanted to know some things."
"Don't we all?" Aisha said. "You disappear for almost three years, and you come back with this tall hunk of muscle. Malan, right?"
"Yes. Malan, son of Koimal, son of Senar," said the Ogier. "From Stedding Tsaris, where we nursed Taylor back to health after she was dropped off by the woman you call Contessa. I hope we don't have to explain this too many times."
"Just needed where," Rachel said. "Gunshots to the head usually kill you, but with her…"
"Got rid of my powers, left me alive," Taylor said. "I expected to die, to be honest. I might have even wanted to."
Lisa grabbed Taylor's good arm. It was almost as if she was trying to ward off that sort of thought from Taylor. Frankly, Rachel would have done the same if Lisa hadn't.
"I don't want to now," Taylor said. "Especially not now."
"Good." Rachel nodded to Taylor. "Stupid to think like that. None of us want you dead." She'd said that part with a bit of emphasis, looking out at everyone else, daring them to challenge her statement.
"Thank you, Rachel," Taylor said, meeting her eyes once more. She closed her eyes after a second. "I'm sure that there are those who probably do want that. Or would, if they knew I was here and alive."
"Let's not focus on them, Taylor," Lisa said. "The people in this room are either happy you're back or are kind of neutral about it, but that's not really the point. Before Brian, Aisha, and the kids got here, you and Malan had mentioned that you recovered at Stedding Tsaris, and then mentioned it again a little bit ago. You survived two shots to the head, and they took care of you."
Taylor nodded.
"You mentioned that you'd tell us more when everyone was here," Lisa said. "What can you tell us?"
"I had to relearn a lot," Taylor said. "Speech. Walking. Even eating, really. It took a bit before English came back to me enough to speak it, but listening to some broadcasts helped."
"What were you speaking, if not English?" Lily asked.
"My people's tongue," Malan said. "We had to teach it to her, but since she didn't seem to speak anything else at the time, it was more out of necessity. When she remembered English, she helped us learn."
"They learned English a lot quicker than I learned their language," Taylor said. "And when we heard the broadcasts, heard what had happened with the City, members of other stedding went to help people here."
"How did they get the broadcasts?" Lookout asked. "What kind of technology do they have? What did they use to receive it?"
"They picked up the radio transmissions with a bit of technology that was equivalent," Taylor said. "And one day, there was a computer sitting outside the stedding. A small laptop with wireless internet connection. I didn't really question it."
Lisa blinked. "They have electricity in the stedding?"
"Some," Malan said. "In specific buildings where it's necessary. Her laptop was able to plug into one of our conversion outlets."
"We got the information about what had happened and about the plague that some of you infected yourselves with," Taylor said. "I saw pictures of the cracks and the titans. I can only imagine what they must have been like to fight."
"Sucked," Rachel said. She shook her head. The dreams had been interesting though. They'd shifted a little from dealing with her power to running with her dogs and Bastard. It had definitely been fun, and perhaps it was something she could try in real life with the bigger dogs. The small ones, like Yips, had legs that were much too short if she wasn't using her power on them. Sure, she could run with them like that or ride them, but they might not be able to keep up with their larger cousins. "Simurgh and the Titans together were almost like facing Scion just more spread out."
Taylor nodded. "I don't think I would have been much help. No power of my own anymore, and I'm not sure that the plague would have worked on me because of that."
"It might not have," Victoria said. "Some people here got themselves infected that weren't supposed to."
Rachel wasn't surprised when all of the Chicken Tenders flinched at that for a second. However, Kenzie stepped forward. "I knew that they'd wake us up. And even if they didn't, it would have been the right thing to do."
Aiden, Darlene and Candy all nodded at that, and Lisa smacked her forehead before glaring at Taylor. "This is your fault."
"How?" Taylor asked. "Most of them I hadn't met before today."
"Aiden wanted every story about you he could get," Lisa said. She then glared up at Victoria as well. "And don't think that I'm not blaming you too, Dallon. You had your part in that."
Victoria let out a sigh as she floated down to the ground. "Don't think that they haven't been talked to about it already. Thankfully, it worked out, but I'm not one to put someone in unnecessary danger."
"So, why did you come back?" Aiden asked. "You're alive, yes, but you still stayed away. Why did you come back, Taylor?"
"I need answers," Taylor said. "And I was informed that one of the best ways to get it was from Dinah Alcott."
Rachel tilted her head. "Not Lisa?"
"I think her input will be helpful, but… I think this is a prophecy," Taylor said. "About something that I feel is very important."
"She wasn't the only one to get it either," Victoria said. "Presley emailed me about a dream she had with Taylor in it. One thing clearly stuck out."
"The Shadow," Taylor said. "It's been repeating in my dreams lately, appearing, oozing out of the cracks in the world, like it wants to consume it."
"And you think that Dinah can find something out about this Shadow?" Lisa asked.
"Silverbow seemed to think so," Taylor said. She frowned slightly, a sign that Rachel knew meant she was thinking. "She seemed familiar to me, but I know I hadn't encountered any cape before with that name. She seemed to know me too, about as much as Swansong did. Still, she started off a prophecy before I woke up. The Shadow rises to meet the Suns… I'm not sure Dinah will be able to fill in the rest, but maybe she'll be able to direct me to something else."
"I'll help," Rachel said. When Taylor looked over to her, she continued, "You don't have powers anymore. You need someone to watch your back."
Taylor smiled.
"I'll do what I can too," Victoria said. "Taylor's safe staying here for now, and we can see Dinah together."
Malan looked over each of them and nodded to himself.
"Want to speak up for the rest of the class, Malan?" Lisa asked. "That thing you said about Taylor earlier. That she's not completely powerless. What did you mean? How is she important for your people?"
Malan swallowed. "At first I wasn't entirely sure, but it's not that she's important just for my people. I can feel it now, both her and Victoria. They're special."
"Special how?" Rachel asked. It wasn't that she doubted him. Taylor had been special, and so had Victoria. The two of them had saved the world at different times.
"Chosen," Malan said. "Destined for great things. There's a word for it in my people's tongue."
"They already accomplished great things," Aisha said. "Both of them did. They kicked major ass."
Malan shook his head. "What I'm sensing is more than that. It wouldn't be there if they had accomplished all they were meant to."
"What word do your people use to describe what you're sensing, Malan?" Victoria asked.
Malan folded his hands in front of his waist. "Ta'veren."
