Carbonado 6.5
- Location
- Chula Vista
Carbonado 6.5
I yawned, operating in my base form.
It had been a day since the conference had started, and I had very quickly noped out of the political nonsense. I was not ready for that level of commitment, and I'm not sure I was ever going to be.
At the least I didn't seem to be obligated to be a politician, I could act like a more powerful Queen of England, be a political figurehead. I might be a Diamond but that wasn't going to override my innate nature. I was not a political animal, and I wasn't going to change that in a year or two or even three.
It was mostly pomp nowadays along with image, I could remain a shadowy figure relatively speaking. I was really quite a wallflower, and I wasn't going to change if just because I was a Starheart.
I was too much of a coward to change.
Every shard that had a host pass through the portal structure set up had been subverted by Nisse-Navigator and Scion's former Technologic. It had given us quite a few shards to draw upon.
Assault had Kinetic 377.Redirection 2, Weld had Bond 27.Kinetic 27.Inorganic for a shard.
Miss Militia had the Compilation.Projection 48* shard. Alexandria had Bond 2.Inviolable 2, which made her tough but not as much as say…Siberian. Dragon had Analysis 3.Technologic* which was neat.
Energetic 2.Inviolable.Barrier was Narwhal from the looks of it, and Challenger had Technologic 108.Force 3. Narwhal had an interesting power, able to create resilient force fields, and within fifty feet could bisect people with them. Which wouldn't do a thing to Gems since we'd absorb the energy.
Though to be fair it was a learned skill to defend against the Entities. Gems couldn't infinitely adapt but we did modify the internal structure of our bodies or build tech to augment ourselves.
I snapped my jaw, sitting down on the grass of the park while wearing more typical clothing for a human. Blue jeans and a plain red shirt that covered my gem, while my hair was back to pure black. I rubbed my bare face, it felt even softer than before.
"Aren't you going to feed the turtle ducks?" I blinked when I noticed Flowers in casual wear. A shoulder-baring black sweater with a PlayStation symbol on the chest, and fuschia red shorts midway between her upper thighs and knees in length.
I had gotten to know a lot of pretty people in this new stage of my life, it wasn't bad, just a little anxiety inducing. Especially with all the rather…well hot superheroes Earth 460-AB produced. I might be part Gem but I had still had a mostly human form of physical attraction. Though I had found out I was a bit more flexible than most in that department.
Though I did like girls(female presenting?) more, and most of my crushes had been girls. Only one on a guy and that had only been in retrospect.
"You're often lost in thought aren't you my Diamond?" Her tone was teasing, and I felt heat in my ears.
"I'd prefer you calling me Sunshine than being so…" I couldn't think of a word.
"Stuffy? Formal? Fancy?" She was close, and I could read the dancing amusement in her song. "But I digress," the falsetto tone made me laugh. "What were you thinking about?"
"Just stuff…about some of the shards we're stealing from the Warrior and the dead Thinker." We couldn't fix the network, but we could set up hub nodes to stabilize them. The Cerise Dawn was one node headed by Nisse-Navigator, which included every host we had recruited and powers compatible with her purpose.
A lot of movement type shards related to teleportation, warping and folding space or dimensional manipulation qualify. We had that guy with the mirror world in Boston, Vista had already been part of her court and she picked up Doormaker's shard immediately. Unfortunately she couldn't take over the whole network because she wasn't built for it.
Though Legend's shard had joined up since it was a bud of the Navigator line of shards. It was remarkably similar to Light Kite technology from the early days of the Gem Empire. Exotic energy bonded to light to bend space to accelerate to FTL speeds.
"Is that all?" I shrugged, chirping apologies.
"It's not always about something important, you're free to interrupt if you need to."
"I'm sure your thoughts have importance to you."
I let out a breath. "Maybe, but I get lost in my head way too much some days." I said, crossing my legs as I felt the living grass beneath them. Last night I had a dream walking session with the Root, and she had taught me how she Focused her Soul.
It wasn't dissimilar to Gem powers, gathering the greater power of their magic into shapes and forms. Their magic ran as the white light of the Soul, energy made manifest.
I wonder what our family would think of it…
We were just spending time in a park, where a number of children played along with a general smattering of people.
I had toured the city with Flowers, a meandering route from tourist locations to museums and even a zoo. Our final stop before the park had been a pizza shop, and I was eating a piece. It was sliced by my sharp teeth, and I delicately plucked a pepperoni to rip apart with my tongue.
My body may be a biological nightmare but it was a convenient biological nightmare.
Flowers was eating a pizza slice of her own. "Yes I can digest food and get energy from it." She clarified an unspoken question. "Though the energy gained is insignificant compared to the light energy used to catalyze magic."
"Man Gem biology is neat." Flowers played with one of her curly bangs, smiling to reveal her short fangs. "And you have a very nice smile." And I said that aloud oh god.
Her cheeks darkened, her laugh nervous while her static aura radiated flattery. And she was…pleased, she liked the compliment I guess?
"Thank you…your smile is nice too." I gave her a skeptical look, I barely smiled ever and most of my expressions were a bit manic. Maybe she was biased?
Right I was supposed to feed the turtle-ducks. I threw a few chunks of bread which the cuties could digest unlike regular ducks.
"So…if it's okay to ask, how did you meet Hallow?" I changed the subject, mostly because I wanted to know more about her.
She smiled, a nostalgic break to her Gemsong. "Oh…it was many years ago…I hitched a ride when I was maybe two years of age." So not particularly mature for a Gem. "We had discovered a new species near the edge of the Empire residing on a tidally locked planet. I was among the first Gems on the planet, and we discovered the Second Kingdom of Hallownest…though my arrival was…not very smooth."
"Crash landing?" It was an easy conclusion. "I think you told me you met in Deepnest right?"
She nodded. "The Deepnest was a place of darkness and violence, a very frightening place for a young Diviner." There was something fearful in her voice. "So many possibilities, so many nightmares to be tapped into. In that darkness I was hunted by a Greater Nosk." I choked, having read about such monsters.
They were monsters, the greatest and eldest of the everchanging gods of the faceless. They were ancient, slayers of thousands of sapient minds and hundreds of thousands of lesser minds. They grew to horrific scales, a hundred meters from head to tail, thin bodies of chitin and twisting bone. Their flesh was saturated with Soul and Magic, tough enough to give even strong capes a run for their money.
Their shapeshifting magic was divine, able to twist themselves into near-perfect facsimiles, able to create illusions of sound and voice. Their shapeshifting was so powerful they could phase through matter at a whim.
"Huh…that sounds horrific."
She leaned on me, kneading my shoulder. I let her because I didn't care at this point about weird Gem habits. "It was…but they saved me, Hallow tore the Beast apart with a storm of Soul and Void and blade. He was one of my first friends, and they were one of the few who stayed as the years passed." There was something sad in her faraway gaze.
I hesitantly gave her a hug, pulling her tight to my chest. I hummed a tune, a purring pulse from my chest or throat. She relaxed, and what the fuck was I even doing anymore?
After a moment I let go. "So he's important to you? Someone close to your not-literal heart."
She giggled. "Yes he is." I didn't continue the conversation when I picked up a presence approaching, an aura of magic…no it was an ocean of it, impossibly vast, a well of power I saw only with the Diamonds and with the Root. It was a shard of divinity, and I felt my own Aura radiate to touch the power.
"Ah, is that what I was sensing?" A voice interrupted. The two of us looked up from our close contact. I saw a woman, beautiful in a manner that was impossible, hair of obsidian and skin sun kissed in the most subtle of ways. She wore a casual white button-up blouse and a black pantsuit. I recognized the cuffs on her wrists, she was a lot like Gal Gadot but there were a number of differences, her body curvier and more muscular. Facial features shifted to resemble two different non-existent people. My god she was gorgeous.
"Diana." Was my Sapphire also blushing or was it just me? Oh who was I kidding, it was Wonder Woman of course she was attracted to her.
I calmed, pushing my emotions back down for later processing. Even being in front of a living legend wasn't going to cramp my style. Especially with my budding pride as a Diamond, as a Starheart.
Her light was pure majesty, divine power made known to my sense of the souls of the living.
She was Truth, she was Peace, she was War. It was a great flow of connections, harmonious forces shifted within her god-given power. She channeled Godpower, the energy of a higher, greater reality. I remembered a tidbit from Root.
"As a Higher Being, you have an innate sense of those like you. You see them as they are in truth. Their greater strength will shine through."
I understood what she meant, when I saw the conceptual energies of Diana's soul pressing down on reality like a galaxy. The magic seeped into her bones, hardening them, radiating from every cell of her body, reinforcing them in the same way strange physical electrogravitic energy gave Superman his powers.
Flowers lightly tapped my cheek, and I returned to reality. "Sorry. I didn't expect to meet someone of your…status in this park." No one seemed to recognize her at a glance and I knew why. Her power was suppressed, and when that happened beings of power like us became unremarked.
The absence…blinded people to the possibilities.
"Well, I had the same question when I approached but I can see you're simply relaxing." Her smile was dazzling. "I've met many times with the Diamonds, especially in their talks with Atlantis." Right there was animosity there since they finished off the collapse of their old surface civilization. "But I never met them when they were young and new."
"Nice to meet you." Oh god why was I smiling? Quit smiling, you fanboy. Quit being a dumbass.
"I'm a bit much aren't I?" She didn't seem surprised and my nod was sheepish.
"You're very…bright, if you weren't suppressing your power I wouldn't be surprised if I could sense you from a hundred miles away." She was a being of magic, infused into the very core of her being. "It's something to do with you being an Amazon?"
"I am an Amazon, we were shaped from clay and given life by the Gods. But I was also given blessings from the Gods more directly than most."
"Well…they're very good at annoying me from across space and time." I was honest, her aura was distracting and hurt my eyes a bit. Could the Greek Gods have been a little more subtle? "So you're taking some time off then?" I wasn't too bothered by her at the moment.
"I am. Being a diplomat can be a lot of work, rewarding though when things go right." She was completely sincere about it and that wasn't fair for my cynical outlook.
So cool.
Flowers grimaced. "How…how is he?" There was a shift in the air, in the music that warned me of the dangers.
"It's been two years…he's still alive, but he isn't waking up." I knew who she was talking about, and I pretended not to because it gave me anxiety. Just over two years ago, the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel had gone off the radar. I knew Bruce Wayne was alive, but had no clue what had happened to him.
Because Superman was one of the strongest capes alive. He was faster and stronger than Alexandria, able to tank nuclear warheads with ease. On Bet I think only Eidolon and Legend were faster ignoring teleporters. Along with that one cape named Secondhand. From what I could tell he could move at millions of times the speed of light at the cost of a dangerous environment.
Air was like wading through water, heat fucked him up and could burn him, so extended uses could injure him badly. He didn't have infinite mass punches because to be frank his power worked by distorting space and time. Fourth dimensional manipulations bent the arrow of time to shorten the trip.
Gems did the same thing with our ships. Which was why it would take a Diamond ship only an hour and a half to arrive in Andromeda.
Superman was in all respects Alexandria and Legend combined into a single cape(or were they Superman split up instead). His heat vision was strong, a manifestation of the Kryptonians ability to manipulate electromagnetic forces. From what I could tell, they were comparable to Legend in being able to destroy dozens of kilometers of city.
He was effectively a physical god, and even the Diamonds had trouble with the guy. He was faster from what I remember, though I wasn't too sure on that. Regardless if he had been put out of commission…I wasn't really the bravest person. I was fearful, paranoid, and unsuitable .
I was the weak link.
I let Flowers talk with Diana, ignoring the bundle of anxiety in my chest the whole while.
I heard a whisper in the wind. Come to me Starchild, let us meet.
I wandered the ancient forest, where trees grew five hundred feet high under the influence of the natural magic in the air. This was a realm of spirits and fairy and creatures of magic and Unreal power.
I saw her true nature, and I smiled at the sight of the great tree that was the Root. The Goddess of Growth, Life, and Motherhood. Her pale light revealed itself to be a greater cascade of colors, green and white and amber, all the colors of the spectrum of life. Her eyes reflected crystal blue seas, and her bounds remained taut to her frame.
She was physical this time, she had been brought to Earth during the war when one shard had attempted to unseal her to use her offspring to birth a new generation of shards.
Which was about par for the course with the asshole nature of the Entities. She could move again, though she remained sealed as she entered the next stage of her species' lifecycle. She was far larger than even her Dream version, though she shifted back and forth between small enough to give me a smothering hug to crushing a mall. Her tentacled branches extended her height up to a hundred and fifty feet.
Though being on Earth really changed little when the Bugs had their Dreamgates able to link up planets in an instant. Traveling in the ether of the Dreaming to go anywhere in great ships of gleaming obsidian metal.
"I sense you once more my student, your Light grows ever brighter with each day." Her ocean eyes saw nothing, only smudges which was an improvement from utter darkness. "There is more I can teach you, to repay the debt owed to the Song of Life."
"Debt?" I questioned her, sitting down on a mossy stone.
"He saved my child's kingdom from destruction even as Bugs became titanic Higher Beings of Absolute Material might." Right, I forgot Arthropon classifies Entities as Higher Beings. Which was fair. "We Gods and our creations are creatures bound by magic. We are bound deeply by our pacts made with Soul."
Bugs and beasts were dangerous in many ways, excellent wordsmiths who twisted the spirit and word as needed. They were the Unseelie court of a distant world, and you had to be careful with them. Tithes and deals, though their insanity has relaxed over the past couple generations due to the Shade Lord.
Even then, there was a pact there, a connection made by magic due to her oath. Her oath to help me grow, to bring me a greater understanding of my power and the nature of my domain. It would pay her debt but I knew that wasn't why she was teaching me.
It was because she wanted to, she had participated in terrible deeds but it didn't mean she didn't want to help people. There was a similar pact between Hallow and Elle, mediated by Flowers. He was teaching her the ways of Soul, the mastery and shaping of life energy into magic.
It had taken her a few tries to get her soul to develop the machinery as an alternative to implanting a bile sac or something.
I rubbed the back of my neck, I needed to get back on track. "So what did you want to teach me?"
Camellia shifted her roots, her pale light pulsing life into the land. "I would like to speak to your Diamond half." I flinched, unsure of how to respond. How should we respond?
"Camellia, why do you wish to separate us, Pale Lady, Roots The World Over? " I spoke for my brother while he lingered back into the recesses of our shared mind.
"Because you still restrain your power, still restrain some aspect of your shared abilities." I heard the quiet whispers of my brother as he soothed me, and I swallowed my worries. "A part of both of you fears the implications of being a Diamond, of what that responsibility means. You feel less for it."
"The powers of a Diamond are overwhelming, we are the stars' incarnate, unbound gods of light and creation. " Brother, Bran, Brandon was so very human, and my senses were beyond humanity.
Camellia's motherly smile pulled at our shared heartstrings. "You don't need to see your power as a burden, Starchild. There is beauty in it, beauty I want you to learn."
"And how will you do that?" She smiled again, and the foreign trees parted under her light and magic.
"Use your senses Starchild, both of you together. I want you to see this world for what it is, to release the fears holding you back." Holding you back from seeing your family was left unsaid.
"I…" Our thoughts lined up once more, and I had a hard time with the nugget of anxiety.
"Close your eyes." It was a gentle command but a command nonetheless. There was a song, her power of Voice healthy and strong. "You don't need them for this…not yet."
We closed our eyes and I listened to the pitter patter of light rain on the leaves of trees never seen on Earth. I listened to the flow of a distant waterfall, of burbling streams and the call of 'Birds' and strange creatures.
"Listen to the sounds of the Earth child, smell the Life in the air, let the flow of magic brush past your soul." I stepped forward with shut eyes, and the sounds became more obvious, more alive.
I heard the flap of insect wings, and my feet caught the vibrations of critters on and in the ground. I felt the magic in the air, heard the song of the souls and spirit of life, and felt the possibilities. It wasn't just danger, it was untapped potential and opportunity.
It was a choice, a choice of what future I wanted. A choice I was afraid to make, afraid to see.
"Let all those fears wash away, and remember you are more than just a Diamond. That you choose who you want to be, that you have a right to not be constrained. To be free." There was something almost fiercely ironic about hearing that from her . "Now I want you to run, to enjoy this moment in time, run to the beat of the song in your Starheart."
I didn't sing often, but I was just…tired, my energy running low in a mental sense. But I started running first, our song brimming to life.
It was the beat of drums, of piano and guitar with the backdrop of howls and the distant flash of black feathers at the corner of my vision. They lit in my mind as aura and soul, thousands of lives salvaged from a dying world.
Go run and hold to safer ground. My song wasn't quite spoken, an expression of my Aura pulsing as a continuous wave.
But don't you know we're stronger now.
I leapt blindly, and burst out of the canopy, fog parting before my speed and letting me catch the breathtaking sight of the strange forest on another Earth. I landed, the ground cratering with my power.
I reached for my chest, as something like exhilaration radiated. Wind kissing my skin as I glide down.
My heart still beats and my skin still feels. My lungs still breathe and my mind still fears.
But we're running out of time.
It was a lilting duet as we shut our eyes, as I saw the potential for growth, evolution, revolution bound within the great flesh of the Earth. I saw enormous owlbears and lupine predators with saber fangs.
All the echoes in my mind cry.
There was a crescendo as I let my worries, my concerns, my anxieties and self conscious thoughts wash away in the pale moonlight.
And the sky's open wide.
The hunter's moon is shining!
My…our song crashed together in a resplendent flare of cerise dawn.
We're running with the wolves tonight!
We're running with the wolves tonight!
Our song petered off, and I kept moving, watching the sparkling sky of distant starlight both dead and alive. I spread out my senses to the ground, the trees, the land, and heard the beat of the soul of the world.
Locked or free, what would it be?
I saw the world unfolding around me, that simmering shifting stream, wavelengths forming song, the song of a living world. It was beautiful, that array of light from deepest infrared to the hardest ultraviolet. I perceived the world through my hands, as I hopped from tree to tree. Moving like I was air.
"We're running out of time (time). Ahh." My Gemsong vibrated the air like a localized storm. I sang out my frustrations, sang out those fears buried deep into my heart.
"All the echoes in my mind cry." I was alone, and taken in by the fascination of a distant possible world. "There's blood on your lies, and the sky's open wide. There's nowhere for you to hide, the hunter's moon is shining…"
We're running with the wolves tonight!
We're running with the wolves tonight!
We're running with the—
I opened my eyes, and I twisted in the air to land on the peak of a spiraling stone weathered by wind, and the past unfolded, decades, centuries even of the wind and rain and the decay of the golden sun. I listened to that beat, and felt my worries curdle and die.
"A gift, a curse." I sang, returning to the present and caught Tungwup in the distance, his soul a spiral of wind and flame. "They track, they hurt. Don't let your dreams go incomplete." Again that duet rang, and I dropped to the ground and into the great park of lupine creatures of grey skin and fur and dark amber eyes.
They howled as they ran, as they hunted, as they lived.
We're running with the…
We're running with the…
The crescendo rose higher and higher, the line repeating again and again. To that climax of song and lyrics and radiance.
We're running with the wolves tonight.
We're running with the wolves tonight.
…
I drifted upwards, lips pulling up. "We're running with the…" I trailed off with the howl of song and, and something in me had untightened, loosened. I still felt the environment around me with unseen hands, using the foreign data to calm my nerves.
"Hmm…" Camellia didn't offer a word, simply a mental brush against my cheek.
"Guess I finally committed to the whole spontaneous singing, crying, singing while crying bit." I rolled my eyes at the stupid joke. And I felt…god how long had I been feeling like garbage?
It felt so easy to pretend I knew what I was doing, so easy to act powerful, to be a Diamond, to be the Sunrise. All the while hiding my profound mortal terror, fear that I would get hurt, fear that people I cared about…would get hurt.
I had been stressed already from the pandemic, unmotivated and frankly lacking a guiding rudder. This world ending nonsense hadn't made my mental health any better.
I was afraid and did my best to hide it because I didn't know how to ask for help. I wanted…I wanted…
I wanted my mom. I wanted my father, I wanted my family. God I almost wanted my life back. Almost.
Love you too brother.
"You're a very dramatic person, Camellia." The Root's ethereal laugh shifted the air.
"We are Higher Beings, being dramatic is in our nature." Her branches spread out in a gesture. "And I never told you to burst out into song. That was all you.
I flushed.
Then came to a decision. "I think…we'll need to cut the lesson short, there's something I should have done weeks ago."
"Take your time Starlight."
I look around the small gated neighborhood, though I wouldn't call half a dozen nice houses on the corner a neighborhood. I knew my mom was here, and I knew my dad wasn't far off. Even if they weren't talking as much anymore. Less than usual with them being divorced. That didn't matter.
I brushed the red out of my hair, smiling sadly, nervously. I looked at the door made of fragile weak wood and felt intimidated. I sighed, and stopped being a coward.
I knocked on the door of my mother's house.
Victoria Dallon
I scowled when I saw the weird boat New Wave had gotten dragged off to. We had only come here because we had been invited, and because we had been offered a possible sponsorship or at least a consideration for donations to the team.
Once they figured out how to turn space money into Bet money. And honestly it sounded pretty cool, especially if we got tinkertech gadgets.
"Do I smell smoke?" Amy was the first to comment, and a door on the curved boat slid open to reveal a man in a trenchcoat who was on fire. He was screaming, a deep voice, kind of old sounding, and had obviously dressed himself for most of his life. He really had that post-apocalypse grandpa style he probably thought looked cool and badass down.
He dove into the water, putting out the fire. In a split second, he was out of the water, and writing something down inside a whispering book. Wait what?
"Lesson learned. Do. Not. Use fire bees to shave your face." I choked, and I saw a few bees. They were literally on fire. Jesus, why would you use flaming bees to shave your face? "I'll have to keep using fire the usual way for shaving."
Well that answered that.
He looked up and I stared. He was an old man, maybe in his 50s? Big old face and cleft chin, and five o'clock shadow, big ears, and glasses. His blue eyes stared, and he put away the creepy journal with a gold six fingered hand on the cover. I noted a little tuft of hair, a hair sprig.
He coughed. "My apologies for the disturbance, you must be New Wave. We've been expecting you."
"We?" Mom questioned, suspicious. Another man almost exactly the same as the first but dressed with an actual conman/mob boss outfit. Who dresses these poor men?
"Pointdexter, quit trying to use your creepy science to shave your face! Oh my back is killing me." He grimaced, and I stared at the robotic components of his left arm. "So you're really going to sponsor some costumed weirdos?"
"Stanley, you know why we're doing this. Now isn't the time to question this." Was it just me or had the…science man glanced at my sister? "At least not until we can get everything in order with New Wave."
"Why is the…Pines Institute of Weirdness interested in our organization?" Aunt Sarah crossed her arms, and mom was even more skeptical.
"Because everything is going to change." I felt a shiver at Dr. Pine's tone of voice. "It's also a procedure when…I'm sure your world is familiar with Professor Haywire?"
Besides the fact he was responsible for discovering Aleph and the fact he was an international criminal?
"What about it?" Mom was the one asking.
He sighed. "I myself built a dimensional portal in 1982… before being lost between dimensions. " He what? "I've been to all kinds of dimensions, a world ruled by hairless gopher people, a dimension in which everyone is a baby." How the fuck? "As well as worlds with versions of myself…in fact my world has a version of your Doctor Haywire though he's not a tinker or…"
"Insane?" Amy spoke up, rubbing her eyes. She had been tired these last couple days.
"Amy…" I winced at the warning in mom's voice.
The scientist released a gruff laugh. "Hah! That's the word I was looking for." He seemed amused, and generally nice? "Which brings me to a very serious subject, our worlds are very similar…we both have a Brockton Bay of our own."
I chewed on my lip as mom shifted her stance. "And how does that concern us?"
"I…" he trailed off, and I turned around to see two more people approaching us from behind. Two brunettes, twins, one boy and one girl. I didn't get the chance to criticize their sense of style.
I don't think I'd succeed with the girl, she kind of radiated confidence in her own appearance. Nacho earrings were novel at least.
The girl smiled widely, but there was a twitch downwards when she saw my sister.
"She looks like…" she whispered something inaudible to her brother.
"Dipper, Mabel. Back from your survey of Shin?" The twins smiled.
"Yep! We found a pretty big crack around that land bridge that shouldn't be there." The girl, Mabel, was loud but…happy, and she sounded a lot like…
"We're getting off track," Stanford cleared his throat. "It's a common procedure to inform people of possible dangers when worlds become linked. Tell me…what do you know about the birth parents of Amy Dallon?"
What?
Amy Dallon
My birth parents…I know I was adopted, I knew my dad was a villain because of what I had overhead from mom…Carol. What did these guys know that I didn't? What did they know that she didn't know?
Carol gave me a stare, and I shuddered. "Why does that matter? Why are you butting into our lives like this?" She was angry this time, and I kind of got it. A lot of donors and sponsors liked to think it gave them a right to make us do things for them.
It was gross.
The unattractive mob boss sighed. "Quit talking Ford, you're going nowhere with this runaround shtick." He chuffed, his grumbling voice calming the situation just a little. "Especially with the lawyer broad." Carol scoffed, unamused. "We're like 95 percent sure your freckled brat is family."
What?
"Excuse me?" Carol was furious but everyone else was more shocked than anything.
"We weren't sure at first when we saw a picture of her in the news," Dipper(?) spoke up, looking awkward and sweaty. "We ended up finding a match during one of the routine scans to look for paranatural activity. Brockton Bay sits on a pretty big weak point between dimensions."
"Is that bad?" Eric spoke, and I grimaced as Carol's eyes burned the back of my head.
Stanford coughed. "We like to make sure there's no pathways for hostile interdimensional life forms to enter unprepared dimensions." That was a thing? "We've had a number of incursions and your parahumans would turn into a vector rather quickly."
I looked worriedly at Vicky, vectors for what?
"A lot of paranatural creatures use the connection between a Parahuman and their power to corrupt both ends. The worst case we faced killed thousands of parahumans and shattered a continent." Dipper answered me and I flinched, had I said that aloud?
"Parahumans aren't strong enough to just…wipe out continents." Aunt Sarah sounded disbelieving of the idea of a country blowing up.
"Parahuman powers are meant to last centuries of use and multiple connections, nearly any cape could ramp up to an S-class threat if you break down the door between them and the power." Dr. Pines paused at our looks. "Oh. Sometimes I forget your knowledge of the functioning of Parahuman powers is so incomplete."
"Back on the family thing, Sixer." The scientist's twin brother poked him on his forehead. "So should we tell her or would you rather get this out of the way now?" He didn't seem to care about passing off a family of capes.
What the hell kind of stuff was he used to if that didn't scare him. Carol's hands were lighting up, and I saw how aunt Sarah was whispering something to her.
"—should have told her years ago…"
"No. We don't need to bring up that… monster. Don't need her to get any ideas." I flinched and there was a shocked look of indignation on Sarah's face. Just a flash of horror.
Carol had never been that obvious in her dislike and distrust of me. Maybe the weird situation had battered down some of her walls?
Sarah looked like she had swallowed a sour lemon, and glanced at me with a guilty look. "Your father is Morgan Lavere."
I knew that name, most Birdcage residents didn't tend to keep their secret identities. My father was Marquis…and I now understood why the only mother I ever knew hated me.
"Amy's dad is Marquis? " I felt ashamed at the expression on my sister's face. "But she's nothing like him!" That felt good to hear but I knew Carol didn't believe that.
"So you're related to him? " And there it was, she was in lawyer mode again.
"Nah!" The girl twin, Mabel spoke up, bouncing up and down, rubbing her arms. "Though in our dimension he did date our mom before she met dad." Wait…
"What was my mom's name?" I had to remember not to get too snappish before Carol could take the reins again.
Mabel answered. "Claire Pines, you have her middle name like I do." Oh well that clears up everything! "Wait. This might be proof." She pulled out a weird bracelet and put it on. It created a hologram, showing a picture of…of…oh.
The woman in the picture looked a lot like me, the same freckles and hair with the stupid hair sprig I could never brush out. She looked tired in the picture, holding two swaddled up near-identical babies. Her eyes were different, but she had the same body type I did. Short, and kinda chubby.
Though maybe that was from her pregnancy in the picture.
"So you're my half-siblings from another dimension, why should I care about that?" There had to be a ton of people I was related to in the multiverse, why should that matter?
Stanford winced. "Normally you wouldn't, if it wasn't for the fact our dimensions are connected now, and that you're part of a Parahuman family. That can attract unwanted attention."
"You have enemies." Sarah stood up straight, and there was an uncomfortable shift to Stanford's face. "Enemies that might come after Amy."
"Grunkle Ford's helped a lot with the war, and the Red Queen…she doesn't like that." There was a haunted look on Mabel's face. "Plus there aren't a lot of Parahuman families in our dimension…she'd…"
"She experiments on capes?" There was a horrified silence.
Stanford crept closer. "Her species specifically experiments on entire species before terminating them in all accessible dimensions. You wouldn't be safe regardless, but even a coincidental blood relation worsens the odds. We barely stopped her from destroying the entire western seaboard the last time she came to Earth."
I think I'm going to have nightmares.
"So you're here to warn us…or to provide us protection?" Carol sounded lost, almost deathly afraid.
"The choice is yours, I did want to sponsor a team regardless as part of your world's exchanges with the TUR." Stanford made his own projection with a press of his glasses. "We have a number of exchange programs, open capes aren't common but they are around."
"Running around in another universe doesn't sound safe, especially if we get stranded." Carol was…willing to talk?
"I built a dimensional portal with a box of scraps, several times even." He pointed out the obvious. He wasn't a tinker which meant traveling dimensions was just something anyone could figure out. "You don't have to take the offer of a sponsorship, we can donate funds once the exchange rate is worked out."
So no sponsorship, just New Wave as a PRT-affiliated team, no growth, while I sat on the sidelines while knowing my father was a monster and my closest family were weirdos from another dimension.
"I think we should take the offer." Dad spoke up, and I think Carol and Vicky were surprised.
"Why…" Carol was confused that dad was doing anything.
"I've perused a few newspapers from their world," he revealed. "Things are going to change…and we might be in danger if we get left behind. They have some powerful interdimensional gangs as well…"
If they had tinkertech weapons, and decided our city was a buffet…
Vicky hummed. "Plus…maybe they're only kind of related, but they're still related to Amy right?" I didn't say anything, glancing over at the four…relatives.
I could see it, in the shape of their faces and the color of their hair. Mabel even looked like an older me, though a little skinnier and without freckles. I was curious, I didn't know my mother, I didn't know my father, but I had them. They had shown up, but they didn't have to…they could have left me ignorant and miserable, not knowing why Carol treated me like she did, why I didn't get to know who I had been.
I wanted to know more about them.
Sarah glanced at me, eyes softening. "We'll need to negotiate some things, there are boundaries, lines we won't cross." Carol sagged, but she relented.
The Pines each smiled in their own way. It didn't prepare.
"Mabel, get our lawyer here ASAP! We've got business to work out here!"
Huh…maybe that was why I could make such horrific voices?
Author's Note:
I got a bit stuck on this chapter, and may or may not come back to it at or something. Mainly the song and the end segments relating to New Wave. I had Wolfwalkers on the brain after watching the movie, and this is a Steven Universe cross. Though there won't be many of them...being a written work and all.
Mainly this chapter is about the issues Sunrise has that can't be dealt with by powers, he's a flawed person and his powers don't fix that. They don't solve his paranoia, his anxieties, his low self esteem or his difficulty with being a functional adult. That's something he needs to get bashed in the face in by either someone else or by his own free will. Family is important in that, an anchor when they're functional and happy.
Which is something Amy might get the chance of learning.
The song is Running with the Wolves by AURORA.
I yawned, operating in my base form.
It had been a day since the conference had started, and I had very quickly noped out of the political nonsense. I was not ready for that level of commitment, and I'm not sure I was ever going to be.
At the least I didn't seem to be obligated to be a politician, I could act like a more powerful Queen of England, be a political figurehead. I might be a Diamond but that wasn't going to override my innate nature. I was not a political animal, and I wasn't going to change that in a year or two or even three.
It was mostly pomp nowadays along with image, I could remain a shadowy figure relatively speaking. I was really quite a wallflower, and I wasn't going to change if just because I was a Starheart.
Every shard that had a host pass through the portal structure set up had been subverted by Nisse-Navigator and Scion's former Technologic. It had given us quite a few shards to draw upon.
Assault had Kinetic 377.Redirection 2, Weld had Bond 27.Kinetic 27.Inorganic for a shard.
Miss Militia had the Compilation.Projection 48* shard. Alexandria had Bond 2.Inviolable 2, which made her tough but not as much as say…Siberian. Dragon had Analysis 3.Technologic* which was neat.
Energetic 2.Inviolable.Barrier was Narwhal from the looks of it, and Challenger had Technologic 108.Force 3. Narwhal had an interesting power, able to create resilient force fields, and within fifty feet could bisect people with them. Which wouldn't do a thing to Gems since we'd absorb the energy.
Though to be fair it was a learned skill to defend against the Entities. Gems couldn't infinitely adapt but we did modify the internal structure of our bodies or build tech to augment ourselves.
I snapped my jaw, sitting down on the grass of the park while wearing more typical clothing for a human. Blue jeans and a plain red shirt that covered my gem, while my hair was back to pure black. I rubbed my bare face, it felt even softer than before.
"Aren't you going to feed the turtle ducks?" I blinked when I noticed Flowers in casual wear. A shoulder-baring black sweater with a PlayStation symbol on the chest, and fuschia red shorts midway between her upper thighs and knees in length.
I had gotten to know a lot of pretty people in this new stage of my life, it wasn't bad, just a little anxiety inducing. Especially with all the rather…well hot superheroes Earth 460-AB produced. I might be part Gem but I had still had a mostly human form of physical attraction. Though I had found out I was a bit more flexible than most in that department.
Though I did like girls(female presenting?) more, and most of my crushes had been girls. Only one on a guy and that had only been in retrospect.
"You're often lost in thought aren't you my Diamond?" Her tone was teasing, and I felt heat in my ears.
"I'd prefer you calling me Sunshine than being so…" I couldn't think of a word.
"Stuffy? Formal? Fancy?" She was close, and I could read the dancing amusement in her song. "But I digress," the falsetto tone made me laugh. "What were you thinking about?"
"Just stuff…about some of the shards we're stealing from the Warrior and the dead Thinker." We couldn't fix the network, but we could set up hub nodes to stabilize them. The Cerise Dawn was one node headed by Nisse-Navigator, which included every host we had recruited and powers compatible with her purpose.
A lot of movement type shards related to teleportation, warping and folding space or dimensional manipulation qualify. We had that guy with the mirror world in Boston, Vista had already been part of her court and she picked up Doormaker's shard immediately. Unfortunately she couldn't take over the whole network because she wasn't built for it.
Though Legend's shard had joined up since it was a bud of the Navigator line of shards. It was remarkably similar to Light Kite technology from the early days of the Gem Empire. Exotic energy bonded to light to bend space to accelerate to FTL speeds.
"Is that all?" I shrugged, chirping apologies.
"It's not always about something important, you're free to interrupt if you need to."
"I'm sure your thoughts have importance to you."
I let out a breath. "Maybe, but I get lost in my head way too much some days." I said, crossing my legs as I felt the living grass beneath them. Last night I had a dream walking session with the Root, and she had taught me how she Focused her Soul.
It wasn't dissimilar to Gem powers, gathering the greater power of their magic into shapes and forms. Their magic ran as the white light of the Soul, energy made manifest.
We were just spending time in a park, where a number of children played along with a general smattering of people.
I had toured the city with Flowers, a meandering route from tourist locations to museums and even a zoo. Our final stop before the park had been a pizza shop, and I was eating a piece. It was sliced by my sharp teeth, and I delicately plucked a pepperoni to rip apart with my tongue.
My body may be a biological nightmare but it was a convenient biological nightmare.
Flowers was eating a pizza slice of her own. "Yes I can digest food and get energy from it." She clarified an unspoken question. "Though the energy gained is insignificant compared to the light energy used to catalyze magic."
"Man Gem biology is neat." Flowers played with one of her curly bangs, smiling to reveal her short fangs. "And you have a very nice smile." And I said that aloud oh god.
Her cheeks darkened, her laugh nervous while her static aura radiated flattery. And she was…pleased, she liked the compliment I guess?
"Thank you…your smile is nice too." I gave her a skeptical look, I barely smiled ever and most of my expressions were a bit manic. Maybe she was biased?
Right I was supposed to feed the turtle-ducks. I threw a few chunks of bread which the cuties could digest unlike regular ducks.
"So…if it's okay to ask, how did you meet Hallow?" I changed the subject, mostly because I wanted to know more about her.
She smiled, a nostalgic break to her Gemsong. "Oh…it was many years ago…I hitched a ride when I was maybe two years of age." So not particularly mature for a Gem. "We had discovered a new species near the edge of the Empire residing on a tidally locked planet. I was among the first Gems on the planet, and we discovered the Second Kingdom of Hallownest…though my arrival was…not very smooth."
"Crash landing?" It was an easy conclusion. "I think you told me you met in Deepnest right?"
She nodded. "The Deepnest was a place of darkness and violence, a very frightening place for a young Diviner." There was something fearful in her voice. "So many possibilities, so many nightmares to be tapped into. In that darkness I was hunted by a Greater Nosk." I choked, having read about such monsters.
They were monsters, the greatest and eldest of the everchanging gods of the faceless. They were ancient, slayers of thousands of sapient minds and hundreds of thousands of lesser minds. They grew to horrific scales, a hundred meters from head to tail, thin bodies of chitin and twisting bone. Their flesh was saturated with Soul and Magic, tough enough to give even strong capes a run for their money.
Their shapeshifting magic was divine, able to twist themselves into near-perfect facsimiles, able to create illusions of sound and voice. Their shapeshifting was so powerful they could phase through matter at a whim.
"Huh…that sounds horrific."
She leaned on me, kneading my shoulder. I let her because I didn't care at this point about weird Gem habits. "It was…but they saved me, Hallow tore the Beast apart with a storm of Soul and Void and blade. He was one of my first friends, and they were one of the few who stayed as the years passed." There was something sad in her faraway gaze.
I hesitantly gave her a hug, pulling her tight to my chest. I hummed a tune, a purring pulse from my chest or throat. She relaxed, and what the fuck was I even doing anymore?
After a moment I let go. "So he's important to you? Someone close to your not-literal heart."
She giggled. "Yes he is." I didn't continue the conversation when I picked up a presence approaching, an aura of magic…no it was an ocean of it, impossibly vast, a well of power I saw only with the Diamonds and with the Root. It was a shard of divinity, and I felt my own Aura radiate to touch the power.
"Ah, is that what I was sensing?" A voice interrupted. The two of us looked up from our close contact. I saw a woman, beautiful in a manner that was impossible, hair of obsidian and skin sun kissed in the most subtle of ways. She wore a casual white button-up blouse and a black pantsuit. I recognized the cuffs on her wrists, she was a lot like Gal Gadot but there were a number of differences, her body curvier and more muscular. Facial features shifted to resemble two different non-existent people. My god she was gorgeous.
"Diana." Was my Sapphire also blushing or was it just me? Oh who was I kidding, it was Wonder Woman of course she was attracted to her.
I calmed, pushing my emotions back down for later processing. Even being in front of a living legend wasn't going to cramp my style. Especially with my budding pride as a Diamond, as a Starheart.
Her light was pure majesty, divine power made known to my sense of the souls of the living.
She was Truth, she was Peace, she was War. It was a great flow of connections, harmonious forces shifted within her god-given power. She channeled Godpower, the energy of a higher, greater reality. I remembered a tidbit from Root.
"As a Higher Being, you have an innate sense of those like you. You see them as they are in truth. Their greater strength will shine through."
I understood what she meant, when I saw the conceptual energies of Diana's soul pressing down on reality like a galaxy. The magic seeped into her bones, hardening them, radiating from every cell of her body, reinforcing them in the same way strange physical electrogravitic energy gave Superman his powers.
Flowers lightly tapped my cheek, and I returned to reality. "Sorry. I didn't expect to meet someone of your…status in this park." No one seemed to recognize her at a glance and I knew why. Her power was suppressed, and when that happened beings of power like us became unremarked.
The absence…blinded people to the possibilities.
"Well, I had the same question when I approached but I can see you're simply relaxing." Her smile was dazzling. "I've met many times with the Diamonds, especially in their talks with Atlantis." Right there was animosity there since they finished off the collapse of their old surface civilization. "But I never met them when they were young and new."
"Nice to meet you." Oh god why was I smiling? Quit smiling, you fanboy. Quit being a dumbass.
"I'm a bit much aren't I?" She didn't seem surprised and my nod was sheepish.
"You're very…bright, if you weren't suppressing your power I wouldn't be surprised if I could sense you from a hundred miles away." She was a being of magic, infused into the very core of her being. "It's something to do with you being an Amazon?"
"I am an Amazon, we were shaped from clay and given life by the Gods. But I was also given blessings from the Gods more directly than most."
"Well…they're very good at annoying me from across space and time." I was honest, her aura was distracting and hurt my eyes a bit. Could the Greek Gods have been a little more subtle? "So you're taking some time off then?" I wasn't too bothered by her at the moment.
"I am. Being a diplomat can be a lot of work, rewarding though when things go right." She was completely sincere about it and that wasn't fair for my cynical outlook.
So cool.
Flowers grimaced. "How…how is he?" There was a shift in the air, in the music that warned me of the dangers.
"It's been two years…he's still alive, but he isn't waking up." I knew who she was talking about, and I pretended not to because it gave me anxiety. Just over two years ago, the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel had gone off the radar. I knew Bruce Wayne was alive, but had no clue what had happened to him.
Because Superman was one of the strongest capes alive. He was faster and stronger than Alexandria, able to tank nuclear warheads with ease. On Bet I think only Eidolon and Legend were faster ignoring teleporters. Along with that one cape named Secondhand. From what I could tell he could move at millions of times the speed of light at the cost of a dangerous environment.
Air was like wading through water, heat fucked him up and could burn him, so extended uses could injure him badly. He didn't have infinite mass punches because to be frank his power worked by distorting space and time. Fourth dimensional manipulations bent the arrow of time to shorten the trip.
Gems did the same thing with our ships. Which was why it would take a Diamond ship only an hour and a half to arrive in Andromeda.
Superman was in all respects Alexandria and Legend combined into a single cape(or were they Superman split up instead). His heat vision was strong, a manifestation of the Kryptonians ability to manipulate electromagnetic forces. From what I could tell, they were comparable to Legend in being able to destroy dozens of kilometers of city.
He was effectively a physical god, and even the Diamonds had trouble with the guy. He was faster from what I remember, though I wasn't too sure on that. Regardless if he had been put out of commission…I wasn't really the bravest person. I was fearful, paranoid, and unsuitable .
I was the weak link.
I let Flowers talk with Diana, ignoring the bundle of anxiety in my chest the whole while.
I heard a whisper in the wind. Come to me Starchild, let us meet.
I wandered the ancient forest, where trees grew five hundred feet high under the influence of the natural magic in the air. This was a realm of spirits and fairy and creatures of magic and Unreal power.
I saw her true nature, and I smiled at the sight of the great tree that was the Root. The Goddess of Growth, Life, and Motherhood. Her pale light revealed itself to be a greater cascade of colors, green and white and amber, all the colors of the spectrum of life. Her eyes reflected crystal blue seas, and her bounds remained taut to her frame.
She was physical this time, she had been brought to Earth during the war when one shard had attempted to unseal her to use her offspring to birth a new generation of shards.
Which was about par for the course with the asshole nature of the Entities. She could move again, though she remained sealed as she entered the next stage of her species' lifecycle. She was far larger than even her Dream version, though she shifted back and forth between small enough to give me a smothering hug to crushing a mall. Her tentacled branches extended her height up to a hundred and fifty feet.
Though being on Earth really changed little when the Bugs had their Dreamgates able to link up planets in an instant. Traveling in the ether of the Dreaming to go anywhere in great ships of gleaming obsidian metal.
"I sense you once more my student, your Light grows ever brighter with each day." Her ocean eyes saw nothing, only smudges which was an improvement from utter darkness. "There is more I can teach you, to repay the debt owed to the Song of Life."
"Debt?" I questioned her, sitting down on a mossy stone.
"He saved my child's kingdom from destruction even as Bugs became titanic Higher Beings of Absolute Material might." Right, I forgot Arthropon classifies Entities as Higher Beings. Which was fair. "We Gods and our creations are creatures bound by magic. We are bound deeply by our pacts made with Soul."
Bugs and beasts were dangerous in many ways, excellent wordsmiths who twisted the spirit and word as needed. They were the Unseelie court of a distant world, and you had to be careful with them. Tithes and deals, though their insanity has relaxed over the past couple generations due to the Shade Lord.
Even then, there was a pact there, a connection made by magic due to her oath. Her oath to help me grow, to bring me a greater understanding of my power and the nature of my domain. It would pay her debt but I knew that wasn't why she was teaching me.
It was because she wanted to, she had participated in terrible deeds but it didn't mean she didn't want to help people. There was a similar pact between Hallow and Elle, mediated by Flowers. He was teaching her the ways of Soul, the mastery and shaping of life energy into magic.
It had taken her a few tries to get her soul to develop the machinery as an alternative to implanting a bile sac or something.
I rubbed the back of my neck, I needed to get back on track. "So what did you want to teach me?"
Camellia shifted her roots, her pale light pulsing life into the land. "I would like to speak to your Diamond half." I flinched, unsure of how to respond. How should we respond?
"Camellia, why do you wish to separate us, Pale Lady, Roots The World Over? " I spoke for my brother while he lingered back into the recesses of our shared mind.
"Because you still restrain your power, still restrain some aspect of your shared abilities." I heard the quiet whispers of my brother as he soothed me, and I swallowed my worries. "A part of both of you fears the implications of being a Diamond, of what that responsibility means. You feel less for it."
"The powers of a Diamond are overwhelming, we are the stars' incarnate, unbound gods of light and creation. " Brother, Bran, Brandon was so very human, and my senses were beyond humanity.
Camellia's motherly smile pulled at our shared heartstrings. "You don't need to see your power as a burden, Starchild. There is beauty in it, beauty I want you to learn."
"And how will you do that?" She smiled again, and the foreign trees parted under her light and magic.
"Use your senses Starchild, both of you together. I want you to see this world for what it is, to release the fears holding you back." Holding you back from seeing your family was left unsaid.
"I…" Our thoughts lined up once more, and I had a hard time with the nugget of anxiety.
"Close your eyes." It was a gentle command but a command nonetheless. There was a song, her power of Voice healthy and strong. "You don't need them for this…not yet."
We closed our eyes and I listened to the pitter patter of light rain on the leaves of trees never seen on Earth. I listened to the flow of a distant waterfall, of burbling streams and the call of 'Birds' and strange creatures.
"Listen to the sounds of the Earth child, smell the Life in the air, let the flow of magic brush past your soul." I stepped forward with shut eyes, and the sounds became more obvious, more alive.
I heard the flap of insect wings, and my feet caught the vibrations of critters on and in the ground. I felt the magic in the air, heard the song of the souls and spirit of life, and felt the possibilities. It wasn't just danger, it was untapped potential and opportunity.
It was a choice, a choice of what future I wanted. A choice I was afraid to make, afraid to see.
"Let all those fears wash away, and remember you are more than just a Diamond. That you choose who you want to be, that you have a right to not be constrained. To be free." There was something almost fiercely ironic about hearing that from her . "Now I want you to run, to enjoy this moment in time, run to the beat of the song in your Starheart."
I didn't sing often, but I was just…tired, my energy running low in a mental sense. But I started running first, our song brimming to life.
It was the beat of drums, of piano and guitar with the backdrop of howls and the distant flash of black feathers at the corner of my vision. They lit in my mind as aura and soul, thousands of lives salvaged from a dying world.
Go run and hold to safer ground. My song wasn't quite spoken, an expression of my Aura pulsing as a continuous wave.
But don't you know we're stronger now.
I leapt blindly, and burst out of the canopy, fog parting before my speed and letting me catch the breathtaking sight of the strange forest on another Earth. I landed, the ground cratering with my power.
I reached for my chest, as something like exhilaration radiated. Wind kissing my skin as I glide down.
My heart still beats and my skin still feels. My lungs still breathe and my mind still fears.
But we're running out of time.
Time. Ahh.
It was a lilting duet as we shut our eyes, as I saw the potential for growth, evolution, revolution bound within the great flesh of the Earth. I saw enormous owlbears and lupine predators with saber fangs.
All the echoes in my mind cry.
There's blood on your lies.
There was a crescendo as I let my worries, my concerns, my anxieties and self conscious thoughts wash away in the pale moonlight.
And the sky's open wide.
There is nowhere for you to hide.
The hunter's moon is shining!
My…our song crashed together in a resplendent flare of cerise dawn.
We're running with the wolves tonight!
We're running with the wolves!
We're running with the wolves tonight!
We're running with the wolves!
Our song petered off, and I kept moving, watching the sparkling sky of distant starlight both dead and alive. I spread out my senses to the ground, the trees, the land, and heard the beat of the soul of the world.
Locked or free, what would it be?
My spirit talks, I'm everything.
I saw the world unfolding around me, that simmering shifting stream, wavelengths forming song, the song of a living world. It was beautiful, that array of light from deepest infrared to the hardest ultraviolet. I perceived the world through my hands, as I hopped from tree to tree. Moving like I was air.
"We're running out of time (time). Ahh." My Gemsong vibrated the air like a localized storm. I sang out my frustrations, sang out those fears buried deep into my heart.
"All the echoes in my mind cry." I was alone, and taken in by the fascination of a distant possible world. "There's blood on your lies, and the sky's open wide. There's nowhere for you to hide, the hunter's moon is shining…"
We're running with the wolves tonight!
We're running with the wolves!
We're running with the wolves tonight!
We're running with the wolves!
We're running with the—
I opened my eyes, and I twisted in the air to land on the peak of a spiraling stone weathered by wind, and the past unfolded, decades, centuries even of the wind and rain and the decay of the golden sun. I listened to that beat, and felt my worries curdle and die.
"A gift, a curse." I sang, returning to the present and caught Tungwup in the distance, his soul a spiral of wind and flame. "They track, they hurt. Don't let your dreams go incomplete." Again that duet rang, and I dropped to the ground and into the great park of lupine creatures of grey skin and fur and dark amber eyes.
They howled as they ran, as they hunted, as they lived.
We're running with the…
We're running with the wolves.
We're running with the…
The crescendo rose higher and higher, the line repeating again and again. To that climax of song and lyrics and radiance.
We're running with the wolves tonight.
We're running with the wolves.
We're running with the wolves tonight.
We're running with the wolves.
…
I drifted upwards, lips pulling up. "We're running with the…" I trailed off with the howl of song and, and something in me had untightened, loosened. I still felt the environment around me with unseen hands, using the foreign data to calm my nerves.
"Hmm…" Camellia didn't offer a word, simply a mental brush against my cheek.
"Guess I finally committed to the whole spontaneous singing, crying, singing while crying bit." I rolled my eyes at the stupid joke. And I felt…god how long had I been feeling like garbage?
It felt so easy to pretend I knew what I was doing, so easy to act powerful, to be a Diamond, to be the Sunrise. All the while hiding my profound mortal terror, fear that I would get hurt, fear that people I cared about…would get hurt.
I had been stressed already from the pandemic, unmotivated and frankly lacking a guiding rudder. This world ending nonsense hadn't made my mental health any better.
I was afraid and did my best to hide it because I didn't know how to ask for help. I wanted…I wanted…
I wanted my mom. I wanted my father, I wanted my family. God I almost wanted my life back. Almost.
Love you too brother.
"You're a very dramatic person, Camellia." The Root's ethereal laugh shifted the air.
"We are Higher Beings, being dramatic is in our nature." Her branches spread out in a gesture. "And I never told you to burst out into song. That was all you.
I flushed.
Then came to a decision. "I think…we'll need to cut the lesson short, there's something I should have done weeks ago."
"Take your time Starlight."
I look around the small gated neighborhood, though I wouldn't call half a dozen nice houses on the corner a neighborhood. I knew my mom was here, and I knew my dad wasn't far off. Even if they weren't talking as much anymore. Less than usual with them being divorced. That didn't matter.
I brushed the red out of my hair, smiling sadly, nervously. I looked at the door made of fragile weak wood and felt intimidated. I sighed, and stopped being a coward.
I knocked on the door of my mother's house.
Victoria Dallon
I scowled when I saw the weird boat New Wave had gotten dragged off to. We had only come here because we had been invited, and because we had been offered a possible sponsorship or at least a consideration for donations to the team.
Once they figured out how to turn space money into Bet money. And honestly it sounded pretty cool, especially if we got tinkertech gadgets.
"Do I smell smoke?" Amy was the first to comment, and a door on the curved boat slid open to reveal a man in a trenchcoat who was on fire. He was screaming, a deep voice, kind of old sounding, and had obviously dressed himself for most of his life. He really had that post-apocalypse grandpa style he probably thought looked cool and badass down.
He dove into the water, putting out the fire. In a split second, he was out of the water, and writing something down inside a whispering book. Wait what?
"Lesson learned. Do. Not. Use fire bees to shave your face." I choked, and I saw a few bees. They were literally on fire. Jesus, why would you use flaming bees to shave your face? "I'll have to keep using fire the usual way for shaving."
Well that answered that.
He looked up and I stared. He was an old man, maybe in his 50s? Big old face and cleft chin, and five o'clock shadow, big ears, and glasses. His blue eyes stared, and he put away the creepy journal with a gold six fingered hand on the cover. I noted a little tuft of hair, a hair sprig.
He coughed. "My apologies for the disturbance, you must be New Wave. We've been expecting you."
"We?" Mom questioned, suspicious. Another man almost exactly the same as the first but dressed with an actual conman/mob boss outfit. Who dresses these poor men?
"Pointdexter, quit trying to use your creepy science to shave your face! Oh my back is killing me." He grimaced, and I stared at the robotic components of his left arm. "So you're really going to sponsor some costumed weirdos?"
"Stanley, you know why we're doing this. Now isn't the time to question this." Was it just me or had the…science man glanced at my sister? "At least not until we can get everything in order with New Wave."
"Why is the…Pines Institute of Weirdness interested in our organization?" Aunt Sarah crossed her arms, and mom was even more skeptical.
"Because everything is going to change." I felt a shiver at Dr. Pine's tone of voice. "It's also a procedure when…I'm sure your world is familiar with Professor Haywire?"
Besides the fact he was responsible for discovering Aleph and the fact he was an international criminal?
"What about it?" Mom was the one asking.
He sighed. "I myself built a dimensional portal in 1982… before being lost between dimensions. " He what? "I've been to all kinds of dimensions, a world ruled by hairless gopher people, a dimension in which everyone is a baby." How the fuck? "As well as worlds with versions of myself…in fact my world has a version of your Doctor Haywire though he's not a tinker or…"
"Insane?" Amy spoke up, rubbing her eyes. She had been tired these last couple days.
"Amy…" I winced at the warning in mom's voice.
The scientist released a gruff laugh. "Hah! That's the word I was looking for." He seemed amused, and generally nice? "Which brings me to a very serious subject, our worlds are very similar…we both have a Brockton Bay of our own."
I chewed on my lip as mom shifted her stance. "And how does that concern us?"
"I…" he trailed off, and I turned around to see two more people approaching us from behind. Two brunettes, twins, one boy and one girl. I didn't get the chance to criticize their sense of style.
I don't think I'd succeed with the girl, she kind of radiated confidence in her own appearance. Nacho earrings were novel at least.
The girl smiled widely, but there was a twitch downwards when she saw my sister.
"She looks like…" she whispered something inaudible to her brother.
"Dipper, Mabel. Back from your survey of Shin?" The twins smiled.
"Yep! We found a pretty big crack around that land bridge that shouldn't be there." The girl, Mabel, was loud but…happy, and she sounded a lot like…
"We're getting off track," Stanford cleared his throat. "It's a common procedure to inform people of possible dangers when worlds become linked. Tell me…what do you know about the birth parents of Amy Dallon?"
What?
Amy Dallon
My birth parents…I know I was adopted, I knew my dad was a villain because of what I had overhead from mom…Carol. What did these guys know that I didn't? What did they know that she didn't know?
Carol gave me a stare, and I shuddered. "Why does that matter? Why are you butting into our lives like this?" She was angry this time, and I kind of got it. A lot of donors and sponsors liked to think it gave them a right to make us do things for them.
It was gross.
The unattractive mob boss sighed. "Quit talking Ford, you're going nowhere with this runaround shtick." He chuffed, his grumbling voice calming the situation just a little. "Especially with the lawyer broad." Carol scoffed, unamused. "We're like 95 percent sure your freckled brat is family."
What?
"Excuse me?" Carol was furious but everyone else was more shocked than anything.
"We weren't sure at first when we saw a picture of her in the news," Dipper(?) spoke up, looking awkward and sweaty. "We ended up finding a match during one of the routine scans to look for paranatural activity. Brockton Bay sits on a pretty big weak point between dimensions."
"Is that bad?" Eric spoke, and I grimaced as Carol's eyes burned the back of my head.
Stanford coughed. "We like to make sure there's no pathways for hostile interdimensional life forms to enter unprepared dimensions." That was a thing? "We've had a number of incursions and your parahumans would turn into a vector rather quickly."
I looked worriedly at Vicky, vectors for what?
"A lot of paranatural creatures use the connection between a Parahuman and their power to corrupt both ends. The worst case we faced killed thousands of parahumans and shattered a continent." Dipper answered me and I flinched, had I said that aloud?
"Parahumans aren't strong enough to just…wipe out continents." Aunt Sarah sounded disbelieving of the idea of a country blowing up.
"Parahuman powers are meant to last centuries of use and multiple connections, nearly any cape could ramp up to an S-class threat if you break down the door between them and the power." Dr. Pines paused at our looks. "Oh. Sometimes I forget your knowledge of the functioning of Parahuman powers is so incomplete."
"Back on the family thing, Sixer." The scientist's twin brother poked him on his forehead. "So should we tell her or would you rather get this out of the way now?" He didn't seem to care about passing off a family of capes.
What the hell kind of stuff was he used to if that didn't scare him. Carol's hands were lighting up, and I saw how aunt Sarah was whispering something to her.
"—should have told her years ago…"
"No. We don't need to bring up that… monster. Don't need her to get any ideas." I flinched and there was a shocked look of indignation on Sarah's face. Just a flash of horror.
Carol had never been that obvious in her dislike and distrust of me. Maybe the weird situation had battered down some of her walls?
Sarah looked like she had swallowed a sour lemon, and glanced at me with a guilty look. "Your father is Morgan Lavere."
I knew that name, most Birdcage residents didn't tend to keep their secret identities. My father was Marquis…and I now understood why the only mother I ever knew hated me.
"Amy's dad is Marquis? " I felt ashamed at the expression on my sister's face. "But she's nothing like him!" That felt good to hear but I knew Carol didn't believe that.
"So you're related to him? " And there it was, she was in lawyer mode again.
"Nah!" The girl twin, Mabel spoke up, bouncing up and down, rubbing her arms. "Though in our dimension he did date our mom before she met dad." Wait…
"What was my mom's name?" I had to remember not to get too snappish before Carol could take the reins again.
Mabel answered. "Claire Pines, you have her middle name like I do." Oh well that clears up everything! "Wait. This might be proof." She pulled out a weird bracelet and put it on. It created a hologram, showing a picture of…of…oh.
The woman in the picture looked a lot like me, the same freckles and hair with the stupid hair sprig I could never brush out. She looked tired in the picture, holding two swaddled up near-identical babies. Her eyes were different, but she had the same body type I did. Short, and kinda chubby.
Though maybe that was from her pregnancy in the picture.
"So you're my half-siblings from another dimension, why should I care about that?" There had to be a ton of people I was related to in the multiverse, why should that matter?
Stanford winced. "Normally you wouldn't, if it wasn't for the fact our dimensions are connected now, and that you're part of a Parahuman family. That can attract unwanted attention."
"You have enemies." Sarah stood up straight, and there was an uncomfortable shift to Stanford's face. "Enemies that might come after Amy."
"Grunkle Ford's helped a lot with the war, and the Red Queen…she doesn't like that." There was a haunted look on Mabel's face. "Plus there aren't a lot of Parahuman families in our dimension…she'd…"
"She experiments on capes?" There was a horrified silence.
Stanford crept closer. "Her species specifically experiments on entire species before terminating them in all accessible dimensions. You wouldn't be safe regardless, but even a coincidental blood relation worsens the odds. We barely stopped her from destroying the entire western seaboard the last time she came to Earth."
I think I'm going to have nightmares.
"So you're here to warn us…or to provide us protection?" Carol sounded lost, almost deathly afraid.
"The choice is yours, I did want to sponsor a team regardless as part of your world's exchanges with the TUR." Stanford made his own projection with a press of his glasses. "We have a number of exchange programs, open capes aren't common but they are around."
"Running around in another universe doesn't sound safe, especially if we get stranded." Carol was…willing to talk?
"I built a dimensional portal with a box of scraps, several times even." He pointed out the obvious. He wasn't a tinker which meant traveling dimensions was just something anyone could figure out. "You don't have to take the offer of a sponsorship, we can donate funds once the exchange rate is worked out."
So no sponsorship, just New Wave as a PRT-affiliated team, no growth, while I sat on the sidelines while knowing my father was a monster and my closest family were weirdos from another dimension.
"I think we should take the offer." Dad spoke up, and I think Carol and Vicky were surprised.
"Why…" Carol was confused that dad was doing anything.
"I've perused a few newspapers from their world," he revealed. "Things are going to change…and we might be in danger if we get left behind. They have some powerful interdimensional gangs as well…"
If they had tinkertech weapons, and decided our city was a buffet…
Vicky hummed. "Plus…maybe they're only kind of related, but they're still related to Amy right?" I didn't say anything, glancing over at the four…relatives.
I could see it, in the shape of their faces and the color of their hair. Mabel even looked like an older me, though a little skinnier and without freckles. I was curious, I didn't know my mother, I didn't know my father, but I had them. They had shown up, but they didn't have to…they could have left me ignorant and miserable, not knowing why Carol treated me like she did, why I didn't get to know who I had been.
I wanted to know more about them.
Sarah glanced at me, eyes softening. "We'll need to negotiate some things, there are boundaries, lines we won't cross." Carol sagged, but she relented.
The Pines each smiled in their own way. It didn't prepare.
"Mabel, get our lawyer here ASAP! We've got business to work out here!"
Huh…maybe that was why I could make such horrific voices?
Author's Note:
I got a bit stuck on this chapter, and may or may not come back to it at or something. Mainly the song and the end segments relating to New Wave. I had Wolfwalkers on the brain after watching the movie, and this is a Steven Universe cross. Though there won't be many of them...being a written work and all.
Mainly this chapter is about the issues Sunrise has that can't be dealt with by powers, he's a flawed person and his powers don't fix that. They don't solve his paranoia, his anxieties, his low self esteem or his difficulty with being a functional adult. That's something he needs to get bashed in the face in by either someone else or by his own free will. Family is important in that, an anchor when they're functional and happy.
Which is something Amy might get the chance of learning.
The song is Running with the Wolves by AURORA.
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