Taylor Hebert finds a strange red card that connects her to a suspicious series of disappearances across the country
What a Wonderful World (A Worm/Psyren Fusion)
What A Wonderful World (A Worm/Psyren Fusion)
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Statistics (10 threadmarks, 37k words)
User Total Omniatrix 10 Threadmarks Reader mode
Accretion 1.1
- Location
- London, 1935. August.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I was on the way home after buying Dad a Christmas gift when I received the little red card.
It was late, later than I really should have been out in this part of the city, just a few blocks off of the boardwalk. But it was cold, and there was almost no one on the street this late in December. It wasn't even snowing, just icy, with the pitiful half-melted-then-refrozen remains of the last snowfall in the gutters and against the buildings. I had missed my bus, the next was twenty minutes away, and I was debating whether to walk back a few blocks and wait in the safety and warmth of a store or wait here and not risk missing it again when the payphone next to me began ringing.
I did my best to ignore it at first. I didn't even know it was possible to call a payphone, and there was something eerie about a phone ringing in an empty street with no one to pick it up. It continued to ring, despite my increasingly fervent hopes that whoever was calling would give up. Finally, once I was entirely set on edge by the incessant sound, I gave up and moved over to the phone, picking it up and waiting for some confused and frustrated caller to go asking for someone who wasn't here. Instead there was silence.
"Hello," I asked after a long moment. There was a click and then a tone.
I jammed the phone back onto its receiver and took a step back, a chill going down my spine. This was how horror movies started, wasn't it? A stupid girl picks up the cursed phone in the middle of the night - it was more like late evening, really, but close enough - and disappears within the week. I took a step back and resolved that maybe I would walk all the way back to the store to wait when a mechanical whirring sound nearly made me jump out of my skin. The machine was spitting out one of those prepaid phone cards, a red one, and I reached out to grab it. I only stopped to think about what I was doing once I had it in my hand. It wasn't a normal card. The top right corner looked like the red had been burned or melted off, leaving a shiny black in its place. There was a strange logo and, along the bottom, sloppy text read 'Psyren.'
I would have dropped the card and just ran from the horror-movie payphone if it weren't for that word. It was sparking something in my memory but I just couldn't put my finger on it, it was just outside my reach. I pocketed it instead, planning to research it when I got home. Then I really did make my way back to the safety of the boardwalk at just shy of a dead sprint.
'Psyren,' I discovered, was something of a phenomenon on the PHO forums at the moment. Rumors abounded about the name and the strange stories connected to the red calling cards. There were only a few things people could agree on.
One: people who had received them had a tendency to vanish, though it wasn't clear if that was directly linked to the cards, if it simply shared a cause with the cards, or if the recent string of disappearances was an entirely separate phenomenon that merely targeted the same sort of people as the cards.
Two: this wasn't local. There were stories about the cards all across America, and even a few in Mexico and Canada as well. The disappearances shared about the same spread, although there were a few people who thought there was a path they were following over time.
Three: this definitely had something to do with capes. For one, the cards were supposedly being distributed by someone called 'Nemesis Q,' though no one was entirely certain on the name as there were no public appearances to work from or even any proof they actually existed. There were stranger rumors, though, about a slight influx of more capes in areas where there had been disappearances and even rare stories of established heroes and villains getting suddenly stronger than they had been before.
Beyond those three points, it was frustrating to try to find anything concrete. I had given up on our ancient dial-up connection and was working in the library the next morning, but the extra speed still wasn't helping me find anything new. The theories ranged from the worrying, to the ridiculous, to the obviously insane. The most plausible theory was that it was some sort of cape cult that was recruiting and kidnapping capes for some reason. Unfortunately, this didn't fit with my experience. I wasn't a cape, and I was definitely the only one on the street when this 'Nemesis Q' had called, so why would they want me? On the less plausible side were the conspiracy theorists. It was a cover for alien abductions. It was where monstrous capes came from. It was the beginning of the rapture and god was literally calling his chosen back to him. It was the work of a shadowy organization that sold powers and controlled the government because they needed test subjects to perfect their power-granting surgeries.
If nothing else, my research was confirming my feelings from the night before. There was something very wrong with the card, and the best thing I could do with it would be throw it out immediately.
Then I found the stickied thread on the Protectorate subforum on the subject. I scanned through it, then went back to read over it again. Apparently, while PHO had been wildly speculating, the professional heroes had actually found and tested some of the cards, and had a good idea what was safe and what was not.
The cards were entirely inert, the Protectorate said, until one officially 'joined' Psyren. This was done by inserting the card into a payphone and answering a questionnaire. After that, something happened and most of the cards they had tested had disintegrated, likely as a feature to protect against them doing exactly what they had been doing. But, they said, there were a few cases that weren't intentionally monitored but the Protectorate managed to get information on. The primary one was that joining Psyren put the holder of the card under some sort of Master effect that guaranteed silence on the part of the victim. Those who were Mastered otherwise behaved completely normally and did not seem to be affected in any other way.
The Protectorate recommended that anyone who found the card avoid 'joining' and offered a reward of $700 in exchange for unused cards, as well as a $30,000 reward for any tips that helped them find who was distributing the cards.
That changed things. I sat back in the chair and thought about it. $700 was a lot of money. I knew we weren't exactly well off, and Dad had sometimes had trouble with the bills. I thought - but wasn't sure - that we were okay for now, but would that last? My card was worth $700, and from what the Protectorate said, wasn't that dangerous as long as I avoided using it. $700 could go a long way when money was tight, and there was a chance the reward would go up the longer the mystery remained unsolved.
I logged out of the computer and stood up. It was decided. I would hold onto the card. I would wait until either it was worth more or we needed money more desperately and then I would turn it in to the heroes. I would absolutely not use the card for anything but money.
When I got home, I slid it into one of the unused drawers of my desk and then went back downstairs with a book. I had most of my break left, and I wanted to finish a few series I had fallen behind on when I had to stop taking them to school or risk getting library books damaged. Luckily, my bullies seemed to be growing tired of me, and if the trend continued the way it had for the last several months, I might even be able to start bringing books with me again. Things were looking up.
It was nearly two months before I seriously thought about the card again. After what had happened, it had slipped my mind and my recovery and the discovery that I wasn't actually crazy occupied my thoughts for a long time. It wasn't until weeks after I had gone home, only the night before I was set to go back to school, that I remembered.
I had made my way downstairs to check if there was anything to eat, only to find that dad had gotten home. He was sitting at the dining room table with a pen hunched over stacks of paperwork, muttering to himself quietly. He had been working later this last week, I assumed to make up for the time he had taken off to take care of me when I got out of the hospital.
"Hi, dad," I offered when he didn't seem to notice me.
He glanced up from his work for a moment before turning his attention back to what he was doing. "How was your day." It wasn't really a question, and he didn't seem to mind when I didn't respond to it.
"What's for dinner?" I asked instead.
This time he didn't look up at all. "I think there's a pizza in the freezer."
I made my way to the kitchen, brushing past where he sat and catching a glimpse of what he was working on. They were bills and bank statements and receipts, and what I saw of the balances looked bad, in some places going down to double digits. It sent a pang of worry through me. Was this my fault? I knew the school had paid off most of the medical bills, but taking off work had to have been hard on him.
In the basement, the handful of black widows I had picked up on my runs began squirming awake in response to my helplessness. I forced them back to docility with a small effort of will. But the reminder helped push back against the sour feeling in my stomach. I was a cape now. I wasn't helpless. There had to be something I could do. As I pulled the frozen pizza out of the freezer and set the oven to preheat to four-hundred and fifty degrees, I tried to think of quick ways to gain cash with my powers. I could sell the widow silk, but I needed that for my costume and I was already going to be hard-pressed to get enough silk to finish that in a month.
It wasn't until the pizza was coming out of the oven that I remembered the red card hidden in my desk. $700 wasn't that much money, but it might be enough help dad get through the money issues we were having. Then that thought connected with my previous thought process. I was a cape. $700 dollars might help Dad this time, but what about next time money got tight? Turning in the card would just be putting back the problem. $30,000 dollars though, that could pay a lot of bills.
As I sat down at the table with the pizza to eat, Dad looked back up from his work and asked, "Are you okay with going to school tomorrow?"
Just the thought of going back there was giving me a knot of worry in my stomach, but I didn't say anything at first, finishing the bite of pizza I had started. The school had said they would be looking out for me, but they apparently hadn't noticed anything before, so I didn't think they were going to suddenly start doing their jobs now. On the other hand, after the locker incident, how much worse could it get? There wasn't really anywhere to go from there. "Yeah," I responded finally, "I'm fine."
The rest of the meal was mostly silent, and afterwards I went back up to my room to make sure my card was still where I had left it. Then I grabbed the book I had been reading and laid back on my bed. I would wait until Dad had gone to sleep and then head out. I was fairly certain there were a few payphones near the park three blocks from our house, and our neighborhood was relatively safe to walk through at night. This was cape work I didn't even need to wait on my costume to do, since Psyren apparently already knew who I was. Even better, they wouldn't know I was a cape, so I could use my powers if they tried to disappear me or whatever. I'd 'join' Psyren and then, once I knew what was going on, I would go to the Protectorate with what I learned. Or, maybe I'd even be able to stop the mysterious Nemesis Q myself, if the Master effect became a problem. Then I'd have my $30,000, I'd have a high-profile victory to my name when I debuted as a hero, and the Protectorate would know what was behind the disappearances.
Half an hour after I heard Dad make his way upstairs and to his bed, I left my room, closing the door carefully behind me. I made my way quietly downstairs, grabbed my heavy coat, and left the house, striding with a purpose down the sidewalk. I had a phone call to make.
"Greetings! Your world is now co-nnected!" The voice on the other end of the line was electronic and feminine, unsettlingly loud in the quiet of the night. "You've reached the immigration offices of Psyren! We will now commence the immigration exam. Please answer the following questions. Each question has a yes or no answer. If your answer is yes, please press one. If your answer is no, please press two. Question one: are you a resident of the United States, Canada, or Mexico over the age of thirteen? Dial yes or no."
The abrupt shift directly into the questionnaire caught me off guard, and I fumbled a little bit before my finger hit the '1' key.
Without a confirmation tone or even a pause, the voice on the other end picked back up. "Question two: are you worried about the current state of your world? Dial yes or no."
That was a strange question. Was there anyone who wasn't? I pressed '1.'
"Question three: have you ever suffered a brain injury or been diagnosed with a serious illness? Dial yes or no."
I paused with my finger over the '2' key. Did the locker count? I had spent some time in the psychiatric ward, but that was for psychological issues that it turned out I didn't even have. It was just my power. I pressed it.
"Question four: do you have chronic difficulty breathing, or have you ever felt that your planet's atmosphere is difficult to breath in? Dial yes or no."
What kind of question was that? '2.'
"Question five: do you experience claustrophobia or have you suffered from any traumatic experience that would make you uncomfortable with enclosed spaces? Dial yes or no."
I hesitated a moment before answering. The metal walls pressed against me as I struggled to find leverage, fought to breathe anything but the fetid air I was trapped inside - no. I was fine. I pressed '2.'
This time there was a short pause before the voice continued. "Question six: do you believe there is life in outer space? Dial yes or no."
The questions went on like that, far longer than I could have expected. Some of them made sense - like "Question 21: have you ever experienced dizziness, shortness of breath, and/or confused or blurred vision upon standing up?" to which I responded by pressing the '1' key. Others felt like total non-sequiturs, like "Question 34: do you regularly sing in the shower?" ('2').
By the time I had reached question fifty, the sheer number and variety of the questions had calmed down the initial surge of worry I had felt when I committed to this task. The repetition of the 'listen to question, think, press key, listen to next question' pattern put me into something of a fugue, and kept me from noticing the unsettling trend that began in the later questions.
"Question 52: have you ever lost a parent?" '1'
"Question 57: have you ever had an heirloom of incalculable sentimental value stolen?" '1'
"Question 60: have you ever, to your knowledge, indirectly caused the death of a loved one?" '1'
"Question 64: you believe people in authority have a tendency to overlook their responsibilities when they are inconvenient." '1'
"Question 66: you cannot imagine a future beyond high school." '1'
"Question 69: you once had a friend that was more important to you than a blood relative but you are no longer close." '1'
"Question 71: your father only sees what you let him see." '1'
"Question 72: you killed your mother, your best friend betrayed you, and your father is too incapable of handling his own emotions to notice that you are suicidal. You have latched onto the idea of using your powers to make yourself a martyr because you are unable to be honest with yourself about your own desires and you think that acting like you're selfless will fix your self-loathing. You know subconsciously that you are exactly the type of person who is likely to disappear after getting involved in cape cults, but you don't care because this is the only way out that you can find a plausible rationalization for."
Suddenly the slowly simmering tension that had gone unnoticed in the back of my mind crashed down around me, snapping me out of the question-answering trance and pulling me back into the present. I took a panicked step away from the phone, the metal cord pulling taut, and glanced around. There was no one else in the park with me, no one else visible on the streets. Maybe one of the houses with darkened windows? My own stupidity was terrifyingly obvious to me. I wanted to hit my head against the phone booth. How could I be so dumb? I knew there were supersmart mastermind-type villains out there. I knew there were more subtle, sinister types of capes than the fiery dragons or men of blades that showed up on the news every few months. The PHO boards all told me that this was a calling card that got new capes kidnapped. And yet I still used it.
"Question 73:" came the voice from the phone, and I tightened my grip on the receiver as I realized that it had been silent while I reeled, "would you like to go to Psyren? Dial yes or no."
It was with a huff of almost overwhelming relief that I hit '2' for 'no.' I hadn't ruined everything. I could still take my choice back. I could take the card to the PRT after school tomorrow and forget the whole thing.
"Examination complete. You will be contacted regarding the results in the next three to five business days." The card whirred out of the machine and I slumped against the little booth. I was done. A part of me wanted to leave the card here and forget about all of this. But what would happen if someone else found it? Would they be pulled into this in my place? I couldn't risk it. The PRT would be able to keep it safe. Keeping that thought in my head, I pocketed the card, hung the phone in its cradle, and made my way home.
It was late, later than I really should have been out in this part of the city, just a few blocks off of the boardwalk. But it was cold, and there was almost no one on the street this late in December. It wasn't even snowing, just icy, with the pitiful half-melted-then-refrozen remains of the last snowfall in the gutters and against the buildings. I had missed my bus, the next was twenty minutes away, and I was debating whether to walk back a few blocks and wait in the safety and warmth of a store or wait here and not risk missing it again when the payphone next to me began ringing.
I did my best to ignore it at first. I didn't even know it was possible to call a payphone, and there was something eerie about a phone ringing in an empty street with no one to pick it up. It continued to ring, despite my increasingly fervent hopes that whoever was calling would give up. Finally, once I was entirely set on edge by the incessant sound, I gave up and moved over to the phone, picking it up and waiting for some confused and frustrated caller to go asking for someone who wasn't here. Instead there was silence.
"Hello," I asked after a long moment. There was a click and then a tone.
I jammed the phone back onto its receiver and took a step back, a chill going down my spine. This was how horror movies started, wasn't it? A stupid girl picks up the cursed phone in the middle of the night - it was more like late evening, really, but close enough - and disappears within the week. I took a step back and resolved that maybe I would walk all the way back to the store to wait when a mechanical whirring sound nearly made me jump out of my skin. The machine was spitting out one of those prepaid phone cards, a red one, and I reached out to grab it. I only stopped to think about what I was doing once I had it in my hand. It wasn't a normal card. The top right corner looked like the red had been burned or melted off, leaving a shiny black in its place. There was a strange logo and, along the bottom, sloppy text read 'Psyren.'
I would have dropped the card and just ran from the horror-movie payphone if it weren't for that word. It was sparking something in my memory but I just couldn't put my finger on it, it was just outside my reach. I pocketed it instead, planning to research it when I got home. Then I really did make my way back to the safety of the boardwalk at just shy of a dead sprint.
***********
'Psyren,' I discovered, was something of a phenomenon on the PHO forums at the moment. Rumors abounded about the name and the strange stories connected to the red calling cards. There were only a few things people could agree on.
One: people who had received them had a tendency to vanish, though it wasn't clear if that was directly linked to the cards, if it simply shared a cause with the cards, or if the recent string of disappearances was an entirely separate phenomenon that merely targeted the same sort of people as the cards.
Two: this wasn't local. There were stories about the cards all across America, and even a few in Mexico and Canada as well. The disappearances shared about the same spread, although there were a few people who thought there was a path they were following over time.
Three: this definitely had something to do with capes. For one, the cards were supposedly being distributed by someone called 'Nemesis Q,' though no one was entirely certain on the name as there were no public appearances to work from or even any proof they actually existed. There were stranger rumors, though, about a slight influx of more capes in areas where there had been disappearances and even rare stories of established heroes and villains getting suddenly stronger than they had been before.
Beyond those three points, it was frustrating to try to find anything concrete. I had given up on our ancient dial-up connection and was working in the library the next morning, but the extra speed still wasn't helping me find anything new. The theories ranged from the worrying, to the ridiculous, to the obviously insane. The most plausible theory was that it was some sort of cape cult that was recruiting and kidnapping capes for some reason. Unfortunately, this didn't fit with my experience. I wasn't a cape, and I was definitely the only one on the street when this 'Nemesis Q' had called, so why would they want me? On the less plausible side were the conspiracy theorists. It was a cover for alien abductions. It was where monstrous capes came from. It was the beginning of the rapture and god was literally calling his chosen back to him. It was the work of a shadowy organization that sold powers and controlled the government because they needed test subjects to perfect their power-granting surgeries.
If nothing else, my research was confirming my feelings from the night before. There was something very wrong with the card, and the best thing I could do with it would be throw it out immediately.
Then I found the stickied thread on the Protectorate subforum on the subject. I scanned through it, then went back to read over it again. Apparently, while PHO had been wildly speculating, the professional heroes had actually found and tested some of the cards, and had a good idea what was safe and what was not.
The cards were entirely inert, the Protectorate said, until one officially 'joined' Psyren. This was done by inserting the card into a payphone and answering a questionnaire. After that, something happened and most of the cards they had tested had disintegrated, likely as a feature to protect against them doing exactly what they had been doing. But, they said, there were a few cases that weren't intentionally monitored but the Protectorate managed to get information on. The primary one was that joining Psyren put the holder of the card under some sort of Master effect that guaranteed silence on the part of the victim. Those who were Mastered otherwise behaved completely normally and did not seem to be affected in any other way.
The Protectorate recommended that anyone who found the card avoid 'joining' and offered a reward of $700 in exchange for unused cards, as well as a $30,000 reward for any tips that helped them find who was distributing the cards.
That changed things. I sat back in the chair and thought about it. $700 was a lot of money. I knew we weren't exactly well off, and Dad had sometimes had trouble with the bills. I thought - but wasn't sure - that we were okay for now, but would that last? My card was worth $700, and from what the Protectorate said, wasn't that dangerous as long as I avoided using it. $700 could go a long way when money was tight, and there was a chance the reward would go up the longer the mystery remained unsolved.
I logged out of the computer and stood up. It was decided. I would hold onto the card. I would wait until either it was worth more or we needed money more desperately and then I would turn it in to the heroes. I would absolutely not use the card for anything but money.
When I got home, I slid it into one of the unused drawers of my desk and then went back downstairs with a book. I had most of my break left, and I wanted to finish a few series I had fallen behind on when I had to stop taking them to school or risk getting library books damaged. Luckily, my bullies seemed to be growing tired of me, and if the trend continued the way it had for the last several months, I might even be able to start bringing books with me again. Things were looking up.
***********
It was nearly two months before I seriously thought about the card again. After what had happened, it had slipped my mind and my recovery and the discovery that I wasn't actually crazy occupied my thoughts for a long time. It wasn't until weeks after I had gone home, only the night before I was set to go back to school, that I remembered.
I had made my way downstairs to check if there was anything to eat, only to find that dad had gotten home. He was sitting at the dining room table with a pen hunched over stacks of paperwork, muttering to himself quietly. He had been working later this last week, I assumed to make up for the time he had taken off to take care of me when I got out of the hospital.
"Hi, dad," I offered when he didn't seem to notice me.
He glanced up from his work for a moment before turning his attention back to what he was doing. "How was your day." It wasn't really a question, and he didn't seem to mind when I didn't respond to it.
"What's for dinner?" I asked instead.
This time he didn't look up at all. "I think there's a pizza in the freezer."
I made my way to the kitchen, brushing past where he sat and catching a glimpse of what he was working on. They were bills and bank statements and receipts, and what I saw of the balances looked bad, in some places going down to double digits. It sent a pang of worry through me. Was this my fault? I knew the school had paid off most of the medical bills, but taking off work had to have been hard on him.
In the basement, the handful of black widows I had picked up on my runs began squirming awake in response to my helplessness. I forced them back to docility with a small effort of will. But the reminder helped push back against the sour feeling in my stomach. I was a cape now. I wasn't helpless. There had to be something I could do. As I pulled the frozen pizza out of the freezer and set the oven to preheat to four-hundred and fifty degrees, I tried to think of quick ways to gain cash with my powers. I could sell the widow silk, but I needed that for my costume and I was already going to be hard-pressed to get enough silk to finish that in a month.
It wasn't until the pizza was coming out of the oven that I remembered the red card hidden in my desk. $700 wasn't that much money, but it might be enough help dad get through the money issues we were having. Then that thought connected with my previous thought process. I was a cape. $700 dollars might help Dad this time, but what about next time money got tight? Turning in the card would just be putting back the problem. $30,000 dollars though, that could pay a lot of bills.
As I sat down at the table with the pizza to eat, Dad looked back up from his work and asked, "Are you okay with going to school tomorrow?"
Just the thought of going back there was giving me a knot of worry in my stomach, but I didn't say anything at first, finishing the bite of pizza I had started. The school had said they would be looking out for me, but they apparently hadn't noticed anything before, so I didn't think they were going to suddenly start doing their jobs now. On the other hand, after the locker incident, how much worse could it get? There wasn't really anywhere to go from there. "Yeah," I responded finally, "I'm fine."
The rest of the meal was mostly silent, and afterwards I went back up to my room to make sure my card was still where I had left it. Then I grabbed the book I had been reading and laid back on my bed. I would wait until Dad had gone to sleep and then head out. I was fairly certain there were a few payphones near the park three blocks from our house, and our neighborhood was relatively safe to walk through at night. This was cape work I didn't even need to wait on my costume to do, since Psyren apparently already knew who I was. Even better, they wouldn't know I was a cape, so I could use my powers if they tried to disappear me or whatever. I'd 'join' Psyren and then, once I knew what was going on, I would go to the Protectorate with what I learned. Or, maybe I'd even be able to stop the mysterious Nemesis Q myself, if the Master effect became a problem. Then I'd have my $30,000, I'd have a high-profile victory to my name when I debuted as a hero, and the Protectorate would know what was behind the disappearances.
Half an hour after I heard Dad make his way upstairs and to his bed, I left my room, closing the door carefully behind me. I made my way quietly downstairs, grabbed my heavy coat, and left the house, striding with a purpose down the sidewalk. I had a phone call to make.
**********
"Greetings! Your world is now co-nnected!" The voice on the other end of the line was electronic and feminine, unsettlingly loud in the quiet of the night. "You've reached the immigration offices of Psyren! We will now commence the immigration exam. Please answer the following questions. Each question has a yes or no answer. If your answer is yes, please press one. If your answer is no, please press two. Question one: are you a resident of the United States, Canada, or Mexico over the age of thirteen? Dial yes or no."
The abrupt shift directly into the questionnaire caught me off guard, and I fumbled a little bit before my finger hit the '1' key.
Without a confirmation tone or even a pause, the voice on the other end picked back up. "Question two: are you worried about the current state of your world? Dial yes or no."
That was a strange question. Was there anyone who wasn't? I pressed '1.'
"Question three: have you ever suffered a brain injury or been diagnosed with a serious illness? Dial yes or no."
I paused with my finger over the '2' key. Did the locker count? I had spent some time in the psychiatric ward, but that was for psychological issues that it turned out I didn't even have. It was just my power. I pressed it.
"Question four: do you have chronic difficulty breathing, or have you ever felt that your planet's atmosphere is difficult to breath in? Dial yes or no."
What kind of question was that? '2.'
"Question five: do you experience claustrophobia or have you suffered from any traumatic experience that would make you uncomfortable with enclosed spaces? Dial yes or no."
I hesitated a moment before answering. The metal walls pressed against me as I struggled to find leverage, fought to breathe anything but the fetid air I was trapped inside - no. I was fine. I pressed '2.'
This time there was a short pause before the voice continued. "Question six: do you believe there is life in outer space? Dial yes or no."
The questions went on like that, far longer than I could have expected. Some of them made sense - like "Question 21: have you ever experienced dizziness, shortness of breath, and/or confused or blurred vision upon standing up?" to which I responded by pressing the '1' key. Others felt like total non-sequiturs, like "Question 34: do you regularly sing in the shower?" ('2').
By the time I had reached question fifty, the sheer number and variety of the questions had calmed down the initial surge of worry I had felt when I committed to this task. The repetition of the 'listen to question, think, press key, listen to next question' pattern put me into something of a fugue, and kept me from noticing the unsettling trend that began in the later questions.
"Question 52: have you ever lost a parent?" '1'
"Question 57: have you ever had an heirloom of incalculable sentimental value stolen?" '1'
"Question 60: have you ever, to your knowledge, indirectly caused the death of a loved one?" '1'
"Question 64: you believe people in authority have a tendency to overlook their responsibilities when they are inconvenient." '1'
"Question 66: you cannot imagine a future beyond high school." '1'
"Question 69: you once had a friend that was more important to you than a blood relative but you are no longer close." '1'
"Question 71: your father only sees what you let him see." '1'
"Question 72: you killed your mother, your best friend betrayed you, and your father is too incapable of handling his own emotions to notice that you are suicidal. You have latched onto the idea of using your powers to make yourself a martyr because you are unable to be honest with yourself about your own desires and you think that acting like you're selfless will fix your self-loathing. You know subconsciously that you are exactly the type of person who is likely to disappear after getting involved in cape cults, but you don't care because this is the only way out that you can find a plausible rationalization for."
Suddenly the slowly simmering tension that had gone unnoticed in the back of my mind crashed down around me, snapping me out of the question-answering trance and pulling me back into the present. I took a panicked step away from the phone, the metal cord pulling taut, and glanced around. There was no one else in the park with me, no one else visible on the streets. Maybe one of the houses with darkened windows? My own stupidity was terrifyingly obvious to me. I wanted to hit my head against the phone booth. How could I be so dumb? I knew there were supersmart mastermind-type villains out there. I knew there were more subtle, sinister types of capes than the fiery dragons or men of blades that showed up on the news every few months. The PHO boards all told me that this was a calling card that got new capes kidnapped. And yet I still used it.
"Question 73:" came the voice from the phone, and I tightened my grip on the receiver as I realized that it had been silent while I reeled, "would you like to go to Psyren? Dial yes or no."
It was with a huff of almost overwhelming relief that I hit '2' for 'no.' I hadn't ruined everything. I could still take my choice back. I could take the card to the PRT after school tomorrow and forget the whole thing.
"Examination complete. You will be contacted regarding the results in the next three to five business days." The card whirred out of the machine and I slumped against the little booth. I was done. A part of me wanted to leave the card here and forget about all of this. But what would happen if someone else found it? Would they be pulled into this in my place? I couldn't risk it. The PRT would be able to keep it safe. Keeping that thought in my head, I pocketed the card, hung the phone in its cradle, and made my way home.
**********
Oh, putting Taylor through the Worm stations of canon is cliche and overdone? What about putting her through the stations of canon for...a completely different story? Mwahahahaha, I am a genius.
In all seriousness, welcome to What a Wonderful World, a fusion of Worm and the shounen manga Psyren. I've never really been able to get a bead on how well-known Psyren is, because it basically never comes up, but it is my favorite manga of the genre and I will always be salty it ended early and never got an anime. Regardless, I recently realized how well Worm and Psyren would fit in a setting together (frankly, Worm does a good job patching up some of the more contrived parts of Psyren, at least the way I've put them together), so I felt I had to start a story. For those of you familiar with Psyren, these first chapters are going to be a little bit straightforward, because there aren't really any other options, but I hope the way I've fused the settings together is at least interesting. I've got some fun plans for later stuff, but who knows if I'll ever get there.
I've got a quest running which is going to take priority right now, so don't expect this to update too consistently, and as of this moment I have a buffer of exactly one chapter, so, you know, fair warning. I swear I intend to update this fic, I just don't expect to do it on a regular schedule.
Ando Owen
Yandere Illya is watching you.
- Location
- Montpellier
Psyren. I remember reading the whole manga a few years ago. My memory isn't perfect, but this one left an impact.
My own review would be that I liked it. The plot was somewhat unusual, starting mystery and survival and becoming more shounen as the characters got used to the situation. I appreciated the way the author handled the psychic powers though I wouldn't say it was flawless. The author considered the powers mostly on a shounen style approach and didn't think too hard about the kind of character development one could use with growing psychic powers, psychological issues can mesh extremely well with limited reality warping. It was used once with the lead female character, but there was little explanation and the author could have developed it a bit more.
I felt the end of the manga was a bit lacking in a way, the mystery was solved, turning the final battle into a straight fight that was conveniently shortened, especially once the final final villain appeared.
I think one of the greatest issues is that as the story goes on, we don't have a clearly defined main character so much as a band of people fighting together. Sure, everyone has a role, but the conclusion didn't feel punchy enough.
A good manga that deserve some attention I would say, but not an overwhelmingly good one.
My own review would be that I liked it. The plot was somewhat unusual, starting mystery and survival and becoming more shounen as the characters got used to the situation. I appreciated the way the author handled the psychic powers though I wouldn't say it was flawless. The author considered the powers mostly on a shounen style approach and didn't think too hard about the kind of character development one could use with growing psychic powers, psychological issues can mesh extremely well with limited reality warping. It was used once with the lead female character, but there was little explanation and the author could have developed it a bit more.
I felt the end of the manga was a bit lacking in a way, the mystery was solved, turning the final battle into a straight fight that was conveniently shortened, especially once the final final villain appeared.
I think one of the greatest issues is that as the story goes on, we don't have a clearly defined main character so much as a band of people fighting together. Sure, everyone has a role, but the conclusion didn't feel punchy enough.
A good manga that deserve some attention I would say, but not an overwhelmingly good one.
- Location
- Philippines
this is interesting now heres a question does couldron know her and are there other espers out there that isn't parahumans?
- Location
- Center Of The Universe
This is an interesting xover, I give you that. the only thing that I'm worried about is the two superpowers from the different settings and how they will mesh together. Will Taylor be able to awaken as a psychic even with her dimensional gate on???
Accretion 1.2
- Location
- London, 1935. August.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My first day of school since the locker. I spent long minutes on the curb trying to muster the willpower to move towards the building. The old rusted gates were practically leering at me as I hesitated. I was still a little blurry from a lack of sleep, and I had almost put off my first day back. I could have passed for sick, I don't think Dad would have even noticed. I clenched my fists and steeled myself. I could do this. Just this one day, and then I would go to the PRT with my card. I had no costume yet, but I could still be a hero. I was a hero. Heroes could deal with going to school.
With that thought I finally began shuffling my way into the building with the rest of the dead-eyed teenagers, through the gates, past the metal detectors that had probably never worked in my lifetime, and into the grimy halls of Winslow.
The familiar sense of paranoia settled on my shoulders almost immediately. The halls were crowded and I couldn't keep track of everyone around me. The girl leaning against the wall - Stella or Senna or something - I had seen her talking to Emma before. She and her friends were laughing about something, was she looking at me? No, Emma couldn't have set anything up, no one even knew I was coming back today. Somehow, she was still finding ways to make me feel crazy.
Someone jostled me and my sense of wariness ratcheted up another few notches before I realized that it was just a result of the crowded hallways. There were people everywhere and the hall smelled of sweat and someone smoking. The buzz of my power rose in the back of my head. Someone else hit my shoulder and muttered something unflattering. I couldn't seem to take another step forward, which was probably why I got pushed again. Something in the air was making it hard to take full breaths, and I was hearing a ringing in my ears. Why was this so hard?
I stumbled my way to the little alcove in the hallway that held a few beat up old payphones to catch my breath. I was a cape. I could handle a few bitchy teenage girls and some bad memories. This was - this was just pathetic. I took a long breath, my pulse settling down a little bit. Oddly enough, the ringing didn't get any quieter, despite the other symptoms of my little episode out there fading. By the time I was feeling up to heading back out to try to get myself to class, the ringing sound was piercing, almost painful. I couldn't even tell if it was just in my head or if it was coming from somewhere in the school. The phone. It sounded kind of like a phone call, turned up to a painful volume. It was a little surprising no one had come in to try to stop the noise, but then it was no surprise that the Winslow student body managed to disappoint even my lowest expectations.
I grabbed the scuffed black plastic of the receiver and pulled it out of its cradle. It was amazing these things worked at all, let alone well enough to ring this loudly. I brought it up to my ear and -
Green was my first thought once I had recovered from the sudden lurch in all my senses. It wasn't a healthy, vibrant green either, more of a putrid, sickly, color, swirling with grey and brown in the clouds above me. And it was dark, no obvious sunlight filtering through the cloud cover, like the sky just before a storm.
Wet and cold were the next two thoughts. It was a strange experience to suddenly find myself ankle deep in what smelled like seawater. The temperature of the air around me was about ten degrees cooler than the school, and the water was downright cold. All of that paled to the sensation of losing every single one of the bugs in my range. After weeks of being constantly bombarded by the sensation of presence around me, losing it all felt like going blind.
It took a moment to really register the smell beyond the seawater. There was something greasy and chemical mixing with the salt, and I stumbled back for a moment trying to get out of the water, causing me to fall back against the shattered concrete wall behind me. Looking around, there was nowhere to go to get out of the water. As far as the eye could see there was only water and the remains of broken buildings. I could feel a slight pressure growing behind my eyes, like I had been reading for too long.
Something entered my range, moving far faster than any insect had a right to and sending a splitting pain through my skull. Whatever it was was big and...wrong, somehow. I could hear something moving through the water towards me, the splash of its wake crashing against the chunks of concrete lying around me. I tried to back away, but I was already flat against the ruin. Was the thing moving despite my control, or was I subconsciously trying to get a better look? It turned a corner to round a particularly intact ruin and I saw it. It was a blur of segmented chitin and sharp legs, churning the water into a white foam where it moved. It was a muddy brown, and big, about the size of a large car. I didn't have time to appreciate the size before it was on top of me, two of its legs punched through the concrete to my right and left, its head hanging over my face. Grafted, somehow, where the giant arthropod's face should be was a human head, jaw missing and eyelids torn away. It smelled like rot and I felt the strength in my legs begin to give out. It was looking at me, and I could get flashes of its senses, like looking in a mirror. On either side of the head, where it's mandibles should be were human arms. They were twitching, and even flopped against my shoulder. Something was making a high pitched mewling sound. Was it me? Wasn't I supposed to be a hero? How could I possibly fight this thing with no bugs and only the smallest hint of control over it?
I was saved from having to figure it out by a bolt of something pitch black erupting from just between the thing's eyes. The thing reeled back away from me, making an angry chittering hiss. It whirled around faster than my eyes could track just in time for another bolt to tear through its center. The monstrosity screamed and then collapsed, a pebbly grey texture creeping across its skin and exoskeleton as it fell.
Behind the thing was my savior, a woman about my height, wearing a black half-cloak thing with a hood and a black mask of a woman's face underneath. For a long second, we just stood there staring at each other, me gasping for breath and her almost unnaturally still, a small black crossbow still raised and pointed at where the monster had been just a moment before. I had obviously been too distracted by that whatever-it-was to notice the world around me, as I was surprised to see a thin black fog rising off every surface within reach.
The moment ended with the woman spinning away from me, her half-cape fluttering dramatically behind her. She muttered something I couldn't quite catch before stomping off through the seawater.
I made to ask her about what had just happened, but I found myself fixated on the petrified remains of the insect thing. It had been turned to some kind of a rough grey stone, sapping all color away from it, but I could still make out the form. A giant centipede with human parts grafted on. I could still see the stitch marks in the stone. The only thing I could think of was Bonesaw but that wasn't - we would have had some warning for that, right? The Nine had already visited Brockton Bay, when I was a toddler, so why would they be back? But then, what else could have happened to make...this make sense?
"Hey," the masked woman said. I managed to pry my focus away from the statue of the monster to where the woman was standing a few yards down what once had been a street. The water was midway up her thighs out there, and her back was still to me, only her head turned to address me over her shoulder. The costume was sparking my memory but I couldn't quite place it. "If you want to survive, follow me."
I stumbled my way out from the ruins I was half-inside. There was a bit of a drop, I assumed moving from the foundation of whatever building this had been to the ground. The ground squished under my sneakers and I almost fell over. As I rushed to catch up with the cape, my shoes were nearly sucked off my feet by the silty mud underneath the water.
We didn't go very far, maybe three blocks if I was judging by Brockton Bay standards. It was slow going, picking through the seawater that sometimes rose as high as our stomachs. The woman in black skirted around seemingly random chunks of the ruins, and it was only after I tried to cut one of those invisible corners and nearly slipped into a hidden sinkhole that I realized she was keeping us to a path that kept our heads above water. About halfway through I finally remembered where I had seen her before: her mask and half-cloak looked like one of the local Wards, Shadow something-or-other. Shadow Walker? We took so many turns that it was no surprise that I hadn't been able to see our destination through the ruins. A small hill poked out from under the water, and what looked to be the remains of a brick church, just barely intact enough to recognize, stood surrounded by the only dry land in sight. Standing at the top of the shattered steeple looking down at us was a statuesque woman in all black motorcycle leathers and solid black helmet. She raised her hand to greet shadow girl but otherwise didn't move. The all black figure in a broken tower against a swirling, clouded sky felt like something from a movie or an album cover, not real life, and I wasn't aware I had stopped to stare until shadow girl hissed "come on," at me from the steps. I hurried to catch up with her.
The building looked even worse from the inside. The brick had crumbled away almost entirely at one corner, and the roof had apparently been torn entirely off. There were splinters of wood that might have once been pews, but they were unrecognizable now and the floor was a pockmarked mess of ripped up tile and fallen stone. Shadow girl was making her way over to one of the empty windows and sitting on the sill. There were three other people in various states of confused panic in the room. One was curled up against a wall with their head buried in their hands, their features and even their gender hidden by familiar baggy sweatshirts. Another, a larger guy that looked like he attended Brockton College, was leaning against one of the more intact sections of wall, trying to look casual. It was undermined by the way his eyes darted about the room wildly and his finger was a blur where he was tapping it against his arm. Finally, in the center of the room, a boy about my age paced back and forth, running his hands through his hair. He looked kind of thin and gangly and was wearing a backpack, but I didn't recognize him so he might not have gone to Winslow. Seeing his bag made me remember I still had mine on, and I stopped where I was to pull it around behind me and check on it. As I had feared, the water had gotten into the bottom and all my textbooks were ruined. Fuck. Somehow, it was that realization that made me pissed off and afraid, despite everything going on around me. I internally berated myself for my screwed up priorities.
I was pulled out of that mental tangent by scraping footsteps on the stairs behind me and I turned around to see another cape entering the church. He was almost uncomfortably musclebound, but his costume was basically a tee-shirt and jeans and a ski mask. He had to lightly shoulder me out of the way because I had been standing almost right in the entrance to the church. I caught him glance at Shadow girl and give a subtle shake of his head before he moved to the middle of the ruin and waited with his arms crossed.
Before anyone could make a comment or start asking about what was happening, the woman in the motorcycle gear fell out of the sky right in front of him, the stone cracking around the point of landing. She sprung back up immediately and didn't seem to be hurt, but the abrupt entrance and display of her power was unsettling.
"Hi all. I imagine you're all wondering what's going on," the cape said cheerfully, her voice slightly muffled by the helmet. "Let's do introductions first. You might know me as Bombast, but you can call me Matsuri." She pulled the helmet off and cradled it against her hip, revealing a young-looking Asian girl with a spiky pixie haircut dyed partially red. She looked around college age, maybe her early twenties. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't have told you anything about her cape career. After giving us a moment to admire her introduction, she continued. "Sulking over on the window is Shadow Stalker of the local Wards. Hey, Stalker, you going to unmask?"
The Ward was silent for a moment, examining us civilians, before answering. "Maybe if they survive their first trip," she said dismissively.
Matsuri was at her side in a flash, her hand rubbing the other girl's hood as though mussing her hair. "Aw, my little kohai is such a tsundere, isn't it cute?" Shadow Stalker responded by giving her a silent finger, which seemed to do nothing to dampen the older cape's enthusiasm. "Browbeat, what about you?" The muscular guy just shrugged, managing to look uncomfortable. "Whatever. Okay, so," she pulled a bright red card out from a pocket, causing my heart to drop into my stomach, "you all recognize this, right? My Psyren card. You are all officially members of Psyren. Our jobs now are to keep you four from dying."
I think all of us jumped when the skinny pacing guy managed to find his voice and spit, "Fuck you, where did you take us? Where are we?"
The cape turned to look at him and suddenly she wasn't at all cheerful. She pinned the guy where he stood with just her stare. "I didn't do anything to you, besides maybe save your life. Being in Psyren means Nemesis Q gets to pull you around, out of your normal life whenever they feel like it. I - we - have spent years jumping back and forth between this world and our home trying to understand what Nemesis Q's goals are and trying to keep as many people as possible alive, and here's a secret: the three of us, we're pretty much the only ones still in the game. We'll get to giving you the nuanced details of what we've figured out once we're out of imminent danger, but for now, sit down, shut up, and listen to us because we have the experience you need to survive, capisce?" We were quiet as she regarded us each in turn, as if checking to be sure we understood. Then, as quickly as her tone had changed the first time, she went back to cheerful. "Good! Now, here's your first lesson: when you enter Psyren, your first priority is to find the telephone! Once everyone is together, that's when -" she was interrupted by a phone I had missed in the corner right next to me ringing. " - that. That happens," the cape finished awkwardly. "Well, go on, pick it up," she said. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize it was me she was talking to, as I was the closest one to the receiver.
I grabbed the phone and put it to my ear, but somehow it didn't stop ringing. The sound was pushing against the building headache, and I felt it get worse as I stared awkwardly at the other Psyren "members," waiting for something to happen.
My vision blacked out.
Those seeking Psyren shall taste power and despair.
Those seeking Psyren shall taste power and despair.
Those who reach Psyren shall be granted the world.
There is only one exit in this game.
Those seeking Psyren, those searching for the exit to this world,
Find the gate.
In the blackness, a window opened up. It showed the inside of a ruined building, partially intact much like the church we were in. Steel beams were twisted and broken around huge gashes in the building's walls, but it rose about one story above the water outside. The intact ceiling suggested there was a partial floor above it. In the center of the frame, clearly the focus, laying on the dust covered but largely undamaged floor in the corner of the room, was an intact cell phone. It stayed in place for a second, then my vision returned. In the back of my mind, was a new image, one that didn't fade with the rest of the vision. A map.
Looking around, the other newcomers seemed as confused and off-balance as I was, but the three capes, they were frozen. Matsuri was staring off into space with a slight frown.
"Fuck." That was the Ward in the window. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." No one responded, and I opened my mouth to ask the obvious question.
And then the Endbringer siren went off.
With that thought I finally began shuffling my way into the building with the rest of the dead-eyed teenagers, through the gates, past the metal detectors that had probably never worked in my lifetime, and into the grimy halls of Winslow.
The familiar sense of paranoia settled on my shoulders almost immediately. The halls were crowded and I couldn't keep track of everyone around me. The girl leaning against the wall - Stella or Senna or something - I had seen her talking to Emma before. She and her friends were laughing about something, was she looking at me? No, Emma couldn't have set anything up, no one even knew I was coming back today. Somehow, she was still finding ways to make me feel crazy.
Someone jostled me and my sense of wariness ratcheted up another few notches before I realized that it was just a result of the crowded hallways. There were people everywhere and the hall smelled of sweat and someone smoking. The buzz of my power rose in the back of my head. Someone else hit my shoulder and muttered something unflattering. I couldn't seem to take another step forward, which was probably why I got pushed again. Something in the air was making it hard to take full breaths, and I was hearing a ringing in my ears. Why was this so hard?
I stumbled my way to the little alcove in the hallway that held a few beat up old payphones to catch my breath. I was a cape. I could handle a few bitchy teenage girls and some bad memories. This was - this was just pathetic. I took a long breath, my pulse settling down a little bit. Oddly enough, the ringing didn't get any quieter, despite the other symptoms of my little episode out there fading. By the time I was feeling up to heading back out to try to get myself to class, the ringing sound was piercing, almost painful. I couldn't even tell if it was just in my head or if it was coming from somewhere in the school. The phone. It sounded kind of like a phone call, turned up to a painful volume. It was a little surprising no one had come in to try to stop the noise, but then it was no surprise that the Winslow student body managed to disappoint even my lowest expectations.
I grabbed the scuffed black plastic of the receiver and pulled it out of its cradle. It was amazing these things worked at all, let alone well enough to ring this loudly. I brought it up to my ear and -
the
world
disappeared
world
disappeared
Green was my first thought once I had recovered from the sudden lurch in all my senses. It wasn't a healthy, vibrant green either, more of a putrid, sickly, color, swirling with grey and brown in the clouds above me. And it was dark, no obvious sunlight filtering through the cloud cover, like the sky just before a storm.
Wet and cold were the next two thoughts. It was a strange experience to suddenly find myself ankle deep in what smelled like seawater. The temperature of the air around me was about ten degrees cooler than the school, and the water was downright cold. All of that paled to the sensation of losing every single one of the bugs in my range. After weeks of being constantly bombarded by the sensation of presence around me, losing it all felt like going blind.
It took a moment to really register the smell beyond the seawater. There was something greasy and chemical mixing with the salt, and I stumbled back for a moment trying to get out of the water, causing me to fall back against the shattered concrete wall behind me. Looking around, there was nowhere to go to get out of the water. As far as the eye could see there was only water and the remains of broken buildings. I could feel a slight pressure growing behind my eyes, like I had been reading for too long.
Something entered my range, moving far faster than any insect had a right to and sending a splitting pain through my skull. Whatever it was was big and...wrong, somehow. I could hear something moving through the water towards me, the splash of its wake crashing against the chunks of concrete lying around me. I tried to back away, but I was already flat against the ruin. Was the thing moving despite my control, or was I subconsciously trying to get a better look? It turned a corner to round a particularly intact ruin and I saw it. It was a blur of segmented chitin and sharp legs, churning the water into a white foam where it moved. It was a muddy brown, and big, about the size of a large car. I didn't have time to appreciate the size before it was on top of me, two of its legs punched through the concrete to my right and left, its head hanging over my face. Grafted, somehow, where the giant arthropod's face should be was a human head, jaw missing and eyelids torn away. It smelled like rot and I felt the strength in my legs begin to give out. It was looking at me, and I could get flashes of its senses, like looking in a mirror. On either side of the head, where it's mandibles should be were human arms. They were twitching, and even flopped against my shoulder. Something was making a high pitched mewling sound. Was it me? Wasn't I supposed to be a hero? How could I possibly fight this thing with no bugs and only the smallest hint of control over it?
I was saved from having to figure it out by a bolt of something pitch black erupting from just between the thing's eyes. The thing reeled back away from me, making an angry chittering hiss. It whirled around faster than my eyes could track just in time for another bolt to tear through its center. The monstrosity screamed and then collapsed, a pebbly grey texture creeping across its skin and exoskeleton as it fell.
Behind the thing was my savior, a woman about my height, wearing a black half-cloak thing with a hood and a black mask of a woman's face underneath. For a long second, we just stood there staring at each other, me gasping for breath and her almost unnaturally still, a small black crossbow still raised and pointed at where the monster had been just a moment before. I had obviously been too distracted by that whatever-it-was to notice the world around me, as I was surprised to see a thin black fog rising off every surface within reach.
The moment ended with the woman spinning away from me, her half-cape fluttering dramatically behind her. She muttered something I couldn't quite catch before stomping off through the seawater.
I made to ask her about what had just happened, but I found myself fixated on the petrified remains of the insect thing. It had been turned to some kind of a rough grey stone, sapping all color away from it, but I could still make out the form. A giant centipede with human parts grafted on. I could still see the stitch marks in the stone. The only thing I could think of was Bonesaw but that wasn't - we would have had some warning for that, right? The Nine had already visited Brockton Bay, when I was a toddler, so why would they be back? But then, what else could have happened to make...this make sense?
"Hey," the masked woman said. I managed to pry my focus away from the statue of the monster to where the woman was standing a few yards down what once had been a street. The water was midway up her thighs out there, and her back was still to me, only her head turned to address me over her shoulder. The costume was sparking my memory but I couldn't quite place it. "If you want to survive, follow me."
I stumbled my way out from the ruins I was half-inside. There was a bit of a drop, I assumed moving from the foundation of whatever building this had been to the ground. The ground squished under my sneakers and I almost fell over. As I rushed to catch up with the cape, my shoes were nearly sucked off my feet by the silty mud underneath the water.
We didn't go very far, maybe three blocks if I was judging by Brockton Bay standards. It was slow going, picking through the seawater that sometimes rose as high as our stomachs. The woman in black skirted around seemingly random chunks of the ruins, and it was only after I tried to cut one of those invisible corners and nearly slipped into a hidden sinkhole that I realized she was keeping us to a path that kept our heads above water. About halfway through I finally remembered where I had seen her before: her mask and half-cloak looked like one of the local Wards, Shadow something-or-other. Shadow Walker? We took so many turns that it was no surprise that I hadn't been able to see our destination through the ruins. A small hill poked out from under the water, and what looked to be the remains of a brick church, just barely intact enough to recognize, stood surrounded by the only dry land in sight. Standing at the top of the shattered steeple looking down at us was a statuesque woman in all black motorcycle leathers and solid black helmet. She raised her hand to greet shadow girl but otherwise didn't move. The all black figure in a broken tower against a swirling, clouded sky felt like something from a movie or an album cover, not real life, and I wasn't aware I had stopped to stare until shadow girl hissed "come on," at me from the steps. I hurried to catch up with her.
The building looked even worse from the inside. The brick had crumbled away almost entirely at one corner, and the roof had apparently been torn entirely off. There were splinters of wood that might have once been pews, but they were unrecognizable now and the floor was a pockmarked mess of ripped up tile and fallen stone. Shadow girl was making her way over to one of the empty windows and sitting on the sill. There were three other people in various states of confused panic in the room. One was curled up against a wall with their head buried in their hands, their features and even their gender hidden by familiar baggy sweatshirts. Another, a larger guy that looked like he attended Brockton College, was leaning against one of the more intact sections of wall, trying to look casual. It was undermined by the way his eyes darted about the room wildly and his finger was a blur where he was tapping it against his arm. Finally, in the center of the room, a boy about my age paced back and forth, running his hands through his hair. He looked kind of thin and gangly and was wearing a backpack, but I didn't recognize him so he might not have gone to Winslow. Seeing his bag made me remember I still had mine on, and I stopped where I was to pull it around behind me and check on it. As I had feared, the water had gotten into the bottom and all my textbooks were ruined. Fuck. Somehow, it was that realization that made me pissed off and afraid, despite everything going on around me. I internally berated myself for my screwed up priorities.
I was pulled out of that mental tangent by scraping footsteps on the stairs behind me and I turned around to see another cape entering the church. He was almost uncomfortably musclebound, but his costume was basically a tee-shirt and jeans and a ski mask. He had to lightly shoulder me out of the way because I had been standing almost right in the entrance to the church. I caught him glance at Shadow girl and give a subtle shake of his head before he moved to the middle of the ruin and waited with his arms crossed.
Before anyone could make a comment or start asking about what was happening, the woman in the motorcycle gear fell out of the sky right in front of him, the stone cracking around the point of landing. She sprung back up immediately and didn't seem to be hurt, but the abrupt entrance and display of her power was unsettling.
"Hi all. I imagine you're all wondering what's going on," the cape said cheerfully, her voice slightly muffled by the helmet. "Let's do introductions first. You might know me as Bombast, but you can call me Matsuri." She pulled the helmet off and cradled it against her hip, revealing a young-looking Asian girl with a spiky pixie haircut dyed partially red. She looked around college age, maybe her early twenties. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't have told you anything about her cape career. After giving us a moment to admire her introduction, she continued. "Sulking over on the window is Shadow Stalker of the local Wards. Hey, Stalker, you going to unmask?"
The Ward was silent for a moment, examining us civilians, before answering. "Maybe if they survive their first trip," she said dismissively.
Matsuri was at her side in a flash, her hand rubbing the other girl's hood as though mussing her hair. "Aw, my little kohai is such a tsundere, isn't it cute?" Shadow Stalker responded by giving her a silent finger, which seemed to do nothing to dampen the older cape's enthusiasm. "Browbeat, what about you?" The muscular guy just shrugged, managing to look uncomfortable. "Whatever. Okay, so," she pulled a bright red card out from a pocket, causing my heart to drop into my stomach, "you all recognize this, right? My Psyren card. You are all officially members of Psyren. Our jobs now are to keep you four from dying."
I think all of us jumped when the skinny pacing guy managed to find his voice and spit, "Fuck you, where did you take us? Where are we?"
The cape turned to look at him and suddenly she wasn't at all cheerful. She pinned the guy where he stood with just her stare. "I didn't do anything to you, besides maybe save your life. Being in Psyren means Nemesis Q gets to pull you around, out of your normal life whenever they feel like it. I - we - have spent years jumping back and forth between this world and our home trying to understand what Nemesis Q's goals are and trying to keep as many people as possible alive, and here's a secret: the three of us, we're pretty much the only ones still in the game. We'll get to giving you the nuanced details of what we've figured out once we're out of imminent danger, but for now, sit down, shut up, and listen to us because we have the experience you need to survive, capisce?" We were quiet as she regarded us each in turn, as if checking to be sure we understood. Then, as quickly as her tone had changed the first time, she went back to cheerful. "Good! Now, here's your first lesson: when you enter Psyren, your first priority is to find the telephone! Once everyone is together, that's when -" she was interrupted by a phone I had missed in the corner right next to me ringing. " - that. That happens," the cape finished awkwardly. "Well, go on, pick it up," she said. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize it was me she was talking to, as I was the closest one to the receiver.
I grabbed the phone and put it to my ear, but somehow it didn't stop ringing. The sound was pushing against the building headache, and I felt it get worse as I stared awkwardly at the other Psyren "members," waiting for something to happen.
My vision blacked out.
Those seeking Psyren shall taste power and despair.
Those seeking Psyren shall taste power and despair.
Those who reach Psyren shall be granted the world.
There is only one exit in this game.
Those seeking Psyren, those searching for the exit to this world,
Find the gate.
In the blackness, a window opened up. It showed the inside of a ruined building, partially intact much like the church we were in. Steel beams were twisted and broken around huge gashes in the building's walls, but it rose about one story above the water outside. The intact ceiling suggested there was a partial floor above it. In the center of the frame, clearly the focus, laying on the dust covered but largely undamaged floor in the corner of the room, was an intact cell phone. It stayed in place for a second, then my vision returned. In the back of my mind, was a new image, one that didn't fade with the rest of the vision. A map.
Looking around, the other newcomers seemed as confused and off-balance as I was, but the three capes, they were frozen. Matsuri was staring off into space with a slight frown.
"Fuck." That was the Ward in the window. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." No one responded, and I opened my mouth to ask the obvious question.
And then the Endbringer siren went off.
**********
Finally managed to get this out. Honestly, I've never worked with a buffer before. Its a little weird to be so caught up in the end of the next chapter and being really excited about that and then realizing you guys won't get to see it until I've finished another.
Regardless, as you may have noticed, I've changed a few things about how the whole Psyren thing works. There are various reasons for that. One of them is that in the manga, Nemesis Q's power...doesn't really make much sense as a power, as opposed to a plot device. Some of the changes you have seen (or will see) are because I've fiddled with Nemesis Q's power so it makes some kind of sense. Other changes are just for coolness. I mean, really, canon Psyren is just a desert? How does that even happen, given the geographic location? Surely there are much more imaginative directions that setting can go, which is why I took them.
Basically, all the changes come down to fixing some of Psyren's "Lost" syndrome. Psyren had a lot of things in the setup that seemed strange and arbitrary, that were clearly designed to be plot hooks. But because of the way it had to resolve quickly, there was no time to go back and address why those things were they way they were, and it left it so a lot of the setting details didn't make much sense. My favorite part of this crossover is the way that Worm helped me fill in some of those holes and build canon Psyren into a more cohesive whole, instead of a mishmash of story elements designed to be intriguing that never got the chance to be properly fleshed out.
Yeah. This is awesome. And i agree with you in that worm patches up the plot holes of Psyren while slotting in pretty well. So yeah this sounds fun.
But now i want a alt!power story where Taylor or someone else gets psyren powers.
But now i want a alt!power story where Taylor or someone else gets psyren powers.
- Location
- Terra
Glad to see someone doing something with Psyren. Curious to see the RAGE when Shadow Stalker messes up and Taylor figures that mess out.
I'm just so excited to see and read this, looking forward to more!
Accretion 1.3
- Location
- London, 1935. August.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
As one, us civilians all froze, paralyzed by the wailing sound of the siren. An Endbringer, here, now? After my guess about the Nine, maybe it made sense. The ringing in my ears - maybe I had gone unconscious and woke up just a moment ago? That wouldn't explain why the sirens were going off only now, and why I hadn't been able to see anyone fighting. I hadn't seen anyone at all, in fact. Maybe - I didn't want to think it, but I couldn't help but follow the thought to the logical conclusion - we were the only ones left? What were we even supposed to do about the sirens? I didn't know where we were, so I had no idea where to find the shelters.
Matsuri's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. "Stop it." She was back to the deadly serious tone she had used to berate the skinny guy. "It's not what you think." She was looking each of us in the eyes in turn. "You'll need to get used to it, the sirens go off the moment we get the map in our heads. Speaking of, see the 'S' symbol? That's us. That's the starting point." Her words were getting quicker and more clipped as she spoke, and Shadow Stalker was still muttering curses to herself. They were worried about something, even if they said the sirens didn't matter. "That horn symbol is the siren tower. Normally, I would tell you never to go close to that red circle around it. That's the exclusion zone, and being stupid about it is how people get killed. The bad news is that little arrow symbol, about halfway in to the center of the exclusion zone? That's our way out. Our only way out. " She exchanged a look with the other two capes before focusing back on us. "You four, group up in the center here. Keep an eye out and shout if there's anything coming that you think we don't see. Stalker, give them something to defend themselves with."
The Ward didn't even look up at us, mumbling something about "not even mattering" but she gestured and the cloud of black smoke that hung around her condensed into four black rods, each pointed at one end. The older cape gestured as well and they floated over to hover at arm height by each of us. I reached out to mine. It was surprisingly smooth and cold, like it was made of stone, but it was light, more like a sharpened pool cue than a proper weapon.
"If anything gets through us," Matsuri said, addressing us again, "you're probably already dead, but just in case, aim for the green sphere thing. Sometimes it's hidden, but it's usually close to the center of mass." She looked back to the capes. "Browbeat, you take the front, Shadow Stalker, rearguard. Everyone ready?" I looked over to the other non-costumed civilians that shared my wide-eyed look of confusion and panic. How could we possibly be ready? "Good, let's go." Browbeat nudged his way past me again and Bombast put her helmet back on and strode after him.
None of us moved until Shadow Stalker's smoke passed over us, accompanied by a subtle push, like a gust of wind. "Let's go," the cape in question said, herding us out the door and back into the flooded ruins after her two companions.
The capes were able to keep a punishing pace, despite the fact that none of them seemed to move faster than an easy jog. Part of it was the water. While they seemed to cut right through it as if it wasn't even there, the rest of us were having a much harder time fighting against the resistance it put up. I had been running for about a week already in preparation for going out on patrol, but I had clearly not built up the kind of muscle needed to jog through seawater that ranged from calf to knee height.
Matsuri - maybe Bombast, now that she had her helmet on? - had obviously used her vantage in the belfry to get to know the layout of the flooded city, because she was directing Browbeat around chunks of buildings and through clear patches that might have once been streets. Besides her occasional prompts, the only sound was the wailing of the siren in the distance. The bi-annual drills had always been unnerving, but hearing that siren in this context, without the sure knowledge that it was just a test, that everything was alright, it set my teeth on edge.
It was made so much worse by the total emptiness around us. Did the others feel it too, or was it a side-effect of my powers, that the lack of life, animal or human, made me so uncomfortable? I had been near the ocean since I had gotten my powers, and I knew that in shallows like this I should be feeling something: crab, lobster, shrimp, anything. And yet my powers were completely silent. It made the city feel sterile, drained of life. Like a 3D model of a flooded city, not the real thing. It was a feeling that was reinforced by the darkness, the lack of any noticeable shadows as the meager sunlight was diffused evenly through the heavy cloud cover. And through it all, the piercing siren's call, looming ahead of us constantly. It hammered into my skull, matching and amplifying the building headache that was already there.
By the time Bombast called us to stop, I was gasping for breath. Bombast and the other capes, though, barely seemed tired.
"We're right on the edge of the exclusion zone. Stay close, call out if you see anything moving, and keep up," she said. "We'll need to move faster once we're in the red zone, so take a moment to recover. When you're ready, we'll go."
I took the opportunity to glance at my fellow non-veteran Psiren "members." It was gratifying to see that I was not the only one having trouble keeping up. Two of the others were in a similar condition as I was and one, the thin guy who had yelled at Matsuri before, was even worse, doubled up and on his knees, shuddering as he tried to catch his breath and releasing a torrent of muttered cursing every time he exhaled. I exchanged a glance with the college guy over his head and then went back to watching our self-appointed cape guardians.
In stark contrast to our difficulties, the capes seemed to be entirely unaffected by the run. If anything, they seemed to have too much energy, pacing back and forth, their eyes constantly glancing to the horizon. Maybe they were worried about whatever it was we were supposed to be looking out for - more of the centipede monsters? The ruins around us were much more sparse than they had been when we started, which gave us a much clearer view of what was around us. There were still a lot of buildings blocking line-of-sight, though, and it was with that and the anxiety of a city full of Nilbog-Bonesaw abominations that I pushed through my pounding headache and the now-much-louder siren's scream to check with my power.
It was lucky I had chosen that moment to do so, as I managed to feel three or four flickering presences partway into my range. The pain in my head spiked in intensity, almost driving me to my knees. I had never needed to actively focus on my powers to notice bugs in my range, so it was beginning to dawn on me that the headache, the strange bug monsters, and my power's sudden incontinence were related.
"Something's coming," I managed to grit out, pointing in the direction they were approaching from. "Maybe four? They're flying, I think."
There was no hesitation in the capes' response, no questioning how I knew. Browbeat and Bombast turned to look in that direction, Matsuri saying, "breaktime's over. We need to run, now."
We all pulled ourselves up and struggled to start moving again. Our Ward babysitter didn't seem impressed by our efforts, though, and sent another wave of her smoke over us, this one much less gentle and nearly throwing me off my feet. "Lets go, move." She sounded on edge, and when I glanced back I saw she was looking in the opposite direction from where I had indicated, though I couldn't tell what if anything she was looking at.
If I had thought it was difficult to keep up before, it was nothing compared to the pace Shadow Stalker clearly wanted to set for us now. She pushed us up to nearly a dead sprint. At first, the other two capes didn't move. Then, once our group had overtaken them, they jumped forward. They didn't appear to need any time to accelerate, just a single lunge that threw them into a sprint faster than I had ever seen a human run. Just like before, where we were struggling with the knee-high water, they seemed to cut through it like it wasn't even there. My muscles were screaming at me, even after only a few feet, and I suspected if I didn't keep running I would collapse.
Underneath the piercing wail of the siren, I began to hear a low buzzing sound. I thought it might be coming from whatever I had felt with my power earlier, but with both the siren and my head distracting me, it was hard to tell.
Before we had moved more than a block from our resting point, Shadow Stalker yelled, "Tavoo, nine-o'clock!"
Ahead of us, Bombast planted her feet and came to an abrupt stop. In one motion, she pivoted and turned ninety degrees to face the exact opposite direction I had pointed earlier, throwing her hand out. The water parted in front of her in the wake of some massive invisible object passing through like a freight train. I followed its movement in time to see a handful of dark shapes in its path pulverized into bright red smears.
I was interrupted in my gawking by another voice, gruff and male, calling "engaging, one-thirty." It was Browbeat, the only time he had talked this whole time. He wasn't alone. Somehow, in the time I had looked away, a group of twisted shapes had jumped out of the ruins slightly to the side of our path. They were hunched over, with long, alien columns of torso-neck running between humanlike legs and what looked like a grotesquely enlarged equine skull. They had no arms, and their only other appendages were the single jagged horns in the center of their heads. Where a horse's mouth should be was more like the maw of an angler fish, all gaping underbite and bristling with impossibly long, sharp teeth. In the center, where the human waist was stitched on, were cantaloup-sized spheres that looked like they were made of bright green glass.
Browbeat was fighting the things with his fists, his muscles bulging larger than they had before. The monsters seemed to be trying to spear him on their horns, but he was managing to play keep-away, rewarding each charge with a sidestep and a punch to the eye that threw the monster against the walls of the ruins hard enough to leave cracks.
I must not have been the only one stunned by the sudden violence, because Shadow Stalker pushed us forward with another wave of smoke. She didn't have time to yell at us, because right then the buzzing managed to overtake the siren in how deafening it was. Four flying shapes darted out from around a ruin a bit to the right of and behind us. They looked like insects with rough porcelain exoskeletons, each a slightly different type of bug. I recognized a wasp and what looked like a cross between an actual dragon and a dragonfly. Terrifyingly, each was the size of a child, and they were moving faster in the air than we were on the waterlogged ground. I could still feel them flickering in and out of my power. I tried briefly to control them, give them orders to attack each other like I might with other insects. My head exploded with pain and I must have blacked out, because the next thing I knew there was a hand wrenching me along by my arm.
I heard two twanging sounds. I tried to shake off the migraine, but it wasn't getting any better. I swear someone shouted my name. Another twanging sound. When I managed to regain my senses, it was to a distracted Shadow Stalker dragging me with her. She was busy aiming her crossbow at the squadron of flying insect monsters, the weapon's string drawing itself back as her black smoke condensed into a solid black bolt. She wasn't moving at nearly the speed the other capes had been running, probably to keep behind the rest of us, so I was able to find my feet and walk properly on my own power. She acknowledged my recovery with a glance my way before turning back to her airborne opponents. Now that I looked, they were down one terrifying porcelain flying monster, so I assumed she must have hit it in the interim.
It wasn't the only thing I had missed. Ahead of the little civilian group, the number of monsters the capes were fighting had grown exponentially. Browbeat was nearly being swarmed, and I could make out some cuts along his jacket, though his skin didn't appear to be broken. He was holding his own, but seemed to be only holding; he was no longer risking taking the offense and was instead focused on warding off or avoiding attacks.
Bombast, on the other hand, seemed completely untroubled. She moved her hand like a conductor, and all around her, monsters were crushed by waves of invisible force. She was the only reason Browbeat could survive his swarm of opponents, as every once in a while an invisible disruption would sweep through the water around him in a circle, tossing aside most of his enemies like bowling pins and leaving him with a much clearer field.
I heard another twang and a sharp cracking sound and another of the flying creatures fell out of the sky. Shadow Stalker used the moment of calm that bought her to take a potshot at the crowd of monsters ahead of the group before returning to warding away her arial opponents.
One of the other civilians was falling behind, though he was still ahead of Shadow Stalker and I. It was the skinny guy who had swore at Bombast earlier. He looked like he was flagging, and even as he slowed he was doubling over and coughing. I could barely hear anything in the din of the fight and the piercing shriek of the siren, but I thought I made him out yelling, "I can't...have to…"
Shadow Stalker was already distracted keeping track of her battle with the bug things and me, but she did shout something at the guy, some kind of warning. I tried to pull myself from her grasp, now that I had my feet under me again, so that she would have a hand free to grab the guy, but with her attention split two ways already she didn't seem to get what I was trying to do and only held onto me tighter.
His stride began to slow and he dropped behind Shadow Stalker and I, first by a few inches, then by feet. I tried to reach out and grab him, but he waved at me and said something I couldn't quite hear. He was out of my line of vision for a second. Despite the chaos of the fighting around me, despite the pounding of my headache and the siren so loud I could feel the vibrations in the air, I heard the wet crackling sound as clearly as I had ever heard anything in my life. When I turned back, there was a fist through his chest. Behind him was a hulking figure that looked humanoid. It had stitch marks on the arms and a strange, helmet-like head made of the same rough porcelain material the insects were made of. It wore black robes with a scuffed leather apron. It had a single, glowing eye in the center of its head.
It flicked its hand out and the kid slid off its arm to flop limply into the water. He bobbed back up for a moment in time for me to see a familiar grey spreading across the guy's - the corpse's - skin. I think I screamed something but I wasn't even sure in the moment what I was saying. Whatever it was, it must have grabbed the capes' attention.
Shadow Stalker shoved me forward and spun around, firing a bolt from her crossbow that the thing batted out of the air with a forearm. The distance between us and it was already growing, as it stood still while we ran. Before it could work to rectify that, Bombast must have taken notice, because two fast-moving invisible objects arced around through the water to collide right where it stood. For the first time, I saw something stand against Bombast's power. The thing had extended its arms out to either side and caught the invisible objects, trembling with the struggle of holding them apart. At first it looked like it was failing, as its arms began to bow and bend at the elbow. Shadow Stalker took that as a cue to turn her crossbow back to her previous targets. But the thing wasn't done, and slowly it managed to stop the movement of Bombast's force fields and even more slowly began pushing them apart to stand triumphant.
And then, as if the timing was planned, a third object slammed into its front, throwing the monster back and out of sight.
It was such an unexpected turnaround that a part of me wanted to laugh. Instead, I turned my attention back to the running and the fight going on ahead of us. The victory against whatever that was behind us had cost the capes in the battle ahead. Shadow Stalker had managed to shoot down another of the insect monsters, but the remaining one had nearly closed in on the two other civilians. They were holding it off with lunges with the black spears the Ward had given them, but it was a near thing. Further ahead, Browbeat was no longer holding his own against a mob of monsters. He was doing little more than taking attacks, and his clothes were bloody and torn to rags. He still stood, but he was surrounded. Bombast's attack on the thing that had - that had killed the skinny guy must have pulled her attention away from clearing the crowds around him.
At a shout from Bombast, we moved to skirt around a particularly large, intact ruin, and I got a glimpse of the siren tower. It was huge, like a small skyscraper, and shaped like a radio tower that had had the scaffolding filled in with steel and concrete. It was still some ways distant, and I had to boggle at the size of the speakers at its apex.
Shadow Stalker returned to firing at the insect monster as we rounded the corner of the building, but stopped after a moment to yell, "it's in the water!" Almost as if that was a signal, something dragged another of the civilians down in a flash of white. It was the kid who had been huddled against the wall. They didn't come back up, but a red stain spread through the water. I felt bile rise up in my throat.
Bombast and Browbeat were occupied with the horde in front of us, but Matsuri took a moment to yell directions at us. The building we were skirting wasn't in the path to our destination - it was our destination, and the stairs up to the next floor were just around the corner. She and Browbeat had stopped just beyond the corner to hold off the other monsters.
I made to dash for the corner, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me. Shadow Stalker was tracking something under the water with her crossbow, and it was right in my path. Out of the corner of my vision, I saw the last insect monster descend upon the college guy just before being crushed by Bombast's power. Beside me, Shadow Stalker swore, making it clear she had seen the same thing I had. She fired into the water and we both lunged, hoping to make it the last few feet to our goal. When nothing pulled me under I knew I was free, and I glanced back to check on my Ward guardian.
Something long, thin, and white was wrapped around her legs and arms. She was fighting against it but was locked in a stalemate, struggling against its snakelike head held in her right hand. I hesitated. I could see the stairway and the college guy that was crawling his way up it, trying to staunch the bleeding in his shoulder and chest where the bug thing had speared him. A few feet away stood a Ward, trapped by another monster, it's eyeless face growing ever closer to her neck. I was a hero. I was supposed to be a hero.
One step, and then another. The water seemed thicker than it had been before. Maybe I was just exhausted from all the running. I took a moment to aim and then, with the last of my strength leaped towards my target. I speared the eyeless water snake through its stupid green orb.
Shadow Stalker stumbled forward, her form wavering strangely as she threw off the limp body before it turned to stone. I nearly collapsed into her and she caught me, holding my weight up against her shoulder. She guided me around the corner again. I thought I caught a muttered, "holy fuck, Hebert." She practically had to carry me up the stairs. Behind us, Browbeat and Bombast filed in, some sort of invisible forcefield from Bombast sealing off the entryway.
At the top of the stairs was a room, exactly like the vision we had gotten from the phone. The only difference was the Brockton College guy, sprawled out on the ground and breathing raggedly. The sound of the siren was marginally quieter with the walls blocking it, but it was still almost painfully piercing. Matsuri stooped to pick up the cell phone in the corner, raising it up to show all of us.
"All right," she yelled over the sound of the siren, clearly trying to sound cheerful, "we're - we almost all made it." She was the only one who wasn't ragged and breathing heavily. The Brockton College guy was losing blood fast, and Shadow Stalker and I were doubled over and gasping for air. Browbeat might have been the worst. His clothes were little more than rags, and I saw cuts and gashes all across his body. His left arm was hanging unmoving at his side, and I had seen him walking with a limp. It was a miracle he was still standing, really, given that I had seen him in melee with dozens of monsters like the one that had attacked me when I had first appeared. He was standing at the window, keeping watch for any more fliers. Comparatively, Matsuri was only barely breathing heavily, and her leather motorcycle suit was pristine. "Stalker, you show the newbies what to do to get back home." She tossed the phone to the Ward.
The Ward pulled her red Psyren card out of a pocket. "Sure. Turn the phone on, put the card over the screen, then hit the dial button," she said, demonstrating as she spoke. "Just put it to your ear and you're gone." She did as she said and after a moment, vanished into the air, the phone clattering to the floor where she had stood.
Matsuri had pulled her helmet off and joined Browbeat at the window, though she was turned so she could see us as well. "You're injured," she said to the guy on the ground, "you next."
The guy fumbled at his waist, but didn't seem to have the strength to reach into them, so I went into the pocket and found the card, passing him the phone as I did. His hands were shaking badly, but then, all of us were shaking. He managed to follow Shadow Stalker's instruction, and after a moment, he had disappeared too.
Matsuri nodded to me. "You're next."
I grabbed the phone and went into my own pocket to get the card, placing it against the plastic of the screen. I had never used a cell phone before, since neither Dad nor I had been comfortable with them since Mom's death. I inferred the green receiver symbol was the dial button and I hit that. I took a moment to meet Matsuri's eyes and look at the strange, terrible, bloody world of Psyren I had been forced into. I put the phone to my ear.
The moment before I disappeared, a black crossbow bolt erupted from the back of Browbeat's skull.
Matsuri's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. "Stop it." She was back to the deadly serious tone she had used to berate the skinny guy. "It's not what you think." She was looking each of us in the eyes in turn. "You'll need to get used to it, the sirens go off the moment we get the map in our heads. Speaking of, see the 'S' symbol? That's us. That's the starting point." Her words were getting quicker and more clipped as she spoke, and Shadow Stalker was still muttering curses to herself. They were worried about something, even if they said the sirens didn't matter. "That horn symbol is the siren tower. Normally, I would tell you never to go close to that red circle around it. That's the exclusion zone, and being stupid about it is how people get killed. The bad news is that little arrow symbol, about halfway in to the center of the exclusion zone? That's our way out. Our only way out. " She exchanged a look with the other two capes before focusing back on us. "You four, group up in the center here. Keep an eye out and shout if there's anything coming that you think we don't see. Stalker, give them something to defend themselves with."
The Ward didn't even look up at us, mumbling something about "not even mattering" but she gestured and the cloud of black smoke that hung around her condensed into four black rods, each pointed at one end. The older cape gestured as well and they floated over to hover at arm height by each of us. I reached out to mine. It was surprisingly smooth and cold, like it was made of stone, but it was light, more like a sharpened pool cue than a proper weapon.
"If anything gets through us," Matsuri said, addressing us again, "you're probably already dead, but just in case, aim for the green sphere thing. Sometimes it's hidden, but it's usually close to the center of mass." She looked back to the capes. "Browbeat, you take the front, Shadow Stalker, rearguard. Everyone ready?" I looked over to the other non-costumed civilians that shared my wide-eyed look of confusion and panic. How could we possibly be ready? "Good, let's go." Browbeat nudged his way past me again and Bombast put her helmet back on and strode after him.
None of us moved until Shadow Stalker's smoke passed over us, accompanied by a subtle push, like a gust of wind. "Let's go," the cape in question said, herding us out the door and back into the flooded ruins after her two companions.
**********
The capes were able to keep a punishing pace, despite the fact that none of them seemed to move faster than an easy jog. Part of it was the water. While they seemed to cut right through it as if it wasn't even there, the rest of us were having a much harder time fighting against the resistance it put up. I had been running for about a week already in preparation for going out on patrol, but I had clearly not built up the kind of muscle needed to jog through seawater that ranged from calf to knee height.
Matsuri - maybe Bombast, now that she had her helmet on? - had obviously used her vantage in the belfry to get to know the layout of the flooded city, because she was directing Browbeat around chunks of buildings and through clear patches that might have once been streets. Besides her occasional prompts, the only sound was the wailing of the siren in the distance. The bi-annual drills had always been unnerving, but hearing that siren in this context, without the sure knowledge that it was just a test, that everything was alright, it set my teeth on edge.
It was made so much worse by the total emptiness around us. Did the others feel it too, or was it a side-effect of my powers, that the lack of life, animal or human, made me so uncomfortable? I had been near the ocean since I had gotten my powers, and I knew that in shallows like this I should be feeling something: crab, lobster, shrimp, anything. And yet my powers were completely silent. It made the city feel sterile, drained of life. Like a 3D model of a flooded city, not the real thing. It was a feeling that was reinforced by the darkness, the lack of any noticeable shadows as the meager sunlight was diffused evenly through the heavy cloud cover. And through it all, the piercing siren's call, looming ahead of us constantly. It hammered into my skull, matching and amplifying the building headache that was already there.
By the time Bombast called us to stop, I was gasping for breath. Bombast and the other capes, though, barely seemed tired.
"We're right on the edge of the exclusion zone. Stay close, call out if you see anything moving, and keep up," she said. "We'll need to move faster once we're in the red zone, so take a moment to recover. When you're ready, we'll go."
I took the opportunity to glance at my fellow non-veteran Psiren "members." It was gratifying to see that I was not the only one having trouble keeping up. Two of the others were in a similar condition as I was and one, the thin guy who had yelled at Matsuri before, was even worse, doubled up and on his knees, shuddering as he tried to catch his breath and releasing a torrent of muttered cursing every time he exhaled. I exchanged a glance with the college guy over his head and then went back to watching our self-appointed cape guardians.
In stark contrast to our difficulties, the capes seemed to be entirely unaffected by the run. If anything, they seemed to have too much energy, pacing back and forth, their eyes constantly glancing to the horizon. Maybe they were worried about whatever it was we were supposed to be looking out for - more of the centipede monsters? The ruins around us were much more sparse than they had been when we started, which gave us a much clearer view of what was around us. There were still a lot of buildings blocking line-of-sight, though, and it was with that and the anxiety of a city full of Nilbog-Bonesaw abominations that I pushed through my pounding headache and the now-much-louder siren's scream to check with my power.
It was lucky I had chosen that moment to do so, as I managed to feel three or four flickering presences partway into my range. The pain in my head spiked in intensity, almost driving me to my knees. I had never needed to actively focus on my powers to notice bugs in my range, so it was beginning to dawn on me that the headache, the strange bug monsters, and my power's sudden incontinence were related.
"Something's coming," I managed to grit out, pointing in the direction they were approaching from. "Maybe four? They're flying, I think."
There was no hesitation in the capes' response, no questioning how I knew. Browbeat and Bombast turned to look in that direction, Matsuri saying, "breaktime's over. We need to run, now."
We all pulled ourselves up and struggled to start moving again. Our Ward babysitter didn't seem impressed by our efforts, though, and sent another wave of her smoke over us, this one much less gentle and nearly throwing me off my feet. "Lets go, move." She sounded on edge, and when I glanced back I saw she was looking in the opposite direction from where I had indicated, though I couldn't tell what if anything she was looking at.
If I had thought it was difficult to keep up before, it was nothing compared to the pace Shadow Stalker clearly wanted to set for us now. She pushed us up to nearly a dead sprint. At first, the other two capes didn't move. Then, once our group had overtaken them, they jumped forward. They didn't appear to need any time to accelerate, just a single lunge that threw them into a sprint faster than I had ever seen a human run. Just like before, where we were struggling with the knee-high water, they seemed to cut through it like it wasn't even there. My muscles were screaming at me, even after only a few feet, and I suspected if I didn't keep running I would collapse.
Underneath the piercing wail of the siren, I began to hear a low buzzing sound. I thought it might be coming from whatever I had felt with my power earlier, but with both the siren and my head distracting me, it was hard to tell.
Before we had moved more than a block from our resting point, Shadow Stalker yelled, "Tavoo, nine-o'clock!"
Ahead of us, Bombast planted her feet and came to an abrupt stop. In one motion, she pivoted and turned ninety degrees to face the exact opposite direction I had pointed earlier, throwing her hand out. The water parted in front of her in the wake of some massive invisible object passing through like a freight train. I followed its movement in time to see a handful of dark shapes in its path pulverized into bright red smears.
I was interrupted in my gawking by another voice, gruff and male, calling "engaging, one-thirty." It was Browbeat, the only time he had talked this whole time. He wasn't alone. Somehow, in the time I had looked away, a group of twisted shapes had jumped out of the ruins slightly to the side of our path. They were hunched over, with long, alien columns of torso-neck running between humanlike legs and what looked like a grotesquely enlarged equine skull. They had no arms, and their only other appendages were the single jagged horns in the center of their heads. Where a horse's mouth should be was more like the maw of an angler fish, all gaping underbite and bristling with impossibly long, sharp teeth. In the center, where the human waist was stitched on, were cantaloup-sized spheres that looked like they were made of bright green glass.
Browbeat was fighting the things with his fists, his muscles bulging larger than they had before. The monsters seemed to be trying to spear him on their horns, but he was managing to play keep-away, rewarding each charge with a sidestep and a punch to the eye that threw the monster against the walls of the ruins hard enough to leave cracks.
I must not have been the only one stunned by the sudden violence, because Shadow Stalker pushed us forward with another wave of smoke. She didn't have time to yell at us, because right then the buzzing managed to overtake the siren in how deafening it was. Four flying shapes darted out from around a ruin a bit to the right of and behind us. They looked like insects with rough porcelain exoskeletons, each a slightly different type of bug. I recognized a wasp and what looked like a cross between an actual dragon and a dragonfly. Terrifyingly, each was the size of a child, and they were moving faster in the air than we were on the waterlogged ground. I could still feel them flickering in and out of my power. I tried briefly to control them, give them orders to attack each other like I might with other insects. My head exploded with pain and I must have blacked out, because the next thing I knew there was a hand wrenching me along by my arm.
I heard two twanging sounds. I tried to shake off the migraine, but it wasn't getting any better. I swear someone shouted my name. Another twanging sound. When I managed to regain my senses, it was to a distracted Shadow Stalker dragging me with her. She was busy aiming her crossbow at the squadron of flying insect monsters, the weapon's string drawing itself back as her black smoke condensed into a solid black bolt. She wasn't moving at nearly the speed the other capes had been running, probably to keep behind the rest of us, so I was able to find my feet and walk properly on my own power. She acknowledged my recovery with a glance my way before turning back to her airborne opponents. Now that I looked, they were down one terrifying porcelain flying monster, so I assumed she must have hit it in the interim.
It wasn't the only thing I had missed. Ahead of the little civilian group, the number of monsters the capes were fighting had grown exponentially. Browbeat was nearly being swarmed, and I could make out some cuts along his jacket, though his skin didn't appear to be broken. He was holding his own, but seemed to be only holding; he was no longer risking taking the offense and was instead focused on warding off or avoiding attacks.
Bombast, on the other hand, seemed completely untroubled. She moved her hand like a conductor, and all around her, monsters were crushed by waves of invisible force. She was the only reason Browbeat could survive his swarm of opponents, as every once in a while an invisible disruption would sweep through the water around him in a circle, tossing aside most of his enemies like bowling pins and leaving him with a much clearer field.
I heard another twang and a sharp cracking sound and another of the flying creatures fell out of the sky. Shadow Stalker used the moment of calm that bought her to take a potshot at the crowd of monsters ahead of the group before returning to warding away her arial opponents.
One of the other civilians was falling behind, though he was still ahead of Shadow Stalker and I. It was the skinny guy who had swore at Bombast earlier. He looked like he was flagging, and even as he slowed he was doubling over and coughing. I could barely hear anything in the din of the fight and the piercing shriek of the siren, but I thought I made him out yelling, "I can't...have to…"
Shadow Stalker was already distracted keeping track of her battle with the bug things and me, but she did shout something at the guy, some kind of warning. I tried to pull myself from her grasp, now that I had my feet under me again, so that she would have a hand free to grab the guy, but with her attention split two ways already she didn't seem to get what I was trying to do and only held onto me tighter.
His stride began to slow and he dropped behind Shadow Stalker and I, first by a few inches, then by feet. I tried to reach out and grab him, but he waved at me and said something I couldn't quite hear. He was out of my line of vision for a second. Despite the chaos of the fighting around me, despite the pounding of my headache and the siren so loud I could feel the vibrations in the air, I heard the wet crackling sound as clearly as I had ever heard anything in my life. When I turned back, there was a fist through his chest. Behind him was a hulking figure that looked humanoid. It had stitch marks on the arms and a strange, helmet-like head made of the same rough porcelain material the insects were made of. It wore black robes with a scuffed leather apron. It had a single, glowing eye in the center of its head.
It flicked its hand out and the kid slid off its arm to flop limply into the water. He bobbed back up for a moment in time for me to see a familiar grey spreading across the guy's - the corpse's - skin. I think I screamed something but I wasn't even sure in the moment what I was saying. Whatever it was, it must have grabbed the capes' attention.
Shadow Stalker shoved me forward and spun around, firing a bolt from her crossbow that the thing batted out of the air with a forearm. The distance between us and it was already growing, as it stood still while we ran. Before it could work to rectify that, Bombast must have taken notice, because two fast-moving invisible objects arced around through the water to collide right where it stood. For the first time, I saw something stand against Bombast's power. The thing had extended its arms out to either side and caught the invisible objects, trembling with the struggle of holding them apart. At first it looked like it was failing, as its arms began to bow and bend at the elbow. Shadow Stalker took that as a cue to turn her crossbow back to her previous targets. But the thing wasn't done, and slowly it managed to stop the movement of Bombast's force fields and even more slowly began pushing them apart to stand triumphant.
And then, as if the timing was planned, a third object slammed into its front, throwing the monster back and out of sight.
It was such an unexpected turnaround that a part of me wanted to laugh. Instead, I turned my attention back to the running and the fight going on ahead of us. The victory against whatever that was behind us had cost the capes in the battle ahead. Shadow Stalker had managed to shoot down another of the insect monsters, but the remaining one had nearly closed in on the two other civilians. They were holding it off with lunges with the black spears the Ward had given them, but it was a near thing. Further ahead, Browbeat was no longer holding his own against a mob of monsters. He was doing little more than taking attacks, and his clothes were bloody and torn to rags. He still stood, but he was surrounded. Bombast's attack on the thing that had - that had killed the skinny guy must have pulled her attention away from clearing the crowds around him.
At a shout from Bombast, we moved to skirt around a particularly large, intact ruin, and I got a glimpse of the siren tower. It was huge, like a small skyscraper, and shaped like a radio tower that had had the scaffolding filled in with steel and concrete. It was still some ways distant, and I had to boggle at the size of the speakers at its apex.
Shadow Stalker returned to firing at the insect monster as we rounded the corner of the building, but stopped after a moment to yell, "it's in the water!" Almost as if that was a signal, something dragged another of the civilians down in a flash of white. It was the kid who had been huddled against the wall. They didn't come back up, but a red stain spread through the water. I felt bile rise up in my throat.
Bombast and Browbeat were occupied with the horde in front of us, but Matsuri took a moment to yell directions at us. The building we were skirting wasn't in the path to our destination - it was our destination, and the stairs up to the next floor were just around the corner. She and Browbeat had stopped just beyond the corner to hold off the other monsters.
I made to dash for the corner, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me. Shadow Stalker was tracking something under the water with her crossbow, and it was right in my path. Out of the corner of my vision, I saw the last insect monster descend upon the college guy just before being crushed by Bombast's power. Beside me, Shadow Stalker swore, making it clear she had seen the same thing I had. She fired into the water and we both lunged, hoping to make it the last few feet to our goal. When nothing pulled me under I knew I was free, and I glanced back to check on my Ward guardian.
Something long, thin, and white was wrapped around her legs and arms. She was fighting against it but was locked in a stalemate, struggling against its snakelike head held in her right hand. I hesitated. I could see the stairway and the college guy that was crawling his way up it, trying to staunch the bleeding in his shoulder and chest where the bug thing had speared him. A few feet away stood a Ward, trapped by another monster, it's eyeless face growing ever closer to her neck. I was a hero. I was supposed to be a hero.
One step, and then another. The water seemed thicker than it had been before. Maybe I was just exhausted from all the running. I took a moment to aim and then, with the last of my strength leaped towards my target. I speared the eyeless water snake through its stupid green orb.
Shadow Stalker stumbled forward, her form wavering strangely as she threw off the limp body before it turned to stone. I nearly collapsed into her and she caught me, holding my weight up against her shoulder. She guided me around the corner again. I thought I caught a muttered, "holy fuck, Hebert." She practically had to carry me up the stairs. Behind us, Browbeat and Bombast filed in, some sort of invisible forcefield from Bombast sealing off the entryway.
At the top of the stairs was a room, exactly like the vision we had gotten from the phone. The only difference was the Brockton College guy, sprawled out on the ground and breathing raggedly. The sound of the siren was marginally quieter with the walls blocking it, but it was still almost painfully piercing. Matsuri stooped to pick up the cell phone in the corner, raising it up to show all of us.
"All right," she yelled over the sound of the siren, clearly trying to sound cheerful, "we're - we almost all made it." She was the only one who wasn't ragged and breathing heavily. The Brockton College guy was losing blood fast, and Shadow Stalker and I were doubled over and gasping for air. Browbeat might have been the worst. His clothes were little more than rags, and I saw cuts and gashes all across his body. His left arm was hanging unmoving at his side, and I had seen him walking with a limp. It was a miracle he was still standing, really, given that I had seen him in melee with dozens of monsters like the one that had attacked me when I had first appeared. He was standing at the window, keeping watch for any more fliers. Comparatively, Matsuri was only barely breathing heavily, and her leather motorcycle suit was pristine. "Stalker, you show the newbies what to do to get back home." She tossed the phone to the Ward.
The Ward pulled her red Psyren card out of a pocket. "Sure. Turn the phone on, put the card over the screen, then hit the dial button," she said, demonstrating as she spoke. "Just put it to your ear and you're gone." She did as she said and after a moment, vanished into the air, the phone clattering to the floor where she had stood.
Matsuri had pulled her helmet off and joined Browbeat at the window, though she was turned so she could see us as well. "You're injured," she said to the guy on the ground, "you next."
The guy fumbled at his waist, but didn't seem to have the strength to reach into them, so I went into the pocket and found the card, passing him the phone as I did. His hands were shaking badly, but then, all of us were shaking. He managed to follow Shadow Stalker's instruction, and after a moment, he had disappeared too.
Matsuri nodded to me. "You're next."
I grabbed the phone and went into my own pocket to get the card, placing it against the plastic of the screen. I had never used a cell phone before, since neither Dad nor I had been comfortable with them since Mom's death. I inferred the green receiver symbol was the dial button and I hit that. I took a moment to meet Matsuri's eyes and look at the strange, terrible, bloody world of Psyren I had been forced into. I put the phone to my ear.
The moment before I disappeared, a black crossbow bolt erupted from the back of Browbeat's skull.
**********
Bet y'all thought this was dead. In fact, I'm just extremely slow, I have like half a dozen different random other things I'm writing for putting out here and just for myself, and I get distracted very easily. I'd love to tell you the next chapter won't take this long, but I absolutely cannot promise anything. I mean, 1.4's already written, but I committed to this buffer thing and now it's a hill I have to die on. So, you know, see you all next year.
Wat, shadow stalker what are you thinking
I Don't think that was SS, I think that was the big Tavoo bastard coming back for round two when everybody thought they were safe.
- Location
- Earth
It wasn't SS. She'd already used the phone to vanish before the arrow happened.
Accretion 1.4
- Location
- London, 1935. August.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The transition was exactly as jarring as before. One moment I saw a hero who had spent the last hour or more protecting me die, the next bright sunlight. I stood stock still for a long moment, in shock and questioning whether I had really seen what I had seen. Was Browbeat really dead?
I was pulled out of my head by a sharp impact on my shoulder. It was Shadow Stalker - she had hit me. "Hey, listen! I was talking to you!" she said, sounding irritated.
"Sorry, I must have spaced off," I responded, "what?"
"We need to carry this guy off the path. I've called for help, but we can't let him bleed out in the middle of the park, here. Help me move him."
I looked down. At my feet was the guy who had gone before me. In the clear daylight, the blood across his sweatshirt looked worse than it had before, and his breathing was ragged and uneven. I looked back at Shadow Stalker. We were in a park, now that I was aware enough to notice. It wasn't one I recognized, but it was bright and there were bushes off to our right. We had been deposited on the sidewalk, just in front of a payphone that was hanging off its cradle.
I stooped down to help her lift the guy and followed her lead dumbly as she pulled us over to one of the bushes.
"The PRT are on the way, they're going to want to bring us in for debriefing" she said as we settled him just out of sight of the sidewalk. "They know the very basics of what's going on with Psyren, but you've gotta know: you can't tell them anything." Her mask was focused on me, as if she was looking me straight in the eyes. "Not 'cause I don't want you to - you can't. I heard there was a thinker in Boston who had a heart attack and died when he tried to say too much. The PRT know we're involved with Psyren and that we can't tell them anything. If they ask you anything and you get a bad feeling or feel any pain when you try to respond, just let them know you can't say. I don't know why the fuck you kept the card instead of taking the money, but you're stuck with us. Bombast should be back any second now -"
As she spoke, a flicker of movement grabbed my attention. Matsuri had appeared in front of the payphone, the black leather of her costume torn in three places but otherwise looking completely unharmed. She was staring at her clenched fist, and started a little when she heard Shadow Stalker speak.
"I've called the PRT," the Ward told her.
The older woman walked over to the two of us and nodded. "I'll duck out, then." She sounded more somber than before, and her helmet moved to face me. "You know that park on Captain's Hill? This Saturday, four thirty in the afternoon. I'll explain what the spooks can't. Stalker, the PRT knows to watch her while she recovers?" Shadow Stalker nodded. "Good. See you both then."
Then she turned around and jumped, the single motion carrying her up and up over the rooftop of one of the nearby buildings and out of sight.
Shadow Stalker glanced over at me before sitting down and leaning back against one of the trees. I joined her, waiting quietly for the PRT to come as I processed what I had just seen.
I wasn't sure how long it took for the van to arrive. We sat on the ground in the park, next to a guy who may have been bleeding to death for what could have been anything between five minutes and an hour. I could feel bugs again, and I was trying to concentrate on what they were doing instead of focusing on the way my hands were shaking, or the unsteady breaths of the guy in the bushes. My headache hadn't gotten any better since returning to the familiarity of Brockton Bay, if anything it had gotten worse, and I was too afraid to even move lest I jostle my skull around and send a lance of blinding pain into my awareness.
The flashing lights of the ambulance that appeared didn't do me any good, and by the time someone had come over to Shadow Stalker and I, I barely felt aware enough to comprehend what was going on around me. I was too busy focusing on the little lights of awareness around me instead of the vision of someone dying barely five paces away from me.
It was probably a woman wearing a brightly patriotic scarf who came over and talked to us. Shadow Stalker, at least, seemed to recognize her, and actually stood to talk with the older woman. It was pretty clear she was explaining what had happened, from her tone and gestures, though the odd words that I actually managed to catch were incredibly vague. Things like "got a call again," and "new face, needs a mask."
At some point, one of the less-clear figures in my awareness came over to me, offering a hand to pull me up, and when I didn't take it, helping to haul me up to my feet. I didn't precisely want to go - my thoughts weren't clear at all and it seemed like I was seeing the world from the bottom of a deep well. Even the bugs - my insects were sluggish to respond. There were fewer than before, though I didn't remember specifically ordering any to leave my range. Was something eating them? Or -
I started a little as the van jerked into motion, only belatedly realizing I didn't remember getting onto the van. The Ward and the other woman were still talking, though this time in hushed tones that made me suspect it was about me. I was fading in and out, and the dark metal walls of the response van paired with my own state of mind made it hard to tell reality from nightmare. It wasn't like I hadn't had one like this before: trapped in a small metal space with a cruel voice whispering about me. It alternated with scenes of the cold green world and blood erupting from wounds through chest and head.
I must have passed out entirely on the van ride, because at some point in my blurry awareness, I was no longer sitting in the benches on a moving vehicle, I was laying down in a bed in a light-colored room with no transition between the two scenes. I wasn't alone; there were two familiar figures standing over my bed, talking in a more conversational tone. I was not at all lucid, still fading in and out, but I managed to catch a single coherent string of exchanges..
"She said we're in a 'recruitment' stretch," the more familiar voice said. "'S'why we're getting so many missing people. Fuck, now I'm the only person left of my - ah, class."
The taller figure muttered something that sounded comforting.
The smaller figure didn't seem mollified. If anything, she seemed angrier. "If they couldn't fucking take it why did they bother to keep the card?" Her fist slammed into something nearby. "Shouldn't've even tried if they were going to bitch out."
"It's okay to be angry," the older voice consoled.
Whatever her partner said in response, it didn't seem like it worked, as she continued to jitter about in violent, forceful moves. Or perhaps it was only me that was seeing that,which might make sense given I saw them disappear and reappear from the room multiple times.
Wherever I was, it was extraordinarily clean. There were few bugs in the area, and the number continued to dwindle, matching the pain in my head and the steadily increasing distance I felt from the world around me. The lost time was catching up to me, growing more and more frequent for longer periods, until eventually, inevitably, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I was entirely alert when I awoke. The room around me was bright and sterile. So recently after my recovery from the locker incident, I was able to peg my location as a hospital room almost immediately.
My mind spun through the last few hours of memories, trying to catch what had been real and what hadn't. So much had felt like a nightmare, too outside my own experience to properly slot into place. That flooded wasteland, surely that had just been a dream, hadn't it?
I was laid out on a bed just like the four others in the room with me, all empty. I had to revise my earlier conclusion - obviously, this wasn't a hospital room, as I couldn't imagine being left alone to recover in a four bed room in any hospital in the city. There was quiet noise in the background,the shuffling of feet and the sound of some news program speculating fruitlessly on the whereabouts of Butcher XV. Below all of it, as if transmitted more through the floor than the air, was a steady hum of energy.
I glanced around a little more. While I was in the hospital last month, there had always been a button to call the nurse, but looking over at the sides of the bed and the side table, I wasn't able to see anything like that. The motion did, however, make me aware that there was something on my face.
I reached up to touch it with my hands. It was stiff paper, conformed loosely to the shape of my cheekbones and brow. A domino mask. I could feel my heartrate pick up as I understood a little bit more. I recalled the PRT van arriving to pick that Ward up. Had I gone with them? I hadn't been changed out of my clothes and there wasn't an IV in my arm, so I couldn't imagine it was any longer than just the night. Where even was I? I had meant to go home - I needed to go home, my dad would be worried sick, especially if I had been missing for a whole night.
"Hello?" I called, hoping there was someone around who could answer my questions. I sat up in the bed, the cheap sheets bunching up around my waist.
I didn't hear any immediate response, and I nearly swung my legs over the side to get out of bed entirely before someone called back. "I'll be right there," from just outside the room.
I heard a chair slide across tile floor and the radio or television the news was coming from shut off abruptly. Footsteps approached and a broad man in scrubs appeared in the doorway.
"You're awake," he said, his expression pleasantly neutral, his tone only a hint surprised. "They didn't tell me what was going on, just that you were sleeping off a non-contagious fever for the night. I've called one of the Protectorate on duty to come talk with you, if that's alright. Did you need anything?"
"Where am I?" I asked. Another glance around the room told me nothing I hadn't been able to spot the first time.
"Oh! Of course, I heard you weren't lucid when you came in. We're in the Protectorate headquarters. You were clearly suffering from some sort of reaction after an incident one of the Wards called in. Do you remember that much?"
I gave a slow nod, still somewhat uncertain. Did that whole flooded nightmare world count as an incident? It seemed like kind of an understatement, but then who was I to say how serious that was on the scale of what the PRT generally dealt with.
"Well, when the response team arrived on site, you already had the beginning stages of the fever. I have a note here," he gestured at a clipboard tied to the foot of the bed, "that the symptoms are expected and part of the effect of a classified matter. Does that sound about right?"
The PRT already knew? I had trouble fitting my head around that. Obviously, one of their Wards had been transported as well, and it hadn't seemed like it had been their first time. "I guess so?" It was more of a question than a statement.
"Well, I have notified the Protectorate cape on duty, so they should be coming down to talk with you about this. Anything I can get you while we wait?"
I thought about it. I felt a lot like I had just woken up from a very long night's sleep, and my throat had that dry, almost sticky quality to it. "Could I get a glass of water?"
"Sure, just give me a moment. You lay back down until that hero comes to talk with you, alright?"
He didn't stick around to hear myr response before he had stepped away and I was alone again. I was very self-conscious of my hands and skin for some reason, the sheets and my sweatshirt and partially-dried jeans feeling coarse and irritating. I flopped back onto my pillow. Not even twenty-four hours into my cape life and I had gotten the attention of some weird cult and had blown my identity to the PRT. This was going great so far.
A moment later the man was back with a paper cup that looked almost comically small in his hand. He had barely stepped past the doorway when I became abruptly aware of him in a way I hadn't been before. I managed to keep my head from snapping in his direction in surprise, but he made it nearly to my bedside before I had fully comprehended what had happened.
He had entered my range. A human had entered my range.
It was only in the light of this new revelation that I realized that I wasn't feeling my insects. I had been putting them out of my mind when I could, just a low buzzing at the edge of my awareness, but it was only successful to a degree, and I was always somewhat conscious of my swarm. But now there was just nothing, a big blank emptiness where my mind was quiet. Even the man that I was suddenly aware of wasn't mine exactly. He was within my range without being part of my swarm, but I knew that if I wanted to, I could reach out and do...something. Would I take control of him like I did my bugs? Would I just alter his feelings somehow? Or was it something else entirely?
I had done a little bit of research, after realizing that I had powers, and everything I had read had subtly implied that powers didn't really change that much over time. What you started with was what you got, plus or minus some experimentation and improvement in personal skill. There were a few rare stories of people like the Guild's Narwal who abruptly had their power get different, but even that wasn't something on quite this magnitude. And if my power really had gotten stronger, why had he only crossed my range when he got within a few meters of me?
"Hey, are you alright?" a voice said, pulling me out of my sudden alarm. It was the nurse, already at my bedside and setting the glass on the table next to me. He seemed concerned and had leaned slightly in as if to check on how I was feeling. He had moved of his own accord while in my range, talked and acted exactly as though he hadn't noticed anything at all.
I noticed. I could feel him there, but not like my bugs were, or had been. There was more to my power, more subtlety at the very least. I nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine, just spacing out."
He looked a little doubtful as he backed away slightly, but he didn't have time to question me further before someone else swept in through the doorway to the medical bay.
It was a woman in fatigues and tactical gear. She moved quickly across the room, entering my range almost immediately. I recognized her by the star-spangled scarf she wore around the lower half of her face. This was the Protectorate hero who had come to speak with me. Miss Militia.
In the sense my power gave me, she was different than the nurse. Her light was brighter, and gave off a slight hum of power. I didn't have any time to process this new revelation.
"I need to speak to the patient alone, please," she told the nurse, not unkindly. It made my stomach flip over with the thought that she must know about my powers and who I was.
The nurse was quick to comply, giving me a simple nod of acknowledgement before hurrying away out of my range and my sight. Miss Militia watched the doorway even after he had left, as if to confirm he really was giving them some privacy.
"Hello," she began, her tone clipped but her eyes concerned and caring. "I'm sure this is very confusing, but I need to explain a few things right off the bat."
I nodded in response, though I probably didn't need to. Maybe I was a little starstruck that one of the local heroes was talking to me directly.
"You are a victim of the supervillain or organization known as Nemesis, as part of the Psyren incidents. You do not need to respond," she hurried to explain, probably because I had opened my mouth to explain what I had seen. "In fact, do not try to say anything until I have said what I need to, please. The PRT has some records of Psyren victims, and I'm sure you saw in the park that one of our Wards is affected too. Needless to say, there is an investigation ongoing, but previous incidents have made it clear that you won't be able to tell us anything about what you experienced while you were gone. If you try to do so, or if you attempt to talk about any secret about Nemesis or what you have experienced in Psyren, you will experience a sharp pain in your chest, which will increase in severity the more you try to say something. If you do not stop, eventually you will go into cardiac arrest, and there is one recorded case of someone dying as a result."
I was frozen, my mouth open as I had been about to speak. I wasn't sure what I had been meaning to say, as I had forgotten it in response to the lurch of horror at her words. Had I known that? It sounded like something I had been told recently, but I couldn't recall exactly.
"Confirmed triggers of the effect include attempting to show someone your Psyren card, attempting to describe what happened during your disappearance, naming other people targeted by Psyren, or attempting to describe additional rules that we have been unable to learn." The cape's expression softened somewhat. It was a surprise how expressive she could be with only half her face visible. "I am so sorry you have gotten caught up in this. Keeping what I just said in mind, do you have any questions?"
I closed my mouth. There was an intense emotional whiplash going on in my chest as the giddy excitement of being directly addressed by one of my heroes warred with the dread her actual words were inspiring. "Is Shadow Stalker and - " I mentally missed a step as I recalled that I didn't know any of the names of the non-capes I had met in Psyren. " - the guy. Are they alright?"
Miss Militia was making direct eye contact and it was sort of uncomfortable, so I glanced away. "Shadow Stalker is just fine, though she will have to be examined for injuries before her debriefing, such as it is for these events, tomorrow. The boy that was found with you was quite injured but he will likely make a full recovery." I got the impression she was studying me, and I couldn't help but imagine how I must look to her. My clothes were still damp, despite sleeping for however long I had been out, and I had little tears at my hoodie and likely my hair.
"New capes are rarely in a good place, but you have a particularly hard road ahead of you," the heroine said. "The PRT categorizes Psyren victims as Case 76. Whether or not you had powers before your disappearance yesterday morning, you will have them by the time twenty-four hours have passed since you appeared in the park. If you did have powers before this event, you will notice they have changed, though the mechanics and reasoning for this change are unknown. The PRT testing facilities are available to you, though you should know there are additional limits imposed by the master effect to what you are allowed to show us about the power change. Any questions yet?"
I shook my head, but then immediately changed my mind. "If you know so much about it…"
"Why don't we say anything?" she finished. "If we let anyone know that confirmed Psyren victims always got powers, it would cause people to seek out the cards, and capes with analysis powers have confirmed that the ratio of people who get pulled into Psyren and never come back is already too high. Psyren may just have a way to target people who are capable of developing powers."
It made sense, thinking about it, and a thought struck me about what she had said. "That's how I got the card before -"
I choked. A piercing pain ran down my throat and wrenched at my chest like iron bands around my heart. The edges of my vision greyed out and I couldn't tell if it was caused by whatever was creating the pain or the panic I was feeling in response. Then, just as abruptly as the sensation had appeared, it stopped, leaving me gasping.
Miss Militia stood closer to me, concern visible in the set of her shoulders and furrowed brow. "Don't try to say anything, it will be alright. The effect is extremely unpleasant, but is unlikely to kill you unless you attempt to intentionally pass information on, so slips like that sometimes happen when you aren't thinking about it. That is not encouragement to try to slip anything past it, though," she warned. "Do you need any water? Do you have any other questions yet?"
I shook my head at the first question, my hand rubbing around my collarbone as I tried to think of any questions. Any thoughts I might have had had been thoroughly derailed by the unexpected sensation a moment ago, and I had to put real thought into remembering where we had been in the conversation.
"Then let me finish what I was saying," Miss Militia said when no further questions were forthcoming. "Powers come to people in...moments of intense emotion. Whatever you just went through, whether or not you had powers before, was clearly traumatic, and it is in the aftermath of times like these that looking after ourselves is the most critical. The Protectorate has resources and information available for new capes in exactly the situation you are in now, so know that you can reach out to us if you need anything."
For all that they seemed practiced, Miss Militia really seemed to mean the words, and a jaded, anxious part of me was happy to see that my childhood heroes lived up to their image.
The woman leaned back on her heels slightly, resettling her weight as she reached into one of the pockets on her vest. She seemed more relaxed now that I wasn't in immediate pain. She pulled out a plain white card with a stars and stripes motif on one side and contact information. "Let me give you my contact information - you can call this number at any time and someone will be available to talk or pass a message on if you need it. If you are having ongoing issues, don't be afraid to reach out." The last part was said with more emphasis, as if she thought I wouldn't take her seriously otherwise.
I took the card from her, cupping it in my hand for a moment and just looking at it, before slipping it into the pocket of my hoodie.
"Have you been having any problems at home?" the heroine asked.
I shook my head. Then, when that didn't seem vigorous enough of a denial, I replied, "no."
Miss Militia smiled under her mask, and I was impressed that she managed to make it visible despite her mouth being covered. It was something to do with the way the skin near her cheekbones changed. "You're getting enough to eat? Sleeping alright?"
I nodded.
She relaxed a little at that. "Good. We will be providing you with a cell phone - you don't have to keep it with you, but something about your situation is tied to phone lines, so it would be a good idea to have one on hand. It's not something that you are allowed to explain to us, but enough cases that we have observed have let things slip to know that keeping one with you is important somehow." She reached into a different pocket and pulled out an unmarked black cell phone, the edges rounded and the overall design rugged and sturdy."If nothing else, you can use it to call a parent or guardian to pick you up."
I didn't reach to take the device. "My dad doesn't know about…" I trailed off, not sure where to start with that. It was clear enough for Miss Militia to have a reaction to my words, but I couldn't tell what she was reading into them.
"That's alright," she said. "We have protocol in place for this sort of thing. You are documented as an anonymous witness by Shadow Stalker for questioning on a recent cape attack. It is standard practice to give these blank masks to bystanders we talk to, to help avoid reprisals. Your father can come by the headquarters, or you can meet him nearby. Nothing has to be explained.
I thought about it, then took the phone from her hand and examined it. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, it wasn't like I would be able to see listening or tracking devices anywhere.
"Alright, I will leave you your privacy." Miss Militia said, already stepping back away from my bedside. "Just remember, you can call if you ever need help. We will be available if you reach out. And - " she stopped, as though she was reconsidering her words, before starting again. "If it's something you cannot come to one of us about, please reach out to Shadow Stalker. She can be...somewhat jaded, but you know better than I what she is going through, and she has the PRT's support." Then she left, dropping out of my range a step before the door, leaving me alone looking at my new phone.
I had never had a phone, never even held one before. It felt a little like a betrayal of my dad that I had one now. But I was a cape, and if the last day or however long it had been had left me something, it was with the realization that the cape world was dangerous. I had - I had seen two people die, and had been looking the other direction for another. I had seen a cape killed. That I had survived that place at all, it was a miracle, and the work of the other capes, one of whom had given his life to help me.
And, I finished the thought, I couldn't keep beating around the bush. If I wanted to do the hero thing, I had to do it, didn't I? And that would mean being willing to take the tools I needed, even when it made me uncomfortable.
I steeled myself and made the call.
I was pulled out of my head by a sharp impact on my shoulder. It was Shadow Stalker - she had hit me. "Hey, listen! I was talking to you!" she said, sounding irritated.
"Sorry, I must have spaced off," I responded, "what?"
"We need to carry this guy off the path. I've called for help, but we can't let him bleed out in the middle of the park, here. Help me move him."
I looked down. At my feet was the guy who had gone before me. In the clear daylight, the blood across his sweatshirt looked worse than it had before, and his breathing was ragged and uneven. I looked back at Shadow Stalker. We were in a park, now that I was aware enough to notice. It wasn't one I recognized, but it was bright and there were bushes off to our right. We had been deposited on the sidewalk, just in front of a payphone that was hanging off its cradle.
I stooped down to help her lift the guy and followed her lead dumbly as she pulled us over to one of the bushes.
"The PRT are on the way, they're going to want to bring us in for debriefing" she said as we settled him just out of sight of the sidewalk. "They know the very basics of what's going on with Psyren, but you've gotta know: you can't tell them anything." Her mask was focused on me, as if she was looking me straight in the eyes. "Not 'cause I don't want you to - you can't. I heard there was a thinker in Boston who had a heart attack and died when he tried to say too much. The PRT know we're involved with Psyren and that we can't tell them anything. If they ask you anything and you get a bad feeling or feel any pain when you try to respond, just let them know you can't say. I don't know why the fuck you kept the card instead of taking the money, but you're stuck with us. Bombast should be back any second now -"
As she spoke, a flicker of movement grabbed my attention. Matsuri had appeared in front of the payphone, the black leather of her costume torn in three places but otherwise looking completely unharmed. She was staring at her clenched fist, and started a little when she heard Shadow Stalker speak.
"I've called the PRT," the Ward told her.
The older woman walked over to the two of us and nodded. "I'll duck out, then." She sounded more somber than before, and her helmet moved to face me. "You know that park on Captain's Hill? This Saturday, four thirty in the afternoon. I'll explain what the spooks can't. Stalker, the PRT knows to watch her while she recovers?" Shadow Stalker nodded. "Good. See you both then."
Then she turned around and jumped, the single motion carrying her up and up over the rooftop of one of the nearby buildings and out of sight.
Shadow Stalker glanced over at me before sitting down and leaning back against one of the trees. I joined her, waiting quietly for the PRT to come as I processed what I had just seen.
***********
I wasn't sure how long it took for the van to arrive. We sat on the ground in the park, next to a guy who may have been bleeding to death for what could have been anything between five minutes and an hour. I could feel bugs again, and I was trying to concentrate on what they were doing instead of focusing on the way my hands were shaking, or the unsteady breaths of the guy in the bushes. My headache hadn't gotten any better since returning to the familiarity of Brockton Bay, if anything it had gotten worse, and I was too afraid to even move lest I jostle my skull around and send a lance of blinding pain into my awareness.
The flashing lights of the ambulance that appeared didn't do me any good, and by the time someone had come over to Shadow Stalker and I, I barely felt aware enough to comprehend what was going on around me. I was too busy focusing on the little lights of awareness around me instead of the vision of someone dying barely five paces away from me.
It was probably a woman wearing a brightly patriotic scarf who came over and talked to us. Shadow Stalker, at least, seemed to recognize her, and actually stood to talk with the older woman. It was pretty clear she was explaining what had happened, from her tone and gestures, though the odd words that I actually managed to catch were incredibly vague. Things like "got a call again," and "new face, needs a mask."
At some point, one of the less-clear figures in my awareness came over to me, offering a hand to pull me up, and when I didn't take it, helping to haul me up to my feet. I didn't precisely want to go - my thoughts weren't clear at all and it seemed like I was seeing the world from the bottom of a deep well. Even the bugs - my insects were sluggish to respond. There were fewer than before, though I didn't remember specifically ordering any to leave my range. Was something eating them? Or -
I started a little as the van jerked into motion, only belatedly realizing I didn't remember getting onto the van. The Ward and the other woman were still talking, though this time in hushed tones that made me suspect it was about me. I was fading in and out, and the dark metal walls of the response van paired with my own state of mind made it hard to tell reality from nightmare. It wasn't like I hadn't had one like this before: trapped in a small metal space with a cruel voice whispering about me. It alternated with scenes of the cold green world and blood erupting from wounds through chest and head.
***********
I must have passed out entirely on the van ride, because at some point in my blurry awareness, I was no longer sitting in the benches on a moving vehicle, I was laying down in a bed in a light-colored room with no transition between the two scenes. I wasn't alone; there were two familiar figures standing over my bed, talking in a more conversational tone. I was not at all lucid, still fading in and out, but I managed to catch a single coherent string of exchanges..
"She said we're in a 'recruitment' stretch," the more familiar voice said. "'S'why we're getting so many missing people. Fuck, now I'm the only person left of my - ah, class."
The taller figure muttered something that sounded comforting.
The smaller figure didn't seem mollified. If anything, she seemed angrier. "If they couldn't fucking take it why did they bother to keep the card?" Her fist slammed into something nearby. "Shouldn't've even tried if they were going to bitch out."
"It's okay to be angry," the older voice consoled.
Whatever her partner said in response, it didn't seem like it worked, as she continued to jitter about in violent, forceful moves. Or perhaps it was only me that was seeing that,which might make sense given I saw them disappear and reappear from the room multiple times.
Wherever I was, it was extraordinarily clean. There were few bugs in the area, and the number continued to dwindle, matching the pain in my head and the steadily increasing distance I felt from the world around me. The lost time was catching up to me, growing more and more frequent for longer periods, until eventually, inevitably, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
***********
I was entirely alert when I awoke. The room around me was bright and sterile. So recently after my recovery from the locker incident, I was able to peg my location as a hospital room almost immediately.
My mind spun through the last few hours of memories, trying to catch what had been real and what hadn't. So much had felt like a nightmare, too outside my own experience to properly slot into place. That flooded wasteland, surely that had just been a dream, hadn't it?
I was laid out on a bed just like the four others in the room with me, all empty. I had to revise my earlier conclusion - obviously, this wasn't a hospital room, as I couldn't imagine being left alone to recover in a four bed room in any hospital in the city. There was quiet noise in the background,the shuffling of feet and the sound of some news program speculating fruitlessly on the whereabouts of Butcher XV. Below all of it, as if transmitted more through the floor than the air, was a steady hum of energy.
I glanced around a little more. While I was in the hospital last month, there had always been a button to call the nurse, but looking over at the sides of the bed and the side table, I wasn't able to see anything like that. The motion did, however, make me aware that there was something on my face.
I reached up to touch it with my hands. It was stiff paper, conformed loosely to the shape of my cheekbones and brow. A domino mask. I could feel my heartrate pick up as I understood a little bit more. I recalled the PRT van arriving to pick that Ward up. Had I gone with them? I hadn't been changed out of my clothes and there wasn't an IV in my arm, so I couldn't imagine it was any longer than just the night. Where even was I? I had meant to go home - I needed to go home, my dad would be worried sick, especially if I had been missing for a whole night.
"Hello?" I called, hoping there was someone around who could answer my questions. I sat up in the bed, the cheap sheets bunching up around my waist.
I didn't hear any immediate response, and I nearly swung my legs over the side to get out of bed entirely before someone called back. "I'll be right there," from just outside the room.
I heard a chair slide across tile floor and the radio or television the news was coming from shut off abruptly. Footsteps approached and a broad man in scrubs appeared in the doorway.
"You're awake," he said, his expression pleasantly neutral, his tone only a hint surprised. "They didn't tell me what was going on, just that you were sleeping off a non-contagious fever for the night. I've called one of the Protectorate on duty to come talk with you, if that's alright. Did you need anything?"
"Where am I?" I asked. Another glance around the room told me nothing I hadn't been able to spot the first time.
"Oh! Of course, I heard you weren't lucid when you came in. We're in the Protectorate headquarters. You were clearly suffering from some sort of reaction after an incident one of the Wards called in. Do you remember that much?"
I gave a slow nod, still somewhat uncertain. Did that whole flooded nightmare world count as an incident? It seemed like kind of an understatement, but then who was I to say how serious that was on the scale of what the PRT generally dealt with.
"Well, when the response team arrived on site, you already had the beginning stages of the fever. I have a note here," he gestured at a clipboard tied to the foot of the bed, "that the symptoms are expected and part of the effect of a classified matter. Does that sound about right?"
The PRT already knew? I had trouble fitting my head around that. Obviously, one of their Wards had been transported as well, and it hadn't seemed like it had been their first time. "I guess so?" It was more of a question than a statement.
"Well, I have notified the Protectorate cape on duty, so they should be coming down to talk with you about this. Anything I can get you while we wait?"
I thought about it. I felt a lot like I had just woken up from a very long night's sleep, and my throat had that dry, almost sticky quality to it. "Could I get a glass of water?"
"Sure, just give me a moment. You lay back down until that hero comes to talk with you, alright?"
He didn't stick around to hear myr response before he had stepped away and I was alone again. I was very self-conscious of my hands and skin for some reason, the sheets and my sweatshirt and partially-dried jeans feeling coarse and irritating. I flopped back onto my pillow. Not even twenty-four hours into my cape life and I had gotten the attention of some weird cult and had blown my identity to the PRT. This was going great so far.
A moment later the man was back with a paper cup that looked almost comically small in his hand. He had barely stepped past the doorway when I became abruptly aware of him in a way I hadn't been before. I managed to keep my head from snapping in his direction in surprise, but he made it nearly to my bedside before I had fully comprehended what had happened.
He had entered my range. A human had entered my range.
It was only in the light of this new revelation that I realized that I wasn't feeling my insects. I had been putting them out of my mind when I could, just a low buzzing at the edge of my awareness, but it was only successful to a degree, and I was always somewhat conscious of my swarm. But now there was just nothing, a big blank emptiness where my mind was quiet. Even the man that I was suddenly aware of wasn't mine exactly. He was within my range without being part of my swarm, but I knew that if I wanted to, I could reach out and do...something. Would I take control of him like I did my bugs? Would I just alter his feelings somehow? Or was it something else entirely?
I had done a little bit of research, after realizing that I had powers, and everything I had read had subtly implied that powers didn't really change that much over time. What you started with was what you got, plus or minus some experimentation and improvement in personal skill. There were a few rare stories of people like the Guild's Narwal who abruptly had their power get different, but even that wasn't something on quite this magnitude. And if my power really had gotten stronger, why had he only crossed my range when he got within a few meters of me?
"Hey, are you alright?" a voice said, pulling me out of my sudden alarm. It was the nurse, already at my bedside and setting the glass on the table next to me. He seemed concerned and had leaned slightly in as if to check on how I was feeling. He had moved of his own accord while in my range, talked and acted exactly as though he hadn't noticed anything at all.
I noticed. I could feel him there, but not like my bugs were, or had been. There was more to my power, more subtlety at the very least. I nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine, just spacing out."
He looked a little doubtful as he backed away slightly, but he didn't have time to question me further before someone else swept in through the doorway to the medical bay.
It was a woman in fatigues and tactical gear. She moved quickly across the room, entering my range almost immediately. I recognized her by the star-spangled scarf she wore around the lower half of her face. This was the Protectorate hero who had come to speak with me. Miss Militia.
In the sense my power gave me, she was different than the nurse. Her light was brighter, and gave off a slight hum of power. I didn't have any time to process this new revelation.
"I need to speak to the patient alone, please," she told the nurse, not unkindly. It made my stomach flip over with the thought that she must know about my powers and who I was.
The nurse was quick to comply, giving me a simple nod of acknowledgement before hurrying away out of my range and my sight. Miss Militia watched the doorway even after he had left, as if to confirm he really was giving them some privacy.
"Hello," she began, her tone clipped but her eyes concerned and caring. "I'm sure this is very confusing, but I need to explain a few things right off the bat."
I nodded in response, though I probably didn't need to. Maybe I was a little starstruck that one of the local heroes was talking to me directly.
"You are a victim of the supervillain or organization known as Nemesis, as part of the Psyren incidents. You do not need to respond," she hurried to explain, probably because I had opened my mouth to explain what I had seen. "In fact, do not try to say anything until I have said what I need to, please. The PRT has some records of Psyren victims, and I'm sure you saw in the park that one of our Wards is affected too. Needless to say, there is an investigation ongoing, but previous incidents have made it clear that you won't be able to tell us anything about what you experienced while you were gone. If you try to do so, or if you attempt to talk about any secret about Nemesis or what you have experienced in Psyren, you will experience a sharp pain in your chest, which will increase in severity the more you try to say something. If you do not stop, eventually you will go into cardiac arrest, and there is one recorded case of someone dying as a result."
I was frozen, my mouth open as I had been about to speak. I wasn't sure what I had been meaning to say, as I had forgotten it in response to the lurch of horror at her words. Had I known that? It sounded like something I had been told recently, but I couldn't recall exactly.
"Confirmed triggers of the effect include attempting to show someone your Psyren card, attempting to describe what happened during your disappearance, naming other people targeted by Psyren, or attempting to describe additional rules that we have been unable to learn." The cape's expression softened somewhat. It was a surprise how expressive she could be with only half her face visible. "I am so sorry you have gotten caught up in this. Keeping what I just said in mind, do you have any questions?"
I closed my mouth. There was an intense emotional whiplash going on in my chest as the giddy excitement of being directly addressed by one of my heroes warred with the dread her actual words were inspiring. "Is Shadow Stalker and - " I mentally missed a step as I recalled that I didn't know any of the names of the non-capes I had met in Psyren. " - the guy. Are they alright?"
Miss Militia was making direct eye contact and it was sort of uncomfortable, so I glanced away. "Shadow Stalker is just fine, though she will have to be examined for injuries before her debriefing, such as it is for these events, tomorrow. The boy that was found with you was quite injured but he will likely make a full recovery." I got the impression she was studying me, and I couldn't help but imagine how I must look to her. My clothes were still damp, despite sleeping for however long I had been out, and I had little tears at my hoodie and likely my hair.
"New capes are rarely in a good place, but you have a particularly hard road ahead of you," the heroine said. "The PRT categorizes Psyren victims as Case 76. Whether or not you had powers before your disappearance yesterday morning, you will have them by the time twenty-four hours have passed since you appeared in the park. If you did have powers before this event, you will notice they have changed, though the mechanics and reasoning for this change are unknown. The PRT testing facilities are available to you, though you should know there are additional limits imposed by the master effect to what you are allowed to show us about the power change. Any questions yet?"
I shook my head, but then immediately changed my mind. "If you know so much about it…"
"Why don't we say anything?" she finished. "If we let anyone know that confirmed Psyren victims always got powers, it would cause people to seek out the cards, and capes with analysis powers have confirmed that the ratio of people who get pulled into Psyren and never come back is already too high. Psyren may just have a way to target people who are capable of developing powers."
It made sense, thinking about it, and a thought struck me about what she had said. "That's how I got the card before -"
I choked. A piercing pain ran down my throat and wrenched at my chest like iron bands around my heart. The edges of my vision greyed out and I couldn't tell if it was caused by whatever was creating the pain or the panic I was feeling in response. Then, just as abruptly as the sensation had appeared, it stopped, leaving me gasping.
Miss Militia stood closer to me, concern visible in the set of her shoulders and furrowed brow. "Don't try to say anything, it will be alright. The effect is extremely unpleasant, but is unlikely to kill you unless you attempt to intentionally pass information on, so slips like that sometimes happen when you aren't thinking about it. That is not encouragement to try to slip anything past it, though," she warned. "Do you need any water? Do you have any other questions yet?"
I shook my head at the first question, my hand rubbing around my collarbone as I tried to think of any questions. Any thoughts I might have had had been thoroughly derailed by the unexpected sensation a moment ago, and I had to put real thought into remembering where we had been in the conversation.
"Then let me finish what I was saying," Miss Militia said when no further questions were forthcoming. "Powers come to people in...moments of intense emotion. Whatever you just went through, whether or not you had powers before, was clearly traumatic, and it is in the aftermath of times like these that looking after ourselves is the most critical. The Protectorate has resources and information available for new capes in exactly the situation you are in now, so know that you can reach out to us if you need anything."
For all that they seemed practiced, Miss Militia really seemed to mean the words, and a jaded, anxious part of me was happy to see that my childhood heroes lived up to their image.
The woman leaned back on her heels slightly, resettling her weight as she reached into one of the pockets on her vest. She seemed more relaxed now that I wasn't in immediate pain. She pulled out a plain white card with a stars and stripes motif on one side and contact information. "Let me give you my contact information - you can call this number at any time and someone will be available to talk or pass a message on if you need it. If you are having ongoing issues, don't be afraid to reach out." The last part was said with more emphasis, as if she thought I wouldn't take her seriously otherwise.
I took the card from her, cupping it in my hand for a moment and just looking at it, before slipping it into the pocket of my hoodie.
"Have you been having any problems at home?" the heroine asked.
I shook my head. Then, when that didn't seem vigorous enough of a denial, I replied, "no."
Miss Militia smiled under her mask, and I was impressed that she managed to make it visible despite her mouth being covered. It was something to do with the way the skin near her cheekbones changed. "You're getting enough to eat? Sleeping alright?"
I nodded.
She relaxed a little at that. "Good. We will be providing you with a cell phone - you don't have to keep it with you, but something about your situation is tied to phone lines, so it would be a good idea to have one on hand. It's not something that you are allowed to explain to us, but enough cases that we have observed have let things slip to know that keeping one with you is important somehow." She reached into a different pocket and pulled out an unmarked black cell phone, the edges rounded and the overall design rugged and sturdy."If nothing else, you can use it to call a parent or guardian to pick you up."
I didn't reach to take the device. "My dad doesn't know about…" I trailed off, not sure where to start with that. It was clear enough for Miss Militia to have a reaction to my words, but I couldn't tell what she was reading into them.
"That's alright," she said. "We have protocol in place for this sort of thing. You are documented as an anonymous witness by Shadow Stalker for questioning on a recent cape attack. It is standard practice to give these blank masks to bystanders we talk to, to help avoid reprisals. Your father can come by the headquarters, or you can meet him nearby. Nothing has to be explained.
I thought about it, then took the phone from her hand and examined it. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, it wasn't like I would be able to see listening or tracking devices anywhere.
"Alright, I will leave you your privacy." Miss Militia said, already stepping back away from my bedside. "Just remember, you can call if you ever need help. We will be available if you reach out. And - " she stopped, as though she was reconsidering her words, before starting again. "If it's something you cannot come to one of us about, please reach out to Shadow Stalker. She can be...somewhat jaded, but you know better than I what she is going through, and she has the PRT's support." Then she left, dropping out of my range a step before the door, leaving me alone looking at my new phone.
I had never had a phone, never even held one before. It felt a little like a betrayal of my dad that I had one now. But I was a cape, and if the last day or however long it had been had left me something, it was with the realization that the cape world was dangerous. I had - I had seen two people die, and had been looking the other direction for another. I had seen a cape killed. That I had survived that place at all, it was a miracle, and the work of the other capes, one of whom had given his life to help me.
And, I finished the thought, I couldn't keep beating around the bush. If I wanted to do the hero thing, I had to do it, didn't I? And that would mean being willing to take the tools I needed, even when it made me uncomfortable.
I steeled myself and made the call.
***********
Look at this! Less than a full year!
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Accretion 1.5
- Location
- London, 1935. August.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It was not a comfortable silence when my dad picked me up. I had tried to reassure him, told him about the PRT's whole cover story about being a bystander and coming in anonymously and all that. It didn't seem to calm him down at the time, especially when I had had to improvise about what the crime I had been witness to was, exactly. I eventually settled on "it's classified" and managed to get him to come to me.
He kept glancing away from the road to look at me. I wasn't sure exactly what it was he was getting most distracted by. The big tears in my hoodie that hadn't been there before? The way my jeans were still a little damp below the knee? Whatever it was, it felt like he expected me to say something.
Instead, I looked out the window, trying to keep my attention away from the way he felt in my power. Because I could feel him - just like I could feel the nurse and Miss Militia and all the people I had passed in the halls of the PRT building on my way out. I even caught some of the other drivers on the road. My curiosity was burning in me now, but the thought of puppeteering people the way I did bugs was too horrible to contemplate.
At least I wasn't entirely without my bugs. I hadn't been able to feel them in the PRT infirmary, but that was just because it was so clean. When I had left I had been relieved to find that I could still feel and control bugs, as if that was some kind of consolation. Now I was operating on orders of magnitude fewer bugs, which would cripple me if I wanted to go out.
And if - when - I got pulled into a terrifying alternate world, how would I survive with such a pathetic range? I didn't want to think about it, but I also couldn't keep worrying at the idea in my mind.
I was surprised when Dad finally broke the silence a good five minutes into the car ride. "Taylor, what happened?"
It would be so much easier if I could just tell him, but it wasn't like that was a possibility at all. "I said when I called. I can't say."
We had stopped at a light, and Dad took the opportunity to look at me directly. "After what happened in January, you say that kind of thing and I just get more worried. I'm your father!" I jumped when he slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. It was sometimes easy to forget, because he never directed it at me, that he had a temper. "School called to say you were absent and I had no way to contact you. The whole day and night you're just gone, and when you do show up you say you're in PRT custody and need to be picked up. Not even at the PRT building! I don't even know that was really where you were! And your clothes are ripped and you look like you've been through hell. I was a teenager once too, I get it if you need some time…away from home. But I need to know you're safe." He glanced frantically back and forth between the road and me while he spoke.
I didn't know what to say to that. That might have been the most I had heard him say to me at once since the hospital. I tried to reply with a shrug, but that only seemed to work him up more.
"Just tell me something! Let me know you're safe. Tell me something so I don't have to imagine the worst case scenario. Please."
"I can't," I said. "There was a cape thing. I'm not just not allowed to say anything, I just can't." There. That was the truth. Maybe it would make him feel better? I don't know why, because it was pretty terrifying on its own. And it wasn't the worst thing I had experienced in the last twenty-four hours. "It was scary but I had - there was a Protectorate cape there. I'm going to be okay, I think."
Dad didn't respond at first, just continued glancing over to me. His knuckles were white where he gripped the steering wheel. "Well, you're not going to school tomorrow," he said finally. I wasn't sure if that was meant to be a punishment or a concession, and from his tone of voice, neither was he. "I shouldn't have sent you back so soon. It was too much."
How was I supposed to respond to that? I instinctively wanted to protest that I was okay, that I could go to school tomorrow just fine. Then I realized what I was trying to say and bit it back. I hadn't even thought of school, and now the idea of going back felt like a terrible, paralyzing weight. It was a relief to hear that I would be allowed to put that off just a little longer, like I could breathe a little easier.
I shrugged, trying not to show just how much it was affecting me. "Okay."
We were getting closer to our neighborhood and our conversation was tapering off when he broke the silence again.
"Do you remember when we talked about seeing someone?" he asked hesitantly.
Like that, iron bands refastened themselves around my ribcage. I shook my head since I couldn't speak. After the locker I had spent some time in the hospital, and most of it hadn't been for physical problems. The senses of all my bugs had left me either catatonic or lashing out wildly. They had apparently told my dad that I might need a therapist for some reason, and he had tried to talk me into it a few times before I went back to school.
The whole thing was stupid. My problems were just because my life was shitty. You couldn't fix that by spending an hour talking about how much I missed my mom. Frankly, I thought my dad needed that more than I did. That was only made worse now with this Psyren thing. Even if I wanted to talk out my problems, I would just hurt and maybe die.
And that wasn't even touching on the other issue I had realized early on in my 'recovery:' Dad was already dealing with a bunch of bills from my hospital stay.
When I felt more able to speak, I added, "expensive," to my denial.
He actually slowed the car down, even though we were only a few blocks away from home, pulling up against the curb.
"Taylor, you need to talk with someone. If I have to work a little more, I can, but your health is important! We can afford it!"
But that was just it. We couldn't afford it. That was why I had made that call in the first place last - no two nights ago. I had seen those bills and how much stress it was putting him under. The school had paid off the initial hospital bills, but if I had ongoing doctor's visits, that was going to come out of our pocket. I had made a stupid decision and I was already cursing my past self for her naivety, but I had had a good reason!
He clearly read something from my expression, because he let out a frustrated huff of air. "Please, Taylor, just think about it. It's only been a few weeks since the locker incident, and now this? I know you think you can handle it all yourself. You got too much of that from me - and your mother, to be honest. But just…" he trailed off as he studied me, his shoulders slumping. "If you need anything, please talk to me, at least. Even if you don't."
I didn't know how to respond to that. Eventually he took that as an answer of its own and started the car back up. We sat in silence for the rest of the trip back home.
As I entered the house, I made an unpleasant discovery. Just one thing on top of the looming pile of shitty things going on in my life.
My range was small enough that it didn't include the entire house anymore. So it was with dawning worry that I began feeling out the black widows I had left in the basement. At first I thought that they had just shifted around and the primary bulk of my weaving force was just on the far edge of the basement. As I got to the middle of the living room, I realized I could feel everything in the section of the basement I had been using, and my weaver population had been decimated. Barely one in a hundred had survived, and most were huddled in tight presses that -
I should have done more research on spiders, I realized. I had spent so much of my last few weeks gathering the spiders up and keeping them working that I had never caught that they might kill each other. Because that was what I had walked in on: my weavers eating the corpses of one another. It was such a stupid mistake. I would have caught it when I went to school anyway, but because I had been gone for more than twenty-four hours, the damage had been far worse. I would have to start all over again.
"Do you want something to eat?" Dad asked. "We can order something in. I don't know if the PRT fed you anything."
As if to give away the answer to the question my stomach gurgled loudly. That was right, I hadn't had a full meal since I had left for school yesterday morning. I had been given a sugar cookie and a bag of chips from the PRT's cafeteria while I waited for my dad to pick me up. Whatever mysterious sickness I had gotten, it had been enough that I hadn't noticed it.
I stopped at the base of the stairs, torn between going up to my room to try to get a break and staying downstairs and dealing with the constant overbearing attention. I settled on the latter when I realized the shrinking of my range meant I might not even be able to control the bugs in the basement from my room. God, everything about the change in my powers was terrible.
I sat down at the kitchen table on autopilot, my focus more on the spiders beneath the house instead of my dad trying to figure out what restaurant to order from. I had managed to gather about four hundred black widows before my first day of school, and now I was down to fourteen, three of which were already dying. I immediately separated them and got to work moving them to opposite corners of the basement, having them find hidey-holes in cracks in the mortar and behind the washing machine.
How was I going to stop this from happening again? I couldn't just leave them in the little terrarium box I had gotten before, obviously. Maybe individual jars or cans? I could cover them up and leave them with enough food and air holes so they wouldn't die but couldn't get out when I left. That would take up a lot more space, but it would be necessary if I wanted to maintain enough of a weaving population.
Except…I let my head fall onto the table as I realized the problem. How would I get enough spiders to restore my stock? Dad's concerned exclamations distracted me and I had to calm him down, explaining that I was just tired from my 'ordeal,' and that he could go back to reading through the take out menus for the Jade Phoenix Garden Chinese restaurant.
I wasn't going to be able to collect enough spiders. Black widows were native to Brockton, but they weren't the most abundant, for reasons I guess I had just discovered. Even on a good day of spider gathering, I had been lucky to catch more than a hundred in my range at a time, and most times I only caught three or four dozen. Now, the radius of my range was easily under twenty feet and I would be lucky to find more than a handful while I went out for a run. At that rate it would take weeks or months before I had anything approaching an acceptable weaving force, even if I bred them aggressively. So not only was I now enrolled in some sort of horrific death obstacle course that I couldn't tell anyone about, I was suddenly out my best tool for survival and my future cape career.
Dad began making the call to order food, still sending me worried glances when he thought I wasn't looking. I sat back up, trying to push back the irritation I was feeling. For all the bad things I had found, I had at least gotten an upgrade on what my powers could control. I had felt a few squirrels and rabbits and dogs on the drive in, so it wasn't just people. I could make use of that, maybe keep a bunch of pets or something. I could still go out as a cape, once I had worked out the kinks on my new powers. Matsuri - Bombast - she had told me to meet with her on Saturday. I would get answers then - demand answers, if I could. Until then, I would just have to learn to live with the changes.
When I did make it up to my room, the first thing I did was open the old laptop I kept on the desk. I was supposed to be using it to keep up with schoolwork, and that's what I had been doing for the last few weeks. It was far too early in the afternoon for that right now though, so I was focusing on the second thing I had been using it for since the locker: cape research.
PHO was definitely not the most reliable source for this kind of information - there were as many posts talking about the practicalities of independent heroing as there were theories about capes secretly being reptile people in disguise. But the wiki attached to the forum was a good place to find publicly available information about capes. I started my search with Matsuri - Bombast.
She wasn't hard to find. I could have guessed based just on the fact that I had known the name. She wasn't a hero exactly; she was a high-profile rogue cape operating not just in Brockton but around the New England area. She operated a courier service where she carried stuff around on her motorcycle. Her primary market was deliveries that were likely to be intercepted by cape attacks; apparently the PRT sometimes hired her, because her website boasted that prisoner transports that she was contracted for had one tenth the escape rate of general transports. Her website was a goldmine, actually; not for exact details on her powers but for information about her personality. Her name was apt, at least: it sounded like her entire business model was a challenge to other capes to just try and catch her.
The wiki wasn't entirely clear on her powers. There was an ongoing fight playing out across her wiki page about if her power was telekinesis or force fields. Apparently the big, invisible, moving objects I had seen in the fight were her signature. Because she was so high profile and intentionally showy about her jobs, there were plenty of clips of her smashing armed vehicles off the road, pinning supervillains into the pavement, and even a few of her driving her bike through the apparently empty air. Her costume, too, was well-recorded, the leather jumpsuit and helmet with blacked out visor having been apparently ubiquitous since she appeared on the scene about a year ago.
What surprised me even more was that she was affiliated with a team. Well, team was a strong word; it sounded like it was a loose conglomeration of capes in the bay that used their powers for business instead of heroing or supervillainy. Bombast and Asclepius were the big ones, but there were a couple others, like the doll-girl that ran that puppet show on the Boardwalk. They didn't have any official name, but there were multiple incidents of Bombast fighting off gang recruiters haranguing the puppet-girl, and a few of Bombast guarding the pale figure of Asclepius on high-profile healing contracts.
Looking into the group sent me down a research hole that actually taught me a lot about the local cape scene that I hadn't gotten in my original research. For instance, Brockton was apparently a hotspot for two rarities in the cape world: rogues and healers. There were at least two healers in town: one villain, in the E88; and one neutral rogue who worked for money. In terms of rogues, there was the unnamed group that Bombast worked with, made up of about five members, plus a group of mercenaries that operated out of a club that were in a sort of legal gray space. They had a number of criminal allegations, but they kept clean within about a hundred miles of Brockton, which was their home base.
Eventually, once I had finished gawking at the crazy powers of the mercenary group, I moved on to my next topic: Shadow Stalker. She was indeed a Ward, and had been for the past six months or so. I was surprised to learn that she was an independent hero before that, one who mostly worked at targeting the E88. There were a string of rescues she had made, and from the descriptions she had been a bit more violent than I would have expected of a future Ward, but then again, it sounded like she mostly went after Nazis in the middle of hate crimes, so it wasn't like I could really blame her.
She had disappeared for a few months before showing back up with the Wards after which it sounded like she grew a little less active in hunting down crimes in progress. It sounded like a lot of her fans were upset because they thought this meant the PRT had pressured her into joining somehow, that she had "sold out" or something.
There was another dip in her activity again a few months ago, after which she came back using her powers a little differently. The message boards were talking about how she had maybe spent that time training somewhere, and that was why she fought differently, but with what Miss Militia had told me, I thought maybe that was when her powers changed because of Psyren. It looked like before she had mostly used ranged weapons and kept out of sight, keeping to the edges of fights. After her reappearance, she had this cloud of her smoke that surrounded her and she usually got much closer, pulling her bolts and melee weapons like the spears she had handed out from the cloud. Frankly, I was a little jealous; it sounded like her powers had only gotten more versatile after the change, instead of what had happened with mine.
She had also been seen with a few of the rogues that Bombast worked with, though it looked like maybe it was just a part of her normal Ward duties. But it did seem like the rogues had some sort of connection with Psyren. Maybe they had also been taken to the flooded city? I decided to research Asclepius and the doll girl, just in case.
By the time I was done with that rabbit-hole, the sun had well and truly set. I had spent hours looking into the local rogues in much more detail than I had thought to before and I felt bleary from staring at the computer so long. All this and I had barely even started figuring out how I could use my new powers. My cape notebook was sitting open on my desk, mostly empty since I had gotten so sidetracked.
I only had one more person to look up. I had seen his link a few times in association with both the rogue group and the Wards, but I had held off because I was saving him till last. Maybe I could skip him, since - well, it wasn't like I would work with him again.
No. I had to at least do him the respect of looking him up. I had only survived because of Browbeat's effort to protect us. I put his name into the wiki.
What I got was a disambiguation page. There were apparently three Browbeats on the wiki. One was a villain in England, another was a former independent hero in the Midwest who was listed as deceased. The Brockton Bay hero was the last on the list.
His wiki page was almost empty. It had his name, as well as a brief description.
"Browbeat is an independent hero from Brockton Bay. His first confirmed appearance was on January 2nd, 2011, in a police report during an incident of gang violence.
His powers appear to include enhanced strength and the ability to grow in size in some capacity.
He has collaborated with independent rogue Bombast on two occasions and independent rogue Parian once."
Besides that, the wiki entry was empty. At the top there was a banner that read, "this article is a stub. You can help the PHOWiki by expanding it."
It took me much longer to read than the article's length justified. I had to start over three times, and when I was done, I sat staring at the blank space of the article.
That was it. That was apparently all Browbeat's cape career had amounted to. Four sentences and two links to better recognized rogues. He had died in front of me to keep me safe, and that was all he got. Abruptly enough that I almost surprised myself, I hit the edit button on the page to add something in, anything I could to make it clear he had fought heroically and sacrificed himself. I was brought up short by a twinge of pain in my chest.
I couldn't write anything. I couldn't put it in the wiki. I couldn't let anyone know what had happened. Did he have anyone else who was missing him? Did he have a family that was as worried about him as Dad had been for me? Would his wiki page always just be here, thinking he might reappear, like a ghost?
And what about the others that had been with me? There were four or five of us out of costume when the siren had started - I couldn't recall clearly in the haze of everything that had gone on. When we had returned, there had only been two, and one had looked like he was bleeding out in the park. What would happen to the other bodies? Would anyone figure out what had happened or would they just…go missing? That was - it was -
I closed out of the PHO wiki. This wasn't helping my cape research. I had been distracting myself from what I needed to do to figure out how my power could be useful again. I pulled my cape notebook closer to me, reaching out to my range to see if I could control any of the weavers in the basement from here. When I found, to my relief, that I could reach at least a few, I started my search. Useful animals of the northeastern seaboard.
I had a lot of work to do if I ever wanted to go out in costume.
He kept glancing away from the road to look at me. I wasn't sure exactly what it was he was getting most distracted by. The big tears in my hoodie that hadn't been there before? The way my jeans were still a little damp below the knee? Whatever it was, it felt like he expected me to say something.
Instead, I looked out the window, trying to keep my attention away from the way he felt in my power. Because I could feel him - just like I could feel the nurse and Miss Militia and all the people I had passed in the halls of the PRT building on my way out. I even caught some of the other drivers on the road. My curiosity was burning in me now, but the thought of puppeteering people the way I did bugs was too horrible to contemplate.
At least I wasn't entirely without my bugs. I hadn't been able to feel them in the PRT infirmary, but that was just because it was so clean. When I had left I had been relieved to find that I could still feel and control bugs, as if that was some kind of consolation. Now I was operating on orders of magnitude fewer bugs, which would cripple me if I wanted to go out.
And if - when - I got pulled into a terrifying alternate world, how would I survive with such a pathetic range? I didn't want to think about it, but I also couldn't keep worrying at the idea in my mind.
I was surprised when Dad finally broke the silence a good five minutes into the car ride. "Taylor, what happened?"
It would be so much easier if I could just tell him, but it wasn't like that was a possibility at all. "I said when I called. I can't say."
We had stopped at a light, and Dad took the opportunity to look at me directly. "After what happened in January, you say that kind of thing and I just get more worried. I'm your father!" I jumped when he slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. It was sometimes easy to forget, because he never directed it at me, that he had a temper. "School called to say you were absent and I had no way to contact you. The whole day and night you're just gone, and when you do show up you say you're in PRT custody and need to be picked up. Not even at the PRT building! I don't even know that was really where you were! And your clothes are ripped and you look like you've been through hell. I was a teenager once too, I get it if you need some time…away from home. But I need to know you're safe." He glanced frantically back and forth between the road and me while he spoke.
I didn't know what to say to that. That might have been the most I had heard him say to me at once since the hospital. I tried to reply with a shrug, but that only seemed to work him up more.
"Just tell me something! Let me know you're safe. Tell me something so I don't have to imagine the worst case scenario. Please."
"I can't," I said. "There was a cape thing. I'm not just not allowed to say anything, I just can't." There. That was the truth. Maybe it would make him feel better? I don't know why, because it was pretty terrifying on its own. And it wasn't the worst thing I had experienced in the last twenty-four hours. "It was scary but I had - there was a Protectorate cape there. I'm going to be okay, I think."
Dad didn't respond at first, just continued glancing over to me. His knuckles were white where he gripped the steering wheel. "Well, you're not going to school tomorrow," he said finally. I wasn't sure if that was meant to be a punishment or a concession, and from his tone of voice, neither was he. "I shouldn't have sent you back so soon. It was too much."
How was I supposed to respond to that? I instinctively wanted to protest that I was okay, that I could go to school tomorrow just fine. Then I realized what I was trying to say and bit it back. I hadn't even thought of school, and now the idea of going back felt like a terrible, paralyzing weight. It was a relief to hear that I would be allowed to put that off just a little longer, like I could breathe a little easier.
I shrugged, trying not to show just how much it was affecting me. "Okay."
We were getting closer to our neighborhood and our conversation was tapering off when he broke the silence again.
"Do you remember when we talked about seeing someone?" he asked hesitantly.
Like that, iron bands refastened themselves around my ribcage. I shook my head since I couldn't speak. After the locker I had spent some time in the hospital, and most of it hadn't been for physical problems. The senses of all my bugs had left me either catatonic or lashing out wildly. They had apparently told my dad that I might need a therapist for some reason, and he had tried to talk me into it a few times before I went back to school.
The whole thing was stupid. My problems were just because my life was shitty. You couldn't fix that by spending an hour talking about how much I missed my mom. Frankly, I thought my dad needed that more than I did. That was only made worse now with this Psyren thing. Even if I wanted to talk out my problems, I would just hurt and maybe die.
And that wasn't even touching on the other issue I had realized early on in my 'recovery:' Dad was already dealing with a bunch of bills from my hospital stay.
When I felt more able to speak, I added, "expensive," to my denial.
He actually slowed the car down, even though we were only a few blocks away from home, pulling up against the curb.
"Taylor, you need to talk with someone. If I have to work a little more, I can, but your health is important! We can afford it!"
But that was just it. We couldn't afford it. That was why I had made that call in the first place last - no two nights ago. I had seen those bills and how much stress it was putting him under. The school had paid off the initial hospital bills, but if I had ongoing doctor's visits, that was going to come out of our pocket. I had made a stupid decision and I was already cursing my past self for her naivety, but I had had a good reason!
He clearly read something from my expression, because he let out a frustrated huff of air. "Please, Taylor, just think about it. It's only been a few weeks since the locker incident, and now this? I know you think you can handle it all yourself. You got too much of that from me - and your mother, to be honest. But just…" he trailed off as he studied me, his shoulders slumping. "If you need anything, please talk to me, at least. Even if you don't."
I didn't know how to respond to that. Eventually he took that as an answer of its own and started the car back up. We sat in silence for the rest of the trip back home.
***********
As I entered the house, I made an unpleasant discovery. Just one thing on top of the looming pile of shitty things going on in my life.
My range was small enough that it didn't include the entire house anymore. So it was with dawning worry that I began feeling out the black widows I had left in the basement. At first I thought that they had just shifted around and the primary bulk of my weaving force was just on the far edge of the basement. As I got to the middle of the living room, I realized I could feel everything in the section of the basement I had been using, and my weaver population had been decimated. Barely one in a hundred had survived, and most were huddled in tight presses that -
I should have done more research on spiders, I realized. I had spent so much of my last few weeks gathering the spiders up and keeping them working that I had never caught that they might kill each other. Because that was what I had walked in on: my weavers eating the corpses of one another. It was such a stupid mistake. I would have caught it when I went to school anyway, but because I had been gone for more than twenty-four hours, the damage had been far worse. I would have to start all over again.
"Do you want something to eat?" Dad asked. "We can order something in. I don't know if the PRT fed you anything."
As if to give away the answer to the question my stomach gurgled loudly. That was right, I hadn't had a full meal since I had left for school yesterday morning. I had been given a sugar cookie and a bag of chips from the PRT's cafeteria while I waited for my dad to pick me up. Whatever mysterious sickness I had gotten, it had been enough that I hadn't noticed it.
I stopped at the base of the stairs, torn between going up to my room to try to get a break and staying downstairs and dealing with the constant overbearing attention. I settled on the latter when I realized the shrinking of my range meant I might not even be able to control the bugs in the basement from my room. God, everything about the change in my powers was terrible.
I sat down at the kitchen table on autopilot, my focus more on the spiders beneath the house instead of my dad trying to figure out what restaurant to order from. I had managed to gather about four hundred black widows before my first day of school, and now I was down to fourteen, three of which were already dying. I immediately separated them and got to work moving them to opposite corners of the basement, having them find hidey-holes in cracks in the mortar and behind the washing machine.
How was I going to stop this from happening again? I couldn't just leave them in the little terrarium box I had gotten before, obviously. Maybe individual jars or cans? I could cover them up and leave them with enough food and air holes so they wouldn't die but couldn't get out when I left. That would take up a lot more space, but it would be necessary if I wanted to maintain enough of a weaving population.
Except…I let my head fall onto the table as I realized the problem. How would I get enough spiders to restore my stock? Dad's concerned exclamations distracted me and I had to calm him down, explaining that I was just tired from my 'ordeal,' and that he could go back to reading through the take out menus for the Jade Phoenix Garden Chinese restaurant.
I wasn't going to be able to collect enough spiders. Black widows were native to Brockton, but they weren't the most abundant, for reasons I guess I had just discovered. Even on a good day of spider gathering, I had been lucky to catch more than a hundred in my range at a time, and most times I only caught three or four dozen. Now, the radius of my range was easily under twenty feet and I would be lucky to find more than a handful while I went out for a run. At that rate it would take weeks or months before I had anything approaching an acceptable weaving force, even if I bred them aggressively. So not only was I now enrolled in some sort of horrific death obstacle course that I couldn't tell anyone about, I was suddenly out my best tool for survival and my future cape career.
Dad began making the call to order food, still sending me worried glances when he thought I wasn't looking. I sat back up, trying to push back the irritation I was feeling. For all the bad things I had found, I had at least gotten an upgrade on what my powers could control. I had felt a few squirrels and rabbits and dogs on the drive in, so it wasn't just people. I could make use of that, maybe keep a bunch of pets or something. I could still go out as a cape, once I had worked out the kinks on my new powers. Matsuri - Bombast - she had told me to meet with her on Saturday. I would get answers then - demand answers, if I could. Until then, I would just have to learn to live with the changes.
***********
When I did make it up to my room, the first thing I did was open the old laptop I kept on the desk. I was supposed to be using it to keep up with schoolwork, and that's what I had been doing for the last few weeks. It was far too early in the afternoon for that right now though, so I was focusing on the second thing I had been using it for since the locker: cape research.
PHO was definitely not the most reliable source for this kind of information - there were as many posts talking about the practicalities of independent heroing as there were theories about capes secretly being reptile people in disguise. But the wiki attached to the forum was a good place to find publicly available information about capes. I started my search with Matsuri - Bombast.
She wasn't hard to find. I could have guessed based just on the fact that I had known the name. She wasn't a hero exactly; she was a high-profile rogue cape operating not just in Brockton but around the New England area. She operated a courier service where she carried stuff around on her motorcycle. Her primary market was deliveries that were likely to be intercepted by cape attacks; apparently the PRT sometimes hired her, because her website boasted that prisoner transports that she was contracted for had one tenth the escape rate of general transports. Her website was a goldmine, actually; not for exact details on her powers but for information about her personality. Her name was apt, at least: it sounded like her entire business model was a challenge to other capes to just try and catch her.
The wiki wasn't entirely clear on her powers. There was an ongoing fight playing out across her wiki page about if her power was telekinesis or force fields. Apparently the big, invisible, moving objects I had seen in the fight were her signature. Because she was so high profile and intentionally showy about her jobs, there were plenty of clips of her smashing armed vehicles off the road, pinning supervillains into the pavement, and even a few of her driving her bike through the apparently empty air. Her costume, too, was well-recorded, the leather jumpsuit and helmet with blacked out visor having been apparently ubiquitous since she appeared on the scene about a year ago.
What surprised me even more was that she was affiliated with a team. Well, team was a strong word; it sounded like it was a loose conglomeration of capes in the bay that used their powers for business instead of heroing or supervillainy. Bombast and Asclepius were the big ones, but there were a couple others, like the doll-girl that ran that puppet show on the Boardwalk. They didn't have any official name, but there were multiple incidents of Bombast fighting off gang recruiters haranguing the puppet-girl, and a few of Bombast guarding the pale figure of Asclepius on high-profile healing contracts.
Looking into the group sent me down a research hole that actually taught me a lot about the local cape scene that I hadn't gotten in my original research. For instance, Brockton was apparently a hotspot for two rarities in the cape world: rogues and healers. There were at least two healers in town: one villain, in the E88; and one neutral rogue who worked for money. In terms of rogues, there was the unnamed group that Bombast worked with, made up of about five members, plus a group of mercenaries that operated out of a club that were in a sort of legal gray space. They had a number of criminal allegations, but they kept clean within about a hundred miles of Brockton, which was their home base.
Eventually, once I had finished gawking at the crazy powers of the mercenary group, I moved on to my next topic: Shadow Stalker. She was indeed a Ward, and had been for the past six months or so. I was surprised to learn that she was an independent hero before that, one who mostly worked at targeting the E88. There were a string of rescues she had made, and from the descriptions she had been a bit more violent than I would have expected of a future Ward, but then again, it sounded like she mostly went after Nazis in the middle of hate crimes, so it wasn't like I could really blame her.
She had disappeared for a few months before showing back up with the Wards after which it sounded like she grew a little less active in hunting down crimes in progress. It sounded like a lot of her fans were upset because they thought this meant the PRT had pressured her into joining somehow, that she had "sold out" or something.
There was another dip in her activity again a few months ago, after which she came back using her powers a little differently. The message boards were talking about how she had maybe spent that time training somewhere, and that was why she fought differently, but with what Miss Militia had told me, I thought maybe that was when her powers changed because of Psyren. It looked like before she had mostly used ranged weapons and kept out of sight, keeping to the edges of fights. After her reappearance, she had this cloud of her smoke that surrounded her and she usually got much closer, pulling her bolts and melee weapons like the spears she had handed out from the cloud. Frankly, I was a little jealous; it sounded like her powers had only gotten more versatile after the change, instead of what had happened with mine.
She had also been seen with a few of the rogues that Bombast worked with, though it looked like maybe it was just a part of her normal Ward duties. But it did seem like the rogues had some sort of connection with Psyren. Maybe they had also been taken to the flooded city? I decided to research Asclepius and the doll girl, just in case.
By the time I was done with that rabbit-hole, the sun had well and truly set. I had spent hours looking into the local rogues in much more detail than I had thought to before and I felt bleary from staring at the computer so long. All this and I had barely even started figuring out how I could use my new powers. My cape notebook was sitting open on my desk, mostly empty since I had gotten so sidetracked.
I only had one more person to look up. I had seen his link a few times in association with both the rogue group and the Wards, but I had held off because I was saving him till last. Maybe I could skip him, since - well, it wasn't like I would work with him again.
No. I had to at least do him the respect of looking him up. I had only survived because of Browbeat's effort to protect us. I put his name into the wiki.
What I got was a disambiguation page. There were apparently three Browbeats on the wiki. One was a villain in England, another was a former independent hero in the Midwest who was listed as deceased. The Brockton Bay hero was the last on the list.
His wiki page was almost empty. It had his name, as well as a brief description.
"Browbeat is an independent hero from Brockton Bay. His first confirmed appearance was on January 2nd, 2011, in a police report during an incident of gang violence.
His powers appear to include enhanced strength and the ability to grow in size in some capacity.
He has collaborated with independent rogue Bombast on two occasions and independent rogue Parian once."
Besides that, the wiki entry was empty. At the top there was a banner that read, "this article is a stub. You can help the PHOWiki by expanding it."
It took me much longer to read than the article's length justified. I had to start over three times, and when I was done, I sat staring at the blank space of the article.
That was it. That was apparently all Browbeat's cape career had amounted to. Four sentences and two links to better recognized rogues. He had died in front of me to keep me safe, and that was all he got. Abruptly enough that I almost surprised myself, I hit the edit button on the page to add something in, anything I could to make it clear he had fought heroically and sacrificed himself. I was brought up short by a twinge of pain in my chest.
I couldn't write anything. I couldn't put it in the wiki. I couldn't let anyone know what had happened. Did he have anyone else who was missing him? Did he have a family that was as worried about him as Dad had been for me? Would his wiki page always just be here, thinking he might reappear, like a ghost?
And what about the others that had been with me? There were four or five of us out of costume when the siren had started - I couldn't recall clearly in the haze of everything that had gone on. When we had returned, there had only been two, and one had looked like he was bleeding out in the park. What would happen to the other bodies? Would anyone figure out what had happened or would they just…go missing? That was - it was -
I closed out of the PHO wiki. This wasn't helping my cape research. I had been distracting myself from what I needed to do to figure out how my power could be useful again. I pulled my cape notebook closer to me, reaching out to my range to see if I could control any of the weavers in the basement from here. When I found, to my relief, that I could reach at least a few, I started my search. Useful animals of the northeastern seaboard.
I had a lot of work to do if I ever wanted to go out in costume.
- Location
- London, 1935. August.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Good news! I am back and I have a real backlog this time! No more posting one chapter a year! I actually have the entire rest of this arc written out. I will be posting a chapter every two weeks. That should cover until sometime in early fall, at which point I will hopefully have finished the scattered pieces of the second arc I have been working on. My goal is to be able to have a somewhat stable update schedule, something which I have never managed before.
Accretion 1.6
- Location
- London, 1935. August.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There were a lot of people in the park, given that it was early February. It was probably because it was a relatively warm afternoon, and this was a nice part of town so there were always a few families with children that were willing to brave the chill to get them out of the house. I couldn't help but shift around a little on the park bench. A public park was not the most covert place for a secret meeting about cape business, and I kept finding myself looking over my shoulder.
Maybe I would have been more comfortable if I had been given a little more information on where to meet, but Bombast had just said at the park. It wasn't a massive place, but it was definitely not small enough that I felt sure I would be able to find her when she arrived. I had tried to find the most visible bench in the entire park, but that only made me feel more self-conscious, knowing pretty much everyone could be watching for me.
Thankfully, if there was one benefit to my newly reduced power, it was that I could no longer be snuck up on. I felt her as she entered my range from the path behind me, a beacon of power in my senses that was far more intense than anyone I had come across in the time since I had woken up in the PRT building. It was an aspect of my new powers that I didn't quite understand yet; some people were brighter than others that I could control. The only person who even got close was Miss Militia, so maybe it had something to do with being a cape? But then, the Protectorate hero had been in the original Wards; shouldn't she be stronger?
When she came around the bench, she greeted me with a raised arm and a casual "yo." I don't know why, but I was shocked to see her in casual clothes - a thick denim coat with a hood and a long white scarf trailing behind her. It should have been obvious that she would come out of costume - I was in my normal clothes too, but it felt almost wrong to connect the dark, leather-clad, helmeted figure I had been researching with the slightly-punk-looking college kid in front of me.
I realized I was staring just a little too late to avoid looking awkward and waved back. "Hey."
She didn't seem to notice my misstep, thankfully. "So, I didn't get your name the other day. I'm Matsuri, but you already know that."
I didn't answer her implied question immediately. On one hand, I didn't want to mix up my cape and civilian lives. On the other, well, I didn't really have much of a cape life so far, and she had already seen my face. I relented. "I'm Taylor."
"Taylor? Thanks. I bet you have a lot of questions, yeah?"
The only way I knew how to respond to that was by looking at her like she was an idiot.
"Right, dumb question. Well, you survived your first Psyren call, so you're entitled to some answers. Not here, though. Come on, I've got a place we can talk privately. The others will be there." She turned to head down the path, jerking her head to indicate I should follow.
I did not follow. "What was that place?" I asked instead, my voice a little more unsteady than I had hoped it would sound.
Matsuri stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I told you, not in public, right? I can answer your questions when we get to the meetup."
I shook my head. "I'm not going anywhere private with a stranger."
I had thought about what I had seen in the days since the psyren event. I had thought that maybe it was all made up, like some sort of fucked-up performance piece, but then I had discarded that as wishful thinking. Remembering the events in that strange green-tinted city was hard, even as they seemed to be carved into my memory. I had spent a whole day feeling like I was floating outside my body as my dad had gone about his normal business. I had come up with a lot of explanations, of wildly different levels of plausibility, but only a few had stuck out as things that were particularly likely.
A big one of those, one that I hadn't been able to dismiss, was that some combination of Matsuri and the others were responsible for what I had seen. She had said they weren't, but that could have been a lie. I couldn't figure out what any of them could have possibly had to gain from it, but it meant I couldn't let my guard down around them. My hand clenched around the pepper spray I had concealed in my jacket pocket and I examined Matsuri in my power a little more. If worse came to worse, I could at least freeze her in place with my new powers.
She took a second, then let out what sounded like a beleaguered sigh and turned back around to return to my bench. To my surprise, she sat down next to me. "Alright, then, what do you want to know?"
"Everything."
She shook her head, somehow managing to sprawl casually out on the bench next to me like this was what she had meant to be doing all along. "Nah, I told you we can't do this in public. What do you need to know to come with me?"
I hoped she hadn't thought that would reassure me, because the phrasing didn't at all. "What was that place?" I repeated.
She shrugged. "Psyren. That's what it looks like when you get the call. Sometimes it looks a little different - sometimes the water is gone, sometimes there are no ruins, just bare dirt, but it's always something like that. I can tell you more just…"
"Not in public. Right. Don't want any witnesses."
I was surprised when the older woman just laughed in response to that. "No, we would know if there were witnesses." She clenched one hand over her chest, right above her heart and Taylor got the idea. It was pretty macabre to use the master effect that might kill you as a way of detecting eavesdroppers, but she had a point. "We need to go somewhere private so we can work with you on how your powers work.
That, at least, made some amount of sense. Too bad it wasn't very useful for me. "Well mine's somehow even more useless now, so I guess you don't need to worry about that."
"So you did have one before, then," she said, smiling slyly. She waved off my concern. "Don't worry, that's what most people say after their first run, if they came in with powers. That's why we need to talk. I'll bet your new ones are a lot more useful than you think."
Well, she wasn't entirely wrong. If I were a different sort of cape, my powers would be incredibly useful. Just, also horrifying and wrong. Even with a sharp range limit, I'm sure there were plenty of uses for being able to control people.
I decided not to argue with her on that one, instead trying for another question that had bugged me. "So how did we get back? And how did we get there in the first place?"
"That's Nemesis Q's power, as far as we can tell. You heard a phone ringing before that, right? And then you picked it up?" She waited until I had nodded my confirmation to continue. "Well, that's how it works. You get a phone ringing in your head - it's not real." She cut off again, noticing my look of horror. "Not related to the winged bitch. It sounds totally different. We've had people who've been there. You hear a phone ringing, and you pick up the phone - any phone - And then you're teleported to Psyren. You get to a phone in Psyren and call, and you get sent back. We think the power is tied to the phone lines, but we haven't been able to get anyone in a position to monitor calls. Picking up phones monitored by outside agencies doesn't work."
"So you can just not answer?"
"Nope. The ringing gets louder and louder until your head explodes."
What? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Did I have something in my head?
"It's the same effect as the heart stopping thing," Matsuri said. "Just, a brain aneurysm instead of the heart. Supposedly, at least. Not like I know anyone that it's happened to, but you hear rumors. The point is, you should carry a phone with you, in case you get a call somewhere there are no phones in easy reach."
I resolved to hold onto the phone the PRT had given me. Sure, maybe it could track me, but being tracked had to be better than my head exploding if I didn't have it. I was beginning to think that the monetary reward wasn't enough to justify getting into any of this. Even if I managed to figure out whatever was going on here, even if I somehow figured out how to get the information to the PRT, would the thirty thousand dollars really be enough to make up for…whatever this was I was going to have to do?
It was with that in mind that I stumbled through my next question. "What do we have to - how do we stop?" Even as the one saying it, it sounded like a desperate plea.
It caused Matsuri to sit up out of her casual slouch and dug through her pocket to produce a familiar-looking red card. "I usually just show people this. But you only have to go a limited number of times. You can check it on the back of your card. There should be a number on the corner - it starts out at fifty and counts down each visit."
I fumbled through my bag, trying to find my own card to see if it had a similar mark in the corner. "I have to do that forty-nine more times?" I asked.
"No, no. Each run counts for a different number of points. That was a hard one - it might be worth as much as six."
That was not as reassuring as it sounded like she meant it to be. I would have to do that again maybe ten times? And without - Browbeat had done a huge chunk of the work, shielding us from the horde of creatures that had attacked. Half the non-capes that had come in had died and one was so injured he was barely conscious last time I had seen him. What was I going to be able to do to prevent the same thing happening to me, if every trip was going to be a coin flip?
"Hey, hey, breathe, it's not that bad!" I was startled to find that Matsuri was no longer sitting next to me, she was instead standing up, hunched down to examine me, her face taking up most of my field of view. "This is why I don't drop this kind of info alone," she muttered, more to herself than to me. "Come with me. I know at least one person who made it out, okay? It's doable. Just, come on."
She grabbed my arm and pulled me up and I found myself following her out of the park, more worried about my immediate future than the possibility she might lead me somewhere shady.
"D'you bring a mask? You'll want to put it on before we arrive. We can duck into an alley and get something to hide our identity," Matsuri said. When I responded by digging my heels in to try to stop, she stopped with me and waved her hand distractedly. "Don't worry, we're still going somewhere public-ish. It's just everyone there will know we're capes. Unless you're going for the open identity thing, you'll want to at least put minimal effort into hiding your civilian ID. And while we're at it, we should exchange numbers. So we can arrange training and strategy sessions with the group."
I searched her face, but she didn't look like anything more than a chipper college student. Reluctantly, I dug into my bag and pulled out my phone and a ragged blue ski mask I had pulled from our neglected box of clothes to donate or throw out. I had little choice but to trust her, if I wanted to get any answers at all.
I was glad that I had put on the mask, as embarrassing as it was, when we arrived at our destination. It was a classic-style dinner with a sign above reading 'Ringo's All-Nite.' There were a handful of customers milling about looking for an early dinner at the tables around the entrance and further back were the distinctive covered booths. I didn't recognize the diner in particular, but it had been a fad for diners to have secured 'cape booths' curtained off from the rest of the restaurant and relatively isolated back around the time I was born. I had always thought it was mostly just a kitschy gimmick, which was why the only people who kept them around were retro-style diners like this. I guessed that it did make life a lot easier to have semi-private meetings if you really were a cape, though.
Matsuri - Bombast, I guess, though she had just wrapped her scarf tightly around her lower face and put on a pair of large, reflective sunglasses instead of donning the motorcycle gear I had seen pictures of online - led me into the diner as casually as if this were a normal occurrence. She waved off the waitress at the counter and immediately turned for one of the booths. I tried to wave at the waitress as well, but she seemed too shell-shocked by the presence of actual capes to respond.
At the booth itself, Matsuri knocked lightly on the wooden side of the booth. A moment later, a male voice came from within. "We're all decent in here."
Matsuri pulled back the curtain lightly and stood back to allow me to enter. Inside I saw one face I recognized and a big surprise.
Shadow Stalker was sitting against the back wall of the booth, facing the curtain where I was entering from. It was difficult to make out anything about her, because her mask was a stoic woman's face, but her eyes were looking right at me.
Next to her was someone I didn't immediately recognize. Even sitting in the booth he was tall, but the plain gray sweatshirt he was wearing was hanging off him like it was a size too big, making him look unnaturally deflated. He was wearing a mask that I recognized as a PRT standard-issue. I wasn't sure who he was, but his gaze seemed wary.
The surprise was the man sitting next to him. It was a cape I recognized, one of the Protectorate's local lineup. He was wearing red body armor and had a reflective red visor that covered from just below his hairline to his cheekbones. It was Assault. I had met Miss Militia earlier, but I had thought the Protectorate wasn't allowed to know about Psyren.
"Hey there," he offered, smiling brightly. "Come on in. You might have to squeeze in next to Shadow Stalker here, but don't be shy. She won't bite."
I was given enough time to see the Ward in question direct a rude gesture to Assault before Matsuri was coming in behind me, pushing to slide into the booth. As she entered, I spotted the waitress from before coming up behind her and holding open the curtain.
"Hi there!" she said, the excitement in her voice sounding surprisingly convincing. "Is everyone here? I can start taking your orders if you're ready?"
The others already had menus in front of them, and Assault began ordering off the menu. When he was done, he glanced up. His eyes were hidden, but given the angle of his face, I assumed he was looking at me. "I already let the other new guy know, and Shadow Stalker and Bombast here know me, but you can order whatever you'd like. It's on me."
While the others ordered, I rushed through skimming over the menu to try to find something to order. I had not been expecting the venue change and was thrown off balance, so I barely caught what everyone else was ordering. I did get Shadow Stalker turning down the offer to order anything at all and Assault making some sort of comment about it, but after that I missed all of it.
When the waitress got to me, I panicked. "Can I just get a, uh, chocolate milk?"
"Sure thing, honey," she replied, writing that down and turning to Matsuri as I imagined slamming my palm against my forehead. What kind of order was that? Was I a ten year old? I nearly stopped the waitress and changed my mind, but by the time I decided to do that, she was already closing the curtain and heading for the kitchen.
Next to me, Matsuri slid her sunglasses into her pocket and began pulling her scarf off. All thoughts about how stupid I had made myself look fled from my head when Assault did the same.
Underneath the mask, he looked like a normal guy, maybe somewhere in his twenties. "Why don't we all get comfortable, huh? She'll knock before opening the curtain again, and I figure we might as well all get to know each other. Why don't we do some introductions? I'll go first." He straightened up in his seat and cleared his throat theatrically. "Hello new Psyren travelers, I'm Assault, but you guys can call me Ethan. I'm a Taurus, my favorite color is red, and I am a Protectorate hero." He stopped, and then pretended to reconsider for a moment. "Oh yeah, and I'm a former Psyren traveler who completed all my visits and got out of the game. It's nice to meet everyone."
Maybe I would have been more comfortable if I had been given a little more information on where to meet, but Bombast had just said at the park. It wasn't a massive place, but it was definitely not small enough that I felt sure I would be able to find her when she arrived. I had tried to find the most visible bench in the entire park, but that only made me feel more self-conscious, knowing pretty much everyone could be watching for me.
Thankfully, if there was one benefit to my newly reduced power, it was that I could no longer be snuck up on. I felt her as she entered my range from the path behind me, a beacon of power in my senses that was far more intense than anyone I had come across in the time since I had woken up in the PRT building. It was an aspect of my new powers that I didn't quite understand yet; some people were brighter than others that I could control. The only person who even got close was Miss Militia, so maybe it had something to do with being a cape? But then, the Protectorate hero had been in the original Wards; shouldn't she be stronger?
When she came around the bench, she greeted me with a raised arm and a casual "yo." I don't know why, but I was shocked to see her in casual clothes - a thick denim coat with a hood and a long white scarf trailing behind her. It should have been obvious that she would come out of costume - I was in my normal clothes too, but it felt almost wrong to connect the dark, leather-clad, helmeted figure I had been researching with the slightly-punk-looking college kid in front of me.
I realized I was staring just a little too late to avoid looking awkward and waved back. "Hey."
She didn't seem to notice my misstep, thankfully. "So, I didn't get your name the other day. I'm Matsuri, but you already know that."
I didn't answer her implied question immediately. On one hand, I didn't want to mix up my cape and civilian lives. On the other, well, I didn't really have much of a cape life so far, and she had already seen my face. I relented. "I'm Taylor."
"Taylor? Thanks. I bet you have a lot of questions, yeah?"
The only way I knew how to respond to that was by looking at her like she was an idiot.
"Right, dumb question. Well, you survived your first Psyren call, so you're entitled to some answers. Not here, though. Come on, I've got a place we can talk privately. The others will be there." She turned to head down the path, jerking her head to indicate I should follow.
I did not follow. "What was that place?" I asked instead, my voice a little more unsteady than I had hoped it would sound.
Matsuri stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I told you, not in public, right? I can answer your questions when we get to the meetup."
I shook my head. "I'm not going anywhere private with a stranger."
I had thought about what I had seen in the days since the psyren event. I had thought that maybe it was all made up, like some sort of fucked-up performance piece, but then I had discarded that as wishful thinking. Remembering the events in that strange green-tinted city was hard, even as they seemed to be carved into my memory. I had spent a whole day feeling like I was floating outside my body as my dad had gone about his normal business. I had come up with a lot of explanations, of wildly different levels of plausibility, but only a few had stuck out as things that were particularly likely.
A big one of those, one that I hadn't been able to dismiss, was that some combination of Matsuri and the others were responsible for what I had seen. She had said they weren't, but that could have been a lie. I couldn't figure out what any of them could have possibly had to gain from it, but it meant I couldn't let my guard down around them. My hand clenched around the pepper spray I had concealed in my jacket pocket and I examined Matsuri in my power a little more. If worse came to worse, I could at least freeze her in place with my new powers.
She took a second, then let out what sounded like a beleaguered sigh and turned back around to return to my bench. To my surprise, she sat down next to me. "Alright, then, what do you want to know?"
"Everything."
She shook her head, somehow managing to sprawl casually out on the bench next to me like this was what she had meant to be doing all along. "Nah, I told you we can't do this in public. What do you need to know to come with me?"
I hoped she hadn't thought that would reassure me, because the phrasing didn't at all. "What was that place?" I repeated.
She shrugged. "Psyren. That's what it looks like when you get the call. Sometimes it looks a little different - sometimes the water is gone, sometimes there are no ruins, just bare dirt, but it's always something like that. I can tell you more just…"
"Not in public. Right. Don't want any witnesses."
I was surprised when the older woman just laughed in response to that. "No, we would know if there were witnesses." She clenched one hand over her chest, right above her heart and Taylor got the idea. It was pretty macabre to use the master effect that might kill you as a way of detecting eavesdroppers, but she had a point. "We need to go somewhere private so we can work with you on how your powers work.
That, at least, made some amount of sense. Too bad it wasn't very useful for me. "Well mine's somehow even more useless now, so I guess you don't need to worry about that."
"So you did have one before, then," she said, smiling slyly. She waved off my concern. "Don't worry, that's what most people say after their first run, if they came in with powers. That's why we need to talk. I'll bet your new ones are a lot more useful than you think."
Well, she wasn't entirely wrong. If I were a different sort of cape, my powers would be incredibly useful. Just, also horrifying and wrong. Even with a sharp range limit, I'm sure there were plenty of uses for being able to control people.
I decided not to argue with her on that one, instead trying for another question that had bugged me. "So how did we get back? And how did we get there in the first place?"
"That's Nemesis Q's power, as far as we can tell. You heard a phone ringing before that, right? And then you picked it up?" She waited until I had nodded my confirmation to continue. "Well, that's how it works. You get a phone ringing in your head - it's not real." She cut off again, noticing my look of horror. "Not related to the winged bitch. It sounds totally different. We've had people who've been there. You hear a phone ringing, and you pick up the phone - any phone - And then you're teleported to Psyren. You get to a phone in Psyren and call, and you get sent back. We think the power is tied to the phone lines, but we haven't been able to get anyone in a position to monitor calls. Picking up phones monitored by outside agencies doesn't work."
"So you can just not answer?"
"Nope. The ringing gets louder and louder until your head explodes."
What? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Did I have something in my head?
"It's the same effect as the heart stopping thing," Matsuri said. "Just, a brain aneurysm instead of the heart. Supposedly, at least. Not like I know anyone that it's happened to, but you hear rumors. The point is, you should carry a phone with you, in case you get a call somewhere there are no phones in easy reach."
I resolved to hold onto the phone the PRT had given me. Sure, maybe it could track me, but being tracked had to be better than my head exploding if I didn't have it. I was beginning to think that the monetary reward wasn't enough to justify getting into any of this. Even if I managed to figure out whatever was going on here, even if I somehow figured out how to get the information to the PRT, would the thirty thousand dollars really be enough to make up for…whatever this was I was going to have to do?
It was with that in mind that I stumbled through my next question. "What do we have to - how do we stop?" Even as the one saying it, it sounded like a desperate plea.
It caused Matsuri to sit up out of her casual slouch and dug through her pocket to produce a familiar-looking red card. "I usually just show people this. But you only have to go a limited number of times. You can check it on the back of your card. There should be a number on the corner - it starts out at fifty and counts down each visit."
I fumbled through my bag, trying to find my own card to see if it had a similar mark in the corner. "I have to do that forty-nine more times?" I asked.
"No, no. Each run counts for a different number of points. That was a hard one - it might be worth as much as six."
That was not as reassuring as it sounded like she meant it to be. I would have to do that again maybe ten times? And without - Browbeat had done a huge chunk of the work, shielding us from the horde of creatures that had attacked. Half the non-capes that had come in had died and one was so injured he was barely conscious last time I had seen him. What was I going to be able to do to prevent the same thing happening to me, if every trip was going to be a coin flip?
"Hey, hey, breathe, it's not that bad!" I was startled to find that Matsuri was no longer sitting next to me, she was instead standing up, hunched down to examine me, her face taking up most of my field of view. "This is why I don't drop this kind of info alone," she muttered, more to herself than to me. "Come with me. I know at least one person who made it out, okay? It's doable. Just, come on."
She grabbed my arm and pulled me up and I found myself following her out of the park, more worried about my immediate future than the possibility she might lead me somewhere shady.
"D'you bring a mask? You'll want to put it on before we arrive. We can duck into an alley and get something to hide our identity," Matsuri said. When I responded by digging my heels in to try to stop, she stopped with me and waved her hand distractedly. "Don't worry, we're still going somewhere public-ish. It's just everyone there will know we're capes. Unless you're going for the open identity thing, you'll want to at least put minimal effort into hiding your civilian ID. And while we're at it, we should exchange numbers. So we can arrange training and strategy sessions with the group."
I searched her face, but she didn't look like anything more than a chipper college student. Reluctantly, I dug into my bag and pulled out my phone and a ragged blue ski mask I had pulled from our neglected box of clothes to donate or throw out. I had little choice but to trust her, if I wanted to get any answers at all.
***********
I was glad that I had put on the mask, as embarrassing as it was, when we arrived at our destination. It was a classic-style dinner with a sign above reading 'Ringo's All-Nite.' There were a handful of customers milling about looking for an early dinner at the tables around the entrance and further back were the distinctive covered booths. I didn't recognize the diner in particular, but it had been a fad for diners to have secured 'cape booths' curtained off from the rest of the restaurant and relatively isolated back around the time I was born. I had always thought it was mostly just a kitschy gimmick, which was why the only people who kept them around were retro-style diners like this. I guessed that it did make life a lot easier to have semi-private meetings if you really were a cape, though.
Matsuri - Bombast, I guess, though she had just wrapped her scarf tightly around her lower face and put on a pair of large, reflective sunglasses instead of donning the motorcycle gear I had seen pictures of online - led me into the diner as casually as if this were a normal occurrence. She waved off the waitress at the counter and immediately turned for one of the booths. I tried to wave at the waitress as well, but she seemed too shell-shocked by the presence of actual capes to respond.
At the booth itself, Matsuri knocked lightly on the wooden side of the booth. A moment later, a male voice came from within. "We're all decent in here."
Matsuri pulled back the curtain lightly and stood back to allow me to enter. Inside I saw one face I recognized and a big surprise.
Shadow Stalker was sitting against the back wall of the booth, facing the curtain where I was entering from. It was difficult to make out anything about her, because her mask was a stoic woman's face, but her eyes were looking right at me.
Next to her was someone I didn't immediately recognize. Even sitting in the booth he was tall, but the plain gray sweatshirt he was wearing was hanging off him like it was a size too big, making him look unnaturally deflated. He was wearing a mask that I recognized as a PRT standard-issue. I wasn't sure who he was, but his gaze seemed wary.
The surprise was the man sitting next to him. It was a cape I recognized, one of the Protectorate's local lineup. He was wearing red body armor and had a reflective red visor that covered from just below his hairline to his cheekbones. It was Assault. I had met Miss Militia earlier, but I had thought the Protectorate wasn't allowed to know about Psyren.
"Hey there," he offered, smiling brightly. "Come on in. You might have to squeeze in next to Shadow Stalker here, but don't be shy. She won't bite."
I was given enough time to see the Ward in question direct a rude gesture to Assault before Matsuri was coming in behind me, pushing to slide into the booth. As she entered, I spotted the waitress from before coming up behind her and holding open the curtain.
"Hi there!" she said, the excitement in her voice sounding surprisingly convincing. "Is everyone here? I can start taking your orders if you're ready?"
The others already had menus in front of them, and Assault began ordering off the menu. When he was done, he glanced up. His eyes were hidden, but given the angle of his face, I assumed he was looking at me. "I already let the other new guy know, and Shadow Stalker and Bombast here know me, but you can order whatever you'd like. It's on me."
While the others ordered, I rushed through skimming over the menu to try to find something to order. I had not been expecting the venue change and was thrown off balance, so I barely caught what everyone else was ordering. I did get Shadow Stalker turning down the offer to order anything at all and Assault making some sort of comment about it, but after that I missed all of it.
When the waitress got to me, I panicked. "Can I just get a, uh, chocolate milk?"
"Sure thing, honey," she replied, writing that down and turning to Matsuri as I imagined slamming my palm against my forehead. What kind of order was that? Was I a ten year old? I nearly stopped the waitress and changed my mind, but by the time I decided to do that, she was already closing the curtain and heading for the kitchen.
Next to me, Matsuri slid her sunglasses into her pocket and began pulling her scarf off. All thoughts about how stupid I had made myself look fled from my head when Assault did the same.
Underneath the mask, he looked like a normal guy, maybe somewhere in his twenties. "Why don't we all get comfortable, huh? She'll knock before opening the curtain again, and I figure we might as well all get to know each other. Why don't we do some introductions? I'll go first." He straightened up in his seat and cleared his throat theatrically. "Hello new Psyren travelers, I'm Assault, but you guys can call me Ethan. I'm a Taurus, my favorite color is red, and I am a Protectorate hero." He stopped, and then pretended to reconsider for a moment. "Oh yeah, and I'm a former Psyren traveler who completed all my visits and got out of the game. It's nice to meet everyone."