Prelude 0.2
It didn't make sense. I probably should have considered the possibility that I'd gone mad. It was no wonder I'd tried to repress it all- even now, there was a lot that I was doing my best not to look at. It would itself have been crazy not to consider the idea. But I didn't believe it, even for a moment. There was no doubt whatsoever in my mind that what I knew- what I remembered- was real. There was still a lot to sort out, identity-wise, which wasn't exactly great for the 'I'm sane' theory, but the truth is that that's not what I was stuck on right now.
See, I knew things, from my life. Things that I (Taylor) had learned. The Golden Man, appearing in '82. The Golden Age of Parahumans. Vikare. Behemoth. Kyushu and Newfoundland. Et cetera. Only none of that happened. I remembered the 80s, and the early 90s. Even living on Mus, I would have noticed Behemoth rampaging through New York in '92. Not to mention all the rest of it. It's not like Mercury was that difficult to get to.
I was lying in my hospital bed, trying to make sense of two completely irreconcilable timelines (without success) and trying not to scratch at the bandage across my forehead (this was going better for me). Turning the thoughts over and over in my mind. Trying to distract myself from the incandescent fury that filled me when I thought about-
My dad had visited earlier. It had been good, apart from a brief moment of confusion when I almost started speaking Middle French. He'd filled me in on what had happened- or at least the version I gathered he'd been told, that I'd fainted at school and hit my head on my locker door. Nothing about the gross crap they'd stuffed in there, but whatever. I'd deal with Winslow later, when my headache subsided a little. For now, I'd settle working up to nerve to attempt the dubious looking lunch a nurse had brought me (I'd already eaten the Jello, obviously).
I'd just finished my so-called food when the man from the PRT arrived. An anonymous looking white guy in a dark suit, with sunglasses tucked into his front pocket, he'd actually given me a brief but intense moment of panic when he walked in, and I'd been too busy trying to pick a moment to go for the door to catch whatever it was he was saying.
"-Parahuman," the man said. Just like that, I was paying attention again.
"I'm sorry," I said, awkwardly. "I, uh, I missed that last part." I gestured to the bandage on my head. "I'm still a little dazed, I guess."
"That's quite alright, miss Hebert," he said. He smiled at me, and I relaxed at even that relatively feeble expression of emotion. "As I was saying, I'm with the PRT. I'm here to perform what we call a crisis response investigation. That's something we do in cases where we believe that there's a chance that someone's become a Parahuman."
"You think I'm a Parahuman?" I asked, legitimately bewildered.
"It's a possibility," he said. "It's quite common for Parahumans to gain their powers in a moment of... extreme stress, you might say. One of the things the PRT does is keep an eye out for those sorts of situations. Hospital visits are part of that."
"Oh," I said, for lack of a better idea, trying my best to seem, well, like a confused teenager.
"I should caution you that Parahumans are still extremely rare," he said. "and we still don't have a reliable way to tell when or if someone is going to gain powers. But it's better to be safe than sorry. The time just after they've gained their powers can be extremely scary, and the Wards provide a safe and welcoming opportunity for young Parahumans to learn to understand their abilities in a controlled environment."
"I don't think I'm a Parahuman, though." I said.
"That's alright," he said. "Ms. Hebert, when you were brought here, the hospital gave you what's called a CT scan, because of your injury. It's like a head x-ray, to check for a brain injury or anything like that. I'd like to ask you to sign a release form granting the PRT access to the results of that scan, for the purposes of determining if you are or not a Parahuman. All you have to do is sign, and we can get the information from the doctors. It's totally optional, of course, but if you yourself aren't sure, it could be good to get confirmation one way or another. We'll also cover the cost of the procedure."
"How does it work?" I asked.
"Well, I'm not a doctor, but as I understand it there are certain signs, physical signs, that are present in a Parahuman's brain that n- other people don't have. In your case, the hospital has already done a test that can show if you have them, but it's illegal for them to release your private medical information without your consent. Does that make sense?"
"Yes," I said. I paused, pretending to think. "Uh, shouldn't my dad be here? If I'm gonna sign anything? I'm only 15." He frowned, slightly, before covering it with another smile.
"Of course," he said. "We just find that it's sometimes easier to talk to kids about this kind of stuff without anyone else present."
"Oh," I said. "Well, like I said I don't think I'm a Parahuman. But if my dad says it's ok, then sure. He's probably at work right now."
"I'm sure the hospital can give me his contact information," the man said smoothly. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Hebert. We'll be in touch. I hope you feel better." And then he was gone.
So, that happened. And Parahumans have some kind of detectable brain abnormality. Interesting. Actually, this was great for me- I already knew the PRT wouldn't find anything, and it could only help me going forward to have their records show that I was just a normal girl. Whatever I decided to do next, it would be a lot easier with that kind of cover.
Of course now I had even more questions. The idea that Parahumans had some kind of telltale brain abnormality was a tantalizing one, a hint however faint at just what was going on with them. I knew (as Taylor) that nobody understood how powers worked or where they came from, but I could draw a few interesting conclusions. The fact that there was some sort of physical different in the brain that distinguished a Parahuman, plus the obvious lack of backlash, seemed to indicate that whatever was going on functioned entirely within the bounds of static reality without disturbing the Consensus at all. Which was wild, but not entirely without precedent, although this was way more blatant than anything I could remember.
Well, I wasn't going to solve it lying in this stupid hospital. What I could do, though, was make plans. First thing: Winslow, obviously. I was far and beyond done with putting up with that shit. Then, basic resources. Then, and only then, the Empire. As much as I hated to wait, hated choking back the rage that filled me when I thought about- I had to be patient. I needed things. Time. Tools. Freedom to act. It was difficult to restrain myself. Difficult not to pull myself out of bed, storm out of the hospital and- But in order to actually accomplish anything, I needed to get ready. But when I was, I promised myself that they were going to burn. All of them. Award ReplyReport480Behold!13/7/2023Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Prelude 0.3 View contentBehold!impervious to your most powerful magnetic fieldsAward Recipient13/7/2023Add bookmark#3Prelude 0.3
Principal Blackwell was already closing her office door behind her by the time she noticed me sitting behind her desk. I had to smirk when she actually jumped a little, but she gathered herself admirably quickly, frowning angrily as she drew herself up and stared down at me where I sat. In her chair.
"Just what do you think you're doing?" she snapped at me, stomping over to the desk. For a second, I thought she was going to grab me, but she hesitated at the last moment.
"You shouldn't leave your passwords on a sticky note under your keyboard," I told her helpfully. "It's completely insecure. Anyone could break in here and go through your files. Emails. Everything. Even make copies, if they wanted to."
"Ms. Hebert, this is completely-"
"Sit down." I interrupted her, flicking the lighter as I did so, holding it up so she could see the flame (and so that the design I'd painstakingly scratched into the surface was hidden by my hand). With a gesture, and a murmured word, so quiet that I hoped she wouldn't even notice, the flame pulled away from the lighter, dancing in the empty air above my left palm. Blackwell flinched, collapsing into her chair like her legs had suddenly stopped working. I smiled wider.
"You- you-" she stammered.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I told her. "I could, if I wanted. I could hurt you very badly. But I won't. But you have to do what I say. Do you understand?" She nodded, shakily, eyeing her phone for a second before visibly thinking better of it. I closed my hand, and the flame went out.
"I know Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker," I told her, and I almost laughed at the look on her face. It had taken a few days to figure out, but I'd had nothing better to do while I was lying around at home after the hospital discharged me, the day after the PRT guy had gotten my signature and discovered my 100%-normal brain. I'd seen her, in my fugue, seen the strange tendrils threading her aura, like crystalline shadow. I'd never seen anything like that that I could remember, but I hadn't been quite ready to jump to Parahuman.
Not until I'd broken into Blackwell's office, and gone through her computer. It had been one hell of a stroke of luck that she was terrible with her passwords. I'd had to fight back the urge to burn the whole damned building down as I read through her emails with Sophia's PRT handler, but I pushed the anger aside. I could use this. I'd originally planned to just threaten her, but this was better.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Blackwell lied.
"Liar," I told her. "We take a dim view of liars in this school. I think someone told me that once." She flinched. "You let those three bitches do whatever they wanted to me, all to protect your Protectorate stipend."
"There was never any evidence," Blackwell said. I was honestly almost impressed that she was sticking to her guns. Not that it mattered.
"Principal Blackwell, either I've been telling the truth this whole time and you've ignored me," I told her, "in which case I invite you to imagine just how angry I am at you right now. Or I'm an unstable liar who is so deluded that I'm sticking to my story, even now." I waggled the lighter for her, watched her face pale in fear. "So which of those two options actually makes you feel safer?"
"You... you said you weren't going to hurt me," she said, quiet and defeated and so so small.
"Then I guess you should hope that I've been telling the truth," I laughed at her.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to tell everyone that I transferred," I said. She stared at me, mouth literally falling open slightly in surprise. "If anyone asks, that is. Meanwhile, on paper, I'm going to keep attending Winslow. My grades and attendance records will reflect that fact. Actually, my grades are going to suddenly improve. Like how they dropped once Sophia and her friends started stealing my homework, but in reverse. I want to be back on track for an A-average by the end of the term."
"And?" She asked me, dabbing at the line of sweat beading on her brow.
"That's it," I told her. "Easy. I leave Winslow, never to return. Anyone who asks about it thinks I go to another school. Anyone who checks my transcripts thinks that I go here. We go on with our lives and never have to see each other again. That's not so bad, is it?"
"You don't want-"
"Revenge?" I interrupted her. "I'm over it. If I get to leave, and never come back. If anyone tries to get in the way of that, it's going to end badly. Like if you tried telling the PRT about me. Do you know what's going to happen, if you do that? I know you're thinking about it."
"No, I-"
"I'll tell them about how scared I was. How desperate I was to get away from the bullies you enabled. All the things you let them do. I'll say I'm sorry and I just want to go to Arcadia and be a good little Ward. I'll do everything I can to get you fired, and thrown in jail. I'm stronger than Shadow Stalker could ever hope to be, and you saw how they bent over backward for her." I locked eyes with her, staring her down. "And then I'll wait for them to stop watching me so closely. I can be very patient. It could even take years. But I'll find you, wherever you are, and you're gonna wish that all I did was set you on fire. Do you understand me?"
She nodded, shakily, as I brandished the lighter again.
"You never gave a shit about me before," I sneered at her. "Don't start now. Let me walk away and you'll never have to see me again. Trust me. It's for the best."
"I- I- I can do that," she stammered.
"Good," I smiled at her. "See? Painless." I stood up. "Now, I've got a lot to do, and I'm sure you have a busy day as well, so unless there's anything else..." Blackwell shook her head frantically. I walked past her, opening the door. I wanted to just walk out of there. Put it all behind me. But in the end I couldn't resist a glance over my shoulder at the woman sitting, shocked and defeated, slumped in the chair in front of her desk, and honestly? It felt amazing. Award ReplyReport560Behold!13/7/2023Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Interlude 0. View contentBehold!impervious to your most powerful magnetic fieldsAward Recipient13/7/2023Add bookmark#4The Scorpion stood quietly in the corner of room, waiting for the meeting to begin. The room itself was white- white walls, white furniture, white tile floors- and spotless. A round white table, surrounded by white chairs. He didn't have a seat at that table, but that was alright. Better, even. Most of the seats were already filled, in fact.
The round table didn't have a head, but the dark-skinned woman in the white suit that oh-so-subtly evoked a lab coat was sitting at the head anyway. The only one in the room without powers, and yet the so-called Doctor Mother was still clearly in charge. It was impressive, in a way. In so far as anything they did could impress him. Contessa sat next to her, looking exactly as she ever did, with the Number Man and Eidolon rounding out the group. Eidolon had the hood of his costume thrown back and his mask off. An odd gesture, the god shattered by the uninspiring man within.
It was an elite group, and the Scorpion felt obscurely honoured to be in the room, in a way. It was hard to imagine a more rarefied group these days. Cauldron. Movers and shakers across the known multiverse. The Scorpion smirked inwardly.
The door opened, rebounding off the wall with a light bang, as Alexandria swept into the room. Now there was power. Power, and threat. The Scorpion kept as still as he knew how, effortlessly quashing the flicker of fear that ran through him, so fast it was almost imperceptible. She was the only real danger here- formidable as the others were, none of them worried him like Alexandria did. She owned her power. Eidolon's powers owned him. Eidolon, Contessa, Number Man, each a slave to the very ability that elevated them. Any one of whom could probably annihilate him in an instant.
Alexandria had a folder in her hand, and she dropped it onto the table with enough force that it flopped open, scattering a few pictures. One of them caught the Scorpion's eye. A slightly blurry shot of an anonymous-looking man in a dark suit and shades. This time, there was more than a flicker of fear.
"Them again," Eidolon muttered.
"We've just confirmed that the last Adept cell was destroyed," Alexandra said. "We have PRT and Protectorate forces on-site, but they haven't found any evidence. I doubt they will. They never do."
"19 confirmed sightings over the past decade, including the very public assassination of Myrddin," Number Man said quietly, "and we still have next to no information. Highly trained operatives. Advanced tinkertech equipment." He frowned. Doctor Mother glanced at Contessa, who shook her head so slightly it was almost imperceptible. Doctor Mother frowned.
"One thing we know is that they avoid the Endbringers," Doctor Mother said, after a moment. "That's why I called this meeting. Whoever these people are, they've only gotten bolder over the past 10 years. We need to know who they are, what they want, and what, if anything, they can offer. To that end, we feel that we need to refocus our investigations into the Fallen."
"The Fallen are a myth," Eidolon sneered. Doctor Mother shook her head, producing her own folder and calmly retrieving a photograph from it.
"This is Bradley Anderson," she showed the picture around. "He was a mail carrier for Canada Post, out of Saint John's. He's one of the confirmed casualties of the Newfoundland attack. He's also sitting in one of our holding cells as we speak. He was picked up three days ago, after he killed a police officer in Miami during his trigger event."
"His trigger event?" Eidolon leaned forward. "I'm sorry, you're telling me this guy survived Newfoundland as a viable candidate without triggering?"
"Actually, it seems that he was not present for the attack at all," Doctor Mother said. "Scorpion?" The Scorpion stepped forwards, suddenly diffident.
"I administered a truth agent when he was brought in," he said, holding up his hand to demonstrate. "One of my most potent stings. He wasn't capable of lying."
"According to Mr. Anderson, he was approached several months before the attack by a woman who inducted him into a cell of what initially seemed like a harmless secret society." Doctor Mother said calmly. "He went along with it because he was hoping to have sex with her, of course. After some time, they revealed to him that they had secret knowledge about the Endbringers. Their goals and desires, and how to placate them. Through human sacrifice. When he heard the warning sirens, he burst into his neighbour's apartment and performed the ritual he had been taught, doing a variety of extremely unpleasant things to him, culminating in the man's death. Mr. Anderson claims he then saw a bright light, felt an 'angelic presence' and the next thing he knew he was in Ottawa."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Eidolon muttered.
"We're not saying that his beliefs are accurate," Alexandria said. "But there is strong evidence that something snatched this man out of Leviathan's path. It wasn't us. If there actually is a method to induce the Endbringers to spare someone, it's game-changing. Even if it's horrific, we have to weigh it against the damage that they do. It's not just the loss of life, or the loss of capes, but also loss of infrastructure. If this sacrifice idea works, then perhaps we can adapt it on a large scale. Lessen the damage. Alternately, if Anderson is in fact the deluded fool that I suspect he is, we have to ask ourselves: how did he escape? How was he plucked out of Newfoundland and deposited in another city in the nick of time. Doormaker could do it, but he didn't."
"But a group with advanced tinkertech equipment whose agents seem to come and go without a trace could," Number Man said.
"Exactly," Alexandria said. "One way or another, we need to know."
"Divert resources," Doctor Mother said. "Reach out to your contacts. Anderson has spent the last five years establishing new Fallen cells, and he claims to have had limited interactions with other survivors who are doing the same. They're out there. All we need is a single thread to pull."
The Scorpion smiled, inwardly. A single thread indeed. Another step along the path of their own intentions. It was almost too easy. Award ReplyReport464Behold!13/7/2023Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Initiate 1.1 View contentBehold!impervious to your most powerful magnetic fieldsAward Recipient14/7/2023Add bookmark#7It was three weeks after my confrontation with Blackwell, and as I'd thought the woman had chosen the better part of valor, and gone along with my little scheme. As far as my dad knew, I was still going to school every day, giving me precious uninterrupted time to get things done during the day while he was at work.
Of course, some things could only be really done at night, which meant I still had to sneak out now and then. Currently, for example, I robbing my second ATM of the night, huddled in a bulky men's winter coat against the January cold. I was wearing a thick ski mask, with goggles, and a black bandana tied over my mouth, not to mention a shirt, sweater and the aforementioned parka, and I was still freezing. I honestly don't know how some of these capes did it in the costumes I'd seem the wearing.
I wasn't just bundled up against the cold, but it did make for a convenient excuse to wear such all-concealing clothing. I was assuming that it was more or less inevitable that I was going to get caught on camera- weren't there even cameras in ATMs? Covering every single inch of skin wasn't just weather-appropriate, it was also a necessary precaution. As much as I wasn't loving the windchill, it was probably better than trying this sort of thing in the middle of July.
I carefully reached into my pocket and retrieved my device. It looked like it had been hastily cobbled together out of an old cell phone, a pocket calculator, and some random computer boards, because I'd more or less thrown it together with whatever random junk I'd found in the basement, plus a little glue.
I carefully inserted part of the device into the ATM slot, making a big production of pressing buttons on the device. It didn't actually do anything, of course. It was all just misdirection, playing to the inevitable cameras. I'd also glued a few random bits to my otherwise-ordinary ski goggles in hopes it would also help sell the idea that I was some kind of Tinker, albeit one with crappy equipment and no money or fashion sense.
Meanwhile, with my other hand, I produced a small magnet from my pocket, with a pair of intricate sigils carefully carved into either side. Holding it, I pressed it to the base of the ATM and began to carefully trace a pattern as I chanted quietly to myself.
Hopefully, anyone who reviewed any footage of this would think that I was somehow hacking the ATM with my tinkertech hack tool. The truth was I didn't have the first idea of how to even begin to do that, but I did know that somewhere inside there was a machine that dispensed bills. And that machine ran on electricity, which meant that- aha!
The ATM suddenly began pouring out money, and I scrambled to catch it before the wind took it. A few bills blew away, but all in all I probably ended up with a couple of thousand dollars. Not a bad haul. I crammed it into my pockets and started making my way back home.
I didn't exactly love stealing, less out of a moral objection than the fact that it just seemed undignified, but the truth was that I needed money and it's not like I cared if the banks lost out, if they even noticed.
I was a few blocks away from the ATM when I heard them. The sound of quiet laughter and conversation from around a corner ahead of me. I crouched, pulling off my ski mask quickly, and inverting it, revealing the series of symbols I'd carefully stitched into the inside, and crammed in back onto my head with another quick chant as the shadows flowed around me. I wasn't exactly invisible, but I'd be pretty hard to spot now, even under the streetlights. Carefully, I began to creep forwards.
It was an Empire patrol.
Part of trying not to get caught robbing ATMs meant going to parts of town that weren't where I lived. Nice parts of town, with lots of ATMs for me to choose from. E88 turf. I gathered that things were a little tense in Brockton Bay just now, and it seemed like a bunch of the gangs had nothing better for their foot soldiers to do than wander around at night playing soldier.
There were four of them, swaggering their way down the street. All of them wearing Empire colors. One of them, less bundled up than the others, had part of a swastika tattoo showing above the collar of his jacket. All four of them had guns.
I clenched my fists, fighting off the wave of anger. Of all the fucked-up things Earth Bet had presented me with, this had to be the most infuriating. I knew I should just let them pass, and go home. But I didn't want to. I really, really didn't want to.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled my dagger out of my pocket. It was a small weapon, the blade about as long as my hand, with a short t-shaped guard. It had been one of the first things I'd bought with my ill-gotten funds, and I spent even more of my loot getting it just right. It had taken some searching, but I'd found someone in Lord Street Market one day who had been able to etch tiny representations of the fourth Pentacle of Mars onto one side of the blade with the seventh mirroring it on the other side. I'd also had the blade magnetized. It was an excellent instrument, and I liked it a lot. And the Ars Virium had always had a special place in my heart.
Now, I held the dagger up to the night sky, staring at one of the streetlights as I began to chant for a few seconds before bringing the dagger down in a slashing motion. As I did, there was a sudden crack, and the sound of glass shattering, as one of the streetlights above the E88 goons exploded, sending a bolt of electricity straight down into the tattooed neo-nazi.
They screamed, throwing themselves away from what had to be a blinding flash, as I ducked into an alley, peeking out to watch the chaos. Only one of the gangsters had managed to draw his gun, and he was waving it back and forth as he frantically rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. The other two were still picking themselves up off the pavement. My target was dead. Smoking, burnt, obviously dead.
It's strange to kill someone for the first time again. Unexpectedly visceral, even though I'd obviously been here before. I felt... not sick, but a little dizzy. Like I was floating, and about to fall. My ears were still ringing from my little lightning bolt. The E88 goons had taken one look at their buddy and ran for it. I wanted to pursue them. Even now, with sickening cooked-flesh reek of what I had done in the air, I wanted to chase them down and show them just how angry their so-called Empire made me.
But this was enough, for tonight. I had just killed someone. Even a month ago that would have been completely unthinkable. I needed... time. To examine this experience. To think about what it meant that I had done this, and that I already knew I was more than ready to do it again. That wasn't exactly a Taylor Hebert thought, and that more than anything, scared me, a little. I felt like I was half a stranger to myself, and I wasn't always sure which parts of even felt wrong. Like pieces of myself were shifting in and out of focus, sometimes as I was trying to look at them.
I went home. Clearly, I had a lot to think about. And as I put on my same pajamas and got into my same bed and went to sleep, one last thought occurred to me.
As lost as I sometimes felt- as different as I was from who I had ever thought I would be, or remembered, the truth was that there was one thing that did make sense to me, amidst all the confusion and the strangeness and uncertainty and, I admit it, fear.
I'm alive, and back at war.Last edited: 15/9/2023 Award ReplyReport423Behold!14/7/2023Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Initiate 1.2 View contentBehold!impervious to your most powerful magnetic fieldsAward Recipient14/7/2023Add bookmark#11Killing that goon might have been a mistake. It definitely seemed to have agitated the Empire. They'd stepped up their patrols significantly, and every new group of thugs I came across was a lot more serious, and better armed. I had managed to avoid them at this point, and was mostly just staying out of Empire territory in general, for the last week or two. I was starting to get... bored, with the ATM thing. I had money, now, not serious money but a couple of grand (how recently that would have seemed like a fortune to me), and I was sort of running out of things I could immediately buy.
Honestly, what I needed most was a proper base of operations, but it wasn't exactly like I could go out and buy property, even if I could afford it, and squatting didn't seem like a viable long-term solution. It was a difficult problem, and so far I had nothing approaching an idea. I'd probably need real money, in the kind of quantity that's not exactly practical to steal. What was I even gonna do, rob a bank?
At this point, I'd been spending a lot of my days doing research on the Brockton Bay cape scene. I knew the basics like any Brocktonian would, and being a former Winslow High student was a great way to get educated on what gang tags looked like, but there was a lot of detail I was missing. I doubted the internet was going to be that helpful or trustworthy, but at the very least I'd made a list of cape names and known powers. It wasn't nothing.
The Empire was the obvious focus of my attention, not that I was especially thrilled with what the rest of the gangs were doing, but they were also proving relatively difficult to pin down. It was pretty easy to tell roughly which parts of the city they had control over, but they were surprisingly discreet with their safehouses for a streetgang. I'd tried following some of their patrols, but they always got picked up and dropped off by car, and I couldn't exactly sprint after them on foot.
I'd also been using my now-ample free time to exercise a lot more, mostly with a focus on running and climbing. If I ended up getting into fistfights I'd already lost. I spent most of my time on that and on trying to get my damned memories to line up. Certain things were easy, I'd learned them so many times that they seemed to have stuck, but it was a pittance compared to the powers I could remember wielding once upon a time. It was frustrating, more so even that the exercise, but I stuck with it. If I remembered anything, it was the discipline to learn. I would get it all back, in time. It's not like I wasn't ten or fifteen years ahead of where I should have been anyway.
I'd thought about another Seeking, but I wasn't sure I was entirely ready for that, yet. I could still feel her presence- my angel- all the time, now, the force of her attention urging me on, stronger than it had ever been. The burning heat, the desire to do something. It filled the air around me, sometimes, charging it with power, like the moments before a thunderstorm, or other times I saw my shadow flickering as if it had been cast by a roaring fire. I shouldn't have Resonance like this after- what, a month?
But, whatever its source, the urge to make some kind of progress on at least one of my goals was getting harder and harder to repress- but before I did, I really wanted to firm up my hold on the Ars Conligationis. I didn't need to be teleporting around town, but I really didn't want to start drawing attention without being able to protect myself from being remotely observed. I'd hidden my True Name again, which would be a significant help there, but I knew from bitter experience that it might not be enough.
I had no idea if I was alone here on Bet, but I wasn't about to take chances. I had to operate under the assumption that sooner or later, they'd be coming for me. The longer I could put that off, the better, because I sure as hell wasn't ready to deal with it now.
In the meantime, I might as well take the fight to the Empire, and that meant- for absolute lack of a better idea, I was going to have do something I really, really didn't want to do.
Socialize.
----
A/N: Yes, I'm having a normal day, why do you askLast edited: 20/7/2023 Award ReplyReport370Behold!14/7/2023Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Initiate 1.3 View contentBehold!impervious to your most powerful magnetic fieldsAward Recipient14/7/2023Add bookmark#12Everyone in Brockton Bay knew about Elysium. The nightclub/art gallery/performance space had been a fixture of the city's cape scene for as long as I could remember, at least according to the gossip I'd heard. Neutral ground, where violence was absolutely prohibited under pain of extreme penalties. As a number of out-of-town villains had apparently found out, to their cost, over the years.
What I found stranger was that nobody seemed to know anything about the Keeper of Elysium. The cape who maintained and protected Elsyium was infamous enough in his own right, but it was impossible to find out any details, even down to basic hints like costume or powers. Even his cape name was useless there. All I knew was that he was a he, and he'd apparently killed a number of capes over the years, but was otherwise neutral. A neutrality that all the gangs in this city seemed to respect.
I wondered if this supposed neutrality extended to trading information, too. I suspected not, and it didn't seem like I had anything to lose by trying.
That's how I'd found myself lurking in an alley down the street from the club- it seemed to be the bottom floor of a reasonably tall high-rise, and I wondered if the Keeper owned the entire building or what. It was a modest entrance, lit from above by a neon red sign that said the club's name and showed what looked like a stylized rose. Nothing terrible special, apart from the hooks.
Mounted above the main door, to either side, were a pair of heavy iron hooks, sticking out a little ways and then pointing straight up at the night sky, and even in the dim light of the streetlights, I could see that the wall behind them was faded and stained. Residue from the time that, if local legend could be believed, the Keeper had hung the heads of two members of the Slaughterhouse Nine above his door, back when they visited Brockton Bay in the late '90s.
It was said that they'd stayed up there for weeks, that even the local Protectorate had been scared to try to force the club to take them down. Looking at them now, I could believe it. The big bouncer standing out front of the door didn't seem to be paying them any attention, but he was probably used to them, if such a thing was possible.
Okay. I could do this. No violence, right? How bad could it be. I took a deep breath, and made one last check of the items in my pockets, and started in.
I had dressed up a little, tonight, in a long dark grey coat that hung just below my knees, over a crisp white dress shirt and dark pants. I suspected that the effect was a little more 'my first job interview' than I'd been going for, but it was better than cargo pants and one of my ratty old hoodies.
The bouncer saw me coming before I even got close, and his scowl only deepened as it became more and more obvious that I was heading straight for him. The calm, flickering blues of his aura were suddenly darkened, and threaded with bright strands of green. That was- what? Suspicion. Not great.
"Don't even try it, kid," he warned as I got close. "There's no fake ID in the world good enough."
"I'm not here to drink," I told him. "I want to talk to your boss."
"That's nice," he said impassively. I sighed, and produced my special lighter from my pocket, pulling the flame from it and making it dance in the air. His eyes widened, and he shifted his weight, suddenly ready to fight. Or maybe flee.
"I want to talk to your boss," I told him again.
"Most capes come in costume," he said, uneasily.
"I thought this was a little more subtle," I said. Awkwardly.
"Yeah, you're gonna blend right in," he mumbled to himself. "Alright, wait here a sec." He pulled a little radio from the its holster on his belt and talked quietly into it for a few seconds.
Shockingly, it seemed that they weren't exactly excited about the idea of walking an obviously-underaged girl through the main floor of a nightclub, so the bouncer took me around back to a service entrance and through a number of (surprisingly clean) hallways and up a set of stairs before we ended up standing in front of a fancy-looking door with a 'Private' sign on it. I could hear the pounding beat of the club music through the walls, but it was quiet enough that people would be able to talk without a problem.
"In here," the bouncer said. "And... good luck."
I took a deep breath. I could do this. I opened the door, and went in.
It had been difficult to prepare for this meeting, not having any idea of what I was going to be facing, and given my current... limitations. I'd focused mostly on protecting my thoughts, in case he was a Master of some kind, and enhancing my senses. I'd been seeing flashes of auras around people on and off all the time, but I'd opened my senses and the colors were more vivid than ever. At least, they were around most people.
The room itself was lavishly, if tastefully decorated, with a private bar, a long table, an alarmingly gigantic television and several extremely comfortable looking leather chairs and a couch. The Keeper of Elysium was sitting in one of those chairs, staring straight at me as I walked in.
My first impression of him was that he was a shockingly good-looking man, like seriously some perfect marble statue come to life. It was... those were good cheekbones. To have, on your face. I really hoped I wasn't blushing. He was pale, like really pale, with perfectly styled black hair, and a charcoal suit that looked approximately twice as expensive as my house.
My second impression of him was that the colors of his aura were so faded that I could barely see them, except for the web of jet-black veins running through them.
Massasa.
Oh, shit.
----
A/N: okay I swear that's all for today, hopefully it's not a breach of forum etiquette to unload like 7 chapters at once and then run for it
PS- would it be helpful to anyone if I explained what the hell a Mage: the Ascension is? Award ReplyReport328Behold!14/7/2023Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Initiate 1.4 New View contentBehold!impervious to your most powerful magnetic fieldsAward Recipient19/7/2023Add bookmark#60I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die.
The thought ran through my mind on a panicked little loop. I'd like to believe that I outwardly played it cool, but from the way the vampire's (VAMPIRE!) easy smile slipped, I suspect I failed. He looked me up and down, his icy-pale eyes running over me in an instant.
"I know that look," he mused, as if to himself. His smile was back, and it may have just been my imagination but I couldn't help but think that it was... toothier. "Come in, close the door."
I thought about running for it. There shouldn't be anyone between me and an exit. Of course I had no idea how fast he was, and it's not like getting outside would be safer given that it was still night. So, knowing it was an incredibly, lethally bad idea, I went in. And closed the door.
"I'm just here to talk," I managed after a second.
"That's what Matthew said," he replied. I must have looked confused, because he clarified. "The bouncer. Of course, he told me that you were a Parahuman, some kind of pyrokinetic. But no Parahuman would have panicked like that just seeing me... and it may have been a few centuries, but I still remember what a witch's aura looks like. Would you like to sit down?"
I sat. The chair was incredibly comfortable. He smiled at me.
"It's been a long time since I've seen one of your kind," he mused. "I might have imagined you'd all died out. There doesn't seem to be a lot of room for you, in this brave new world of Parahumans."
"For either of us," I said, impulsively, and instantly regretted it.
"Ahh," he sighed, leaning back in his chair and making an elegant little gesture towards his heart, an off-hand sweep of his pale fingers. "Touché."
"I didn't come for a fight," I said, after a moment.
"Didn't you?" He said. "No, you... what? You thought I was the Parahuman." He laughed. "Oh, delightful."
"Just please tell me you're not a Tremere," I blurted, before I could stop myself, and then instantly cringed. Great job, Taylor. Really amazing work. But he just laughed (he actually had a really nice laugh).
"Mercifully not," he said. "But it's intriguing that you even know that name. How much would it be worth to you, to learn if there are any Tremere in the city tonight?" I stared at him. "Please. You're hardly the first young 'Parahuman' to come here looking to buy information."
"Less than you might think," I said, bluffing desperately. His smile widened, slightly. Definitely not buying it. Change the subject! "That's not what I came here for."
"Of course not," he said, leaning back a little in his chair. "So who is it, then: Lung, or Kaiser?"
Oh, he was reading me like a book. Dammit, I remembered what it was like to have social skills, why did I have to be so awkward all the- Then again, it's not like it was actually that impressive a deduction, they were two biggest gang-leaders in the Bay.
"Kaiser," I said. "I'm going to destroy him. His Empire. Everything. And I thought that even a neutral Parahuman might be interested in facilitating that. There would be a lot to gain."
"This sounds personal."
"You think that I'd need that kind of excuse?" I snapped, leaning forwards in my chair as the lights flickered slightly. "As if the very existence of the Empire wasn't provocation enough? These wannabe nazi bastards think that they can walk these streets with impunity, but they can't. They don't get to. Not while I live. They want to be the next Reich? I'm going to show them what happened to the last one."
A moment passed. Neither of us spoke. I'd gone too far, of course. But the memories were so raw, I couldn't stop myself. I'd probably never actually thought about it, but I'd still had the vague assumption that if you were going to remember past lives, you'd remember them in sequence, most recent first and then back one after another.
Maybe that was how it worked for other people, but not me. Europe in 1945 was as vivid to me as Brockton Bay in 2010. Tasting the ashes of Mus with my last breath, mixed together with the sound of cannon fire in 1473, and all the rest of it. So much.
"You were there," the vampire said, after a moment.
"Weren't you?" I asked him.
"New York," he said. I shook my head.
"Paris."
He studied me, for a moment.
"Kaiser might be a pale shadow of his father, but his so-called Empire won't be easily broken. They have money. Powerful capes. And more supporters in this town than anyone likes to admit." He shrugged. "But there are some things that I can tell you."
"And what's it going to cost me, to learn these things?"
"Oh, it's favors for favors here," he said, smiling ruefully. "But in this case... simply this: I'd like very much for you to remember that I'm your friend. The kind of friend you might keep trading favors with. Or pass along information to. The kind of friend who respects the sanctity of this establishment, and doesn't spread rumors about my... particular circumstances."
"That's it?"
"This is the most interesting conversation I've had in decades," he said. "That, in and of itself, deserves consideration." He leaned over to the marble side table next to his chair and pressed a small button on it that I hadn't even noticed was there. "Laura, would you be so good as to prepare a burner phone for our guest. And I'll need the number, of course."
"Yes sir," a voice said, out of nowhere. I glanced around for the intercom speaker, but couldn't spot it. The vampire released the button and leaned back in his chair.
"Untraceable, or so I'm told," he said. "I must confess that no matter how they explain them to me, I can't quite get used to the idea of a mobile phone." He paused. "May I ask: why come to me like this? Wearing the face of a child?
I looked at him for a long moment, trying to figure out what to say.
"It's complicated," I said, finally.
"It must be," he said. I watched him look me over once again, and then he shrugged, slightly, and stood. He held his hand out to me.
I stood up. This was a bad idea. He might come across as charming, even sympathetic, a good-looking man and weirdly a good listener, but it was all a mask, a cover for the ravenous blood-drinking horror beneath. Just because this was somehow, pathetically, still the best interaction I'd had with anyone since... maybe since Mom died. I had to assume that he was playing me- or at last, preparing to play me. I had no idea what he wanted, or what he was capable of.
Not to mention the fact that dealing with him would be breaking a law I'd sworn nine times to give my life to uphold. But not as Taylor, at least. So it wasn't like I was breaking an oath. Still, this was probably an all-time contender for worst decision I'd ever made.
I reached out, and shook the vampire's cold hand.
"My name is Stephen," he told me.
"My name is Taylor," I said. And then, because I was already in way too deep on this, and if nothing else I at least still had manners, "bani Hermes."
-----
A/N: So, yeah, that happened. I'm not 100% sure about how this conversation turned out, but I don't want to keep fiddling with it.
Past life memories aside, this is still Taylor "decides to tell a gang of supervillains she's spying on about one of the most traumatic experiences of her life without being prompted" Hebert.
Before anyone asks, Taylor did take precautions against mental influence before this meeting, but they don't really do anything against the vampire having Charisma 6+ (on a scale of 1-5). I picked the name Stephen in reference to the pope who had a predecessor dug up and put his corpse on trial (the Cadaver Synod), fyi.
Lastly, how are people feeling about the length of each entry, btw? I was thinking that I'd try to keep each entry sort of focused on a single-ish incident, but looking back over things a lot of them probably could have been combined no problem.
(actually lastly: bani is the Traditional honorific you use to identify which Tradition you're in, so it's just a formal way of saying 'of the Order of Hermes', which doesn't really mean anything to the vampire but it's polite I guess?) Award ReplyReport363Behold!19/7/2023NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Initiate 1.5 New View contentBehold!impervious to your most powerful magnetic fieldsAward Recipient30/7/2023Add bookmark#84I fled my meeting with the vampire in a cold sweat. It took everything I had not to simply break into a sprint the second I was out of its line of sight, but I managed to walk out of the building with at least some semblance of calm. The cold night air hit me like a slap to the face, and I shuddered as I walked into the alley behind Elysium.
The phone was already buzzing in my pocket. An elegantly beautiful young redhead- young, she was at least 25- had given to to me, complete with charger, when I came down the stairs from the vampire's room. I took it out, flipped it open. Addresses. Another one came in as I watched. Street name after street name, places I knew. Empire strongholds.
I'd done it. I'd actually gotten what I came for- maybe. It didn't escape my mind that there was a chance that I was simply being played. But it had to know that I would check these places out before I did anything. It didn't make any sense to set me up with false info- or at least, I didn't think it did.
I started walking, pulling my coat around myself against the cold. I needed to get home. My dad still thought I was going to school every day, which meant I had to get up in the mornings like I was, which meant I needed to get at least some sleep, and it was getting pretty late.
But first I needed to figure out what to do with this phone, because I was absolutely not stupid enough to carry the thing home. I needed a plan. I needed to think- about anything other than how badly the night had gone wrong. But I couldn't stop myself.
I had walked in there full of confidence- ready to meet with a Parahuman I had just assumed would be no threat to me. As if I was somehow elevated, untouchable. Like nothing could hurt me. Like I was special. What had I been thinking?
I staggered over to a bus stop bench, and sat down hard, taking deep, shuddering breaths. The world felt like it had fallen away, like I was teetering at the edge of a precipice. I felt faint, like my head was floating while the rest of me fell away, and I grabbed the edges of the bench hard. Something squished a little under my fingers, but I didn't even notice. I couldn't do this. I couldn't be this- be Ta-
The phone buzzed again in my pocket, and I actually yelped, leaping to my feet and looking around wildly. The streetlight above me flared, and then flickered out. The sudden surge of adrenaline actually helped- I pushed everything away as I turned, convinced for a brief moment that the vampire had followed me.
Nothing. I was alone. I shivered in the wind.
I needed to be more careful. I needed to be smarter than this. I was smarter than this. I had dealt with worse things than some bloodsucker. I just had to be ready.
What were my immediate problems?
First, the phone. I needed to get home before dawn- my dad still thought I was going to school every morning, so I needed him to see me doing it. But there was no way I was going to bring this phone into my house- I could probably block it if it was being tracked, but for all I knew the vampire had some pet Parahuman that could find it in some way I hadn't thought of- like how I had defended my thoughts against intrusion, but not done anything to block my aura, which somehow let that bloodsucker recognize me. I had no idea it could do that, but if I wasn't such a screw-up, I- Focus.
The phone.
I walked away from the bus stop, and started looking for a cab.
It took an irritatingly long time to find one- even at night, I was still right downtown- and the driver had given me a weird look when I climbed in the back and ordered him to take me to an all-night motel. A big part of me wanted to say something to correct the impression that he was no doubt forming- there weren't a lot of good reasons for a teenage girl to be doing something like this- but I restrained myself, glaring evenly at him whenever I saw him looking at me in the rear-view mirror.
I told him to wait, shoving a small chunk of cash through the divider, and then ran up to the motel, negotiating quickly with the sleepy-looking clerk to get a room for a full day. Thank God I was carrying a lot of cash on me. As soon as I got in the room, I grabbed the little plastic bag out of the trash can. I took out the phone, glancing at it to see that I'd been texted another three addresses. I grabbed the little block of hotel stationery scribbled them all down, ripping the top several pages off the pad.
I then turned off the phone, removed the battery for good measure, and dumped it all- including the charger- into the bag. I wrapped it up tightly, and then hid the package under the mattress. It was possible someone- a maid, or even the clerk looking to steal something- would find it before I could come back, but I thought it would probably be okay for tonight. I would sleep, play my part for dad, and then come back tomorrow and figure out a more permanent solution. I ran back out into the parking lot, getting back in the cab and giving the driver the address of an intersection not too close to my house.
By the time I actually got back home, I was starting to feel calm. The night had definitely not gone according to plan, but I hadn't made any fatal mistakes and had even gotten what I wanted. Assuming the vampire's intel was good. I couldn't think of a reason for it to lie to me. It had to know I would check out anything it told me before I acted. Then again, I had no idea what kind of game the thing was playing. I sincerely doubted it was helping me out of the kindness of its unbeating heart. But if it tried anything, I was going to set it on fire.
Sneaking back into the house was no trouble. I'd gotten pretty used to it over the past few weeks. I got ready for bed as quietly as I could, making sure to remember to set my alarm.
Maybe I could figure out a way to get the phone to forward texts to a different one I bought for myself. Or could that be traced? I didn't know. Modern technology was definitely not my forte.
Somehow, eventually, I managed to fall asleep.
The next day, I spent scouting for something resembling a base. First, of course, I went back and retrieved the phone, which went smoothly. Then I went and bought a few things, including another cheap flip phone. The phone the vampire had given me had one number in its contacts, and I copied that to my new one, just in case. I wasn't about to carrying the vampire's phone around all the time, but actually having a cell phone- especially one that I didn't mind destroying if I needed to- was probably a good idea.
I spent the rest of that day walking around the city, looking for a suitable abandoned building relatively close to Empire territory, with no luck. It didn't help that I had to waste so much of my time on the bus getting to the far side of downtown and back. Dad was definitely on to something when he talking about needing to restart the ferry.
The day after, however, I found an abandoned self-storage lot out by the highway on the far side of Empire territory. It was a small lot, and pretty obviously hadn't been used it a few years, and there were no signs of security cameras. It would do.
The chain-link gate was padlocked shut, and that almost defeated me. I had bought a pair of long-handled bolt cutters- and carrying those around all day in my backpack hadn't improved my mood- but I still had the upper body strength of an unathletic 15 year old girl, and by the time I managed to cut through the rusty lock I was flushed and sweaty and panting like I'd just run a marathon, only it was my arms that felt like they were on fire. I replaced the now-broken lock with one I'd bought and, after a little rest, went inside.
I repeated the procedure on one of the storage unit locks, which was somewhat easier, although I realized a few seconds after I got it that I should have started by checking the office for keys which was embarrassing. At least the unit was empty. I replaced the broken lock with another of mine, making sure I marked which key went with which with a bit of tape, and set down my backpack in the unit. It was a new backpack, purchased only a few days prior, and had nothing in it I would miss or that could identify me, so I wasn't worried about leaving it there while I went to get some more supplies.
A quick- well, not so quick- trip later, and I was back with my supplies. I laid them out- a fold-out cot, a sleeping bag, several bottles of water, and a box of granola bars, and a large fold-out map of Brockton Bay, which I pinned to one of the walls. I drank one of the water bottles, and ate a granola bar, throwing the trash in the corner. After a moment of thought, I unwrapped the rest of the bars, dumping them into a plastic bag, and throwing all the crumpled up wrappers in the corner, along with several emptied bottles of water.
It wasn't much, but if anyone stumbled across this place I wanted to at least create the impression that I'd been at this for a long time- partially to make them think that I'd gathered all the information myself, but also on the principle that confusing the enemy was never a bad thing.
That done, I returned to the map, pulling out my list of addresses and marking them with a thick sharpie. I could see a cluster of buildings in the Commercial District, and the southern edge of downtown. Tonight, I would investigate. Right now, I needed a shower.
I didn't manage to check out every place on my list that night, of course. I had to be careful. I had to assume that the Empire would be watching for people trying to spy on them. But I couldn't just charge in. I still wasn't completely sure if the vampire was playing some game with me.
I spent the rest of the week checking out the various locations, mostly by night, as best I could. My days were spent doing magic; the slow, agonizing preparation and ritual that was the backbone of every spell. Hours upon hours of arcane mathematics, numerology, calculating celestial alignments and symbolic formulae, the invocation of angelic names; divine, and elemental power. It was exhausting, and made me feel like a rank Practicus again, fumbling my way towards true Magia. Worse still was the fact that I had to clean everything up each day before my dad got home, just in case he decided to go down in the basement for some reason. It was hard to feel like I was making progress, especially working with such limited and lackluster tools.
Meanwhile, I had come to the conclusion that the vampire's information was probably good- two of the locations were anonymous-seeming detached houses, with neatly kept lawns and thick curtains over every window. It took some waiting, but it turned out that both were randomly visited by groups of angry looking white men who took pains to show as little exposed skin as possible where the neighbors might see. Safehouses. Probably storing weapons, maybe cash.
The other locations were innocent-seeming small business- a butcher shop, a hardware store, and an actual laundry. All places that could take bulk deliveries, and have customers walk out holding bags, without looking suspicious. On the other hand, all of them were places I could walk into. It didn't take elaborate perception enhancing spells to spot the guns hidden behind counters, or the concealed E88 tattoos, or the threads of suspicion in the auras of the employees when other customers came in.
Eight nights after my visit to Elysium, I made my first real move against the Empire: a phone call, alerting the fire department to a house fire at a specific address (where, a few nights earlier, I had spotted a guy with a badly concealed E88 neck tattoo smoking on the back porch). I was hidden in an alley a little ways down the street, ready to try my hand at a little arson.
I'd wanted to storm the house, but I wasn't sure I was ready for that yet. I wanted to improve my grasp on the Ars Virium before potentially getting into a shootout. But it was frustrating, hold back like this. It felt bad. Like last year.
I had a long stick with a bunch of rags soaked in lighter fluid wrapped around the tip, and I lit it up as soon as I was done with my phone call. I had already wreathed myself in shadows, bending almost all the ambient light away from myself. I walked calmly out of the alley, and began to chant, holding my makeshift torch up in the air as fire leapt from it towards the Empire safehouse, over and over. One of the third-floor windows was open, and I made sure to sent a jet of flame through it before I turned and ran off into the night.
And all with even the slightest sting of 'dox. It was incredible, almost intoxicating. Probably the only good thing about a world of Parahumans- who had any sense of the impossible anymore? It had been a revelation, when that had hit me (after an embarrassingly long time). They'd cracked the Consensus wide open. I knew that I could still probably only push my luck so far, but it was still a massive game-changer compared to the world I remembered.
Like- probably I had been seen- a shadowy figure, hurling flames- but anyone looking out their window would just think 'Parahuman' and that left an incredible amount of room for me to get vulgar in ways that would have been incredibly unsafe, before. Even if someone hadn't noticed me, I'd made a point of hitting the house with fire in several different points. I was assuming, hoping even, that an arson investigator would find this abnormal in a way that they'd report as Parahuman.
Sooner or later, that report would get back to the Empire. I wanted them to know that someone was after them, but also think that I was trying to cover my tracks. I needed them to start sending their Capes after me. I didn't know how many people in this city were members, or even merely sympathetic to the E88, but trying to take down the gang from the bottom up would take too much time. Killing even a few of their capes would be a faster and far more significant blow, if I could lure them into the open.
If nothing else, the firefighters might stumble across some drugs or illegal weapons or something. That was another way I could hurt them.
I smiled to myself as I heard the sirens in the distance.
-----
A/N: ugh, sorry this took so long but this chapter fought back, and I'm still not exactly sure about it, but if the plan is to kill E88 capes, she needs to get them agitated and patrolling first, and idk just breezing through that seemed wrong. But capefight(s?) soon.
Taylor is a lot more together when she's doing something dangerous (talking to a vampire) than when she's thinking about how dangerous it was and how she screwed up, because one of those things feeds into the fantasy of being a powerful/untouchable wizard and the other challenges it (as would any form of introspection about this).
Practicus is the last degree of the Hermetic apprenticeship, which is passed by Awakening. The Order of Hermes has nine 'degrees' (ranks, based on magical prowess), of which Practicus is the 3rd. Technically, Taylor has already hit 5th-Degree (Initiate Exemptus), but with her low Arete she's still using a lot of foci that she'll eventually discard, compared to her past-life memories of being much better at everything.
The Order of Hermes also teaches three 'types' of magic(k?), Goetia, Theurgy, and Magia. The first two are technically non-Awakened Sorcery/Hedge Magic, but a beginning Mage is still going to lean on their methods and implements and so on, gradually discarding them as they grow in power.
Paradox (aka 'dox, backlash, scourge, probably others that I'm forgetting) is normally a huge limiter on Mages getting too flashy. Briefly, since I don't seem to have covered this in an info post (oops) but when you bend reality too hard, it bends you right back.
IE: If you go around doing impossible things (AKA Vulgar Magic vs Coincidental Magic), you create Paradox, which at low levels just hurts or does mildly weird things, but if you get too much of it you tend to do things like explode, go mad, or get hurled out of reality, etc. But, remember, all of this works based on belief. People on Earth Bet may not believe in magic, but they do believe that a girl might be able to throw fire around with her Parahuman powers, so it's all alright by the local Consensus. That said, a Mage can still pick up Paradox, like by completely botching a spell, so it's not completely gone as a threat.
I'm not sure if I should have had Taylor think about all of this earlier, but she's yet to do anything amazingly vulgar, so eh? She definitely would have put it together by this point.
Also, sadly Taylor still only has Force 2 so she can't conjure flames out of nowhere yet, thus the whole business with the burning stick, as she can still only move existing fire around. For now.
Anyway, hope you enjoy this sort of setup-y chapter. Award ReplyReport284Behold!30/7/2023NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Initiate 1.6 New View contentBehold!impervious to your most powerful magnetic fieldsAward Recipient14/8/2023Add bookmark#98I had been secretly hoping that the patrons of this grimy dive bar would abruptly fall silent as I entered, like something out of the old Westerns my dad and I used to watch together, but reality was it took them a few moments to even notice me- or, rather, to notice the ball of fire I held floating above my hand. The bartender did actually drop a bottle, the crash punctuated by the startled yelp of one of the patrons actually falling off his stool in shock.
I was currently sweating in a red ski-mask, and a heavy coat that I had haphazardly spray painted flame-like designs on- the paint hadn't really taken, and was mostly a smeared mess, but that was good. It helped sell the image of a fresh trigger who didn't have any kind of gear or support yet. I also wasn't wearing my glasses, today, but it was pretty easy to compensate for that. A few basic spells had given me perfect 360-degree vision, not to mention a number of other exotic senses.
"You pay protection money to the Empire," I said, trying to make my voice sound deeper. "Don't lie. I know you do." I didn't actually know, not for sure, but it didn't matter. "But let me ask you this: do you feel protected?"
I raised the fireball higher.
"Spread the word!" I shouted. "Soon, the Empire will burn!"
With that, I turned on my heel and ran back out the door, fireball dissipating harmlessly as I fled.
This was the fourth time I had done this to an Empire-affiliated business tonight, plus five or six the night before, targeting places that I was at least fairly confident were front or paid protection. Getting it wrong once or twice also helped sell the idea that I was an amateur. I wanted that. I wanted the Empire to think I was a new trigger, in over their head. I wanted their capes to come after me confidently. So I could kill them.
I had been out burning E88 safe-houses and so forth for five nights now- five nights wandering around Brockton Bay, at night, and I'd yet to encounter even a single supervillain. I almost felt cheated. Still, it wasn't a small city, and unless there was some very weird cape out there I didn't know about, nobody could be everywhere at once.
I ducked into an alley, and spoke a quick spell, calling a sudden surge of wind to lift me up into the air. It was a wobbly ride, but I was getting better. I landed, slightly awkwardly, on the roof of the adjacent building. Everything I'd left was still there, and I ran over to my things. I could already sense the phone signals emanating from the building I'd just invaded.
I stood at the center of an elaborate pattern of chalk and wax that I'd previous made, with Enochian characters interspersed throughout at key intervals, in number and position determined by a day's work of irritatingly complex numerological calculation. I raised a knife- not my knife, just a random hunting knife I'd bought on the boardwalk and recently decorated with certain mystical patterns and runes- and slowly and deliberately sheathed it as I began to recite my spell.
I probably didn't have much time to get this right- and unfortunately for me, there were several phone calls originating from my target building. I'd just have to hope I either picked the right one.
I hadn't. My spell caught one of the cell connections, following it to its destination: a police dispatch facility. Damn. And all the other calls had ended!
Sighing with frustration, I abandoned the spell, cramming my various implements back into the backpack I'd brought them in.
This was the second time this had happened tonight. I'd also gotten a call to a local TV news office, and, humiliatingly, I'd completely botched the spell once also. That had been unpleasant. I could still feel the Paradox, like cold thorns wrapped around my guts, scratching me whenever I moved. Just waiting for me to make another mistake. I needed to be careful with that. The last thing I needed was to slip into Quiet. At this rate it would probably take many, many errors before that became a serious concern, there was simply no such thing as 'too careful' where Paradox was concerned.
All in all, I was in a pretty bad mood as I climbed down the building's fire escape, backpack bouncing awkwardly off my shoulders. Still, I had one or two more potential targets that I could hit tonight, if I could make it there before the businesses actually closed for the night.
Mostly, though, I needed to get out of here before the cops or the PRT showed up.
I started running.
If the last new nights had taught me anything, it was that I definitely needed to get in better shape. At least this time I'd managed to remember to bring a bottle of water.
I was sweaty- and the ski mask wasn't helping- and tired and generally done with tonight, but I managed to make it to my next target- an actual laundromat that I suspected was more for cleaning dirty cash than dirty clothes.
There was an alley a few doors down, and I managed to find a fire escape that I could climb, and I hauled myself up it on trembling legs before collapsing onto the roof, panting. I needed to take up jogging or something. I hauled myself up into a sitting position, and pulled off my ski mask. Splashing a handful of water on my face helped, as did drinking the rest of the bottle, but I still sat there for a minute or two before I felt like getting up and setting up for my phone-tracing spell once again.
I was actually feeling a lot better when I climbed back down the fire escape.
"Busy night?" Someone called, just as I hopped down into the alley. I gaped, beneath the ski mask, turning to see three people standing at the mouth of the alley, looking at me.
On the left was a slender, athletic-looking and heavily scarred young woman with buzzed-short hair, and some sort of weird metal cage covering most of her face
On the right was a tall man, shirtless in spite of the fact that it was still February, wearing dark pants and what was maybe some sort of chain-belt, with a blue and white tiger mask.
In the middle: another man, hugely muscular, wearing a simple white undershirt and pair of jeans. A metal wolf-mask covered his face.
Cricket, Stormtiger, and Hookwolf. Shit.
"Yeah, Victor thought you might be hitting this place sooner or later," Hookwolf laughed. I slipped my hand into my pocket "Little miss 'the Empire will Burn'. You look like the right kind, so I'll give you one chance to convince us not to beat you into a stain on the pavement."
I couldn't actually see his mouth behind the mask, but I could tell he was smirking at me. Cricket bounced a little on the balls of her feet, whirling her- what were those? Kamas?
I thought for a second, turning to face them square on before I answered.
"Nazi capes fuck off," I said, yanking the dagger out of my pocket and making a quick chopping gesture, followed with a shouted Enochian phrase, pulling electricity out of the nearest streetlight straight into Stormtiger's back with a loud bang and the faint sound of shattering glass. The alley was briefly filled with light, bright enough that I was still seeing spots even though I had known it was coming and closed my eyes. Stormtiger was lying face down, a hideous burn across his back.
Cricket smoothly dived for cover behind a nearby dumpster.
"You little bitch," Hookwolf said, almost conversationally, as he took a step forward, his signature metal blades erupting from his skin as he began to transform. He charged. I... may have yelped.
He was almost on top of me by the time I finished my next spell, a blast of wind that hurled him into the air up and away from me. He clawed at the wall, but it wasn't enough to stop himself from being sent flying into the air, above even the buildings. Not that that would do anything to him, beyond buy me a little time.
I ran for it.
I'd barely made it three steps before something sunk into my side, sending a searing burst of pain through me. I fell, landing heavily- and agonizingly- on one knee, looking down to see one of Cricket's kama's sticking out of my side. She'd thrown it at me! Were those even throwing weapons? I struggled to my feet, turning awkwardly to see her charging at me. I repeated my spell, hurling her into the air, but she managed to hook an arm around the same fire escape that I'd just climbed down from, and hold on. I ripped the kama out with a scream of pain, and pressed my hand against the wound to try to slow the bleeding as I ran/hobbled down the alley.
As I ran, I chanted hurriedly under my breath, until I reached the street on the other side and finished the spell, lifting myself through the air to land painfully atop another building. I could hear the metal-on-concrete sounds of Hookwolf charging in the near distance, but it didn't matter. Another hurried spell wrapped the darkness around me, and I was invisible. I didn't know if that would actually help- either of them could have exotic senses as one of their powers, but it probably couldn't hurt- unlike my side, which was in agony, slick with blood.
Gasping against the pain, I began to chant; syllabic fragments of my True Name in specific patterns, an assertion of spiritual wholeness over my ailing flesh. I grit my teeth and hissed as my body knit itself back together under my bloody hand.
I pulled myself to my feet and peeked out at the street- Hookwolf was there, in his full metal-wolf form, but I didn't see- No, wait, Cricket was back in the shadows of the alley, taking cover in a doorway or something. I thought about trying to blast her, but suspected that if I made any noise Hookwolf would probably be on me in seconds, and I was still struggling to think of a way to actually kill him.
As quietly as I could, I crept over to the far side of the building and began quietly chanting another spell.
I hopped- with magical assistance, obviously- from building to building until I was three or four blocks away from the Empire Capes. That was when I saw a taxi coming. I made it to ground level- dismissing the spell of invisibility- and waited until the taxi came to a stop at the red light before staggering out into the street, hand pressed against the bloody tear in my coat.
Before the cabbie could do anything, I pulled the back door open and partially collapsed into the cab. He turned around to say something, only to freeze when he saw the ski mask and obvious bloodstains- or maybe it was the dagger I was still clutching. I pulled a wad of crumpled bills from another pocket with my free hand.
"Please," I said, "this is at least five hundred dollars. Just take me to West Larch and Brook Street." I panted, theatrically. "I promise I won't hurt you."
The cabbie thought for a second before apparently deciding that he didn't want to try his luck. The light turned green, and he slammed on the gas hard enough to almost knock me over as I pulled myself to a sitting position. I let out a loud gasp of pain, as he did, and another each time the car bumped or he took a fast turn.
This was all a performance- I was fine, apart from my nerves and my heart beating so fast that it felt like it might shake free of my chest. That had been... close. But I wanted to play up the idea that I was wounded. This guy would talk to somebody- E88, police, PRT, bar buddies, it didn't matter. The story of the wounded person in the red ski mask would get around, and that was good. It would conceal the fact that I could heal myself, and make the Empire think I was weaker than I was. Also, the address I'd given him was fairly close to my abandoned storage unit base. Sooner or later, they would find that, and try to ambush me there. And they'd send more of their capes to do it. It was a bit of a gamble, but I did need to get back to my base as quickly as I could.
When the cabbie pulled to a stop, I acted like I'd been on the verge of passing out, before thrusting the wad of bills at him with a muttered apology and stumbling off into the night.
By the time I made it back to my base I felt like I'd sweated all the way through my clothes. I was exhausted. But I couldn't stop yet. My dad thought I was studying at the library, which meant that I only had so long before I had to get home. I pulled off my ski mask, coat, shirt and pants- everything I was wearing that had any blood on it, and crammed it into a bag. Thankfully I had remembered to store a few spare sets of clothes here, too.
After I had dressed in clean clothes and had a bottle of water and a granola bar, I slumped against the wall and tried to ignore how my hands were trembling.
That had been more intense than I was expecting it to be. I'd underestimated the Empire Capes a little- I had forgotten that they were all essentially combat veterans, who had been fighting over this city for years. An unexplained lightning bolt wasn't going to startle them. It had probably thrown Cricket's aim off a little- and saved my life in the process, but maybe I'd subconsciously been expecting them to be more freaked out. Yes, that made sense. I took a few deep breaths. I would be more ready, next time.
It wasn't like I hadn't done this sort of thing before.
I was fine. I was alive. I was fine.
Dad was a little angry with how late I got home- which was fair, it was nearly 11, but I apologized profusely and he eventually let me go to bed. I was so worn out, I fell asleep almost instantly, and if I had any bad dreams, I didn't remember them the next morning.
Dad was still upset over breakfast, but I managed to play the contrite daughter well enough that he let it go, at least for now, and let me leave "for school". I had several things to do today- I'd lost everything in my bag, abandoned on the roof of that random building. There wasn't anything in there that could identify me, but I still needed to replace some things. More importantly, I had bled all over the place. That had to be dealt with.
I went back to my base, and prepared my ritual.
Once there, I unfolded a map of Brockton Bay onto the ground, drawing a thick circle around it with chalk. Then, it was a fun several hours of scribbling in a notebook as I calculated the adjustments I'd need to make based on the current celestial alignment and the relevant numerology and so on. Finally, I decorated my circle with various Enochian phrases, arcane symbols, and specifically placed candles. I drew other circles- one around a cinderblock I'd found, and another for me to stand it, and prepared those properly as well, before dousing the cinder block in lighter fluid.
I was more or less making this spell up on the fly, based on several similar things I remembered, so it required a lot of careful, precise work to make sure I got it right. Finally, I lit the block on fire, making sure to feed the flames repeatedly until finally it looked like the block was getting appropriately hot. Then, I took my place in one of the circles. With a clean knife, I cut my left palm and dripped blood onto the heated cinder block. Then, I wrapped my hand in a bandage- I'd heal it later- and began to chant. For over three hours. Chanting, and heating. Chanting, and heating.
Basically, what I was doing was creating a link to allow that heat to transfer from the cinder block to all my blood that wasn't currently in my body. It was slow going- it would've been faster if I had a better method to heat the damned thing up- but eventually I would burn away all the blood I'd left behind after my- oh, wow, that was my first cape fight.
I was briefly worried that I might, like, hurt someone- burn someone (although if they were randomly touching my blood maybe they deserved it), or maybe start a small fire? But it was necessary. My True Name would protect me from any magical assaults using my blood, but who knew what a Cape could do with it? Especially a Tinker. Even the mundane police might be able to identify me with it- I'd just been in the hospital, and had no idea if that meant they entered my blood into any kind of system that the cops or PRT could track. No, it was better to be safe than sorry.
By the time the ritual was finished I was tired, hungry, and my throat was very sore. But I was satisfied. I'd met Hookwolf and Cricket. I could find them again.
---
A/N: sorry for the delay!
So, yeah, first brief capefight, and yes Stormtiger is dead. Taylor continues to not exactly be honest with herself, and having Correspondence 2 makes everything better. From the E88 perspective they were expecting a low-level pyrokinetic that Hookwolf could tank, and were in fact overconfident. Not like Taylor, who is clearly exactly the right amount of confident.
More importantly, having had face-to-face contact with someone makes it a little easier to use Correspondence magic on them remotely. If Taylor had been a little less paranoid it might have occurred to her try targetting her blood on Cricket's kama, but she didn't think of it.
Spell-wise, Taylor's doing Forces 1/Correspondence 2 to trace cell signals, Forces 2 for improvised lightning bolts and hurling people (I'm having her describe this as using wind because it seemed more paradigm-appropriate than flipping gravity around, but idk), Life 2 for self-healing, and finally an extended Correspondence 2/ Life 1/Forces 2 ritual to boil away her spilled blood. Because she only has Forces 2, she needs a heat source first, alas.
She also picks up a little bit of Paradox here- Paradox is accumulated as points and when you get too much of it, it erupts as Backlash, which can be a wound or a weird Paradox Flaw where reality goes wonky around the Mage, or Quiet which is basically a form of temporary madness. Which, if she got a bad case, would obviously be a lot more dangerous with no other Magi around to notice and contain her. As mentioned before, since in a world of Parahumans most of her spellcasting doesn't violate the consensus, it's harder for her to get Paradox but it can still happen.
think that's it, hope you enjoy, lemme know if you have questions
(actually, would people like it if I put a note in each chapter saying what Spheres Taylor currently has?)