Starry Eyes [Worm/Lovecraft Mythos]

Connections 1.1


I awoke in an unfamiliar room to a chorus of angels.

White walls, white floor, white sheets. Wires led from my hand to a beeping monitor. An IV (Morphine? Some kind of painkiller, if the fuzziness of my thoughts was any sign) dripped away into the tube in my arm. A nearby window framed a dark, overcast sky.

A hospital? Why am I... oh. The locker.

Winter break had just ended, and I had hoped that the bullying campaign led by my former best friend Emma would cool down as well. But when I reached my locker I found it filled with used and fermenting pads and tampons. The smell alone made me vomit, and someone, probably Emma’s compatriot Sophia, took the opportunity to shove me into the mess and lock the door behind me. I had waited in there for hours before someone finally let me out, and those fucking bitches were probably going to get off without even a slap on the wrist. And there-

There was the chorus again, a dozen feminine voices singing in near perfect harmony. But even though it sounded rather close I could not see its source. Hesitantly, I said, “Hello?”.

The voices paused for a moment. “It can speak?”

“Um, yes?” I looked around the room for the source of the voices, but I didn't see anywhere it could come from.

"It can understand?" The voice sounded even more ecstatic.

“Of course I- Where are you, anyway?”

“I am right next to you, silly. I have never found a talking spatial distortion before, this is so exciting!”

Well. This was weird enough that it was probably a dream. I didn’t want to think about the possibility of it being a hallucination, and what that would say about my mental stability. And hopefully my tormentors wouldn’t have been able to set up a prank in here.

This wasn't their style, anyway, so I decided to treat it like a dream- go along with it and try to enjoy the ride.

“So, do you have a name?”

“Tekeli-li? A name? I might have had one, maybe more! But I cannot remember. Does it have a name?”

I frowned. “My name is Taylor. So you don’t have a name, then?”

“Oh, that is a nice name! And yes, it has been so long that I cannot recall if I even had a name.” The voices paused. “Then again, the passage of time is somewhat subjective here.”

“Well, it’ll be a pain if I don’t have anything to call you by. Let me see if I can think of something.” Her voices were almost musical, so maybe... “How does Aria sound?” Probably not, maybe something el-

“Oh, that is a wonderful name! Thank you!”

Ah. That works, too, I guess.

“I must go tell my sister about this! And then I’ll bring her to meet you, too. Be sure not to wander while I am gone!”

“What? Wait, I... and you’re gone, aren’t you.”

.o.o.o.​

In the morning, I awoke to see my father sitting beside my bed. He smiled down at me, and I gave a small one back. After a short hug, he sat back down, and we talked. Mostly, he just wanted to make sure I was okay, but eventually, the conversation drifted... elsewhere. After telling me that I’d been here for a couple of days, he trailed off and clenching his jaw. We both sat in silence for a while, but eventually he seemed to calm down, and he continued.

I never liked seeing him like that.

Apparently he had been able to get some money from the school after the... incident. Enough to pay the hospital bills, with a little bit extra, but even so it was rather blatantly hush money so we wouldn’t go causing problems for the school. Dad wanted to sue the bullies, but no witnesses were coming forth. Without hard evidence we really didn’t have the money for the lawsuit.

Dad was furious, but the news just made me feel depressed. I wanted to go home.

.o.o.o.​

The doctors wanted to examine me once more before releasing me, but we were able to get me released a little after noon.

The school was allowing me a week off to recuperate. At the very least I didn’t have to deal with the trio for a while. Unfortunately, Dad had to work, so I was left alone for most of the time.

The next day I was cutting a cucumber to use in my lunch. I’d probably go to the library later, since I’d read most of the books I had over the winter break. Sighing, I propped my head up on my left arm, letting my other arm (and the knife) rest on the counter.

“Hello there! Did you miss me?”

The unexpected shout made me twitch, violently and involuntarily, sending the knife straight into my arm.

~~~

 

Connections 1.2


Ohgodohgodohgodithurtsithurtsithurtsit...

... Doesn’t actually hurt all that much?

Huh.

I stared at the knife buried in my forearm. At the distinct lack of any blood, and the unblemished spot on the other side where the blade should have exited. The pain was there, but it felt distant, almost like it was happening to someone else and I was just observing.

Come to think of it, that was how my general sense of touch had been since I’d gotten out of the hospital. And on the subject of the hospital, the fact that the imaginary voice had returned didn’t really say good things about my mental health.

“So I managed to find my sister in order to show you to her, and tekeli-li how you’ve grown and bloomed! If it weren’t for the fact that you’re the only thing in the area aside from us, I would have thought you were something else entirely.” Aria paused for a moment. “You are Taylor, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” I said, taking a grip on the knife in preparation to pull it out.

“Great! If it wasn’t you that would’ve been... what’s the term? Embarrassing? Yes, embarrassing. Though anything is better than just floating around in this empty place and oh my you’ve got a spot of actual color!”

“What, what?” I said wittily as I yanked the knife free. The wound, which should have been bleeding quite profusely, was instead a clean black hole within which I could see... Are those stars?

The odd points of light were suddenly blocked as something green poked through the knife wound. I froze as it wiggled around before what appeared to be a jade-colored eyeball formed on its tip. My vision seemed to distort as it swiveled around, until its gaze settled on the sliced cucumber, at which point the tendril formed a toothy mouth and lunged.

“Food!”

.o.o.o.​

The tendril had managed to inhale the cucumber, devour the wooden cutting board, and was gnawing on the plastic handle of the knife before I managed to react.

“Hey!” I shouted reaching for the tendril with the intent to pull it back. Before I could do so, the tendril suddenly recoiled from the counter and released the knife. The resulting airborne cutting implement narrowly missed my face and landed on the floor, skittering for a few feet before stopping.

“Um, Taylor? I seem to have lost control over the bit I stuck into you.”

What.

I turned and grabbed a chair, pulling it out from the table. I noticed that the tendril was grabbing the back of the chair next to my hand, but I ignored that in favor of collapsing into the seat.

“So. This is a part of you?”

“Yes, so could you give it back, please? This feels weird.”

“Hmm. I must say, you don’t look anything like what I’d imagined.”

I sat there for a moment, wiggling the tendril and looking around the kitchen with its eye. Then the realization hit me like a sledgehammer.

I was seeing through that eye. I was moving the tendril with my thought.

This is real. I have powers.

I’m a cape.

.o.o.o.​

“So what exactly are you? And why’d you try to eat everything just then?” I asked as I let the tendril return through the knife wound.

“Thank you, that felt very odd.” The last of the tendril passed through, revealing the star-like lights once more. “Anyway, I don’t rightly know what I am. Must be one of those things I forgot like my name. We’ve been here for so long...” Aria trailed off briefly.

“As for the eating? It’s one of the great pleasures, one I haven’t been able to indulge in such a long time. Nothing here really needs to eat, but it’s nice to do so. There’s been nothing in the general area aside from my sister and you, and I’ve had a number of reasons to not eat her. So when I saw edible stuff, I guess I lost control.”

“Alright then.” I sighed. “So who’s this sister you’ve been mentioning?”

“Oh, right! I guess I forgot to introduce her. Say hi, sis.”

“H-hello,” she said, in a single voice as opposed to Aria’s many.

“Hello, there. And let me guess, you don’t remember your name either, and want one, right?”

“Y-yes, that is the case.”

“Alright, fine. Give me a minute.”

A little more than a minute later, I sighed. “Aria’s name is something to do with music, so maybe we could go with something similar. How does Melody sound?”

“Oh, i-it’s-”

“It’s great! I love it!” interrupted Aria. “Isn’t it great, big sis?”

“Y-yes. Thank you, Taylor.”

“Wonderful. Now, if we’re done with that, I’d like to clean up here and actually have some lunch.”

~~~

 

Connections 1.3


Since Dad wouldn’t be home for a few more hours, I decided to use the time to do some testing with my newfound powers. Examining how my body had changed seemed like a good place to start.

It appeared that everything beneath my skin had been removed and replaced with a portal to whatever starry space the sisters lived in, though apparently my mouth still connected to my esophagus.

It seemed that the portal would allow almost anything I tried to put through it in, the exceptions being my skin, hair, and nails, This made a certain amount of sense, as I would be rather unhappy if my skin were to collapse into the portal.

While wondering how I would conceal the numerous cuts I had made on my skin during my examinations, I managed to stumble upon my healing ability. Apparently, if I focused my attention on a wound it would heal much faster. Holding cuts closed helped shorten the healing time for wider cuts. If I cut out a portion of skin it seemed to slow down the focused healing process, though reattaching the removed skin was fairly easy.

As an experiment, I cut out a one inch circle of skin containing half of an old scar I had on my hip. Healing it without replacing the removed skin took about fifteen minutes, but the end result was an unblemished, scar-free patch of skin. The results were the same when I removed the rest of that scar and the other scar on my knee.

Huh. I could possibly fix my eyesight with this.

.o.o.o.​

“Alright, I’ve seen that Aria can extend those tendrils through me. Those’ll be very useful. Now, Melody, could you send something through, please?”

“Ah, okay.” I felt a soft poking from the other side of one of the cuts on my arm. “It would be most helpful if you could make this one somewhat longer.”

I extended it to about four inches in length. “How’s that?”

“Ah, longer would be nice.”

I added another couple inches.

“Still not long enough.”

Another couple of inches.

“Getting there.”

Fuck it. I opened my arm from wrist to mid-bicep and held it straight.

“Ah, g-good, that will do. Hold still for one moment.”

Something large and black as night forced its way through the incision. It unfolded until its motion was arrested by collision with the ceiling, narrowly missing the light.

I now had a huge, black, bat-like wing extending out of my arm. Which was also pointing the wrong way for use.

In the resulting silence, Melody said, “You were right, sister. This does feel weird.”

“... Yeah. That’s going somewhere else.”

.o.o.o.​

Throughout my examination, Aria and Melody mostly stayed silent, watching through the cuts and occasionally asking about things they saw. They seemed particularly interested in seeing my reflection in the mirror once they noticed it. This led to me standing in front of my mirror in various poses so they could see what I looked like, though it quickly devolved into me trying to explain the concept of clothing to them.

“S-so you cover your b-body with bits of crafted dead plants and-slash-or dead plants, even when it does not provide protection and thus is unnecessary?”

“I already told you, society dictates that we wear at least a certain amount of clothing in order to be decent. Also, sometimes you can use clothing to appear prettier.”

“Waste of food if you ask me.”

Yeah. They didn’t really get it.

.o.o.o.​

“Look, girls. You got to see what I look like, so it’s only fair that you let me see what you look like.”

“Okay.”

I pulled off my shirt, then pulled my belly taut as I carved a roundish flap into it. I stood up and let the flap flop down as I walked over to the mirror.

With the larger viewing port, the starscape beyond the hole was spectacular. Countless stars stared back at me. Most were white. Many were yellow. Some blue. A few green. One red.

“Alright, could you go to the large hole that just opened up and stand a bit back from it.” I considered the hole for a bit. “Or I guess you could just float a bit back from it since there doesn’t seem to be any ground to stand on.”

“Hehe, alright, give us a bit.”

Soon enough two shapes started blocking out the stars, and it was readily apparent which was which sister.

“So the large one with all the mouths must be Aria,” I said. It was rather difficult to judge size without anything to compare against, but Aria was larger than a car at the very least. She was an orb-like mass of beautiful forest-green gel, peppered here and there with tendrils, fang-filled mouths of varying sizes and orientations, and jade-colored eyeballs, which also varied in size and almost seemed to glow.

“Which means that the other one is Melody.” Her body was black as night, like her wing was. She was dark enough that I could really only perceive her as a starless patch of the void, though the stars were plentiful enough behind her that I got a pretty good picture. She seemed to be a gaunt, winged humanoid, with inward-curving horns upon her head, clawed hands on long arms, taloned feet at the ends of digitigrade legs, and a long, barbed tail.

She was also, at least from my perspective, upside-down.

“So, do you like what you see?”

“Yes, you are both quite pretty.”

Aria rippled in what I assumed was her version of preening. Melody just sort of hung there, slowly turning.

I glanced between them for a moment, before saying, “I assume that you are not of the same species.”

“That is true,” replied Melody. “Aria here was barely sapient when I first found her floating around in the void, so very long ago. I sort of adopted her as my sister once she stopped trying to gnaw on me.”

“Hey! You didn’t have to tell Taylor that part!” Aria squawked indignantly.

Melody and I chuckled briefly as I looked for a little while more. Then I pulled up the flap to heal it closed.

.o.o.o.​

The only problem I found with the focused healing was that it actually hurt, unlike the distant pain I experienced when I made the incisions. The pain wasn’t that bad, well within the range of bearable, but the fact that it wasn’t a step removed made it rather distracting. Unfortunately, I had made a number of incisions in easily visible places, and I had to heal them all before Dad returned home. There was no need to worry him further.

.o.o.o.​

It would probably be easier to keep track of this stuff if I recorded it somewhere. I should probably go pick up a journal tomorrow.

.o.o.o.​

At this point it was getting rather late. I quickly healed all my remaining cuts and went downstairs to gather the ingredients for dinner. Dad had insisted that I leave the effort of preparing dinner to him until he decided I had gotten enough rest, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make the task easier for him.

Suddenly, what I’d been doing for the past few hours hit me. I fell against a nearby wall, then slid down to the floor, where I started shivering. 

My body had changed so much so quickly, my new friends were apparently inhuman monsters who were far nicer than any actual human I knew, and to top it off I had spent the afternoon engaged in extensive self-mutilation.

And that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that none of it bothered me much at all. I was, perversely, more disturbed by my lack of disturbance than by the things that should be causing me to feel disturbed. It was almost ludicrous.

It was certainly ludicrous enough to draw out a laugh from me that admittedly was more sob than chuckle.

“Ah, are you well?” came Melody’s query.

I took a deep, shuddering breath before I replied.

“I’ll be fine, it was just a little freak-out. I’ll be fine in a little bit, so don’t worry.”

“Oh. Okay. So long as you are well.”

I leaned against the wall for a moment as I collected myself, before getting up to go wash my face and carry on with my task.

~~~

 

Connections 1.4



Dinner was a dish of pork and vegetables in a sauce, served over rice. It was pretty tasty, as Dad’s cooking tends to be when he puts some time into it.

Dinner was also rather quiet. Neither of us seemed to know what to say. As a result, the atmosphere was a little tense.

In the end, Dad was the one to break the silence.

“So. You’ll be returning on Monday. To school, that is.”

I jumped a little when he spoke. Then I swiftly finished my mouthful so I could respond.

“Yes, I will.”

“You know, you don’t have to go back so soon. I could go to Winslow, have them give you a few more days off,” he said, his eyes tinged with worry.

“No Dad, it’s alright. I’ll be fine.” I lowered my eyes. Of course I’d be fine. This time I had two new friends, ones Emma couldn’t subvert or coerce.

“But what if something like that happens again?”

“I’ll be fine, Dad.”

“You sure?” I nodded. He sighed, and said, “Well, alright then, kiddo. I just wish you would confide in me more, is all.”

We ate in silence for a little while after that.

Once more, Dad was the one to break the silence. “You know, you seem... different than you were this morning.”

“R-really?” I stammered, worried that I’d left some trace of my earlier experimentation. No, all the cuts had healed, so what could it be?

“Yeah, you seem, I don’t know, happier, I guess.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do. It’s nice, seeing you happy.” He paused for a bit, before continuing. “So what happened while I was gone? Did you,” his eyebrows rose, and a little smile played across his features, “meet a boy?”

I sputtered, “N-no! It’s not a boy!”

His smile grew wider. “Really? Because it’s a father’s duty to be highly suspicious of any boy his daughter meets.”

“No! That’s not it, I didn’t meet any boys!” They were girls! Moreover, they weren’t human, and I wasn’t likely to develop romantic feelings towards either of them.

And now the smile had given way to a full-blown chuckle. “Well, whatever, or whoever, it was,” his eyebrows resumed their raised position, “remember that you have my full support.”

I looked down at my plate, my cheeks burning... Huh. My cheeks weren’t burning. This lack of a blush probably warranted further testing.

In any case, I stared down at my plate, waiting for Dad to stop laughing. I felt a smile twist my mouth, and a few bursts of laughter escaped me too.

When we had calmed down, Dad said, “Well. In any case, tomorrow is Saturday, so I’ll be around if you need me.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll be going out some time tomorrow.”

“To meet this not-boy, I suppose?” He grinned.

“Da-aaad! Stop it!” I whi– protested. I protested. And he started laughing again. “I’m just going to go to the library, and maybe do a bit of shopping.”

“Well, alright then. Do you have enough money?” I nodded. “Good.”

We continued eating, but the atmosphere was noticeably less tense.

“Taylor?”

I looked up, my full mouth preventing a response.

“Aren’t you cold?” I shook my head. “It’s twenty degrees outside. I’d think you would be chilly in that t-shirt.”

I swallowed. “It doesn’t feel that cold to me.”

“Well, you’re certainly making me feel cold,” he said, with a hint of a grin.

Huh. This should make designing my costume much easier.

~~~

 

Connections 1.5



The next day’s outing went without incident for the most part. Once I had entered my chosen store I found a good, cheap journal fairly quickly. As I was going to purchase it, I decided to snag some hair ties and hairbands, since they might help with a disguise.

The library trip was similarly successful and uneventful, with the return of the read books and the acquisition of some new ones. I considered using a computer to look up the local capes, to see whom I might meet once I began my career as a hero, but I decided against it for a couple of reasons. For one, right now I needed to figure out the ins-and-outs of my own power first before I could consider my debut. For another, all the computers I could see were occupied, and I did not want to waste time waiting around for one to be vacated. Besides, I would have plenty of time to use a computer later.

.o.o.o.​

“So, let us record what we know of this power,” I proclaimed as I sat at my desk, my newly purchased journal open in front of me. One of Aria’s tendrils extended from a cut I had opened just above my wrist and was currently occupied with an apple.

Note to self: take some time to learn a number of synonyms for “cut.” It is getting a little tedious thinking the same word so many times.

With the sisters’ assent, I began listing out what we knew about my power so far.

.o.o.o.​

“So there’s something I’ve been wondering,” I said once the notes from the previous day had been recorded.

“What’s that, Taylor?” asked Aria.

“Well, from what I’ve seen through the holes, your end of the portal appears to be in outer space. Is this true? Are there no nearby planets or things like that?”

This time Melody was the one to answer. “You, Aria, and I are the only things in this area, and it’s quite a distance to the nearest object.”

“Then there shouldn’t be any air there. Probably. So why haven’t all the cuts I’ve made turned into vacuums? And how... Wait. I think I know a way to test that,” I said as I got up and left the room.

When I returned I had with me an empty plastic water bottle. I sat down, then cut a flap large enough to stick the bottle through; I did so, with half of it remaining outside of the portal.

“Could one of you remove the cap from this? It’s the whiter bit at the tip.”

I felt the bottle wobble a bit before suddenly crumpling in on itself. I looked at it for a moment before realizing something.

“Wait, that doesn’t make sense. If the portal isn’t letting air through normally, then it should either have not sucked up the air in the part of the bottle on this side, or it should have refused the bottle altogether. Unless...” I sighed.

“More testing?”

“Yes. But later, ‘cause this raises a few questions. Like how are you two moving around over there.”

“That should not be too difficult to answer,” said Melody. “We just move through the aether-”

“Aether?” I interrupted.

“That is the name I use to refer to the ambient gas around here. In most areas it is spread extremely thin, or is just not present, but occasionally it clumps together in relatively dense clouds. They are dense enough to push against and move around that way. It is a slow and time-consuming method of transportation, but we really have nothing but time here.

“Now, there is an aether cloud around you, and one of the densest I have ever seen, but the pressure it exerts is practically nothing compared to the pressure I felt on my wing when I stuck it through you.”

“Yes, it’s quite the novel sensation,” Aria chimed in.

“Huh.” I jotted down a few notes from that. “So I guess my easy prisoner transport idea won’t work.”

“Transport?”

“Oh, yeah. I haven’t told you two yet.” I probably should have informed them, but given that it had been just a little over a day since I had learned I was a parahuman I couldn’t really fault myself for getting distracted by learning about my new powers, and my new friends. “I want, hopefully with your assistance, to become a hero.”

There was a brief silence.

“Um... What’s a hero?”

.o.o.o.​

Surprisingly, it was quite a bit easier to explain the whole parahuman situation to them than explaining clothing had been. And they seemed quite happy to assist me, which was nice. Once I had explained my transportation idea, I managed to convince Aria to practice leaving nearby plastics and similar materials unsampled.

However, by then it had gotten rather late, so we decided to stop there for the evening. I left the ruined water bottle from earlier on their side so Aria could practice. I also put a few cookies through, since she’d been so sweet about the whole thing. She fell asleep soon after consuming the last one, or so Melody reported.

As I lay in bed that night trying to fall asleep, I remembered something that had been nagging at me from the back of my mind for a while.

“Melody?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“Aria seems to eat anything that is organic, and she loves trying new foods. But you’ve never asked for anything to eat. In fact, I don’t think I saw a mouth on you when I saw you yesterday. Why is that?”

“Ah. This explanation may take a little while.” She sighed, and I could almost feel her leaning up against my closed other side. “First of all, there is something you must know about living on this side of you. Nothing living here requires sustenance, though we retain the ability to eat should we wish to. In all the time I have been here, I have never found so much as a clue as to what is causing this phenomenon. And speaking of time, I am nearly certain that I have been here for quite a bit longer that the normal lifespan of my species lasts; long enough to forget a great many things, including my name; and you shall have my eternal gratitude for granting me another.”

“Aww, don’t mention it.” A smile crossed my features, though it was soon chased away by a frown. “So something in there has made you immortal and made you no longer need food water or air.”

“Indeed. And while this space we are in is enormous, there is nothing here but those of us living here, some aether, and a few stars, and there are borders to it that we cannot cross.”

“That almost sounds like a prison,” I said.

“I confess that I have had similar thoughts about it, though, of course, I cannot remember even coming here, much less a reason for doing so. But now you are here, and I am certain you will only make this place better.”

A smile blessed my face once more, and if I could still blush I would probably have done so.

Melody continued, “But we are getting a little sidetracked from your question. You were not mistaken about my lack of a mouth. My kind do not eat material food; instead, we consume emotions from other creatures.”

My eyes widened with alarm. “Wait, you suck the emotions out of people?”

“No, it is not possible to ‘suck’ emotions, as it were. Creatures experience emotions, emotional energy is released, and we graze on that energy. There are various methods for... encouraging the production of more enticing emotions, but in the end there is little harm done.

“Now Aria, as you noted earlier, is very much geared towards eating material food. From what little I remember of her species, she would normally be driven to consume a very large amount of food to fuel her huge body, and only once she had eaten that much would she be able to refuse more. But thanks to the sustaining effect this space has on all of us, she is never hungry and thus can act more rationally.”

I giggled a little. “That hasn’t stopped her from pouncing on nearly everything she might find edible so far. Though then again, I am glad she hasn’t tried to eat my desk or anything else here made of wood.”

“Given that it has been so long since she had eaten anything at all, she is probably reveling in the relative novelty of all the possible flavors,” Melody said, with what sounded like a smile in her voice.

“Indeed. So, let’s try coming up with some ideas for my hero costume tomorrow. Good night.”

“And a good night to you as well.”

~~~

 

Connections 1.6



“Aaaaand done. See if you can reach those comfortably.”

I wore a satisfied smile as the claws extended through the holes I had made in my fingertips. The costume idea was working pretty well so far.

I was sitting in the middle of my room without a shirt or bra on. With Aria’s help, I had managed to cut a pair of slits into my back, from which extended large, black, bat-like wings. Below them, a black, barbed tail lay coiled around my legs, and the aforementioned claws extended from the tips of my fingers. Unfortunately the claws were better adapted for catching and gripping than for ripping and tearing, so I would still need to use a knife to make a good hole in myself, but they would be useful for other purposes.

Luckily Dad was out buying groceries, so there was no risk of him walking in on me in this state.

“You doing alright there, Melody?”

“Yes. It is actually rather comfortable,” she replied.

“Excellent. You can withdraw when you want to.”

I couldn’t test the wings out inside the house for the obvious reasons. Flight was one of the tests I would have to perform outside, and I was eager to do so. However, I wanted to have some sort of costume together before I started using my powers in public. And now that I had proven that borrowing from Melody would work, we could design the costume around it.

At first I had been thinking of an armored and concealing costume, but I quickly scrapped the idea as it ran counter to what I knew of my powers so far. Melody had suggested that we test out borrowing her wings and tail in useful places, i.e. my back (of course), and then go from there.

It was readily apparent that a backless shirt would be a necessity for the costume. Since I only had so much of my allowance remaining I couldn’t use any expensive materials, and I didn’t want to beg more money from Dad as he would probably get a little suspicious.

For the bottom portion of my costume I decided to just go with some jeans and tennis shoes. I had thought about springing for some hiking boots because the ankle support might be necessary, until Melody pointed out that my ankles as they were now would probably not benefit much at all from additional support.

To round out my costume, I decided to include a belt with pouches on it. Not only was it an alternative to swapping out the jeans for cargo pants (pockets and pouches were useful), they also gave the costume a bit more of a “cape-y” feel.

Aria suggested that we get costume pieces that were dark green, or just a dark color when dark green wasn’t available. Melody and I both concurred.

I would also need to get at least one knife, since the little kitchen knife I had been using just wouldn’t cut it for actual heroing.

The only part I hadn’t decided on yet was the mask, and there were a few obstacles to that decision. For one, I didn’t know what I really wanted the mask to look like. For another, I didn’t really know how to go about making my own mask without attracting attention. Also, the only place I knew that sold masks was a halloween shop, which could probably give me a good price on a plastic piece of crap.

I informed the sisters of the difficulty I was having with the mask, hoping they would have some ideas. I had been able to decide on the rest of my costume quite quickly, so I felt that I needed to decide on a mask today instead of slowly considering it over the next week or so.

“So you just want to make it so nobody can see your face, right?” asked Aria.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So why don’t you just cut your face off?”

The idea seemed so obvious I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it myself. It would serve double duty in preserving my identity and providing an access point for Aria.

Not only that, if I did this I was pretty sure I would be unique among capes. The vast majority of capes wore masks to conceal their identities; some capes, like the members of New Wave, didn’t bother with masks, instead exposing their identities for all the world to see. But I would likely be the only one to remove my face and use what it concealed to conceal my identity.

I wanted to try it out immediately. I turned so I was facing my mirror, removed my glasses and set them on the desk, grabbed the knife, and got to work. Start at the chin, cut up and out to the cheekbone, then up and in to the forehead, then down to the other cheekbone before ending at the start point.

It wasn’t until I was staring down at the face - my face - in my hands that I realized how insane the idea had been.

I... I just cut off my face. And I’m holding it in my hands and looking at my eyes and it’s kinda floppy and oh god this is really creepy and how am I seeing without eyeballs and I don’t think I’m breathing and oh god oh god oh god...

I took a deep breath – or would have if I hadn’t apparently stopped breathing – and attempted to calm down. I leaned back in my chair, and in doing so I caught a glimpse of my handiwork in the mirror. I would likely have gasped, if I had been able to.

Through the slightly uneven hole countless stars shone forth, their light sharp and beautiful. Though predominantly white, stars of every color and shade twinkled and flickered innocently and irregularly in the void. They swirled together in clusters and nebulae of all shapes and sizes, though all but a few were relatively small.

Actually, if I looked at them right some of the larger clusters seemed to form a sort of face, albeit one that was crooked and didn’t have a nose. Two rounder clusters in the upper portion of the hole could serve as the eyes, their swirled forms like galaxies, though they were of slightly different sizes and weren’t exactly level with one another. The larger of the two, occupying the left part of my face hole, was also higher up than its counterpart, and had a clockwise swirl and a nice yellowish tinge. The other was more oval-shaped and tilted inward slightly; it had a counterclockwise swirl and a grayish coloration. Below them a long, thin nebula curved in shades of pink, looking almost like a crooked mouth giving a half-smile.

“Okay, then,” I said, and then started slightly at the changed sound of my voice. It bore similarity to my normal voice, but was hollow and echoing. A chorus of resonating tones accompanied it, some so low I could barely hear them. Of course, this paled next to the fact that I could speak without a mouth or breath.

I was startled from my musings by the sight of one of Aria’s eyes on the tip of a tendril peering around the edge of my face hole. “Is it working well?” she asked.

“Yes, it just fine.” I paused. “Actually, no, this isn’t fine at all.”

“Is there something wrong?” Melody asked, concern coloring her voice.

“The face removal idea is doing well,” I said. “My vision seems to be nearly perfect, I can speak just fine, and although I seem to not be breathing I don’t feel anything bad happening because of it. The problem,” I continued, leaning forward a bit, “is that I cut off my face so easily.”

“How’s that?” asked Aria, her tendril continuing to drift across my face.

“This power of mine needs me to cut myself up in order to use it. Now, I know that this doesn’t actually hurt me all that much and the damage can be fixed relatively easily, so I’m pretty sure the act of doing so isn’t actually self-destructive. Despite that, I’m pretty sure that I should be feeling at least somewhat squeamish about all this. I’m sure that if I spent enough time using my powers I would eventually reach a state of mind where I would be perfectly fine with the self-mutilation involved, but I’ve only been doing this for about three days, and aside from a single freakout I’ve been fine the whole time.

“That’s not even counting the current situation. I just cut off my face and with it almost all of my major sensory organs. That itself was an extremely stupid thing for me to do, since I could have been left blind, mute, and suffocating, and it would have been rather complicated reattaching my face properly without being able to see it. It turned out alright in the end, but I had no way of knowing it would be when I was doing it. I just went ahead and cut it off.

I sighed and leaned back in my chair again. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that my powers seem to be messing with my mind.”

“How... Oh. I see,” said Melody.

“So basically, your powers seem to have influenced your mind to make you more mentally able to use it, and you’re not sure how else it is influencing you?” asked Aria, her voices sober. “That’s actually kinda frightening. I’m sorry I suggested cutting your face off.”

“No, don’t worry, it’s fine. You helped me recognize that this was a problem,” I said, trying to comfort her.

“So what are we going to do about this?” asked Melody.

“I don’t think there’s anything we can really do about it,” I sighed. “We’re pretty much limited to knowing that the influence is there. Examining every thought I have and every action I take to see if they’re being influenced would probably lead to counterproductive levels of paranoia, so we should probably not worry about it too much.” The sisters voiced their assent.

I looked back down at the face in my hands, which I had apparently rolled up while speaking.

.o.o.o.​

My vision without my face on seemed to be perfect, though from what I could tell it wasn’t in the realm of the superhuman. I saw from two apparently invisible spots on the border between my side of the portal and the other side, which were placed about where my eyes normally were. I was curious if I could move them around, or make more of them to see through, but I wasn’t able to do so. Still, a single day’s failure didn’t mean that it was impossible, so I made a note to practice with it in the future.

I also practiced using the various appendages Aria and Melody passed through me. Mostly I used Aria’s tendrils, since they were much easier to pass through than Melody’s bony limbs. As always, when they passed through I knew they had instantly, though they retained control until I took over. Taking control was pretty easy, as was releasing it, and both could be done instantaneously. I also seemed to have instinctive knowledge of how to use them while in control, which was helpful when Aria had me practice forming various organs on her tendrils (mostly eyes and mouths).

Since I could share the senses of the things I was controlling, I tried having Aria put forth a bunch of eye endowed tendrils so I could try having all-around vision. The resulting mess of vision angles was rather confusing, and it was hard to interpret what I saw unless I only used a few at a time. It seemed like something I could get used to if I practiced, so I made another note.

As I finished writing down my notes, I said, “I’ve told you girls that I’m going to school tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, and that we shouldn’t speak to you unless you tell us it’s safe to.”

“Great.”

.o.o.o.​

Dad insisted on driving me to school the next day, even though it would make him late for work. “They’ll understand,” he said. “Now, be sure to tell me if anything happens, okay?”

“Okay, dad,” I said, even though I probably wouldn’t.

.o.o.o.​

I had made certain to wear a long-sleeved shirt and a hoodie despite my new resistance to cold temperatures, though judging from what my fellow students were wearing it was cold enough for a couple more layers. I got a few odd looks for how lightly I was dressed.

I managed to avoid Emma and her lackeys for the most part that morning. However, Madison, the third member of the trio that included Emma and Sophia, managed to spot me as I made my way to my computer class. As I walked she followed behind me, trading insulting comments about me with her little posse.

“Ugliest girl in the school.”

“No, I think the locker improved her complexion a bit.”

“Maybe if she got shut in another ten times she wouldn’t be nauseating to look at.”

Bitches.

Lucky for me none of the girls shared the class with me, and since it would be suspicious if they went in I was able to escape them.

Computer class was one of the few parts of the school day I didn’t usually dread, since not only was Madison not in it but neither were Sophia or Emma. The teacher, Mrs. Knott, usually gave the advanced students in the class assignments and then focused on the rest of the class. As one of those advanced students, this suited me just fine, and I was usually able to complete my assignments fairly quickly. Today was one of those days.

I decided to use the rest of the class gathering information on the parahuman community I would eventually join. First, I decided to check whether any of the cape names I had been contemplating had been taken.

Apparently Eldritch was the name of an extremely minor and ineffective villain out in the midwest. Apparently almost every crime he had ever attempted had been easily foiled, and nobody took him seriously anymore. His power was...

I stared. How the hell could he be so ineffective with the ability to induce auditory and visual hallucinations?

I sighed, and searched for the second name on my list. Lucky for me, it appeared to be untaken.

.o.o.o.​

That afternoon I went out combing through various shops to find the various components of my costume. It was fairly easy to find a couple pairs of jeans in appropriately dark colors, but the backless shirts proved a bit more elusive. However, when I did find a store that had some in stock they turned out to have three halter-necks in an almost perfect shade of forest green. They were also on sale and marked down quite a bit, likely because no one wanted to wear a backless, sleeveless shirt in the middle of winter. Naturally, I snapped them up. Spares would be very handy.

.o.o.o.​

The next day at school I was able to avoid my tormentors for the most part. However, Sophia managed to catch me as I was walking down a flight of stairs on my way to my next class. She apparently decided to sneak up behind me and push me down the last few steps.

Thanks to the pain resistance my powers granted me the fall did not hurt me very much at all. Sophia seemed rather disappointed by my minimal reaction.

.o.o.o.​

That afternoon found me shopping once more, this time for the non-clothing items. I was able to find some belt pouches and a nice folding knife in the same store, and after purchasing them I found I had enough money left for a few odds and ends.

And thus, I had my costume. It wasn’t anything special, but I hoped that my faceless mask would be unique enough to make up for that. I was really excited at the prospect of flying, but I managed to restrain myself to making sure all the parts of my costume worked and did not break. It was Wednesday, the following day, when I would actually go out.

.o.o.o.​

Snow crunched beneath my shoes as I entered the local park. Nobody would be present at this time of night, so I had the entire place to myself.

But despite the wide open space it provided and the lack of witnesses, it wasn’t nearly isolated enough for one of the tests I wanted to perform, not to mention how close it was to my actual home. It was, however, a great place to stash the hoodie I was wearing, and to practice flying.

Underneath the hoodie all I had on was my costume. I could feel that it was cold, though the presence of snow and the fact that it was in the middle of the freaking winter had already told me that, but it didn’t bother me at all.

My hoodie was stashed away. A hairband and a few hairpins had been made use of, securing my curls and hopefully making me harder to identify. My face was removed, rolled up, and placed in one of my pouches, as were my glasses; the incisions for Melody’s wings and tail were made. I ended my preparations by opening my fingertips for her claws, and then I put my knife away.

I stood at one end of the grassy field that was more than two thirds of a block long and made up most of the park.

“Allow me to help you through the steps,” said Melody as I prepared to take off.

I tensed, readied her wings, and leapt forward.

.o.o.o.​

“To be honest, I had not expected you to succeed in taking flight as early as your ninth attempt. Well done,” Melody congratulated me, openly pleased at my accomplishment.

“Thanks, although I would hardly call my call what I’m doing ‘flight,’” I said as I silently clawed through the air with my borrowed wings.

One of the first things I had discovered about Melody’s wings, and the rest of her for that matter, was that they were completely silent no matter how they were used. I was quite thankful of this fact, as I’m sure if it were not so the noise of my ungainly flapping would have woken up the neighborhood.

Of course, it was nothing I couldn’t improve with a little practice. Which was why I went back to the field and practiced taking off a few more times.

Once I had finished with that, I took wing and set my sights on the area I intended to perform my next experiment in: the Boat Graveyard.

.o.o.o.​

No capes crossed my path as I flew, nor did I see any crime as I went. This suited me, as I would much rather practice with my powers and my friends for at least another week or two before I debut.

Huh. Now that I noticed, there were hardly any people below me on the path I was flying. A boy, all bundled up against the cold, made little snowmen under the watchful gaze of his mother. A couple embraced on the sidewalk in front of a house. A few people ran through the snow, laughing. None of them heard me, so none of them looked up.

I heard Aria and Melody whispering to one another, but I ignored them in order to focus on flying. Despite the lack of obstacles at the height I was flying at, I couldn’t afford to be too distracted, especially at my low level of skill. That said, I could see a few of the areas where I was making the most obvious mistakes. Upon correcting them, I found my flight becoming smoother, swifter, and easier. I was still nowhere near the level of grace and speed I was certain these wings could reach, but I was making progress.

And then finally I reached my destination. The Boat Graveyard consisted of many abandoned boats and ships, most in the water but some of them beached, in some cases completely out of the water. Nobody ever came out here as far as I knew, especially not at night or when the temperatures were well below freezing.

I would have all the isolation I needed for my power testing.

.o.o.o.​

“So what do you plan to do here, Taylor?” Aria asked, looking around through my face. Melody was quiet, and I wondered if she was worn out from the flight.

“Well, there are two things I want to find out. They’ll be easy enough to test together, and you’ll be necessary for both of them.” Aria’s tendrils swiveled around to look at me. “First, we’ve established quite thoroughly that you girls can stick bits of yourselves through me. I just want to find out whether or not all of you can go through me. And since you’re rather amorphous...”

“I see,” she said. “This will probably go faster if I had a larger hole to squeeze through.”

“Okay, give me a second,” I say as I retrieve my knife and pull up my shirt. Soon, most of my abdomen is opened up.

“Alright then, here I go.”

A piece of Aria larger than any we’ve used before squeezed through the hole.

And continued squeezing through.

And continued.

And continued.

Eventually, the tail end of Aria passes through, confirming the idea that they could pass through in their entirety while also confirming that I had severely underestimated Aria’s size.

Before, without anything to measure her against, I had estimated that she was a bit bigger than a car. Now it was apparent that her size was more comparable to that of a train engine.

“Um,” I eloquently stated.

“So you said there was a second part to this, right?” asked Aria, snapping me out of my surprise.

“What? Oh, yes, the other part. Sorry, I was just surprised by how big you are.” A few of Aria’s mouths giggled at this. “Anyway, since we know I can take control of the bits you shove through me, I was wondering if I could still take control if you were all the way through me, and if I could, how far my control extends.”

“Hmm, that sounds reasonable. Let’s do it.”

So without further preamble, I took control of her. I quickly ignored the input from the vast majority of her eyes. Also, I noted that she had apparently eaten a small bush that had probably been blocked from my view by her bulk.

“That was easy enough,” I said as I had her start moving away from me. After about a hundred feet or so I started to lose control of her, an event she confirmed for me vocally.

“Alright. Let’s do that a few more times just to make sure,” I called out.

And we did so. A few times we introduced a few variables (like controlling through blocking terrain without sight of her, which turned out not to affect anything) just to be thorough. Once we were done, Aria went off a little ways and began playing in the snow.

I took a moment to finish jotting notes down on a little notepad I had brought with me. I would transfer the notes to my main notebook once I returned home. Once that was finished, I turned my attention inward.

“How are you feeling, Melody?” I asked.

“I am doing alright. A little weary from flying, perhaps. I will be recovered by the time you wish to return home.”

“Great,” I said. “And thanks again for letting me use you wings.”

“Do not worry about it.”

I turned back towards Aria to find that she had somehow, in defiance of all physics, snuck up on me. The portion of her body facing me had been cleared of mouths and eyeballs and such, leaving a smooth surface, flanked by a pair of similarly smooth tendrils.

“Alright,” she muttered, “I think this is how it goes.”

She then wrapped the tendrils around me, pulling me up against her body. I struggled against my bonds, of course. “Thank you!” she trilled. “Thank you so much for letting me play here. Before I met you, I thought we would be floating in that place forever.”

Oh, I realized as I ceased struggling. She... She’s hugging me. It’s been so long since anyone but Dad hugged me.

... it feels nice.

.o.o.o.​

Over the next few days I fell into a routine of practicing with my powers. On Wednesday I had flown out to the Boat Graveyard to practice. The following day, Thursday, I stayed home through the night, doing small-scale practice and getting a good night’s sleep. The next night I was back at the Graveyard, and so on.

To be honest, a good portion of the time I was “testing” was actually spent playing with my friends. Most of my outings to the Graveyard ended with me playing in the snow with one or both of them joining me, and a couple of the nights I was home we ended up putting together a puzzle together.

On Thursday the twentieth I decided to do a bit of walking around in costume through alleys and such to start familiarizing myself with the local layout. A good grasp of the terrain would be invaluable for a hero such as myself, so it would be a good idea to study it.

Of course, just walking through here once won’t imprint the map of the city into my head. I should find some reason to walk around the city, in addition to the flying above it I’ve been doing. Maybe I should take up jogging or something?

My musings were interrupted when a nearby voice shouted, “Give me all your money, bitch!”

I stopped, then turned toward the voice. It apparently belonged to a short man in a battered blue jacket. In his had he held a combat knife which he was pointing at me, and his face was shifting into the expression of someone who was seriously regretting a great many of his life choices.

~~~

 

Interlude 1.x



A young woman strode down a night-darkened street with a confidence fully earned. None could prevail against her might. Her enemies feared her, her allies respected, nay, admired her! All wished they could be as great as she, and none would even consider dismissing her as a child as–

As Kid Win’s loud yawn jostled Vista out of her daydreams.

“Ugh. Do you have to be that loud, KW?” She grumbled.

“Sorry, sorry, but I can’t help it. It’s dark and so cold! I’m even walking instead of using my hoverboard to try and warm up.” The young tinker shivered slightly.

“Weren’t you bragging earlier this week that you had made a new heating system and installed it in your winter suit? What happened to that?”

“The power cell didn’t last as long as I thought it would.”

The patrolling Wards members crunched their way through the thin layer of snow in silence for a little while.

“Y’know, these are the absolute worst conditions to be patrolling in. Almost makes you wish something would happ–”

Both Wards members froze, Kid Win slapping his hands over his mouth. A few moments passed, and then Vista rounded on her partner.

“Dammit, KW! You know better than to jinx us like that! ‘The only good patrol is a boring one’ is written on the meeting room wall for a reason.”

“Wasn’t that because Clockblocker lost a bet?” Kid Win asked, before quailing under his partner’s redoubled glare.

The two stood still for a few seconds, listening. Finally, they relaxed, and Vista said, “Well, I guess we’re fine this ti–”

A high-pitched scream split the night air. It was followed almost immediately by the sound of Vista’s glove meeting her visor.

“The rest of your stuff is charged, right?”

“Of course.” They turned toward where the scream had come from. “Do you want to call it in or should I?”

“I’ve got it.” Vista raised her hand to her earpiece. “This is Vista and Kid Win, we just heard a scream north-north-west from our position. Permission to investigate?”

”This is Dispatch. Permission granted. Armsmaster and Miss Militia are patrolling near your location and have been notified. Reinforcements are on standby.”

“Well then,” said Kid Win. “Let’s go.”

The Wards members hurried over to where the scream had come from, which was the opening of an alley across the street. The alley ended in a T-intersection a couple dozen feet in, and from around the left corner whimpering could be heard, likely from the person who had screamed.

Vista and Kid Win glanced at one another; Kid Win readied his laser pistols and Vista prepared her space warping abilities, and then the duo moved forward to investigate. Upon turning the corner they found it ended in a dead end. Against the far wall a man cowered, panting like he had run a marathon. When the shadows cast by a light behind the two heroes fell over him, he flinched, crying, “No! Please! Don’t kill me!” He raised his arms to shield his face, blood dripping from where half of his right hand should have been. Both of the young capes flinched at the sight of the wound. Vista put a hand over her mouth out of nausea, and when she glanced over at her partner she saw that his lips were rather green. After a moment the man peeked around his arms and, upon seeing the Wards, said, “Oh thank god you’re not that thing.”

Kid Win walked towards the injured man, holstering his pistols as he approached. When he reached the man he knelt down so he was at the man’s eye level. “Hello, I’m Kid Win, of the Wards, and she’s Vista, of the same. Can you tell me what happened?”

“There, there was – oh god – there was this thing,” the man sobbed. “I, I thought it was a girl, easy mark, but its face! Where was its face?!” He trailed off, tears flowing freely down his cheeks as he stared off into the distance with unfocused eyes, silent but for occasional whimpers and nonsensical gibbering.

Kid Win made a noise that might have been a muffled curse. “Can you tell us anything else?” he asked as he retrieved a first-aid kit from his belt. He grabbed some gauze out of it and held it against the man’s wounded hand, causing him to yelp.

The man whispered, “Bit my hand off... so many eyes... oh god, it’s coming...” and then returned to staring at nothing.

Thoroughly unnerved, Vista activated her earpiece again. “Vista here. We have an injured man here, and from what he says he was probably attacked by a parahuman. Please send backup and an ambulance; The parahuman involved may still be in the area.”

“Copy that, Vista. PRT squad is on its way with an ambulance, ETA eight minutes. Armsmaster and Miss Militia have been alerted and are headed your way now.”

“Damn it,” Vista muttered under her breath. Eight minutes is too long. Armsmaster had better be close.

“Armsmaster here, ETA two minutes. Any information on the parahuman?”

“Oh thank god. Uh, I mean, Vista here, he said something about them not having a face and that it bit his hand off, and something about a bunch of eyes. He doesn’t seem likely to say much more about it, but it sounds pretty freaky. So, uh, could you try to get here qui–”

Vista froze at the sound of something landing in the alley behind her. A huge shadow had swallowed up her own. Flashes of light gave a hint of its form, a mass of squirming, writhing... things, like snakes or tentacles. The man moaned in fear as he pressed himself into the wall, a steaming pool spreading around him. It went unnoticed by Kid Win, frozen as he stared past Vista at the horror behind her.

Oh god, it’s here. I should have been keeping watch. Why wasn’t I keeping watch? Stupid, stupid, stupid...

“Vista? Vista, come in! What happened?”

“It’s here,” she whispered. Her voice came out high-pitched and thready between her suddenly tight jaws. “It’s got us trapped.”

“Shit! We’ll be there soon. Get out of there if you can.”

Vista’s hand fell from her earpiece as she turned to face the thing behind her.

Her first impression was tentacles. So many tentacles, like those of an octopus, the lighting changing whatever color they were to black. But where an octopus’ tentacles had suckers, these were studded with dozens of eyes. They varied in size and even pupil shape, but each was a bright, vibrant green and seemed to glow. Scattered among the eyes were a number of mouths, differing greatly in size and shape, but each was filled with a disturbingly large number of teeth in many shapes and, in a few cases, additional eyes. Every eye present focused on the three people before the beast, each bearing a hungry gleam. The mouths opened, and from them issued a hellish chorus of gibberish.

The same gibberish from another voice cut through the chorus. The new voice was, at its core, recognizably female, but it was hollow and echoing, as if its owner were speaking in a crypt. Countless resonating tones accompanied the voice, some high, others so low Vista heard them not with her ears but with her bones, all gnawing at the back of her mind, feeding the fear that had taken root.

Moments after the terrible voice had sounded, the tentacles ceased their writhing and began to retract to a single point, revealing the rest of the creature they had concealed.

The first things Vista noticed were an imposing pair of wings, like a bat’s but with too many fingers in odd places, and so dark it was difficult to tell where the wings ended and the shadows began. A body was revealed next, that of a normal, if tall, girl, clad in dark colors, but its human form only served to accentuate the inhuman portions. Behind the legs a long, sinuous tail with barbs down its length and a color matching the wings undulated gracefully. Hands tipped with viciously curved talons of the same color hung at the creature’s sides, bearing objects. In one a knife was gripped by its blade; the other held a gobbet of meat, dripping red onto the trod-upon snow. The tentacles retreated to where its face would be, revealing a head crowned in dark, curly hair, restrained in a ponytail by a hairband and some hairpins. And once the tentacles had fully withdrawn, Vista felt mounting hysteria as her thoughts began repeat the fear-crazed words of the man behind her.

Where is its face? Where is its face?!

Where the identifying features or a cape’s concealing mask should have been was a hole in reality, a mockery of a human face. Thousands of stars burned in an endless void, galaxies and nebulae swirling in the black. Looking closely, Vista could almost swear that some of the stars and galaxies formed a face, crooked and leering.

Is it a Case Fifty-Three? Vista thought as she hyperventilated. And why does it feel so wrong?

A glance behind her revealed that Kid Win had managed to snap out of his frozen state and was scrabbling for his pistols. Her gaze returned to the monstrous thing before her, which had begun to slowly saunter towards them.

She took a deep, steadying breath. Calm down. It’s not a monster. It’s probably just a cape, and I can’t just stand frozen like this while it can attack us. She felt around the area with her power in preparation to repel the cape, then froze once more as the edge of her power brushed up against it.

It feels sort of like a person, but beyond it there’s so much within and beyond it and, and it feels so wrong and... oh god.

Vista clapped her hands over her mouth and bent over a little as a wave of nausea rolled over her.

The footsteps stopped. Surprised, Vista looked up to find the cape had halted in its approach, its head slightly cocked.

“Are you alright?”

It took Vista a moment to realize that the frightful voice had asked her a question, and a few moments more to realize that the cape had been inquiring after her welfare.

The cape turned its – no, her – head to Kid Win, who had both his pistols in hand and was pointing them at her. “Could you put those away, please?” she asked. “I’m not an enemy.”

He started a bit when she addressed him, but then shifted his stance slightly, his pistols still pointed at her. She sighed, if a sound like the screams of a thousand damned souls could be called a sigh, and turned back to Vista. “Vista... It’s Vista, right?” Vista nodded. “Great. So anyway, are you alright? You look like you aren’t feeling very well.”

“Um,” Vista began, but was interrupted by the sound of squealing tires outside the mouth of the ally, followed by two pairs of hurried footsteps approaching them. Around the corner came Armsmaster, clad in his blue armor and pointing his halberd at the cape. Behind him was Miss Militia in her fitted army fatigues and American flag-patterned sash and scarf. Her weapon had taken the form of a shotgun, which she was pointing at the ground.

“Don’t move, villain!” Armsmaster barked as he held his halberd steadily pointed in the cape’s direction, presumably lining up one of the gadgets he’d installed in it.

“Wait, what? Hold on!” The cape protested. “This is all a big misunderstanding. And I’m a hero, not a villain!”

.o.o.o.​

“So that guy tried to mug me, threatened me with that knife,” the cape said. “I don’t know how he didn’t realize I was a parahuman at first, but he certainly did when I turned to face him. I guess he panicked, because he tried to stab me. I tried to catch his knife hand, but I accidentally bit him–”

“Bit him?” Miss Militia asked, glancing at the cape’s lack of a face. In her hand was a recording device she was using to take the cape’s statement.

“Her power,” Vista piped up from where she was leaning against an opposite wall. “She’s got tentacles, some of which have mouths.”

“Ah.”

“Yes, um, I tried to catch his hand, but I accidentally bit some of it off. I intend to practice that some more so that doesn’t happen again. So then he ran away. I chased after him, since he had tried to commit a crime and had to be taken to the police, and because he was injured and needed to go to a hospital. I would have called for an ambulance myself, but I don’t have a cell phone. I made sure to bring the piece of his hand along.” She pointed to the item in question, which was in a plastic bag in the hands of an EMT. “From what I understand doctors can reattach it, even without Panacea’s help. Then I found him in the company of the Wards, and you know what happened from there.”

It’s a shame her power makes her so scary, Vista mused, and that it interacts poorly with my power. She seems like a nice person, if a little creepy.

“Alright, we’re done with that,” said Miss Militia as she shut off the recording device and pocketed it. “Do you have any way for us to contact you that won’t compromise your secret identity?” The cape shook her head. “In that case, here’s a pre-paid cell phone. We’re the only ones who know its number, so if it rings, answer it.”

It was difficult to tell, since the cape didn’t have a face, but Vista got the impression that she was looking at the offered phone with apprehension. “Will you be able to track me if I have that?”

The corners of the Protectorate cape’s eyes crinkled a bit, as if she was smiling behind her scarf. “Don’t worry. We wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, alright,” the cape said, accepting the phone.

“There are a couple things I would like to ask you before you leave,” said Miss Militia. “First, would you be able to stop by the PRT building on Saturday? If you intend to become a hero, it would probably be a good idea to get to know the other heros of Brockton Bay.”

The cape nodded. “That’s fine. Saturday works for me.”

“Good. Now, my second question is if you’ve decided on a cape name yet.”

The cape shifted a bit. “Well, I’m sort of in the process of deciding still, but for now I guess you can call me Starfield.”

~~~

 

Jaunt 2.1



“But for now I guess you can call me Starfield,” I said.

Many capes chose, or were given, names related to their powers. I had used the concept to compile a list of possible cape names for myself, though I’d had to remove names that had already been taken or had sounded too villainous. Soon after, I came to the realization that the less that was known about my power, the less able potential enemies would be in countering them, and so the more revealing names were also purged from the list. As it stood now, the list was rather short, with Starfield sitting at the top.

The sisters hadn’t had much input on the name issue. Aria had proposed ‘Tekeli-li’; I couldn’t really see myself ever using it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to strike it from the list.

But back to the matter at hand.

“Very well then, Starfield,” Miss Militia replied, a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “We’re done here for now, you’re free to leave. Don’t forget to swing by the PRT building on Saturday, and if you find yourself in trouble don’t hesitate to call. The relevant numbers are already in that phone.”

“Sure.” I looked down at the phone in question, which I was currently holding in my hand. I couldn’t quite remember the last time I had held one. Ever since Mom had... had died, because of one, Dad hadn’t wanted any in the house. It had worked out alright, since the only person I would have called was Emma... and then there was no one for me to call.

But that had very little to do with this cell phone, really. Miss Militia had said that they wouldn’t track me through it, though I noted that she had not said that they couldn’t do so. But Miss Militia was a hero. She had been one of the first capes, having triggered some time around 1985, and had been a hero ever since. I wanted to trust her, at least on this. If You couldn’t trust the heroes, who could you trust?

“Could you hold on to this, Aria?” I asked.

“Sure!” her many voices cheerfully chirped.

Miss Militia, who had apparently been turning away to attend to something else, turned back to me, saying, “Did you say something?” She looked at me just in time to see one of Aria’s tendrils snake out of my face, grab the phone, and dart back in.

She stared at my face for a moment, then glanced at Vista, who shrugged. “Like I said, tentacles,” the younger hero explained.

“I see,” Miss Militia said, returning her quizzical glance to me. Then her face cleared, and she nodded to me before walking off.

It was my turn to glance at Vista, who was leaning against the wall opposite me, and a few feet down, as if she was trying to put as much distance between us while remaining close enough to to be included in the conversation. She was wearing her winter costume, a thicker, more covering version of her normal costume. Said costume had a skirt, and was covered in wavy, swooping lines that alternated between white and forest green, the same color as the shirt portion of my costume. Body armor had been worked into her costume, the breastplate having been molded to give the illusion of a chest, and a green visor topped off the ensemble.

From what I had read on the Parahumans Online wiki she wasn’t much older than thirteen, the youngest member of the Brockton Bay Wards, but had been a member for longer than any of her fellows.

She seemed to have calmed down considerably from the fright I had accidentally given her earlier, and her nausea seemed to have cleared up. She still showed signs of lingering unease, though. I certainly hadn’t expected to cause so much tasty fear in any of the people here. That was certainly something to think about later.

Wait, tasty? Where did that come from?

“I like it.” I jumped a little as my thoughts were interrupted by a voice, which turned out to belong to her. “Your name, that is. Starfield. I think you should keep it.” She gave me a smile which seemed to grow a little steadier as I watched.

“Thanks,” I replied.

“I’ll be at the PRT building on Saturday, like the rest of the Wards,” she said, standing up from the wall. “We’ll probably see you then.” She waved goodbye to me, then walked off after Miss Militia.

The night was a bust, so I didn’t see much point in not returning home. As I exited the alley, I passed Armsmaster, who nodded to me. I returned the nod, then walked down the street to a less crowded road. Once there, I ran and took wing, flying off into the night.

.o.o.o.​

“Ah, Taylor? There is something I have been meaning to ask you,” Melody said once I had landed in the park. She retracted her wings, tail, and claws as Aria passed a rolled-up sweatshirt through my face.

“Yes, Melody? What is it?” I asked as I focused on my fingertips to heal them. Once that was done, I put on the sweatshirt, then started healing my back.

“You were speaking with those people, correct?”

“Yes?” I replied, wondering where this was going. Once my back was mostly healed, I reached into one of my pouches for my face.

“Neither Aria nor I could understand what they were saying, nor could we understand what you were saying to them.”

“What?” I froze, my face raised almost into place.

“We have not been able to understand anything you say that is not said to us,” she said. “I, ah, suppose we should have mentioned this earlier?”

I sighed, then sat down at a nearby picnic table, my left hand holding my face and my right hand holding where it should go. “It’s been two weeks, Melody, and I’ve spoken with people every single day of it. What took you so long to mention this?”

“To be fair, the novel sensation of not being bored is rather distracting.”

That teased some laughter out of me. “I suppose you have a point there,” I said. I raised my face into its proper place and started healing. “Ancient amnesiac aliens knowing how to speak modern english did seem a little strange. I guess my power is translating what we say to each other.”

“That seems to be a reasonable assumption. I would take offense to you calling me ‘ancient,’ but since I did float around in here long enough to forget my own name...”

“Heh.”

I rose from the table and began to make my way home. “Well,” I said as the snow crunched beneath my feet. “I’m sure it won’t be easy, but I’ll find a way to teach you two how to speak english. Somehow.”

“You would? Really?”

“Of course. Friends help each other out, and there’s no real reason to keep you entirely dependent on me. Of course, I don’t really know how I’m going to go about getting you lessons, but we’ll work something out.”

“That is wonderful! Is it not wonderful, Aria?”

“Hm? Oh! Ah, yes, that is wonderful,” Aria replied, using fewer voices than she usually did.

Apparently Melody and I both picked up on the distracted quality of Aria’s response at the same time, but Melody was the first to speak.

“Is there something troubling you, Aria?” asked Melody, concern writ large in her query.

Aria let out a symphony of subtle sighs. “Well, it seemed that Taylor wasn’t very satisfied by the way things turned out back there.”

Oh.

The memory of the night’s events rose in my mind. Turning towards the source of the demanding shout and seeing a man with confidence draining from his face, replaced by fear, panic, and deepest regret. The knife stabbing towards me, and me calling for Aria to stop it as I reflexively flinched back, even though any damage it could do, I could heal easily. Grabbing the hand, surprised as unexpected teeth carved through flesh and bone with near equal ease

And through our shared senses, the taste. Oh, that taste. Delicious, so much like pork, and so juicy, too. This would be a great way of getting rid of bodies... Wait. No. Bad brain, stop thinking about that. Get back to answering Aria.

“I’ll admit that I would have preferred to grab the guy’s hand instead of biting it off,” I said as I turned a corner onto my street. “But that’s no reason to feel sad about it.”

“No, no, that’s not quite it,” she replied. “I was somewhat sad about messing things up at first, but then I realized that we’ve only used my eyes, mouths, and tendrils. I’m pretty sure there’s more that I can do, so I’ve been thinking for a while, trying to remember what I can do.”

A curious “Oh?” came from Melody just as I said, “Really?”

“It’s actually kinda frustrating. I feel like I already know this stuff, but it’s floating just out of my reach. But I did manage to catch one thing already!” she exclaimed with glee. “It’s that the mouths don’t have to be shaped like mouths.”

“Oh?” I say. The mouths don’t have to be mouth-shaped? Why does she consider... wait, if its shape can be changed, then... and maybe... which means... oh. “Oh yes.”

A savage grin adorned my face as I quietly unlocked the door to my house.

.o.o.o.​

The following morning found me, of course, back at school. As had become the usual these past couple of weeks, most of my time between classes had been absorbed in dodging my tormentors. When I found myself unable to escape them, it was usually either Emma, Sophia, or Madison on their own or with some lackeys, though on a couple unhappy occasions they managed to catch me together.

Sophia was more physical in her contributions to the campaign of misery the trio waged against me than Emma, who preferred verbal assaults, or Madison, who tended towards childish pranks. The deadened sense of pain that my powers left me with helped me withstand all the pain she tried to dish out to me. My resulting lack of reaction to her attacks seemed to leave her feeling frustrated, and my long and painful experience with the trio informed me that growing boredom or frustration were eventually channeled into harsher attempts to make my life worse. I had tried faking reactions to Sophia’s assaults with the experience gained from real reactions I’d had in the past, but Sophia’s still increasing frustration and aggression indicated that I was not very skillful in my attempts.

Towards the end of our lunch break I was exiting the school restroom. Or rather, I was attempting to exit, as I found myself interrupted by the door slamming into my face.

Thanks to my power-granted durability, I wasn’t dazed by the blow, though my lower lip had been split. It was a matter of moments to heal it, though, as I lay sprawled on the tile floor. That done, I looked up at the person who had opened the door.

I felt very little surprise as I saw Sophia enter the restroom. As her eyes fell on me they lit up with a familiar malicious anger. She quickly glanced around to make sure we were alone before crouching down beside me. One hand grabbed my wrist and the other shoved my shoulder back against the floor.

She leaned in close and, in a low tone, said, “You’ve been getting rather uppity lately, Hebert. First you’re ignoring me, which is bad enough, but now you’ve started mocking me. It almost makes me think you don’t enjoy my company.” Her expression became an obviously fake pout, malice still glinting in her eyes, before it twisted into a nasty little smirk. “But I’m feeling generous today, so I’ll teach you a little lesson.”

Before, I would have likely cast my eyes downward and waited for her to stop beating me, but that was when I was alone. Now I had friends, who were kind and fun and supported me, friends that couldn’t be taken away and turned against me. They accepted the names I had given them and let me borrow their abilities.

This new me looked Sophia in the eye and asked, “And what lesson might that be?”

Sophia seemed a bit startled by my odd behavior, but apparently disregarded it before answering. “The one where you learn you place at the bottom of everything.” The hand she had on my shoulder tightened its grip, the pressure growing to an amount that was once painful.

I grabbed her hand and, still staring her in the eyes, firmly told her, “I don’t need any lessons from you, so get your hands off of me.”

This startled her enough for me to extricate myself from her grasp, get up, and swiftly walk away. Once I was out of the restroom, I started running and didn’t stop until I had reached the bus stop.

.o.o.o.​

Dammit, that was so stupid of me. Now they’ll just find some way to get back at me. I should have... Argh...

I unlocked the door to my house and went inside. Dad was at work and wouldn’t be home for hours. I dropped my bag next to the couch, which I more or less fell onto.

“Taylor?”

I shifted. “Yes, Aria?”

It was Melody who asked, “What happened back there?”

I sighed. I didn’t want to burden our friendship or make them worry with the knowledge of the bullying. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Taylor,” said Melody, “we may not have understood anything that was said, but it did not seem to be nothing, to them, to you, or to us.”

“We’ve heard voices that sounded sorta like that before, and they make you unhappy,” added Aria. “We don’t like it when you’re unhappy, so please tell us what’s wrong.”

I let out a quiet non-committal grunt as I turned over from my prone position.

“Taylor?” prompted Aria.

Another sigh left my lips. “It’s... It’s complicated,” I finally said. Melody hummed in interest, so I hurriedly added, “It’s a human thing.”

Aria made a sound tinged with mild annoyance. “I suspect that you are trying to avoid answering our questions,” she said as I sat up. “Please stop it. What kind of human thing is it that makes you unhappy, and why would you do it?”

“I,” I began, but I trailed off. I didn’t really have an answer for that, and any attempt at explanation would have to include the very topic I was trying to avoid. I blew out a long, tired breath as I slumped back into the couch. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But they were making you feel sadness,” pressed Melody. “Please, Taylor, tell us. We want to help you.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” I shouted. I stopped myself before I could say anything else and took a deep, calming breath. “Look, I’m sorry I shouted at you two. I just... Can we just not do this today? Please?”

The three of us were quiet for a few moments. Then Melody’s voice broke the silence.

“Very well then,” she said in a level tone. “We will stop asking about it for now.”

“What? But sister-!” Aria protested, only to be cut off by Melody.

“No, Aria. Our friend asked us to stop, so we will stop asking for today. But Taylor?” I could almost feel her attention turning from Aria to me. “We will not ask you any more today, but we will ask again in the future. I could tell that whatever this is, it is not some minor issue. Please tell us soon, Taylor, so we can help.”

I sat up once more and put my arms around my knees. “Fine. Can we talk about something else now?”

.o.o.o.​

Saturday arrived, and with it my meeting at the PRT headquarters. I dressed in my costume before leaving the house, and I put a sweatshirt on over it. I might not be bothered by the chill anymore, but the temperature was low enough that Thursday’s snowfall still hadn’t melted, and walking around with my arms, shoulders, and back exposed would draw far too much attention.

The bus ride over to the PRT building was uneventful. I got off a stop early, then made my way through a nearby alley. Once i had reached a point where I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be seen by people or cameras, I removed the sweatshirt and folded it up tightly, then retrieved my knife and cut off my face. After rolling up my face and putting it and the knife away, I passed the sweatshirt to Aria, who then gave me the hoodie and baseball cap I had given her earlier. After putting them on, I exited the alley at the end opposite the one I had entered from, then walked the remaining distance to my goal, keeping my head down so my hat would conceal my lack of a face.

The building used by the local division of the Parahuman Response Team didn’t really stand out much from the rest of downtown Brockton Bay. It, like all of its neighbors, was covered in windows, and was reflective enough to mirror the sky above: a mostly clear, blue sky, though with dark clouds blowing in on the horizon. The only thing that made it stand out from its neighboring buildings was a shield logo bearing the letters ‘P.R.T.’

As I entered the lobby I found only a light crowd of people occupying it, mostly various employees in suits hurrying in and out of the building. I made my way to the receptionist at the end of the front desk.

“Hello,” she said looking up at me with a wide, friendly smile. “Welcome to the Brockton Bay branch of the Parahuman Response Team. Is there anything I can help... you... with...” She trailed off, her smile having frozen on her face as she stared into the space where mine should have been.

~~~

 

Jaunt 2.2


I stood there for a moment, feeling a bit awkward as the receptionist stared into my face with eyes that were beginning to glaze over.

“Um, excuse me? Ma’am?” I said. I glanced at her name tag. “Ah, Margaret?” A general cessation of conversation around me caused me to glance behind me.

It appeared that everyone within earshot had stopped whatever they were doing and turned to stare in my direction. As I looked, I saw more than a few pairs of eyes widen, presumably after seeing my face. Some of them were edging away from me. The security guard nearest to me had tightened his grip on his grenade launcher, his other hand going to his bandolier of special grenades.

Well, there go my hopes of an uneventful meeting. I knew my voice was different without my face on, but is it really that strange?

I turned back to see that one of the other receptionists had wheeled her chair over next to Margaret, and was poking her in the shoulder. She turned to me with accusation in her eyes, her gaze fixed firmly on my chest in an obvious attempt to not look at my face. “What did you do to her?” she asked.

I held my hands up in what I hoped was a nonthreatening gesture. “Um, honestly? I didn’t do anything. That’s never happened before.” Of course, I haven’t shown this face to very many people, so...

She continued to scowl at my torso. I peeked at her name tag, which read ‘Vera.’ “So what are you here for, anyway?” she asked.

“Miss Militia asked me to drop by. I’m Starfield, by the way.”

Evidently curiosity won out against caution, and she glanced up at my face. She paused for a moment, then said, “Huh. That’s kinda pretty.”

“...Thanks?”

She turned back to her coworker and shook her shoulder, and finally got a response. “...Full of stars,” Margaret mumbled as she jerked upright. She glanced around for a bit as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then turned to Vera and asked, “What just happened?”

Her coworker sighed and shook her head. “You looked at the cape lady’s face and spaced out,” she said, gesturing to me. “She says she didn’t do anything to you, so I guess it’s just you being you again.” She ended her statement with a wry little grin and a poke to the shoulder.

Margaret shot her a halfhearted scowl, then turned back to me. “I’m sorry about that, ma’am,” she said, her eyes carefully at my chest and not at my face. “So is there anything I can help you with?”

I would have raised an eyebrow if I had one. “I was asked by Miss Militia to stop by here. I’m Starfield.”

She clicked through some things on her computer for a few moments, before saying, “Ah. There’s a note saying that you’d come by, though it says something about wings...” She paused for a moment, then shrugged. “In any case, I’ve notified them of your arrival. Someone will be here shortly to escort you.”

“Thank you.”

I moved to the side so she could help the next person. Vera stared at my face for a little while, then rolled back to her place at the counter.

Hardly a minute passed before I heard a woman’s voice call out, “Starfield!” I turned towards the source to see Miss Militia waving to me as she approached. In her other hand she carried a briefcase that had an American flag charm hanging off its handle. Her weapon appeared to have taken the form of a large combat knife hanging from her belt. “Thanks for coming so early. Come, I’ll show you where we need to go.”

She led me to a meeting room in a section of the building that I didn’t think was open to the public. “First,” she said, “we’d like you to give us a more thorough statement of what happened during the incident, as well as answer a few questions. It shouldn’t take too long. After that I’ll take you up to see the director, and once that’s done you can go meet the Wards. Is that alright with you?”

I nodded. “Sure. Let me just get out of this hoodie first.”

She gave her assent, and I took of my hat and the garment in question, which I rolled up tightly.

“Would you like some place to put those?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” I said. I then quietly asked Aria to take the items of apparel, which she did.

Miss Militia stared for a bit, then visibly shook herself and said, “Ah, yes. You did the same with the cell phone I gave you. That seems rather useful. Now let’s get started then, shall we?”

.o.o.o.​

“Was Thursday your first night out?” Miss Militia asked.

“Um, yes and no.”

The older cape raised an eyebrow.

“Well, you see, I hadn’t been planning on making my debut then. My house isn’t really the best place to practice some of my stuff, so I’ve been flying out to the Boat Graveyard every now and then. I hadn’t really seen anybody below me the previous times I’d flown, probably because of the weather, so I decided to walk part of the way there on Thursday. Then that guy tried to mug me.”

I sighed, then noticed the other cape twitch in response. Huh. I guess my sighs sound weird to other people as well.

“I honestly don’t know how he didn’t notice that I was a cape,” I continued. “You’d think the huge wings coming out of my back would have tipped him off.”

“So where are those wings now?” Miss Militia asked. “Pardon my interruption. It would be rather difficult to miss their absence. I noticed that there doesn’t seem to be any indication of their presence on your back. And I believe you had a tail as well?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t want to attract too much attention when I came in, so I didn’t bring them out. Though I guess I attracted a lot anyway.”

“I see,” she said, making another note on her notepad. She then motioned for me to continue.

“Where was... Oh, yeah. Anyway, when the guy freaked out and tried to stab me, I panicked a little and attempted to grab his hand. I meant to just grab it with a tendril, but I accidentally used a mouth and ended up biting off half his hand. That’s one of the things I want to work on before I actually debut.”

“I see,” the cape sitting across from me said once more. “Now, I have a few more questions. First, have you experienced any significant cases of amnesia, and do you have any tattoos anywhere on your body?”

I paused at the odd and unexpected combination of questions. “Um, I’ve never had any form of amnesia, and I don’t have any tattoos. Why do you ask?”

“I am trying to see if you are a Case 53,” she replied as another note was added to her notepad. I started to ask her for an explanation of the term, but she answered me before I even said the first word. “‘Case 53’ is the term given to a certain category of parahuman. They have no memory from before they appeared in this world with their powers, and each of them has a certain symbol tattooed somewhere on them, or otherwise inscribed if they cannot be tattooed. In addition, every Case 53 cape to date has had his or her body altered in some way by their powers.”

“Oh, I think remember now,” I said. I read about them on Parahumans Online. “They’re the so-called monstrous capes, right?”

“I wouldn’t use the word myself, but essentially, yes.”

“So you thought I was one of these Case 53’s?”

“From what we saw of you the other night, we felt it was safe to assume you were a Case 53, had a Changer power, or both. Since Case 53’s tend to not have civilian identities or even homes or families to return to, we would have to be ready to provide special accommodations If you were to join.”

Wait, join? I haven’t decided to join anything yet, really. “Ah, yes. I have a civilian identity and all that.”

“Excellent. Now on a somewhat related topic, are you below the age of eighteen?”

.o.o.o.​

Miss Militia had been right when she said that the session wouldn’t take too long. It took only a little over twenty-five minutes, and as such didn’t have the time to become boring. When we had finished, Miss Militia put the notepad and pen she had been using away in her briefcase, then led me out of the room. “We’ll go and see Director Piggot now,” she explained.

She led me to a set of elevators that were obviously of tinker origin. The ride was so smooth I could barely tell that we were moving. Once we got off, she led me to a room containing a desk, behind which sat a woman who was presumably the director’s secretary. As we entered, the secretary looked up and quickly glanced over us until her gaze fell upon my face, where it stopped as if entrapped. She stayed like that without moving, not even to blink, for a number of seconds until Miss Militia cleared her throat pointedly, the sound startling the lady out of whatever state she was it.

“Ah, s-sorry about that,” she stammered. “No idea what came over me. So it’s Miss Militia and, ah, Starfield, correct?” We nodded in response. “I’ll just let the director know you’re here.”

As she notified the director, Miss Militia glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. I shrugged in response.

“Director Piggot will see you now.”

Upon entering the office I saw the director of the Brockton Bay branch of the PRT standing behind a large desk, windows behind her showing the clouds crawling across the sky. She was a heavyset woman with a bob haircut, and a small frown on her face that gave me the impression that she didn’t like me very much. In fact, she seemed to have similar distaste for Miss Militia as well. The frown was quickly replaced by a polite little smile that did not reach her eyes.

“Please, come in. Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to a couple of chairs in front of her desk. I sat in one of them, but Miss Militia chose to stand against the wall beside the desk. The director lowered herself into her own leather-bound chair.

“As I am sure you have no doubt gathered, I am Director Emily Piggot of this city’s PRT branch. You are Starfield, I presume?” I nodded. She directed her gaze to where my eyes would normally be, but showed no sign of freezing up like the two women from before. “An apt cape name.” She turned her head to look at Miss Militia.

“She’s under eighteen and she’s not a Case 53,” the Protectorate cape said.

Piggot nodded, then returned her gaze to me. “Starfield,” she said, “I would like to offer you a position in the Wards program.”

If I had had eyes I might have blinked them in surprise. I had known that the offer was a possibility, and Miss Militia had hinted about it fairly strongly in our earlier conversation, but I hadn’t really expected it, at least not this early in the meeting. Surprise quickly turned to uncertainty as I thought about the offer. I had considered joining the Wards a couple times before, but both times I had decided against doing so. Most of my reasons for becoming a cape, for becoming a hero, involved it being an escape from my situation at school. Joining up with a group of teenagers didn’t seem like the best method for escaping a social situation. Not to mention that, as a more-or-less complete unknown with no achievements to my name, I would find myself at the bottom of the totem pole. And if one of the Wards was another Emma, another Sophia, that I would have to deal with outside of school? Ha. Forget dealing with it, I’d probably snap on the spot.

But it might not be completely terrible. I had my friends Aria and Melody, and their companionship could make things more bearable. When I met them on Thursday, Vista seemed nice, and Kid Win was... loyal, I guess, though I hadn’t seen much of him. And from what I remembered all the Wards attended Arcadia High, so if I joined up I might get accepted there and be able to escape my tormentors.

Piggot’s voice cut through my musings. “The Wards program exists for people like you. It’s designed to help you figure out your powers and make sure you have the support you need. If you join you will receive a stipend, and the PRT will put together a trust fund for you that you can access once you reach majority. In addition, unless you are already attending or do not wish to attend, you will be transferred to Arcadia High.”

The confirmation about the Arcadia transfer was nice, but it felt like she was leaving something out.

“Are there any requirements for joining the Wards that I should know about?” I asked.

She grimaced a bit, but answered. “You would have to inform us of your identity, and since you are still a minor your parents or guardians would have to come by and help you with the paperwork.”

Dad. I flinched slightly at the thought, then froze. I... I didn’t really want to tell him. I had seen it in how he hovered over me after the locker incident, his worry so visible it almost physically pained me to see it, outstripped only by his rage at the ones who had attacked me and at his own inability to help me. Its severity had lessened as I recovered, but it was far from gone. If I told him that I was a cape, it would only add to his burden.

Piggot observed me as I sat in my chair, thinking. She suddenly asked, “Do you know what a trigger event is?”

The apparent non-sequitur startled me enough that I lost my train of thought. “Huh?” I responded wittily. “Oh. Um, a trigger event is the time that a parahuman gets their powers, right?”

“It’s the worst moment of our lives,” Miss Militia interjected. “When we’re pushed to the edge, fight or flight responses pushed to the limit, or even beyond.”

“Thank you,” Piggot said as she inclined her head toward the lady cape before returning her attention to me. “Was your trigger event the result of abuse?”

“Yes?” Where are you going with this?

“Was it the result of parental abuse? Because if it was, we have ways to help–”

“What?!” I interrupted, my voice shrill with outrage. Both of the women in the room with me flinched at my tone. “No! Dad would never do anything like that to me!”

Piggot held up her hands in a placating gesture. “Alright, alright,” she said. “It was a little difficult to read your body language, and I am required to ask if there is even the slightest possibility of child abuse.”

I deflated, saying, “Oh. Okay.” I sighed to help calm myself down, then asked, haltingly, “Can i... Can I take some time to think things over before I decide whether or not to join?”

“Certainly. Take all the time you need. I cannot force you to join,” she said, before muttering under her breath, “Much as I would like to in a certain few cases.” She then pulled out a cell phone and started typing out a message. “If you want, you could spend some time visiting with the Wards members.”

It seemed like a fairly transparent ploy to help convince me to join, but I didn’t really see any harm in it, so I said, “Sure.”

She finished her message and sent it off. A reply came within a minute. After reading the reply, Piggot said, “Vista will be up momentarily to escort you to their area of the building, if you’ll wait out in the hallway for her.”

.o.o.o.​

The door closed behind me, leaving me alone in the hallway. I took a few steps down the hall, then turned to lean my back against the wall.

After less than a minute of waiting I spotted Vista approaching me at a much faster speed than her sedate walk should have allowed for. She stopped warping about twenty feet away from me and completed her journey at a normal walking pace.

“Hi there, Starfield! Glad you could come today,” she said, a smile adorning her face as she came to a stop about five feet away from me. She gestured to the direction from whence she had come. “The Wards HQ is over that way, so if you’ll follow me?”

I returned the greeting and we started walking in the indicated direction, though Vista did not use her power to shorten the journey. I noticed that she maintained a gap of a few feet between us.

“So,” she said. “Are you going to be joining us Wards?”

“I haven’t actually decided whether I want to join or not yet,” I replied.

“Oh. It would be nice if you did join so we’d have another girl on the team. It’s nearly all boys as it is.”

“Isn’t Shadow Stalker a girl?”

“Eh. She doesn’t really count,” she said, waving her hand dismissively as we rounded a corner.

We walked in silence for a little while, and then Vista said, “Oh, yeah. I was going to give you this.” She thrust her hand into a cleverly hidden pocket in her costume’s skirt. “You visit Parahumans Online, right?”

I nodded, and the younger cape said, “Great.” She pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I spoke with a few of the mods on the forum, and they were able to make a verified cape account for you. It’s got a temporary password on it, so be sure to change that when you log on.”

Surprise and uncertainty mixed with gratitude within me, though a shade of suspicion darkened it. When was the last time someone other than Dad gave me a gift? “Oh, th-thanks,” I stammered. “Was there something you wanted for that?”

The little space warper looked shocked at the suggestion. “What? No! There’s no need for anything like that. I just wanted to be friends with another female cape, is all. Besides, it didn’t really take much effort to get this.” She altered her path so she ended up next to me and pressed the paper into my hand. Once I was holding it she swiftly returned to her previous distance from me.

I would have frowned at that. “Is there a reason why you don’t seem to want to get near me?” I asked.

“Oh, that.” She rubbed the back of her head. “Our powers don’t seem to interact very well. If my power touches you it makes me feel nauseated, and it’s easier to not touch you with it if there’s some space between us. I don’t blame you or anything, though.”

“Ah.” That... was unfortunate.

“So yeah,” she said as we stopped in front of an elevator. “Please don’t be offended if I keep a little distance between us.”

“Alright.”

I cast my gaze down at the paper in my hand. I guess it couldn’t hurt to try.

“Aria?” I murmured.

“Sure! Let me get that for you,” she chirped, reaching a tendril out to snag the note. “I’ll just assume you don’t want this eaten. Ooo, symbols!”

I looked up to see Vista, unsurprisingly, staring at my face. “You did that with the phone Miss Militia gave you the other night,” she said. “Do you have a pocket universe in there or something?”

“Something like that.”

“Huh. Interesting thing to use as a mask.”

Any response I might have made was cut off by the elevator doors opening. We stepped inside and Vista punched one of the buttons. The interior was a bit fancier than that of the elevator I had taken earlier with Miss Militia, and the ride was so smooth only the button Vista had pressed told me we were descending. The ride was fairly brief, and once it was over we exited into a long corridor of chrome steel.

As she led me up to a security terminal at the far end of the corridor, Vista said, “Kid Win and I decided not to tell the others much of anything about you, mostly because we want to see their reactions.” With that said, she stood up on her toes to let the terminal scan her eyes. With a metallic click and a barely audible whirr, steel doors whisked open and allowed us entry.

The room she led me in to was roughly dome-shaped. Walls were present, but they seemed like the type that could be easily dismantled and moved. A number of doors were set into various walls, some of which presumably led to sectioned-off parts of the main room, while others likely led to other rooms entirely. On one side of the room was a networked series of computers with large monitors surrounded by a number of chairs. Some of the monitors were occupied with screensavers, while others displayed camera images of key locations in the city. In the middle of the room were a number of comfortable-looking couches and chairs arranged in a rough semicircle, their occupants rising as we entered.

Kid Win’s red and gold costume and red visor were similar to the same-colored body armor he had been wearing on Thursday, though I spotted a few differences. Like almost all tinker capes, Kid Win’s costume was subject to frequent changes as he added and replaced bits of tech he designed.

Beside him stood someone wearing what could only be described as the offspring of a pulp science fiction hero’s suit and a medieval knight’s plate mail, in silver and gunmetal. From what I remembered this was Gallant, a cape who could fire emotionally-charged bolts of energy.

Across from them stood a boy in a skintight white bodysuit with glossy white body armor. Images of clocks in dark gray adorned the armor, some animated to float around its surface while others had ticking hands. A smooth, featureless helmet covered his entire head, a clock’s face ticking away where his real face would be. The plentiful imagery indicated that the guy was Clockblocker, a cape who could freeze objects and people in time with a touch.

The final occupant of the room was Aegis, the current leader of the Brockton Bay Wards. He was large and tan, and wore a rust red helmet that matched his costume. Both had silvery-white trim, and a shield emblem adorned his chest. His powerset was a version of what was known as the “Alexandria Package”; strength, durability, and flight. His variant was somewhat different from most instances, but I could not recall if the Parahumans Online wiki had said how it differed.

Kid Win greeted me with a nod and a smile. I was glad that he didn’t seem to bear me any animosity from our previous encounter. Or he’s good at hiding it, a little voice in the back of my mind said. I squelched the thought, as well as the subsequent train of thought of how deep in my head the back of my mind was now.

As I reciprocated Kid Win’s greeting with a little wave, he frowned, though not with anger. He then shrugged and turned his attention to the other guys. I redirected my attention similarly.

They had each frozen in the manner I had become rather familiar with over the course of the day. Honestly, it was becoming mildly irritating. Due to their masks, the only one whose eyes I could see was Aegis. To my relief, it did not seem that his eyes were in any danger of glazing over. He straightened and said, “Well. I must admit when we were told a new cape would be visiting I didn’t imagine anything quite like that. It is rather pretty.”

“Oh, um, thanks,” I said. The three started slightly at the sound.

“Interesting voice,” Gallant murmured.

“Introductions are in order, I suppose. You’re Starfield, right?”

“That’s a nice name, by the way,” Clockblocker said. “Though it makes me think of a joke–”

“No, Clockblocker,” the rest of the Wards interrupted him in perfect unison.

I mentally blinked at their synchronized response, then said, “Yes, I’m Starfield. I’ve already met Vista and Kid Win, which would make you Gallant, you Clockblocker, and you Aegis.” I pointed at each cape as I named them, and they nodded in response when I named them correctly. “I don’t see Shadow Stalker here, though. Where is she?”

“Shadow Stalker is a bit busy right now, but she’ll be back in an hour or less if you want to meet her,” Aegis replied.

“I might as well,” I said.

“In any case, this is a little awkward,” the leader of the Wards said. “Since it’s getting close to noon, I thought we could all have lunch together, but, ah...”

I tilted my head for a moment before I realized what he was referring to. “Oh, is it the mouth thing?” He nodded. “Don’t worry. I can eat lunch.” He seemed to relax a bit at that.

“I was wondering why you two went to so much effort to convince us not to read the reports from Thursday,” said Clockblocker. “Were our reactions to your liking, Kid?” he asked, his voice implying a raised eyebrow.

Kid Win wiggled his hand in front of him. “Eh. So-so. But then, you didn’t get the full experience.” He turned to me. “Where are your wings and tail, anyway?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” said Vista. “I don’t see anywhere for them to be on your back, either.”

“Well, I didn’t want to draw too much attention when I visited, so I decided not to have them out. Do you want me to get them out?”

“Sure, if it’s not too much trouble.”

It didn’t seem like it could hurt. “Alright. Is there somewhere private I could do it, preferably with no cameras or anything?”

Vista’s expression seemed to soften. “Shy about your powers?” she asked. She gestured to one of the many doors. “The bathrooms are through there.”

I thanked her and made my way to the indicated door.

.o.o.o.​

“Aria? Could I borrow a few tendrils?”

“Sure thing,” she chirped, and a couple feet of her passed through the lower part of my face.

I maneuvered the tendril around to my back and trifurcated it, then bifurcating each of the resulting tendrils. I formed eyes on the tips of three of the tendrils, and paired each of them with a tendril tipped with a single, wafer-thin tooth. “I’m going to make the slits for what we usually do, Melody,” I said as the teeth sliced open my back.

“Alright,” she said. “It would be nice to feel what is going on out there. And on a side note, Taylor, what happened a little while ago that made you so angry?”

“Oh, that?” I replied as I reformed the tendrils to slit open my fingertips. “I was asked if my father had abused me, which he would never do. The question offended me, but since the person who asked the question was required to ask it and didn’t mean to offend me there wasn’t much point in remaining angry. And no, it didn’t have anything to do with yesterday’s thing.”

“I never said it did,” she said, her wings and tail emerging from my back. “But since you mentioned it, don’t forget that you are going to tell us about it at some point.”

“I know. Just, not now,” I said as I watched her claws emerge through my fingertips. “Also, Aria? I’m going to have lunch soon, but since I’m like this you’ll get to eat it.”

“Yay!”

.o.o.o.​

“–to my little friend!” Clockblocker was saying as I returned to the main area. The other Wards either groaned softly, held their face in their hands, or did both. While I was gone they had all taken seats.

“Do I want to know?” I asked as I approached. Vista looked up at me.

“KW just had to ask what Clockblocker’s joke was,” she replied. “So no, I don’t think you want to know.”

“Aw, come on, guys!” protested Clockblocker. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Kid Win said, removing his hand from his face. The white-clad cape turned to the tinker, likely with a hopeful expression under his mask. “It wasn’t painful to listen to. It just wasn’t funny.”

Clockblocker slumped in his chair with a sigh. Then he shrugged and turned his attention towards me. After a moment of staring he said, “Nice wings.”

“Thanks, I guess,” I replied.

“I think they’re pretty cool,” said Aegis. He then rose from his seat and said, “Well then, everyone. Let’s go get lunch.”

“Where are we eating?” I asked.

“There’s a cafeteria up in the PRT building that’s pretty good,” came the reply as the rest of the Wards stood up. “Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” I replied as I followed them out the door.

~~~

 

Jaunt 2.3



As we made our way down the steel-clad corridor, idle thoughts of our destination turned my mind to the sensations I was receiving from my borrowed wings and tail. Their passive emotion grazing allowed me to experience an interesting mix of flavors, though since I lacked the knowledge to match flavors to emotions that was all they remained. Sweet and savory, sour and bitter; some pleasant to taste, others less so.

I had considered asking Melody to teach me to read emotions from the flavors, back when I had started borrowing from her, but the thought had slipped my mind. The current situation was swift to remind me. Admittedly, it was close to impossible to tell who was contributing what to the muddle I was sampling, but even without that a general emotion sensing capacity would likely prove useful. And in the meantime, I could probably work something out with Melody to interpret the emotions for me.

My musings were interrupted by the sound of Aegis’ voice, followed by what seemed to be a response from Vista, but I missed what they said. “Sorry, what was that?” I asked.

“I asked if you had already filled out all the paperwork to join us in the Wards,” Aegis replied, “but Vista told me you hadn’t.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I haven’t decided whether I want to join or not.”

“Really?” Kid Win said as we paused in front of the tinker-made elevator. The doors slid open almost immediately, and we all boarded. “I suppose they’re hoping that we’ll charm you into signing up.”

“If that’s the case, it’s probably a good thing that Shadow Stalker is out for the moment,” said Clockblocker.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Well,” Clockblocker replied, “she’s kind of a huge b-,” Aegis gave him a look. Clockblocker cut himself off with a cough. “Ah. Um, she’s rather abrasive.”

I mentally frowned at that. That doesn’t sound good. Hopefully she isn’t another Sophia. Aloud, I said, “Vista said something earlier about Shadow Stalker not counting as a girl.”

“Ah, that,” said Aegis. “Vista’s been hoping for more girls to join the Wards ever since Ermine was transferred away and the gender ratio got the way it is. Shadow Stalker apparently doesn’t work, right?” He inclined his head at Vista, who nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “She’s not exactly the kind of person I can talk about girl stuff with.”

The name Ermine felt somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t remember anything about a cape by that name. I made a mental note to look her up later, if only to satisfy my curiosity.

My thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the elevator’s doors. I’d barely felt it begin moving, much less coming to a stop. We exited, and I followed them to our destination.

.o.o.o.​

It was long enough before noon that there was hardly anyone in the cafeteria when we entered. Of the handful of people scattered about the tables, most began staring in our direction. I felt like all the stares were focused on me; logic agreed that as I was a new, erm, face, as it were, in a familiar group, the majority of their attention was likely on me. The resulting discomfort made me shift my borrowed wings from their folded position on my back to hugging my shoulders, and I was silently grateful that we’d come before the lunch break.

I suppose that’s another point against joining. The staring crowds.

.o.o.o.​

Somehow the Wards managed first to convince me to let them pay for my meal, then to get more than just what was cheapest. I ended up getting a slice of pizza, a brownie, and a soda. Then the transactions were completed and off we went to the Wards’ private table, which was in an out-of-the-way corner, mostly out of sight.

Before we could begin, Gallant and Clockblocker had to rearrange their full-face masks so they could eat. Gallant slid the lower portion of his helmet’s face forward, then upward to rest atop his head. Clockblocker just removed the lower part of his mask and set it aside. The clock that occupied the face of his mask was split in two by this, both halves continuing to tick.

I was just about to inform Aria of the meal when I noticed that no one else had started eating. Curiosity led me to look up, where I found them looking at me. What I could see of their faces seemed to bear varying levels of curiosity.

“Um, why are you all looking at me like that?” I asked.

Most of them broke off their stares at that with a faint air of embarrassment. Aegis coughed slightly and replied, “Well, we were waiting for you to move your mask so you could eat before we began.”

“I was wondering how you keep it on in the first place,” said Clockblocker, the only one who didn’t avert his gaze. “I don’t see any straps on it or anything.”

“Ah, that,” I said. “I can eat without having to move it.” Out of the corner of... whatever I was using to see, I saw Vista’s expression shift from confusion to realization to bemusement. “Besides,” I continued, “moving it would be a bit difficult, since it’s not really a mask.”

While they mulled over that for a few moments, I took the chance to quietly inform Aria of the immanent meal. “Alright!” she chirped in reply.

“So wait,” said Clockblocker. “How is that not a mask? Or am I just missing something and Jesus Christ what is that?”

“That is how I’m going to be eating,” I said, referring to the pseudopod Aria had provided. I moved it to the general area of where my real mouth would sit, and then began to shape and move teeth within it to form what I remembered of human dental anatomy. A more human mouth would probably go over better than a more alien mouth in this situation. “And while this,” I continued, gesturing to my face, “does serve the same identity preservation purpose that masks do, among others, in other respects it is pretty much the opposite of a mask.”

Once I deemed my mouth to be close enough to what I wanted I lifted my slice of pizza to my lips and took a modest bite. It was delicious, and from the sounds Aria was making I felt it safe to assume that she agreed with me.

“That didn’t exactly answer his first question,” said Vista. I looked up to find them still looking at me. They had yet to touch their food.

“In fact, it raised even more questions,” Clockblocker added.

I sighed. “Look, I’ll give you all some actual answers after we finish lunch, okay?”

Across from me, Aegis nodded and said, “That works for me.” He picked up his fork. “Besides, we wouldn’t want our food to get cold.” The rest of the Wards began to work on their meals as well.

Conversation for the rest of the meal was mostly small talk. A couple times they recounted a few of their past adventures to me, which I found rather entertaining. I found myself smiling internally quite a lot. I tried smiling with my borrowed mouth at one point, but a few hastily hidden flinches caused me to stop. I made a note to not try that again until I could practice it in a mirror.

Talking with them was fun, but I found that just sitting and watching them interact with one another was fairly nice as well. Far more than mere teammates, it was clear that they were very close friends. In fact, it might not be inaccurate to say that the Brockton Bay Wards were something of a family. They reminded me of the relationship I’d had with Emma, before, well...

“Starfield?”

The sound of Vista’s voice broke through my musings. I turned my gaze to her and replied, “Yes, Vista?”

“Well, since we’ve all finished with our lunches we thought we’d return to our base and continue to hang out there, if you want.”

“That sounds fine,” I said. I saw the others gathering their plates and such on their trays and moved to do the same. As we walked to the tray return area I noted that we seemed to be leaving at a good time, since what seemed to be the beginnings of the lunch crowd were just entering the cafeteria.

.o.o.o.​

“So what is it that’s up with your mask? Or opposite of a mask. I still don’t get that,” said Clockblocker as he leaned back into the couch.

We were all sitting in the common room of the Wards HQ. They had taken seats on the couches and armchairs. I was sitting backwards in a regular chair with my arms leaning on the backrest, since sitting in one of the couches would require that I retract my borrowed wings and tail. Melody had told me a while back that having her wings and tail out like this made it easier for her to observe my surroundings. I had no idea how an apparently eyeless being saw things; I wouldn’t be too surprised if she did something through the aforementioned appendages. I didn’t see any real reason to deprive her of whatever she was observing, so I’d taken the chair over the couch.

In any case, the question. I suppose I did promise some answers, I thought, and sighed silently. Out loud, I said, “Alright. So you guys know how you conceal your faces by putting on your masks, right?”

Everyone before me nodded.

“I conceal my face by taking it off.”

Silence filled the room for a few moments until it was broken by Kid Win. With a rather strained tone in his voice he asked, “I don’t suppose it just pops off, does it?”

“Nope,” I replied. “I need to cut it off every time. And before you ask, my face is currently in one of my pouches.”

Another silence followed my words.

“Not gonna lie,” said Kid Win, “I’m kinda glad we put this conversation off until after lunch.” The others gave murmurs of assent.

“I thought you guys would ask a bunch of questions about my powers and such and we wouldn’t get started on lunch for a while, so I delayed,” I said. “Also, I was afraid you guys would find the whole mask thing to be kinda weird. Which apparently you do.”

“‘Weird’?” said Clockblocker, a mite hysterically. “Christ, girl. You said that instead of putting on a mask you cut off your face and stuff it in your pocket, and you’re worried that–”

“Clockblocker.” Aegis’s voice headed off what might have grown into a rant. “Don’t be a dick, man.” He turned back to me. “But yeah, it is a bit more than just ‘weird’.”

“How did you find out you could cut off your face?” asked Vista, her expression a mix of concern and horror. “Because seriously, that’s all kinds of disturbing, and I feel like I might give myself nightmares imagining it.” A moment passed before realization spread across her face, followed by... shame? She stuttered, “O-oh! But if you d-don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine to...”

I cocked my head. “What were you imagining?”

“I thought it might have had something to do with your trigger event, or that you’d been attacked or something. Something you might not want to talk about and would be rude to ask about.”

“Oh. Well, I didn’t learn I could do it from anything like that. I did while I was doing a little experimenting with my powers.”

“Oh, good. That’s good to hear,” she said, relief crossing her features. It was swiftly replaced by concern once more. “But what made you do it, then?”

I shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time?”

“What.” The single, flat word was uttered nearly simultaneously by Vista, Clockblocker, and Kid Win.

I sighed, briefly noting the flinches that followed the sound. “Look, I know it sounds like a crazy thing to do; in fact, I realized that right after the first time I cut it off. But nothing bad that could have happened actually did happen. I can somehow see and speak without eyes or a mouth, and it’s useful for concealing my identity and to access my tendrils. Besides, it doesn’t really hurt when I cut it – or anywhere else on me, for that matter – and it’s pretty easy to replace my face and heal it back on, so it’s not like I’m doing any permanent damage to myself.”

Faces and postures began to relax. I noticed Aegis nodding to himself a bit.

“Also,” I added, “as far as I know there aren’t any other capes who take off their face instead of putting on a mask, so I’d be unique.”

That got a few laughs out of them, and the tension in the room dropped a little further.

“So wait,” said Aegis. “If I’m understanding what you said right, you can do what you did to your face anywhere on your body, correct?”

I paused for a moment before answering. “Um, I don’t think I actually said that, but yeah, that’s right.”

“So basically you’ve got a pocket universe in you that you can only access by breaking your skin,” he concluded. “That... actually, wouldn’t that mean that any attack that breaks your skin would go into the pocket and leave you with minimal damage? Because if so that’s a great defensive power.”

Huh. He’s rather quick. “Yeah, as far as I can tell it’s pretty much impossible to hurt anything beneath my skin, assuming I’ve still got that stuff.”

“Oh, so that’s why you wanted privacy when you were getting out your wings!” Vista exclaimed. “They’re normally in that pocket universe thing, and you didn’t want to start cutting yourself in front of us to get at them.”

I nodded to her and, in a wry voice, said, “It wouldn’t exactly have made the best first impression.” She giggled at that.

“So what’s up with those things, anyway?” she asked. “Why do you get big wings and a tail when you cut your back and tentacles with mouths and eyes when you cut off your face?”

Ah. This question. I had anticipated them asking about Aria and Melody. Since Vista, Kid Win, the Protectorate capes and the various PRT personnel at the other day’s incident had gotten a pretty good look at me, questions about my borrowed parts were pretty much inevitable. By the same token, there was little point in trying to keep my friends completely out of sight. However, I did want to keep the fact that they were separate beings from me a secret for as long as possible. Even though I found the girls to be beautiful and friendly, I wasn’t blind to the fact that most people would look at them and just see a couple of monsters, like something a cape like Nilbog or Bonesaw could make. I would much rather be seen as a slightly creepy cape than have my friends reviled.

But yes, Vista had a question.

“I don’t know why my powers work the way they do, but I’m certainly not complaining about being able to fly,” I said. “Besides, having wings and a tail come out of my back makes more sense than having them come out elsewhere.”

Vista made a face and said, “I know that about the wing placement. It’s pretty much the only part of the power that makes sense. I just...” She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Why am I trying to work out why a parahuman power works the way it does? No one knows that.”

“I guess mine is just one of the weird powers,” I said

“All parahuman powers are weird,” Clockblocker interjected, affecting an air of wisdom. “They just fall somewhere on the weirdness scale depending on whether they’re less weird or more weird.” Vista snorted.

“Speaking of weird...”

Everyone looked with surprise at the speaker, Gallant. He’d barely said a word the whole time I’d been hanging out with the Wards. I shook off my surprise, curious about what had caused him to break his silence.

“You guys know how my power lets me sense other people’s emotions, right?” he said. The other Wards nodded, but this was news to me. If it turns out this was listed on his wiki page and I missed it, I’m going to feel rather silly.

“Anyway,” he continued, “when I feel Starfield’s emotions I find something that’s rather strange, and I’ve been trying to make sense of it.”

Oh dear. This might be bad. Out loud, I said, “That ability seems rather invasive,” and wrapped my borrowed wings around me in a sort-of hug.

“Sorry,” he said sincerely. “I can’t exactly turn it off. I’d have to leave the Wards HQ to stop sensing what everyone here is feeling.”

“Will you just spit it out already?” said Clockblocker.

“Alright, alright. Sheesh.” Gallant seemed poised to speak, then stopped. He looked at me and said, “This is about your emotions, so if you don’t want me to I won’t say anything.”

I sighed. “Just say it already. You’ve gotten us all curious.”

“Alright,” he said. “So when I sense Your emotions it feels like there’s more than one person in you, but none of them seems to be in the right location in you to be your emotions. And something is muddling up everything I’m getting from you, so it’s pretty hard to determine what any one emotion is without focusing on it. Stronger emotions are easier to read, though. So yeah, it’s pretty weird.”

“Huh,” I said. “Maybe our powers are reacting poorly with one another, like mine have been with Vista’s powers.”

“That might be it,” he agreed.

Silence fell over the Wards HQ.

After a couple minutes Aegis broke the silence, saying, “So Starfield, have you been in many fights using your powers?”

“What?” I said, a little startled. “Oh. No, not really. The thing on Thursday is pretty much the only one, and it wasn’t even a real fight. Why?”

“I was wondering if you wanted to have a spar with me,” he said as he rose from his seat. “Experience is always good, and we might be able to give you a few pointers.”

I considered his offer for a moment before saying, “Sure, why not,” and getting up off my chair to follow him.

~~~

 

Jaunt 2.4



“Hey, Aria,” I said as I leaned against the bathroom counter.

“Yes, Taylor?” she chirped. “Oh! What were those things we ate earlier? They were delicious!”

I chuckled a bit, the cheer in her voices teasing a smile out of me. “The larger thing was pizza, and the smaller, sweet thing was a brownie.”

“Can we have them again?”

“Maybe later. In any case, one of the heros here, Aegis, has offered to have a friendly spar with me. I just wanted to make sure you knew that eating him won’t be allowed, since that would be bad for our relationship with the heros in general.”

“Aww. Not even a little?”

“No.” I considered. “Well, maybe a nibble, if circumstances are alright. But I’ll be the one to make the decision, okay? No munching on him just because you feel like it.”

“Fine,” she said, and for a moment I imagined her puffing out her cheeks at me. The mental image made me giggle a little.

“Aegis is the one who has redundant biology and can fly, is he not?” Melody interjected.

“Yes, that’s him,” I replied. “The specifics of his power had slipped my mind, so thanks for reminding me.”

“It was not a problem,” Melody said, sounding faintly pleased.

“So we’re gonna go fight him now, right?” said Aria.

“Yeah,” I said, pushing off from the counter. “Let’s go do that.”

“Yay!”

.o.o.o.​

The first thing I noticed as I entered the gym was that it was freaking huge. The height of the ceiling combined with the breadth of the room provided more than enough room for the average flying cape to practice in. In fact, even with the constraints that using actual wings to fly placed upon my aerial maneuverability I felt confident that I could flit around in here without too much risk of crashing.

That... We’re underground, right? How far down are we? I thought. Alright, not thinking about this anymore. There might be a logical explanation for all this, but for now I’m just going to blame this on Tinkers.

I shifted my attention to the rest of the room. A number of exercise machines were lined up against one wall along with a rack of weights. Another wall was lined with mirrors, and yet another was host to what could only be described as an armored observation booth; from its open door issued the sound of an active microwave.

The floor in the center of the room was covered by a number of mats. Beside these stood Aegis, who, upon spotting me, smiled and waved me over.

“So how is this going to work?” I asked once I got close.

“Straight to the point, eh?” he said, cocking an eyebrow as he hooked his thumbs into his belt. “Well, since I’m a Brute, and I’m assuming you are as well, a straight-up brawl probably wouldn’t work.”

“Brute?” I said. “What’s... Oh, yeah. That’s that power-rating category, right?”

“That’s right,” giving another one of his easy smiles. “I take it you know the system, then?”

“Not exactly,” I admitted. “I read a bit about it online, but not all of it is returning to me.”

“That’s fine. There will be plenty of time to learn it later,” he said. “The system gives a general estimate of threat to a team, and Brutes are capes whose powers make them stronger or more durable. A full-force battle between durable Brutes like the two of us would probably drag on for a while and-slash-or end with one or both of us getting hurt. That isn’t such a big deal for me, and maybe for you depending on how your powers work, but the non-injury consequences might end up being something of a pain. So yeah, we’re not doing that.”

I stared at him for a moment. “Okay, first, I have never heard anyone actually say ‘and-slash-or’ before now. Second, what is it that we’ll be doing instead?”

“Instead you’ll be practicing nonlethal takedowns and such with the most durable Wards member – namely, myself – acting as a living practice dummy.”

“Oi!” Aegis and I turned to see Clockblocker leaning out of the booth’s door, a bag of popcorn in his hand. “You two gonna start fighting soon or what?”

Aegis and I glanced at on another, and I tilted my head in lieu of a raised eyebrow. He shrugged and said, “Might as well get started. Nonlethal attacks only, ‘kay?”

“Sure,” I replied as we began walking to opposite sides of the mat. I reached my end first and whispered to my friends to get ready.

“You ready?” Aegis called out as he began to turn towards me, only to be caught flatfooted by the torrent of tentacles that burst forth from my face. The flood of Aria washed over the startled cape, eliciting a yelp of surprise as his limbs were bound and he was lifted bodily into the air. My grip shifted so that each of his limbs was held away from his body, while another tentacle moved to support his torso. Other tendrils were visibly on standby, waiting to pounce should he break free of my grasp.

The entire sequence had taken but a few seconds.

I would have been blinded by the thicket of tendrils occupying my face were it not for the diverse multitude of eyes Aria had helpfully included in the portion of herself she had proffered for this fight. With them I was treated not only to the sight of Aegis held spread eagled in the air but also the reactions of our little audience. Vista and Kid Win had flinched back a bit, while Gallant had backed up until he was pressed against the wall. Clockblocker had frozen, a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth and a phone in his hand, presumably recording the fight. I frowned a bit at that, and made a mental note to speak with him later about not releasing the video.

“I think the opening act went rather well,” I said to my friends.

“That was fun! Are we gonna do it again?” Aria asked eagerly.

“Oh, most definitely,” I replied, a smile playing across a few of the mouths present.

Aegis swore in a slightly shaky voice as he began to struggle against his bindings, weakly at first but steadily gaining strength until I was nearly certain he was using his flight for additional force. I added a few more tentacles to the tangle for good measure.

“Having second thoughts, oh fearless leader?” Kid Win called out to the trussed-up Ward.

“Possibly,” Aegis replied. He kept struggling for a bit before finally letting himself fall limp. “Alright, I’ll admit that it’s rather effective. Could you let me down now, please?” I complied, releasing his legs first before gently lowering him to the ground.

I then began retracting the tentacles. Our audience watched as the multitude of emerald appendages retreated into my face until only four remained. These four moved to the edges of the opening so as to not obstruct any further assistance from Aria. Two curled down and began wrapping themselves around my body, crossing my back above and below Melody’s wings before coiling around my legs. The other two did the same with my arms. Tooth material gathered near my wrists, and on the outward-facing portions of the tendrils a multitude of slits began to appear. These soon opened to reveal a great many eyes, the majority of which began to move as I allowed Aria to look about the room.

The tendrils grasped me firmly, yet gently, and I was reminded of the hug Aria had given me. I flexed my various joints to see how much the coiling tendrils were interfering with my movements, and was pleased to find that what little interference there was was easily dealt with. That done, I gently took control of most of the eyes from Aria and turned my manyfold gaze to Aegis.

The object of my attention was standing still, a finger raised and his mouth open as if he were about to speak. After a few moments he closed his mouth and lowered his hand, before saying, “So, there’s something I need to ask...”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you deliberately trying to be creepy as all fuck? Because if so, you’re doing a pretty good job of it.”

Wait, what? “No? I’m not trying to be creepy. How am I being creepy?” I asked.

“Well, first of all there’s your not-a-mask...”

“Oh. But I told you guys about that a while ago.”

“Yeah, but it’s still creepifying. Next there’s the whole tentacle bum rush attack which was at least ten different kinds of terrifying, though I will give props for its effectiveness.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“And now you’re wrapping yourself up in those same tentacles, which are now pretty much covered in eyes for some reason.”

“Hey, lay off,” I said a mite indignantly. “They’re pretty useful. How is it creepy?”

He gave me a flat look. “You have eyeball pauldrons.”

I narrowed every one of the eyes in question and crossed my arms. “I think they’re cute.”

Aegis stared at me for a few moments, then laughed. I could almost see tension draining from his posture. “Well,” he said, “if you like it then I guess I shouldn’t criticize you for it.” He started to turn away. “In any case, we might as well start round two. This time I’ll try to not get caught by the first attack.”

I watched as he made his way to his side of the mat once more. Huh. That... was a bit odd, but I guess it could have gone worse.

“Alright, then.” Gallant’s voice surprised me, and I spared some attention for the eyes looking at the booth. Inside, the armored cape was standing at some sort of control panel, his finger depressing a button that I presumed activated a hidden speaker for him to speak through. “Second round,” he continued. “Hopefully this time I’ll get to start the countdown before the fight ends.”

Aegis laughed. “Just press the damn button already,” he said, before turning back to me. “Once he presses it, there’ll be three beeps and then the signal to begin will sound. You ready?”

I nodded. “Ready,” I said, before notifying my friends.

First beep. The tension grew. All the eyes on me that could turned to look at my opponent.

Second beep. I crouched slightly, ready to react when he makes a move.

Third beep. Had I still been breathing, the anticipation might have made me hold my breath.

“Begin.”

Before I could begin to act Aegis had already covered half the distance between us. I flinched back, my arms raising reflexively to protect myself. Then I was stumbling backwards, a distant pain in my forearm telling me where my flesh had been crushed between his fist and the unyielding surface of my portal.

My many eyes found my foe nearly instantly, focusing on where he hovered a few inches above the ground. I watched for any sign that he was about to attack again as I steadied myself. I would not be caught off guard that badly again.

“You alright?” he asked.

I paused. “What?”

“I know we’ve more or less concluded that you’ve got a Brute rating, but I wanted to make sure I’m not hurting you too badly.”

“Oh.” I glanced at the patch of discolored skin on my forearm. Hmm. I might have to cut that out and grow some new skin if that doesn’t heal quickly.

Out loud I said, “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“If you say so,” he replied, then zipped to the side as I sent more tentacles his way.

The rust-colored cape narrowly dodged the next few grasping swipes I made at him before flying up towards the ceiling. “How good are you with those wings?” he called down to me.

Not as good as I could be, I thought as I withdrew most of my tentacles, transferring some of their mass to the ones wrapped around me. Most went to the tendrils around my legs, which grew thicker and covered more of me. I crouched and then, in a sudden surge of motion, jumped, the tendrils’ strength flinging me into the air towards my opponent. My wings flared open and with each powerful, silent beat the distance between us grew smaller.

Of course, the fact that I flew using wings and he didn’t meant he had much better maneuverability than I did. So when he zipped out of my way and let me sail on past him I wasn’t particularly surprised. I managed to slow myself enough to land on the wall I was headed for instead of crashing into it.

As I clung shakily to the wall with the claws on my hands and wings I hastily made some adjustments to the tendrils wrapped around me. I redistributed mass to improve balance and made a few additions while I was at it. Tiny, round mouths inspired by the suction cups of squids and octopuses, were something I had come up with yesterday. Making a number of them at key points on me made holding on to the wall much easier, and could probably be used on Aegis as well.

My attention turned to the rust-clad cape, who was floating nearby, either thinking about what he’d do next or waiting for me to make the next move. Might as well humor him, I though as I tensed, then launched myself in his direction.

He obviously anticipated the attack, as he dodged out of my way much as he had before. He did not, however, anticipate the tentacles that slapped into his face and chest, then dragged him down with me.

I dove, Aegis trailing behind me as we drew closer and closer to the ground. Then, right before impact, I pulled up sharply, allowing Aegis to slam heavily into the mat.

I landed lightly on the ground as he staggered to his feet. He grabbed the tentacles attached to him and started pulling, straining until he managed to rip them off of him. I noted a few spots of blood forming on his cheek, probably where some of the suckers had held on a little too tightly. I ignored the taste of what had come off for the moment as he charged at me. This time I was ready for it, and his charge was halted by the large tentacle that slammed into his gut. He recovered fairly quickly, but I had enough time to coil the tentacle up tightly, then let it uncoil. It scythed through the air and slammed into his side and knocked him off his feet as he tumbled across the mat until he impacted the booth the other Wards were in. He slid down the booth’s window until he sat slumped at its base.

I slowly approached, tentacles at the ready, then halted as he raised a hand. “Alright,” he said in a slightly pained voice. “You win. I think I’m gonna have to sit this out for a little while. Good fight.”

I relaxed and said, “Alright. It was fun.” A pause, then, “I didn’t hurt you too badly, did I?”

Aegis laughed and replied, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.” He started to rise, and I held out my big tentacle to help him up, which he grabbed.

Once he was on his feet I withdrew my big tentacle and wrapped the others back around my arms. The booth’s door opened and the other Wards poured out. Gallant helped Aegis to a chair while the others approached me.

“That was awesome, Starfield!” Vista exclaimed.

“Well done,” said Clockblocker.

“Thanks,” I said. “Actually, since Aegis is going to be down for a little while, could you guys help me out? I had an idea I want to test.”

They paused and glanced at one another. Then Kid Win said, “Alright. What do you need?”

.o.o.o.​

With a whisper to Aria two large tentacles extended from my face. A groove spiraled around nearly their entire length, from their tips to just outside their source. After giving Aria a murmur of thanks I calmly approached my foe, tentacles at the ready.

“So what’s with the spirals?” asked Clockblocker.

Instead of answering I uncoiled and struck. The tentacles split along their grooves like the elongated mouths they were, revealing dozens, no, hundreds of blade-like teeth. Smaller than a grain of rice, as long as my index finger, and every size in between, they gleamed in the light like razor-edged shards of ivory. Even as they uncoiled, these ribbons edged with teeth whipped forth. In the blink of an eye they bit into my target’s torso in the most literal sense, shearing clean through it.

The clatter of the bisected practice dummy’s torso falling to the ground was the only sound to break the shocked silence that followed.

The first person to speak was Clockblocker, who, in a somewhat shaky voice, said, “Well, I guess that answers my question.”

“So where should I put this now that it’s damaged?” I asked as my ribbon tentacles began picking up the pieces. Before anyone could answer I heard one of the doors open and someone enter. A few of my eyes moved to observe this newcomer.

“Alright, I’m finally here, dorks,” said a strikingly familiar voice as Shadow Stalker strode into the room. “What did I miss?”

~~~

 

Jaunt 2.5


Shadow Stalker was fairly easy to recognize for anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention to Brockton Bay’s cape scene. With a dark, hooded cloak, paired crossbows, and a mask shaped like the face of a stern woman, the image she presented differed quite a bit from her more brightly-clad fellow Wards.

She seldom spoke in public, but that was no barrier to recognizing her voice. After all, I’d been exposed to it often enough by its owner, Sophia Hess, one of my main tormentors and the bitch that Emma had abandoned me for.

No. No way. There’s no fucking way the fucking heroes would let a bitch like her join them. I... I must have misheard her.

And yet, if I wasn’t wrong and Sophia really was a Ward, everything made a certain sick amount of sense. The way the school had never done anything no matter what I did or said; the way the teachers never so much as lifted a finger to help me, even when I was being tortured right in front of them; the way everything, even the locker, was so readily swept under the rug. It made sense, if they did it to protect their precious pet hero.

Any doubts I had were quickly lost as she strode further into the gym. Someone far more charitable than I might have said she walked like a wannabe predator. I’d learned to spot when Sophia was walking like that quite quickly, as it always appeared when she had thought of a new torment to inflict upon me. And once I knew to look, I saw her body betray her identity in a hundred little ways.

There was no denying it. Sophia was Shadow Stalker, and the school’s administration and the PRT, who should have protected me, had as good as given their blessing to all she had done to me.

“You!” The word, heavy with rage, tore itself from me as I spun around to face her. A fury greater than any I could have imagined before flared up within me, threatening to fill me to bursting.

Everyone flinched in surprise at my sudden outburst, especially Gallant, but I hardly paid them any notice. Melody squawked in alarm and started saying something, though I wasn’t listening. All of my attention was focused on Sophia, who had stumbled back a few steps, cursing. “The fuck is your problem?” she shouted. “And the fuck is up with... your...” She trailed off, her eyes locked with where mine should have been.

I could just kill her, I realized. It would be so easy. I’ve already got these new ribbon-saw tentacles out, and she’s well within my range. And to top it off, she’s doing that thing those other people did when they saw my face. All it’d take is one swipe, and she’d never bother me again! And then–

Suddenly, something hit me in the side of my head, breaking my focussed gaze and disrupting my train of thought. A quick glance around showed me that the source of the projectile was the top half of the training dummy I’d bisected, held in a literally crushing grip by my tentacle. The glance also showed me that everyone had been startled anew, and that Sophia had been shocked out of her daze.

I took the opportunity the surprise had provided to rein in my rage and contain it. I slowly unclenched the fists my hands had made, drawing claws out from where they had pierced in my palms. I still seethed inside, but if I did not restrain my fury it would just lead me to make more decisions as idiotic as trying to kill a Ward in front of all her teammates while inside the PRT building.

I remembered, then, why I was going to be a hero, why I refused to just go Carrie on my tormentors. I was going to help people with the power I had gained and make Brockton Bay, and maybe even the whole world, a better place. And above all else, I was determined to be better than Sophia, Emma and the rest. Of course, none of this would be possible if I was thrown in prison or tossed into the Birdcage.

There was, however, one decision I would not change or discard once the rage was no longer clouding my judgement. I would never join the team that had made Sophia Hess a hero.

The broken dummy fell to the ground with a clatter as my bladed tentacles retracted. I began moving towards the exit.

“Hold it.” A hand closed around my arm and I looked down at the stern face of Sophia’s mask. “The hell did you just do to me?” she demanded shakily. She seemed about to continue, but a wing slammed into her side, breaking her grip and sending her sprawling to the ground.

“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, then continued to stalk out of the room.

“Woah, wait! Starfield!” Aegis called out as my hand grabbed a doorknob. I paused briefly to let him speak. “Where are you going?”

“Somewhere that isn’t here.” And with that I left.

.o.o.o.​

I’d made it most of the way down the steel-clad corridor when the eyes on my back spotted Vista running after me. She was catching up to me fairly quickly, and I suspected she was making use of the space warping trick I’d seen her use earlier to close the distance. “Starfield, wait!” she called.

I considered continuing on, but if I knew her at all, she would probably stay on my heels until I stopped and let her have her say. Besides, she’d been nice to me so far, and while I was still rather angry with the Wards team and the PRT as a whole I could probably make myself act civilly towards her. As carefully as I could make myself bother to, I paused and tightened my grip on my rage, then turned to face her as she came to a stop about a dozen feet from me.

She took a few seconds to catch her breath, then asked, “What happened back there, Starfield? Why’d you leave so suddenly?”

I sighed and said, “Basically? I refuse to join any team that bitch is on. And since I won’t be joining, there’s really no point in me staying.”

Her expression grew a bit more distressed. “Gallant said he thought you were about to attack her.”

“And I probably will, if I see her again any time soon,” I said darkly. “That’s probably another good reason for me to leave now.”

A strangled laugh slipped out of her. “Yeah, I guess so,” she said, the distress giving way to resignation as she slumped forward a little.

I began to turn away again, but I stopped and said, “Oh, yeah. I might as well return this.” I brought my hand up to my face and asked Aria to retrieve the item I wanted, absently noticing as Vista’s face grew distressed once again. It turned to relief when she saw that I had pulled out a cell phone.

“Give this back to Miss Militia the next time you see her, okay?” I said, then tossed it to her. She fumbled a bit but managed to not let it fall.

And with that, I left.

.o.o.o.​

Somehow I managed to not encounter anyone as I walked from the elevator to the lobby. I suppose I should be grateful for that.

I opened the doors to the lobby upon reaching them and stepped through. The crowd in the lobby was smaller than the one I had seen when I first arrived, though there were more civilians present than PRT employees this time. The path to the front doors was unimpeded, so I swiftly strode forth.

People turned to look as I passed through. I heard a few shrieks and gasps, presumably from the more easily startled people present. Others might have been backing away or pulling out cell phones, but by then I wasn’t paying all that much attention to them. I soon reached the front doors and passed through them.

Outside was dark, so dark that the street lamps were on despite it being not so long after noon. A glance skyward showed the cause of the midday gloom. The storm clouds that had hugged the horizon earlier had rolled in, dark and heavy with snow. They threatened to storm, and I had no intention of being caught out in it. I leaped into the air and began flying off towards home.

.o.o.o.​

I stumbled slightly as I landed, falling to my knees on the frozen grass. The park I’d chosen was clearly in need of some attention. What foliage I could see was in need of a trim. The sidewalks were cracked, and the fences could use another coat of paint. Before me in a copse was a bench that bore the scars of extended exposure to the elements. The trees around it probably hid it most of the year, but with winter here in force it was in plain sight. Storm clouds grumbled overhead, something I felt a little grateful for. When combined with the park's state of disrepair, it meant I was alone, and I needed that right then.

Yeah, I thought. I don’t need anyone getting concerned about the girl in the backless shirt walking around outside in the middle of fucking winter.

Something about that was hilarious to me, and I couldn't stop the laugh that forced its way out. I kept laughing as I got to my feet and staggered over toward a tree, then planted my forehead against its trunk.

Then the laugh cut into an incoherent shriek. Every single one of the mouths on me started screaming almost in unison as I attacked the tree with all of my strength. All of my eyes burned, their vision wavering, but I had already stopped trying to see anything anyway. I hit and clawed at the trunk, cracking and gouging the bark with every blow. The cacophony of my assault on the tree and my ongoing screaming grew louder as if each was trying to drown out the other as I struck over and over and over again.

Sudden, violent cracking sounds the tree toppled away from me, landing with a crash on the battered bench. I stared dully at the wreckage with the only eyes I had not blinded by tears as I felt my rage drain away, leaving a great empty hollow in its place. My strength seemed to follow my rage and I fell to my knees, then slumped forward, planting my forehead on the stump I had made.

“The fuck?” I asked nobody in particular as fresh tears welled up in my eyes. “This, this isn’t fair. Why...?” Something between a strangled laugh and a sob slipped free from me as I realized that the only eyes I had that could cry with were everywhere but on my face, and even then they weren’t mine to begin with. Then I stopped thinking and just cried.

“Taylor?”

I started at the unexpected voice. “Y-yeah?” I asked haltingly.

“Oh, good. You’re finally responding,” said Melody. “Are you... no, of course you are not doing alright.”

“Um, Taylor?” Aria asked hesitantly. “Could you give control of my body out there back to me?”

I felt something pressing tenderly against most of the inside of my skin. I relinquished control of the tendrils wrapped around me, which rearranged themselves to provide a similarly tender pressure by embracing me. Melody’s wings and tail took the opportunity to gently wrap themselves around me as well. I sighed as I relaxed ever so slightly in their hugs.

After a minute or so of rather nice hugging Melody spoke up. “So, ah, what exactly happened back there?”

I paused, thinking about what I could and couldn’t tell them. A grimace would probably have appeared on my face had I been wearing it. Finally I said, “Things happened, and we won’t be joining the Wards.” I winced internally once I had said it. It was pretty obvious that I was leaving out more than a few things.

“Oh, Taylor,” Melody said. “This has something to do with what occurred yesterday, does it not?” I stiffened at her words, and she sighed. “I thought so.”

How did... Oh. Right. I scrounged up a bit of reproachfulness and halfheartedly sent it her way.

She chuckled. “I cannot exactly turn it off, you know,” she said.

“I seem to be missing something here,” said Aria.

“She is a mite miffed that I read her emotions to obtain an answer she might not have wanted to give,” Melody replied. Then her voice grew serious. “Taylor, I am sure you have worked this out by now but I will say it anyway: Aria and I both want you to be happy. You are our savior, and though we have only known one another for a relatively brief time you are our beloved friend.” She paused. “Normally sadness is tangy and yummy, but the sadness of friends and kin is as bitter as apathy. I told you before that we want to help you, so please, let us help.”

I felt a flash of irritation. “Didn’t I say that I don’t want to talk about it?”

“Yes, you did, and Aria and I backed off before because I thought you would warm up to the idea of asking for our help after a while. I felt that, even though it was clearly not a minor issue, we could take our time and focus on being your friends. But this?” I could almost see Melody shaking her head. “You were so full of anger that I was certain you were about to kill that girl right then and there. I may not have much experience with your world, but I do recall you telling us a number of times that killing people is wrong and unheroic. Anything that makes you almost violate that rule cannot be good. Add to this the fact that that girl and the person from yesterday had the same underlying flavor, and I find myself to be very concerned.”

The naked concern in her voice stifled the angry retort I had been forming before I could voice it. I sighed, feeling the irritation within me drain away to be replaced by guilt and shame. “I just... I didn’t want to make you worry about it, I guess,” I said. “And I didn’t want to burden our friendship with it.”

“Oh, Taylor,” Melody sighed. “I already worry.” She gave a wry chuckle. “But you should not worry so much yourself; nothing you bring to us will ever be a burden.”

“Taylor?” One of Aria’s voices spoke from in front of me, and I looked down in mild surprise to find the source. I found that one of the tendrils she was hugging me with had drawn away from me a bit, the mouth near its tip the obvious source of her voice. As I watched, a large eye rolled over next to it and started gazing soulfully at me. “It hurts when you feel sad,” she continued, “and it hurts more when you won’t let us help. So, please?”

How the hell is she so expressive with just one eye? I thought. Just by looking at her I felt the hollow feeling within me lessen, even if only by a little. I laughed softly as I brought a hand up to pet the tendril. “Alright, alright,” I said. “You win. I’ll–”

I cut myself off as something landed on my hand. I looked up to see the beginnings of snowfall. I twitched slightly as several flakes fell through my face.

“I’ll tell you, alright?” I continued. “But we should start heading home before it really starts snowing. Oh, and could you pass me my hoodie?”

~~~

 

Jaunt 2.6


“And you’re sure you don’t want me to eat them for you?” Aria asked for the umpteenth time.

“Yes, Aria, I’m sure,” I said as I closed the door to my room behind me. Dad was still out at work, and with the the storm outside going on he would probably be rather late getting home. I had quite a lot of time to talk with my friends without having to worry about him catching me, though I would probably have to prepare my own dinner. And speaking of, well, speaking...

I’d managed to tell my friends everything. At first I’d been rather hesitant about telling them such things out in public where anyone could overhear me, so I tried to hurry home. Then I remembered that whatever the language was that I used when speaking with Aria and Melody, it certainly wasn’t English. Besides, it was doubtful that any sensible person would go outside during a snowstorm. With my excuses for hesitating gone I found my self talking, haltingly at first, but it wasn’t long before I was telling them about the bullying, Emma, the locker, even... even my mom’s death. It was as if a dam had broken within me, releasing a deluge of words I doubt I could have stopped even if I tried.

Of course, there were a number of things I said that my friends didn’t understand or lacked context for, but they held off on asking questions until I had finished. They were, understandably, rather angry with my tormentors, though I managed to convince them that murder wasn’t an option.

“It is unfortunate that we cannot solve this problem the simple way,” Melody sighed as I began to change out of my costume. “I do have a decent grasp on Sophia’s base flavor, so I could probably alert you if she approaches, but I cannot do the same for the other two or their followers without learning their flavors. I am sorry I cannot help you more.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine,” I replied, laughing softly. “You girls are helping out plenty just being my friends.” A thought struck me. “Say, Melody...”

“Yes?”

“I forgot to mention this the other day, but I think I can taste emotions like you can when I’m using your wings and tail. The only problem is that I just get a jumble of flavors and I can’t tell what they all mean. Could you teach me?”

“Oh, Taylor, I would be happy to teach you,” she replied happily.

“Thanks.” Heh. I guess that means we’ll be trading languages then, in a sense. I really need to figure out how I’m going to be teaching them.

Something caught my eye as I was stripping off my jeans, making me pause. Long, livid bruise-like marks coiled around my legs like snakes, reaching from hip to ankle. They’re just like the patches of crushed skin on my forearm and knuckles, I thought. I guess they’re from when I used Aria’s tentacles to help me jump.

I had discovered a limitation to my healing ability as I was walking home. Cuts in my skin could be sealed up in seconds as always, and missing skin could be regenerated, but for some reason the bruises refused to heal. The state of my legs and arm wasn’t too great a concern since people were expected to wear concealing clothes in the middle of January, but my knuckles presented a problem. Not only were they likely to be seen, the bruised skin that would not heal had also been split, revealing the starry void that lay beyond for all the world to see. I had to get rid of the bruises, and lucky for me the solution was fairly obvious.

I finished getting changed and hiding my costume, then got out my knife and sat down at my desk. With a few quick slices my knuckles were laying in front of me. On a whim I rolled up my sleeve and cut out the bruise on my forearm as well. Then I focused on healing.

A sudden shout of surprise from Melody broke my concentration. “What’s wrong?” I asked, concern rising within me.

“Something is coming this way, fast!” she exclaimed.

“What?” I stood quickly, knocking my chair over in my haste. “Where’s it coming from?”

Aria cried, “It’s coming from our si–” Then she went quiet.

Barely a moment later, before I could even react properly, snow surged forth from the holes in my skin. With shocking swiftness it poured forth to swirl and tumble and fill the room.

Then all was silent.

.o.o.o.​

True silence does not exist anywhere in a city like Brockton Bay. Wind whistling between buildings, the low din of traffic, the waves breaking upon the beaches, even the sounds of your own body; all come together to form a background noise that banishes the silence. You grow accustomed to it and learn to ignore it, but it is always there.

In the wake of the snow pouring from me, true, deafening silence filled the room.

“Aria? Melody?” I called out; or rather, tried to call out. Even my own voice could not be heard over the deafening quiet. I felt a stab of worry for them for a moment before shoving it to the back of my mind. I can’t check on them unless I can talk to them, and since this snow is obviously the source of the silence I have to deal with it before I can talk. I just hope it’s a swarm of little creatures that I can control and not a creation of something that’s still on the other side.

I laughed, the sound consumed by the silence. I guess there’s only one way to find out. I reached out with my power and–

–soloudsoyummyoneinmanyClarity.

The swirling snowflakes stilled as I solidified my control over them. No, I realized. Not them. It. Her. All of this snow is a single being.

Through my connection to her flowed the din of the city, but instead of hearing it I tasted it. This creature wasn’t just nullifying all sound in this room; she was devouring it, guzzling it down like a man dying of thirst who has stumbled upon an oasis. And the sounds didn’t taste half bad.

But enough was enough. I made the creature draw the rest of herself out of me then gather herself on the other side of the room. Once she had done so I found that even when her flakes were concentrated enough to completely block my view of the wall behind her she still took up over half the room.

“Aria? Melody?” I called. “You two okay?”

“Yeah,” Aria replied. “Whatever that was didn’t seem to even spare us any notice, much less try to hurt us. It went straight for those holes you were healing up. What was that, anyway?”

“It looks like a bunch of snow, but it’s a single creature. And I think it’s a she,” I said. “She eats sound, which is why we couldn’t talk to each other earlier.”

“That is interesting,” Melody said. “She seems to be frightened and anxious at the way you are controlling her, but she is being distracted from that quite a bit by her joy at her new surroundings.”

I chuckled a bit. “I suppose that’s a good thing,” I said. “By the way, how did she get so close without you noticing?”

She laughed sheepishly and said, “Well, we were rather focused on you, and there is never anything going on in the space behind us.”

“That’s alright,” I said, then turned my attention to my guest. “So what might you be? Do you have a name?”

She stirred a little and made a noise that sounded like a mix of sounds from the storm outside, with a questioning tone towards the end.

“So you don’t have a name then?”

“Name?” she asked, except the voice she used was mine.

I blinked, then said, “You know, a word used as an identifier?”

She made a sound of comprehension. “Don’t have name,” she replied, again in my voice.

“Do you want a name?”

“Want!” she exclaimed.

“I suppose we are going to do this for every being that we encounter from this side,” Melody remarked, amusement in her voice.

Aria joined me in giggling at that. “It looks to be that way,” she said.

Alright now, what to name her... I’ve got a bit of a musical theme going with the names I’ve already thought up. Maybe something to do with silence, something like... “Rest,” I said. “How do you feel about the name Rest?”

She hummed for a bit before making a happy burbling sound. “I suppose that means you like it,” I chuckled.

“Like!” She confirmed, then laughed as well.

~~~

 

Jaunt 2.7



We spent the rest of the afternoon talking to and playing with Rest. She seemed to learn how to use words almost as fast as we could say them for her to eat. She even started to use ambient noises to produce words. She still only spoke in one or two word sentences, but it was adorable so I saw no reason to correct it.

As we played, I was able to get a good look at Rest’s individual flakes. They were tiny and white like real snowflakes, and appeared to be such when looked at from any real distance, but upon closer inspection they seemed to be tiny discs that looked rather like miniature sand dollars. In fact, they even had tiny, soft spines covering one of their sides like real sand dollars, and while I couldn’t feel them walking on my hand they tickled a little when I felt them on Aria. In addition, while each flake clearly had edges I couldn’t help but feel that they were larger than they looked, as if something was covering up part of them. It was odd, but since we’d only just met Rest I felt I could wait a little while before bothering her about it.

The afternoon wore on, and the storm outside showed no sign of letting up. I’d just started thinking about what to fix for dinner when the phone rang. I got up to answer it, carrying my friends along with me.

“Hey, kiddo,” the caller said when I picked up the phone.

“Hey, Dad,” I replied. “What’s up? Are you going to be home late?”

“Actually, it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting home at all today, with the way this storm is going,” he said, sounding apologetic. “I’m going to sleep at the office tonight and head home as soon as I can tomorrow once the streets are cleared”

“Alright. Will you be okay?”

“We were prepared, so it’ll be alright. Kurt’ll be making some dinner soon, so you don’t need to worry about that.” Someone made a squawk or surprise and protest behind him, making me giggle a little. Dad went silent. “You laughed again,” he said softly. “You’ve been more cheerful lately as well.”

“Um. I, ah, made some friends, Dad.”

“Good. That’s good. I’m glad.” He fell silent again, but I could tell it was a happy silence. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye, kiddo.”

“Bye, Dad.”

.o.o.o.​

It was a novel experience, preparing dinner with my friends out. After I’d hung up the phone, I had immediately removed my pants and, with Aria’s help, removed the bruises spiraling around my legs. In addition, I’d cut out my eyes to see how well growing new ones would work. I left my old ones in a glass of water on my desk, along with my glasses.

Now I was in the kitchen, still bereft of pants, splitting my attention between preparing the meal and stopping Aria’s playful attempts at getting into the ingredients. Some of Rest hovered over the whole affair, drinking in the sounds of cooking.

It was quite necessary to keep Aria on a leash, as it were, since her eating all the ingredients would make it rather difficult to feed her the finished meal. Even if I wasn’t all that hungry, she...

Wait, when was the last time I was hungry? I let Aria eat my lunch, and I don’t remember if I actually had breakfast, so I should at least be feeling a little peckish right now. But I don’t.

...

Eh, it doesn’t really matter.

In the end, the meal was completed with minimal loss of ingredients, and it wasn’t long before Aria had utterly demolished her portion. I was just about to offer to share my portion with her when she exclaimed, “Oh! I just remembered something.”

After a moment, a tendril came out of my leg and handed me a piece of paper. I looked at it and said, “Oh, hey. This is the account information Vista gave me. I’d completely forgotten about it. Thanks, Aria.”

“You’re welcome, Taylor.”

I... should probably check this sometime soon, I thought. It’s pretty much the only way they have to contact me, and after they way I left they probably will. Maybe I should... No, I’ll wait until tomorrow after the storm’s done and go to the library. It probably wouldn’t be best to associate the account with our home computer’s IP.

“Say, Aria, did you not have something you wished to show Taylor?” Melody’s voice interrupted my musings.

“Hmm? What’s that?” I asked.

“Oh! Ah, well, a little while ago when we were at that place with the big metal things, I took some of the metal, and I’ve been making it into, well, this.” A few of Aria’s tendrils pulled my leg open a little more to allow another tendril to bring something out and give it to me.

It was a sphere of steel, about the size of both my fists together. Tiny, delicate etchings on most of its surface gave it the appearance of a ball of tiny flowers, though they were unlike any flower I had seen before. The etched portion also bore tiny spines which, I noted, I could feel piercing my palms.

“It’s not quite done yet,” Aria said.

“It’s beautiful,” I replied, a touch of wonder making it’s way into my voice. “What is it?”

“It’s you.”

“It... what?” I asked, confused.

“Well, actually, it’s what you look like from our side,” she clarified.

“Ah.” So this is what I look like, eh? A wide smile stretched across my face.

In a swift motion I threw my arms around Aria’s available tendrils, hugging them close and causing her to squeak slightly in surprise. “Thank you,” I said, my voice heavy with emotion. “Thank you.”

For the second time that day I felt like crying, but this time it was from happiness.

.o.o.o.​

The next day found me at the library, as intended. The storm had cleared up a little before dawn, and my dad had made it home safely just in time for breakfast. I’d swapped my new eyes out for my old ones so that he wouldn’t get suspicious about how I wasn’t wearing my glasses, then swapped them back before heading out.

Speaking of my eyes, growing new ones had worked out pretty well, even though they took longer to grow than my skin. They seemed to have almost perfect vision. The only problem was they were noticeably paler than my old ones. In fact, all the skin I’d regrown was paler than my other skin as well, though since I wasn’t exactly a well-tanned individual it wasn’t that noticeable. In any case, given that my new eyes were a noticeably different color and that I couldn’t wear my glasses with them, it probably wouldn’t be that good of an idea to have them in at school or around Dad, at least for now.

Maybe I could carry one pair around in a little bottle or something so I could switch them out when I need to, I mused as I found a computer in a corner of the library. A few moments later I was logging into Parahumans Online. I quickly noted that I had a PM, which I had a look at.


♦ Private messages from Vista (Confirmed Cape):
January 22nd, 2011

Vista:
Starfield? Could you please tell me why you reacted to Shadow Stalker like that? I need to know.

Also, well... I know we didn’t exactly leave on the best of terms, but can we still be friends?


I felt a surge of anger, then calmed myself. Vista had been nice, and from what I’d seen the day before neither she nor the other Wards really liked Sophia, much less seemed likely to be responsible, even if only partly, for allowing her... behavior to continue. I typed out a reply message and sent it.


January 23nd, 2011:

Starfield:
I hope I wasn’t too mean to you yesterday, and I apologize if I was. You seem like a nice person, and I guess we can be friends.

As for Shadow Stalker, basically she’s a huge bitch, and it’s personal. How the hell did she become a hero, anyway?


With that done, and no reason to expect an immediate reply, I went back to poke around the forum. Maybe something interesting had been posted since I’d last checked?

Hmm, let’s see... ‘Teatime in the Birdcage’. About fucking time. ‘Bardiche’s Knights clash with the Dragonslayers’, ‘New cape spotted at the BB PRT office’, ‘Hero Marlin saves crew from sinking...’ wait. Back up a bit. Is that about me?

I clicked on the third thread.


♦ Topic: New cape spotted at the BB PRT office
In: Boards ►News ►Events ►America

Red_Panda (Original Poster)
Posted on January 22nd, 2011:

So like the title says, I saw a new cape just now while I was putzing around at th PRT giftshop. He was dressed in normal clothes like he didn’t want to attract attention, but then he spoke in this weird, creepy voice and apparently accidentally hypnotized one of the receptionists or something. Then Miss Militia appeared and led him to a back room. She called him ‘Starfield’, so I guess we don’t get to think up silly cape names for him.

Also, he seemed to be wearing a black mask with lights on it.

Edit: Apparently Starfield is a girl. Whoops.

Edit 2, Edit Harder: And now Clockblocker has kindly posted a video of Starfield completely pwning Aegis [LINK]


I felt a minor spark of irritation when the poster got my gender wrong, but when I saw the video link I paused and blinked. A video? How did he... Oh. Right. My mind went back to Clockblocker and his cell phone. I was going to ask him not to post it anywhere, but then I, uh, left before I could. I guess it’s too late now. I checked to make sure the computer’s sound was off, wishing I had a pair of headphones with me, then clicked on the link.

The video was less than a minute long. I felt like the fight had to have taken longer than that. Maybe the video was heavily edited or something? But no, the entire fight was there, from just before my first attack to when I was helping Aegis stand after he’d slammed into the window in front of the camera. It even included the short, now muted conversation I’d had with the cape in the middle of the fight.

While the length of the video was a little disconcerting, as I set the video to play again my own memories of the spar began to well up. The memory of the exhilaration I had felt during the fight brought a small smile to my lips; and while I knew that it had only been a spar, and that neither Aegis nor I had been going all-out, the fact that I had beaten the leader of the Brockton Bay Wards in my first actual cape fight made me feel... powerful.

Also, the small amount of skin I had, ah, accidentally nipped off of Aegis hadn’t tasted half bad.

Once the video ended for a third time I closed its window and went to look at the thread’s replies.


(Showing page 1 of 23)

► SeaGatherer
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
Fucking hypno capes. *shudders*
I wouldn’t want to be the PR guy working with him.

► Happyrabbit
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
And the Brockton Bay cape pop grows ever larger.

@SeaGatherer
*sigh* Yes, SG, we ar well aware of your opinions of hypnosis-using capes.

► HotterLass
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
Oh, hey! I’m at the BBPRT building too!
I saw Starfield too, but I’m pretty sure that she’s a girl.

► alexandria4eva
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
"Starfield"? That explains the mask at least. Anyone have any ideas what that can mean for his her powers? She's apparently some kind of Master or Stranger, but how do you guys guess it'll work?

► SteelLord
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@alexandria4eva
My money's on the "hypnotism" being some kind of hallucinated flashbang or something. Makes her victims "see stars" and confuses and disorients them.

► JeevesDidIt
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
Or she literally makes people see the stars. Like, she just reaches out and replaces everything they see with the night sky as seen out in the boonies. The people she uses it on have all of creation slowly but surely revealed to them in its entirety.

And then, when it's done, they are made forcibly aware of just how insignificant they are. Like a vortex of total perspective, her victims realize the futility of their existence, and are driven irrecoverably insane by the experience.

Soon enough, the streets of Brockton Bay will be filled with gibbering madmen, unable to cope with their utter insignificance in the face of a universe infinitely their greater. The tortured shrieks of the poor, damned souls will echo through the streets in a hellish chorus of despair and suffering as they cast civilization to the winds. After all, what use is law or decency when one is utterly powerless in the grand scheme of things? What use is sanity in a universe gone mad?

All that matters in such a meaningless existence is the service one so much their greater, the glorious field of stars that walks like a man.

► ManyEyedOne
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@JeevesDidIt
Holy shit. And I tought I was crazy.

► alexandria4eva
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@JeevesDidIt
...

I got nothing. There's literally nothing I can say to that. I don't think I've ever seen such a perfect blend of paranoia and batshit insanity in a single post before.

► Hungry_Kirby
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@JeevesDidIt
@alexandria4eva
Pretty much this. Alex said it all, really. Jeeves, you are either the most magnificent bastard to ever magnificent bastard, or you really, really need to call the nice folks with the white coats and ask them to take you to the funny farm.

► HotterLass
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
So Starfield just walked out through the lobby and she looked kinda... different. And freaky. And I managed to get a picture of her: [IMG]

So yeah. Tentacles coming out of her mask that are covered with eyes and mouths. Wings, a tail, and claws that seem to be made of solid darkness. And she seemed kinda angry as she was walking out.

It was actually kind of cool-looking. But all the same, I don’t think I’ll be going to sleep tonight. Or the rest of the week, for that matter.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, ... , 33


(Showing page 2 of 33)

► Red_Panda (Original Poster)
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
So Starfield just made another appearance: [IMG]

She looks pretty different than before, what with losing her hoodie (and the wings and tentacles and all, too), but her mask was the same even if it’s got freaking tentacles coming out of it.

I’ll admit that I almost pissed my pants when she came into the lobby. Those freaking eyes were watching everyone and I swear that one of the mouths grinned at me. She didn’t do anything but go outside, but jesus that scared me.

Edit: Strangered

► alexandria4eva
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
... Alright. I will admit that of all the possible powers I thought she might have, none of them even approach that.

So pretty much all of that could probably be classified as a Changer power, since from what I understand she didn’t have any of that out before (and I’m going to include the mask with all of that, since I’ve got the feeling that it’s not actually a mask but her using her power to change her face. How else would you explain the tentacles coming out of it?). The wings probably give her a Mover rating. The hypnotism from before is still probably a Master or Stranger power. Maybe.

I wonder what made her angry, though.

► SpecificProtagonist
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
Wait, Brockton Bay has a tentacle cape now? Sweet! I don’t even care that she’s a girl. I hope she can make them without the eyes or mouths, though.

► LtShortSkirts
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
“Tentacles ... covered with eyes and mouths.” Huh. How bad could it be?
*views image*
... sweet baby jesus in a dragon suit...

► WhatDoYouMeanItsNotButter
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@SpecificProtagonist
I know right? The Tentacle Porn industry hasn't had this much hope since Kyushu sank!

► bobfromaccounting (Veteran Member)
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
Really? We're going there?

► WhatDoYouMeanItsNotButter
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
Fuck yeah we are. I haven't been this hyped since [LINK REDACTED BY MODERATOR]. So many possibilities! And in a chick to boot!

► Armand (Moderator) (Verified Fabulous)
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@WhatDoYouMeanItsNotButter
An underaged chick. Enjoy your ban.

To everyone else, please get back on the topic before I have to hand out more punishments.

► Red_Panda (Original Poster)
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
Yeah... this thread got creepy fast. Thanks Armand.

To not-conspicously-at-all change the topic, I'm gonna ask the most inane yet topical question I can think of. What happened to her sweatshirt?

► JeevesDidIt
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@ManyEyedOne
@alexandria4eva
@Hungry_Kirby
Starfield has already gotten to you I see. Perhaps if you could see what I see, know what I know, you would not have succumb to such base machinations.

Alas, it is too late for you now. I can only weep for your poor, tortured souls. I pray the mindless shells you left behind expire soon, before she discovers that they are crunchy and go well with ketchup.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, ... , 33


I blinked. Wow. That really did get pretty creepy. I shuddered a bit, then got back to going through the thread.


(Showing page 7 of 33)

► Clockblocker (Verified Cape)
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@Shallowfax
That hurts me, man. It hurts me in my soul.

In any case, I’ve been prohibited from saying anything about Starfield, so have this video instead! [LINK]

► SteelLord
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
...welp. Time to avoid the User Fiction board for a few weeks.

Joking aside, those tentacles seem almost tailor-made for nonlethal takedowns. Well, when they aren’t covered in teeth, that is.

► Happyrabbit
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
That was kinda scary but also pretty awesome. I almost peed myself a little when she did that first attack.

BTW, did anyone catch what she said right after that? It’s a bit muffled, but it doesn’t sound like it was in english.

► alexandria4eva
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@Happyrabbit
It doesn’t sound like any language I’ve ever heard of, and my language nerd roomie doesn’t know it either. According to him, it’s probably some kind of devil-speak for all he knows.

► SpecificProtagonist
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
*single tear* It’s... It’s so beautiful.

► Red_Panda (Original Poster)
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@Clockblocker
Thanks for the video!

So this was just a friendly spar, right? I wonder what it’d look like if they went all-out against each other.

@SpecificProtagonist
...please don’t be any more of a creeper.

► Happyrabbit
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
@Red_Panda:
Don't bother. SP's not gonna listen. Just ignore him(?).

OT: I spent some more time trying to figure out that language, and I can definitely confirm it's not any of the more common languages. It flat-out can't be Latin based because she's making sounds that aren't in Latin, which rules out 95% of European languages, and I'm pretty sure it can't be Cantonese or Mandarin either. Those are the only ones I was able to find detailed info on though. If I had to guess, I'd say it sounds like it might be a weird mix of German and Arabic, but my buddy who speaks German doesn't recognize any words. Any Arabic speakers that can chime in?

► osirislives
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
its not arabic. really close though.

► Happyrabbit
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
Maybe a relatively unknown dialect then? God, this is driving me nuts.

► Hungry_Kirby
Replied on January 22nd, 2011:
It's no arabic dialect. If you just listen to individual words, it sounds like it might be Sa'idi Arabic, but the grammar and structure is way off. Unless "cheese me yesterday gratitude elevate" is a sentence that makes sense, that is.

Maybe she's a Thinker and came up with her own language? Wouldn't surprise me if she heard someone speaking Arabic at one point and made her own version on the spot. Powers are bullshit like that.

End of Page. 1, ... , 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ... , 33


“Huh,” I murmured to myself. “What language are we using when we speak to each other, anyway?”

“Ahem, I believe that knowledge is probably in the memories we have lost due to amnesia,” Melody whispered, a faint tone of amusement in her voice.

I snorted. “Did you actually say ‘ahem’ just then?”

“It is a little difficult to clear one’s throat when one does not have a mouth.”

“Ah. Carry on then.” Maybe there’s more on the next page, I thought, and clicked my way to it.

 

Interlude 2.x


Crystal Pelham crouched on the edge of the abandoned building’s roof, looking across the street at what she was certain was a Merchant drug house. The building looked to be an abandoned warehouse, one of many that sat rotting and festering in this area of the city. Light shone through what windows weren’t boarded up, showing that it was occupied, though no sound could be heard from it.

She twitched slightly as a crunch of gravel came from behind her and turned to look at the newcomer, but relaxed once she spotted the white costume with its blue shield design, and the blue hair peeking out from under its hood. “Hey, Sis,” her brother Eric, or Shielder when in costume, said. “Coffee?”

“Thanks.” Crystal gave him a grateful smile as she took the proffered cup, holding it for a moment before drinking to let it warm her hands.

“So, how’s it look?” Shielder asked after taking a sip from his own cup.

“I did a circuit ‘round it, and the guard presence seems minimal, which is kinda weird this close to Order-claimed territory. That entrance, though,” she nodded at the alley across the street, “seems to be unguarded.”

“Any chance of capes?”

“I don’t want to say there aren’t any, but with so few guards?” She shrugged, then pulled out her phone to type out a text one-handed before sending it. The reply was prompt. “Anyway, Mom’s given the go-ahead, so we can head in whenever.”

“Cool,” Shielder replied. “We’ve probably got enough time to finish our...” He trailed off as he peered down the alley. “Movement at our entrance. So I guess not.”

Crystal turned in time to see two obviously panicked men stumble through the now-open door with a small flurry of snow. One slammed the door shut and pushed a nearby crate up against it, while the other left his buddy behind and ran for the street.

God damn it. Crystal sighed to herself, then took a few quick gulps from her scaldingly hot coffee before forcefully placing the cup on the roof beside her. In the blink of an eye she was hovering next to Shielder, hooking her arm beneath his armpits. “Let’s go nab ‘em!” she said with a cheeky grin.

“Wait, wait! Can’t you just give me a bit to–”

.o.o.o.​

The runner’s only warning was a flash of blue. Then, with a dull, meaty sound he plowed into an unyielding surface that hadn’t been there a moment before. He fell back, cursing in a shrill and panicked voice while clutching his face.

Shielder looked at the man he’d just trapped in a bubble-shaped shield, then at the empty and crumpled cup clutched in his fist, and let out a mournful sigh. The irritated glare he shot Crystal was met by an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ll buy you another when we’re done?” The glare lessened in intensity.

Crystal turned her attention to the man whose associate her brother had captured. His greasy blonde dreadlocks jittered as his frightened gaze swung from the mouth of the alley the shield had blocked off, to the door he’d just barricaded, to the chain-link fence that blocked off the alley’s other end.

“Oi!” Crystal called out, making the guy’s gaze jerk back to her in a flurry of dreads. “Look, make this easy on yourself and just surrender, okay? Ap-bap-bap!” A bright bolt of crimson leapt from her hand to the ground near his feet, halting his attempt to edge over to the fence and making him back up into the wall. “As you can see, the fence is not an exit. And since you don’t seem to want to go through that door you just blocked, I’d say you’re well and truly trapped.” She lowered her brother to the ground, then flew back up. “What’s behind the door anyway? Must be quite something to bring you boys so close to pissing yourselves.”

“Fuck you!” the blonde one shouted back weakly, and oddly quietly, as the snow flurry began to settle around him. “J-just lemme go, okay? I don’t wanna die!”

Crystal chuckled. “Why on Earth would I just let you run off?” she retorted. “And what’s this nonsense about dying? Seriously, are you high or someth–”

The barricaded door appeared to explode as what seemed like a large white tusk punched right through it and the crate blocking it. Time seemed to slow for Crystal as she watched it hurtle towards the blonde thug, only to split into three and stab into the wall around him, pinning him. A wave of a dark-colored fleshy substance lunged out from the split and engulfed the thug, covering him entirely and silencing his panicked shriek almost before he could start.

The alley fell silent for a few moments as the Pelham siblings stared openmouthed at the scene before them. Crystal absently noted that a thick rope of the same flesh trailed from the back of the tusk back through the ruined door. Then, with an unsettlingly large quantity of soft sucking sounds, the mass of flesh began staring back.

“Jesus fuck!” Crystal exclaimed as she brought both hands up to aim at the flesh and dipped a little to put more of the shield bubble between her and it. “Eric! Contact Mom! Unknown cape, possibly hostile.” Shielder dropped his cup and started scrabbling for his phone. “And you shut up!” she growled at the thug trapped in the bubble, who had curled up on the ground and started whimpering.

The flesh stared at her with far too many eyes, the portion that had swallowed the thug squirming in a manner that was distressing to look at. A slit appeared on it and opened, revealing more teeth than any one creature had any right to have. “Oh, I know who you are!” it said in a voice that set Crystal’s teeth on edge. “You’re Laserdream and Shielder, with New Wave. Hello.” A lump of flesh was extruded from the main mass and waved at them. “I’m a hero, like you, and I’m not hostile to you. Also, could you let me have that one?” The fleshy lump stopped waving and pointed at the bubbled thug.

Crystal sputtered for a moment before managing to say, “Why? So you can eat him like the other one? And how do we know you’re not lying about being a hero?”

“Eat? Oh, right.” The mass of flesh drew away from the wall, revealing the thug it had enveloped. He appeared to be tied at the hands and feet with zip-ties, and was hanging unconscious in the grip of a large tentacle. “See? No eating going on here. Now, if you’ll let me have that one I can restrain him as well. Wouldn’t want him running off, after all.”

“I’d... I’d rather not,” Shielder replied, having to speak louder to talk over his captive’s renewed whimpers. “No offense, but you don’t exactly look like the most trustworthy, uh, person, to give a prisoner to. Besides, this shield will keep him here until the cops come.”

The thing narrowed many of its eyes at him as he spoke, a few of them extending on stalks and turning back to look over itself. Then a ripple passed over its bulk and it said, “Well, so long as he doesn’t run off I suppose it’s alright.” With a sudden jerk it withdrew its trifurcated tusk from the wall. “Want to join me inside, so we can talk face to, uh, face? I’ve already cleared most of the place out. Let me get the door for you.” The rope of flesh near what was left of the door bunched up and flexed, causing the door’s remnants to simply shatter. A couple of tentacles extended and brushed the various pieces of debris out of the way. “I’ll just go add this guy to the pile.”

Pile? The two siblings glanced at each other, then cautiously flew over the shield bubble. Shielder paused to make sure it had an air hole, and then the two approached the empty doorway.

The first things they saw in the poorly-lit interior of the warehouse were tall shelving units holding little more than dust, and the massive, squirming bulk of their apparent colleague. As they watched, the tentacle deposited its captive on the ground beside a number of similarly restrained people who, Crystal noted as she slowly approached, seemed more-or-less uninjured save for a few scratches and scrapes. A couple dozen feet away from the prisoner pile she spotted what seemed to be a small pile of pistols.

Motion drew Crystal’s attention back to the huge pile of flesh and eyes and teeth where another large tentacle was...

Crystal stared. Is that thing holding a person up by their face? What... What the fuck?

Before she could say anything, though, the tentacle lowered the person – no, wait, that’s a girl. With wings and a tail. – to stand in front of her. Wait, now that I look at it the tentacle isn’t grabbing her by the face, it’s going into it. Or coming out of it. Christ that’s creepy. Crystal blinked. Wait, I’ve seen her before, in that thread on PHO a week ago. She’s... oh, what was her name?

The girl walked up to Crystal and Shielder. “Hi, I’m Starfield,” she said in a slightly muffled yet still unsettling voice. She held out a clawed hand, and after a few moments’ hesitation Crystal shook it, fighting the urge to cringe. “So, uh, sorry for poaching your target, I guess.”

“What? Oh, no, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Crystal replied. “Actually, you saved us a lot of effort here, so thanks for that.”

“Is this everyone that was here?” Shielder asked, nudging one of the restrained thugs with his foot.

“Not quite,” Starfield replied. “There’s a few more on the other end of the warehouse, but they don’t know we’re here yet.” The tentacle in her face, and by extension the mass of flesh beside her, began to flow into her face. The sight made Crystal shudder and avert her gaze, which fell on something else.

“... Starfield, why do you have a dozen knives stuck in your arm?”

“Hm? Oh. It was a convenient way to hold onto them.”

“... Right.” Crystal sighed. “Anyway, let’s go take care of those remaining Merchants, shall we? Shielder, stay here and watch these ones.”

“Alright,” he replied as he looked at his phone. “Also, I told Mom that the cape was Starfield and that she’s not hostile.”

“Great.” She flashed him a quick smile, then turned back to Starfield, who had withdrawn most of the flesh and wrapped the remainder around her arms, torso, and legs.

“Alright. They’re this way,” she said, pointing through the shelves.

.o.o.o.​

There were five men at the other end of the warehouse, but only two of whom actually looked like Merchant members. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t notice the two cape girls approaching until Crystal had quickly flown up above them and started raining bolts of scarlet light upon them.

The resulting fight was more of a brief, extremely one-sided scuffle. Crystal managed to knock three of them to the ground with her laser blasts before Starfield had finished wrapping one in tentacles, though the three were soon held down by yet more tentacles. Crystal found the way a good portion of the other cape’s eyes had turned to stare at her after the first laser blast to be somewhat unsettling, though she decided not to comment on it.

The last one, the most well-dressed of the bunch, had been closer to a door than the others and had almost reached it when all the snow flurries Crystal had seen around the place but ignored converged on him. Soon he was surrounded by a sphere of snow, and a moment later he fell to his knees, clutching his ears as if to block out some deafening noise that Crystal couldn’t hear. Strangely, she couldn’t hear a single sound coming from him even though his expression looked disturbingly like he was screaming in agony. Thankfully, he was soon scooped up by another tentacle and restrained.

As Starfield carried the Merchants away to dump them with the others, Crystal stayed to evaluate the spoils, which amounted to several pallets of drugs and a briefcase filled with money. When Starfield returned she found Crystal standing in front of a torn-open pallet, her face twisted in disgust as she glared at the contents. “Is something wrong?” Starfield asked as she walked up to the other cape.

Crystal jumped slightly and turned to look at the other girl. “Oh,” she said, then mentally shook herself. “Yes, there... Well, yes and no, actually. It’s not that big of a problem, since we managed to catch this stuff here, so it’s going to get destroyed. The problem is that this stuff exists in the first place.” She reached in and pulled out a white plastic bottle with odd symbols on its label. “This,” she said, filling the word with revulsion, “is All Fall Down. It’s a tinker-made drug that paralyzes the legs. It’s used as a date rape drug, keeps the victims from running away.” She dropped the bottle back onto the pallet and wiped her hand on her costume, then turned back to Starfield. “So, the police will be here soon to take care of things which means we need to figure out how to split the bounty.” She paused. “Would I be right to assume you don’t really know how the whole bounty system works?”

“Yeah. This is pretty much my first time doing this sort of thing.”

Crystal whistled. “Pretty good showing for your first time.” She leaned back against thin air. “Anyway the bounty involves stuff like money found at the scene, which we get to keep, money paid for captured drugs, stuff like that. We’ll probably have to wait for the police to help figure out how much of a bounty we’ll get from this little kerfluffle. And since you did most of the work, you’ll get most of the money.”

“Actually...” Starfield’s sentence trailed off.

“Hm? Something the matter?

“I should probably leave before they get here. Most people don’t seem to react very well to me, so staying here would just complicate things.”

“Oh.” Crystal wanted to argue against what Starfield had just said, but she found herself agreeing with it. Feeling a little ashamed with herself, she said, “Still, you can’t leave with nothing. Take the cash, at least.” She picked up the briefcase and held it out to the other girl. When she hesitated, Crystal said, “Seriously, take it. You earned it and more.”

At her urging Starfield gave in and took the briefcase. Crystal smiled, then fished her phone out of her pocket. “What’s your cape phone number? I’ll call you when the bounty gets totaled.”

“I, uh, don’t actually have a cell phone.”

Crystal looked up sharply. “What? Why?” She sighed and shook her head. “Never mind. I guess I’ll, uh, send you a PM on PHO, then. But look into getting a cell phone, okay?”

“Alright,” Starfield said as one of her tentacles began pulling her shirt up to expose her stomach.

“Um, what’re you...” Crystal began to say, then stopped and stared in horror as the other girl pulled one of the knives out of her shoulder, stabbed it into her belly just below her navel, and drew it upward. “What the fuck!?” she shouted. “Why...”

Starfield glanced up after she’d finished pulling the wound open and shoving the briefcase through. “It’s... easier that just carrying it by hand?” she said, somehow looking a little embarrassed. “Sorry.”

Crystal’s expression turned into a flat, nonplussed stare, then threw her hands up in the air. “Fine. Whatever. I don’t care anymore,” she said, doing her best to make her words true. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Sure,” Starfield replied. “Bye.” She turned and started walking to the door. As she did so, all of the snow that had been flitting through the warehouse rushed over to her and into the hole in her stomach. By the time she’d opened the door and stepped outside, there wasn’t a single flake remaining. She turned and gave Crystal a little wave, then let the door close.

Crystal pinched the bridge of her nose, uncertain of what to make of the night’s events.

 

Calm 3.1


“I liked,” Rest chirped in Laserdream’s voice via the flakes she’d left on my shirt. “Fun!”

I chuckled softly, finding her cheer infectious as it often was. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Of course, she was almost always cheerful, especially when she had new sounds to eat (which, admittedly, was almost constantly happening while she was out). That said, her cheerfulness wasn’t exactly unwelcome, and I’d found it especially nice with the way the past week had been.

I banked slightly, adjusting my flight path so it would eventually be taking me vaguely homeward. It wouldn’t do to point anyone potentially watching me towards my home by just flying straight there, after all.

My thoughts drifted to the case of money inside me, floating by the nails I’d put through the soles of my feet. I had no idea what I’d do with it, aside from let it sit. But even without a use in mind that wouldn’t attract attention I didn’t want, I still felt it’d been worth it to go out tonight. It had, as Rest so enthusiastically said, been fun, even if it got a little awkward toward the end. I’d really needed the chance to blow off some steam after the past week.

It had been a little over a week since my, ah, visit to the PRT HQ, and since then school had been unusually uneventful; Emma and the others hadn’t said a word to me the entire time. Sophia in particular hadn’t even come near me. The most I’d been getting from her was a quick glare every now and then before she’d return to acting like I didn’t exist. There were a few instances of their lackeys and hangers-on trying something, but they were always rather minor in the scope of things, nothing I hadn’t heard before.

Some people might’ve thought I’d be happy for the reprieve, but all the situation did was make me more and more tense. Memories would come to me unbidden, reminding me of previous lulls in their bullying, and the incidents that inevitably followed. Incidents like...

“Taylor?”

The voice, seemingly formed from the sounds of footsteps and gentle waves, could only have come from Rest. “Yes?” I replied, grateful for the interruption.

“When home, read book more, could you?”

I muffled a giggle. Only Rest could make shifting sand sound hopeful. “Of course, Rest.”

“Yay!”

I was almost certain that most of the reason Rest wanted me to read aloud to her was so she could eat my words. However, we’d found that while reading to the girls I did so in whatever language it was that I seemed to use with them, when I read aloud without any of them in view or thinking about them I used what was presumably English. Or, at least, that’s what I gathered from what my friends said, given that I couldn’t tell the difference.

In any case, when we’d brought up the language issue with Rest following the reading revelation, she’d come up with the idea of me reading in both languages. Then, she’d try to use the words she’d eaten to puzzle out English, then teach Aria and Melody.

The obvious issue was that I wouldn’t be able to gauge her progress. But, well... it felt nice, letting them out so I could read to them while we all cuddled together. I didn’t want it to end.

.o.o.o.​

As it turned out, our reading for the night was brought to an end by the sudden, surprising sound of water rushing through pipes.

I jerked in surprise then looked at the clock. 'Oh wow, it’s late. Or early, rather.’ Strangely, I didn’t really feel like I’d just pulled an all-nighter. But then, with my body the way it was, why should I be surprised?

“Sorry, girls,” I said softly. “Looks like we’ll have to stop for now, since it’s morning.”

“Aww...” Aria sighed from a few mouths. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Aria,” I replied. “I’m sorry, but I have to go to school.” Silently, I hoped that my lack of sleep wouldn’t affect me too much.

.o.o.o.​

It didn’t.

With how my body had changed, there were no outward signs of tiredness to be seen, nor internal ones felt. During one of my classes I pondered this, and came to the conclusion that I could sleep, but didn’t need to. Well, either that or I could just go longer before needing sleep.

My day was going pretty decent, all told, with only a couple instances of teasing by random students whose names I did not know. That is, it went well until lunchtime.

“Taylor?” Melody said as I entered the bathroom I had chosen as my hiding spot, “Someone is coming, and quickly!”

Rapid footsteps could be heard approaching me. “What?” I turned to see Emma, Madison, and a number of their lackeys behind me, pink-cheeked and breathing hard from running. They grinned, almost shark-like, and as I almost involuntarily stepped back they followed, herding me into the bathroom.

”Taylor? What is going on? Your emotions... And theirs...” Melody pauses for a moment. “They are your tormentors, are they not?”

“What!?” Aria sputtered with indignation. “Let me at them, Taylor! I’ll protect you!”

“No!” I hissed under my breath, even as I felt my teeth – well, Aria’s, since I’d take my own mouth out again – start to lengthen into serrated fangs. As quickly as I could, I set about restoring them to ‘normal’.

Emma and the others had paused when Aria spoke, but all too soon Madison was the first to recover. “Talking to yourself, eh, Taylor? And was that even English? Geez, when did you become such a basket case?”

Emma smirked and started to slowly walk around me, and my gaze followed. “Oh, come on, Taylor,” she said as she saw my expression. The smugness was masked by the most obviously fake concern I had ever seen from her. She reached out as if to give me a friendly pat on the shoulder. “We’re worried about you, Taylor. You’ve been acting strange lately, and you’re so pale, like, like a corpse, almost.”​

“Is that what that smell is?” one of the flunkies quipped, giggling and pinching her nose. I smothered the twinge of irritation in its crib as I shrugged out of the way of Emma’s hand.

“Maybe,” Emma continued, “but it’s not a corpse’s fault if it stinks, that’s just the way things are.” She looked at me, her smile sickening in its sweetness. “But with you walking around like that, why, it makes us so concerned, makes us want to help!”

“It fits, though,” yet another lackey piped up. “She was socially dead before, and now she’s actually dead!” Murmured approval could be heard from the others as I grit my re-sharpening teeth.

I glared at Emma, not responding to her bait. Instead, I glanced behind me, looking for an escape route.

“Why do I care?” she said, voicing my unasked question. “Why, Taylor, have you forgotten? I’m your best friend, since forever! I just want what’s best for you, for us.”

I stared at her, surprised by the audacity it took for her to say that. “Bullshit,” I said without thinking. “I don’t make friends with petty monsters like you.”

Emma’s mouth opened, then closed, her expression rather odd before becoming a slightly forced smirk. “A monster, am I?” she said. Then, with the mostly-suppressed air of one who’d rather save a particular trick for later, but couldn’t, “At least I didn’t get my own mother killed, though I suppose you had the decency to cry for a week afterward.”

My mouth fell open as I stared at her, that awful smirk twisting her features. Then, Emma’s expression froze. “Oh,” she murmured faintly after a moment. “Oh, dear.”

Almost instantly, before I even realized what was happening, I was wrestling with Aria for control of a blade-tipped tendril. I quickly managed to reel it back in and close my mouth, but not before it had managed to leave a hair-thin crimson line on her cheek and slice off a few locks of hair.

Clamping my mouth shut, I turned and ran, pushing past the confused girls trying to bar my way. I didn’t stop running until I was far from Winslow, and even then it wasn’t long before I was flying, automatically heading in the direction of the Graveyard.

 

Calm 3.2


I winced as the screech of tortured metal filled the air. Eventually, though, the rusty chunk of boat hull gave up, letting Aria remove and, to all appearances, consume it. Her body contorted repeatedly as she presumably crunched the metal down to a more manageable size.

I was sitting on a rock near the mandibularly mangled merchantman, with a good portion of Aria through my face and in the water below. With my shoes off, the nails I’d shoved through the bottoms of my feet to help my friends orient themselves clicked on the hard surface.

I felt something like eyeballs form within Aria, then fill to bursting – and yet not – with warmth, before pouring it into the metal. Curious, I formed one of those not-eyeballs on another part of her and filled it with warmth the way I’d felt her do it, though it took a few tries. Feeling some of her attention on me, I pointed the eye at the remains of the boat hull and poured it out.

Nothing seemed to happen at first, until I saw a glowing spot appear on the hull, gradually spreading and glowing brighter and, eventually, drooping slightly.

I gave Aria a look (an endeavor which was a little spoiled by my lacking a face, and her occupying the hole where it had been) as she gave off an air of innocence. “If you do this,” she said, flexing something within the not-eye I’d formed, “you can change the color.” Indeed, a beam appeared in the air, going from red to violet, and passing all the colors in between, before vanishing again.

I stifled the flow. “Aria?” I asked. “Since when have you had eye lasers?”

Aria paused in chewing her softened chunk of metal. “Um, I worked it out a little while ago. See, I think I could do it once, long ago, but forgot. Then that red flashy person gave me ideas, which helped me remember.”

I smiled internally. I just can’t stay mad at her. My mental expression hardened. Which is why I have to say this now.

I sighed. “Aria, why did you do it?”

“Um, because it was fun to work out how-”

“No, Aria, not the laser eyes. Why did you attack her? Attack Emma?”

Aria paused for a moment. “I… She… I just, I couldn’t just stay idle with her hurting you like that. And you told us that she’d been your best friend, before us, and the thought of one of your friends might betray you like that makes me so, so angry. So I had to do something to make her stop hurting you!”

I sighed. “I appreciate the sentiment, Aria, but you still kinda screwed me. Screwed us. Your attack on Emma, while deserved for all the shit she’s put me through, likely outed me as a cape, if not as Starfield, to everyone there. If we’re lucky, only Emma saw what happened, and if we’re luckier still, it all happened too fast for her to realize what happened.”

“Ah,” Melody spoke up, “from her reactions, I believe she saw something, at the very least.”

“Well, shit,” I eloquently stated. “But even if she hadn’t seen anything, that was still assault, with a gaggle of witnesses. The police have probably been notified, if not the PRT. I…” The weight of my situation finally hit me. “I can’t go home.” I hugged my knees to my chest, suddenly wishing I could cry.

“Oh, Taylor.” I felt Melody’s wings close around me in a hug. After a moment’s pause, Aria reached out some tentacles to join in the hug, but I made them stop before they reached me. Rest’s swirling slowed.

“T-Taylor? Why…?” Aria asked, sounding confused and, to my discomfort, a little hurt.

“You’re my friend, and, and I l-love you, but y-you did something I told you not to a-and it really fucked up my situation.” I reflexively tried to take a breath, to predictable results. “But, but maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I should’ve tried harder to hold you back, should’ve just not taken my mouth out at all.” I curled in on myself. “A-and now I’m just stopping you from trying to comfort me.” Something akin to both a laugh and a sob escaped from my not-mouth. “S-some friend I am, huh?”

“Oh, dear Taylor, no...” My mental grip relaxed, and Aria soon had me enveloped in a multi-layered embrace. “You’re the best friend we could have hoped for. We-”

A sudden movement within Rest’s occupied area drew my attention away to see someone crest a nearby wreck. My first impression was orange, and lots of it. The individual in question paused, flicking his tail back and forth as he took in the sight of several dozen eyes all focused on him.

Coughing nervously, Newter of Faultline’s Crew said, “Um, is this a bad time to ask for a word?”

 

Interlude: Bedlam


A cylindrical bar of translucent amber appeared in midair, defying the laws of physics in its staunch refusal to fall. Moments after its introduction to reality, a hand clad in black leather closed around it, hauling up a slight female form, similarly clad in black. Her robe fluttered around her, the odd amber symbols along her cuffs and hem popping out against the dark of night.

Tabitha paused for a moment on her impossible ladder to shift the padded carrying case on her shoulder. It just wouldn’t do to drop it after climbing up four stories. Resuming her climb, she soon reached the roof of the building she’d been scaling. With the last of the ladder vanishing behind her, she quickly walked over to the opposite edge and, taking a knee, unslung and opened the case, revealing a sleek, vicious-looking rifle. The case itself, laid flat, became a pad for her to lay on as she peered through the scope at the street below.

After giving her gun a quick check and loading it, she reached under her hood to touch her earpiece. “Bedlam, in position.”

“Good,” the tiny, ruby-lipped mouth on her opposite ear’s lobe said. The corner of Tabitha’s mouth twitched downwards at the sensation, and the memories which rose unbidden, and were swiftly stuffed back in their box. “Almost everyone’s ready, then. Empire forces are still about ten minutes out. Bedlam, your know your objectives concerning the capes. I want them alive, if possible. As for the unpowered ones… well, kill and maim to your heart’s content.”

“Roger that,” Tabitha replied without touching her earpiece, knowing Teratoma would be able to hear her regardless. Part of her contemplated just killing the capes to spare them Tera’s tender mercies… but no. She didn’t owe these capes anything, and there wasn’t any sense in making her life in this city more difficult.

She settled down to wait, smiling softly at the thought of the imminent violence. The smile faded as the memories returned and refused to be suppressed.

.o.o.o.​

“You’ve been quite the little irritant, you know.”

The woman on the laptop screen before Tabitha shifted slightly in her expensive-looking, wine-red, leather chair. She was clad in silk robes of a deeper red, with lighter gloves, boots, and mask showing. The mask consisted of two smiling female faces side-by-side, one kind, the other cruel. Her gloved hands were steepled before her.

Tabitha would have rather been anywhere else but there, but her desires found themselves thwarted by the small issue of being a little bit tied to her chair. She couldn’t even look away from the screen, as a pair of large, clammy, and disturbingly scaly hands held her head pointed at the screen. The hands, and the slightly nauseating gurgling of the… dare she call it a man? Of its breathing were all she knew of her captor, as there had hardly been a moment between the bag coming off her head and the hands gripping it. They’d even removed her helmet, leaving her face exposed.

“Yes,” the woman continued, “like a grain of sand that works its way into an oyster’s shell to scratch at its soft flesh. But an oyster knows what to do with that, oh, yes. It turns that ugly little irritant into something soft and beautiful.” She chuckled. “Of course, it’s around there that the metaphor falls apart, as an oyster has no way to make use of a pearl once it’s been made, but I’m sure we can find some use for a girl of your talents.”

Tabitha tried to suppress a shudder as she imagined what sorts of “uses” they might have for her. She remembered the rumors and stories about the Order that Mr. Walters had shared with her, and, well, if even half of the things he’d said were true…

“As for your little informant friend,” the woman continued, making Tabitha stiffen in surprise, “he knew too much, and didn’t have the merits you do to outweigh that fact. As such, he was, shall we say, ineligible for an employment opportunity similar to what I am offering you.” She chuckled again as Tabitha went pale at the implications of the tense she’d used.

“D-do I have any choice in the matter?” Tabitha finally managed to ask.

“Well, I suppose you could always choose to die. Now, you’d made yourself quite the little nuisance before, attacking and disrupting a few of our more minor operations. Until, that is, your informant friend told you of a convoy, which you attacked and stole a single vial from, ignoring all else it carried. It didn’t take much digging to discover your poor, until recently terminally ill and hospitalized elder sister. So, in essence, you have only yourself to blame for the fact that we’re collecting her as we speak.”

“No!” Tabitha shouted as she tried to leap from her chair, only to be reminded of her various restraints. Feeling them, she slumped in defeat. “Please,” she begged, “please don’t hurt her, or, or do anything to her. I… I’ll do anything...”

The woman was silent for a moment, as if blinking in surprise, then said, “Well, then. There’ll be three oaths for you to take before we can truly induct you into our ranks. The first is an oath of secrecy. It’s a bit more complicated than that, though, especially compared to how it was in the old days. The second is an oath of loyalty, which is pretty much what it sounds like. The third… well, you’ll find out about that soon enough when they go over the specifics of everything with you.”

“O-okay.” Tabitha had heard that the Order was something of a cult, but the talk of oaths made it hit home. But I’ll do it. For Daphne.

“Excellent. Of course, even with that, I’d like a little… insurance. Take her to Teratoma.”

“What?” Before she realized what was happening, the bag was back over Tabitha’s head, her bonds were severed and new ones tied around her wrists, and the large… man had picked her up and started carrying her off, his big, scaly shoulder digging into her stomach. She started struggling, however futile it might’ve been. “N-no, no! I’ll, I’ll be good, loyal, whatever you want! Just, please d-don’t! Don’t...” Her words trailed off into a sob.

Soon enough, she found herself dropped into another chair like a sack of potatoes. A soft, non-scaly hand with slender fingers reached under the bag to cup her cheek. She flinched away, causing another female voice to giggle. The bag was pulled off, revealing a woman in midnight-blue robes. Her mask, also blue, bore four mouths arranged in a circle, each sporting a wide, toothy smile that revealed an eye within.

“Oh, what fun we will have! Now, what sort of ‘insurance’ should I apply this time?” she mused. “A little mouth on the aorta? Mm, no. For the sake of irony, ‘twould be best to use an explosive tumor, in the brain, perhaps. Or both!”

Tears fell from Tabitha’s eyes as the woman reached out to violate her.

.o.o.o.​

“Four minutes, people. Stay sharp,” Vigil said over the radio, startling Tabitha out of her memories. She smiled, both out of gratitude and because she simply loved her sister’s voice. Taking a few calming breaths, she peered through her scope at the street below once again.

Soon enough, a white-paneled van came into view, followed by four more. “That’s them,” the little mouth murmured. “You know what to do.” Tabitha waited until the lead van was within the area of the ambush, then activated her power.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as she crafted a mental mold, large enough to hold a full charge of her power. The mold was shaped like a thick-walled ice cream cone, with the open end pointed at the oncoming vehicle. Tiny, fragile-looking spikes ringed that end. Thus made, she poured in the charge.

To all observers, it appeared as if a cone-shaped amber crystal had appeared in midair. Barely a moment later, the front of the lead van made contact, shattering the spikes and causing the crystal to vanish.

With an earth-shattering boom a lance of force sheared through the engine block and into the cabin, rupturing the hollow organs of passengers left and right and rending their flesh with bits of tortured, flying metal. The shockwave continued on to blow open the vehicle’s rear doors and shatter every window, some bits of which went on to crack and chip the windshield of the second car. The ruined van, now carrying only the dead and dying, veered off its intended path to collide with a parked car, spin a few times, and finally came to rest on its side, blocking much of the road.

For Tabitha, though, the blast was barely as loud as a barking dog. Thanks to a quirk of her powers, any sound louder than a certain level was reduced to said level.

The trailing vans were forced to come to a stop. Doors slammed open, and armed men and women piled out, seeking cover. Even as they raced, though, gunshots rang out as snipers thinned their ranks. Tabitha held her fire, instead focusing on the vehicles, waiting for the capes to show themselves.

She didn’t have to wait long, as a large figure casually emerged from the middle car. Shirtless, with metal hooks and spikes emerging from his joints and a metal mask shaped like a wolf’s head covering his face, the man could only be Hookwolf. As he strode forth, a bullet from another sniper hit his shoulder. Hit, and pinged off, not even breaking his stride. His presence seemed to bolster the confidence of the Empire 88 goons, confidence that was only further boosted by the subsequent appearance of Cricket and Stormtiger behind him. A ragged cheer rose from their remaining forces.

Tabitha waited for the other two to move before focusing on Hookwolf. If I want to take him down, I’d better do it now, before he’s transformed, Tabitha thought as time seemed to slow once more. This time, the mold that formed was a ring, wrapping around the man’s arms and abdomen. The inner surface of the ring had a sort of trench in it, to focus the explosive force into a cutting blade. The edges were ringed with tiny, inward-facing, hair-like spikes, ready to break upon his skin and trigger the blast. And with that, she dumped a charge in.

The spikes worked perfectly, snapping against Hookwolf’s abs. The resulting explosion sheared through him, maiming and bisecting him in a surprisingly smokeless blast. His torso fell to the ground unmoving, either dead or stunned. Very little blood came from the wound, which the streetlamps and headlights revealed to be mostly filled with metal ribbons.

The confidence of the E88 forces fell like a punctured balloon as they saw their leader felled so swiftly. A few left their positions to run, only to be gunned down.

Stormtiger roared with fury as he popped out from behind a car and slashed his hand through the air. The resulting blast of air sliced through the air to smash into a nearby building, sending rubble, and the bodies of the Order sniper team stationed there, tumbling to the ground. Then his head jerked to Tabitha.

Swearing in panic, she reflexively made a spherical, spiny crystal appear in his still-open mouth. Startled, he bit down, and his head and shoulders disappeared, painting his surroundings red.

Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief, then touched her earpiece. “Hookwolf is down, and Stormtiger’s short a head,” she reported. “Only Cricket and some goons left to mop up.”

“Roger that,” the little mouth said. After a few moments of silence, presumably spent giving orders to others, it asked, “Did you have to kill Stormtiger?”

“He was about to blast me. I didn’t have time to go for nonlethal,” she replied, only partially lying. Idly, she manifested a half-charge orb over an entrenched group of E88 soldiers, then shot it to set it off.

“Mmm. Probably bullshit, but I’ll let it slide, so long as Hookwolf’s still alive.”

“Well, he’s twitching slightly, which might mean good things.”

“Very well. The Honored Ones wish to participate in the mop-up, so things should be over soon.”

“Roger that.” Tabitha suppressed the shudder of disgust at their mention, lest Teratoma pick up on it.

Moments later, something large leapt from an alleyway to perch on a car being used as cover. The light of a streetlamp shone off a body slick with moisture, a body that mixed fish and frog and man into an abomination. Bullets found little purchase on its scales. Then another leapt out elsewhere, and another, and another, until six in total stood there. As one, they silently descended upon the remaining people there, clawing and bashing and tearing in an orgy of violence until all were subdued. A struggling Cricket was brought forth, held by two who bore a multitude of shallow gashes from her kama.

From the shadows strode a figure in a deep blue robe. She knelt down above Hookwolf, touched his shoulder, and chuckled. “Oh, what fun we will have!”

.o.o.o.​

Tabitha jogged over to a dark green car, whose door opened before she got to it. Climbing in, she dropped her pack to the floor, then turned to grin at the car’s other occupant. “A rather tidy op, wouldn’t you say, Daphne?”

Said other occupant smiled back lovingly. She was a tall woman with long red hair, wearing a green dress. What most people would notice first about her, though, would be her eyes. Or rather, the fact that instead of eyes, she had horn-like protrusions of bone extending from her eye sockets. The horns curled up and wove together to form a sort of crown above her head, studded with eyes the way a real crown might be studded with gems. “Aren’t you supposed to call me ‘Vigil’ while we’re on a mission, Bedlam?”

“Psh. Mission’s over, anyway, our part at least.” Tabitha moved over to sit in her sister’s lap, then hugged her. “’Sides, I needed my cuddles.”

Daphne hugged her in return. “But you always need cuddles, especially after blowing stuff up.”

Tabitha giggled. “I like ‘em. Sue me.” Tilting her head, she silenced anything further Daphne might have to say with a kiss.

Shaking his head with a sigh, the driver started up the car and pulled away, driving off into the mist.

 

Calm 3.3


“So… you’re Newter, right?”

The orange-skinned, lizard-like cape was sitting on a nearby rock, close enough for him to hear me over the roar of the waves, but far enough to meet caution’s demands. I endeavored not to take offense, which was easier than expected, especially in the external department. Yet another plus for cutting off my face!

“Yep, that’s me,” he replied. He hid his nervousness quite well, I must admit. “And before you make the obvious joke, it’s spelled with a ‘w’.”

“Well, you’re no fun,” I said, though I hadn’t intended to make any such jest. He grinned, though, so it must’ve been the right thing to say. I grinned back, several times over. He went a little pale under the orange of his skin. Oh, well.

We spent the next few moments in awkward silence.

“So!” we both said at the same time. We laughed, a bit of the tension in the air bleeding off, and then he gestured for me to continue.

“So,” I said again, “you’re with Faultline’s crew of villains, right?”

He winced. “Yeah, how- well, it wouldn’t exactly be hard to find out. B-but even so, we’re more mercenaries than simply villains.”

“But you still do illegal stuff, don’t you?” He nodded, a tad reluctantly. “Thought so. So what does a villain want with me? I’m a hero, after all.” I slumped slightly and, under my breath, added, “Or at least, I’m trying to be one.”

Somehow, he overheard or was just good at reading body language. “Hey, everything okay?” I fixed him with a look from most of my eyes, and he hurriedly added, “Look, I, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop earlier – okay, maybe a little, but still! Anyway, I kinda heard you talking to yourself, and while I didn’t understand, I could still tell that you weren’t happy about something. So, uh, wanna talk about whatever’s bothering you?”

“No, I, it’s...” I lapsed into silence. Newter shifted a few times during the quiet as if in discomfort, but still looked attentive.

I didn’t want to share the kind of stuff that could lead back to my civilian life, but, well… it felt good to confide in my friends. As cliché as it might sound, it almost felt like sharing a burden. A more… human perspective might help as well.

I let out a deep breath from a few mouths. “My fr- I, I kind of lost control of my powers for a moment thanks to a girl saying something pretty awful to me, and they hurt her in a way that probably looked like I attacked her.”

“Oh,” Newter said. “Was she an ally? A frie-”

“No,” I said forcefully, my voices flat with anger. He went pale again, making me wince internally. More calmly, I continued, “No, she deserved what she got. Deserves worse. She’s a tr- the worst kind of bully.” I turned my head to ‘face’ him. “No, the problem is, this happened in my civilian identity.”

Newter winced sympathetically, which I found weird given that he lacked a non-cape life of his own. “So you think if you go home, either the police or the PRT will be waiting for you?”

“Yeah. I, I don’t know if I can go home. My father, he, I can’t...”

He sighed and placed his hands on his knees. “Alright. How badly did you injure this girl?”

“… Small cut on the face, some hair cut off. I managed to restrain her quickl- I mean...”

“...’Her’?” Newter gave me an odd look, which quickly morphed into dawning realization. “Wait, is your power, is that,” he gestured to Aria’s sprawling tentacles while subtly sliding his feet beneath him as if preparing to leap away, “a separate being? A Master power?”

“N-no!”

“It’s-...”​

“I-”​

Several of our mouths shouted at once as I panicked.

“No, no, it’s cool!” he said quickly. “If it’s something that you’re hiding as an ace up your sleeve,” he paused and glanced at my bare arms, “okay, you get what I mean, but yeah. It’s cool. I won’t tell anyone. Promise.”

That eased a bit of my tension. Not that much, but still a measurable amount. “… Thanks.”

He grinned. “Great! But back to the matter at hand. Now, keep in mind that I’m no expert on parahuman law, but your case sounds like a rather minor case of battery with a parahuman ability.”

“Wait. Not assault?”

“Nah, assault’s, like, the threat to do harm, while battery’s actually doing it.” Silently, I tilted my head, though Aria’s mass coming out of my face hampered the act a little. “What? Just because I’m not an expert doesn’t mean I can’t look stuff up online.”

I sighed. “Be that as it may, this still isn’t looking good for me.”

“Yeah, it’s not great, but it’s not wholly bad, either. Now, again, I’m no legal expert, but with how small the injury was, and the fact that it was provoked and you showed restraint, any sentence, should it even reach court, should be small, and likely not jail. Of course, that said, if the PRT and Protectorate get involved, they might use it to pressure you into joining.”

“Fuck that,” I spat, and he arched an eyebrow at the venom my voice contained.

“Oookay, then. Sounds like there’s a story there,” he said carefully, but I just shook my head. “Very well, I won’t pry. In any case, you’ve got a couple more options from what I can see, and neither requires you go home. The first one would be to join an existing group and stay with them.”

I’d been expecting something like this since he first appeared. After all, everyone wanted to be the first to snap up new capes to bolster their forces. But with how sidetracked we’d gotten, it somehow caught me unawares. I would’ve smirked sardonically if I could. “And let me guess, your group would be gracious enough to welcome me into your ranks?” Melody evidently didn’t like where my emotions had gone, because I heard a concerned murmur from her. “It’s fine, dear,” I murmured in return.

Newter frowned. “Look, do you want me to lie and say we wouldn’t like to recruit you? That I’m here purely out of the kindness of my heart? I’d prefer not to insult your intelligence. Frankly, it’s a fairly good offer, since we have resources you could use, like lawyers, and we wouldn’t require you to kill anyone ever. But even so, we won’t try to force you to join.”

“I doubt you could,” I replied. He glanced to the side, and I smirked internally at his apparent discomfort. “Look, I appreciate you being honest with me and all, but there’s no way in hell that I’m joining a group of villains.”

He surprised me by just nodding. “Thought not, but I had to make the offer.”

My suspicion grew. “So why bother talking to me if you knew it wouldn’t work?”

He grew somewhat more nervous, and a glance showed that Aria had evidently picked up on my mood and grown quite a few long, serrated teeth. I had her retract them, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alright, look,” he said. “I’ll admit that part of what I intended was to give you a positive impression of us so you’d be less likely to attack us were we to cross paths. You’re not exactly a weak cape, even without those lasers I saw. But honestly? As we talked, I got the impression that you really just needed someone to talk to.”

“… Thanks, I guess,” I said after a brief pause. “By the way, could you, you know, keep quiet about the lasers? And the… other thing?”

Newter shifted uncomfortably, though part of it may have been the dozen or so eyes that sprouted to unblinkingly skewer him with their gaze. “Uh, sure,” he said. “But, uh, my team kinda already knows.” He gestured to his ear. An eye distorted to zoom in, showing me a small, wireless earpiece.

“You have people listening in,” I said flatly. He tried to suppress it, but I saw a bit of a flinch at my tone. Then he scowled.

“Look, would you have me approach a scary, unknown parahuman without any backup? Excuse me if I value my health.”

I sat back, supporting myself with my hands. I still didn’t like that others could hear us, could listen in on what I’d thought might be a private conversation, but a more rational part of me had to admit that he had something of a point. Besides, it seemed to say, it wasn’t as if we’d agreed on anything about this conversation, so I don’t really have any reason to get mad at it not being a private conversation. And in any case, what can any of Faultline’s Crew do to me?

“So for the sake of my curiosity,” I said in a lighter tone that was only slightly forced, “is our watcher looking at us – rather, at me – through a sniper’s scope? And please, be honest.”

Newter looked as if he’d bitten into a rather sour lemon. “… Yes,” he reluctantly replied after a brief silence.

I chuckled. “Probably wouldn’t work on me. Bullets, that is,” I mused aloud, which didn’t really help his comfort levels. “So!” I exclaimed with false cheer, clapping my hands once as I did. “Before our lovely conversation comes to a close, I was curious. You mentioned a third option. What was it?”

Newter sighed and muttered something under his breath that I wasn’t fast enough with Rest to catch. “I was going to say that you could just, like, hide out somewhere on your own, though I don’t really recommend it. That said, I do know a pretty good place, if you want to know.”

“Someplace you guys know well?” I said dryly. I was kind of surprised how hard he was trying to get into my good graces. I mean, I understood how strong Aria seemed to be, but this was just making me suspicious and irritated.

“No, no, I’m the only one who knows how to get there. The others would need diving equipment to get there.” Wait, what? “Now, I’m making the assumption that you don’t need to breath much, or at all. Otherwise, well, we can’t really supply the gear necessary.”

“So, wait, where is this place?”

“As far as I can tell, it’s more or less under the city, but the only way in that I know of is out there.” He jerked his head at the Bay, the slowly stood and stretched, his back popping audibly. “Now, can you swim?” And then, almost as an afterthought, “And do you want to come see it? It’s fine if you don’t want to.”

“No, I’ll go. And yes, I believe I can swim,” I replied. Then, to my friends, “Want to go swimming, girls?”

“Sure!” chirped Aria, clearly happy that I was talking to her again. “… What’s ‘swimming’?”

I laughed softly. “You’ll like it. Now, Melody, I’m sorry, but I’ll need you to withdraw your wings for now.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I released control of said appendages, and they quickly folded up and disappeared. As I healed up the slices they’d been coming out of, I returned my attention to Newter, who was trying not to stare and failing. “So,” I said, “shall we get this over with?”

.o.o.o.​

As it turned out, Aria made for a pretty good drysuit, covering me entirely. The murky waters of the Bay felt pleasantly cool against her surface.

Aria was plugging up every gap in my skin, because while I didn’t know if the water would pour through to my other side, I didn’t want to find out by draining the Bay. Sealing the holes soon turned into covering me fully, keeping my clothes dry. That, in turn, had led to long, flattened tentacles that streamed out behind me, churning the water and propelling me at quite a fair clip. Swimming with them had proven way simpler to puzzle out than it had any right to be. Laser eyes, when unfocused, proved to be great light sources, helping me keep my eyes on Newter’s bright orange tail ahead of me.

Eventually he stopped and motioned for me to surface, before doing so himself. I soon joined him there, finding him taking large gulps of air. A quick glance showed the Protectorate’s floating base between us and the shore, the sun glinting off its huge shield bubble.

“Okay,” He said after a few moments, “the entrance is right below us. You ready?”

“Of course,” I replied, and we dived once more, this time heading deeper. Under the combined light of Newter’s flashlight and my eyes, a shape was revealed, , jutting out of the muck of the bottom. As we neared it, I began to pick out details. What had seemed like just another rock formation looked to actually be a large tube, or maybe a fallen tower, formed of what seemed to be quite a number of hexagonal stone pillars, somehow fused together or something like that. I followed Newter down into the darkness.

My light eyes rolled in their sockets, their beams scything through the murky gloom of the tunnel. A few fish were startled by our passage as we swam, much to Aria’s delight. On a whim I helped her design and make a sort of biological harpoon gun so she could spear passing fish, then reel them in to snack on.

Eventually, we reached a point where the tunnel suddenly slanted upwards. Ooze and gunk had mostly blocked it at the lowest point, though there was enough of a gap for us to squeeze through. Even so, I took a few moments to widen the gap before moving on.

A surprisingly short time later, water gave way to air and we clambered out. I withdrew most of Aria as I did so. Looking around, I saw a branching tunnel before me. Walls, floor, ceiling, all were made of the same hexagonal, columnar structures of dark stone, a stone whose name I knew, was practically on the tip of my severed tongue, but I just couldn’t place it, to my frustration. The columns were all parallel, just the slightest angle from perfectly vertical. And it all seemed much more natural than the tunnel we’d come in by, all save for the floor which, beneath the muck and grime and feebly glowing fungus, was smooth, almost as if worn down by… but no, that couldn’t be…

“So,” Newter said suddenly, startling me out of my thoughts. “Heck of a hiding place, huh?”

“Uh, yeah,” I replied after a moment. “Just, how has no one found this place before? And how is not flooded? We can’t be above sea level.”

He shrugged. “No clue, but it isn’t, so… well. That aside, I guess no one has found it yet ‘cause the entrance looks like just another rock.”

“But it isn’t,” I replied without thinking. “Uh, Imean, the entrance is clearly some kind of fallen tower, and a tall one, at that. So someone had to have made it, and a long time ago, since as far as I know there are no records of any tall stone towers around these parts. And...” I railed off as I realized that Newter was staring at me. “… Sorry.”

He shrugged. “No, I get you, it’s pretty weird. But whatever it was, right now it’s no one else knows exists, much less can get to easily.” He paused. “So, what’ll it be? You gonna stay here, or go home to the cops or the PRT?”

mce-anchor I was silent for a time. Images of my dad, of the PRT, of Emma injured, and more, all flashed through my mind, and I knew I couldn’t put off making a my decision any longer. Clenching my fists hard enough that my nails almost pierced my palms, I made my choice.

 

Interlude 3.d

“I wish to speak to you about your daughter.”

Danny Hebert ran his hand through his thinning hair, then sighed and massage the bridge of his nose. The lanky man sat hunched over his desk in the Brockton Bay Dockworkers’ Union office. He raised his eyes to meet those of the woman sitting across from him who was masked by a flag-patterned scarf. The heroine had entered the building flanked by a couple of PRT agents and asked to speak to him, but it was only now that he understood why.

The two stared at each other for a few moments until, finally, he broke the uncomfortable silence. “Miss Militia, what, precisely, do you want with Taylor?” He steeled himself for whatever the hero might say, for a moment dreading that Taylor had been caught up in some fight between powered gang members and injured. He quickly quashed his fears before they could grow.

The cape’s expression – what he could see of it, that is – was sober. “Mister Hebert, we have reason to believe that Miss Hebert is a parahuman, and that earlier today she used her powers to attack and harm a fellow student before fleeing. Her location, at this time, is unknown.”

Danny slowly let out a ragged breath, one he hadn’t even known he’d been holding. At least she isn’t in the hospital again, or worse, he thought with relief, before a multilayered wave of guilt overtook him. Guilt for thinking only of his daughter and not the potential other victims. Guilt for not thinking enough about Taylor, that he didn’t notice whatever pushed her to do this (because the Taylor he knew wouldn’t do such a thing without serious provocation), that he didn’t notice her becoming a parahuman. Guilt that he might have contributed to whatever forced her hand.

Meeting Miss Militia’s eyes, he asked, “Who is it that you say she attacked, and how badly were they hurt?”

“The victim was one Emma Barnes, and-”

“I...” Danny reflexively interrupted her as his train of thought came to a sudden, screeching halt. “I beg your pardon?”

The heroine’s eyes narrowed. “The victim’s name is Emma Barnes. Would I be correct in assuming that you recognize it?”

“Y-yes, I...” Danny’s mind was awash with confusion. “But, but she’s Taylor’s friend, her best friend! So why...”

Miss Militia’s eyes were alight with interest. “Her friend, you say? Do you have any idea what might have brought them into conflict, Mister Hebert?”

“I, no, I...” He took a steadying breath. “What, precisely, do you want from me, Miss Militia?”

The government heroine sighed almost imperceptibly. “Mister Hebert, what I want is to obtain information that will facilitate peaceful resolutions to future interactions between your daughter and the Protectorate and PRT. Information like her personality, details pertinent to today’s incident, and anything you can think of that might be her trigger event.”

“She… wait, her what?”

“Her trigger event. It’s when a parahuman receives his or her powers. Since the circumstances surrounding trigger events are always traumatizing to some degree or another, learning about those circumstances can help avoid potential, shall we say, pitfalls that might be encountered when interacting with her.” She paused. “Please, Mister Hebert, help us. The more we know, the better we’ll be able to keep anyone, including her, from getting hurt.”

Danny was silent for one moment, the another. “How badly was Emma hurt?” he finally asked.

“She has an incision on her cheek that reaches her cheekbone, and she lost some hair,” Miss Militia replied. “To be honest, from what responders were told about how she was attacked, she got off rather easy.”

I’ll say, Danny thought with relief. “And?” he asked. “How was she attacked?”

“The other witnesses could only say that whatever Miss Hebert did, she didn’t use her hands. Miss Barnes, however, said that Miss Hebert’s teeth lengthened into fangs, and her tongue lengthened into something like a whip, with a claw or a blade on the tip. That bladed whip is what gave her that injury, and it apparently moved faster than her eyes could see.”

Danny… well, Danny didn’t know what to think. It was… difficult to reconcile with the memory of his beloved daughter with the mental image of a bladed whip-tongue. That wasn’t the Taylor he knew and loved. But then, well, he didn’t really know her all that well these days. They’d barely interacted ever since… Shoving the painful memories aside, he closed his eyes and asked, “How dangerous does the Protectorate believe my daughter is?”

Miss Militia gave him a sympathetic look. “Based on what she displayed against Miss Barnes, we have her estimated at a Changer 3. However, that rating could likely change should it prove that she was holding back, as we suspect. We also suspect that she deserves a Brute/Breaker rating of around seven, and a middling Mover rating.”

At Danny’s blank look, she explained, “The rating system lets us describe how a parahuman’s powers express themselves, and thus the threat they pose and which general tactics are to be used against them. The numbers can be used to estimate how strong their powers are, but their intent is to further narrow down appropriate tactics. In theory the scale has no upper limit, but in practice the vast majority of parahuman powers fall somewhere from one to ten. The Changer category covers parahumans who shapeshift or otherwise change their forms. Brute is for those with enhanced strength and durability. Breakers are those who can ‘break’ the way they interact with physics, and Mover covers mobility-enhancing powers, like flight or superspeed.”

“So, wait, what makes you think she’s a high-level brute-breaker, or whatever you called her?” Danny asked, frowning.

“The power she is reported to have displayed is similar to one displayed by another parahuman we have encountered recently who goes by the name ‘Starfield’. You might have heard about her on the news.”

“I must have missed that segment,” he said faintly as his mind raced. His little girl, a news-worthy cape? But wait, more importantly… “Wait, you said you ‘encountered’ her. She… she’s not a villain, is she?”

“No,” she replied, to which he let out a sigh of relief. “At least, the last time Starfield spoke to us on the subject she expressed her desire to be a hero. However, that does not preclude he falling to villainy down the road, or being forced into it. Not to mention that Starfield has displayed, certain… behaviors that might make it more likely that she might cause harm to others.”

Danny felt the tension return. “What, ah, behaviors might those be?”

“I’d rather not say, not while we don’t know for certain that she is Starfield. Remember, Miss Hebert’s reported powers are merely similar without confirmation, or, at the very least, further evidence. Now, are you willing to help us, Mister Hebert?”

Danny was silent for a long moment. The heroine before him had presented her case in quite the convincing manner. He really believed that she wanted what was best for everyone involved. And she was a freaking hero, for crying out loud! But… the negotiator in him couldn’t help but think that there was something she was holding back. She was just being too helpful for him to think otherwise. And, well, if he just gave her information about Taylor, it would feel like he was betraying her, somehow, like he was going around behind her back. Making his decision, he opened his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by a knock at his office door.

“Yes?” Danny called out, and the door opened enough for the office secretary, a young man named Jesse, to stick his head in.

“Sir?” Jesse said, and Danny smiled softly in amused exasperation at the unnecessary formality. “Phone call for you.”

“I’m a little occupied right now,” Danny replied, glancing at the other occupant of his office. “Could you ask them to call back later?”

“Sir… it’s your daughter.”

Both Danny and Miss Militia straightened at that. Their eyes met, she nodded, and he said, “Put her through.”

“Yes, sir.” Jesse’s head withdrew, the door clicked shut, and a moment later the phone on Danny’s desk rang. Picking it up, he said, “Taylor? What’s going on, sweetie?”

“Hey, Dad,” she greeted him, sounding remarkably calm given the situation. “I just, I needed to talk to you about something.”

“Is it about that, ah, incident you had at school?”

Taylor sighed with what seemed like a mix of relief and resignation. “Well, that simplifies things, I guess.” She paused. “Is there anyone there with you? Maybe from the PRT, or the Protectorate?”

Danny paused and glanced at Miss Militia. “Yes.”

Taylor sighed again. “Okay. Okay. Well, if they want, I’d be willing to talk with them over speaker. Might make some things easier.”

Looking up, Danny placed his hand over the receiver and relayed what she’d said to Miss Militia, who nodded. “Okay, Taylor, I’m putting you on.” With that, he pressed the relevant button on the phone and hung up the handset.

“Hello,” Taylor said calmly. “To whom am I speaking?”

“Hello, Miss Hebert,” the heroine replied. “I’m Miss Militia, of the local branch of the Protectorate.”

“Hello, Miss Militia,” Taylor replied in a neutral tone. “Can we just pretend that you asked me to turn myself in and all that?”

The Protectorate heroine was silent for a moment, then said, “If you wish, though I’d like to add that it would make things easier for you.”

Taylor snorted. “Easier for you to press-gang me into the Wards, more like. Excuse me if I say hell no.”

Miss Militia blinked. “Why do you dislike the idea of joining the Wards so much? It’s meant specifically to help young parahumans like yourself, after all.”

“Several- actually, why don’t you tell me? I’m sure you have some ideas.”

The heroine sighed. “We do, but first, may I ask a few things?” Taylor made a noise of assent. “Okay. Where are you calling from?”

Danny’s daughter snorted. “Seriously? Do you really think I’d tell you where I am?” She laughed softly, then went quiet. “I was going to call from our home phone, but I realized on the way there what a dumb idea it was. The disguised PRT vans in front of the place kinda hammered it home. I suppose I should thank you, by the way, for not just broadcasting to our neighbors that cape shit was afoot. But anyway, I’m using some payphone right now. But you had other questions.”

“Yes, I did. Why did you attack Miss Barnes with your powers?”

Taylor sighed. “Look, that was an accident. She accused me of killing Mom, and I lost control for a moment. I restrained myself from doing any more to her, but, well…” She sighed. “To be honest? Part of me kind of wishes I didn’t. She deserved what she got. Hell, she deserves worse.”

Danny was, to put it mildly, shocked to hear such vehemence in his little girl’s voice, especially when it was directed at her childhood friend. “What, what do you mean, Taylor?” he asked hesitantly. “What did Emma do to deserve that?”

Taylor gave a bark of humorless laughter. “What hasn’t that backstabbing bitch done? She and her psycho friends roped half the school into bullying me incessantly for the past year and a half. They put me in the hospital and made me trigger, and no one had done shit about it! I-” She bit off whatever she was saying to take a deep breath, then murmured something to herself that Danny couldn’t hear clearly.

“Taylor?” Danny asked. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you were being bullied?” His fingernails were digging into his palms and his knuckles were white, such was his anger at the thought of his little girl getting bullied.

Taylor was silent for a while. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft and sad. “Dad, I, I didn’t mean… When it started, you were still devastated by what happened to Mom. I thought I could deal with it on my own, so I didn’t want to worry you. But then it didn’t stop, everything I tried, everyone I went to was useless, and the longer I spent not telling you, the harder it got to bring it up.”

“Taylor...” Danny wanted to say that she should have told him anyway, that he would have been able to help, but he stopped himself. What could he have done to help, in the state he’d been in?

“Miss Hebert,” Miss Militia cut in, disrupting Danny’s train of thought, “we could help you resolve your situation-”

“If I were to join the Wards, yeah, yeah,” Taylor interrupted, her voice cold. “See, the thing is, you should be helping me anyway. Hell, you should’ve helped me a long time ago. After all, one of the friends helping Emma bully me is Sophia Hess.” Miss Militia went still and silent. Evidently this wasn’t the reaction Taylor was looking for because her anger went from cold to hot, and another voice joined hers, hollow and disturbing. “You, you knew! You knew there was something wrong with Sophia, and yet you didn’t do anything about it! You let her stay a Ward, even though she’s a bully! I bet you’re why the teachers were worse than useless when I went to them, too!”

Miss Militia tried to interrupt the heated tirade, only to be interrupted in turn by Danny. “You let a bully be a hero?” he asked incredulously. “And you want to put my daughter, the victim of her bullying, on the same team as her!?”

“Mister Hebert, please!” Miss Militia had to raise her voice to be heard over Danny’s shouting. When he had quieted down, she continued, “Now, we’re looking into Miss Hess’, shall we say, extracurricular activities,” Taylor snorted, “but the thing is, we were only notified that something might be going on very recently. We were unaware that she was bullying your daughter as she claims. Rest assured, should we find evidence that a bullying campaign has been ongoing, we will be sure to hold those responsible for keeping us in the dark accountable.”

Taylor sighed, the other voice absent, to Danny’s relief. “Thing is, they’re very good at destroying evidence. Every time I went to the teachers for help, it always came down to my word against theirs, and guess who was believed? Not the creepy, klutzy, unlucky loner, that’s for sure.” A pause. “What caused you lot to realize something was up, anyway?”

“Before I answer that,” the heroine replied, “There is something I must ask you. Are you Starfield?”

“What? How did...” Taylor trailed off, then chuckled in resignation. “I guess that answers your question, now, doesn’t it.”

“Yes, it does. To answer your previous question, you are actually the one who made us take a closer look. A new parahuman, who didn’t know Shadow Stalker and was amenable to joining the Wards, then goes into a nigh-murderous rage upon meeting her and storms out? Something was up, and we intend to find out what.”

“Wait, wait,” Danny cut in. “What’s going on, and what happened with your voice earlier, Taylor?”

Taylor paused for a moment, then replied, “So, uh, Dad? I’ve gone out patrolling a few times, after you’d gone to sleep. The first time, I ended up meeting with a couple of the Wards, and then with Miss Militia and Armsmaster. I was invited to meet the rest of the Wards the Saturday before last, which I did. As for the voice thing...” She paused, and when she resumed speaking it was with the hollow voice that made his skin crawl. “It’s how I speak while in costume, since I don’t have a mouth then. I hadn’t realized I could use it with my face on...” She trailed off as her words, and the implications thereof, worked their way through Danny’s head.

“With your- Taylor, please tell me you don’t mean what I think you mean!”

“Dad, Dad, it’s fine, don’t worry! Everything’s fine!” Taylor assured him a little frantically. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

Her words reminded Danny of something, and he looked at Miss Militia and asked, “What were those, ah, ‘behaviors’ you said Starfield displayed?”

“Um, Dad?” Taylor started, only to be interrupted by the flag-clad heroine.

“Miss Hebert, there’s something we’ve discovered about the fights you’ve been in. Namely, everyone you’ve been in conflict with, barring the mugger whose hand you bit off,” What, “have displayed similar injuries, wherein small bits of flesh have apparently been nibbled off. We’re concerned that your powers are leading you to develop, ah… cannibalistic tendencies.”

“I… what?” Taylor replied, seemingly at a loss for words. “I don’t, she, I...”

“Miss Hebert,” Miss Militia continued, her voice somehow warm and comforting despite the subject matter. “It isn’t exactly unknown for some parahumans to experience some mental influence from their powers. Our resources include psychiatrists to, among other things, help deal with or work around such influences.”

Taylor was silent for a moment, before coldly replying, “Another recruitment attempt? Even though I’ve already told you to kindly fuck off on that front?” She sighed in disgust. “Look, I think this conversation has been played out, so I’ll be going. Love you, Dad.” And despite Miss Militia’s protests, the line went dead.

Danny looked at the sputtering cape and said, “I hope you got what you needed, ma’am, because I believe it’s time for you to leave.”

 

Spark 4.1


I slammed the phone into its cradle and stalked away, uncaring of whatever odd looks I might be receiving. I’d been getting them for the entire half-hour I’d been walking around with my face on, on account of the unseasonably thin hoodie I was wearing.

“I am assuming that the conversation did not go well?” Melody asked more than said.

“Yeah,” I ground out, then winced at my tone. “Sorry, sorry,” I hurriedly said in a softer tone. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“It is fine,” Melody assured me. “More importantly, what went wrong?”

I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts. “Well,”I finally said, “first of all, Miss Militia was there with Dad.”

“Oh,” Rest piped up (literally; the sounds she was using to speak sounded like a combination of the tinkle of wind chimes with the deeper sound of water through plumbing). “Not good, is?”

“No,” I sighed. “Well, at least now I know something about what they know about me. And now she and Dad know about the bullying, and Miss Militia said something about doing an investigation into what Sophia;s been doing. But even so, they know I’m Starfield, and thanks to Aria’s desire to taste people they think I’m a budding cannibal, to boot.”

“Hey!” Aria said indignantly, before pausing. “… What’s a cannibal?”

I sighed fondly. “A cannibal is a creature who eats the flesh of others of its kind. So I’d be one if I ate other humans. The Protectorate thinks I am one because we’ve been taking little nibbles out of everyone we’ve fought with, and they don’t like it.”

“Oh…” Aria sounded rather unhappy about that. “I, I’m sorry...”

“It’s okay,” I replied soothingly. “I deserve at least half the blame, since I gave you the go-ahead to do so. I just...”

Something made me stop and look up, and I stepped back a little as I realized that I’d nearly walked into the man in front of me. The reason for this seemed to be that he had stopped and turned to stare at me. In fact, most everyone on the sidewalk had done so as well. A flash of light made my head whip to the side to look at its source, a young man with his cell phone’s camera pointed at me. He suddenly flinched back, making me realize that my expression had morphed into a glare, and a heated one, at that. He dared take my picture without permission? Even if I was already outed, I didn’t want my picture spread around if I could help it.

In a few swift strides I was standing in front of the guy, still glaring at him like I was trying to gouge out his eyes with mine. Quickly, I snatched his phone out of his hand and stuffed it in my mouth, letting Aria’s teeth crush, pierce, slice, and grind it to bits, before spitting them back at him. He flinched back as the bits hit him, and when he opened his eyes, they were wide with shock.

I glanced around and saw that everyone’s eyes were similarly wide and fixed on me. Had I been able to I might have flushed with embarrassment, but instead I just scowled. Since no one else seemed to have any recording devices pointed at me I just walked away, a little more briskly than I’d been walking previously. People who’d been watching quickly stepped out of my way when I drew near. I didn’t look back as I strode off.

.o.o.o.​

Eventually I stopped and sighed. I needed to blow off some steam, and stomping around here wasn’t going to help. I stalked off into a nearby alley and, after looking around for any cameras, pulled out one of my knives. In a motion that I barely thought about anymore I ran the blade around my face and let it flop off into my waiting hand.

Soon my hoodie was off and through my face, and all the cuts were made. I gave Melody the go-ahead to pull herself through and turned to leave the alley, only to pause. At the mouth of the alley stood a young girl who was staring at me, mouth open, eyes wide. I stared back at her for a few seconds, noting that she wasn’t getting that glazed look that so many people got when looking at my not-face. Hesitantly, I raised a hand to wave at her, a hand whose fingers sprouted black claws. I froze.

The girl turned and scampered away to hide behind a woman’s leg, little hands fisted in her (I assumed) mother’s pants leg and her face pressed against her thigh. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” I heard the woman ask, looking down at the girl. She peeked shyly around her mother and pointed in my direction.

“The lady cut her face off.”

After a moment of staring down at her daughter, the woman laughed and started to turn her head towards me. “I’m sure it’s nothing darli-” she started to say only to go silent as her gaze fell on me. She seemed to be about to scream, only for her face to go slack and her eyes glaze over.

Not wanting to deal with this situation, I had Aria extend a tentacle out of my face, wrap it around my neck, and reach up to grab the roof of the building beside me. With that, it was a simple matter to toss my body high into the air and fly away.

I took a meandering course towards the Docks. Part of me just wanted to go poke around in that cave Newter had shown me, while another part wanted to look for trouble to resolve as a hero. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunate for most in actuality, I found no crime to fight. The only real thing of note I could see from on high was a surprising number of potted plants on the roofs below me. It was almost as if rooftop gardens were the latest fad. For all I knew, they might just be.

Mentally sighing over the mystery, I flapped silently onward.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t much longer before the first signs of trouble were borne to me by the breeze. The screech of tortured, scraping metal almost drowned out the shouts and screams that followed. Anyone who paid any attention to the news about local gang activity knew that sound: Hookwolf, the murderous Nazi cape. He could take the form of a giant wolf made of blades, hooks, spikes, and barbs. There were rumors that he wasn’t restricted to using a canine shape, of course, but they were unconfirmed.

I quickened my pace, telling Aria to put more of herself through my face in preparation for conflict. I knew that fighting a rampaging Hookwolf wasn’t exactly the best way to avoid the PRT, but I also knew that with my friends at my side I was fairly powerful, and I’d be a pretty piss-poor hero if I didn’t at least try to stop him.

With Aria covering much of my body and dozens of large eyes already forming, I crested the last building between myself and the conflict. The writhing, shifting mass of Hookwolf came into view, as well as…

Why the hell was Hookwolf fighting members of his own gang?

 

Spark 4.2


I circled the area, various eyes zooming in on the action. Hookwolf was in the process of mauling a cape I didn’t recognize, though I could make out Empire 88 colors on what little of his costume remained un-rent and un-besmirched by blood.

A cluster of ghostly apparitions stood around a fallen form further down the street. I remembered reading about how Crusader’s ghosts reflected what the cape himself wore and wielded as well as the state of his body, and since each ghost held its spear one-handed due to the other arm dangling by a string… well.

Other corpses dotted the road, staining the concrete with frankly horrifying amounts of blood. One such blood stain showed that one poor soul had tried to crawl away, but he hadn’t made made it far before expiring. I tore my gaze away from all of the red to focus back on Hookwolf, only to see him toss the ragged remains of his erstwhile foe aside.

A shadow seen out of the corner of an eye had me both dodge in midair and start growing more eyes on my back before I even realized what was happening. A huge chunk of concrete hurtled through the space I’d just vacated, shaking me with the wind of its passage before crashing to the road just inches from Hookwolf’s bladed snout. The impact cracked the roadway, an astonishingly loud crash tearing through the air to be greedily gulped down by Rest.

A new eye just above my tail spotted the source of the manmade boulder: a girl I assumed was around my age, wearing a long, hooded robe, black with red designs. What really held my attention, though, was the fact that she was seated in an honest-to-goodness flying chair. Not a fancy rocket chair or anything like that, just a normal, if comfortable-looking, chair hanging in the air. That, her costume, and the number of large objects orbiting her clued me in to the fact that she was Rune, another member of the Empire 88.

“Well fuck you too ya fucking bitch!” she shouted down at me. “Stay still so I can swat you like the fly you are!”

“The hell is your problem? Are you trying to kill me?” I shouted back, deliberately downplaying my durability on a whim. In the meantime, I was keeping a few eyes on Hookwolf, so I caught it when he started to lope away before stopping. After a few moments of standing still he turned and started to make his way almost reluctantly over towards the injured Crusader.

“Damn fucking right I was, you fucking creepy-ass rug-muncher! As I see it, you being here means you’re probably the one who made Hookwolf do it, and even if you aren’t I bet you’re an enemy anyway!”

As she’d ranted, I’d been making some laser eyes and dumping as much energy into them as they would hold. I winced internally at the dent it made in what I could “see” of Aria’s energy stores. I mean, due to the weird preservation effect (or whatever it was) of my other side, that lost energy would probably be replaced on its own to some degree, but even so, I’d want to give my friend something nice to eat after this.

Those thoughts, however, were put on the back burner as Rune’s words made their way to the front of my mind. Clenching my hands into fists in an effort to ignore her insults (which, I noted idly, forced Melody’s claws through my palms), I said, “Wait, what did Hookwolf do, exactly?” As I spoke, I set my lasers to what I assumed was infrared and fired some probing shots at both Hookwolf and Rune’s chair.

“Don’t act like you don’t know, you fucking cultist cunt!” Rune spat back. Her orbiting cloud of debris started to pick up speed. “You made him kill Kaiser and Krieg, and you dare pretend you don’t know about it?”

“I… what?” Kaiser, the leader of the white supremacist gang that terrorized much of the bay, the feared cape who could turn a busy street into a forest of bladed death in moments, was dead? That… that was at once wonderful news, and rather terrifying. On the one hand, the gang would be weakened, leaving them less able to victimize people. On the other, once the news got out (from, say, the loose lips of a certain Empire cape, mayhaps?), the other gangs would be scrambling over themselves and each other to take a bite out of the E88. The resulting gang war would have an incalculable number of casualties, many of them innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire.

There were likely further consequences that I just couldn’t think of in the situation I was in.

Speaking of such situations, I was having rather limited success in lasering Hookwolf’s shifting metallic form. It appeared that most of the lasers’ light was actually reflected by his shiny tendrils, meaning they only absorbed a fraction of the heat another material might’ve taken. A material like the wood of Rune’s chair, which was quick to blacken. I was just as quick to focus more lasers on it, even as I thought furiously about how to deal with the beautiful lupiform below.

Then it hit me.

Well, the flying chunk of masonry actually missed by a narrow margin, but the idea hit home. I quickly dumped energy into the lasers pointed at Rune’s chair and let loose their infrared fury.

With a loud crack like thunder, the chair was suddenly on fire. It took Rune a moment to notice, but when she did, she shrieked and threw herself from her perch. She might’ve been intending to land on one of the many chunks of debris she had, but before she could I swooped in to catch her, my tentacles both restraining her and shearing off the areas of her robe that had caught fire. No sense in burning Aria, after all.

She started to struggle and swear at me again, so I tightened the tentacles around her and shoved one in her mouth to gag her. Surprisingly, she went very still after that, and when I glanced at her face her eyes were as wide as they could get.

Mentally shrugging, I snaked a tentacle over the back of her neck (making her shudder) to form a mouth near her ear. The mouth licked its lips and started to speak.

“Alright, here’s how this is going to work. You’re going to focus on bringing Hookwolf to heel, and once we’re done I’ll drop you off with the PRT. If you don’t, if you do any less than your utmost to stop him before anyone else gets hurt of killed, I’ll… well, let’s just say it won’t be fun for you.” I was mostly bluffing, of course. While I did have the surprisingly strong urge to just eat her tongue right then and there, the more rational part of me didn’t feel so great about the idea of harming a helpless person, no matter how odious her personal beliefs were. I was banking on her imagination filling in what could happen to her at my hands. Well, mostly my tentackes, really. “So, do we have a deal? Nod if we do.”

She immediately started nodding so hard that for a moment I thought she might dislodge the gag. “Good. Now...”

I returned my attention to Hookwolf just as he was closing in on Crusader. A few of the ghosts broke away to fly at the approaching terror, only for the apparently traitorous Nazi to abruptly swerve and break into an odd, loping run at the side of a building. He dashed up it, blades and hooks digging in even more easily than in the concrete. Windows shattered and bricks fell away as he passed, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. As he reached the top of the wall, he coiled up like a giant spring, then launched himself up into the air. He landed on a small car held in the grasp of Rune’s power and immediately pushed off towards the next platform. He bounded swiftly towards us, the cacophony of his passage growing ever louder, and it was all to easy to picture the murder in his eyes.

With a powerful flap of my borrowed wings I hastened my flight to put more distance between us and the approaching killer, then turned to point my captive at him. “Stop him!” I hissed in her ear.

To her credit, she only froze for a few moments before the platform Hookwolf had jumped for suddenly fell out of the air, leaving the neo-Nazi to claw futilely at the air as he plummeted to the street below. The impact, while still loud enough to feel in Melody’s bones, was quieter than I had expected, given his bulk. Maybe he’d used those beautiful metal tentacles of his to cushion his impact? But no, I had more important things to do than speculate on how it’d happened. Namely, capitalizing upon the fact that he was, for the moment at least, stunned from his meeting with the pavement.

“Pen him in, quickly!” I ordered Rune, and she was gratifyingly quick to bring almost all of her debris field down to surround him with chunks of concrete, cars, large steel plates, and other assorted odds and ends pressing in on him from almost every direction. Hookwolf’s (admittedly rather feeble) struggles proved insufficient to free him. One of my eyes then fell on the largest chunk of all, the one Rune had tried to smash me with as a greeting. “Do you still have control of that?” I asked, moving a tendril into her field of view so she could see it point at the object in question. Her attempt to nod was answer enough. “Good. Drop it on him.”

Rune hesitated, which, admittedly, was understandable. She’d worked with the guy, after all. They shared the same ideals. That said, the hesitation came to a swift end when I pressed a few teeth into the nape of her neck, just hard enough to taste her sweet, sweet blood. As I ignored the impulse to bite even deeper, the concrete chunk wobbled into the air and moved to hover over the trapped Nazi. “Pull it up higher,” I ordered, wanting to be certain to get him. Run only needed a single tooth’s encouragement to do so, the chunk rising an dozen stories into the air, then two.

Excellent.

“Now, when I tell you to, don’t just drop it. Bring it down as hard as you can.” Rune whimpered through her gag but didn’t offer up any protest. I took a moment to steel myself. This… if this killed him, his death would be on my hands. But then, if I didn’t stop him here, and he went on to kill more people, to ruin more lives, wouldn’t that be on me as well?

My fists clenched, driving my claws through my palms once again. “Do it,” I said. “Crush him.”

Rune’s eyes squeezed shut, and the artificial boulder dropped, accelerating towards its target far faster than if it was merely being pulled by gravity.

Movement from the pen of rubble drew my attention, and the world seemed to slow. Part of the wall had been knocked loose, and Hookwolf seemed to be trying to squirm free. I could only watch in horror as he widened the gap and started to all but ooze out. No, no! He can’t escape!

Then, with a truly horrendous crash, the falling slab impacted and his writhing form was obscured from my sight by a billowing cloud of dust. Rune stiffened and screamed through her gag, but I dismissed it as her being startled by the noise. I had more important things to focus on, namely determining whether or not Hookwolf had survived.

As I circled the scene, I started growing a large laser eye at my hip. It grew and grew, until it was the size of my head. Since it, naturally, couldn’t see, I grew a few normal eyes inset around the iris for targeting purposes. Those eyes immediately started scanning the expanding cloud of powdered concrete for any sign of my target.

When he didn’t appear in the next few moments, I felt it was safe to divert some of my attention to check on my captive, who was…

Oh.

Oh, dear.

Rune was impaled through the side by a foot-long shard of Hookwolf. It had actually pierced my stomach, too, but I hadn’t noticed. Point was, she was bleeding pretty badly, and I didn’t want her to die if I could do anything to help her.

Rune’s face had gone pale, a few tears trailing down her cheeks. Her breaths were rapid and shallow, but she hadn’t passed out. Not yet, at least.

Half-remembered first-aid lessons kept me from just pulling the blade out. It might be stopping her from bleeding even worse. Instead, I wrapped tendrils around where it entered and exited her body and applied pressure. She whimpered in agony, the sound muffled by the gag, but I didn’t let that stop me from immobilizing the blade and keeping her from bleeding too much.

A small, petty part of me was pissed about the blood that was soaking into my “costume”, but I ignored it. There were more important things to worry about.

Things like the struggling form I spotted through the clearing dust cloud. My large laser eye snapped up to point at it, the inset eyes rolling to look in line with it.

Finally, a breeze picked up, hastening the dissipation of the cloud. I immediately started charging my eye, wanting to be ready should I need to shoot Hookwolf. Assuming it would have any effect, of course.

I circled, seeking a better angle. It wasn’t much longer before I could see the aftermath of Rune’s impromptu meteor strike. A shallow crater of cracked and crushed pavement now decorated the road, surrounded by the scattered remains of the pen. Bits of shattered metal lay everywhere, some even embedded in cars or walls. I spotted a trail of cleared wreckage, and my many eyes followed it for a good dozen feet to find its cause: a much-reduced Hookwolf.

Two parts of me warred for dominance in that moment. One was relieved that I wasn’t a killer, while another was disappointed that the neo-Nazi was still moving, and wanted to fix that.

I continued to circle for a time, watching as he dragged himself slowly along, shrinking as he went. His shattered and mangled barbs and blades withdrew until all that was left was a muscular, shirtless man staggering along, evidently dazed from the strike. However, it also seemed that he was rather quick to recover, as it wasn’t long before the surity of his steps grew and he started gaining speed.

Now, that just wouldn’t do, and I had just the tool to stop him. The moment I judged the air between myself and him to be sufficiently clear, my laser eye pulsed.

A crack of thunder split the air. The section of Hookwolf’s pants covering his left calf was vaporized, as was the skin beneath, revealing the now-glowing metal beneath. I only saw it for a moment, though, as the expanding cloud of vaporized flesh knocked his leg out from under him, making him fall hard on his back. I winced as I heard the crack of his head meeting the pavement despite the distance between us. I watched him for a few moments more, but he didn’t move. I felt comfortable enough in that moment to land on a rooftop and check on Rune.

She… well, the little Nazi wasn’t doing so well. Her eyes, while still open, were glazed over, and her breathing was still rapid and shallow. She didn’t react when I set her down on the roof, and I suspected she might be unconscious.

Giving the wound a closer look (and feel), I could see that the steel spike hadn’t just pierced her side. Its momentum had torn the wound open. The pressure Aria’s tentacles were applying kept any blood from spilling forth, but I worried that Rune might still be bleeding internally. I didn’t know the quickest way to the nearest hospital, and I knew she needed treatment, and fast.

A thought struck me, then. “Ah, girls? Have you ever been injured, before you met me?”

“Yes,” Melody replied after a moment. “There are these small but very fast bits of something that have flown right through me on a few occasions. The resulting holes hurt, certainly, but as you have seen, I am whole and hale now.” She paused for a moment. “Oh, and there was that time when Aria tried to eat me, but those wounds are long gone, too.”

“I, I’m sorry,” Aria replied in an uncharacteristically subdued tone.

“It is fine, please do not be too hard on yourself for it,” Melody replied consolingly. “You were not in full control of yourself, and besides, you neither maimed nor killed me. And afterwards, I gained a sister, so I feel that I came out ahead in the exchange.”

I started to fight back a smile, before remembering that I didn’t have my mouth on with which to smile. But as nice as that may have been, there were, once again, more pressing matters at hand.

I pulled my shirt up and held it in place by pressing my chin to my collarbone. I firmly ignored the fact that this exposed my meager chest, instead focusing on using Aria to make a vertical incision down my sternum, stopping a couple inches above my navel. I then made a couple diagonal cuts branching off from it, forming a sort of inverted ‘Y’. With a little digital encouragement the bottom flap of skin flopped open, leaving me to pull open the other flaps.

“Now, remember, Aria, keep pressure on her wounds and make sure the blade doesn’t move, okay? Oh, and no nibbling!”

“Fine...” She replied with exaggerated reluctance. Satisfied, I started to pull Rune into my torso head first.

She was up to her neck when I stopped to hiss as I felt a stabbing pain through my side. But no, I realized, it wasn’t my pain.

It was Rune’s.

 

Spark 4.3


“Oh.”

That was all I could make myself say. This… this changed quite a bit. I…

“Taylor?” The sound of my name shocked me out of the state I was in. Melody continued, “Is everything alright? I am tasting surprise and fear from you, along with some other emotions that, together, are concerning.”

I took a steadying, if unnecessary breath through one of Aria’s mouths. “I...” I faltered, then continued. “When I put Rune’s head through me, I, ah, gained control of the rest of her body. I can feel her pain, and I think...” I lifted her hand as easily as I would my own. “Yeah, I can control her now, too.”

“Okay,” she replied, sounding confused. “Is that bad?”

I shook my head. “It’s… look, parahumans who can control humans are really mistrusted, and that’s before you take all the villains who’ve abused such powers into consideration.” I paused for a moment. “Well, now that I think about it, it’s just another aspect of my powers that I’ll have to keep secret.” Somehow, that made this new development that much easier to handle.

“I am confused,” Melody said plaintively. “If it is bad, why are you suddenly feeling relieved?”

“Well, I’m keeping a number of things about my powers secret from everyone, so, really, what’s another added to that?” I paused. “Thank you for your concern, though, Melody.”

“Of course, Taylor. I care a lot about your well-being. We all do. Rest less so, of course-”

“Hey!” my favorite sapient snowstorm protested.

“Likely because she met you later than Aria and I did,” Melody continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “Our feelings for you grow stronger by the day, as do your feelings for the three of us.”

Had I still been able to, I’m sure I would’ve been blushing nigh incandescently with happiness. “Thank you. All of you.” I released the flaps of my skin to give a larger tentacle a one-armed hug and reach up to pat one of my wings. Images rose, unbidden, of all we’d done together. Playing, learning, testing our abilities…

The sudden image of a plastic water bottle crumpling in on itself made me return my attention to Rune in a bit of a panic. I didn’t feel anything of mote from her other than the pain of being impaled, but, well, something wasn’t right. It took me a moment to realize what it was, and when I did I felt a little ashamed. Her chest wasn’t rising or falling, and I was sure she needed to breathe to survive.

I hurriedly pulled her head out of my stomach, and I immediately felt her start to breathe again, seemingly no worse for wear. I did note that her eyes and mouth felt a little dry, though.

With a little sigh of relief I started to put her back in my stomach, feeling her steadily disappear from my senses as she went.

“Taylor?” Rest said, somehow making bedsprings sound concerned. With a greater portion of my attention on her, I heard what she heard: sirens, swiftly approaching.

I froze, then hurried the process of putting Rune through me. I mean, it was good that the authorities were on their way, but I didn’t want to be here when they arrived. And since I didn’t know how long Rune would last without me, that meant I was taking her with me.

I’d just gotten to her knees when an eye between my wings spotted a few flying shapes zipping towards me. I hurriedly shoved the rest of Rune through, feeling the last of her leave my senses, before pulling the flaps of my skin together to start healing. Once they’d healed together enough that I didn’t need to hold them for the cuts to stay closed I stopped and let my shirt fall back into place. I wasn’t going to heal the incisions completely since I was just going to open myself up again to let Rune out at a hospital for treatment. It seemed like people didn’t like it much when I started cutting myself open, so maybe just tearing along seams would be better?

The flying shapes had gotten much closer by the time I was able to give them my undivided attention. I was able to identify them as the flight-capable members of New Wave, the maskless hero team. I’d met Laserdream and Shielder the other two had to be Lady Photon and Glory Girl.

I stood and turned to face them as they approached. I didn’t really want to be here when the PRT et al arrived, but if I just took off now the New Wave capes might think I was fleeing the scene and decide to chase after me. No, better to wait and greet them before leaving. Although…

Now that I thought about it, Panacea, the local healer, was a member of New Wave. Maybe I could get one of them to lead me to her to get Rune all patched up.

By the time I’d made my decision they’d reached my rooftop, hovering before me, alternating between giving me wary looks and surveying the scene. Well, at least Laserdream was regarding me in a more friendly manner. “Hi, Starfield,” she said, and I gave her a little wave in return.

Glory Girl drifted closer to Laserdream and, thanks to a few flecks of Rest near them, I heard her murmur, “Wow, you weren’t kidding about how creepy she looks, cuz.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say, Glory Girl,” I said without thinking. It probably wasn’t the best idea to reveal some of what Rest could do, but what she’d said had actually hurt a little. Besides, seeing someone hovering in midair jump in surprise was rather amusing. As she did, some flavor sensed by Melody’s tail, wings, and claws, surged in intensity, then returned to its previous, almost unnoticeable state.

“Oh. Um, sorry?” I was a little nonplussed with how she’d managed to turn her apology into a question, but I decided to let it slide for now.

Lady Photon cleared her throat, and I rolled a large eye on my shoulder to look at her so she’d know she had my attention. She was silent for a moment as she shuddered almost, but not quite, imperceptibly. “Ah, Starfield, was it?” I nodded and moved some of Aria’s mass to the side so she could see the stars beyond it through my face. “Oh...” She went quiet for another moment until I let Aria cut off the view, at which point she rallied. “So, ah, could you tell us what, exactly, happened here?”

I would have smiled, but I restrained myself. “Certainly,” I replied. “So, I was just flying along when I heard Hookwolf, um, y’know, making loud Hookwolf noises. So, like any good hero, I went to investigate, see if there was anything I could do. When I got here, I saw him mostly done chewing up, um...” I went to the edge of the roof and scanned the wrecked and bloody roadway. I noted with a little concern that Crusader’s ghosts were no longer present, though he didn’t seem to have moved. My eyes finally fell on the puddle of blood and meat I was looking for and, as I fought down a roiling stomach, I pointed at it. “That guy. He was killing that guy.” I noted the younger members of New Wave getting varying degrees of green around their mouths, and I didn’t blame them.

“Also, that’s Crusader over there, I think,” I continued, pointing towards him. “He might be dead, too. Anyway, it was a little too late for the guy Hookwolf had, so I decided to keep my distance and observe rather than swooping in to save him. It was at that point that Rune came along and lobbed a big chunk of concrete at me.”

“Where is Rune now?” Lady Photon asked.

“I’m getting there. Anyway, Rune said some mean and coarse things, and let slip that apparently Kaiser and Krieg are dead.”

“Wait, what?” Shielder blurted out while the others gave me mixed looks of shock and doubt.

“Holy shit,” Glory Girl breathed. “If that’s true, then...”

“Yeah, I had the same thoughts,” I said. “Anyway, she tried to kill me again, so I broke her flying chair and caught her before she could fall too far. Then, since it was apparent that I probably couldn’t do much to Hookwolf in his bladed form, I persuaded her to help me put a stop to his rampage.”

“And how, pray tell, did you ‘persuade’ her to help you?” Lady Photon asked, her voice suspicious.

“That’s not important,” I replied smoothly. “What is important is that Hookwolf is in that alley there,” I jerked my head in his direction, “and Rune caught a flying piece of him through her side, so I’d like to get her to a hospital before she bleeds to death.”

The younger members of New Wave looked at Lady Photon who, after a moment of staring at me, asked, “And where is she? I don’t see her.”

“Oh, um. She’s, well...” I pointed at my abdomen.

“You… you ate her!?” Glory Girl looked horrified. They all did, though Laserdream’s expression was growing closer to realization.

“What? No!” I said indignantly. “That wouldn’t help her in the slightest. I just put her in storage so I wouldn’t hurt her while flying with her.” I shook my head. “I don’t care what the PRT or Protectorate think they know, I’m not a cannibal.”

Lady Photon looked rather pointedly at the little tongue lapping at the blood that stained my shirt. Where I able to blush I likely would have as I gently pushed the tentacle away from the blood, then held it still with my power when it tried to sneakily return to licking. “Not now, Aria,” I murmured, though evidently I wasn’t quiet enough, judging from how the others shuddered.

“Uh, Starfield?” Laserdream said hesitantly, “You’re, ah, not exactly helping your case there.”

Well. That was just great. I brought my fist up to my face and faked a cough. “So, uh, yeah. Rune’s probably bleeding as we speak, so if one of you could lead me to the nearest hospital, that’d be great.”

Laserdream looked at Glory Girl, who frowned back. A conversation composed entirely of looks and gestures followed, while the flavor I’d tasted before surged once more in intensity, this time lasting long enough for me to identify what it tasted like before it faded. It was actually two flavors somehow superimposed, one savory with hints of sweetness, while the other was spicy and bitter. Both, however, were somehow shallow as far as flavors went.

With a sigh, Glory Girl slumped a little in midair before turning to face me. “So, um, I guess I’ll take you to the hospital Am- uh, Panacea is currently at. We’ll get her to fix Rune up before turning her over to the PRT, okay?”

Part of me objected rather strongly to the idea of just turning Rune over. At first, I thought it was because of my current distaste for the organizations in question, but after a bit of quick introspection I found that, while it was a part of the reason, the rest had a different cause.

Namely, Rune was mine now, and I wanted to keep what was mine. That idea, that… possessiveness… it scared me a little. I mean, I could see where it came from, kind of. The majority of my issues could be traced back to Emma and her cohorts, after all. I didn’t want to give Rune up, but… I had to.

“...Alright,” I replied, unsure about how truthful I was being. “Let’s go.”

.o.o.o.​

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask...”

I swiveled a few more eyes to look at Glory Girl, who was flying beside me. The act made her falter a bit and go silent.

“Yes?” I prompted, having to shout through my borrowed mouth to be heard over the rushing wind. She jerked momentarily as if startled, then continued.

“What’s that big ball thing on your hip for?” she asked, gesturing to my big laser eye, which I’d grown some eyelids to cover rather than reabsorb it. “It can’t make flying any easier.”

I was silent for a moment, thinking about whether or not I should tell her, and if I did, how much I should reveal, and in what manner. Finally, I decided to just open the eyelids and show her.

“… What.” Glory Girl stared. “Why do you- what the fuck!” I’d had the little lumps surrounding the iris open up, revealing the targeting eyes. Glory Girl was lucky we were flying well above the buildings below us, else she might’ve crashed into one from looking at my eye instead of where she was going. I kept the big eye pointed away from her all the while; Even though she didn’t know what it was, and I was fairly certain I couldn’t fire it by accident, it just wasn’t polite to point weapons at allies.

Glory Girl finally just slumped in midair. “I just… I don’t want to know, do I?”

“Probably not.”

Sighing and shaking her head, she straightened herself. “Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly. “We’re here.”

‘Here’ must’ve been the hospital I’d spotted about half a minute previously. I decided not to mention that little fact.

We touched down on the roof as Glory Girl finished typing something out on her phone and sent it. I landed by swooping down and then, at the last moment, pulling up sharply to bleed off momentum before dropping down in a crouch. It’d taken me a while to get it right, and I felt a little proud for having succeeded. That pride was tempered as I saw my flying companion just stop a few inches from the gravel that covered the roof. It rankled a bit, seeing how effortless her flight was, but, well… I suppose that was just the way it was when you used wings.

“Amy’ll be up in a few,” Glory Girl reported as she tucked her phone away while I stood up. “And since we’ve got a moment, is there any way you could make your voice, y’know, less creepy? For her.”

“Creepy? What- oh.” I actually felt a little embarrassed for having forgotten how unsettling my mouthless voice sounded to others. “Sorry,” I continued, speaking with one of Aria’s mouths. “Is this better?”

“Much,” she replied with a tight grin. We lapsed into silence after that.

Eventually the roof access door opened, revealing a mousy young woman whose white robe bore a medical… cross… thingy, in red.

I didn’t remember what it was called. Sue me.

Her eyes automatically gravitated to Glory Girl, and her tired frown smoothed out into a small smile. So, this must be Panacea, I thought.

“What was it you needed, Vicky?” she asked as her eyes panned around the rooftop. Then, they fell on me.

Immediately, her expression became guarded once more, before her eyes went wide and her lips parted. She took a step back, and her hands started to rise as if to ward me off.

Seemingly oblivious to this, Glory Girl said, “So we’ve got an injured Rune here, and we want to make sure she doesn’t die on us.”

Panacea’s eyes had jerked back to Glory Girl when she started to speak. By the time she’d finished, her sister’s eyes had widened in comprehension, and then drooped in… disappointment? In any case, she looked around and asked, “So, uh, where is Rune? I don’t see her here, so we must be flying somewhere.”

“Actually...” Glory Girl glanced at me, which I took as my cue. I cleared Aria away from my front, then pulled my shirt up once more. I didn’t pull it up as high this time so as to not expose anything I shouldn’t, but it was high enough for some clawed tentacles to reach in and rip my torso open along the seams I’d left.

I heard a thump, and I glanced up to see that Panacea had fallen on her backside, while Glory Girl had shot a few feet up and away from me. Both were staring at me with eyes wide enough to see white all the way around. “J-Jesus fuck!” Glory Girl shouted.

I tilted my head. “What?” I asked innocently. I mean, freaking them out was unintentional, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy it. I was owed some fun for my time spent suffering, wasn’t I?

In any case, I murmured to Aria to bring Rune out. Gradually she emerged, and I felt her body steadily come under my control. I couldn’t stop a small hiss from escaping me as her pain washed over me, even as distant as it was. Once her head was free her breathing resumed, with her seeming none the worse for wear. No healing had occurred that I could sense, which was a bit of a disappointment. The blood on her clothing had already dried, but more was oozing out to make up for it. I gently set her on the roof and released her from Aria’s clutches.

The entire time, I’d been watching the others. Their eyes had been fixed on the hole in my torso and the person emerging from it. Those eyes widened once the wound came into view, and Glory Girl swore under her breath and pressed her hand to her mouth. Once Rune had emerged completely, Panacea slowly staggered to her feet and, after a few moments’ hesitation and a worried glance or two at me, moved over to her side. Kneeling down, she placed a hand on the injured girl’s shoulder and shook her a few times, saying, “Rune, can you hear me?”

There was no response.

“Alright,” Panacea said, seeming to calm down a little. “As Rune is non-responsive, I shall do my duty as a good samaritan and give aid.” It seemed an odd thing to say, but if I was reading her right, she was probably saying it as much to herself as she was to us. With that done, she placed a hand on Rune’s exposed wrist.

All at once, the pain vanished, and I nearly gasped before I managed to restrain myself. The pain was all that went away, though, so I had a metaphorical front row seat to the sensation of Rune’s mangled flesh knitting back together. It was similar to the deadened sensations I received when healing my own skin, which I suppose made sense.

Panacea was frowning as she worked, occasionally sneaking glances at me. I finally decided enough was enough and asked her, “Did you have something you wanted to ask me?”

She jumped and let out a yelp of surprise, then slowly looked up at me. I gestured for her her to proceed and she stammered, “I, no, I, uh… actually, I was wondering why Rune seems to have more than six liters of blood in her, including what’s pooled inside of her due to internal bleeding.”

“Wait,” Glory Girl said uncertainly, “wouldn’t someone her size have more like five liters?”

Panacea smiled at her sister. “Yeah, it’s...” Her smile became more of a confused frown. “Wait, since when do you know stuff like that off the top of your head?”

Glory Girl shrugged. “Got lost on a wiki walk.”

Panacea shook her head. “Anyway, Rune bled enough that she probably shouldn’t be alive, but she’s got enough blood in her system that she’s, ah, ‘merely’ in hypovolemic shock. Which means...”

“Which means?” Glory Girl leaned in closer.

Panacea sighed and looked up at me with an odd look in her eyes. “Which means there’s something about where you were keeping her that kept her from dying, but didn’t heal her.”

“Probably whatever kept her from suffocating in there,” I mused, before the stares I was suddenly receiving made me realize that I’d spoken aloud.

“So, wait,” Panacea said suspiciously. “Why would she be in danger of suffocating?”

“Uh, well...” I pressed my clawtips together as my head faced away from them. “It might, ah, kind of be a vacuum in there?”

“… Are you serious?” The healer’s expression had become rather incredulous. “You thought the best way to transport a critically injured person was to shove them in a place with no air? That’s, that’s so...”

“B-but it turned out fine, right?” I hurriedly interjected before crossing my arms. “Sheesh, I’m getting flashbacks to when I told the Wards I cut my face off.”

“You… what?” Both capes just stared at me for an uncomfortable moment. “You know what?” Panacea finally said. “I’m just going to focus on healing Rune. We can deal with that later.” She paused for a moment with a look of concentration. “Say, uh. Sorry, what’s your name?”

“Starfield.”

“Okay. Could you get ready to pull this out when I say to?” I nodded and got a good grip on the metal shard with a couple tentacles. “Good. Now, pull!”

My tentacles flexed, pressing against her body and the roof as I pulled the shard upwards. Even without the pain, the sensation of metal rubbing and grinding where it shouldn’t was rather… well, it sent a shiver through me.

The shard popped free like a cork from a bottle, accompanied by a gush of blood that slowed when I released the pressure on her body. The wound quickly sealed itself, and I felt the internal damage get sorted out soon after. In the space of a few minutes Rune was fully healed, with only the blood on, and the hole in, her shirt to show that she’d ever been injured.

Panacea sighed. “Well, that’s over with,” she said before starting to stand. Partway through the motion she staggered, breath hissing through her teeth, and she might’ve fallen had I not quickly reached out a tentacle to help steady her. She stiffened as she felt it wrap around her waist, then relaxed a little. “Thanks,” she said grudgingly, placing a hand on my helping tentacle as she steadied herself.

It took me a minute or so to realize that she’d gone completely still, her grip on my tentacle steadily tightening. I glanced up at her face, which had gone from a small frown to a look of wonder, eyes gazing into nothing.

 

Spark 4.4



“It’s so big,” Panacea said dreamily as she clutched Aria’s tentacle. Glory Girl’s head jerked up from where she’d been poking away at her phone to give her sister an odd look. Her expression soon changed, though, her eyes widening as she saw her sister’s face.

Turning to glare at me, she floated into the air. “What the hell are you doing to her?” she asked, her voice level and her tone dangerous. I felt a touch of fear, even though I knew intellectually that there was very little she could actually do to me. Probably.

I formed another mouth on Aria and, while trying to ignore the gasp Panacea made as I did so, said, “Nothing, I’m not doing anything to her! She just got all weird when she touched my tentacle!”

If anything, Glory Girl’s expression darkened. “Get away from her you freak!” she shouted as she shot forward.

I threw myself out of the way, thinning the tentacle in the healer’s grasp to slip it free as I went. I landed on my side and got a good view of the flier zipping through the space I’d just vacated. Panacea let out a cry of loss, stumbled, and fell on her backside. “Come back!” she shouted as her sister turned to face me once more. Her eyes flitted between the two of us. Finally, they settled on her sister, and I took advantage of her distraction to sneakily snake a few tentacles over to Rune.

Of course, there was a limit on how sneaky I could be when Rune and Panacea were so close together, and Glory Girl spotted them when they were but a foot from their goal. I tensed, ready to withdraw them should she attack. But instead of striking, she picked Panacea up and flew her back to the edge of the roof, allowing me to scoop up Rune and bring her back to my open stomach.

“Hey!” she shouted. “The hell are you doing?”

I pushed myself to my feet with a few tentacles as Rune’s feet vanished. “I’ll take care of her. You worry about your sister.” Turning away, I ran to the edge of the roof and jumped off, opening my wings with a snap as I fell. I watched the two girls with eyes on my back and legs so I wouldn’t be caught unaware if I was chased, but no one followed me.

Unmolested, I soared in the direction of the Bay. Once over it, I pulled up, then let myself fall, withdrawing Melody’s wings and covering myself with Aria once more before I hit the water.

.o.o.o.​

With a splash I exited the water into the cave. My Aria-suit was quickly withdrawn with soft thanks from me, and I was left looking around with the lights of some unfocused laser eyes.

I felt a little guilty about how I’d kept Rune instead of turning her over to the authorities, but, well… Everyone in the city knew how hard it was to keep Empire capes locked up without them being broken out. I could hold her much more easily, and I could probably make her do some good. I-

My thoughts were interrupted by a groan from within me, followed by a confused mumble. “I think she’s woken up,” Aria helpfully said, prompting a scream mere moments later.

I sighed. “We should probably let her out.” I pulled up my shirt and ripped open my torso once again in a motion that was becoming routine. The screaming got higher in pitch, likely due to Aria grabbing her, and soon enough Rune was clambering out of me and into my senses.

She tumbled awkwardly onto the stone floor, rolled over into a sitting position facing me, and scrambled back until she bumped into the wall. After a moment she noticed that one of Aria’s tendrils was still wrapped around her ankle, and she shrieked and kicked violently until it released her. Her eyes followed it as it withdrew into my still-open torso. “What, what the fuck!?” she cried shrilly.

Her gaze slowly traveled up to my face, or rather, the replacement formed from Aria. Four eyes stared out from it, two for sight in the normal locations, with two more right below them shining a bright red, lighting up where I looked. She trembled as she stared into those lower eyes fearfully. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but no sound came out.

Sighing, I crouched down in front of her. “Hello, Rune,” I said calmly.

She finally found her voice. “What was that?” she asked, her voice low, though I could still taste the fear on her. At least, I was pretty sure it was fear. All indications pointed to that, after all.

I could also feel her hand quietly scrabbling around on the rocky ground, as if I wouldn’t notice. I felt it when her finger hit a shard of loose stone, when she grabbed it, and when she flexed her power to make it hers. The stone shard suddenly shot towards my face, and might’ve put out an eye, or otherwise minorly inconvenienced me, had I not flexed my own control over her, making it stop a mere inch from its target.

A whimper escaped her parted lips, and her eyes were as wide as they could go.

“Alright, look.” I leaned towards her, then paused as the sharp bit of stone pierced deep into my eye, putting out its light. With a flex of her power that made her start trembling again, I pulled it out with a squelch before setting it to orbit above my hand. I noticed that Rune had closed her eyes tightly, so I took full control of her and made her open them as I fixed the damage the stone had done.

“Now, with that out of the way, you may have noticed something.” I released just enough control to let her speak, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she merely stared at me with a surprising amount of horror. With a mental sigh, I continued, “Yes, I can control your power, just as I can control your body.” As I watched, horror began to morph into despair. “You can speak, by the way.”

“Wh-what do you want from me?” Her voice trembled as she spoke.

“Oh, nothing much. You remember what happened, right?”

“You, you made me fight B- Hookwolf, and then...” I released control of her arms just before she started to paw at her stomach. “I, I thought… What?”

“I saved you, after that shard of Hookwolf went through you. Turns out, while it doesn’t heal you, putting you through to my other side keeps you from dying from injuries.” I paused. “It’s also what lets me control you, it seems. But in any case, I took you to Panacea, who healed you. You’d likely have died otherwise. So the way I see it, you owe me.”

Rune had put her face in her hands, shaking as she hyperventilated, but at my last sentence she peeked at me through her fingers. “B-but, didn’t I help you against Hookwolf?”

I tilted my head and dimmed my light eyed a little. “You did, though I had to, ah, ‘encourage’ you a little. But I wouldn’t say that it evens the scales, not fully, at least. You don’t just owe me, after all. You owe everyone in Brockton Bay for all the crimes you’ve committed.”

She covered her eyes again, which started to burn in a way that took me a moment to recognize as a prelude to tears. “Hey, don’t cry,” I said soothingly. At least, I hoped it was soothing. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s alright.”

She parted her fingers to glare up at me. “You hurt me as part of your ‘encouragement’. And when you shoved that tentacle in my mouth, I was sure you were going to… do things to me. Bad things. Not to mention, being told that by someone who’s brought me to some cave God-knows-where where the only light is their fucking glowing red eyes… no, it’s kind of the opposite of reassuring. Where the hell are we, anyway?”

“Somewhere under the Docks, if I had to guess,” I replied in a distracted tone. She thought I’d been about to do what to her? I didn’t even have those urges anymore, not really.

“Wait, what?” Rune had let her hands fall, and I took the opportunity to look at myself through her eyes. I had to admit, the red did look a little bit ominous, so I slowly change it to light blue. “I mean, I didn’t pay that much attention during geography class or whatever, but, uh, shouldn’t we be under water if we’re below the city?”
I shrugged. “Well, we aren’t, but just in case, let’s not break the walls or anything, alright?”

Rune nodded jerkily, and I held out a hand. “Come on, let’s get you up.” She started to raise her hand as if to grab mine, then stopped and pushed herself to her feet. I withdrew my hand and straightened up. “Now, I was just exploring this place. Would you like to come with, or would you prefer to go back inside me?”

She shuddered. “I’ll stay out here.”

“Very well, then.” I started healing the incisions on my front together before starting to walk down the dark tunnel. Rune didn’t follow until I made her run to catch up and fall in behind me.

“Do you want a light of your own?”I asked a moment after she started following me on her own.

“Would I have to hold an eyeball in my hand?”

“… Yes.”

“Then fuck you, no.”

 

Interlude 4.a



Amy Dallon clung to her sister more by force of habit than anything else as Victoria flew with her through the air. She’d been in a daze ever since she’d touched Starfield - or rather, the big, beautiful beast within her.

Amy found herself smiling as she thought about the creature, the being Starfield pretended was just her power. She remembered, vaguely, how she’d felt upon first seeing the odd cape. Her eyes had widened at the sight of the emerald green, tentacular flesh emerging from her face, studded with eyes and mouths and wrapped around her torso and limbs. She’d recoiled out of ill-conceived fear and disgust at the sight. The wings, tail, and claws, so black as to appear two-dimensional, had not helped matters one bit.. Were it not for those aspects, her costume of a shirt, jeans, and sneakers would have been absurd, even comical, not intimidating or off-putting.

Oh, how wrong she had been. One touch had been all that creature needed to show her how gorgeous it was. Any time she touched a living thing, be it plant, animal, human, whatever, she saw it in its entirety. Every organ, every tissue, every cell. And with that vision came the urge to make changes, edit them for whatever reasons came to mind, be they aesthetic, or editing real or perceived errors, or whatnot.

Naturally, she felt every microorganism that touched her skin. Towards the beginning of her days as a parahuman, she would occasionally neuter two or more bacteria, then modify them and pit them against one another in duels to the death. The winner received the grand prize of dying painlessly. The surviving losers received the same prize, naturally.

Over time, her microscopic battle royales grew more and more infrequent until they stopped entirely, and her power was increasingly used only for healing, but even then, the message her powers gave her was the same: biology was clay to be sculpted, be it into glorious works of art or merely to repair. Not that Amy let herself listen to that message, but still.

If there was one thing Amy had learned in art class, it was that every medium restricted the expression it could portray, and the same, her power insisted, held true for flesh. Every flesh, that is, except for that contained within Starfield. That creature, whatever it was, was possibility incarnate.

Oh, what she wouldn’t do to gaze upon it once more, Sure, its image was practically burned into her mind, but still. What mattered was that, for the first time in what felt like forever, she actually wanted to use her power.

“Ames?”

With some effort, Amy managed to drag herself away from tracing perfection in her mind to focus on her darling sister’s concerned face. “Yes, Vicky?” she asked, beaming up at her. She frowned internally as her sister’s eyes widened, though it didn’t reach her face.

“Amy, you’re scaring me. Are you sure you’re alright?”

Amy grinned and cupped Victoria’s cheek. “Oh, no, I’m fine. Better than fine, actually!”

For some reason that didn’t seem to reassure Vicky. In fact, she only looked more concerned and uncomfortable. “Okay, um. I’ll just take us home so you can rest, okay?”

“Okay!” Amy chirped before letting her eyes unfocus again that her sight might be overtaken once more by her memories of that gorgeous flesh.

.o.o.o.​

It wasn’t long before they landed in front of their house. Amy found herself hustled inside, then lightly pushed towards the stairs. She turned to pout at her sister, who didn’t seem at all amused by the display of childishness, only worried. “Fine,” Amy said, drawing out the word as she went up the stairs to her room.

Closing the door, she leapt onto her bed, giggling as she bounced, then buried her face her pillow. She laid there for a while before coming up for air and rolling on her back. She sighed, her smile finally starting to fade.

She needed to find that creature, to touch it again, to hopefully get a chance to change it in some way. But even if she could somehow find Starfield, how could she convince her to… well.

It was probably too much to hope for, she thought despondently. She was doomed to never lay eye or hand on that beauty again.

With her smile completely gone, she let her eyes wander around her room. They passed over her books, her computer, the various posters on the wall that seemed so dull and uninteresting now, before finally coming to rest on the little, potted cactus in the window. Her cousin Eric had given it to her for her birthday once, and while she’d glowered at him for the joke he made about it suiting her, now…

Slowly, her smile returned.

.o.o.o.​

Slowly, carefully, Amy snuck down the stairs, carefully skipping the squeaky step as she went.

“I, I don’t know, Mom.” She jumped at the sudden voice, her head whipping around to look at the source. Victoria was standing in the front hall, phone to her ear, body tense, and Amy breather a silent sigh of relief that her back was turned to the stairs. “She’s just… look, she touched Starfield’s tentacle, and… No… no, she just started acting weird, all smiling and upbeat.” A pause. “God, why is it so weird for her to act happy?”

Amy reached the bottom of the stairs and slowly made her way down the hall. “She’s up in her room, should I…?” Her steps hastened, and soon she was easing the kitchen door shut behind her.

Sighing, she smiled down at the adorable little bundle of green flesh wrapped around her wrist. A single eye stared up at her and a razor-toothed mouth whined hungrily. “Yes, yes,” she murmured soothingly, feeling it relax slightly. “I’m getting you some food now.”

She snagged a banana from the fruit bowl and started to peel it, only for a couple small tentacles to tug it towards the mouth. “Okay!” she said in fond exasperation, feeding the fruit into her baby’s mouth. Its tooth-lined throat twisted and flexed, shredding the banana, peel and all. She could feel the delight that rippled through it from the act of eating, the sensation causing a warmth to bloom in her chest.

Soon, the banana was gone, quickly being broken down and converted into more flesh. A long, pink tongue licked at Amy’s fingers, making her giggle. “Fine, I’ll get you more. Calm down, sweetie.” She looked around the kitchen, trying to decide what to feed it next, only to feel her little bundle of joy tugging her towards the open pantry. Following the tugs, she found herself led to a bag of potatoes. “Um, okay? If you want, I guess.”

Crouching down, she opened the bag, only for tentacles to dart in and grab a spud. It lifted the tuber to its mouth, then paused before offering it to Amy. “You… want me to feed you?” she guessed, then smiled and took it.

.o.o.o.​

“Amy?”

Victoria knocked on her sister’s bedroom door. When Amy didn’t respond, she continued, “So, uh, please don’t be mad at me, but, well… Mom’s coming home, and she’s getting the PRT to come out here as well. We… I’m worried about you. We just want to make sure you’re alright.” She paused, shifting uncomfortably on her feet before giving in and hovering an inch above the floor.

The response she waited for never came.

“Ames?” Still no response. “I’m coming in, okay?” With no protest, she opened the door. “Amy, I...”

The room was empty. Amy was gone.

A spike of fear shot through Victoria. “Amy?” she called out. “Ames, where are you?”

A door closed elsewhere in the house, and she zipped down the stairs. But it hadn’t been Mom coming in the front door, so it must’ve been elsewhere in the house.

She floated in the direction of the back door, pausing as she entered the kitchen. The fruit bowl was empty, an empty bag of some sort lay on the floor, and a drained milk jug sat on the counter. Concern grew in Victoria as she floated through and went out into the backyard.

Just as she was shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun, a loud crack made her spin to the side, ready to fight. But it wasn’t an enemy, just her sister, still clad in her Panacea robes. The sight made Victoria almost go limp with relief.

But then she saw something that brought the tension back in force. Amy’s right arm, almost to the elbow, was covered in a dark green, pulsating mass of flesh. Her fingertips poked out around the end, and where her palm would’ve been was a large eyeball, staring at a blackened, smoking patch on a nearby tree.

“Amy, what-?” The mousy girl jumped at the sound of Victoria’s voice, turning to look guiltily at her. The green… thing, whatever it was, oozed off of her arm for her to cradle it to her chest.

“Um, h-hi, Vicky,” she said, glancing down at the thing which was now watching Victoria with three new eyes. Almost like Starfield had… “Th-this is, um...”

“… What the hell is that thing?”

Amy scowled, then smiled hesitantly and held out the little abomination. “Uh, congratulations, you’re an aunt?”

 

Delve 5.1



Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The sound of falling water accompanied our footsteps, splashing down onto the small stalagmites that decorated the floor here and there. I helped Rune’s feet avoid them, both to keep her uninjured and because I felt it’d be a shame for all the time they spent growing to be rendered meaningless in an instant.

Rune didn’t seem to appreciate my efforts, of course, but then, she hadn’t had that long to get used to my control.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

My lights played across the floor, the walls, the ceiling of the tunnel we were in, walking Rune alongside me. I had to make her legs work a little faster than mine for her to keep up, as they were shorter than mine. She was shorter than me. In fact, while I hadn’t done her the disservice of unmasking her in order to check, I suspected she was younger than my fifteen years. That suspicion certainly didn’t to me any favors with regards to the guilt from getting her hurt.

Mentally shaking my head, I focused on the path ahead of us. We’d been walking through this tunnel for a good few minutes, with little change in scenery. Honestly, it was getting a little boring.

Rune suddenly tried to speak, and so, against my better judgment (well, my wish to not get cursed out again) I released my control over her mouth. She worked her jaw for a bit as she tried to turn her head to glare at me, then asked, “So, why the hell are we walking through this tunnel instead of going, like, literally anywhere else?”

“Well,” I started, drawing the word out, “the PRT and Protectorate are likely looking for me, and I really don’t want to deal with them right now. So, tunnel exploration instead.”

“And you couldn’t have left me with them and come here by yourself?”

I felt a leaden weight of self-recrimination start anxiously churning in my empty abdomen before I tamped it down hard. This wasn’t the time for that. “I… well, like I said, I really don’t want to deal with them, and besides, you’re m- I mean, you’d probably be out in, like, a week anyway, so why bother?”

Her efforts to glare at me grew stronger, as did the burning in her eyes. “So instead you drag me somewhere under the city, into a tunnel with who knows what awful things living in it. And how long are you planning for us to stay down here, anyway?”

Shrugging her shoulders, I continued walking us along. My lights revealed some shadows on the walls a ways down the tunnel, and I hastened our pace slightly.

“You don’t know. Wonderful. Did you even bring enough food and water for us?” A pause. “Did, did you bring any at all?” I remained silent as I tried to determine what the shadows were. “Oh my god, you didn’t, did you? We’re gonna get lost and starve down here, and it’ll be all your fau- mmph!”

I closed her mouth sharply, narrowly avoiding biting her tongue. Might’ve served her right if I had bit it. “Annoying,” I growled in my other voice, lips not moving. Her heart rate spiked, and her breathing accelerated. With my normal voice, I continued, “We won’t get lost, I have good spatial memory. And you won’t starve if I put you through me. Now, are you going to continue to irritate me with your complaints?” With that, I returned control of her mouth to her.

“No,” she said, her voice small and trembling. Her vision swam a little, and I quickly blinked away the gathering tears as the guilt attempted to make a comeback. In an attempt to comfort her, I extended a smooth tentacle to gently pat her head, but I stopped when she tried to flinch away from my touch. I let the tentacle fall to rest against my back.

I allowed myself to be distracted by the fact that we had gotten close enough for the shadows to be revealed as branching tunnels. We came to a stop near them, but shining my lights down them merely revealed that they gradually curved in the direction we’d been heading. “Hmm. Which way to go...” My finger tapped my chin as I considered each path in turn. I glanced at Rune. “What do you think, hmm? Left, right, or continue forward?”

Rune sniffed quietly. “Is… is turning back an option?” I shake her head. “Then, uh, forward, I guess.”

“If you’re sure.” And with that, we continued walking down the tunnel before us.

.o.o.o.​

So I said it was getting a little boring before, right? Well, half an hour later with no end in sight for the tunnel, I was starting to regret even coming down here. Rune was apparently refusing to talk anymore, instead just allowing herself to trudge along under my control.

I don’t know how long we spent like that, but eventually Rune started getting tired. It was an odd sensation, as I, myself, wasn’t tired at all. In fact, it felt almost like a limb falling asleep, except less pins-and-needles and more actual weariness. It made sense to me that she was feeling tired after the day she’d been through. I suspected that the weariness I was feeling from her was entirely physical, with a greater level of mental exhaustion that I could not sense. There was no indication as to whether or not my suspicions were true, of course, but whatever.

I brought us to a gradual stop and had Rune turn to look at me. “So, ah… I noticed that you’re getting kinda tired. I’d be willing to take a break if you need one.”

“You can… Of course you can tell how tired I am.” Rune’s voice was laced with much resignation. “Fine. I’m just...”

“You’ve had quite the day,” I said, attempting to make my tone soothing. I led her over to an area of the tunnel clear of stalagmites and sat down, leaning against the wall. I then had her sit in my lap, leaning against me, so I could put my arms around her. I did my best to ignore the small shudder that attempted to make its way through her body.

Rune tried to stay awake, I could tell, but eventually her eyes closed, and her breathing slowed and leveled out. Asleep at last.

As I held her sleeping form, I looked around, my light playing off the walls. But when it revealed some odd shadows, I stopped and focused more eyes thence.

Two symbols had been meticulously carved into the stone, one above the other. One was simple, a diagonal line with five smaller lines branching off of it. The other was a sort of warped, five-pointed star, with something akin to a flaming eye in its center.

I found myself staring at them, as they were calming and pleasant to look at. Soon, I found my various eyes drifting closed, and, though I did not fully fall asleep, I’ll admit I dozed a little.

 

Delve 5.2



I dreamt, despite my intentions, but it was odd. I was seated… somewhere, in some room, and across from me sat someone very familiar. She was young, with dark hair and pale skin, but she was leaning forward, casting her face in shadow and hiding it from view. I tried to speak, ask her who she was, but no words, no sound issued forth. I tried to stand, but could not move.

The girl slowly straightened, revealing a mouth, wide and unhappy. It fell open, and from within poured forth a trickle, then a stream of crimson and ivory. Suddenly, she was above me, held aloft by the arms dangling from the ceiling. The flood poured over my face, into my mouth, teeth clicking against mine as I choked.

.o.o.o.​

My eyes snapped open as I jerked, gasping, into wakefulness. I was left momentarily disoriented before realizing that yes, I was, indeed, receiving images from a multitude of eyes. My sight sorted itself out soon enough, though, and I let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh, good, you’re awake!”

A surprised smile formed on my borrowed face. “Oh, um, good morning, Aria. And Melody and Rest as well, of course.”

“Morning or not, it is good to finally be free to talk with you once again,” Melody replied with a smile in her voice as Rest crafted some muted splashing into a happy sound.

“We kept quiet before, since that girl was near you and awake, and because you weren’t talking to us,” Aria stated from a mouth on a tentacle that was picking up a small pebble. As I watched, the pebble was gently placed on a small pile of other pebbles and rocks, with the largest halfway up the pile. “Oh!” Aria exclaimed as she noticed my borrowed eyes on her creation. “Um, well, I got a little bored while you slept, and since I assumed you wouldn’t want me nibbling on your new friend there, well...”

“New friend?” I was confused for a moment, until something squirming in my arms made me look down. “Oh.” Rune was still asleep, though from her occasional movements and what I could see of the expression on her face, she wasn’t having such a nice time of it. Then, she seemed to calm, her face smoothing out, and I felt a measure of relief.

Returning most of my attention to my friends, I said, “Well, I’m not sure if she’ll actually join us as a friend. She’s… well, she’s kind of a bad person. I intended to turn her over to the PRT, but, um...” I trailed off as I tried to put together my reasoning for keeping her.

“Does it have to do with what happened with that Miss Militia person?” Melody asked carefully.

“Yes. Well, kind of.” I frowned down at the girl in my arms. “I think I also felt, feel, strangely possessive of her? Like, she’s mine now, or something like that?” The words felt right, but if she was mine, did that mean I owned her? Like, slavery?

I shuddered, fighting the urge to shove Rune away from me. I ended up hugging her tighter, making her protest in her sleep until I let up on the pressure.

“It sounds like she’s pretty much a friend already, then,” Aria stated with a tone of certainty.

My head jerked up, bouncing off the stone wall as I stared into some of Aria’s eyes, and back at myself through them. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean, she’s been inside you, and she is under your control, which means she can’t do bad things if you don’t want her to. Now you just have to get her to be nice to you and us, and she’ll be a real friend!”

“And she might make learning your language easier for us, too,” Melody added, before pausing. “Taylor? What, what is wrong?”

I was staring in growing horror at what I could see of Aria’s form. “You mean… Have I been treating you like, like slaves?” A flood of self-loathing threatened to drown me.

“No!” Melody said quickly. “No, Taylor, you have been nothing but a wonderful friend to us. You know what I can do, so believe me when I say that we all love you so, so much. You were, you are, our friend, when you had no reason to care for us. You gave us a window from nothingness into a world of such beauty, and you have ensured that no harm came to us, through our own actions or otherwise. I know you love us, so please, do not hate yourself for it.”

I swallowed, the incoming self-loathing slowing to a trickle. “But, but didn’t I take advantage of your-”

“No,” all three said at once. Melody continued, “It is perfectly alright, Taylor. Please, do not dwell on it any further.”

“… Alright,” I murmured, and did my best to pull my mind away from those thoughts. My gaze fell on those symbols again, before I jerked it away, letting it fall to Rune, and then to my hands.

After a few minutes of clearing my mind, a thought occurred to me. “Melody?”

“Yes, Taylor?”

“So, ah, how much of your claws do you usually put through me?”

Melody makes a sound of understanding. “It is usually around half of each claw, as they seem to get too wide for your fingertips.”

“I see.” I stared at my slender fingers, and at the smoothly-trimmed nails they bore. Maybe…

I pulled out one of the smaller knives I’d obtained, flipping it open as I extended the index finger on my other hand. Bringing the tip of the knife to my fingertip, I paused for a moment to steel myself. Then, before I could lose my nerve, I jammed the knife under my nail.

There was some pain, of course, but as usual, it was muted and distant. I worked the knife deeper, watching it move under my nail, until I judged it was deep enough. I then pulled the knife up, bending the nail back until I could tear it off and toss it aside. The knife then turned on the flesh that had been shielded by the nail, cutting it out. One of the cuts I usually made for Melody’s claws finished the job. “Try that now, Melody.”

It was as her long, curved claw finished coming through that I finally realized that Rune had gone very still in my arms. I lowered one of Aria’s tentacles in front of her so the eye nearest its tip could get a look at her face, and I saw that her eyes had gone as wide as they could behind her mask, staring at my finger.

“Oh, um. Good morning, Rune?”

 

Delve 5.3



Rune suddenly started struggling, pushing frantically against my arms. After a moment’s hesitation I released her, and she fell to her hands and knees and started scrambling away, leaving me to mourn the lost comfort. She barely made it a scant few feet before the sound and sensation of harsh, fruitless retching reached me. The sensation of her stomach seemingly doing its best to evert itself was actually pretty new to me, and made me pause for a moment.

It took me until after I’d pushed myself to my feet to recognize what I’d been feeling from Rune before the nausea took over. It’d been a while since I’d last felt it myself, but I was pretty sure that the dull ache that had been emanating from her gut was hunger.

… In my defense, while Aria was constantly hungry, hunger felt different for her, probably because her body was as far from human anatomy as possible without being, I don’t know, silicon-based or something.

I was getting off track.

I moved to kneel beside Rune and placed a hand on her shoulder, only to feel a little hurt when she flinched away from my touch. With a sigh, I settled for waiting until she was done dry-heaving before I— oh, she’s done. But now she was shivering.

“Are you okay, now?” I asked. She stiffened, then turned her head to give me a teary-eyed glare. “Alright, alright, sorry,” I said, holding up my hands in a calming gesture.

Rune opened her mouth angrily. “What the actual fuck is w--”

A sudden tremor interrupted her, with a loud boom from deeper into the tunnels hot on its heels. Shards of stone fell from the ceiling, and before I could think about what was happening I threw myself over my Rune, just in time to catch something sharp with my back.

Once the rain of debris had ceased and I was certain nothing more was going to fall down on us I pushed myself up off of her very still form. I extended a light and an eye out on a tendril, which I turned to look at my back.

Oh. So that’s why it felt weird.

I twisted around, trying and failing to reach the stalactite embedded in my bare flesh. My motions must have attracted Rune’s attention, because she pushed herself upright and turned to look at me, giving me another angle from which to view the stone spike in me.

“Well?” I asked after a few moments of her staring. “Are you going to help me with this or what?”

Haltingly, her hand rose towards me, only to hesitate partway. With an exasperated sigh I reached over with the tendril to shove the stalactite through.

She yelped and recoiled, which I ignored in favor of sealing up the wound behind it. Or rather, trying to, since the skin surrounding the hole in my back was thoroughly crushed and wasn’t responding to my efforts. I’d have to cut that bruise out in order to heal, it seemed, but that would probably have to wait. In the meantime…

I withdrew the tendril and returned my eye and light to their prior positions before standing and turning to Rune. “Alright, come on,” I said, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. When she didn’t move I rolled my lights and eyes and made her extend a hand so I could pull her up.

“Wh-where are we going?” she asked in a trembling voice. I looked her in the face, and… well, quite frankly, she looked rather close to tears. Maybe the stress was getting to her?

“We’re gonna go see what that noise was, of course!”

She started to protest, but I just grabbed her wrist and started off down the tunnel, tugging her along behind me.

.o.o.o.​

Four more times the tremors and booms resounded through the tunnels, none as strong or loud as the first. That fourth time, though, brought about more change than all the others before it.

I didn’t need them anymore, as lighting had flickered to life near the edges of the high ceiling. Lighting that was clearly artificial in nature, but not in any way that I was familiar with. Pencil-thin lines of bright, sickly green light hung in the air in loosely coiled quadruple helixes with no apparent source, segments spinning lazily in alternating directions and separated by odd, glyph-like designs formed of the same light. In a few places the lines passed through stalactites to no apparent effect.

I let my lights fade into nothing, absorbing them as I looked around. The glow given off by the lines was more than enough to illuminate the room we’d found ourselves in. And it was a room, or maybe a hub, but not a cave. For one, there were the lights, of course, but for another, it was almost perfectly octagonal and the walls were smooth enough to reflect the light. Each of the walls had an opening in it, including the one Rune and I had entered from, that made me think doorway, despite the fact that each was easily fifteen feet tall or more, maybe nine or so wide, and had no door to speak of. Half of the doorways led to long, now-lit hallways, while one of the others was sealed with columns of black stone. The remainder opened into rooms bigger than this one that were… lined with massive cubicles, but round, I guess?

Weird.

Another tremor made me look up at the ceiling, because more stalactites falling twenty feet onto Rune wouldn’t be healthy for her. Thankfully, the stalactite population in this hub area was far sparser than it’d been in the tunnel we’d slept in, and most had grown long enough to meet with the stalagmites below them.

Shaking my head, I started off towards the tunnel opposite the one we’d come from, only to stop when Rune remained still. “Come on, this way,” I said, looking over my shoulder at her.

The girl had cringed away from the sound of the latest blast, but now was staring around, wide eyes full of wonder. “What… what is this place?” she breathed.

I shrugged. “Couldn’t say.” Though I do wonder the same thing.

“This is fucking ancient,” she said, though it sounded like she wasn’t talking to me as much as she was to herself. “‘S gotta be, to have all these stalag-things, right?” I didn’t answer, but she continued on, anyway. “It’s been down here all this time, beneath the city, and nobody noticed?”

She started moving away, my grip on her wrist having lessened from “slightly painful” to light enough for it to slip from my fingers. I let myself be contented with the discomfort of the forming bruises she gingerly rubbed. Hesitant steps through the thin layer of black dust on the ground took her to the sealed doorway, and she laid her hand on one of the columns blocking it. Through her, the stone felt so smooth I would almost call it slippery, were it not so very dry.

Suddenly, I felt her power flex, and the column shuddered. “Um, what’re you doing?”

“Trying to get past this, see what’s inside. Duh.” She didn’t look up from her work, but I could still feel her eyes roll.

“And what if it’s sealed for a reason? Like, maybe there’s something dangerous behind there just waiting to rip your face off? I don’t want to have to rush you to Panacea again so soon.”

Rune’s free hand clenched, then relaxed. “I just want… no, I need to see what’s there. And yes, I know, curiosity killed the cat and all that.”

“... But satisfaction brought it back,” I said with a sigh.

She turned to give a look that I could only really “see” by feeling those muscles flex, thanks to her mask. “What?”

“That’s how the rest of the quote goes.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

I shook my head with a grin, and her eyes slipped to my teeth, so very unlike hers, before hastily snapping away. “Nope. There’s a lot of sayings like that, that’re positive and all but have gotten butchered down into ones that promote conformity.” At least, that’s what I remembered of what Mom had told me on the subject.

The odd feeling of lungs stretched wide around a deep breath, then allowed to relax. “H’okay. Whatever.” Rune flexed her power again, with the impressive result of making the column maybe wiggle slightly, and she growled under her breath. “Fucker doesn’t want to come free.”

“Maybe you’re pushing or pulling the wrong way?”

She didn’t respond, but I felt her use her powers a couple more times, before finally her efforts were rewarded. The grinding of stone against stone deep beneath our feet rumbled through Rune’s bones as the column eased its way into the ground. Air puffed out of the room, disturbed by the column’s descent, right into Rune’s face, carrying with it the cloying stench of an eons-old corpse.

As she staggered away, hacking her lungs up and gulping down great breaths of the relatively fresher cave air, I absorbed my nose into the rest of Aria’s flesh and stepped closer to the gap to peer within. There was light, yes, but much less than was in the hub. A closer look revealed why.

The interior, which had probably differed in layout from the other rooms, was utterly trashed. Great, arcing scars marred the walls. Tall pedestals ringed with claw-like bits of stone lined the edges of the oblong room, each damaged in some way, and some even shattered until naught but tooth-like lumps remained. The ones with the least damage had fingers of lightning, the same sickly green as the lights, arcing fitfully from the claws to play across silvery, long-cornered cubes perched atop the pedestals. The actual lighting in the room had many segments simply missing, and what there was shone off corroded bits of metal that littered the ground. And in the center of all lay what I could only assume had caused the destruction.

It was huge, of a size comparable to Aria’s full body, though not quite as massive. Even so, its bulk dominated the room, taller than me even though it lay on its side. Its worm-like, dessicated, almost cancerous-looking body lay contorted atop the rubble, tumorous bulges in its flesh casting odd shadows. Long, wispy, and tattered streamers of flesh splayed out from seemingly random places on the body, as did a handful of knobbly, sticklike limbs with too many joints.

I was pretty sure it was dead. Pretty sure. Even if I couldn’t see why it might have died from where I was.

My thoughtful, “Huh,” drew Rune’s attention, and she pinched her nose shut before venturing towards the opening. I stepped back to allow her room.

She stared in for a good few moments, before letting out a rather nasal, “Jesus.”

I let her stare for a little while more, before eventually asking, “Is your curiosity satisfied?”

Her eyes flicked to me, giving me a good idea of how odd my current face looked without a nose. I backed away a bit more and reformed it. “Kinda?” she said, waggling her free hand a little. “I just, I wonder what it could be. I’ve never—”

Another rumble and crash made her jump, interrupting what she’d been saying. “Fuck! What even is that? Are they fighting a war up there or something?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say someone is making another entrance.”

She blinked, then started towards the tunnel that the noises had been coming from without a word. I shook my head and joined her, what I’d just seen and what might be waiting for us ahead warring for a place at the fore of my thoughts.