Apotheosis 1.4
The meeting place is apparently a fairly small cottage in a village that was a couple of portals away. It had taken a while for me to find a power other than Clairvoyant's that would allow me to actually spy the location so I could teleport to it. I was hesitant to use that power again. I didn't want to tip off the Fae-Valkyrie of my survival just yet if she didn't know already. From what Lisa had told me it seemed like she was on the straight and narrow, but I wasn't so sure. Once I knew where we were going, I simply used the core power that allowed me to teleport. I had asked Lisa if she had any insight, but her power couldn't read it, her best guess was that it was extremely direct and efficient teleportation, without any frills or extra functions attached. That actually made it excellent for showing up quietly inside the cottage and simply going outside to sit on the porch area.
I was, due to my ability simply teleport us there, able to examine the village our meeting place was situated in. It was a bit of a shock, to see the people living here dressed in what amounted to rags, eking out an existence on the borders of civilization. As far as I could tell, electricity and running water didn't exist here, and even food was scarce. On some level, I'd known that with the damage caused, there would be trouble maintaining infrastructure, but I had expected that things like food and running water would at least be universal. I turned my curious gaze to Lisa, who was sitting next to me, watching me as I observed the village.
"Even with tinkers helping out, there just isn't enough room in the cities, and in the places they aren't there, the infrastructure just isn't being maintained. There aren't enough people to manage or repair what's leftover. Those who have nowhere else left band together and form villages like this. They're not totally unconnected, but they have little to trade for food or goods," Lisa explains. This, more than anything cements my desire to fix things in this second chance of mine. I'm certain given my powers, that I could provide significant material wealth to the inhabitants of this village, but that would be treating the symptom more than the problem itself. Maybe if I gave people the skills and then created the necessary infrastructure- "You start helping out without a plan and people will take notice." Lisa warns. Maybe I should just figure out a way for her power to work on me so I don't have to eternally wonder whether Lisa's power picked something up or I'm just predictable. "We'll help people, but at your scale, you need to think bigger than just one village at a time, and that's why we're going to meet, right? To figure out what you want to do, and how to go about doing it. So just hold off on acting a little bit, ok?"
I think it over, it makes sense, I suppose to not draw attention to myself until I'm ready to really shake things up, but it still feels callous to just leave these people before me to slowly starve. Maybe it's superficial, to help only the people in front of me, but I should start somewhere. I look Lisa in the eyes as I reach for a power that will allow me to help, but subtly. After sifting through a bunch of non-helpful combat powers, I eventually settled for frost generation. Before, I would have assumed a power like this would be ex nihilo, but now I can feel the power slowly draining of energy as I use it to make some frost crystals near the well, that should slowly melt and seep into the well. At least they won't be going thirsty for a while. Lisa just sighs at me. Then her gaze focuses over my shoulder.
Turning to see what she's looking at, I see Aisha strolling down the dirt road, in her full Imp getup, I can tell it's not the same costume I made for her, that one probably wouldn't fit anymore, but it looks to be of similar quality at least. Of course, no one else notices her, though Lisa and I both do. That tells me… not much actually. It's possible she's still excluding me from her power, but it's also possible that Lisa and I can simply bypass her power to an extent. I'm not actively trying, but that niggling sense of all the powers everywhere at all times that I've been suppressing still identifies the existence of Aisha's passenger.
She walks up casually to the table Lisa and I are sitting at, looks at both of our faces, and then plops herself down on the seat next to Lisa. Pulling up her mask as she puts her legs on the table. Lisa sighs.
"Thought you were dead." Aisha opens. Lisa cringes.
"I'm uh… not?"
"That's pretty fucking obvious." Aisha's tone is, well, not hostile I don't think, but it almost seems like she doesn't know how to react to me, which is fair.
"You're looking good. So-"
"We're going to wait for Sabah and Lily so that Taylor doesn't have to explain things twice." Lisa interrupts her.
Aisha seems to consider arguing, "Fine," she settles.
We sit in silence, until Lily, with Sabah on her arm, open the door. The door to the inside of the cottage. I look at Lisa. Her eyes are twinkling like she's gotten one over on me, which, I suppose, she has. Lily and Sabah are both wearing breezy-looking sundresses, with matching wide-brim hats.
Lily's eyes snap to me as soon as the door opens wide enough for her to see me. "Why don't we head inside?" she suggests.
The three of us still sitting get up and follow the other two back inside the cottage. I do a quick check and can't see any way they would have gotten in other than the front door, which they obviously didn't as I was inside there when I brought Lisa. I go to the indoor sitting area, which contains some shoddy looking yet remarkably comfortable seats.
Lily's hasn't stopped looking at me, her expression unreadable. Sabah also seems to have noted, as she speaks first, "I'm sure we all have questions, but I think first we should let Taylor tell her own story," she suggests. I shoot her a grateful smile
I open my mouth and just stop. I can't explain, not in the literal sense, but in that I can't figure out exactly what to say. My first instinct is to go for a thinker power to help me explain, but not only does that seem excessive. I don't want to become dependent on powers just to be able to interact like a normal person. This time, though, I elect to leave out a bit of the story.
"After, uh, afterward. Contessa and I had a chat. We talked a bit about my future, and what my options were, she could umm… communicate with me even though I couldn't speak. Near the end of that conversation though, my passenger did… something, and now I sort of just have all the powers?" I rushed through the last bit, making it come out more as a question than a statement.
"What?" was Aisha's response. Sabah just looked short of shocked, while Lily looked faintly suspicious.
I continue, "Then, I was sort of overwhelmed, so I've been in a coma since then." To punctuate my very quick retelling of all the nonsense I'd been through since Zion died, I activated my glow at a low level again. This time, just enough to get my long black hair swaying in the nonexistent indoor breeze, I'm sure my irises were starting to glow gold as well.
"Oh my God!" Lily's hand was already reaching for one of her rapiers and I cut the glow. I did not want to get stabbed by one of the only pow-people that could hurt me.
Aisha, on the other hand, is grinning from ear to ear. The kind of grin where you know she's about to make trouble. Before I can figure out what trouble that is, Sabah pipes up again, sounding exasperated. "We already have a Goddess and a Valkyrie, what's one more." she glances at Lisa, and I don't quite catch the exchange, but she turns back to me, "I, for one, am glad that you're ok Taylor," she says in a not-so-subtle hint to her partner.
"I'm sorry, I'm really glad you're ok, but it's just a lot to take in, you know? What now?"
"Isn't it obvious, now that we've got extra muscle, we take the fight back to Teacher," Aisha responds.
"I thought after the last unsuccessful attempt, we would adopt a wait and see approach. After all, he's hardly the worst person out there. I, for one, think we should target the Fallen if anyone."
"That was before we got enough firepower to wipe Teacher off the map."
"I have to-" Lily starts, but gets cut off by Lisa.
"Why don't we ask what Taylor here wants to do? It's her that enables all this after all," Lisa shifts the attention back to me.
"I, uh, well I wanted your advice on what to do next. Aisha, you think I should go after Teacher?" "Yeah, you fucking should." "And Sabah and Lily, you think the Fallen are a bigger threat?"
"I believe so," Sabah answers.
It would be so easy to be indecisive here, to say that I wanted more time to think, but I was pretty sure that the info I wanted to know was just details. Teacher would want to consolidate power, he wanted control, and while that didn't mean that people under him would flourish necessarily, they likely weren't dying in droves. The Fallen, on the other hand, I vaguely remember that during that they had gone around causing chaos. In truth though, dealing with either of those things were what I wanted to do first.
"I know it's been half a year, but to me, it feels like no time has passed at all. I don't want to get in a fight just yet. There are a lot of people I still want to talk to, if not for advice, then at least for closure. My Dad, Valkyrie, Contessa, Dr. Yamada, Dinah," I count off my fingers. "I think that Contessa is doing something with Teacher, or at least she was before I had the whole coma, thing. So I think it's pretty likely that I'll end up antagonizing Teacher first."
"That's fair," Lily concedes, "but a lot of those people are being watched by the Wardens basically 24/7."
"I'm sure I can figure something out. I've got a lot of options after all."
"Just remember, your first action will reveal you to the world, it will set the tone for what others will expect," Sabah warns. She kind of reminds me of all those lectures on PR I had when I was a Ward.
Lisa claps her hands together, "Alright, I was originally planning on setting up a strike at the Fallen, but I think that since Taylor wants to go after Teacher first, I'll go back to digging up info on him. It'll be tougher since he knows I'm coming, but I'll manage. I wouldn't mind some help though," she says, looking at Aisha.
"I'm down, I've been wanting to get back at the bastard since our last fight, and now, we have an edge," she grins at me.
Sabah looks at Lily, who exchanges some silent words with her, before turning to me. "It'll be tough, managing the Needlepoints and trying to figure out the Fallen, but we'll manage somehow."
"Great, now, Taylor here can get you back where you came from much easier than the way here, isn't that right."
I wonder if I should feel annoyed at being volunteered as transport, but it makes logical sense, and it's not really worth it to get annoyed over. I look to Sabah and Lily, tugging on my power a bit. I can feel the glow come about me again. It's not warm, but there's this feeling of power that comes about whenever I turn it on, so I've been trying to avoid using it as much as possible. That's hard though when basically all my powers sort of require it to be there as a base. I activate a touch-based post-cognition power and take their hands, sifting through the info I get until I find what looks like a quiet room.
We're there in an instant. No fanfare or disorientation, which is nice I suppose. I take a look around and feel myself flush a bit as I realize that this is their bedroom. Sabah calmly leads me out to what looks like the common area of an apartment, decorated with many stuffed animals, with Lily following close behind.
"Taylor, just remember that you're always welcome here."
"Thanks."
Next is Aisha, Where she lives looks a lot more like a warehouse, complete with metal catwalks running across the sides to establish 'floors'
"Good to have you back, even if you are a bit different,' she comments. "Though I am curious, what kinds of powers do you have now? Can you show me one?"
I'm honestly a little surprised she didn't go for an 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours' joke. Obliging her request isn't too hard. I tap into my power and search for something evident. The first one I find makes me unbeatable in hand-to-hand, but that's not really evident, then I find something that I can use to poke Aisha back a bit. I turn to look at her, and she shudders as she feels the sensation of many spiders crawling along her skin, a sensation I know quite well.
"What the hell was that?"
"I messed with your sense of touch."
"That's freaky, but I guess I . Catch you around," she says, walking off towards a couple of pale-faced kids looking at me with curious expressions. I take that as a dismissal and teleport back to Lisa.
She looks at me, "The people you mentioned aren't the only ones you want to talk to, are they?"
"I'd like to see Theo, maybe talk to Legend or Chevalier if I can manage, but they can wait," I make a gesture at the window, and by extension the village, "I can't afford to just sit around and wait, people need help. People might be afraid of me, want to kill me, but right now. I'm tough, I can handle it." I'm surprising myself with how much conviction I put into the words.
"You never did know when to quit." She gets up, "Don't take me back to my apartment. We're going to see if you can teleport to a location in a picture, and if I'm going up against Teacher again, I need a different safehouse."
AN:
Trying to make it a bit more light-hearted compared to the last chapter.
Not sure I really got Lily and Sabah's characters down yet, but live and learn after all.
I wish I could promise that this is the last chapter of sitting around and talking, but at least next chapter it will be exciting subterfuge along with the sitting around and talking.