Magelight 3.8


Then

"What's the first rule when breaching a villain hideout Victoria?"

"If you're doing it alone, then you've already doomed the plan."

"More than likely, doomed the plan. There's a key difference there, because we have to account for even the most out there of scenarios, both for and against the mission."

Seems like a distinction made just so you could say I was wrong, I thought, even as I kept the correction in mind. It was annoying, but it was advice born out of experience that I didn't have. Not yet anyways.

Mom leaned back in her chair, lemon iced-tea in hand as she watched me jot down the notes. Crystal had once called her a 'Wine Aunt' during her more emotional rants to me about how stupid adults were, and even though I didn't understand what she meant, I agreed with her because Crystal was older and cool. A quick Wooble search later had me pissed and also kind of agreeing with Crystal.

Pissed, because that was my mom, and only Amy and I had the right to talk about her behind her back when we were alone. Agreeing, because she totally for sure had the Wine Aunt mannerism down pat. Leaned back to the point of semi-reclining in her chair, relaxed just enough that she was on the verge of lounging, holding her iced-tea in one hand with the occasional sip during her lecture...

Of course, Mom hated wine. Hated alcohol in general really. She didn't mind if Dad had a beer or two during a barbeque or family dinner, but she never had a sip of it herself. Neither had Aunt Sarah, when I'd thought about it. I'd never asked why, and it was only now that I wondered if it was because it played a part in their trigger events.

Not that I would ask of course. It had been... rough, to hear Mom and Aunt Sarah talk about it. Rougher to see the looks on their faces as they relived it. I already felt bad enough about how I handled Crystal, before I gained powers myself.

"Second rule Victoria," Mom said after taking a sip. "You're going to breach the villain's base of operations. We're assuming you've done as much reconnaissance as possible without tipping them off, you have a team with you, and you have the assistance of vetted officers of the law. It's never going to be that clean, but that's not relevant right now. What do you do?"

I thought for a moment. It was easy to jump to what I was good at, very tempting to try and formulate an argument for Carol's obvious rebuttal.

But I had to pick my battles here. I wanted to impress her, but I also wanted to learn, and it would be a long time before we wrapped up an argument between us. For better or worse, her lawyering skills had been easy for me to pick up on that front.

"Sentries," I answered. "Traps too. Have to figure out a way to take those out as cleanly and quietly as possible or else things go tits up."

"Language," Mom scolded. I rolled my eyes even as she went on, "But yes, be on the lookout for the lookouts, and the various forms they can come in. Your father and I have had one too many close calls with proximity mines and gunmen on rooftops."

"You'd think they'd learn. Guns don't beat powers."

Mom arched an eyebrow, "Is that so?"

Isn't it?

Damn it, speaking of traps, I had just about shoved my hand into one right in front of me.

"I mean, um-"

"Careful with those," Mom chided. "Tripping on words will lead you to trip up in the public eye, especially with interviews. The media love a target to mock, and I don't want to see your face on those mems."

"The what?"

"You know what. You showed me one of the Grandiose. The one with a boy blowing a bubble but with an image of him instead?"

I blinked, "Do you mean memes?"

Mom was silent, and I could see her paging back through the conversation and what she had said.

I couldn't help but laugh, slightly horrified, "Oh my gooood, Mom! Have you been calling memes, 'mems' all this time? Please don't tell me you've said that in front of other people."

It was her turn to roll her eyes, but there was a bit of a blush on her cheeks, "It's just a slip up Victoria. And no, I don't discuss 'memes' in public. It wouldn't be proper in my work environment and I doubt Angelou and Mrs. Dorwain would be interested."

A horrible thought hit me, "Does Dad know what they're called? Don't tell me he calls them mems."

"No," she said. A small smile quirked at her lips, "He argued that they should be called 'meh-mehs'."

"Oh my god." I ran my hands through my hair in horror, "Oh my god. I can never let you two talk to my friends again. I can't risk the damage to my social life."

"How rude, young lady. And off topic-"

"I'd have to move to Siberia," I said mock seriously. "Fake my death, change my name, dye my hair purple so no one would ever suspect it was me."

"Ah, yes. Because dying your hair worked out so well for you before."

I rolled my eyes at her. She rolled her own right back at me. There was a lot of eye-rolling back and forth between the two of us, even as she took a sip of iced-tea, which was honestly sort of impressive. I probably would have spilled.

My Mom was a such a dork when it came to things that weren't lawyering or being a superhero, but it was also kind of fun when it felt like she was treating me like a friend. Like she was actually understanding me for a bit.

All good things had to come to an end though.

She coughed and adjusted her position on her chair, "Back on topic." Her tone went from warm to firm mentor in a heartbeat, "You have your team, you've taken out the security measures for the base, and you have as much preparation as you can acquire in a reasonable span of time. What do you do next?"

I smiled, this was easily my favorite part, "Shock and awe. Hit them hard, hit them fast, and make it last."

"I approve of the repetition. Yes, shock and awe, absolutely. It's important to keep a villain off their mental and physical footing, because they hold the home-field advantage. Any half decent supervillain will have made themselves intimately familiar with their surroundings and left escape measures in close reach. That doesn't mean we act recklessly. It means hitting them with precise and measured force to get the result we want. If done right, the supervillain surrenders without a fight, or at least without a serious one. Gone wrong and that's how you get people hurt or killed."

I wrote it all down for later, even though it would have been much easier to just transcribe it to my online notebook. Repetition and patterns made things stick, and I wanted to absorb as much information in being the best hero as possible.

"Can I get an example?"

"Of it going right? Hm, I don't know if you remember the stories we told you about the Pillagers-"

"Yep. You and Aunt Sarah took out the leader yourselves right?"

"Yes," Mom smiled, looking pleased as punch. "Back then, before the Bad Old Days, the Pillagers were the closest to being the top villains in the Bay area. The Brigade was inexperienced. Not as capes, but as a team, and that meant a group who fashioned themselves as medieval knights mixed with biker gear was a credible threat for a time. Their reign ended when we booked one of their newer pushers, who's sibling was a part of the inner ring of leadership.

"Months of building the case, listening to his testimony and others who were closely connected, working and investigating with the Brockton Bay PD to narrow down their main source of operations. This was back when the Department didn't try to shove most of their work onto the local PRT office, but I digress. In any case, three months of solid heroic work and we had them pinned to a warehouse near the Bay. The Brigade and officers surrounded the building, took out the few sentries we found, and announced our presence."

"Wait," I stopped her, "You gave away the surprise?"

"In a sense, yes. You have to understand, everyone was still inexperienced back then, heroes and villains. We didn't know what would be the most effective way to assert ourselves in the situations, and it would be a few years until Heroes got more legal leeway with attacking villain bases without announcing our presence. So we stuck with police protocol, surrounded the building, and let them sweat."

"Would you do it the same way now?"

Mom hummed in thought, "I don't know. It's hard to separate it from the hindsight of knowing Pikehead was willing to kill any of his followers if they couldn't surrender without him knowing. Had we gone in more aggressively, maybe more lives would have been saved. I just don't know."

I was silent, taking that in. It wasn't often that Mom would outright say she didn't know the answer to a question.

"In any case, enough of them did escape that we had a better understanding of the building layout and who was where. By then we could breach the building efficiently, disable anyone still loyal or scared enough to fight, and quickly handle Pikehead and his sisters. Your aunt handled each of the knockout blows, though she's loath to boast."

I frowned, "You said people died?"

Mom nodded, "Unfortunately, yes. Those who made their surrender obvious in front of the villain soon became his victims."

"But you called this a good one? I don't- Why? That's so awful."

Mom looked forlorn at that, "Yes. It was awful. I personally talked with many of their families, to help explain what happened. Still, even with that said, there are worse results. You might not think so now, but... but there will be a time when you find yourself in a position you never wanted, all because you didn't have all the information."

"So..." I hesitated slightly, "What counts as a bad one then?"

Mom's eyes grew distant as she thought. Not hard or soft, just... detached. As if by looking through her memories, she was separating herself from this time and place physically.

For the first time that I could remember, I was truly afraid.

Not of her, never of her, but of what she could have seen or experienced to have made her so distant in that moment.

She shook her head and took a sip of her tea, "Maybe another time, Dovahkiin. I think we've covered enough lessons for tonight and it's-"

Mom glanced at the clock on the wall before making a face, "Nearly nine o'clock on a school night. Come on, superheroes need to get their sleep too."

"Mooom, I'm almost twelve years old, not five. That doesn't work on me anymore," I said, even as I started collecting my notes and pencils.

You could never be too sure.

Mom got up as I did and followed me up the stairs like an escort, "And I better not here you talking Amy's ear off again. She needs the rest for a make-up quiz tomorrow, and no one in this house is going to be happy if I get another call from Ms. Wesler about her academic performance."

"Amy's smart, Mom. She just gets a little choked up with pressure."

"Yes, and it's something she needs to work on, just like we need to work on your water-polo tryouts." She paused, "And don't punch the boys who stare."

"Mason was a total creep."

"Slight amendment then; don't punch them in front of their parents next time."

I gave her a thumbs up and she gave me a kiss on the temple in response, opening up my room door at the same time. I entered my room and gave Mom a last parting look for the night.

There were constellations where her eyes once were, glowing nebulas of different shades of color, so bright that I could imagine going blind from staring at them for too long.

"Good night, Victoria. I love you."

"Love you too, Mom."

She closed the door, cutting me off from the blinding stars, leaving me with alone with a sister who was faking sleep so obviously it was almost painful.

"Vicky," Amy whispered loudly in the dark, "Are you going to get over here or what?"

I ran to her bed, smiling.

No sleep for any of us tonight.


There are no stars here.


Now

I wasn't in a good headspace.

Minor correction; I hadn't been in a good headspace for a long time. Right now, however, was undoubtedly one of the worst of the worst in recent memory.

I could still feel the master power's effect clinging to me, scraps of it refusing to completely let go, and I had to force myself away from the horrible possibility that those feelings might never fade away. That I would forever be stuck with feelings that weren't mine, morphing the way I thought for the rest of my life, however short that may be.

Maybe for eternity, if any piece of me is left in the Network.

Logic past emotion, Victoria. You're trapped in the mire of your own freak out and that means you have to pull yourself out however you can. Think. Break these feelings down, break this power down. Be the scholar so the other parts of you can keep flying true.

Powers. Powers meant notes, which meant text, which meant notes. Notes painstakingly written by hand and transcribed online, because patterns of repetition enforced behavior, which played a part in memorization.

There was a comfort there of a sorts. Not like the comfort a warm, soft blanket would provide. A kind of comfort that knowing exactly where you stood in proximity to your situation came from. Perspective.

I was mentally rambling, but that just meant I was doing something right. Those miniscule specks of altered emotions were thinned out, drowned out in the dark, black, feeling in the pit of me. Collected with numerous other traumas in my cape career. Death, fates worse than death, fear and anxiety for the people I loved and for the City itself.

A tar pit of emotions, all of them vying to scramble out, but unable to gain more than an inch if I could help it.

Focusing on the mission couldn't hurt.

Right. I needed to take stock.

The vampires outside were left crippled and unconscious for the most part, mostly removed from the equation. Considering their own apparel in the raging wind outside, I didn't have much concern about them freezing to death. The wildlife might be an issue, but I wasn't feeling very charitable for them at the moment.

Power wise, I wasn't too concerned. If D'Ario and his companion was anything like the ones outside, I was reasonably confident that I could defeat them both with relative ease in a fight.

The big issue was that of traps.

D'Ario and the other vampire woman essentially had the homefield advantage in this tunnel system. They had been targeting the Mill for some time according to Frorkmar's estimates, and if they were smart, probably spent a significant amount of that time prepping this base of operations for the possibility of an attack.

If he were here, I would have loved to pick Rain's brain about what booby-traps to expect with a limited amount of materials.

The entrance from the cave was a long and dark tunnel of stone that then turned to one of solid ice, somehow illuminated from within, a sight that would be breathtaking in literally any other circumstance. Forcefield out, I flew on and on until I reached the structure within. It was like a scene out of the old Indiana Jones movies with Tom Selleck; statues in the shape of creatures I had never seen, carved in what looked like ancient ruins in every room, mist rolling across the floors from an unknown source.

The smell was awful. Which said a lot, considering I once had a man's brains stuck to the bottom of my boot for the better part of an hour, had to be in the vicinity of Chugalug the barf-eater, and was doused in and out with Nursery's alien fetus muck.

This was death, flaking skin and drying fats left to ruminate in this mountainside, nothing to ventilate or let the odor disperse elsewhere. Judging by the accumulated dust and cobwebs covering literally every inch of this place, I couldn't imagine anyone had deigned to visit and clean this place up recently. Not even the newest residents tried it seemed.

Leave it to the vampires to be comfortable in a crypt.

There were no bodies, but I had little doubt about what this place really was. Many of the walls had built in shelves, imprinted slightly in the stone tablets, and bits of bone cluttered and collected here. I couldn't really tell for sure what kind of bone, I wasn't an expert in that kind of stuff, but they were small enough that I would have guessed finger or toe remains.

Chests were placed here and there, a quick look out of curiosity finding them empty. Cleaned out by grave robbers or the vampires themselves, or both. Maybe taken along with the dead.

I didn't want to imagine what vampires would have done with corpses.

Speaking of the dead.

Was the Horseman one of the corpses here? Was that why he wanted to get our attention so badly?

It didn't line up entirely with what Frorkmar had said about it being seen all across Skyrim, but I had to remind myself that these people weren't as advanced as my world. It was very possible that there were multiple headless ghosts in this world or that people simply lied because... well, not many people needed an excuse really.

I wasn't getting any hints from Fragile One, none that I could notice anyways, and Mirmulnir wasn't popping up either. For better or worse, they were leaving me to my thoughts and to this semi-maze of tunnels.

This felt... different from my time invading Skidrow and Teacher's Facility. Both times, the supervillains had been prepared, they had been organized, and every bit of ground covered was fraught with hostiles. For Cradle, it had been mercenaries and idiotic villains who fucked themselves over out of selfishness. For Teacher, it was countless thralls and tinker tech weaponry every step of the way.

They had even literally tried to control the battlefield. Paralyzing electric minefields, explosives buried into the facility, powers that could alter reality in fatal ways for us.

In comparison, this raid was falling short.

Not a single soul is here, I thought, noting the irony.

No guards. No lookouts. No traps-

I paused my flight as I passed through a corridor leading into another chamber. I looked down and noted how the corridor floor lining seemed a bit... off. A bit more protruding than needed.

Fragile One took my torch and pressed it against the suspicious tile piece. Immediately, arrows fired from the walls on either side, clattering to the ground as they impacted the opposite stone. The fire kept up for another second before ending.

I felt sort of bad for being so unimpressed.

Flying on towards more chambers and corridors, all of them ancient, dusty and empty. More signs of ancient traps, empty tombs, and dust bunnies galore. Torches were lit, shedding light on the sheer emptiness of the crypt, but also serving of a stark reminder that I wasn't alone in here. At any moment, Vampires could be lashing out to kill me.

I moved on.

More corridors.

More empty chambers.

More and more tombs.

A second level in another chamber, getting my hopes up before I noticed it had been vacated just as well, earning itself a long suffering sigh from me. Another corridor at the top center, the only exit out of this room beyond turning back.

I flew on.

Empty.

Empty.

Empt-

A chant caught my ear, stopping me in my tracks. The chamber I was in was, shockingly, empty... but I could hear something. Something familiar, coming from a corridor across the room. I flew closer and immediately another chant whispered into my ear.

No. It wasn't sound.

A shadow in the corridor slithered out of the corner of my eye, reptilian in shape for the brief moment of it's existence, vanishing as I unintentionally turned my gaze upon it.

Hey Mir. I'm guessing you hear it too.

It made a bit of sense, now that the chanting was increasing more and more as I flew on. Words of Power tended to rile me and my stolen Dragon soul up. Whether that was a good or bad thing was left to be determined.

I passed through the corridor as the chanting grew stronger, and came face to face with a legion of death.

At least a hundred blue eyes turned to stare at me, flesh dried out and crinkling like paper as their bodies shuffled. For the most part, they were covered in leather armor that looked ready to fall apart at a stiff breeze if given a chance. Many of them carried weapons, some held shields and helmets with them, and all of them had their attention solely on me.

Zombies, I thought. Zombies are now a thing.

Yeah. Okay. Why not at this point?

Intermingled with the zombie horde were, bizarrely enough, seemingly normal people. At least two dozen men and women, wearing what probably amounted to civilian clothing instead of armor, no weapons beyond farming equipment in hand. I counted at least two of them with ears and facial features that looked elvish, but very different in comparison to Irileth. Their eyes glowed a deep purple, a similar colored aura of light surrounding them.

The residents of Agna's Mill, I presumed.

Above it all, D'Ario stood on a stony-webway of balconies, surrounded on both sides by armored zombies and a giant stone tablet behind him. He smiled down at me, fangs glistening in the torch light. No signs of his wounds that I could see.

The chanting resonated within me, but even it's power felt drowned out by the sheer quantity of undead moaning and groaning.

"Dragonborn!" The vampire spoke with false cheer, "It seems my brothers and sisters failed in dispatching you."

"Yeah. They're waiting outside for you with a few broken bones and a lot more of a broken pride. Want to join them?"

He wagged a finger at me as if I was a child, "You don't intimidate me Dragonborn. I've lived centuries in Skyrim, surviving off of the land and it's people, in every sense of the word. You got lucky, once, in catching me off guard. You're failure in finishing me and my flock will be you're undoing."

"By my count outside, I got 'lucky' at least six times. Seven would be a good number to finish the night off with." I glanced around the large chamber room, "Where's your friend?"

D'Ario raised his left hand. Glittering dust seeped through his fingers, vanishing before they hit the ground. "She gave her life to a higher purpose, Dragonborn. Her spirit is now serving our master in Coldharbour, a worthy sacrifice for freedom in Skyrim."

I stared at him, comprehension dawning, "You killed her? You're own ally?!"

He smiled, bringing his other hand to rub at his face, "You are partially to blame, Dragonborn. Were it not for the injuries you gave me... well, I believe you can connect the dots as it were. Like I said, a worthy sacrifice. I imagine your blood-drained corpse will bring her spirit great joy, were she to ever know it."

I glared at him, "You're insane."

"Spoken like a true fool. Ignorant to the new reality till the end."

"Somehow, I don't think your friends outside will take it that well when I have to give them the full story. Because you'll be eating your own teeth when I'm done with you."

D'Ario sneered, "Such arrogance in such a short span of time. What happened to the young girl who tried to argue for diplomacy?"

I cracked my knuckles, "She got sick of assholes not getting the message. For clarity's sake; surrender. This doesn't go like you're hoping it will, D'Ario. I am not in the mood to fuck around or be fucked with. Especially not after what you did."

"Ah, still feeling sore about-"

"No," I interrupted. "No, fuck off, I don't care about anything you say unless it's giving up. Look at me, D'Ario. Seriously, do I look even the slightest bit concerned about the zombie army you have? Do I? Because I'm not. I'm fucking furious that you're clearly controlling the civilians for your dirty work, but I've handled worse. I'm still offering you a chance to surrender, because I know how this ends. The only difference here is whether you walk out with me or I drag you out by force."

He was silent for the moment, taking me in, his face unreadable.

Did we get through to him?

He smiled, "You're a poor mage, Dragonborn. Can you not even recognize the signs of necromancy?"

I frowned. Necromancy? The zombies were obvious, of course, because they were literally right there in front of me. Was there a trick to them? Did it have a different meaning or-

My eyes widened in horror, "No."

"Yes," D'Ario countered. "Not all of them, of course. I need some sustenance after all. Enough, however, that I think we can count this as an end to your lucky streak."

D'Ario tossed his hand, sending dusting cascading down onto the bulk of his zombie army. Immediately, portions of their rotting bodies began to dim, fading to the point that I could almost see through them. Obscuring the amount of opponents I faced.

For his part, D'Ario vanished in a flash of black and purple energy.

"Kill her!" He shouted, voice echoing throughout the chamber, "Rend her head from her shoulders my Draugr brethren, bash her bones into dust, and let us consume her vitality and fear!"

Facing down a zombie army, his cackling laugh echoing in my head, a thought bubbled forth from the dark-black feelings in my core.

I'm going to feed him his own fucking teeth.