Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

As I sat on a park bench, kicking rocks down the grassy bank in front of me and into the river, I pondered about what it meant to be a cape. So far, I had the costume, the name, and a patrol route, kind of. I supposed what I could be missing was the presence, that flair for the dramatic that attracted fans and detractors alike. But my technology wasn't much for pizzazz, and I had even taken lengths to add some color to my gear.

The LEDs in the mace that I held absently in my hands idly switched from one color to another as it laid in my lap. Behind my mask and under my hood, my lips pursed. This wasn't working, all I had accomplished in two weeks was taking a few nightly walks and getting to enjoy the night air. As far as I knew, I wasn't even on the Ann Arbor PHO page yet, nor had any of the local heroes come to talk to me.

Did people literally not know I existed? Perhaps doing my patrols in the dead of night, in a nicer part of town, and only staying out for a few hours didn't lend itself to a lot of clout. But I had school in the morning, and I sure as heck wasn't going to waste my weekends traipsing about the city. I clicked my tongue, standing up from the bench and strapping Hubris to my hip, there was nothing for it. Maybe all it took was some time.

My head swiveled across the barren park grounds, a misty fog hanging low to the ground and rolling off the green river. Bugs chirped in the crisp September air, the distant sounds of cars passing along the roads the only breakage in this otherwise perfect symphony of nature. Okay, if being a small-timer let me enjoy these nights without problem, then maybe it was ok to let the experienced guys handle the big stuff.

All I really wanted to do was tinker a bit, get some new material, and maybe upgrade my costume to that sweet, sweet power armor. Bored and with nothing else to do, I flicked the lenses in my mask on. My eyes took a moment to adjust, but when they did the formerly clear view I had of the park was obscured with all sorts of readings. A little design of my own, and a good investment for what it cost me (virtually nothing, I had some spare electronics). I scanned the treeline in the distance before turning one-eighty and doing a quick check of the park entrance.

Not a single blip in my emotion radar, no one about at this time of night. I bit back a sigh, perhaps I should go with my Plan B and simply hound everyone I saw who seemed guilty or anxious. I strode across grass and asphalt on my way out, waving goodbye to the park ranger who took care of the grounds at night. Well, at least I had one fan in this world if his request for my autograph for his daughter meant what I thought it did.

I shook my head free of distractions, I needed to focus. The armor and mace I wore jingled ever so slightly as I pounded the pavement. It was truly a work of art, so much so that I wasn't going to ditch it even once I finally got my power armor. It took awhile to find an aesthetic that worked, but I had decided to just cross a fantasy wizard with a knight and call it a day. The tunic, hood, and pants were all a deep purple with gold trimmings while the armor that adorned my chest, shoulders, arms, and legs was a sterling silver. If nothing else I would have assumed that the intricate design would have drawn eyes.

Perhaps I had gone in the wrong direction, was it possible for costumes to be out of style? Were there seasonal costumes? That would be bad, I barely had enough material to make this one let alone a Christmas and Halloween reskin! If Claire were here I could ask her, but she was off hanging out with her friends and giving me the cold shoulder for reasons I was still unsure.

She told me she loved me, so why wasn't it ok for me to say the same? She was my best friend in the world, and I would always love and value her friendship! The memories stirred ugly feelings in my chest, feelings that I still couldn't put a name to despite all the scans I had done on others. Great, now I had the bad feelings in my chest and it was going to alter my reactions for the rest of the night. Maybe it was better to call it quits.

I flicked the lenses on once more to try and get a read of things. At this distance I could see the faintest blur of those in the buildings and apartments around me, but on the street there was still no one.

Oh, scratch that, there was a wandering homeless man at the end of the road. The softly glowing nimbus of emotions that wreathed his body were an ugly mixture of grey and charcoal. Whatever this guy had been up to, it seems he went numb to it -and the world- a long, long time ago. As a hero, I should try to fix that right? Perhaps I should give him a little tap with Hubris to alter his emotional state, likely not fixing the numbness in his soul but maybe offsetting it?

Sparks of blueprints for emotion-altering ray guns and emotion-injecting gauntlets flashed through my mind, but I put them aside. I had more than enough ideas I couldn't afford at the moment, so it was better to focus on the now. I marched down the road, puffing my chest out to appear "confident" as I had learned. It was important to put your arms back a bit so it didn't seem like an aggressive-confident, but more like a courageous-confident. The action felt stiff and forced, which it was on both fronts.

I still didn't quite get it, but I was good at mimicking others.

"You there, citizen!" I tried my best at both a level and authoritative tone. Voices that held strength often put people at ease, assuring them that you were a stalwart individual.

The bum turned around, and I was surprised when his emotional state suddenly spiked into vibrant orange. Fear. Why was he afraid? I used my best tone of voice for the situation, and my posture was both straight and confident. I was sure he would have drawn strength from my visage, but instead he took a step back and tripped over the bag of trash he had been rifling through.

Odd, was he perhaps on something? Drug abuse wasn't uncommon for a city the size of Ann Arbor, and my studies have led me to believe the emotional states of those under the influence were altered well out of the norm for projected stimuli. He scrambled to get away even as I pondered how to calm him down. The mace was the obvious choice, but perhaps he needed some context as to why I was talking to him. That was it, he was obviously confused about why I was talking to him.

"Worry not citizen," I declared. "Please, allow me to use my mace to calm you down."

I unlatched the device, brandishing it in front of me. Transparency was also important to effective communication, my father had imparted that lesson upon me many years ago. And even with my inability to effectively communicate to most, his advice never led me astray.

The bum's arms covered his face. "I-I didn't see nothing, I promise!"

He was blind? That would explain why his emotions dipped into terror all of the sudden. And though his grammar could use some work, I could understand why this would be upsetting. Getting approached by a figure you couldn't see likely surprised him, although why I had not seen such a shift in emotions eluded me. I stepped forward to give him a helping hand up, bringing the mace to my side so I could heft him up.

"Stop!" a voice from behind me commanded.

When I turned, I was a bit surprised myself to find Blueshift from the Ann Arbor Wards staring me down. His costume was a blue bodysuit over golden armor, a matching cape flowing behind him as he floated off the ground. Odd, I wasn't sure why a young man such as himself would be awake at this time of night or why he was in this neck of the woods. Perhaps he had heard the commotion and decided to investigate.

"Ah, Blueshift," I greeted, holstering my mace. "Excellent evening, is it not?"

Small-talk was the cornerstone to rapport. It was best when meeting a new colleague to start with simple topics you could talk about then branch out from there into more personal details. I knew his name, but he likely had no clue as to who I was. Damn, I should have led with that.

"Spare me the talk, what are you doing to that man there?" he floated closer, a stern look visible behind his eye mask.

"Ah, him? I was just about to adjust his emotional parameters into a much more agreeable state."

"Which means?"

"I was going to manipulate his emotions?" dammit, did that sound sarcastic?

I needed to tone down the tinker-talk if I was to relate to my colleague in crime. It was like talking about someone when they were within earshot, it was apparently quite the faux pas as Claire had mentioned.

More ugly feelings I pushed down.

"I'm going to have to ask you to come with me," he sounded a bit unsure as he said, like he wasn't sure if that was the right thing to ask.

Oh, right, he was PRT. Which meant he was obligated to get me to join the Wards, something that was very close to the bottom of my "things I want to do" list. I had enough trouble dealing with people in controlled environments and very low stakes, and if I tried to dive into such a PR-heavy job like a Protectorate hero I would likely fumble on a much deadlier scale. I took a step back, making sure to keep my mace at my side so as to not seem aggressive or defensive.

"I am afraid I cannot honor your request, I have patrols to do."

"Patrols? You mean that you're a hero? You got a name?"

Was I? All I had done was walk around for a few nights. I wasn't sure if that made me a hero, per se, but I suppose I technically fit into the category?

"Yeah, sure, let's go with that." my response didn't seem to calm him down any, for he floated a bit closer to me. "Uh, call me um… Pathos?"

It was the best I could come up with on the spot, and surely I'd be able to change it later? Right?

"Either way, we can't have you assaulting civilians out here."

Assaulting?

I shook my head. "I believe you must be mistaken, I was merely going to alter his emotional state in a way that was healthier and conducive to a good life."

He tapped his ear and said something that I couldn't make out. When he was done, he floated down onto the ground and began to walk towards me. It was then that I noticed that the homeless man I had been helping had run away while I was conversing with Blueshift. Great, this night was quickly proving itself to be one big fuckup in short order. I didn't want to brandish my mace and try to threaten him, that would land me on the villain list right quick.

"I-I think I'll be going now," I said as casually as I could. "Perhaps we can chat over coffee sometime?"

"I think you and I should go back to the headquarters and discuss your career."

He advanced on me and I did the only thing I could do in a panic, I ran. I turned on my heel and immediately began sprinting away from the junior hero as fast as I could. I heard him swear to himself before he took off with his flight, quickly gaining ground on me in the span of a few seconds. Dad was going to be angry if he found out I was a parahuman, and it'd be worse because I was sure I wouldn't understand why.

I flicked the control on my mace, setting the emotion level to a light four out of ten and switching it to "defeat". Just as he was within grabbing distance of me, I whirled around and whapped him right in the ribs. I wasn't especially hard with it, but a mace was still a mace and the sudden injection of distilled defeat likely contributed to the way that he spiraled out of control. His shoulder clipped the ground before the rest of him and he rolled across the pavement.

Blueshift was an Alexandria package, so he must've had some kind of enhanced durability. I wasn't sure on the particulars, but he must've been able to take a hit like that if he wanted to be a hero. He groaned and hauled himself up from the pavement, and against my better judgement I rushed over to help him up. In hindsight, perhaps rushing at him mace out was not the correct response when trying to help someone. He reacted pretty appropriately, swinging his arm towards me just as he brought himself to one knee.

The sudden shift in his emotions were the only thing that helped me dodge the swing, and even then it managed to clip my breastplate. I rolled to the right in a clumsy approximation of the move, and straightened. Blueshift stood, his cape billowing behind him, a deep frown on his face.

"Enough games, you've attacked a hero and that means I need to bring you in, hero or not."

"H-Hey, hold on, you're the one who came barreling at me!"

He snorted. "Right, you were only accosting a homeless man in the dead of night. Silly me for thinking you might get violent."

Accosting, is that what I had been doing? For Pete's sake all I wanted to do was help the guy, like an actual hero should! I sighed imperceptibly, this night was a wash and now it was probably too late to save my reputation. I'd need to figure out a way to seem more heroic to offset this little fiasco, but for now I needed to run damage control.

"Look, we got off on the wrong foot," I holstered my mace and raised my hands placatingly. "I think there's been a misunderstanding here. If you let me go, you won't have to worry about me a-accosting homeless people."

His frown deepened. "Yeah, no. I'm not going to let you go after you were about to beat that man with a mace."

My body sagged, I had seen this before. He already convinced himself I was the enemy, and that meant he could justify whatever he wanted with that knowledge. He floated towards me, arms balled into fists. There was no choice then, it was either make a break for it or get dragged down to the base to either become a Ward or go to jail. More ugly emotions, different than the ones that came when I thought about Claire, welled up in my chest.

"Come on, can't you just let me go? I haven't even done anything."

"Buddy, if you come back to the base with me then I'll be more than happy to give you a talk about how what you did was not ok," he at least seemed to be earnest about that. "And if you decide to become a Ward I don't want there to be bad blood between us. But for now my superiors need to ask you some questions."

"Would that demand I become a Ward?" I braced for impact.

"Likely, yes."

"Okay then, no hard feelings," that was the only warning I gave him before I threw my failsafe in between us.

The dampener grenade I had managed to scrap together with the remains of my allowance exploded in a bright flash of pink light. I was inured to its effects thanks to the lenses in my mask deflecting the light waves, but Blueshift had no such protection. He dropped to the ground and stared blankly at me. He'd only be stunned for a good ten or so seconds more, so I took that time to sprint down the nearest alleyway and try to get as much distance as possible from him. By the time I had ducked behind a filthy dumpster three or four streets away, I saw his silhouette rise over buildings before jetting away.

It seemed he was calling it quits for tonight, and for my trouble I likely had been put on the "arrest immediately" list. I sulked all the way back to my house, thoroughly disappointed in both myself and this night. It seemed as though my process needed to be refined, as wandering about only got me into a scrap with a Ward. Perhaps I should look up tips online, or adjust my patrol route to the worst areas of town. My walk back finally ended as I approached the backyard of my house, no lights on so I was pretty sure mom and dad were asleep. Joseph was another story however.

I crept through the back porch and slunk up the stairs, which was harder than it seemed given the copious amounts of armor I wore. But, with the grace of God himself, I managed to shut the door behind me and strip myself of my gear. I threw it all in the back of my closet like usual and pulled up the Ann Arbor PHO on my laptop.

At least now I had a name to look up instead of just trawling the forums that involved any unknown parahumans in the city. So far there was still nothing, but it would have been a bit optimistic to assume that I was already going to be on the PHO. Instead, I buried the strange feelings of excitement that reverberated through me, and went to bed. In the morning, perhaps things would be better and maybe I wouldn't even be classified as a villain!

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

"In other news the Protectorate has issued a warning for those living in the residential area of Ann Arbor," the newscaster commented as I poured my younger brother his hero-themed cereal. "Reports have come in that an unknown parahuman has been seen patrolling the area near the University of Michigan. Tentatively the PRT is calling them "Pathos" given their apparently emotion-manipulating technology."

"Uh, Lynn?" Joseph brought my attention from the news segment. "I, uh, kind of have enough milk."

It was then that I realized I had completely overfilled the bowl as milk ran down the side and onto the table. Snapping myself out of my own shock, I quickly mopped the mess up with some paper towels and left my little brother to eat his breakfast.

"If you have any information on this unknown cape, please contact the PRT. Otherwise, do not approach the cape under any circumstances, the PRT has given them a rating of Tinker 5 for the time being."

Oh fuck.

"You okay sport?" my dad asked, walking into the room. "You look a little green around the gills."

"Uh, y-yeah yeah I'm good," I choked out.

"You sure champ? Is this about Claire?" oh great, more ugly feelings on top of what I was already dealing with.

"No, dad, it's fine. Uh, schoolwork is all," I lied easily, even if doing so caused me to wince internally.

I couldn't act to save my life, but it seemed as though lies were easy enough to give. Dad had always taught me that a real man speaks the truth, but I could never let him know about my night shift. More and more ugly feelings began to pile up in my stomach, and it was surely being reflected in my body language. I took careful steps to adjust my posture and expression bit-by-bit so it didn't come off as suspicious.

"Ah, don't let it get you down sport!" dad ruffled my hair, knocking my milk bottle glasses loose.

Claire had often told me they looked "dorky", and though I had originally thought this was an insult her tone led me to believe otherwise. Another mystery I had yet to unravel, and by now the posture I had been trying to keep was becoming irksome to deal with. I had some toast, patted Joseph on the head (for some reason he loved that), and ran to the bus stop. I was a bit early, but I preferred the stillness of the morning compared to the claustrophobic confines of my household.

There were a few others already there. George and Jacob, the cousins who lived together down the street, were going on about the movie they had seen with Maria and Lucas. Kids who had been in my neighborhood forever, and yet I barely knew anything about them in the last sixteen years we grew up together. If they noticed my approach they didn't say anything, and I was fairly certain it wasn't an intentional act of isolation. I just truly had no presence in a crowd, there was nothing I did that made me stand out besides my occasional moments of awkward bumbling.

I heard the clamoring of footsteps come up from behind me, and I straightened my back. I didn't need to turn around to see who it was, she always came at exactly 6:40 AM every day. Claire strode past me, and I thought I saw her eyes flick to me for just the briefest of seconds. Perhaps that was me being optimistic, but I made sure to seem as confident and self-assured as possible. She was always telling me that I needed to stop slouching, and I didn't want it to seem as though I was intentionally ignoring her advice.

She walked up to Maria and struck up a conversation while the others continued talking. I stood there, alone, and that unintentional isolation felt all the more crushing. Claire didn't like Maria, she was always complaining to me about her, but she would rather talk to the girl she disliked than her best friend.

Or maybe, not her best friend anymore.