Many thanks to dwood15, Technetium43, Assembler, and frustratedFreeboota for betareading.

Interlude 3b: Carlos

The captain of the Wards retreated to the room ordained for him. Carlos made haste to shut the way behind him before setting his back against the oaken door. His eyes sought the glimmering gold which twined about his hand. Laureya, the Ring of Gold, the Ring of the Sun, shone like purest golden fire, lighting up the small space like noon on a summer's day.

You will be as bright and as powerful as the fire itself—incandescent and forceful, impossible to deny.

"What the fuck," he whispered helplessly as he tried to hold onto lucidity. "What the fuck."

He was keenly aware of the rushing blood beneath his skin, of the drumming of his heart, of the air-conditioned breeze which ran cool and crisp across every inch of exposed skin. He shuddered.

Fifteen minutes ago, he'd just been a guy who could take a hit from almost anything and keep going. Now—now he felt different. Changed. Inhuman and superhuman.

He was unsure whether there was any way back to who he had been before. He was unsure whether he would wish to take it, were it open to him.

Carlos looked around the room, lit dimly by the shine of the Ring of Power. He noted the spidery cracks in the paint over the concrete walls, heard the faint droning of the electrical hum which suffused the building, smelled the faint tang of salt under the filtered, processed air. These were all things he had sensed before-he had merely failed to perceive them.

All is sharper, now—sight, sound, scent. He ran a finger over the Ring of Power upon his hand. A fog has lifted from the world, and I am at last seeing things for what they truly are, rather than trying to pick out shapes half-hidden in mist.

With a gentle undulation he pushed his body off of the door and strode two paces into his room until he was in its center. From there he stared about, studying the golden light which played upon every surface, flickering and shifting as though passing through water or a thin mist.

From the first, something was different in Annatar, he reflected. Some hint there was that she was unlike the rest of us. She is larger than life. Never has she quite matched what I expect of a cape. This, then, is why.

From the moment the Ring of Power had first slipped onto his finger, Annatar had been transformed.

No, that was wrong. With Laureya on his finger, he saw the true shape of things. Suddenly Annatar had shifted before his very eyes. But it was like an optical illusion, he realized. He'd been looking at her one way, and seeing one thing. With Laureya, his perspective changed, and he saw another. Annatar was unaltered; it was he who was seeing her through new eyes.

Her skin can scarcely contain her. That was the thought that had first entered his mind—that she was practically bursting from out her slim frame, so much was contained within. Her eyes had seemed to shine forth like warm fire, flickering merrily in her pale face, above her satisfied smile. So bright was she in the shaded gloom that he had nearly missed the red nova of light which lingered on her finger. Narya. The Ring of Fire.

Small wonder she was powerful—small wonder she could match men like Lung, blow for blow. Three Rings of Power? He had barely even begun to know what it was like to carry one, but he knew, with the intuition of a babe faced with a great height, that he could never have carried even two. Annatar bore three.

Beyond all else he wondered how she could bear to be divided in such a way. Already Laureya demanded his loyalty, even as it offered him support. He could feel it—a tether on his heart, a firm but gentle grip and a light tug without direction. Gentle, light, and warm above all, but still a grip; still a pull. To bear more than one Ring of Power would have torn him asunder.

There's no way to say it that doesn't sound creepy, he reflected, tearing his eyes from the Ring and looking into the dark of his room. But it wasn't—not really. It was a symbiosis between him and his Ring of Power. He needed the gift it represented, the power it could bring to bear. It needed him to bear it, to carry it forth and use it to—what?

He shook his head, glancing back at the Ring of Power. Instinctively he knew that Laureya was meant for some purpose greater than the bringing of one criminal, even one so heinous as Bakuda, into custody. This thing upon his hand, so beautiful and awful to behold, meant more—was more than just a tool, a piece of tinkertech to be used or lay idle at the whims of its bearer.

This is a responsibility. This, he recognized, was the chain he felt. This was the bond his Ring had lain upon him. While he bore it, he was bound to a purpose higher than his highest aspirations before.

It is not enough to be a hero. I must be a paragon; a beacon. I must be the sun to the others' stars.

It was not quite ambition that came then unto to the leader of the Wards. Carlos was no stranger to ambition, though he had kept it ever at bay before. Ambition was hot and selfish, like a wildfire, taking and consuming all that lay in its path until achievements became mere stepping-stones and distant goals became nothing but illusions.

This new dream, borne unto him by the golden light of Laureya, was warm and kind, like sunlight on bare skin. It was not ambition, because it was not selfish. He wanted not to become this greatest of heroes for himself—not for glory or for praise. He wished only to fulfill the task that had been appointed to him.

Annatar chose me to bear a Ring of Power. Laureya, the Ring of the Sun. I owe it to her, and to everyone else, to bear it as best I can. I owe it to Laureya.

The Ring of Power seemed to warm and curl gently about his finger in acceptance. Carlos, Bearer of the Sun-Ring, smiled and brought it to his lips.

"Carlos," Annatar greeted, smiling sadly at him as he emerged into the lounge. She was looking at him through a mirror, her hands clasped around a bundle of her own hair which she had gathered up for inspection. For the first time he noticed the blackened lengths at the end of several strands.

"Lung," she said, by way of explanation. "My armor blocked the worst of it, but my hair wasn't protected." She sighed and looked mournfully at the charred fibers.

"It'll grow back," he tried to reassure her.

"I know," she said with another sad smile. "I just—it was always my best feature. I was proud of my hair." She shook her head. "Doesn't matter," she said. "I was just going to go report your new modules to Piggot. Think you could help me?"

He thumbed Laureya, warm and pleasant on his finger, and glanced down at the blue Ring on his teammate's before nodding. "Sure."

He followed her into the elevator and up to the Director's office. Piggot glanced up as they entered.

"Aegis, Annatar," she greeted. "If you're looking for news on the situation with Bakuda, I'm afraid I don't have any at the moment."

"No," said Annatar. "But that reminds me—any word on my dad?"

"Last I heard, the doctors had stabilized him," Piggot said. "I didn't hear of Panacea going in to see him, but I think he's stable, if not cured. I'd have heard if that had changed."

Annatar nodded. "When will I be able to go in to see him?" she asked. "I could probably help with Air."

"Sometime today," Piggot replied. "I don't know exactly when; it depends on when the Protectorate Thinkers figure out anything regarding Bakuda's—"

Boom.

A pause. "—movements." Piggot's voice was hard as she finished the sentence. "Anything else?"

"Yes," Annatar said. "Last night, I produced a set of modules for the Wards, and handed them out."

"You what?" Piggot thundered. "You handed out your untested tinkertech to your teammates without even mentioning it to me?"

"There was no way to test them!" Annatar protested. "My modules can't just be passed around for testing! I needed to make sure that the people who got them were the people I wanted to bear them! I'm here with Aegis now so that you can test his!"

Piggot put her head in her hands. There was a moment's silence.

"I can't blame you for how your powers work," the director said, her voice muffled. It sounded like a mantra. There was another pause. Then she looked up. "Okay," she said. "Back up. These modules—they can't have more than one user?"

Annatar lifted her hand, palm down, tilting it side to side in a so-so gesture. "Technically they can," she said. "But… it wouldn't be good for the guy doing the testing."

Piggot blinked once, slowly. "How so?" she asked.

"The modules bind themselves to their user," Annatar said. "I told the Wards that it'd be very hard for them to give up their modules once they took them. I did some more thinking, and I think I could help them get over it, using Air. But it'd still take time."

"They're addictive." Piggot's voice was perfectly deadpan.

"…Sort of, yeah."

"You just handed out addictive power boosts to your teammates."

"…It's not that simple—"

Piggot sighed. "Aegis," she said. "Round up your teammates and report to M/S confinement, if you please. With luck, we'll have you cleared by the afternoon, and we can get on with our lives."

"She didn't master us—" Carlos objected.

"That," said Piggot quietly, "is for M/S screening to decide. Annatar, will you report to a holding cell while we screen your teammates voluntarily, or do I have to foam you and this entire room?"

There was a pause.

"It's really not as bad as you think it is," Annatar said. Her voice was small; almost hurt. Betrayed.

"I hope you're right," said Piggot evenly. Then she sighed. "I'm not doing this to spite you, Annatar," she said. "It's entirely possible that there was no better way to do this than what you did. You still should have cleared it in advance, but maybe there really was no way to test these modules before distributing them. I don't understand powers—yours or anyone else's. I don't know. But I do know that when my Wards have received something that sounds uncomfortably similar to the master/trump effects of Teacher—who is in the Birdcage, by the way—it's my duty to make sure they go through proper M/S screening. This is not a full M/S confinement—if you're telling the truth, you'll be out within two or three hours. We just need to get this cleared before we proceed."

"It's okay, Annatar," Carlos said gently. "It'll just be a quick screening and we'll be out."

Annatar swallowed. "Will I still be able to go see my dad today?" she asked.

"I hope so, Annatar," said Piggot evenly, touching a button on her desk. "Armsmaster, Miss Militia, please report to my office."

"This is fucking stupid," Sophia grumbled from her position in the corner of the M/S cell. The whole room was well-lit by the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. There was nothing present to cast a shadow—which made the dark space in which she reclined against the wall, arms folded, seem all the more out of place.

"It's understandable," said Dennis calmly, sitting cross-legged with his back to the wall, his eyes shut and his face perfectly at ease. "I'd be suspicious if Annatar had given all of you Rings and I didn't know what they were. Heck, maybe we are mastered, and we just can't tell."

"No," said Dean firmly, looking from Dennis to the rest of the Wards with eyes that seemed almost to glow, so bright were the irises. "Annatar wasn't lying to us. She can't control us through our Rings. We are bound to them, but not bound to obey."

"And it's not as though we weren't bound to powers already," said Missy quietly. Carlos glanced at her, then looked away quickly, focusing on a point somewhere a few feet to her right. In the night, Vista seemed to have grown two years—although he couldn't pinpoint what, exactly, had changed. Where before, she had been a kid barely into puberty, she now seemed a beautiful young woman, who had yet to flower into still more. She hadn't gained appreciable height, nor had her body shifted, yet her barely-developed curves and childlike features were suddenly not; now, instead, her features were more womanly than infantile. The effect, on the whole, was breathtaking.

Each of them had changed, but it was Missy who exercised her new powers over her teammates the most. Carlos doubted she had conscious control over them, any more than he did.

"Annatar was right," Missy continued. "We couldn't stop using our parahuman powers if we wanted to. The Rings of Power are no different. And no worse."

"Let's just hope the PRT can see that," said Carlos quietly. "If they do, we'll be out of here before lunchtime."

"And if they can't?" Sam's voice seemed to cut through the air like a knife, instantly drawing attention.

Carlos shook his head. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I don't know."

"They can't take them from us," said Chris tersely. "I—Mirilya's made me see more clearly than I have in years. It's like I don't even have— it's like all my problems with my powers are just gone. I could finish any project I set my mind to like this. They can't take them from us."

"They won't," said Sophia, idly fiddling with Cenya, which glittered green on her ring finger. "Taylor won't let them."

"Annatar is currently in a holding cell until they decide whether we're mastered," said Dennis calmly. "Hate to say it, but she probably can't help us with this one. Piggot likes her, but not that much."

"Taylor hasn't let us down yet," said Sophia firmly. "Her modules haven't either. We'll manage. It'll be fine."

Carlos ran his thumb against the gentle warmth of Laureya's band. After a moment, he sighed.

"You're right," he said. "We'll be fine."

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