"So you're powers told you that you were going to be kidnapped."
I knew that anyway but this whole situation was still such a tangled mess. When Dinah nodded I carried on. We were sat in my apartment across from each other over the small wooden table, on equally small armchairs that looked like they were barely holding themselves together. I had to strengthen my one quite a bit until it could my weight, I'd replaced the wood inside with the same metal structure that I had seen at the warehouse the previous night.
"And your powers also told you that you'd be safe if you came to me."
She nodded again, head bouncing with a lot more carefree energy than I thought was reasonable considering we were talking about her getting abducted.
"But how did you even find me? You said you're, what, a precog?"
At that Dinah paused, wincing at some phantom pain.
"The numbers tell me how likely something is to happen when I ask a question, or someone asks me. I just went from area to area, asking how likely I was to find someone who could help if I went there then narrowed it down. It hurt but if I didn't then…" She rubbed her forehead like she had already done multiple times so far in our short conversation. So it was a thinker headache then, I vaguely remembered reading that Dinah could only ask or answer so many questions before the pain got unbearable. Clearly she'd over used it trying to find me and still hadn't recovered fully, "They said if I stayed longer then I'd be taken away. The numbers didn't change much if I went to the PRT or anything…"
She sounded so hopeless. Seeing risks to yourself just laid out in numbers had to have been harrowing, especially for a young girl. What she said about the PRT made sense too, what with how Coil had insidiously burrowed into the local branch. He might have spread even further than that, I didn't remember, but I knew that at the very least most of his power was concentrated here. Dinah couldn't go directly to the PRT for help since Coil would get her, she couldn't stay at home since Coil would get her. Suddenly I had a much better understand of why she had seemed so desperate waiting outside my door.
"And you don't know how I'm meant to help you?" I asked. She shouldn't know about Invictus, Armsmaster had been as good as his word and taken credit for the arrest of Lung. Invictus and… bug girl (I could almost imagine Taylor's twitching eyebrow) hadn't made a public debut yet and Dinah wasn't the kind of precog who would be able to just see that. I think.
Her face scrunched up into a petulant pout.
"No! It's so annoying. I just know that the numbers are better with you. A lot better."
I took a second to let that sink in my relief warring with annoyance. As much as I knew my identity as Invictus was becoming somewhat of an open secret, I wasn't in any rush to speed that up. For Aunt Nessa's sake if nothing else, my mother's twin wasn't a parahuman like me and I didn't want anything getting back to her. Better for it to come out slowly, if it was inevitable anyway.
"I'm… not sure how I can really help you," I said uncertainly, stopping when I saw Dinah's eyes start to tear up a little.
She hesitated for a few seconds, mouth opening and closing as if she was trying to work out what she wanted to say. It was quite amusing, like she was admitting to something that she shouldn't have done and was trying to work out how to spin it.
"I know you're a cape," she squeaked out eventually, her eyes flickered up to meet mine before she flushed and looked away out the window.
I froze. So much for slowly.
"Your powers huh?" I ask dryly. Dinah only nodded her head meekly, curly brown hair bouncing around. So she'd asked the likelihood of the one who helped her being a cape or something. She was looking at me out of the corner of my eye worriedly, watching for how I'd react. Had she not looked for that too? From the way she still winced every so often I was willing to bet that her thinker headache was still at least somewhat there so maybe it was that, "I'm not mad, just," I sighed, "I was hoping to keep it a secret for a bit longer than I have. Bit of a pipe dream though I guess. You don't know who I am?"
I didn't need to specify which identity I meant, and Dinah shook her head mutely. She'd turned back to me when she saw that I wasn't angry, at least not at her. If I'd just 'woken up' earlier in the weekend then maybe I could've disguised myself better, or at least had more time to prepare. Maybe I could've gone to watch Panacea at the hospital and got a better understanding of how bodies worked. I wasn't sure how I'd have been able to swing that, I didn't need to be close enough to actually visually see what was going on but it would probably help. Biotinkering was definitely on my list of things to learn how to do. There was nothing quite as frustrating as knowing that you had so much power at your figurative fingertips and not know how to do it. It was like I'd been handed a scalpel and I was using it to bludgeon people over the head.
Only instead of a scalpel it was (potentially) unimaginable power.
I wasn't sure where to go from here. Dinah already knew I was a cape and from her point of view I had to be powerful enough to hold off Coil. No matter what, I would do that. As often as both of my memories and my new self have conflicting ideas and morals, one thing that neither they nor I would stand for was what I knew awaited Dinah if she was captured by the snake themed villain.
"Right," I clapped my hands together lightly, the noise was still enough to make the young girl jolt in her seat, "since there's no point in denying it, yes, I'm a cape. I'm also pretty sure that when it comes to physically protecting you, I'm fully capable of doing that." She gave me a look so full of adorable hope that I had to stop myself from reaching across the table and squeezing her in a tight hug, "And yes, of course I will."
Turns out I didn't need to restrain myself at all, as the tiny girl flung herself across the distance between us and threw her arms around my neck. I'm pretty sure her knees banged into the table on the way but she didn't seem to care. Instead her arms clamped even harder around me, even as she sagged into my chest, somehow in that one simple action conveying the sheer weight of relief that hearing that had given her. God, she was just a kid. Only what, twelve years old? No pre-teen should have to worry about being kidnapped or taken away from her family and definitely didn't deserve to have the stress of always knowing through irrefutable numbers. I wondered whether she'd asked what would happen to her if she was taken, how scared she was pointed to yes. Sometimes powers really did suck.
"Hey, it's okay," I whispered gently in her ear, it came out as more of a coo as I rocked her gently. Her brown curls shifted as she shivered in my grip, "You're safe now."
Her arms tightened again, and I could feel drops of water falling on my neck. It was blocked by my field but I could still tell she was crying. I wondered at how easily she believed me but I suppose that her powers must have helped with that. 'The numbers' had told her that she would be safe and she obviously placed a lot of faith in them for her to get here, and hearing it confirmed by the person that it led her to… yeah I could see how that was so reassuring to her.
It took a little while, but eventually she calmed down, her arms relaxed and released my neck (not that I had felt the pressure in the first place). She flushed cutely when she saw the wet trails of tears hovering millimeters over my neck.
"There's no need for that," I smiled at her while reaching out mentally. I deleted the wetness off the field leaving nothing behind. It was easier than the metal was yesterday, I wasn't sure if that was because of the smaller volume, the material I was changing or whether the process itself had just gotten easier, "See, good as new."
She smiled back at me but clambered off me, really driving home how tiny she was. Dinah's short legs weren't that near the ground when they were dangling off of mine and she had to hop down in a little jump.
Honestly, it should be illegal to be that adorable.
I waited to continue as I watched her scamper back to her armchair. For being the niece of the mayor, she wasn't acting how I expected. I didn't remember much about her in general but the only things I did remember were about how she'd been treated by Coil, so the only thing I had to go by was that she was fairly closely related to Mayor Christner. Undoubtedly her home was much fancier and well maintained than my crappy little apartment was, but instead of turning her nose up at it all she didn't seem bothered at all, perching on the edge of the unmistakably ratty chair.
"Hold on, I need to check something before we do anything else." I said before she could speak up again.
I pulled out my phone, navigating to the homepage of the (in)famous PHO. Myles had never been someone that had used the site extensively, only checking it infrequently when something big enough happened to attract his attention, usually when whatever had happened was in Brockton Bay or even worse around his apartment. My apartment, whatever. Kieran just remembered many PHO interludes. The phone wasn't anything special, especially compared to Kieran's memories of 2021, just something that Aunt Nessa had given me soon after my parents died. I remembered frantic fingers pressing it into my unresponsive hands and curling my own around it. She'd made me promise to use it to call if anything happened. I never had.
Setting up a PHO account was easy, getting verified as a cape was slightly harder. I hadn't gotten around to it yet, but apparently I needed to post something to the debut board to get the 'UnVerified' tag, then a moderator would contact me privately for proof. It wasn't like I didn't understand the need to make sure, I couldn't imagine how many people would try and pose as one cape or another if they didn't, it just didn't stop the process from being annoying and I hadn't gotten around to it yet.
Once the site had loaded up, which took far longer than half my memories thought it should have, I saw that someone had messaged me. I laughed loudly, making Dinah jump again. It took me a while to stop chuckling and Dinah leaned over the table, doing her best to read the screen upside down.
Private message from BugGirl:
BugGirl *New Message*: Pushed back the meeting by an hour.
DON'T say anything about the name, needed you to know it was me
I laughed again, but quickly shot back an acknowledgement and put my phone down on the table. Dinah eyed it curiously before looking back up at me.
"Who was that?" She obviously recognised the PHO private messaging page but couldn't read it from where she sat.
"Just a friend," I answered easily, mind flicking back to Taylor's reaction to any word even close to the dreaded f-word, "who I agreed to meet up with in a little bit. Enough time for us to put our heads together and work out what we're going to do."
"I can go with you," the girl didn't even hesitate, "I won't get in the way, I promise."
It didn't take an enhanced brain to know that the girl was thinking about the odds of being taken if I left her alone here. I wasn't sure what the odds of that were, of course I could ask but… I watched as she flinched in pain again, I wasn't sure she could take another question. But I couldn't exactly take her to a meeting where the majority of people there were villains, especially when those villains worked for the very man that was trying to abduct her (whether they knew it or not).
"I'm not sure that's a good idea," I raise my hand to stop her from interrupting, she looked mutinous briefly but stayed silent, "and not because I think you'd 'get in the way'. The people my friend and I are going to meet are, well, people like me."
I knew she'd picked up on the meaning when her eyes widened a little and her mouth fell open into a little O shape. Telling her all the information was dangerous, and I definitely wasn't going to say anything that could compromise the Undersiders or Taylor's secret identities but some explanation was warranted.
"And some of them I'm pretty sure your parents wouldn't approve of you, or anyone, meeting. My friend isn't but they're all, well, villains." Dinah looked a little uncertain so I continued quickly, "We happened to save them the other night from another cape and they wanted to thank us, or something. It's nothing to worry about, they can't do anything to me but if rumours about you got anywhere in the cape world then…"
My voice trailed off without finishing, we both knew what would happen if more people knew that she was a precog, let alone how strong her ability was. It was what she had been running away from after all.
"How's your head? Do you feel up to answering a question? You don't have to, it's just if we could find out if you'd be safe here while I'm out that would be useful for working out what we should do."
Dinah hesitated, her hand rose to her forehead again, rubbing it with the bottom of her palm. Even just thinking about using her powers again seemed to pain her but before I could tell her not to worry about it, she surprised me by nodding.
"Only one?" She asked, quiet but determined.
"Only one."
She steeled herself, face scrunching up into the expression I'd expect to see on someone afraid of heights but forced to ride a roller-coaster. They knew the drop was coming but were resigned to it. I waited a few seconds until she gave me another nod.
"Okay, will you be safe in my apartment until I get back from the meeting?"
As bad as it felt that I knew my question would hurt the adorable girl, I could admit to being curious about observing her power use through my psychosenses. Immediately after I asked her Cord lit up with a bright white light that tapered off into motes the further down the Cord I looked. It only lasted a split second, and as soon the energy stopped coming Dinah collapsed backwards into her seat bonelessly. The back of her head sank into the crumbling cushions, breathing heavily as she halfway lay down in the slightly too big for her chair.
"7.385% chance that I would be safe." The words came out robotically, like it wasn't her saying them.
Shit. I was kind of expecting it but it didn't make it any better. Of course Coil, and I was pretty sure it was Coil, would know where she went already. If I was remembering correctly Dinah was meant to be abducted right near the start of Worm. In fact, wasn't this meeting meant to be about the Undersiders trying to recruit Taylor, which would be followed by the bank heist? The heist that was a distraction for Coil to kidnap the girl in front of me. It was obvious that he'd been watching her home for any sign of anything unusual and whoever it was could easily have followed her here, or to the general area assuming that she'd dodged capture by using her power. No matter what my personal feelings were for the Undersiders, and no matter what else, I definitely would not be joining them in anything while they were still under Coil's thumb.
That still left me with what to do now. I didn't think it was a good idea to bring Dinah but it was clearly a worse idea to leave her here. I also doubted that the Undersiders would do anything if they did see her. I thought it would be a lot harder to actively kidnap someone than it was to know and accept that you were an accomplice to kidnapping, especially when your target was a child. Coil apparently already knew she was here, or around here, so it wasn't like we were losing that element of surprise even if Lisa did tell him.
Thinking about it I didn't even need to bring her up to the roof with me, I could let her go into the shops in the street while Taylor and I talked to the Undersiders. Any shop down there would be well within the range of my psychosenses, which had grown slightly during my experimentation when I pushed it. A bit like a muscle. The further they were pushed the more disorientating doing anything extra like moving was, but a nearby shop would be no issue at all.
Or I could bring her up with me, I didn't know if Tattletale knew what her boss was planning but I thought it would be safer to always assume she had at least some idea. Hell maybe I could even reveal to the others who their boss was and show Dinah as an example for why continuing to work for him was a bad thing to do. I didn't think it would work but I could! If it wasn't for the fact that I knew asking another question was out of the… question, then I would have asked Dinah whether she'd be safe if she didn't come up with me. Keeping her right by my side would keep her the safest but would also give away the most information.
I was still thinking when the girl in question pushed herself more upright on the armchair, though she still leant heavily on the armrest.
"You alright?" I asked worriedly, her breathing was still uneven and she looked unsteady even sitting there. It took a few moments, but she nodded shakily, "No more questions for as long as we can manage, I promise. We'll only do it with your permission too."
Dinah shot me a thankful look, one that was largely disrupted by the pained expression still on her face but I got the message. While I waited for her to recover a bit more, I got up and started putting some food together. For her, not for me. I still hadn't felt any need to eat or drink or anything since I got my powers.
It took almost half an hour for the pre-teen to get back into anywhere near good enough condition to continue our conversation, but at least that gave me enough time to put something halfway decent together for her. I was no master chef but having to cook for myself for an extended period of time, and without the money to constantly get takeaway, I was proficient enough to know I wouldn't give her food poisoning. Honestly if she'd found me later I might not have had any food in the cupboards at all. As far as I could tell I still didn't feel any worse off from not having eaten anything for a while and if that didn't change then I wasn't going to waste money on buying more.
By the time I'd dropped the plate of food in front of her, Dinah had recovered enough to sit up properly. She looked up at me then down at the plate again. I gestured down at it.
"Go ahead, I'm not hungry."
Dinah dug into the food with great gusto, raising questions about how long she'd been out looking for me and when she'd last eaten. At that pace it didn't take long for the plate to empty and I promptly took it back into the kitchen and dumped it into the sink. Wait a minute, if I could manipulate matter…
It was surprisingly easy for me to reach out and grasp the mess on the plate with my psychosenses, and only slightly harder for me to push it into being something else. A moment later and I was holding a sparkling clean but wet plate as what had once been food waste dropped off the plate as water. That's right, I was using my power to clean dishes.
Truly, I was the prime example of university student. At least part of me had been. Look upon me and tremble Brockton Bay, for I was Invictus the dishwasher!
Anyway, this time when I returned from the kitchen area, the apartment was too small to have a separate room for it, Dinah looked much better.
"So the way I see it, you basically have to come with me," the girl perked up in her seat, "what we do beyond that is another question. These villains, they work for the man who wants to kidnap you," I made sure to keep my voice calm to try and deaden the blow but Dinah still flinched heavily, "only one of them actually knows that though, and she might not be working for him by choice. I'm only saying this so that you know what's going on, I'm not handing you over to them or anything."
I had a feeling that she had known that already, the fact that her powers told her she'd be safe with me was pretty self-explanatory, but she still relaxed minutely.
"What," She hesitated and licked her dry lips, "what are you going to do?"
"What are we going to do, you mean," I smiled kindly at her, "I'm not trying to make all your decisions for you, especially since this is about your own safety. You could come up with me, one of them is a powerful thinker so she'd probably work things out pretty quickly but you'd be safest up there with me. Or you could stay nearby in a shop or something, you'd be well within my range and should still be safe."
Dinah frowned, considering her options with downcast eyes before she looked back up at me.
"What do you think we should do?"
"I want you to do whatever makes you the most comfortable," I laughed when she pouted at my non-answer, "alright, alright. Being within arm's reach of me would let me extend my 'invincibility shield' over you and I don't think the Undersiders would spread information of you around. If anything, the only one that could work out who you are might not want to work for Coil in the first place. Coil is the villain who wants you," I explained quickly when she looked confused. I needed to wait until the meeting to see how Lisa felt in regards to Coil.
The overly optimistic part of me wanted to make friends with the group. Being a small time villain sounded like a lot of fun. Plenty of independence and a group of people around my (physical) age. Then it said we'd all hold hands and go prancing off under a rainbow. No, realistically the most I could hope for was getting them away from Coil. And while part of me wanted nothing more than to join them, I also knew I wouldn't feel satisfied with that. I could really help people here.
"Did you just say invincibility shield?" I swore I saw sparkles in her eyes. That wasn't the response I was expecting but maybe I should have done. For all that her powers had forced her to mature in some ways, confronting the reality of your chances of being kidnapped would do that to a pre-teen, she was still a kid. Of course she hyper-focused in on an invincibility shield like it was a playground game.
I couldn't help but laugh again.
"Here," I reached across the table and put my hand on Dinah's much smaller shoulder. Just like I had done with Taylor last night I pushed, and my field stretched to cover the young girl too, "try and hit the table or something."
Dinah looked uncertainly at my hand then up to my face. With great hesitation, she raised her hand, clenched it into a fist and brought it down on the table. I could tell she hadn't put her all into it, still unconsciously afraid of damaging herself like anyone would have been. But it didn't matter.
The table, unable to apply force back onto the impacting fist, crumpled beneath it instead. Dinah looked in shock and awe as it collapsed into two pieces, one with a very clear fist shaped imprint. She couldn't seem to decide what to look at, me, her hand or the destroyed piece of furniture.
"That. Is. Awesome!" This time there were definitely sparkles in her eye, and I had to wrap my fingers gently around her other wrist to stop her pummeling my table into dust when she raised that hand too.
"It really is, isn't it," I agreed with her light-heartedly. Nothing like childish wonder to show how cool having powers like these really was.
I picked up the pieces of the table and pressed them back together, both physically and psychokinetically. The wood was a relatively simple structure, and just like the metal of the warehouse I could copy it easily. Instantly, the break sealed up and indents silently popped back to their original shape. Putting it back down once it was back in one piece, I saw Dinah staring at it.
"Yeah, invincibility shield. As far as I know I have to be touching you to cover you with it. Hel-" I stopped myself, remembering that I was talking to a child. Dinah snorted, "Heck, I could give you a costume like mine as long as you stay within my range."
"Like yours?" She asked.
Oh right I still hadn't told her I was Invictus, not that she would have known who that was anyway. I pulled the suit out of the back of my mind, and the next second it was covering my skin again. Dinah leaned backwards but instantly afterwards swarmed forward again, poking at it. It kind of tickled at the edges of my psychosenses.
"Hey this feels weird," she stretched out the last word.
"That's because it's not real material, or not matter at least. More like, condensed energy? I think?"
"You think?"
"Anyway!" I carried on like I hadn't heard her, "It shouldn't be that much of a problem to put it on you too. Want to try?"
She didn't even take a second to think about it, her head bobbed up and down rapidly like one of those ridiculous little models with oversized heads.
"Alright, stay still okay?"
I waited for her to stop moving before molding the energy around her. It was like copy and pasting again, just scaling down to fit Dinah's much, much smaller frame. While the process of making my suit had become somewhat automatic, creating it around someone else was substantially harder. Not difficult it just… required me to pay constant attention. The energy covering her had to move up and down with her breath, and maintain enough distance from her skin and clothes that if she decided to move I could move it in time with her. I had a feeling my seemingly enhanced brain was helping with the multitasking, but it still required at least some focus.
"Wow," Dinah breathed out when I had finished. She had raised her hand in front of her face, wiggling her fingers excitedly. Good, I could keep up with her movements easily enough. I was pretty sure that in reducing the heat it gave off when I first created it I had reduced the danger of it a lot. Now it was probably closer to compare it to the light that purity emitted around herself but more solidified.
"Wow indeed." I think her enthusiasm was infectious, "As long as you stay within maybe a couple blocks I should be able to keep that on you no problem. Any further and I'd have to concentrate harder on it, for now at least."
"What even are your powers?" The question came out absent-mindedly. The girl was clearly still engrossed in waving her hand in front of her face. Dinah stopped and looked at me when she realised she'd asked it out loud, "I mean, an invincibility shield, that's a high-level brute rating and all of this?"
She waved her hand down at the newly repaired table and back up at our suit covered bodies. I was expecting the question, but it was still kind of a personal one. I didn't think she meant anything about it, she was just a young child having 'awesome' powers shoved in her face, of course she'd be curious. The problem was that I hadn't actually told anyone about my powers yet, the brute power was pretty self-evident in the fight against Lung but psychokinesis was still a secret. On top of that Dinah was still a pre-teen, an age group that was notoriously bad at keeping secrets. I had two sets of memories of 'myself' at that age and I could see that for myself.
But I mean, did it matter though? I was pretty sure Dinah was a good kid, let alone the fact that we were working together to stop her from being kidnapped. Looking at it in a cold way, she owed me and I thought she was too good to break that trust. On top of that it wasn't like there was much if anything that would stop psychokinesis even if someone found out about it. Maybe I just wasn't very good at sitting back and plotting but I didn't care much, especially not about telling someone like Dinah.
"I can manipulate energy and matter inside of my range. Create it, destroy it, change it, theoretically anything you can imagine. It's taking me a while to work out how to do anything actually creative with it though."
As I spoke, I worked at creating tiny flashing motes of light that danced around my fingers and jumped away, twisting and unravelling into slightly more complex shapes. There were a few fireworks, snowflakes and tiny animals, each of them petered out when they got a little further away from me. Okay yes, I put on a show for Dinah. But it was the first time I got to really show my power off to someone! Can you really blame me?
I dispersed the suit around her, revealing her staring wide eyed at the light show. It wasn't really that impressive, maybe as the niece of the mayor she'd lived a pretty sheltered life?
"If I brought you to the meeting in a suit then we could pretend you're an energy construct or something. If Tattletale, the thinker, hasn't worked out some of my abilities by now I'd be surprised anyway." Her power seemed bullshit like that. I checked the clock, "We have to go soon, so take your pick."
She hummed and hawed for a little while, still clearly distracted by the showing with my powers. Eventually though she gave herself a firm, determined nod and met my eyes.
"I think I'll go to the meeting with you."
Guess 'invincibility shields' and a cool super suit won out, who would have guessed?
xOx
"Remember, don't say anything when we're down there," I said, voice carrying easily over the wind, "we want them to think you're just a mass of energy of some kind instead of well, you. They might not know their boss is after you but better safe than sorry."
When I didn't hear anything back from Dinah I looked down at her, seeing her distractedly looking down over the city. Suppose I couldn't blame her, flying like this was pretty distracting.
"Did you get that Dinah?" She nodded absently, eyes still roaming over the buildings, "I'm gonna put the suit on you now," I warned her.
We'd previously been travelling through clouds to keep out of view of anyone below. I didn't think anyone would be looking for us up here anyway, except maybe Tattletale but it was still a risk. Again my it came easily to me, and this time slightly easier to put on someone else too. A good reminder that practice did pay off. The appearance of the suit shaped energy served to distract the young girl a little, as she waved her hands again. I sighed, I had a lot of respect for parents that could get their kids to focus on demand. Clearly despite all my power I lacked that magical ability.
With my powered senses I could pick out the group of people on the roof of the building directly beneath us. There were five of them, so I assumed that Taylor was already down their. Dinah and I were a few minutes late, she had been enjoying flying a lot and I hadn't had the heart so rush and cut that short; too glad that she was still able to enjoy things like that even with the knowledge that someone was out to kidnap her.
"Going down."
Dinah and I, with my hand pressed into her back, floated back down towards the ground. We broke through the cloud bank, and with my enhanced eyes I could easily see them all down there. Taylor had, as expected come in her suit, looking dark and on edge.
But the Undersiders had been as good as their word and come in their civilian get up. I saw a head of blonde hair, a flash of green eyes as she looked up at me and a seemingly ever-present smirk. That was Lisa then. Next to her and the tallest person down there was Brian. Neatly cornrowed hair and musculature, the dark-skinned teenager very much had the physique that both of me had wanted before all of this. Finally, there was Alec sat on the raised outer section of the roof facing inwards. He had curly black hair without much shape and an angular face that brought attention to his blue eyes, though its attractiveness was slightly marred by a light scowl. Was that his resting face? It didn't seem like he was particularly annoyed other than that, just lounging on the roof.
"He's coming now," I easily heard Lisa say. The rest of them followed the direction she was looking and saw Dinah and I floating down. Or well, hopefully they just saw an energy construct and I floating down. The way that Lisa's eyes narrowed didn't give me much hope.
"At least he knows how to make an entrance," Alec muttered. He sounded more worried than I had expected him to be, what I knew about him had led me to believe that he was a laid-back guy. To the point that one could call him apathetic, but something about me had him concerned. I didn't think it was anything to do with power level, I felt like he could and probably would mouth off to people many times stronger than him. Something had set him on edge around me. Or he was annoyed I was late? He didn't strike me as the kind of person who would have cared about that though.
Brian didn't say anything, but he eyed me warily as I alighted on the roof. The landing barely made any noise on the gravel and I made sure to keep my hand on the small of Dinah's back while we landed. My field was still pushed onto her as well, and she was doing a good job of staying decently still.
"Sorry I'm late," I waved my arm towards Dinah, "I got distracted practising."
They all looked down at Dinah and she shuffled under their combined attention. Couldn't blame her, being the centre of attention of a bunch of unknown capes would be intimidating for most anyone. Unless you knew that you were much stronger than them I guess. Funny how that did a lot for the nerves.
"Are you making it do that?" Alec leaned down from his perch to get a closer look, "That's pretty weird, but to each their own."
"Shut up Alec," Brian chimed in immediately, and I saw him barely restrain himself from rolling his eyes, "You're not that late, don't worry about it," He said that but he looked mildly pissed about it, "we only just started. We just finished introducing ourselves. I'm-"
"Brian," I pointed at him and he tensed, "Lisa," the blonde girl's smirk had only grown for some reason, "and Alec." Compared to the other two Alec tried very hard to not show any outward reaction to my knowledge. His brow still tightened somewhat and his foot jerked slightly, scraping on the gravel. From the way he glared down at it you'd think he was going to chop it off for betraying his cool unbothered image, "Oh and Bug Girl of course," I couldn't help myself and the way Taylor's head whipped around to presumably glare at me made it all worth it, "I heard while I was up there."
I hadn't because I hadn't been listening for it, but I probably could have. Unlike my psychosenses I hadn't actually tested how improved my normal human senses were. Lisa didn't look like she believed me, and that the only thing stopping her from her smirk getting wider again were the constraints of human biology. Brian just raised an eyebrow but seemed willing to accept it, and eager to get back on track.
"Right, anyway. Firstly," The large teen gestured to his blonde team-mate who picked up two plastic lunchboxes. Ah right the money. Lisa threw one to me and passed the other one to Taylor.
"I always loved Alexandria," I heard Taylor speak to herself under her breath, "Is this collectable?"
Clearly she hadn't meant for anyone to hear her but it was the docks, so generally quite underpopulated. There wasn't much noise from the roads, only the occasional passing car. We all heard her, and I found myself rolling my eyes along with Lisa. Alec looked like he was going to cut in with something, probably a witty comment, but Brian kicked him in the shin. Though he also had an amused smile plastered on his face.
The lunchbox was a lot smaller in my hands than Taylor's and mine had Eidolon printed across the top in a heroic pose, hands on hips and floating above what I assumed to be Houston. He was clad in his iconic uniform, blue-green skintight suit, thick cowl and cape mid-flutter behind him. Soft green light emanated from and around his mask, and I could see the famous glowing eyes shining through it. Shame that from what I remembered the man was an asshole.
"You couldn't have gotten a Legend one?" I complained.
Lisa just grinned at me, "They were sold out," of course she knew, "Just open it."
As expected, inside of the box were taped together stacks of bills. I knew that both Myles and Kieran would have been shocked to see so much money physically in one place, let alone that it was being given to them. But I found myself kind of ambivalent to it; I didn't need to eat, drink so there were no expenses there. Being a Noctis cape meant I didn't really need a place to sleep, and even if I did my apartment was still being paid for by my aunt. The money was cool and it still had its uses but it wasn't anywhere near as important to me as it would have been… before. Also, I guess I could copy dollar bills now! Pretty sure that would go wrong, it was reasonably well known that the government had thinkers constantly watching the economy for stuff like that.
I flicked the box closed again with a click. Was it legal to take money from a criminal that had taken the money from a criminal? Probably not. Did I care? Not really. I didn't see much use for it now but that didn't mean I wouldn't later on.
"Two options. You can take that with no strings attached," Brian said to both of us, gesturing down at the two lunchboxes like the two grand in each was nothing. Maybe it was to them, I didn't remember how successful they were or how much money they made in general. Either they were really good at acting or four thousand dollars was no big deal for their budget, "You really did save our asses against Lung," he looked torn between annoyed at having to admit that impressed with the feat, "And maybe don't beat us up when we're in costume if we meet again?"
That last part was definitely directed at me, from the way his gaze flickered to me and Alec side-eyed me. So they were scared of me, or at least worried about me. Fair enough, they couldn't have gotten this far without at least decent survival instincts.
"Or?" I asked when Taylor didn't speak up, not answering their last question. Let them sweat a bit, it was still a novel experience being the one that people were nervous around. Kieran had been harmless and Myles had been used as punching bag too many times to intimidate anyone that knew him. He'd been thin and wiry, without an ounce of muscle on him. Now I towered over everyone on the roof, even Brian. But I doubted it was my physical stature that made them wary of me, Lisa had likely worked out something to do with my power at least and probably told them.
"Or," the blonde thinker cut in cheekily and Brian shot her an irritated look, "you could join us. Two grand a month plus whatever we make on jobs. Pretty cushy huh?" The question was aimed at Taylor, she'd seen my lack of reaction to the money compared to Taylor.
Taylor snorted, amused at the joke. Only it wasn't a joke, and she quieted down when she saw the Undersiders giving us (relatively) serious looks. Well Brian did, Lisa was still grinning and at that point I was sure her face had somehow gotten stuck in that expression as a child. Alec looked like he didn't care one way or another, legs kicking backwards and forwards on the ledge, tapping against the wall in the rhythm to a song I didn't know. But I could still see him smiling, the corners of his lips twitching upwards like he was laughing at a joke that only he was in on.
"One of us, one of us, one of-" the boy chanted. Brian kicked him in the other shin. Alec gave an exaggerated cry of pain and wheeled his arms around like he was falling backwards off the ledge. Taylor took a step towards him, ready to stop him from falling before the teenage villain reeled himself back in, laughing all the while.
Lisa just looked done, though in the fondly exasperated way an older sibling would look after the younger did something incredibly stupid. Clearly she was used to Alec and his antics.
"As much as he was joking, he's not wrong. We'd like for you both to join the Undersiders." Brian continued in what was probably meant to be a serious and official sounding voice. It was kind of undercut by the sound of Alec fake crying loudly in the background.
"And Bitch- Rachel," Taylor corrected herself, "didn't come because what? She was against the recruitment?"
"We vote on new members," Alec spoke up, his crying noises cut off instantly and he was back to his normal self, "She voted against you," the 'not against you' to me went unsaid. Brian took a step back towards Alec, he flinched and shut up, covering his shins with his hands.
"But we," Brian pointed to himself then at the other Undersiders, "all voted for both of you."
"The boss was interested in getting both of you to sign up too," Lisa chimed in.
Ah yes, the 'boss'. Coil. And that was the big issue wasn't it, what to do about Coil. Well the 'what' wasn't in question, only the how and when. I was pretty confident in my ability to find him, I knew his secret identity had something to do with the PRT but most of my memories about him were more about his cape life. Finding him while keeping Dinah safe and hopefully not unleashing Noelle at the same time… that was harder. Especially since I didn't want to drag the teenage supervillains into it any more than necessary.
I could see how Taylor had grown to like the Undersiders, they were all likeable teens just on the wrong side of the law. I was pretty sure that they all had some sort of tragic background. Lisa had something with her family, her brother committed suicide? Not to forget how she might have been 'recruited' by Coil. Brian also had family problems, I remembered something about a little sister and an abusive man. His mother's boyfriend perhaps. Of course, Alec originally known as Jean-Paul was Heartbreaker's son and all the baggage that came with that. Rachel had a murder charge based on her mother or someone trying to drown her first dog and her trigger event. Most of them had never been given much of a chance on the right side of the law and again even if they tried what with the largely rotted system. Honestly, in the world of Worm they were somewhat better people than even the some of the heroes.
"The boss huh?" I asked, "Mind telling us who this boss is? I'd rather know who I'd be working for."
Brian and Alec looked uncertain while Lisa's eyes had narrowed momentarily, like a cat that was trailing a mouse. The two guys really didn't know who they were working for? I saw old irritation spark in Brian's eyes, not knowing obviously bothered him. His eyes flickered towards Lisa for a split second before tracking back to me. If I hadn't been looking for it then I wouldn't have seen it.
"That's on a need to know basis," Brian finally said, once the silence started to stretch into uncomfortable territories.
I laughed briefly.
"As in a, 'you also don't know' basis?" He tried his best to not react but his eyes widened slightly before he schooled his features. Reading people was getting easier, "Yeah that's what I thought."
"You don't even know who you're working for?" Taylor spoke up suddenly, blurting it out without thinking.
None of the Undersiders said anything for a few moments. Brian's jaw had clenched as he looked over my shoulder into the city, perfectly happy to take a while to answer the question.
"Ain't it a bitch?" It was Alec that broke the stalemate, unlike the other boy he seemed completely unconcerned by his mystery employer, "Not that it matters. They pay us, we do a few jobs, it's a win-win situation. I don't need to know who's paying me to sit on my ass and rake it in."
Lisa snorted and rolled her eyes, the tension in the air dissipated somewhat by the lackadaisical teen's response. Brian gave him a half-hearted glare but let it drop, his wide shoulders rose and dropped in a heaving sigh.
"Look it doesn't change anything. The boss, whoever they are, generally leaves us alone. We do our own thing, and the jobs they give us tend to be things we'd do anyway."
If things stayed the way they had in Worm, then Taylor would join the Undersiders in an attempt to reveal who the mysterious boss was and to turn all of the teenage villains in. I… was conflicted. Joining the group had been arguably the most defining moment in at least the early stages of the story, and she genuinely found friends there from what I could remember.
Damn I really wasn't one for taking ages thinking things through, as either Myles or Kieran and doubly so now. I wondered if that was a side effect of having these powers.
"The issue is that I do know who your mysterious benefactor is," I declared. Movement on the rooftop stopped, "and I'm definitely not working for him."
The very idea was atrocious. Working under Coil? The man had no morals, the girl I had disguised in front of me was testament to that. Fully willing to kidnap innocents, to lie and steal and cheat; all to take over Brockton Bay and make his own personal kingdom. I wouldn't let that happen.
"You…what?" Brian's voice was disbelieving, like he hadn't heard me properly.
"Your boss is a real bastard," Lisa snorted at me, though I thought I saw agreement dancing behind her amused eyes. Dinah shook beneath my palm in what might have been an aborted giggle. Oh right, don't swear in front of the young child, "And I have no intention of working for him, at all. In fact, you shouldn't either. I don't know what he's promised you all," that was a lie, I knew the general idea, "but he's a liar. I can guarantee he doesn't plan to ever let you go or finish helping you or whatever he's doing."
"And we're just meant to take your word for it?" Brian asked, frowning heavily.
I shrugged, "I don't exactly have anything else to give you. But you're working for someone who is presumably a big villain, by the jobs they have you do, in Brockton Bay. Do you really think that it's going to be all sunshine and daisies at the end of the line? That you're not going to run out of rope? Eventually, he's not going to need you anymore and then…" I trailed off, leaving the rest up to their imaginations.
Brian looked unsettled. I think I had touched upon a fear that he'd held for a long time, he was desperate not stupid and years in the business must have left him with some idea as to how things were done in it. That was how the world worked, not just the villainous cape scene. In jobs, you worked until your use was up and the company got rid of you, or were useful enough to get promoted, rinse and repeat. I was pretty sure that cynicism came more from Myles than Kieran. It's just that with villains, when the well of your use had run dry so to speak, 'getting rid' of you tended to be a more permanent notion.
Still, I wasn't foolish enough to think that they would just listen to me after one meeting. A large part of me doubted they would at all, but I had to try. Teenagers were infamously stubborn, and a group of super powered ones that were fond of their current situation would be even worse.
"And you?" Brian turned to Taylor, blatantly ignoring what I had said in an effort to retake control of the meeting.
"I, uh," the bug controller floundered, head snapping back and forth between me and Brian like a chronometer, "Why do you even want me? I control bugs," she pointed at me, "I get him. He destroyed Lung and he wasn't even scratched. What am I, some sort of consolation prize?"
To me it sounded like she was desperately scrambling for anything to say.
Brian and Lisa both firmly shook their heads, "No, we already said we wanted to recruit both of you," the boy, who was seemingly the nominal leader of the group, answered, "And you fucked up Lung real good too. Those bug bites didn't come from glowstick over there. Lisa says they've still got him tied up in the ICU from all the venom. Needed to get Panacea to do her thing or the big bastard would have bit the bullet."
Taylor froze. It wasn't like it was all her fault, or even most of it. I had a feeling that missing an arm and a good chunk of your torso as well as whatever else I broke in him had the tendency to do that a guy. Even a cape with ridiculous regeneration.
"He-I mean- what?" She stuttered.
Lisa snorted, "You do know what you had bite him right?"
"Of course I do," Taylor retorted, voice rife with indignation, "But he's a regenerator! Toxins aren't even meant to work on them!"
"You bit him hundreds of time in the junk," The blonde said, her tone halfway between a deadpan and a guffaw, "You seriously thought he was just going to get up and walk it off because he heals a bit faster?"
A dark flash of happiness shot through with pride surged through me. It wasn't the kind of pride a hero should feel about taking out a major villain. No, it was singular enjoyment of someone's suffering and it felt good. I wanted him to suffer so much my empty hand clenched into a trembling fist. Lisa eyed it warily for a second before the feeling passed. The guilt that I expected to follow never came.
"Well he certainly wouldn't be enjoying sitting down so…" Alec chimed in shrugging casually, and instantly went back to guarding his bruised shins when Brian's eyes swooped over to him. He got hit over the head instead.
"I can't believe you didn't know!" Lisa crowed, nodding in amused agreement at Alec.
I coughed to interrupt before she could get on a role.
"I did sort of blow up half his body. His regeneration might have been, uh, preoccupied?"
Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Alec mouth 'preoccupied' silently to himself before laughing disbelievingly.
"Either way, you fought against Lung by yourself. For a while," Brian rushed out before Taylor could interrupt, "and that says something. We want you, not as a consolation prize or because we have to, but because you'd be a great addition to the team."
And damn if those honeyed words didn't appeal to the girl. Even through the mask and edged bodysuit I could see her reaction to them. What did it say about her mental state that the words of some strangers, villainous strangers at that, could have had so profound an effect on her? She had turned into a statue, not breathing just staying utterly still. Did she think we were T-Rexes or something?
"Look, I'm sorry if I scared you. What with knowing where you were messaging from," Lisa started.
"You did what?" I got the feeling that that was something Brian said a lot. I gave my sympathy to the young man. Having people like Lisa and Alec on your team must have been headache inducing.
She blithely continued, "I was just messing around. We're a tight-knit bunch and it would be great to have you. I've wanted another girl on the team for ages, the last potential recruit… well, she got scared off and Rachel is Rachel. Alec tries his best to make up for her lack of feminine grace," she let out a put upon sigh, "but it's just not the same."
Had she given up on recruiting me completely? From the knowing look she sent me, I guessed so.
"I'll have you know I'm pretty as fuck," the boy in question pouted, still rubbing the back of his head.
Taylor relaxed minutely, which I assumed was what they were going for. Get the girl to relax again and she'd be easier to bring into the group. From what I remembered about the Undersiders, they were pretty open with their intentions. They didn't have any ulterior motives, other than the obvious desire to go for bigger jobs with a new member or two and weren't bad people per se. For this world at least.
I just didn't want her joining them. Not yet at least, while Coil still held their leash. Not when I knew what it could and would lead to her doing, or the events that would follow. Most of all I didn't want her to be made into a killer. If I could help it I would stop anyone and everyone from that fate too, although I knew it was utterly unrealistic. I wasn't actually sure how it had ended in the web serial, but I knew billions were killed by Scion and even if it counted as a 'victory' it would be an extremely pyrrhic one at best. Now, since I was there, I could change things. And what better place to start than the Undersiders?
It didn't look like I'd have to do much to stop her, considering how she kept looking towards me while she was thinking. If I was going to be here for whatever reason and be forced to try to work out what I even am, I might as well enjoy myself while I'm doing it. And really, what was more fun than pushing a plan off the rails and watching how it all falls apart. Especially when said plan was Cauldron's.
"I wouldn't recommend it," I said calmly. My tone didn't seem to help though as the Undersiders all tensed up, "Nothing against you guys but your boss is a sinking ship tilting towards an iceberg," I waved at them, "I'm the iceberg by the way. If you join them Buggy, and for that matter if you don't leave your boss' employ Undersiders, well… things will get a bit awkward between us."
"You're threatening us?" Brian asked after a few moments of silence.
"Not yet," the smile was evident in my voice.
With a mental shrug I decided to go all in on the derail train. I reached out and grasped the air around us, twisting it and pushing energy into it. A split second later the roof was filled by a roaring, snapping fire. Tendrils of heat wormed and swarmed their way around everyone on the roof, never touching them but enough for each of them to feel the scalding hit. I made sure to avoid the bugs that had apparently gathered in hiding spots on the roof and around the fire escape.
If there was one thing that Lung had given me, it was experience with fire.
I dismissed the inferno a moment later, the energy drain wasn't even noticeable, but I thought my point had been made. When it cleared, every piece of gravel on the roof had been scorched to an angry black, except for small circles around everyone. Nobody moved, but Brian had becoming a roiling mass of darkness like someone had cut something vaguely human shaped out of the fabric of the universe. With my psychosenses I could still tell where he was but it was a cool effect, and his Cord was a tumbling spiral of twisting smog. Lisa had frozen, wide-eyed and for once her grin had dropped, replaced instead with a look of open-mouthed shock. Her Cord flickered sporadically with multicoloured lights, that was it providing her with information presumably. The other two had just tensed up, though Taylor's feet were slowly being surrounded by a barrier of writhing insects.
"That, was me threatening you." It had been fun too, worryingly so. My voice was as calm as is was beforehand, "Make no mistake, I don't want to. Not really. You seem like a decent bunch of people, enjoying your freedom and all that. I just want to make it clear that if my other completely reasonable reasons weren't enough, it is, shall we say, in your best interests to not be on the sinking ship."
It wasn't like I was actually going to hurt any of them, not when they hadn't really done anything. No matter how I tried to justify it in terms that would make me feel good about my morals, in the end it just boiled down to the fact that I did like them; though that was mainly as characters and my pretty good first impressions of them. However, it was also clear that just telling them that sticking with Coil was a bad idea wasn't going to be enough. Hopefully a small demonstration of my powers would do the trick. I definitely didn't cackle evilly in my head.
"You're actually sticking with that shitty metaphor?" Lisa broke the quiet with an incredulous giggle, smile back in place though twitching at the edges.
"Unfortunately my powers don't extend to literary structures," I dead panned back at her, "Can I ask that you don't tell your boss about what we've talked about here? If you agree I'll tell you some more about him, and exactly why he's the scum of the Earth that you don't want to work for."
Taylor shot me a look that I couldn't discern through her mask, though I guessed that it was something along the lines of wary. She'd edged slightly away from me, though she stayed inside the circle of unburnt roof around her, and a line made of bugs lay in between us. It wouldn't stop me and I was certain she knew that too, in fact it was probably subconscious. A literal line I shouldn't cross, that hurt a bit. Maybe I had been a bit rash...?
"And if we said that we would tell them?" Brian said. He still hadn't stopped his power, "Or that they were supervising right now?"
"There's no cameras up here." Or at least I was fairly certain there wasn't. There was nothing that felt like a camera on the roof or any of the surrounding ones. I might not be able to make or understand them (yet) but there was nothing with that intricate an electronic design, "He could be watching from further away I suppose but I doubt he'd risk being out of whatever hole he's burrowed in just for this. Whatever else there is to say about him the man is a paranoid son of a-" I looked down at Dinah, "female dog. Don't tell Rachel I said that."
Alec chuffed and his eyes glinted. Honest to god sparkles. He was definitely going to tell her.
"As for if you do tell him," Brian's shoulders, or what passed as them in the mildly amorphous blob of darkness, tensed, "I don't really care. It'll just be a bit more convenient for me if you don't."
"And you'll just trust us if we say we won't?" The dark-skinned teen said uncertainly.
"I don't really have much choice, though I like to think I'd be able to tell if you lie," I shrugged, "Like I said, all I'm really going for is getting you guys to split from your boss and giving you information on him is likely to help with that. It's not like I'm trying to make you go straight," yet, "if you don't tell him then great, if you do then he'll still go down just the same. Just hopefully with less widespread damage if he's less aware of what's coming. I'd recommend jumping ship while you can."
I'd started the metaphor and I was damn well going to finish it. I pretended to ignore both Alec and Lisa's exasperated expressions. Alec did not get to get on my ass about terrible jokes, and annoying the thinker was quickly turning into a favourite pass time.
"He definitely believes what he's saying," Lisa chimed off to Brian, as the large teen slowly formed back into his normal shape. She sounded casual but there was a calculating gleam in her eyes. I couldn't remember whether how she'd gotten recruited by Coil at gunpoint was canon, or fanon or if it even mattered. Frankly it was still utterly surreal and halfway unbelievable that I was walking around Brockton Bay in the first place. Canon or fanon didn't matter as much to me when I was physically walking the streets. The singular reason it was only half was that nearly half my memories were from this crazy world.
Either way she seemed to be very interested in listening to what I had to say. Some of that might have been the fire in her face just a moment prior but still. Brian looked at her, and then at Alec who just returned a nonchalant shrug.
"Fine. Assuming that keeping this information from our boss won't put any of us," he gestured at himself and the two Undersiders next to him, "in danger, we won't say anything."
He didn't say anything about stopping working for Coil, but it was a start and more than I was honestly expecting to get. Well he did have a few years of experience as a villain before he got recruited by Coil right? He probably knew that something was wrong but wasn't willing to push too far and end a good gig. Especially with his… sister(?) hanging over his head. It was understandable, but maybe I could change his mind or start the process.
"Great!" Now, where to start… "Tell me, what do you guys know about Coil?"
A/N: So this is a long ass chapter, actually increasing the length of the fic so far by a third by itself. I'm also not very happy with it (as usual) but wanted to get it out there. I was originally thinking about splitting the chapter just before the meeting with the Undersiders but I just kept writing so here you go.
Firstly, I'd like to say thanks for all the support and feedback that I've gotten so far. Cumulatively across all three sites this fic is posted on it's gotten almost 1,200 watchers/followers at this point. I never though it would get anywhere near that many so a big thank you to everyone who has even read it. Hopefully some of you find it as enjoyable to read as I usually do to write.
Secondly, if you think that Myles acts rashly and is an idiot... this is absolutely true because he's at least largely meant to be me. I think I'm writing it with the thinker ability mainly being eidetic memory and being able to manage the information overload of his psychokinesis, more than making him intelligent. Mainly because intelligence seems like a pain in the ass to write and most of the time not something I would do with superpowers. Hopefully he/I learn to be smarter in the future eh?
I like to think that this chapter is the start of things derailing a bit more, and then a bit more and more, etc.
And yes there are many uses for psychokinesis that I/Myles haven't thought of and/or don't understand yet. Hopefully this will come in time.
Let me know what you think because this chapter was a pain.