Reunion

Beneath a careful shield of calm that stopped her trying to think overmuch about her situation, Emily allowed herself to think that this was going better than expected. She sat in the dilapidated upper floor of some flooded building, singing softly to herself, and listening to it drive her opponents quite mad. The Overseers' music cut off her powers, but her own melody seemed to affect others in a quite different way. it caused fear in the average person, but the Whalers only seemed to experience pain. It had the downside, of course, of revealing to them exactly where she was. The first crashed through a window towards her, and was quickly dispatched by a pebble to the forehead. The second ducked beneath the projectile, coming up to fire from his wrist projectile. Emily was forced to stop singing and grapple away, being tugged through the air past him and then through the window, out over the floods. With balance gained from a week of intensive parkour, she landed on a bent lamppost. Turning, she saw another Whaler approaching, but before she could react, she was fixed in place. A green glow suffused her. Looking back to the window, that Whaler had grabbed her in one of their more troublesome powers. She recalled it from when it had been used to trap Corvo. The other Whaler that had just approached was loading something whale-oil blue into his wrist launcher. Where had she seen one of those before…

Incendiary dart.

The whaler took aim. Emily's grapple couldn't get her out of the Pull power fast enough, unless-

She turned, and grappled the one who was Pulling her. Unprepared for the attack, they were both yanked towards each other, colliding in mid-air and falling towards the floods. The incendiary dart flew over their heads and exploded against the building, causing the whole structure to buckle.

._.

In Daud's personal quarters, they heard a muffled boom. Daud sighed and turned to Corvo, who had just finished debriefing him. "Go and see what that is. I have a recording I need to make."

._.

Emily purposefully strode (as much as is possible with ten-year-old legs) along a rickety bridge just barely above the water's surface. In her right hand, she held a blade she had taken from one of the Whalers. It was practically identical to the one she had held that day. She could see the statue of her mother now, it's imperious gaze staring over her. The houses seemed to part here, leaving only a few roofless buildings leading up to the statue itself, and the building it fronted. Emily knew that building. It was, what, a bank? She had been here when she was very small, before the plague and the ruin that had come with it. There was the telltale, sub-sound of a traversal power being used, and a figure appeared in the sky above her, landing with a thump on the bridge with a lack of damage to his knees that spoke of some related bone charm. This one was…different. Both in the way he carried himself, and his attire. That coat looked almost like Corvo's. She tilted her head at him. "Are you Daud?"

._.

Corvo looked closely at the little girl in white. He felt something…odd, in his chest, a sense of longing, of recognition. But he couldn't possibly know who she was. She was wearing a veil.

"No." He answered simply. Deciding not to kill the child, he left his Royal Guard's blade in its sheathe. Then he blinked forwards.

._.

Well this one's certainly faster than the rest. Emily was forced to drop the blade she held as she grappled backwards, then lifted one leg as a sleep dart thunked into the wood beneath her, using her left hand to smother down her skirt as she did so to avoid it flapping upwards. Then he was in her face again, reaching out with his hands for her throat, and she skipped backwards. A flick of the wrist and his shadow moved to immobilise him, sliding up his legs and back and grabbing him about the neck. Emily took the opportunity of his immobility to stop, take a pebble from her pocket, and fire it from her slingshot, but even with his airway restricted, he was able to blink out of the way of the projectile. His shadow followed him though, the pressure was maintained, and he was forced to his knees. Emily loaded another stone, and with his last breath, the Whaler used another blink. This time, though, he went straight upwards. Going above the roofs of the houses; the weak sunlight caught him fully, and with his shadow's source so far below, it released him. Emily tutted as she grappled to a higher building. The others couldn't figure out how to escape the shadow choke either. Who is this man?

._.

Corvo landed on a roof and sucked in a breath, re-evaluating the girl's threat level. He should have realised that that mark on her wrist put her on the same level as Daud, or Delilah. Well I beat one of those, and Daud will have his turn too. Resolving to try harder, he called upon one of his more aggressive powers. A rising motion from his palm brought a swarm of rats out of the ground, all scurrying towards the witch-girl. And then he possessed one of them. From his new low point from amidst the mass of bodies, he watched the girl stand still for a moment. Then her voice hit him like a sledgehammer. It hurt, crashing against his control over his rat's body and threatening to separate him from it. He was buffeted from the side, and clambered atop the body of another rat to-wait, body?

He saw, his possessed body giving out a shriek, that the swarm was…devouring itself. No matter, he was close enough. His rat separated from the group and sprinted for her. He saw her ready another shot from that slingshot, and waited until just the right moment-

Brief disorientation, then the pebble smacked against the rat that had already died from him leaving it, and his full human form slammed into her, throwing them both off the roof and back down towards the wooden walkway. They separated in mid-air, and he hit the wood relatively painlessly, while she was forced to grapple a higher object to slow her fall. She landed next to the blade she had dropped earlier though, and picked it up in two hands.

Fine then. If I must. This was going to be hard. He had picked up most of the powers worryingly fast, but this next was something only Daud had yet been capable of; the one thing that made him unassailable to all those his power had bled out to. Corvo was not a religious man, but he took his procuring it as a sign. With another gesture from his hand, and an almost staggering drain from his magic reserves, time around Corvo froze to a standstill.