I woke up after a short nap.
Clarity drilled into my skull. They had said I couldn't leave until Kurt and Lacey were here. They were wrong of course, but leaving when they didn't want me to took so much effort. So I sprawled on the couch in the Ward's quarters, and waited. Vista and Aegis were still here, with the others on patrol or something. I hadn't really paid attention.
The Traitor's Thorn pulsed like a leaking blister at the back of my mind, offering a dozen ways to leave unseen. Including a diamond-based cloaking device, which I gave a moment's consideration to before a new wave of Clarity rolled over me like a swell of magma. It burned away all the nascent ideas from the Thorn and I groaned, pulling myself up.
I had only taken two steps towards the exit when Aegis was in front of me. I grumbled at him as he looked at me sternly. The Crown could stop me from getting hurt, but it wouldn't prevent Aegis from simply picking me up and setting me back on the couch - this I knew from experience. I paused suddenly. It was kind of like a hug when he did that, and I hadn't really had one of those in a while, that I could remember. One during the Blur didn't count.
I took another step forward, Aegis sighed and picked me up and put me back on the couch. I grinned through the pain, and sprawled out again. Then Shadow Stalker and Gallant came back. Vista perked up, and I glared at Shadow Stalker. Gallant was moving towards me, and he seemed angry. "Panacea declared her support for the Undersiders." He stated flatly.
"And I should care why exactly?" I muttered. Gallant stared at me, and then started yelling. I hurled a blast of silence at him and growled "Keep it down." He hurled something at me, and infinity exploded in my mind. Black filled the spaces in between, and rain roared through space, thundering down and extinguishing the stars, and drowning galaxies in its wake.
In short, it was amazing. I looked at Gallant eagerly and said "Do that again." He, and the other Wards were staring at me in shock for some reason. I frowned. "Do it again... Please?" I asked plaintively. Gallant's expression hardened. "No." He said flatly.
Huh. A smaller shudder through the infinity of my mind, nowhere near as amazing, but still. Something. "Plea~se?" I said again. Shadow Stalker snorted and said something unkind about me, drugs and sex. I would have ignored except Gallant seemed to agree with her - or so the Traitor's Thorn whispered at the back of my mind. It also gave a comment I could reply with... The Crown noted that it would increase the odds of combat to 1. I scowled, and went back to the couch. I kept my eyes on Gallant though. Whatever he had done, I wanted to experience it again.
The stars of my mind burned serenely around my Thorns. Clarity poured lava into my brain. Gallant refused to look at me, and Vista had joined Shadow Stalker in glaring at me. Odd that. Not that it mattered, really. Food arrived, and I watched Gallant and the others eat and talk. At some point Aegis brought over some food... A slice of pizza and a donut. He put it down on the coach and then floated away again. I was briefly, faintly jealous of his flight, before the Traitor's Thorn produces a schematic for a cloak that should let me hide from gravity. A spike of Clarity burned it away a moment later.
I wondered, later, if he had forgotten about it? Except for Vista, the Wards had all gone home. Kurt and Lacey had dropped by briefly, then been dragged away to take care of paperwork. They still hadn't returned. Clarity was fading from my mind, little by little and instead of torrents, only dribbles of magma fell into the stars of my mind. Thinking was hard, with the Blurring so close, but still I pondered how I could get Gallant to shoot me.
Vista was still shooting me the odd angry look. I looked back at her, and mildly said "What?" Vista snapped. "You waltz in here, give everyone a fucking headache, are responsible for making Panacea go villain and you go after Gallant like some kind of junkie looking for a fix! And you have the fucking AUDACITY to ask WHAT?" She was panting by the end of her tirade, but I had noted something she said. "Villain... Gallant is a Ward and Wards in this city fight... Villains..." I mumbled.
The Traitor's Thorn and the Crown both indicated that this would be an optimal strategy for getting shot by Gallant's beams again. Of course, Kurt and Lacey would get in trouble if I stayed with them, but every villain needed a lair anyway. And minions. But that could come later. First, I needed to escape - the Traitor's Thorn provided the cloaking device again. Sure, it got washed away every few minutes by the evermore distant buzzing of Clarity, but once I had the materials together... I needed a diamond. Or some other light-scattering lump of carbon.
I grabbed a pencil, and destroyed the wood with a burst of static, then began carving into the carbon below. Cutting it away in only some dimensions soon resulted in a tiny rod of clear, carbon-based glass. Twist the wires like so, blur the molecular edges here to fuse the materials. Wait for the schematic to be reproduced after another spike of Clarity from Vista's glare. Doctor the wires via material annihilation to increase conductivity. Power source... Water would do. Destroy the molecular bonds to free up the hydrogen, ignite via friction generated heat...
The explosion in my hand actually stung a bit. The Crown had increased tactile feedback to allow for more precise work, and that came back to bite me now. The delicate device in my mind couldn't be made from this... mess in front of me. The carbon-glass rod was functional, of course. Actually, now that the metal was melted... I reached for it and found it beyond my grasp. I looked up at Vista. "No blowing things up." She said coldly. Then she fetched some water and dumped it on the metal. The carbon glass shattered.
I scowled blackly. Why did these things have to be so hard? I huffed and covered myself in silence. I was going to wait until Vista's back was turned, but at that moment Kurt, Lacey and the paperwork arrived. What terrible timing. I looked around, spotted the window and bolted.
Once more, I cursed Vista as the window faded into the distance. "{NEGATION}" I screamed at her, piercing my own silence for a moment. She howled, clutching her skull, and I hurled myself through the window. It was a long fall, and the ground cracked as I landed. I was fine.
I ran until the Clarity faded, and everything became a blur again.