Reflection 3.04

"You've... been speaking with Peter," Flurry stammered slightly, lowering her hand.

"Not since last night, when I was with you both," I replied, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. "Why? What are you doing here, anyhow?"

"You asked for someone to make sure you woke up in the morning," she reminded me. She raised her other hand, brandishing the handwritten sign I had made last night. "And you left this on your door." She half-turned back towards the door, "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to hunt down a former associate for betraying a secret he should never have possessed in the first place."

"Huh?" I blinked in confusion as my brain slowly parsed through what she was saying. She was reacting to something I'd said as I was waking up, I had woken up whilst I was in the middle of going after—I swore under my breath as I rolled myself out of bed. "Wait, Flurry! Volley didn't tell me any—" I clammed up as she spun in place with a flinty stare aimed at me.

"My name is Elaine Thompson," she said in an uncommonly heated tone. "I grow tired of having to educate you lot regarding proper communications protocols. You do not address me by codename unless we are in costume and you most definitely do not have the privilege to refer to me as 'Sunny'."

"But, Flur—Elaine, I'm trying to tell you—"

"Do not test me on this, James," Elaine said fiercely, her eyes boring into mine.

"Bloody hell, I'm trying to save your sister!" I shouted, matching her glare with my own.

Elaine's mouth bobbed soundlessly for several moments before she clicked her mouth shut. She crossed her arms across her chest, spinning towards the door as if to walk away, then back towards me. She repeated this several times before closing her eyes and sighing deeply. "The subject of my sister is not one I will entertain idle speculation lightly, nor will I permit unwarranted flights of fancy."

She summoned a spinning snowball in one raised palm for several moments for closing it into a fist, dismissing it. "You. Will. Explain," she said, her voice as chilly as I'd ever heard from her.

I held up a hand, "Wait one. I need to make sure of something." I turned towards the corner of the room and reached out through the link. As always, I didn't sense Jamie's presence, but I reached out and sent a command anyhow. The kitten's body twitched in its sleep as Jamie's spectral avatar emerged from its back, rising into view. Her face displayed an empty expression devoid of any intelligence, strongly suggesting that she was still occupied in her world. I shifted her outside to make sure, behind the restaurant to make sure she would not be visible to casual passers-by.

Elaine glanced at her, then moved her focus to the kitten where the ghost had emerged from. She turned back towards me with an impatient expression.

"Are my parents awake?" I asked.

"They let me inside when I told them you had invited me over," she replied. "The two of them have remained downstairs—cooking, I assume."

"Good. I'm not ready for them to hear this just yet." I nodded towards the far wall I had pushed the empty spectre through. "Or Jamie. You guys were right last night, Jamie was listening in on our discussion. I wanted to make sure she hasn't crossed back yet. That's why she seems lifeless right now—she's not here. She's still in her original world."

Elaine said nothing about my supposed 'delusion', but her expression betrayed her scepticism.

"In this alternate world the two strangers who helped Jamie off the streets were a pair of sisters." I watched Elaine's face as I spoke. I wasn't sure what I should have been looking for, but she'd already displayed more emotional responses in the last few minutes than I'd seen from her in the last few years, so I hoped I'd be able to read some visual cues. "One is a girl named Karen—brunette, wears her hair long, and needs glasses. She lives alone with her older sister, who she calls 'Sunny' after her 'bright and shining personality'."

Elaine's mouth twitched slightly, but she still looked unconvinced. "Peter is an accomplished hacker and has some other... questionable habits." She shook her head. "I wouldn't put it past him to have discovered certain details on all of us and—"

"Karen is a cape geek," I interrupted her, raising my voice to cover her alternative explanations. "She has posters of various super hero teams and even a few prominent villain groups. She enjoys reading and has a whole wall of her room devoted to a bookshelf. Her pride and joy is her original-edition Harry Potter collection."

Her hands tightened against her biceps, "He could have obtained access to my house and found old photographs, old keepsakes..."

"She said her life turned around when a stranger saved her from a random snow drift in—"

"Stop." Elaine was shaking as she pressed her back against the door. She dropped her head in one hand whilst she held out the other as if to ward off my words. "Please, no more. Don't say anything more."

Jamie might have said my mental faculties were sub par when compared to her own, but I was fully capable of analysing various facts for myself. I'd already suspected the details of Elaine's trigger event when Karen had told me her own... 'origin story', as it were. Before these last few months I'd never known she'd even had a sister. It could simply have been natural reticence in keeping her personal life separate from her cape life, but somehow I felt that Karen's near-brush with death in one world and Elaine having snow-based powers in another was too close for coincidence.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't want to bring up any bad memories, but I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think it was important."

She shook her head; a refusal to accept my apology or a denial of what I was trying to say to her, I wasn't sure. It was obvious that she had been shaken by what she'd heard. "I need a few minutes to think this over," she said. "I'll wait for you downstairs. You should get dressed."

I was suddenly reminded that I was still wearing nothing more than my pyjama bottoms and an old shirt and slapped my forehead even as she quietly stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her.

ooo

A quick shower and change of clothes later, I stepped downstairs to into the restaurant area. Like Pete had last night, Elaine had chosen an out-of-the-way table far from the entrance, but there the similarities ended.

We mostly catered to the lunch and dinner crowd, so the restaurant wasn't even open at this relatively early hour. Elaine sat at her table with a calm grace, drinking the green tea my mum had brewed without complaint. In fact, my mum seemed to be waiting on Elaine, fetching her refills and making small talk. I stood in the doorway for several moments simply staring at the two of them interacting before I shrugged and made my way over.

From where she was sitting, Elaine noticed me first and said a few words, prompting my mum to look over her shoulder. She said a few parting words to the other woman before turning and walking past me, patting my shoulder briefly as she went back into the kitchen to continue preparations for later in the day.

Elaine had a slightly perplexed expression on her face as I slid into the chair across from her. "Your mother cares for you a great deal," she said.

I scratched my cheek as I looked towards the kitchen area contemplatively. "She's never been wholly comfortable with me going out to risk my life. She's always wanted me to turn towards a safer career, probably find a girl and settle down or something."

"Yes, about that... " Elaine gave me a somewhat confused look. "She is aware that I am your senior by several years, is she not?"

I blinked in confusion for several moments before my brain parsed through what she'd said. Once I did, I groaned and lowered my head to the table. "She didn't do what I think she did, did she?"

"I could have been misinterpreting the direction the direction of the conversation..." she suggested, only to stop as I shook my head with another groan. "Or perhaps not. Let us speak no more on this subject."

"Sounds like a plan," I agreed. I felt my mood slip as I sobered up and remembered what we were here for. "So, now that you've had some time to think about what I've said... "

Elaine was quiet for several long moments as her own thoughts went back to our previous discussion. "You didn't learn any of this from Peter?" she tried one last time.

I shook my head, "Sorry, no. He hasn't told me anything, I found this out all on my own in the other world." I steeled myself for the inevitable counter-argument. "I'm not lying. And I'm not crazy. This is real, you have to believe me."

Her reply took me by surprise. "I'm not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours," she whispered, staring down into her drink.

"What?"

"Lewis Carroll," she explained. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly. "He is the author of one of several rather popular works, you may have heard of them."

"Erm, actually I don't actually read all that much and it's usually—what?" I asked at her sudden stare of disbelief.

"...Never mind," she said. She closed her eyes and sighed. "So my sis—this person..." she shook her head. "The one Jamie calls her friend, is she... well?"

I considered my answer carefully. "She's... admitted to being somewhat lonely, doesn't have many friends her own age. But she seems happy in her home with you. The other you, I mean. You both seem to get along quite well."

Elaine's eyes closed briefly as she absorbed that last bit of news. She kept them closed as her breathing evened out and when she opened them it was with the same impassive mask she'd worn for as long as I could remember. "Have events truly gotten so out of hand?"

"We're in trouble," I admitted. "Jamie—she's, ah, she grew sort of... attached to your sis—to her friend. When she thought things weren't going her way, she kidnapped her and ran away from the house they were staying in. She's also picked a fight with another cape—with Wu Lung, actually—and I have no clue how well she can handle herself on her own."

"And how do you expect me to help?" she asked pointedly.

"I just..." I felt my shoulders slump. "I don't know what I should do."

Elaine said nothing, simply regarding me steadily as I leaned my elbows against the table. Her eyes flicked to the side, taking in the restaurant as a whole, and to the doors leading towards the back, where the entrance to the kitchen and the stairs to the living quarters were. Finally her eyes settled back on me.

"I couldn't help but take notice, whilst I was in your room earlier," she began, "but your choice of furnishings are fairly... generic."

I frowned, picturing my room in my head. My bed was fairly old, true, but I distinctly remembered the covers having been replaced recently—within the past year at least. Or was it two? My bookshelf was admittedly rather spartan, but I didn't often read habitually. That was more Jamie's thing. I'd never seen a purpose to updating the decorations continuously as my tastes changed over the years. I shrugged, "What's wrong with that? I don't really care about all the pop culture that seems to change every year."

"By itself, there is nothing remiss. I am not finished yet, however. Do you have any hobbies of your own? What have you been doing in your downtime?"

I gave her an arch look. "What does this all have to do with stopping Jamie from what she's doing?"

"Answer the question."

"Well, I... " I paused and thought about it. "I... " thought about it some more. I frowned and frantically searched my recent memories. "You know, I mostly just went out on patrol and slept. Did a few experiments with my abilities when not patrolling, or even sometimes then."

"Well, I suppose I am the last person to be complaining about someone overworking themselves," Elaine commented. She leaned forward slightly, "One last question: why did you become a hero?"

I didn't even have to think about it. "Jamie thought it'd be cool."

Elaine stared at me silently for a few moments as she digested that. She held the ceramic mug in one hand, slowly pushing it around in a circle as she stared at the table's surface. "So, to summarise: your daily routine revolves around your duties as a cape. Your free time involves interacting and experimenting with the use of your powers—in other words, Jamie. You became a fully-fledged cape in the first place because of the prompting of your powers—again, Jamie—and... that is all."

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "Well, when you put it that way... "

She lifted her head to look me in the eyes. "James, when is the last time you have undertaken an activity solely for your own benefit? When have you lastdone an activity that was not for Jamie's?"

I opened my mouth to answer, only to pause as I searched my memories once again. Dropping out from school had been my own decision, right? I had to focus more on my duties as a cape. Becoming a cape had mostly been Jamie's idea, but even if I'd been somewhat unenthusiastic early on in my career, it had eventually become something I had grown used to. That counted, right?

Elaine had a somewhat knowing look on her face as I glanced towards her, but I was spared any comments from her when both of our phones chimed for our attention. Hers was out before I had even managed to wiggle mine free from my pocket, though she was still reading when I brought up the message that had apparently been sent to the two of us.

Ongoing skirmish north of Bristol, multiple supervillains engaged with local heroes. The battle is approaching the River Severn and may possibly spill across. Capes from Bristol and Thornbury are on the scene, Newport and Chepstow groups are advised to be on alert.

Elaine lowered her phone and gave me a frank stare even as I finished my own read-through. "You are not coming," she said decisively.

"Wait, what?" I blinked at her in confusion even as she pushed her chair back and rose to her feet.

"My recommendations from last night are still valid," she said. "I still believe you are overly stressed and not thinking rationally. Also, if what you were telling me is true, then J is no longer a reliable asset. It is very likely you will hinder our efforts more than you will contribute."

"That's not fair!" I protested. "I—" my voice broke off in a sudden yawn and I scowled as my own body betrayed my fatigue. Stupid all-nighters. "I can still help!"

Elaine—Flurry—fixed me with an unwavering stare that crumbled my resolve. She didn't bother addressing my complaints, instead stepping around me and heading for the door. "We will speak on this subject again at a later time," she called out from over her shoulder. "Please pass along my thanks to your mother for her hospitality."

I watched her leave even as frustration settled onto my shoulders like a wet blanket, dampening my mood. Without thinking I stretched out across the link for Jamie, but though I managed to connect to her avatar, her consciousness was still not present. With a brief exercise of my powers the spectre's field of vision was brought alongside my own, allowing me to see both the restaurant and the empty lot behind the building at the same time.

With another thought, the spectre was several hundred metres in the air and I had a bird's eye view of the surrounding streets and buildings. I saw police vehicles of various types mobilising and heading for the bridges that connected Southern Wales with the rest of Britain across the Severn. I could see Flurry as she walked at a fast clip back towards her house. I could see it all.

Like hell, 'I can't contribute,' I thought to myself. I spun on my heel and headed upstairs to grab my gear.

ooo

"Volley, what's the situation?"

"Kind of bad. It started with a bank robbery, then turned into a running battle when the crooks tried to make off with the goods and were intercepted by the locals. The fight's still on the far side of the Severn, but the heroes there are outnumbered."

I listened in to the ongoing voice traffic even as I sped towards the conflict on my moped. I had tuned my hand-held transceiver to the frequency our group had used in the past, though I had detached the microphone from the device and kept it in one of the pouches on my belt.

The spectre kept pace beside me—I didn't have enough fine control over it to send it ahead and drive at the same time. For the moment, our fields of vision overlapped and that was enough for me to keep it active without losing my concentration. Not for the first time this trip, I chided myself for having fallen into the habit of relying on Jamie too much for most of the tasks I had taken for granted.

"Right now the reports coming in say something like four heroes on-site... versus eight villains."

"Eight!"

"It's not as bad as it could be, I think. There's also some reports saying they might be double-counting the opposition. They've got a clonemaster or a duplicator."

"Is it—?"

"Yeah, I think it's the guy Glass brought in. Nightwalker's involved too. I'd say we've found out what he was after at the police station. He was looking up the kid's records and finding out which facility he'd been transferred too."

A cape that I had captured? My mind flashed back to the duplicator and the problems that had stemmed from engaging him directly. I tried to recall which heroes staked out Bristol, but I was currently drawing a blank—there had never been enough reason for me to look them up before. It was a potential problem; if any of them used anything relatively destructive against the clones, they'd soon find themselves overwhelmed with duplicates.

Flurry clearly had not forgotten that section from my report either. "They may need backup. Are you coming?"

"Sorry, I've got no way to get over there at the moment. I've still got a link-up with the fuzz watching from the sidelines, so I can give you updates. You sure you want to keep Glass out? I can give him a ring."

Fat chance, I thought to myself. I was approaching a blockade of sorts—a police checkpoint had been set up to limit the traffic going across the bridge and hopefully manage any civilian casualties if the running parahuman fight suddenly decided to turn this way.

"No. He is unreliable at the moment," Flurry confirmed my suspicions. "I cannot go into details right now, but I worry that if what he was claiming was true, then we may find ourselves in a battle with two fronts."

That stung slightly. Even if Flurry had already said as much to me when she had left, I still didn't like being dismissed like that. I turned away from the road and made my way between a pair of buildings. This should be close enough for me to send the spectre across the river and get a long-range view of the growing melee. Hopefully I could determine where the duplicator's source was and try to knock him out, assuming the capes already present weren't already aware of his nature.

"... huh." Volley made the word a statement, not a question. "So you believe him, then? Has J really gone crazy?"

I don't know, have I, James?

I barely noticed the moped screeching to a halt as I hit the brakes, nor the faint electric hum falling away as I powered it down. Instead, as the bike settled down into stillness and I dropped the kick-stand, I closed my eyes to find my second set of perceptions watching my own back, though at a much greater distance than I'd arranged to have it following me from.

"How are things on your end?" I asked politely. "I hope you weren't inconvenienced too much."

"Such coldness," Jamie chided me, floating closer. "I'll admit that it's much harder for me to use your powers when you're not there. But I've had... practice doing so." She scowled. "Not enough for me to engage Wu Lung in a straight up fight, unfortunately. I had to cut and run. Did you know Volley kept an old raft-type-thing near the river?"

"So Karen is safe?"

"Probably," she grumbled. "For a certain definition of 'safe', I assume—I had to leave her behind too. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but Wu's a lot crankier than I remember him being. He looked half-ready to set the whole building on fire, except that Sunny was already inside." She moved around so that she was floating a hand's span or two away from my face, staring directly into my eyes. "So what's going on with you? Things look like they're getting interesting."

"For a certain definition of 'interesting', I suppose," I parroted back at her. I arched an eyebrow at her. "I was trying to think of a way I could help the others out."

"Oh, that's easy," Jamie said. "We go in there and knock some skulls together."

"In case you've forgotten, we didn't exactly get the skull-knocking powers," I reminded her.

"And you're forgetting that it's not the power itself, but how it's used," she pointed out. "We're Master-class capes, lest you forget. We don't need to do it ourselves, we can find something to do it for us."

"What."

"Of course we'll need to get in closer to do that. I hope you don't mind, but I think I need a bit of stress-relief after Wu Lung and his crimson brigade—or whatever they are—ruined my day. And I would have thought you'd want to stick it to Flurry after what she told you. That is why you're out here, aren't you? Defying her 'recommendation'?" she even lifted her hands to flash a pair of air-quotes. I couldn't help but notice that she had been drifting towards me throughout her little explanation.

"Jamie—" I raised my hands in a warding gesture, but it was futile and we both knew it. She dived inside my chest and I felt the pins-and-needles sensation as she assumed direct control over my body. Part of me wondered why I kept giving her the opportunity to do so, whilst another part of me wondered what I could possibly do to stop her.

When the twitching died down, I felt myself baring my teeth in a wide grin as I casually unholstered my police baton and spun it around with a deft flick of my wrist. "Don't worry, we're gonna have fun!" my voice proclaimed cheerily. "And when all this is over, we'll sort them out. Sunny, Flurry, Karen, Wu Lung—all of them. After all,

"I've a sceptre in hand,
I've a crown on my head.
Let the Looking Glass creatures—whatever they be—
come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen..."

My eyes narrowed down to slits even as my smile grew. "... and me."

ooo

(a/n)—i'm somewhat curious to know how you folks feel this story—this situation—could be resolved. if you'd like, tell me your theories, your wild-mass-guesses, your 'this had better not happen!'s. it totally has nothing to do with the idea that i'm too scared to make an ending that people will flip their computers and go 'bahhh i kept up with this story for all this time just for this?!'

i will totally not skim through whatever comments/reviews/wmg's simply to pick out the one i like best and go '...yes. yes that is exactly what i was going for. you were right all along.' *write write write*

nuh-uh.

totally.

seriously.

...so what do you say? :D