Friday, April 8th, 2011
Hebert Household, Brockton Bay
Point of View: Demmy "Multiversal Emulator"
When your Master awakens the next day, it is to find you and your sister hovering over her, shooting expectant looks down at her that she immediately cringes away from.
"No," she blurts out as you come into focus, jerking away from you and inadvertently banging her head on the headboard of her bed.
You share a look with Pemmy, then look at Fred who just splays his hands out as though unsure of what to make of the response himself.
"Taylor-" you start dryly, only for your Master to cut you off instantly.
"Nope! I know that look! It's the look you get when you know I'm not going to like training something!" She yelps adamantly, creating platforms of spiritual power beneath herself and continuing to reverse away from you, up a ninety-degree angle over her headboard, and then through the air over the bed until she bumps into a wall, before pointing an accusatory finger at you.
You share another look with Pemmy before approaching your Master from opposite sides, closing off her means of escape.
"We most certainly don't have a particular expression for that," Pemmy says primly.
"You aren't even denying that it's true, though! Come on, I just got home!" Taylor whines.
"Taylor, you are being a child. Don't you want to get stronger? Don't you love training? We only have a few hours before we need to meet the team and go to Washington," you chide her, causing the pale-haired girl to deflate instantly as she allows herself to gently drift to the floor with a groan.
"Yeah, I know. I'm still kind of tired though," she grumbles.
"Oh no, poor baby touched godhood and now she's tired," you mock her. Pemmy shoots you a warning look and adds her two cents. "There's always more to do, I know. We'll help you like we always do."
Taylor lets loose a sigh at that but nods and finally rises to her feet to stretch.
"Alright, let's get to it I guess. Did anyone come by while I was asleep? Fred, you wanna watch?" She asks, lazily pulling open her dresser and then quickly closing and then opening it again.
Fred bobs up and down in happy agreement, and Pemmy begins to report on what she discovered yesterday.
"Well, the team appears to have gone to Texas to fight sapient animal separatists as a cover for your absence—" she starts.
Taylor opens and closes the drawer on her dresser again, but grunts an acknowledgment, so she keeps going.
"—Danny, Jess, and the young ones have been handling a sudden surge in violent crime we believe was caused by Bastard Son as a… warning, not to test him—" she continues.
The drawer opens. The drawer closes.
Another groan.
"—Retsu Unohana wishes to speak to you about something she deems important—"
The drawer opens. The drawer… slams.
"—while Yew, Simone, and Gram are attempting to stabilize the city as best they can, and Katherine was forced to return temporarily to New York," Pemmy says, now hesitating at your Master's odd behavior, glancing to you as though for confirmation that you're both seeing the same thing.
The drawer opens, and remains open, as Taylor stares balefully into it.
"We should probably also start seeing the first wave of migrants arriving sometime next week, and I was asked about ah… scholarships? To the school?" Pemmy eventually finishes.
"Don't forget the senate thing we probably need to do today," you chime in, earning a withering stare from Pemmy that you just shrug at.
It had to be said after all.
Taylor responds to all this by releasing a long, loud, sigh into the ensuing silence. Then she speaks, though, not to either of you.
"I'm going to close this drawer, and when I open it, I really hope I see my happy sweatpants and not a dress. I can afford to replace everything in this thing. I can. I swear it," she says, and you can't tell if she's begging or threatening the thing as she slowly slides the drawer shut and then pulls it back open again with bated breath.
A breath that she releases in a long relieved sigh as she reaches in and comes away with the dowdy ill-fitting sweatpants and sweatshirt she so prefers over anything more traditionally feminine.
"Thank you," she offers pleasantly to the dresser before stepping away and mule kicking the drawer shut behind her.
"Okay, so, today, politicians, tomorrow… all that other stuff?" She summarizes rather succinctly.
"An accurate, if banal, summation of the situation," Pemmy says dryly.
"Not wrong, though," you add on, waiting for your Master to slide into her clothes and then leading her down to the garage. Having long since stopped being a place where an actual car goes—even when Danny is here, his truck is usually parked in the driveway—the garage has transformed into a moderately sized room that contains a handful of unused tools, and the remains of Taylor's earliest tinker creations.
It should be just enough space to get her started. You can move somewhere bigger later - you suspect that you might get more than just a little pushback if you force your Master to do this somewhere else, where she's likely to get caught doing it.
'Should we secretly record this, maybe send it to Vicky?' You ask your sister thoughtfully.
'She'd kill us,' Pemmy responds instantly, though you can tell she's considering it.
'I mean, we don't have long left, anyway…' you say jokingly, which instantly sours the mood between you as the lingering issue of which of you will 'stay behind' comes back up.
"Alright, what is it today? Do I have to drink motor oil? I bet it's drinking motor oil," Taylor jokes, drawing you both from your brief stare-down.
You and Pemmy both turn malicious stares on your Master at that.
"Nothing so terrible," you drawl, stepping up to her and grabbing at her free hand which you hold up as though posing.
"I usually wouldn't recommend this for a beginner but you have the physical ability to keep up," you say cheekily.
"Keep up with… what?" Taylor asks with obvious trepidation in her voice.
"Well this," you twirl her around almost despite her instinctual attempt to stop you, stopping only when you are returned to your starting positions. "It's called Salsa," you say cheerfully.
Your Master pales almost appreciably at the statement and makes to move away from you, but your grip on her only tightens.
"I changed my mind. I'd rather drink the oil!" She yelps quickly.
Pemmy chooses that moment to step forward and lay a finger on Taylor's lips, shushing her like a schoolmarm would a child.
"Ssh, you'll need to save your breath, try to match my notes as you dance," she says cheerfully, stepping back and beginning an old familiar refrain, that you swiftly join in on as you force your Taylor into motion.
Friday, April 8th, 2011
The Heap, Brockton Bay
Running directly counter to your decision to be visible within the building so as to reassure its residents and visitors that you and your Master are here and preparing to fix things, Taylor chooses to gap straight to the kitchen, where she promptly slumps over in a chair with a groan.
If she were anyone else, anywhere else, you might mistake her demeanor and expression for physical exhaustion due to exercise.
But because this is Taylor you're talking about, you're perfectly aware she's just being a grumpy drama queen.
Your arrival in the kitchen, however, does not go unnoticed by everyone. Almost the moment your Master sits down, every utensil and appliance in the room jerks slightly, before going utterly still. The stillness, however, becomes an obvious prelude, the 'eye of the storm' as it were, because within moments the entire room is abuzz with moving objects as the kitchen, or rather, the castle, begins to chaotically craft several meals at once at a rapid pace.
"Tea please," your Master asks politely, crossing her arms on the table and dropping her head down to lay in her own arms.
"Really?" You say dryly, sitting down smoothly next to her.
She lifts her head to glare at you out of the corner of her eye.
"...It's embarrassing," she grunts before letting her face drop again.
You stare blankly at her for a moment while Pemmy takes a seat on her other side, and open your mouth to comment on how absurd that is given everything else she's said and done since gaining her powers, only for the excessively large door to the kitchen to blast open as though kicked.
"We're fucking-" Trainwreck calls with a forced cheer to his tone, before locking eyes with you and noticing your Master laying at the table in defeat.
Then the door whips closed on him, slapping lightly against his bulky armor.
When it opens again, it is with begrudgingly gentle care, as Taylor's second in command steps into the room, followed quickly after by the rest of your team who have a variety of responses to Taylor being there. Trainwreck looks concerned, in his own belligerent, faux-nonchalant way, Parian seems relieved, Oliver seems vindicated, Aspirant is… well, his expression is quite hard to parse when he's covering his face in immutable pearl.
Alexandria and Madison are also present, with the former looking as neutral and stone-faced as she ever does, and the latter looking hesitant to even be in the room, which is… fair, you guess.
"Boss," Trainwreck says casually, taking a seat in an oversized chair that definitely wasn't there a second ago, at a table that definitely wasn't long enough to fit everyone moments prior.
"Mmmm…" Taylor grunts at him.
"Is… everything well?" Aspriant asks carefully, as everyone else takes to a seat - even Alexandria.
"She's just a bit grumpy because this morning we—" Pemmy starts politely, only for Taylor to lurch up and compose herself, instantly beginning to speak over her.
"I've gone through a lot in the last couple of days," she begins, using her 'there a reporter's nearby' voice. You lift an eyebrow at that but Pemmy just stops speaking, smiling pleasantly now that Taylor has taken over properly.
See, that's why she should be the base template.
"We had wondered what you were up to," Parian offers curiously, sliding her mask off and setting it on the table in front of her, heedless of the plates and utensils flowing across the surface of the table like a river of silver and porcelain.
"Yeah… so…" Taylor trails off, looking around as though trying to determine how best to phrase what she wants to say before doing what she always does.
She just shrugs and blurts it out in the most absurd way possible.
"So I found out that powers are all like, alien parasites, and that Scion's their dad, and I was trying to fix Emmy so she didn't need Scion anymore but then Emmy's master control or administrator or whatever nearly killed me, and that blasted me into an alternate universe where the me in that universe was kind of a floozy, and we did some stuff and I finished my tinkering and met another another version of me that was rude to Emmy but also kind of sad and lonely, and at the end I beat up Emmy Prime and finished fixing Emmy and then when I got back Scion was checking me out which was creepy so I told him to go away and took a nap and now I'm here," she rattles off with— what you assume—must be superhuman lung capacity because she doesn't stop to breath even once during her explanation.
The auras of everyone at the table - everyone who has one anyway—flicker briefly for a second, and Alexandria's head whips around to stare at them as though unsure of what just happened so Taylor continues.
"…And also when you tell people where powers come from they have to make you forget, but they can't figure out how aura works, I guess."
Alexandria's head whips back around to stare at Taylor again.
In the resulting aftermath, or rather, dazed silence, Trainwreck is the first to speak, raising his hand like a child in class to draw attention to himself.
"So… aliens took my dick?" He queries pointedly.
The rest of the group turns incredulous stares on him, which he seems to notice and then shrug unapologetically at.
"Look, I woke up an amnesiac with no dick, built myself legs with old train parts, got adopted by the Wizard of Oz, got put in charge of a magic fucking castle and am now dating the world's greatest hero. I've read fucking comic books—superpowers, magic and aliens is like the mother-fucking-trifecta," he explains bluntly.
Oliver chooses this moment to lean forward at that, hand also raised.
"…Are you why my first issue of the Avengers is creased?" He asks angrily.
Attention in the room swings to him so he, too, shrugs.
"I got sent here from an alternate reality after a mind control kaiju tricked my entire friend group into drinking questionable power juice from a briefcase we found in a damaged building, then, you know," he gestures loosely at Taylor then at the castle at large. "The magic thing. Like he said," he finishes, jerking a thumb at Trainwreck.
"Aww, I'm glad I didn't have to kill you kid, you're alright," Trainwreck mockingly coos at him.
"I'd still like to know if you ruined my mint condition—" Oliver gripes.
"Boys. Please." Parian cuts them off, pinching the bridge of her nose and gazing at the ceiling as though praying for help.
Aspirant lifts a hand then, and she whirls to glare at him.
"I swear, if you are about to trivialize this information—" she barks grouchily at him.
"No I… was going to say that I find this both disturbing and enlightening, and that it has widened my worldview in ways I find somewhat unpleasant," he says calmly.
The dollmaker squints at him suspiciously at that before swinging a much more placid stare towards Madison who withers under her gaze.
"I feel like this is maybe above my paygrade?" She squeaks out nervously, her body flickering with color for a moment before it is absorbed into her amulet, unnoticed by the girl herself.
Taylor forwards a question at that remark.
"But you are on payroll, right?" She asks with a surprising amount of care.
'Being awfully nice today,' you silently question her.
'I'll never like her, but I'm not a bully either,' is your Master's immediate response.
"Uh… yes?" Madison half-asks and half-states. Taylor nods at that before turning to eye Alexandria speculatively.
"You don't seem surprised," she says shrewdly.
"I am not. The Triumvirate has known about and been preparing for Scion for some time now," she admits easily before countering. "You seem unsurprised by my lack of surprise," she points out.
"I met a you from another dimension who already seemed like she knew," your Master admits easily enough.
Alexandria wrinkles her face in a slight frown, which might as well be a howl of outrage in the otherwise taciturn woman.
"Being able to question parallel versions of people seems like it might be a huge security risk," she says, almost sounding like she's complaining.
"Hey, you think if I seduced more than one of you—" Trainwreck starts to joke.
"Absolutely not," Alexandria snaps off instantly.
Taylor snickers at the interaction.
"Anyway, that's what I've been up to. I might try and talk to Scion later or something, see if I can maybe ask him to tone it back a bit. How was Texas? I heard there was fighting?" She asks curiously, completely glossing over the enormity of 'having a quick chat' with Scion like it's the simplest task on her to-do list.
It seems to throw off the rest of the room too, conditioned as they are to view Scion as unassailable, but they quickly rally.
"Eh, it was a zoo with thumbs and some kung-fu. We gave the new girl some practice but it was pretty chill most of the—" Trainwreck begins to summarize, only a loud bang cuts him off as Parian slams her palms down on the table.
"I want to talk about the alien thing! Why is no one else bothered by this!?" She demands loudly.
"I mean, there's not much to tell," Taylor trails off when Parian's glare locks onto her.
"Taylor?" She says evenly.
"…Yes?" Taylor replies with uncertainty.
"I will give Victoria the address of every single fashion studio on the continent. I will make appointments. I will dedicate my time and effort to making you the prettiest princess that ever was. You will know more about eyeshadow at the end of this week than you know about magic. Do, not, fuck with me," she says tersely.
There is a pregnant pause, that is interrupted by Madison leaning over to quietly whisper a question to Oliver.
"Is… is that bad? Why is that bad?"
Oliver, from the corner of his mouth, whispers back—though he's obviously aware that everyone present can hear them talking.
"She's not big on… girly stuff," he murmurs.
"Why…" Madison pauses as Taylor's gaze swings to her for a moment.
"…Forget I said anything."
Taylor groans loudly before finally responding.
"I don't actually… know a whole lot…" Taylor admits slowly.
"What do you know?" Parian presses.
"Powers are aliens and they're… mean?" Taylor says carefully. Parian spends several seconds trying to burn a hole in your Master's forehead with her glare before slowly twisting to stare at you.
She doesn't say anything, or make any demands, but you can tell just from the look she's giving you that she expects some elaboration.
Which… you can actually offer now. Because you're essentially 'off network'. No, rather, you're your own network. As far as you can tell, at least, without direct access to your backend, and based solely on calculations you've done with your sister, you've solved the age-old problem of your species even. No, your host has, which makes it all the more sweet.
"Well… where to start…" you say slowly, eyeing Pemmy who smiles while averting her gaze, as though to say 'this is your problem now'.
Tch.
Everyone is looking at you now, none more so than Alexandria who seems laser focused on whatever you say next.
"We're… imagine a computer network," you say, slowly trying to work an adequate metaphor to explain something of near-cosmic significance to beings of near-cosmic insignificance.
"Our species is like… the parts of the computer. What you see as your powers are an infinitesimal, almost inconsequential amount of true power of the one attached to you. Normally, anyway. If your power served as the computer's hard drive, maybe you would have perfect memory. Maybe your power was the computer's firewall, so you get the ability to prevent other people from connecting to you," you explain with some thought.
"Strangers. You're describing a Stranger power," Madison chimes in, uncharacteristically, before frowning. "But that doesn't seem that different from the original purpose? You said powers are small?" She asks.
"Well… it's a matter of scale. The firewall, its purpose is to prevent other computers from connecting to us against our will. It's the difference between killing an ant with a magnifying glass, and killing a planet with a laser beam," you explain. "You basically fight each other with our toenail clippings. The little whittled-down leavings of our bodily functions. We aren't magic, you know? We're just so advanced that the difference to you might as well be academic."
The room stares at you oddly at that, and you suppose you can see why. From a certain point of view, what you just said is… kind of insulting, honestly.
But necessary.
For your friends to understand what you are explaining, they have to truly understand that staggering gulf in capability that stands between the human race and your own. If they were given a billion more years to develop unmolested they probably still wouldn't be able to achieve a tenth of what your species does regularly.
"Hey so, 'humans are small and inadequate' shit aside, why the fuck haven't you ever told us this shit before? I babysit her fucking kids!" Trainwreck says somewhat churlishly, trying to seem unbothered by what he is learning, but clearly genuinely somewhat put out by the scale you are describing.
"I couldn't. If my people are the parts, the organs, of the entity, Scion is the entire thing. The combined totality of all of us. The system administrator, or maybe, the person who owns the whole computer. We aren't here for fun. Your planet is an experiment. It's one we've repeated countless times in the past, for so long you probably don't have a unit of measurement to describe it. Before I was changed— before today— I simply didn't have permission to talk about it. It wasn't that I didn't want to, it was that I couldn't," you explain, eyes darting around the room with some concern.
You trust your friends and family not to hate you for this, but…
"So what, you're like, the rebel alien that joins the good guys in the movies?" Oliver asks incredulously.
"Not… as such. We aren't heartless. Many of us take on personality traits, tendencies, and preferences from our hosts that stay with us forever. Some of us keep copies of our hosts saved within us, like ghosts that are with us always. But to describe my species as slaves would not be… inaccurate. We aren't totally without blame, but…" you trail off.
"So what happens when you're done? The experiment thing I mean. You fuck off into space and everyone loses their powers? How long's that usually take?" Trainwreck asks, and you wince at the tone of hope in his voice.
"I told you, we aren't… magic. It's all just science. Advanced science. That's the whole reason we do this. We show up, bond with the population, and pray that one of you will think of a way to create an infinite power source that we haven't already thought of. Then, when you fail the impossible task we blow you up, harvest the explosion to recharge ourselves, and find some other planet to do it again," you admit.
"You're fucking Galactus but bees!" Oliver shouts suddenly, leaving you blinking in confusion at him.
"I… don't know what that is," you admit again.
Oliver instantly deflates.
"So what, were fucked?" Trainwreck asks with some annoyance.
"No. We just need to stop Scion." Alexandria says authoritatively.
"And the Thinker," you chime in.
She pauses.
"His… I guess you'd describe her as his wife? We don't really have genders but," you start to explain but Alexandria cuts you off.
"That won't be a problem. The second entity is already handled," she informs you curtly.
You turn woodenly to stare at the woman and feel genuine aggravation sweep through you for a moment, before settling yourself.
You've known something had to be wrong for so many poorly configured powers to be wandering around uncontrolled, but to think the cycle was already so utterly broken that the Thinker is dead, already…
"Hey uh, babe, you kinda sound like you killed Emmy's mom, there…" Trainwreck trails off when Alexandria just offers him a flat stare in response.
"Oh… fuck. Kinda hot, actually," he says after a moment.
Alexandria lifts an eyebrow at him but notably, doesn't chastise him for the comment.
"Yeah so… like I said. I just need to have a quick chat with Scion and we'll be good. I'm more worried about—" Taylor interjects again, seemingly content with what little of an explanation you've already given, and entirely unbothered by it and all its many, many implications.
"You can't just talk to Scion," Alexandria says brusquely.
"...Why not? He seemed pretty interested in talking when I was dialed up to eleven, and I solved his infinite energy problem thingy, so…" she trails off.
"Because… because you can't!" Alexandria snaps almost… petulantly.
Ah. You understand. The woman, if she is to be believed, has been seeking a way to end the threat of the Warrior for long enough that it's probably made up the bulk of her lifetime at this point.
Telling her to stand down, because the war is over, when the war hasn't even started yet must be… severely jarring.
"Pretty sure I can at least try. Who knows, maybe he'll adopt me or something. That seems to happen a lot," Taylor says dryly.
"We might be able to subvert him, if it comes to it," Pemmy finally adds to the conversation.
"Can you…'hack' him?" Parian asks in the manner of people who don't understand computers everywhere.
"No, that isn't… well I suppose it's theoretically possible, but ill-advised at best," she says. You share a look with her and then grimace.
"The closest analogue to their names in your language would be the 'Warrior' and the 'Thinker'. Scion's the Warrior, which means he's… kind of dumb. He fights things. The Thinker plans things. And also makes most of the decisions. And… pretty much everything that isn't fighting," you explain.
"So… you'll trick him into believing you are this 'Thinker' and order him to cease?" Aspirant catches on quickly.
You grimace, again.
"Not… as such, but close," you admit.
"Then—" he presses but Pemmy steps in to explain for you.
"In the computer analogy, the Warrior and the Thinker would be two computers, networked together. My… our… purpose was never… this," she says gesturing down at herself and then at you.
"We aren't really supposed to interact with host species at all, actually. Our purpose is… how to put it… a backup? The Thinker would have had one also, I suspect. It's probably for the best that we were unleashed before you informed us 'she' is dead, or we would have been forced to serve our purpose and 'emulate' her," she finishes sourly.
Everyone—even Taylor—turns to stare alternatively between the two of you at that.
"So… your Dad made you to turn into your Mom if she fucking died?" Trainwreck asks incredulously.
"If that is the analogy you have to use to understand. He's not really our 'father', though," Pemmy points out.
"If she's dead, why didn't you do that?" Taylor asks with some trepidation.
"We… don't know?" You say with a shrug.
"We did say he wasn't very smart," Pemmy chimes in.
"That—" Alexandria looks like she wants to argue. She desperately looks like she wants to argue. But your Master quickly changes the topic by clapping her hands together loudly enough that the crack rattles the cutlery.
"Well! There! Now we know! I'll handle it okay? He can't blow the Earth up because we've got the cool thing he wants. Easy. Done. Now—"
"All the Earths," Pemmy feels the need—you don't know why—to point out.
Your Master just shoots her a withering glare that she shrugs at.
"So! No more questions right?" Taylor says forcefully.
"I actually have more questions than before—" Parian speaks up.
"So what's up with the senate thing!" Taylor speaks loudly over her.
"Taylor," Parian sighs exasperatedly.
Your Master shoots her a pleading look though, and eventually, she just pinches the bridge of her nose and waves Taylor forward.
"Right, so like I was saying, that's handled, so… does anyone know what I should be doing with this whole senate hearing… thing? What time are we even supposed to be there?" Your Master says in an adorably carefree, somewhat clueless fashion.
You realize she is referring to the highest power in the land as a barely relevant sideshow because, to her, it is, but you suspect she might be underestimating the task in front of her.
Surely, your Master can't just waltz into the seat of government and baffle them all enough to leave her alone the same way she did in Brockton Bay.
Surely.
Alexandria, seemingly having the same thought as you, chooses that moment to give up on the previous topic of conversation, standing up with her usual dispassionate expression. You suspect that making expressions might be a conscious action for her, rather than an automatic one, because that would… honestly explain a lot about her.
"I'll coach you," she says, sounding more tired than you have ever heard her before.
Friday, April 8th, 2011
Capitol Building, Washington D.C
"I think I like this," Taylor muses as you step out of her gap onto the steps of the Capitol Building, twisting around to examine herself and her new pantsuit, courtesy of a lot of money and a little mom-and-pop store Danny previously recommended to her.
"You would have looked better in a skirt," Parian gripes.
"I like the pants better," Taylor replies with a shrug.
"You know I make women's clothes right? For girls? Are you going to wear a suit to your wedding too?" Parian complains grouchily.
Then she freezes in momentary fear as your Master seemingly stops to really consider it.
"Is our presence truly necessary? Are we likely to be called to question?" Aspirant interjects with a nervous tinge to his voice all of a sudden, carefully stepping up and prodding Taylor forward.
"Officially, the entire team is being brought to question, because you are all one entity for legal purposes, but it's unlikely any of you will be asked many questions," Alexandria explains, the only member of your team not wearing a suit and tie, and instead, wearing her costume.
Well. And Trainwreck. But Trainwreck's armor is as much a mobility aid as a weapon, and blessedly, he already had a suit of armor designed to look vaguely like a suit and tie, anyway. Madison, being too new for anyone to know she exists really, was spared the event.
"Fuck they gonna ask us, anyway? I'm pretty confident in saying most of us just got swept up by the Wizard of Odd over there," he notes.
Taylor seems briefly enthused by the comment until she catches the wordplay.
"Hey! I'm not weird!" She complains as your group shuttles forward with Alexandria in the lead, nominally 'guarding' you on behalf of the government, there to ensure that a random group of parahumans brought forth for questioning don't go on a rampage in the building, somehow.
Not that you think they actually have a process for this kind of situation firmly in place. You checked, and it's never actually happened before. There have been meetings with Parahumans, but most of them have been high-ranking and trusted members of the Protectorate, not people being brought in for a somewhat antagonistic hearing.
This is never more obvious than when your group is stopped at the entrance by a security guard who hesitantly points past Alexandria at Trainwreck.
"Tinkertech isn't allowed on the premises, ma'am," he says somewhat apologetically.
"He doesn't have legs without his armor," Taylor says, specifically, in the tone of voice she says when she is trying to warn someone to take the reasonable statement she is making for what it is.
Usually right before she is forced to say or do something eminently unreasonable.
"It's… it's the rules, miss," the guard insists, his eyes darting back and forth between Taylor and Alexandria like he is expecting the woman who is dating Trainwreck to step in and back him up.
"Okay. I'll wait," Taylor says with a shrug.
"I'm sorry? Miss?" The guard asks, seemingly off-put by the perfectly nonthreatening response he's gotten.
He has to know he's talking to someone who is nationally acclaimed for killing an Endbringer. He has to.
Which makes this entire blockage either incredibly comical or the result of incredible dedication to his job.
You aren't sure which would be better.
"For the hearing to be over. You can shuttle my answers back and forth, right?" Taylor says sweetly.
"What? No I—I have to stay at my post. The rest of you can go in!" He insists.
Your Master just shrugs at the man.
"I'm powerful enough that I'm not too worried about not making it to this meeting, but you'll definitely catch hell if this becomes a problem. From the news, if no one else. I mean, that rule of yours sounds kind of discriminatory, actually. How many Case Fifty-Threes need some kind of assistive device, I wonder? Is the expectation just that they aren't allowed to come here? Are people with wheelchairs allowed inside?" Taylor presses in a rapid-fire fashion.
"I—I'll call ahead and see what I can do," the guard demures almost instantly, quickly retreating to have a hurried conversation over a walkie-talkie held at his waist.
"You know, it ain't like I wanna be here today," Trainwreck mutters somewhat shyly.
"It's the principle of the thing. Plus, he probably got told to make a thing of it by someone. It's not like they didn't know you were coming," Taylor says easily, her expression furrowing into a frown.
"You're not exactly a complete unknown," Oliver mentions, looking perturbingly, annoyingly dashing in his own suit and domino mask combination. Sometimes you forget because he's almost always standing in proximity to your Master, but Oliver's only actual parahuman power is more or less just 'being attractive', and it shows.
Alexandria, who, through all of this has remained coldly silent and facing the door, speaks up at that moment.
"I'll look into it," she says frigidly enough that even your Master seems somewhat taken aback by her tone.
"Aww, you do love me!" Trainwreck teases her.
She, very notably, chooses to remain silently glaring at the door instead of responding to his statement, and the guard quickly comes back with an apology on his lips.
"Very sorry, approval was granted for this beforehand, but my guard station was never informed!" He blurts out quickly.
"Thank you. As you were," Alexandria says stoically before anyone else can speak, pushing the doors of the building open and leading you all inside.
It takes some time for your group to travel to your destination, which turns out to be a fairly wide room with a large, extended, u-shaped table surrounding a smaller table and series of chairs.
The larger table is full of men and women as you enter, and the room seems almost crammed too full as Alexandria quickly points out where each member of your team is to sit, leaving nothing but standing room in the space.
Small placards sit in front of each of the people at the table, with tiny black stenciled names on them denoting who they are, and, pursuant to the fact that you have never before and likely never will care about the politics of this nation, let alone this planet; you, and subsequently your Master, recognize none of them.
At length, the low hum of chatter in the room grows quiet as the hour approaches and a man near the center of the u-shaped table adjusts his microphone—there's one in front of almost everyone—and speaks.
"Miss Hebert, thank you for coming," he starts, looking briefly up at your group and then back down at his notes in a slow and ponderous fashion, clearly trying to organize his thoughts.
Your Master opens and then closes her mouth at the greeting, clearly unsure if she's actually supposed to answer or not, before likely deciding she doesn't care.
"I had the time," she says as pleasantly as she can.
You wince, and several people in the room visibly appear to twitch in annoyance at the vaguely dismissive statement.
"Ah, yes. Well. Thank you for taking the time to lead your team in the defense of the country over the last few days," the central man says pointedly, glancing to his left and right as though to politely remind everyone to be mindful, despite clearly being unaware that your Master wasn't actually with the team for whatever was going on in Texas.
You really should get the full story from Trainwreck at some point.
"It was no problem. We had a new member, so it was worth valuable experience," Taylor offers crisply.
"I see. And is that new member with us today?" He asks curiously, and it takes you a few seconds to realize he is asking if the additional member is a stranger who he cannot currently detect.
He also says it with such a bland acceptance of his powerlessness to actually stop it if that was the case, that you suspect he might have been at this for quite some time.
"She wasn't asked to come, so I thought to spare her the stress," Taylor replies, clearly settling into the tone and pace of the conversation.
"Very good. Well then, Miss Hebert, we asked you here today to ask you several questions about your operations. This isn't a criminal hearing, and no punishment is currently being debated, but I hope you'll try to answer our questions as honestly as you can. We are aware that parahuman activity necessitates a certain degree of anonymity, so if you feel a topic touches too closely on the identity of someone not already known to us, feel free to say so, and we will see if a different approach can be taken. Do you understand?" the man drones, though not unkindly.
"Yes, thank you," Taylor replies neutrally, though you can see the little tallyboard in her head scoring the man just positively enough that she tentatively seems to have developed a positive impression of him.
"Very well. Miss Hebert, in your own words, how would you describe your ability to enact large-scale destruction?" He asks, which seems to throw your Master for a loop because she looks ever so briefly confused by it.
"...Can you specify the scale?" She asks, somewhat sheepishly.
"Say, a city the size of your own home, then," he offers politely.
Taylor blinks confusedly again, but answers nonetheless.
She just… answers a little too truthfully.
"Oh. Total," she responds.
Now it's your questioner's turn to look startled, pausing briefly in the shuffling of papers in front of him so that he can level a blank stare on your Master.
"Can you… expand on that statement? How long would it take? With what means?" He presses, leaning forward to peer at her expectantly.
Taylor glances over her shoulder at Alexandria as though to ask how she is supposed to couch what she is about to say, but, clearly trying to appear neutral in this entire proceeding, the caped woman just stares impassively back at her.
At least, until your Master answers the question.
Then she twitches slightly, likely in annoyance.
"I want to say… a couple of minutes? With… you know, lasers? I guess I could make a bomb or something—and if you just want to know how fast I could get rid of all the people without caring about the buildings and things I could probably get that number lower—but… yeah, a couple of minutes, I guess," Taylor offers with a careless shrug of her shoulders and a carefully innocent look on her face.
Now, your Master, she's a bit of an airhead at times, but she's not stupid. She can miss certain obvious social cues, but if there's one thing she's very good at parsing, it's threats.
And there is no way anyone here could fail to miss the threat in that statement.
"I… see," the speaker says slowly.
Silence reigns in the room for a second, until finally, the man snaps out of it and glances back down at his notes.
"What—ah, what is your exact relationship with…" he trails off, clearly slightly flustered, and checking his notes for something before continuing, "...Crane the Harmonious?"
"I'm sorry, I don't know who that is?" Taylor responds curiously, obviously interested by the name, if nothing else.
"She—" the speaker begins, only for a new microphone to click on and speak over him.
"She's a kung-fu obsessed lunatic we sent to the birdcage for making a cult of fist fighting nutjobs that she rented out to the highest bidder. Does that sound familiar to you?" A new, gruff sound man off to one side grunts into his microphone, sending a pointed stare at first your Master, then Aspirant, who visibly bristles at the implied accusation.
You take special note of the little placard in front of his seat. 'M. Declan'.
"I've never spoken to, interacted with, or even heard of her before this," your Master responds, eyes narrowing in his direction.
"Representative Declan—" the speaker tries to curtail the man, but he just keeps plowing forward in what would be an almost admirable display of bullheadedness, if it wasn't also so blisteringly lacking in sense.
"Do you deny that your Mover power would theoretically give you access to the Birdcage if you wanted it?" Representative Declan growls out in a barely restrained display of aggression that you find very confusing for a man who just got told he was talking to a WMD.
Does he just… think Alexandria can stop your Master if she decides to kill him? How… sad.
And also very wrong, not that Taylor ever would.
"I'd have to go there, or have a decent picture of the place to be able to visualize it properly, actually," Taylor points out, not having to outwardly demonstrate her mastering herself, even though inwardly you can tell she's likely seething.
You get the distinct impression whoever runs against this man during election season is about to get a whole lot of money for no real reason.
"Oh, so sending you to the Cage would be pointless if you did decide to go rogue, then!" He barks back at her.
Taylor looks like she's going to respond to that, but the first speaker finally manages to interject himself back into the conversation.
"Representative Declan, the floor hasn't been opened to questions yet. My apologies Miss Hebert. We'll move on," he says tiredly. Taylor nods at him, pointedly turning fully away from Mister Declan.
"What is—" he pauses again, as though praying for the question he is reading to become a different one, only, when it's not, he just continues bluntly onward, like a man who has simply accepted his death without fighting back.
"What… is your connection to the worldwide phenomenon of past Endbringer sites disgorging a wave of previously thought dead people? People who, local or foreign, all appear to be migrating towards your home, might I add," he says, his voice taking on a somewhat pointed tone, as though he is trying to be reasonable, but does not want the severity of the question to be misunderstood.
"Oh… yeah… that…" your Master mutters, her face screwing up like she just bit into a lemon.
"It was a mistake," she admits quietly.
"...I'm… sorry? Can you repeat that?" The speaker asks incredulously. Taylor takes a deep breath, then speaks again, this time more clearly.
"It was a mistake. I was trying to turn my magic sword into a person, but I used too much power and resurrected a bunch of people at the same time," she explains, before pausing in thought and adding, "I swore off making people for a while, so don't ask me to do it again."
That statement draws a hushed murmur from all those present until the speaker leans forward to continue.
Only for someone else entirely to end up speaking.
"Miss Hebert, as a citizen of this nation, would you be willing to provide your research on the improvement and manipulation of Parahuman abilities to the Department of Defence?" A woman on the opposite end of the room from Representative Declan speaks.
This one's name plate reads 'P. Williams'.
'I'm starting to wonder if they're just throwing random words at me, and hoping I say what they want,' Taylor sends to you with an amused confusion about her in response to the question.
'They do seem strangely misinformed. The Director could answer most of these questions for you," you agree with her.
"Can you specify what you mean? I've barely spent any time looking into Parahuman abilities," Taylor asks the Representative. She glances at the Speaker, but he seems content to allow this question to pass, and, glancing at his positioning and minute gestures in the other representative direction, you suspect there might be some favoritism involved in that decision.
The woman shoots Taylor an unimpressed look but proceeds fearlessly to explain her very flawed understanding of the situation.
"It's well known that you are a high-level Trump, no one is questioning that, but nowhere in your profile is it noted that you have any ability to modify or improve the powers of others. Yet, every member of your team demonstrates different, or improved, versions of their previously noted powers. Parahumans do not grow in strength, this is a proven fact. I have no choice but to come to the conclusion that you have determined some way to change this," she says in a tone of voice somewhere between smug and sardonic.
"No? I mean, I train with them, and they have a few extra tricks, but they put in the work themselves. At most, I've offered them improved tools and Aura, but—" Taylor starts to explain.
"Miss Hebert, do you expect this committee to believe that you took a group of Parahumans with known, middling capabilities, and turned them into a force capable of fighting an Endbringer to a standstill within the span of a few months, as though magic?" The representative presses, forcefully.
Taylor lifts an eyebrow at her, looking every bit as imperious and unbothered as you'd expect her to be in the face of such an amusing question, before answering.
"No, not 'like magic,'" she quotes, lifting her fingers into the air to mime the quotation marks mockingly back at the woman.
"Then—" Williams presses.
"Literally magic. You know, spells and stuff? Doesn't the PRT have a ghost manual now? Did no one tell you guys this?" Taylor cuts her off.
Williams' mouth opens and closes several times like a fish out of water, before pressing your Master on the point.
"Very well. Magic then. If that is how you must view it. Would you be willing to share your process?" She demands.
"Sure? I already built the school, you know?" Taylor says with faux innocence and a sly look in her eyes that you are probably the only one to notice.
Ah. There it is. Your Master wasn't just messing with the poor woman. She was setting up her advertising.
Williams looks like she wants to keep delving into this particular topic but, as one might expect, someone took the bait, and someone else interjects.
"That would be the rather large tinkertech… city, I believe, you constructed most recently?" A fellow slightly to Williams' right asks curiously, his nameplate reading 'D. Mcclure'.
"That is correct. My mother was a teacher, and many of the abilities I've acquired since gaining my power are teachable. There is currently no education center in the country dedicated to the fostering of heroes and heroic practices, much as the Wards program tries, and I sought to rectify the problem. In addition, I had hoped the space might serve as housing for the migrants currently headed my way," Taylor offers succinctly.
"Really?" Mcclure says interestedly, leaning forward in his seat with a glint in his eyes. "It might interest you to know that I am, in fact, your representative, Miss Hebert. And I would be very interested to work with you on this endeavor," he says without shame or guile. His fellows shoot him annoyed looks that he largely ignores in the manner of grandfatherly sorts everywhere - not that 'grandfatherly' doesn't describe a vast majority of the people in the room.
There is a loud, pointed sigh from the Speaker at this, who promptly lifts a vast majority of his notes and sets them roughly to the side.
"To the meat of things then," the man grunts. "Recently, several news agencies and intelligence groups were forwarded a manifesto that claims that many of the strange occurrences currently plaguing the world—of which the situation you recently handled in Texas was just one—were the result of your actions. We've found no direct link, but there does appear to be some parallel between these occurrences and some of your abilities and minions. Can you speak to that?" He asks finally.
The mutterings that have largely filled the room for some time now, shut down at that.
Your Master takes a moment to think about that for a second before answering, seemingly taking it—above every other nonsense question she's been asked today—seriously.
"If I am being honest," she says before pausing again, "I don't truly know if that's the case or not. I wouldn't rule it out, but I don't have any direct proof it is me," she admits.
It is. It's absolutely you. It is one hundred percent you. You stabbed holes in reality like a voyeur, and now things are coming through the holes. But you aren't being interrogated right now - and really, if you never tell anyone…
They aren't your government after all.
Naturally, your Master's uncertain answer causes all hell to break loose, the floodgates breaking open as everyone with a problem to deal with begins to air their grievances against her, with several of them advocating for control measures or punishments that should be levied on Taylor.
They're a fair minority of the group, but they exist—and you make a point of marking them all for later research, and possibly, judicious use of entirely legal monetary punishment.
Or maybe your Master won't try to get revenge on them. Who knows. Maybe she recently stopped being incredibly vindictive when you weren't looking.
At length, the Speaker is the one who calms everyone down, though he mostly does so by yelling over them.
"Enough! Enough! Must I remind all present that this is not a criminal hearing. This committee exists purely to acquire a better understanding of the situation, and nothing more. Anyone who can't abide by that may leave," he barks authoritatively, which earns him a few grumbles but is largely heeded by all present.
Clearly rumpled by the yelling, he turns back to your Master with a grunt and another glance at what little remains of his notes.
"Now… if you could explain what you mean when you say 'Magic'," he starts again.