Current Energy: 12
Current Training: None
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
The Heap, Brockton Bay
"Do you have any idea how badly that could have gone?" Miss Militia says bluntly, tapping her foot in agitation. It's still early evening, and after having caught you and your Master as you arrived in the garage, you have all relocated to a sitting room somewhere on one of the upper floors - one you didn't know existed, but that apparently someone does, as it looks to have recently been filled with some cheap furniture. The 'stretched' nature of the Heap makes it so that floors that would have been made up of hundreds of wooden boards instead look as though someone stretched a single one out over the entire floor, and the close up look of the swirling pattern in the grain is mildly distracting to anyone unaccustomed to it.
"I didn't even fight! I was basically invisible the whole time!" Taylor counters with a huff, crossing her arms infront of herself and refusing to make eye contact with the older hero.
"Yeah but you were using Emmy to navigate right? Animo has a trump power so you'd have been fu- out of luck if he'd managed to hit you with it." Vista points out from where she is sitting smugly to your right at the table. Your Master turns towards her with one eyebrow raised, no doubt in response to the aborted curse word the smaller girl failed to hide.
"Yeah but-" She tries to counter again.
"Taylor. I understand that you have a very strong power. Possibly one of the strongest, but you have to understand that you aren't always correct." The older woman continues to explain, even as around you ghostly soldiers move about, putting up generic motivational picture frames, adjusting lights, and just generally refurbishing the room you are in, and - if you had to hazard a guess - the rest of the heap at the same time.
"Except in this case, I totally was." Your Master points out easily, finally turning her gaze on Miss Militia, where they proceed to stare each other down for the next sixty seconds. Then Miss Militia smiles at her, and a chill works its way down your spine. You can't see the smile - her mask obscures it - but you can tell what her expression is from the movement of her eyes and other facial muscles.
"Yes. I suppose you were." She answers serenely.
"So why-" Your Master begins, obviously put on edge by the sudden change in Miss Militia's tone.
"I called your Father from work." She responds bluntly, cutting her off.
"Busted." Vista mumbles under her breath. You get the distinct impression that the smaller girl is... well not enjoying this, since she's not that mean spirited, but seemingly appreciative of the fact that Taylor can be punished at all, which you suppose is a reasonable thing to expect. Other people with Taylor's degree of strength have probably gotten away with quite a bit in this city.
"But- I didn't- that's not fair!" Taylor blurts out. She's mildly anxious but no more so than one might expect from a teenager being scolded. You are reasonably certain that she could flip over to her stepford smile and nix this entire situation in a heartbeat, but hasn't bothered to. Again, you assume your Master actually prefers to be treated to like a regular teenager, likely because of the months of neglect leading up to her trigger event. It's cute in it's own way.
"Of course it's fair, you're underage, your Father should know when you get into a fight with a group of psychopathic cultists. You're lucky you aren't actually part of the Protectorate or the Director would have you on monitor duty until you were old enough to drink." Miss Militia says in an entirely too reasonable tone.
"You mean console duty?" Taylor answers quickly, having spent enough time around Dean and Victoria to understand the pains of the particular punishment.
"No, she means monitor duty. It's like console, only instead of watching a patrol you're just staring at security monitors for hours." Vista chimes in.
"Sounds boring." You chime in, appearing in the seat nearest to Vista.
"You're in trouble too. Don't act like you weren't involved." Miss Militia adds, turning towards you.
"...Huh?" You grunt unintelligibly.
"What were you thinking? Why didn't you convince her to leave it alone?" Miss Militia asks, turning fully towards you.
"Uh... I... thought it made sense at the time?" You say hesitantly. You are, completely unused to being held accountable in any way shape or form. As the physical manifestation of a power, your Master is more often yelled at for your actions than vice versa, making the situation you are currently in extremely strange to you.
"Emmy, you're a smart boy. You should know better than this." Miss Militia says, crinkling her eyes at you. You pan your gaze over to your Master at this, completely at a loss for how to respond, only to see her smiling at you encouragingly, a sensation of contentment wafting off her.
Well, okay then. At least Miss Militia treats you like an actual person. Even if that currently isn't very helpful to you right now...
You spend the next fifteen minutes being berated by Miss Militia along with your Master, like a pair of siblings caught collaborating to steal a cookie from the cookie jar. Eventually, Danny arrives, bursting through the door with an anxious expression on his face that passes when he lays eyes on Taylor, and summarily interrupting whatever it was Miss Militia was next about to say on the topic of your problem solving capabilities.
"Taylor? You're okay right?" He says quickly, stepping up to the table and standing next to Miss Militia's seat. All things being equal, Danny looks much better than he has previously. He's obviously still burning the candle at both ends in order to make his job fit in with his assistance of his daughter, but at the same time, the benefits of Aura seem to have more or less kept him on his feet, smoothing out the bags under his eyes and giving his skin a healthier tone than the pallid color in was before this.
Also, he appears to have been working out, if the very slight decrease in his potbelly is anything to go by. It makes sense you suppose. Muscle growth is just a side effect of a torn muscle healing. Since Aura enhances healing drastically, a dedicated person could conceivably abuse it to rapidly get into shape.
You just didn't think Danny would care to do so.
"I'm fine Dad, I didn't even actually fight anyone." Taylor huffs in annoyance.
"And yet I'm still worried." He answers her quickly.
"She's being honest Mister Hebert. Reports from Armsmaster and Gallant imply that she only evacuated everyone and then left." Miss Militia says calmingly. Danny turns slightly to examine her before turning back to Taylor with a sigh.
"I told you, you can just call me Danny." He says with an awkward shrug.
"Danny then." Miss Militia confirms with another crinkle of her eyes to signify her smile. Danny shuffles slightly at the attention.
"What..." You whisper to Vista, noticing the weird interaction.
"I dunno, they've been like that since they met yesterday. It's really weird." She whispers back.
Of course, neither of you were quite quiet enough for either adult in the room to fail to hear you, which is why both of them snap towards you suddenly to speak at once.
"You're grounded." "Vista, please check the office for any missed calls." They rattle off indignantly, before turning back to Taylor, who looks at you plaintively as both adults begin to bare down on her. That seems like as good a reason to return to your Spirit Form as any, something you do the second they turn away from you and Vista leaves the room.
'Traitor' Taylor huffs at you mentally.
'Survivor' You fire back.
You watch your Master get berated by the pair for almost thirty more minutes, before they finish, allowing the both of you to go home for some much-needed rest.
Rest you don't get, because the second you step out of the Gap into the kitchen of the home, your Master starts furiously scribbling out notes in a notebook she keeps exclusively for cape things.
"Um. Do you want me to make dinner...?" You ask hesitantly. Your Master doesn't typically let you cook in this form. Mostly because it's not very good at it. That said, you doubt she's going to be doing any cooking with the way she is furiously scribbling in her notebook right now.
"Order a pizza." She says distractedly, withdrawing her pencil to eye the page she is scribbling in critically, then pulling the page out and tossing it into the garbage bin on the opposite side of the room without looking up.
"What are you doing exactly?" You ask curiously, even as you begin poking about the various menus and delivery services stuck to the fridge by magnets in order to locate the nearest pizza place.
"Anti Butcher stuff." Your Master says vaguely, causing you to turn around and stare at her flatly.
"We aren't supposed to go near the Butcher." You point out.
"Not for me!" She counters instantly, then blushes when she looks up to see you staring at her, unable to fathom how she can go immediately from a tongue lashing over why not to do this exact thing, to doing this exact thing.
"I mean - I think all those ghosts following the Butcher around are the previous Butchers right? So I thought that maybe if I could make a Talisma or Ward that would stop them from screaming constantly, the Butcher wouldn't be as dangerous?" She offers carefully.
"...and someone else will be using it, right?" You ask carefully.
"Yyyyyyyyes?" Taylor says sheepishly.
"Master!" You yell helplessly at her.
"Oh come on!" She yells back, throwing her hands into the air in protest. You don't say anything, but you do let a few tears well up at the corner of your eyes.
"Hey, that's not- fine. I'll make the thing and just hand it over to the PRT when it's done." She huffs after she gets a good look at you, then turns away blushing slightly again.
"Awesome!" You respond, your attitude and demeanour doing a complete turnaround as you begin poking at the fridge again.
"...Was this Emulation always this manipulative?" She asks you skeptically.
"Nope. But I've known you my whole life!" You respond with a happy smile.
Taylor groans at you in response.
Friday, February 4th, 2011
Uptown, Brockton Bay
Your Master is staring at an empty spot on the road again. You know it's because she's - ostensibly - examining Fleur, but the fact that you are completely incapable of seeing her sort of makes it hard for you to fully grasp that fact.
"Emmy?" Your Master asks you suddenly.
'Yes?' You respond. You have a bad feeling all of a sudden. A very bad feeling.
"I'm gonna do something stupid, just to see what happens. I need you to watch my back." She says cryptically, pulling her backpack off and putting it on the ground in front of her.
School that day had gone about how you might expect. A number of... Panda Gang... members had gotten your attention in order to pester you for information on your Master. It hadn't seemed malicious, and honestly, most of the students had learned to keep things tame while school was in session, so you had yielded.
You aren't sure if your Master will appreciate a bunch of wannabe minions knowing when her birthday is, but you also assume that if she doesn't, it will be a problem for future Emmy. This version of you will be long gone by then.
Screw future you. That guy is probably going to be an omnicidal jerk anyway, if your Master's current patterns hold. Besides, you got some useful information out of them in return. Apparently Accord had moved into town. No one had noticed because he hadn't actually done anything is all. Some of his minions - Ambassadors the PHO geeks had called them - had been spotted moving about in old Empire territory while your Master had been contending with the Teeth. There hadn't been much more information than that, presumably because Accord didn't have much of a reputation for overt threats.
'Please don't' You send to her plaintively, still very much in mind of the tongue lashing you got yesterday for situations exactly like this.
"Hear me out," Taylor says.
"...I'm listening." You say, materializing next to her on the street.
"So, clearly Fleur's ghost is nuts." Taylor begins.
"...Yes..." You reply hesitantly.
"And part of that is that ghosts kind of decay over time I think." She continues, still rooting around in her bag.
"Which we know because?" You ask.
"Nemesis told me." She replies easily.
"So we're taking expert advice on ghosts from your sword now." You note flatly.
"My ghost killing sword, yes," Taylor responds cheekily. You don't bother to dignify that with an answer, instead worriedly looking around the street at all the people who have been going out of their way to ignore your Master for the duration of her time here.
"So anyway, if ghosts decay over time, it's probably because their souls are losing power right? So if I can juice her up, she should go back to mostly normal! Then we can have a nice chat and I can do the Dallons a solid by bringing her back!" Taylor crows.
"And... you don't see any way that could go wrong?" You say hesitantly.
"I mean... I might have to kick her ass, but how hard can that be?" Taylor asks you quizzically. You miss when your Master was a wuss. She was a lot less liable to do stupid things back when she was afraid of getting shot to death for them.
"So... what do you need me to do?" You say, resigning yourself to your fate. You don't really know enough about ghost stuff to actually hold an argument with your Master on the topic, so you definitely aren't going to convince her to change her mind. If something goes wrong, at least you'll be able to say you tried.
"Here. Don't lose it." Your Master says, finally coming out of her backpack with a folded up piece of paper that she promptly slaps your chest with, withdrawing her hand to show that it was firmly stuck to the front of your coat.
"What-" You begin to ask but don't get much further than that.
Because there was something standing right in front of you, it's distended face - an unpleasant deformation of a normal human head that looked like someone had stretched a human face over the skeleton of a lizard - mere inches from you, one ophidian eye turned in your direction. You barely think about your reaction, merely leaping backwards and drawing Long Memory in the face of the... whatever the hell it is. As you do so, you get a better picture of the full scope of the thing. The 'human skin stretched over a lizard body' theme was prevalent all throughout. It's four limbs, spindly things that ended in large gripping hands, kept it aloft, each one long enough that it was effectively straddling the road and leaning down to stare at you.
"Yeah, she's gotten way worse since the last time we were here." Your Master says idly, not bothering to react to your obvious fright or the huge lizard thing hanging above you and carefully examining the people nearby.
"What the hell?" You hiss in distress, not dropping your combat stance.
"Alright, I'm gonna do my thing now. Just make sure nobody wanders too close okay?" Taylor says ignoring your question.
"I don't think-" You begin, mind already awhirl with how bad of an idea this is, even as your Master hops up the monster - to Fleur's chest, and slaps another Talisman on it, one that she doesn't let go of as it lands.
For a moment, nothing in particular happens. Not at first. Then, your Master's aura unfurls behind her, larger than it normally would while she was holding back. It balloons up large enough for the spectral spider that it presents as to tower over the area, causing a number of the people nearby to back up and withdraw their phones.
Then it begins to shrink. You can't fathom why at first. Not until the monster hovering above you begins to quiver and thrash, it's ghostly limbs passing harmlessly through the nearby buildings. The giant chain covered in human mouths that appears on her chest doesn't make you feel any better about it either.
It occurs to you that, in her own way, your Master might actually be attuning this ghost to one of the realities she draws power from. It would make sense. All of her abilities are finely tuned to work in this dimension. They are miniature emulations of a foreign reality, tuned not to interfere with your Master's continued survival or acquisition of new abilities.
And your Master is currently pumping her Spiritual Power into another entity.
"Master I really don't think-" You blurt out in sudden mortal terror. This kind of containment breach is your worst nightmare. The only thing intended to run on alternate physics in this dimension is your Master. You have no idea what the immediate side effects of spreading that around will be. Aura is one thing. it's generally fairly contained. The afterlife though? You would love it if that could go ahead and stay unchanged.
Ofcourse, the second Fleur's form normalizes into something approaching human, it tries to murder your much weakened Master, who has apparently dumped most of her power into the ungrateful spirit.
Without thinking overmuch about it, you leap forward, jabbing the spirit in the chest with long memory and send it flying backwards into a nearby building with a surprising thunk. Surprising for two reasons. One, you shouldn't have been able to touch the thing at all. And two, it shouldn't have been able to interact with the building at all.
"Master?" You say hesitantly, turning to Taylor who blinks blearily at you.
"I... didn't think this through." She says sheepishly, pulling herself to her feet and shaking slightly before withdrawing her sword. You purse your lips at her apparent weakness, then turn back to Fleur, who is climbing out of the dustcloud her impact with the road caused, apparently none the worse for ware.
You assume, for just the briefest of moments, that she might be able to be reasoned with. She seems more confused than anything else, glancing about the street as if only just seeing it for the first time. Then she lays her eyes on your Master, and barely even thinks before leaping at her with a speed and ferocity you find terrifying.
Still, your grip on Long Memory firms, and you stand tall. You'd rather die than let your Master fight alone.