Current Energy: 18
Current Training: Dragon Kind Modification EX (5/10) - (7/10)
Saturday, February 12th, 2011
The Heap, Brockton Bay
"Oliver, get Miss Militia," Taylor commands stiffly, causing the boy to pause momentarily to process what is going on, glance down at the corpse, and then sprint off at a speed only an aura enhanced human could manage.
Despite the frankly overwhelming feeling of anger pouring off of your Master as she stares at the corpse you are examining, not one iota of it shows on her face. Whether that is because her anger is solely reserved for the perpetrator of this farce, or because she merely refuses to disturb her teammates with an outward show of rage, you don't know.
Regardless, the moment you stand from your examination, she speaks to you, turning finally away from the corpse.
"Anything?" She asks you, her face tight with the strain of keeping it from warping into an angry scowl.
"I am unsure if this is actually Dinah Alcott." You admit freely, pushing your glasses slightly upward as you stand to speak. Tension drains from your Master's body as you speak, but the anger remains.
"How so?" she grinds out stonily as Oliver returns with Miss Militia in tow.
"My..." You pause to try and find the best way to abbreviate what the Crystallized Wisdom actually is.
"...Thinker power, indicates that this corpse is fresh. They don't appear to have truly 'lived' at all. When last we saw Miss Alcott, she did not appear to have spent her life trapped in a lightless dungeon." You explain, gesturing to the girls corpse with one hand as Trainwreck steps forward, throwing a tarp over the whole thing. Taylor nods appreciatively to him.
"What's going on?" Miss Militia asks as she and Oliver finally step into the loose circle you are making around the corpse.
"Someone killed this kid, then used one of the bosses emergency escape tags to dump it here." Trainwreck responds. Miss Militia's eyebrows turn downward at this, projecting her expression past her face covering, but she doesn't respond right away, allowing the conversation to continue.
"Emmy thinks the body is fake, but even if it is, someone with one of my tags has been captured." Taylor notes much more calmly, which is unfortunate, as you are forced to correct her statement.
"No, the body isn't fake. This person was once alive. It merely has physical signs that do not match those of the true Dinah Alcott, or at least, the one we last saw at her home." You correct quickly, your sharp eyes taking note of the slight intake of breath from Miss Militia at the name but not immediately commenting on it.
You do comment on the hissed intake of air from Oliver though.
"Huntsman?" You query using the boys preferred 'cape name', drawing the attention of everyone else to him. He flinches slightly at that, but takes a deep breath and gives your Master a resolute look, which falters as he catches Miss Militia looking at him out of the corner of his eyes.
"I've had a bad experience with clones. I'll tell you what I can later." He states.
"So... it's a clone?" Taylor pipes up, some of the anger leaving her.
"The possibility is high yes." You note as Oliver nods along with you. Taylor frowns then turns to Miss Milita.
"Can the PRT figure out if this is a clone or something else? I'd like to contact her family to see if everything is okay, but it would probably sound better coming from you." She asks, pleads really.
"I'll have to inform the director of it regardless. I know it might be a lot to ask, but if you could make sure nobody touches the body?" She asks, looking around, no doubt in deference to the fact that she has just asked your Master to leave a corpse sitting in the middle of a major work area.
"Of course. Wreck?" Taylor answers stoically, turning to her second in command.
"On it." He replies, trundling away to grab something from his workbench.
"Oliver? She calls next, tilting her head towards the exit of the garage. When he nods nervously and heads in the direction she turns back to Miss Militia.
"You'll let me know what you find out?" She asks, her tone and posture much more mature than her typical playful demeanor. Miss Militia has a brief internal debate with herself before answering.
"I'll tell you what I can. Tonight is supposed to be my last night, so whoever is here tomorrow will tell you if I don't." She answers eventually. The subtext of course, is clear. Miss Militia, as nice as she is, is not a part of your team. And your team is not a part of the PRT. Ergo, the PRT as much as they might like you, don't have to tell you everything. Your Master could technically make Miss Militia do it, but you doubt she even knows that, let alone would be willing to do it, which is for the best.
Mind Control is evil, after all.
Regardless, your Master takes the offer at face value, and, with a nod, heads towards the kitchen where Oliver is waiting.
"So..." Oliver says awkwardly when Taylor drops into a seat across from him with a tired sigh, her tension leaving her now that the only people present are members of her team.
"Clones?" She prods, not altogether too strongly, no doubt consider this to be mostly an anecdotal moment for future reference.
"I was kind of a super villain before I came here." Oliver blurts out suddenly, then flinches as though expecting to be suddenly struck down.
He isn't, but mostly because you see no reason to do so. Yet. Taylor, however, jerks slightly at his statement, knocking her chair askew and nearly falling out of it before you reach out and steady it for her.
"Oliver! What the hell!" She yelps, before looking towards the firmly closed door and leaning forward onto the table to examine him more closely.
"Was! I said was!" He replies instantly, still mid flinch.
"That's not- What does that have to do with clones?" Taylor finally asks.
"One of my teammates she- hang on, don't you care?" Oliver starts, then frowns and asks in an almost offended tone.
"Should I? Are you evil now?" Taylor responds primly.
"No!" Oliver immediately yells back.
"How bad of a villain? Like on a scale from robs gas stations to eats babies." Taylor continues, tensing slightly.
"I mean... I didn't personally do anything, I was kind of the emotional support villain. B-but my teammates were pretty close to eats babies! It's why I left!" He yells in a panic.
"Why were you even with them then? No offense but your powers don't seem really..." Taylor trails off, grasping for the right words.
"Crap? I know okay? And it was just... they were all I had. Even when they did all that terrible stuff I just told myself we had to do it to survive. That no one else would..." He states, looking downcast.
"...Well, you're not with them anymore so. Uh... don't cry?" Taylor tries, face straining as she realizes that Oliver is beginning to tear up. She looks up to you for help and then back to Oliver when you give no response.
"I just- I hated it. Calling myself an emotional support villain is so accurate that it hurts. They sold one of our friends to china as a slave. I've been living in abandoned houses and roach motels for over a year. And you just- you just- none of it matters!" He blurts out, not quite sobbing, but still allowing tears to flow freely down his face.
"Olly, I honestly don't care what your friends did before this. You didn't. And now your with me, which makes you mine. So cheer up okay? I- loyalty means a lot to me." Taylor states, starting strong and then getting timid as she goes on.
"That makes it worse!" Oliver counters, pointing a shaking finger at your Master and then pausing when you tilt your head to look at it with a bit more focus than you had been before, then retrieves the appendage, hugging it to himself tightly.
"That's what we were supposed to be! Us against the world! The band of brothers! We were supposed to be willing to do anything for each other! So why does this feel so different!?" He yells.
"Apologies. However," You chime in, causing your panicked Master - who doesn't have any experience whatsoever with this type of situation apparently - to look up at you with relief.
"The difference, is that we aren't lying." You state blandly, crossing your arms in front of your chest and posing imperiously behind your Master like the guardian knight you very much are at the moment.
You do that for about thirty more seconds before you realize that no one is paying attention to you, and Oliver is half laughing, half crying, at which point you decide to vanish to avoid acknowledging any embarrassment.
"So..." Oliver finally speaks after he finishes his breakdown, exhaling harshly before continuing, "one of my teammates her power was... wrong."
"Wrong how?" Taylor asks, obviously glad for the moment to have passed.
"Making skin contact with her let her make clones of you. Evil Clones." Oliver clarifies. Your Master instantly makes the connection between what Oliver is saying and your current predicament.
"...And she's here in the city. Right now." Taylor states flatly.
"...She also sort of eats people." He continues closing his eyes and shaking slightly.
"...Right. I'm going to catch Miss Militia and tell her we have a thinker power that sussed all this out. Do they know you're here?" Taylor asks quickly rising to her feet.
"They- they actually sent me here to spy on you. One of our friends died and... you know." He says lamely. Taylor snorts.
"Stay in the castle." She orders, before turning to leave the kitchen.
"What are you going to do?" He asks curiously, scrambling to follow behind her. Your Master frowns as she looks back at him.
"To find Dinah." She replies coolly.
Sunday, February 13th, 2011
The Heap, Brockton Bay
Standing atop the Heap, your Master is frantically orchestrating the small army of pigeons that litter the city. It wasn't more than a few hours ago that she had mass enchanted the lot of them to look out for, and report trouble to the Heap, but obviously she didn't consider some of the obvious side effects of such a working.
Namely, The roof directly above the Ward Room has suddenly become home to several hundred pigeons.
"Just... This girl! I need to find where this girl came from!" She screeches in frustration at the things, most of which just coo at her and alternate flying about the neighbourhood or attempting to cuddle up to your Master. It has the interesting effect of causing her to look like a semi sentient pile of pigeons, really.
"I don't believe they are smart enough to-" You begin carefully.
"I know! Shut up!" She yells at you, the pigeon pile shifting slightly as she points aggressively at you.
"..If you would allow me, Master?" You try when it becomes obvious your Master is about to go back to fruitlessly screaming at pigeons.
"...Go ahead." She eventually acquiesces, to which you nod and raise a hand into the air quickly concentrating on the corpse downstairs, with a specific focus on where it came from. Then you sketch out the rune Berkano in the air using a finger, the air beneath your hand glowing to match your motions. The symbol looks not dissimilar to a particularly angular 'B' and as soon as you complete the rudimentary tracking spell, it becomes a ball of light then zips forward slightly, coming to a stop when you don't immediately follow it.
Energy: -1
"There. Before we leave," You state, walking towards your Master and waving off the wave of pigeons crooning around her. Then you hold your hand out to her. She looks down at it for a second then tentatively takes it causing you to blink and shake her hand off, ignoring the hurt look she sends you as you do so.
"Apologies, I thought now would be an appropriate moment for this." You state, before withdrawing a dagger and ramming it through your palm again.
"Fuck!" Taylor screeches, leaning away from your now dripping palm.
"Hurry, or the wound will close," you instruct, advancing on her.
"Ew ew ew. No, nope, pass." She states continuing to back away from you.
"Master." You say sternly. Advancing further.
"Why- come on this is just- can't I have like a cup?!" She yells at you flailing her arms between the two of you.
You pause to think about it, guesstimate the duration of your tracking spell, then smile at your Master.
"No." You say with a bright smile.
"Your gross, and I don't know how I feel about it." Taylor scowls at you as you rocket through the skies along side her, following the dot of your tracking spell as it flies just ahead of you. Neither of you is really 'flying' in the traditional sense, merely jumping such great distances that at a glance there isn't otherwise much of a difference. Your Master can walk on air if she needs to turn, and you can simply become intangible and allow her change in direction to shift you about when the need arises.
Eventually though, you and your Master find yourselves descending into what looks to be an empty parking garage. The light of the tracking spell comes to a stop in the center of the garages third level, where it looks like something huge has recently shouldered all of the vehicles that were once parked here out of the way.
There is also, a naked man standing patiently in the center of it all.
"Hello." He says plainly as you and your Master pull to a stop in front of him.
"Where's Dinah?" Your Master asks instantly, pointing her sword at the skeletal looking man. You can't quite place your finger on why but there is something deeply disturbing about the look in his eyes, and his lack of concern for his nudity.
"Where she's supposed to be. I've always been fascinated by you, do you know that? I've seen you do so much, and yet when left alone - nothing." The man states, stepping towards you as though testing to see if he'll be struck down. He isn't, but your Master flicks her sword, causing it to change into a Khopesh in a flash of blue fire. The man examines it for a second before taking another step forward - and freezing as all the air below his neck stiffens into a solid.
"The sword hm?" He mumbles to himself, before blinking and doing... something. Your perception splits briefly, and you find yourself stumbling as you are suddenly controlling two bodies at once. Each one standing in the exact same spot, but responding separately, forcing you to conscious slow down in order to ensure both are moving properly. To your side, you can feel your Master slightly fumbling under the strain for a second, before straightening back up. Presumably, the old man in her head handling her other self. Then the man begins to speak again, and only one of the versions of him you are looking at does so.
"I've seen you use that in countless ways. Every time I kill your father-" He states blandly, before the version of Taylor in that split cleaves him in two. For just the briefest of seconds, you are one again, and then the uninjured man splits again, leaving you cross eyed as one of the splits continues to speak as though nothing had happened.
"Where's Dinah." You hear your Master growl in stereo with herself.
"I don't know." He answers seemingly honestly. Then a creepy smile sprouts across his face, an almost manic glee in the expression you wouldn't have expected from the mostly expressionless man.
"I'm actually just the distraction. Will you be arresting me now? I'm not sure how much lead time your Father was supposed to have. You might-" The man answers you luridly, before his head is quickly separated from his shoulders.
"Is that a no?" He asks curiously, not bothering to split reality again. Having had quite enough of this, you decide to expedite this obvious waste of time by glancing across the man through your glasses. As much as his nudity and behavior would imply him to be a clone, you can't afford to murder a random person, not while your Master would be left with the blame.
Thankfully, they return a result not dissimilar to that of the Dinah copies corpse. And so, without any expression or warning, you flick one of your daggers into the air, turn to leave, and backhand it towards the clone, catching it in your free hand as it ricochets back to you. You don't bother examining the damage the attack would have inevitably done to the mans torso. If he wasn't a brute, and in fact, even if he was a brute, you doubt he could survive the attack.
"Was he-?" Your Master asks, her mood clearly somewhere between apocalyptic and afraid.
"Yes. Where is Daniel right now?" You ask, to which your Master responds by opening a gap and leaping through, you hot on her heals.
You emerge from that gap directly into her living room, where Daniel sitting up to watch television with Jess, both adults blinking owlishly at the pair of you as you arrive.
"...Taylor? Is everything okay?" Danny asks as soon as he finishes processing both your sudden appearance and obvious state of mind.
"There was a bad guy that implied you were about to be ambushed. We have to go to the Heap." Taylor rattles off quickly, keeping her sword out and quickly running to check out the front window of the house for any disturbances. Daniel and Jess share a glance before he turns back to Taylor and nods once, standing up.
"I'll grab a change of clothes for us and we can go." He answers vanishing up the stairs. As he does so, Taylor whips her cellphone out, and begins messaging someone. At your curious look she explains.
"I'm telling Vicky her family should stay with us for a little while."
"Is Vicky even with her family? Last I checked, they were not..." You glance towards Jess and back again. "...on good terms." you finish.
"It doesn't matter. This is more important. The PRT should know about the clone we... fought... too." Taylor insists, pocketing her phone just as Danny comes back down the stairs.
"Well have to coordinate with the PRT. Ready?" She asks her Father as Jess steps up beside him. You can tell she is trying to ignore how close together the two are standing. Or the fact that they were awake to 'watch television' at something like two in the morning.
"I doubt it." He responds dryly, before stepping unhesitatingly through the gap your Master creates nearby. Jess quirks an eyebrow at the thing but eventually steps through after him. Taylor waits for a moment, staring at the Gap instead of stepping directly through it.
"Do you think he was just... messing with me?" She asks suddenly.
"About?" You ask curiously.
"Killing Dad." Taylor responds weakly.
"It's... possible. Or maybe we got here before the attack happened. Do you want to go back?" You ask stoically. At the end of the day, you don't know enough about your enemies goals to even begin formulating a way to defeat them. They're clearly antagonistic to your Master, and have no problem leaving disposable minions behind on the off chance she proves capable of tracking their actions, but that doesn't tell you much about their goals. If you had to hazard a personal guess, it would be that the clone you just dealt with existed purely to send your Master in the opposite direction of wherever it's creator was headed, which could be anywhere at this point. You could maybe eke enough of a connection out of the fallen clone to track it back to its creator, but whether or not that is a good idea is questionable.
So for now, you'll wait.
Sunday, February 13th, 2011
The Heap, Brockton Bay
Your Master has been standing atop the roof of the Heap for close to an hour now, and it is beginning to worry you. You have already tried to convince her that she doesn't actually need to stand sentinel atop her literal castle like this, but evidently, the mere idea that her father could fall in battle has her somewhat spooked.
Which is why you've called him instead.
"Little Owl?" He asks as you deposit him on the roof. There isn't actually an access hatch or ladder to get up here. Everyone who could have a reason to do so either has super strength or can fly, obviating the need.
"Hey, Dad. I'll be down in a bit. I just want to make sure nothing happens before Vicky's family and the PRT get here." She lies, knowing full well that Vicky's family has already politely refused to hide in your castle. Presumably, because they either don't see the scale of the threat the way she does, or because they are still somewhat cross with her over the situation with Jess. Truthfully, you can somewhat understand the viewpoint. As much as a cape who makes more capes is a threat, you are fairly certain it isn't a threat to you. Your Master seems to be responding more to the visceral threat to her loved ones than to herself.
And that response is as disproportionate as it is adorable.
"It's ah, kind of cold up here. Are you sure you don't want a blanket? Some hot chocolate? A chair?" Danny prods, hugging himself for emphasis, even as your Master looks down to realize she has functionally been posing with her sword resting on the grand in front of her with both hands on the hilt, again, for the better part of an hour.
"I'm fine. I just- really want to keep a look out. I can go for a few days without sleep anyway. It's fine." She answers far too quickly, turning away from him as though in dismissal.
"Huh. Well. I suppose it's been a lot harder to get sick recently." Danny answers airily, shruggrin and walking over to take a seat next to Taylor who turns to stare at him as though unsure of how to respond to that.
"Kiddo, you know, I'm proud of you." Danny says once he's fully settled. Taylor, obviously trying to think of a polite way to make him go back into the warmth of the castle, snorts slightly at that before turning away again.
"Really! Look at the city. Or even just this neighborhood. Forget the gangs and the costumes for a second. The people put there, they have something to look forward to. They're working again. They have something in Brockton to point at and be proud of." Danny explains, lifting a hand to gesture expansively around himself.
"I didn't even do most of that." Taylor responds.
"But you made it possible. Taylor, it's okay to slow down. Everything that happens isn't your responsibility. There are other people to pick up the slack now." Danny states nudging Taylor's leg with and elbow until she sighs and sits down next to him, the two leaning on eachother.
"I don't like doing nothing. I did a lot of that before I got my powers." She huffs, keeping her gaze in the distance but waving a hand to create a dancing flame in front of her to warm them both up.
"I could stand watch. I believe you recently enchanted a number of pigeons to do the same." You point out, stepping forward.
Danny's expression instantly stiffens at that.
"Actually can we talk about that for a moment? Is there a reason he's so..." Danny makes a vague hand gesture at you that you still don't recognize.
"Um. The multiverse-" Taylor starts to stutter out, not looking at you.
"Because the word on the street is you get what you subconsciously desire-" Danny continues, speaking louder to talk over her.
"V-vending machines-" Taylor continues to splutter out.
"And I'll be honest, with how your Mother was I was kind of expecting-" He continues, wrapping an arm around her to hug her close when she starts as if to run away. It's obvious that she could escape if she so wanted to, but obviously doesn't - despite the faux struggle she puts up as he continues to speak.
The Hebert's are asleep by the time the sun begins to rise. You make sure to get a good look at them slumped against each other snoring before lifting them both up to take to their rooms.
Just so your Master has the memory when she wakes up, of course.