Current Energy: 12
Current Training: Primordial Rune (Warrior) B (6/10) This Omake Bonus In Thanks To - NathanMedium
Monday, February 14th, 2011
PRT Headquarters, Brockton Bay
"Is that necessary?" You ask pointedly as you approach Legend, gesturing over his shoulder to where Eidolon is pointedly stopping anyone else in this massive tunnel from moving forward. For the vast majority of the local capes, this is a minor problem at best. For New Wave, this is not true. Vicky, for one, is peering worriedly over Eidolons green cloaked shoulder at your Master with a worried, pale expression, which you suppose makes sense. She wouldn't have been able to participate much in the actual fight beyond helping evacuate people, but she would have caught at least a few glimpses of the fight while doing so. Lady Photon is... less sanguine about the experience, and is heatedly says something to the Triumvirate member blocking her way that causes him to slowly turn towards her with a sepulchral slowness that earns a wince from the older woman, and causes Vicky's head to whip around to stare back at the two. You are distracted from your continued observation of the situation by Legend answering, though you notice Taylor's head is still pointed in that direction even as you look away.
"We're fortunate in that all of these versions of Alexandria are far enough away that identifying her would be difficult. More so that we aren't in public." He responds, his jaw tightening just enough to give the lie to his relaxed demeanor. "This also... isn't something I think everyone should get a closer look at." He adds quietly, causing your Master to stiffen but not turn as he looks behind you. Curiously, you turn back the way you came from and glance further up the tunnel. You had been largely focused on your small portion of the fight, and so hadn't attempted to see past the curtain of Gap's your Master had utilized to defend herself briefly.
You regret that,briefly, because now you understand - if only slightly - why Victoria had looked so worried.
The tunnel is an ocean of corpses. There is no nascent stench of blood in the air, likely due to the nature of your Master's attack, but the fact remains that there are more than enough bodies behind you to fill a more classic medieval battlefield.
Suddenly, you can understand why your Master hasn't fully turned around at any point since the fighting has finished, nor bothered to gaze through your eyes as she continues to watch Eidolon and Lady Photon argue.
"Ah. I see. Will you require aid disposing of the remains?" You ask, turning back towards the man and positioning yourself directly behind your Master to block her view of the scene.
"No. You've done more than enough. It's the PRT's job to handle the aftermath. However, if you could give a verbal report to an officer before leaving, that would be appreciated. I'm also going to have to ask you... both? To sign an NDA before leaving." He states with a grimace and an apologetic tilt of his head towards the fallen Greg clone nearest to you. Ironically, Greg is the only cape here who isn't in danger of being outed by a clone.
"Of course. Master, why don't we-" You pause, stepping slightly to the left so that your Master's sudden attempt to look behind you is halted, the gently place a hand on her shoulder and turn her around, ignoring Legend's look of shock when you both agree and move on from the topic so easily.
"Why don't we take Victoria and do what we must. I'm certain she must know where we need to go at this point." You repeat gently, glancing towards your Master's blond friend. Lady Photon appears to have escalated to furiously gesturing and yelling at this point, her two children positioned behind her with tension writ large on their faces.
Not that you can hear them, which is, now that you think about it, something of a feat given their relative distance to you. Your Master closes her eyes for a second, then exhales slowly before opening them again.
"Yeah let's go rescue her from... whatever that is." She says in a resigned tone with a gesture towards that ongoing argument.
Legend watches you as you go with the most perplexed expression on his face, and for the life of you, you can't figure out why.
Regardless, you vanish from sight as you shadow your Master forward, and are hit by a sudden deluge of sound as you get within ten feet of Eidolon who apparently was using a power to mute his conversation.
"-dare you!? This is a violation of everything New Wave stands for! You can't just-" Lady Photon's voice reaches your ears, furious and loud.
"Nexus." Eidolon greets your Master as she enters his orbit, not actually turning to look at her as he speaks, or even Lady Photon for that matter, as he continues to watch the crowd of gathered Capes slowly make their way out of the tunnel - either assisted by a flyer or by climbing a rope ladder that someone above had dropped down, depending on their disposition. You notice that almost all of the gathered villains are being forced to climb out.
"Hi. I just came to see if Vicky knew where to go for an Independent to give a report?" She asks cautiously, obviously not sure what the argument is about but not willing to jump in on someone's side either way.
"Y-yeah. I'll meet you upstairs in a a sec 'kay? I think everyone has to get checked over by Ames before leaving anyway..." The blond in question responds immediately, obviously caught between agreeing with her aunt and disagreeing with the widely acknowledged 'greatest hero on earth'.
"Taylor! Surely you can see that this is wrong? If you work with us we can-" Lady Photon says, ignoring her nieces comment and turning towards your Master the second she notices her.
"Sign an NDA or be charged." Eidolon cuts her off with an iron tone, reaching out to try and grab your Master's shoulder on her way past in order to prevent her from leaving with Vicky or, possibly, taking up a position with Lady Photon.
Not that you allow him to compete the maneuver, appearing immediately to his right and lightly slapping his hand away with an arch look.
"We have spoken to Legend on the topic, yes." You tell him when he whirls towards you, hands suddenly aglow. You can't tell what expression he's making under his mask, shadowed by his hood as it is, but if you had to hazard a guess it would be 'wary'.
Which is unfortunate for him, because you don't really care. Your Master just kill several hundred people or at least, people adjacent creatures, and obviously isn't feeling great about it now that the heat of battle has worn off. You drastically prefer for her to leave with Vicky over staying here to deal with whatever this is.
Which is why you vanish from sight the second you see Eidolon open his mouth.
'We should go.' You send to your Master in lieu of paying attention to anything he has to say, gently ushering your Master forward.
Several minutes later, and one floating platform of energy for the Oathbound later, the pair of you find yourselves in the lobby once more though, neither your Master nor Vicky are speaking, which you find... worrying.
"Sooo... Alexandria huh?" The blond eventually queries tentatively. Taylor makes a so-so gesture in the air with one hand in response.
"G- The new Undersider can sort of copy people. It wasn't really Alexandria." Taylor explains neutrally.
"...But it had all of Alexandria's powers." Vicky notes pointedly.
"Yeah but they had no idea what they were doing. You can't just fly at something and expect super strength to be good enough. That only works if your way, way stronger than whoever you're trying to attack. If Alexandria fought the Endbringer's that way we'd be in trouble." Taylor counters.
Vicky winces.
"I mean, yeah, but you are weaker than Alexandria right? I mean you just cheated with your super sword or whatever right?" Vicky asks quickly, possibly a touch too eagerly.
"Yeah but unless you can force people to fist fight you, treating every opponent like they can kill you is just common sense." Taylor responds, warming to the conversation. You can see the clear and obvious part of her personality that obsesses over training and practice coming to the fore as the worry she's been feeling towards Vicky for the last little while fades away. It went unspoken that she was concerned about how her actions in the tunnel had reflected on her to her friends.
Evidently Vicky didn't think much of it at all, at least, not beyond her initial gut reaction to the aftermath, which frankly, you'd be concerned if she didn't show.
"Yeah but come on, how many brutes are you going to find just hiding out in groups like that?" Vicky tries to argue weakly.
"Only takes one." Taylor answers with a snort and a sly waggle of her eyebrows.
"Oh come on! It was one time! And you were totally new then!" Vicky complains, throwing her hands into the air in protest.
The seemingly invisible tension between the two breaks after that, and your Master manages to make her report, and sign the required NDA. The process of signing an NDA was novel, if only because you too had to sign one, something that brought great satisfaction to your Master, and you all took a Gap home with assurances from the PRT that you could come see Echidna's victims after a short quarantine to ensure there were no lasting biological agents on them.
You all exit as a group into the garage of the Heap, where everyone promptly breaks out to head to their bedrooms, except for Danny, who Jess promptly grabs and drags away with a look of utter panic on her face the moment she returns to her body.
There are potentially several reasons behind that. None of which you feel the need to involve yourself in.
Thankfully Taylor fails to notice this tidbit herself, and throws herself into her bed with the same tired urgency that everyone else is showing, thanks to having not gotten much sleep the night before.
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
The Heap, Brockton Bay
Having learned your lesson previously, you pointedly do not sleep in the bed with your Master, instead opting to sleep upright in the corner with a pillow pinned to the wall by your head. Your sure you Master would have objected to this had she been conscious for more than a few seconds after reaching her bed, but since she was not, you opted to sleep the way a soldier on campaign might. That being, leaned against a wall. In life, you might have done this while wearing your armor, with your sword close at hand should something occur in the dead of night - but given that you can summon your armaments to you at will, that isn't much of an issue.
To the surprise of no one in the room with you, your Master wakes up first, her internal clock alerting her that it is 'training o-clock' at exact four am.
Somewhat more to your surprise, you are awoken by the sound of a camera shutter click.
Eyes snapping open you quickly search for the source of the noise, only to find your Master standing several feet away, with cellphone in hand and pointed at you.
"...Apologies, however - what?" You ask curiously, then blink again when when something warm begins to move about in your lap. You spare your Master another confused look, ignoring the way cooing noises she appears to be making, before glancing down. Nemesis is - as has become a habit for this emulation - currently plastered to your front, her little arms wrapping around your right leg, using your thigh as a pillow. Over all, the image is very reminiscent of a young girl who refuses to leave her fathers side at night.
Which would be much cuter if she didn't start hissing and squeezing the moment you attempted to pry her off of you.
You look to your Master for assistance, but instead just hear another shutter click as Nemesis shifts further up to clutch at you midsection with one arm while the other lazily slaps at your face until you go back to reclining so she can lie down on your chest. Then she frowns, reaches around to tug one of your arms around so that she can use it as a backrest, and promptly goes back to sleep.
"...Do you not wish to train this morning, Master?" You ask in a put upon tone. It is an unfortunate fact of your Emulations life that he seemingly allowed the women in his life to get away with just about anything they wanted, because he loved them.
And also they scared him half to death whenever he disagreed with them. Old habits and all.
"I mean, I could but-" She takes another picture, and makes that hand gesture at you again.
"What is-" You mime the gesture in annoyance then freeze when you catch Nemesis glaring at you for daring to move.
"Nothing. Don't worry about it. I don't suppose you have anything you can teach me without getting up?" Taylor answers coyly.
You give your Master a nonplussed look as she takes a seat on the floor across from you, legs crossed, then sigh and begin to speak - gently so as not to awaken Nemesis' ire any more than absolutely necessary.
"...Ancient Scandinavia had a magical practice referred to commonly as Rune Craft." You begin, then suppress a snort of amusement as Taylor leans forward, her eyes full of renewed interest the minute you say the world 'magic'.
"Rune Craft, at it's core, is the use of combinations of runes in order to create an effect. Each of the original eighteen runes, passed down by Odin to mankind, represented something. A concept, an idea. Together, there was no facet of the world that could not be described by them, and it is in combining them into more complicated script that the greatest works of m- this Emulations people were made." You explain.
"Sounds like programming code." Taylor chimes in whimsically, and you shrug one shoulder at the description. There were some who might take issue with such a dumbing down of the original meaning of Rune Craft. Especially as they were considered a gift from God at the time, spread by devotees of Odin to his people.
You are not one of those people. Which is ironic, because Odin's blood flows freely through your veins.
"That... is accurate." You concede before continuing.
"Using Rune Craft, a Master can achieve almost anything, provided they have enough power to fuel the effect. However, in order to reach the more complex applications of the craft, one most first master each rune in kind, separately and perfectly. More so, the Primordial Runes I have Mastered are not truly intended for easy use by Mortals - they require a measure of Divinity to fully realize and-" You continue to explain.
"Nope. We're not talking about that. I draw the line at literal godhood." Taylor cuts you off immediately, looking mildly freaked out by the sudden turn of the discussion. You frown.
"Divinity and Godhood are not one and the same. You can possess one without-" You try again.
"Noooope. Runes. Stick to runes. Please." Taylor asks plaintively. You eye her crossly for a second before returning to the original topic.
"This," You state dryly, marking out an angular S shape in the air in front of you without actually using any magic, "is Sowilo. It represents the sun itself, and all it entails. The dawn after a battle, the soothing sight of the sun as it rises in the sky. It is more than merely 'fire' and 'light'."
In this manner, you spend a few hours explaining the basics of Rune Craft, at least conceptually, to your Master - pausing occasionally as Nemesis shifts about or swats at you for having the audacity to be too loud or move too much. It is a pleasantly relaxing experience, that is only interrupted by the sound of a shy knocking at your Master's bedroom door.
Curious, your Master quickly stands and stretches before answering it, only to find Oliver in his casual clothes awkwardly shifting from foot to foot just outside.
"...Hey. Can we talk?" He asks, peering into the room.
You and Nemesis are both long vanished by the time his gaze pans to your corner.
A/N: Okay, I'm a bit sick but wanted to push this through anyway. The interaction with Oliver and Alexandria will be from Taylors POV and will be the next update, probably sometime later tommorow night. That will mark the end of the arc and voting for the next set of Interludes. Until then, here you go. Have fun with it.