TYPE TAYLOR

by overlyred

. ...

2. part 2

Gallant had come to visit her.

Her visitors were growing more and more frequent, just a few hours before him it had been Vista and Clockblocker.

Those two had been asking so many questions about how she felt, Clockblocker had been much more reserved than usual. Within moments of stepping in both had removed their masks and come closer... both had been concerned, that much had been clear, and she had done her best to speak to them. There had been no jokes on the part of Dennis, both of them were clearly going through some things but they still came to speak with her.

She had been tempted to give them both a hug, but in the end had just about managed a smile.

Just that smile felt like a herculean effort.

But it was nice to see them, she did not realise how much she had missed them until they were there in front of her.

Gallant had also removed his mask to speak with her, but unlike them, had simply tossed it to the ground beside the door without any concern at all for the effort put in by the outfit suppliers.

"... Hey, Dean."

"Hello, Taylor."

And then, silence. He had looked back at her with an expression hard to read. He stood just... staring at her for a moment, as if he was staring at a mountain that he had to climb. No, it was different from that, on some level... there was an understanding in his eyes. A full understanding beyond what the others had, beyond what could be contained inside a piece of paper report. He was an empath, so he would know just what a mess she was.

He had not bothered with the usual opening question.

There was no 'are you okay?' or 'how are things today?' from Dean. He let her speak first.

"I'm glad you're okay," she said.

He shrugged.

"Got my spine shattered by Leviathan," he said. "Aegis pulled me out just in time but it was touch and go at some points, almost died in hospital but apparently his quick response saved me... Panacea got me up and walking, had a talk with her about some things... a lot's been going on."

He delivered it with that utter forwardness of somebody who had well and truly been through something horrific. It was almost refreshing, the others were treating her with kid gloves, even Coleson who knew that she preferred honesty. But Dean spoke with utter forwardness about his own situation

"So long as you are okay now."

A long stare.

She had never really looked at Gallant long enough to see just how lovely his eyes were. But right now, those eyes were set in a face that could have been carved from stone.

"... My mother got caught by the crystal."

She was supposed to apologise, to say sorry. It was all her fault that this had happened. How many others were in the same situation, how many people in Brockton Bay now had a family member who now had the crystal? Before Emma's death, there had been seven of them left... but what now? Dozens, hundreds... thousands?

"I--"

"Did you want the valley to happen?" he demanded, and even if she had the distinct impression that he was not supposed to ask it, he still did so.

"No! No!" her heart had flared at that, bathing the room with light before she could stop it. Gallant closed his eyes a moment. "I would never want that, never! I didn't even know what was happening when the Spider just... just made it happen."

The light faded, he opened his eyes.

"... Then it's not your fault, Taylor... she'll be okay, it was only up to her knees. Don't hold yourself responsible for what happened."

But it was her fault--

"No, stop that. Whatever happened out there, you did not want it to happen. It's a fucking tragedy that it did and we all wish it didn't... but it did, gotta live with the consequences," the well-spoken young man of before was gone. It almost sounded as if he wanted to be angry, as if he wanted to vent all that frustration and rage, but in the end, couldn't. It was painful to watch as he momentarily deflated, nostrils flaring as he exhaled. How long had he been waiting to ask that question?

He could read her emotions, so she did not even bother to speak.

Dean's expression twitched slightly in response.

"... I'm sorry, but I had to ask. I know things could not be rougher right now, people are hysterical because they don't know what to do about the crystal, they've brought in some experts to try and explain how to live with it but frankly, it's not helping. If you can help at all--"

The door suddenly opened. She looked past Dean to see a PRT agent, an out of towner, in the doorway. The woman was frowning at her fellow Ward, lips pressed into a grim line as she stared disapprovingly at the back of his head.

"Gallant. I am afraid a situation has come up and I need to ask you to come with me," Dean had not looked away from Taylor, even if his face transformed into one of blatant distaste. She did not need to be an empath herself to read the room, and idly had used her gravity to pick up his helmet and pull it towards them both, until it floated just beside his head.

He took it and put it back on all without turning around.

"Fine. Ordinant, think about it all. Your dad has been asking for you as well, a Mr. and Mrs. Barnes as well."

She clenched her hand.

"Gallant--" the woman again spoke up.

"Yeah yeah, alright... I'll see you later, Ordinant," he said, turning and beginning to walk out. The door closed, there was the very faint sound of the electronic lock sealing.

Beyond the door, the conversation continued.

They did not know just how good her hearing was now.

"You were supposed to keep your helmet on and comms open throughout your time there, and the questions you asked were completely inappropriate."

"We've been asking to speak with her for days. I'm going to damn well ask when I have the opportunity."

"The Director will not be pleased--"

"The Director can shove it. Ordinant's in full control and she's still got a human mind, I know that's all you wanted me to find out but are you really trying to tell me--you know what, where is the Director? I'm going to talk to her."

There had been the sound of footsteps beyond the door, voices that slowly faded away, the woman was scolding Gallant still but he was marching away.

She did not know what she was supposed to feel. So, she fell back onto what she knew, and wrapped herself up into a cocoon and began to analyse the conversation that had just occurred in minute detail.

Unfortunately, just minutes later Coleson would pay a visit with more questions.

~~~~~

Having a safety blanket was a childish thing.

Taylor understood now why small children had them, because she had not left the PRT standard issue blanket that Agent Coleson had brought her on a previous visit for quite awhile.

She did not really pay a huge amount of attention to her surroundings, there had been light coming in through the curtained windows when Gallant and Coleson visited.

The latter was doing his best... she could appreciate that he had a job to do, and he always stopped the moment she asked, always asked how she was doing. It was just... so goddamn draining to answer the questions. Speculating and trying to explain the Spider, when she knew that every word she said--every thought that went through her brain was something that fed back to it.

And now they wanted to lock her away somewhere.

Coleson's question had been so directed that even without hours to reflect on things, it had been clear why he was asking, and he had even mentioned that the questions came from 'somewhere high up.'

She could fully understand where they were coming from.

But they had to keep her supplied with information

They had to they had to or else she would--

Focus.

Focus for a moment on a nice, safe bit of information, parse it, pick it apart and come up with ideas and concepts.

If her calculations were correct, she had been awake for one hundred and eight hours now.

She just wanted the safe oblivion of sleep...

But if she did close her eyes and simulate unconsciousness, was there any guarantee that she would wake? Would the Spider see that as an inefficiency and finish her metamorphosis the moment she did? No, that was a risk she could not take, and even though the thoughts had gone through her mind dozens of times, the Spider had never so much as registered them. The matter was so insignificant that it did not even register it as an issue to be addressed.

If she slept, would her antigravity field falter? Anywhere she set her feet, the Crystal Valley would spread, her going to sleep could spread the crystal, could doom another part of Brockton Bay. She had already destroyed most of the city.

No, no she could not risk going to sleep, and it was not like it was a biological need anymore... it was safer for her to stay awake, that way she could monitor everything around her and about her.

The last time she lost the battle to stay awake it had taken Emma's efforts to wake her up.

She tensed up, curling into an even smaller ball.

"I don't want to crystallise, Taylor."

She wanted to cry. Even if there were no muscles or tendons there, her heart felt wrong, it wanted to tighten with emotion but in truth she knew that it was simply the miniature sun in her chest flaring.

Just let her cry! She wanted to spend hours bawling her eyes out. She could make the sound, she could feel the emotions, but the small relief and catharsis of just opening the floodgates could not come, because she did not have tear ducts anymore. All she could do was jam her eyes shut and bite the blanket in frustration.

Emma...

She could still feel the phantom sensation of her friend within her arms, leaning her chin on her shoulder, could see those eyes staring back at her. Even with her body turned to crystal, sat on her knees with one frozen in place at her side and the other broken at the forearm... Emma had still looked at her so nicely, as if they were just sitting in her room spilling their secrets to one another. Emma had been nicer than she deserved for what she had done.

Those words, that expression would haunt her forever.

So many things that had occurred in the last few days would.

Dimly, she was aware that her heart was flaring so very bright. Were it not for her own restrictions that prevented its heat and radiation from leaking, she would have vaporised most of the room dozens of times over during her time here. Nobody really understood what it was like, oh they could detect the brightness, she was pretty sure that they had been using it to extrapolate her mental state... the questionings always occurred when it was not at its dimmest, but not fluctuating much..

She released the ball of tension, making the sound of a sigh even if she had no lungs.

For the first time in hours, she opened her eyes and peered upwards.

The marbles she had asked for, and which one of the troopers she distantly recognised supplied.

She had wanted something to distract herself with, something that she could practice her gravity control on.

Sitting up, the marbles descended to float over her hand, and she watched, detached as the various pieces of spherical glass orbited one another. She had them stop, perfectly calculated for the planet's current positions within space.

That one was earth, the colours were not right but it did the job. It was still spinning, it has taken a lot of attempts to get it rotating at the right speed to match the Earth's, only somebody with superior abilities like her would notice it.

"Your dad has been asking for you as well. A Mr. and Mrs. Barnes as well."

If they wanted to lock her away somewhere, then she needed to see her dad and the Barnes before that could happen.

It was a sudden resolution, and before she had really had time to dwell on it, she was focusing gravity on her feet to righten herself. Carefully she folded up the blanket and bundled it up under her arm. That strange, sudden clarity that normally came with waking up from a long dream settled over her.

She had spent days here, and all at once the four walls felt stifling rather than a safe, out of the way place to process all that had happened. The marbles moved to orbit her head as she floated forwards towards the door, and she knocked on it.

After a moment, it opened to reveal a trooper, one who looked faintly surprised to see her not in the centre of the room.

"... I'm done here. I want to see my dad," she announced, gliding forward.

"Ordinant, wait, you need a mask at least!"

"No point. Where is he?"

6.2

This temporary PRT base was nothing more than an office building with a large number of troopers in, and it was an absolute mess.

It rather reminded her of pictures of forward or emergency operation bases one might see on the news, with news reporters in bulletproof vests and helmets talking to camera in small rooms filled with people bustling. There were Capes she did not recognise in conversation with one another, bureaucrats on their fourth cup of coffee with stacks of paper in hand, and more colours of lanyard denoting different levels of status than one could imagine.

It was a proper mess, in this sort of situation after an Endbringer attack, did the PRT basically rule the city now? What happened to town hall and all that, was the mayor and his executive power folded into the PRT structure temporarily, or superseded by it?

It did not really matter, to be honest.

Whoever was in charge of the situation had been administering it for days now whilst she was... wallowing? No, she had been recuperating. She had just needed time to process everything... she was still processing everything, but having a purpose was what mattered right now. If she was truly to be consigned to some hole somewhere then all that mattered was seeing her father and speaking with Emma's parents before it happened.

"Hey, do you know where Danny Hebert is? Been asking for me?"

For everyone she asked it was something of a longshot. The temporary agents brought in from other cities would not know of course, and even the ones native to Brockton Bay she could not expect to magically know exactly where he was. But with each person she asked the chances of one of them knowing would only go up, right?

Quite a few people were moving out of her way. They saw her, paused a moment, as if trying to remember something before swiftly vacating. What stories had been circulating, what was the cause of their reactions? It was human nature to always imagine the negative, that everyone was scared of her or worried that she might do something... but she had been on good behaviour right, there was no reason for people to be scared... well, logically there was no reason.

But logic and action only coincided when humans were calm and in situations that they were used to. She knew that well enough.

Maybe it was surprise, them not expecting her to suddenly snap out of her funk and then they see her ominously floating down the halls towards them?

She would probably get a bit creeped out by that, if she were in their situation.

Ahead of her, a pair of troopers standing beside a door were tensing up the closer she got, visibly weighing up their course of action. looked at one another, evidently wondering whether they were supposed to do. They could not leave their post due to protocol, after all.

One of them was reaching up to his helmet, the other remained focused on her.

She recognised them both, well, sort of. She recognised the one of them stood to the left, he had a rather distinctive half-lean where he alternated his weight from foot to foot. She had seen him about often enough, a Brockton Bay native.

"Sorry to bother you both, but who is in charge at the moment?" she tried a new direction with her questions.

Gallant had mentioned speaking to the Director, presumably Piggot, but that had been hours ago. The chain of command was probably all messed up anyway, even if no major figures from Brockton Bay died in the fight due to it being ended somewhat early by the valley appearing, the influx of new figures to handle the crisis had probably shaken Brockton Bay's PRT up and down.

"Alexandria is overseeing a lot of the Parahuman side of things but she is currently in the middle of a meeting," the first one said after a moment.

"Okay… who else?"

Another pause.

"Armsmaster remains in charge of local operations but is currently unavailable."

"Well--" the speaking trooper looked past her suddenly as a metal boot met the floor, and she turned around.

"Ordinant."

Dauntless stood facing her, standing a distance away in his full outfit. Ah, he must be on duty in case of anybody attempting to attack Headquarters at the moment, right?

She had only shared a few words with the man in her tenure, he often was patrolling whilst she was in base, and her loop breaking before all this nightmare began had kept her away from Brockton Bay so much that plenty of Protectorate member's she had barely been able to speak with.

"Where's my dad?"

"... Asleep, it is two in the morning, you know." He sounded tired, perhaps a little run through the mill as it were. She needed to remember that it was night and people slept now, hell, she should be asleep but she had better things to be doing then resting.

"I want to see him."

Indistinct radio chatter from the other hero's helmet. She could focus on it and tune in, but she could already guess what it was.

"... We can bring him up to your room."

It sounded just a little... not rehearsed, but obligatory in nature.

"I am sick of that room, I've been in there long enough," she said, stubbornly.

"Alright then." He had spoken before the annoying radio chatter could start up again. "Well, lets find you somewhere comfortable, and I'll see about bringing him to you, then. Mind following me to one of the break rooms? Probably more comfortable for you both... the higher ups are getting somewhat concerned," he added, already stepping away.

She floated behind him, the man's heavy steps colliding with the ground as if to declare his presence and march forward to anybody who might get in the way.

Nobody did, everyone had made themselves scarce.

It was only troopers for the most part anyway, and they did not intervene as the other hero led her to a room that… well, he called it a break room but it also seemed to be serving as storage for something, possibly PRT equipment or supplies of some sort. With everything being so out of order at the moment, the place looked a mess.

"Coffee machines over there… not sure if you even need it, but if you want to give it a go feel free. It tastes awful though."

"Thanks, Dauntless."

He left, and she waited.

Would her father even recognise her like this?

Made of crystal, without the colour and definition of a human being… she knew that she looked just a little… uncanny.

She had seen a few of the other kids from camp just hours before their atomisation, the fixed, glossy crystal eyes, the faces that looked carved or sculpted despite being flesh the last time she had seen them.

The last time he saw her she was in her full Ordinant getup, about to head out into battle with Leviathan and now she was in some manner of bland, standard issue PRT holding garment. It was not pretty, being perfectly utilitarian in nature.

Of course he would recognise her, he was her dad after all. Nobody in the world would recognise her better. Nobody left alive, at least.

In this manner she fretted for a few minutes, before the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps became audible just outside the door. She really should stop making use of this enhanced bat hearing… but it certainly was useful.

The door opened not with a creak but with a loud bang as Danny Hebert pushed it with such force that it slammed into the wall beside it, the metal handle leaving an appropriately shaped dent in the cheap plaster.

Her father looked an absolute mess... his right hand was bandaged, presumably from when he tried to punch Assault, and by the looks of it she was not the only Hebert who had not slept in a long time. His facial hair had evolved from stubble to an unkempt mass of hair that desperately needed a good half an hour with a sharp razor.

He stared for a moment at her, the moment stretched on for so long.

Would he recognise her--

"Taylor..." there were so many emotions in that single word, an infinite volume of relief, but also tiredness, as if that word had been the load-bearing pillar holding up the entire building of her father's being.

Her name from his lips was just what she needed to hear.

He stepped closer without a moment's hesitation, behind him Dauntless gave Taylor a small wave, reaching over with a gauntleted hand to take the door handle and pulling it to. Why did she have the impression that he was supposed to stay?

Seemed that Gallant was not the only one with some reservations about things.

"Come down here right now young lady," her father ordered, and she allowed herself to float over to him, careful not to let her feet touch the floor. Even if he had not carried her like this since she was a small child, she did not hesitate in dropping herself into his arms as if she were a princess and was pulled close without a moment's thought.

She kept her own gravity low so that she would not weigh him down.

Bump.

His lips against the crown of her head, knocking the marbles all askew without concern.

His arms hugged her so tightly, it wasn't anywhere near enough to make the crystal creak or anything like that, he was only human after all, but she could feel the earnestness behind it all.

Despite herself and her innumerable higher functions, thoughts, and abilities, she found herself mumbling and talking endlessly, just letting it all spill out in her father's arms. And he stood there, letting her, swaying her from side to side slightly and holding her up, away from the ground.

For the first time in days, she felt safe.

~~~~~

If Taylor had a penny for each time she had sat in front of this damned desk awaiting some piece of news with trepidation, then she would have a handful of coins by now. Enough to begin working towards buying a treat of some kind, perhaps.

But such things were far from her mind as she floated cross-legged in the air in front of the Director's desk.

Except that it was not Director Piggot that she was speaking to.

Instead, it was a perfectly nondescript agent, one of the many support staff that had flooded into the Bay to help deal with the management of the disaster that had befallen the city.

Apparently meeting with the Director, or anybody of notable rank within the PRT was considered too much of a security risk due to her connection to the Spider. Another bit of paranoia on their part, but she could not say that she disagreed with the principle... even if it was probably redundant. Hell, they had not even given her a conference call, or something where she could physically see the woman, did they worry that even people's microexpressions would feed back to the spider?

Well, they would... but it wouldn't care, what was the solitary antennae flick of an ant to an elephant?

But she could play along with this scene, the earpiece that was feeding the PRT agent lines came from Piggot anyway, if she put her mind to it, it would be easy enough to listen in directly.

But she didn't.

"… Not containment?" she asked to clarify what the somewhat prim, middle-aged woman had just informed her. Whilst she did not have a heart to leap into her throat any more, judging by the ambient brightness.

"Yes, not containment," the agent confirmed, slightly squinting from the bright light emanating from Taylor at the news.

"Ah, sorry..."

She tried her best to stop lighting up the room.

"Thank you. Now as I was saying, No, not containment. A lot of people above me are hoping that you can do something about the problems in the Bay. So no, no containment, it's not going to be easy but you are to remain a Ward of the PRT... Officially I need to ask your consent for this, but frankly, seeing your past behaviour and the alternatives, I doubt you are going to turn down the opportunity."

Taylor did not know whether that was a demand to know whether she knew she was being supported, or a demand that a repeat not occur.

Either way, Taylor nodded.

"No, ma'am, I want to help."

The agent did not so much as nod, but after a moment there was an indication for her to continue, to elaborate.

"I have so much to do, there are still thousands of Gray Boy loops, and I need to see if there is anything that I can do for the people who got touched by the crystal. And I owe it to somebody to do all I can as well."

Each was another reason to keep pushing forward despite how bleak the situation truly was.

"Do you believe that there is something you can do about the crystal then?"

"… No, I have not tried asking the Spider about it, I've tried to avoid focusing on it at all to be honest with you, Director. It is still busy; it's been letting me… um…" don't say digest don't say digest-- "adapt to things?" the fact it came out more like a question than a statement was not helping the matter.

"... How kind of it."

She could hear the words in the Director's exact tone of voice right there.

For a moment there was an awkward silence, and then the earpiece lit up again, a moment later the next line came through.

"There is a lot to be discussed about your future Ordinant, and frankly all of it is a headache that I do not want, but have to deal with… the matter of your identity first and foremost, having it be known that you are the source of the crystallisation in the Bay would be the end of you and the entire department, and frankly, is something to be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, some idiots managed to capture footage of you fighting Leviathan and put it online. The world is going to recognise you as the person who fought Leviathan toe to toe, and with that is going to come expectations."

What a weighty word.

Expectation implied direction beyond those of the Oort-Spider, human directions, something to strive for. Even then... it seemed that that recognition she wanted is now hers, all it cost was a city and so much more than she ever wanted to give away.

Taylor nodded, slower this time.

"Chambers in PR is looking into it, but it seems that the main options are to either introduce you as a new hero who happened to survive the crystal by virtue of your power and bravely fought back against Leviathan despite your condition. Or alternatively, persist with the Ordinant persona and configure a similar story about how your survived... the nature of your power was not known to the public after all…the only problem being what to pin the source of the crystallisation on. But there is some precedent for that, it seems, that could work."

"Precedent?" she frowned.

What did the woman mean? The only crystallisation sites were the original site and now Brockton Bay, right?

"Do not worry about it for now, there are much bigger problems to take care of. Such as your home from here on out; seeing as most of the Bay is uninhabitable and matters of identity aside, it seems for the best for yourself and your father to remain here in PRT headquarters for the near future."

So many small little practicalities to discuss… and all so inane yet vital.

She could never live a normal life again, so she just had to knuckle down and try to make the most of it, right? That is what Emma would have wanted, to continue living even if she was just a living statue.

"There is also the matter of your public identity. The PRT highly recommends that you consider moving from public to home schooling In the interests of keeping your father safe it would be for the best to avoid too many public appearances... normally Youth Guard would expect that any Ward takes part in public education, excepting in cases where it would prove a risk to the Ward's health."

She could not live any degree of normal life.

If that was the price she paid for her continued freedom after what had happened then that was fine, in those last days as a human being person with a flesh and blood body, she had been increasingly leaning upon her Ordinant persona for purpose and meaning anyway, desperate to achieve something with her little remaining life.

School would be pointless without Emma anyway, without her Winslow was just a building filled with people. Sure, Shadow Stalker also attended but they were teammates, and not even close ones. So, moving to home tuition would not really be much of a leap would it... then again, the safe, bland normality of school had always been something to tie her thoughts down to normality, and her mind was already running so much more efficiently than a normal person anyway...

But going to school would make it blatant who she was.

Wait, no.

No matter what she did... people would know, let's face it. How do you hide the fact that the several hundred pounds of humanoid crystal with a star in its chest is a person? It's not like they could paint a human appearance onto her... would some sort of tinkertech illusion work? Knowing her luck, her powers would find a way to ruin it all anyway.

Unless she began to live her life purely within the PRT building there was no escaping that fact.

"... Do you think I should just become a publicly known hero at this point?"

"That would risk compromising your father's safety, if he could easily be traced to you then there is no telling what may happen. There is a great deal of unrest within the city at the moment... even with your new reputation and the rumours about you, there is always some fool who will attempt something so utterly stupid."

Her father... she was more worried about him and his safety than anything else here. If somebody took issue with her existence and tried to destroy her or take revenge, she could pull herself back together, there were not many things that could really hurt her much.

But he was so vulnerable, so fragile and mortal by comparison, he had to be kept safe.

It was not like his job existed anymore, maybe the PRT could hire him in some capacity to assure his safety? She could be an open Cape and he could have a job here, or be in a sort of witness protection, right? Or was she being naive?

"... I still want to try and live as Taylor Hebert somewhat, and part of that was being Ordinant... you know?"

The woman did not have a clue and could not emphasise, that much was clear, but after a moment she still nodded. This was going to be such an uphill battle, wasn't it? Just like everything else in the last few years.

"Very well."

When you become all the more able to perceive human expressions, you begin to notice all the little ticks here and there, the little things that one's subconscious picks up on but you do not necessarily process

Towards the end of the conversation, she asked the question that had been on her mind for the last day.

"What is going to happen to Brockton Bay, ma'am?"

"Not my wheelhouse to decide on, Ordinant. But between the two of us and in the interest of continuing to have a job, I would see if you can do anything about that crystal at once."

~~~~~

BigBlueInsomniac : Guys have you seen the videos from BB?

BigBlueInsomniac : Guys im having nightmares

SkySkyDaydream : Of course it wouldn't be happy just staying there

BigBlueInsomniac : All those people in bb

BigBlueInsomniac : LittleOwl BrightEyes GET OUT OF THERE

Ra1ndrops : The lord will protect the people of bb I am sure of it

SkySkyDaydream : Nows not the time for the god bullshit Aimee

CreateRandom : Hey don't snap at Aimee, but seriously Taylor and Emma get out

[Load more messages...]

CreateRandom : Holy shit have you guys seen the video? Here: Link

Ra1ndrops : IS THAT TAYLOR?

Ra1ndrops : Hey LittleOwl is that you?

BigBlueInsomniac : You're not supposed to speculate on who people are like that but yeah,looks just like her.

BigBlueInsomniac : fuck me the spider didn't kill her

SkySkyDaydream : I cannot watch it longer then a few seconds without flashbacks sorry

BigBlueInsomniac : Yeah I have that as well

Ra1ndrops : LittleOwl Is everything alright? I've tried messaging Emma but she hasn't responded, are you guys okay?

Ra1ndrops : Taylor?

CreateRandom : She might have lost her phone Aimee

CreateRandom : I'd throw mine away in a heartbeat if it gave me a minute heads start on the Spider

LittleOwl : Hey guys, just to say I am ok.

Ra1ndrops : What about Emma?

Ra1ndrops : Is she okay?

LittleOwl : Emma's gone

Ra1ndrops : Im so so sorry

Ra1ndrops : She's in a better place now

CreateRandom : ... I don't even know what to say Im... yeah, I'm so sorry as well.

BigBlueInsomniac : Im

BigBlueInsomniac : My last words where asking why she was at the funeral

BigBlueInsomniac : I want to throw up

Ra1ndrops sent you a private message!

Viewing conversation with Ra1ndrops

Ra1ndrops : Hey Taylor, just to say, me and Joe are gonna come down to BB, see if we can give advice and help to folks who the crystal, its not much but we might be able to give some comfort? But yeah... if you want to meet up and have a shoulder to cry on, just let me know.

Ra1ndrops : I am so sorry about what happened to Emma.

6.3

Hey Taylor... any chance of turning it down a bit? Or we might need to turn the main lights off."

"Sorry... I was just reading people's thoughts about today," Taylor apologised, doing her best to soothe her nerves to reduce the brightness she was putting out.

Carlos gave her a slight smile, evidently empathising on some level. The young man looked good for somebody who had suffered enough physical trauma to put down a bull elephant, although judging by the descriptions she had been given from Vista, the leader of the Wards had barely looked human by the end of the battle with Leviathan, a leg ripped off and so many gouges and rents in his body that he was still recovering from, even with Panacea's assistance.

For now he was waiting to put on enough mass for his leg to be regrown, and the two of them were sat in the Wards space in the new headquarters... although the small break room with a sofa or two fell rather short of the old room they enjoyed before the crystallisation.

"The usual sort, speculating on what you can do?" he asked.

"Something like that..."

All the Wards had been through public reveals and had to give speeches at some point, and a fact plenty of people forget... Wards are still kids and teenagers, not exactly keen to be put in the spotlight for the most part. Sure, some of them handled it better than others, but it was a shared experience that all of them could understand on some level.

She was not sure how many had to go through two public reveals, though...

That had been in the morning, first thing, and had been several days in the making.

There had been an extensive amount of time spent with PR, headed by the passionate whirlwind that was Glenn Chambers, a man who Taylor was coming to wonder if he was even human. Nobody should be able to operate at that level of energy for that long without the use of high-quality stimulants.

She was powered by literal nuclear fusion and she had struggled to keep up with him!

Quite whether the head of the PRT's Director of Public Images had necessarily needed to be flown into Brockton Bay to handle the entire thing was another matter, but then again, she was an unusual case, as Piggot had pointed out. It did not take a social savant or ten thousand data points to deduce that they were putting their A-game into covering up the truth behind Brockton Bay and controlling the narrative.

She did not really know how to feel about it.

It was not as if she wanted the world to know that it was due to her that the crystal had spread to Brockton Bay. No, not because of her necessarily, as Gallant had pointed out... but certainly it could never have happened if she had just not insisted on being there at the battle.

At the same time, such a large-scale deception of the public chafed to some degree, or was that just her clinging onto the notion of heroism and morality?

Taylor sighed, releasing more tension and dimming her heart before she returned to the matter at hand, her new Ward's phone, on which she was reading PHO.

Topic: 'Crystal Girl' confirmed Ward!

In: Boards News Events America

CelestialSiren (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)

Posted on May 30th, 2011:

As the topic, the 'Crystal girl' who people filmed fighting Leviathan is apparently a Ward!

Here's some pictures from a press release about her, apparently her name is 'Ordinant', she was a Hero with the BB Wards before Leviathan attacked, straight up tanked a beam from Purity just a day before Leviathan attacked but it seems that whatever power she had let her survive the crystallisation.

Edit: Guys, keep the discussion about the identity of Ordinant to a minimum, we've had enough infraction warnings today to get the entire thread on the verge of being banned.

She had rather been dreading the inevitable judgement of the public that would inevitably arise from the announcement of her (continued) existence.

When she had been debuted to the world the first time as Ordinant, it had been to very little fanfare and she had been quickly forgotten for the most part.

She did not have any manner of power that could be demonstrated for the benefit of the cameras and had stood there a little awkwardly, given a speech from the lectern about her duties and responsibilities about wanting to help Brockton Bay, and then it was over.

This time it had been very different, floating there with a new mask and outfit, arms crossed over her chest to present the image of strength. She had done her best to keep her voice and tone level and clear, the fact that she no longer had the biological impulse to tremble or show obvious signs of fear really helped... as did a degree of immunity to the various flashing lights and cameras. When the time had come to answer questions there had been so... so many...

The most important being to confirm that she was indeed the person who fought Leviathan.

Other questions were less pleasant... nothing like being asked things that would blatantly reveal her civilian identity (for what little it was worth anymore) by members of the press, and having to either deflect or allow Armsmaster to do so on her behalf.

Stars1Ensnared

Replied on June 30th, 2011:

Holy [censored] she's real, didn't she literally go toe to toe with Leviathan and basically win?

GunnerGod

Replied on June 30th, 2011:

Pretty much, and she was showing off some really intense powers as she did, shame the footage is kind of grainy but apparently the crystal really fucks with long range cameras

the fucking Spider even let her go after it pulled her and Leviathan to it... man I still get goosebumps watching it just cut Leviathan in half

Anyway yeah, got the original video of the fight in case anybody has not seen it: Link

By comparison to her first debut, her second one was much more interesting to the people of the Bay and beyond.

The thread was being viewed by thousands of people, and the number just kept going up, there were pages of comments and questions, speculations... there was fan art either being drawn off the cuff, or previously made and linked by commentators. She was... rather fond of a certain one depicting her fighting Leviathan, with the both of them pulling back their fists about to strike the other, like a pugilist's version of David and Goliath.

Oh god somebody just linked a video of her fighting Leviathan, but set to some sort of dubstep or techno music, titled 'Crystal Girl vs Leviathan (epic music version!)'. She should not be insulted by it, but it was kind of demeaning to have her desperate life and death battle set to some shitty music that made the crystal in her fingers vibrate.

Humans were just so... so... argh!

In the background, Aegis was squinting again and she hurried to quell her brightness.

"Sorry."

"It's all good, I just switched to seeing through my ears," he joked.

SpicyBurrito69

Replied on June 30th, 2011:

Didn't all the other Parahumans die when they came into contact with the crystal? Or do you think that she had some sort of power that let her stay alive? Either way holy [censored, do you think that there is some sort of way to copy her power? I know a lot of folk are currently panicking about the crystal.

That comment got a lot of people quoting it... and it encapsulated a lot of difficulties to come in her life.

So many people scared and suddenly afflicted with a terminal condition, a terminal condition that for so long had eclipsed and blighted her own life... she knew exactly what they were going through, almost all of them now had crystallised portions of their legs, just like she had... sure, Prosthetist might be able to help a lot of them, but there were almost five thousand people who had been infected, and the Tinker had to oversee and build her pieces of work herself...

Unless Dragon could find a way to mass produce them, the infected population of Brockton Bay was doomed to either death or mass amputation.

She put away her phone, closing her eyes as she floated there.

... Soon she would have to speak with the Spider on the matter, and that time was growing closer and closer.

~~~~~

Later that day, she had a rather unusual interaction.

"Excuse me... a friend of mine wants to visit me."

"That might be difficult to organise without giving away your identity."

"She already knows who I am... she saw the video of the fight and recognised me."

Such a strong response... did they really think that nobody would recognise her, even made out of crystal? It was almost comical to watch them all run about in a flap discussing the best way to handle this, as if Taylor seeing a friend was some manner of major crisis, when the city was struggling to the degree everyone said it was.

Still, once they had stopped running around like anxious mother hens and made up their mind, Taylor got her meeting with Aimee.

Another meeting room, blank and bland, just like all the others.

"Hi, Aimee,"

"Hey, Taylor."

She found herself smiling.

Aimee was much the same as last she had seen her, a small, unassuming girl, glasses currently halfway down her nose, only to be pushed up a moment later as she broke into a smile. She was sitting, as always, in her wheelchair. It was a rather expensive looking model that her family had bought her when she consigned herself to sitting, rather than laying, until her eventual full crystallisation. Once, in what felt like another life aeons ago, Aimee had been really into her video games, when they had first met at the summer camp, she had always had a little portable game console on her, one of those that flip open... she had been one of the quiet ones... actually, didn't she have to be coerced by Joe and her parents into going?

But now, instead of a game console it was a little cross that her hand reached up occasionally to grab, as if it were a lifeline.

What a difference time makes...

"... You look different, Taylor, but I already knew, of course... sorry, but you'll have to lean over," Aimee opened her arms, an inviting smile on her lips, and Taylor did so, moving over to give the girl a hug even as she curled up tightly to make sure that her feet did not touch the floor.

"Yeah..." was all she could say to that.

Aimee gave her a tight squeeze, then let her go.

"Want anything to drink?" Taylor asked, floating over to the tea and coffee station.

"Oh, just coffee please."

"I warn you; the coffee here is apparently worthy of a biohazard classification… at least that is what the others said."

"I'll take the risk."

She made sure to make the sound of a hum to indicate that she had heard the other girl, just nodding often got missed by humans when they were in a new setting. She set about preparing the drink.

"Is Joe okay? Kind of expected him to be here."

"Oh, he's back at the hotel, had some troubles with the motor on his chair so its getting fixed or repaired, but until then he's kinda trapped… his chair is one of those old, heavy ones," Aimee explained, reaching up to rub the back of her neck.

"So long as I get to see him at some point, that's all that matters."

"Oh, for sure, we plan to be here for a bit anyway."

"It's good of you to come to try and help, I imagine speaking to people who knows what it is like first hand may help..." it would not help with the overall prognosis and eventual fate of the people infected though... but she would have loved some guidance and advice in those early days after the Spider crashed, it would have made a lot of experiences and conversations less painful

"We'll do our best," the smile was just a little strained. "We managed to find a building with a big speaking space... you know what I mean, the word escapes me... but yeah, one of those, we're having our first meeting tomorrow and my uncle has been giving out leaflets and advertising it so hopefully plenty of folk turn up and word spreads."

Aimee understood, of course she did.

Nothing that could be said could make things better, but knowing what was to come could make it more bearable.

Taylor finished making Aimee her coffee and brought it over, which she took a sip of and winced.

The PRT coffee, reliable in its awfulness.

"I haven't gone out there yet... what's it like?"

"It's... rough," her companion admitted. "Not enough space for everybody and a lot of people struggling, all the food and water mostly coming in from the army and the convoys but it seems like the distribution is kind of messed up, and I heard rumours that the local gangs have been causing trouble with the supplies as well, I felt scared just being wheeled down the street, but my uncle is really buff so nobody messed with us."

Of course, the gangs could not just fuck off and die. Human factionalism, trying to carve out new empires and territories for themselves, the ABB had been neutered now, right? So that mostly left the Empire... but everybody knew their names by now, so how long could they really hide away before they were crushed like the insects they were. With her public reveal, soon there would be expectations for her to patrol and to begin making a difference.

And she would make a difference, she had to.

"... How did you survive it?"

"..." Taylor looked away as the sudden hammer of guilt struck her. Even if Aimee did not mean it, a certain question came to mind; 'why did you survive when nobody else did?' Would Aimee judge her if she learned the truth behind it all? If Gabrielle and the others took Emma's prosthetics as a slap to the face, then what was she, a person who could still move and live something of a mostly human life when every other sufferer had been consumed and trapped forever?

What consolation was she to the dead, who did not even have the comfort of a real grave?

"Hey, it's okay if you don't want to talk..." the girl fidgeted with the hem of her skirt, eyes downcast, only to raise them the next moment suddenly. "I mean, sorry, that's rude, hey, it's just nice to see you are okay, even if y'know--" and now she was trying to change the subject to move it on even as she smiled apologetically and gestured towards her entire body.

And yet... Taylor found herself wanting to, wanting to explain things to somebody like Aimee. Maybe she had been cooped up in the PRT for too long with only her dad for (relatively) mundane company, but...

"... It's a long story..." A hum of understanding and rather than press on the matter the other girl smiled knowingly.

"It feels weird to know somebody with powers, hehe... you gave us all quite a shock, but we could not be more glad for you," Aimee said softly. "We all got so worried, sorry it must have scared you to see our messages."

"No... it was... yeah. I was not in a good place; it took me ten minutes just to say about Em's..."

A pause.

"... I'm sorry," Aimee looked away. "I wish that she could have been saved... there was so much I wish I could have said to her..."

To that, she said nothing. What could she say? Just thinking about what Gabrielle had said at the funeral still made her angry, no, it made her feel angrier now then it had at the time, because any opportunity for Gabrielle to apologise would never be heard by Emma.

"But... nobody is really gone, so long as you remember them, right?"

Barely any consolation at all, even if she had perfect memories of Emma, they would never be anything more than that. Just hollow reflections of better times, happier times... laying in bed in one another's company after crying in each other's arms, teaching her how to play the flute, their trips out when she was breaking loops, marvelling at the strange, strange beauty of the world. All of those happy moments she had seen as normal back then were now beyond her ability to experience again.

But still... Aimee was trying hard to console her.

She probably should not have said all that she did, but it was so good just to speak with somebody about it, somebody who would not immediately feed it back to the PRT, and not somebody like her dad who would immediately worry about it to the point of distraction.

"Heh... it's a shame that you cannot use your power to stop the crystals..." Aimee said, her voice low again as she looked out the window of the cafe, towards Brockton Bay. "Something like for like, but that thing is not that kind... hey, you want to get a brownie from that cafeteria I saw earlier? I don't each much anymore but we can split it between us."

"I don't need to eat, sorry Aimee..."

"Oh... right," the girl looked genuinely mournful as she ordered the brownie for herself and struggled to finish it for herself. Well, when most of your body is inorganic, you can hardly eat as much as before.

And yet, a thought stuck in her head for the rest of their little catch up.

Like for like... it gave her an idea.

6.4

Brockton Bay... really was a mess.

It was one thing to hear about it from the others, quite another to see it up close.

Taylor floated along above the truck that she was escorting; one of the many that she had accompanied within the last day.

Getting supplies into the Bay was a major logistical problem that was straining a lot of the governmental and recovery efforts. Interstate 95 had basically been cut in half by the trail of crystal that had been left behind by the Oort-Spider, traffic was having to be tightly controlled at the moment to make sure that the convoys could get through... Brockton Bay airport was hardly the largest such piece of infrastructure and right now was more akin to a military base than a civilian airport.

And then you had desperate people taking desperate actions to secure resources.

There had been multiple attacks on the convoys... feeding, housing, and caring for three hundred and fifty or so thousand people occupying ten percent of the space they had formerly was a challenge and a half, and plenty of people were willing to take the risk to guarantee resources got to 'their' people.

One of the main ring roads that ran around the outskirts of the city had basically been closed to the public, now it was the convoys that trundled along them. They would stop off at various distribution depots, of which there were about four, where teams would quickly unload them and then she would escort them back, ready to repeat the process with the next.

This was her first official assignment since the Leviathan battle, like some sort of butterfly she had finally emerged from the cocoon of the PRT headquarters to actually be useful to the city. Convoy duty was perhaps not overly glamorous but it made a hell of a difference, and being capable of flight made it a great deal easier as well...

The fact that she did not need to eat or sleep, and could go for hours without need of rest to ease the pressure off the others as well, free them up for more useful stuff.

Armsmaster in particular had been in need of a break; apparently he was on the verge of being forcefully sedated at one point.

Still, it was good to be making a difference again. It was something to put her energies towards.

Even if they had her check in every fifteen minutes on the dime... that desire to keep tabs on her and some small feeling of control was really showing, wasn't it? She was almost a little surprised that her costume did not have a tracking device... then again, a phone kind of acted for that purpose, didn't it?

Even if they never said they could track the device didn't mean that they didn't.

Still.

So far there had not been too much trouble... perhaps she was lucky in that regard, or perhaps the sight of the flying parahuman who shone like a miniature sun helped to deter villains?

It was rather mundane, but she was really getting to grips with the minutiae of her method of flying, at least.

The route was simple enough and she had already flown up and down it a dozen times tonight, the side roads onto it had been barricaded with those big concrete jersey barriers that needed heavy machinery to move, and some of the bigger road entrances even had an armed presence as well. Some of the taller buildings close to the road had teams of news reporters reporting on the situation in the Bay from there, taking advantage of the height to get views of the Crystal Valley and its aurora in the backdrop.

During the evening there had been a fair number of people gawking at her, apparently convoy watching was not a past time for some people... that or they had come to see her.

Part of her struggled to believe they would come out purely to see her... another part very much did believe it. When you do not sleep anymore and can only work so many hours a day for the PRT, you spend a lot of time on PHO or doing other things and reading peoples opinions about things... for better and worse.

If nothing else, the PRT's smokescreen and spin doctoring seemed to be working...

The convoy was approaching its destination.

Depot four was on the north end of Brockton Bay, the last of the four. The heavy trucks lumbered their vast bulk into one of a dozen places each, and like some manner of race car pitstop team the army personnel swung into action. The vehicle had barely stopped moving before the back doors were being swung open, the various figures below like ants swarming the carcass of a dead fish.

She lowered herself down to the place she normally did, and one of the heads of the local operation stepped forward, a woman with hair tied up in a bun so tight it was probably on the verge of internal collapse into a singularity.

"No trouble, Ordinant?"

"No trouble so far, chief."

She struggled to tell apart all the army ranks, and she did not want to cause some sort of fuss or disrespect by calling a colonel a lieutenant or something like that. So, she just called anybody she spoke to with some manner of pauldron or chevron chief, it was a lot easier. She could probably learn them all, she just needed ten minutes and the internet but so far, she had been focusing on taking care of everyone; even a single truck lost was more people going hungry or cold, after all.

"Good to hear. We've just had a call from depot three to say that they are about ready to head back, if you could escort them?"

"Of course, everyone going to be good here?"

It was a bit of a redundant question... the various villains and criminal elements preferred to ambush the convoys precisely because the depots were heavily manned at this point.

The woman nodded; they went their separate ways.

She ascended upwards again and began her journey.

From high above Brockton Bay looked ever so strange now...

On one side, a ring of artificial light produced by teeming streetlights and structures of humanity, the light they produced turning what was left of the city into a patchwork of orange lines and black squares. With the way that the military floodlights on the interior edge of the valley shone upon it, it was as if their harsh brilliance was the solitary barrier preventing the mass of crystal from extending further, a fragile force holding back the unspeakable horrors lurking within.

Speaking of the valley, the strange, pale brilliance of the stars and the aurora shone down upon the glittering, alien world on the city's doorstep. A sea of great crystal trees, spires, and the beings within them, plenty of which shone and glittered with their own internal light, blinking away like some sort of deep-sea ecosystem... and about as hostile to human life as well. Something the size of a minivan was flying not far away within it, like some cross between a pterodactyl and a dragonfly, diving and darting, its heart ablaze like a shooting star

Yet... why did she feel the desire to be in there? Why was it both so horrific yet familiar?

She reached up to her earpiece, looking away from the valley and the numerous questions it raised.

"Ordinant to console, I'm heading back to depot three for the next escort."

They liked frequent updates from her.

"Console to Ordinant, noted. Stay safe out there!"

Her flight to depot three would only take a few minutes at most, this late at night there was nobody out and about... well, nobody who had a place to go, at least. There were plenty of people who had not managed to squeeze somewhere nice, though... people gathered around trash cans and small fires, nestled away in alleyways. At least it was not the dead of winter, but even then, it was not as if this part of the East Coast was especially warm at this time of the year.

... People were really living like this.

She could not really do much to help give them homes... or food, it was not like she could go over the heads of the guys at the depot to just make a big pallet of food supplies weightless and then drag them over to these people... not without raising a lot of questions. She could use Leviathan's water echo to create fresh water there was not much she could do... and the Ward who famously fought Leviathan suddenly using its power so blatantly would be troublesome. Then again... she fully intended to use every tool in her arsenal if needed, and someday people would notice it anyway, it was just a matter of time.

Taylor did not like these quiet periods so much.

They raised too many questions.

She sighed.

It was about time that she faced down the problem that she had been considering for a day or so now. Oh, she knew for sure that the Spider was aware of her thinking, but it had not bothered to directly communicate about it, and she really should open up that dialogue.

The last time they had done so the crashing waves of its thoughts had been drowned out by her own desperate fury and anger, that burning, desperate need to live the life that she had been granted by her friend. Now though... she was simply flying through the air, and there was only the drive to try and make some manner of progress, to help others and her own bitter stubbornness to play off against the eldritch monstrosity.

She took a moment to prepare herself, and then;

Ỉ̺ṋ͗q͖̅ù̦i̺ͫr̖̓y͔͌:̭ͮ ͇̍P̣ͤe̟ͯr̼̊m͉͑i̞̔t͓̂ ̻ͧf̦́ụ̅l̖̓l͙̋ ̤̒m̱̍o͙͛ḇ̅ị̎l̲̋i̎ͅt̩̒y̮̆ ͉͆t͈͂o͕ͨ ̩ͨẖͭu͈͋m͖ͭa̠̍ǹ̟s̿ͅ ̯̓i̞̇n͚͑f̤̐è̬ċ̣t̯͛ḛ̑d͉͌ ̼̃b͎̎y̜̅ ̣͒t͍̉ḥͬe͕ͫ ͉̂c̤̃ŕ̤y̰ͥs̳̎t͂ͅa͚̍l̗ͫ ̦ͬt̜̂o͈ͪ ̩ͨa̼̍v͚ͮo̦ͯi̭͂d͉̋ ̫̒'̰̾d͆ͅe̬͌a̩ͦt̖̿h̲͆

She barely even had to wait for the response.

I̝͆̃ͭͅn̹͔̯͋̏s̞̝̫̍ͩ̀í̖͛g̦ͭ̑n͚̿i̼͊ͫf̘̻̟̿i̤ͨć̗̪͓ă͓̙̾n̟͚͉ͯt͔̀̑;̣̹ͫ ̼̓̇n̘͖͂̅ȏ͈̖̬̐ ͙͌ͬf̻̥̈ǘ̬̺ͫr̻̱͓̉t̤͈ͩ̾̌h͕̪̿e̝ͬr͎͒̃̎ ̬ͪ̾̎i̯̜ͩ̎n͍ͥ̈́̃č̜r͇̟ͤ͌e̳̫̦̓̓ͭa͚̟̗ͯs̺̦̣ͧè̘͚̽ ̫͉͗ͫḯ͔͎̿n͉̩͇̎̋ ͍̰̻͐̅d͕̐̑̾ā̙ṯ̳̋ḁ̈́ ̬̣̻̇c̜͖̰̐̅͑o̱̼ͦl̯̇͊l̦̺̦̀ͬ͊ẹ̇͊̂c̗̜̀̉̽t͓ͣ̓̽e̠̼͖̒̃d͔͚ͯ͐̓ͅ ̜̻̐v̖̌i̤ͪa̗̿ͥͭ ̖̲̗̀i̯̽̍́n̘̾̐f͔̯̿ͪe̠ͫ̚c̯̥̱̃t̗͚̉̐̔ḛ̝͑ͪ̔ď̙ ̘̋ẖ̪͓̑̿̑o̫͎͍͆̚s̙͚ͯ̆ẗ̰͑ ̼̏ͨ̌s͓̼̩ͭͮṕ̹̺̘e̝̖ͭ͆̇ͅc̭̾̓̽i͙̩͕ͤ̓e̘̮͉ͫ̉ͥș͍̏͌ ̞̩̔i͉̿ͧͣn̲̊͛d̝ͬi̺̠ͦ̅͒v͕̖̩ͨ̈́i̫ͬd̜̳̩̾́͂u̗̤̰͗́a̟ͩl̳̐ș̻͓͊͐.̤͒ͣ̅ ̜ͩI̮̾n͈ͧͦͥc͕̬ͪi̼̲̙͋ͧd̻͊̅̋e͖̖̮ͨ̊n̹̹̉ͭ̑t̝̙͓ͤͣͫa̲̜ͤ͐ͫḻ͔̰̎̈́ ̫͚̄ͬh͎̘͉ͭó͎̗̒̉s͗ͅt̞̟̗ͦ̇ ̫ͥͯs͖̻̆p̹̩̆͗̉e͎̘̓̚c̻̈́i̪̙ͯ̐̓ê̦ș̤̦̀ ͙̗ͭ̾ḓ͚͉̌̆e̻͊ă̬̭̬ṯ̦̾̑ḧ͕̲̜̓͆š̰̩̺͊'̹̳͇̐ ͉̺̳ͦd̖̭̖̿̿ͯu̟̻̰͛ͪe̜͖͑̋ͣ ̬̱͊͂ͤt͕͎̦͆̐o̪̟̼̍͒̇ ̟̩͇͛c͎͒r̪͖͊̏̃y̖̿͊s̤̱̗̓t̥̟̙͊ͥa̻̔l̪̎̉ ̣̥̒̍n̳̜͖̔ė̮ͪ̃ͅg̳̯̬͛ͣl̻̼ͮͣ̂i̪̫̭̓g̯͈̖͐̄̎i̘ͬ̓̚b̰̗ͫ́ͮl̤̜͊e̯͑̌ ̬͓̇i͓͉ͯṉ̟̭̈́ͨ͋ ͈̓ͮi̤ͣm͍̏ͦ͊p̞̃ͬa͉ͭͨc̰͇ͬ̇t̜̺̉̋

It was as if the Spider had the response prepared and in the barrel. But more realistically, it was probably that its thinking and processing capacities were so extreme that it took barely a fraction of a moment for it to review the information available and send back the response.

C͍ͧo͚ͬu̠͂n̞ͧt̩͛ẽ̹r̦̊p͕ͫo͚ͦi̱̒n͙ͣț̃:̝̅ ̥̍Ì͚n̹ͨf̯ͤe̠ͪč̤ṫ͈e̠̋d̮͐ ̟͒h̪̚u͎̐m̱ͬa̬̓n͚ͬs͖̚ ̙͛s̟̏h̗̅ã̤l̹̍l̮͂ ̱ͬe̝ͦx͈ͥṕ̜e̘ͦr̙͐ḭ̎e͇̚n͈͋č̗ȇ̳ ̫͑e̗͑a̱͛r̩̔l̗ͯî̮e̮ͫr̝̿ ̙̈́m̝ͯọ̓r̦̄t̙ͮa̫̽l͙͂ï͎t͔̉ÿ̦́

It would not work, that argument, and she knew it. But she still put it forward, if only out of some small bit of obligation towards her species... the species that she had come from. Even if it would be deflected or ignored as a point, she had to do so.

It was only right.

D̤̓ͥ͋ŕ̹̎o̭͊ͅn̯̠ͬe̙͕ͮͮ'̰͌s̼̗̟ͬ ̹͉̘̃̌̐a̒̈ͅn̻ͭ̐̃a̦͌̂l̗̮̉̊ÿ̩͎͇́ͮs̮͐ͭ́i̟̼͑s͚͈͔͗͌ ̲̘͌i̱̲ͫ͐̔n̲̾s͇̼̯ͯi̠̬͚͒͑g͙̱̫ͯ̾̚ň͈̼͌̐i̟̻̐f̠̺͛ic͍ͫ͒̅a̗̰͗͊̅n͚͚ͣ͌̊t̹̲̮͛̍ͤ.͓̰̗͐ ̦̼͙̏ͧH̫̥̤̽̊̎o͙̾s͖͍͆ͦt͔͗ͅ ̟̩ͣs̼͈̟̚p̻ͨ̏̋e̟͋c̹̼̪̓̒͆i̭̮̣͊ͮ̚e̳͕ͪs̬̘̱̓̆ ̯̪͌ͪ̿i̗̖͎̋̊̐n̝͐d̯̼̎ͫi̲͗ͫv͕̟ͦ͛i͉ͭ̐̊d͖͖̞̎̑u̼̝̅ā̭ͨl̦̺̩̽șͫͪ ̟̀̈̈s̼̬̰̔̋t̰̾̐ͪa̰̍ṯ͕̥ͥͨ͊u̮̙͕͐ŝ͓̞͓̾̈́ ̜̦̗ͨ̽i̝ͧͩn̩̉̄͌s̹̮ͦͧ͗i̲̯ͦ̏ḡ͚͔̲͐͌n͖̼̥͐í̮̘̺͌̓f̬̋̂̅i̻̰̾ͪ̇c̠ͧ͗ā̳͚̯ṇ̺̎ͤt̻͆̓̈́.͉̠̂ ̼̱̣̑͑

I̯ͭṅ̥͍ͩ̎f̰͍̜ͤ̊̍e̜̤̳͗̾̃c̲̔t̯̘͋ͣe̗ͩ̔d̠͌̋ ͎̒ͤ̓p̮̱̙̌͛ͯo̩̻̔p̹ͪͧ̉u͓̱̒l͕ͤa̬̔̓̒t̟ͩ͒̃í̲͉̦̅̔o̰̣̹ͣ̔n̳͓̔͑ͤ ͎̇̏r̲̯̫ͧe̺̙̗̓p͇̒r͎̪̃͌̏ẽ̖̜ͬs̘͍̦͑ͦe̮̥̭͑̉n͚͋ͫt̥̣ͪ̀s̖̽ ̤̇̋̈ͅ0̲̎͑̒.̘̣̖̓̓͗0̬̫̭ͤ̄0͕̿0͕͔̼̅͌0͚͖͗6͈̄̏̉9̦̊ͫ̉4͉̖̏ͪ͑2̘̣̳ͨ̋%̭̆ͤ͆ ̪͍̱̈́ŏ͔̦̰͂f̭̓ͯ͗ ̻ͩͭ͋c̟͑u͍͖ͤ̂ͮŕ̯̗̙r͈͑e̥̦̦͗̍ň̹̹͒ṱ͙̈́͌ ̭͈̱̄g͕̦̓l͓͕ͩͪ̋o̳͉ͮͯb̯̖͗ͥa̪̎l̻̇ ̖ͦ̍̓Ĥ͇̖̦͌́ȍ̤͕̌ͯs̘̬̹̒ͩ̾ț͎͕ͯ̅͋ ͔̓ͯ̓s̺̠ͪͩ̃p̻̙̹̓̀e̺̣̳̓c͕͛̌i̟͍̳͊e̪̋̒̿s̘ͧ ̥̭͕̈p̜̩̮ͮ̓ͬô͉̲̑p͕̋̍̄u̖̦ͥ̿l̘̼͚̍a̠̿ͮt̩̯̩͆͒i͈͔̇o̜͙̅n̼̜͊.̦̣͔̀ͦ ̣̺̪ͤ̔ ̝̳̥̽

N͍͎̾ͯu̯ͭ́m̰ͥ̏ͅb͈̻̋ȇ̱̣̫ͬr̰̖ͣ ̝̊̚i̪ͯs͚͋ ͇͈̇ͪ̌i͓̞̓͑̿n̈̎ͅs͔͎ͩͭi̞̰̝̊g̮͓̓n̲͍̚i̠ͤ̇ḟ̫͕́̚i̗͉̼ͭ̈c͖̜͖ͨ̈́̇a̘͔͉ͫ͒̉n̟̮ͪṯ̹̌ ̹͐ͨͤa͖̲͇ͥn͔̻ͩͯ̅d̻͔ͬͯͤ ̩͈̟̑s̫̙̍ͯ̑h͖̐̽a̺̮ͩḷ̝͈̒̿l̜ͣ ̱̏b̪̺̣̈e̤ͬ ̹͙͂r̘͇͑͛e̮̲͊c̻̲̭̏͂̋o͗ͅv̖̺͓͊e͉̟͇ͩ̔r̲̖̈́ͥ̒ȇ͕͎̐d̺͊ ͍̎̚w̫ͣͪí͉̬̙̓̈́t̯̘̯ͥͤ̚h̩͇͉ͣ̽ͪi̩̬̠͌̄̐n͙̭̳͑ͫ ̜͎̬̔l̙̪̗͋͂̂ë̺̭̒s͓͔̃̿̽s̮̫̗ͩ ̦̪͗̏tͧͅḧ͍a̲͇̟͐͐n̦ͥ ̩̣̭̈̓1̭͕͛ ̳̙͎̈́r̗͋̽o͙̱̩̐̋t̫̮͂a̭̐ͅt̠̞̃̈̆i̘̠̝͆̾͑o͙̮͕ͥ̋n̺͌̉ ̭̫̇ͅo͖ͫ͋ḟ͙̖̒ ̳̟ͨ̒t̲̩ͦ̀̇h̻ͯ̃e͈̼ͧ̔͌ ͔͑ͣ̀p͚̒̅l͍̥̙ͥ̑a͖͓̺ͫ̇̔n̗̎e̙̺ͪ̆͐t̞̹̠̿͒̌.̲̱̏̀ ͉͎̰̄̓̄E̫͒́n̝͙͕̽̊̈́e̪̽͗̈r̭̜̐ǵ̜̝ẻ̞ͦt̮̤͍̊ͤi͎ͣc̲̍ ̙̜̂͂ȇ̱̯̗x͐ͅp̮͓̂e̝͆ͪͭͅn̳̖̼͌̍̉d͙͊ͣ̊i͇̅̀t̗͈̖ͧ͗̂u̱̖ͪȑ̞̳̾ͪeͤͅ ̖̂̊w̱ͭ̉o̼̫ͨ̓u̦͒ͅl͓̖͛̍ͭͅd̙̉̐́ ̗̖͒̌̅b̜̫̠̂e͍ͬ ͇̫̭̇w͓͖̞͒̍ä͈̰̘s͍̬̟͛̏ṱͣ̃ͪe̩ͯd͚͖͓ͯ

She would not let it put those people aside so easily! Even if it would not take on that burden...

Ĉ̳̩̈́͆o͔̩̾̐̆u͉ͭ̇̏n͇ͫͮt̗̅e̞̭̣͛r͚͉͓̆ ͕̔p̟̗̤ͧ̑̏ỏ͓̻̙̇î̦͉ṅ̰͈̚t̬ͪ̉̈:͇̩̝̓ ̻̟ͭ̉͊ͅD̜͕̳̃r̟̱ͮ͌̄ó͉̘͑ͅn̟ͤ̄e̪̳ͫ̂ ͍̞̼͆̄́č̭̹͉a̺̟͊n̗͊ͪ̐ ̯̑s̤̠̦̿u̹̅̂̿p̥̝̍͋͂p̲͚͗̿̋l͖ͦ̿y͇͕̒ͤ͂ ̦̋̄ț̘͌ͭ̓h̗͖̾̍e̗̯ͮ ̭̣ͤ̉̓e̘̰̻̾͑ṇ̖̚e̳̯͋͆̽r͚̠̊ǧ̹͂ỵ͈͐̄̈́ͅ.̠̀͂͛ ̻͎̜͐E̺̪̿n̯̠̜̂ͪ͒e̩͍ͤͮ̚ͅr̺͂ͯ̐g͖̖͑e̙͂t̻́ͭi͍̩̫ͧ͛c̮͌̆̾ ̘̙̏e͇͔̯̋x̯͊p̠̝͆̊̽ͅè̼̱̽n̗̖̆̐̚d̙̂ͣͮḯ̜̺̿̾ͅt͔͓͈̀͊̏u̗̰ͦͫ͛r̦͌e̳͎̩̅ͬ̈́ ͖̝͊͂̋w̗͎͍̔̀̔o̥͑̉u̖̦̹ͭl̥̟ͨd̻̏ͮ̊ ̫̙͓̒b͉̭ͭ̚ȇ̫͈̔ͪ ̦̄a͓̓͒ ̩̦͌̒f̯̩̅͐r̬̟͎̍̎a̹̔ͧ̂ċ͈t͔ͯͧ̋i̜͍͌o̯̔̎ͅn̘ͮ̓ ̙̐̅o̳̼ͪf̠͌̓͒ ̟ͩ͆͂D̮̋̃̚ŕ̦̼̎ͭo͈̮̣̽̋̀n̲͗͂̚e͈̳̚'̪̄̃s̩͛ͥ̑ ̺͇̜̉͐͊c̹̹ͩ͗̓ͅỏ͔͔ͤͧr͍̩͈ͤͬͥȇ̦̘̭̄̉ ͫͤͅó̭u̞̰ͪ̄ͮt̪͎̅ͨ͑p̬̰̗ͬ͐͌u̞͙̗ͭͬͪt͎̑̂ͅ

Her heart produced enough energy to power the entire eastern seaboard, how hard would it be for her to take the energetic burden of a few thousand people's bodies and minds? Barely anything, right? Her body was so efficient in terms of energy production that she could take that burden.

It would not cost the Spider anything, even though its own core had the energetic output of a celestial body far eclipsing hers.

Putting the burden upon herself would go some small, tiny way towards increasing the probability of agreement though, right? The Spider was so obsessed with the efficiency of its data collection... for whatever purpose it desired that information. She had yet to dare to ask, had been working off the assumption of some manner of fiendish plan, but the longer this farce continued the more and more tempting it was to ask.

P͈̲̋͌́ȓ͉̮ͣo̺̣͗̍ͅv͉̉î̦ͣ͛d̺͎̅̔e̬͒͆͆ ͓̲̭̊͂̏s̬̬͙͗ͪͭȕ̼͔͗̚f̘̾ͣf̪̝̳̾̈́̏ḯ̖̳̺͆̊c̼̟̰ͯi̩̥ͣͥͤe̝͌ͣ̄n̲̪ͪt̬͎̪̅̾ ̯̽ȃ̞r̝̟̈́̂ͫg͈̝̒u͖̦̣ͮͬm͎̖̣͗e͓̼̋ͥn̯̟̄ẗ̩̂ͥ ̞̬̮̎f̗͒ͦ͑ò̦ͨr̺̒̀ ͍ͨͭt͓ͮͬ̆h̺͓ͥ̀ē̯͉̤ ̺͍̫̓b̬̼ͯ̾ͦe͉̅n̰̖̎́̌e̦͔ͥ̌f̻̬̀ͅi͔͈̝̔c̟̮͌ͅi͎̘̔̒̆a͈͂̏͌l̥͔̽͆ ͚ͫ̍ͅr̪̠͔͋e̳͉͂́ͨs̞̎ͨ̑ū̙l̳̮̈t̪̲͚̓s̮ͩ͗͒ ̹ͬo̖̒̿f͇̩̪͋ ͍́ͧg̺̬̜ͧ͛r͕ͪͩa̰͇̼ͫ̔̚n̼ͩt̬͈ͣ̄ḭ̑ͩn̯̓́͗ǵ͈̭͙ ͙̻ͬ̆̉f̹ͥu̠͗̅l͇ͨ̂̌l̜̑ͩ̀ ͕͓̎m̖̼̈́ͮô̦͈̙͒ͨṯ͍͋͗̎i͓͈̼̎͗̿l̺̓ͩ̄ḯ̯̞͂t̪͉̓y̤̔ͣ̆.̬̊́̚ ̮̬̍̔

P̳͈̓͋ͮr͎ͥͭo̝̹̺͌v̜͌̓ī͓̫̪̂d͚̜̫ͣ͒ͯȅ̖͚͎ ̠́i̪ͨ̂̈n̘̆ͣc̮͔̲͊ȑ̹ͅē̲ͅä̮̺s̜ͣẹ̗̑̽d̻͇̑̒ ̮̍̉͛d̩̦̘̈́a̰̰͈̎t͙̰́͐̈a̜̙͙̿ͨ̃ ̯͋t͈ͭo͖̓ͭ ̤ͭͅj̝͇͌̉̑u̼̩̞ͯs͉̃̎͗t̗͉͍̏̂ͦi̦ͦ̏̉f̦̯̓̿y͈ͧ͐̈́ͅ ̳̙͒e̮ͧͣ̍ͅn͍̥͖̆̿e̩͎ͤ͆̃r̞̭̿ͅg͇̏͌ḛ͕̓t̰̣̫͆ͫ̓ỉ͓͙ć̯̇ ̬̾ĕ͕̭̠x͙̩̏p͎ͬ̍ͮe͉͇͍ͦͤͪn̤̻̾̋̂d̦̰̐͂ͦi͙̍̀ṱ̐u̱ͥ̿r̜̎ͧe̥͍̘ͭ ̬̯̦͛t͇ͨ̐o̘̗ͣ͗ ̠͈ͯa̺̙ͦͫc͚̺̞̔̈h̯̾ͦͅi̤̿͊e͓͈̤̋̌ͨv͓ͦ̌͋e̱̥̹̊̾ͯ ͉ͧͥĉ͕̄o͚̯͈ͯͧu͓̼̗̚r͉̳͔ͪs̥̰̈̃̌e͎͕͋ ̝̦̅o̥͎̍f̰̣͑͊͗ ̦̄́a͔ͩ̈́̿c̬̅͗ͯṭ̱̯̊̏́i̮̓ͫȍ̯ṉ̆̑͊

A tiny iota of progress!

It was like her father always said, when it came to negotiation you need to get them to hear you out before you can do anything.

She calmed herself before she could flare her heart too much and cause any humans below them to think the sun was rising.

The Spider was... well, was entertaining the argument the right term? Maybe, or it was at least hearing the argument... she was less hammering her argument against it right now then trying to work around it, needle and goad it perhaps. Speaking with the Spider was something akin to a flow chart... she just wished that every time it moved onto the next step the vastness of its communication did not rattle her metaphorical brain.

V̬̿î̙a̮ͣb̟ͥi̺ͦl̺̐i̝͛t̞ͣy̬ͭ ͚ͭȁ̝s̮͋ ͎̚a̫ͪ ̦̂d̦̎a͎͛t̜ͨa̖̾ ̻̇ċ̬o̜̓ḷ̏ĺ͓ẽ͖c͎̑t̰̅i͉̚õ̳n̹̽ ̻̋ü̩n̗ͮī̤t͎̉ ̭̐t͉̿ị͂e̘͊d̹ͣ ̞͗t̳ͭo͔ͨ ͕͗h͖̐ȍ͍w͙ͦ ̳͗D̳͌r̤͐o͓̒n͓ͦe͚ͦ ̭ͤi̮ͦs̫ͫ ͗ͅṕ͈e̙͋r̬ͣc̱̔e̬̅ĭ̻v̩̌e̥̅d̥ͧ ̱ͦb̺͗y̗ͮ ̮ͯö͍t͈͐h̖͆ě͕r̲ͭ ̦̄h͕̏u̓ͅm͈̏ȃ̩n̺͛s̥͐.̱̈ ̦ͫS̲ͫâ͇v̟̿i̦ͯṉ̓ǧ̫ ̻̆h̪̀u̳ͩm̹͒a̜̽n̼̾s̥ͬ ̘͗i͕̇m̤ͮp̯͒r͓ͤo͓̿v̱̈́e̟̔s̲ͥ ͚͑p͎ͪe̟ͭr̭̽c̗̿e̼ͧp̜ͭt̬ͪi̼ͭo̦͋n̮ͫ.̯̈ ̘̾H͕ͦů̹m̖̍a͓͂n̳͂s̘̔ ̖̐a̤ͫr̼͊ẻ̹ ̬ͪs͚̓o̟̐c͔̏i̱̽a͔ͣḷ͊ ̣ͦc̝̓r̼̂e̫̒a͕͐t͙̿u͉͒r͚ͦȇ̞s͖ͮ

H̩̼̒̎o͙̊̋̄ș͙͂ͭt̤̝ͬ̓͒ ̯͉͖̐s̜̝̒̄̃ṕ̫ȇ̹̈̂c̥͒͌̐i̫̰ͪ̚ȅ͇̣ͥ̃s̬̠̘͛ͦͭ ̗͎̖̌ṣ̝͙̿ó͉͍͍̿́c͎͂͛î̪̙a̖̻̼̍͒͑l̮͇̈̐ ̺͊̂̆c̔̐ͅo̺̔ͅn͇͖̓̉ṡ̮̰͋t̫̳ͣ̍ṟ̾͐ͭṳ̣̜̓ͤc̺̪̓͒t͙̍̽͊s̖͈̒̈́ ̻̠͖ͭͯv̯̖̮̓͆ȍ̬͎ͤ̚l͖̝͈̈ͤa̟̗̽͑ͅt̓̊ͤͅi͔͈̼ͨ̋̚l̜̼̔e͎͈͎̓ ̫̺͋̋ͅa͕̙͚̅̃̌n̯̅ͩͪd̲̟͋͗̏ ̖͔̒̐u̬͈͐ͣn̺̳ͭr̟͙͚̆̅e̳̤̿͋ͥͅḷ̯ͮi̳̖͋̄͆a̲͉͛̏͗b̝͔̉ͅl͇̔ͯ̃e̼̒ͫͨ ̪͌

They sure are.

But! It was the social and unreliable society that she existed within that provided the framework for her data collection, which could make or break everything. If Director Piggot or any of her superiors decided, tomorrow, that their plan to 'rehabilitate her' was not going well she could be locked away in a moment, right? So, working within their rules, giving them concessions and successes should be a priority right now, right?

The Spider may not understand the entire thing, or only understand it in a strange, alien manner, but it had seen through her eyes long enough to at least see how her argument would work, right!?

Ṗ̩r̖̽o̲ͭṕ̹o̫͐s̺̒a̼ͦl͈͆:̰ͧ ̩̄s̬̓u͍ͧc͖ͭc̙̔e͎ͤs̤̎s͈ͪf͇͐u̲͛l͓̃ ̤́ȏ̮b̗͒s̝ͭḛͥr̮̔v̩ͨa̙̋t̟̓i̠̎o̞̿ṉ̋ ͇ͨo̩̓f̲͌ ̖ͥP̝̃ã͇r̭̎ȧ̟h̟̎u̻̎m͇̋ä̰́n̦ͦ ͍̀p͇̎ó̠ẘ̭e̻͒ṛͫṣ́ ͔̓s͈̽h̭́a͖̔l̮͐l̦̀ ̩ͯb̳ͦẻ̪ ͙͊r͓͌e͓̽w͖̋a̼̅ṛͩd̻̈ě̱d̟͒ ̰͛w̩͐ĩ̮ṱͧh̫ͪ ͈̽c̲̐o̱͒ň͖c̜ͬe̫̓s̫̒s͙̑i͍ͧo͉̎n̂ͅs̫ͯ ̣̿f̥ͩo͙͂r̜͌ ̝ͨc͙͐r̖͂y̙ͥs̥͛t͔͗aͯͅl̫̾l͓̂i̯̿s̘̀ǎ̦t͖ͫi̗̊o̙͒n̙̿ ͔̉s̞͛u̻͌f̲̃f̺̒e͓ͤr̜͐e̮̾r̝̎š͙ ̼̑ ̳̀

R͎ͤẻ̥w̬̃a̫̐r͇͛d̘͂ ̹ͮs͔ͯy͎͂s̫̈́t̤̃e̮̾m͉̓ ̯ͦs̝̿h̤͊ȁ͈l̘ͨl͇̑ ͉̚m͚̿o̖̓t̤͂i̝ͣv̱̌ä̭́t̘͒ẹ́ ̭͒D̯̒r̝ͯö̗́n̤̽ẻ̹ ̬̊a̝ͧṉ͛ḋ͔ ̜͂āͅc̝ͣt͋ͅ ͛ͅa̭ͣs̠͐ ͎̈'͎̉b͍ͮa̺͌r̘ͭg̲ͥā̻i̩͗n̗̈i̗ͪn͇ͧg̘ͦ ̼̓c̫̈h̬̿í̫p̗̓'̰̓ ͚̓(̜ͥṛ̌ȇ͎f͈ͧė͚r̙ͫe̙͑n̟͊c͓̈e̞ͫ:̪̈ ͓̚'̝͊n̦̔ẽ̘ĝ̹ŏ̗t̜̹̆̍i͈̚ạ̽t͉ͦi͍͑o͍̓n̯̾'̰̔)͉̀ ̰̽ŵ͔i̲͑ț͑h̦̔ ͚ͪs͚͑ṷ̿p̻ͧe͖ͪr̳ͣi͎͆o̭ͪr̮͊s̟̃ ̹́f̘̈o͎ͩr̮ͩ ̩ͤf̝́u̠ͥr̝̔t̤ͤh̙̃ḛͭr̫̎ ̫̚d̠ͯa̮͌t̥̔ã̰ ̰̂c̺̃o̞̓l̹ͮl̫̚e͉͐c͚ͨt̹͗i̱ͭõ͙n͚͒

There, place the idea on the table.

Currently her data collection was merely the thing she had to do to keep her alive... which was not exactly 'mere' really, but if she could present it to Piggot as something necessary to help with the situation in the Bay then perhaps the PRT would be more active in feeding her Parahumans to analyse, right? And the Gray Boy loops as well, that had supplied a ready source of new powers to examine and grow from as well.

The PRT would be leery perhaps, worried about all that information going to the Spider but they also knew that she needed it to remain as she was; human on some level.

Better the devil you know that thinks like a human then the mindless puppet guided by something you cannot understand.

And imagine the good PR as well!

"Ward finds solution to crystallisation, much rejoicing occurs"

To be fair, the PR aspect would only entice the PRT side of this Venn diagram; the Spider had consumed the vast majority of a major city and was the Fourth Endbringer... its PR was not down the drain it was tunnelling into the earth's core. Probably tunnelling in search of Behemoth, now that she thought about it.

Ḏ̌̿ṙ̼̼o̩̼͂͂̔n̝̽̑͑ê̝ ͚̥͎̽ͧ̍m͎͔͔ͯo̝̟ͦt̮̞̭͑i͉̓̑̿v̬̠̔̉a͖̞̭͒̑t̜͚̿ȋ̬̱̼̉o͔̘̪̓̉̉n̬̦͕̓͑ͮ ͙̫̈̑̓a͔̒̉̓l̗͂̓͆r̬̜̱̈e͔͆̓a͍ͥd̺̩ͥ̌y͖̏ ̭̙͑t͙̓͐ͫĭ͖̥e͖ͮͯd̪͙ͯ ̮̮̈͑t̠̯̳͂o̜̅̿ ̹̟̄̔̊m̤̜̿̋a̦̍ͅi͇̫̤ͮn̪ͩ̆t͍̑ͤͭǎ̝i͈̜ͧ͛ń̟̘̦̋ͣe̝ͣ̑ň̳̽̒c̥͕̗͌͂̔e̜̳̊ͥ ͉̻̝ͪ̈́̚ǒ̟̻̰͆̀f̜̓ ̰̂̍̃ḭͤ͂n̬͖̦̒d̬͖̽̏̔e͇͍̓͊ͭp͈̦̒̽e̬̣͂n̩͋͌d̲̖̮̒͋e̙̼͆̆n̹͉͇͌̎ͭt̫͎͊ ̫̼͂a͉͍̦̿c͍̚t̟̣͖͂i̼͑ͯo̲̐̿n̜̙̩̓̂ͥ ̹͙ͭ̈́ͤa͎͖͚͆͌́n͇̝ͤ̍ͬd̹̙̿̀̚ ͕̀̊'̰̠̰̌h̠̍ṷ̺̳ͥ̒ͯm̗̻͊̉a̭̳ͣn͈͆̀̀ì͓̖ͪ͑t̲̘̒ͧy̥̦̜ͬ'̟̩̃̄ ͔̦ͤ ̮̥̰̃

R͈̖̰̆̉ē̩͋̏ͅf̜̄e̜̣̓r̯͓ͥ͗͆e͙̾ͦ̑n̥̟ͮ̀c̳̲̽̇̄i̩̲ͯ̚n̪͈͈̄̈́̓g̫̭͂̏ ̪͛̏͊D̺̄̂ͯͅr̦̩̝̓̊o͈̺͎ͮn͙̞̅ͩ̔e͖͍ͬͥ͑'̪̺ͩș̞̼̇ ̮̮̥̔ͨm̹͎̫͂̐ͩe̱̝̫͊̉ͣn̠̬͗t̯̺͚̆a͚͎͐̅l̹̄̇ͮ ͈̀ͨs͎̳ͦt̲̫͇͊r̞͚͕ͬu̩͑c̱̭ͪ̀ͪt̩̝̦͌u̞͂r̗͖ͪ̐̄e͎̣̔š͔ͫ ͖̻͋̎ͬạ̮̊n͚̭̋͋͂d̘̳ͮ̒̈ ̮͌ͥ̈'̹̤̝̎p̮͗͋̋s̲̠̈́͗͐y̳ͮ̒c̪̒h̭͐̏o͎ͬͥl̩͕̻͒͑͆o̭̅̐̈ǵ̜ͮ̾y̜͖ͭ'̟̘̦̊̉

Well, yes... the price of her continued existence as a free mind and will was the data collection, but go ahead, Spider, parse through the observations of how the human mind works, extrapolate, and apply it to other humans; one can be motivated for something, or find more efficient ways to do it by giving others a good reason to assist you! Currently she was reliant upon chancing upon other Capes or examining the powers of those immediately around her.

But having them bring her powers in return for saving people would be much easier.

The Spider had just sat there unmoving for two years, using her to collect data, but if she could do the same and increase the efficiency then surely it would see the benefit!

The fact that the Spider took several seconds said a lot about the quantity of information it was looking over and having to compare... strange, it could calculate such ridiculously vast sums in a moment but human behaviour was far more time intensive.

F̪̞̠͒o̦̐̅ͯr̰̓̈́ ͍̽̑͛e͔̥̿͌a̰̓ͪc̳͐h̘ͦ ̦̱̂'͔ͭP̰̮̈ͅa̬͇̭̅r̭̝̘̉a͖͇͑̊͆h̘͕͙̓̐u̦̱ͧ͆ͦm͚̰̻ͨ̿̚a͍̝̦̒͑̀n͚̳̤ͧͭ ̟͔̾̾p̫̱̻̃ō͙̉̓w͔̖̝͒e͉͈ͧ̄ṟ̬ͧ̿'̦̻͋̍̇ ̮̙̥̉ͦo͖̝͍͆b̲ͤ́̀s̞ͧ͑ͬe̫̥͌ͣr̖̠̫̒v̤̿̍̋e͓̐̄̄d̗͒͌ ͕͋ͪ̄b̼̍y͕͍͖̅ͮ ̻̩̌ͬD̺̗̹̋ͩr̜͛̏o̼͆͐ͅn̘ͪ̉͒e̖͐̓,̞͖̅ ̬̜̰ͭͥ̓1̙̝͕̓ ͈̺͉ͯH̬͒̑͛o̪͙ͯ͊̂s͈ͨͭͤt̪̺͇̔ͦͦ ̟̓͊S̮ͬ̾̏p̗̔̌è͚̬̄ͣc̜͚ͦ͆̋i̗̻̓e͙̮͙͌̅s͕ͣ ̞ͩ͗̽ǘ͈̓͒n̪̮̒ͤ̍ḍ̯̋̇̓ẽ̯̲̲ͣͬr͓̘͔̾̾͋g̳ͯ̓̿o͖̭ͪi̼͕̠ͥ̔͆n̻̽̈́ḡ̞̞ ͔͚͗̂͒c̤̼̟ͮ̓̊r̤̹̐̐̃y̠̞ͯ͛s͔̜̑͊t̞̂̃ͧa͙̮ͩ̂l̯͎̃̽̑l̞͐͐i̱̠̰ͤ͑ṣ͊a̻̳̗̽t̤̃î̪̖͔o̠̊̌n̟ͭ̈ ̲̦̉̎͐ș͈͚̍̋h̻̿́a͇̱̗ͧ̈ͩl̺̋̉͒l̩̞ͭ ̭̱̪̏ͧ̊r̺ͯe̩̿ͪg͎̲̿̈a͕̹ͪi̜͗̉n̪͔̉/̰̦͋̀m̩͚̅̓̚ả̻̘i̦͎̗͛̈n̘ͬ̐ͣt̙͂a̰͋̈́ͤi͍̯ͬ̿n̜̜̈́ ̻̑f̝̤͉ͬū̮͉l͍͋̈̓l͍̺͈͐̍ ̻̞ͮ̃̈́m̦̪̔́o̺̞ͮ̀t̜̞͔̄ͦͯi̜ͥͅl̮̤͑̍ͧi̠͊̅t̙̗͎͐̅̚y̭̼͛͛ͣ

C͚̬̙̏r̻̓̓y̞̣̽s̜̫̎t͈͓̄̈a̹̗͂ͮ̅ͅĺ̳̣̯̎̀l͙̮̖ͤ̌̿i̯͆s̱͎ͤͫ͛ͅa̬ͫ̔t͚̤̊̓̽ï̤̭̋̏ȍ̪̩̲̽͑n̮̬̓͒ͅ ̱̤̔p̯ͨ̎r̭̫̒̒o̩̦ͯ̄c̱͕̥ͯͬe̮͓̋ͩ̅s̱̥̄̈͒s͚̮̝͌ ̱̜̍̆w͙̐ḭ̐̌l̘̞̐l͖̹̽̃ ̗̱̮̐̒͌c̥ͦ͊o͓͗ͨ͋n̲ͪṯ̘̅i͈͆̒́n̞͎̼͛̌ͩủ͉̯̖̓̽ẹ̎ ̯ͥu̜ͮ͆n͖̝̰ͤĩ̳̾m͎͋̈́͐p̰̮̿̈́̃e̜̟͚ͬd͉̠̙ͮe͎̣̓d͓̓

... She had rather hoped it would be a bit better of a rate than that, one for one was... she would need to observe thousands of powers to save everyone!

That was--oh, that was the point of it, to force her to maximise her data collection, saving ten people per power would be much too efficient, she would only have to observe a few hundred but this way... if the Spider was going to make the concession, then it was going to drain her for every drop of data that it could wring from her.

But it was something, she was slowly learning how to negotiate with the Spider. It would always be an imbalanced relationship and position to argue from, baby steps Taylor... baby steps.

One for one.

The point that Aimee had made about like for like... it had worked, sort of. Trading collected data on Parahumans for the betterment of others, something to bring to the PRT on the Spiders (and her own) behalf, a small concession at her own cost that benefited everyone... sort of.

She had a lot of work to be doing, and she needed to speak with the higher ups at some point soon.

It was a few hours later, as the sun began to rise over Brockton Bay, that an opportunity arose.

"Ordinant!" blared through her earpiece suddenly, she would have flinched if she had ear drums. "The convoy ahead is being attacked, looks like Merchants! They've got some sort of heavily armoured vehicle supported by others managed to break through the side barricades to get onto the roads!"

She was already accelerating forwards, heart flaring and ready to hold the Spider to their agreement.

6.5

Taylor shot along the highway, moving ahead of the convoy she had been escorting once she got the all clear.

The attack had been a mile ahead, a decent enough distance to cover but far less troublesome by air, in truth it was not that hard to see where the action was occurring.

She had heard the term 'big rig' before, but this really was a big rig. It actually defied belief, like, it was impractically huge and kind of impressive that nobody, in the limited remaining space of Brockton Bay, had noticed the titanic vehicle that looked large enough to classify as a goddamn ship. It even had freaking weapon mounts on it, like... how do you build something like this in Brockton Bay, when there is barely any space for people to live in?

Insignificant, she had to focus on the problem at hand.

The improbable rig had burst onto the road and blocked the lanes of traffic, forcing the convoy to stop at which point members of the Merchants had gotten out to threaten the drivers, oh, and there as a Cape among them?

It was the tactic mentioned before, when she went out to escort her first convoy; they would hit and run, impede one of the convoy vehicles and grab everything possible before making a get away; it was not like most of the Brockton Bay Capes could really do much about a gigantic vehicle. Hell, it looked like it had been so sudden that one of the trucks had not stopped in time, its front was mangled as if it had crashed into the tinkertech vehicle, and was the worse off of the two from doing so.

But right now the obstruction was not moving, and she was closing in quickly.

Like ants, there were people swarming around it, grabbing loose material and a giant grabber arm had extended from some part of the tinktertech vehicles back to grab hold of an entire pallet and was rapidly moving it into position.

The Cape in charge on the ground was... well she was not really sure, actually, their body was so covered in bits and pieces of stuff; scrap metal from the crash, packets of supplies that had been shaken loose, bits of road ripped up. There had been a provisional PRT document on him after the last raid... Muzh? No wait, that was just the bad handwriting, it had been Mush.

A Changer, right?

Observe. Extrapolate.

P̥͑ã͉̌̍r̮ͭa͍͂ͬd̰ͬ͛̾i̭̍̎̌g̤̭̽ͤṁ̜͖̮ ̰͕̥̾͋͒I̝͒̚n̜̆̆f̦̪ͣͧ̚l̠̺ͮa̭̭ͬṱ̝̅ͪî̹̩ͥ̃o̞̭̒n̹̄̇:̺͓ͨ ̱̱̄V͖͎͍ͣ́̇o͇ͥl̩͇̿͛̋u̜̿ṋ̞̖ͭ̇͊t̤͉̼͛a̟͕ͣ̈r͚̺̅̿̈́i̮̜̜͐̃ͦl̬͈̤̊̈́̽ỵͥ̾̅ ̮̰̳̉̏̑ṱ̒̐̚r͍̖ͩ̈́i͍̦̐͌g̣͍̏̔͐ġ̫͚e̥̲ͮr̭̋̅̌ḁ͋ͥb̫̫̋̃l̳ͨ̉͑ȇ̙̻̘̍̒ ͕̐a̤̻ͦ̏̊l̺͌ṯ̹͍ͬ͌e̩̖̣̍ͪr̼̮̥̾͆n̥ͯ͊ͧḁ͚͖͐̾̆ț̥͛̌ͅe̹̱̟ͯ ̮̪̹̒̚s͕̫̮̐t̘̰ͯ͒̒a̞̞͑ͅt̲͂͂ͥe͔̭̞͂ͨ̿ ̞ͤ ̣ͭ̈͐

̩̙̽A̗̥̽l͈̞̠̓t̪͍͍ͯe̱̫̍r̬̺͂ͤn̖͋̄ͧa͔̯͛̿t̯̅̈̒e̦͊̃ ̤̉̂ͮs̼̤̪̃̚ṯ͕̠ͪ̓̾a̭̯̐t̺͍̫͊ẹ̭̣̆ ͇͍͎̂í̟̩̻͗s̝̒̽̏ ̬̅͑ǎ̝͍̱r̖͋m̗̎ͦo̩̒̽r͙͖͚͋p̞̭̫̂̽̉h͓̥̦ͭ̍o̹ͣͅu̜̜͂s̮͎̤͋ ̗̜̃̉́a͈̘ͧ͐̑n̺̮͆ͭd͉̞̼͋̆ͪ ͎̪̖̀f̙ͪ̄o̺͕̳̔̿̚c̼͑u͚͚̔̌̚ṣͧ͌̎ḛ͍̟̒s͇͗͌̅ͅ ͖͂̒o͔̽͊n̲̙̖̏̓ ̬͌ͨd̦̗ͮr̲̖͙̍̋ȧ͕͔̣̽w̙ͣͯi̮̘̙ͧn͉̟ͥͤg̝͓͊̃ ͙̻͎͋t̬͒ͯo̤̭͂̍̀g̖̚e̦ͪ̓t̟̝̗͂h̝̹͉ͤe̼̩̰ͬͦ͒r̰̣̫ͨ́͗ ͕̄̎l̟̬͉͛̒ͯo̠̫̹͑c͍̤̐ͥā̬̟l̗̏i̫̻͕͆ș̤̩͋ȇ̬̹̈̄d͈͓͖͗ͭ ̪̖̿̽̚d͕ͮ̀ẽ̤̝̇b̖ͭͬr͖ͥ͌̇i͈̠̲̾̚s͕̉̃̚ͅ ̩͈̭ͤͬa͈ͣ̑ǹ̰̏͐d̼̋͑ͭ ͚̆̂͒o̜̺̿̋b̝͈̅ͧj̠̣ͤe̦͍ͩ̓c̪̖͗͆t̠͒̐ͨs̘͋͛ͫ ͈̝͓ͨ̋̒t̫̯ͭ̊̀o̼̙̊̽ ̪̮ͧ̀c̰̤͈̈́̃r̮͗e͚̖͗a̬͕ͤt̙̥͚ͤe̱͉̫ͬ̿̎ ̜͑̒̀a̺͎̽̍̀n̞͊ͧ ̳͉͋ͭͅs͙̻̓̀e̤̟͖̅́l͕͎͎ͧf̰̯̩̎-̜̰ͥd̻͖̘̐i̮̦̹̓͐̅r̗̬͒̿ͩe̠̗͎ͮ̈́c̫̠̰̅t͈̒e̖͉̬̾̐͑d͍ͬ͐ ̙̈́͑ͅf͉͌̒̎ò͚̊r̘̪͕̈́̂m̼̃ͣ.̩̐̂̎

E̗̹̾ͨx̤̍͒̒t̰̣͓͂r̯̉̍̚a͔͌ṗ̞̱͎͛o̹ͭl͎̟̣ͪa̯͖͊ͅt͎́͂e̩̜͉̔d̖́̉ ̤ͪ̐c̩̻͊̎̄a͖̜ͨ̏p͈̼ͫa̯̘̚c͓̣̩͛i̝̒̐ͫt̞̬̐y͎̿̓̅ ̻͎̮̇̍̿ẗ̤̟́o̖̳ͫ ̘̟͕͆ͮḙ̞̫̎̑ͦx̦̾̊p̯̟̫̔a͇̓̿̋n͉͆̓d̲̼̋̓̐ ̯́ͮa̲̪̓ṇ̝͊ͪ̾d̤̒̈ͥ ͖̈́d̲̓e͉͇ͤ̐ͅv̦̌̈ë̦̖̟̇́l̖̠̿ͅo͈͇̳͑p͍̻ͥͥ ͓ͣf̩̪̮̐u͂ͅr̰͊̄ẗ̮̖̍̿h̹̽̄e̺ͫr̪̓ ͍̺̬̿̓̌d͎̲̻͋͛e̫̤̿ͮp̫͐ḛ͓̍n̹̪͍̑d̥̟̙͋͌̈e̼̟͊n͍͐ͤṫ̳̺̒̾ ̘̍ö́̌ͅn̖͓͊ͫ ̰͔͐ḽ̙̖̌o̖̬͆̓c͇̜̈́̆͌ͅa̤̙̘ͮl̖ͪͯ ̝̜ͬ̌̿ͅa͍̙̤ͭv͓̩ͭ̐̇a̼̼ͧi͈͇̪ͪȁ̠l̺̑b͙͉̉ͫl͈̉e̤̯͑ ̻̜͗̑̔ͅm͚͊à͎̻͔s͇ͩ̽s̜̥̒̃̎

A power observed, data collected, feeding back to the spider. Although clearly the Merchants had a Tinker or two as well, judging by... well... the battleship in the form of a truck.

... There were so many ways to deal with all this situation, though.

All the drivers had been forced out of the trucks and to the side of the road, where four Merchants had guns trained on them as well... jesus this was a grim sight.

She levelled her hand to point at the giant vehicle and began directing energy from her core, still a hundred metres away.

Purity's beams.

Taylor had taken one to the arm... in the end, it was just light shaped in a particular way that had a physicality to it.

It was not exactly difficult to make use of her core's output in a similar way... it was just destructive. She had seen the videos and after effects of Purity's rampage; the pictures of the Dockworkers Union building, held in her father's white knuckled grip had been committed to memory.

How much power to put into this... one-hundred percent of what her arm endured? Perhaps two-hundred percent actually, just in case the vehicle had some manner of Tinker bullshit to make it especially tough... but that might punch a hole through the road if she was not careful-- also, they needed to move this behemoth of a vehicle out of the way when all this was over... so she couldn't just destroy the engine block or the wheels to make sure the vehicle could not get away.

Okay, maybe she would not use Purity's beams against the truck then.

To hell with it.

She focused on the Merchants holding the drivers at gunpoint, focusing her attention on their weapons.

She could increase the gravity on them, force each man to the ground in a moment, which would probably shatter a few bones... or she could focus the gravity on their weapons to force them to the ground and maybe crush a few hands... or perhaps destroy them with Purity's beams? There would be a risk of hitting them... but keeping the drivers safe was a priority.

Or, she could just hit them with several solutions at once.

It was not as if she was limited.

She stretched out the Revolution Web from her hair, wrapped the alien threads around the ends of the guns and jerked them to the side, away from the drivers even as she increased the gravity on the men, flooring them all at once.

She moved just above the ground between the Merchants and the drivers, reaching out to touch the surprised drivers and freezing them in place. Clockblocker's power basically made people invulnerable, after all. A rather limited form of invulnerability of course

The entire thing took no more than a few seconds.

The Merchants were responding, a few that were not screaming their heads off or backing away were moving to the truck, others were panicking and shouting 'Cape!' and yet more were grabbing more weapons or looking to Mush.

The full element of surprise had been lost, but that was fine, prioritise the drivers and civilians, divide and conquer the problem, break it down piece by piece and neutralise it. There were three threats; Mush, the unpowered Merchants, and the huge, heavily armed truck.

The former was slow to react, he was still gathering his detritus, and the unpowered Merchants had begun moving towards the vehicle, probably aiming to get onto the weapon emplacements, right?

A display of force was needed, she just needed to break their will and then she could deal with Mush.

She rose up into the air.

'Keep the collateral damage to a minimum, don't hurt anyone.'

Just destroy the emplacements, the threat.

She aimed for the one at the back, closest to where the panicking humans were clambering onto the vehicle, and fired.

The beam melted it like butter, and she drew the beam swiftly from one side to the other, blasting a hole through the roof of the truck and reducing the emplacements to molten slag. It was not even the power of the beam Purity had struck her wish; just enough to ruin the weaponry and send a signal that there was no point resisting

"Stand down!" she demanded.

Mush threw a pallet at her.

She had made every effort to keep the collateral damage down!

She floated to the side; did he want to try and take her by surprise whilst she was firing on the truck?

She captured the pallet in her Revolution Web as it flew by, jerking her along with it before she regained control of her movements. Honestly, there was enough food in the pallet to feed thousands of people, once it had been rehydrated!

Fine then!

As tempting as it would be to return fire using the beams, or create a giant iron spear like she had against Leviathan, she held back on the urge.

Focus on Mush, remove gravity around him... humans really act comically when gravity creases. Just watching Mush suddenly begin flailing his various tendrils and pseudopods of debris, using them to reach down and grip onto the edges of the crater he had ripped up from the road... all rather amusing. She most certainly did not take pleasure in wrapping him in Revolution Web and hauling him up into the air. He almost looked like a squirming fly that had been caught by a spider... actually, that comparison was distasteful.

Next, the truck.

Stop it from escaping, leave it intact enough to move though, already there was a distant rumble of an engine starting up. She could not just destroy it... well she could, but the highway needed to be as intact as possible, Mush's damage aside, and if she started unleashing Purity's lasers everywhere then there would be a lot of repairs to do.

The vehicle did not have anything so convenient as doors at the side of the cab to get in, or if it ever had, they had been replaced with sheets of solid metal instead... but there were still gaps in the panelling, so she simply liquified her body. Once this power had been used to attack her... becoming liquid mercury was not exactly something enjoyed, not that it felt wrong of course, she had made use of it against Leviathan, it was just a case of practicality.

She had another power to shrink down to smaller sizes, but just flowing through things was easier.

... The driver, a woman with an outfit so crass she may as well be naked, screamed as Taylor oozed and flowed into the cabin at a pitch that made her semi-liquid form vibrate, it was a proper chipmunk voice. The sort that made a person's ears hurt.

Well, she supposed it would be a little horrifying to see a face suddenly begin forcing itself through an inch wide gap in the panelling of the cap and then reach out with an arm. She took the woman by the neck, the first part of the body that she could really reach and which would give her good control over the situation-- oh, her Ether Drinker was draining her?

So she was a Cape, then, interesting.

... Of course, now she was trapped in the cabin with her, and Taylor looked around, ignoring the various somewhat weak blows being directed her way. The front of the cabin was filled with buttons and levers more suitable for a piece of industrial equipment... or a tank maybe? Well, she could not really judge, it was not like she was a Tinker.

A wheeze from the woman informed Taylor that she was struggling to breathe.

Oh, right, people did that.

It had been less than two weeks since she drew her last, life sustaining breath, it was easy to forget sometimes.

"Sorry for that."

She was not really sure why she was apologising to somebody stealing food from literal disaster victims, but she said it anyway.

"Hey, where's the door?"

"Fack you!"

Eloquent. Maybe she should have deprived her of air for a few moments longer? Nah, that would be too far, hm... did it count as a form of police brutality if it was a PRT or Ward's member? The Ward's pamphlet she had read months ago had gone some ways to caution against 'unreasonable force' but what was reasonable against people with superpowers?

Anyway.

In lieu of finding the door, she just made one, directing energy from her core into her other hand until it was red hot and using it like a blade to cut a rough rectangle. It took a couple of seconds and the woman was still screaming her ears off, but it was the results that mattered. Floating out into the open air with the Cape in tow, back into the open air of the Brockton Bay morning.

"Squealer!" there were cries going out, people were looking to the front cabin of the truck.

Squealer was her name? It was not a very flattering title, some small part of Taylor thought. Then again... Annul had been her first name as a Cape, so she could not really complain.

Well either way, she left Squealer floating a few metres above the ground, forgotten, and gilded until she was a few metres above what was left of the unpowered Merchant crew. There were sirens beginning to blare, the first response... normally that would be the thing to get them moving, they would take whatever they had plundered and get away on the super-truck. Although without its driver and the heavy support, that option was gone; the only logical thing to do now was surrender.

"You can all give up now."

One Merchant revealed a shotgun--

... Really?

Would it even do anything of note? She was genuinely curious; she had been broken and shattered by Leviathan and repaired herself, so what was a shotgun blast? She could simply flare her core and blind the man (possibly permanently) to stop him from taking aim, she could instantly crush him with her gravity and reduce him to a red stain on the road or drain the very heat from his body, there was a thousand ways she could stop him, but she didn't.

BLAM!

She glanced down at the small crater in her chest left behind by the shell, there was a moment's pause as all the Merchants did as well.

"What the fuck man don't shoot a fucking Ward!" one guy, presumably the one currently in possession of the solitary brain cell between them, screamed.

Taylor had gone to the effort of trying to reduce the damage, make sure that nobody lost their life and yet despite the clear gulf they still tried to shoot her? It was almost admirable; she supposed a lot of Capes could not just take a slug to the chest.

She stared at the man with the gun and crossed her arms over chest.

"... I'll pretend you didn't do that if you put down the gun."

Sheepishly, he put down the gun. A few others yielded their weapons to the tarmac as well.

"Okay, if you don't cause any more trouble and let me tie you up with my threads then we can say you were part of this little raid and you won't get charged with attempted murder, alright?"

Well, she could not guarantee that but to be honest, diffusing the situation was more important. She could just leave them all floating about in the air like their bosses, but she may as well give them a chance right, it was not as if she knew all their circumstances. Maybe a few of them had been press ganged into this? She could only hope so, and that this could be an opportunity for them to turn their lives around.

Reluctantly, there were nods of agreement.

She tied them up with threads, and then reached up to her ear.

"Ordinant to console; I've stopped the ambush, got Mush and another possible Cape called 'Squealer', nobody from the convoy got hurt but there's now a giant fucking truck here, might need somebody to reverse it back off the road"

"Do you think you can reverse it?"

"... I'm fifteen."

"Ah... of course."

"Anyway, is somebody on the way? There's like... twenty people here."

"Assault, Battery and Dauntless are enroute."

"Good to hear... I'll just... hang around."

The convoy that she had been escorting was just about visible in the distance, having slowed down to give her time to deal with the problem here. Hopefully they were all in radio contact and had let their superiors know... actually. Handling a scene after a Cape fight was a delicate matter, but she would have to do her best.

First things first... the drivers.

They were still frozen in time, she had set it to last for five minutes or so, that had seemed in the moment like more than enough time for the situation to be taken care of, and in truth... it had taken a lot less than that. So, she waited patiently for the effect to end. When it did, they blinked, there was a jolt of surprise to see that the Merchants threatening them had disappeared, and then looked around until eyes settled on her.

"Hey, you guys all alright?" she asked.

It took a moment for them to adapt to the new situation.

"... Yeah, got shaken up pretty bad," each of them was in the army, but Taylor rather doubted that they did anything more than basic... although she really should brush up on her knowledge of the military at this rate, between this and her inability to tell ranks apart, her ignorance was getting rather in the way of her work.

"No injuries?"

"Few scrapes and bruises but that's it, thanks, errr... Ordinant."

"Just glad nobody got hurt... sorry about whoever's truck got totalled."

"At least it was a glancing blow," was the somewhat nasal, muffled comment of a man who looked to have a rather severe nosebleed and a developing black eye.

"You the driver?"

"Yeah... I don't think I'll be volunteering for first position again any time soon."

There were a number of somewhat strained chuckles at that.

"Just so long as you are alright, that's all that matters," she said, and tried to smile encouragingly at him. "Also, err, don't want to trouble you guys much but do you think you can move the big truck?" she gestured towards Squealer's creation. "Or else you guys might be here for a while before the convoys can move again."

"... I'll give it a go if nothing else," one said, cracking his knuckles.

"Thanks."

Now it was just a case of waiting for the PRT to arrive to take care of Merchants she had captured.

The sun was now rising properly above Brockton Bay, as in, it was beginning to feel like day.

As the team of drivers began to look over Squealers Rig and swear loudly as they questioned its operation, Taylor waited patiently.

She had analysed the power of Mush, that was one person potentially saved from full paralysis, but there was another. Squealer was still flailing about a few metres away, turning head over heels as she went. Her loud chipmunk voice was rather ruining the rather scenic sunrise, it was grating even to somebody made of solid rock. Still, it did raise a question... if she had been able to perform Paradigm Inflation on Mush, then could she have a go at using it on Squealer?

Moving over she righted Squealer in the air, stopping her slow cartwheeling movement, and then gripped her by the head to hold her in place.

The woman stared back, confused and pupils dilated.

"Don't move, I just need to look you over for a second."

"What--

"Don't talk either, your voice is annoying."

She looked, really looked.

She extended all her senses, she fed as much information about the woman as she could to the Spider, she altered her own perceptions, she used the power of that one chiropteran cape. She took in as many details as she could.

... There was not enough data... she was trying to feed back everything, trying to give the Spider enough for a full Paradigm Inflation but there wasn't enough.

Even scanning the big truck did not help much, she could not learn how this power worked just through observation, it was infuriating. Was it because the power was all mental? She had never been able to observe the powers of Armsmaster or Chris either, but she had just presumed that was because they were Tinkers... did she have to put her hand through the woman's freaking skull?

She wasn't about to kill a woman for that, if Taylor had spared Bakuda then she would spare Squealer, even though it could be another human being freed from the paralysis of the crystal.

"How many others are there?" she demanded.

"What?"

"Other Capes, in the Merchants."

"Like I'm gonna--"

The clenching of her hand was definitely not intentional, even if it did put enormous pressure on the woman's skull. It was just an irritable spasm, a human instinct and relic of her bygone body. She released Squealer and left her floating in the air, ignoring the various shouts and profanities directed her way, pleading and begging to be put back on the ground. Instead, she reached up to her earpiece.

"I'll leave it to the PRT to ask you then," she said, and floated away, done with that conversation.

Be calm, disperse her emotions, she was a hero. Look calm and composed. She crossed her arms over her chest as she floated there, waiting, surveying the damage to the convoy and the various flailing Merchants. Mush was still struggling in his cocoon, she made sure to keep him nice and far away from everyone else in case he broke free and lashed out.

As the convoy driver attempted to work out how to work the giant truck Taylor watched, waiting. Atop a nearby building, a camera crew was filming, it took her a moment to take notice of them. They were on top of one of the taller buildings nearby, were it not for the flash of a lens she might not have seen them at all.

Joy, the thread about her would probably explode again with responses.

She made a point of giving them a little wave their way, to show them that she was aware of their presence, and then directed her thoughts towards the real matter at hand.

D͓̑r̩͑o̠̾n͎ͭe̬ͩ ̼̚w͊ͅa̦ͩs̳̾ ͍̓ṡ͇u̜͂c̙͑c̰̄ẻ̳s͓ͪs͎̏f̤̓u̳͆l̪ͩ ͙̉a̩ͫn͓͐d̘ͯ ̗̂h̫̊ä̹s̮̉ ͓ͧr͔͒e̖̓t̗͑r̙̆i͎̚e̬̽v̜̔e̺ͧd͖ͫ ͈̃d̖̅a͓̓t͇̎a̲ͦ ͙̈ȯ̲n̹͆ ̹ͬt̲̀h͕͑ḛͪ ̞̌P͚̽a͉̓r̞ͭa͙͛h̞̒u͖͂m̜̐a̪ͣn̜͆ ̣̓'̝ͪM̪̐ǘ̖ś̞h̦ͯ'͔̎

She was not so presumptuous as to try and fleece the Spider, or suggest that she had collected enough about Squealer to qualify. She supposed that now she could make use of Mush's power, at least. It would be quite useful, perhaps... drawing in debris to armour herself further, or creating new limbs out of it.

Rather inelegant compared to just moving things around with gravity well, but still.

Naturally, she did not need to wait long for a response from the Spider at all.

D̤̪̂ͭ̅r̰̍͗̈́ō̭n͙ͭ̑̌e̦̰͈̓̿ ͙̲ͪͅm̱͍̝ͯͯa̱̻̤̽y͙͇͋ͅ ̖̪͉̄̇s̺̤ͦe͈̽ͪͥl̥͑̓e̳ͩc̱ͪͫ̓t͕̫̂ͦ ̼̗͙̓͐1̫̬̺̐ ̻͓͎͐̈̒ḭͬn̰̲ͤ͛̒d̺ͤ́i͓͓͍ͭ̄̐v̯̼̐͒i͖̤͔̓̄ͮd͆̚ͅu̠ͬ͑ä̘̠̳́l͙ͧͭ͌ ̲͍̗̂͊͒H̯͌ó̫̘̻̐s̻ͭt̹ͣ̽ ̖͈̌͐s͔̤̰ͮp̟͎̳̓ͪe̙͎̯̎c̰̯͔̓̏i̠̟̦͗͑è͉s̠̻̗̓ ̻̈́ͣu̻ͭͫ̓n̻̒ͫḋ̥̰ͥ̚ḛ̻͎ͯ͂̋r͚̄ğ̩̗͈̎ȏ̗͚̓̋i̩̣͗͊n̠͖̏̔g͕̜͂ ̖̰̝͗̇͋c̣̖̊̓r̯ͫ̅̒y̳͍ͫ͆ͥs̬̳̺̾͑̅t̠̫ͭạ̳̊l̦̼ͥͥ̓l͉̐̚i̦̖͛͌͂s̬̀̄a̹͑̐t̳͋ͅi͕͓͒ͯo͎̳͚ͭ̍ṋ̝̥̾ ͈͔͇̎c̬̘ͥ͒͑o̱̞̠ͫ̊ṉ̤̾v͕̪͙ͯ̽e̱̩̍̿̑r̜͛̇s̹̓̌i̻̎͒̍ŏ͍ṋ̬͔̈̔̃ ̬͕͗͊t͔̱̯̊o̞͎̼ͯ̑ ̪ͤg͔̃͐ͨr̜ͫ̍ȁ̱̇ṋ̈́̄̚t̩̦̜͌ ̮̊͆̽f̩̹̓̉ů͚̮̩l̗̎l̜̫̰̊̂ ̣̙̱̏ͣm͎̂õ̜ͩͧb͎̚ḯ͙l̙ͤͥi̭̱͂ͤt̘͎̄͋ỹ̝

It actually held up the agreement.

She... actually felt relief.

As the equivalent to adrenaline faded, as her thoughts calmed she was unable to help from feeling joy. She could save somebody... they would still crystalise, sure, but they could move at least, and if they could move and live their lives then surely, they would not need to be atomised! But who, who to save... could she save somebody who was fully crystallised? That was objectively the best thing to do, to help one of those people who were trapped, screaming in their own heads...

She could bring this to the PRT, show what a difference she could make, and from there they could feed her more and more Parahumans.

She could push to continue breaking Gray Boy loops, after all, they produced a steady supply of Parahumans

By the time the other heroes arrived, the crew of drivers had worked out how to put the truck into eighteenth gear and then reverse, deployed the cup holder, poured a banana daiquiri from a converted coffee maker, and tuned into a radio station in Los Angeles, but were now slowly having the titanic construct reverse down the ramp onto the highway by increments.

6.6

When convoy duty came to its end for the day, or, to be more correct, when she had done the very maximum amount of work that the PRT could legally give her without enraging the Youth Guard, Taylor returned to base. She entered via the top of the building; the other Wards had to be concerned with their identities and being caught coming and going but that was not a problem for Taylor. So long as her father was staying here, everything close to and which mattered to her was in this building.

There was a debrief about the events of the night upon her return.

She gave as many details as she could, which was not an inconsiderable amount considering the quality of her memory, but it was a routine conversation on the matter. It was Miss Militia who handled it, who gave her a smile whilst congratulating her on her hard work.

"It wasn't even that hard," she had wanted to say.

But she didn't, because that would rather put down the efforts of everyone else who was working so hard but had failed to stop the convoy attacks.

She was just in the right place at the right time to make a difference... and with the tools and ordinance to handle the matter better than others, that was all.

"I am sure that bringing in those two will help to make a real difference, those tinkertech vehicles were a real nightmare for us to deal with," Miss Militia had concluded.

"Thanks, ma'am."

"When it's just the two of us, Hannah is fine."

She now knew Miss Militia's name! It made some small, childish part of her that she had forgotten in recent days happy to know. It was such a small, insignificant little thing, but it was fundamentally human to know and care for others' names. She committed the moment to memory, even if it was just a small little interjection on the other Capes part, it mattered to Taylor.

Did she make mention of the deal she had made with the Spider? Or did she hide it, bide her time until she had been able to grant mobility to somebody, to further force their hand?

In the end, she did not make mention of it to Hannah, the meeting came to its end with another thanks and an order to get some rest before her next patrol... quite what she would do with that time being another matter, it wasn't even ten in the morning.

She began floating along, musing what to do with herself--

"Oi," it took a moment for Taylor to realise that it was her that was being addressed, she turned in place to see Shadow Stalker stood not far from where she had emerged into the hall. Had she just had her own post-patrol debrief and report? Probably, Sophia's voice was gruff, which probably meant she was in one of her vaguely irritable moods. Indeed, she at once went on to say, without waiting for a greeting on Taylor's part; "heard a convoy got attacked?"

"Yeah, stopped it though and managed to drag in two of the capes in the Merchants."

Shadow Stalker nodded.

"Fucking bottom feeders..."

"Yeah... attacking the convoys seems especially scummy when they are already struggling to feed everyone."

Shadow Stalker shrugged, and after a moment moved up to Taylor's side.

"City's probably fucked as it is, I heard they are planning to begin relocating folks to other places."

"... Really?"

"Who wants to live in a city that's mostly crystal?"

Why did those words sting so much?

"It will go with time, and then there will be an empty city that people can live in," Taylor said.

Sophia gave her a look; she did not go as far as to raise a brow but the look said enough.

Would Brockton Bay really be abandoned? Left for those desperate enough to stay, with nowhere else to go? It was not as if most folk had enough money to just up and go, move from an economically depressed city, and buy new homes in a place doing better. Prices in Boston were much higher than in Brockton Bay... so all the rich people would leave for there and everyone else would have to struggle to get by in what was left? Or would property developers sweep through, snap up all the much cheaper, post-crystallised land and then exploit it?

How horrific...

"You on patrol last night?"

"Yeah... not much going on, but Assault said something about fighting between some new group that's come in, not many details yet though, and then after that he rushed over to you, probably why it took him and Dauntless awhile."

"New group?" she questioned, the moment she stopped the conversation moving forwards would be when Sophia also went quiet, this burst of communication terminated.

"Some freaks with all sorts of duplication powers, rattled the folks upstairs that they got away."

Taylor hummed in agreement. Duplication powers, if they were Shaker effects then she could be useful against them, at least. More powers to analyse, more data to gather and people she could save--

"C'mon, got pizza waiting."

Amazing how Shadow Stalker could use as few words as humanly possible to communicate a point, she had already turned her back on Taylor and was walking away.

"Pizza for breakfast?"

"Leftovers from last night, local place sent them..."

Ah. Well, some establishments probably had a bit left over or sent it to the PRT as a thanks, maybe? Rather made her wonder if it was screened for drugs and poisons before it came in... knowing Armsmaster he probably had some manner of machine to detect anomalous materials. But the idea of using such a device to analyse pizza made her lips twitch and some small levity hit her before she realised it.

It was just her and Sophia; Chris and Carlos were on patrol and Gallant was undergoing the torture that was a meeting with PR, probably his quarterly one.

The pizza box was lifted from the table and put into a somewhat old and abused looking microwave; within a minute the loud beeping had Sophia removing what remained, just four slices of what had once been an extra-large pepperoni, by the looks of it. Dean and Dennis' favourite, whilst Missy loved tuna and sweetcorn as her topping of choice. Thinking about it, Taylor had no idea what Carlos liked, he was pretty easy going, so long as it was edible he would enjoy it.

Unless it had olives.

"Here," Sophia split the congealed slices apart, roughly pushing half of it her way.

"Ah, I'm good, it's not like I need to eat," she apologised.

"... Just eat the pizza, we might not get any more for ages."

It was an attempt at being friendly, at camaraderie, the first she had really seen from Sophia.

The two of them had worked and fought together against Leviathan, they had made quite a good search and rescue team, didn't they?

And then she had done the one thing that Sophia had told her not to and tried to play hero, had saved Aegis from being liquified and killed under the water hammer that was Leviathan's fist. But that had led to her being fully crystalised, and most of Brockton Bay being lost... it had led to Emma's death and the battle with Leviathan, the death of an Endbringer and the Oort-Spider moving for the first time since it arrived on the planet.

All from a momentary decision made on the spur of the moment, all because she did the opposite of what Sophia had said, the flap of a butterfly.

The world... was objectively better for it, without Leviathan. And yet, some small part of her wished that she had let Leviathan crush Carlos, that she was mourning him and not Emma, that Leviathan still roamed free and that the calamity that was the Oort-Spider had never marched upon Brockton Bay.

But she could only live with what had happened and continue to move into the future.

All these thoughts took just a second to process, Sophia was still waiting on a response.

"... Thanks, Sophia."

A grunt in response.

Taylor reached down and picked up a slice of the reheated pizza, taking in the sheen of grease and oil that had settled on its top and took a bite.

Without the biological drive to eat, without the sense of taste, the pizza was just steadily liquifying gunk in her mouth, a biological slurry being reduced to a less complex form, polluting her mouth. The only reason that she had a mouth, tongue, and teeth was because that was what the base plan of her body was, she didn't even need them to talk... she rather doubted she had a stomach cavity now, it was probably just a mass of solid crystal.

She swallowed the slice, it was hard without saliva, she could feel the grease and fragments of food sticking and clinging all around her mouth. The internal heat of her heart atomised the food, she gained nothing from eating it beyond Sophia's companionship and a mild pang of sadness for what she had lost.

How inefficient and wasteful.

Taylor took a second slice and settled onto the couch beside Sophia, folding her legs up lotus style so there could be no risk of them touching the floor.

They ate in silence, and once they were done, continued to enjoy the peace.

Sophia began scrolling on her phone, Taylor leaned on the armrest and closed her eyes, simulating rest but in truth just wanting to block out her visual senses. She had a lot to dwell upon now.

There was a solitary person she could save, with the proceeds of the deal and analysis of Mush.

Of the people she knew from the support group... objectively, it should be either SkySkyDaydream, Daniel, or BigBlueInsomniac, Gabrielle. Both of them were crystallised all the way up to the neck, immobile and bedbound. At least Joe and Aimee were only crystallised up to the mid-chest and could operate their arms and move in their wheelchairs.

But after the funeral Taylor was not over what had been said.

It had left an open wound that had yet to heal. There was no changing what had been said and what had been done, perhaps it was precisely because Emma was gone that she struggled to let it go?

Despite what had been said, it came about due to her suffering and condition. At the summer camp Gabrielle had been one of the more talkative girls, the sort who liked to keep the air filled with chatter and conversation. Hell, she had helped to drag Aimee out of her shell. But with every member of the group that had been fully crystallised and every new letter written for their funeral, some small part of her died.

Well, it had in all of them, to be honest.

But Gabrielle had taken it especially hard, the same with Daniel, he had been an abrasive boy who would pull girls hair, that sort of asshole. But he had grown so fatalistic with time, just like she used to be.

But they had still said all that to Emma.

But this was a human life she was musing on, not some petty argument between friends or considering whether to invite out for a meal or something equally as petty as that. In just a moment she could grant either of them the ability to walk again, freeing them from the beds they had been laying on for months now, waiting and feeling the ever-creeping ache and sensations of the crystal eating them away.

On the other hand, there were people who were fully crystallised within the Brockton Bay Valley, as well.

She would need to get permission to go in there, or wait for it to slowly recede away before those people could be saved... well, she could just fly in right now but the PRT would probably blow a gasket if she suddenly deviated off her convoy duty to venture into the Valley. Then again, it was not like she could be crystallised more... it was just the nightmarish, physics defying abominations that lived within the Valley that she had to worry about.

Nothing at all, really!

... She was distracting herself from the matter at hand.

Objectively she should grant freedom to Daniel or Gabrielle, but in truth she wanted to give it to Joe or Aimee first.

Should she mention her plans to the PRT, or should she just do it? If they knew about it ahead of time then they would probably come up with a list of people to prioritise, civil figures and such who were barely crystallised at all but had still been partially converted by the material. Perhaps she was being jaded right now, but she could see how it would go.

"Top of the list is the Head of the Education board for Brockton Bay, and then the Mayor's son, he is in college and the crystal only comes up to his leg but--"

She was putting words in their mouths, admittedly. She should avoid those assumptions, but it was a very human thing to do.

No, she would grant it suddenly, without telling anybody, that way when news spread that she could do it the PRT would ask the right questions about how she could do it again and she would then present them the details of her agreement with the Spider. They probably would not be happy with it all, but their happiness was insignificant, only progress and making a difference was, she had the tools to save thousands of people.

They would not be able to refuse her gaining more data when so many people would be clamouring for Ordinant to help and save them and their relatives, right?

Was it wrong of her to be conspiring against them like this, assuming the worst of them? Things had not always gone to plan, the PRT had made its fair share of mistakes when it came to her, but they were also the one thing standing between the city being utterly dominated and ruined by the villains of the city.

"I want to go out, there's an event being held by a friend of mine."

Getting permission to go out took frustratingly long.

~~~~~

LittleOwl : Hey, just to say I'm gonna swing by, I have something I need to discuss with you both.

The place that Aimee and Joe had scoped out with the assistance of the former's uncle was a small convention hall, one of the city's smaller ones.

It looked a little... rough, as did many such places in Brockton Bay, but there appeared to be a good turn out today... she had heard that there were about four or so thousand people who had been infected by the crystal within Brockton Bay. But just like with estimating how many people died due to Leviathan's attack, it was impossible to get concrete numbers when so many people lacked a fixed abode.

And were deliberately hiding the symptoms, fearful of judgement and reprisal.

But still, a few hundred people had turned up, filing in through the doors inside. Floating just above a rooftop not far away, Taylor felt nervous. It had been a while since she really interacted with normal people... not to say her fellow Wards and the other people back in the PRT were not normal, the same with her father, but they were people who knew her before the events with Leviathan, but civilians who knew nothing about her, Taylor Hebert? That was different, all they knew was Ordinant, the Cape who went toe to toe with Leviathan, who survived being close to the Oort-Spider and now was at the front of a major PR effort on the PRT's behalf.

Taylor would take a deep breath… if it would actually make a difference, and floated off the rooftop and downwards. She would not be so presumptuous to try and find a side entrance, she could make her way through the same as everyone else, right?

There was a family ahead, a father and two small sons, the elder had long pants but short socks, revealing a thin strip of crystallised flesh at the meeting point. Had he carried them both to safety, willingly taking the burden of the crystal to protect them both from it? And there, a mother with a crystallised hand, did she trip just as Emma did whilst fleeing?

There were gazes on her back.

"--ystal girl"

"Her name is Ordinant--"

"I saw her on the tv, daddy! Fighting a big--"

She pushed ahead, at the door she joined the queue that was moving through into the main space, she could probably float above all their heads but still, politeness is the grease on the wheels of human interaction. Once she was through into the cavernous room, only then did she rise above people's heads to float over towards the stage, where a familiar pair of figures were sat waiting for things to begin.

"Hey, guys."

Aimee's eyes were already on her, as if she had known already that she was there despite not having her phone in hand, and waved to her excitedly, perhaps unable to restrain her enthusiasm despite all the attention being paid their way. Joe on the other hand took a moment.

He looked frail, he had not been eating well for a long time but used to have a decent amount of puppy fat when they first met at the summer camp, now he had arms like a heron's legs and dark circles under his eyes... he always did suffer acutely from the nightmares and astrophobia, just like Emma. His wheelchair was bulkier, it looked older than Aimee's, at least they had been able to replace or fix that broken motor Aimee mentioned.

"How are things?"

"Not bad... I'm so glad you could pop by for a visit... Ordinant," Joe said, evidently being careful with his words. She appreciated it, even if notions of a civilian identity were worthless now, she still had her dad to worry about.

"We've got plenty of people it seems, which is good, uncles just running the printer to get more leaflets to hand out, we're gonna be starting in a little bit," Aimee said with a slight smile. Her eyes had not left Taylor, she raised her chin, just a little inquisitive. Had she perhaps seen the footage from this morning? Or was it more that she was wondering about why Taylor was here?

"That's good, um... thought I would come and say hi, show my face and that... not so sure I can really add much that you won't be able to deliver much better, but you never know," she waffled a little. Joe gave a slight, chuffing laugh.

"Ordinant, I am sure that people will just be glad to see somebody like you here."

Somebody like you.

Did he mean, glad to see a Cape, or a hero, or somebody fully crystallised but still mobile? She pondered over his meaning for a few moments. Taylor could feel the eyes on her back, the whispered speculation, and comments... if people took images of her and mentioned her presence online, then more people would come in future on the chance of seeing her, right? She was no longer so naïve as to assume that she was a nobody in the world.

She was not the same Ordinant that people forgot easily because they never saw her patrol, who slipped through the cracks of public perception and whose greatest deed, the loop breaking, was still not widely known.

No, she was a very different Ordinant.

Well... so long as it encouraged people to come and learn more about their condition, or made people feel safe visiting.

"... So, I kind of want to try something out," she said, awkwardly changing the topic of discussion to the real reason why she was here. Oh sure, it was nice to see them both and maybe say a quick word to all the folk here, but still.

"Oh?" a sound of curiosity from Joe, whilst Aimee remained silent, hands neatly folded in her lap, watching Taylor expectantly.

Now was both the moment of truth, and also of decision. Between the two people who had walked the same journey as her, who had been there during her lowest lows and at each funeral to console her, which did she choose to grant the Spiders 'gift' of mobility to? The energy to allow their continued movement would come from her, a tiny, insignificant tax on her heart, if only she could have fully analysed Squealer's power, then she would be able to help them both!

She paused for just a moment, clenched her hand, then reached down.

"Here..." Taylor reached down and took Aimee's hands.

R̳͗e̞ͭc̠͋a̖ͥl̮̅l̪̂i̹̒n̥͊g̲̉ ͚̊a̟͆ǧ̬r̙ͬe̥͌ȅ͔m̼ͣe̠͒n̪͌t̗̉ ̲̌r̞ͣé̖ṣ̏u̥͐l̥̓ṫ̪;͙̎ ̹͋f̦ͦṳ̏l̼̚l͓͊ ͉ͪm̰̒ǒ̘b̯̍i̙ͦl͈̀ĭ̳t̯̑y̩͛.̦̔ ̠ͨS͈̉e̥ͣl̪̓e͎ͫc͉̚t̺ͩi̼͋n̹̓g̙ͧ ̯̚c͉̐r͓̈y̲̎s͉ͬt͚̑a̭̓l̖̾ľ̜i͔ͬs̹͒ä̫́ṯ͊ì͕ō̳ṉ͆ ̘ͩh̺̽ō̲s͇̓t̜̾;͍̍ ͇͑'̘̄Ã̼i̟ͪm̜̑e̙͂e̞ͦ'̮ͨ

Aimee blinked in confusion but also some strange anticipation, and Taylor lifted her upwards, earning a small squeak as Taylor set her on her feet. The smaller girl wobbled a moment, Joe made a sound of surprise as she steadied herself against Taylor, gripping her hands in a vice grip.

"What--"

"You can walk now." It was neither the most eloquent, nor satisfactory explanation, but Taylor still said it as she floated back just a little, still holding her hands and letting Aimee take a small and tentative step. Even if her lower half had been crystallised and there was no muscle to atrophy, her balance would still be off, right? It might take her time to remember how to balance and walk, when was the last time she did so, months? A year?

Well, baby steps... quite literally.

"... I kind of found a way to do this, to let people not be paralysed," she tried to explain as she helped Aimee continue to walk. "It's... a little unreliable how often I can do it... Promise you're next, Joe, sorry, it might take a little bit before I can do it again," she winced. Would he judge her because she had helped Aimee before him?

He nodded.

"Aimee comes first for me," he said, simply even as he watched his companion now standing, and he was smiling. Oh, we're they an item? Or moving towards being one? Well, they did spend so much time together--

Arms crushing around her midsection, Aimee was crying into her shoulder. Had she stumbled in the moment that Taylor had been focused on Joe? Taylor floated awkwardly in place for a moment; Aimee was not letting go...

Oh, right.

She reached up carefully and put a hand on Aimee's head, running it down.

"Hey, it's okay."

The whispers around the room were only getting louder and louder, she glanced over at all the faces staring in their direction, there were suddenly a lot more than there had been when she first arrived, not quite a sea of people but dozens, a hundred or more. Curiosity, wonderment... hope, that was the one thing she really took notice of, the sheer amount of hope and relief that this little display had brought.

Compared to the overwhelming, crushing, and hopeless despair that she had first become aware of the moment she first laid eyes on the Spider, it was such a strange feeling, such a strange expression to see.

The crowd was getting louder even as Aimee refused to let go of her, quite how the girl was comfortable crying into the solid material of her neck was a question she would not ask, rather she would just... exist in this moment until the girl composed herself. All the staring was getting to her, but she put that concern aside.

... She had a lot of explaining to do when she got back, the PRT would hear about this and it would force them into a corner, but that matter could come later.

6.7

15th May, 2011

The crystal was so very loud today.

She felt the ripples of thought, the distinct, alien imagination and consciousness within her crystallised portions.

It was a feeling she had grown increasingly aware of with time as the condition progressed, the more and more of her that was consumed by the blessing of the Spider, the more and more tuned in she had become. All of them were linked together within the greater consciousness of the crystal, linked to the Oort-Spider on some level, and the further it progressed, the more omnipresent and oppressive it all became.

It was scary at first, she had tried to ignore it, to force it away, listening to music constantly or distracting herself with the comfort of friends and family, anything to block out the incessant stream of information, the dreams of far-off places and memories of the Valley.

The crystal affected everyone differently.

Some of them dreamed of the Valley every night, and walked among that cosmic hellscape.

Some were serenaded by the teeming, singing stars.

But as far as she knew... she was the only one of them who could hear the crystal, who heard everything it said and was connected to everyone else. Perhaps, at the moment of absolute crystallisation, she would achieve full unity? Her earthly mind would disappear and become one of the larger whole?

It was not easy to bear the burden of knowledge... at least, not until she had her realisation, her induction and education on these things.

After that a lot of things had become clearer.

With time she had increasingly been able to sense the thoughts and feelings of her fellow crystallisation victims... and she felt their fear, their despair, and their regrets at the same time. None of the others could, or perhaps they had chalked it up to depression, madness and their own declining mental states.

But she understood, she alone was forced to experience that which linked them all... their shared condition, their shared suffering, condensed within her and her alone. She was a pit into which all the darkness experienced by the crystallisation victims poured, the more she crystallised the more and more she felt and experienced it all. She had tried to be there for each of them in their last moments, whether from afar or in person, to hold their hand and tell them that it was okay, that even though they were locked in place forever soon everything would be okay... she was strangely good at consoling them in their last moments.

It had been so, so hard.

She tried to take her life twice when it all became too much, but her body was too strong to die and her mind too weak to overcome that urge.

But meeting the old man had made things clearer, things had fallen into place, as it were.

The crystallisation was both a blessing and a curse. It was a sign, they had been chosen, they were being consumed to become part of a greater whole, right? But to do so they had to face so many trials and tribulations... she in particular, as the one who was connected to the feelings of them all, she could influence the others, that was something she learned later.

Only one of them had rejected the gifts...

Emma Barnes.

At the funeral of James (the poor dear, staying strong for so long...) Priestess had given Gabrielle the nudge she needed to lambast the redhead for her choice, it had not been a kind thing to do, but it was needed. It was something that she had learned swiftly in her role of Priestess; that only faith could provide salvation.

She had been raised as a good Catholic, but fell away and doubted the faith the older she got... until the Oort-Spider came from the stars.

For a while she had been lost in fear and fog, only to later realise the way, with the help of Marsdon and his family.

Still.

The crystal had never been so loud and clear as it was right now.

She sat, staring out the window but not really seeing, because she was focused on events so far away.

Emma Barnes was dead, she had given her life to save another, to save Taylor. It was sweet, really. Emma, who had rejected the gifts, had marched right back into the Valley and come back into the fold. For a minute or so Priestess had been able to hear Emma's thoughts, and she herself had felt the overwhelming joy when the girl began returning to their flock.

But then Taylor had intervened and torn Emma away from her moment of ultimate realisation and unity, what a tragic end, to just... die like that. Atomised, obliterated... no part of the architecture of her brain had been crystallised, the neural patterns and thoughts were snatched away right before they could be saved.

Priestess could not be angry, though.

Taylor had ascended. A body of full crystal, all the gifts and blessings of their Lord. It was beautiful, it was an apotheosis the likes of which she could only dream, that the Marsdon Family as a whole strived to attain! Taylor had always been special of course, she was the first among them... oh, Emma had claimed the credit for being the first person to be afflicted with crystallisation when the PRT came calling, sheltering her friend from their unworthy attention and gazes.

For that, Priestess was grateful to the Barnes girl... despite her other sins.

But now they had a true vessel to communicate with, a sign for all the faithful that there was a greater purpose, that the suffering would lead to greater things.

For the past year Priestess had struggled to fulfil the role of the Oort-Spider's voice, the magnitude of its will and communications were more than she could manage to parse and understand easily.

But her efforts to fulfil her role had not been fruitless, the raid on the Crystal Valley had yielded so many valuable relics; crystal plants and even a few smaller creatures... and of course, it had released the Spider's Will upon the world, even if young Alexander Marsdon had had to give his life to become one with it.

The manifestation of their Lord's desires, which had been termed the 'Oort-Fractal' by the PRT. Honestly, what an awful name!

But to err was human, to forgive was divine.

They would see, with time...

And not just that.

There were so many new minds and voices.

A new Crystal Valley, one that had crystallised so many people, the high and the low, the good and the bad... all of them trapped in place, scared, screaming into the void, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the path that had been opened to them. Every moment Priestess could hear more and more of them, it was an ocean of voices and fear that was all feeding back to her every moment.

Poor, lost souls, not realising what they had been given, but that was alright... fear was the first obstacle for any person to overcome, she herself had been consumed by it when she first began to crystallise, and now she was perfectly content.

She could hear them, she could speak with them... and most of all, she could guide them.

And of course, Taylor was fighting so magnificently. It was awe inspiring to see her capabilities now that she had shed her attachments to this sinful and utterly Human earth. Taylor did not even need to make contact with it anymore, the ground would never need to mar her soles again, she had been granted perfection itself.

Priestess watched through the crystal surrounding Taylor and Leviathan, she saw every determined blow, she watched as Taylor was broken over and over again.

To fight against Leviathan, against the herald of another family?

It was unheard of.

And of course...

In the end, she defeated Leviathan.

No, even better than that, Taylor brought the unworthy serpent of the waters to the Spider...

She checked her bible, flicking through pages so swiftly to Isaiah 27:

In that day the LORD with His severe sword, great and strong,

Will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,

Leviathan that twisted serpent;

And He will slay the reptile that is in the sea.

It was a symbol; it was a sign that their long wait was over!

And, and!

Of course, how could she forget the prophecy from Psalms 74:

It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan

and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.

And was not this new Valley such? Had not the Spider's Garden grown, had not the Spider fed its knowledge of the Endbringer as food to Taylor!?

It was all falling into place.

For the longest time the Crowley's had called the writings of the good book about Leviathan's death to be false, created to dissuade the faithful.

But it was clear now.

Leviathan and his followers were unworthy, they needed to be purged if they would not come into the fold. There could not be disharmony between families, could there?

And Taylor herself... how beautiful, how stunning, a testament to the power of their Lord! Calling upon the gifts that she had witnessed upon its behalf and making use of them, taking up the armaments of the enemy to deliver its wrath! Taylor, so strong willed that rather than achieve final unity with the Spider, she had chosen another path, to serve, like a Buddhist Bodhisattva delaying their own enlightenment to guide and save mortals.

To willingly put herself into the Spider's service, as she had. After fighting for so long it brought a certain thrill to know that Taylor would be taking her duties so very seriously as the terminal of its will, as its Herald.

The weight would no longer be placed upon Priestesses shoulders alone to guide them, there was salvation. She wouldn't have to suffer in silence alone and be weighed down upon anymore, they wouldn't look to her, a teenager increasingly unable to move, for guidance. Oh god it had been so much and she had been so scared and she didn't want it but it was a role she had to fulfil--

She was so happy that she began to cry uncontrollable tears of relief and joy.

"Are you alright?" asked one of her guards, a 'family friend' who had only been so since she and her parents had been inducted, had been introduced to Mama Mathers and brought into the light.

"... We need to go to Brockton Bay," she declared unilaterally, and with far greater confidence than any of her previous commands and revelations to the family.

"A sign?"

"A certainty. I shall explain on the way, but the road to Paradise is opening for us."

"I'll let the others know, Priestess."

~~~~~

24th May, 2011

LittleOwl : Hey, just to say I'm gonna swing by the hall, I have something I need to discuss with you both.

When Taylor sent her a message, Priestess had not quite known what to make of it.

Something to discuss with her and Joe in particular? What could it be?

Taylor's thought, desires had long been difficult for her to understand; it was the proximity to their Lord. Even if she was the mouthpiece of the Spider to its mortal believers the vastness of its desires and mind was too great for one so frail and unworthy as her, and even if Taylor had been born mortal... the special connection that she shared with the Spider clouded her, made her difficult to understand.

Especially since she ascended to become the Herald of the Spider, since she became so unutterably perfect in her body of crystal.

But she would be here soon... perhaps it was related to their conversation the other day? She had made a suggestion over their little cafe meeting, one backed up with her own influence over the crystal that perhaps Taylor should be a bit more open to their Lord's will... like for like. Oh, she put it tactfully of course. Taylor was still struggling to accept and take on her duties, and whilst it was frustrating, Priestess could understand.

Taylor had been given such a vast duty, and she was facing it head on... but moments of doubt were natural, it took somebody like Priestess to give those gentle nudges until she could perfectly blossom into the Herald that would usher in their destiny.

The small convention hall was filling up well, so many frightened people who did not yet understand the nature of the gift that they had been given, the blessings of the crystal that would allow them to be saved, to become part of the greater whole. Oh, it would not be easy to guide them down the correct path, Uncle Marsdon had said that it would take a delicate tact, but with her ability to hear and communicate with the crystal, Priestess was certain that they could make a difference.

Already their enemies were arriving in the city, the unworthy followers of the deceased serpent of the waters, causing trouble and conflict.

They would have to be brought to heel, either made to see the truth and the superiority of the Marsdon faith, broken by the swift and terrible sword of their Lord.

But for now, the Crowley's were unimportant, what mattered was the teeming mass of people who were arriving. Very few showed obvious signs of the crystallisation, they did not wear it proudly as she did, in her skirt and socks to let the glittering crystal show.

But she could sense it, the very beginnings of the crystal's consciousness within each of them. Little thoughts, little bits of emotion here and there... she would encourage it, would use her own influence to make them feel comfortable and safe, glad for her guidance. And with that they would be receptive to the words of their Lord, would come to see--

A bright star approached, coming in through the front doors like any other person even as it floated above the ground, head and shoulders above any other.

Ah...

How... beautiful.

Her companion had yet to notice the presence of their bright star, but Priestess watched as Taylor floated up to them, in the guise of Ordinant. Such unworthy garments, she should be in robes, her face should be visible for all the world to see...

What came next was greetings, were the humble and genuine inquiries about how things were going, the Herald made a show of being bashful, she offered to give a talk of some variety. All those gathered here would be so very blessed to hear words from the Herald herself, even if they would not realise the significance of them for a long time to come, until their own full induction into the Marsdon family.

But Taylor had come to see them with a purpose.

Priestess kept her hands in her lap and waited patiently for it; there was no need to rush, she could wait forever to hear a single command or benediction from their dear Herald. Honestly, with her like this, she could fully understand why Emma--

"Here--"

Taylor took her hands, and Priestess could not disguise her surprise as the Herald lifted her from her seat, her entire body felt... strange, the stiffness, the immobile crystal of her legs moved, her knees folded and her foot touched the floor of the stage in a half step, the first she had taken in months.

It was Mark 5:12, it was a paralytic being told to walk, it was a miracle.

She took a step with Taylor's help, this unworthy creature that called itself Priestess walked as awkwardly as a toddler under the supervision of a parent... and as all the of soon to be faithful saw this miracle, as Taylor promised that Joe would be the next to receive it, Priestess could not help the tears of joy and relief that burst through, throwing her unworthy self into Taylor's arms.

She could walk, she was living proof that there was salvation now-- she could walk! --and an example for others to follow --oh god it had been so long did this mean that she would not need to be atomised if she was fully crystallised!?--

Priestess would go, she would spread the word. Priestess, no, Aimee would bring Taylor's will to all those who suffered, she would help Taylor to save all of them from the paralysis, to truly embrace this gift.

By any means necessary.

7.1

Taylor had rather expected to be jumped upon the moment she returned to base, to be whisked away for a meeting with the higher ups and interrogated for what she had done to help Aimee.

She knew for sure that somebody would have uploaded the interaction or discussed it on PHO or some similar website, it was only a matter of time until that call came. And yet when she did return, she had little trouble making it down to the Ward's quarters, the various troopers greeted her, a few of them she knew by name of course and she always made efforts to say hi to each.

There was no irate Glen Chambers to drag her away to discuss future PR strategy now that she had displayed this new ability, Coleson did not stride up with that somewhat resigned but confident manner, requesting in his ever-polite way that she come with him. No, she barely met anybody of note until she was back in the central space, the smell of the pizza from earlier still hung in the air from earlier like an oily smog.

Who else was in here? Stalker might be asleep or perhaps she had gone home... Wherever home currently was, the bedrooms provided for the others were just small rooms with a bed, the temporary PRT building was like that, everything was in odd places and jury rigged together.

Nobody else seemed to be in--

A door opened.

Gallant.

"Hey--" she was halfway through raising her arm by the time he had taken his first power stride towards her.

"Taylor, I want to talk to you," he said, there was an urgency in his voice that she had not heard before. Had something happened? Were they heading out again? It was not like she was tired or overstimulated, if such a thing could even happen but still, she would have preferred just a moment to mentally prepare herself.

"Sure." It was not like she had anything else to do.

She was genuinely a bit surprised when he took her by the elbow and began directing her away back to the room he had emerged from. Of course, being weightless there was a moment in which he had clearly not appreciated the physics of tugging her around, and she swung uncontrollably to the side before she managed to regain control of her momentum. Even if it would not hurt, she did not really want to be slammed into the door frame.

Gallant's quarters were spartan, at best. A bed and a chest of drawers and that was it, not even a window, the walls looked thin and cheap, hastily erected as a partition to split one large room into multiple as needed.

He released her arm once he was part way in, and kicked the door closed. The cheap piece of wood snapped shut with something of a bang, and then it was just the two of them. Taylor floated back and put one leg over the other, attempting to sit casually in the air, people liked casual right? After a moment, Gallant took a seat on the bed, leaning forward with elbows on his knees. There were bags under his eyes.

"... What's wrong, Gallant?" she asked, cutting to the chase, and by the looks of it, he was not planning to prevaricate much either.

"I heard about what you did for the girl at the convention hall."

"... That's fast," when did Gallant become some manner of clued in computer whizz who could find these things out so quickly? She knew that his armour gave the impression that he was some manner of Tinker but that was just to confuse people who did not know the truth. Deception is the secret to all war or whatever Sun Tzu said.

"My mother was there," he said. Ah, of course his mother got caught up in the crystal, that was why he had been so blunt when he came to visit her whilst she was still recovering, when he had given his blunt question about whether she had wanted all of this to happen. "You helped somebody paralysed to walk, right? Somebody crystallised a lot?"

"Yeah. An old friend of sorts, she was infected at the same time I was."

He nodded, and Taylor could see the gears in his brain turning.

Oh wait, was this about--

"How did you do it?"

The million-dollar question. She had been thinking about how to phrase her response to this, at some point, sooner rather than later the rest of the PRT would be asking.

"... When a power is used in front of me there is a good chance that I can learn to replicate it, and I managed to barter with the Spider for information, it likes to know how powers work so... yeah. Like for like, I used the information from Mush's power to get it to free my friend." She put it simply. The shortest explanation was usually the best, the most digestible. No need to discuss the specifics unless it was asked for.

He stared at her.

Did he know that she was hiding something from him? He had to, right? He was an empath... unless her own emotions were hidden from him? Reading a person of flesh and blood would be very different to reading somebody like her with such aberrant biology. Crystology? What term did she even use...

"... You're bartering information with the Spider just to help normal people?"

If she still had them, then the hairs on the back of her neck would raise.

"They are not just... yes. Just normal people living in terror, Gallant," she replied, and despite herself there was a heat in her voice that she had not fully expected to be there. If his simple comment got her worked up, then what could she do when she tried to explain all this to the PRT later? It was not a good indicator, perhaps she could shut off her emotions for that, but even if she did have that capacity, she needed her emotions or she would be no better than--

"It's not that, sorry, I'm not always the best at putting things across... kind of ironic given my power..." Gallant said, there was a grim note to his voice. "Listen, my mother's crystallised up to the knees as I told you, and she's noticed it climbing rapidly."

Taylor nodded.

"I've seen what it does to people's heads Taylor, you've never done them because they kept you busy but sometimes the Wards do hospital visits, see sick kids and such, you know? Well, I've seen people who were fully crystallised, it was ages ago but..." he looked away, his Adam's apple bobbed suddenly, the young man's face had blanched of colour, it was like watching a war veteran suddenly being reminded of something terrible... okay maybe not that far, but the comparison came to mind.

Gallant's fingers interlaced, the fingertips were red and white as he clenched them against the back of the opposite hand. His chin rested on these interlinked hands.

His look said a thousand words all in a moment. It was a plea, a demand, a desperate beg even as he radiated an almost palpable tension. She was left floating there, wondering just what to say. There had been some others at the convention hall who had asked how she did it, whether she could do the same for their relatives... she had said that she 'needed more time before she could do it again', a way to pacify the crowd but also apply more pressure on the PRT for this inevitable meeting.

"You want me to help her."

"Yes."

"... There are people who are more crystallised than her, and have been suffering a lot longer."

A convulsive twitch, one that looked as if he had wanted to snap at her and restrained it.

"I know."

"I cannot put your mother ahead of people who cannot walk, or who cannot move, Dean," she said, trying to lower her voice to be softer.

"... I know."

His hands clenched, it looked physically painful. Dean was a realist enough to know that there was no stopping it, short of the same amputation procedure that Emma had gone through.

"... What about prosthetics?"

"Already looked into it, there's already a wait list a mile long, even normal ones... We could have it done at Boston, of course but... I mean it's not like my family is struggling but with everything that has happened to the Bay--" the Stansfields may be relatively rich but that source of income had stopped now, unless it was all in stocks and shares? It was not like she knew the economic situation of Dean's family, but the way he was talking about things rather implied that he was having to play it carefully. "--We've had a quote of two-hundred and fifty-thousand... before the actual prosthetics themselves, which could by anywhere between ten and seventy thousand, depending on how advanced they are..."

Fucking hell.

Do you buy a house somewhere, or do you chop off your mother's legs and put crude pieces of metal on them?

Taylor rather doubted that even with a lifetime, Prosthetist would be able to make enough limbs for all the crystallisation victims, and especially not when the degree of crystallisation was growing more and more critical each day. Maybe Dragon could manufacture lower quality versions and mass distribute them, but even then, there was the amputation process, and unless it was offered for free there was no way that most folks would be able to afford it when they had lost their source of income, homes, and everything they owned to the crystal...

A silence had fallen between them, one that Gallant broke suddenly, as if unwilling to allow it to settle.

"But what if I use my power on you? My power in exchange for you doing the same for my mom... that way when the crystal reaches the lower spine she won't be paralysed," there was no question of 'if' there, he knew that it would happen. The grim certainty of the situation, the shock of what had happened solidifying into resolution.

Gallant's blaster power? She doubted that she would be able to observe his power enough for the empathy, but she could probably analyse his emotional blasts...

"You sure?"

"Yes."

Not even a moment's pause there, it was... admirable, the love and concern that Dean had for his mother.

If he was willing to make that offer, to willingly let her copy and make use of his power, then who was she to say no? He was doing it for his mother, and over the years Taylor had had more than enough time to imagine all the things she could and would have done to save her mother that fateful day... letting somebody copy a theoretical power of hers would be nothing to just have Annette Hebert back in her life.

She leaned back in mid-air and stared at the ceiling.

"... There's something I need to ask of you as well, it might not even be needed, but I might need to borrow your help in the near future, it's just something small... but yes, I can help your mom, Dean."

For a minute or so they discussed more of the specifics, and reached a resolution.

Dean, being raised properly and fitting for his Gallant persona, shook her hand upon their deal reaching its resolution.

There was little else to be said between the two of them at the moment, and with a goodbye she left him to his thoughts. On the way out and back into the central area of the Wards space, such as it now was, she removed her phone from her pocket, idly checking it. Various notifications and alerts were there, in just the short time since last she checked a few had come in and rapidly she scanned them.

Dad : They're offering me a short term job here, mostly just to keep my close I think but I'll be able to see you at work

Dad : Hope you kept safe on your patrol earlier

Dad : Okay well at least you kept safe, well done on what you did Taylor

Dad : even if that shotgun gave me a heart attack don't you do that again Taylor I don't care how tough you are

Dad : We are going to be having words young lady about not taking risks

Dad : *not

Dad : Love you, make sure to get some rest

She winced automatically in that very human way at the middle few messages, then paused.

Despite herself, she smiled and saved a screenshot of the message selection from her father, adding them to a steadily growing folder.

Moments that made her happy, that made her thankful and acted as a reminder of what she was fighting to keep hold of.

Still, next message...

Joe : [Sent a video]

Joe : Gonna be awhile before she gets used to walking again XD

The video was of some backstage room, presumably in the convention hall, and showed Aimee tottering about. A man, presumably her uncle, was guiding her, a big, muscular sort who looked like he could bench press a baby killer whale with ease. There was not much of a familial resemblance between them, but that may just be the somewhat weak light and the grainy nature of the footage messing with his face.

But the video was quite cute, watching the small baby steps and delight on Aimee's face. She looked happy, properly happy even when she tripped and would have fallen without the steadying hands gripping her elbows.

There was laughter and nervous giggles as she was coaxed back up and gave it another go.

But also...

The third series of messages, and the one that she had been dreading. If she still had a biological heart, it would have metaphorically jumped into her throat the moment she saw the name of the sender.

Alan Barnes : Hi Taylor, I am sorry for messaging you out of the blue but I got your letter. I've written this message out seven times now and I just am going to send this one because I can't write it again. Whilst it is not easy for me to write this, I am sure you will appreciate just what myself and Zoe are going through right now. Emma just disappeared during the evacuation from the shelters and I hoped against hope and now I know what happened to her and we're still trying to process it all but I know that she would have wanted you safe

Alan Barnes : Zoe wanted to send something but she cannot type long enough before she has to stop but she is thinking about you and loves you.

Alan Barnes : We want to see you soon if possible

Alan Barnes : And your dad

Alan Barnes : Im sorry my message are all over the place my head isn't in the right place right now.

Was this thankfulness she was feeling?

Was it the release of tension that had been simmering away, or was it a strange wave of mental exhaustion now that some small mental process had been validated?

Was it selfish that she was glad that he wasn't angry at her? Or was she guilty for the very same reason?

Her fingers hovered above the keyboard as she floated in the centre of the room for an age, staring unceasingly and reading and rereading the combination of letters that made up a man's thoughts, translated to the best of his ability.

A new message came in.

Command : @Ordinant [Priority] please report to meeting room number four

A direction, a directive.

Automatically, she began moving.

Her response to the Barnes' could wait, even if just a little while. She was a coward perhaps, for wanting just a little more time to think about what she wanted to say.

She had the power to destroy an entire city, she had said goodbye to dozens of people in the last two years and yet finding the right words was inconceivably difficult.

7.2

Meeting room four was one of the larger such spaces that Taylor had the displeasure to enjoy with the PRT.

It was about as bare and barren as all the others of course, the only real decoration was a solitary money tree that had been perched precariously on the windowsill, and a number of official PRT marked pieces of stationary on the desk. Bland, impersonal and functional... she would have attributed it to the fact that the place was temporary and thrown together in a hurry, but the old PRT Headquarters had been much the same.

With the capacity of humans to create beautiful pieces of art that could almost match the natural beauties of the cosmos… why did they so love their bland, utilitarian office spaces?

Behind the desk was Deputy Director Renick, a man she had only had limited interactions with in the past.

She was pretty sure he was a former PRT trooper, although it was a bit of a lateral move from trooper to pencil pusher, but she could respect somebody who had actually put themselves out at risk for the sake of the public then somebody who only knew how to sign paperwork.

Unless she had heard wrong? It did not really matter in the end, did it?

… Was he one of the ones who made the Endbringer sirens go off just at the moment of the Ward's victory against the Empire, when they worked together to bring down Rune and Purity?

It was only an idle thought; she had more than enough axes to grind but compared to the other things in her life that she was prioritising, it was a small one.

Armsmaster was also present, with arms crossed over his chest and radiating an aura she struggled to read… impatient?

Or perhaps he was 'already done' as it were with this conversation, here purely out of duty? From what she had heard the man had been running himself pretty hard in the last few days, even if it was a 'credit to his dedication and competency' and all those good sounding words.

But the truth was written in his posture, the man was tired.

As usual, she ignored the offered chair.

Honestly, she could only assume it was a power play at this point, the only option she could take was sitting cross-legged on such a thing, and even if she did not have muscles anymore, it would still be uncomfortable. So she levitated away the chair and moved it across the room without even looking at it, and instead sat in the air, feet hanging down. It raised her sitting position a little more than average, able to actually look the man in the eye.

"Ordinant, apologies for calling you so unexpectedly, but it seems that the PRT has something to discuss with you."

To his credit, Renick had a gentler way of putting it then Piggot.

"Me granting a friend the ability to walk."

She did not even phrase it as a question, just as a blunt statement of fact.

"... Yes." There was a resignation there, had Renick been hoping for a softer opening to the topic? "The Director and a lot of people higher up in the chain of command are wondering why you have not mentioned this ability before? We have a lot of people in the city suffering right now."

"I only learned about it recently, and I am afraid that it has a number of caveats, sir." she explained.

A pause.

"We'll come back to that in a minute, for now let's focus on the first part... okay, why did you not let the PRT know about this, Ordinant? If you had then we could have prioritised certain victims whose condition is more desperate than others, Ordinant."

Of course.

"The person I helped in an old friend of mine, she's had the crystallisation since the Oort-Spider landed, sir, her and the others from the summer camp deserve it the most."

Renick nodded, at least, he did for the beginning, and then he stopped himself, perhaps it was just part of that natural instinct to nod along to a statement. He heard her out, at least, and put his chin on his hands as he did so. His eyes were sharp enough, as if trying to take in every detail of her face. When she was done, he considered for a moment, before he replied.

"And when you returned, you did not make the PRT aware?"

"I returned to Ward quarters to change sir, with the intention of discussing it with you all, but got into conversation with Gallant, he has been concerned for me ever since I recovered," she said.

And it was not really a lie, was it?

A long stare, looking for hints of a lie in her face, and Renick momentarily glanced at Armsmaster for something. Before she had time to focus on the leader of the ENE Protectorate, whatever was being communicated was complete, and Renick focused back on her.

"Ordinant, there are some people who were fully crystallised, and a number of rather important people were infected and their condition is directly compromising their ability to help manage the city," he began. "Whilst I condone wanting to help a friend, I think in future it would be beneficial to prioritise others—"

She tried not to be cynical; she really did.

Instead, she took a moment to herself, forcing her thought patterns to slow. No need to shout, no need to rush into this. Her conversation with Gallant just previously had highlighted that she had less control over herself than she liked, still.

It was an unpleasant vindication of her previous thought processes, the same ones that led to her acting directly rather than approaching the PRT first.

Exactly a second of silence later, she responded.

"The person I helped is spearheading efforts to provide sufferers with greater understanding of the condition, sir, and with all due respect... she has been living with the condition far longer and worse. The people on the council will have their turn so long as the Spider is satisfied."

She left that statement there, like a hook with a worm on it, just waiting for the inevitable bite.

Through an earpiece, Renick was getting commands and instructions, in the silence that followed her statement it was almost a little awkward just how loud the words in his ear were.

She could catch snippets and fragments of it all.

How unpleasant, to be the middleman between a person and a half dozen others, trying to manage a situation, she almost felt a little bad for him. But now was no time for such feelings, not when there was a concrete objective, and one that stood above one man's comfort.

"... What do you mean, so long as the Spider is satisfied?"

"The Spider wants to observe powers, sir. It is why it is here. It is fascinated by them but the current rate is not enough. So it was decided to use an incentive program, I think it rather copied the human approach to things from my thoughts, I am sorry sir."

She was lying through her teeth, and locked down her face, her expressions, everything.

Calm.

A face like a statue.

Rather notably, Renick glanced at Armsmaster again. The man gave an odd tilt of the head. Some manner of previously agreed upon communication? Why was Armsmaster even here, there had to be some reason for it, right?

"And this incentive program that the Oort-Spider has decided upon?"

"One for one, sir. Each power I observe and learn to replicate, the Spider will grant full mobility to a person suffering from crystallisation."

No need for further description or clarification, allow that piece of information to sink in. She could wait, she could wait much longer than they could.

The voices in Renick's ear were going crazy, despite what was clearly some effort to appear unaffected and in control of himself, there was a faint wince.

"Excuse me, Ordinant, a call just came in."

"Of course, sir, take as long as you need."

The conversation was going quicker than she had imagined, she had expected a full interrogation but it was all being clearly managed behind the scenes...

As Renick listened in to what was being said, Taylor idly called down the marbles orbiting her head and had them spin above her hand, watching them. Watching the little glass globes orbit one another brought her a moment to think and calm herself further.

Her heart had flared just a little there, even if her face was nothing but impassive crystal, her heart could still lie, could give things away.

The voices settled on the next important question to ask her;

"... Ordinant, are you trying to say that the Spider is interested in bartering for more knowledge of powers?"

"In effect, yes. One power, one person able to move."

"Not healed, as in, not having the crystal removed?"

"Impossible sir, the crystal is a form of life that cannot coexist; it must either spread or be destroyed, there is no alternative... as we have seen, it was rather jealous when they tried to take my arm, after all."

Why did Armsmaster's lips press into a thin line as if restraining an unpleasant thought?

Oh, of course… he was there for the aftermath of that, he cut the surgeon's arm off, right?

"So, the best that can be achieved is mobility..." for the first time, Renick leaned back in his seat, there was the faint click of some joint or vertebrae as he did so, was he tense? Or perhaps he had just sat for too long today. "Well, that is certainly better than having to shatter and atomise people once they are fully infected."

Ah, the man had read up on how crystallisation worked and the protocols involved, then.

Well, it was probably a much more relevant piece of knowledge now, with the city how it was.

"Yes, sir. I've spent time with people approaching full crystallisation, it's utter hell..." she said. If Renick had read up on it, then he probably knew the stages in a more academic sense.

But not the grim reality.

… She had been very neutral and forthcoming so far. But she pivoted, it was a spur of the moment thing.

"I know those important people are suffering sir, and they might not be able to work as well, but you really cannot understand what it is like unless you've had it for a long time. Me and the others that were at the summer camp, we all tried to be there for one another, we used to try and make things better by comparing and discussing what it was like, to take the fear out of it all, but it did not really work... I think we just got very good at not thinking about it until the time came... you know?"

She let that question hang there for a moment. Renick made to speak—

"But you can never escape it, it aches and hurts and you always know that it is there, slowly creeping up, you know it is going up your body but you don't really notice how much, until one day you look down and realise it has moved up by an inch, or even more. And then you realise that there's no getting out of it and you have a mental breakdown--"

Oh god... how many had she had, before she became a Ward?

Hell, even during her time as a hero, how many sleepless nights in panic and despair, calling Emma to rant, rave and cry together, or even going to visit her to sit together in misery?

"--and you get better for a bit, you tell yourself it is what it is and forget for a little while... and it happens again, over and over and over until you don't feel a thing, you give up and just accept it, because it's hard to keep fighting..."

Her voice had fallen into a monotone, but she kept talking, she could not really help herself as she stared at Renick. She did not blink, she could, but she wanted him to know, wanted the weight of her words to sink in.

It was an emotional appeal, she knew, which meant little in the face of cold hard bureaucracy.

"... A few of us even committed suicide rather than get fully converted, I think one kid threw himself out a window... been awhile since I thought about him, they probably needed a dustpan and brush to clean him up," she said it utterly humourlessly, because it was not funny at all. "And if I can stop that, Deputy Director, then I damn well will, even if it means trading powers for people's freedom, and there's people who have been going through that for almost two years!" her heart flared. "These people have only had it for a week, but I'll damn well prioritise the people like me who have been through it as long as me!"

She hadn't wanted to get emotional.

She really hadn't.

But despite everything, she was still human... even if she should probably be crying right now. As it was, all she could do was stare into Renick's eyes, unblinkingly even as he winced away and shielded his vision from the illumination she created.

"Ordi--"

"Deputy Director."

It was Armsmaster speaking, for the first time in this conversation, and he cut Renick straight off.

"A moment."

She was thankful to Armsmaster, as the man leaned down to speak something into his ear; she could hear what it was. Armsmaster was bringing up a field report, something unrelated to the conversation right now but giving her a moment to compose herself again.

As it was, even if Renick was being distracted, the voices feeding through into his ear were not.

"Tell her that that it's inappropriate as a Ward for her to decide who is prioritised," A voice in Renick's ear, and after a moment he made to repeat the line--

"I don't care if it's inappropriate," she said, before he could do so.

A pause, confusion on their part.

"You are all getting louder and louder as you try to speak over one another," she added, as if to explain. "And I have exceptionally good hearing. I've been trying not to snoop, but all the raised voices make it difficult not to."

"But if the Spider would be willing to help certain people first--"

"It does not care."

She said it as bluntly as possible, interrupting him.

"The Oort-Spider does not care who gets mobility first, it sees humans little better than we would see a solitary cell inside of a slime mold. It just gave me the capacity to help another, to demonstrate that it could do this... and so that I could put this offer on the table today. I chose who it was that got helped, and even then, it could just free those people from my subconscious biases instead of my choice, if it desired."

She deliberately made the sound of a sigh, pushing air out of her lungs to make it seem as if she was conceding something.

"Listen, those people are far less crystallised than others, just because they are superficially more important is insignificant compared to the degree and length of suffering of others. They can wait, others cannot. If you want to get those priority people healed sooner rather than later, then you shall have to increase the rate that I can observe powers. Let me begin breaking Gray Boy loops again, or deploy me against whatever gangs are left in the city. The loops were reliable, and they freed people from hell. Free one person from a loop and they trigger, free a person from Crystallisation--"

At this point she felt like she was hammering on the point, but she wasn't going to compromise.

She was probably being overly set on a course of action, but she did not care.

"--If you are worried about Youth Guard, then I can break the loops as charity work or something, there has to be some way to bend those rules, I don't even sleep, I would rather put that time to use doing something to help than just floating about on PHO."

There, she said it.

Utilise her better.

Improve the state of the world!

She rather felt as if she was browbeating Renick and those listening in.

"... Ordinant's previous strong will towards helping people has been an issue in the past, she can be incredibly stubborn when it comes to breaking loops."

It sounded like Piggot's voice, through the headphone, although she sounded. Well, not bemused, perhaps she was enjoying inflicting Taylor's stubbornness on others?

Ah, recalling her 'unreasonable' demands of before, how amusing. It almost made her want to smile, but she didn't.

"How do we know that this is not just a ploy on the Spider's part, a trick?" a new voice spoke into the Deputy Director's ear.

"The Spider can break out of the Quarantine Site whenever it wants."

Again, blunt delivery to hammer home a fact.

"It just prefers for me to feed it that information instead, and if I fail to do so, I lose my free will and it remotely pilots me to do so, and then you lose any ability to enter a dialogue with it, because it does not care enough to talk beyond this attempt now."

Well, enter a dialogue with her, she was not even sure if the Spider was listening--

N͕ͩ̉̚e̙̬ͩa̬̟͕͛ͭr̮̙͗ͦ̆ ̜̮̖ͨ̂ḭ̖̐n͉͔̫͂ṡ͎̾i͈ͬͣg̯͎ͪn̝̜̽̐ͯf̝͍͕̈ͩ̚í̭͚̜̉cͩ̽ͅa̱̦ͯ͂n̤ͤ̌̆t̩͇͌̆

Huh, that was an improvement on the usual.

Evidently the topic of new powers and being granted more deserved an iota of attention.

"Armsmaster, please confirm."

A request from the earpiece, and the nebulous number of directors behind it... they were trying to keep their voices quieter and more controlled to stop her hearing, but... well, she did not have to make it obvious when she used that enhanced hearing from that one bat-changer Cape.

Renick glanced to Armsmaster again.

"The lie detector barely works on her, too few micro-expressions to have reliable results," Armsmaster said aloud, not quite sounding as if it was a final nail in the coffin of a matter but not far off.

"What about analysing the way her chest lights up? It follows her emotions, right?"

"... Director, my detector is designed to work with human faces, not miniature stars," Armsmaster really was running on fumes, the tone was skirting the borderline of appropriateness.

As it was, that statement rather put a damper on that line of conversation... although it was an interesting revelation, to know that Armsmaster had such a device. It would certainly explain quite a few things she had seen over the years in videos, the Parahuman often sounded very sure of his assessments of people in videos of arrests.

Still.

For a minute there was something of a lull in the conversation, behind the scenes they were still yammering away.

How was the conversation going? She could not quite be sure, there was only one logical course of action presented, right? Give her more powers to analyse, let her break loops, let her put her time to use. She did not need to sleep, she could break loops when she was not patrolling or escorting convoys, count it as some form of charity work, make the PRT look better!

"--The only person who can get a solid read on her emotions is Gallant."

"Have him called up, we might as well try and get some sort of confirmation on what she is saying."

They were still hung up on her telling the truth about the Spider, rather than focusing on the objective good that she could do! When would they accept that there was nothing they could do about the Spider, that it was meaningless to try!

The Oort-Spider was part of this world they called Bet, attempts to stop such a state of beings was meaningless, this issue that had been just a small part of the conversation, this insignificant tangent!

Through sheer force of will she stopped her heart from blinding Renick and Armsmaster again.

They did not have to wait overly long for Gallant, but in that sort time Renick gave up on acting as an intermediary, and with some careful finagling had gotten the earpiece to act as something of a speaker... the voices were a bit tinny and kept peaking, but stop gap measures were just that.

Gallant stepped in, Taylor glanced over her shoulder back at him.

He was in his full outfit now, she had not had the opportunity to ask earlier why he was in... presumably for a patrol, like normal, but Dean had been so quick to drag her into his room (and didn't that statement sound wrong?) that she had not been able to ask. Of course, she didn't bother with her own mask, everyone here knew who she was, and she looked to where she knew where his eyes were.

Dean gave no indication that he met her eyes, instead he stepped in.

"Sir?"

He posed it as a question.

"Sorry to call you up so suddenly, Gallant, but myself and the other directors on call were hoping that you would be able to assist in making sure that Ordinant here is telling the truth on a number of... rather delicate topics."

"I see."

Damn, just two words and somehow coming from Dean they packed a punch.

"Well, I would be glad to help, sir."

"Thank you... now, Ordinant, would you please reconfirm what you told us before?"

"You will need to be more specific, sir." She really tried not to sound petulant.

"On the topic of containing the Spider."

Okay then.

"The Spider can break out of the Quarantine Site whenever it wants, as it has shown. It is simply lazy and prefers for me to feed it that information instead, and if I fail to do so, I lose my free will and it remote pilots me to do so, and then you lose any ability to enter a dialogue with it, like you are now." She repeated it back word for word, in the exact same tone of voice as before.

A momentary pause.

"Gallant, would you please confirm that Ordinant is telling the truth?"

She could feel his gaze upon her back for a moment.

"Her emotions indicate that she fully believes what she is saying, yes."

"And the greater aura?" a voice through the earpiece, one that Taylor did not recognise. A faceless individual in a group call.

Greater aura? Taylor frowned. Oh, was there another aspect to Gallant's power that she had failed to appreciate? Well, she was working off incomplete information, then. But she had never presumed to interrogate her fellow Ward's about the exact nature of their powers, that would be a step too far, right?

"Unreadable."

Gallant's response was as blunt as anything Taylor had delivered.

"What do you mean?"

"... Sir, that thing is too far from humanity for me to understand it, whatever it is feeling is coming through Ordinant's own understanding, and beyond my ability to understand. Just looking at it now is giving me a headache."

"Then try harder!" a voice from the speaker, the same masculine voice from before.

She could feel Gallant's eyebrow raising at this, even with the barrier of his mask.

Armsmaster spoke up, not even bothering to turn his head towards Renick or the earpiece on the table.

"Director Heathrow would do well to remember that he is speaking to a Ward right now, and should reconsider endangering Gallants health, especially to confirm things we already know. I have to ask, as Ordinant's superior exactly what use this line of inquiry serves," Armsmaster said, interrupting. "We already know that the Spider cannot be contained currently, extensive conversation with Ordinant has indicated that it could assume direct control at any moment. You already have access to the records, Director."

Taylor really had to wonder whether Armsmaster would be getting in trouble with that one, but then again, it was his job to look out for the health of Wards, right?

Then again... if Brockton Bay may be abandoned in the near future... where would he be reassigned if that happened?

No, focus on the matter at hand.

"Ordinant, please would you describe the Spider's intentions with this exchange you are proposing?"

"A one for one exchange of information and exposure to powers on my part in return for full mobility being granted to crystallisation sufferers, at my discretion. It wants to observe powers, it uses me to do it."

Again, Gallant confirmed the truth.

"And if its demands are not met?"

A simple question, not one covering a topic already discussed.

She paused a moment.

"... Then it shall get that information on its own, either by breaking containment or assuming direct control," she lied. She had no confirmation that the Spider would immediately take action, she put this course of action before it. It might just as happily wait or be fine with her slower, more passive observation after all, but threatening the people before her with what might happen, forcing their hand with the possibility would get the results she needed, right?

She was in too deep now to back off.

She kept her posture the same, her face rigid, she locked down her entire existence as she lied and counted upon the one person who could help her in this moment--

"She's telling the truth, sir."

Gallant delivered the statement with an utter certainty, barely giving a moment's pause.

The silence that followed was so total that Taylor swore that she could hear the heartbeats of the trio of men in the room, the sound of the air passing through their noses as they breathed, the distant hum of electronics in the walls.

The questions that came after that were stilted, she felt that the most important moment of the conversation had just happened, the iron gauntlet that had been slammed down on the table among the velvet gloves with enough force to send them flying and clear the metaphorical board. She waited, patiently, as less important, pithier questions were asked and she answered to the best of her ability. Each time, Gallant said she was telling the truth, even when she was not.

All in all, the conversation lasted an hour and a half, and when there were no more (immediate) questions to answer were the two Wards freed from the confines of meeting room four.

In silence she and Gallant moved through the corridors, back to the Wards quarters, and it was not until they were inside that there was any sort of real interaction.

"... Might need you to do that again for me," she said, shamelessly.

Gallant took off his helmet and stared at it for a moment, something clearly on his mind. It was not a happy thought, whatever it was, but he exhaled deeply and then, carelessly, tossed the piece of headgear onto the sofa.

"Fine..." it was gruff, and then he turned to focus on her. "Shall I?"

"Hit me."

He pointed a finger at her, paused for a moment, and then fired a beam at her.

It barely packed any punch at all, but then again, he was not really trying to hurt her.

Huh, she felt... happy.

Oh right, it was just a consequence of his power. But still, the sensations, so it altered electrical signals? She wondered if it also came along with a hormone and endorphin release as well, or was it purely altering brain impulses? Well either way, this information was fed back near instantly and the Spider was already parsing through it, extrapolating, comparing it to the knowledge it already possessed on host species physiology and biology, neurochemistry--

It reviewed the entire those topics in a moment.

Extrapolations, Gallant made her feel happy but there were other emotions of course, all of which could be replicated. Gallant's power was... weak. Multiple applications would enhance it, pack more of a punch, she had seen him create cannonball like blasts of it, were those more effective than beams? Something to experiment with.

"Done."

"... You'll need to meet my mum, right?" he pressed.

"Yeah, I'd hate to be given a name then get the wrong person," she said, and smiled at him, a genuine one. How she wished that she could have been in his position before... well, not the crystallised relative part, but knowing that he had guaranteed freedom for a loved one.

There was a change that came over Dean, those broad shoulders slumped an inch and that same tension that held his face released as well. All at once he looked older, not by much, but enough.

"... You want a hug?" she offered. "I know you have a girlfriend, but as a friend?"

"... I think I'm gonna sleep, to be honest with you, I suddenly feel... yeah."

Armsmaster wasn't the only one running on fumes, eh?

"Don't you have a patrol?"

"Nah... I just came in on call in case of shit going down, but I can sleep in my outfit... plus they've got you."

"I suppose... sleep well Gallant."

"Thanks, Taylor... don't push yourself too much, right?" With that Gallant moved for his room, walking more slowly than before and fumbling with the door handle a bit before he got in and closed it behind him.

7.3

It had been another night of convoy escort and Taylor was... not exactly tired, but she would rather appreciate some time to think and consider everything going on or just... decompress. There had not been any problems tonight at least, no gigantic heavily armoured super trucks bursting onto the highway, no mad bastards trying to impede the supply of essentials to the people of the city.

Just a night flying up and down the highway, occasionally enjoying the sights and aurora of the Crystal Valley and deep in her thoughts.

Alas, opportunities to relax a little were not in the books for the moment.

Command : Can all Protectorate members and Wards present on site please come for a mandatory meeting in Conference Room 4.

She had wondered why they were all in today, it was the first time they had all been together since the prelude of the Leviathan fight.

"What is it this time..."

Vista was evidently still waking up, judging by the drowsiness in her voice and slump to her posture.

Taylor supposed that she could understand that on some level. Not like she slept, but she had been rather enjoying watching a video when the call came through summoning them all. Carlos and Chris, who had been half asleep when the summons came, had quickly snapped into full wakefulness as if a near lethal amount of caffeine had been pumped into their veins, whilst Dean was clearly a morning person and had already been good to go.

Most of the full-time heroes were already present, bar Triumph, who arrived not long after they did.

The PRT Agent supervising the meeting evidently was keen to get things going, as not long after and once everyone had found a seat or elected to remain standing, she began proceedings.

"Sorry to call everyone in so early, but we have a situation within the city that everyone should be aware of, and now have some footage to back it up and lead the conversation. Seeing how chaotic things have been recently, you all need to be aware of what is going on before you go out in the field again. The footage may not be exceptional but it shall serve to illustrate."

A click of a button.

A still image appeared on the projection screen of a Parahuman, body entirely composed of some manner of glossy, porcelain like material. The face lacked any semblance of humanity, six eyes were set in it in a trio of uneven rows without any indication of a mouth or nose. Wings composed of sharp-looking shards of the same material extended from a point in the figure's back, clawed hands held the broken, crystalline head of some manner of horror.

Taylor's eyes snapped to that aspect, rather than focusing on the figure themselves.

Wait a minute--

"This is Allocer. Relative unknown until a few months ago when they and a number of members of the Fallen cult surrounding the Oort-Spider attacked Quarantine Site-9 and successfully penetrated the exterior defences. For anybody unfamiliar, Quarantine Site-9 surrounds the former Mt. Jacobs National Park that is currently the Crystal Valley, and where the Oort-Spider rests."

Taylor could feel the eyes suddenly moving to her, as if the mere mention of that thing was enough to make people automatically think of her.

What kind of mad bastard tried to break into a Quarantine Site!

Especially one containing the Oort-Spider!

She supposed that some people just had a death wish... errr, fate worse than death wish.

"Whilst PRT efforts ensured that the other Fallen were pushed back, Allocer is now operating within Brockton Bay, and is accompanied by others, the Fallen tend to operate in distinct groups focused on particular Endbringers--" ' it isn't an Endbringer' "--so as a result of the crystallisation, the Bay has likely attracted them."

There was an emphasis on the last part, as if the woman was trying not to sound disgusted but didn't manage to fully curtail it, as if describing flies attracted to a corpse.

As it was, and possibly as a result of this slip, she glanced down at her notes for a moment.

"So… what now?" it was Miss Militia who asked.

"Well firstly, all Wards are advised to avoid Allocer or fights involving them unless absolutely necessary. Their official ratings are Breaker 4, Mover 10 and Brute 3-8, during the break in of Quarantine Site-9 they fought Alexandria to buy time for the other Fallen... as it stands, there are almost certainly others in the Bay but so far only Allocer has been engaging."

A pause.

"How'd they take on Alexandria?"

"Ah, thank you for asking, Assault. Whilst the exact nature of their power is not understood, Allocer can achieve supersonic speeds, and is suspected to becoming more durable the faster they fly, so over the course of their brief exchange they were able to outpace Alexandria or hit her with enough force and fast enough that she was unable to grip them," the Agent clicked a button on the small remote control, and the image on the projector changed to a video.

The footage was a little shaky, and within a moment Taylor recognised somewhere on the edge of the city... her parents used to take her to a part on that street to play, they had a nice swing set.

In the footage however, things were a bit more drastic.

"As it is, other Parahumans have been appearing recently, specifically Empusa of the Fallen, who is on record as being from the 'Leviathan' faction as it were, long criminal history," on the screen, a woman was stood surrounded by what looked like a rippling bubble of water... and within that bubble were others, floating around within it as if the rules of gravity did not apply.

"Just to clarify folks, this is the group that Assault and myself ran into the other day, causing trouble not far from the ferry station," Dauntless explained, and there was a few sounds of comprehension.

Ah, the one that Sophia had mentioned as well during that pizza eating session?

"We do not have a huge amount of information to go on at this stage about other groups, but likely there are more."

The video resumed for only a second or two, then paused, a dot in the air was circled in red to draw their attention to it before continuing.

The dot shot like a falling star to earth, smashing into one of the airborne figures surrounding the woman surrounded by the bubble in a flying tackle that drove both to the ground. There was camera shaking, reorienting to focus on what had happened on the part of its holder, and next moment they were looking at a long trench formed in the road even as pieces of tarmac were still landing around it.

The same pale figure before, Allocer was standing at the end of this trench, and within a moment had shot into the air again.

It did not take a genius, or even somebody with her capacity for analysis, to understand what had happened. If being hit by a car at a certain speed could implode chest cavities and rupture organs, what would the impact of somebody flying supersonic speeds and ploughed into the ground do?

The results were smeared against the edges of the trench left behind.

"Fucking hell."

Nobody called Sophia up on her language.

"So... what's the plan for dealing with them?" Triumph asked after a moment pause, putting forward the question on everybody's minds at that moment.

"The PRT is keeping Legend on notice until Allocer next appears… he's fast enough to keep up with them, unfortunately the options are relatively low, Allocer's speed makes them a real problem to deal with, just like Purity."

"We brought in Purity, though…" Chris muttered.

"Through a combination of incredible luck and incredible personal risk, you are correct, a level of risk the PRT is not keen to put you all into again."

It was not luck! Oh how she hated when things were so easily attributed to something so meaningless as the notion of luck!

"We helped fight Leviathan right after, so the not putting us at risk part rather falls apart," Vista said, in a manner that was almost catty. Ah, she was fully awake now.

Those were extreme cases, we don't like putting you guys at risk, at all," Assault, to the rescue… or at least to try and diffuse the situation.

As the others rambled and discussed the matter, Taylor's mind was already turning over ideas and strategies.

A combination of Vista and Clockblocker's power, just because this Parahuman was tough and fast did not mean much if they could set it up right… the right use of powers always had a way around them, right? Unless you were like, the Siberian... or that one Russian Shaker everyone was scared of. It said a lot about her mental state that she was already thinking of ways to counteract it, already feeding that information back.

The Spider would make a better job of it, of course, but her own initial analysis and ideas all factored into it.

"--Suffice it to say, nobody should be taking the risk of engaging Allocer unless it is absolutely necessary," the Agent declared with just a little steel to her voice, evidently done with the current conversation. "Wards should not leave Headquarters in groups of anything less than three or with a Protectorate member. Historically the Fallen tried to abduct Wards for the purpose of marriage."

What a grim way to put it.

Taylor was not quite sure how the PRT Agent managed to say it without pausing and with such a clinical tone of voice… the idea was inherently abhorrent in so many ways.

Her eyes glanced to the back of Vista's head automatically, and she was not the only one to do so either.

Well... she had read before about the Fallen doing that, and its not as if they tended to be picky with genders either... but the immediate response in her mind if somebody tried to abduct Vista involved... a lot of very brutal imagery that did not quite seem right for how a well-adjusted person should react.

Imagery in which her hands looked a lot more like claws or scythes ripping people apart or putting her hands through their heads. Flashes of Bakuda's bloodied, brutalised face came to mind, unbidden.

She was lighting up; she could feel the increased energy release within her chest.

Taylor reached up and rubbed at the corners of her eyes.

It did little to alleviate the thoughts, but it disguised her face for a moment and allowed her to think.

There was further discussion on the matter, the meeting was devolving into speculation rather than cold hard facts.

"We shall also speak with Ordinant after the meeting, please."

Easy enough, and with something akin to a sinking feeling in her stomach Taylor waited patiently as the others filed out, a few glances were sent her way, Dennis even put a hand on her shoulder for a moment as he stepped past.

The woman wasted no time.

"We did not want to cause you undue concern, Ordinant, but there is every chance that the Fallen might attempt to target you. Naturally the PRT will be doing everything it can to guarantee your safety."

"... I suppose it makes sense. I killed Leviathan, it must be rough to lose your god," she said, trying to put just a little humour into it. More for her own sake than the Agent's.

"Quite, but Allocer and their faction is what concerns us more, in case they make an attempt to abduct you."

Would they even be able to contain her if they tried? It led to a few seconds of idle speculation... if things really came to it, she supposed that she could just release the full energy of her heart to vaporise anything around her, or put her feet on the ground to crystallise any prison somebody could throw her in. Or turn into metallic goo, or... one of any manner of problems. The speculation made her rather wonder on how the PRT had ever planned to contain her, had the President not passed his own decision.

"So long as my dad is safe, I will be fine," she said, the Agent did not look convinced.

"Even so, from now on you will be on convoy duty with somebody else there, likely one of the Movers like Assault or Velocity, just to keep an eye on things."

"Okay."

It made sense at least... even if she was far more concerned for them then for herself.

~~~~~

Taylor : How are things going Aimee?

Aimee : Good! We had plenty of people come today and a lot of people are getting more hopeful

Aimee : Lots of people have been asking about you

Aimee : I wasn't sure what to tell them

Taylor : It's a hard one, sorry to put you in an awkward place

Aimee : It's okay I'm getting used to it.

Aimee : Do you think you'll be able to help anybody else soon?

Taylor : I can help one person but I promised to help somebody, he made sure that I could do so... if that makes sense?

Aimee : Not really, but that's fine

Aimee : I don't need to understand how things work, I just have faith that you'll be able to help others

~~~~~

The more life changes, the more it remains the same.

She was glad for that, that among the madness, some things seemed immutable.

Her dad's new job within the PRT was helping to organise people and get paperwork filled, and despite the somewhat radical jump from Dockworkers Union hiring director to PRT bureaucrat, he seemed to be doing pretty damn well with it. At least, every time she passed by his office he was up to his eyebrows in paperwork, and often taking delivery of a new stack.

She would expect nothing less, for years he had been fighting so very hard to help the boys in the Dockworkers and now that same passion and energy was being directed into his new workplace. Oh, she had no doubt that there might be a few nepotism hires in the future, a few 'I know somebody perfectly suited for this' but to be honest, the PRT could do a lot worse then some of the Union members.

It was only natural for human beings to look out for the ones they loved, she had done the same in pushing forward her dad for a position, to guarantee his safety.

With a step taken back from mankind, one began to see all the links that held society together, the little social contracts and things that one took for granted as 'just something people did' rather than as implicit means of trust and reliance. If just one of those things fell apart, how many other dominoes would fall?

How long did the world have? With so many problems within it, it was amazing that things were not so much worse than they were.

Every year, several large population centres were attacked by (previously) unstoppable beasts, ruining them and setting the countries of origin back by billions of dollars and causing mass migrations in truly bad cases. Entire land masses had been sunk into the ocean causing widespread devastation and changes to sea level. Yet somehow the world continued, not quite the same as before but still chugging inevitably along. Was it a testament to the human spirit, or was it simple pig-headedness, that eternal urge to strive onwards?

The more she dwelled upon it, the more data she took in… the less things made sense.

She had been born into a world that was slowly decaying, but according to the history books, once things had been so much more peaceful. What would that world have been like to live and grow up in? A world where there were no powers, no Endbringers, and only the occasional war to be concerned about?

All insignificant.

This was the world in which she lived.

To distract herself from the navel gazing, Taylor floated up to her father's cramped new office and found him sitting at his desk, the top half of his face poking over the top of a wall of paperwork thick enough to stop bullets.

"... They're not working you too hard are they, dad?" she asked as she floated in, not bothering to knock.

He looked up, and despite the signs of tiredness he was smiling at her.

"Not with you here to light up my day," he replied as he put aside his pen and deployed that most fearsome of weapons, dad humour, using her nuclear heart as the topic of a bad joke.

She found herself cringing, which was not really such an unpleasant thing. It showed that she still had the same visceral reaction as any anyone else.

"Har har har," just for that she deliberately dimmed the star in her chest, as if in spite even as she floated around the side of the desk to give him a hug.

She got one in return and her dad drew up a spare chair for her to sit on. Unlike with her meeting the other day, she carefully placed herself on it, legs crossed.

Small, idle chatter passed between them, discussions on how their respective days were going, what was going on and the like. All very mundane, all very normal.

She reached out to grab a form, curious about what he was working on. When he used to bring paperwork home she used to look over the forms from time to time, curious to see what was going on and he would indulge her, after all, it was not like she would ever meet most of the people involved right--

And yet, he stopped her.

"Ah, you're not allowed to read those ones, Taylor."

"... Why?"

"Confidentiality reasons, you know some of these people."

She stared at him blankly.

She had fought an Endbringer to a standstill. She had freed people from infinite, looping torture and captured Capes trying to only make the situation in the city worse and worse and her father still was a stickler for such petty, insignificant things. Quite honestly, and utterly out of nowhere, it made her chuckle and giggle uncontrollably despite herself.

She was not sure if he quite understood what was going through her head, he could never truly understand. Nobody could.

But he joined in and it felt for a moment she felt so perfectly normal. It was the little things that made her human. She took a picture of them together behind his desk, her father pulling that slightly awkward dad grin, and it went into the folder of special moments.

She ended up spending the rest of the lunch break with him.

7.4

It had been a long time.

"Hello, Taylor."

Zoe and Alan Barnes looked as if they had aged several years in the space of a week or three.

That was the first thought that crossed Taylor's mind as she met with the Barneses. Amazing what grief can do to a person, the small, subtle changes, and the larger scale ones, both in terms of appearance and personality. Anne as well, although perhaps because she was younger, the effects were less pronounced, but she looked paler, and thinner as well... the last time she had seen her had been just after Emma's operation. Back when everything seemed so hopeful.

"Hey guys," she said, automatically.

She had been waiting for this day, ever since she sent that letter and faced up to the fact that she would have to do this. The thoughts and questions had always come to her whenever she was not keeping herself occupied with work or distracted with videos... especially the question of what she would actually say to the Barnes when the time came.

And now she was here, all those planned out responses were coming back to her but none of them were satisfactory.

The meeting was taking place in part of the Headquarters, like almost everything in Taylor's life at the moment.

"... You look well," Alan said back.

She managed to force out a sort of chuckle in response to that.

It felt a little forced.

"I look like shit, or some sort of jeweller's dream," she said back, although the humour did not land very well, she could tell by the moment's pause that followed. What was it like for them to see her now, when the last time they did she was still a good portion flesh and bone? Suddenly they were staring at a mass of crystal without pupils, without skin only the benefit of human clothing to give the impression of normality--

"... I'm sorry about Emma…"

"Ah, it's okay Taylor."

It was one of those things you said automatically, that things were okay. You lied for the benefit of others, or because the shock made you act weirdly. Even with the time that had passed, she had no doubt that the three of them would still be in such a state. It took her weeks to snap out of that horrible fugue after her mother died. She had seen so much death, been to so many funerals now for the other sufferers that she recognised that strange, discordant serenity that came over people in that horrible, horrible headspace.

"We are just glad to know what happened and that she isn't..." Alan added, only to stop himself, unable to say it.

'Isn't stuck as a statue forever'

"She didn't suffer," Taylor said, suddenly.

'She did, until that moment.'

"I mean... when it happened," she went on, in short, jolting sentences that were rapidly devolving. "I... I made sure of it. It was instant, she didn't want to crystallise." She couldn't meet their eyes, she lowered them to focus on the table, taking comfort in its blank uniformity even as she stared for some point far beyond it. "There's nothing else, nothing left. I'm sorry. She would have been stuck forever like that, and she didn't want that. I'm sorry."

'I killed your daughter'

The long silence was horrible.

"... It's alright, Taylor."

"It's not alright!"

They did not deserve for her to snap at them like that, it was entirely on her.

She was responsible for this, if she had just not fallen unconscious, or not taken the risk by saving Aegis, or just dodged Leviathan better than she would not have been knocked off the roof. The Oort-Spider would not have needed to interfere, Emma would still be alive and they might even now be sitting side by side, commiserating the continued crystallisation of her shoulder even as they continued to make memories together.

She had no idea what to say.

All of the times she had tried to think it through, simulate likely scenarios, none of them fell into place as this conversation had. She had imagined them being angry with her or bawling their eyes out… but for them to just be looking at her like this in silence was somehow worse. It was the lack of knowing, they were all thinking but she could not know what, could not read their expressions well enough to know for sure.

It was Alan who spoke up, voice low and controlled.

"You said in your letter something about what happened... can you tell us everything, Taylor?"

How many times had Taylor told the story now, and to how many people? It felt like dozens of times, she could recite it automatically, see the vivid scenes flashing through her memory and recall so many sensations and thoughts from that time... but despite how often she had told it, she did so again without a moment's hesitation. There was only so much you could put in writing, compared to in person, a letter could not give the proper depths of emotion, even though it was difficult to do so.

She refused to just tell it like normal, Emma and her family deserved better.

Even if there were so many gaps in her own knowledge. She still had no idea how Emma even knew that she was in trouble, or how she found Taylor.

Always more questions, questions she was not sure she wanted to know the answers to...

The story was both mercifully short and tortuously long, just telling it brought back images and memories, unbidden, that had her pausing at times, only to force herself to continue.

"... And then she was gone, I made sure there was nothing left, to make absolutely sure... and then I kind of lost it and fought Leviathan."

It was such an anticlimactic way to put it, but... the fight with the Endbringer was the insignificant part of this story.

Leviathan was just the inciting incident behind all this.

Alan had an arm around the two Barnes women, Taylor stared at the table, listening to the sobbing and the sounds that they made, unable to lift her head to look them in the eyes. She could imagine all the questions they had had about everything that had happened, and now to hear it all from Taylor's perspective...

She found herself being drawn into thought, into the safe, comfortable distraction of speculation and analysis, even though she could hear them, could hear their sorrow and was as much a part of it as they were.

It was only when one of them addressed her that she realised how much time had passed, that they had been quietly consoling one another for a good ten minutes. Enough time to accept things and compose themselves.

"We want you to have this," Anne said, suddenly, and put a small box on the table between them.

Reaching into it, Taylor opened it and looked at what was inside, at the light gleaming off its silver surface. "She had it in the shelter, I think she wanted to get some practice done but she was too nervous..."

Emma's flute, the fancy, high end one that she had started learning on, the one that she had insisted Taylor teach her how to use.

"... You guys should keep it, I mean, it was hers and I don't imagine that there is much left, you know, what with the Crystal Valley," she offered them the out, the option to retract the offer even as her eyes moved between them. They were offering the flute to the person responsible for their daughter's death. Did that mean that they forgave her, or had they not realised?

Would the hatred come later?

"Well, she started learning so that she could play with you, and yours is probably back in the house..." Zoe said, trailing off.

"... Only if you guys are really sure, I mean, I don't want to deprive you..."

The box was pushed a few inches closer, a prompt for her to take it, there were no complaints or suggestions otherwise. Wordlessly, she extended her hand and did so, lifting the case. It looked so glossy and new... it was strange to think that this was one of the last things that Emma had held.

"Thanks, guys, I'll treasure it forever.

Anne and Zoe's eyes were glistening a little, Alan gave them both a squeeze around the shoulders. They were both trying to be strong, Taylor wondered whether she should leave the room, and felt herself rise an inch or two in the air before she stopped herself.

"I'll be there, for the... ceremony, I mean, if you plan to have one."

"Of course Taylor, we wouldn't dream of having it any other way."

In some ways, she still wished that at least one of them had gotten angry with her, but there was also a certain joyous relief to know that they did not hate her.

~~~~~

That night, Taylor floated her way up to the roof of the PRT's temporary building.

She had asked not to be on convoy duty tonight... and whilst it had caused a little bit of shuffling around, it felt right to do so. She had been putting in a huge amount of time recently, definitely stretching the legal limit (and almost certainly exceeding it when you included other duties and activities), nobody could begrudge her a single night after such an emotionally fraught meeting.

The Barnes family had left hours ago, and in the time since she had barely spoken to anybody, even her father.

In the distance the Valley's aurora shone brightly, rippling curtains of light that made her imagine a gigantic serpent undulating, and beyond it, a myriad selection of stars whose brilliant glittering was unobstructed by the clouds that hung over the rest of Brockton Bay. The distant forest, the vast, towering trees with their strange canopies, the small luminescent forms that flitted about within like fireflies when they were in fact several metre long creatures with internal power cores... it was still beautiful in a horrific way.

Carefully she levitated up the box containing the Barnes' gift and opened it. With her crystal hands carefully placed into a pair of gloves to avoid scratching the silver, she dutifully assembled the flute with all the care it deserved.

Bringing it to her lips, it took a moment to adjust to it, her crystal lips were not as able to form a seal as flesh, at least not at first, but after a few moments she worked it out. The first proper note filled the air and then, she began to play.

It was an easy tune, not far off beginner, actually. It was far below her own level and the sort of thing that a person learned when they first started learning to play... it had been what she once taught her best friend.

Dimly, she was aware of something in her eyes.

... What a stupid, inefficient use of Leviathan's water echo...

She did not stop it; she did not want to. Even if it was just a cheap simulation of crying, it felt... good... to finally manage it.

Taylor played on into the night, even as her notes wavered and her heart flared erratically, until the sun rose.

7.5

A day or two after her meeting with the Barneses, and once she had settled herself somewhat through a combination of music and distracting herself with work, Taylor flew over to the convention hall that Aimee and Joe were holding meetings at.

Joe had invited her, well, she had a standing invite but he had reiterated it, and whilst she did not want to be too early she also wanted some time just to spend with them both.

As it turned out, she arrived just a little after both her friends, the door was open and the two other crystallisation sufferers and Aimee's uncle were still busy getting things into gear. Oh wait, they had more people helping this time? Taylor didn't recognise any of them, but that did not really say much in a city of hundreds of thousands.

She floated in curiously, glancing around as they continued setting up tables and chairs around her.

The first to notice her entrance was Aimee's uncle, who stepped over with a plastic cup filled with orange liquid.

"Hi Ordinant, want some juice?" he offered with a smile.

He looked just a little comical, this incredibly muscular man with a comparatively tiny cup of juice in hand that he was offering her. To Taylor, he always looked somewhat like a Doberman interacting with a tiny kitten whenever he was near Aimee.

"I'm good, I cannot drink properly I am afraid," she excused. "Good to see that you guys managed to get some help with setting things up."

"Yeah, family from out of state were a bit slow in arriving," he said, glancing over at a few of them. "Plus it's surprisingly hard to get into the Bay at the moment what with how many roads are closed up, so those slowpokes really took their time getting in."

"Really? Big family..."

It was hard for her to imagine. The Heberts had always been a very nuclear family... there was her mother's side of course, but things had always been a bit tense there.

"Yeah, close-knit lot, we're country folk for the most part, Aimee's side moved to the big city but we always stayed close, never know when you need help on the farm," he said with a chuckle. She could just imagine a young Aimee being roped into picking apples or something like that, scowling at her free time being taken up when she could have been playing on that Gameboy she used to love. "Anyway, Aimee and Joe are in the back, thanks for blessing us with your presence."

What an odd way to phrase that.

It gave her a moment's pause, and in that time the man had moved on to his next task.

Well, he did just ask somebody made of solid gemstone with no life functions if they wanted a drink, so perhaps he was just not very clued in socially or spoke before he thought?

She put it aside for the moment, and instead moved through the convention hall. Plenty of folk were still gathering, the various tables with leaflets and information pamphlets about crystallisation were present, that printer must have been running for a while. Last time after introductions, Joe and Taylor had spoken about their own experiences with the crystal, but afterwards they had moved among the crowd to the best of their ability taking questions, consoling as needed.

It was like the group chat, but drastically expanded, with Aimee, Joe, and Taylor able to guide and provide advice rather than stumbling blindly through it, learning through pain and experience.

She wished there had been somebody back then who could have guided them.

Somebody who would have listened and explained that the pain was normal, that the nightmares that the others had were not just them. It had taken a few weeks for the first to break in the group chat and talk about the nightmares, about the nightly reliving of the horrors, and that was a big step in binding them all together.

The dam broke and suddenly the others were able to discuss it more openly without fear of being seen as disturbed.

Aimee was up and about, taking advantage of her newfound mobility to help put up some signs and one of those office flip boards with the big sheets of paper to write and draw on. Joe sat off to the side and--oh, he was in Aimee's wheelchair, his old, somewhat less glamorous one gone.

Good, he deserved it, it took a certain bravery and character to refuse mobility in favour of somebody else.

He was the next on her list once she had the opportunity. It was only right, if she had helped Aimee. He was watching the crowd, allowing the other two to chat.

"How have things been going, guys?"

"Hmm, not bad! Plenty of people are coming, and I think we are really helping, you know?" Aimee said.

"Seems like plenty of people are still coming."

"Word of mouth's helping, they know that if they come, they are not going to get snapped up by the PRT or police or whatever and shipped off to camps, did you know that some of them were worried about that?"

"Really?"

"Yeah... you remember how people used to be scared that we were infectious?"

"Ah," she made a hum of understanding.

Yeah, she did remember those times... like when she first met Assault and Battery and they got a look at her leg, that had been the former's concern.

"Seems people have been spreading that rumour about but me and Joe have been doing all we can to prove it otherwise."

"Well, if the PRT was willing to have me then clearly we must be safe, you can point that out to anyone causing trouble," she said, somewhat forcing her smile and giving Aimee a pat on the shoulder.

"Thanks, T-Ordinant. Oh, didn't ask but are you staying or just dropping by? I know you are probably busy."

"I'll stay, I mostly work nights to be honest. Being a small star kind of helps with keeping an eye on things." Not really the truth of course, the echolocation from that one bat Changer was far more useful... but putting it that way was easier for folks. "Not sure how much I can help; I don't have the most normal experience and story of course."

"Anything helps!" Aimee chirped.

At that point one of Aimee's extended family dragged her away to organise some things, pushing a load of papers into her hands. They gave a respectful nod to Taylor that seemed just a little over the top, perhaps they had never been around Capes before, and left Taylor and Joe behind.

On the plus side, everything was better organised now with them about.

"How are you, Joe?" she asked.

"Hm? Oh, not bad. Think I'm going to be doing a lot of talking today rather than speeches, it's easier for me to move between tables and chat with folk rather than organising stuff," he reached down and drummed his fingers against the side of the chair. Ah, of course. Limited mobility. "There's a few folks who promised to be here that I am hoping to see, all in a really bad place, you know? So I had them promise to come to give them something to look forward to."

"Yeah, I do."

A nod, Joe pushed his chin into his palm just a little moodily, eyes on the door.

Putting the weight and expectations on his own shoulders.

"Good on you Joe, really."

"Least I can do. I'm not as good with public speaking as Aimee, she always knows what to say to folk to make them feel better, I just do my best."

She gave him a pat on the shoulder and he managed a smile.

They had a good half an hour before the first civilians began to arrive, during which Taylor helped with putting up some bunting, the power of levitation was useful in such things and she was contributing!

The first few looked around and took their seats, and from there, there were more and more. Taylor hung out to the side and allowed Aimee and co to take care of things, somebody at the door was handing out leaflets to people who hadn't been before, she found herself idly flicking through one.

Not the best produced, but earnest. It contained pretty much all the basic information one could expect about crystallisation, including a helpful 'what to expect' section.

Taylor helped out to the best of her ability, plenty of people wanted to speak with her, just as many were nervous about doing so, so she spent a lot of time listening in between speaking with people and their concerns.

"Is it true that you can help people walk again?"

"It is, I saw her do it before! She helped the girl over there walk!"

"You are right, Ordinant saved me," Aimee, having evidently heard them said with a smile, stepping over to speak with the small group that was near the corner of the room, discussing this.

"Do you think that she'll be able to help my mom?"

"Give her time, and she will be able to save all of us," Aimee promised.

Taylor felt a sudden weight on her shoulders, the weight of expectation.

Eyes were focusing on her.

All of their salvations depended a lot more on the PRT and how much data they could feed her, she was still waiting on a resolution to all of them, leaving her in the agonising limbo of waiting. At least now she was far less pressed for time than before, no longer putting every single moment to use in the sure knowledge that every moment lost to the crystal was one step closer to death.

Their gazes felt so very heavy, and now that Aimee had said it, it was passing around the room swiftly. Ah, Taylor had taken on this duty, there was no time to look back and wonder whether it was a good thing--

Gunshots.

Her eyes snapped to the doorway.

Screams.

Taylor was flying across the room before she had really had time to think, flying over the heads of the surprised and frightened crystallisation sufferers.

She noticed, from the corner of her eye, as Aimee's uncle silently stepped away towards the back of the room.

But she had more important things to take care of right now.

Her phone was in her hand, pressing the emergency call function to the PRT.

"Ordinant, you've reached console," came the voice of somebody she did not recognise. Probably a normal PRT Agent, what with most of the Wards and Protectorate members being so occupied nowadays.

Anybody could work console, and in situations like what currently afflicted the city, it was all hands-on deck.

The first thing to fill her vision as she emerged from the hall was a sphere of what looked like rippling water about the size of a house. It surrounded and was centred on a battered and beaten-up pick-up truck filled with people, some of whom were on the flatbed. Plenty of them were armed. On the ground, mostly near the doorway to the hall, were people, plenty of them conscious with hands to various injuries, and a mother shielding a child with her own body.

Rapid deployment. Hit and run.

Group arrives looking perfectly normal and puts on their masks, Empusa creates her bubble to give them greater mobility, and the effects of the bubble--

She moved forward and up, shone brightly to blind or distract and force them to focus on her rather than the injured civilians, the poor people who had come to get some advice on their condition.

"Attack at Wolfe Convention Hall. Probably Fallen, got that one woman with the sphere of water."

"Empusa?"

The gunmen were turning their attention to her now, a hail of bullets hit her in a wall of impacts that forced her back a few feet. The bullets bounced and deflected wildly as they hit the opalescent crystal, or managed to crack and sink in. For each bullet fired it was as if she was being hit by several more, wait... yes, that was it.

Each bullet fired from the guns left as a single, but upon crossing the edge of the water bubble it duplicated; a single bullet became two, three, five.

P̲͛a̜͓̒̑̐ȓ͔͙ḁ̈ḓͬḭ͍̮̈g̲̥̳͒͌m̭͍͈̐̍̾ ͙̓̏ͮĨ̖͇n̥̫̘̑f̙̣ͯ̈̎l̫͓̈ă̬ṭ̞͚͂i͓̖͇ͨ̂̑ó͔̖̯̓n̗̲͎ͬ̚:̩̮̃ ̪̀̈̾C͓̝ͪ̃ȑ̹e̗̯ͪá̯ͬ̈́ͅt̬̞̞̒̏ͫȉ̯̜͓ͥo̳ͨͣn͔͗ͧͨ ̮̠̆͌o̲̞ͨ̊f̙̱̞ͤ̌ ̊̋ͅl̖̟̓̿i̩͋m̦̠̓i̩̳̊t̗͂ě̬̰d̘ͨ̚ ̳͉̞͛ͩr͖̈́ͫa̙̓n̼͎̘̔̒ͣg̠̞̺̍̏e͉̔̈̇ ̪͌d̻̤͊̿u̘̣̒̚p̱̜̈l͔̼̉i̭ͧͮͤĉ͕̭a͚͇ͮt̲̙̃ͭ̌i̗̖̘̍ò̺̠͔͛ń̫̔ ̠͍̆ͩͅf̳̥ͮ̍ĩ̥ͯ̍e̱̊͌l̝̊d̜̭̭͛̓.̱̫ͣ͒ ͫ̈́̿ͅͅÄ̬̥e̱̔s͇͋t͕ͥ̑h̫̝͍̍ͯē̝͈t͎̫ͫi̟̘ͬ̊̔c̺̬ͯ̽̇s͎͓̹̓ ̙ͣ͗b͎̍a̝͊ͥͥs̥͑i͖̩̣̽s͎̥͂̑:̳̥̅͊͊ ̯͖̙̇ͥ̀w̺͇͋ä̺̺̖́̊̚t̞̩ͨḙ̇̏r̭̹̽ ̭̱ͣͪb̮͈̾ͯ̚u̠͇͕̿ͣb͇ͥb̝̉l̯̩͚͗ḛ͆ͧͯ.̙̝͑

Ḯ͇͈̈n̪͇͍ͨͬt̥̦̯ͯ͑ḙ̃̓r͕̟̮̾ͤn̜͙̚ǎ̩̘̒l̝̠̊ͭ ̙̥̬ͪͭi̼̇n̪̄o̯̊͌r̫̜̫̓̾̆g͙̟̉͋ͅȃ̭͚̏ͅñ͉ͦì̙̾̄c̹͇̗ͮ͆͆(͇̣ͥ?̲͈̮̿)͙̳̱͐ ̥̒̔̀ŏ͈̾b̘̻̹ͪj͖̍̔͊e̞̾͂ć̠͉t̗̟́ͧš͇ͯ ̲̟̻̾p̩̓̑a͚̭͋̽s̫͓̱̎̈́̚s͉̜͐̅ͬi̯̜͐n̻̼̭̎g̭̞͛̽̾ ͈̼̈͗t̜̳ͥh̙͛̈̂r̙ͣ̓̿e͉͉ͧs̖̜̿͐h̼ͥ̎̀ò̩̬̻l̰̲ͯd̰̳͚̚ ͈́ͭd̻͊ͩu̱̘ͬp̟̗͋̅̾l̤͓ͤ̏ī͎͚̔ĉ̖ͪͅa̱̽̈́̑t̪ͮ̆̃e̱̼̯̾ͧ̃d̞̗̟͐

The power was a potent force multiplier, but did it go both ways? It duplicated and increased the collective firepower of the group by a magnitude, incredibly potent with a team, if only Empusa had been with the PRT, imagine a single team of five troopers able to fire on foam grenades each and it becoming twenty-five.

If she was still human, then she would look like Swiss cheese right now.

She idly restored her body.

"I'm on the scene, will call back soon."

She threw her phone into the air and caught it with a number of threads from the web extending from her hair. She had called it in, now she needed to deal with the bastards that dared to target innocent, crystallisation suffering civilians.

Calculate the best path of movement, the priorities here.

She could just blast the truck apart; it would be comically easy to just render the whole lot into a pile of molten slag. It was tempting as well.

But Empusa's power needed more analysis.

She neutralised Shaker effects in the area

The water bubble collapsed, faded. Shouts of surprise from her opponents, confusion. A moment to capitalise.

The civilians first. Always the civilians first.

She brought Vista's power to the forefront of her mind, she reached out with a hand as the distance between herself and the various victims was shortened from metres to inches, and rapidly she pressed a hand to each.

Clockblocker's power, freezing each in turn.

Critical injuries were not critical if a person was unable to suffer them, even if it was expensive on her core to lock people down in such numbers, she could already feel the strain it was placing on her.

The trucks engine was revving up, and with a suitably dramatic squeal of tire spin it began to move.

Taking advantage of the fact she was not immediately going after them, and instead focusing on the casualties. Escaping the moment they were challenged. Her own research into the various Fallen groups yielded a lot of conflicting information, everyone considered them mentally deranged scum, but hard facts about their Parahumans were much more limited. But they always crawled away, they were like cockroaches... like a lot of gangs, really.

Most of them broke and ran away the moment they faced a real challenge. It was a battle of attrition in the long term, of small victories here and there for the most part.

They thought they could just run away?

Nobody ran away from her.

Nobody got away.

Bakuda didn't. Leviathan didn't.

She could chase them down to the ends of the Earth.

Taking to the air, higher to keep drawing their attention, she gave chase. The truck had a decent speed she had to admit, but it was not like it could move in all directions, and as much out of curiosity than anything else she launched one of her disks of hard light at the back of the truck. It passed through the water bubble, but was not duplicated.

Only objects coming out of the bubble, then.

The two men who had been in the flatbed were crouching down to keep a good grip and not be launched out, there were six of them in total, two on the back and the four in the cab. The driving was terrible, panicked? Swerving in the road--oh, to try and avoid anything that she could throw at them?

They really were unlucky that she happened to be here, huh?

Otherwise, by the time the PRT would have been able to mobilise, they would have probably escaped. Ditched the truck and absconded, caused chaos and panic and fear for no good reason, to terrify. Why had they even done this? Was it because Leviathan was dead, and now they were targeting people with the crystallisation, mistakenly seeing that as part of the cause? Or were they just murderers and terrorists?

Five seconds into the chase, and her small experiment was done and a more comprehensive understanding of Empusa's power achieved.

Time to bring them in.

No need to prevaricate.

When dealing with rabid dogs or humans who would not stand down, you just captured or put them down as swiftly as possible.

Creating a moving section of road with Vista's power. The truck slowed in place even as it tried to accelerated further, the wheels spinning even as the ground itself kept pace. A rolling conveyor belt of asphalt, Taylor had seen Missy make use of her power like this before, it was really rather effective. She supposed that she could have just frozen the truck in time, like she had with the civilians... but that would have reduced its occupants to a fine red mist.

And she really, really wanted to bring them in.

If she got just a little closer, she would be able to remove gravity in the area and lift the vehicle up into the air.

The panicked shouts were quite pleasant as the group of Fallen realised that they were going nowhere fast. It was vindicating as the two on the back cussed.

Just a moment more and--

BOOM!

She only just saw the white dot in the corner of her vision before it struck, a flying object shooting like an arrow from the heavens at a sharp diagonal into the truck

One moment it was racing futily on the spot and the next it was flipping over itself, the body of the vehicle crumpling around itself. It was like watching a car hit a tree or a large car stump at seventy or eighty miles an hour... except that the tree stump was moving at the speed of sound. It was all over in a moment, the entire chase, which had barely taken ten seconds, was over in a moment.

What?

What the fuck?

Debris was scattering, shattered glass flew in multiple directions as the windows cracked, as the metal bodywork crumpled and snapped and broke and tore apart, creating razor sharp edges that formed a rapidly contracting cage of razor-sharp steel around the occupants.

Taylor saw, as if in slow motion, the way the people inside the vehicle were compressed, distorted and cut apart by the impact.

Some had not been wearing seatbelts and had been slammed forward within a moment, the driver was one of them and part of the roof crumpled right down against him even as he lurched forward and shot through the cracked front window out into the street. She did not need to be a doctor to know that, unless he was a Brute, he was dead as his head smashed against the side panel of a parked car and left a several inch dent even as his body's momentum caught up and snapped his neck.

Something blasted out of the other end of the car, a white, glossy figure with wings made up of shards, masculine but with strange musculature that did not look human. They hit the ground with such force that it excavated a trench in the road, utterly unaffected by the impact even as the pickup was practically bifurcated.

Taylor raised a hand and fired before she was even fully aware of what she was doing.

There was no pause for analysis, she raised her hand and fired one of Purity's beams of light towards Allocer, lighting up the street as the beam sliced through the air and the earth, but the Breaker was faster than her.

Within a moment of her raising her arm Allocer was accelerating, the slightest push off of his feet and he was in the air, rocketing away with another sonic boom a second later. She barely saw the way the head turned, multiple star shaped pupils turning her way in the fractions of a seconed before they were gone.

The arrival, impact, and departure of Allocer took 0.74 seconds.

By the time she had whipped around to try and take a shot Allocer was gone, and she was left with the wreckage of the truck and its dead or dying occupants.