Current Energy: 3
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
The Heap, Brockton Bay
Point of View: Multiversal Emulator "Demmy"
'We should ask,'
you say to your sister, apropos of nothing, at something like six thirty in the morning.
Usually, you'd be training with your Master at this hour, but well, there's nothing left to train her in. At least, not with this current emulation.
'Don't,' Pemmy sends back tiredly to you.
'I'm gonna ask,' you repeat yourself.
'Don't.' Pemmy repeats herself more urgently, even as you ignore her in favor of appearing in the kitchen, awkwardly leaning on the counter.
'Relax, I'm not gonna tell her what's really going on and freak her out or anything,' you wave her off as she manifests next to you.
"Are you actually going to eat something today?" Taylor asks idly, not bothering to turn to face you or your sister. Instead, she continues to cycle between the four separate things she is cooking on four separate burners, making full use of her superior reflexes, senses, and processing capabilities to… cook eggs and bacon faster than normal.
You and your sister stare at each other for a second until Pemmy finally relents, crossing her arms and trying not to look annoyed as you reply to your Master's question.
"Nah, don't need it. Question?" You interject before she can get sidetracked with the food thing.
You can eat, but you don't really need to eat. If you really just want to do so for the pleasure of it, you'll have some of the inevitable leftovers. Mostly, you just don't often feel like it. You and Pemmy get far more out of watching the family happily eating together than actually eating for yourselves.
"Answer," Taylor replies blithely, before pausing to turn her head so she can see you out of the corner of her eye without taking her eyes fully off of the stove.
Kitchen safety and all that you suppose. Never mind that almost no one in the building would be hurt if the building burned down around them.
"But no, yeah, I'm morbidly curious what's got you so…" Taylor trails off, clearly searching for the right word to describe things before giving up and gesturing at your awkward pose next to her.
Poppola and Devola are many things. Competent in many fields.
They are… not… so good at human interaction. At least, not complex relationship stuff. The closest they ever got was with a kid who kind of went on to ruin their plans and kill them, so…
On that topic.
"If you had to kill one of us," you say with as much forced nonchalance as you can muster.
Pemmy immediately chokes on nothing at all, and her hands start to twitch as though she is restraining a strong urge to strangle you. Smoke begins to boil up from one of the pans as Taylor spends just a few seconds too long to stare at you at your question.
You proceed anyway.
"Which—"
"Whoever is forcing me to make that choice," Taylor says instantly, rattling the answer off like a normal person might respond to a question like 'what color is the sky' or 'how old are you'.
The surety in her tone is somewhat daunting, actually.
"Right, but… hypothetically, like if you couldn't do that?" You try again, nonplussed by how unhelpful her answer is to you.
Slowly, she reaches behind herself to nudge the burning pan of eggs off the stove element, before answering.
"Why does it matter?" She counters shrewdly, evading the question entirely with a combative look on her face.
"Well, you know, we've never been two people before!" You lie as convincingly as you can manage, flashing a smile at your Master that you hope is convincing.
"It probably won't happen again, either," Pemmy chimes in to support you, though you can clearly tell she's only doing so to mitigate things rather than because she approves of this.
Taylors face screws up in distaste at that, then shrugs.
"If it doesn't matter, I'd rather not talk about it," she says, turning back to the stove and quickly levitating finished food out of pans, levitating burnt food into the garbage, and rapidly flicking wads of butter into the now empty pans before putting new food items into them to begin cooking.
'I told you! I told you!' Pemmy snipes at you mentally, even though her expression and outward demeanor don't so much as twitch away from her easygoing smile.
"Oh come on! You literally delimbed us when we were Dante! This isn't that weird a question!" You whine at her in one last-ditch attempt to get some useful information out of the girl.
"That was different, it didn't kill you then," Taylor defends herself.
'Why are you still going?!' Pemmy snaps at you.
'Come on! This shouldn't be this hard!' You complain back at her, falling back slightly to let your Master return to humming while she cooks.
'Neither should making you stop, but here we are,' Pemmy says with some exasperation.
You just roll your eyes and stick your tongue out at her.
It totally could've worked!
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
Winslow Highschool, Brockton Bay
"Safe!" Michael calls as he and Jun step out of a portal on the rooftop again, something you've come to learn they do almost every day now.
Truthfully, the pair have been less than careful with their secret identities. They rocketed to the top end of the class in terms of performance during gym, routinely used their powers to avoid being late for school, and barely bothered to hide the sleepless nights fighting crime they were clearly having.
"Michael! Not safe! Not safe!" Jun yelps the minute you and your sister appear before them.
"Wha—no it's fine, it's just—" Michael waves him off, clearly unbothered by your sudden appearance.
"You. Sit." You interject pointing at Michael and then gesturing at the floor of the rooftop.
The boy pauses, blinking at the order.
"...Why?" He asks cautiously, backing up slightly to be closer to his own partner, who is slowly making to drop his backpack and take a fighting stance.
"You said we should flip a coin before," Pemmy says gently, gliding past you to place her hands on Jun's shoulders, carefully levering him down into a sitting position on the roof without actually hurting him, then turning towards Michael and doing the same.
"Apologies, but, you're being super threatening right now, so uh," Jun interjects before Michael can say anything in response to your assertion.
"We just want to talk," you insist.
"You literally ambushed us in our civvies. You're literally holding us hostage right now," Michael finally gets a word in edgewise, his voice tense.
You blink at that.
"You didn't seem worried about that the other day," you point out.
"Yeah, well, that was on us 'cuz you just happened to be there. Today, it's obviously on purpose. You're not like… mind-controlled, right? Is that a thing that can happen to you? Hey, please don't be evil today? I have a math test and—" Michael starts to banter at you, only for Jun to jab him in the side with an elbow.
"Christ! Dude, it's not physical comedy if it actually hurts!" Michael whines at him.
"Dude, focus," Jun counters tiredly, obviously accustomed to his friend's antics.
"Okay, well… sorry. Most of our guys don't really do the secret identity thing. Well. Parian, I guess," you say after some thought.
"Uh huh… so uh… I guess you need us for something? Again?" Jun asks carefully.
You can't help but roll your eyes at his cautiousness in this situation, even if he's absolutely right to keep his guard up.
'I think I prefer the loud one,' you send to Pemmy with amusement.
'What? Why? Jun is clearly the brains of—this is irrelevant. They have places to be, and we're scaring them,' Pemmy returns to you, stopping mid-statement to reorient away from the distraction you presented her with.
You click your tongue at the dodge.
"Okay, so the coin flip thing, let's call that a last resort. What else do you have?" You ask.
It takes the boys a couple of seconds to mentally think back to the first conversation you had with them, before they turn to look at each other in obvious confusion.
"...Have you tried three stocks, no items, final destination, winner take all?" Michael offers meekly.
You, and Pemmy turn to stare at him, not recognizing or understanding the context behind a single thing he just said.
Jun twitches as though he is going to elbow the other boy in the side again, then thinks better of it, clearly taking his previous statement about actually hurting each other to heart.
So instead he flicks Michael's ear lightly.
"Seriously?" He says with a tired sigh.
"What!? It could work! Just like, set up a contest using something stupid, and then whoever wins gets to choose uh—what were you guys fighting over, again?" He pauses to turn back to you sheepishly.
You open your mouth to respond but stop as you actually think through the proposition, and your sister halts to do the same.
That… could work, right?
'Terms?' Pemmy asks sharply, a glint in her eye.
'First to get Taylor to sing in front of people!' You instantly rattle off, feeling a grin spread itself across your face.
'Winner chooses who stays?' Pemmy presses.
You shrug.
'Why not just loser stays?' You ask curiously.
'Because maybe you'll win but finally see that you're wrong,' Pemmy answers with a shrug.
'I definitely won't,' you point out.
'We'll see,' Pemmy says enigmatically.
'No, we won't, I just said—'
'We'll see,' Pemmy insists vehemently.
'You're not mysterious, you know?' You retort grouchily.
Pemmy doesn't deign to dignify that with a response, and you choose to take that as a minor victory for the moment.
"So uh… can we go to class now or..?" Jun requests pitifully.
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
The Trainyard, Brockton Bay
Point of View: Multiversal Emulator "Demmy"
"How's it looking?" Taylor asks her father's right-hand man—Kurt—with curiosity.
"Well," the much more husky-looking man begins pensively, readjusting his hard hat so that he can scratch at the untamed mane of hair beneath it. "The, ah, junk wasn't too hard to move," he says pensively.
You and your Master turn slightly to look out the window of the building you are in as he says it, getting a good look at her new property.
The trainyard, for all its, well, a trainyard, had nearly no trains in it. In fact, for a large portion of the last twenty or so years, the area has been more of a junkyard than a trainyard, despite its status as merely closed rather than decommissioned. You met Trainwreck here, many months ago, at a time that feels much further away than it actually was.
Back then, the space was full of garbage, not all of it particularly useful to recycle. For every car capable of being torn apart for metal and parts, there were three more piles of decaying food containers. You suspect the area might have, at one point, been a popular place to host parties or get-togethers by groups similar to the Merchants, when they were still present within the city, and that continuous disrespect for the cleanliness of the space shows. Even now, with a majority of the garbage having been moved or destroyed with the judicious use of a superhuman workforce, and portal-fu, what few buildings and indeed, even train cars that remain in the yard are filthy, graffiti-covered messes.
Even now, paid members of the dockworkers union (you and your Master have chosen to ignore that the city collectively has started calling them her minions, because she is a hero, and only villains have minions), are crawling all over the place, doing their best to refurbish and clean things.
"I… sense a 'but' coming…" Taylor asks hesitantly.
Kurt offers her a wan smile and a shrug in response to the statement.
"You sense correctly," he says sardonically, leaning out of the window and pointing down—the office you are in is up a flight of stairs, lacking a 'first' floor so as to have an overlooking view of the yard—at a series of train tracks in a row nearby.
"Those only go about a quarter of a mile past city limits. We didn't follow the line to see if they restart closer to Boston, but some enterprising bastards—"
"Language," Taylor mutters without actually speaking loudly enough to interrupt him.
"—clearly pulled 'em up for the metal at some point. Can't blame them I guess. I don't think anyone here really expected this place to see any more use," he finishes.
"Okay, so, we have to lay new tracks?" She asks, perking up at the seemingly trivial problem.
"Well… yeah, but—" Kurt starts to explain, obviously thinking about the tremendous expenditure in wealth and manpower it would take to get that done in anything resembling a 'quick' timeline like your Master is hoping for.
The poor man clearly hasn't interacted enough with Taylor since getting her powers.
"Got it, easy. Can we get people to follow the lines the whole way to the yard in Boston, check for any other problems or obstructions? How's the yard on that end?" She asks quickly, not giving Kurt the chance to try to explain how difficult this is likely to be.
Probably on purpose.
Your Taylor does so love blindsiding people with her bullshit.
Kurt stares blankly at her for a three count before muttering something under his breath and continuing his status update.
"The trainyard over there is fine. Didn't even really need any maintenance. Unlike us, Boston still gets freight that way, so they actively maintain things," He says with a touch of bitterness.
"Okay… simple enough. Come on Pemmy, Demmy, let's get all the stable cars on one line and—" She pauses as your sister clears her throat and throws a pointed look at Kurt.
"...I mean, let's…" she squints at Pemmy, then flicks her gaze to you, and you roll your wrist in the direction of the handful of aura-enhanced workers—mostly men who've fallen into relationships with the ladies from the dojo—out on the yard.
"...Round up the…boys? To do that… thing I just said. With the cars." She finishes slowly.
'I hope whoever comes after us has some kind of leadership skill, because this is almost as funny as it is sad,' you muse to Pemmy, who restrains a dainty snort at your Master's expense in response to the comment.
'It'll probably be another wizard with a sword. I guess we have a type,' she jokes back at you, as you both nod approvingly at Taylor's self-correction.
"What uh, what're you gonna do with 'em?" Kurt asks, even as you intercept your Master before she can just jump straight out of the window and direct her towards the door.
And the stairs.
For a woman so insistent on being 'normal', she has developed some terrible habits.
"I—" she starts, before eyeing you and Pemmy as though expecting you to interrupt her again. When you don't, she continues. "I was thinking maybe I'd enchant a few of the train cars to be bigger on the inside, then try and kludge together a spell that will let it build rails ahead of itself, you know, with magic? Then all we'll have to do is shove places to sit inside the cars and shoot it at Boston—it'll solve the problem for us."
Kurt stares at her again, somewhat gobsmacked, and opens his mouth to comment, but is interrupted as Taylor turns to eyeball the hovering fortress sitting ominously on the city's skyline.
"...Maybe I can make it fly?" She mutters to herself, wandering away with a glint of interest in her eyes.
For as much as she's a battle maniac a lot of the time, sometimes you find it easy to forget that for as long as Taylor has had access to magic, she's enjoyed 'playing' with it. You wouldn't call her a dedicated researcher, nor would you say she has a vested interest in mastering or learning new spells of any kind.
But 'playing around' with what she can already do? She positively loves doing that.
You are just about to shrug and lazily follow after her as she starts brainstorming when Pemmy quickly walks ahead of you to stand next to her, surprising you.
"Might I suggest enhancing the spell with a song?" She says sweetly.
"Ah!" You yelp, pointing at her in an accusatory manner the second she says it.
"I'll… think about it? Only if I can't find another way to make it work," Taylor mutters, clearly embarrassed to even have the option brought up.
'Well played,' you grumble silently at your sister.
As it would turn out, enchanting the train did not end up requiring your Master to sing.
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
The Heap, Brockton Bay
"I can't believe you literally own a mall, but still don't want to go shopping with me!" Vicky whines at your Master, pushing herself up and then leaning backwards over the couch she is sitting on until she is almost upside down.
"Come on, you know I'm not into, you know…" Taylor says nebulously, clearly not offended or made uncomfortable by the assertion so much as fondly amused by it.
"'Come on' she says!" Vicky declares loudly and with a faux put-upon tone to her voice, like she is talking to an invisible studio audience before floating up into the air and gesturing exasperatedly at the nearest wall.
"When you were worried the Protectorate was going to arrest you, who was there for you? What happened to my shy friend?" Vicky says with an over-exaggerated moroseness in her tone, laying the back of her hand across her forehead as though she is faint.
She rotates ninety degrees in the air and floats in front of your Master too, miming laying across a table just to highlight the pose.
"She didn't like shopping then, either," Taylor drawls at her, reaching out with both hands to reposition Victoria Dallon into an upright position, leaving both of them hovering cross-legged in the air a good six feet off the ground in the rec room that magically appeared as an extension of Taylor's unused second bedroom.
It hadn't been there until Taylor had audibly wondered where she and Vicky should go today.
"Suuuuure," Vicky drawls back at her with an infectious grin on her face. Then her expression becomes one of concern. "So, sup? You didn't text me for a couple of days there and we haven't hung out in forever," she asks.
Taylor winces.
"Geeze where to start," Taylor sighs leaning back in thought, only, she's floating, so… her entire body starts to rotate in the area.
"Power stuff or other dimension stuff? I saw the hearing thingy by the way. Mom was frowning the whole time," Vicky quips.
"Sorta both. I would have brought a lawyer honestly, but they said I wasn't being charged with anything so it felt unnecessarily combative," Taylor replies with a shrug, still spinning.
"They seemed pretty pissy to me. Any cute alien boys?" Vicky asks, slowly matching Taylor's aerial rotation so that they can maintain eye contact.
It's clearly a lot harder for her, who has to consciously control her flight, than your Master, who just has to politely ask the air to spin her.
'It's nice that they can do this. There aren't a lot of people she doesn't go out of her way to confuse,' you muse to your sister.
'I suppose everyone needs someone to confide in eventually,' Pemmy returns.
'Lucky we were born with one, right?' You joke, bumping her with your hip. The pair of you are standing idly by the door to the room, watching the goings on fondly while you play the role of attendants for Taylor.
'Did you mean her or me?' Pemmy asks, bumping you back.
'Yup,' you reply jovially, earning a roll of the eyes and a burst of amused fondness from your sister before turning your attention back to your Masters conversation.
"…No," Taylor replies evenly.
"Ah! You had to think about it! I heard the pause!" Vicky accuses, jabbing a finger out to point at her.
"A-anyway!" Taylor interrupts her. "I found out what powers are, and then I had to fix a problem for Emmy, and then I ended up going on a big adventure where I met a bunch of alternate versions of myself, and then I ended up in a Brockton Bay where I couldn't find myself, but you were there and—" Taylor slams her mouth shut with an audible click.
"And then?" Vicky prods with some amusement, clearly taking the time to process everything that was just said but withholding any commentary until your Master is finished.
Only, she doesn't continue.
"Tay?" Vicky verbally prods her again.
"...You were there, and… so were the Nine," Taylor says slowly, her expression somewhat pinched.
"Oh." Is Vicky's only real response to that.
"I—" Taylor begins in a pained tone, clearly about to begin to delve into the details of the whole ordeal. You don't think she's put out by what she did while she was there—not really. But rather, feels a sense of shame for what ended up happening to Vicky's family in that dimension that makes her hesitant to explain it to Vicky, herself.
"Hey, I bet you five bucks I can get you interested in fashion!" Vicky interrupts, completely changing the subject.
Taylor is visibly taken aback by the change in topic, but still manages to raise the patented Hebert eyebrow at the bet.
"Please. If you can make me care about fashion, I'll give you an all-expenses paid shopping trip in the building. I highly doubt—" Taylor begins, only for Vicky to hurriedly dive down to the ground to grab her purse so she can pull her cellphone out of it with an annoyed mumble about pockets and womens clothes. She spends a minute navigating on it, before zipping back into the air to show whatever is on the screen to your Master.
"Can you make, like, a hologram of this?" She asks innocently.
"It's not a hologram, it's an illusion, they use two entirely different principles and—" Taylor starts to correct her almost instantly, only to pause at the flat look Vicky gives her in return.
"...Yeah I can make a 'hologram' of that," Taylor answers finally, making air quotes with her fingers around the word 'hologram'. Then she does something—you couldn't begin to describe what given the breadth of magic available to her—and a hovering image of a cape appears in the room, standing on the ground behind the couch as though he was really there.
"I still don't see what this has to do with our bet," Taylor points out, lowering herself to ground level to examine the projected image.
"I don't like this guy's costume. It's all wrong," Vicky says without actually answering your Masters question.
Taylor, for her part, frowns, then turns her gaze back to the image.
"It's… a bit simple, yeah," she concedes, eyeing the spandex-clad man.
"Simple can be fine, but I mean, if you want to rock the spandex look, you need to be built for it. This guy isn't overweight or anything, but he's clearly not anywhere near as built out as his costume makes him look. Look, you can see near his wrists and ankles where they use strategically placed armored padding to make him look jacked, but I bet he's just some skinny dude underneath it all," Vicky points out.
Taylor blinks and then waves a hand at the image, which promptly raises its arm so she can get a better look at the area in question before nodding along with the explanation.
"...Okay, yeah, that's kind of gaudy. They should have probably gone with a more armored set up. I mean, he's got armor, it's just shaped like muscles or whatever, so he can clearly handle the weight," Taylor notes.
"Yeah but only Tinkers really get away with an armored look. Non-tinkers who go that route usually aren't very popular, and PR departments don't like doing it because it's actually super hard to make armor effective and good-looking at the same time," Vicky notes with glee.
"Yeah, but…" Taylor trails off with a frown before whipping her head around to glare at Vicky.
"This doesn't count. It's cape stuff," she barks.
"Cape fashion, one might say," Vicky says with a grin.
"I still don't think it should count—" Taylor tries to insist only for Vicky to speak over her.
"So you mentioned cute alien boys?"
"—but I will concede the point. Let's do another one," Taylor says quickly, instantly changing her tune. Vicky takes a moment to glance over her shoulder at you and Pemmy, flashing a quick thumbs up at you before proceeding.
"Maybe a cute alien girl? I don't judge!"
"WOW I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH I LOVE CAPE FASHION," Taylor practically screams in response to Vicky's continued line of questioning.
Mentally, to you, she sends: 'Help!'
You gaze at the warm scene of the two girls teasing and bickering with each other, then share a look with your sister, then look back at your Master, and offer her the only thing you have to say to that.
'No.'
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
The Heap, Brockton Bay
"Alright!" Taylor calls out loudly as she enters the room, deep in the bowels of the Heap, that contains the wardstone. As always, the room is set up like a bizarre bronze metal meeting room, with a huge round table lined with high-backed and filigreed chairs. At the center of the room sits the wardstone, a glowing orb of metal so densely packed with runes and other spellwork that it almost feels as though it has a life of its own.
"There are more chairs than normal," you note with interest, a comment your Master pauses as she too recognizes it, before shrugging.
"There are more of us too," she points out.
You blink, and do a quick count.
Trainwreck, Aspirant, Parian, Huntsman, your Master, you, Pemmy, and… Madison? Interesting. The seating is all sized correctly too, if the oversized chair for Trainwreck is anything to go by.
"...This room gets fancier every time we visit it," you muse.
You pointedly don't comment on the fact that the castle being functionally alive could be really bad in the wrong circumstances. It hasn't done anything wrong yet, and you are more than aware that your misgivings are a result of your current emulation's history with artificial life forms rather than logic and reason.
Still, the lingering doubt remains, and you make a note to keep an eye on the place going forward.
"So… why're we here today?" Pemmy asks as your Master takes her seat at the head of the table and you and your sister take up your positions to either side of her.
To call it the 'head' of the table would be a bit of a misnomer of course. Like the mythical round table of old—this table doesn't really have a head. It's perfectly circular.
But if you look at it while treating the end nearest to the door as the 'bottom' of the table, where, coincidentally, Madison's seat is positioned, and the opposite end as the head…
Well. You're sure it doesn't matter that much. It's only this way in the first place because your Master is a nerd who likes old stories in the first place. It could be a throne room for all you care.
"I figure with the train in order, and teachers arranged, we'll have people here soon so… it seemed like a good time to add some new features to the old—"
The building you are in audibly groans with the sound of metal against metal.
"Young! This fine young building! Has tons of room to grow!" Taylor yelps at the ceiling, surreptitiously looking around to see if anything else is going to suddenly happen.
With no new building-based paranormal phenomena forthcoming, she threads her fingers and stretches them, cracking the joints rather loudly.
"Time to have some fun!" She says, gleefully.