Roots 2.2

"Hey guys, how'd the patrol go?"

A young-sounding voice responded casually, "Same as usual. Not a peep from anybody who matters, and nobody's dumb enough to cause trouble on a known patrol route, let alone one that's literally within sight of the Rig or the PRT building the entire time."

"So you're saying you'd prefer it if people were getting mugged within sight of the Rig, are you?"

A wry chuckle. "I'd prefer to not be patrolling where people aren't getting mugged."

I chose that moment to speak up, "I'm kinda with the kid, to be honest." I stepped out from around the corner. The one in power armor was the one talking, and I saw his eyebrows rise from behind his visor.

Ethan glanced backward towards me and rolled his eyes with a smile. "Well, there goes the surprise, I guess. Clock, Kid, this is Scatter."

"Ah, so that's why we wrapped up over here this time." Red stepped forward, holding out a hand to shake. "I'm Kid Win, that's Clockblocker." White gave a sloppy, Vacuan-style salute.

Assault spoke up again; "I figured you should meet up with the Wards at some point, and their patrol ended the at the same time our shift did. We'll head over to the PRT building in a bit to meet the rest of them."

"Well then, nice meeting you," I said, shaking Kid Win's hand.

He smiled. "So you're 'with me,' huh? Maybe they'll listen to you if you told them we're tough enough to go a little further out?"

Uh, what? I stammered, "Um, I don't think, I…"

"Back off, Kid." Assault stepped between us, giving him a hard look. "I know how you feel, but this isn't the time." He turned back to me, looking a little annoyed. "Sorry about that. Want to let these two report in, then head over to the Wards base with them?

The Wards were scattered about the room, but our entry had attracted some attention. An older, very muscular boy in skintight white with a lion motif sat at a terminal station very similar to the one I had just been working at, watching a camera feed that seemed to be blurring from place to place - a helmet camera, from the height and the motion. He glanced in my direction, looked over to the girl next to him, then grimaced and waved with one hand before returning his focus to his console. Beside him, clearly much more focused on me, the girl was dressed in solid black with a fantastic cloak, a domino mask, a raised eyebrow, and a deep frown.

Exiting a short hallway opposite the elevator was a younger girl in whites and greens, a visor over her eyes as she looked me over. A boy in a rust-red helmet stuck his head out of a door in that direction as well, made eye contact, and then vanished back inside.

The girl in green was the first to speak up, as Clockblocker and Kid Win walked past us to sit down. "So... I guess you're Scatter? I figured you'd be coming down here soon."

She sounded... a little familiar. "Yep, that's me! I guess you'd be Vista?"

"Yeah. Most of us saw the video of your fight against the twins, it was pretty impressive. Where'd you learn how to fight?"

Oh. Well, that was gonna come up eventually, but still. I glanced back to Assault, who raised an eyebrow at me. Right, he didn't know either.

"That's... kind of a long story. If I'm allowed to, It'd probably be best if I told everybody at once, including the Protectorate. There are a few people who already know, but it's kind of complicated."

"Huh." There were several reactions to that, mostly expressing interest or annoyance. The girl in black stood out; she looked somewhere between fascinated and angry.

Vista didn't get the chance to say any more before the boy from down the hall exited his room, followed by another in a hastily-applied domino mask, who was the first to speak. "Ma'am! Glad to meet you, I'm Gallant, this is Aegis. Welcome to the Wards compound!" He held out a hand, which I shook.

Lots of introductions very quickly were starting to blend together. Clockblocker, Kid Win, Vista, Gallant, Aegis... "That makes him Triumph," I said, indicating the lion-guy, "and you'd be Shadow Stalker?"

The girl in black met my eyes. "That's me." There was a bit of an awkward silence then where she looked me up and down, appraising. It ended with Triumph nudging her with a disapproving look, prompting a huff of frustration as she spun her chair back around to the console.

"Anyway -" "So where-" Gallant and Vista started talking at the same time, then traded glances. Vista ducked her head and blushed, and Gallant continued with a smile, "I haven't actually watched that video, but I heard it was pretty impressive. Your interview mentioned a scythe, right?"

"Yeah. Apparently, it's 'too dangerous' for the public to accept or something, so they won't let me use it."

Kid Win perked up at that, but Vista talked first. "What would make it dangerous? They're usually alright with melee weapons… when the Protectorate are using them, anyway."

I grinned wide, not that they could see it. "I designed it myself back when I was a kid - it's got four different standard setups for combat, a high-impact magnetically-powered sniper rifle built into the haft, I can channel different Dust effects into the blade -"

Aegis interrupted, "Dust?"

Heheh, whoops. "Umm… that's kind of a long story too. I can use different elemental effects in combination with the ammunition or the blade - fire, lightning, ice…"

"You're a Tinker too?" Kid had been looking more and more interested the whole time I'd been talking, and finally found a moment to talk.

"No… yes? I guess sort of, yeah." At least, I was here. Behind me, from where he was leaning back against the wall, listening in, Assault's phone rang, and he stepped into the hallway to answer the call.

"What's your specialty?"

"Uhh, I don't know what that means."

"The thing you're best at making, that you can do and nobody else can, or that you can do better than any other Tinker."

This was gonna get confusing fast if I didn't tell them anything. "I don't think I have one. Like I said, it's a-"

"Long story?"

"...Yeah. Things work differently where I come from, sorry. People that can make that kind of stuff are pretty common."

"Is that how it works? I didn't think powers changed like that based on where you're from."

Assault interrupted, "Sorry to cut this short, but we've got to head out. Somebody's pulled some strings to get you into power testing early, you're being shipped out to Boston for a couple days."

"Already?"

"Yeah, it's weird. Maybe something about your background has them worried. They're prepping the van right now, we should head up there."

Disappointed, I looked back to the Wards, who were… exchanging glances and poorly suppressed laughter. "What is it?"

Vista was the one to respond. "They haven't told you what that'll be like, have they?"

"Uh, no? It's just power testing, how bad could it be?"

I slumped onto my bed, barely even noticing the dullness of the room. I smelled terrible, and my hair was plastered to my scalp to the point that I might have been worried about the dye washing out if I'd cared enough to notice. I would never have expected something as innocuous-sounding as 'power testing' to be that exhausting, even compared to Huntsman training, but it had managed to be.

They'd broken down my Aura over and over again with different kinds of attacks, trying out fire and electricity and raw force and other things I'd never even thought of in order to figure out exactly how much damage I could take. They'd blindfolded me, plugged my ears, and then tried to hit me to try and figure out how well I could sense attacks coming. They'd gone over my speed, my teleportation, and everything in between to figure out exactly how far my Semblance could go.

There was a knock on the door. I moaned in the intruder's general direction, and apparently, that was permission enough for... Vista to invite herself in. Okay then.

"Wow, they really went all out on you, didn't they?"

She sounded smug. Why did she sound smug? "...did you know this was going to happen?"

"Yeah, everybody did. We all had to go through the wringer up there... though you actually look worse off than most. What happened?"

I squeezed my eyes shut. "Apparently, my powers are broad enough that they could barely fit in all the testing they needed."

She seemed to puzzle that over for a second. "But couldn't they just add an extra day?"

"That's what I said!"

I heard a huff - she was laughing quietly. "Alright, well I hate to bring you more bad news, but-"

I cut her off with a groan.

"-Assault sent me, he's wanting to spar." She was quiet for a moment. "Want me to tell him you were asleep when I found you?"

I buried myself further into the pillows.

"Gotcha. Have a good rest." She left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. Moments later, I was dreaming of home.

The training room where I'd gone through Armsmaster's initial testing was more crowded this time. A small group of... relatively athletic people jogged on treadmills, lifted weights, and did other such things at various points across the room. My costumed appearance drew some interested looks, but no one approached.

"So how'd it go?" Assault asked, stepping out from behind the door and dragging out the last word to be two syllables long.

"Not... the worst thing I've ever been through." Technically the truth.

"So you should be peachy for a spar now, right?" He said it loudly enough to draw attention, and I could sense the excitement from across the room. Equipment started getting put away, and the people started migrating for a door directly under the viewing booth.

The sleep had helped, but I still wasn't quite at full strength. Still though, probably not a good idea to say no, those guys seemed excited. "Sure, I guess. Just you and me?"

"Yeah, I think so. What'd they rate you for?"

"Uh..." I had to rack my memory. Lots of numbers to remember. "Breaker... seven, Mover five, Stranger three for my Semblance, Brute-Thinker four for my Aura, and a Tinker two just because Remnant is more advanced than Earth is, technologically. I'm... not really sure what most of that means, to be honest."

He nodded. "Yeah, that's something else you'll need to get caught up on. It doesn't matter that much for us, but hearing what they put you at to begin with is useful. You're pretty versatile." I blushed at the compliment. "Plus, with your combat experience... well, this oughta be interesting."

A few minutes later, one of the guys who'd been working out in here before I arrived was up in the booth, holding a microphone and wearing a black and white striped shirt. That had caused a lot of laughter that I didn't understand.

"In this corner, the defender of his title, he's been operating for ten-I MEAN FOUR years," More laughter. There must've been some in-joke that I wasn't getting. "The Striker Seven, Mover Three, the neverending onslaught, ASSAULT!"

"And in this corner, a newcomer to our little ring, already with a very impressive takedown under her belt - Breaker Seven, Mover Five, Brute/Thinker Four, Little Red Reaping Hood herself, SCATTER!"

I was so confused, I didn't even know where to begin. I decided to just focus on the fight.

"Ready!"

"Three!"

"Two!"

One!

"Begin!"

Assault jerked forward, accelerating way faster than I would've expected him to manage from a standstill. Slower than me at my top speed, for sure, but he might've had an advantage in maneuverability.

My Aura flared in warning, and I scattered around the punch to my gut, diving around him and reforming on the other side. I spun around for a kick to his side, he raised an arm to block, and my foot stopped dead the moment it touched him.

If I remembered right, his power worked off of physical force. He'd absorbed the force of that attack, and now he'd be able to use it against me. How was I supposed to fight someone that I couldn't even attack?

His elbow shot back towards me, and I caught it on my guard rather than dodge. I could feel the damage to my Aura, but it didn't do that much and hopefully, it made him use up some amount of his stored energy.

He spun, sending a flurry of punches my way, and I continued blocking. His guard was a little sloppy, but the one time I got a punch in to take advantage, I just bounced off him. Panicking a little as my Aura dropped further and further, I scattered up, landing on the platform above to give myself some breathing room.

I dipped fully into my power, and the world vanished. Vague impressions of vibrations in the air and platform made me aware of motion, things changing, as the outline of my surroundings that I'd trained myself to burn into my memory became less and less accurate as time went on. My aura warped and stretched, enveloping several feet of the platform in either direction and filling the area with loose petals.

No more than a couple seconds after I landed, I felt the platform I'd wrapped myself around shudder as Assault made a standing jump ten feet in the air to land just in front of the cloud of rose petals that occupied my former position.

He threw another punch, and in his hesitant confusion when the cloud didn't react, I materialized from a portion of my Aura that had been behind him and kicked him in the back before I could hit the ground and alert him to where I was.

That did something. He stumbled forward, barely catching himself on the railing of the platform before whirling around to face me. He couldn't block attacks he didn't know were coming.

I rushed him, hoping I could pull a similar trick, but he pushed off the railing, bending it down as he launched himself up, before ricocheting off an upper catwalk and coming at me from above. I juked to the side, jumping the gap to yet another walkway before going up again, to the second level. A glance behind me revealed him following, taking a running leap that carried him farther up than it had any right to, and allowing him to land right where I had.

He lunged, and I scattered once more, managing to get a grip on his wrist with both hands as I tried to pull him into the railing. He put out a hand to catch himself, and before he made contact I vanished, teleporting under the platform before gripping the floor above me and swinging over, successfully planting a foot in his back before launching backward and up.

We paused there, me on the third, topmost layer of catwalks and him on the layer below, on a walkway running perpendicular to mine. At a guess, there were fifteen feet of horizontal distance between us, and around ten vertical. I could make the jump, and I was pretty sure he could too, but neither of us would be able to cross the distance without the other taking advantage, and we both knew it.

I couldn't use the same took a chance, glancing around the room to see if I could find something to take advantage of. There wasn't much at this level, thirty feet off the ground. There was another fifteen feet or so between this platform and the ceiling, but the only thing higher than me was one of the hoops that had been welded to the wall at random intervals. Below… nothing new. Assault, the catwalks, then the ground.

One section of the catwalk caught my eye - the place where Assault had dented it while pushing himself up. A plan unfurled in my mind, and I looked back to my opponent.

Maybe five seconds after our stalemate began, I saw him tense, preparing to move. I didn't know where he was going, but it didn't really matter. At the same moment he kicked off, aiming to get above and past me, I flew directly for him, scattering around the kick he sent at me, then around the rest of him.

He hit one of the hoops, and ricocheted off it, coming back around for me. I landed on the first level of catwalks, spun around and raised my guard. I saw his eyes flicker from side to side, trying to find the trap before he hit me, but he could only have seen it before. I scattered, letting him fall through me and forcing him to hit the damaged railing at full force. The rail sheared off instantly, and he began falling towards the floor.

He spun to face the ground, preparing to do something, but before he got the chance I was ahead of him, preparing to kick off his chest. I bounced off, the redirection almost painful, but he paid for it once the chunk of railing I'd thrown at him before I started moving hit him in the back of the neck.

Using the momentum from his redirection, I pulled into a backflip and landed in a three-point superhero pose. He, meanwhile, fell flat on his face.

"...ow."

"Oh! Are you alright? You didn't break anythi-"

"No, no, I'm fine! That was…". He chuckled. "Well played. I wasn't expecting- what was that you threw at me, the railing?"

"Umm, yeah?"

"Nicely done, I thought I was gonna counter you a little harder than I did, but you worked around it. Where did you say you learned to fight, again?"

Ugh. I was getting tired of keeping stuff secret. "Yeah, everyone should probably know the details there. If nothing else, it'll make explanations easier. Let's go ask the Director if she can get everybody together for a bit. This'll be easier to explain to the whole group."

Dauntless was the first to speak. "What's this all about, exactly?"

I was in a conference room, seated at Director Piggot's left, with Armsmaster on her right and the rest of the Protectorate and Wards teams seated on both sides of the table. It was honestly kind of impressive, seeing the number of people they had at their disposal. A group of Huntsmen of this size could be close to unstoppable if they really wanted to be. In addition, there were several other people dressed in fancy suits instead of costumes; maybe some of the PRT's soldiers? I saw Shane back in the corner, so maybe they were just normal employees.

The Director responded. "Many of you have likely noticed that we've been keeping a lid on the details of the past of our newest Protectorate member. That is going to remain the case to anyone outside this room - if you're in here and don't already know, we are informing you because you will be working closely with Scatter, or because it is directly relevant to your work here. No one else is to be told without the express permission of myself or my superiors, is that understood?"

There was a collection of quiet 'yes ma'am's in response, and the entire crowd seemed intrigued. Everyone likes a mystery.

"Alright then, if that's clear, then I'll turn it over to Scatter herself. Please hold all questions until the end. Scatter?"

The entire table turned to me.

Well, here goes. "I'm… not quite from around here…"

I live! This one fought me a little, but help from the Cauldron Discord got me through it (thanks to everyone over there!) I wound up having to rewrite like 600 words near the end of this one, and that only delayed it by like two days.

By the way, most of you probably haven't seen it yet, but my profile page will now contain a sort of mini-progress-blog that I'll update on occasion.

One more thing; I've just started my freshman year of college, and I'm not really sure how it'll affect update speed. So far, it doesn't seem to have had too big of an effect, but we'll have to see how it goes. If I vanish into the ether for a few months (again...) then that's probably why. I'll try to keep posting stuff to the profile at least, even if it's just a sort of 'no progress, see you next week' thing.

As always, critique is appreciated, thank you all for reading, and I'll see you next time!