Quest

by Kahlil Johnson

Uhhhh

4. Pro2

Current Energy: 24

Currently 2/10 - Spiritual Power Usage (Cost 8 to Teach)

'Can't you just phone 'em?' You ask curiously, recalling the way that kid you fought berated you for not thinking of something like that when your Master was hurt.

'But what if that makes things worse? I'm already probably in a whole bunch of trouble for everything you did!' She replies instantly, allowing an awkward silence to fall between herself and her father.

'Unless they don't know that you're my projection? It's not like they can prove it's my fault...' She continues, following a train of thought that very well might have gone all the way to the station if it weren't for one very important fact.

'Yeah 'bout that.' You begin, wincing slightly as your Master freezes in place, clearly awaiting what you say next.

'I uh. Sorta told them I'm a projection. That Assault guy seemed okay so I-' You say hesitantly.

"You told them!?" Taylor shouts angrily at you, dropping her fork and whirling around to stare at you.

You look back and forth between her and her Father - who is now staring suspiciously at the space you're standing in and then sigh before manifesting yourself physically.

"I was like an hour old! I didn't know!" You defend yourself, crossing your arms in a huff.

"You- fine, that's fair. But run this stuff past me next time! Even if you're sentient, I'm the one who'll get criminally charged!" Taylor yells at you, picking her fork up and gesturing forcefully at you before turning back to her plate of food, where she finally notices her Father staring at you.

"Uh- Dad this is Emmy?" She tries guiltily.

"...right. Your 'power'. Little Owl, are you sure he's a..." Danny says, trailing off as he tries to find the right word to describe you.

"Projection." You offer helpfully.

"...That. Are you sure he's a Projection? Because to me, it seems an awful lot like a grown man has been invisibly stalking my daughter and I'm having feelings about it." He says darkly.

"Yes! Why would I even lie about that?" She asks in exasperation.

"I don't know! I apparently don't know a whole lot about your life Taylor!" Danny retorts.

"Oi. We did this already. Taylor you can prove I'm your Projection by - I dunno, order me to do something stupid." You jump in, stopping the argument before it starts. Not because you actually care about Taylor's relationship with her Father, so much as you dislike how she feels when she's arguing with him.

"What, you think doing a hand stand is going to convince me that-" Danny scoffs but is cut off by his daughter.

"Punch yourself in the face!" Taylor yells, cutting him off.

You do so, and for the first time since obtaining sentience, you feel actual pain. And you hate it. Some of your feelings must be evident on your face though because Taylor winces and silently apologizes to you as you rub your stinging cheek.

"I still don't see how that proves anything." Daniel huffs.

"Dad, he fought the whole Protectorate and won. If he wanted to do terrible things to us he wouldn't need to lie." Taylor points out flatly, and Daniel winces at the rebuke. He must not have thought about what would happen if he was right and confronted you about it.

"Fine. Say your right. Now what?" He says, one hand rising to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"I was teaching Taylor how to be bulletproof." You offer, then hastily add "without actual bullets!" when Daniel glares at you.

"Can you even do that? I didn't think you could just teach new powers." He says.

"Ya can't. Master's just special that way." You say proudly.

He eyes you for a bit longer, then sighs and returns to eating sullenly, shooting you the occasional glare.

"Um. You can sit down. And... stop calling me Master? It's weird." Taylor says, gesturing for you to sit at the table.

"So if we just call the PRT and tell them we can't come in today... then what?" She continues, directing her question more towards you than her Dad.

"Whatever the hell we want?" You ask in confusion.

"No I- I mean eventually we're going to have to deal with the PRT Emmy. They haven't announced I'm a villain yet or anything so-" Taylor pauses then turns to her Father with a question in her eyes.

"Nothing on the news about it." He confirms.

"Right so... I'm not a villain yet or anything so maybe we can go in once I have that Brute power?" She says looking back to you.

"I'll do whatever you want." You say with a shrug. You'd probably be more worried about this if your Emulation had even an ounce of shame, but as things stand you're confident you could crush just about anyone in the city in combat. Zaraki Kenpachi has entirely too much power for a properly configured power to be able to take on.

Eventually, Taylor makes her call to the PRT, shakily apologizing but telling them that she's not comfortable coming in today. There is some back and forth - evidently Taylor's meek way of speaking has left whomever she's speaking to with the impression that she'd feel safer with a PRT escort which is laughable - but eventually, she agrees to come in to give her statement sometime this week. You try to protest this - you really don't see a point in bowing to this organization - but she scowls and points out that they can make her Dad's life hell if she doesn't at least play along with them.

It isn't until you're an hour and a half into your second training session for the day when Taylor opens up a mental link to you in order to scream;

'Did you tell anyone else you were my projection!? Is Dad in danger!?'

You blink at her and are about to respond in the negative when there is a knocking at the front door of the house. You both pause in your training, and, hurried forward by the sense of urgency your Master is feeling, you enter your Spirit Form in order to ghost through the door and examine the interloper and possible threat.

You find;

[ ] Oh hey, it's that girl you beat up, only she's dressed like a normal person.

[ ] A bedraggled looking freckled blonde whose eyes twitch left and right suspiciously as she steps from foot to foot on the front doorstep.

[ ] A tiny brunette who you vaguely recognize as being one of three people on your currently three-person long kill on sight list.

A/N: Anyone curious will actually realize that Lisa has already been recruited by Coil at this point, but that she is currently the only Undersider. Make of that what you will. For transparency sake, I present options like this because I don't want to write about characters or associations the Thread isn't interested in, so when situations like this pop up I think of interesting plotlines for each option etc and then let you guys decide what you want to read. Anyway, this chapter brought to you by a messed up circadian rhythm, three cups of coffee and the two monster energies.

Yes, I'm aware of the likely connection between those things. No, I won't stop. Toodles~

Last edited: Jun 4, 2020

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A Hat & Its Man

Jun 5, 2020

#501

Spoiler: Choices:

Current Energy: 24

Everybody can thank deadlyhamsandwich for what may or may not have been an intentional Omake.

3 to Spiritual Power Usage

Currently 5/10 - Spiritual Power Usage (Cost 5 to Teach)

Floating through the front door of the house, you find yourself staring at a blonde girl you vaguely recognize. It takes you several seconds of staring, all the while ignoring the patient ringing of the doorbell the girl is doing, for you to finally recognize her. She's wearing a pair of jeans that look like they probably took a team of specialists to get on and a black long sleeve shirt that manages to only be tight around her biceps, which, you will admit, are fairly well-toned for someone her age. She is carrying a white purse over one shoulder that is adorned with a frankly ridiculous number of patches and other assorted memorabilia and doesn't look like she's going to just go away if you ignore her.

This is that girl you accidentally nearly killed! For just the briefest of seconds your entertain the idea that she might have come to attack your Master - possibly to get revenge for her sound defeat at your hands - but you quickly put that idea to rest just by looking at her. You've gathered that people with powers typically only fight each other when they're wearing their costumes, and this girl is most definitely not in costume.

You think.

'Mas- Taylor, it's that girl from the other day. The blonde one?' You send to her, noting with some amusement that she is actively in the process of helping her father climb over the back fence into her neighbours yard.

'I have no idea who you're talking about Emmy. Is she white? Does she have a Nazi tattoo?' Your Master responds, not even bothering to pause in her escape attempts.

'I don't... think so? I think her name was Glory something. I wasn't paying a lot of attention at the time.' You admit freely, maintaining your position by the door. You note with some amusement that the girl appears to be able to hear some of the struggle going on in the backyard, Daniel not apparently being suited for such mild acrobatics.

'Glory... Glory Girl is here? Is... does she look mad?' Taylor asks hesitantly, pausing in her efforts.

You glance at the girl. She looks annoyed but that seems more a result of being ignored when she can clearly tell someone is home. As a point of fact, she is now apparently glancing at the gate to the backyard as though trying to decide if it would be rude to fly over it or not.

'No?'

'Oh. Good. I'll uh... I'll come let her in.' Taylor answers you, which is quickly accompanied by her voice coming from the backyard.

"False alarm Dad. Emmy says it's just Glory Girl." You can hear her say, before jogging back into the house and up to the front door which promptly opens up.

"Hi. Can... can I help you?" Taylor says, stumbling slightly over her words as she gets a good look at the other teen. You can feel her emotional state tick over from slightly panicked to... how to describe it. A sort of pinkish adoration you guess. Her pupils have dilated slightly and she is obviously having trouble focusing too.

You quirk an eyebrow but - feeling nothing yourself - don't comment on it.

"Yes! Your ragdoll girl right? I came to see if you were okay." the kid - Glory Girl you guess - comments easily, smiling at your Master.

"I'm fine just a little- ragdoll girl?" Your Master says breaking off mid sentence to ask incredulously.

"Yeah there was some phone video of that guy running around with you and you were sort of flopping around like a-" Glory Girl chatters pleasantly only to peter off as she takes in your Master's dejected state. You say 'dejected' but in reality she's basically perfectly perched on the edge of breaking out into tears. You haven't been conscious long enough to have a really good sense of time but you suspect your Master probably isn't feeling very good about her self image right about now after everything she's been through.

You are about to make this observation of yours known violently and through overwhelming force when Glory Girl manages to save her own life by lunging forward to pull your Master into a huge hug.

Also, she dials up that weird feel-good thing she was doing to your Master enough to temporarily remove the lingering depression you can feel wafting off of her, which is, in your opinion, the only appropriate use for that power.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I kind of forgot that- I just wanted to make sure you got home okay! That guy who had you was super dangerous and seemed really fixated on you!" The blonde blurts out, patting your Master on the back and - apparently - abruptly realizing that she is still standing on the front doorstep.

"A-anyway! Can I come in or?" She says awkwardly, eyeing the surrounding neighbourhood over one shoulder.

Your Master sniffles slightly and then pulls away, wiping her face with a sleeve already damp with sweat from your earlier training.

"Yeah. Sorry, I just..." She trails off, apparently not knowing how to explain herself but gesturing you and Glory Girl into the house anyway.

"Don't worry about it. I'm kind of surprised the PRT hasn't shown up to offer you a bodyguard detail or something. If that guy comes back..." Glory Girl says with a mild shiver, raising a few inches into the air and floating into the house ahead of you.

Taylor shuffles uncomfortably from foot to foot for a moment, clearly considering how to answer that, before eyeing you where you stand, invisibly next to her impromptu houseguest, the question obvious in her eyes. You get the impression she'd usually be way more uptight about this kind of thing, but whatever Glory Girl did to her in order to get her to calm down has clearly given her some confidence in the other teen.

[ ] Point out that your Master is probably being Mastered right now.

[ ] Honestly, your Master needs to relax a bit. Give her the go-ahead to explain you to Glory Girl.

[ ] Manifest in the middle of the room - that's clearly what your Master wants. It'll be a good conversation starter.

[ ] Write-In

With regards to Omake - I'm only going to apply one bonus per Skill you train, so don't try to cheat the system by dropping a bunch of em for free skills :p I don't foresee a whole bunch of them in the first place, but if I somehow do see a glut of the things, I'll sequentially apply the bonus to new skills as you attempt to train them.

In a real pinch, should you end up rolling a new character before using all the Omake up, I'll treat each Omake as a sort of bonus slot for Characters, holding extras you roll there for the thread to vote on later. You won't KEEP them, but you can treat it like a filtering mechanism if you like.

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A Hat & Its Man

Jun 7, 2020

#611

Spoiler: Choices:

Current Energy: 24

Currently 5/10 - Spiritual Power Usage (Cost 5 to Teach)

Tuesday, January 4th 2011.

Hebert Residence

You nod once at your Master. Not to give permission - your Master never needs permission from you to do things - but more to signify that you don't foresee any immediate danger to her health if she does explain. This Glory Girl might be stronger than the average human - you assume anyway, given you're using your Master as the standard there - but she is far, far, beneath the weight class she would need to be fighting in to actually threaten your current Emulation.

"Um. Actually about that..." Taylor says after a moment, not actually closing the door to the house behind the other teen as she stepped inside after her. She continues to shuffle awkwardly from foot to foot, eyeing the other girl with some slight trepidation obvious in her facial expression.

Glory Girl - Is that actually her name? Sounds stupid. - takes immediate note of the change in demeanour and tenses slightly. You wouldn't have noticed it if it weren't for how stupidly hyper-fixated on fighting your current Emulation is. For almost anyone else, the mild change in posture would have been easily overlooked, and if it had been noticed it could have been written off as the minute shifting all humans do when not actively being held still.

Right now, you know that this is not the case. To you, as you are now, the girl might as well have gotten into a stance with her fists raised and ready to brawl.

"Is everything all right?" She asks politely, though the strain and suspicious she is now clearly feeling comes through loud and clear, eliciting a wince from you Master.

"Yes! No! Sorry, I just... I wanted to apologize." Your Master begins, making sure that the other girl has a clear way out of the building should she so choose it. It saddens you to say it, but to you, it almost seems like she expects to be rejected as a matter of course. You know why of course. The core of your personality is largely made up of half-remembered moments in time largely involving the escalating torture of your Master. But it is sad all the same.

"For what? I didn't even actually save you - just stalled till the Protectorate arrived." Glory Girl responds, frowning and relaxing her posture slightly. There is definitely a hint of bitterness in her voice too.

"That's... sort of what I wanted to apologize to you for. I, um. Before- before you found me I was... I was locked in my locker at school. I'd been there for hours and... and I just desperately wanted someone to help me. I had to listen for hours as people went past ignoring me, no matter how much I yelled or screamed or begged. I'm pretty sure I got powers but... I blacked out and couldn't really... direct him..." Taylor mumbles quietly, only audible because of the lack of any other noise to distract from what she is saying.

For her part, it takes Glory Girl nearly a full minute to actually understand what your Master is trying to say.

"What kind of power would- him? Him!" She says, her voice rising slightly in pitch as her head whips around to canvas the hallway and street visible through the open doorway.

With an abruptness that you know can't be natural, your Master switches from slightly awed and distressed to blindingly afraid in the blink of an eye. She rocks backward from the blond teen with such force that she ends up pressed into one wall of the hallway, flattened against it as though held in place by a giant.

You take great issue with this and are about to deal with the most probable source of the unnatural terror when a hasty mental command from your Master compels you to stop.

'W-wait.' She sends to you, her distress so great that it's even begun to seep into her mental communications.

"P-please-" She manages to force out through clenched teeth, drawing Glory Girl's attention.

"I- I'm s-s-s-sorry." Your Master forces out through ragged breaths, then abruptly goes limp as whatever force was compelling her fades away to leave her at relative equilibrium. Or... as close to equilibrium as one can be while piloting a body full of endorphins and adrenaline.

For a moment the two girls merely stand awkwardly in the hallway together, the Glory Girl either not willing to, or not able to apologize and your Master panting haggardly as the adrenaline drains from her body.

Then they both speak at once.

"Sorry" "Are you okay?"

They both stop to stare at each other again.

"That's actually not as bad as what I was doing to train earlier." Taylor finally admits lamely, standing fully and stretching slightly.

"Seriously?" Glory Girl asks incredulously.

"Yeah, Emmy does this thing- you know the soul-crushing thing?" Taylor continues on, idly finding the time to close the door to the house finally.

"Yeah, that was... Amy said that it looked like every cell in my body had been put in a compress. She wasn't sure what the side effects could be so she fixed it but... wait Emmy? Training?"

"My, um... Projection? I don't think he'd care if I just called him a Projection but he has free will kind of so..." Taylor says with a shrug.

"But you... can control it right?" Glory Girl asks, maybe a bit too quickly.

"He has to do what I say or think at him yeah." Taylor answers, although her voice grows slightly clipped when she chooses to emphasize the word 'him'.

"Huh. So the reason he was carrying you was-" Glory Girl queries as Taylor leads her further into the house.

"I just wanted someone to save me," Taylor says in a small voice.

Glory Girl frowns slightly at that, probably recalling Taylor's description of events, and then smiles widely at your Master, whirling on her mid-air with one hand raised.

"Name's Victoria Dallon, and if you can keep a secret - saving people is kind of what my family does." She quips.

Your Master stares at the outstretched hand for a second, obviously slightly blindsided by the sudden gesture, then hesitantly returns the handshake.

"Taylor. I don't really know what I'm going to do with my powers but... I really want to be a hero." She responds finally.

Your smile at the heartwarming little exchange lasts exactly as long as it takes for your Master to order you to find something else to do for a little while. You can tell she's just taking the excuse to stop training - but you can't bring yourself to argue the point with her at the moment.

You also suspect that suddenly appearing in front of someone you recently brutalized might not go over well, but that's more of a problem for your victim than for you.

You have the afternoon to yourself. What do you do?

[ ] Nothing. You're just going to sit on the roof or something until your Master needs you again. (Start next day.)

[ ] Wander about the neighbourhood. You're invisible - no one can stop you.

[ ] Write-In (Keep in mind your distance limitations.)

Your Master clearly isn't as fond of brutal training as your Emulation's universe would imply teenagers should be. What's the plan for tomorrow? Choose 2.

[ ] Continue Training. (Can be chosen twice.)

[ ] Ask your Master about the stupid costume and names everyone uses around here.

[ ] Ask your Master about the local threats. (Babies first Patrol.)

[ ] Follow up with the PRT (3 Days Remain(?))

Spoiler: Author's Note

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A Hat & Its Man

Jun 8, 2020

#662

Spoiler: Choices:

Spoiler: Current Emulation Status

Current Energy: 24

Currently 7/10 - Spiritual Power Usage (Cost 3 to Teach)

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

Hebert Household

Standing atop the Hebert household, you gaze out over the suburban neighbourhood, contemplating your options.

You're fairly certain that nothing too dangerous is likely to happen in the next few hours. True your Master is worried about someone nefarious finding her home and attacking it, but you find it hard to believe anyone would have the balls and the power to succeed at that while you're around - which you literally always are.

So, deciding to go walkabout for a bit, you turn to face the street in front of your Master's house. There isn't much there worth note. It's mostly just parked cars. You consider poking your intangible head into a few of them just to entertain yourself, but give up on the prospect when the sleek black van you were eyeing abruptly pulls into the road and zooms off. Your Master probably wouldn't want you doing anything too invasive anyway. She seems to want to become a Hero, and while you don't know the specifics of what that would entail on this planet, you have an infinite number of realities to draw from for context on the topic given your current configuration.

Breaking the law to entertain yourself would be looked upon poorly in... well... most of them. Not all though, which is something you note down to ask your Master about later.

Without thinking over much of it, you crouch down tensing your legs, pick a direction and leap forward, trusting in your Emulations considerable strength to take you up and over any of the houses.

This simultaneously does and doesn't work. While you do end up making significant progress in your quest to traverse the area, it turns out that you may have gone a bit too fast as you strike the invisible wall that denotes your Master's range and are summarily separated into your component atoms and deposited - quite noisily and painfully - back in the roof of your Masters home in a shower of blue sparks.

You slowly stand up from where you landed, and realize that you are no longer in your Spirit Form. With a shiver, you return to invisibility and jumped down to the sidewalk, then begin to leisurely stroll through the area - this time with much more focus spent on avoiding your range limit.

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

Hebert Household

The day begins with the usual assortment of things. Daniel - seeing that his daughter is healthy if not very pleased, decides to go to work that morning. He wakes up at about 6am and cooks breakfast for himself and his daughter, who's portion he leaves on the kitchen table.

He also spends almost the entire time he is cooking speaking to open air, apparently in an attempt to communicate with you, which you oblige by patiently waiting for him to make a point - which he never does.

It's not that he doesn't try - you grasp that his overall meaning seems to be not to hurt his Daughter at all - but you don't really understand why he thinks you would in the first place. Does he just think you're humouring her right now or something? There is literally nothing on this plane of existence that you value more than your Master. If this were later in the cycle you might even try to find a way to squirrel her away from the inevitable destruction of her species. Blessedly it's still fairly early on as far as things go, so you have plenty of time to find a way around the issue. Technical immortality is a fairly common trait in the multiverse after all.

Regardless, eventually, your Master wakes up and blearily stumbles down the stairs to the kitchen. You move to help her of course, but she merely scowls at you for it, before yawning deeply.

"Sorry about Dad," Taylor says preemptively before you get the chance to say much of anything else.

"He ain't a man if he doesn't even try to protect yah." You point out, handily summing up your opinion on the topic. Sure, you think Daniel may be the most useless person you presently know by name, but at the very least he has that certain bloody mindedness about him that your Emulation recalls makes for a very, very dangerous opponent when underestimated.

"That's... fair..." Taylor offers, clearly not entirely sure she agrees with you on the topic, but equally clearly, no longer wanting to talk about it.

"Soooo..." You say quite innocently as your Master eats. She immediately shoots you a suspicious expression and asks;

"What did you do while was I with Vicky yesterday?" She doesn't phrase it like she's asking about your day so much as with great trepidation towards your actual answer - which is unfortunate for her, because literally nothing happened yesterday.

"Nothin'. Just walked around a bit. You know your neighbours have-" You start but are cut off as your Master splitters in her breakfast.

"You went into people's houses?" She blurts.

"Eh. Little. Got bored." You explain, tracking the last bit in when your Master looks like she's going to ask you why.

"I, can you just - new topic! And no more breaking into people's houses!" She reprimands you. You shrug.

"Well, we've got all day to train." You say as surreptitiously as you can.

"If you really push you might be able to master Spiritual Power by the end of the day..." You tempt.

"...really?" Your Master asks dubiously. To say she has misgivings about your training methods would be an understatement. If she wasn't naturally inclined to trust you she probably wouldn't even entertain the thought of trying.

Also you were lying about her getting it down by today, but frankly, the idea that any idiot with a weapon that outraged you could kill your Master has been stressing you out, and you'd really love to resolve the issue before it comes to a head.

"Sure. Probably." You say blithely.

"I just don't think-" Taylor says, pursing her lips in thought but you interrupt her.

"How long till you have to go back to that shit hole?" You prod slightly. Was it underhanded? Yes. Would you do it a million times over if it meant keeping your Master safe? Absolutely.

"...I've got till next Monday before the note from the Hospital won't work anymore." She answers angrily. Ironically, had she been healed by normal means she would have been left bedridden for months. Only the timely intervention if Victoria's sister helped to avoid that fate, much as Taylor would obviously prefer it.

"Sooo..." You say again, gesturing towards the basement where you had cleared a space to work out in yesterday by carefully piling the detritus in the room against the walls.

"Let me shower." Your Master finally says with a scowl and sigh.

"What... hah... did they... hah... do to this guy... hah... anyway..." Your Master growls out from where she is standing - not laying, not kneeling, standing - in the middle of the room while you bombard her with the majority of your available power.

"Hah? Nothin'. Totally normal guy. He fought some street kids well so the adults came. He fought the adults well so the authorities came. He-" your Master cuts you off, stepping stubbornly towards you while desperately struggling to lift her arms to strike at you.

It wasn't part of the exercise but honestly, it feels better this way anyway. Like this was how it was meant to be.

"Let... me guess... hah. He beat them... too... hah." She gasps out before stumbling and falling to her knees.

"Nah. They beat the shit out of him. Then they made him an authority." You clarify. The life and times of one Zaraki Kenpachi are pretty much just one continuous fight, punctuated by long stretches of looking for more fights. He was a simple if a dangerous man.

"How... much... longer..." Your Master gasps out, hand stretching out to lever herself upwards once more.

You smile at her innocently without answering.

She scowls.

You both continue.

She's catching on! What's the plan for tomorrow! Choose 2!

[ ]Finalize Spiritual Power Training (Currently 7/10. Costs 3 points.)

[ ]Continue! Training! VIGOROUSLY! (Currently 7/10: Spiritual Power.) (Can be chosen twice.) (If option one is chosen, choose a new skill.)

[ ] Ask your Master about the stupid costume and names everyone uses around here.

[ ] Ask your Master about the local threats. (Babies first Patrol.)

[ ] Follow up with the PRT (2 Days Remain(?))

A/N: Alright sorry about the late start but the blitz begins now! You've got an hour to vote then I do the next one, rinse repeat for a few hours! Apologies for not starting earlier, they changed my schedule at work and my sleep cycle is completely borked. (No I won't accept that it's my caffeine addiction. There's nothing wrong with having coffee for every meal. Get off my case.)

Last edited: Jun 8, 2020

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Jun 8, 2020

#682

Spoiler: A/N: (I'm screaming)

Spoiler: Choices:

Spoiler: Current Emulation Status:

Current Energy: 21

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

Hebert Household

You can feel the exact moment your Master finishes obtaining her new power. This isn't abnormal - she's basically drawing from the same battery that keeps you functioning in order to fuel her rapid advancement, so the sudden tug on your reserves would be more than enough of a warning for you to be able to guess what was happening.

What is quite abnormal is the entire house going suddenly very silent before a tremendous pressure lays into you, forcing you to flare your own power to remain standing properly. You glance at the clock on the wall in the living room and sigh. It's just shy of six am, which means that your Master is going to be very unhappy with you when you wake her up. Assuming she hasn't already done so which...

'Why! Am I! Glowing!' Your Master screeches at you mentally, eliciting a wince from you as you navigate all the - now floating - knick nacks and objects in the home to reach her room.

When you pass through the door to examine the situation, you find your Master sitting up blearily in her bed, staring at her hands and around her at the wreckage of her room, which looks like a whirlwind has, or even still is, passing through it. Rising around her is a fluorescent blue aura of pure power that nearly dwarfs the girl herself. It's such a blatantly obvious display of power that you'd be surprised if the neighbours hadn't noticed by now. On the bright side, it's not shaped like a skull, which should please your Master somewhat.

"Spiritual Power is like sneezin'. You gotta hold it back all the time or it flares up like this." You explain patiently, idly poking your head through the wall into Daniel's room to check up on the guy. As you expect, he's spasming in his bed, desperately trying to rise from the mattress to see what's going on, so you meander over to him and flip him onto his back to make sure he doesn't suffocate in his pillows before returning to Taylor.

"I mean, if you're really into a fight you can push it past what it sits at naturally but you maybe... shouldn't... do that." You offer, eyeing the room around you to see if anything your Master actually cares about is liable to be damaged.

"How the hell do I hold it back?!" Taylor continues, panic rising in her voice as she wakes up enough to fully grasp her situation.

"You sorta... just do it?" You say stupidly. Then you blink once. Does... does this Emulation even know how to hold back? You can't recall a single memory of him doing so. In fact, he seems to substitute the skill for - of all things - an eyepatch that limits his power for him.

You suddenly feel like you have made a grave mistake.

"That's not an answer!" Taylor scowls at you, before screwing her eyes closed and furrowing her brows in concentration.

"...fair." You mumble, scratching the back of your head idly in embarrassment.

Several seconds pass as your Master focuses, with each passing moment lessening the pressure you feel pressing against you until - accompanied by the sudden return of gravity to many of the small objects in the building - her aura retracts back into her.

When she opens her eyes again, she is breathing heavily and clutching her bedsheets tightly, her face slightly red from how tense she is.

"So just outta curiosity... how do you do that?" You ask on behalf of your Emulation. Your Master's eyes snap towards you at the exact same time as her Father tumbles through the door to the room, and suddenly there are two Heberts glaring at you.

Fun.

"So... she's bulletproof?" Daniel asks you hesitantly at the breakfast table as you both watch Taylor awkwardly attempt to eat without accidentally releasing her power and obliterating the utensil she's holding.

"Eh. A strong soul resides inside a strong body or somethin'. It's like... uh..." You pause to find a way to explain this. You yourself don't have a hard time understanding the math involved, but your current Emulation seems largely incapable of actually getting a point across.

"S'like hitting a guy with something heavy? Even if you're weak, the heavy thing makes ya hit harder. It's like that, only the heavy object is her Spiritual Power, and it applies to... uh... everything?" You explain with a shrug.

"How is she supposed to go to school when she might accidentally murder anyone she bumps into?" Daniel asks you, shooting a withering stare your way. You are just about to explain that you don't actually care if she goes to school or starts murdering people by mistake, but are saved from your own mouth when your Master jumps into the conversation.

"It's... it's all right Dad. I think I'm getting it. It's just a little uncomfortable is all. Like clenching a muscle all the time." She says, while carefully lowering her spoon into her bowl of cereal with a grimace.

"Besides, this is Brockton Bay - when is being bulletproof bad?" She continues.

"I can't say I like it but if it makes you safer then..." Daniel grunts, pointedly turning his head away from the cabinet you know he keeps all his alcohol in.

"It's fine Dad." Taylor says, exasperated. Once she got over the obvious displeasure at the hour, in addition to accidentally totalling the door to her room, she took surprisingly well to her new strength. She was actually fairly ecstatic about it really. If you had to hazard a guess you'd say that something about having a power of her own is simply more 'real' to her than having you as a Projection. You'd be offended but technically that power came from you anyway so if you squint at it you can tell yourself that she's proud of you and not just the new power.

"Hmm. Maybe I should call out of work again? I still have some sick days saved up so-" Daniel queries hesitantly.

"Dad I'm fine. Better than fine! Besides I have Emmy - nothing bad is going to happen." She counters quickly, slightly deforming the spoon in her grip.

"That's what I'm worried about..." Daniel mumbles under his breath, shooting you another glare and then rising to put his dishes away.

Fifteen minutes later and you find yourself in the basement again, watching over Taylor as she practices a controlled release of her power. It's going... you won't say well. But well enough at least. You suspect she may have inherited your current Emulation's complete lack of any skill at control, but doubt that will hold her back for long.

Speaking of being held back...

"Hey, Ma- Taylor. What's with all the stupid spandex around here anyway?" You ask curiously. Your Master stops in her tracks to stare at you, expending some focus to retract her aura back into herself.

"It's not stupid!" She blurts out before blushing slightly and glancing away from you.

"I mean, it's not... really spandex. Most of the time. I'm pretty sure Alexandria wears a special tinker tech cloth. She gets set on fire a lot so..." Your Master mumbles shyly, not even once making eye contact with you.

"What the hell is an Alexandria?" You ask, nonplussed.

"She's one of the Triumvirate," Taylor explains, clearly not understanding that you don't know what that is either.

"...They're the three strongest heroes in the world! How do you not- right. Basically a baby. Um. Remember those guys you fought before? The Protectorate?" Taylor tries again, obviously seeing the blank look on your face.

"Heh. Weaklings." You answer fondly. Taylor frowns at you but continues.

"Those guys work for the organization that the Triumvirate founded. They have teams all over the country that fight crime and stuff. They wear costumes so the bad guys don't know who they are and take their families hostage or something."

You stare at your Master as several things click. Then you frown.

"What about Glory Girl?" You ask.

"She... her family doesn't believe in masks? Vicky's a bad example." Taylor responds.

"Eh. Whatever. At least you don't -" You start then stop when your Master glances away from you again. You try imagining her in spandex calling herself Laserfist or something else equally stupid. And you hate it.

"Now Master let's not be hasty..." You try, stepping slightly towards her, only to be bombarded by her suddenly unleashed Spiritual Power.

"Hero's wear costumes! They have cool names!" Your Master hisses at you, blushing red to her ears.

Welp. You can tell when you've lost the argument. At least you can suggest a costume and name that aren't... as stupid?

How should your esteemed Master style herself?

[ ] Write-In

What's the plan for tomorrow? Choose 2.

[ ]Continue! Training! VIGOROUSLY! (Choose a Skill) (Can be chosen twice.)

[ ] Ask your Master about the local threats. (Babies first Patrol.)

[ ] Follow up with the PRT (1 Days Remain(?))

Last edited: Jun 8, 2020

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A Hat & Its Man

Jun 8, 2020

#712

Spoiler: Choices:

Current Energy: 21

Friday, January 7th, 2011

Hebert Household

Another day, another freakishly huge meal for your Master. You would comment on the topic but the last time you did she sent you a glare so strong you felt actual pain for a second - and that was before you learned that your Master is the spiritual equivalent of a small nuke.

The morning precedes roughly apace with what you have become accustomed too. Taylor works her way through an impressive breakfast, Daniel is passive-aggressive at you, and neither of them knows what to talk about when there's nothing wrong. They both try of course. But it's so stilted and flat that you can see them both experiencing physical pain for the experience.

Regardless, once the usual morning routine in the Hebert Household is complete, you find yourself looking forward to another day of brutal, probably very unsafe training. It is a weird sensation, wanting to do unfathomable violence to someone you care about in order to prevent someone else from doing the same, but it is one you are quickly coming to appreciate.

You are just starting the arduous process of finding a sufficiently sharp stick for your Master to practice trying to kill you with when you notice her staring at the homes single phone with a pinched expression on her face. It is only at this point that you recall her original stipulation for calling those Protectorate guys you beat up - having Spiritual Power of her own to defend herself with.

You quickly weigh the pro's and con's. On the one hand, swordfighting. It really does stand up on it's own as an explanation. On the other hand, the chances of any given person with powers getting into a fight when they encounter someone else with powers is so unbelievably high most of the time that you can't help but be sort of attracted to the idea of going to see the spandex squad again. And it is what your Master wants after all...

"Just call 'em." You say plainly, gesturing helplessly at the phone with a hand when your Master shoots a curious glance your way.

"Are you sure? I know I said we'd go when we were done training but-" She says and you cut her off with a snort.

"Done training? Training is never 'done'. I've got so much to show you! Don't you wanna know exactly how hard to headbutt a guy to kill him? I can teach you that!" You explain quickly, excited at the prospect. Swordfighting? No, you've changed your mind. You want to teach your Master how to end her enemies with her fists. That way she'll never be unarmed.

"Hello? This is Taylor Hebert? You wanted me to come in sometime this week?" You hear as you are suddenly broken out of your thoughts by your Master's voice. She is very studiously not looking at you as she makes the phone call, and there are slight cracks in the floor where she obviously moved just a bit faster than was necessary to reach the phone from the table.

"This afternoon? Y-yes that would be- no I don't have one yet um. Do I need one? I- I'll try and have it figured out by then. Thank you." She continues her one sided conversation, finally hanging up with a sigh.

"They want us to come in this afternoon, around four." Taylor explains to you as she turns to find you eyeing her with one eyebrow raised.

"Eh, that still leaves a good- ten hours for us to train?" You say, already trying to figure out how to organize things for maximum effect. Just look at the effects of your other training method! Your Master should totally have died by now but instead, look at her! Strong enough to pulp a car with one hand! You are so glad this Emulation had all that information on training methods for fighting better stored away!

"I need a costume! They said so!" Taylor blurts out, stepping slightly away from you, her face pale.

"Can't you just... I dunno, put a bowl on your head or something?" You ask forlornly. You think you might actually hate the Protectorate right now.

"No! What if the Wards are there? I can't show up looking stupid!" She blurts out, affronted by your statement.

"Fine. Just... uh... hang on I have something for this." You grumble, pulling off your white Captain's cloak and draping it over her shoulders. You're so much larger than your Master that the cloak is basically a huge shroud on her, but it otherwise fits, if a bit loosely.

"Sew some pockets into that for your stuff and wear a mask if you have to." You say with a shrug, scratching your chin lightly.

"It's... a bit bright... and I don't think walking around with a Japanese character on my back is a good idea," Taylor says uncomfortably shrugging around in the oversized bit of clothing.

"Dye it?" You say with a shrug. "Your gonna want a cloak with a buncha pouches and crap anyway. No telling who I'll be after this guy - you might end up with a lot of stuff to hold onto."

"Maybe..." Taylor says after a moment of consideration, shucking off your cloak and tucking it under one arm before dashing off to the basement at a controlled pace that thankfully doesn't pulp the floor beneath her.

Despite yourself, you can't help but be slightly excited for her. Sure the costumes are stupid, but nothing she comes up with based on your outfit could be that bad.

By the time you've drifted down the stairs to examine whatever it is she's doing, you arrive to find Taylor hurriedly digging through the plethora of discarded objects in the basement that her Father refuses to get rid of for some unspecified reason. Eventually, she lifts a hand into the air triumphantly, holding a sealed plastic bag with a few jars of something in it.

"I used to have to go to Summer Camp every year. We used to dye our shirts and do other handicrafts like that, so I have some of that stuff down here." She explains helpfully, before returning to shuffling about the basement.

"Great so that's settled, we can train-" You begin before Taylor blurts out again.

"Still need a mask though! And I'll have to watch this while it dries!"

Okay fine. You clearly aren't going to be able to push her on this so you might as well let her get it over with.

Several hours of watching your Master fiddle with bits of clothing later, and she finally stands before you in an eclectic combination of clothing that you... actually you don't have an opinion on fashion. Like pretty everything else that isn't fighting, your Emulation simply never formed an opinion on the topic. Even the Protectorate wearing spandex only irks him because spandex has no inherent value in combat.

"So... what do you think?" Taylor asks hesitantly as she patiently hops from foot to foot under your gaze.

It's... something all right. She's somehow managed to dye your cloak a loamy brown and has affixed it at the shoulders to a similarly coloured sweater of some sort. She's wearing loosely fitted jeans, in addition to a pair of slightly too large boots that you guess probably once belonged to her father, and at her waist are two crossed work belts like one might see at a construction site, each one lined with pockets and pouches. A single strip of brown cloth is affixed around her face with holes cut in it for her eyes to peer through, and her glasses are clearly perched on the front of them.

Basically, not only is the outfit of middling quality, it doesn't appear to serve it's intended purpose of obscuring her identity. Her very distinct flowing brown hair is clearly visible, and her glasses could fall off at any moment.

Which is all entirely secondary to the roiling waves of discomfort and shame roiling off your Master as you examine her. And doesn't that just decide it for you? She can get a better tailored outfit later. For now, though, this is the most amazing costume ever, or else. So sayeth Emmy.

"It's great! I like what you did with the uh... belts?" You offer, managing to inject at least enough enthusiasm into your voice to alleviate your Master's sense of discomfort.

"Dad had a bunch of them lying around from old job sites. I was thinking I would sew some into the cloak later." She says impishly.

"Great. So." You say finally, causing Taylor to freeze in place.

"...training?" She asks weakly.

"Yes." You whisper back pleasantly, glancing at the clock in the hallway. You have about four hours until you have to be wherever the Protectorate keep their clowns for display, so you can probably eke out three hours of training if you're good about it.

One must train in what one wishes to fight in after all.

"I hate you," Taylor grumbles at you as you leap over buildings and streets towards what she says is the correct location to meet the Protectorate.

"Aw come on don't say that!" You complain, idly changing directions mid-air to catch your Master and set her down on the rooftop she was aiming at without being prompted. You had been doing this for most of this trip so far. It isn't that you Master is bad at judging distances per say, merely that she hadn't even considered trying to travel by rooftop until you pointed out it would be faster than the bus.

Of course, that had sparked a series of arguments about visibility and such, that ended with you two travelling several blocks on foot for her to change in the bathroom at a local park, but in the end, you like to think that your Master is enjoying herself.

"You threw rocks at me!" She whines, rubbing at her shoulder where a particularly hard throw had probably bruised her slightly.

"Yeah well, it was that or use my sword." You point out as you both land in front of the perfectly generic-looking gray building in the middle of the downtown area with a dull thump and a displacement of air.

"Do you have any training methods that aren't just attacking me with stuff till I learn them?" Your Master asks rhetorically as she quickly walks towards the buildings' front door to avoid the attention your abrupt landing has drawn from those nearby.

"Nah. Takes too long." You admit freely.

"You were just going to attack me with your sword to teach me how to sword fight weren't you?" She asks with a resigned tone as you enter.

"Probably." You reply, looking around the lobby of the building you have stepped into.

It's big and full of people just sort of... milling about. Directly across from the entrance is a large bank of desks with different attendants answering people's questions and directed them throughout the area. To your right is a fairly ostentatious looking entrance to what appears to be a toy store, and to your left is a closed steel door that occasional opens to disgorge men and women wearing black fatigues as they exit the building.

Taylor pulls you directly up to one of the desks and waits patiently for the attendant to notice her before clearly reciting;

"I've lost my cat and need Eidolon to help me find it." The receptionist nods at this. Your Master nods back.

You stare at her like she just spit on you.

'What?' She asks you mentally.

'The hell was that?' You ask, quickly schooling your facial expression and following after your Master as the attendant steps out from behind the desk and begins to lead you further into the building.

'I don't know! They told me to say it at the door!' Taylor answers immediately, although you can tell she's a bit flustered about it now that you've called her out on the topic.

You are just about to apologize for that when a stern voice calls out to you from the end of the hallway.

"Line Drive and...?" The idiot in the white and blue armour asks, directing his question at your Master. You want to snort and tell him to piss off, but a sudden wave of admiration and glee flowing off your Master forces your mouth shut. Because of course, your Master would like the stupidest looking one of these clowns.

Your Master doesn't look like she thought about a name! Help!

[ ] Myriad

[ ] Nexus

[ ] Gemini

[ ] Write-In

A/N: I tried to match up to what you guys suggested using stuff Taylor actually had access too. I'll use this as the basis for her more professional looking costume when she eventually gets one unless something really zaney happens and the design has to be changed.

All right, you know the score. See you in an hour, the next one will probably be my last for the night.

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Bowler Hat Guy

A Hat & Its Man

Jun 8, 2020

#786

Spoiler: Choices:

Spoiler: Choices:

Current Energy: 21

You - for the briefest of moments mind - consider merely sending your Master a mental message with your suggested name. The man in the tin can is staring pointedly at your Master as if expecting some great revelation to spill forth from her mouth when she opens it, and you can feel your Master quail under his gaze.

Also, he called you... what was it... Line Diver? Drive? What a freaking idiot.

"Nexus." You say drawing the man's attention back towards you with a feral grin.

"Call 'er Nexus. And I ain't Line Diver I'm M.E" You say with a snort leaning forward to tower over the man who is making your Master feel uncomfortable. It never occurred to you to compare before but your current Emulation is freakishly tall compared to the average human of this universe. Enough so that you can almost but not quite bend entirely overhead of the annoying man.

"...Very well. Nexus, M.E, if you would come this way, we would like to get your accounting of events before taking you to Power Testing." He answers flatly, spinning around to march away from you like you never spoke. You are actually vaguely surprised that he was able to parse your own name for a second. You were kind of hoping he would stumble over it as your Master had.

'What was that!?' Your Master yells at you as she hastily moves to follow him, with you trailing behind.

'You didn't have a name, so I threw one out! What you wanted to stand and stammer at him for longer?' You reply blithely.

'No! I just... I wanted something cooler... and why do you hate Armsmaster so much anyway?' Your Master asks you suspiciously.

He got in your way one time and you just found out that your Master idolizes him which made you sort of jealous. Not that you were going to say that out loud of course.

'He tried to stop me from savin' you. Course I hate his guts.' You explain just in time for Armsmaster to lead you into a small room with a table and two chairs in it, one at either end of said table. Armsmaster steps into the room and then to the side, gesturing at the opposite side of the table for your Master to sit in. Obligingly, you walk past Armsmaster to stand protectively behind her, instinctively glancing up when a prickle of danger crosses your awareness and makes you aware of what look like, recessed turrets in the ceiling.

You snort and cross your arms.

When everyone has settled and your Master is anxiously waiting for something to happen, Armsmaster begins speaking.

"This is Armsmaster of the Protectorate ENE taking a statement from Nexus with regards to her circumstances during the events of this Monday, January 3rd, 2011." He says calmly, pointedly ignoring you and looking towards your Master as if waiting for her to speak. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she jolts and begins to speak.

"Ah um. For the last year now I've been getting b-bullied at school." Your Master begins, quickly rehashing most of what she already told Victoria the day before. It's not pretty, and by the end of the explanation small blue flecks of power are starting to leak past your Master's control.

Armsmaster stares at your Master pensively for a moment, before speaking.

"Can you repeat - for the record - the names of the three you believe to be your attackers?" He asks.

"Sophia Hess, Maddison Clements, and Emma Barnes." Your Master answers, the mild burst of rage she feels at those names apparently enough to help her center herself and withdraw her aura back into herself.

"Thank you. Just one moment please while I prepare the testing room for you. I will send an agent to get you when it is ready." He says mechanically, which is that different from how he talks normally anyway, and rises from his seat to leave the room.

"Didn't they schedule us? Why isn't it already set up?" Your Master asks rhetorically, obviously not expecting an answer.

"Eh, lets find out." You say with a shrug, vanishing from sight before she can easily tell you not to and walking out through a wall to trail behind Armsmaster as he power walks through the halls.

"-Get Hess out of the building!" He hisses into the air, presumably into a communicator in his stupid looking helmet.

"We will investigate later. Right now we have a powerful Parahuman in the building who claims to have been continuously assaulted by her for over a year and the Director wants her to meet the Wards!" He scowls, turning a corner and walking out of sight.

Hm. You didn't catch the whole conversation, but you're smart enough to put two and two together. Clearly something is up here. You resolve to keep an eye out for any Kill on Sight targets as you move back to your Master's room.

"What was it? What's going on?" Taylor asks you the moment you rematerialize in the room with her.

"I think they might have already had that Hess girl arrested or something. They were worried you would find her in the building and murder her I think." You explain, then continue, "also they really want you to meet the Wards? Whatever those are."

Your Master perks up quite instantly at this, snorting slightly.

"You know, it would explain so much if Sophia had powers. Why nobody ever did anything about her, why Emma changed suddenly..." Your Master blanches slightly then says.

"Is Sophia a Master?"

"One way to find out." You offer, thumbing the hilt of your sword.

"No! Why do you always go straight to-" She begins then slams her mouth shut with a click as the door opens up to show a PRT officer standing politely in the hall.

"Two for Power Testing?" He queries politely.

Your Master shoots you a withering glare causing you to remove your hand from your sword, then she stands up to follow the officer out of the room. The officer ends up taking you to what could charitably be described as a large gymnasium full of confusing looking machines and blinking lights.

"Hello? Nexus and... M.E?" A voice calls out to you over a PA system built into the room.

"I'll be directing your test today. Please step towards the machine on your left and push against it as hard as you can - don't hold back." The voice says, causing you and your Master to turn towards each other simultaneously - you with a grim smile on your face and her with a look of horror.

They did say not to hold back...

[ ] Acquiesce to your Master's unspoken wishes and make an effort not to kill the building you're standing in.

[ ] You are going to throw this hydraulic press thing through the roof.

[ ] Write-In

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A Hat & Its Man

Jun 9, 2020

#874

Spoiler: Choices:

Spoiler: Choices:

Current Energy: 21

Friday, January 7th, 2011

PRT Headquarters, Brockton Bay

You hold your smile for a few seconds more, and then are surprised to find Taylor dashing towards the device the voice in the ceiling had previously indicated. For all the world the device looks to you like a metal circle in the ground and another metal circle in the ceiling. If you weren't fairly certain your Master could survive it, you would be worried about what looks like an obvious trap. As it is, your hand shifts slightly towards your sword - just in case you have to fight your way out of the building after this.

"This is our standard device for determining the average Brute rating of any given Parahuman. It might seem silly given your Master power, but we are required to test everyone on it at least once, just for completion's sake." The voice says in an almost bored tone.

You share a look with your Master that quickly morphs into a smirk as she realizes that they were assuming she was weak and her faces falls into a flat but determined expression while she patiently waits for the examiner to continue.

"The device will slowly release weight onto you until we determine that you can no longer hold it up. It might seem as though you could be crushed, but there are safety measures in place to ensure that doesn't happen."

"So I just...?" Taylor asks the ceiling, cautiously lifting her hands into the air as though to catch an invisible ball.

"That will do yes. Begining test in three... two... one..." The examiner calls out.

And then, with a dull clunk, the entire disk of metal crashes down towards your Master with the blinding fury of a freight train in motion.

"Shit!" You hear over the intercom, immediately followed by several white-robed technicians sprinting out of a hitherto hidden room while another one frantically calls for help over there cellphone nearby.

You snort at their apparent panic, keeping your eyes firmly locked on your Master as the blue glare of her Spirit blasts forth. She stands beneath the metal construction with obvious strain on her face as she rises from one knee to a crouched position. There is a light growling noise coming from her, as though she is unsure how to vocalize her current feelings, and her face is a scarlet red of distress as she focuses on applying all of her now considerable strength to holding the device up.

The only reason the techs haven't noticed is that you're using your own spirit to shield them from the oppressive effect your Master would otherwise be having on her surroundings.

"Want some help?" You ask blithely, finally drawing the technician's attention to the fact that your Master is not, in fact, a smear on the floor of the room.

"I've...got this..." She strains out, pushing herself up another inch but faltering slightly as her balance shifts.

"How- isn't she a Master?" One of the nearby lab techs whispers.

"A Brute Master? Fuuuuun." The other hisses back in a deadpan voice. You don't quite fully grasp what they mean by that, but at the very least one thing is clear.

They are properly in awe of your Master. And really, isn't that all that matters?

"Oi." You call out to the two techs who jolt as you draw their attention, clearly having forgotten your presence.

"A-ah. Yes?" One of them answers hesitantly after sharing a brief look with his colleague.

"Is there anything on top of us?" You ask, judging your Master to be at about the limits of her current endurance. Something to work on later you guess.

Weirdly, your Master starts struggling even harder as you think that.

"Uh." The tech you're talking to answers unintelligibly.

"Some offices? Why does that-" Another begins to ask, but you've stopped paying attention to him already. Instead, you stride over to the device your Master is labouring under, crack your knuckles, and firmly grasp the edges of the disk.

Then you heave with all the force you can generate while still severely limiting how much Spiritual Pressure you put into your surroundings. You're still the only thing stopping most of these guys from keeling over in your Master's presence after all.

Two things happen at once.

One, the metal disk slams into the ceiling with enough force to deform it - the ceiling, not the disk - and two, alarms begin to blare all around you.

The alarms continue to blare as you reach forward and grab Taylor by the collar, yanking her slightly backward as the deformed mechanism in the roof ceases to be able to hold up its own weight, and falls to the ground with a loud metallic ringing that makes your teeth ache.

"...ow." Your Master finally says, shaking free of your grip and rubbing at her arms limply.

"Work through the pain. S'good practice." You counsel, idly thinking back to the sheer number of times this Emulation has deliberately allowed itself to sustain life-threatening injury before even attempting to fight back. You would prefer if your Master didn't adopt the behaviour, but you can see other - much more reasonable - situations where the skill might come in handy.

"Get powers and somehow manage to summon a jock," Taylor grumbles lamely, apparently much less bothered by the loud noises and people surrounding you then she would otherwise be now that she is aware that she can lift-

You curse as you realize that you'll probably never know since you broke the machine.

"Unknown Parahuman!" You hear yelled at you from behind, and turn to find dozens of black clothed officers with the letters PRT stencilled on their vests pointing guns at you.

You have to resist the urge to pinch the bridge of your nose in annoyance.

You are torn between exiting the building through the nearest wall and well... doing nothing since your Master - for some god awful reason - is deeply invested in these people liking her.

'Nothing' wins out when Armsmaster shows up to de-escalate things, quickly leading you away to yet another testing facility. Or... another part of the same facility. You can't really tell. You got lost somewhere after the first turn in this place.

That's half the reason you've been treating all the walls as exits after all.

"Now, if you will, please use your Master ability on the volunteer," Armsmaster says, pointing at a sealed room on the other side of a large glass wall making up one face of the room itself.

You are in a long hallway that Armsmaster claims is the 'Master Stranger Containment Area', which is lined entirely by these see through cells, almost all of which are empty save for the one you are currently in front of. Inside of it is a man wearing simple fatigues with the letters PRT stencilled on them, and a grim expression on his face as he stands at attention.

"I...what?" Taylor asks in confusion.

"Your Master ability. The one you used to commandeer this man - whom I should add, you will be required to release if you wish to maintain good standing as a Hero." Armsmaster explains with a slightly pinched tone to his voice. The guy has always seemed sort of uptight, but apparently something about your Master being a high-level Brute bothered him greatly.

Probably just stewing in his own weakness you figure. Not actually your problem as long as he keeps it to himself.

"I... don't have... Emmy?" Taylor tries, eventually turning to you for help.

"I told Assault already. I. Am. A. Projection. I was born when Nexus got her powers. I randomly shuffle personalities and powers. I'm M.E. Multiversal Emulator! I swear I told you guys this." You explain, slightly annoyed.

"You have a physical body and display visible signs of life." Armsmaster spits back immediately.

"I'm Emulating them!" You spit back.

"I really don't have whatever power you want me to use on him though." Taylor points out, gesturing at the guy in the room who - due to being able to see you but not hear you - tenses visibly as though awaiting something horrible. Something which - because your Master absolutely can't just take control of everyone in her range - never comes.

Armsmaster looks at your Master as she speaks and - possibly because of the clear sincerity and innocence inherent to your perfect amazing Master - appears to finally grasp, fully and completely, that yes, you are in fact speaking the truth.

Or he's using a power or something. Hell if you know what the moron has squirrelled away in his helmet.

"...You're a projection." He says finally.

"Yuuuup." You say, stretching the word out.

"With a mind of your own." He continues, turning his head to stare at you, his helmet now clearly doing something as he stares.

"He- he's sentient! He even has a soul! I... think." Taylor jumps in, glancing at you surreptitiously as she speaks. Despite the fact that you really don't care about your status in the eyes of the law, your Master seems weirdly adamant that you be seen as your own person by everyone who encounters you.

She also seems to think that since you are using the power of a soul that you have a soul, which... is a philosophical conundrum that you would prefer not to think overmuch about since you are in fact only emulating a soul.

It is admittedly kind of nice that she cares that much about you though.

Armsmaster for his part has clearly been thinking while his helmet analyzes you, finally turning back to your Master with an almost sour look on what is visible of his face.

"Since this portion of the testing is obviously moot, and our normal facility appears to be suffering from some... technical difficulties... would you like to meet the Wards?" He asks, pointedly not mentioned the malfunction that would have almost certainly been lethal to your Master if she had the powers they obviously thought she did.

Something to think on later you guess.

As it is, your Master is frowning slightly, clearly unsure of how to answer the question. She turns towards you, clearly seeking your input, and Armsmaster glances at you minutely as if confused that she's even bothering to address you.

What do you think?

[ ] You still don't actually know what the hell a Ward is, so screw it, why not.

[ ] 'Ward' sounds suspiciously like 'shitty teenagers who might bully my Master' to you. Maybe you should just go home.

[ ] Write-In

A/N: I also forgot to include the Omake bonus for when you started on the new skill so - (Currently: Beastly Combat Perception, 4/10) will be reflected the next time it comes up.

In other news, I've basically gone from working afternoons to fully working entirely overnight and my sleep cycle is borked. I'm gonna stick to my usual chapter a day after work, but this means I will be posting in the morning as opposed to the evening. If this chapter has any typoes, I encourage you to note them in your replies - because I am just straight up too tired to double check my work right now. 'Growth' will be coming to an end soon, and we can start getting into the usual range of terrible things that Worm likes to throw at good people. See you all tomorrow!

PS: If you have a write in or addition that works with an already listed vote option, just include it as a suboption. A lot of the 'let Taylor go first' votes didn't really contradict the main vote of 'wreck the machine' so it was kind of awkward to count everything up.

Last edited: Jun 9, 2020

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Bowler Hat Guy

Bowler Hat Guy

A Hat & Its Man

Jun 10, 2020

#1,007

Spoiler: Choices:

Current Energy: 21

Friday, January 7th, 2011

PRT Headquarters, Brockton Bay

'You know if they bully you I'll just kill them right?' You send to your Master as the pair of you are lead down yet another non-descript hallway towards what Armsmaster described as the Wards ready room.

'Why would you think that would make me feel better?' Your Master asks, genuinely appalled at your statement. You don't mind really. You'd rather she be appalled at your shocking lack of interest in human life than be on the edge of a heart attack from the stress of interacting with her 'peers'. Even in your mind, you have to put quotation marks around the descriptor. Besides the fact that your Master is clearly the superior choice of host, there is an obvious sense of... disdain... that you get whenever you bother to think about teenagers besides your Master. If you were less self-aware - or perhaps if your name was actually Zaraki Kenpachi - you might have written it off as unease and left it at that. But you are not, and have therefore been forced to confront the fact that your only experience with teenagers is limited to your very brief time spent watching Victoria speak to your Master, and the comparatively larger library of second hand experience you have of your Master's time spent being bullied nearly to death.

So yes, you have a bias, and no you don't care to correct it presently. You have yet to be proven wrong really, you tell yourself, and so no correction is required.

What you say to your Master instead of any of that is simply;

'Do you feel better?'

'...a little. But please don't kill anyone. Or... attack anyone at all actually. Please.' Your Master asks slightly desperately.

'Only 'cus you asked.' You answer blithely, fully... mostly... meaning it. Obviously you wouldn't do anything unprovoked, but the list of offences you would consider being 'provoked' is both vast and varied, so you aren't holding your breath.

'Thanks Emmy. For... everything.' Taylor answers you, and you can't help but feel a mild thrill of happiness run through your core at her gentle tone.

"Do you have some means of communication at a distance?" Armsmaster asks calmly from in front of you, breaking up the touching moment between a girl and her Autonomous Murder Being.

"What's it to you? Eh?" You answer immediately, having long since decided you don't like Armsmaster enough to even pretend to respect him.

"You aren't speaking to or looking at each other, but are both clearly changing expressions in response to something. Neither of you is wearing an obvious communication device and so-" He explains calmly as he comes to a stop in front of a large steel door with a keypad next to it.

"We can sort of talk to each other in our heads." Taylor answers before you can tell the nosy prick where he can shove his super sleuthing, smoothing over your obvious dislike in a way that has become common during the very brief period of time you have been forced to endure Armsmasters presence.

"Is the transfer of information instantaneous or is it akin to an actual conversation?" He asks intently. Clearly mining your over impressionable Master for information.

'Stop antagonizing the second greatest Tinker in the world!' Your Master snips at you quickly, even while continuing her conversation.

"It's pretty much exactly like talking to each other normally. I can see through Emmy's eyes if I need to though." She explains, glancing fervently at the door in a manner that forces you to realize that she's only humouring the man in order to avoid going into the room full of other kids.

"That would be amazingly useful for reconnaissance. Having a disposable projection with any significant range that can map an area ahead of time would be an indispensable asset to the Wards." Armsmaster comments, clearly intending to make your Master feel important. Which is mostly successful, until he says the word 'disposable' at which point her facial expression goes completely flat and she merely waits for him to finish speaking before tilting her head towards the door you have been standing in front of.

"So can we go in now or...?" She says after Armsmaster stops to wait for her to respond to his comment. Outwardly she looks as neutral as it's possible to get - a defence mechanism you know she developed for dealing with school - but inwardly there is a seething mix of disappointment and annoyance radiating off of her. Enough so that it completely eclipses the feelings of trepidation she previously was feeling.

"...This panel warns the Wards inside that a visitor who does not have access to their secret identities will be entering the room. It is essentially a brief warning informing them to put their masks on." Armsmaster says, poking the panel which turns a bright red, and deftly evading his conversational faux pas by simply ignoring it.

Ten seconds pass in awkward silence as you wait, and then the red light turns green, and the door before you opens.

You aren't really sure what you were expecting - you were trying not to enter your Spirit form around Armsmaster for fear that he would Tinker up some way of actually detecting it, so you hadn't had the time to explore before coming. But you definitely weren't expecting a poorly cleaned recreation room with a fancy high tech computer in the corner.

Four heads turn as one to stare at you as the three of you file into the room, each one wearing what looks like a cheap domino mask that you have a hard time believing actually protects anyone's identity until you see the weird distortions the kids' faces leave behind as they move. So Tinkertech then.

"Dibs!" One boy says immediately, his frizzy red hair his most recognizable feature. Your head swivels towards him like a turret acquiring a firing solution, and your gaze bores into him in a way you're sure would scare everyone in the room if they were bothering to pay any attention to you.

"Clock no! Ew!" Another voice calls out, this one belonging to a small girl that quickly jogs up to the two of you and shoots a quick salute off to Armsmaster. You can feel a sense of mild confusion coming off of your Master at the action, but flickers of pink hair at the edge of your vision distract you enough that you don't really see anything immediately wrong with it.

"Just ignore him. He's an idiot. Hi! I'm Vista!" The girl says as she turns away from Armsmaster and towards your Master, shooting only a cursory glance your way.

"Sure?" Your Master says questioningly. Glancing around at the other two boys that have temporarily paused whatever they were doing to greet her.

"He's not that bad." A taller boy with brown hair says with a chuckle as he approaches, sticking a hand out in greeting.

"Gallant. I didn't know we were meeting anybody today..?" He says pleasantly, as your Master wordlessly shakes his hand in a daze.

"Nexus! I mean- I'm going by Nexus right now." Your Master answers after a moment of... something.

You begin switching your menacing gaze between the two boys, then briefly fail to look at both of them by crossing your eyes, followed by reverting to an alternating glare schedule.

"I'm sure you already recognize me but - Clockblocker. And the guy at the Console is Kid Win." The redhead says as he hops over the couch to greet your Master properly, gesturing towards the computer wear another teen waves lazily at you before returning to his apparent duties.

"Is it true you made your name up on the spot?" Your Master asks curiously, apparently too blindsided by the warm welcoming expressions on everyone's faces to maintain a proper level of wariness in this den of ill repute.

"Oh yeah, you have no idea how much shit I caught for-" The red head begins to explain boisterously, only to be cut off by Armsmaster.

"This is Nexus, currently an independent. She'll be with us for a little while as we repair the power testing room." Armsmaster explains, eliciting an eye roll from Clockblocker but acknowledging nods from everyone else.

Once he is sure everyone has understood whatever hidden meaning he intended to convey, Armsmaster leaves the room, ostensibly to allow the teenagers to mingle amongst themselves.

Which is about when they all turn towards you, as if only just now realizing you were there.

"You're a bit old to join the Wards dude." Clockblocker jokes.

"He's my power." "I'm her power." You and Taylor say at once, the explanation apparently having come from the two of you so frequently that you have both grown quite tired with the long version of the explanation. To your surprise, while Vista and Clockblocker appear surprised by this, Gallant does not, a point that he addresses when he turns to the other two and swiftly begins to explain;

"Vicky told me about it. He's basically a sentient projection. Hi, by the way." He adds, greeting you almost as if as an afterthought. You tilt your head towards him in greeting, but don't let up in your stare.

"So like.. you're power is having a fully grown man follow you around? Like... all the time?" Clockblocker asks, walking around you as if you are a particularly interesting statue of some sort.

"Your name is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy ain't it?" You ask rhetorically, panning your head to maintain your gaze on the boy as he moves about. He stops moving to stare dumbfounded at you as you speak though, as if not expecting you to speak.

"He's kind of got you their Clock." Vista snickers, before looking back and forth between you and your Master.

"So he controls gravity or something? We heard about that thing earlier this week but we weren't briefed on it." She asks your Master curiously as everyone moves further into the room to settle on preferred seats, leaving your Master to awkwardly plop down onto the couch. You notice that despite acknowledging your presence and supposed sentience, the teens have mostly chosen to speak to your Master instead of directly to you, a fact that you are apathetic too but that seems to bother your Master slightly.

"Not really no." She answers maybe a touch standoffishly, not actually bothering to explain Spiritual Pressure or even use the words 'Spiritual Pressure' to explain herself because it made her sound like 'that crazy guy from Chicago'.

You aren't sure of the specifics there but you choose to take your Master at face value on the topic.

Eventually, however, the conversation turns away from such prickly topics as powers and your dubious personhood, and begins to delve into much more normal teenage fair. Clothes, television shows and movies being chief among them. You kind of just check out at that point, only really paying enough attention to keep your glare up and make sure you are standing menacingly behind your Master at all times. You're bored out of your mind, but your Master hasn't had this type of benign social interaction in so long that you can almost literally see her pent up stress unwinding as time passes. You had assumed something like this would have happened while she was talking to Victoria, but apparently the vast majority of that talk had been 'work' related in your own Master's words.

By the end of the afternoon, you are roof hopping back towards the park for your Master to change in, and she has obtained a decent impression of her fellow super-powered teenagers.

Which is all fine and good, except that by the time you reach the Hebert household late in the evening, Daniel Hebert's car is not in the driveway, and there is a small box sitting on the doorstep. You hover in your Spirit Form just behind your Master's shoulder as she approaches, cautiously scanning the area for any obvious problems or enemies, but are unfortunately limited by your need to stay near to her. You could get a much better picture of things if you could run around a bit, but a niggling feeling in the back of your mind tells you that she is not yet strong enough to evade any and all threats - and that you should be very mindful of that fact at this moment.

'What's in it?' You ask cautiously.

'I don't...' She begins to answer then freezes with the lid half off the box as she lifts it up, staring at it's contents. Inside is a single human finger, with a golden band resting on it.

'Is this supposed to mean something or...?' You query, double checking to make sure you aren't missing some obvious social custom.

'That's... Dad's wedding band. He never takes it off.' Taylor answers you numbly, digging around in the box for a moment and then pulling out a slip of paper with an address and a time on it.

To your Master's credit, she manages to unlock the door and enter the house before the tears begin to flow. Also to your Master's credit, she doesn't spend more than a minute crying. Like a faucet being abruptly closed, she merely takes a deep breath, puts the box in the kitchens freezer, and then immediately begins to change into her newly minted costume in the middle of the front entryway.

'We gonna go rescue the idiot?' You ask, mostly rhetorically.

'Among other things' Your Master replies frigidly.

As much as you trust your Master, maybe you should call for help?

[ ] The Protectorate seemed pretty keen on recruiting you.

[ ] We have Glory Girl's phone number right?

[ ] It's a lot easier to avoid murder charges without witnesses.

Speaking of which...

[ ] Whatever happened to that Hess girl anyway? (Shadow Stalker Interlude)

[ ] You never did address the nearly fatal accident during Power Testing. (Coil Interlude)

[ ] That one Ward kept staring at you when he thought you weren't looking. (Gallant Interlude)

A/N: Ah, such timeless classics as the good old mail a finger to the family. As far as 'we've got your Dad' threats go, I couldn't actually think of a better one that wasn't immediately lethal. I have a pretty good feeling I know how this vote will go but, eh, maybe you'll all surprise me.

If anyone is wondering, yes, this is in fact a direct result of you having absolutely zero subtlety. Don't feel bad about it though, drama is the spice that makes a Worm story worth reading anyway. I've always found it interesting that in the Canon things will go from 'nothing in particular is going on' to 'everything is going wrong' in the blink of an eye. I'm not actually very good at the kind of pacing, but I'll either learn or get yelled at for it, so there's that. As always, blah blah sleepy, blah blah, quote any typoes you pick you, blah blah. See you all tommorow.

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Bowler Hat Guy

Bowler Hat Guy

A Hat & Its Man

Jun 11, 2020

#1,135

Monday, January 3rd 2011.

Brockton Bay

If there was one thing Dean Stansfield did not enjoy about being a Ward, it was the fact that technically it was in almost every way, the exact same as a crappy part-time job.

Work the hours your boss tells you too no matter how unreasonable? Check.

Do things in stupid and often inefficient ways because the person in charge of you said so? Check.

Smile at the customer no matter what they said about you, and keep your opinions to yourself when you disagreed, even when they wrote fanfiction about you have sex with yourself? Absolutely Check.

Honestly, it would probably be easier to list the handful of perks to the job than it would be to go over the frankly staggering list of petty annoyances he did his best not to get to hung up over. He realized that it made him seem like kind of a suck up that he never vocalized any of his misgivings. He understood that he had an image as the pristine one, the one that followed orders without complaint, the one that never toed the line.

But that didn't mean he actually was any of those things. A fact that was never more apparent to him than when his cellphone began ringing while he was on a date with his girlfriend. Not his normal cellphone, because he could ignore that one. No, it was his work phone. The one that the PRT used to contact him when something bad was happening - which was pretty much every day ending in y in Brockton Bay. The Wards, you see, like any overworked part time employees, were always on call. It wouldn't have mattered if Dean had been in San Francisco half asleep in a hotel room, miles away from his home city and his boss, if something in his immediate vicinity was going pear shaped, he would be called to the local PRT headquarters to be briefed on it.

He wasn't sure when the practice had begun, or why, but he hated it all the same.

"Work?" Vicky asked him knowingly from the opposite side of the table at the very expensive restaurant that he had chosen to take her to that afternoon. One of the few perks of being a Ward was a heavily truncated school day. Vicky didn't really have that benefit, but little known fact, she was actually smart enough to skip as much school as she wanted and be just fine - which was probably the only reason she was allowed to get away with it so often.

"Yeah. Gimme a second." He answered, carefully keeping his annoyance out of his voice. He wasn't annoyed because of how expensive the restaurant was so much as how hard it was to get reservations there. Money meant next to nothing to him. His parents had so much of it that they practically had to make up new ways to waste it if they ever wanted to drop down to upper-middle class in his lifetime, something he was perfectly okay helping them with if it made Vicky happy.

With long practiced ease, he withdrew his phone from a pocket, and glanced at it under the table, making sure to shield the screen itself from any prying eyes. As always, he was being recalled to the base because a Parahuman was on a rampage somewhere and the PRT didn't want any of its precious Wards unaccounted for. The irony was that he would be called to the building, told nothing about what was going on, and be expected to find something to do for hours until the crisis had passed. He wasn't actually needed at all.

"What's up?" Vicky asked once he had fully glanced through the message and pocketed his phone again.

"Something tearing up the road near Winslow. Probably another Squealer tank or something." He answered, immediately regretting the decision to open his mouth when he caught the familiar glint in his girlfriend's eye as he denoted the location.

"Vicky, no." He said firmly staring into her eyes.

"Oh come on! I've got nothing else to do since a certain someone has to ditch me during our date." She said accusatorily. There was no heat in the statement though, no actual anger. Despite their on and off again relationship Vicky never took Cape work lightly. She might break up with him because he spent an extra two seconds looking at a passerby, but she would never give him trouble over anything he was forced to do in his capacity as a hero of the city, and he loved her for it.

"Yeah but if you keep showing up places you shouldn't they're eventually going to realize how you're figuring out where to go." He pointed out exasperatedly. He really wasn't supposed to pass the information he got to anyone else. Especially not information on crimes in progress. The only reason he did so with Vicky was because, well... she was very hard to say no to when she wanted to be.

And she usually made it up to him later, but that was nobodies business but his own.

"Aw come on! Everyone knows I fly around looking for trouble around this hour!" She shot back, already packing away her things into her purse while he waved for a waiter to bring him the bill.

"Except literally everyone in the building with us right now," Dean said tiredly, already knowing he wasn't going to win this argument. "And me." He added as an afterthought.

"Yeah but they don't care, and you love me too much to snitch." She said with a smirk, before zipping around the table to plant a firm kiss on his lips. He accepted it without thought, basking in the warmth of her presence. Then she was off, shooting out of the restaurant at speeds that left tiny zephyrs in her wake, pausing only to pull the front door of the establishment open.

It took him several seconds to process what had happened, and by the time he realized that his girlfriend had more or less just distracted him with a kiss and won the argument, he was halfway to his car.

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011.

PRT Headquarters, Brockton Bay

It wasn't very often that Dean was unhappy about being right. He was self-aware enough to know that he had lived a fairly charmed life to this point, and as such, had a much more positive outlook on life than basically every other Parahuman he could list off the top of his head besides Vicky.

Unfortunately, this only made it more important to him to take the few setbacks he did receive, with grace. It was a resolution he stood by, because it was one he had come to of his own accord, that could neither be bought nor faked. It was something he could stand up as an achievement of his own that had nothing at all to do with his elevated status in life.

But right now it was so, so very tempting to scowl and swear.

"Carol Dalon just called to ask me some very pointed questions about why her daughter was directed towards Line Drive in the midst of his rampage Gallant." The Director said blandly, not bother to mask her obvious irritation with the topic of conversation. She usually chose not to be alone in the same room as him if she had a choice, primarily because she was perfectly aware of one of his less discussed powers - that being, the ability to see what everyone around him was feeling at any given moment in time.

If she had asked him he would have kindly explained that knowing someone was annoyed or disgusted didn't mean he knew why, or who it was directed at. If she had asked he would have politely pointed out that the Director - even when praising him was typically annoyed or disgusted by something, such that he rarely saw anything else from her.

But she didn't ask, and he supposed that was for the best. He couldn't imagine she would believe him anyway.

"Well? Nothing to say, Gallant?" She continued on when he didn't immediately respond.

"No M'am. It was my mistake M'am." He answered dutifully. As much as he didn't like the situation, what he liked much less was that the callous woman had opened the conversation with an almost clinical list of the injuries Vicky had sustained during that brief altercation.

Most of her bones were shattered, one of her lungs had been punctured by a stray rib, and if Assault hadn't brought her to the hospital when he had, she probably would have died long before Amy could have gotten to her. Apparently the new cape - dubbed Line Drive by Armsmaster - was capable of striking with such force that his initial blow caused Glory Girl's forcefield to shatter, leaving the resulting shockwave of such an impact to pass through Vicky unimpeded. The Director had noted - again in the same clinical tone - that the damage was not dissimilar to being hit by the blast from a grenade.

Dean made a mental note to send Assault a gift basket of some kind. Or buy him a car or something. He'd finagle a way to get the man an all expenses paid vacation to the Bahamas if he thought Battery would allow it - which she wouldn't.

"...You're to be on the Base immediately following school for the next two weeks. You're on console duty until I say otherwise, and I don't even want to hear that you were in contact with Glory Girl during that time. Do I make myself clear?" the harsh woman finally said with a sigh. One of the perks of being 'the model Ward' was that when he did occasionally screw up, no one felt the need to lecture him on it, assuming he had already gotten the point.

He had to admit that usually, he had, but never so much as right now.

'Like getting hit by a grenade.' He thought to himself, making a conscious effort not to clench his fists where they sat in his lap.

Friday, January 7th, 2011

PRT Headquarters, Brockton Bay

The intervening days had been... strange. It was rare that he held a grudge longer than Vicky, but to his surprise, he found that when his girlfriend had told him - in confidence - that she had spoken to the Cape that had nearly killed her, he was the one who was becoming enraged.

Vicky had assured him that whomever the Cape was, 'she' wasn't guilty of anything except giving an open-ended order to a projection. For the most part, he understood why Vicky might say that. Again, despite the public opinion of her relative intelligence, she was already taking college level courses in Cape psychology. There was no way she wouldn't understand the mitigating circumstances behind a Trigger Event.

But for the first time in a long time, Dean was finding it very, very difficult to well... care. At the end of the day, if a dog had rabies, you could understand it all you wanted, but you still had to deal with a dog that had rabies. Not that he said that out loud. No, to Vicky he had merely expressed his utmost concern that she had apparently decided to spend her free time tracking down and talking to someone who could literally hit her so hard she might explode.

The fact that she had apparently unmasked said Cape accidentally, again, meant nearly nothing to Dean. It was the horrifying chance that today might have been the day he woke up and never got to see her again that kept him on edge. Brockton Bay had it's fair share of criminals and villains, but nothing was quite so dangerous as someone so knew that they didn't know the rules or bother to hold back. An idiot without any grasp of the political situation in the bay was much more of a threat than Hookwolf could ever be.

They had gotten into a mild argument over it. Not because he had expressed any of his complaints to Vicky, but rather the opposite. He had been trying to hard to maintain neutrality and be fair to this mystery cape that he had apparently failed to notice Vicky getting mad at his apparent disinterest. She hadn't quite broken up with him again, but as he sat in the Wards common room he knew the fact that she was obviously unhappy with him presently had somehow gotten around.

Mostly because Missy was hovering nearby like a shark that had scented blood in the water. A preteen girl with a crush was already quite a force to be reckoned with before she obtained paramilitary training and the ability to focus so hard she more or less broke reality thank you very much. He just wished he could find a way to let the girl down without hurting her too much. The fact that Vicky both knew about, and didn't really care about the situation beyond finding it hilarious was definitely a mark against him.

He was broken out of his musings by the warning signal blaring throughout the room, and the subsequent struggle for everyone to find a mask. They were supposed to keep them nearby at all times but well... they were watching television. Literally just cartoons presently. There was no earthly reason to bother keeping your mask around for that.

Unless you were Shadow Stalker he supposed, because that woman would use literally any opportunity to run off and beat someone up.

When the door finally opened, Dean was treated to the sight of Armsmaster leading another teen into the room. Armsmaster's emotional aura was the faint yellowish gold of curiosity, and the teens - a girl he noted idly - was a sickly mix of browns and greens. She was either extremely stressed out and anxious, or about to have a stroke with how bright the colours were.

Possibly both.

"Dibs!" Dennis called from off to the side, and Dean would have immediately said something to counter the negative impression such a statement would naturally bring from a normal teenage girl, but then the space behind her changed colours.

It was like one minute the person behind her was no more alive than the wall next to him, and the next, his emotional aura was a solid brick red, denoting mild anger. The change was neither swift nor natural, bringing to mind for some reason the clunky selection of a new song in an old jukebox. The aura was an unnatural blocky shape. It didn't radiate, fluctuate or shift the way a person would. It was a single solid colour that perfectly mirrored the man it surrounded, like a graphical glitch in reality that Dean couldn't make go away no matter how hard he focused.

It took him several seconds after that to center himself enough to tear his eyes away from whatever the thing was that was trailing behind the girl. It took him several more to fully realize that what he was looking at was, in fact, Line Drive. When that was done, he put his most pleasant face on, and did his best to greet the girl who very obviously was afraid of being here, doing his best not to look at the... thing... she brought with her whenever it shifted its head to look him.

Every time he caught it in his peripheral vision, it was like seeing a Terminator, ready and waiting to end him the moment he fouled up. It exuded such an obvious aura of menace and violence that he really couldn't understand how Vicky could find anything about this thing forgivable.

Fortunately, the girl it was attached to, Nexus, proved much more reasonable to deal with, even if she did seem confused every time someone tried to insinuate that having her projection standing perfectly behind her at all times was... sort of creepy.

He was just about convinced that maybe, just maybe he could get over how unnerving he found her projection, when a message on his Wards phone forced him to divert from his drive home and head back to base.

There was an altercation at the docks involving Nexus.

Honestly, sometimes he hated being right.

A/N: I tried to get the right tone with this one. Dean always struck me as a guy who tried almost too hard to be the good guy, even to the point that it was occasionally detrimental to him. He's willing to force himself to forgive or let pretty much anything go, and I tried to make sure that showed here without making him seem like an all forgiving saint. He's not Gandhi, just a very understanding teenager. His views and mental commentary on rabid dogs come from the fact that he never actually had a Trigger event canonically, so as much as he understands trigger trauma, it still bothers him that he has to just forgive anything that happens during one for a bit.

Unless anyone missed it by the way, Emmy doesn't foul up Thinker powers, but he is innately disturbing to experience through the lense of one. Make of that what you will.

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Jun 11, 2020

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