The Runaway 15-08 (Heretical Edge 2)

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Getting to the Auberge was a bit more complicated than just saying it, of course. Sure, we had something of an ongoing relationship witdoh them, but they were still in hiding. Between the rich and accustomed-to-comfort clientele that the Auberge tended to keep normally, and the people from Wonderland they allowed to visit and share time there, no one at the hotel particularly liked the idea of being easy to find. They kept the entrance into the hotel moving constantly, bouncing it from city to city with no set schedule or anything. There was no way to anticipate where they might be at any given moment. Because being easy to anticipate would mean being easy to kill. 

The only way we had to actually get through to them so we could schedule a meeting was to call up Abigail at the station and have her send a message that we wanted to have a face-to-face. And from there, we had to wait for her to call us back once she managed to get a response. Which left our little group holed up in an old, rundown building that had once been a tire shop. We had to put down a couple different spells that would make us hard to track, and also another couple that would alert us if anyone approached. We didn’t think that the Crossroads people would keep coming after us (they probably figured we had teleported away by that point), but it was better to be safe than sorry. 

Everyone was sitting around on a couple folding chairs, an old table that had been left behind, or just (as in my case) flopped out on the cement. I was staring at the ceiling, musing aloud. “Why does Denise keep remembering things? Why does she remember Ammon controlling her, or the gas station? And what… what made the Alter detection spell keep flickering back at the house? And smashed the gas pump? And why did Mercer forget the debt? Why did he… why?”

“I think you’ve summed up all the questions, babe,” Twister informed me, perched up on top of the nearby empty steel tool cabinet that had apparently been too heavy to bother removing. She gave me a thumbs up. “Now, can you actually answer any of them?”  

“Poor Denise.” That was Asenath, standing over by a window to watch the street beyond. She spoke in a soft, thoughtful voice. “Can you imagine going through what she is right now? She must be an Adjacent.” 

“That’s someone who had the Bystander Effect broken, but they’re still just a normal person other than that, right?” I put in, glancing toward the corner of the garage, where Rebecca and Koren were sitting together. 

Sean nodded. He had pulled a folding chair around and was sitting on it backwards, while Vulcan (with Vulcan Junior attached) lay by his feet as though resting. “Yeah, that’s right. So somehow the Bystander Effect didn’t fully take when Denise respawned. And now she’s getting nightmares about what really happened to her. And as if that’s not enough, without the Bystander Effect, she keeps seeing all these monsters and has no idea what they are. Or even that they really exist. And anyone she tried to tell wouldn’t know what she was talking about. They wouldn’t believe her. Which is… you know.” He grimaced. “Really not good.” 

Everyone was making very good points, but none of it was making me feel any better. And a glance over to the doorway where my mother was standing showed that it wasn’t making her feel any better either. We were all very anxiously waiting to see where we were supposed to go to find an entrance to the Auberge, so we could actually get some real answers. Which would be really nice, at this point, given how weird this whole thing with Denise had been so far. 

Asenath was still talking. “She’s an Adjacent, so she’s seeing all these monsters around her and no one knows what she’s talking about. Until she met those Alters.” She frowned then, looking between my mother and me. “Are you guys sure there was no other information about… you know, how she met them? Did she just go up and start talking?” 

I shrugged completely cluelessly, while Mom answered. “If he knew more than that, he didn’t include it in the spell. Felicity?” 

“Nope,” I replied. “He just said she met up with some people and went to the place he was going to name in that spell. I didn’t even know they were Alters until Mom said so. I think he was being as vague as possible intentionally. Whether he knows more than he said or not…” I hesitated before adding, “He seemed pretty competent, all things considered.” 

“So he’s probably not hanging around the place a bunch of Heretics were at just so he can be forced to answer more questions,” Sean lamented, reaching down to rub Vulcan’s head. “Too bad, it could have made this whole thing a lot easier. But then, nothing about this seems very easy so far.” He muttered the last bit thoughtfully before pushing himself up with a sigh. “Have you guys considered that there could be some sort of really powerful ghost haunting Denise?” 

Without a moment of hesitation, I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve definitely been considering it. Maybe some sort of spirit that’s doing Fossor’s bidding one last time?” Glancing toward my mother, I grimaced before quietly adding, “I know you were sure that he didn’t know anything about what you did, but sending some independent ghost-thing off to screw with the one good thing you managed to do involving Ammon is… sort of completely his style, you know?” 

Mom didn’t respond at first, but after a moment, she gave a short nod. “You’re right, it does sound like him. But that still doesn’t explain why Mercer would forget the debt.” 

“Yeah, that’s really weird,” Rebecca piped up. “Unless… umm, we know the Bystander Effect isn’t working on Denise. Could it be something like… the Effect is malfunctioning on her and erasing or adjusting other people’s memories? Maybe it could even be directed by her, whether she knows it or not. Like, if she was there at the gas station and told Mercer he should forget the debt, and he just… did, because the Bystander Effect kicked in and erased his memory.” 

Thinking about that, I offered, “Maybe that’s what is making her parents not check in on her. You know, if she told them she was going to stay with her aunt before she ran away, and the Bystander Effect made it stick in their heads that way. Is that… even possible?”

We all exchanged curious looks before gradually turning our gazes, one by one, to the pair of Seosten sitting together next to the garage door. Tabbris and December looked at each other, then up to us, before the latter spoke. “Ohwe’renotexpertsaboutit. Justcuzwe’reSeosten… doesn’tmeanweknowanything….abouthowtheBystanderEffectworks.” 

Tabbris, meanwhile, pushed herself to her feet and fidgeted a little before hesitantly putting in, “I think maybe it’s possible? You should ask Mama though. She’d know a lot more about that sort of thing. But uhh, yeah maybe? The Bystander Effect is really weird and all that. It’s like, spells that are that big can have really weird side effects or go wonky if you poke them the right way. Or the wrong way.” Biting her lip, clearly uncomfortable from all the attention, she added a quiet, “I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t really help to just say ‘uh huh, maybe,’ but… uh huh, maybe.”  

“We’ll have to make do without bothering Sariel,” Mom noted gently. “We still can’t disturb them while they finish setting up that spell.” She offered the girl a soft, reassuring smile. “Your mom’s too important for that. They need her.” 

Stepping over that way, I put one arm around my little sister, tugging her closer. “That’s right, can’t finish the spell without help from the champion Seosten memory-adjuster. It’s okay, though. We’re all just spitballing here anyway. We’ll know more once we talk to Denise herself. And hey, bonus, if she really is an Adjacent, she’ll actually remember what we’re talking about.” 

Yeah, that clearly wasn’t exactly helpful in a lot of ways. Especially given the way I saw my mother flinch, subtle as it was. She had clearly been hoping to give the girl a normal life back. Forcing her to have all those memories on top of noticing the non-humans all around her, and having no one to talk to about any of it? No wonder she felt guilty. I didn’t want her to, of course. But I understood it. All I could do was hope that finding Denise and talking to her directly would settle as much of that guilt as possible. Making sure the girl was okay, that was what mattered now. And hey, maybe this would be for the best in the long run. If Mom could actually explain what happened and give Denise some closure on all that, it might be good, right? 

Reaching up behind her to grab a nearby metal railing before hauling herself up, Koren announced, “Hey, at least she’s at the Auberge, right? Face it, one little girl seeing monsters and running off on her own could have gone a lot worse than that. She found some people who listened to her enough to take her to the Auberge. That’s like…  one of the best possible outcomes, you know? If you think about it, she got really lucky there.” 

Yeah, Koren definitely wasn’t wrong, though the thought of how bad that could have gone made my stomach flip over. Swallowing hard, I made myself nod. “Exactly. Now all we have to do is go there and talk to her. We’ll explain everything and help any way she needs, right?”  

The others agreed emphatically, just as Mom’s phone buzzed. She looked at it before straightening. “There’s a guide on his way. Abigail told him where to find us.” Her voice went flat. “Whatever happens, Denise needs real answers. She deserves real answers. After everything she’s been through, we owe her that much. I can’t give her back everything Ammon took with his… with what happened. But I can give her answers.” 

So, we collected ourselves and were ready a few minutes later when there was a light knock at the side door. I was the closest one to it, so I stepped closer, item-sense telling me there was one person beyond. With a shrug, I pulled the door open, before finding myself face-to-face with a familiar figure. The man in front of me was about six feet tall, with pale skin and a face that might have been incredibly handsome if it wasn’t just slightly off in subtle, yet subconsciously noticeable ways. His nose was just a tiny bit too small, and his mouth slightly too big. The proportions were just… a little off. Enough to make someone’s brain skip a little when looking at him, trying to figure out what was wrong. It was sort of uncanny valley-ish, that thing when something looks mostly human, but there’s something just wrong enough about it to make someone’s mind uncomfortable.  

“Mennin?” I managed. Yeah, it was Mennin Tombs, the son of the Auberge’s current owner, Caela Tombs. He was the guy who had been possessed by Radueriel for awhile when he, Abaddon, and Kushiel had been working on breaking into that side of the vault. “We didn’t know you were coming.” Quickly, I stepped back to let him in. 

“You kidding?” the man himself asked while stepping through the doorway. “If Mom wasn’t in the middle of a pretty intense meeting in Paris, she would have come herself as soon as she heard who was asking. And she’ll definitely want you all to stick around until she can get back to the Auberge to see…” His gaze moved around the garage before focusing on my mother. “Joselyn Atherby, I presume.” 

“It’s Chambers now,” Mom corrected with a faint smile. “But yes, and you would be Caela’s son.” With that, she stepped over and extended a hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I just wish that was the only emotion connected to this moment.” 

“Right, the girl.” Mennin agreed, giving a quick glance around at the rest of us. “Sorry, some of you I know, some of you I don’t. I assume you’ve all been fully vetted?” He gave Mom a brief glance before hurriedly nodding. “Right, yeah, sorry. Habit. You know what they say about the first rule of the Auberge.” 

“Don’t tell anyone about the Auberge?” Koren piped up.

Mennin, in turn, grinned with that slightly-too-wide mouth. “That’s what I said! Err, I mean, no. The first rule is don’t let anyone who isn’t a registered guest find the Auberge. So, we’re going to have to make you all registered guests in order to keep up with that rule. We just, um, ever since last year, we’re even more careful about who we bring in. Usually that requires a lot of personal vetting. Which takes weeks. All of it to make the guests feel as safe as possible. But, you know, if anyone’s going to merit an exception, it’s Joselyn A–Chambers.” He offered Mom a smile, which then turned to me. “Not to mention the people who helped save the hotel in the first place last spring.” 

“We didn’t exactly save the–never mind.” My head shook. That was too complicated to get into. “What about Denise though? She wouldn’t have had weeks of vetting before showing up with–who did she show up with? Wait, she is there, right?” A sudden, horrible thought had just raced through my mind that this was all a wild goose chase and he would have no idea who that was. 

“Oh yes,” the man confirmed. “She is in the hotel. At least, we believe it’s her. The timeline and description both fit. Along with a few other things.”

Asenath frowned. “What do you mean you believe it’s her? Hasn’t she introduced herself?” 

With a cough, Mennin grimaced. “Not so much. I ahhh, well, see, that’s where things get a little more complicated.”

“Fantastic,” Koren blurted, “because what this whole situation was really missing was complication. It was all too simple and straightforward. Downright boring, really.” She noticed the looks everyone was giving her and flushed a bit, mumbling, “I’ll be quiet now.” 

“She is right though,” Mom noted with a look at Mennin. “This has all been quite complicated enough already. Can you tell us what you mean? Why hasn’t Denise introduced herself? Is she okay?” 

That led to another grimace from the man. “Okay, well, that’s a uhh…” He hesitated before pushing on. “After what happened last year, we had some new defenses installed. They’re spells that are supposed to expel you from the hotel if you intend to harm any of the other guests or employees. Really high-end stuff too, they had to bring in some serious mojo people to get it done. And we think that’s somehow affecting her. I mean, it hasn’t sent her out, but they’re reacting to something. She came into the hotel and barely had time for a how do you do before she just… passed out. Collapsed right there on the floor, and she’s been in a coma ever since.” 

“Wait, what?” Mom blurted. “She came in and then collapsed and she’s been in a coma for weeks? But what does that have to do with your new defenses? You said they should teleport her out of the hotel if she intended to harm your guests. But they’re not doing that.” 

His head shook once more. “Nope, they’re not. But they’re not working right either. Since the second she came in, those spells have been acting up. They’re just… off. I dunno the specifics, our mages do. They said the spells are wonky, and it started since she came in. We’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong with them and her ever since. Haven’t had much luck.” 

“Not that we’re not super-glad you didn’t,” Sean put in, “but why didn’t you just send her out of the hotel if she was screwing up the protection spells by being there? Or just disable the protection spells to wake her up.”

“As far as the first bit goes, Mom wouldn’t let them,” Mennin replied. “She said there was something about the girl, she didn’t want to let anything happen to her. She couldn’t even really explain it. She just said we had to take care of her. So we’ve been trying to figure out what happened and how to wake her up. Mom had some other pretty powerful guests stop by to try their hand at it, but nothing worked. We were even going to reach out to you Rebel Heretics for help pretty soon if you hadn’t reached out first. As soon as that principal of yours described who you were looking for, we knew it had to be our coma girl.” 

He shrugged then. “And as for the other part, we did. Believe me, they disabled the spells, tried putting her in an area where they were blocked, even took her out of the hotel temporarily. Nothing worked. She’s still unconscious and still won’t wake up no matter what we do. She says some stuff sometimes, just mutters words now and then. But she’s still completely out of it.” 

“And you have no idea why the protection spells knocked her out in the first place?” I asked. “They just randomly completely messed up this one girl and threw her into a coma when she came into the hotel, all for no apparent reason?” There had to be more to it than that, of course. But damned if I had any idea. It was another piece of a very confusing puzzle. And at this rate, I was afraid we had a quarter of like six different puzzles all jumbled together. 

Mennin, in turn, replied, “Not exactly, but we think it might have something to do with her power.” 

“Wait, what?” I gave a double-take along with everyone else. 

“She doesn’t have any power,” Mom informed him, even as her eyes narrowed. “She’s a normal human. An Adjacent at most.”

“Uhhh…” Mennin looked back and forth between all of us. “Are you sure about that? Cuz that’s not what the people who brought her in said. And they were pretty confident about it.”   

Sean was the first to find his voice. “What do you mean? What–uh, powers do they think she has?” 

The man looked at us as though we’re trying to decide if we were playing some sort of prank on him or not. Finally, he took a breath before explaining what the Alters who had brought Denise into the hotel had told them. First one of the bad guys had smashed his baton into her head. When Mom heard that, she actually growled under her breath. But apparently the blow to the head, though it had knocked Denise down, hadn’t actually hurt her. She got up again, and actually punched the man who had hit her. Apparently she hit him hard enough to knock him flying backwards. Which had pissed off the second guy enough to kick her backwards into a tree. Which, again, had done nothing to the girl. 

“Then what happened?” Tabbris quickly urged once Mennin trailed off. We were all hanging off everything he said. 

“Then she uhh, she introduced herself,” Mennin replied. “At least, the people she saved think she did. They heard her say ‘My name is–’ but they didn’t catch the rest of it. She introduced herself, then told the men to stop. And–” 

“And they did,” I finished, through the hard lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. No. No, no, no, this wasn’t right. No. “Wait. Wait, did… did she say her name? Did she say Denise? Did she say ‘My name is Denise’, or… or…” 

“Ammon,” Mom finished for me. Her tone was brittle. “Did… she say… Ammon?” 

This can’t be happening. No. Ammon couldn’t actually be back. He couldn’t have been reborn in her body or whatever. A sudden rush of emotions and memories flew through me about everything we had seen up to this point. All those carvings in the wall, the dents in the side of the gas pump, Mercer forgetting the debt, all of it. Was that… was that Ammon? No. No, that didn’t make sense. He wouldn’t help people. He wouldn’t–but if he–but if she–but…

Mennin was shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know. They were a little preoccupied and didn’t hear everything she said. She introduced herself and told them to stop talking. Then she told them to drop their weapons and walk for an hour. When they left, our guests tried to thank her, and she begged them to help her. So they brought her to the Auberge. And then she collapsed. Now you know everything I do. Possibly more, it seems like.” 

I couldn’t even begin to sort through what I was feeling at that moment. If Ammon really was back in any form, or… or… no. No, we had to get there. We had to get there right now. I felt a sudden squeeze, as Tabbris grabbed my hand. She knew. As I glanced that way, my eyes wide, she quickly possessed me, and I felt her comforting presence like a warm embrace, from the inside. 

Mom’s voice was quiet, as she fought to keep herself together. “Take us to the Auberge,” she murmured. “Take us there, now.” 

Mennin gave a short nod, passing around what turned out to be hotel keycards. He told us to keep them in our pockets for safety purposes, against their other magical defenses. Then he held a hand up, focusing for a moment before a large, wooden door appeared in the middle of the room. Once it was there, he stepped up and turned the knob before opening it. He was already explaining, “This should take us straight to the medical wing, where–” Then he stopped talking, as he turned to face the door he had just opened. 

When the man froze, Mom moved over, gently pushing him out of the way. I was right behind her and we both stared into what looked like it had been a very nice private hospital room. Had been, that was, before all the murder. Three bodies were on the floor, two obvious nurses and one doctor. Blood literally coated the floor, like a small wading pool. It was everywhere. The bed where Denise should have been was empty, and those three were dead on the floor. 

We were too late. 

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Elena and Sterling

As the door into the private hotel suite swung open, Elena Evans glanced up from the chair where she was sitting on the other side of the front living room. Two spoken words made the television pause in the middle of a news broadcast, freezing the reporter’s face while she was explaining exactly what had happened to expose the true identities of Pencil and Cup. Or at least, what was publicly known. Elena, however, had a much better source, who was coming in the room at that very moment. And a more pressing concern in that instant.

“Is she alright?” the woman asked, rising from the seat.  

Sterling, closing the door after him, gave her an immediate nod. “Izzy’s fine,” he assured her. “I spoke to her a bit as Silversmith. She’s not hurt or anything. She and Amber played the cavalry for Paintball and that new one, Alloy. Turns out they were smart enough not to all go in at once.” 

Darkly, Elena noted, “Yet not smart enough to pull in more help before investigating something like the Scions.” Taking a breath before letting it out to calm herself, the woman reached down to pick up a glass of wine, taking a sip from it before pursing her lips thoughtfully. “I know we decided it was best to leave the boy alone so long as he does not cause direct problems. But now he has taken Izzy into that sort of situation. However well-meaning he may be, he still helped put her in danger. What would we do if he had put Cassidy in that situation?”

With a grimace, Sterling shook his head. “That’s immaterial, because she would never be in a situation like that. She’s not a part of all this. Which, remember, was intentional. She gets to have a normal life for as long as possible before we involve her.” 

Elena took another sip of the wine while gazing steadily at him. “That’s not the point. If she was pulled into that sort of danger, the very first thing you would do is have a talk with that boy about responsibilities and being careful. And what can happen if he’s not.” She held up the hand that wasn’t holding the wine glass. “I’m not saying go after him too hard. I’m just saying maybe have a chat with him. Make sure he knows just how badly this could have gone and that the next time he has important information that could lead to that sort of danger, he needs to involve others. Adult others, who have the experience and resources to deal with it. And while you’re at it, maybe you should talk to Amber as well. She really should have known to involve someone else as soon as the Scions were mentioned.” 

“You’re right, but I’ll give it a few days,” Sterling replied. “Right now everything that we want to say to them is already playing through their heads. Believe me, I could hear it in their voices. Give it time to calm down a little bit. Let them work their way through all the what-ifs. Then I’ll talk to them and make sure it sticks. If we push too hard, too fast, it will just make them defensive. Let their own imaginations be the bad guys first.” 

With a very small smile, Elena set the glass down and stepped over to wrap her arms around him. “You have learned a lot over the years,” she informed her husband fondly, running her hands up his back. “Is that from running our business, or raising a couple of children?”  

“I think the correct answer is yes,” he replied with a chuckle as his arms closed around her. He held his wife close and rocked back and forth with her for a moment, both of them instinctively moving to the imagined sound of the song that had played during their first dance as a married couple. It was also the first one they had danced to while dating. Their song was “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by the band Starship. It was their thing, because their first date, all those years ago, had been… rather different. Elena’s father had sent goons after her to find out who she was breaking away to see, and if he had known that it was one of his very own junior accountants, Sterling never would have survived the night. The two of them had been forced to hide out in the attic of some old woman for hours while the men scoured the streets. There had been a television and ancient VCR up there, along with a single video tape, for the original Mannequin film. Thus, that had been their first real date, sitting in an attic, watching a VHS recording of a movie that was already over a decade old at that point on a small television. And it was still one of the best memories either of them had. 

After a few long moments of that, Elena quietly spoke up. “I don’t want anything to happen to Izzy. That girl deserves… she deserves everything. If they’d been taken by those psychopaths…” She trailed off then, though the tension was evident in her body language. 

Sterling, in turn, held her closer. “I’ll talk to them,” he promised in a gentle voice, “and make sure they know that there are people they can call for help in situations like that. If not me, then others. They did call Flea afterward, so there’s already a connection with her. As long as they talk to someone, we should find out.” He leaned back, putting both hands on her shoulders. “She’s okay, Elena. Izzy’s fine. She’s a tough kid, you know that. We both do. She’ll be okay. And if she gets close to Paintball, that’s one more in that we have with the kid when the time comes to actually do something about that whole situation.”

“Izzy’s safety comes first, before any of that,” Elena reminded him pointedly. “She’s been through too much for us to put her in deliberate danger.” 

“No deliberate danger,” Sterling agreed. “She’s too important for that. She and Cassidy both. They’ve been getting closer, you know. Always hanging out together in that game room. Selena said she saw them sleeping together in Cassidy’s bed the other morning.” 

The words made Elena smile. “Good,” she murmured, “I’m glad they’re getting along. Those two…” She exhaled thoughtfully, turning a bit to pick up her wine glass once more. “Perhaps we can tell them the truth together, explain it all to them when the time comes. Izzy is already involved in the… Touched side of things. It won’t be as hard to tell her why our way keeps the situation from spiraling too far out of control. She’s seen how terrible things can be.” 

“Maybe.” With that word, Sterling fell silent, thinking for a moment before his head shook. “Either way, in the meantime, it’s best we encourage those two to be as close as possible. Maybe she’ll be comfortable telling Cassidy about her… extracurricular activities soon.” 

“Perhaps we should encourage that, gently,” Elena noted. “She may confide things with Cassidy then, including any future possible danger. And you know how Cassidy is. 

“If she knows something, she’ll tell us.” 

******

Cup and Pencil

The newscaster’s voice was interrupted mid-speech by the sound of an enraged scream. That was immediately followed by a loud crash as a heavy lamp was hurled into the television, destroying both as the flat screen fell onto its back with a shower of broken glass. 

“Would it make you feel better if we did that to the annoying twat herself?” Pencil asked curiously, as he lounged in a recliner on the other side of the room. It was meant to be a reading corner, as this place had, at one point, been a fairly popular bookstore. But it had been closed for over a year (thanks to the mysterious death of the owner, who had dared to say something annoying), and was only one of several private and secure hideouts that the Scions had set up long ago. Now, most of the books were gone, though the shelves remained. It was on one of those that the television had been placed. 

There was a small apartment area in the back of the building where the former owner had lived, and the Scions had installed a heavy-duty freezer down in the basement. Between what was in there, and the pantry they had been sure to stock up, there were enough supplies in this place for up to ten people to live comfortably for as long as six months, without stepping foot outside. Things weren’t that bad, nowhere near. Most of the Scions’ identities were still secure, and there were always disguises for those who weren’t. But if the time came and they really had to go underground until the heat died off, it wouldn’t be a problem. At least, not as far as being fed went. 

Pivoting to face her brother as she stood, panting from the anger that still filled her even after taking it out on the news broadcast that had been reporting about their identities, Amanda retorted, “The reporter? You know, fun as that would be, since I never liked that sanctimonious cunt, I’ve got a few better targets in mind.”  

“I’m sure you do,” Nick agreed, pushing himself up from his chair. “And yet, I’m afraid they’ll be a little out of our reach for the moment. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you have a few appetizers as a warm-up while we wait for a good opening. After all, you don’t want to be so angry that you let the poor dears go and die on us too early. You know how disappointed you were after we grabbed your old English teacher and you got too excited. You had two weeks of fun activities planned and then you just cut her throat the second she recognized you. We can do better than that. Work out your frustration on smaller fish. Then, when we have the real deal in front of us, you can have a lot more fun.” 

Stepping over that way, he took his sister’s hands and tugged her close for a long, lingering kiss. “Now, babe, why don’t you tell me exactly what happened, from the top.” He had waited until now, aside from getting the basics so that he would know how bad it was, because he wanted to give her time to calm down slightly. But he didn’t want to wait too long. 

A brief glower crossed the young woman’s face before she caught herself and sighed. “Fine. But I want you to hold me while I do. Otherwise I’ll just get worked up again and break another TV.” 

“We’ve got plenty,” Nick assured her. Still, he tugged the girl with him back over to the recliner and sat down while pulling Amanda onto his lap. “There we go. Now tell Saint Nick all about what you want for Christmas. And what happened back at the apartment.” 

“I want a paring knife and those kids strapped down to a table,” Amanda snarled before shifting against him with another sigh as she pushed on. “As for what happened, we got so fucking close to having those fucking shits. They were right…” She grimaced, forcing her anger down before it got the better of her. With some effort, she pushed through the whole story of what had happened from the moment those three had appeared on her balcony. Nick was quiet and didn’t interrupt, allowing her to go off on just a couple tangents about what she wanted to do before gently squeezing her leg as a reminder to stay on task. 

Once she had finally finished, Nick reached up to brush his hand through her hair gently. His voice was quiet. “Well, you know you really should have called in help immediately, and left with the brats as soon as you had them secure. There’s a reason we had Scions stationed so close.” 

“I know, I know,” the girl sulked. “I should have called in the others and then those other fucks wouldn’t have been able to get out so easily. Maybe we could have held on to at least one of them then.” Her voice was mournful, regretting the loss of that opportunity. “Can you imagine how much fun we’d be having right now with that Paintboy, or his new sidekick? Ooh, imagine sending pieces of her to him. Just think about his face.” A giggle escaped her, as she excited herself with the thought. 

“Such a loss,” Nick agreed. “But we’ll have our moment with them. We just have to be patient.” 

“Buuuut Nick, being patient is boring,” Amanda lamented while curling up against him with her arms around his neck. “You must have plans for something fun we can do, right?” The words came in a quiet, thoroughly distracting purr. 

A slight chuckle escaped him while he leaned back and tilted her chin up so he could kiss her once more. “You know I can’t really deny you things when you use that voice. But we do need to be careful. People know our faces right now, babe. We can’t walk around like we used to. Not yet, anyway. I’ve got some plans for that.”

“Oooh!” Shifting playfully, Amanda ran her fingers up along his cheek. “I knew you’d have something. Tell me, tell me, tell me. I wanna know all about them.” 

“Later,” he promised while catching her hand and squeezing it. “There’s still a few things to take care of. And we need to stay off the radar for a while. Paintball and those other shits get a pass for now. But their moment will come, sooner or later. You’ll get your chance with the paring knife.”

Tugging her over to lay her head back on his shoulder, the man added pointedly. “But in the meantime, why don’t we order delivery?” 

Curious, Amanda asked, “You want food right now?” 

“Actually,” he replied, “I was thinking of sending one of the boys out to grab that reporter. 

“After all, you never liked that sanctimonious cunt.” 

******* 

Melissa (Blackjack’s daughter) 

“There, drill there, use the drill there!” Sitting on the floor in Melissa Abbot’s bed/hospital room, Isaiah Coleman pointed at the screen while gesturing emphatically. In public, the man (who could have been mistaken for a young Lando Calrissian in his late twenties) was known as the Fell-Touched Hardway. But at the moment, he was dressed very casually, simply sitting on a pillow while excitedly blurting, “You can’t miss the chest, it’s got the extra component. We need that to fix the cannon on the ship so we can blow the living fudge out of that pirate lady.” 

In one life, the man was an insurance salesman with a wife and a son who was three years old. In his other life, he was one of the most versatile and effective Touched in the city (his power allowed him to manipulate motion and inertia of both himself and anything within six feet). But right now? Right now he was simply excitedly calling out directions for the room’s other occupant. The person who actually lived here. 

Melissa, meanwhile, clutched the controller in both hands, her gaze intent on the large monitor. Cassidy Inawhile (the stuffed pink crocodile on a skateboard) and Inspector Guillotine (the detective bear in the trenchcoat and deerstalker hat) sat in front of her where she had positioned them. “I know, I know!” she called out, twisting her entire body to the side while rapidly pressing buttons as she fought to deal with the enemies on-screen fast enough to use the drill properly without being interrupted. She was a slender, slight girl, a bit too small for her age of nine thanks to years of growing up while affected by the terrible Rot Bone disease. Though incredibly lucky in the sense that she had survived the disease far longer than anyone else with that level of infection, it had still hurt her growth. She looked more like a seven-year-old than her actual age, and (assuming she continued to survive), that would follow her into the future. She would always be smaller than her peers. Her light brown hair was worn in a loose braid, and the girl was dressed in a set of black sweatpants with gold lightning bolts across them, and a white tank top that had an anthropomorphic blue unicorn strumming an electric guitar. 

“I got it, I got it, I got it…” the girl chanted, her words more hope than declaration. The last enemy on the screen was being a real pain, and if her character died here, they’d have to go through a lot to find their way back to this spot. She bit her lip and hit the dodge button, gasping as a shot came close. “You do it!” she blurted as her finger found the pause. “I can’t, I can’t kill him!” 

“You can,” came the immediate response from Isaiah as he shifted his weight a bit but made no move to actually take the controller. “You’ve got this. That punk’s nothing. Not anymore. You can chew him up and spit him out for breakfast.” 

With a giggle, the girl looked that way. “You spit out your breakfast, Uncle Isaiah? That’s weird.” 

Glancing that way, the man offered her a wink. “It’s possible I mixed my metaphors.” After a brief pause, he asked, “You know what a metaphor is?”  

She, in turn, gave a short nod. “Uh huh. I read a lot,” Melissa murmured while glancing toward the nearby bed. It was a bed she had spent many, many hours of every day in, to avoid stressing her bones. She read a lot and also wrote a lot. She made up stories and told them to her father, and to anyone else who would listen. In a way, she both loved and hated that bed. It was comfort and safety, and she was so happy to still be alive. She knew how lucky she was. Even at her young age, circumstances demanded that she mature to the point of understanding what this disease meant, and how incredible her survival was. She had known what death meant for years. The bed meant she was safe. And yet, the bed was also symbolic of the fact that she had never been able to go anywhere else. She couldn’t go out of the room, she couldn’t run around and play with other kids, definitely couldn’t go to school, couldn’t really live like so many others did so casually every day. 

As much as Melissa lived her life through reading and through writing her own stories, that couldn’t entirely replace everything she wanted to do. The stories allowed her some level of escape, as did these video games. But there was only so much they could do. The girl who dreamed of flying could hardly take an unaided step too quickly without risking a fractured ankle or leg.

Seeing where she was looking, Isaiah quietly asked, “So, how are you doing lately, kid? How’s that medicine working out for you? Helping get you back to where you were?” 

After a brief hesitation, the girl gave a very short nod. “It helps,” she murmured softly. “I can walk with my crutches a little bit now. Just around the room. Dad doesn’t want me to go any further.” 

“He’s just looking out for you,” Isaiah assured her. “You know that, right?”  

Once more, her head bobbed. “I know. But I think I make him sad. Sometimes when he thinks I’m asleep, he’ll stand in the doorway over there and watch me for a long time. I think he misses my mom. But he doesn’t want to talk about her. He never wants to talk about her.” 

Swallowing hard as a flood out of his own memories passed through his mind, Isaiah forced himself to respond. “You’re wrong about that, kid. You definitely don’t make him sad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the boss happier than when he’s with you.” 

Meeting his gaze intently for a few long seconds, Melissa slowly replied, “I’m gonna get better, you know. I’m going to be able to walk out with my crutches, and then without them. I’m going to walk and then run all the way outside. I’m gonna jump on a trampoline. I’m gonna go skateboarding, like Cassidy.” She indicated the stuffed toy by her leg. “This bone stuff, it’s gonna lose. I’m gonna kick its butt. And then I’m coming for the world’s butt.” 

With a small smile, Isaiah reached out to very gently brush her hair. “I’m gonna hold you to that, kid. Pretty sure we’ll all hold you to it. Now how about we start with beating this guy right–” 

“Uncle Isaiah, what’s that?” Melissa abruptly interrupted, raising a hand to point past him. 

“What’s what?” He started to turn that way. 

She, meanwhile, leaned up and reached past him, toward something hovering directly behind the man. “That. 

“The glowing ball thingie.” 

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The Runaway 15-07 (Heretical Edge 2)

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There was a bit of arguing back and forth between more of Mercer’s men after that. They really didn’t like the idea of letting me walk away with their boss and only one guy. But they also didn’t have that much of a choice. There was nothing they could do while I was inside him. Well, there was, but I had the impression they didn’t know the ejection spell. And even if they had, they would’ve had to get close to me and hold him down to make it work. It would’ve been a whole thing. Not to mention the fact that I could’ve killed him before they got that far. 

Either way, within about ten seconds of arguing, Beied shouted everyone else down and ordered a couple of them to go downstairs to find out what the hell was going on out there for themselves, while the rest were told to grab everything valuable and retreat to the secondary base. Whatever that was. I didn’t really care. All that mattered was finding out what this guy knew about where Denise had gone. 

That particular revelation was still rebounding through my head. My instinct back at the house has been right. She really did take off on her own. At least, it looked like that. She’d willingly gotten on a bus to leave town. Which explained why her parents and aunt both thought she was staying with the other. She’d chosen to tell them that. Though even that opened up a few more questions. Or a lot more questions. Like how she had convinced them it was happening, why they never realized there was anything wrong, and so on. It raised far more questions than it answered, really. But at least it was a direction. It would be a direction as soon as the man told me which bus she had taken. Which meant getting out of here without starting another fight. 

After ordering everyone else to step aside and make room, Beied gestured to the door. “Come with me then, Heretic. We’ll go to the roof, I’ll give you the information you want so much, and then you can let him go and we can all get back to our own very busy lives.” His eyes narrowed. “And no more funny business. You want what I know, you play nice for it. Try that possession trick on me, and this–” He drew a field-engraver of his own, giving a few quick swipes across his own forehead, “will wipe my memory of everything you’re looking for. It’ll be gone forever. So the only way you’re finding out what you want is by being nice and letting the boss go. Got it?” 

I wasn’t sure he was being truthful about what that rune on his head could do. But I also wasn’t going to take the chance. So, I gave a short nod and made Mercer start walking that way. “Sure thing,” I murmured with the man’s voice, “But like I said, we should hurry. Some of those Heretics down there are from the loyalists, the really… ambitious ones. And I don’t think my people are gonna be all that interested in stopping them from getting in here for much longer.” 

That started a little murmuring from the other guards before they were silenced with a sharp word from Beied, followed by an order to get the hell to work before the Heretics killed everyone in the hotel. Then he gave me a look and snapped that I should follow him before pivoting and walking out. I did so, though I kept a close eye on the people I was walking past, just to make sure none of them tried to do anything stupid. I didn’t think they would, given the situation. But I wasn’t going to let my guard down either. It was too dangerous to just assume none of them would get any bright ideas, either about trying to hurt me through their boss, or making a power play themselves by killing said boss while he was indisposed. After all, these guys were a gang. I had a feeling backstabbing was their most common method of promotion. And killing the boss could be a hell of a promotion, if they could hold onto it. 

But, in this case, no one tried anything. They left me alone, aside from a little grumbling under their breaths. They were not very happy with me. Which was just something I would struggle with, but with enough mental fortitude, somehow would find the strength to muddle on through it.

On the way through the corridor, as I followed after the Nekomata man, I reached out to Tabbris to find out how things were going out there. She couldn’t say much, but let me know that things were, as she put it ‘tense and a bit violent’ but that they were okay. She also wanted to know how I was doing, so I told the girl what I had found out so far, and that I was about to get more information before coming out. I was trying really hard not to focus on the fact that my little sister, mother, and friends were out there with some Heretics who probably wanted to kill all of them. The students probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but they would have adults with them. And if this went on too long, those guys might get word back to the Committee about who was here. And that… that could make this whole situation turn really bad. 

Yeah, the point was, I had to get the information and get out of here so that we could all leave. Every moment that passed was another moment that the situation could turn even more sideways than it already was. Because seriously, what were the odds that a Crossroads student hunt would happen right here, right now? I didn’t even want to try to figure that out. But hey, maybe Ambrose Keaton, my Calculus teacher, would be willing to give it a shot. 

It was just slightly possible that being forced to keep my anxiety over not knowing exactly what was going on down there in check so I didn’t screw this up was making me a little screwy in the head. Maybe more than a little. Either way, I kept a sharp lookout as we made our way through the corridor to the stairwell. This was a different one than the one I had been in before, where I had left the unconscious body. This one was labeled roof access, and there was a keypad lock. But the door was already standing open, and was held that way by a large planter. 

At a gesture from me to keep going, Beied started up the stairs, with me right behind him (keeping an eye over my shoulder just in case someone who was shielded from my item sense got any big ideas, of course). My guide’s voice was faux-casual. “So, you’re part of that Heretic rebellion thing, huh? How’s that working out for you?”

“Peachy,” I retorted before pointedly adding, “So, you’re part of a gang that terrorizes people into getting themselves killed during gas station robberies while trying to pay off a debt to you, and then also terrorizes their surviving child to try to force her into paying off the same debt, huh? How’s that working out for you? Also, just in case I wasn’t clear about this, if you or any of the people from this collection of upstanding citizens go anywhere near Kalia again, my friends and I will burn your entire organization to the ground. Your boss might have literally forgotten the debt, but you don’t get to bring it back up and go after it just because you didn’t. She’s done. She lost her dad from you fucks trying to get blood out of a stone. Either the debt is over, or you are.” 

By that point, we had reached the top of the stairs and emerged onto the roof. There were guys up there who had been leaning over the edge to look at what was going on below. But they must have already been briefed about what was going on, because none of them looked surprised when we appeared. Nor did they look to their boss for orders. Instead, they shot him (me) nasty looks while obviously restraining themselves from lifting their weapons. Yeah, in about three seconds, they made it clear that they knew I was there. And that they weren’t at all happy about it. 

Beied, in response to what I had said, gave a short nod. “You can believe what you want, and make any threat that makes you feel better. But the fact is, I got no problem ignoring that debt. Far as I’m concerned, it died with the man himself. Going after family, that’s just a step too far. That’s why I didn’t remind him about it. Didn’t want it blowing back on any innocent parties. My interest was in finding out what happened to the boss to change his mind. Literally change his mind.” He paused briefly before giving me a look. “But I get the feeling you’re about as lost on that as me. So good luck. Now you ready to let him go?” 

Oh boy was I ever ready. I desperately wanted to kick my way out of this piece of shit and go down to join the others. But there was still one thing I needed. It was the entire reason we’d come this far, and I wasn’t about to run off without it. Making my host give the Nekomata man a hard look, I growled out, “Soon as you tell me everything you know about where Denise went.” 

“Of course,” he agreed. “Like you said, you and your friends can come after us and wipe us out. Pretty sure that includes if I lie to you right now. And you Heretics are good at finding people when you’re motivated. I don’t want you motivated to find me. So here it is, the full truth. That girl you’re looking for got on a bus to Chicago three weeks ago. I did a little digging after that cuz I was still curious and found out she went south to Belleville. From there, she met up with some people and went to one more place.” With that, he held up that field-engraver again, along with a flat metal sheet about three inches across. “The name of that place is right here.” He showed me the symbol he had drawn on the sheet. “Take this thing and say Maescarvien while giving it a little magic juice, and it’ll tell you where she went. Maescarvien.” He spelled it and said it once more, slowly. 

“Or you could just tell me right now,” I pointed out, making a point of glowering a bit at him. Somehow, it seemed less effective even though it was coming from a guy much bigger than I was.

“Yeah,” Beied agreed, “but see, this way you need to step out of my boss to get all the information you want. Like I said, possess me and the info’s gone. Only way you get it is with this thing right here. It’s a bit delicate, so you don’t wanna let it hit too hard. But then, I figure you Heretics have plenty of powers to help get the–oops.” Even as he said that, the man had already given the thing a toss, sending it flying off the roof.  “Might wanna get that.” 

I was already launching myself that way. With a curse, I lunged out of the man I was possessing, once more leaving an unconscious host to collapse while I dove off the roof and plummeted after the thing Beied had tossed. I heard the other guards start to shout something about shooting, but the Nekomata man called them off, telling everyone to evacuate and that they had enough problems without the rage that shooting a Heretic in the back would invite. 

Not that I was paying attention to any of that, of course. It was just noise in the background while I threw myself off the building and started to fall. All my attention was on the metal plate that guy had thrown. I could see it plummeting ahead of me, my eyes locking onto it. Nothing else mattered in that moment beyond grabbing that plate. Which wasn’t that hard, since I was finally far enough away from those magical transport defenses that a thought made a portal appear directly below the plate, while I put the other end slightly above me. As the plate passed through, I snapped my hand out and caught it. 

Right, now I had the plate. I just had to avoid hitting the ground at full speed. I was tough, but hitting the ground from like eighty feet up would probably still be pretty unfun. Thankfully, my staff had plenty of charge in it, so I managed to hold it in one hand while flipping over, triggering the boost a couple times to slow my descent before landing in a crouch on a small patch of dead grass near an empty fountain beside the hotel. 

Immediately, I shoved the plate away safely into a pocket while reaching out to Tabbris, as I could still feel her presence. Where am I going?

Her response was a blurted, Behind you! 

Yeah, I’d sensed it too in that same moment. We both felt my item-sense warning me about a figure rushing up at my back, moving completely (unnaturally) silently while reaching out with one hand. I let the person get close enough to think they were about to hit me, then pivoted and twisted out of the way. At the same time, my staff lashed out to collide with their stomach. 

Between my own strength and the other person’s momentum, I was pretty sure I hit hard enough to flatten a bear. But this wasn’t a bear. It was someone a bit more familiar. 

“Hey there, Zeke,” I breezily greeted while repositioning myself a few steps backward. “Mind if we catch up later, I’ve sorta got stuff to do.” 

Yeah, it was my old classmate. Zeke, generally speaking, didn’t exactly look that intimidating. He was physically average in most respects, standing about five foot eight, with brown hair that always looked like he had just ruffled it up after getting out of the shower and let it stay that way. He wore thin-rimmed glasses along with the Crossroads uniform with the white trim showing he had stayed in the security track. On his left arm was what looked like a metal gauntlet, but I knew it could expand into his weapon. All in all, he wasn’t the world’s most daunting figure. 

But then, neither was I. In all the time since I had woken up on that bus over a year earlier, I had long-since had to do away with any notion of what a powerful figure should look like. I knew better than to actually dismiss Zeke as a threat, especially given I didn’t really know what he was capable of. We hadn’t been close enough for me to keep track of his powers before leaving Crossroads, and it had been over six months since then. A lot could have changed in that time.

What had not changed, apparently, was Zeke’s dislike of me. His lower lip curled distastefully as he held one hand over his stomach where I had hit him. It wasn’t enough to put the boy down or anything, though from his expression it definitely hurt. “Chambers.” He said the name like it disgusted him, eyes narrowing into a dark glare. “Let me guess, the guys in this place are just tragically misunderstood orphans whose hugs cure all diseases and if we dance in a circle singing Kumbaya, it’ll erase all the effects of pollution on the planet.” 

“Those guys?” I nodded toward the hotel without taking my eyes off him. “Nah, I’m pretty sure they’re all assholes. And that’s not why I’m here anyway. Like I said, why don’t we do this another time. You go back to your… whatever you’re doing, and I’ll back off and go my own way. That way.” I used my free hand to gesture back over my shoulder. “Hotel’s all yours.” 

From the look on his face, Zeke didn’t believe me and thought it was some sort of trick. I almost wanted to just turn away from him and take off running to find the others, but there was no way I would give him that sort of opening when, again, I had no idea what he was capable of. 

Instead of just taking my offer and letting both of us move on with our lives, Zeke snapped, “Do you have any idea what Sands’ and Scout’s dad is going through right now because they listened to you? You fucking tore his family apart. You tore a lot of families apart. And you’re gonna get a lot of people killed with this bullshit.” His head shook. “But you don’t care. You never took any of this seriously. You never actually cared about any of it. The whole thing was just one big joke to you.”

“You know what, Zeke?” I shot back, “I’ve been connected to newspapers my whole life, and even I have no idea how to unpack all the issues you just threw on the table. Sands and Sarah make their own decisions. So does their mom. People make their own decisions. Good decisions and bad ones. People make choices and those choices determine what they are. That’s kind of the entire point of what we’ve been saying the whole time. If you still don’t get that, maybe I could send you a powerpoint presentation sometime if you–” 

Yeah, apparently that was more than the boy was willing to take. He abruptly lunged my way, the thing that had looked like a gauntlet on his left arm expanded into a full, circular shield. Even as I was reacting, the boy lashed out with that, sending the shield flying… not at me. Instead, it rebounded off the wall nearby before several spikey blades extended from all sides of the thing. As my head snapped that way, I caught a glimpse of a guy who had been standing just beyond the range of my item-sense, gun raised to point at me before his head was cut off by the now-bladed shield. The instant the headless figure dropped, the shield vanished from mid-air and reappeared on Zeke’s arm as he doubled over a bit, stumbling slightly from the rush of the kill. 

Two seconds passed before he looked up, focusing once more. “You didn’t hit me while you had the chance.” 

“You didn’t let that guy hit me,” I pointed out, still a bit surprised by the whole sequence. I might’ve been just as stunned as he was, despite not killing anyone. 

He, in turn, stared hard at me with a flat, “I’m not the bad guy.” 

“Yeah,” I replied, “and neither am I.” With that, I reached out with my Necromancy power, caught hold of the ghost of the man who Zeke had just killed, and made him appear directly in front of the boy. As Zeke reacted to that, I used the distraction to pivot and launch myself out of the way with a shot from my staff. In mid-air, I switched my clothes for the Seosten body-suit and transformed into the werelion form before hitting the ground running. By the time the ghost had vanished, Zeke would be left facing the empty space where I had just been. 

A few words of direction from Tabbris sent me through an assortment of alleys and side-streets before I finally came to the small dirt lot where the others had already gathered. Everyone looked more or less okay. Vulcan even seemed pretty energetic, like they had just been playing a fun game. VJ, meanwhile, was hovering up high in the air, keeping an eye out for anyone coming. 

“Felicity,” Mom started, focusing on me as I came to a stop and transformed back to my human self. “Did you–” 

“I got it,” I replied, switching the Seosten suit for my regular clothes before reaching into the pocket of my coat to take out the metal plate before asking, “What about you guys? What… what happened back there?” 

Asenath stepped closer. There was blood across her face, a bruise under her eye, and a Twister in hummingbird form perched on her shoulder. “They didn’t feel like listening to reason. As usual. What about Denise? Where is she?” 

Holding up the plate, I replied, “Let’s find out.” Of course, I didn’t just use a spell I didn’t know that had been told to me by someone who probably would’ve been just fine with all of us dying. I wasn’t quite that desperate or stupid. Instead, I told my mother what he’d said. She, in turn, looked at the plate and confirmed that the spell would do what he said. 

I gave it to her, so she could find out where Denise was. It felt like the right thing to do. While letting my mother do the spell, I reached out to take Tabbris’s hand, murmuring thanks for her help, and for staying with the others while all that was going on. She, in turn, embraced me tightly. 

After speaking the single word (Maescarvien) to trigger the spell, Mom recoiled a bit as she absorbed whatever it was saying. I heard a soft gasp escape her, before her eyes widened. 

“What? What is it?” I prompted, the sentiment echoed by the others. 

Mom, in turn, focused once more and glanced around to take everyone in. “The Auberge. The people she met are Alters. They took her to the Auberge.” 

“What?” I managed, giving a double-take. “Why would they–how would–what?” 

“I don’t know what’s going on,” my mother murmured. 

“But it’s time to go to the Auberge, find Denise, and get some actual answers.” 

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Interlude 19A – Murphy and Roald (Summus Proelium)

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“Ready, set, go!” Standing near the dumpster in the alley behind Wren’s shop on Monday night (the day after Paintball had had that run-in with the Ninety-Niners), Alloy dropped her hand with that last word. At the call, Murphy, standing beside her, took off running. She raced straight toward the nearby wall. Ahead of her, four of Alloy’s marbles went flying in, transforming into flat circles about nine inches across. The bronze marble swooped down first, positioning itself about six inches off the ground, slightly ahead of the sprinting girl. The silver hovered a bit behind that, higher and to the left, while the purple and black were yet higher and further back. White and gold were being used as Alloy’s armor. 

Murphy’s foot hit the first transformed marble, then the second, and the third. By that point, the first had swooped up and around to rise up behind the fourth, and the second soon joined it. The marbles were forming a sort of rapidly-moving series of steps leading up toward the fire-escape balcony halfway up the building, allowing Murphy to climb them at a sprint without ever breaking stride. It showed just how much trust the girl had both in the marbles themselves, and in Alloy’s ability to control them. She only stumbled slightly once or twice, and the marbles were always there to quickly push her foot back into position. Soon, she was able to grab hold of the railing and haul herself up and over. Landing with a heavy metal clang, she raised both arms up and pivoted to face the ground below. “Whooo! And she sets a new record for the… floating marble stair climb event? We need a name for this. Hey, what was my time on that?” 

From where he stood on the opposite side of Alloy, Roald dryly replied, “You called it a new record before even knowing what your time was?” 

“Hey, I know I was going fast,” Murphy retorted, squinting down at her best friend. “I don’t need a stopwatch to tell me that much. But hey, you happen to have one. So spill the bananas.” 

Tilting her head toward the boy, Alloy asked, “Isn’t it usually spill the beans?” 

He, in turn, coughed. “Inside joke. Uh, it was a whole thing back in third grade with bananas in the lunchroom at school and… yeah.” Turning his attention to his phone, where he had the stopwatch app running, the boy called up, “Eleven point four two seconds!” 

“Told ya, new record!” Murphy crowed, before calling out. “Hey, help me down, would ya?” With that, she hauled herself back over the railing and dropped, just as two of the marbles obediently created a surfboard for the girl to land on and ride all the way back to the ground. “Whoo! Hey, you gonna beat my record or at least try to give me a challenge?” 

Blanching visibly, Roald shook his head. “No thanks, I think I’ll just let that one stand.” 

Before Murphy could tease him, Alloy spoke up. “Thanks, guys. Seriously, I just wanted some help working out the coordination between me and the marbles. You didn’t have to do something, you know, actually dangerous.”

“Meh,” Murphy shrugged, straightening up after stooping to rub her thumb over the silver marble as though it was a puppy that needed scritches. “I’ve done more dangerous stuff than that before we ever even met any of you guys.”  

“She’s not kidding,” Roald noted. “And definitely more illegal stuff. Like that time she stole a car when we were ten.” 

“I didn’t steal a car!” Murphy blurted, her reaction making it clear that this was a long-running debate. “The asshole mechanic promised it would only cost two hundred dollars to fix what was wrong with my brother’s car. Tyson did him a favor. Like, three favors actually. But when Ty went back to get it, suddenly it was supposed to be five hundred. And he wouldn’t give it back. So I… I took the keys off the board while they were arguing and drove it away.” 

“She couldn’t even see over the steering wheel and hit the gas at the same time,” Roald murmured with a small smile. “So she kept leaning down to hit the gas for a few seconds, then leaning up to see where she was going while the car coasted, then leaning down to hit the gas, just like that.” 

Murphy’s face had turned pink by then. “Yeah, well, I’m a better driver now.” 

“Uh, are you even old enough for a license yet?” Alloy questioned, glancing between the two. 

With a huff, the other girl pointed out, “I said I was a better driver. Not a more legal one.” 

“Right.” Shaking her head, Alloy snickered despite herself. “If my mom knew I was hanging out with terrible influences like you… well, she’d probably insist on dragging you both inside and shoving a Thanksgiving feast down your throats, honestly. That’s how she deals with that sort of thing. With lots of food. Pretty sure she’d insist on bringing your brother along too.”

“Oh, that’d go over well,” Murphy retorted with a snort. “Best holiday photo ever, my brother and your mom, fighting over the table full of food.”

“She’d probably try to make him wear a tie,” Alloy murmured, her amusement clear before she shook that off. “Anyway, thanks again. I’m going to come up with some new exercises for the whole coordination thing. Maybe even some that Roald won’t mind helping with.”  

“Hey, any time,” Murphy informed her. “Beats sweeping and mopping, anyway.” Quickly, she amended, “Not that we don’t, like, appreciate the opportunity or whatever. You know.” 

“Relax, I’m not gonna narc on you for not liking manual labor. I’m pretty sure everyone knows,” Alloy pointed out. “Besides, I’m sort of right alongside you, remember? I’m supposed to be working here too. Gotta keep my cover story intact.” 

“Great,” Murphy replied with a broad smile. “Next time, you get to mop out the restroom. You know, once the store officially reopens and all that.”

With a groan, Alloy lamented, “On second thought, maybe I’ll just go ahead and tell my mom I’m fighting supervillains.”  

While the three laughed at that, the back door of the shop opened, and Fred came out. “Oh hey, you’re all still here, good. Your new boss wanted me to hand these out.” He had a stack of envelopes in one hand. 

“The nine-year-old girl new boss, or the twelve-year-old boy new boss?” Roald questioned, with a glance to the other two as the absurdity of their situation really washed over him. 

Fred chuckled. “The latter. But really it’s from both of them. You’ve done good work around here. Paintball said to consider this an advance, or a signing bonus, whatever.” He extended the envelopes to all three of them. 

Taking hers, Murphy ripped it open before her eyes bulged. “What the–what–how–what?” She reached in, taking out a stack of twenty and fifty dollar bills. 

“Five hundred dollars for each of you,” Fred informed them. “Would’ve been more, but that one hasn’t done much work yet.” He nodded toward Alloy. “And you two are still working off your little escapade from before. Still, they wanted you to have something for the work you’ve been doing. It’s good work. Keep it up.” Belatedly, he added, “Seriously, keep it up. I’m kind of enjoying not being the one who has to sweep up around here. It’s nice.”

That said, the man walked back inside with a nod to them. As the door closed behind him, the three teenagers exchanged looks. Murphy found her voice first. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. I’m not eating off the dollar menu tonight. No, sir. It’s full-on combo time. Large sized, with a milkshake.” 

“Just don’t let Tyson see any of it,” Roald warned. “I get how you feel about him, but it’ll be gone in ten minutes. You know it too.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Making a face, Murphy put the cash away in a pocket. “But I’m still getting food. Hey, maybe I’ll bring some for him too.” 

Glancing down at her phone, Alloy murmured, “I’ve gotta get home before Mom freaks out about curfew. Uh, you guys gonna be okay?” 

“Sure, we’ll take the bus. It’s cool.” Roald replied, glancing toward Murphy before adding, “Should we check to see if Wren and L-Lion need us?” He tripped a bit over the latter name, still finding it staggering that they were actually interacting with Touched to begin with, let alone someone like the mouse TONI. Having money in their pockets was strange enough on its own, but the actual facts of what their lives had become in such a short time was still unbelievable. The boy was generally half-convinced that he would wake up from this dream, and go back to the sort of life where throwing a rock through the door of a gas station so they could run in and grab as much food as they could stuff into their bags was the best way of feeding themselves.

Murphy, meanwhile, was shaking her head. “Dude, I tried to get their attention before we came out here, and they were just completely absorbed in their thing. And this is like the second day in a row they’ve been like this. Trust me, they’ll be fine. They’ve got Fred to get whatever they need. And something tells me they’re going to be having this whole meeting of the minds until like midnight. I’m not waiting around that long. Let’s just get out of here. Come on, remember, large combos. Milkshake. Not counting out pennies and asking for a water cup, then sneaking soda into it while they’re not looking. We’re living the good life.” 

Snorting at that, Alloy gestured. “Sure, you guys are totally living like the Evans or Banners now.” Sobering then, she added, “Seriously though, I’ll catch you guys tomorrow. We’ll do some more practice. I think my marbles are really starting to like you.” As though to prove that point, a couple of them moved up to dance in the air in front of their faces, clearly showing off before Alloy waved for the marbles to transform into a hoverboard. Then she was off, flying into the air. 

The pair watched her go before looking at one another. Roald spoke first, voice a bit awed. “She’s pretty cool, huh?” 

“Super-cool,” Murphy confirmed. “And I’m pretty sure she’s hot too. But come on, let’s get that bus. You know if we miss this one, they switch to that creepy driver.” 

They both shuddered at the thought before reaching down to grab their backpacks. Without another word, the two of them jogged out of the alley and made their way through the dark street to the nearest bus stop. Soon, they were on the bus and moved to the back, ignoring the curious glances they got. Both knew that being seen together tended to attract attention around here, given their appearances. Murphy was clearly mixed-race, with brown hair that was short enough to make people do a slight double-take as they worked out whether to classify her as male or female. Roald, on the other hand, was incredibly pale-skinned with longer blond hair, itself light enough to almost make someone wonder if he was albino. At a glance, many people reflexively thought of Roald as the female of the pair and Murphy as the male, before their brains had to adjust. 

Sitting in the back of the bus, the pair were already planning out where to stop near their apartment building to get food and carry it home. The two were in the middle of a debate about whether McDonalds or Wendy’s was better for that, when a shadow fell over them. Both looked up to see a heavyset Latino man with clearly dyed blonde dreadlocks perch himself on the edge of the seat across from them, feet firmly planted in the aisle. “I know you,” he said to Murphy. “You’re Ty’s little sister. Eleanor.” 

Making a face as the guy used her given first name rather than her preferred last, the girl corrected him. “It’s Murphy. Just Murphy.” 

“Well hey, Just Murphy,” the guy half-drawled. “Fancy meeting you here. See, the name’s  Luciano. Maybe you heard of me, maybe not. The point is, your brother owes me money, and he keeps ducking my calls. I don’t like it when people who owe me money duck my calls. Makes me feel ignored, you know? I really hate feeling ignored. Makes me just wanna lash out. Which isn’t good for anybody. I gotta talk to my therapist about that. But you know, she’s outta town. So I’m feeling some lashing coming on.” 

Murphy, in turn, retorted, “Yeah, well I’m sure you’ve got a lot of people who owe you money. What with that whole shoving drugs on them thing.” 

“Hey, I don’t shove shit on anyone,” Luciano objected with a slight snarl. “They come looking for me, let’s get that straight. Just like your big bro did. I did him a favor, hooked him up. Now he’s ghosting me. And hey, ain’t your folks locked up right now for slinging hard stuff?” 

“They sold antidepressants,” the girl shot back. “Not Fentanyl-laced crack, LSD, Heroin, any of that. Happy pills, not that shit.” 

“My shit makes people happy too, kid,” Luciano snapped, showing his teeth (many of which had been replaced with gold or silver caps. “And let’s not get off topic here. Your brother owes me, so the three of us, we’re going to go back to my place, then give him a call and see if he wants to get you back.” His gaze dipped down to take the girl in briefly before smiling once more. “Who knows, maybe if you’re real good, you can work off some of what he owes. Make it a little easier on everybody.” Even as he spoke, the guy used one hand to lift the bottom of his shirt, revealing the revolver stuck into his waistband to illustrate the implicit threat.  

Both friends froze for a moment, processing everything that had just happened and how quickly their situation had changed. Murphy finally shifted just a little, turning to face the man directly, since she had the aisle seat, with Roald next to the window. “Okay, fine, look. I have some money right here, if you just–” As she was speaking, she rose partway, reaching into her backpack. But it wasn’t cash she came out with. Instead, the girl produced a small canister of pepper spray, which she unleashed into the man’s face while he was anticipating cash. With a cry, the man fell backward in the seat, swiping at his eyes. Yet Murphy didn’t let up, continuing to spray it all over the man as she leaned over him to grab the cord against the opposite window. The ding signaling a requested stop filled the air, as the bus promptly began to move toward the curb. 

Both teenagers bolted toward the front of the bus together, while Luciano bellowed in pain and shouted threats. He was still swiping at his eyes as they practically shoved their way out the still-opening door, ignoring the driver blurting questions at them. The two could hear the drug dealer behind them, staggering toward the front while shouting for the driver not to go anywhere. 

Without looking back, Roald and Murphy took off running toward the nearest building, a three-story apartment place. Unfortunately, the door was locked and neither had any way in. An elderly woman taking mail out of her box within the lobby saw them knock at the door, but shot both a disgusted look before pointedly continuing down the hall. 

“Yeah, fuck you, old cunt!” Murphy shouted after her. “I hope you–” 

“Come on!” Roald interrupted, grabbing her arm. He yanked her, and the two of them took off again. By that point, Luciano had made it off the bus, still wiping at his eyes and coughing between blurted threats. He was fumbling for the revolver in his pants, while the pair made it to a nearby alley and darted through it. 

“Really would be nice,” Murphy managed between pants as they ran, “to have a couple of those marbles right now. Or any superpowers, really.”

“Just keep running,” Roald insisted. By that point, they had reached the end of the alley, where a wall blocked their path. But there was a much narrower space between buildings to the right, where they could squeeze through. It was full of trash and other, likely worse things that neither wanted to think about as they slid their way along. They could hear Luciano making his way through the alley, kicking over trash cans and shouting about what he was going to do when he found them. Yet the two reached the end of the narrow space, emerging into a rear parking lot behind the apartment building they had tried to get into before. Without any hesitation, they took off once more, racing through the lot, crossing the street at a sprint (causing two different cars to blare their horns at the two), cut through the lot of a car wash on the opposite side, then hop a couple fences to dash across the weed and rock-filled ‘lawns’ of nearby houses. 

By the time the two felt safe enough to stop running, they had gone three more blocks before stopping in the concealing shadows of a large tree to watch the way they had come for five minutes. When they saw no sign of the man who had been chasing them, both exhaled and slumped. 

“We could’ve given him the cash,” Roald pointed out. 

“Fuck that,” Murphy shot back. “It’s our money, not his. We earned it. Besides, you give a guy like that money and he’ll just keep coming back for more. Nothing’s ever enough. He’s a piece of shit leech.” She gave a visible shudder at how skeevy the man had been, before shoving it to the back of her mind. “Come on, now I’m really hungry after all that. I might just get two full combos.” She was clearly trying to play off what had just happened, but her voice shook a bit. 

Still, Roald wasn’t going to push things. With a slight nod, the boy gave one last look up and down the street before pushing off the tree. “Sure,” he murmured, “let’s get some food.” 

******

Some time later, Murphy told Roald good night while standing in front of the door of the apartment she shared with her brother. It was on the ground floor, while Roald and his family (his older and younger sisters) lived on the third. The stairs and doors were all on the outside of the building, with no interior space besides the apartments themselves. She watched her friend head up the steps, listening for the sound of him getting into his own apartment before going to unlock the door of hers. On the way, she glanced through the nearby window. In the gap between the curtain and the wall, she could see Tyson lounging on the couch, playing a game. 

“Hey, Ty!” Murphy forced enthusiasm into her voice while stepping inside. She took the time to lock, deadbolt, and chain the door behind her. “Got food!” Holding up the sack of burgers and fries, she stepped that way. “Figured it was my turn to cook.” 

Pushing himself to a sitting position, Tyson looked at her. He took more after their father, looking almost fully black without Murphy’s obvious mixed-heritage. His dark eyes were damp, as she belatedly realized he hadn’t been playing the game at all. He had been crying to himself. 

“Hey,” the boy murmured. “Why… why’d you come back? Before, I mean. I… I cut your face, Murph. Why’d you ever come back here with a fuck-up piece of shit like me?” 

Exhaling, Murphy stepped that way, sitting down on the couch beside him. “Shut up, dude. Take your burger. I know it’s not your fault.” 

“Not my fault,” Tyson muttered, shaking his head. He took the offered food, but didn’t unwrap it. Instead, he sat there, staring at the floor for a long moment. “I was supposed to give this cash to this guy, you know. Luciano. Had the cash and everything, after Jaylen finally paid up for that favor last week. But I didn’t. At first, I thought I would. I was going to. Then I was in front of this… place. This rehab place. I don’t even know how I got there. But I was standing there looking at it and all I could see was your face. After I cut it, I mean. All I could see was the stupid, fucked up shit I keep doing. So I uhh… I went inside. I paid ‘em. I gave them the money, got a reservation. Thirty days. It ain’t the best place, but they’ll take me.” 

“You… you’re going into rehab?” Murphy carefully asked, squinting at her brother. 

He nodded, pushing himself up from the couch. “Yeah. I just… I’m so sorry, Murph. I’m a fuck-up, and you deserve better than that. Especially with Mom and Dad gone and just–I’m gonna be better, okay? I’m gonna go into this place, get through rehab, get a job, a real one, and just… you and me, we’ll be alright. I promise. No more hard shit. No more… none of it. I’m done with all that.” Offering her a faint smile then, he extended his hand. “Ain’t gonna be easy, but we’ll be okay. You and me, ain’t nothing we can’t–” 

In that moment, as Murphy accepted his hand, a rapid series of deafening, cacophonous thunder cracks filled the air. The window shattered inward, glass spraying in every direction, as Tyson jerked repeatedly. His eyes met his sister’s, as he pitched forward, hitting the floor. Blood soaked through his shirt out of half a dozen holes in his back, as he lay in a heap on the floor. 

Through her own scream, Murphy heard the familiar voice from the bus shouting that he should’ve paid, followed by the sound of squealing tires. 

Then the car was gone, leaving Murphy clutching her brother as she screamed, through a grief-torn throat, for help. 

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The Runaway 15-06 (Heretical Edge 2)

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A/N – There was a commissioned interlude posted earlier today focusing on Reapers. If you haven’t seen that yet, you might want to use the Previous Chapter button above. Thanks!

What?! I silently blurted as Tabbris’s words made me physically recoil. Or rather, made the guy I was possessing recoil. That doesn’t even make sense. Why would Crossroads have a student hunt right now? It’s only a few days before Christmas for God’s sake. Aren’t they on vacation? 

Tabbris’s voice was helpless, and clearly just as uncertain. We don’t know, maybe it’s extra credit or something? Or maybe they’re really short-handed and needed more help. But it doesn’t matter, they’re just here. And they’re about to make a move against the hotel, so we’ve gotta interrupt them before they blow this whole thing and make those guys retreat with Denise.

Immediately, I replied, Hold on, I’m coming out. I’ll be right there. I was already starting to focus on looking for the nearest exit. I could walk my host that way and be down there in seconds. 

No, my sister immediately insisted. You have to find out what happened to Denise, Flick. Don’t worry about the stuff down here. Your Mom and the others can handle it. Just hurry and find Denise, before the guys in there figure out something’s wrong and make her disappear again.

She was right, of course. I hated to admit it. Boy did I ever hate to admit it. But she was definitely right.  What mattered right now was finding Denise, and if Mercer saw a fight involving Heretics right outside his front door, he wouldn’t stick around. He would grab whatever he could and disappear. Which probably included Denise herself. I had to find her and get out of here before that happened. 

So, trying to shut aside thoughts and worries about what was going on out there for the moment, I focused on my own situation. The door ahead of me and down the hall a little bit. That was where I needed to go. But there were two guys standing on either side of it who probably wouldn’t be eager to let my host go through that easily. I could deal with them, but there was a camera above the door, pointed down at it. If I started something right there, the people inside would know. Which would give them time to escape. Fuck. I was going to be careful about this, no matter how rushed I felt. No matter what, I could not give Mercer time to retreat. I had to get to him and find out where the hell he had taken Denise. Which meant getting past the guards and through the door without raising any sort of alarm. And I had to do it before the situation outside grew obvious and loud enough for an alert to be sent upstairs. 

That was the real irony of this whole thing. I had the powers, skills, and weapons to deal with these guys fairly easily if it came down to it. Probably, at least. I could smash my way through them, and could probably get through the shielded door within a couple minutes. But a couple minutes wouldn’t be fast enough to stop Mercer from vanishing, along with the only real clue about Denise that we had. I had all this power and I still had to be careful. 

Oh well, what was life without problems to solve, huh? I could handle this. It just required a little creativity rather than a straight-forward slugging match. I still had my little ghost-boy pal, hovering curiously behind me while (maybe a little impatiently) clearly waiting to see what I was going to do. He had no idea anything about the situation had changed. He just wanted to watch me do something interesting to help with his boredom. 

Silently telling Tabbris to keep me updated if they needed help down there, I went to work on my own thing. First, I did a quick check to see if my guy knew anything about Denise. But just like the last one, he had nothing. It was like he’d never heard of or seen her before. What was going on? If Mercer had taken Denise, was he really keeping the fact that he had kidnapped a little kid secret from his men? Why? Was he afraid they weren’t loyal, that they would object to the whole situation? Or that they might sell him out? I didn’t want to think that we were barking up the wrong tree entirely. Mercer had to know something about what was going on. I just wasn’t sure what, or why he was keeping it secret. There was clearly something I was missing, and I was hoping that getting to the boss-man himself would help fill in those gaps. 

To that end, I made my guy push away from the wall where he had been leaning, and turned to walk toward the room I needed to get into. The moment he moved, both of the guys on either side of that door turned their attention that way, one of them calling out, “You gotta piss again, Dugal? Come on, man, stop guzzling so much at lunch all the time. Ain’t good for you.” 

While he was talking, I took in the appearance of the two guards. One of them, the one who wasn’t talking, was another of the almost-Orcs. He was just rolling his eyes as though annoyed that his daydreaming, or whatever he’d been doing, was interrupted by something out of the ordinary. Meanwhile, the guy who had spoken looked like a Nekomata, a feline humanoid like Triss back home. They were the ones who were able to make ghost-fire. So siccing my new, bored little buddy on him was probably a bad idea. Come to think of it, given the Nekomata clearly had a thing against ghosts, maybe this guy had something to do with why the forcefield around the penthouse was able to keep them out. 

All of that passed through my mind in a brief moment as I took in the scene, before making my host shrug. “What can I say,” I made his voice grunt, “I really like my–” I did a quick search of his memory for the appropriate drink. “–Coors.” 

“Gotta get that checked,” the Nekomata (his name was apparently Beied, pronounced bye-eed, while the other guy’s name was Istor, rhyming with mister) taunted with a smirk. “I read something about how having shit taste might be a sign of brain damage. Anyone who actually likes that piss water must be about three seconds from a fucking aneurysm or something. We shouldn’t even carry that shit in this place. Make Del Shannon roll over in his grave.”

I almost made my guy ask what some old rock musician had to do with anything, but caught myself. Instead, I checked my guy’s memory. Del Shannon. Right, the hotel had been renamed in honor of him back in the sixties. The Runaway. The name of the hotel was The Runaway. How… convenient. 

That sentiment about Shannon’s objection to Coors being in the hotel named after his most famous song was echoed by a couple of the other guards stationed further down the hall. All of which just reminded me that, outward appearances aside, this wasn’t a super-professional set-up. These guys were part of a gang, not world-class elite soldiers or anything. Another reason why I could have smashed my way through them pretty quickly if that was on the table. But I gave myself a firm reminder that I couldn’t be too cocky. I was on the clock, and these guys could still be a problem. After all, the Seosten had underestimated me plenty of times, and look how that had turned out for them. No matter how casual they seemed from the outside, I had to be careful. This whole situation could turn sideways really damn quick. So no dismissing them as a threat. I was not going to make the Seosten mistake of being too arrogant and then getting screwed over for it. Not when Denise’s life was on the line. 

With a quick search through my guy’s memory (hopefully without violating him too much), I shot back a retort about how Beied couldn’t talk about having shit taste as long as he kept eating something called liver sausage pineapple. Going by this guy, it was apparently a pound of liver sausage mixed with lemon juice, mayonnaise, and Worcestershire sauce, all put together and shaped to look like a pineapple. I… I had no idea. But apparently Beied really liked it. 

There was a bit of back-and-forth teasing about who had the worst sense of taste. I was trying not to let my anxiety about what was going on outside show through the guy I was puppeting.  And yet, I could think of almost nothing except what was going to happen the moment these guys told Mercer that there were Heretics outside fighting. Trying to figure out an excuse to get in there was hard, when that was the only–wait. Hold on. Shit, I was being an idiot, wasn’t I? 

Making a show of heading down the hallway to use the restroom, I made my guy glance out the nearby window and paused. Turning him, I stepped closer and looked down for a few seconds.  I didn’t want to say anything too quickly. It had to look like he was uncertain, even though I could feel the seconds ticking away in the back of my head like a bomb waiting to go off. 

There wasn’t actually anything to see. Not yet, anyway. It looked like Mom and the others had been able to keep the attack away from the front of the hotel so far. But I didn’t really think that would last forever. Any minute now someone on the roof was going to notice what was happening and call it in. I had to get ahead of that. 

“Watcha looking for out there?” Beied finally spoke up. “Cuz if it’s a personality or a life, you might need to look a little harder. And you probably should’ve started earlier.” He chuckled at his own words, and I heard the sound of him exchanging a high five with Istor next to him. 

Pretending I wasn’t paying attention, I made my guy lean closer to the window as though staring at something intently down there. After about two seconds that felt like twenty, I made him physically recoil and pivot on his heel. “There’s something going on down there,” I informed the others in a quick voice, trying to inject it with the sort of surprise and worry that he should have given the situation. “Some sorta fight or something.” Belatedly, I added, “Ain’t no schoolyard brawl, they got weapons and shit. Could be–” I pulled the memory of a rival gang from the man’s mind. “–Darmon’s guys starting something.” 

Before I had even finished talking, several of the guys from down the hall came to look out the window or through one of the others. I pointed, telling them that I had seen the fight start to come around the corner of the building down there before they disappeared again. 

“You fucking serious?” Beied was clearly pretty unhappy about this news. “God damn it, I was ten minutes from getting off shift and hitting this great–fuck.” He pivoted, hitting a three digit code on the pad beside the door to open it. Beside him, Istor the not-Orc started to step over to see what was going on outside for himself. 

Okay, I had three other guys in the hall. Two were right beside me, leaning up to see through the same window in an attempt to catch a glimpse of what I had supposedly seen. Another was further down looking out a different window to see from another angle. Istor was coming up behind me, and Beied the Nekomata was faced the other direction to open the door so he could warn their boss about what was going on. None of them besides Istor were focused directly on me at the moment, and he wasn’t suspicious yet, he was just walking up to look for himself. This was my best–only chance to deal with these guys and get inside that room before Mercer was put on high alert. Getting Beied to open the door by pretending I saw the fight going on out there before anyone else could sound the alert had been a risk, but now I had to follow through. It was only a brief advantage, and it could vanish in a few seconds. So, here went nothing.  

First, I glanced over my shoulder to get Istor in my line of sight before making a portal directly in front of my current host’s hand. It was hidden from the not-Orc himself by my guy’s body, and the two beside me were focused on the window so they didn’t see it yet. The other end of the portal appeared behind Istor, and I gave him a firm tap on the shoulder before dismissing the portal. He pivoted that way. So now, for just a second, I was out of everyone’s line of sight. The camera was focused on the door itself, so it couldn’t see what was going on now that Istor had stepped out of its line of sight. 

As soon as the not-Orc turned his back, I immediately shoved myself backwards out of my current host. He was still unconscious, so the body was already starting to collapse as I appeared behind him. I was still out of sight from the two intently peering through the window in front of me, as well as the one just down the hall. That first pair might have noticed the body falling instantly and reacted, but even as I landed in my own body behind the falling man, I was already focusing hard, using my five-second pause power to freeze his shirt in place. The body sort of went limp, caught in place. It wouldn’t look at all convincing to anyone looking directly at him. But they were still distracted by staring out the window, so all they registered was that his body was still (somewhat) upright. 

It would only buy me a couple seconds, at most. Between those two standing right by the limp form, and the other guy down the hall, one of them would notice that he wasn’t conscious. Not to mention Istor, who would only be distracted by checking to see who had tapped him on the shoulder for a moment. They were going to see that something was wrong any second. 

Thankfully, a second was all I needed. Pivoting on one heel, I slapped my hand out to grab Istor while his back was still to me. A second later, I was inside him. I could feel his sudden rage and sent a quick apology and promise that I would let him go in a moment before turning.  

By that point, the two by the window had noticed their unconscious companion and had turned that way. I immediately sent Istor into a charge, sprinting straight at the two, before once more launching myself backwards out of my host. His momentum kept him going forward, slamming into the other two as they collapsed in a heap. Which caught the attention of the guy down the hall, of course. But it was too late for him to do anything, even as he caught a glimpse of me while turning to see the commotion. 

Throughout all of that, having no idea that anything was wrong just yet, Beied was still in the middle of opening the door. He had barely gotten it half-open as he started to speak up, when the sound of Istor colliding with the other two filled the hall. His words turned to a confused curse as he started to turn. But I was already there. Using a mix of my own enhanced speed and my Seosten boost, I slammed into the feline man, catching him by the shoulders before he could react. Spinning to put my back to the half-open doorway so that he was facing the hall, I lashed out with one foot. The hard kick was enough to knock the man flying backward to land in the corridor with a bellow of surprise and anger. 

Quickly stepping backward through the open door, I slammed it shut once more before touching my hand to it. A thought made another quick-inscription spell appear, and I triggered it to seal the door. It wouldn’t hold forever, but it would keep them out for the moment. Long enough for me to do what I needed to. 

Spinning back even as the pounding and knocking at the door started, I took in the sight of where I had managed to get. It was a wide-open living room of some sort, full of plush couches, statues, paintings of old guys (many of them not-human) on the walls, and a gi-freaking-normous television that took up a huge portion of one wall. That was where most of the people in the room were. Ten guys of various species, all sitting around playing video games on that giant TV.  Two looked human, one Rakshasa (the other feline species I knew of that wasn’t Nekomata), a pair of what looked like goblins, three Satyrs (the goat-men weren’t as small and cute as they looked like in the cartoons and comics, but were more human in size), a silver-scaled reptilian figure who stood about seven feet tall, and… their boss. Yeah, I knew in an instant that the final guy had to be Mercer. He was even taller than the other guy, with thick, blue-green scales over his body and vertical-slit pupils. He gave off the air of being the person in charge, even as his gaze snapped from the television to me, dropping the controller in his hand. 

“Hey there,” I announced, summoning my staff to one hand while everyone in the room lunged to their feet, putting themselves in front of the boss. “Mercer, I presume.” Even as I said that, I focused on summoning a portal to get my hand near him. But it fizzled. The protections in this place extended to blocking that sort of thing, apparently. Which meant I was going to have to get close to him the old fashioned way, by going through everyone trying to stop me. 

“Heretic,” he snapped, the annoyance clear in his voice. “What exactly do I owe this interruption to?” 

Even as he said that, a voice from a nearby intercom frantically called out that there were Heretics attacking the hotel. Mercer gave the intercom a dark look, his voice flat. “No shit.” 

“Believe it or not,” I informed the man, “I’m not here to kill you, or any of your men. I’m here for one thing, answers.” My eyes narrowed as I stared at him. “I need you to tell me what happened to Denise Cartland.” 

Mercer showed no reaction at all to the name, his voice completely blank. “Who?” It was pretty convincing, actually. Sure, he almost certainly had to be a good liar to get into this sort of position. But still, it was hard to entirely dismiss the idea that he really had no idea who I was talking about. Not that I was going to take that for granted without checking for myself, of course. 

“Denise Cartland,” I repeated. “Tell me where she is, and I’ll go away.” 

“Kid,” he snapped back, “I got no idea who you mean. And you know what? I think you’re going away right now.” With that, he dropped his hand, and the rest of his friends in the room all launched themselves my way. 

I met their charge, but I wasn’t interested in actually fighting them. All I cared about was getting to Mercer, which meant lunging, twisting, ducking, spinning, leaping, and diving my way through every guy standing in my way. I used every ounce of my boost, pushing myself to be even faster. Those brief handful of seconds were a blur of flailing limbs, blades, claws, and more as I danced my way through everything in that room, before finally coming face to face with the man himself. 

He snarled and lashed out with a fist as soon as he saw me, but my hand snapped up to catch it. Yeah, between my boost and my general strength-enhancements I caught his fist with my own grip. It hurt, but I didn’t care at that moment. It was worth seeing the look on his face, especially knowing what I did about the shit he had pulled. 

An instant later, before he or anyone else could react, I was inside him. Once again, I used my possession power. Today was the day I had used it the most in recent history. Probably because I was so far past giving a shit when it came to anything that stopped us from finding Denise. 

I was possessing him, but it wasn’t exactly an immediate take-over. I could feel the man struggling. For a moment, I thought it might go as far as a full-on sustained battle for his body, but with a last burst of effort, I managed to shove his consciousness down. 

Then, with the people outside the room still struggling to break the sealed door down, and the ones who were already inside staring at their boss in confusion about what to do next, I focused. I searched his memory for anything about Denise, and found… nothing. No, no, no, this couldn’t be for nothing! He had to know her. I tried searching for anything about the gas station, or Kalia and her father. He had to know about them, he’d been bugging them for money to the point of driving Kalia’s father to rob that gas station and get killed by Ammon in the first place! 

But no. There was nothing. He had absolutely no memory of any of that. How the fuck was that possible? What–what had… what? 

By that point, the door had finally been broken through, as the guys outside came bursting in. Beied was at the front, demanding to know what was going on while holding some sort of falchion in one hand. 

“Some Heretic chick!” one of the Satyrs blurted a bit frantically, gesturing. “She–she fucking possessed the boss or something! Crazy bitch said something about, what, Denise Copeland? Who the fuck is that?!” 

“Cartland,” Beied corrected, his eyes not on the Satyr, but on his boss. On me, possessing his boss. “Heretic! You’re looking for Denise Cartland?” 

Narrowing Mercer’s eyes, I made him growl out, “Where is she?” 

The Nekomata, in turn, held up both hands, the falchion gripped tightly in one. “Look, the boss there forgot all about some money a chick that works at some gas station owes him. I figured she did something to him, so I looked into it, checked out who was there the last time he stopped by just to see if she hired some sort of outside mind-fucker. Found out the only other person in the place was some kid named Denise Cartland. Looked into her, but it was a dead end. Except I found out she left town. She took a bus. You let my boss go, I’ll tell you where the bus was headed. Fair?” 

Making Mercer glance around at the roomful of eager guys waiting to stab or shoot me, I grunted. “Yeah, sure. But you and me, we’ll take a walk together, just the two of us. You tell me everything you know about where Denise went, then I’ll let your boss go. And for the record, you might want to hurry, so you guys and your boss can get the hell out of this hotel. 

“Cuz there really is a fight going on downstairs, and only a few of them are with me.”

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

 

Commissioned Interlude 16 – Reapers (Heretical Edge 2)

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

A/N – This is NOT the Monday’s regular chapter, it is an extra commissioned interlude. The regular chapter will be out around midnight mountain time/7 am GMT as usual.

About Eight Years Ago

“Hi!” a young girl, perhaps five years old, chirped up from where she was sitting in a sandbox behind her family’s suburban house somewhere in southern California. The girl had short blonde hair, and a bright, smiling face that was covered in dirt. She raised one equally dirty hand to wave at the figure who stood next to the sandbox. “I’m playing wif sand, you wanna play?” 

The subject she was addressing stood silently for a moment. She appeared to be another girl, one somewhat older than the one in the sandbox. An unknowing person would place her age in her late teens. Unlike the very human child she was watching, however, the figure standing silently nearby was far older than she appeared. Her skin was very pale, almost to the point of being paper-white. Her hair, worn all the way to the middle of her back, was very bright pink, with black highlights. Her eyes were red. And she wore very simple clothes. Black jeans, black shoes, and a black tee shirt. No frills, no design.  

After those few seconds of simply watching the younger child, the girl took a seat on the grass next to the sandbox. She had yet to speak, simply reaching out to brush one pale hand through the sand before finding an action figure half-buried there. Plucking it free, she examined the toy with a look of curiosity, fingers running over the points of articulation. 

“His name’s Casey Jones,” the sandbox girl informed her. “He helps the Ninja Turtles.” Pointing at herself then, she added, “My name’s Casey too. That’s why he’s my favorite. What’s your name?” Even as she asked the question, the girl was already plucking a Leonardo toy out of the sand and waving him around, making noises as though he was fighting legions of Foot soldiers.

In answer to the question, the pale figure tilted her head as though considering for several long moments before finally declaring, “Casey.” She pointed to herself. 

With a laugh, the younger girl shook her head. “That’s not your name, silly, it’s my name!” 

“I like Casey Jones,” the other informed her in a very simple, matter-of-fact tone. 

“Okay,” the little girl declared, “I’ll be Casey, and you can be Jones. Together we can be Casey Jones!” She giggled then, like it was a fun game they were playing. “How are you today, Jones?” 

Seeming to consider the question far more thoroughly than most would, the newly-dubbed Jones finally replied, “I’m hungry.” 

“Oh, my mama will bring us a snack,” Casey quickly informed her. “D’ya want me to go ask? Maybe we can have cookies, if it’s not too close to dinner. Do you like cookies?” 

“I don’t know,” Jones answered in a soft, curious tone. “I’ve never had them.”

With a scandalized gasp, the younger girl demanded, “How could you never have cookies? Everybody has cookies. You want me to go get some?” 

“It’s okay,” came the soft response. “I’ll eat soon.” Without a moment’s pause, she immediately asked, “What is a ninja turtle?” 

Casey, of course, was just as scandalized to hear that question as she had been the one about cookies. Immediately, she dug through the sand to find the rest of her related action figures and begin to explain the entire story behind the mutant brothers, their rat father-figure, and all of their assorted friends and enemies. She went on rather excitedly and at length, often doubling back on herself to explain something else she had forgotten before jumping forward once more. And throughout it all, she waved the toys around wildly, often smacking them together while making sound effects for the respective battles she was detailing. 

Jones watched intently through the whole story, never blinking. She sat completely motionless beside the sandbox, crimson eyes fixated on the human girl while she went on about the Ninja Turtles. To any who might have been observing, it would have been equally clear that this girl truly had never heard anything about the combative mutant reptiles and that she was completely fascinated by the explanation. 

Finally, the young girl finished with, “And April and Casey Jones got married but that’s dumb cuz I wanna marry Casey Jones. Then we can be Casey Jones and Casey Jones.” She laughed as though that was the funniest joke that had ever been made, falling backward into the sand. Then she popped up. “Oh! I gotta tell you ‘bout Baxter Stockman.” 

Thus, over the next twenty minutes, the two spoke extensively about those fictional turtles and everything surrounding them. Casey possessed an extensive collection of toys, and showed all of them off while telling her new friend all about them, while the other girl sat enraptured by the story, occasionally asking questions. Some of the questions were quite understandable and specific to the Ninja Turtles franchise itself, while others would have raised eyebrows. Such as what pizza was, or what the ‘hockey’ in Casey Jones’ hockey stick and mask meant, or even what sewers were. They were the sort of questions that would have raised a few alarms in the mind of someone older. But Casey simply thought it was curious, and eagerly explained everything. The more her new friend questioned, the happier the younger girl was about telling the story. 

Eventually, she stopped to ask, “How come you don’t know anyfin about this stuff?” 

“I am very new here,” came the response. 

“Oh!” the little girl tilted her head curiously. “Are you from Europe? They don’t have cookies there?” 

“I am not from Europe,” the older figure informed her. “I am a Reaper.” 

The little girl stared at her with wide eyes. “Reaper? Nuh uh, you don’t have a big hood or a scyfe or anything. You’re s’posed to have a big scyfe, like the cartoons. And how come you’re h–” With a start, Casey looked to the house. “Oh, I gotta go ask Mama for the cookies!” 

“You should stay here,” the other girl solemnly informed her. “It’s bad in there.” 

Frowning with obvious confusion, the little girl asked, “Huh? What’s that s’posed to mean?” 

“You should stay here,” Jones replied, her tone just as flat and matter-of-fact, though there was a very faint hint of something more. “The bad man hasn’t left yet. Like Shredder.”

“What?” Staring blankly at her, the younger girl slowly asked, “What do you mean, bad man? There’s a bad man?” She turned then, looking at her house. “There’s a bad man… Mama?” She bolted to her feet, sprinting toward the backdoor. “Mama! Mama, there’s a bad man! Mama!” As her small figure disappeared through the door, there was a brief pause, followed by a soul-shattering scream that echoed through the backyard and surrounding neighborhood. It was the scream of a child who had seen something she truly shouldn’t have, something that would haunt her thoughts and memories for the rest of her life. 

Rising from where she had been perched in the grass, Jones strode toward the house. She walked at a calm, casual pace, unhurried despite the situation. Reaching the door, she paused briefly to glance at a nearby flower, extending a hand to gently brush over the colorful petals before disappearing into the building. 

Several long seconds passed, before the momentary silence was shattered once more. This time, the air was filled with the sound of breaking glass, as a man’s form came flying out through the window. He landed heavily in the grass, bleeding profusely. His face was badly burned, to the point that he would have been nearly unrecognizable to anyone who knew him. 

He pushed himself up and began to crawl frantically away, but Jones appeared next to him with a simple flash of light. Her foot came down on the back of his neck to knock him against the grass. One of her arms was covered in blood. His blood. Her shoes and the bottom of her jeans were also drenched in blood that was not his. 

“That was very bad,” she informed him.

“Wha-what?!” the man blubbered, his voice panicked. “I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to kill her! I swear, I just wanted to have some fun. But she wouldn’t stop fighting, I had to hit her. I had to hit her. I wasn’t gonna hurt the kid!” 

“Yes,” came the flat response. “You were. You would have hurt her. You would have killed her. Just like her mother. You are bad. You are not a ninja turtle,” she informed him. “You are a Shredder.” 

“A wha-what?” he stammered. “Look, just–” 

Without another word, the pink-haired figure pointed her hand down at him. A blue-white flame erupted forth, and with a momentary panicked scream, the man and everything he wore was turned to ash. In an instant, he had been entirely disintegrated. 

“Cowabunga,” Jones announced, in a flat, monotone voice. 

Pivoting on her heel, she walked slowly back into the house. A few long seconds of silence passed before she came back through the door, carrying the young Casey over her shoulder. Without a word, she walked the little girl back to the sandbox and set her down in it. The remains of a bit of the child’s previous meal were visible across her shirt, where she had thrown up. 

As she sat there, Casey stared ahead, seeing nothing save for the traumatic memory of what she had witnessed in the house, of what the man had done to her mother. A low, somewhat-keening whimpering sound escaped her after a moment, when she found some measure of her voice. “Mama.” That single word came in a plaintive, desperate tone. It was the voice of a girl who, despite her tender age, knew that her mother would never answer. 

For a few seconds, the older figure stood looking down at her silently. Then she sat beside the sandbox once more. Her voice was simple. “Your mother is gone. But so is the man who took her.” 

Trembling, the little girl looked to her and hesitantly managed a weak, barely audible, “But… what if he comes back?”  

The question was met by a flat stare as the older figure replied, “He will not. Your mother and he will never return.” There was a brief pause once more, then, “He was a bad man, and had to be sent away.”

“A-are you sure?” came the quiet little plea. 

Another pause followed, before the other girl confirmed, “Yes, I am sure. I am a Reaper. I know when people are gone and will never come back.” 

Curling in on herself, the little girl sat there with her eyes closed. Tears continued to stream down her face for a silent minute or so, before she made a gasping noise. “Police! I’m ‘posed to call 911! Bu-but I don’t have a phone. And… and…” She looked up, staring trepidatiously at the house as though terrified of the prospect of going back in there. Her words turned back to that desperate, animalistic keening sound. She knew what was there. She knew what she would see if she walked back in that awful place. 

So, it was Jones who rose to her feet. “You will stay,” she ordered, before turning to walk inside. The little girl was left alone, sitting in the sandbox with the memory of her mother’s remains for a couple minutes, before the other figure returned. She had the cordless phone in one hand, and a box of cookies from the cupboard in the other. Without a word, she set the box next to the girl, then put the phone in her hand. 

The child didn’t move at first. She sat there clutching the phone. Yes, she was supposed to call 911 when someone was hurt, so they could get help. But there would be no help for her mother. Even at her age, she understood that. Her mom was gone and would never get better. 

Still, she knew it was the right thing to do. So, her fingers slowly moved over the buttons, dialing the emergency services before holding the phone up to her head. “Hello?” she managed in a voice that broke from emotion. “You need to come please. 

“My mama died.” 

*******

Several hours later, the little girl was gone. The police had come and taken her away. The house had been thoroughly examined, and was now surrounded by yellow caution tape. It was late enough that everyone had left by then, save for a single policeman who had been stationed at the front of the house in a squad car to keep people away. 

He did not even notice the lone figure with pink hair standing at the very edge of the property. Nor did he notice the larger, male figure in a black trenchcoat stepping up beside her. The new arrival had short, dark blue hair and an equally pale complexion. He stopped beside the girl and turned slightly to look at her. No words emerged from his mouth, yet he communicated with her. With a single look, the older Reaper sent a full pack of information from his mind to hers. The transfer was instant, communicating frustration that she had disappeared for so long when he had asked her to stay where they were before, a request for clarification about why she had left, and chastisement for interfering with the natural progression of things. The young human child was meant to die there. It was what would have happened without any interference. And yet, she was still alive, and the man who should have escaped to kill several more times had been wiped from existence. All because of her interference. She had disrupted the balance. He required an explanation for that. As well as an explanation for why she had gone against his wishes as her superior, and assurance that she had not begun to fall to the Reapers’ curse. Certainly, becoming a Hangman tended to involve causing more living beings to die rather than less, but any Reaper acting out of the ordinary tended to be heavily scrutinized. None wanted a repeat of what had come before, so long ago.

That burst of information would have taken a species who communicated verbally several minutes to get through properly. In this case, it was instantaneous, as the Reaper man simply compressed a packet of information and sent it to her directly. 

In response, the girl sent back her own packet of information. In less time than it would have taken an average living being to say the word ‘hi,’ she communicated the fact that she had had a conversation with the young child and chose not to let her die. Because it wasn’t what the Ninja Turtles would do. That, of course, necessitated adding a whole explanation into the packet of who they were, before she sent it off to him. Again, several minutes worth of conversation compressed into an instantaneous burst of information. 

Immediately after absorbing that knowledge, the male Reaper sent back another packet of his own. This one included further chastisement for her actions, as they were, above all else, supposed to remain neutral. Not every single Reaper followed that completely stringently, of course. But he did, for he had seen some of the worst their people were capable of. He had perpetuated some of the worst, before being drawn back to some semblance of sanity. The fact that she was of his creation meant that she would follow his instructions. That was how it worked. Or how it was supposed to work. She was a part of him, a part of his whole, and thus she followed his instructions, as surely as an arm followed the instructions of its owner. And he had instructed her to stay out of any mortal affairs. They were to observe and add to the Archive, that was all. Their place was to stand apart from the universe and ensure that, whatever happened to it in the future, everything it had once been would be remembered. 

It wasn’t always like that, of course. They had not always kept themselves separate from the rest of creation. At one time, their people had stretched their will across the entire universe. And that will had been intent on nothing more than complete genocide of everything that was not Reaper. They had essentially been Fomorians before Fomorians existed. With their ability to gain both knowledge and power from the deaths of others, the Reapers had decimated every planet they came across. They killed everyone in their path and used that power to become even more unstoppable. They had, as a species, nearly one and all become Hangmen. 

That path of mindless destruction had eventually turned the Reapers on one another. They were no longer a united species, in any sense of the term. Each had instead become intent on being the last figure standing. They attacked and killed each other, absorbing the powers and knowledge of their own people. 

The universe itself would have fallen, save a very few remaining Reapers who had not entirely fallen to their people’s Hangman curse. They managed to pull themselves, and the universe itself, back from the brink of total annihilation. They saw what their people had nearly done, saw what could have happened to all life in existence. 

From there, the remaining Reapers had known that changes had to be made. Their people were no longer conquerors. They would be observers. They would step back and simply watch the universe. They would feed their people’s hunger for death the natural way, by arriving in places where it was already happening. They would not interfere. 

Some still fell now and then, of course. Some were lost, in one way or another. But, for the most part, the Reapers kept to their word. They had physically spread across the universe, scattered to the point that only a bare handful would be present on any world at any given time. Most of those were single Reaper ‘family’ units where the couple present on the world were actually aided by several who remained within the Archives. From there, they watched. They observed. They collected knowledge, power, and simply memories. They stood by as people died before absorbing the energy from that death and everything that came with it. They catalogued what they absorbed, storing it away for whenever the end of this universe came.

In answer to the chastisement, the younger Reaper (she was equal parts her male counterpart’s daughter, sister, clone, and more, having been created by him from a piece of himself) actually spoke aloud, rather than use their much faster communication method. “I am not a Shredder. I am a Ninja Turtle.” She turned slightly, watching him with that same flat, apparently emotionless stare. “The human child did nothing to deserve death. Allowing that would have been wrong.” 

A moment of silence passed, as the older Reaper considered the verbal words, as well as the fact that she had chosen to speak them rather than communicate in (what was to them) the normal way. Eventually, he turned and raised a hand. As he did so, a glowing portal appeared. He sent back another silent packet of information, informing her that she would follow him to visit the Archives, where he would ensure that she had not begun to fall. If she was becoming a Hangman, he would ensure his descendant/copy/sister did not go any further. 

Immediately, the girl turned and began to follow him through the portal. But she paused right at the edge, turning to look over her shoulder. Right there on the side of the sandbox sat the small Casey Jones toy. Extending her hand, she summoned the figure to her and examined it closely. Her finger touched the top of the toy, before she pulled it apart. Except she wasn’t breaking the figure. Her tug duplicated the figure, creating a second version. This one she tucked into her pocket, before sending the original back to the spot where it belonged. 

That done, she turned and finally passed through the awaiting portal, leaving the terrible crime scene behind.

The room they arrived in appeared to be a library. But if so, it would have been one of the largest libraries in the known universe. The room was circular, about a thousand feet in diameter with no visible doors or any other exit. Shelves of books lined the walls, stretching all the way up out of sight, to skyscraper heights. Trillions of tomes of every color and size filled those shelves. Here and there, in about a dozen different spots that were immediately visible, various books glowed a faint pink color, indicating that members of this Reaper family were accessing them for one reason or another.

The books, in truth, were simply visual representations of various bits of knowledge or even power the Reapers had absorbed. It was collected and stored here. Every Reaper Collective made their archive look somewhat different. Some went for far more elaborate creations, but this one was quite simple, with no frills or unnecessary effort. Their archive appeared as this library, their individual memories, skills, powers, and such were books. Whenever one of the Reapers from this collective called upon one of the stored gifts, the ‘book’ in question glowed.

After giving a brief glance over to a spot on the shelves where several books had abruptly lit up,  the man turned away from them and extended his hand once more. Again, a portal appeared. This one led not back to where they had just come from, but to the Prime Archive. 

Still without speaking, the male Reaper sent another burst of information to his younger, female counterpart. He informed her that she was to follow him so that others could examine her, and ensure all that she had not fallen. He also communicated his hope that she was truly safe, his concern that something might have happened and that she would need to be eliminated. Not as a threat, of course. His regret would be real, yet neither he nor the others would hesitate. If she had been corrupted, they would excise her from reality before she infected any others. He wished her luck, while simultaneously informing her that any attempt to escape before being examined would be an admission of guilt and she would be immediately eliminated. 

“I am not corrupted,” she informed him, once more choosing to speak the words aloud. With that, she passed through the portal. Now, rather than standing in a library, she appeared on a busy city street. Any mortals who looked at the city, however, would be immediately thrown, as it didn’t appear like any actual, single place. Rather, the place appeared to be several thousand different pieces of cities, from several thousand different planets and times, all bunched together into one place with no rhyme or reason. A house that would have belonged in ancient feudal Earth Japan sat next to a towering oval-shaped building that had seemingly been plucked straight from the world of Pevlefi, where the bird-like Seun lived. And to the right of that was a red-stone castle from the Akheilosan people’s medieval era. And so on it went. Thousands of different species’ buildings and structure-types were represented in this town. Except, of course, it wasn’t a town at all. This was the Prime Archive. 

Every Reaper Clan had their individual archive, where their personal gifts and knowledge were stored. But every clan also added to the Prime Archive, itself created after they had nearly wiped out reality. This Prime Archive was located in a separate piece of reality that was only accessible by Reapers themselves, and only through physically interacting with their individual archives. From there, they could enter this place, where every bit of knowledge they had gathered from many millennia of watching over the universe were stored. The beings who ‘lived’ here were artificial creations, just like the books back in the individual archive. Each ‘person’ held the collective memories of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of people who had once lived, and could essentially become that person at any moment. In fact, they did become any number of people at any given moment. As the artificial people made their way on predetermined routes through busy, crowded ‘city’, living some fake semblance of lives not too different from the nonplayer characters programmed into human video games, they also randomly shifted into different forms. A human striding confidently through the city would abruptly transform into a wooden Relukun who stumbled over his own feet and fearfully watched the people around him as though waiting to be attacked. By the same measure, a tiny, mouse-like Timper, creeping stealthily along one of the gutters suddenly became a massive Ogre, gleefully stomping his way forward while bellowing for people to get out of the way. Every manufactured ‘being’ shifted through dozens of different forms, as the Archive system kept that being active just long enough to run maintenance and ensure their personalities and memories were intact, then shifted to the next one. All while the forms bustled their way through the city, moving in and out of buildings, and generally looking, from the outside, like an actual living place. Albeit a place made up of a thousand different cities squished together and occupied by millions of constantly shape-shifting beings. 

As they arrived in the false city, the two Reapers immediately turned and began to walk toward the massive tower that lay at the very center of the Prime Archive. The tower was actually what remained of the very last weaponized ship the previously war-like Reapers had once used. At one time, it had been the most feared vessel in the universe, capable of casually destroying entire worlds. Now, this relatively small piece of it was all that remained. It loomed far into the ‘sky’ of this manufactured piece of reality, shaped like a massive, black and silver two-tined fork. From the bottom of its three thousand foot wide base, to the very tip of the two tine-like structures, the tower stood fifteen miles high. And yet, this small piece was merely a tenth of the actual size that the full ship itself had once been. Now its power was put to one purpose: maintaining the Prime Archive in this separated piece of reality so that knowledge and memories of what had once been would be passed on to whatever came next, should this universe ever be truly destroyed.

The male Reaper continued toward the tower, but the girl stopped, turning to face a passing figure. “Halt,” she ordered. Immediately, the artificial being did so. She, in turn, stepped in front of it and raised a hand, making a flicking motion with her fingers repeatedly. As she did so, the being transformed from one shape to another with each motion. Like flipping through pages of a book. Finally, it appeared as an orange-skinned humanoid with six arms and a very flat head. But it was not the arms or flat head she was interested in. Rather, her attention was drawn to the weapon that the being held in one of those hands. Specifically, a long, black scythe with a deep blue curved blade. 

Touching a finger against the false weapon, the girl did the same trick she had performed with the action figure earlier. She pulled a copy away from the original. This, however, was a true weapon rather than a false construct. It was also black, like the first, though the blade was pink to match her own hair and aura color. 

Satisfied, she held the weapon in one hand while flatly informing her companion/father/brother/creator, “I am a Reaper. We are supposed to have scythes.” 

He, in turn, stared at her. A flash of communication informed her that he was even more concerned that she had fallen, before he pivoted to continue walking to the tower. One way or another, they would find answers there. The old ones would examine her, and determine if she could be released to continue about her way, or… not. 

*******

Present Day

“Boy oh boy was that a long and boring discussion.” As she cheerfully noted that, the pink-haired Reaper carefully drew a peanut butter-laden knife back and forth across a slice of bread while standing in the middle of a small apartment kitchen.

She wasn’t dressed nearly as simply as she had been years earlier. Now, she wore black military-style boots with pink laces, somewhat ripped black leggings, ratty jean shorts, a bright pink tee shirt with a black smiley face across the front, and an open black jacket. With, of course, a large hood. 

“Eighty-seven hours of–well, I mean I guess it’s eighty-seven? I’ve never really done the Prime Archive to Earth time conversion. Hang on.” In two swift motions, she slid both sides of the knife along the top of the peanut butter jar to remove the excess before dipping it into a nearby jar of jelly. Taking up a fresh slice of bread, she spread the jelly on it, considered, then added more before sticking both pieces together into a sandwich. 

“Carry the one, subtract for daylight savings, it wasn’t a leap year…” Her thoughtful murmurs turned entirely incomprehensible for a moment before she snapped her fingers. “Eighty-nine hours of interrogation. I knew I was close. And what an eighty-nine hours. Seriously, eighty-nine hours can go really fast if you’re doing something fun. But if it’s not fun, and believe me, this wasn’t, every hour can feel like ten. You know how that is? Yeah, I’m sure you do. You’ve had that kind of boss.” 

With that, she took a rather enormous bite of the sandwich, devouring almost half of it in a single chomp. Which included, of course, making the chomping sound in the process. Chewing that large mouthful, she stepped out of the kitchen area of the apartment and looked over to one side while chewing thoughtfully in silence for several long seconds. Finally, she swallowed and added a curious, “Bet you’re gonna have to have one of those long interrogations after this, huh?” 

The subject of her question, and of everything she had said so far in the long story she had been cheerfully telling, was a young Eden’s Garden Heretic, fresh from their academy. Barely twenty years old, the guy had very dark skin, an entirely shaven head, and was just a bit on the stocky side. He was also pinned against the wall by the shaft of the very same scythe she had created almost a decade earlier. 

Well, not the exact same scythe, technically. She had upgraded it repeatedly over the years, adding far more to its arsenal and capability. 

In any case, at this particular moment, the blade of the scythe was embedded deeply in the wall, allowing the shaft to pin the man against it as well. Runes flared up along the weapon, some of which prevented it from being moved at all by anyone other than its master. Once it was put in a location, it stayed there. By the same token, any person touched by the weapon stayed where they were as long as it was touching them. With very few exceptions (of which this particular Heretic had none), there were no powers that could allow him to either move the scythe, or himself as long as it was pressed against him. 

“I don’t know what you really are or what you want, creature,” the man snarled, “but I’m not buying any of this. We know what Reapers are, how dangerous they can be. Only a couple on the planet? Pretending to be some sort of passive, neutral observers? Bullshit. They’re monsters, and they’re all over the place. Those old executions they used to do all the time with the guillotines and shit, there were Reapers all over the place. You’re not even one of those, you’re just–you’re probably one of those body-snatching assholes people keep talking about. You–” 

Before he could say anything else, the knife (still holding traces of peanut butter and jelly) went flying past, embedding itself deep in the wall so close to his face that it shaved a bit of his five o’clock shadow away. Despite being very dull, the knife still went into the wall all the way up to the handle. 

“Don’t be rude,” the Reaper chastised. “I’m not one of the Seosten. If I was, I already would have possessed you and erased your memory. Besides, I told you my name. It’s Jones. Maybe you should tell me yours so I don’t have to default to one of the names I give every annoying punk who starts jabbering at me.” Her head tilted at his sullen silence. “No? Okay, Bebop it is. Anyway, Bebop, like I was saying…” She walked closer, reaching out to pluck the knife out of the wall  while finishing the last of the sandwich she had made. Standing right in front of the struggling figure, she watched him curiously, swallowing before speaking. “They made me stand there for all that time, interrogating me, scanning me, doing everything they could to find out what was wrong. I mean, for a given definition of wrong. Why I was different. Which isn’t even really fair, because there are Reapers out there who don’t toe the line. But they’re more… the adult Reapers? The progenitors. They’re the ones who have more of a choice in what they are, what they act like. Me, I was a daughter-copy-sister-clone. I shouldn’t have been so independent. But I was, so they needed to find out why. And do you know what they came up with? No, seriously, do you know?”

Bebop, as he had been dubbed, scowled at her silently for a moment. But in the end, his curiosity won out. “What?” 

Flashing a bright smile, Jones poked him in the forehead. “It was one of you. No, really. That’s it. It was one of you. Well, one of you and one of those Seosten you were just talking about. See, you know how each of you Heretics are connected to one of our Reaper Archives to store and use your powers? Yeah, we know about that, and there’s a reason you can only use the powers you put there. We sort of… shove everything you put in the Archive over into a corner. Anyway, it turns out, about eight years ago when all this was going on with me, one of your people was having some sort of thing with one of those bodysnatchers you were talking about. Not just a thing, a thing from clear across the universe. The Seosten was projecting past a lot of magic blocks, all the way here to Earth. Something went wrong and the Heretic ended up getting yanked off Earth and back to where the Seosten was. But she was using the Archive right then, using powers she stored away in our Archive. When that big universe-wide yank happened, all that power sent a little, ahh, feedback through the Archive. And poof, I was cut off from my father-brother-original-leader. I wasn’t linked to him the way I was supposed to be anymore. I had my own thoughts, my own wants, my own… urges. I had my own self. Which was weird. I saw that girl, Casey, in trouble and I didn’t want her to die. So I stopped it.” 

Clearly unable to resist asking, the Eden’s Garden Heretic managed a gruff-sounding, “So what happened after your little… examination?” 

Giving a broad smile at the fact that she’d managed to draw the man into the story, Jones replied, “I was banished. I mean, politely banished, but still. They knew I didn’t do anything wrong and I wasn’t all evil or whatever, but they didn’t want to risk whatever happened to me affecting everyone else and disrupting our very important work. So they sent me away. I had to learn how to really be my own person here on Earth. I had to get a job. I mean, I didn’t have to, but it’s the right thing to do if you want to buy food, comic books, video games, movies, and I love all those things. Especially Turtles stuff. I mean… it is how I got my start, after all.” As she said that, the girl nodded to a corner of the room, where a classic, full-sized Ninja Turtles arcade machine stood. “My pride and joy. I mean, I know, you can play it all on PC or console and all that, but it’s just not the same as standing at the machine, you know what I mean?” 

From the look on his face, the man had absolutely no idea what she meant. He shifted a bit from his pinned position, hesitating before demanding, “Say I even believe this story a tiny bit instead of going with the obvious bit of you being some trick from the Rebellion. What’re you gonna do with me now?” 

“Well, I mean, you did break into my home and try to kill me,” Jones reminded him. “But I suppose it’s not really your fault. Not totally, anyway.” Clearly debating with herself for a moment, she finally reached out, grabbing the scythe before yanking it free to let the young Heretic drop to the ground. Spinning the weapon around while stepping back, she rested it against the back of her neck, arms hooked over the shaft while casually informing him, “You can go.” 

For a second, it was clear that the man was debating with himself as to whether he should try to attack again. Eventually, he just cautiously asked, “Are you serious? Why would you let me walk away after everything you told me? I could talk to people about it.” 

In response, Jones the Reaper raised both eyebrows. “Talk to people about it? Talk to them about the good Reaper who caught you, told you her life story and all about how much she loves Ninja Turtles and video games, then let you go? Sure, okay. You go ahead and tell your genocidal, xenophobic friends all about it. I’m fascinated to know how that goes.” 

From the grimace on ‘Bebop’s’ face, he had no more confidence than she did in how his people would take that story. He also looked like he was reconsidering the whole attacking her thing again. But in the latter case, a glance toward the sharp pink blade of the scythe made up his mind for him. He took a quick step sideways, hand rising to project a flat shadow-circle against the wall before disappearing through it. The shadow portal would take him… somewhere else. 

As soon as the Heretic was gone, Jones exhaled. Her gaze turned to the holes in the wall where the scythe and knife blades had been, even as she reached out to trace her finger along them. In the process, the holes were fixed, until there was no sign that anything had happened. 

“Crap,” she murmured with annoyance while tugging a well-worn (and clearly well-loved) Casey Jones toy from her jacket pocket to look at. 

“I’m gonna have to move again.” 

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Winging It 19-08 (Summus Proelium)

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Needless to say, that wasn’t exactly how I expected my time with Lucent to go. But then, since when had anything gone the way that I had thought it would since the night I decided to play around in Royal Thunder? The expected thing happening would be completely unexpected. Which was–never mind. I really couldn’t look at that too closely or I’d go cross-eyed. 

In any case, we were going to have to try that again another time. For the moment, I put it aside along with thoughts about Carousel and her whole deal as I pressed the buzzer at the back door of Wren’s shop. There were plenty of other things for me to focus on as it was. Like talking to Paige (and Raige, come to think of it), or figuring out what was up with that sex-shifting Asian person Amber had been talking about, and–

Wait, hold on. Back when Izzy and I had first found out about each other, my father had been right below us, talking with someone on the phone in Japanese. Was that related to this? It… could be, right? Not for the first time, I wished one of us spoke Japanese. 

Shaking off that thought, I focused on the other question. Namely, why Mr. Jackson had been there in the first place. Yeah, that was going to bug me for awhile. My best idea for getting information about that was to go hang out with Tomas at his house for awhile and try to sneak off to snoop around. Yes, that would probably be dangerous. And yet, if I didn’t start taking a few risks to get answers, I’d never get anywhere. 

I was still debating back and forth with myself about that when Murphy (still masked) opened the door. “Hey, boss,” she greeted me. “You’ve got to come in here and see this meeting of the minds shit. I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but damn if it’s not fascinating to watch.” 

So, I followed her in there and got my first glimpse of the, as she put it, ‘meeting of the minds shit.’ Wren was seated cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the shop, down in the slightly lower area next to the four counters that formed the rectangle. She was perched next to one of those counters. In front of her was what looked like a cardboard diorama of the shop itself,  made out of repurposed individual size cereal boxes. There were three different dioramas, actually. One that showed the outside, one of the shop floor, and one of the upper floor. They had everything in there, the shelves, the tables, the very same counters Wren was sitting next to, the fire hydrants and benches outside, the rooms upstairs, and so on. All of it represented in cardboard. 

Lion was there too, of course. She was perched right in the middle of the diorama of the outside area, using one paw to point at a park bench while going on at length about some sort of pneumatic system they could… do something with. Which sent Wren off on a whole three-hundred word spiel, of which I understood maybe half the words and about a tenth of how they actually fit together in the way she was saying. 

Okay yeah, this was confusing. I had no idea what they were talking about. Which really, for the first time, really drove home how Wren wasn’t a normal kid. Yes, yes, I’d already known that of course. The stuff she made proved it quite well. But I supposed that up to that point, somewhere in my head, I just saw what she did as something like magic, like she just touched something and poof, it became her inventions. Which was dumb, because I’d already helped her with collecting stuff for the suit that we made Ashton wear so he would lead us to the vials against his will. I’d even helped put it together, in the sense of doing exactly what she told us to do. I’d seen her power in action and knew, for a fact, how it worked. At least, to an extent. 

But this was really my first time seeing it put this way. Probably because it was the first time I’d had a chance to see the girl talk to someone who was on her level. Which was about fifty stories above my level, apparently. The two of them were babbling back and forth at each other in what might as well have been a completely different language for all that I could follow it. 

Murphy, who had been watching as I stared that way, gestured emphatically. “See what I mean? No freaking clue what they’re on about, but it seems pretty spiffy.” Belatedly, she added, “You like the dioramas? Calvin and me did those. See, we do contribute.” 

Calvi–oh, right. She’d given fake names for Roald and herself as Calvin and Hobbes. Which, to be honest, I was pretty sure it would have fit better if she flipped the names. At least, character-wise. She was much more of a Calvin to me. 

In any case, I wasn’t going to go judging her pseudonym choices at the moment. Instead, I gave a slow nod, before blinking. “Where is R–Calvin, anyway? And Fred.” 

“Shopping,” came the easy reply. “They had to go out and get some stuff that these guys asked for. They told me what it was, but you know.” She made a motion and whistled low to illustrate the information going in one ear and out the other. “No idea. They took the list with them. It was a long list.” She pulled her phone out to look at the time. “They only left about twenty minutes ago, so… yeah, probably gonna be awhile before they come back. I–hey.” 

Squinting at something on her phone, Murphy looked at me, then to the screen and back again. I couldn’t read her expression through the ski mask, but her body language made it clear she was confused. Finally, the girl tapped the phone pointedly before asking, “You stopped a bank robbery? I thought you were like, doing Master Splinter Miyagi shit with Captain Corvid.” 

I started to correct the other girl that it was Lucent, not Captain Corvid, then reconsidered. Given everything I’d seen of him, he’d probably actually be amused by the title. So I let that go before shrugging. “It was a little more complicated than that. We stopped one set of bank robbers, but there was…” I trailed off, my instinct to say as little as possible kicking in while the girl stared at me in anticipation. My whole deal of compartmentalizing information for so long meant that it was just instinct to not actually explain what had happened back there. But why shouldn’t I? Seriously, nothing in what had happened actually gave away anything I didn’t want to share. Why was I being so hesitant to talk about it? Was it just because I was pretty sure the entire event was connected to my family, considering all the Star-Touched patrols had been moved away from the area? Was even the slightest hint of a connection to my family enough to make me instinctively clam up? 

Apparently so, but I forced the impulse down and held up a hand for Murphy to wait a moment while I looked back to where Wren and Lion were. The two of them didn’t even seem to have noticed my arrival, considering how engrossed in their discussion they were. Another few seconds of listening proved entirely fruitless, as I was pretty sure they weren’t even using real words by that point. They were, however, finishing each other’s sentences and laughing a lot. It wasn’t… quite mad scientist laughter, but pretty close to the edge of it.

Yeah, I was going to let them keep doing the, uh, whatever they were doing. Turning away, I gestured for Murphy to come with as I moved away from that area and closer to the elevator. Stopping there, I quietly told her what actually happened, at least as far as someone without any of my extra knowledge would know from being there. I told her about the extra bad guys, the tunnel, finding our way to where Sandon and her men were waiting to back up Undermine, and about the agreement to back off and let them go rather than start a big fight right there.

“So,” I finally finished, “does that totally destroy your vision of me as a hero for letting the bad guys escape with everything they took?” 

A snort escaped the girl as she gave me a look. “Yeah, you’ve shattered my poor, delicate and bright-eyed naivety and opened me up to the harsh, gray world.” Clasping her hands, she gave a heavy, dramatic sigh. “Gone forever are my dreams of Paintball, stalwart champion of the people, unwavering protector of all that is good as he stands alone against the forces of–Ow! Did you just kick me?” 

Painting an innocent face across my helmet (complete with halo), I replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You know how it is around Tech-Touched bases. Lots of weird half-finished inventions lying around. Maybe we set something off.” 

“Oh, we set something off alright,” she retorted, squinting at me before snickering. “Anyway, come on, you can’t honestly think that shit would change anything as far as me and R–” She leaned up on her toes to stare in the direction of Lion and Wren. Apparently Murphy didn’t trust that the mouse couldn’t hear, because she amended, “–Calvin are concerned. We didn’t go looking to work for some dumb Star-Touched paragon, you know? You asked us to work for you. That’s what we’re doing, it’s what we wanna do. At least you’re smarter than some of those wannabes out there. Gotta know when to fold your cards and walk away.”

Biting my lip, I watched her for a moment before shaking my head. “Right, at least it hasn’t changed your opinion of me or anything.” 

She, in turn, offered a wide, exaggerated shrug. “You’re the boss, boss. I uh, I know we joke about the whole minions thing, but seriously. You’re giving us a chance to make some cash and sorta, you know, move up a bit. You’re the one we’re loyal to. I mean, you and Trevithick over there. Long as you don’t start doing evil shit, or really fucking stupid shit, or… a few other kinds of shit, we’re here. Not starting a stupid, pointless fight you probably couldn’t win just to save some random rich fucks’ stolen goodies? Come on. If anything, my opinion of you just went up a little bit. But uh, don’t let that go to your head.”

“I’ll do my best to keep my ego under control,” I replied dryly. “And thanks, Hobbes. Glad to know I didn’t just lose Trev’s very best new sweeper and mopper for her.” 

“And duster, don’t forget that,” she retorted before lowering her voice into a faintly distressed, “Seriously, there is so much dust.” 

Smirking despite myself behind the helmet, I gave her a thumbs up. “I’ll try to remember to include that on your new job plaque. But uh, think you could stick around down here and keep an eye on what’s going on over there while I go upstairs for a few?” 

“Whatever,” came her response. “Trust me, boss, I’ve got plenty of shit down here to keep myself busy.  I’m pretty sure those two are going to be just fine without any help from me or anyone else. But you go do your thing. I’ll feel better with you here, anyway. If they manage to send this building into another universe or something with their super-science shit, at least you’ll be around to do something about all the alien monsters trying to lay eggs in our brains.” 

Painting a weirded-out face on my helmet squinting at her, I slowly replied, “Yeah, I’ll uhh, keep an eye out for that.” My head shook as I gave a soft chuckle before starting to turn to the elevator. Then I stopped and pivoted back. “What’s going on with Tyson? That was your brother’s name, right? The one who gave you that cut on the head because you wouldn’t run drugs for him. You still staying with Calvin or did you go back there?” 

Folding her arms defensively across her chest, the girl muttered, “I couldn’t stay with his family forever. It’s fine, it’s–whatever. Tyson’s fine. I’m here, ain’t I? I told you I wouldn’t let shit with my brother fuck this up, and I won’t.  You don’t have to worry about him. It’s fine. He took me out to get some lunch and apologized and all that. Not a big deal.” 

“Not a big deal?” I echoed incredulously despite myself. “I know you care about him, but he cut your face because you wouldn’t take a bunch of drugs over to his friend. Now it’s okay because he took you out to lunch?” 

“Fuck no,” she snapped, “it’s not okay. None of that is okay. Like I said, his friend got him hooked on the shit. He used to be totally cool, just a normal stoner, you know? Little weed now and then. Maybe a little more than now and then, but still. Weed. Nothing hard. He was funny when he got the munchies. Used to send Calvin and me out to pick up shit from the gas station in the middle of the night. Then that fuckface got him on the harder shit and… and he changed. But he’s still my brother. He’s fine most of the time. I can deal with it. So just, you know, do whatever shit you need to do upstairs and let me worry about my brother.” 

I had the distinct impression that trying to say anything else about it wouldn’t go very well. Still, I made a mental note to ask Roald for a little more information about that whole thing when I had the chance. Then I nodded to her before stepping on the elevator. All I said to the girl before the doors closed was, “Let me know if anything happens down here. Especially if those two manage that whole going to another universe thing. You have blanket permission to interrupt anything I’m doing if that happens.” 

With that, I hit the button to head upstairs, before stepping off a moment later once we were there. After giving a brief glance up and down the hall, I headed for the lab workshop area. Paige was still there, though she had been moved out of the MRI-like machine and was laying on a couch nearby. Someone had put a pillow under her head, and a blanket over her, so it looked like she was just sleeping. Which at least made the whole thing look a little less creepy. 

I needed to get this done, of course. And yet, for a moment, I just stood there and hesitated. A rush of thoughts ran through my mind as I stared at the motionless and silent form of the girl who had been forced by her father to treat me like shit for so long, but I pushed them aside to focus on the important thing. Which was asking Paige about this Irelyn chick. 

I wasn’t sure how to run the whole virtual reality thing, of course. And I sure wasn’t going to attempt it by myself. But there was still the other way of communicating with Paige. I picked up the Gameboy-like device and carefully wrote in the question, one word at a time, about ten minutes apart. 

SISTER

LOOKING

4PAIGE

That simple thing took about thirty minutes to send. It definitely wasn’t as convenient as the VR system. But on the other hand, I could use it without help and not risk blowing the whole building up or something. Now I just had to settle in and wait for however long it took Paige to send back a response. 

Not that long, apparently. The response came within about thirty seconds. But it didn’t come through the Gameboy-Atari thing like I had expected. Instead, Paige’s actual voice abruptly spoke up. “What’s going on?” 

Yeah, I’m not too proud to admit that I jumped. I had been sitting on one of the nearby chairs while thinking about what I should do while I was waiting, and damn near leapt out of my skin when the frozen girl started talking. A yelp actually escaped me before I got it under control and looked that way. Her eyes were still closed and she clearly still wasn’t moving. “Uh, Paige?” 

“She’s letting me talk directly to you right now, for this,” came the response. “Talk and listen, no moving. Slight control. So tell me what’s going on.” 

Before I could respond, she abruptly spoke again. Only it clearly wasn’t Paige this time. “Yeah, babe, just a little slack in the agreement since this seems like something we might want to nip in the bud before it turns into a problem. But I don’t exactly trust this one to hold even this little bit of power for very long without abusing it, so get to the explaining part.” 

So, I did just that, carefully explaining everything that I knew. I told them both about being stopped outside the restaurant by that Irelyn woman, though I left out the whole thing about Arleigh and her brothers being there, since it didn’t seem relevant. I explained that the woman was clearly looking pretty intently for Paige if she was asking me about it, and that it didn’t seem like something she was just going to walk away from, satisfied with half-answers. 

“So, I’ve gotta ask,” I finally put in once the actual explanation was over, “How come you never mentioned that you still had a sister who was going to start poking around asking questions about you and your parents disappearing? Cuz that whole fake vacation thing can hold up to some outside poking, but I’m pretty sure it won’t last long with someone like that looking into it.”

There was no response at first. And given the position Paige was in with the whole laying completely motionless with her eyes closed thing, I honestly wasn’t sure for a moment that she had even heard what I said.  

Finally, however, Paige spoke once more. “She didn’t really care.” Her voice was odd, like… well, I couldn’t really place it at first. There was something in her tone that didn’t sound like her. For as long as I remembered knowing Paige, she had almost always sounded confident. Whether it came to tormenting me as much as possible, being the popular girl everyone else looked up to, or handling a bunch of biolems sent by her father to kill both of us, she was self-assured. But now? This almost sounded like… vulnerability? Uncertainty? Confusion? All of the above. And more. There was a lot in her voice. But none of it was confidence. 

“She was their real daughter, before they got pissed and disowned her because she didn’t want to be the exact person they wanted her to be. She did her own thing, so they threw her out of the family and bought me instead. I was the replacement. I wasn’t–I’m not her real sister. Why would she start going around looking for me? That doesn’t–I can’t…” 

She trailed off for several long moments before her voice finally spoke again. But once more, it wasn’t Paige. “Uhh yeah, you’re gonna have to give us some time with this. I think you got the gist of her reaction though. We’ve got no clue why a girl who was disowned from the family and replaced like that would give two shits about what happened to the parents or the adopted sister. Give that some time to digest and come back in a couple days, maybe we’ll be able to tell you something else. Send the word Aardvark to let us know you’re back and want to talk about that whole thing and we’ll do this again.”

I really hadn’t expected Paige to be quite that stunned by the news that Irelyn had been out there looking for her. But, I supposed that was fair. She deserved the chance to think about that for a bit. It was clearly a lot to dump on her, especially if she was so taken aback and lost in her own thoughts that Raige was talking. 

So, I straightened up. “Yeah, I’ll give you some time. I just–” Pausing, I shifted indecisively, unsure if I should ask. Finally, I went for it. “What actually happened to your parents? I mean, where… I mean, did they… I mean…”

“We don’t know what happened to them, exactly,” came Raige’s response. “I mean, it’s not hard to make a guess that Daddy dearest wanted them out of the way, but how he went about that, how… permanent it is, all that, no idea. They weren’t there when the party thing got started, that’s all we know.” 

That didn’t exactly make me feel better about the Banners’ fates in general. But at least I could trust that Paige herself hadn’t killed them. Still, I frowned before rising to leave. “Thanks. I’ll let you guys talk about that whole sister thing amongst yourselves, and come back later.” 

With that, I left the room and headed down the stairs rather than use the elevator that time. Paige had clearly been completely shocked by the revelation that this Irelyn woman was out there looking for her, to the point that she completely stopped responding and left Raige to do the talking. That… that was… I didn’t know what that was. I may have had my… whole complicated situation with my family, but at least I would never be surprised that they wanted to find me if I went missing. Paige, on the other hand, had been so shocked that Irelyn was actually looking for her that she actually went silent. She had been completely stupefied by the simple fact that someone cared enough about her to look when she disappeared. Which was pretty big. And, I supposed, went with the fact that she hadn’t brought it up as a possibility, if she was that stunned by it. 

In any case, I’d go back and talk to both of them some more about that in a day or two. For now, I was going to set that aside and focus on other things. Namely, what was up with the sex-shifting Asian person Tomas’s dad had driven off with. Which meant I was going to have to go over there. 

Was it bad that I wasn’t sure which made my stomach feel worse about spending time around, the guy who had used his superpower to literally erase my memory, or my ex-boyfriend whom I still had feelings for and whose loyalties I had no idea about. Tomas still could’ve been nice to me, even dated me to begin with, just because of orders from his dad. That was… it was a thought that made me feel like curling into a ball and not doing anything for a long time. Instead, I was going to shove that deep down into a hole, then call him up and ask if he wanted to hang out at his place sometime. I was going to bury all my doubts and insecurities, all my feelings in general, and convincingly put myself around one guy who had already fucked around in my memories, and another who might have been manipulating my emotions for years.

You know what? I was starting to wish I had started that fight with Sandon. 

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Patreon Snippets 22 (Heretical Edge 2)

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The following is the 22nd edition of Patreon Snippets. Each month, every Patreon supporter who donates at least ten dollars per month is able to request at least five hundred words toward any subject they would like to see written about (within reason), join their idea to others to make it longer, or hold it for future installments. Thanks go to them, as well as to all supporters, and to all readers. Remember, as little as 5 dollars per month gets you every single chapter one day early. In addition, donators get to vote on end-of-arc interludes, non-canon chapters, and have discounts for commissions.

Finally leaving the chaotic rush of yet another school day behind her, Abigail Fellows said goodnight to Miss Handsy before heading out of the office, satchel full of files over one shoulder and a cup of steaming hot coffee in the other hand. She was walking briskly down the hall when a voice spoke up from behind, calling her name. Abigail slowed and turned to see the dark-haired Athena approaching. Waiting for the Seosten woman, she asked, “Didn’t you have something going on over with the… what was the name of that group again? The ones who want to build an elevator to the moon.” 

“The Kalsteren,” Athena reminded her. “And not yet. They want me there for a special holiday, but it doesn’t start for two more days. They’re still setting things up. Also, the elevator thing is a bit of a misnomer. What they actually want is a stable, permanent portal to the moon. Which is a phenomenally bad idea, given… well, you know. But try telling them that.” Pausing, she murmured, “Right, I’m going to have to actually try to tell them that. We’ll see how it goes.” 

Curious, Abigail asked, “Actually, I don’t know. Why would a portal to the moon be a bad idea, exactly?” 

Athena’s mouth opened to answer, but they were interrupted as a new voice called out, “Abigail!” It was Theia, popping out of a nearby doorway. She was giving the wide smile that only ever seemed to appear that genuinely when she was talking to very few people, including Douglas Frey, Pace, Koren, Miranda, and most of all Abigail herself. 

“Hello, Theia,” Abigail greeted the girl with a smile of her own. “What can we do for you?” She didn’t outright chide her for not acknowledging Athena at all, simply choosing to point the other woman out by very slightly stressing the ‘we’ part of the sentence.

“Oh, hello, Athena,” Theia promptly greeted the other woman, voice making it clear that she hadn’t actually noticed her at all. That done, she promptly turned her attention right back to Abigail once more. “I found this.” Raising her hand, she showed both women the large, blue-and-violet seashell that took up most of her palm. “It’s lucky. You should have it on your desk.” 

“Aww, why thank you, Theia.” Accepting the seashell, Abigail nodded. “It’s very pretty.”

“It’s lucky,” the Seosten girl reiterated. “You can’t lose it. It has to go on your desk. You have to keep it safe.” Her voice was oddly urgent as she stared at the woman intently, as though expecting her to walk right back with it at that very moment. 

And that was exactly what Abigail did. With a glance toward the woman next to her, she gave a short nod. “Well then, I wouldn’t want it to accidentally get put somewhere else. Why don’t you show me the best place for it? Athena, you’re good with tactics, perhaps you’ll have a thought or two.” She gestured, inviting both of them to follow as she pivoted and walked right back to the other room, passing Miss Handsy once more with a pleasant greeting. 

Theia followed, of course, with Athena behind. Though the Olympian gave no real input on the placement of the shell, she did watch with curiosity while the other two positioned it just so. Only once she was satisfied that the shell was in its proper place, did Theia nod with satisfaction. “Good, you will have luck now,” she announced. “You need it. The job you have taken on is very difficult, and you will probably fail without a lot of luck.” With that blunt pronouncement, she offered another smile. “And now you have it, so I will leave.” Abruptly, she spun on her heel and began to walk away. 

“Oh, Theia, you’ll be over for dinner tonight?” Abigail quickly put in. “Koren wanted your help with some sort of vegetable dish she looked up. Apparently she thinks you’re better with a knife then she is.” 

“It’s true,” Theia agreed, “I have cut many things. And many people. And many things off many people.” With a bright, cheerful smile, she added, “I will be there to help cut more things.” 

And just like that, she was gone again, exiting through the door with only a belated, “Goodbye, Athena!” 

Only once she was sure the girl had left through the outer office, did Athena close the door and step over to where Abigail was. “Do you have any idea what you’re going to do about that?” she asked while nodding toward the sea shell. 

Abigail, in turn, blinked. “The shell? Well, unless you’re about to tell me that it’s actually a monster that will eat me the first chance it gets, I was planning on leaving it right there. I mean, she’s not wrong about us needing luck to pull this whole thing off without ending up in a full-scale war against your people. Though I like to think our odds aren’t quite that bad.” 

Shaking her head, Athena looked to the shell briefly before turning back to Abigail. “That is the shell of a Kaula Mehyian. They are an incredibly rare creature, whose shell only turns that color once the animal itself has passed away of old age. Which only happens after ten thousand years. The same general life span as a normal Seosten. It’s part of why our people came to see them as lucky. The shell itself is proof that the Kaula Mehyian lived a full life and died naturally. If the shell is taken early, it doesn’t turn that color. Once the animal dies, the shell falls away and changes to what you see there. For Theia to have one means she either paid… an enormous fortune for it, or experienced what for almost anyone would be a once-in-a-lifetime find, and was able to pick up one of those shells on her own. That shell by itself would be considered…” She shook her head, trying to find some sort of comparison. “Your people have your four-leaf-clovers and horseshoes and such. But you have nothing like this. There is nothing even remotely similar. A Seosten with a Kaula Mehyian shell would never give it away, save for a true fortune, or… to someone incredibly important to them.” 

“Someone incredibly important…” Abigail echoed, glancing toward the shell itself once more with new understanding. 

“Yes,” Athena confirmed. “That’s what it means. Do you see the way she smiles at you? She does not smile at others that way. When she smiles at most people, it’s… awkward. Something closer to predatory. It doesn’t look quite right. And yet, with you, she’s perfectly natural about it. And one other thing, did you notice that she left without saying goodbye to you? Twice, in fact. First she announced that she was leaving and began to walk out. The second time, she specifically said goodbye to me. Not once did she say it to you.” 

“Well, I wasn’t going to bring it up,” Abigail murmured, “but I assumed she was just in a hurry. Or didn’t think it was worth saying, considering she’ll be around to help with dinner in just another hour or so. Hardly worth reprimanding her for, or even talking about, really.” 

“That’s not my point,” Athena informed her. “She isn’t saying goodbye because she doesn’t want that level of separation. It’s a… subconscious thing. If she never says goodbye to you, then you’ll never be apart from her.” She paused, then gestured with a sigh. “Sit down, please, Abigail. I think we should talk a bit more about this.” 

Her words made the school principal pause before nodding as she sat down. “You’re not about to tell me not to get so close to one of your people, are you?” Her tone was mostly light, but there was something more behind it. She would not have reacted well if the other woman actually pulled anything like that, no matter how unlikely it was. Theia meant too much to her. 

Taking the seat across from the desk, Athena shook her head. “No, Abigail, of course not. What I want is to ask you precisely how close you’re planning on being. You know how badly that girl’s mother treated her, how… rejected she was. Now I’m fairly certain she has latched onto you as… a replacement. You named her. You treated her like a real person. You… you are much more than a friend for her, and if that’s not… if that’s something you don’t want, we should find a way to take care of it before it goes too far.” 

Abigail leaned back a bit in her seat, watching the woman intently. “You mean if I don’t want Theia to see me as a mother, we should stop being so close.” 

“What I mean,” Athena clarified, “is that I think it would do her a lot of good if she didn’t have to tiptoe around the situation because part of her is afraid you will reject her if she brings it up any more directly than she already has. She needs to be accepted, fully accepted, if she’s going to move completely beyond the person her mother and our society turned her into. I think you can help with that–I think you have helped with it, more than anyone could have asked. But here I am, asking you for more. I know that’s incredibly unfair.” 

“What’s unfair,” Abigail retorted, “is what that girl went through for so long.” She exhaled, dropping her gaze to look at an unrelated folder on the desk while various thoughts ran through her mind. “She deserves a stable home, and people she can count on to be there for her. She’s had that, around here, to an extent. But you’re right, she needs more. She deserves more.” 

Both women went quiet for a moment then before Athena spoke. “As I said, I believe she has come to see you as a mother. But that leaves the question of whether you can see her as a daughter. But I think I had my answer to that when I watched your expression when you thought there was even a chance that I was going to say you shouldn’t be so close to her.” 

With a small, self-deprecating smile, Abigail admitted, “If you did try to tell me to stay away from her, I might have been thinking of throwing myself over this desk at you. You know, as effective as that would have been.” 

“Hey, you certainly would have had the element of surprise,” Athena pointed out with a smile before chuckling softly. She glanced away for a moment, seeming to think about what was next before turning back to the other woman. “My point is that what Theia needs is something more official. Something that can feel… firm to her. Something tangible, so she doesn’t need to wonder anymore about just how far your acceptance goes.” 

“Kushiel.” Abigail spoke the name with a harsh, spitting tone before shaking her head. “That woman treated her daughter like…” She trailed off, exhaling long and slow as she collected herself. “Whenever I think about how Theia was treated, it just… I want to… It makes me want to hurt people the way I’ve only ever wanted to hurt them when my… when Koren was hurt. I want… I want to be everything Theia needs. I want to be a better everything for her than her… than Kushiel was. I suppose I was just afraid that pushing on that too hard would make her think I was trying to replace her actual mother.” 

“Good,” Athena pointed out. “Kushiel should be replaced. An overfull lint trap would be a better mother than she was to that girl. The sort of upgrade you would be is just…” She coughed. “Abigail, she needs you to make it official. She needs you to be her mother. That means more than just hanging out. That means treating her the way you would Koren. It means making her part of your family, in every way. But only if you’re up for that. You can’t go halfway on it. Not with this, not with that girl. If you accept her, you have to accept all of her. Which means you’ll have to be ready to help her through some tough times. She’s been through more than either of us know, and I think there’s a fair bit she still has bottled up from the time she spent under Kushiel’s experiments.”

“And I want to be there to help her through that,” Abigail confirmed, in a soft, yet certain tone. “I want… I want to give her everything she never had the chance to have when she was with your people.” Pausing, she gave a very slight grimace. “I’d say no offense, but you know.” 

“You wouldn’t mean it,” Athena replied. “And it’s deserved. My people have a long way to go on a great many things.” With another sigh, she straightened, extending a hand. “I know there’s no real… court system for adoption up here. But I think it should be more than randomly telling her how you feel. She deserves something bigger than that.” 

Abigail accepted the hand, rising from her own seat. “Oh, don’t you worry, one word to Koren and she’ll help plan a party the likes of which you have never seen. And as for the official part, I think I can make up some papers and a certificate just fine. After all, I was a lawyer in a previous life.” 

“Well, here’s to previous lives,” Athena noted with a thoughtful gaze. 

“And the lessons we take from them.” 

*********

“You remember when we took Lincoln on that road trip across the country?” Arthur Chambers asked his wife while the two of them stood atop a hill overlooking a wide valley between a pair of silvery-red mountains whose peaks rose clear out of sight into the purple-clouded sky. The grass beneath their feet was a faint orange color, tinged with white on the tips. Before the pair, the field itself was full of enormous herd animals that looked like a cross between elephants and giraffes, with incredibly long, thick necks, tusks, and big floppy ears. They stood ten feet tall at the shoulders, the necks extending the heights of their head at full extension to nearly double that. It allowed them to reach their favorite food as it grew within crevices in the surrounding mountains. Their tusks were used to break open smaller holes to reach the moss that filled intricate cave networks throughout those mountains. And the sound whenever one of those creatures reared its head back and slammed forward to break into those caves, or simply to break apart boulders to get at the moss growing within, echoed like thunder across the field. 

“You’re thinking about the buffalo, aren’t you?” Maria replied. Her own gaze was focused on the Seosten children, who were running through the field, laughing and playing with one another. She could see Omni, pulling his sister’s hard-light form right along with them. From what Puriel had said, the two had quickly become close as soon as they met. And by now, they were all-but inseparable. 

“I’m thinking about the buffalo,” Arthur confirmed with a small chuckle at the memory. “Do you think he’d chase these big fellas?” 

“I think he learned his lesson with the buffalo,” Maria murmured before glancing that way. “You always did like going on trips. This whole thing must be your dream come true.” 

Arthur, in turn, offered a slight nod. “Hey, in more ways than one.” Tugging his wife closer by the hand, he squeezed it before putting his arm around her. “Having you here for my Star Trek adventure makes it so much better than my boyhood dreams. If Linc and Felicity were here, that’d make everything perfect.” Belatedly, he added, “And Joselyn.” That was still new, getting accustomed to the fact that the woman who had apparently broken his son’s heart and abandoned her family wasn’t the horrible person she had appeared to be. He owed that woman a lot of apologies for the thoughts he’d had over the years. 

“And Joselyn,” Maria confirmed, clearly having the same thought. Reaching out then, she pointed toward the spot where the children were running in circles. A moment of focus created a small, red ball of energy in the middle of them. The ball floated there until they had all noticed it, before abruptly zipping away from them. With a collection of squeals, the children suddenly started to chase the ball, laughing with delight as it led them on a run through the field. 

From behind the pair, Puriel spoke up as he approached. “I notice your little game there happened to lead them away from that nursing Ceurth.” He nodded toward a pair of the large animals lying together near where the kids had been moving their game. 

“No reason to interrupt a busy mother,” Maria noted without looking at him. Her attention remained on making the glowing ball lead the children on a chase. “How are the others doing with the hunting?” Alcaeus and Kutattca had gone off to get food to restock the ship’s stores. That being the main reason for this stop, aside from allowing everyone to stretch their legs. They were all down here except for Aletheia, who was still up on the ship itself as it waited for them in orbit around this unoccupied moon. 

“You think this’ll be the last stop we need to make before Earth?” Arthur added. They were far past the barrier by that point, in an area of space where livable worlds were even fewer and farther between than usual. It was Aletheia who had remembered this particular moon and ensured it would be part of their trip. 

Puriel stepped up beside the pair, watching the children below. “Yes,” he confirmed. “This is the last one. Soon, we’ll be at your home. And you can rejoin your family.” Belatedly, he added, “You are becoming quite proficient with your gift, Maria.” 

A small smile played over the elderly woman’s face as she made the ball fly straight up in the air, then down again. “It’s nothing compared to the sort of things you can do with it. Making a glowing ball of energy isn’t exactly helpful in a fight.” 

“You can be far more helpful than you realize,” Puriel informed her. “And not everything needs to be about being useful in war.”

Maria and Arthur exchanged glances then, before the latter spoke up. “From everything we’ve learned about your people, they’d really take that as a sign that you’ve lost your mind.” 

Puriel was silent for a few long moments, his gaze staring down at the children while his mind was elsewhere. “Yes, well, perhaps I have, at that.” 

Arthur cleared his throat. “He’s right about one thing, you are getting better. Almost makes me jealous that you took that gift.” 

“Don’t you start,” Maria teasingly chided. “You made your choice and have your own powers. And, the last time I checked, you were having a grand old time playing with the children with them.”  

“Yes,” Puriel agreed, “and yours have been quite useful already, even if they are still in their infancy stages. You will get better with them. But we will need to pay careful attention to that growth, and ensure there are no unwanted side effects. The DNA of that particular creature has always been a bit… unique in many ways.

“I, for one, am very interested to know whether the Djehuti gift will remain, as it is now, solely the same manipulation of technology as the woman who calls herself Gaia, or if you will eventually also manifest the same biological expertise as the man who now calls himself Seller.”

******

The house where Vanessa and Tristan lived with Sands, Sarah, and several others was dark as the blonde twins approached with Theia between them. The three were chatting about ways that they could potentially find out more about the Whispers and that whole situation, if Cahethal refused to play ball. Theia, of course, had her own ideas about good sources of information, and was just in the middle of explaining a plan that involved rigorous use of Flick’s ability to summon dead people and talk to them, when they reached the front entrance. 

As he unlocked the door, Tristan pointed out, “Hey, at least we don’t have to worry about being quiet. Even if everyone’s asleep in here, they’d all be in their soundproof roo–” 

That was as far as the boy got. Because in that moment, as he turned the knob and pushed the door open, his words were interrupted by a loud squeal. Or rather, several loud squeals, as a handful of party horns were blown all at once, to varying effectiveness. On top of that, the entryway just beyond the door was filled with people, all of them shouting something. 

Theia reacted instantly. Shoving the other two off to either side, she threw herself through the doorway and caught hold of the nearest ‘attacker’ by the arms. Her head slammed forward to crash into the person’s face, turning what had been a shout into a yelp of pain. In the next moment, she pivoted, hurling the dazed figure past the group before snatching two knives from her belt. One flew in the direction of the person she had headbutted and shoved, even as she pivoted to choose her next target with the other. 

All of that took place in what would have been a blink for most people. At her full boost, in fight or flight mode, Theia had done all of that before the average person could have even started to react. 

Which also meant it was only then that she actually took the time to see what she had thrown herself into. The people here were… Sands, Sarah, Koren, Ejji, Felix and her sister Triss, Columbus, and several more people from their classes. None were holding the weapons she had expected to see. Instead, they held balloons, whistles, and other party favors. 

“… what?” Theia finally managed, stopping short just before she would have thrown herself at the next person, blade in hand. 

“Hey!” Vanessa, poking her head in from one side of the door where she had been shoved, blurted. “What’s going on?” 

“Yeah.” Tristan joined his sister, head poking in from the other side of the door. “What gives?” 

“Uhhhhh…” The groan came from a low, wheeled table that had been brought into the hall behind the group. Jazz lay there, one hand holding her face where Theia had headbutted her. In her other hand was the blade that had been thrown, snatched out of the air before it could do any damage. Less spared, unfortunately, was the large cake that had been sitting on that table. A cake that was entirely destroyed by Jazz landing in it. 

“Happy birthday, you two?” the cake-covered, groaning girl managed, focusing somewhat bleary eyes on the twins in question. 

“And whoever’s job it was to tell Theia about the surprise, I’m gonna kick your ass.” 

********

“Fick, Fick!” The excited cries from the tiny, four-year-old Sahveniah filled the hallway. Within an instant of laying eyes on the older blonde girl, the dark-skinned blur raced across the distance separating them and hurled herself that way. 

Reacting quickly, Flick caught the girl in mid-leap and straightened, pulling her into a hug. “Hey, Savvy. Long time no see.” 

Holding on as tight as her little form was capable of (which was a surprising amount, given how quickly Seosten developed their physical prowess), Savvy didn’t respond at first. She simply clung to the older girl for several long moments before finally murmuring, “You were gone for a long time. They said you had to fight the bad guys. But you shouldna gone by yourself. You coulda beat the bad guys more easy if you wasn’t all alone.”  

Swallowing hard, Flick held the girl tighter against herself. “You’re right,” she murmured, “I shouldn’t have gone by myself. I’ll remember that. But hey, I brought my mom back.” 

“Yay!” After that initial cheer, Savvy leaned back to squint at the girl. Held up in this position, they were eye to eye. “I didna know you had a mama.” 

Flick gave a small chuckle at that before lowering herself down. She set Savvy on the floor in front of her while taking a knee right there in the Starstation corridor. “Oh yes, I definitely have a mama. You should meet her. I think she’ll like you.” 

“I’m a pirate,” Sahveniah informed her solemnly. “Does your mama like pirates?” 

“I think she’ll like one as adorable–” Flick started before amending, “Ahem, I mean as fierce and adventurous as you.” 

Her words made the younger girl give a brilliant smile, the entire hall around them seeming to light up. “When I get bigger, I’mma go on a ship, an’ take the ship, an’ go fight the bad guys, an’ steal all the bad guys’ booty. Fick? What’s a booty?” 

Coughing, Flick leaned back to sit on the floor with her back to the nearby wall, tugging the girl over. “Ah, in this case, it means their treasure.” 

Savvy cooed happily while climbing into her lap, nuzzling up against her shoulder. “What about other booties? Is there other kinds o’ booty?” 

Flick, in turn, simply hugged the girl tighter to herself. “Oh, don’t worry. You’ll find out all about every kind of booty. I’m sure you’ll grow up to be the most successful and dangerous pirate queen the universe has ever seen. Entire worlds will quake at the sound of your name.” 

“Only the bad guys,” Savvy insisted pointedly. 

“Only the bad guy worlds,” Flick agreed, moving her hand to gently stroke the girl’s hair. “You’ll steal all their treasure and make them walk the airlock. And your crew will sing all sorts of songs about the dreaded and beautiful pirate captain Savvy.” 

Giggling, Sahveniah gave a nod of confirmation, still leaning against her shoulder while making soft noises of contentment in her position. Eventually, she murmured, “Fick? I missed you.” 

“I missed you too, Savvy,” came the soft, gentle response. 

“I missed all of you.” 

*******

“Alright, all of you line up!” The order came from Larian Mondo, a two-hundred year old Heretic who had been brought in to take up the position at Crossroads that Virginia Dare had so loudly vacated when she left with the rest of the traitors. He was a deceptively small-looking man, barely five-foot-seven, with wire-rimmed sunglasses and long dark hair. He wore a dark blue suit, and carried a construction mace in one hand similar to the one used by Sands Mason. 

Sands. Thinking of the girl, Zeke Leven felt a sharp pang run through him. Fuck. He liked that girl. He’d liked her for years. Then that Chambers bitch had to show up and totally screw their whole society over, and confuse Sands and her sister so much they and their mother ran off with her. Just because her mom was a crazy, deranged traitor. 

And now here Zeke was, on another student hunt just a few days before Christmas, because almost nobody was allowed to leave the school to go on holidays thanks to this war draining all their resources. 

There were two teams assembled in front of Larian in this narrow alley in the outside world. Zeke, of course, along with Malcolm Harkess, Summer Banning, Freya Sullivan, and Laila Kassab (their sixth member, Erin Redcliffe, had disappeared during their previous hunt) for one team, and Gavin Rish, Stephen Kinder, Russell Bailey, a tall Latino boy named Martin Gutierrez, and two girls named Noelle Starson (a dark-haired, light-skinned girl with light green eyes and a wide mouth) and Tracy Faulk (a deeply-tanned blonde who was almost always laughing at inappropriate jokes) for the other.

The eleven students stood in front of Larian, while three other adult Heretics were lined up behind them, along with both team’s older student mentors. Crossroads was taking no more chances with their student hunts. Not after Erin’s disappearance. The two teams would each be accompanied by two of the adults and their student mentor.

Larian looked the group over. “Okay. Behind me and through that alley, there’s a hotel. Our info says it’s infested with some real nasty pieces of shit. The leader’s a Marakeya, so don’t let him get his hands on you or you’ll regret it. We’ll be right there with you. We start at the bottom and work our way up. One team at the front entrance, one at the back. They’re all monsters in there, so don’t let anyone escape.” He paused before adding, “And yeah, I know you’d all rather be hanging out for the holidays. Three days before Christmas and all. So thanks for coming along on this. Sometimes saving humanity means not getting a full vacation.” 

With that, he split the groups up with a few muttered words and waved hands, then pivoted, taking Zeke’s team along with their mentor (the Native American girl Namid) toward the front. One of the other Heretic adults brought up the rear, while the remaining two would escort the other team to the back of the hotel.  

Unfortunately, even as the group approached the hotel, they found their way blocked by a figure standing at the end of the alley. A figure who, by that point, was familiar to everyone. To Zeke, especially, despite never seeing her in person. He had the memory of her appearance seared into his brain from the research he’d done to find out exactly who was responsible for the society he had grown up in being torn apart not once, but twice. Seeing her, he felt a sudden rush of anger. Worse than what he felt whenever he thought of Chambers herself. 

“Joselyn Atherby,” Larian snapped, snapping his mace down before giving it a flicking motion that made a handful of steel spikes rise out of the ground, angled that way. 

The other Heretic adult abruptly disappeared from behind the group and reappeared next to Larian. Where he had disappeared from, a water-shaped version of himself was left behind before splashing to the ground, and where he appeared, a burst of flame shaped like him filled the air, then dissolved into the man’s physical form. He was holding his own weapon, a long claymore sword that could shift into a musket-like gun. “You shouldn’t be here, Atherby.” 

“Someday, I’ll tell enough of you that my last name is Chambers now, that it’ll actually stick.” After muttering those words, the blonde woman focused. “I need you to back off for a few minutes. We’re… busy. A girl’s life depends on it.”

Larian snorted, shaking his head. “I knew you were stupid enough to defend these monsters, but I thought you had some standards. Defending the things in that hotel, that’s a new low, even for you. But hey, why don’t you try your lies on someone else, like say…” He trailed off, pausing before his eyes narrowed. “You’re blocking communication back to Crossroads.”  

Joselyn, in turn, flatly informed him. “Of course I am. I’ve done this rebellion thing before, remember? And I’m not defending any of the people who willingly live in that hotel. But as I said, we’re in the middle of something. The life of a girl who is not in that hotel depends on us getting information out of the ones who are. So back off for a few minutes, then we can both… go about our jobs.” 

Larian and his partner seemed to consider that for a moment, before the first man’s eyes narrowed. “No. You know what? I think you’re stalling for something. Giving them time to get out.” With that, he waved a hand back toward the students. “Get in there, wipe out everything in your path. We’ll deal with her ourselves.” 

The next thing Zeke and the others knew, they were enveloped in a rush of energy, before finding themselves deposited in one of the side parking lots with the hotel itself visible in the distance. 

“What–what do we do?” Freya demanded. The tall, red-haired girl was looking around in confusion while holding her warhammer in one hand and shield in the other. She turned toward Namid for help. 

Rather than wait for their mentor to speak, however, Zeke was already pivoting, stalking toward the hotel. “We do what the man said. Get in there and kill everything in our way.” 

“Gonna need you to stop right there, dude.” The new voice came from a figure who rose from behind a nearby car and moved to block their path. 

“Koren?” Summer blurted. The black girl was staring that way, mouth agape. “Wha-what the hell are you guys doing? You can’t seriously think this is right. Those are bad guys in there!” 

Rebecca Jameson, moving up beside Koren, gave a short nod. “Yeah, you’re right. Those are bad guys. But we’re trying to help a girl who isn’t a bad guy. And the only way to do that is to find her in there before you guys kill them all or make them run away. Or at least find out where they took her. Mrs. Chambers told your teacher guy that, but he wouldn’t listen.” 

Malcolm, enormous sledgehammer in hand, took a step closer while tapping the head of the weapon against the ground a couple times. “You guys really need a better excuse. Now either get out of the way and let us do our jobs, or we’ll go through you. Neither of you could match me in training last year, you really think you can do it together? Let alone all six of us.”  

Heaving a heavy sigh, Namid finally spoke up. “He’s right, you two need to get out of the way. Believe me, I really don’t want to hurt either of you. This whole situation is fucked beyond belief, but we’ve got a job to do. So move.” 

The two girls exchanged glances, before turning back to the six Crossroads students. Koren spoke first. “Sorry. We can’t do that.” 

Rebecca added, “I guess you’ll just have to go through us.” 

There was a brief pause before Namid gestured. “No killing, just make them stay down.” 

Immediately, Malcolm lunged that way, already swinging his hammer. He moved so quickly, his form was a blur. Koren, however, smoothly twisted aside, pivoting on one foot like a ballet dancer as the hammer swung past her to slam into the ground. As soon as the head of the weapon hit the cement, three blunt concrete ‘spikes’ erupted from the ground right where the girl was. But Koren had already flipped up and over, landing behind the boy. She lashed out with a kick, which collided with his back, knocking him forward into the concrete slabs he had raised. Except they weren’t concrete anymore. In that moment, with a quick look, she had transformed them into a gooey, sticky, tar-like substance that gripped the boy tightly. 

Malcolm immediately used his hammer’s ability to send himself back to any of the last ten spots he had hit with it in order to teleport to where he had been standing a moment earlier. But he was still covered in tar. Tar that was rapidly solidifying, even as he blurted, “The hell is this?!” 

“Just get rid of it and focus!” Zeke snapped. The boy was already going at Koren from the side, lashing out to bash her with his shield while simultaneously creating three glass-like balls behind her, which exploded with concussive force meant to throw the girl forward into his swinging shield. 

Koren, however, wasn’t there. She had already tossed one of her Hunga Munga throwing axes into the air, teleporting herself up to it before pivoting in midair to face the boy below. A moment of focus made a wave of concussive force slam into the back of Zeke’s legs, knocking him slightly off-balance. 

He, of course, reacted by snapping his gaze up to where she was. The front of his shield shifted, producing two gun-like barrels from the middle, which fired twin bolts of electricity, powerful enough to put a bear on the ground. 

But Koren wasn’t there anymore either. Just before teleporting herself up to the first Hunga Munga, she had dropped the other one. In the instant where Zeke was shooting his electricity at her, she teleported herself down to that one, appearing in a kneeling position right next to the boy while he was facing upward. Before he could adjust, Koren lashed out with her fist, which collided with the boy’s stomach with enough force to double him over. 

Malcolm, by that point, had gotten enough of the tar off himself to come lunging to help his friend. But Koren had already torn the shield from Zeke’s grasp and pivoted, Captain America-ing the shield that way to take the charging boy’s legs out from under him. He turned the fall into a roll, coming up nearby while swinging his hammer. 

At the same time, Zeke had recovered from the punch, and swung around to clap his hands together, creating a focused sonic blast that would have burst the girl’s eardrums, staggering her just long enough for Malcolm’s attack to put her on the ground.

Would have, that was, if Koren hadn’t already made a wall of earth rise out of the ground behind herself in a semicircle. The wall caught the sonic blast, shielding her from its effects. Which allowed the girl to thrust both hands forward, hitting the charging Malcolm with a telekinetic shove that halted his forward momentum and sent him flying backward to crash into a nearby wall. 

Zeke, stumbling backward from the wall, shot a look toward Malcolm, then over to where Summer, Freya, and Laila were clearly having their own problems with the tiny waif Rebecca. “The fuck?!” He blurted the words in confusion. “You two weren’t this good last year.” 

“Things change,” Koren informed him flatly, flipping her Hunga Munga around in both hands before facing him. “You’ve been in class. We’ve been in a war. So, you guys gonna walk away?” 

In answer, Zeke made a growling noise deep in his throat, glaring at her. “You know what?” he snarled, already readying himself. “I think it’s time to shut you up.” 

“By all means,” Koren replied. 

“You’re welcome to try.” 

Wanna see more of this conflict and how it all resolves? Check out the end of arc interlude coming up in a few more chapters!

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Winging It 19-07 (Summus Proelium)

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We split up almost immediately after that. Lucent had to cut our practice time short so he could go back and report in about what had happened. And Carousel went off with That-A-Way to tell her teammates the story while heading in to give her own report. Because of course it made sense for Way to go with Carousel, at least at first. She did shoot me a look before heading off, mouthing for me to meet her here and that she would be right back. Clearly, she still wanted to get into whatever she’d sent the earlier message about, before all this happened. 

I did have one thing to do while she was gone, though. Heading back to the bank, I helped the cops in the lot release the guys I had trapped with pink paint. Not that the would-be robbers were exactly happy about being arrested, but hey. At least we hadn’t completely failed to catch everyone.

Once that was done and I had sent in a statement about what happened with the Ten Towers Doephone app so it would be officially logged, I went back to the other roof and took a seat with my back to one of the air conditioning units. I needed a moment to catch my breath after everything that had happened. Part of me really still felt like shit for just letting those guys walk away with the stuff they stole, no matter how much I told myself that Lucent was right. Not getting into a brawl right there had been the right call. No matter how much the whispering voice in the back of my head went on about it being a mistake. 

But no, backing off had been the right call. Maybe, maybe we could’ve handled the regular thugs who were surrounding us. Carousel might have stopped the bullets and even pulled some of their guns away. And I had my protective paint. Maybe between the three of us, even surrounded like that, we could’ve taken the Prevs. A group of ordinary guys with weapons against the three of us? We probably could have handled it. Probably. 

But Sandon’s presence threw all that out the window. She was right there close to us, flanked by all those armed troops while already being one of the strongest and toughest Touched around. We just didn’t have anything that could have straight-up hurt her. And while we could’ve gotten creative, having to deal with her and her men was a bad combination. And that was before you added in the new Touched. Between the armed thugs, Sandon, and not knowing much of anything about the new guy’s power… yeah, starting a fight while surrounded by all that would have been one of the worst ideas imaginable. It would’ve gone horribly. 

And yet… Yeah, I couldn’t shut out my traitorous little voice, no matter what sort of logic I tried to silence it with. Which made a heavy sigh escape me. 

“Letting them get away sucks, doesn’t it?” That-A-Way spoke up while approaching from the other side of the roof. Clearly she had heard my sigh. “Believe me, I know what you’re feeling right now. And it never really goes away. I mean, it shouldn’t, right?” By that point, she had reached the spot where I was sitting, and plopped down next to me, drawing her legs up while looking out over the neighborhood below. “It should always feel wrong to let bad guys leave with what they stole, no matter how many times you tell yourself it was the only way.” 

Snorting despite myself, I shifted a bit to look over at the other girl from behind my helmet. “Yeah, I guess you’ve probably been in that position a few times before, huh?” 

I could see a very slight, humorless smile cross her face briefly. “Once or twice. The fact is that sometimes we’re outnumbered or outpowered, and we have to walk away. Silversmith always says–” She caught herself, face twisting into a slight grimace before pushing on. “Yeah, I know, but he’s not wrong here. He always says that it’s better to fight another day. Especially when all they have is material goods. If they kidnapped someone or whatever, it’s usually a different story. But if all they’ve got is money or something like that? Yeah, just let them go if you need to. He says money can be replaced, but we can’t be.” 

My father’s advice, delivered through Amber, made a lump form in my throat. It wasn’t any different than the advice that my bird-dad had given. And yet, I just… somehow the thought of why he would be fine with letting bad guys escape with what they stole made the whole thing feel worse. 

“I didn’t exactly help with that, did I?” Way was grimacing as she looked at me, shaking her head. “Sorry. I just… I’ve looked up to him for a long time. And like I said, he’s not wrong here. Even if he might have some ulterior motives sometimes about letting them walk away, it’s still not wrong. You guys made the right choice. Sandon would’ve chewed you up and spat you out. You’re not ready for her. Hell, I’m pretty sure I’m not ready for her. That’s… she’s too strong. And that’s coming from someone who can be invulnerable a quarter of the time and intangible another quarter.”

Finally finding a slight smile, I reached out and squeezed her arm. “Thanks,” I murmured before adding, “I just… you know, she outright said that they stole those things to help fund this gangwar. So every bit of fighting that goes on now, I’m going to wonder if it happened because we let them get away with the money to pay for it. If anything happens to Pack–I mean… La Casa are the ones fighting the Ninety-Niners, you know? If anything happens to her because they took the money I let them get away with to keep the war going…” 

I could hear the way the other girl gulped. Her hand found mine, squeezing it firmly. “I know,” she murmured in a soft voice. “Believe me, I think about that a lot. Not just when it comes to this thing today. I think about it all the time.” Her tone made it clear that was an understatement. “But it’s her choice, and she puts herself in that position. She chooses to do this stuff, just like we choose our own way, you know?” She gave a long, heavy sigh before adding in an even softer voice, “Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t try to make sure she doesn’t get hurt if I get the chance.” 

With my face hidden, I watched the other girl for a moment. There were a few things I almost wanted to ask about her whole thing with Pack, but I held off on the basis of it not being any of my business. Instead, I simply replied, “Sorry, I… I know you’re right. But knowing that doesn’t really… umm, help, you know? Doesn’t matter how logical it is, everything the Ninety-Niners do from now on, as far as this war goes, I won’t… I won’t be able to stop thinking ‘they can do this because I didn’t stop them from stealing the funds they needed to keep this whole thing going.’”

“I know,” she murmured, giving a heavy sigh. “I get it. It would be a hell of a lot easier to talk her out of being on the bad guy’s team if we didn’t already know for a fact that there are bad guys on every team.” Pausing, she grimaced before amending, “Okay, maybe it wouldn’t exactly be easy. She does like her money and freedom. But still, maybe like.. a Sell-Touched? Wait.” Her expression shifted as thoughts of that ran through her mind. She was obviously considering whether it would be a good idea to suggest that Pack become a Sell-Touched as a sort-of midway point between her current villain alignment and something better. After all, Sell-Touched could play both sides of the field, as Cavalcade had made clear. It just took a little extra work. 

Both of us thought about that for a minute, before I offered a hesitant, “I’m pretty sure she has friends over there that she wouldn’t want to walk away from that easily. Unless you’re thinking about–” I coughed, giving her a look of realization. “You’re not thinking about her walking away from her friends, you’re thinking about her taking them with her and making La Casa lose like… several Touched all at once.”  

“It would be a pretty big deal, huh?” Way opened her mouth and then stopped, heaving a sigh. “But, if I bring it up, it’ll just make her think I’m trying to get credit for taking a bunch of La Casa Touched away all at once. I mean–I thought about that but it’s… it’s backwards, you know? I don’t care about that sort of credit–I don’t even… “ She closed her eyes and drew her legs closer to her chest, going quiet for a moment before murmuring, “I just want to know she’s okay. If she gets arrested, if she goes to prison for everything, I just–I mean I should want that, right? She’s a thief, she’s a villain. Outside of these deals we have, I should want her to get caught. But every time I think about what I would do if it came down to choosing to take her in or let her go, even outside of our whole situation with the Ministry, I just… I can’t figure it out. I try. Believe me, I seriously sat there for hours trying to figure out how I would react if we didn’t have to deal with this Ministry stuff and I had to choose whether to take her in or not. Part of that whole… ‘figuring out how I feel’ thing. But I just can’t extricate it like that. It’s–damn it. You know.” 

My head bobbed quickly. “I know. I mean, even without anything else, she’s… she’s a friend.” There was clearly more to it than that, but I didn’t want to make assumptions or push the other girl to admit anything she didn’t want to. “You care about her. And it sucks to think that someone you care about might need help. And–oh, uhh, Jae might need help.” It clearly wasn’t the best or smoothest topic shift, but the thought had just popped into my head while talking. 

Giving a sudden double-take at that, Amber cough-sputtered a bit. It was kind of a weird reaction to have to something like that, if I was being honest. But maybe the sudden topic shift had thrown her off more than I thought. Or maybe she just wasn’t used to me bringing up civilian stuff while we were in costume. Which was totally fair, given how weird that whole thing was. 

Either way, she gave me a sharp look, asking, “What do you mean? When did you talk to Jae? When did you even see Jae? She hasn’t–I mean, when did she–what did–what?” Yeah, definitely a weird reaction. 

Setting that aside, given I had no idea what was going on there (maybe Jae really didn’t know about Amber being Touched and she felt guilty about that?), I simply told her what I had seen back at the grocery store. I explained the whole interplay between Jae and her step-adopted mother (or whatever the proper term for that would be), the welcome home party for her adopted father, all of it. 

“It’s just father, you know,” Amber informed me. “Once someone is adopted, you don’t have to stick the word on the front as a qualifier. He’s her father. She’s her stepmother. Her siblings are her siblings, not her adopted siblings. They’re a family, like any other.” 

“Right.” Coughing, I gave a little nod. “Got it, sorry. I just–yeah. The point is, I think Jae might need a friend today. Plus, you might want to make sure she’s really okay after that close call.  Like I said, you don’t have to tell me if she actually knows about you being… you, but if she does, you can tell her that you heard about what happened from me and, you know, figured out who she was from the description. Or… whatever. I just mean you should check on her.” 

“I will,” Amber assured me, without getting into any details. “Pretty sure she’ll be alright, but I’ll go over there later, before my patrol with Syndicate. And–” Abruptly, she snapped her fingers. “I can tell you about that thing now! Okay, no more distractions or interruptions. You’re not allowed to have some huge thing come up and take up all our attention for the next few minutes.” 

“Uh, I’ll do my best?” I offered a bit weakly while glancing around. “I mean, I don’t see anything coming up, and I’ll try not to answer my phone or anything. But I really can’t–never mind. Ahem.” Shifting, I faced her directly. “You have my full and undivided attention. Go ahead.” 

Giving me a look as though half-convinced that she was going to be interrupted anyway, Amber still hesitated before launching into an explanation. She told me about how a little while back she had been out jogging and saw some Asian people arguing outside of a sedan. There was one girl, around her age or maybe slightly older, who had been having an argument with the other three, older people. Maybe her relatives. They were all yelling in their own language, so Amber couldn’t tell what they were saying. And just when Amber had been thinking about stepping in, another car had shown up. A car with diplomatic plates. Yeah, it was Tomas’s father. At the time, Amber hadn’t actually known there was anything wrong with the man. She just thought it was strange that he was there. He had talked to the Asian people, calmed down the situation, then had the younger girl get in his car with him. 

“And that’s where it got really… uh, different,” Amber informed me. “She became he. I mean, just before the girl got in the car, she shifted. Her hair, her face, her whole body. She turned into a boy like it was nothing. Just that easy, that casual. Believe me, I know transitioning has gotten easier with Touched-Tech, but this was more than that. She–I mean they’re either a shapeshifter, or a…. maybe they have their own personal Touched-Tech disguise, or–I don’t know. But I thought it was weird at the time, and now that you told me about Mr. Jackson, it–it feels even more weird. Something… strange was going on with that, you know?” 

Nodding slowly as I ran that through my head, I tried to think and came up with nothing. “Yeah, I don’t know. I never heard my parents talking about anything like that. At least, I don’t think so. It doesn’t ring any bells. And I don’t– huh.” Frowning, I thought again before heaving a sigh. “God, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find out more once we dig that tunnel to get into the mall base? Which, you know, having that Undermine guy’s power would sure help out a lot with that.” 

Snorting, clearly despite herself, Amber retorted, “Sure would. All you have to do is go convince him to help. Shouldn’t be that hard, right? I mean, you can trust a total stranger, who happens to be an active villain and not in any way a friend with all your secrets. Easy peasy.”

My eyes rolled and I covered the front of my helmet with my hands. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m just saying, if they’d been using a tech thing, we could’ve grabbed it. Would’ve made it easier. But hey, we don’t get to do things the easy way. We still need to do them. At least we’ve got help.” 

“Yeah,” the girl agreed, “it’ll be easier with Raindrop and Pack there. And will your minions be there too?” The last bit was said teasingly as she nudged me, clearly going for a reaction. 

“Uuuughh,” I groaned, shaking my head. “Don’t even–I don’t know. Maybe… maybe if I tell them we need to dig a tunnel somewhere but we can’t really tell them why or let them know where it is? I don’t–that doesn’t sound very fair, does it?” 

“They’re minions,” she pointed out, “they’re probably used to not being treated fairly or being given all the information.” A small smile played across her face before she focused. “Anyway, the other option is that you tell them what’s actually going on. I mean, maybe not your real identity if you don’t want to. But about this Ministry stuff. At least then they’d be going into it–all of it with open eyes and all. They could choose to walk away before they end up getting in the sort of trouble that the Ministry could put them in just by working with you.” 

Blanching, I shifted back and exhaled long and low before admitting, “Right, yeah, you have a point. I just don’t know if it’s a good idea to tell them more than–to tell them–I mean…” My face, still hidden, twisted a little as I tried to sort through my thoughts. “You’re right. I know you’re right. If they get involved in this and get hurt specifically because they didn’t know what they were getting into or how to protect themselves from it, I’ll never forgive myself. Hell, by that standard I should make sure Fred and Wren know the whole story too. I should–” I swallowed hard. “There’s a lot of things I should do. I’ll think about it. I’ll think about how to talk about it and how much I can tell them.” Pausing, I murmured, “Or if I should just tell them not to have anything to do with me. But something tells me that won’t come off very well. They’re already working with Wren. I–I gave them a chance. I told them they could have real jobs, and a chance to make their lives better. I can’t take that away from them. Maybe I could have them only work for Wren and have nothing to do with me, but you know that won’t work. If bad things go down, it isn’t hard to connect Trevithick to me. I just–it’s so intertwined and complicated.” 

My eyes had closed by that point as I slumped backward against the air conditioning unit and let a heavy sigh escape me once more. “I have to think about all that. But I will. I’ll figure it out.” 

“I know, it’s a pain in the ass,” Amber sympathized before adding, “And uhh, I’m probably not about to make it any better. Which–sorry. But I just want to let you know next I’m going to be looking into something else while we’re searching for information about the whole Ministry thing. More than just general information. It’s–it’s important.” Her voice cracked a little as she said that, making it clear how much of an understatement it was. “I just–I have to know.” 

After looking at her briefly, I realized, “Your dad. You want to find out if they had anything to do with the guy who hit your dad getting away. You want to know if they accepted money from him to disappear and that’s why no one ever found out who–” Grimacing, I shook my head. “You know that could all be completely normal. A lot of hit-and-runs go completely unsolved. Especially with a stolen car, and–” 

“I know!” the other girl blurted, before giving me an apologetic look. “I know all that, believe me. But I got the idea stuck in my head and now I can’t let it go until I know for sure. I have to find out if your parents deliberately let my father’s killer walk away. I just–I have to know for sure. Whatever it takes. So I’m gonna be looking for anything that has to do with him. My dad, I mean. They might’ve kept files or… or some other record, or someone else might’ve known and–and… Ugh. Someone will know the truth. I have to check. I just… have to.”

It was my turn to reach out and squeeze her arm. “I understand. I… I’ll help any way I can, I promise. But be careful, okay? Just–be careful. And don’t do anything drastic. We’ll figure it out.” 

She murmured what was something close to an agreement, before the two of us sat there in silence for a minute or two. A minute or two which felt much longer, as we gradually turned away to look out over the neighborhood once more, lost in our own thoughts. 

Finally, I pushed myself up. “Thanks for talking me through all that. I–it’s good to have someone to talk to.” Boy was that ever an understatement. I had no idea how I would’ve even kept as sane as I was right then without having her and Izzy. It really made a difference. 

Rising after me, Amber offered a small smile. “Any time. I uhh, guess I should head back in now. Like you said, I should check on Jae and make sure she’s okay.” 

“Yeah,” I agreed before turning to start walking to the edge of the roof. “And I need to get over to Wren’s to see how they’re doing with Lion. Can’t let my employees have all the fun. Besides, it’s probably about time I had a talk with Paige. 

“I really need to ask her why she never mentioned that she has a sister who would come looking for her.”  

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The Runaway 15-05 (Heretical Edge 2)

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Effective as Mom might have been at scouting the building out with a simple once-over, we clearly weren’t just going to go barging in. First, even though we knew where the people with weapons were (at least on the first few floors), we had no idea what that meant about the people who didn’t have them. With the sort of magic and powers people could have, not having a weapon on your person didn’t really mean much at all. Second, there was, again, the top floor that she wasn’t able to see into. Anything could be up there. Third, speaking of magic, there could have been any number of trap spells set up that we would set off by charging in blind. And fourth, we didn’t know who all the bad guys were. For all we knew, there were plenty of innocents in there. Innocents who would see us attack other people in the building, have their ‘danger, Heretic’ alert go off, and join in not knowing any better. Then we’d be fighting even more people than we had to. Otherwise innocent people. It would haveb turned into one giant clusterfuck, to say the least.

So yeah, charging straight in was clearly a bad idea. We needed to be a little less gung-ho about it, no matter how desperately we wanted to get in there and see what was going on with Denise. Mom hadn’t been able to identify where she was with that scan, but that didn’t mean much. The way she explained it, even the lower floors of the place had magic shields defending against most of her vision powers, and the most she could get was the outlines of people, along with what they were holding. So yeah, not being able to perfectly pinpoint where Denise was didn’t mean she wasn’t in there. But that was another reason not to go charging in guns and everything else blazing. We had no idea where she was, so if we did that, they could simply make her disappear. 

That brought us to our actual plan, which was one my mother didn’t like very much. But we all knew it was the best way to do this. And it started by me needing to get closer without being spotted. Which was where Sean came in. He’d done even more magical study than I had over his time being imprisoned, considering he’d had not only years to do so, but also had Apollo as a teacher. The Seosten man wasn’t Chayyiel, but was still pretty damn good at that stuff, and he’d taught Sean a lot to help make up for spending years unable to absorb any powers the old-fashioned… murdery way. Yeah, there were certainly upsides and downsides to not being able to go out and fight monsters all the time. 

In any case, Sean had a spell prepared that could make himself and anyone he was touching invisible. So, he put his hand on my shoulder while the two of us moved up toward the front entrance of the hotel. The others stayed back, ready to jump in if they needed to. I could almost feel the anxiety coming off of my mother, and it wasn’t exactly going to get better any time soon. 

Pushing that out of my mind for the moment so I could focus, I watched the partially-boarded up windows as Sean and I got closer. A thought switched my vision over to infrared (something Mom had mentioned did work), and I could see through into the lobby, where the two people Mom had mentioned were still sitting. They were facing the front doors, but it didn’t look like they were super-alert or anything from the heat-based view I was getting. They were just chilling out in a couple chairs. And from what I could see from a quick scan, they were the only ones there. Which hopefully meant it was a good time to actually do this, because we sure as hell weren’t going to get a better one. 

First thing first, I crept closer to one of the windows, with Sean right behind me while keeping his hand on my shoulder. We moved as silently as possible, just in case one of the people inside had enhanced hearing. But I couldn’t see the heat-shapes move at all, or react to our approach, so we seemed to be doing pretty well on that front. I sort of had the impression that these guys weren’t exactly top-of-the-line security or anything. They were basically gang members just hanging out. Which worked for us, but we still weren’t going to take any chances. Professionals or not, this whole thing could go south really damn fast if we weren’t careful. 

Finally, we made it up to the window. I leaned my head enough to peer through, and got my first glimpse of the two guys beyond their heat outlines. The first, sitting in a big, cushy chair nearest me (still about thirty feet away and slightly turned at an angle), was a Heaul, like that Sarez guy from the Vegas situation. He was a dark-blue humanoid with three eyes instead of two (evenly spaced along his face at the usual height), and little white spots across his exposed skin. Each of those spots could grow into a full suit of armor. The Heaul could either use multiple spots at once to make even stronger armor, capable of standing up to a lot of damage, or simply use them one at a time and replace the armor as it was broken. From what I’d read and heard, they usually did a combination of that, using several at a time for pretty strong protection that would stand up against a decent amount of attacks while keeping more in reserve just in case. 

Beyond that, the third-eye in the middle of his head could paralyze anyone he was staring at. As long as he kept looking, it was like playing red light, green light. The person he was focused on would be completely unable to move. 

So yeah, we had him to deal with. And sitting beside that guy was what looked like one of the near-Orc species. I was pretty sure he wasn’t an actual Orc, but he was in the same ballpark. Some of those species actually got pretty sensitive about the fact that they were all lumped into the ‘Orc’ category, given that was only the name of a single species that many of them had literally no connection to. I’d found that out over the past few weeks of of classes with what I had thought was an Orc teenager (the one who fist-bumped Travis Colby during Calculus over the idea of squishing bad guys). It had turned out his name was Clock, and his species were known as Mukeda. He was a pretty good sport about the whole thing though. 

This guy could’ve been either an Orc or a Mukeda, or any of the other similar species out there. I wasn’t actually an expert at picking out the differences yet. Which… was probably a bad thing, in several ways. I was going to have to work on that. Especially since it meant I didn’t actually know what this guy was capable of. Hopefully that wouldn’t end up biting us in the rears. 

A quick glance around showed no other people in sight. So, I acted quickly by focusing on the area slightly behind the Heaul, and created a very small portal between that spot and the area right in front of me. Watching to make sure it hadn’t alerted them, I put my hand through. There, I hesitated. Possessing people like this always made me feel at least a little queasy inside. If not right at that moment, then shortly afterward. I just… after everything we’d been through and all the things we were fighting against as far as the Seosten went, enslaving someone to my will like that felt wrong. But on the other hand, it was probably better than stabbing him through the throat with a blade. And I wasn’t planning on rifling through his memories any more than I had to, or violating him any more than absolutely necessary. I was going to do the best I could not to act like a Seosten like Charmeine, even if she was the one I’d gotten the first possession power from.

Besides, this was about saving Denise, and that was too important not to do everything I could. So, after that momentary hesitation, I quickly placed my hand against his neck. I felt the man start to jump a bit, but I was already focused and an instant later, I was inside him. Immediately, I clamped down on his voice, just before he would have blurted out something about asking who was behind him. I could feel his sudden panic as his voice was silenced, and sent a quick (probably meaningless) mental apology before shoving down on his consciousness as hard as I could. I just wanted him to go to sleep. If this went well, he’d wake up later and could go back to his… uhh, life doing whatever. Hopefully not kidnapping more innocent little girls. Which–yeah, that thought could make things really complicated, really fast. I was just going to push on. 

“The hell’s your problem?” That was the not-Orc, squinting at the man I had just possessed. “Got pants in your ants or something?” For some reason, the mixed-up question suddenly made him laugh loudly, pounding the arm of the chair as though he had just said the funniest thing in the world. I had the feeling it was some kind of inside joke between them. 

Making my guy mumble something under his breath that could have been affirmation or just a request that he shut up, I pushed him to his feet and brushed his hands off. “Got the munchies,” I made him say while doing a quick search of his memories for the man’s favorite snack. “Left some Doritos in my room.” 

“Yeah, well, don’t be long,” came the response. “And don’t go trying to get Sorevla to help you solve that last puzzle! You know she’ll tell me if you try to cheat again.” The not-Orc was pointing at us. “I want your next move as soon as you get back. No more stalling.” 

Again, I made the guy mutter something noncommittal under his breath while walking away, toward stairs in the corner. They were playing mental puzzle games that involved multiple moves? Apparently we had accidentally chosen a couple of intellectual gang thugs to get past, which was just fantastic. I would have said that we should have tried one of the other entrances, but with our luck the guys over there would be even worse. 

Oh well, this could’ve been worse. Making the man turn to look over his shoulder toward the spot where his partner was still sitting, I hesitated by the bottom of the stairs and took the opportunity to check this guy’s memory for anything that had to do with Denise. 

I found… nothing. Yeah, zip, nilch, nada. As far as I could tell, this guy had never even heard of Denise. And it wasn’t like he just didn’t know her name. I searched for anyone who looked like her, and got a big fat zero. He’d never seen or heard of her, apparently. Which… was a bit odd, but didn’t completely rule out Mercer having something to do with her disappearance. It just meant that he’d been more subtle about it. Maybe his men would have something against kidnapping a little kid. Whatever the reasoning, we were probably going to have to get answers straight from the horse’s mouth. Which meant getting to Mercer himself. 

With that in mind, I started up the stairs just as the familiar feeling of Tabbris doing a partial-recall came. Her voice was quiet in my mind. Is everything okay? She was staying out there in order to pass messages back and forth easily. If anything went wrong, the others would be ready to jump in. Yeah, this was a big part of why Mom didn’t like this plan. It involved me infiltrating the place by myself. But hey, it was better than us starting a full-scale war with these people right off the bat if we didn’t have to. Besides, this was hardly the most dangerous thing I’ve had to do solo. Which… apparently had not been the best argument to make at the time of our discussion. For some reason, me pointing that out didn’t seem to make her feel better. 

I’m good, I replied, letting her take a quick mental scan of what was going on and how far I was in order to pass it on to the others. Including Mom, who was probably pretty antsy by now. Heading upstairs now. I’ll find out where Mercer stays and get close enough to get answers out of him. One way or another. 

Tabbris gave me a mental squeeze of encouragement, then withdrew just enough to pass the message along to the others. I could still feel her there. If I reached out, I would be able to contact the girl and let her know something was wrong. Between her half-presence and the fact that my mother was right outside, I felt pretty safe, despite the situation. 

So, after giving my temporary-host’s mind a very quick (and as unintrusive as possible) search to find out where Mercer would be right then, I started up the stairs. According to this guy’s memory, his boss would likely be in one of the main penthouse rooms at the top of the building. Which made sense, given the whole ‘totally shielded against outside viewing’ thing. So, that was where I went, hiking up the stairs to the sixth floor. A few times, I passed a couple other guys heading down the stairs, or just lounging out in the open doorways from the stairwell to the floor they were on. But other than a brief muttered greeting, nobody said anything or tried to stop me. 

One other thing I did notice, which might’ve been a problem if we’d come in here the loud way, was various spell runes that glowed slightly at assorted spots on the stairs whenever my host passed them. A quick dip into his memories revealed that, just as we had suspected, the hotel was protected against intrusion. The spells were essentially alarms that scanned everyone going up the stairs to make sure they were allowed to be there. If not, a whole lot of things would happen that would have made getting Denise out of this place a lot more complicated. 

Unfortunately, the spells were linked together, making erasing them a bit harder and more involved than I had time for. I could have done it, probably, but not with the time we had to work with. Eventually, the guy downstairs was going to start wondering what was taking his partner so long. And from there, things would just get harder. So, I left the spells intact for the moment and just continued walking. It wasn’t like they would bother me as long as I was still using this guy anyway. 

Eventually, I made it to the entrance onto the sixth floor. That was the penthouse area, and there was a key card lock from the stairwell to the hallway itself. Making my host touch the doorknob without trying to open it, I focused on using my ability to see through objects in order to mark the door so I could see what was on the other side. 

Nothing happened. Shit. Yeah, I’d been afraid of that. The defenses that were blocking certain vision-related spells and powers were clearly stopping me from checking the hallway the easy way. 

But I had more tricks up my sleeve. To that end, I paused there and focused for a moment. This hotel was clearly over a century old, and had been a pretty big deal back in its day. To say nothing of the fact that it was clearly the base of operations for a pretty bad gang now. All of which meant that there was a very good chance that, if I tried hard enough, I could find…

There. My senses felt something brush up against them, and I extended an… invitation was the best way to put it. I invited the presence, then waited for a few seconds. It was like feeling a sharp tug at a fishing line and then letting the fish decide if it wanted to come to the boat. 

Actually, considering I was planning on simply politely asking the presence for help rather than hurting and definitely without eating it, maybe fishing was the wrong analogy. It was just slightly possible that I had been spending too much time around my sharks ever since I was gifted with the ability to summon them to me. 

Nah, that was crazy-talk. There was no such thing as spending too much time with my sharks.

In any case, there was only a momentary delay before I felt the presence grow stronger. I stepped back from the door, just as a glowing figure stepped through. It was–he was a little boy, maybe ten years old or so, wearing a ratty, patch-work suit that was too small for him in some places and too big in others, along with a newsboy cap. He had a pair of curly horns sticking out of his forehead just under the cap, and scales were visible along what I could see of his arms and wrists. Oh yeah, and he was glowing a yellowish-orange rather than the colors I tended to associate with most ghosts. 

“Who’re you?” the little Alter boy ghost demanded curiously, floating up a bit to look me in the eyes (or rather, my host in the eyes). “I seen you before. But it ain’t you, is it? The real lug there, he ain’t got this sort of power. Yeah, you ain’t him. You someone else. Someone new. You here to raise trouble? Maybe stab a few folk? Been awhile since I got to see a stabbing.” 

Right, he was tingling my memories of Ammon just a bit, though I didn’t think there were any real similarities. He had obviously been a ghost here in the hotel for a long time, which had to mess with you a bit. So, I pushed aside my reflexive revulsion and simply told the ghost why I was there and what I needed. He, in turn, offered a shrug before agreeing fairly readily, with a warning that there were places he couldn’t go. Still, he seemed pretty eager to go for it. I was pretty sure he was still hoping some stabbing would be involved before this whole thing was over. He was clearly pretty bored. 

I hesitantly asked what had happened to him, on the basis of wanting to offer some help. But he simply dismissed that with a hand wave, saying it had been a long time ago and there was no point in dwelling on it. Then he agreed to help, but said I should get on with it before he got too bored and wandered off to find something more interesting.

“Go for it,” I agreed, telling him once more what I wanted and what he should be looking for. 

He, in turn, gave me a salute. With that, he floated through the doorway and turned invisible once more. I closed my host’s eyes and focused on seeing through the ghost himself, watching and directing him as he floated past multiple guards on the floor. He was invisible and intangible, so none of them saw him. They had no idea he was there, as he went right by them. A few seemed to have felt something and glanced around, but that was as far as it went. 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t send my ghost boy all the way. He’d told me before agreeing to this that there was some sort of shield around the main penthouse where ‘the boss guy’ lived. Which meant he couldn’t go inside. 

Still, I managed to find a guard up here on the sixth floor who was a bit isolated from the others, at the far end of the hallway. As soon as I did, I positioned the ghost boy behind him. A thought made the guy I was currently possessing slump to the floor, where he would stay nice and unconscious. Hopefully, by the time anyone found him, this whole thing would be over. 

Leaving that guy where he had fallen, I stepped out of him before reaching out to put my hand on the door. It was still electronically locked, but that didn’t mean anything given my security-breaking ‘open locked things’ power. Sure, there were a good number of magic locks that could keep me out still, but this wasn’t one of them. The knob immediately turned. But I didn’t open it yet. Instead, I checked through my ghost-friend’s eyes once more while he hovered just behind my new target. A silent request made the boy turn so I could see all the way down the hall. The coast was clear. No one was looking this way, the several guards who were there all focused on other things. So, I opened the door just a tiny bit and leaned out, just enough to get a direct line of sight onto the guy in question. 

Yeah, I’d tried creating portals by seeing through ghost eyes. It didn’t work. This was the next best thing, using those ghost eyes to ensure the coast was clear so I could poke my head out, look straight toward the man I needed, and create a portal between me and the space directly behind him. 

Once more, I reached through the portal. And once more, my fingers grasped the back of his head (he looked like a human to me), before I possessed him. Which led to a repeat of the whole ‘making his consciousness go to sleep before asserting control.’ 

But then it was done. I was on the penthouse floor, inside the body of a guard who was supposed to be there. The room itself where Mercer waited was right down the hall. And no one in here knew anything was wrong. No alerts had been sounded. Just a little further, and I would have the answers we needed about Denise. 

Umm, Flick? Tabbris abruptly spoke up in my head. You might want to hurry a little. 

What? I sent back. Why, what happened? 

There was a brief pause before she replied, Uh, you remember Zeke? I guess Crossroads must know about this place, because he just showed up with some others and they’re about to make their move. 

I think we just stumbled into one of the school hunts. 

Some of what happens between the Crossroads school hunt and the group outside will be covered in one of the upcoming Patreon Snippets, which will be the next Heretical Edge chapter. 

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