B011.7 Monkey Family

Posted on March 3, 2015 by tieshaunn

It took me a moment to regain control of my thoughts, nevermind my body. Once I did, I closed the door and turned around to see Hennessy taking off her jacket (I took it, mechanically, and hung it on the coat hanger) and then her boots, stashing them beneath her jacket. She was wearing a light blue sweater underneath, and pink socks.

She didn’t even spare me a glance and instead went from the hallway into the kitchen, looking around with the same serene, slightly slack-jawed expression she’d shown nearly all the time I’d seen her until now.

Much like before, it was impossible to make out her emotions from her facial expression or her posture, as she looked around the kitchen. Which was quite infuriating, because I didn’t dare spoil the moment by trying to communicate directly.

Never mind her not being capable of normal conversation anyway.

So I just… kind of hung around in the doorway, leaning against the frame as I watched her walk around. She didn’t seem to pay me a lick of attention. I counted the seconds while I watched her. She had a… peculiar way of moving. Normally, you can tell a lot about a person, just by watching them move around. Forceful, careful, bold, shy. Open minded or suspicious. Flirty or cold. And so much more. All things I’d learned to tell, just by watching the way a person moved, or stood, or went about menial acts.

Despite her lack of expression, Hennessy did have tells, and it was perhaps the first real clue I got as to her personality. She moved gracefully, deliberately. It wasn’t like her every step and motion was measured, like she’d trained herself to convey only what she wanted to convey through her movements – but there was a kind of natural deliberation to the way she put one foot in front of the other, the way she reached out to open a cupboard and look inside, or how she rose up on her tiptoes to check out another. Like she was very, very aware of her body, and what it was doing, even when she wasn’t really paying attention.

She got that from me, I thought, and a thrumming pang went through my chest. God, if only I’d been here for here. I could have protected her… taught her. Better than my dad ever did – gently. Only the things she wanted to learn, to excel at her normal life.

All possibilities that were gone. I hadn’t been there for her. She’d lost even the slightest possibility for a normal life, because I hadn’t been there to protect her.

And Elouise… my other daughter – the child I’d never have wanted even if given a choice. Not that she was ever going to hear that from me. But if I’d been here… would I have found out? Probably, I thought. I had no illusions about the Matriarch’s motivations. I didn’t believe for a second that she’d cared for her daughter in any way beyond the use she could be to her. She’d have used her to control me, I dare say. Used her to get an in with my father, most likely. If she’d actually known who he was.

And even if she didn’t, from what I knew of the woman, I wouldn’t put it past her to have a child with me, simply for the sake of getting the world’s third-most powerful speedster under her control.

I always hated Dad for how he screwed me up… how he tried to turn me into his perfect supervillain… but in the end, I screwed up way, way harder than he ever did.

I had to blink as my vision grew cloudy for a moment, and when I opened my eyes again, Hennessy was standing in front of me, just barely an arm’s reach away. Her eyes were fixed to my face, and I realised that a few tears had escaped. I wiped them away quickly. “Sorry,” I said, uselessly. “I’m just glad to see you.” That wasn’t even a lie. It just so happened that I was also many other things at the same time.

She tilted her head, slightly – the closest thing to an expression I’d ever seen on her. Then she simply stepped past me and back into the hallway, and from there to the living room. I followed her like a (too tall, gangly, nervous) lost puppy, never letting her out of my sight.

Despite all the dark emotions that my mind was dredging up, I was actually taking a strange kind of pleasure from seeing her here. Watching her move about, in my house. Do all fathers feel like this? Her presence also shut up the monkey. Blessed silence.

My eyes followed her as she moved about the living room, poking the cushions here and there, checking the television (a really outdated model, I should ask Cartastrophy for a recommendation on what to replace it with) and my liquor cabinet.

She lingered there for a moment, standing right behind the seat I’d been on when Journeyman had visited me. Then she turned and went by me again, up the stairs.

The same scene repeated itself over the next twenty minutes (my house wasn’t that big, but she took her time). She’d walk around, going through room after room, with me watching her and trying not to focus too much on all the guilt and self-loathing I was feeling. Instead, I simply enjoyed watching her. I could quite honestly say that I had never felt this way before.

Finally, she came to my bedroom. She checked the bed out first, lying down across it for several seconds before something caught her eye and she sat up again.

I knew what she’d seen, and didn’t bother following her gaze. I’d quite deliberately not taken a look at it myself since I’d come back.

She got up and walked slowly towards the wall, as I approached her, closing the distance for the first time. I stopped three steps behind her, and looked at it.

A small table stood there, with a (badly) knit red scarf laid across it like a tablecloth. Three picture frames hung on the wall over the scarf. My most prized possessions.

The left one showed a thin, tired and sweaty woman in a hospital bed, her mousey brown hair plastered to her head and face as she held a newborn in her arms, smiling the most gentle smile possible while she nursed it. She looked horrible, really, like she was trying to put women off of having children for good, just with that one picture.

The right one showed the woman, again, wearing a blue bikini as she sat at the beach, her back to the photographer, the setting sun in front of her. A small boy with wild black hair was sneaking up on her from behind, holding a small bucket up over his head – I remembered how I’d run halfway across the beach to get the ice cubes I’d put into it from a beverage stand.

The center one provided the best view of her. A mousey woman, short, petite, with a heart-shaped face and gorgeous brown hair in cascading curls that reached her waist as she sat on an armchair, looking at the camera with an amused smile that lit up the entire picture. She had warm, dark brown eyes behind rimless spectacles, a small nose and fine-fingered, delicate hands, which she’d folded on her lap. She was wearing a simple medium-length blue skirt and a white shirt with long sleeves, as well as brown stockings.

Hennessy took some time looking at her, then turned halfway around to look at me.

I carefully schooled my expression, and tried to curtail the emotions those pictures evoked, as I felt an inquisitive sensation wash over me.

“That’s my mother,” I told her. “Her name was Wanda.”

Once more, she tilted her head. It took me a moment to figure out the emotions she sent my way, but then I was pretty sure she wanted to know what happened to her.

It was pretty obvious I was torn up about her, I was sure. Especially with her power.

“She was murdered when I was nine,” I explained, speaking slowly both for my benefit as well as hers.

I guess the slow speech along with the emotions beneath the surface were enough to convey my meaning, because her eyes widened a fraction, and I felt a wave of… it was hard to describe. Pain, sadness, grief… but somehow remote. A step removed…

Oh. Sympathy.

“Thank you,” I said. “But it’s alright. It’s been a long, long time.” Not long enough.

She got my meaning, because she didn’t press the point. I don’t think I could’ve kept up my manly-man-act if she’d actually hugged me.

Instead of delivering such a crushing blow to my masculinity, she turned back to the pictures and reached out, tapping the wall to the left of the central frame with a delicate finger. At the same time, she looked at me again, questioning me with her power.

I was still a little (alright, a lot) off-kilter, which might explain why it took me a minute and then some to figure out what she wanted to know. Fortunately, she was quite patient. Probably used to it.

“Ah, that,” I said. “I don’t have any pictures of him. We’re… our relationship… it’s complicated. We have a lot of bad blood between us.”

I felt a strange, twisted sense of amusement radiate from her as she lowered her arm again. It was easy to imagine what she was thinking – It seems to be in the blood.

A dark, self-depreciating chuckle escaped my throat. “Peas in a pod, Hennessy. Peas in a pod,” I said, though I could almost immediately tell that she didn’t get it.

Before I could try to come up with a way to explain it by way of emotions, she left the room without waiting for me. Not that that was necessary, because it seemed that I was glued to her, following her without conscious thought.

She returned to the living room and sat down on the couch, pulling her legs up with her arms wrapped around them. After a moment of just enjoying the cute, homely picture, I joined her on the couch, sitting down at arm’s reach.

Everything went quiet, save for the sound of our breathing. She was staring straight ahead, her eyes half-closed, while I still couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She looked so… so perfect. Flawless in a way that went beyond what a mere superpower could achieve. Her face, seen in profile, seemed to belong onto an ancient Greek statue, a panorama worked into the walls of the Parthenon or a painting drawn by one of the great masters. I could write a book about her features and still not do them justice.

So I just watched, quietly, as I slowly relaxed – I hadn’t even noticed how tense I’d been – and as she seemed to relax as well. Her arms relaxed, her legs slipping off the couch as she leaned further back into the dark red cushions, her arms loose at her sides. Only her chest moved, slowly, up and down, as she breathed. Her long, dark hair fanned out around and over her shoulders.

After what felt like an eternity, but was most likely closer to five minutes, we’d remained the same, just enjoying the company. Or at least I did. I couldn’t tell how she was feeling.

On a hunch, I rose up and went to the kitchen, taking a glass out of the cupboard and filling it with some cool water. Then I went back to Hennessy and offered her the glass. She took it, sipping from the water. I got a wave of gratitude from her, and mixed in, an odd bit of… amusement?

That confused me for a moment, as I tried to figure out what she was amused about. Then it clicked.

“Oh, you crafty little minx,” I breathed, smiling at her in sudden comprehension. She looked stoically at me, though I felt a dash of embarrassment radiate from her. And a little pride. And more than a little bit of concern. Oh, no reason for that, my dear. “I didn’t even notice you pushing me around,” I told her, trying to convey my pride.

She seemed to pick it up, because she relaxed almost imperceptibly as I sat down next to her again, this time a bit closer than before. She emptied her glass and put it down on the table.

Now that I was alert, I started to notice her power much better. It was always on, to some degree, I had to guess. Softly feeling me out – literally – and pushing and pulling with equal softness on my emotions. It turned into a game of sorts, me trying to figure out what she was doing, her trying to mask it from me.

We spent nearly half an hour on it, until light dawned. “Oh. Oh. You really are crafty, aren’t you? I wonder if you taught yourself, or if someone coached you?” She probably only got the first half of that, but that didn’t bother me.

She’d have had to learn, I would bet. It’s her sole reliable means of communication, isn’t it? And she’s been like this for years now – she’d have learned out of sheer necessity.

All this time – probably since the moment she’d arrived – she’d been manipulating me. Trying to make me relax. To make me open up. To draw my attention to her.

“But why?” I asked, after I explained my conclusions to her as well as she could understand. It seemed to embarrass her a great deal.

“Why would you do that… Helping me relax is one thing, but why make me open up, why draw my attention…” Then it clicked, and I suddenly felt like crying again (not very manly, I know).

I saw her shift around uncomfortably, the biggest physical tell she’d given so far, even as she seemed both embarrassed and mortified.

“You weren’t sure I’d want you around? Really?” I asked, my face carefully empathetic – not sad or angry. “You weren’t sure I’d give you all my attention? Oh, Hennessy…” I seriously deserve this, don’t I?

I scooted over, closer, and for a moment, she panicked. I didn’t know why, didn’t even bother to guess at the source of her panic – I just scooped her up, pulling her onto my lap so her butt was on my lap and her right shoulder on my chest. Then I squeezed my daughter for the first time in our lives, holding her tight.

Maybe someone more skilled in the use of words could adequately describe how right it felt to hold her in my arms like that, but that had never been one of my strengths, so suffice it to say that I wouldn’t mind holding onto her for the rest of my life – and then some.

She didn’t move. No resistance, no acceptance. Only a quiet, throbbing panic that was slowly but surely swept away by a warm feeling that I remembered all too well – I’d felt the same way, once upon a time, when the world had still been right. When my father had held me in his arms while he and mother sat in front of the fireplace, her demonstrating that, for all her talents, she would never be even passable at knitting, while father just told some story to entertain us. As much as our relationship had been twisted and poisoned after my mother’s death, there were some things no corruption in the world could touch. This feeling was one of them. Safe. Warm. Content.

I just held on tight, hoping against all hope that this might be enough to fix a relationship that had never had a chance to even get started until today. I couldn’t give anyone an accurate recounting of my emotions during our first hug, or her precise reactions, or how long it went on.

All I know is that, when she finally relaxed again and wrapped her arms around my neck, I’d never felt half as content before.

***

Whether it was any leftover strain from her rampage, or just the load that my return had to be on her, or a result of her interacting so much with me, for whatever reason, Hennessy didn’t last too long. It was barely noon – the hug had gone on for a long time, and then we’d somehow passed right into awkwardly holding each other, neither wanting to let go, I think, nor wanting to seem too clingy, perhaps – when she began to droop.

“I should get you home, shouldn’t I?” If only so your girlfriend doesn’t kill me. Camille’s opinion seemed to have improved, judging by our run-in last night, but I didn’t want to stretch my luck with her – especially if the two of them turned out to be into it for the long run.

She agreed, if barely, and gently disentangled myself from her. “I’ll be ready in a moment, just wait,” I told her as I laid her down on the couch. She didn’t even bother to reply in any way, so I just hurried to the hallway and put my bare feet into my shoes. A quick check in the mirror showed that I was presentable enough by my standards. My father would have considered a slight case of bed hair, a slight beard shadow and rumpled clothes unacceptable, unless the image was deliberately constructed, but… well, his advice hadn’t exactly served me well in my life, so why care?

I picked up her boots and her jacket and walked back to her. She’d fallen asleep, one arm hanging off the couch, her face half-hidden behind her hair. It was… utterly adorable and I took a picture of it, with my phone, without even thinking. Then I took a minute to gently put her boots (fortunately, they opened all the way down to her ankles, making it much easier) and her jacket back onto her. She offered all the resistance of a rag doll.

Don’t ask me how I felt while this went on. Never. I’d just embarrass myself by babbling incoherently, because my emotions had moved into utter, perfect terra incognita by that point.

Then I picked her up, carefully, cradling her to my chest, and turned towards the door.

She mumbled something incomprehensible and shifted a bit in my arms. I was halfway to the door when a single understandable word escaped her lips, so quiet I barely understood it.

“Papa.”

***

I hadn’t even been able to put to words how I’d felt hugging her for the first time. Hearing that word, like that, just slipping out unexpected?

Saying it blew my world was too weak a phrase. I might’ve dropped her out of sheer shock, except I’m pretty sure I was physically incapable of letting her go in that moment.

***

After what must’ve been a geological age or two, I squeezed her for a moment, then went to my car, putting her carefully into the passenger seat, buckling her in. She roused for a moment, but subsided again once she saw me.

That made me feel… warm. Warmer. Made me wish I could keep her with me forever.

Not an option though. If Camille doesn’t kill me, Tamara certainly will. So I buckled myself in and drove off.

***

The gatekeeper waved me through as soon as he saw Hennessy in the passenger seat, and I drove straight to her house.

I’d barely pulled up before the door was pulled open and the little princess came shooting out, a pink-and-blue blur that almost slammed into my door before I opened it.

“Hello!” Princess Charity squealed as I ruffled her hair.

“Hello, your majesty,” I greeted her with a smile as I got out of the car. “I brought your sister back,” I said as I walked around the car to pick Hennessy up.

“That’s great! She just left! That was mean!” she said, turning it from a squeal to a whisper as soon as she saw that her sister was asleep.

Though that didn’t stop her from climbing onto her lap – and thus into my arms – while I was still bent over and getting her out of the car. I gave her a queer look, but she just smiled adorably and let me carry her along with her sister into the house.

Tamara was already waiting, and she seemed on the verge of tears – happy ones, too. I smiled at her, and mouthed, “She spent the entire morning with me.” She nodded and accompanied me up to Hennessy’s room.

Together, we put her into her bed and took her jacket and boots off again. It was… strangely painful. We’d been meant to do this, together, over the last eighteen years.

And for just a moment, I could see it all in front of my eyes. Me, returned from the war after the clusterfuck, to find her waiting with our newborn daughter. Pardoned, able to be openly with her, going down on one knee to ask for her hand in marriage (I’d bought the ring before shipping out, and she was never, ever going to learn that). Her moving into my house at Merlin Street, as we raised Hennessy together. We’d have more children, of course. Many more, if only because we wouldn’t be able to keep our hands off of each other. I’d get a job, perhaps something to put all those stupid lessons my father had given me on social interactions and negotiations to good work for once. I’d come home ever afternoon to-

Stop. Just stop. You’re just torturing yourself for no reason, I reprimanded myself as I picked Charity off her sister and put the little slip of a girl onto the floor.

Tamara gave Hennessy a kiss on the cheek, then turned to a stereo beneath a poster of a seriously stacked teenage girl with multi-coloured hair, playing a huge keyboard. She pushed a button and a soft, ethereal melody began to play. Then we left, with the little princess shooting off into her own room as soon as we closed the door to Hennessy’s.

The two of us walked down the stairs without talking. I guess it was just awkward.

“How’d it… go?” she asked, finally, as I was already opening the door.

I turned around to smile at her. “Good. Great even. I mean, it was weird at first, but… then we hugged and-“

“She let you hug her?” she asked with clear shock. “She hasn’t let a man hug her since… you know, since…”

I shivered – more in anger than anything – and nodded, suddenly understanding where that panic had come from. Oh wow, I almost ruined it there, didn’t I?

But I didn’t let my mortification show. Instead, I shrugged. “Well, she certainly seemed to enjoy it. And later, she… um, she actually said a word, later. When she was asleep,” I said. “I didn’t know she could.”

“She does that, sometimes,” she replied, exhaling a breath I hadn’t noticed she’d held. She looked… happy. “What did she say?”

I will forever and always deny that it ever happened, but I did blush there. “She, ah, called me… Papa…” I gave her a sheepish grin.

She rewarded me with one of the dazzling, wide-mouthed grins that I’d originally fallen in love with, back when she used to mess up my stunts and make fun of me and my whole act, then followed it up with a hug that might’ve dislocated some bones if I’d been a normal human.

I didn’t dare hug her back, though. No sense in risking that.

“That’s… that’s wonderful,” she sobbed, and I felt my t-shirt get wet. “I… it’s more than I could’ve hoped for. Even after… Camille told us what… what happened to you, during the w-“

“Shshshhh,” I hushed her, gently extricating from her hug and holding her at arm’s length to look her in the eyes. “That’s all in the past. Let’s not waste time on it – just look forward to a better future, alright?” I wiped some sparkling tears off her cheeks.

She nodded.

“I have to go now,” I said. “Got some things to work out. You be safe, alright? And if there’s anything – I gave Hennessy my number. Don’t hesitate to call, no matter what it is. Alright?”

“Alright. Thank you, Aap… I mean, Kevin,” she replied. “That’s weird. I never would’ve taken you for a Kevin.”

I chuckled. “Well, I was quite surprised when you told me your real name, back then. I would’ve expected something like Felicia or Felicity, to be honest.”

“Why that?” she asked, a small laugh escaping her.

“Just my imagination, I guess.” I grinned at her. “Be safe, Tam. See you soon.”

“You too, Kevin.” She leaned up on her tip-toes and kissed my cheek before I left.

It burned pleasantly all the way back home.

***

Of course, once I was back home, my good mood didn’t survive for long. Whether Hennessy had actually intended it or not, her subtle (and not so subtle) use of her power, as well as her simple presence, had quite managed to take my mind entirely off of the troubles I was facing, and focused me completely on her – not that I regretted that.

Still, I did have some rather pressing matters to deal with. Chief among them being the Ascendant and the Gefährten.

I didn’t have any delusions about my chances against them, if they moved in strength. Though they’d never been a very… obvious part of the metahuman world, the Gefährten had been there since the beginning, even before the Syndicate had been formed, acting in the shadows. Amassing power, knowledge and a reputation that rivaled Weisswald’s own in terms of terror elicited, even if far fewer people really know enough about them to be properly terrified.

I might stand a chance, if only the Ascendant isn’t acting with the full backing of the Gefährten behind him. This might be a personal matter, with him only getting rudimentary support from them.

In fact, it was far more likely that he was mostly on his own than that he was acting under direct orders of their leadership – the way he’d acted so far was simply not their style, openly attacking an established villain – a legacy, even – and sending hitmen after a simple Syndicate agent…

Memo to self, take Sara up on that meeting and find out why they were after her… and who sicced those assassins on you.

So, there was a good chance that he was acting on his own. But still…

I don’t have the resources to deal with even a small fellowship, even if it’s not an officially sanctioned one. Or at least, I am unlikely to deal safely with it.

More to the point… I might not be able to protect Elouise and Hennessy. They were both so powerful, confident in their own way, surrounded by allies… so, so vulnerable.

It’s a big risk, either way. I had to get rid of the Ascendant. Even beyond the revenge factor – and oh boy, was I looking forward to some slow, drawn-out, delicious vengeance – he had to die, if only so he couldn’t threaten my girls, or anyone they cared about, ever again.

I can’t guarantee their safety, I thought, and immediately, the monkey was back, howling and clamouring for ultra-violence. It didn’t want me to think. It just wanted me to go out and start killing people. Just start killing, and keep killing until no one was left to threaten those I cared about…

I shook my head, banishing the visions of violence its howls called up. I was smarter than that. The monkey, for all its power, couldn’t plan, couldn’t see the future coming. I couldn’t rely on it for this, at least not until the very end, when it came down to only fighting.

My hand slipped into my jeans pocket, and I pulled my cellphone.

Then I almost crushed it, when the monkey followed my train of thoughts and went crazy. I doubled over, my hands to my head as it threatened to split in twain.

“Stop!” I roared, forcing it back down. “Not your decision! No decision at all! I’m just thinking!”

But now that I started thinking in that direction…

I called up the picture I’d taken of Hennessy on the couch, standing in the middle of my living room, my eyes glued to the too-small screen. I need a picture of Elouise as well, came a random thought to my mind, but I shook my head and focused on Hennessy again.

I had to protect them. I had to act. But I couldn’t do this on my own. I couldn’t rely on the heroes, not with all the chaos that was currently tying up their resources. I couldn’t rely on Elouise’s organisation – she had tried to sugarcoat it, but just two of the Ascendant’s people had almost been too much for her people to take, and she’d lost far more than they’d had.

I stared at the phone for what seemed like an eternity, burning the image of Hennessy even deeper into my brain than it already was. An indeterminable amount of time passed.

“Fuck you!”

“What did you say to me?”

I shook my head, sitting on the couch, in the same spot Hennessy had sat in.

“You heard me, you asshole. Fuck you! Fuck you! I’m not going to do it!”

“Son, watch your tongue. This is a great opportunity and you would be a fool to ignore it.”

I groaned, leaning back as that particular memory fought its way into the forefront of my mind.

“No! No, I won’t do it! I’m sick of this! I’m fucking sick of your fucking games, you fucking asshole!”

“Boy, if you weren’t my son, I’d-“

“You’d what? Kill me? Torture me? Try and break me? Like you’ve been teaching me how to do?”

The last time I’d seen or heard my father.

“Son, this is your chance. You could join the Syndicate, not as my protege, but on your own terms. You could be-“

“What, a new figurehead for you to use? A new patsy to rally the Syndicate members who oppose the Dark behind? For what!? Another doomed attempt to oust him!?”

“It’s important work, son, the opposition is growing since DiL’s origin was revealed, the Dark’s position has never been weaker…”

“Oh, fuck you! Fuck you, and fuck the Dark, and fuck the Five and fuck the Syndicate! Fuck your sick little games, all of you! We both know it’s not going to work, whether you lead them or not – the Dark is the Syndicate, so why bother!? He’s unassailable!”

“Even the Greatest may fall. No one’s invincible, I taught you that. This game we all play is one were even a god may stumble over an ant, to tumble down below – and the Dark is not nearly a god. He, too, can fall. You could be a part of this game, more than a figurehead, a symbol of power, of independence. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“Like that? Like that? Why the fuck would I like that!?”

“Just think of the power!”

“Power!? You dare say that? What the fuck is that power good for? What the fuck is your power good for, eh? All your mind games, your allies, your great powers and your great plans – and you couldn’t even protect the woman you professed to love! What do I want this power for, when it couldn’t even protect Mom!?”

“Son…” I remembered, that had been the first time since mother’s death that he’d shown any weakness, a hint of grief and guilt. Not that I’d been in any mood to appreciate that.

“No! No, I’m done! I’m done with this! I want out!”

“…”

“Well, what is it? Don’t try to play for time! I told you, I don’t want this, so give the fuck up!”

“What do you want, then?”

“What do I want? I can tell you what I don’t want! I don’t want your lessons! I don’t want the Syndicate, I don’t want the power! I don’t want the games and I don’t want the intrigue! I don’t want to kill people, or learn how to torture them or how to brainwash them! I don’t want your Nepotism, I don’t want your Experience, I don’t want your good intentions! I. Don’t. Want. You!“

“…”

“Oh, that hurts, doesn’t it? Well, I’m not done! I want out! I want away from this, from you! I want my own life! I want to be free, to fucking live again! I. Want. You. Gone!“

“So be it.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, so be it. If that is what you wish, then so shall it be. Go. Take whatever you need, whatever you want. Go and make your way. I won’t interfere. I won’t even watch. I won’t check up on you. I won’t be there. I’ll be well and truly, out of your life.”

“You promise that?”

“I do. I swear, by everything I hold dear, past, present and future, that I shall, from now on, neither interfere in your life, nor inform myself of it, aside from knowledge gained indirectly, due to my duties. I shall, simply put, stay out of your life entirely.”

“Al… Alright. That’s good. Thank you.”

“Fare well. May you find what you seek… somewhere.”

I’d left our house a mere half hour later, with only two changes of clothes, the pictures of Mom (those without Dad in them), a little cash and a few books; and we’d neither met nor spoken again since. I’d been fourteen at the time. More than two decades had passed since then.

I sighed, as the monkey continued to rage behind my eyes, the mere memory of my father’s voice, so vivid, enough to drive it into near-berserker rage.

My eyes remained on my phone, and I zoomed the image in on Hennessy’s sleeping face. Then, at that point, I knew that I’d do anything to protect her and Elouise.

For you, and for your sister, baby girl.

I dialed a number I’d memorised a long, long time ago.

The phone didn’t have a chance to ring even once.

“Aaron,” spoke his voice – strong, and smooth, like steel wrapped in silk and drenched in honey. The first voice I’d ever heard. And the name I hadn’t heard since I’d left that day. I couldn’t even begin to make out the tangle of emotions that I heard behind his words, carefully though he tried to conceal it.

“Father,” I replied, my voice less stable, my emotions less curtailed. Part of me wanted to hang up on him, right now, just to spite him. “I know… how I left things. I know what I said. But I think I need your h-“

“I’ll be at your current location in ten minutes.”

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B011.6 Monkey Family

Posted on February 27, 2015 by tieshaunn

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We went up a spiral staircase (the steps were actually straight and not warped – nor were they smooth, providing a lot of traction) that apparently led to every level of the structure. I noticed, idly, that none of his steps made a sound, even though he was walking on metal surfaces with metal boots. Nifty trick.

He took me to the third floor, and down a hallway with walls covered in amateurish graffiti and then stopped in front of a doorway that had been covered in a thick green blanket. I could smell the two in the room beyond, as well as sweat and blood, and I heard a soft voice talking. I tensed up, ready to act – I smelled quite some blood.

Malphas reached out and knocked on the door frame, producing a clear, bell-like sound. “Are you two decent?” he asked. “You have a visitor, and I’m afraid it’s urgent!”

The two voices whispered furiously, just barely low enough for me not to be able to make out their exact words without calling up the monkey – and it was already hard enough to resist it as it was, right now. It was spoiling to end the fight I’d cut short earlier in the night.

Save it for the real target, I thought, even though I doubted it could even understand me. It never did respond to verbal cues.

“Come in, I guess!” Brimstone replied – her voice was quite recognisable, now that I thought about it. It made me think of smoke, in a pleasant way.

Malphas pulled the curtain aside, entered, and I followed him.

The room beyond opened into a section of the sewer plant that I hadn’t been able to see before, with the colourful, patchwork-curtain that usually provided some privacy drawn aside. The room itself contained two mattresses next to each other, with blankets and pillows. A small, old drawer stood at the foot end of the mattresses. Other than that, there was just a small, round table with two chairs and a cooking corner that held a pot hung over a simple fireplace made of stone.

Smelly lay on one mattress, her costume off down to her waist, exposing her upper half – which wasn’t nearly as tantalising as one might expect, since it was basically just one giant bruise with a side order of bloody gashes that were spread liberally across her torso, though focusing mostly on her left side – the direction from which Sara had shot her, in fact. If it wasn’t for a plastic tarp beneath, she’d have already ruined the mattress. Her skin was pale, bloodless, her short dirty blonde hair plastered to her head by sweat. Under normal circumstances, she’d probably be considered exceptionally beautiful, but right now, just looking at her hurt. She looked to be barely out of her teens.

Brimstone was kneeling next to her, her own mask taken off to reveal a face with similar enough features that I was pretty sure they were closely related – perhaps sisters, perhaps cousins. Her hair was longer, but of the same shade, her face a little younger and softer.

The wounded woman was in no shape to react to anything, but her relative was. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, even as her bare arms began to crack and blacken, until they were made of volcanic rock once more, the embers of great heat glowing from within the cracks. “You!” she shouted, her voice almost cracking in her fury.

I’d expected a violent reaction to my appearance, and thus I was ready to evade an attack – in this case by simply stepping back out the door, simultaneously turning around towards the left, to get out of sight.

However, it seemed that Malphas had also expected it – or he had some pretty impressive reflexes, because the ground rose up almost as soon as Brimstone’s arms changed, surging up like a living thing to block the blast of super-heated air that she let loose – No lava, at least.

Malphas didn’t say anything. He just stared at Brimstone as the barrier he just made sank back into the floor, smoothing itself out even as it spread the heated portion around.

Brimstone looked from me to him, then back. Then she looked at Malphas again, who simply stood where he had, not having moved an inch. I didn’t pick up any hostility in his stance, he didn’t even square his shoulders or shift his stance – but she subsided, her arms going back to normal.

I was very, very impressed.

The young woman took a deep breath, then looked at me with a murderous gaze. “What do you want, asshole?” she asked. Her smoky voice was dripping venom.

I looked at Smelly, then at her. “First, it appears I’ll help,” I said, taking my jacket off as I approached them and knelt next to Smelly, opposite from Brimstone. Before either of the three could react – Brimstone seemed to be just dumbfounded – I’d already done a quick check of the woman.

It didn’t look too good. “The gashes are from the shotgun,” I said firmly. “And these bruises are from me throwing her against the tree,” I pointed at several bruises along her back. “And these from me throwing you at her.” I pointed at several others. “But how’d she get the others?,” I asked, as I saw quite a few more bruises than I could possibly have caused in our battle. “And how come the shotgun tore her open like this, when she wasn’t even scratched back then?” I was sure she hadn’t taken this kind of damage from the shot.

“Who the fuck do y-” she began, but I cut her off with a level gaze.

“I’m a trained paramedic,” I told her. A statement that was not quite true, but not quite false, either – I wasn’t anything like a trained and certified paramedic, but both my father’s and my military training had given me a wide range of experience with wounds like these. Nevermind my field experience. “I can help her better than you can, so tell me what I’m missing.”

I could feel Malphas’ gaze on me and I saw Brimstone throwing a look at him. Though I couldn’t tell what she saw, it apparently convinced her to be more cooperative.

“Her power delays harm,” she explained. “Not all of it, but most of it is staggered. Inflicted bit by bit. And she can absorb harm done to others, staggering it.” I heard her grit her teeth. “When you threw me at her… I’m not nearly as tough as she is. It probably would’ve crippled me, and she absorbed that herself.”

Well, damn, I thought. “Does she have enhanced toughness or regenerative abilities?”

“Yes to both. Not very much of either, but combined with the delay, it’s usually enough.” Again, she grit her teeth.

“Hmhmm.” I took off my vest and rolled up my sleeves. “Do you have any alcohol or another disinfectant? If we disinfect these properly, there’ll be less strain on her regeneration.”

“Don’t have anything here,” she said, surly. “We’re not exactly swimming in cash, y’know?”

But you can afford really nice quality on your costumes, I thought, though I didn’t say it. Nice priorities.

“I have a first aid kit,” Malphas threw in. “I’ll get it immediately. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” he added before he left.

Brimstone grit her teeth again, but she very obviously respected Malphas enough to behave.

The young man – it was hard to think of him as the boy he was beneath that armor – returned quickly and handed me a military first aid kit.

I went to work, disinfecting her wounds before properly binding them. It only took me about fifteen minutes, all in all, to treat her properly while the other two watched.

By the end, I could already see her wounds starting to close as her regeneration picked up speed. Good, she’ll make it, I thought as I rose up.

“Is there somewhere I can clean up a bit?” I asked. My hands were pretty bloody.

“Down the hallway, the first room next to the stairs,” Malphas said.

***

The bathroom turned out to be quite nice. The tubing was literally a part of the room – Malphas either had phenomenal fine control, or he’d spent a lot of time working all the tubes and valves needed for a fully functional communal shower and several basins, with the mirrors literally fused into the walls – and seamlessly so.

I wonder why he lives down here – he could get damn rich with a power like this, and all legally, too. But then again, that could be said about so, so many of us. Including me.

I knew why I had gone down the criminal route, back in the day. I wondered what motivated a young boy like Malphas to be an outsider to the world above, to stay in the Undercity, creating this place for, well, lost people. Because the people I’d seen or heard so far had seemed to me like the typical Undercity inhabitants. The criminals, the mad, the broken and all the lost ones.

Who knows, maybe I’ll find out someday. Or more likely, I won’t. It’s none of my business, really.

***

I returned to the room to find Malphas sitting on a seat that he’d made out of the wall and the floor, with Brimstone fussing over Smelly, who seemed far more lucid than earlier. Still pale, and sweaty, but sitting up now with her back to the wall. She was also wearing a shirt, which provided some much-needed decency.

When I came in, everyone looked at me. Brimstone and Smelly both seemed hostile, though not as much as Brimstone had been earlier.

Still, it was obvious that neither of them was too eager to talk to me. And something told me that Malphas wouldn’t be of any help to get the conversation started, so…

Take charge of the situation.

“Let’s introduce ourselves, shall we?” I opened. “My cowl’s Aap Oordra. I already know Malphas – how should I call you two?” I looked at the two women.

Brimstone spoke first. “I’m Volca, and this is Lag,” she replied, though she didn’t seem too happy about it.

“Why are you here?” Smelly – well, Lag – asked. Her voice was quite strong, considering the pain she must’ve still been in. “You’re not a hero – you call yourself a cowl – so why’d you stop us earlier? Why’d you follow us?”

You’re a perceptive one, huh? I’d wondered whether they’d pick up on that. “I stopped you because I have issues with people attacking a mother and her son in their sleep,” I said.

“What!?” Malphas snapped sharply, and I felt the entire building shake for a moment. His head wipped around to focus on the two women. “Is he saying the truth?”

The women froze, eyes wide. Volca threw up her arms, waving them in negation. “No no no, calm down, that’s no-“

“You know the rules! My rules! No drugs! No rape! No murder! Nothing that harms children!” Malphas shouted, and I swear I saw something shift beneath his armor, in places where nothing should be able to shift.

“Malphas please, we didn’t have a choice!” Lag shouted, then broke into a coughing fit. Volca picked up for her. “We couldn’t refuse the job! He’d kill us! And we were only after the mom – who’s a Syndicate agent, anyway!”

“Who put you up to that? Who!?” Malphas shouted, his voice deepening as the room began to twist, the whole structure becoming… unstable.

I instinctively took a step back from him, even as the monkey roared up, aching for a fight against the young powerhouse – and I had no doubt he was one.

“You’re losing control of the situation. If you don’t regain it, you’ll be swept away.” This was one of those cases where I fully agreed with my father.

I raised my fingers to my mouth and made whistled sharply and loudly. The metal of the building around us only served to amplify the sound. “Alright, enough!” I shouted at them.

And it worked. I’d noticed it earlier, though I hadn’t really considered it yet, but I was the oldest one in the room – almost three times the age of Malphas, if my estimation of his age was correct.

“Seniority is a universal way to assume authority.”

“Please return the room to normal, Malphas,” I said, trying to be both soothing and firm at the same time. He was breathing hard, his stance wide and rather aggressive, but he subsided quickly, his anger going from burning to shimmering. The room warped back to its previous form, leaving no traces of the sudden deformation.

Then I turned to the two women. “Alright, let’s start at the beginning,” I said. “Tell me who hired you, and why. Don’t bother with lying, I can tell when you do.”

The two of them looked at each other. “Well, it’s not like we can stick around,” Lag said. “We’ll have to leave town anyway,” Volca agreed. They looked at me.

“We were talking to an independent agent we work with every now and then, when a new guy showed up,” Lag explained. “He called himself ‘Blauschwinge’. Had a German accent to match his name.”

“Name means ‘Bluewing’, in case you don’t know,” Volca added.

I considered the name for a moment. I’d never heard of a cape or cowl with that specific name before. “What’d he look like?”

“Tall. Muscly but slender. He was wearing a white bodysuit with a blue wing-like cape that was attached to his arms,” Volca described him. “He wasn’t wearing a mask and he had a really good-looking face. Square-jawed, curly brown hair and blue eyes.”

“Never heard of him,” I admitted. “What happened next?”

“He said he’d come looking for someone to do a simple job for him. When he saw us, he said we should do it,” Lag explained. “We didn’t like that, of course, but when we voiced our opinion, he… lashed out. Some kind of glowing blue-white energy. Took us out in one hit. Then told us we could either do the job or die.” She shivered at the memory. “His eyes… I’ve seen the eyes of mad people before, but this guy, he… he was demented. The way he talked, the way he looked at us…”

Volca wrapped her arms around her relative as they both shivered at the memory.

Good lord, what the hell is going on in this city? I asked myself. My daughters, the Ascendant, the hit team that came after me, these two, now a demented German supervillain who could utterly terrified two other cowls while taking them down in one attack.

I had a feeling that this whole situation was rapidly spinning out of any possibility of control.

“Why do you want to leave?” Malphas asked out of the blue.

They both looked at him without comprehension. “What do you mean? We broke your rules! And we failed, too – what if this guy comes after us?” Lag explained.

He clenched his fists, the metal scraping and screeching for the first time. “He made you do it? Well, I don’t like that. If I ever see that guy, I’m gonna mess him up but good. And if he comes after you, I’ll protect you, just like anyone else who lives here,” he explained, and all traces of the child were gone from his voice.

The two women grew a tad misty-eyed, lowering their heads. “Thank you,” Volca whispered.

I took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose. What should I do? I need to start figuring out what’s going on here. “Volca. Lag. What else can you tell me about this Blauschwinge?”

They took a moment to compose themselves. “Well, he had a strong accent. He said we shouldn’t try to run, because he could find us,” Volca explained. “He spoke of his companions, and how we might be allowed to join them if we perform well. After he told us what we had to do, he just up and-“

Wait. I raised a hand, cutting her off. “His companions? Did he say anything specific about them?” Like if they’re called the Companions of the Future?

Volca shook her head. “No, nothing beyond that.”

“That’s not quite true,” Lag said. “He didn’t call them his ‘companions’, you see?” she told me me. “He used a foreign word for it. German, too, right?” She looked at her companion with a questioning look, and Volca nodded.

German word for companion… I searched through my memories, trying to remember if I’d ever learned that word. German wasn’t a language I’d spent much time on. The German word would be… oh hell. “He called them ‘Gefährten’, didn’t he?”

They both nodded.

My heart took a dive down my belly.

***

The Companions of the Future. The Ascendant is a member of them. Believe in metahuman superiority. Supposedly connected to Weisswald.

Companions is the English word for Gefährten. The Gefährten are one of the oldest groups of metahumans. Supposedly an offshot of the Thule Gesellschaft. Weisswald had strong ties to the group. Believe in metahuman superiority.

They’re the same fucking group. I’m up against the Gefährten.

***

I blinked, and looked around at my small audience. “I have to go,” I said hurriedly. “I need to make a call. Is there reception down here?”

Malphas shook his head, and I cursed under my breath. Fuck. I have to warn Elouise to stay the fuck away from the Ascendant.

“You know these guys?” Volca asked.

“Only by reputation,” I replied. “I really need to go. Don’t confront them. Run. Leave Chicago, leave your cowls, start over.” I turned to Malphas. “Don’t hold them here. You can’t protect them, not from the Gefährten. They’re major bad news. Cut all ties, so they won’t come after you. If they come, flee.”

Before either of them could say anything, I vaulted out of the window, pulling up my monkey skin. As soon as I landed, I took off as fast as I dared down here, making for the nearest exit.

***

I called Elouise as soon as I had cell reception back. It rung a few times before she picked up.

“Yes? Who is this?” she asked in a wary voice.

“It’s me, Aap,” I said, not daring to use our real names over a wireless connection.

“Oh, hi!” she said, her voice perking up noticably. Though she had the presence of mind not to mention our relationship over the phone right now. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I need you to abort the meeting with the Ascendant,” I said. “If you have anything planned with him, pull out of it as carefully as you can without offending him. Trust me, you d-“

“Wow, where’s that coming from?” she asked, surprised. “You know, I was going to call you and tell you that it’s a bust, anyway. I’m not making any deals with that madman.” Her voice took on a trace of venom for that last part.

But the venom didn’t mask the undercurrent of worry beneath. “What happened?” I asked as I leapt up into the air, to make my way towards my house.

“Two of his guys attacked one of my operations,” she said, spitting the words. “You can still see the flames, if you look towards the North End,” she continued, and true to her word, I could see fire in the distance. “I lost some prime real estate and seventeen of my people, among them two of my superpowered personnel. Took all I had to drive them off!”

If it wasn’t for decades’ worth of training, I probably would’ve crushed my cellphone at that point. “Are you hurt? Did they get to you!?”

“No, no, I got out of it without a scratch. But my people are really beat up – these guys don’t mess around. Especially the flying one, that dude was just demented.”

I sighed, relieved – but just for a moment. Demented… “Let me guess, he called himself Blauschwinge?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” she asked.

“I just had a talk with two reluctant assassins whom he’d coerced into attempting to kill a Syndicate agent,” I replied.

I only got stunned silence in response.

“It gets worse,” I continued. “They have connections to the Gefährten, and may even be full members. You know what the Gefährten are?”

She took in a sharp breath. “Yeah. Fuck, of course I know! Mom briefed me on all the big ones… fuck.” She cursed, using some rather impressive French curses. “Thanks for telling me. I… oh damn, I’ll have to ask for help from the Syndicate,” she elaborated. “I don’t know why, but these guys have all but declared war on me.”

“And the heroes, too,” I said. “The Ascendant is after three of the junior heroes,” I explained. “There’s no way the UH will take that lying down.”

“This… this is madness!” she shouted, making me wince. “What the fuck are they thinking!?”

“I don’t know, but I’m afraid we’ll find out soon. Make sure you stay safe, and don’t hesitate to call me for help, alright?”

“Alright. Alright, thank you,” she said, and suddenly she was a vulnerable girl again, not an experienced crime boss. “You… you take care, too, alright? Don’t get yourself killed, please.”

I swallowed dry, and croaked, “Of course. Cross my heart.” I hung up on her and went on to my house.

The sun was already rising at this point, and I had to take care of some stuff before I threw myself back into the fray… wherever it may be.

There’s a crash coming.

***

I woke up after what felt like just minutes of sleep, pulled up from the beginnings of an all too familiar nightmare by the ringing of the doorbell.

Blinking, I rose up, trying to figure out how I’d ended up in bed. I’d just wanted to change into more comfortable clothing before I rang up any contacts that were still left in the city, but… I guess my lack of sleep had caught up to me. Even before I’d come to Chicago, I hadn’t slept properly in quite a while. I’d passed out almost as soon as I’d hit the bed.

The doorbell rang again, making me focus on the here and now again. I looked at the clock – it was nine in the morning. I hope whoever’s ringing that bell better have a good reason for waking me up. Even if I hadn’t intended to go to sleep, I sure as hell needed it.

I got up, put on a pair of jeans pants and a black shirt with the word fun. in yellow on the front and walked down to the front door.

“This damn well better be important!” I groused as I pulled open the door.

By some miracle, my chin didn’t break my arm on its way down to hit the floor.

Outside the door, wearing brown boots, a red skirt and a blue jacket, stood…

“Hennessy,” I breathed her name. She looked at me, her face as serene as ever, and simply walked into my house.

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B011.5 Monkey Family

Posted on February 8, 2015 by tieshaunn

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My father had taught me many, many things (most of them things no father should ever teach to his child), but one thing he never, ever helped me with was figuring out my own power.

Now, that doesn’t mean he didn’t train me in how to use it. But he only helped me train those abilities I already knew about. He never lifted a finger to help me figure it out, claiming that some things, one had to do on their own.

Which was why it had taken me until my late teens to figure out that I had a pretty useful tracking ability. I’d thought it was just an enhanced sense of smell, until a comment by a friend had caused me to sit down and really analyse it.

That had led to realising that there was no way to track someone by smell the way I did it. It was… more than just smell, but it was styled after scent tracking – or at least a child’s idea of how it’d work. I did have an exceptionally good nose, even without the monkey pulled up, but I didn’t track people by it. I simply had to smell them first, in order to prime my power. Then, I could track them. Not indefinitely, nor over any distance. And there were quite a few powers that screwed with it (teleportation being the most straightforward case – it broke up the trail), but outside of powers like that being involved, there were only two things that could really hide someone from me – the passing of time, or me forgetting the smell.

Neither Brimstone nor Smelly seemed to have a power that would screw up my tracking, or if they did, they didn’t use it.

They never stood a chance.

I tracked them halfway across the city to an abandoned subway entrance near Morgan Park and down into the undercity.

Ah, been a while. I’d always loved the undercity. As usual, it had changed, but it was also the same as ever.

The subway station was a newer one – I was pretty sure it had still been in use the last time I’d been in Chicago – but it must’ve been abandoned at least a few years ago. It had been designed to fit a very modern (at the time), chic style, all straight lines and smooth metal- and stonework. I’d only gone through it once or twice, but I remembered thinking that it was too sterile.

It certainly wasn’t sterile any more. The formerly clean white stone and tiling had been stained by age, dirt and lots of other fluids whose origins I’d rather not think about any more than necessary. Most of the metal had been removed, leaving the structure gutted to the bone. The electric lighting was entirely gone at this point – even if there still was any electricity to be had here, no lamp was left that I could see. The only light in the place came from numerous bonfires that burned in barrels.

Barrels which were spread out across the station, both on the platforms and the tracks, with people gathering around them for warmth. All sorts of people, not the worst kind of homeless (those generally lived deeper into the undercity), but still. People who’d dropped out of society, for some reason or the other. I tried not to pay too much attention to them, beyond making sure not to look like an easy mark.

Which wasn’t hard to do, really. I was alone, in a three-piece suit, almost seven feet tall and walking very, very confidently. I pretty much had ‘supervillain’ written all over myself. Or at least ‘confident enough to probably be a metahuman’. And people who lived here knew how to spot the people they ought to stay away from.

No one tried to talk to me. No one tried to bar my way, or mug me, or pick my pockets (not that they’d find anything in them) and I got through the station. The usual telltale signs marked the way into the actual Undercity, subtle and not-so subtle carvings and tags on the walls, the floor and even the ceiling, guiding those in the know into the underbelly of the city. I used to wonder who’d originally come up with the system, and how it’d happened to spread across most of the world, but I’d never been able to find out. Maybe my father knew. Or maybe not. Maybe it had just developed on its own, with lots of people adding to it, spreading it. A meme without a source, an idea without a brain to think it up first.

I reached an old maintenance hatch that might have originally allowed technicians to work beneath the rails and the station proper. I couldn’t be sure, but now it was definitely something else. Someone had turned it into an elevator and, luckily, it was up on my level. Stepping inside, I could make out Brimstone’s smell very strongly in here – like the air around a heavy smoker, only worse. Rotten eggs and smoke. If it wasn’t for my power tracking them, I would never have been able to tell that Smelly had been with her, even with my nose.

The elevator was basically just a rusty old metal cage with a simple up/down switch to control it. Since it very obviously couldn’t go up any higher, I flicked it to ‘down’. The mechanism wheezed, then made a disconcerting grinding sound, then it started to slowly move down.

***

The first exit I passed opened into the maintenance tunnels. They were apparently used as sleeping quarters – I saw a great many sleeping bags, ragged blankets and worn down people before the view vanished. My marks hadn’t disembarked on this level.

The next one was thirty feet or so below the previous one. It appeared to be… some kind of bordello. The bad kind, with girls that were too old, or too young, and all too worn out. I barely spared them a second glance, as much as I felt pity for them. The air was choking with the noxious perfume of cheap drugs, and the noise produced made me wish I’d remembered to bring ear plugs with me.

I went further down, until I reached the third exit – where the two had disembarked. A bare tunnel, not quite straight but well-reinforced, with cheap electric lighting in the form of bare lightbulbs that should have gone out of service decades ago. Typical for the undercity. As I stepped into it, the noise from above vanished almost entirely – and after a few feet into the rough passage, it cut off almost entirely, leaving just the echoes of my steps.

Been a while, I thought, feeling like I was about to see an old friend. At least this place is probably not going to be half as dangerous as the European undercities I got to know.

I made my way into the true undercity of Chicago.

***

It didn’t take long to track down Brimstone and Smelly. The undercity had, impossibly enough, become even more convoluted and nonsensical than before. The entrance I took had let me to what must’ve once been a sewage plant which had then sunk deep into the earth – perhaps a meta-fight had pulled it down – which had obviously been ‘modified’ by way of some superpower twisting and reshaping all the machines, rails and other metal parts of the structure, creating… creating…

Honestly, the closest I had to a proper description would be something like ‘post-modern expressionist tenement’ (I was probably butchering artistic terminology with that phrase). There was not a single straight line to be seen. Pipes, rails and metal walkways had been twisted into a completely asymmetrical structure of copper and steel, tha reached from the floor all the way to the ceiling, with irregularly spaced ‘apartments’ spread out. All of them opened towards the empty space into which I had entered, which was slightly elevated in relation to the ground floor of the structure. Blankets, towels and shapeless lengths of cloth brought colour into the setting, as well as serving to provide some amount of privacy to the inhabitants.

And there was light. Lightbulbs, LEDs and even old-fashioned torches were spread throughout the entire place. The irregular lighting and the even more irregular reflective surfaces broke and enhanced the illumination, the masses of cloth dimmed and coloured it, setting the whole thing ablaze in a riot of colours.

It was… honestly quite beautiful. Beautiful enough that I took a little time to just look at it, take it all in, despite my reasons for being here.

There were times… always had been, ever since I’d cut myself off from my father… times when I’d just wanted to stop. Not die, mind you, but stop. Stop worrying. Stop fighting. Stop bothering. Just leave and start walking. Getting a look at all the wonders of the world, moving from place to place, relaxed and free.

In fact, that had been my great plan, when I finally came home. I’d look up Tamara and my other friends from before, apologise for being gone so long, say my proper goodbyes and… leave. Go somewhere far away from all the madness. Canada, perhaps. It was pretty peaceful there, out in the country. Or Australia – I’d heard good things about its mysterious new ruler. Though I couldn’t be sure how much of that was true or just propaganda.

Not that it mattered. My plans were beyond being merely in shambles – they’d been vaporised the moment I found out I had a daughter. What little might have been left had promptly been blown out of reality when my other daughter showed up.

I’d never wanted children. I’d been too afraid that I’d screw up, the way my Dad had with me. I didn’t want to saddle a child with growing up with my issues.

Now that I had not just one, but two children, though, I had to face facts – I’d screwed up. Left one child to be raised in poverty, then abused by a supervillain to the point of snapping and manifesting into a cripple of questionable stability, if not even sanity. The other to be raised by a supervillain every bit as insane and entrenched in her life as my father had been (if not more so) – from what little Elouise had told me, her childhood had only been marginally better than Hen-

Voices, curses. Mother tight, the falling boot-

The monkey reared up in rage, shoving itself to my attention once more. I almost – almost – screamed at the memories it brought up, and I did fall to my knees, unable to fully deflect the sudden, furious onslaught.

Fuck! I thought emphatically. I’d been too careless. The Monkey and I had been so in tune – I’d been angry, I’d been hunting, seeking vengeance, being active – that I’d stopped noticing it. It had happened before, a creepy kind of synchronisation where I couldn’t tell our thoughts and desires apart any more.

The moment I’d started getting contemplative and inactive, it had upset that balance, and now it was back in full force. Urging me to act. Hunt. Confront. Eliminate.

I sighed, putting my left hand over my eyes. You sure suck, old boy. Now buckle up and focus on the job at hand, I told myself. It wasn’t like I disagreed with it, in this instance.

Straightening up again, I sniffed the air. The smell of my two marks led into the tenements, and I followed it.

It led me towards what was probably the main entrance to the tenements – it was just one of the many openings on the first floor, but unlike the others, nothing covered it, and it was narrower than the units around it.

And then there was the Gatekeeper. I assumed he functioned as such, because he was sitting behind a desk made of smooth stone that had been fused with the floor – which apparently was a thin coat of stone upon the metal floor. Novels and comic books lay on the desk in neat, orderly stacks, along with a closed laptop. Behind the desk stood a big, very comfortable-looking chair made of the same material. Despite it being made of stone, it moved easily as the man sitting atop it shifted his weight, sitting up to look at me, the comic he’d been reading now lying closed on the desk. A small, rectangular nameplate was fused with the desk, the word ‘Malphas’ written on it.

He was quite a sight to behold, and I immediately pegged him as the one responsible for creating this structure. He was covered, head to toe, in a metal suit made of what I assumed to be steel and covered in a thin layer of copper, the two metals arranged in complex patterns that shifted and flowed over its surface. The armor itself was slender, almost skin-tight without really betraying anything about his precise build, as well as small wings attached to his ankles, elbows and temples. The upper half of his mask formed the head and half a beak of a crow, with two rows of small horns on its head. The lower half, shadowed by the beak, was smooth and mostly featureless save for three vertical slits. Two round eye holes revealed a pair of bright green-blue eyes. The costume was a work of art, truly, but it was much, much too busy. Too many clashing concepts thrown together. An inexperienced artist, I’d say.

His posture – elbows on the desk, hands folded beneath his beak, shoulders squared – seemed self-confident at first, but my gut told me he was nervous. My nose supported that assessment… and it also told me that he was quite young. I’d first assumed him to be in his late teens, based on his size, but now I had to adjust my estimation down. If he was a day over fourteen, I’d be very, very surprised.

“Hello, stranger,” he spoke, and I found my suspicions confirmed – his voice might have been warped by the mask, deepened, but I could still tell that he wasn’t entirely through his voice change just yet. “Who are you, and what brings you here?” he asked in a formal tone of voice (clearly not his usual one), now putting his arms down on the desk. I noticed that the armor lacked joints, or any kind of mobility, really, yet its material flowed and bent so as to allow movement. His power at work, I assumed.

“My name is Aap Oordra, and I am looking for two persons,” I replied, deciding to go with honesty for now. I had a feeling that this wasn’t a supervillain, or at least not a classic one.

“Aap Oordra? Weren’t you a supervillain in the nineties?” he asked, surprise making his voice sound less adult than it had just moments before.

I smiled, not having expected someone this young to know about me. “Retired, honestly,” I said.

He made a choking sound, his shoulders shaking – probably trying not to laugh out loud. “So that’s why you show up down here, at this time, wearing a three-piece suit?” he asked, his voice merry.

“Touché,” I said. Something told me I could get to like this boy. The monkey disagreed – it’d rather rip his head off and go on to deal with Smelly and Brimstone in its usual way – but I just ignored it for now. “To be perfectly honest, I’m trying to retire, but people keep interfering.”

He laughed quietly, the sound carrying a sardonic note. “Yeah, it usually goes like that. I gave up on trying to retire a while ago.”

“Aren’t you a bit young to already talk like that?” I asked casually, putting my hands into my pockets.

His shoulders moved in a surprisingly expressive shrug, thanks to the many moving parts of his armor. “It’s not the age, it’s the mileage,” he said casually. “I’ve seen and done a lot in a short time,” he explained. “Who are you looking for? And why?” he continued in a clearer, more neutral voice.

Definitely too young to be so old, I thought. He reminded me of… The monkey reared up, forcing me to focus on the situation at hand again. I made sure that my face and voice were calm and non-threatening, and replied, “I don’t know their actual names, so I named them Brimstone and Smelly,” I explained, and gave him a short description of both. “I suspect that they are connected to someone who ordered an attempt on my life, earlier this night,” I continued.

“An attempt on your life? Seriously? And they’re connected?!” he asked, aghast. “How do you know that!?” His earlier calm attitude evaporated, he leaned forward, as if to hear better.

Let’s play it honest… to a point, I thought. “I took down the hitmen, and they told me the location of their agent. I tracked said agent down to question them and found Brimstone and Smelly – I assume they are tenants here? – entering the home of said agent, sneaking into her bedroom. I attacked them and drove them off, then tracked them later on – which led me here.”

He was obviously upset, and quite a bit, too. “I was wondering how they’d gotten hurt, but…” he mumbled, though the echo his own helmet produced amplified his voice enough for me to hear it. Shaking his head, he focused his eyes on me. “They are tenants here – which means they are under my protection. If you plan to assault them, then I’ll-“

I waved a hand in a gesture of negation. “No no, I’d much rather this didn’t devolve into a fight. I simply want to know who hired them, as said person may well be the same one as the one who ordered the hit on me.” Also, I object to them trying to murder a defenseless woman in front of her son, I added in my head, but didn’t voice out loud. “I would like to talk to them. If you do not trust me to stay civil, I wouldn’t object to your supervision.”

He subsided again, leaning back on his chair. I assumed he was both thinking my proposal over, as well as buying himself some time to regain his composure.

Normally, I wouldn’t have minded giving him the time to do so – he was young, clearly upset and he seemed to be a good guy – but the monkey was making me edgy, impatient and, honestly, I wanted to get this over with and get back to bed. I hadn’t had a chance to sleep peacefully in my own bed in nearly two decades, and I really, really didn’t appreciate these interruptions.

“Look, Malphas,” I said, leaning a bit forward to convey some urgency. “I understand that you’d like to think this over, but I am in a hurry. My family’s life may be on the line here, and I will not let them be endangered simply because you are indecisive.”

I wasn’t even lying, there. I figured that it would be a huge coincidence that I happened to have assassins sent after me just when the guy who’d tortured my daughter into becoming a metahuman returned to town and made a deranged claim on her. Not that I knew why he’d target me, unless he had someone within the United Heroes’ to pass along our relation… Actually, I should keep that thought in mind…

Malphas – the name seemed familiar, somehow, but I couldn’t pin it down – flinched at the mention of family, then nodded. “I… understand. I’ll escort you to their apartment,” he said, rising up. “But just to be clear – they are still under my protection. Lay a hand on them, and I’ll…”

There was something like a ripple that spread from him, and the ground beneath me bucked up like a living thing.

I yelped and fell back – exaggerating it a little bit, perhaps – and deliberately did not roll, but fell hard on my back (oh, how the monkey hated that). Again, the ground bucked and rods made of solid steel shot up around me, wrapping around my arms and legs to pin me to the ground.

“I’ll beat ya black and blue and send you home crying, got that?” he asked. He hadn’t even moved, beyond standing up. Not a somatic trigger, then. A purely thought-controlled power, most likely.

That was impressive. Few powers could be controlled by one’s thoughts alone. Especially physical powers.

I looked up at him, not hiding how impressed I was (and perhaps exaggerating it a bit more) and just nodded.

He sighed – a pretty big tell in this situation – and released me, the rods melting back into the ground without a mark. Then he offered me his hand and helped me up when I took it.

“Let’s go,” he said.

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B011.4 Monkey Family

Posted on January 24, 2015 by tieshaunn

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Shortly after the two would-be assassins (it kind of weirded me out that I’d had to deal with two groups to whom that applied to in one night) left, I caught two familiar smells from upwind.

Should I leave? No, she’ll probably cooperate with them, if only to keep up appearances and they’ll recognise me instantly. I sighed and leaped up into the bedroom – only to stare down the barrel of a shotgun. My eyes moved up to Sara Jane Saltston’s face. She looked half scared and half mad.

“You didn’t run away,” I said wryly, getting my first good look at her in the moonlight. My first thought was ‘stern librarian from hell’. She wasn’t anything like beautiful, or even pretty, but… attractive. Her face was sharp, with high cheekbones and very slim, pale lips. Her grey eyes were sharp and alert, with a carefully restrained touch of fear and uncertainty in them. Her long hair was open and unkempt right now, and she was wearing a dark green, ankle-length silk nightgown and fluffy slippers. At an inch or two below six feet, she was taller than average, though still quite a bit shorter than me.

“Who are you? Why’re you here?” she asked, her hands very still.

She might have military experience. Or perhaps she used to be a supervillain herself, and those weapons are her own work, I guessed, though that was admittedly a big leap.

I opened my mouth to reply, and she flinched back – almost pulling the trigger. I froze, before I realised that I still had the monkey up.

Smart move, stupid. Of course she’s going to be nervous and jumpy with that mug in front of her. I closed my mouth again and pulled the monkey back in, hoping she wasn’t going to shoot me in the head while I was actually vulnerable to it.

“Good evening, Ma’am. My name’s Kevin. I’d taken a stroll through the night,” I said in as soothing a voice as I could without seeming to be patronising her. “And I noticed those two assailants breaking into your house. I decided to investigate – and I am sorry for trespassing in your home – and then engage them when it seemed like they were going to cause you harm.”

Father would probably be proud – nothing I’d said was untrue, there were no gaps or leaps in logic (by cape standards) and it completely omitted mention of everything I didn’t want mentioned.

The maybe-metahuman woman relaxed, lowering her gun (but still holding it so she could easily snap it back up and shoot) as she took a deep, calming breath. “I… Well, I guess that makes sense. Thank you. Really, thank you very much, Kevin,” she replied. “You don’t happen to know who those t-“

She was cut off when a clear, strong voice called out for me to stand down. I recognised Camille’s voice, and decided to comply for now. No use antagonising my daughter’s beau.

***

A few minutes later, I was sitting on an arm chair in the living room, with the lawyer and the two heroes interviewing us on what had happened.

I was rather concerned, really, that only Vek and Dearheart were present, but I doubted that me asking them about their lack of numbers in front of what they probably considered a simple civilian victim, so I kept my mouth shut with the intention of confronting them later on. I still couldn’t help but be concerned. Hennessy was most likely still off the roster, recuperating (I felt a weird, cold tightness in my chest, when I thought about how tired she’d looked after our confrontation), but the others should have been available.

My experience gave me a sneaking suspicion, but I refrained from voicing it, instead focusing on answering Vek’s questions without giving away what I’d really been up to.

“So you were just… taking a stroll, in a three-piece suit… and you just happened to come across two unknown supervillains breaking into a house?” she asked, her face as expressive as… well, a goat’s. Her voice was disbelieving, though.

I shrugged. “My power protects my clothing and compensates for restrictions in my natural movement, so I can fight as well in a suit as I can in spandex. And I was on my way to meet a lady, besides.” I winked at her, though that mostly just made Camille snort derisively.

“You’re in the city for less than two days and you already have a date?” Vek asked in surprise. She almost bleated the sentence.

My mouth quirked up in a smile. “No, not a date. At least, not that kind of date. I happen to have quite a few old friends in the city.”

She nodded. “Alright, what can you tell me about the two villains?” she asked.

I cleared my throat and started to explain. “I identified them mostly by smell. One, I dubbed Brimstone. Her arms are apparently made of volcanic rock. She can generate very powerful fire blasts. My paranoid nature suggests that she may be capable of generating lava in some form. And she is definitely tougher than would be natural for a woman of her build, perhaps up to paragon levels, considering how easily she shrugged off my restrained blow. She seemed calm, in control of herself and was reasonable enough to abandon her goal when confronted by me.”

Vek nodded, then motioned for me to continue with one snake; most of her snakes were playing with the little boy, who seemed largely unconcerned about the situation and more interested in trying to tie the snakes into knots, while his mother looked worriedly at him.

“I call the other one ‘Smelly’, mostly because her smell was quite weird and unfamiliar to me – definitely unnatural. The way they moved, she was the brute of the pair, and she took a surprise shot from Mrs Saltston’s weapon,” I threw a questioning look at her gadget. “About which I am quite curious, actually.”

The woman, who’d put on a rather more concealing robe over her nightie, gave me an amicable look. She’d warmed up considerably, as soon as the heroes arrived and the danger was over. “I specialise in superhuman law, specifically in working in providing legal defense for various cowls,” she explained. Camille gave her a dirty look, which was oddly comforting. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who got those from her. But she did restrain herself from commenting, so I guess I still rated special treatment, all things considered. “A few years ago, I represented Gunnery and helped her work out a very favourable deal. Part of her payment to me was a set of advanced weaponry for the purpose of self-defense.” She turned to look at Vek. “All registered and properly secured, of course.”

Vek nodded, but I had another question.

“Don’t gadgets like that usually require constant care by their makers?” Which was the reason why Cartastrophy had to keep going to Elouise’s garage and perform the upkeep for her cars.

“Gunnery specialised in reliable personal weaponry, which was one of the main reasons why the judges were willing to strike a deal with her despite her crimes. She’s creating advanced weaponry for the military and several other agencies now.” There was a note of pride in her voice.

“Quite so,” Vek said with what might have been a frown – it was quite annoying, father’s lessons on how to read animal-like metahumans were not quite as vivid in my mind as the normal ones – and they hadn’t been as extensive, either. “Move on, please.” She didn’t seem to like the subject very much – perhaps she’d been involved in capturing Gunnery, only to see her get out of the punishment she deserved in exchange for services rendered.

“Well, she took the shot, and later got up after I threw her around a bit. She didn’t display any powers beyond her enhanced toughness, but that may well be simply because she didn’t get the chance to. She didn’t talk at all. After I removed them from the bedroom, I told them to end the fight and leave instead of fighting me, and they complied, leaving.”

“You simply convinced them to leave? You didn’t offer them anything?”

“I ‘offered’ not to beat them up. There is no doubt in my mind that I could’ve taken them down, I just couldn’t be sure that I would also be able to prevent collateral damage, or defend Mrs Saltston and her son.” That got me a smile from the lawyer.

Stars above, I was just recently planning to interrogate woman, now she’s looking at me like I’m a hero. It made me feel quite uncomfortable, to be quite honest.

It didn’t help that, the whole time, Camille had been looking at me with a contemplative look. Contemplative. Not hostile, or murderous. Why? What changed? It couldn’t just be me having saved this family – she was already like this when she arrived, and she didn’t even make any accusations. It was even weirder than the situation with Saltston.

Vek nodded. “Well, I am quite grateful you happened to stumble across this, Mr Paterson,” she said in a calmer tone of voice. She then looked at Saltston. “Madam, the police will be here in a minute. They’ll provide protection and investigate this matter.”

Saltston nodded, though she seemed dissatisfied. I would be too, if I was a Syndicate agent who was about to get a police investigation to deal with. That couldn’t be good for business.

“Thank you for your help, Vek,” she said, then she got up and turned to me. “And you as well, Aap Oordra,” she continued, holding out a slender, perfectly manicured hand.

I raised an eyebrow as I took her hand, gently squeezing it as we shook. “You recognised me?”

She smirked. “I was a fan, back in the day. You may not remember me, but I attended some of your shows, as well.”

Now a grin spread on my face. “Really? Well, that’s just perfect. Gotta protect my fans.”

Camille snorted and whispered, “Yeah, what few there are.” So, not entirely out of the doghouse then.

But Saltston wasn’t done yet. She reached to a small stack of cards on the living room table, picking one up along with a pen. Then she wrote something on the back, handing me the card.

I took it, looking closer. It was a business card with her phone number and e-mail. And she’d written another phone number on the back in neat, precise writing.

“My business and private number. In case you need some legal representation, or just someone to reminisce about the good old times,” she said with a smile that I was all too familiar with.

She… she’s hitting on me!? I’d come here to interrogate her, which would’ve included applying a lot of psychological pressure, if needed. And now I had not only saved her life – making me the hero of the evening, it seemed – but I was basically getting asked out on a date!?

My face must’ve been a sight to see (though the women probably thought I was dumbfounded for other reasons than the ones I was concerned with), because Saltston and Camille started to giggle, and Vek gave her own, bleating rendition of the same.

I felt a slight blush begin to creep into my cheeks, which I immediately crushed to retain some dignity. Then I put the card into my breast pocket. “I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am,” I said, keeping my voice and face level. Then I looked at Vek. “A word, please?”

She nodded, retrieving her snakes (the boy had fallen asleep… I’d paid him little attention, but it was strange that he’d been so quiet and disinterested the whole time) and wishing Saltston a good night. I followed suit, earning another rather familiar smile. I did my best to be charming without seeming too inviting (I wasn’t sure I was ready for dating again).

***

Vek, Camille and I waited outside as we heard the sirens approach. I took the chance to look them up and down, while Vek talked to someone on her smartphone.

Their costumes looked as pristine as ever, though that didn’t say much when one considered Vek’s power. But there were signs of wear and tear – Camille’s hair was dishevelled, her make-up smudged and she was slightly favouring her left leg. Vek was sporting a few patches of singed fur, and her stance wasn’t quite as self-confident as usual.

“What has been going on today? This should’ve drawn a far bigger response,” I said, making sure that I didn’t sound accusatory, only curious. “Not just the two of you. No offense.”

Camille shot me a quick dirty look, but then she went back to being pensive. So weird.

Vek seemed… chagrined (I was definitely putting goat faces far up on my list of annoying mutations). “This night has been insane. Seven different events that required our deployment, not counting this one and the one the rest of our team had to address while this here went on. Three of those seven involved metahumans in some way, one a group of mercenaries equipped by a Gadgeteer and two more with normal criminals wielding heavy ordnance.”

I whistled. “Wow, that’s… unusual, unless things changed far, far more than I thought. Add to that that big brawl I drove into yesterday…”

She nodded. “Something is up. It might be… well, him returning.” Camille flinched, her body tensing up. I saw a trickle of blood run down from her lip, where she bit too strongly into it.

I nodded right back, making sure to keep my face neutral. It would not be favourable to tip the Good Guys off to my plans, and I couldn’t be sure that Vek or Camille didn’t have some means to analyse tells beyond the usual (their specific power sets were not public).

Vek stomped in place with one hoof, giving me an insecure look. I raised an eyebrow in a questioning gesture. She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped for a moment, but I just waited.

“We’re short our heavy hitter, with Chayot out of commission,” she said, making both Camille and me flinch. I still remembered just how tired Hennessy had looked after the brawl. “And we’re looking at some massive threat sources, if our reports of the Ascendant’s allies are correct. Nevermind that we’ve been tipped off that the Matriarch seems to be making some inquiries in his direction.”

Oh no, I hope they’re not going to preemptively attack Elouise because she’s been trying to fulfill my request. I’d rather not have to break up a fight between at least one of my daughters and the heroes… or worse, my two daughters who didn’t know about each other yet.

Another thing to worry about.

“I can guess where this is going. You need another heavy hitter. And with Chayot on leave, I am most likely the most powerful combat meta in the entire state,” I said calmly.

She nodded. “I am sorry that we have to ask this of you, after all you’ve gone through,” she said, her snake-arms jerking nervously (I was studying her closely, in order to figure out her tells).

But her words made me stop for a moment. If they’ve been briefed on the last few years… that might explain Camille’s change in behaviour. And who knew how it might influence Tamara or Hennessy?

I sighed. I really didn’t want to play hero any more than I had to, but… It’s my fault Hennessy is in that state. Nevermind that she might feel obligated to return to the field if things get too bad.

No matter what else was going on, I wanted to keep her safe. That meant picking up the slack. So I sighed, and I nodded. “Alright. You have my phone number. Call me in case of an emergency – but only an emergency, please. I have some time critical business to take care of, as well.”

Camille looked honestly surprised when I agreed, and I gave her a quick smile that caused her to frown at me, her eyes half angry and half confused.

Vek was less ambivalent. She simply grinned from ear to ear, her teeth huge and yellow. “Thank you very much, Aap Oordra. It is appreciated.” She held out one snake-arm, and I shook hands with her.

Five minutes later, the police had arrived and I left them to take care of business. It was time to hunt down Brimstone and Smelly.

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B011.3 Monkey Family

Posted on January 17, 2015 by tieshaunn

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The street, and the house, came into view quickly – since I had the monkey (mostly) up to keep myself pristine, I poured on the speed, leaping across a block or two at a time. Thanks to its night vision, I could make out the good spots to land without causing any damage.

When I got closer to the house – in mid-leap towards it, aiming to land in front of the door – I was thankful for it for another reason, because I just barely saw someone enter the house, the door falling closed behind them.

That doesn’t bode well. I could think of three or four possible explanations for that, and none of them were likely to support my plan.

“Even the best-laid plan rarely survives contact with reality. Always be ready to adapt… and to exploit the chances the world offers you.”

Fuck you, Journeyman, I thought angrily as I landed near the house. You just had to put me in mind of him. I was usually good about keeping the memories down, but Journeyman had knocked the padlock loose with that last fucking advice. Knowing him, it was deliberate. I bet he got the Stone Lecture, too, from someone.

No time. Focus. Focus. There’s trouble afoot. I approached the door – it hadn’t been closed entirely – and snuck in, drawing the monkey closer to my body to avoid causing damage. Immediately, I could smell two strangers inside, as well as the lawyer and her son. I could also smell… brimstone?

Metahumans. I let the monkey swell again, taking full shape around me as I passed a huge mirror on the wall, taking a look at myself. Blue fur so dark it looked black covered me from my head to my ankles. A long tail lashed behind me (I had to be careful not to casually crush the furniture and building), covered in the same fur. My hands were jet black, large and long-fingered, with even darker, long nails. Same for my bare feet. My face… frankly, my face was the stuff of nightmares. A monkey’s face, jet black with big, blood-red eyes – the sclera black as a pit – and teeth as black as the nails. What was most unnerving, I thought, was that, unless I made a conscious effort (or went into a rage), the face was perfectly solemn… noble, even. The black horns that grew out of the sides of my head, curving backwards, looked almost like a crown, when I was upright and calm.

The two metahumans had ascended the stairs by the time I reached the bottom of them, and I could hear them approach the master bedroom – as if they knew where to go. I could sniff out a few more details – both of them were female, one smelling strongly of brimstone. The other one’s smell was… weird. Unlike anything I’d smelled before. Neither of them was part of the team I’d taken out earlier on.

Did the hit squad report to someone to organise this? No, they didn’t know who their employer was, or whom to report to apart from Mrs Saltston. I started sneaking up the stairs. They didn’t seem to have any enhanced senses like mine, or they would have noticed me already, but there was no reason to be careless. Whoever their employer may be, he or she must have organised this as soon as he heard of the hit squad’s failure… or perhaps even beforehand.

That actually made me angrier than the attempt on my life had. Who was this person? What were they even thinking? Why come after me, why go after an agent, when you had to fear reprisal from the Syndicate?

Or was this an internal matter? Someone from within the Syndicate? I didn’t know. Hell, I didn’t even know the current line-up of the Five. Kraquok would be on it, of course (I wasn’t sure if he could be killed and after almost a century, I doubted that he’d be interested in retirement) and I’d find it more believable that DiL turned into a philanthropist than that anyone took the Dowager out of the game.

Either way, though, I was in trouble. This might be people from the Syndicate, in which case I’d be pissing their superiors off by taking them down – or they were people who weren’t afraid of it. Meaning they either had one of the other big organisations to back them (scary thought – some of them made the Syndicate look like a freaking charity) or they were complete morons. I was hoping for complete morons. Or at least oblivious to what was really going on.

I reached the top of the stairs just as they reached the bedroom door, and saw that they apparently liked their traditional outfits – all skintight black faux-leather (it didn’t smell real). The one who smelled of brimstone wore a catsuit that left her arms bare up to her shoulders – and they were apparently made of volcanic rock, covered in cracks and holes that burned with faint embers. Some manner of pyrokinesis perhaps. Or worse, lava generation. I hated fighting people who could make or summon lava. Fortunately, the petrification didn’t seem to reach beyond her shoulders – there were thin strips of pale white skin visible between the rock and her leather-like suit. Might be she wasn’t any tougher than normal. I could also tell that she wasn’t wearing a helmet or anything, and just had dark brown hair tied into a tight bun.

The other one wore a catsuit made of the same material, only it covered her from head to toe, it seemed, leaving nothing (visible from behind) uncovered – but tight enough to show off a build that suggested physical enhancements. Plus, that weird, weird smell of hers.

Looks suggest physical enhancements. Probably at least one other power. I should take them both down quickly, preferably remove them from the premises with the same attack.

Which meant sneaking up and, preferably, tackling them out of the house, even through a wall or two. I was confident that I could take anything they could dish out for at least long enough to get them away from the civilians. But I wasn’t quite sure where the best place to fight would be – I hadn’t scouted the surroundings in anticipation of a battle.

No use. Sneak, wait for the right moment, remove them from the premises. Figure the rest out on the fly.

I moved closer as they entered the bedroom, creeping up on them.

The moment the weirdly smelling woman stepped into the room, there was a loud roar and a flash of light and she flew out of sight, the sound of a heavy crash indicating that she’d impacted the wall. I smelled gunpowder.

“I hate jobs like this,” murmured Brimstone as her arms began to glow brighter from within.

That’s my cue. I didn’t know what had happened to the other woman, but my money was on them having tripped the alarm and the lady of the house having more than just the one weapon I’d seen in her office. Nevertheless, unless she was secretly a metahuman herself, I wouldn’t give her much chance against two super-powered assassins.

I bellowed out loud, my shout loud enough to crack a mirror that hung on the wall nearby and kicked off the ground at the same time, vaulting towards the flinching assassin.

She made a startled sound somewhere between a scream and a gasp as I tackled her through the open door. I pushed on even while I sped up my senses, to take a look around the room.

Smelly had been hit hard – a good part of the left side of her costume was gone, at the height of her torso, and the skin beneath was bleeding – though the wounds looked shallow. Still, if she’d been a normal human, or a less tough meta, she’d probably be dead.

I took another step, turning my head. Mrs Saltston was standing with her back to the wardrobe, holding a rather flimsy-looking shotgun in her hands. I’d spent enough time around Gadgeteers to spot the telltale signs of a handcrafted Gadget, which would explain how she’d taken Smelly Girl down.

Perhaps it is fortunate that I didn’t have to enact my plan – God knows what else she might be packing.

Since I couldn’t see the boy, I assumed he was hiding in the wardrobe, and decided to follow my original plan to remove the assassins from the premises.

Lashing out with my tail, I grabbed the downed Smelly by her waist and charged on, straight through and out the window.

“Grab your boy and get out!” I shouted as we left the room.

“Fucker! What the hell!” Brimstone cursed and her arms burst into flames. Luckily, they weren’t particularly hot and didn’t even burn my (copious amounts of) hair – but I did feel the heat, which told me all I needed to know; best to avoid a direct hit.

Landing on the lawn, I threw her across the yard and into a huge tree, her body impacting it horizontally. This time, she did scream, but it cut off when I threw her compatriot to slam into her midsection.

“Don’t stop. Attack until they’re completely neutralised as a threat.”

I stopped my attack, sitting on my haunches, staring at them. I really ought to just take them down, but… I’d rather end this without any further fighting, to be honest. I wasn’t in the mood.

The two of them fell off the tree in a way I might have found comical if I wasn’t feeling so morose, but quickly jumped up to face me again. Brimstone’s arms lit up, but she didn’t attack immediately, instead waiting for her friend to get up as well.

Smelly seemed quite stunned, though I didn’t know whether it was because she’d been shot by whatever that gun was, or because she’d been thrown hard enough into her friend to put a few cracks into the old tree. Perhaps both.

Interesting. I would’ve pegged Brimstone as less tough than her friend, yet the impact doesn’t seem to have done much more than piss her off.

“This is a one-time offer,” I growled, letting the monkey slip into my voice to sound more intimidating than usual. “Run now. You can’t fight me, and even if you thought it might work, the authorities won’t be too far away in a neighborhood like this.” I finished, then just waited, staring stoically at them.

After a few heartbeats, they nodded and left, vaulting over the fence to leave.

I smirked to myself – I’d memorised their scents. It wouldn’t be too hard to track them down later on.

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B011.2 Monkey Family

Posted on January 4, 2015 by tieshaunn

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I leapt through Chicago, even though running would have been faster (collateral damage would have been a major issue, though), towards the lawyer’s office. I’d gotten the address out of my would-be assassins, after I’d threatened them with some rather creative uses of my power, and before I stripped them naked and sent them off. The lawyer who worked there doubled as an agent for supervillains, which wasn’t as rare as one might think – as a lawyer, she could simply funnel her agent work through her practice, claiming confidentiality and such to keep both her clients and herself protected. And if someone she worked with was captured, she could double as a reliable lawyer. And that didn’t even take into account the fact that good, reliable agents were even rarer than good, reliable lawyers, and according to the leader of the assassins, this one was one of the most well-regarded ones in Chicago, in both respects.

Quite the cozy setup, really. I wondered how she’d gotten past the initial issues of setting up both a law practice and making the necessary contacts in the underworld to act as an agent. She might have just inherited one or both sides, though. I put those thoughts out of my mind, then, and sped up a bit – I’d rather be back in bed sooner rather than later.

Strangely enough, the address led me to one of the finer residential areas of Chicago. White picket fences, large front- and backyards and expensive cars dominated the scenery. What kind of agent sets up shop in a place like this? I was getting a sneaking suspicion here…

When I landed in front of the address, said suspicion was sadly confirmed. She set up her practice in her own home!? It was quite… incongruous. She had a cheery mailbox, apparently made by a child, with a tall, blonde stick figure in green clothes holding the hand of a shorter blonde stick figure. The words ‘The Saltstons‘ were written in bright, cheery letters on the box.

Well, fuck. I had planned to break into her practice, go through her files. Maybe question her, if she was still there at this time of night (agents often led a nocturnal life). But I wasn’t just going to break into a family’s home. Much less one with a child living in it.

A boy and his mother, huh? I thought, looking closer at the mailbox. The thought made me feel… old. Tired. I wondered why the boy’s father wasn’t on the box. The monkey twitched, half in murderous anger and half in… less comfortable feelings. It took me a few moments to pull myself back together, and I punctuated them by running my fingers through my hair, returning it to some semblance of order (being clean and orderly made it easier to resist the monkey, all things considered).

I had a difficult decision to make. If I didn’t investigate this quickly, I risked the lawyer being tipped off and destroying her files, perhaps even leaving the city… though her having a child meant that she was less likely to go for that option. Maybe. She might be a horrid mother, who knew?

It does look rather cheerful, though, I thought as I looked at the painting on the mailbox, which was illuminated by one of the streetlights. The woman and the boy had both smiles painted on their faces, the boy even a wide grin. Those weren’t the pictures made by an unhappy child.

There wasn’t really a choice here, was there? I wasn’t going to harm a mother in front of her son. I turned away to leave, determined to follow this lead during the day, when she was more likely to be alone, the boy at school or at a friend’s place.

“It is a good thing, to have a conscience,” the words of my father spoke, old memories rising up unbidden. “Most everyone has one, and it is exceedingly hard to manipulate something you do not comprehend. A true master of the human mind is never a psychopath, for they do not understand many of the basic impulses that control humans.”

I shivered, frozen in midstep. I remembered that lesson. One of the earliest ones he’d given me, after my world broke down.

“But one must also master their conscience. It is good to let it guide you. It is never good to let it control you. Never let it make you hesitate – hesitation is always easy, rarely useful. Don’t let it make you neglect a beneficial course of action.”

“Fuck you, dad.” I spat the words, but there was no real venom in my voice. Perhaps because I knew he was right. Hell, I could imagine what he would say if he saw me now, including his precise tone of voice. “This woman is responsible for an attempt on your life. She deserves no more mercy than she showed you when she set a hit squad on you.” The monkey growled deep inside me, agreeing strongly with that line of thought. I could feel its need to lash out at those who threatened me, its need to hurt, to kill.

Perhaps she didn’t know the details of the orders she passed along, I thought, trying to sway myself.

“She knew she was passing on orders from her client to a group of mercenary assassins. Even if she didn’t know who the specific target was, she still gave implicit approval. And besides, she is your only link to whoever is behind this; unless you find them and neutralise the threat, there will be more attmepts,” my father’s voice in my head cut through my feeble arguments.

Maybe they lied. Maybe she’s not connected to this at all.

“I taught you better than that. You read them. You know they said the truth.”

I took a deep breath, calming myself. What did it say about me, that I had mental arguments with the memory of my father?

Worse, what did it say about me that he usually won?

Squaring my shoulders, I approached the house to break in and take a look around.

“Step one, son, is to know your mark.”

Time to bust out some of the old protocols.

* * *

I approached the house carefully, keeping an eye out for its security systems. I didn’t have any equipment with me, so I tapped the monkey’s night vision. It revealed some high quality security, but nothing I couldn’t deal with.

It also revealed the sign that advertised Mrs Saltson’s practice. Sara J. Saltson, Attorney At Law, followed by a phone number.

Soon enough, I was inside – she had some good security, modern, expensive stuff, but I’d spent more than a dozen years breaking into and out of high-security government facilities – and I snuck through the house, taking everything in.

The hallway beyond the front door was rather short. To the right was the door to her law office. I assumed the door on the left led to her actual home. Her office, first. Quickly, but thoroughly.

The office was big. A converted living room, probably. A large window span the entire length of the wall opposing the door, though it was currently darkened by the shutters being closed. There were was a huge, antique bookshelf on the righthand wall, reaching from one corner to the next, and it was filled to the brim in neatly arranged books. A quick look over it revealed that they were all used books – she’d read all of them, I was certain. Or at least skimmed through most and read some others.

The lefthand wall held a huge flatscreen television in its center, where it could easily be seen from both her desk and the seats in front of it. It was even mounted on a small contraption that allowed for it swing out towards the desk, for more comfortable viewing. There was also a liquor cabinet to the right of the screen, in easy reach of the desk. Stocked with an expensive but rarely tapped selection of alcohol.

The desk itself was antique, and looked massive enough to stop a charging brick. It was made of nearly black mahagoni wood, appearing to be a nearly solid block of wood from the front, with some subtle carvings of stylised roses that appealed to the eye but didn’t detract from its imposing design. The other side was covered in drawers.

I skimmed through them. Most were locked, most likely containing her confidential files, but the two topmost ones were not. The left one contained a small, unusual-looking handgun – something handcrafted, perhaps by a gadgeteer; a weapon to defend yourself against superpowered clients, perhaps, who got too aggressive.

The right one was empty save for a handmade good-luck-charm (several colourful ribbons tied in a four-leaf-clover shape) and a picture of a grinning boy with blonde hair and bright grey eyes. He couldn’t be more than nine years old. The photograph looked new, too.

Curious, that she wouldn’t have it framed and on her desk. I filed that thought away as I worked through the rest of the desk. It told me a few interesting things.

Now, the mark herself. I left the office after I made sure everything looked exactly how it had been before I’d entered, and broke into the house proper. I quickly took in the actual living room and the kitchen – all very neat, save for a lot of books that were lying everywhere in small, neat stacks. Lots of pictures everywhere, of the woman and her son. No father, no other family or friends.

Then I crept up the stairs. The second floor was not very interesting to me. The first room was just a closet, the second a bare-bones guest room that hadn’t seen any use in quite a while. Three more rooms, one on each side and one at the end of the hallway. I could hear soft breathing from behind the door at the end, so I tried the other two first.

One was an utterly decadent, huge bathroom. I mean, it looked like it belonged into a ritzy hotel, not a private home. The bath tub doubled as a hot tub, and it looked like it was used heavily, but kept rigorously clean.

The other room proved to be an (empty) boy’s bedroom. It was nicely furnished and brightly coloured, but it felt like it didn’t see much use. I wonder why…

I got my answer when I snuck into her bedroom. It was big, it was comfortable, and there were two people in the huge queen-sized bed. A woman and a boy, cuddled up beneath a thin blanket (the room was well-heated).

Ah crap. This would be so much easier if she was abusive, or neglectful, but from the way the two held onto each other, I could tell that there was a lot of adoration there.

A sigh escaped my lips. No use, man. You need this information. Your life might depend on it. And who knows whose else.

I studied the woman, briefly, then I left again, leaving the house without any evidence of my brief presence left behind.

It had taken me less than fifteen minutes to work through all of it.

* * *

I quickly returned to my house. I’d gotten enough out of my inspection, and now I had to prepare for the interrogation. I assuaged my conscience by telling it that the more thorough my preparations, the more expertly the actual dialogue, the less actual harm I would have to cause, be it physical (which, frankly, I wasn’t going to do) or mental (I’d rather avoid that, beyond the most basic stress and fear, if possible).

“Analyse your mark. Observe its home, its workplace, its appearance and behaviour”, my father’s voice whispered into my ear. “Do not look at the mask it wears. Its house will be different from its workplace because everyone wears a different mask to different occasions. But all masks are based on the same states of mind. Observe, analyse, compare. Determine the state of mind behind the mask.”

She was a strong woman. A single mother who blended her work and her taking care of her son, taking the risk of having her practice in her own house so she’d always be near her boy. On the way back, I’d ascertained that the nearest elementary school was just down the street, less than ten minutes at a comfortable pace. No husband, no family close enough to warrant a picture in her house. No friends on the photographs, either, save for a single shot of her and a few other women in very expensive clothing. Friends, judging by the expressions and stances, the way they’d stood together – but her boy was the center of her life, without question.

It would have been easy to use the boy, to pressure her through him. My father would have recommended that I do it, subtly, carefully. Never breaking the Code, of course, but still using him (he himself rarely, if ever, had need of such crude methods).

I felt like throwing up just considering the option, and quickly dismissed it.

Instead, I was going to use a different approach. And that necessitated that I look… professional. Respectable. First came a thorough shower, a shave and the use of various products my daughter had apparently picked out for me (or had others pick out, who knew?) on my face and hair.

Afterwards, I looked for the suit I’d worn until recently – it was mostly fine, but visibly worn… Perhaps Elouise thought to provide me with a fitting suit. It would beat having to track down one of the special tailors that most likely still made a living providing quick costumes for capes and cowls. I don’t have that much time, anyway. I should finish this before the sun comes up.

I checked, and ‘lo and behold, I actually had three suits. I picked a particularly expensive-looking one (a dark maroon-coloured pair of pants, jacket and vest, with a black shirt to be worn beneath) and tried it on. It didn’t fit perfectly, but well enough for my purposes (I’d have to take it to a tailor some time, if I intended to keep using it), so I put on a pair of black socks and took a polished pair of black leather shoes (it appears to me that my daughter was going for a theme when she picked out my clothes) that were in a plastic bag, and which fit quite nicely. I should ask her where she got my measurements, I thought to myself as I adjusted my tie.

Once I was done, I checked my hair over once more, moved about a bit to get used to the shoes and pants, and left the house again.

Calling up the monkey’s skin to keep my hair and suit safe from dirt, the wind and anything else that may spoil my looks, I made my way to the Saltston home.

Time to get this show started.

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B011.1 Monkey Family

Posted on December 29, 2014 by tieshaunn

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Three hours, two bottles of scotch, a bottle of bourbon and a bottle of that yellow French stuff whose name I always forgot later, I actually felt better about myself, and my life as of late. Not good, but better.

Also, some of Journeyman’s stories were just hilarious. And some just depressing, but in a good way. Distracting. But we were rapidly approaching the point where I might actually get drunk, and though I didn’t doubt that Journeyman could subdue me if I lost control, it would still be rude to go to that point.

Even if drowning my sorrows really sounded pretty attractive, after the day I’d had.

“You’re doing it again, Kevin,” Journeyman chorused. I looked up at him. “You’re doing the introspective self-pity routine. Don’t, it doesn’t suit you.”

I sighed, putting my glass aside (it was empty, anyway). “Yeah, I think I should go to sleep. Maybe some Z’s will help me work this out.”

“You do that. But put up an alarm for two forty,” he said as he cleaned the glasses and put them away upside down. “A kill team will attack you around three o’clock. It should give you enough time to wake up properly.”

Ah, one of his… prophecies. There were a lot of precogs out there, but what was creepy about Journeyman’s predictions was that, as far as I knew, he was always right. “Would I have died if you hadn’t told me?” I asked wryly. That was another thing about his prophecies. They rarely changed anything in a big way.

He chuckled, which was just weird with his many voices (though I’d noticed long ago that there seemed to be less and less voices the more relaxed he got – it was probably a deliberate effect). “No no, not at all. But you would have gotten hurt, a bit, and wrecked the house. This way, you should be able to control the situation. Just leave the house before two fifty-five, and they should attack you outside.”

“Good. Thanks,” I replied, relaxing a bit. I rather liked this place. “Actually, I’m reminded of a question I had. When I got off the plane, I saw a shadow watching me, during the ceremony.”

“Yes?”

I tapped my fingers on the counter, drumming a little rhythm. “Was that Elouise? I suspected my father’s work, but it isn’t exactly his style, unless he changed even more than you told me.”

“Wait, let me take a look,” he replied, leaning back against the shelf behind him, lowering his head. After a moment, he looked up again. “Yeah, it was Elouise. I’m not sure your father even knows you’re back. He takes his promises rather seriously. Though he’ll probably find out soon enough, either way. You’ve caused quite a stir around this place.”

I nodded, relaxing a bit. “And the house? If he kept his promise, it wouldn’t have been him who kept it,” I continued.

He shook his head. “No. The Matriarch, I suspect. If only to get in your good graces, when you returned. Anyway, I should get going. Try and catch some sleep, before the action starts,” he continued.

“Wait,” I said, perking up. I’d just remembered something. “There was one thing I wanted to ask. Something weird happened to me on the way here.”

He leaned closer. “Oh? Do tell.” The shifting images on his mask – which, I was sure, were as deliberate as his voice – seemed to focus, without actually becoming distinct enough to make sense.

“I was driving when, out of nowhere, I was in this… fairy tale forest. Rolling hills, huge trees, vibrant colours, the whole spiel. And when I got out of it, I’d pretty much arrived in Chicago, after just a few hours, total, of driving.”

I think that actually rattled him – I say this because his mirror-mask went blank. Utterly blank, not even reflecting me. There was no other sign of surprise, yet it was the strongest reaction I’d ever seen him have to anything.

“I see… that is rather weird,” he spoke slowly, with less than ten voices – making whatever his actually voice was almost recognisable. Almost. “It ought not to be appearing yet… I wonder why it’s reaching that far…” His voices vanished into an incomprehensible, rapid whisper for a few moments.

I just sat there, watching his still-blank mask as he seemed lost in thought… or perhaps some kind of discussion. To be honest, I was just confused by the whole deal.

Without any other cue, the visions on his mask reappeared, and I was pretty sure he was focusing on me again. “This is a rather worrisome development… for me, Kevin. It ought not to concern you,” he said with his usual chorus of voices. There was something oddly… intense about him. Way more intense than I’d ever seen him. A lot of firsts today.

I shivered at the foreboding nature of the comment. “Are you sure? I’m not easily scared, but you’re creeping me out right now.”

He tilted his head as he leaned back, crossing his arms across his chest. “I’m serious. It’s neither threat nor concern to you, I promise. At least not in any important timeframe. You should worry about your own problems right now – if this becomes a concern for you, I will tell you. Alright?”

When I nodded, he gave me a small nod – and then he was simply gone. No fancy effects, no strange sensation or anything. One moment he was there, the next he wasn’t. I didn’t even have to blink.

“Sure is nice, being able to disappear like that,” I thought before I got up, putting my concerns regarding the strange forest out of my mind. I really wanted to look around the place, after all these years, but there was a kill team on its way… though Journeyman had, as always, only given me the minimal possible amount of information… I didn’t even know who sent them or why… well, either way, I should sleep for as long as I could, so I went up to my bedroom, without even bothering to turn on the lights. I simply took off my shoes, jacket and tie, and dropped onto my bed (it felt just like how I remembered it) and was asleep seconds after I set the alarm.

* * *

The alarm worked flawlessly, just like I remembered it – and just like way back then, I had to use truly saintly amounts of discipline so as not to crush it.

Buddha-like self-discipline won out over primal rage, and I shuffled out of my bed. I didn’t have much time, so I stumbled into the bathroom – going by memory, so as not to turn on any lights and betray myself to the assassins – and washed my face with cold water. I still had some time after that, so I brushed my teeth – stupid as it was, I had missed being able to regularly brush my teeth – and went to check on my wardrobe. My bedroom had no windows, so I turned on the light.

It took me a few moments to blink the tears out of my eyes (due to the light, of course. Not because I was seeing my bedroom for the first time in almost two decades), and then I went to the old hardwood wardrobe and opened it.

Someone – I had a pretty good idea who – had set me up, clothing-wise. And very recently, too, I was sure.

Could Elouise have done all this between seeing me at the ceremony and me coming here? Most definitely, if she has even a fraction of the Matriarch’s resources. I picked out a pair of jeans, some fresh underwear and a black shirt with a white peace sign on it, putting them on. Then I took my socks off, and threw them into the laundry basket with the rest, before I made my way down to the first floor, and out the door.

Then I simply took a stroll down the street, with ten minutes until the projected attack left – I didn’t want to fight here, so close to my home. Too much of a chance of collateral damage, never mind the attention it would draw to me. If these killers were even remotely competent, they’d jump on the chance to attack me during an evening stroll in some remote location, so I gave them just that, making my way towards the old mills near the lake – they were pretty close to my place, at least by my standards (I didn’t get tired easily, and even my normal walk was pretty fast) and I’d bet my house that they were still abandoned and rundown. Tearing what was left of the old steel mills down had been talked about for a long time, but even back then, they didn’t get anything done – I doubted they had, in the intervening time.

The city was as quiet during the night as I remembered it – meaning, anything but. Though Merlin Street was as quiet as ever, by itself, the surrounding city really left no illusions as to this being a metropolis. Cars, horns, more electronic sounds than I remembered, people shouting in the distance… Strange smells that reached even this far, across several streets. Smells that made you question their origins, imagining some pretty awful things. A strong wind that seemed to always blow from the front, pushing you back, or directly from behind, pushing you ahead.

Then, as I left Merlin Street, other people. A few doxies who gave me appraising looks, but whom I honestly ignored – I’d never had to resort to paying for a woman’s attention, not with my looks (and, I had to admit, the skills my father had instilled in me). I just focused on the feeling of pavement beneath my feet, and on spotting my shadows (another skill dad had had me practice relentlessly).

It didn’t take long for me to spot my pursuers. I counted no less than four, and there were probably more that stayed back, following their scouts. Professionals, definitely, but not good enough to hide from me. Though they probably wouldn’t expect me to have black ops training. Few people did, and even fewer metahumans.

Nothing I can’t deal with, I thought as I kept on strolling towards the mills. If they were powerful enough to simply overpower me, they’d have already attacked and then fled before the heroes could interfere. If they’re instead following me, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, then because they feel the need to do so.

Which meant I would have a major advantage, since I knew they were coming and could control the battlefield. Also, the fact that Journeyman had been sure that I’d beat them with just minor injuries even if they surprised me in my sleep spoke volumes all on its own.

Just a few minutes later, I’d reached the mills. The whole area hadn’t changed much since I’d last come here – ruined factory buildings, even more overgrown and broken now. Scars from super-powered battles littered the entire field, testaments to its popularity for grudge matches apart from immediate interference by the authorities.

Arid earth, sparse, coarse grass and dry twigs cracked underneath the soles of my feet as I made my feet towards the waterfront. A cool wind blew from the direction of the lake, making my hair whip around my face (I really ought to get it cut). The attack should come any time now, and I prepared myself, sharpening my senses.

* * *

They did not disappoint. I barely had time to react before the ground beneath me shook, two broad, shovel-like hands in thick brown gloves emerging to grab me by the ankles.

At the same time, five figures appeared seemingly out of nowhere, all around me. Three in a half-circle in front of me, two more behind that I could only hear. The three I could see were male and wore a skintight black suit that covered them from head to toe, revealing rather impressively muscled bodies, with equally black vests and belts containing God-knows-what additional equipment, and wearing pure white Skull masks with high-tech goggles built in that glowed a menacing red.

Gee, original much?

Despite their rather boring attire (they looked to me like cheap knock-offs of the Corpse Corps), I could tell that these people were trained. And trained well. Something about their stance just screamed ‘experienced killers’.

Which, of course, meant that they weren’t the best. The most deadly people I knew did not radiate such an aura of menace. They didn’t need to.

“Good evening, strangers,” I greeted them casually, smiling at the man at the center of their formation. “Why didn’t you show yourselves earlier? I wouldn’t have minded chatting on the way here, before we fight.”

He tilted his head as I saw the other two tense up. “You knew we were coming?” he asked, his voice made unrecognisable by way of mechanical distortion, reducing it to a monotone.

“I had your team made moments after I stepped out of my house. And I’d known you were coming since the early evening,” I spoke, turning my head left and right to take a look at the other two out of the corner of my eyes – a man and a woman, in the same outfits as the others, though the woman also held a huge rifle of futuristic design in her hands in a way that suggested that she was either very strong or the weapon far lighter than it looked. Their earthworker was still holding onto my ankles. “So, what’s the reason behind this? It’s rather rude to interrupt a guy’s sleep.”

Their leader shrugged. “We’re here to kill you. Nothing personal, just business,” he spoke, his voice even, his stance (apparently) unconcerned.

I sighed, lowering my head for a moment as I took my hands out of my pockets. Then I thought this all over. These people… were not my daughter, nor anyone I cared about, really. And it wasn’t a public fight, either.

No reason to hold back. And besides, the world got a little brighter every time mercenaries like these died, so…

I should let the monkey blow off some steam anyway, I thought as I felt the beast within stir in excitement.

My knockles popped as I stretched my fingers, then curled them up before looking down at the two hands holding onto my ankles.

“You know, my feet are perfectly comfortable in this weather. No need to warm them.”

Then I let the monkey out. Just a little bit.

* * *

Several hours earlier

Nine people were sitting at a round table in a well-lit room, Camille one of them. She was not happy about that. There was one person missing – the most important one, as far as she was concerned.

But Hennessy had been too weak to join them, her mother insisting (rightly) that she stay in bed to rest, surrounded by positive emotions (meaning, her half-sister was spending the night cuddling up to her). The fact that Camille herself had insisted that Henny take a break didn’t make her any more happy to be here without her. Her left hand was hanging limply down the side of her seat, randomly clenching and relaxing as it longed for Henny’s hand to hold.

I should just track the bastard down and kill him, she thought for the millionth time. It was a pointless thought, she knew she wouldn’t do it – she’d never killed, nor did she intend to. Nevermind the fact that she’d probably lose – anyone who could handle Henny on a rage the way he had was way out of her league.

It didn’t make the thought any less tempting.

And so Camille missed Vek’s speech, lost in thoughts of how to get some payback against Henny’s so-called ‘father’. More like sperm donor.

She rose out of her homicidal thoughts when someone shouted her name.

“Camille!” Vek’s bleating voice might be an easy target for ridicule, but it was very good at catching your attention. Camille snapped to attention, looking straight at her leader. “Pay attention. The higher ups sent me the dossier on Aap Oordra. I’d like to brief you on him, seeing how we’re likely to have to deal with him in the future.”

Now she really had Camille’s full attention. “What’d we know about that fucker?”

“Language, please,” Director Queensfield said in her throaty voice. The stocky woman in the severe power suit always reminded her of her mother, especially when she reprimanded her. “Miss Petson, please proceed,” she added with a nod towards Vek.

The goat woman nodded and tapped a key that was being projected on the flat table in front of her. A high-quality shot of Aap Oordra’s face appeared on the table, leaving only a thin ring of blackness around it. His face was neutral on it, his hair combed back, his beard neatly trimmed. He looked… gaunt. His eyes were haunted and ringed in black… and yet, Camille couldn’t deny that he looked damn attractive, even like that.

Well, not like someone related to Henny could look bad, she told herself.

“This is what we know of Aap Oordra’s history after he left the USA – he joined the army to fight in the Afghanistan War, but was pronounced missing in action after the Great Clusterfuck – a three-way battle between the forces of the PATO, the SU and the newly-formed Caliphate, interrupted partway through by an attack from Desolation-in-Light. What we know after that is rather more… sketchy. It seems that he was taken by the Sovjet forces after the battle and put in one of their re-education camps in Siberia.”

Camille bit her lip. He’d been a prisoner all this time? That… that was actually a damn good excuse for not being, well, there. No, don’t think like that! Asshole left to join the army, he shouldn’t have done that in the first place!

“What we know since is rather sketchy, and relies on second-hand reports and some files we could get out of the Sovjet Superhuman Committee. He apparently broke out within five days of being incarcerated – just an hour or two after recovering fully from the wounds he sustained during the fight – but was recaptured three days later, before managing to leave the SU territory. Re-education proved unsuccessful, the files noting that he seemed to have gotten extensive anti-brainwashing training, to the point where they suspected a background in metahuman black ops – though his young age at the time makes that highly unlikely. Over the last seventeen years, he broke out of twenty-seven different re-education and containment facilities, and is credited with enabling the escape of more than three-hundred war prisoners, as well as more than six hundred Sovjet citizens who had been kept in these facilities, as well as the killings of no less than three whole teams of the Sovjet’s metahuman capture forces – as well as participating in the subduing of an S-Class threat that ravaged the Mongolian lands. He was recaptured, one way or another, each time, but they paid for it dearly. And this is just the information that our office of intelligence considers reliable. “

The room was filled with stunned silence. That wasn’t the background of a downbeat ex-thrill-villain who’d left his family behind to chase some war glory. Even Camille had to admit that that was freaking badass.

“Aap Oordra – or Kevin Paterson, though we have no way to make sure that that is actually his real name, as he doesn’t seem to have a past before he showed up here in Chicago at the age of sixteen – was liberated by members of the Sovjet rebellion just a short time ago. They found him in the Sovjet’s supermax prison, Koschei’s Chest. He was being held in their maximum security wing, their equivalent of our Tartarus Star Super-Max Section.”

The Junior Heroes around the table visibly shivered at the mention of the name. Koschei’s Chest was not known for its humane treatment of its inmates.

“In keeping with the Ondero Act, he has been pardoned of all his crimes – which is kind of superfluous, as the statute of limitations has expired on most of them, as well as given a veteran’s pension and several cash boni for everything he went through – as well as several medals for his recorded achievements.”

Camille frowned, but didn’t comment. She didn’t like hearing that ass described like a badass war hero.

“More important for us, though, is his relationship to Chayot – you all know of it by now – and his, ah, performance during the Great Clusterfuck,” Vek continued, and changed the image on the table.

Now it showed… a young and very hot guy with wild black hair, tan skin and bright eyes, the air throwing his hair around as he laughed wildly.

It took Camille a moment to connect him to Aap. His features matched, but… he seemed far, far younger, not just physically.

“A quick primer on his powerset and past – Aap Oordra used to be a rather popular thrill-villain and prankster in the nineties, terrorising Chicago’s metahuman community and several political, financial and criminal power figures. No deaths, no serious bodily harm, but a lot of collateral damage, mainly due to the nature of his powerset. He is, to this day, one of only ten recorded true speedsters.”

“True… speedster?” Camille asked, not familiar with the term. She knew several speedsters, but she’d never heard about some kind of true speedsters, whatever that meant.

The senior members of the UH seemed to recognise the term, though, their eyes widening.

“Most speedsters accelerate by somehow cheating physics – they twist time, or partially move into another dimension, or transfer the strain that speeding puts on their body and their environment to some other body or dimension. Usually, this goes hand in hand with a reduction in their ability to affect their surroundings, which limits their combat utility.” She stopped the exposition, taking a deep breath.

The director leaned forward, picking up where Vek had left off. “A true speedster, conversely, is someone who actually speeds up to superhuman speeds, retaining and even increasing their ability to affect the world around them. They combine the strength, toughness, sensory speed, processing speed and coordination necessary to actually move at superhuman speeds – in some cases even supersonic speeds – and not cripple or kill themselves.”

Oh shit, I can guess where this is going.

Vek continued, “Aap Oordra is number five on a list of ten known true speedsters above Paragon tier – he usually limits himself to short bursts of speed, but he has been clocked it at Mach one speeds when given enough space to run in a straight line – and his peak may be even higher. His strength and toughness can match those speeds, and though he doesn’t seem to have perfect control over it – he can’t ignore inertia, for one – he is still considered an A-Class combatant all on his own.”

“No wonder he managed to handle Chayot mostly on his own,” Slough said. He was sitting next to Camille, in a rather normal-looking form (the only thing strange about it were the pink tentacles that replaced his hair). “So, what do we do about him? And what’s so special about his role in that big battle?”

Vek looked intently around the room. “What is special is that he took three direct hits from DiL, and only went down after the third one – and then recovered from the damage he took in less than a week. That speaks of a level of toughness and recovery that is, frankly, up there with Quetzalcoatl and Kraquok.”

I think going after him to kick his ass is now officially out of the question.

“People, this is important,” the Director stated calmly. “Whatever or whoever Aap Oordra may be – wherever he came from, whatever his intentions for going to war were – we know that he is comparable to any single member of the Shining Guardians or the Dark Five. We know that, even when he was a rather irresponsible youth, he still did hold himself back enough to keep his true potential hidden and prevented any truly serious damage. And we know that he cares a great deal for one of our team members and has expressed interest in becoming a part of her life – which may mean that he might be interested in joining the United Heroes. I do not have to tell you how desperately we need people with this level of power and skill.”

Oh, you wouldn’t dare suggest that we…

“So I want everyone here – everyone,” she emphasised with a look at Camille, “To put aside personal grievances and play nice around him. I will not demand nor expect Chayot to welcome him back with open arms, or even pretend to like him any more than she does – but I do expect everyone else here to foster positive interactions with him. He is, as of now, the most powerful metahuman in the State of Illinois – and I’d rather have him on our side than on the opposing one. Clear?”

“Clear!” came a chorused answer from around the table. Even Camille took part, despite her misgivings.

Well, I guess I can try… a bit…

* * *

I washed the blood off my hands in the dark waters of the lake. There was quite a lot of it, even though I had, in the end, refrained from killing anyone. I was still not sure why – I’d never felt bad about killing people like these, not in the least. But something had held me back.

Perhaps I’m just sick of all the killing, after all this time.

The fight hadn’t lasted very long, but it sure had helped me, nonetheless. They’d been tougher than I’d expected, though not by much. I hadn’t gotten hurt at all, in the end.

“I’m very proud of you,” Journeyman’s voice spoke up from my left.

I very pointedly did not flinch, but rather finished cleaning my hands and arms, then turned to look at him while I sat on my haunches. “How so?” I asked him. He was standing with his feet in the water, his robe moving back and forth with each wave, his hand clasped behind his back. He was looking out onto the lake.

“You didn’t kill any of them – unlike in the original future,” he remarked. “That’s good. You shouldn’t kill any more than absolutely necessary.”

I gave him a long look, thinking things over. “You warned me about them… just to save their lives? Not mine, since you said that I wouldn’t have died anyway.”

He shrugged. “That, too. Mainly, though, I did it to prevent you from killing them. A fine distinction, I admit, but an important one,” he answered, pre-empting my follow-up question with that last sentence.

After a few minutes of just staring at him, with only the remote sounds of the city, the sounds of the lake and the moans of the broken bodies behind us around, I nodded and whispered, “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, my friend,” he spoke in what passed as a cheery voice for him. “Now, I really need to go – altering these events to such an extent will cause one hell of a backlash, and I’d rather not be anywhere near anything alive when it hits me, so I just wanted to give you one last, very important piece of advice – because I won’t be able to help you for quite a while, I’m afraid.”

“Shoot,” I said. He’d mentioned that before, quite a lot of times. Some kind of backlash for altering the events he saw in his visions. The big reason why he wasn’t just fixing the world, as he phrased it.

“You should talk to your father,” he said.

“No,” I shot back as firmly as I could. “No. Not happening.” I sighed. “He… doesn’t deserve it. I’m not giving him that satisfaction.”

Again, he shrugged. “It’s not about what he deserves. It’s about what you deserve. You’re hurting yourself as much, if not more, than him by keeping him away like this.”

I rose up so fast I almost jumped into the air, turning to him. Old, ugly, hot feelings reared their head in the pit of my stomach as I almost lashed out with the monkey. “NO! Not happening! You have no idea what he did to me! To my mother! How he betrayed us, how he fucked everything up, for no reason other than his fucking pride!” I shouted at him, my voice booming across the lake. At that moment, I was quite tempted to attack him, even though I didn’t stand the ghost of a chance.

He finally turned to look at me, somehow conveying… sadness, even though his posture didn’t change, and he had no expression to read. “I’m sure Hennessy says similar things about you.”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach, the tension and anger and hurt draining out of me, leaving behind… cold emptiness.

He bowed his head, slightly, and then simply vanished, leaving me behind on dark shores. Alone.

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Interlude 7 – Monkey Business (Part 4)

Posted on November 29, 2013 by tieshaunn

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I stood there, my… daughter hugging me hard enough to crack a tree (she was strong) and I was just slackjawed.

My life has officially passed from straaaaaange to… I don’t even know to what.

Still, despite the… sensation of mentally running into a wall, over and over, this girl here was my daughter, I was sure of it. That the monkey did not urge me with dark suggestions was proof enough, as were her eyes. And she had obviously been looking forward to this reunion for quite some time. No reason to make her feel unwanted.

So I put my arms around her, slowly. She only hugged me harder in response.

“I’ve dreamed of this day, you know?” she whispered.

“I see.” What was I supposed to say? I’d already been completely out of my depth with Hennessy. The situation may have been different now (I wasn’t getting smacked around, for one – though that could still happen) but… I had nothing. I had no idea what to say or do.

Less than four hours ago, I’d been out to find my ex-girlfriend, maybe hoping to get a second chance with her… now I had two teenage, almost grown-up daughters, one a severely damaged superheroine, the other an active supervillain with a lot of clout and they were supposedly archenemies.

Fun times. Stars above…

I pushed her back a bit so I could look down (even with her substantial heels, she was still way shorter than me) at her face.

She was biting her lower lip, looking insecure.

God, she looked like a child, all of a sudden.

“Don’t take this the wrong way – I know you’re my daughter – but how? I know I used protection the one time I slept with your mother.” Please don’t take this as a rejection.

She bit her lip harder, for a moment, looking away as if ashamed.

I saw her shadow – it looked like it had been circling us – rise from the ground, filling out into a three-dimensional, solid black copy of her. A perfect reflection, but there was no distinction between her clothes and her body, and her face, though perfectly detailed, was empty, emotionless, her eyes as dark as the rest of her.

Something about that shadow just creeped me out.

“Um,” the Matriarch – I so needed to know her name, no way I was calling my own daughter ‘Matriarch’ all the time – tried to speak up, commanding my attention again. “We shouldn’t… shouldn’t discuss this here. Come, let’s go somewhere more private, alright?”

Taking a step back, her hands grabbed my own and tugged, gently. Still insecure.

I nodded and followed her, nodding towards Cartastrophy, who managed to look depressed despite his costume. I gave him a look, and he nodded slightly. He knew not to talk about Chayot. That was not for him to share. I wasn’t even sure if I had the right to share it.

Followed by her now very physical shadow, my daughter pulled me past her divan and through a barely visible door in the wall behind it, then through the hallway beyond the door.

The room at the end of the hallway was far less… ostentatious than the hall. It was circular, with a large circular table, big enough for a group to have dinner together, small enough to still feel private and homely.

It was pretty much the only piece of furniture left in the room from the time I’d last been here. There were new, more modern cupboards along the walls, a large flat screen television and a lot of other stuff. Last time I’d been free and in America, we’d just gotten the first three dimensional screens for home use (they’d sucked). I idly wondered if the technology had taken off or just faded away again.

My attention was pulled back to more immediate, more important matters when my daughter turned around and hugged me again. Hard.

Is this normal? Or is there a special reason for why she seems so… desperate?

I hugged her back, still not sure how to react. Waiting for her to let go once she felt ready.

After a while, she relaxed and stepped back. “Thank you,” she said with a soft voice.

Now I was really confused. “What for?”

That got a weak giggle out of her. “You didn’t push me away. I mean, I’m just a stranger to you, and I just told you I’m your daughter – no proof, nothing – and you still let me hug you. That was nice.”

Well, I had the advantage of the monkey at least considering her a non-target, so I knew there was something special about her.

“To be honest, I just know that there is some connection between us. Can you answer my question now?”

Suddenly, she was all nervous again and walked over to the table, sitting down on a chair her shadow pulled out for her.

I sat down on the opposite side of the table, trying to look more confident than I was (no idea if it worked).

“You… remember that night? With my mother?” she asked, avoiding my gaze.

“Yes… she’d hired me for a caper – needed some muscle in case the heroes showed up, which they did – and after we got away… barely, and all the others got caught… we kind of… ended up back here. We were both euphoric, half-dead from the beating we’d both taken and really… in the mood,” I said, quite uncomfortable with discussing this with my daughter. “We both celebrated a little… right here… with some drinks and then…”

I looked over to the door opposite the one we entered. “Yeah, we went in there. But… I know I used protection, I remember making sure of it.”

She looked down, fidgeting on her seat. Opening her mouth, she almost started to speak, then went quiet again – and then her shadow poked her shoulder… and everything poured out of her.

“It was a setup,” she began. “All of it, the job, you two being the only ones to get away, the drinks, everything. She even… well she sabotaged the… the protection.”

Oh ewww…

“She even made sure it all happened while she was… ovulating. And she took some kind of contriver stuff to make herself extra… extra fertile,” she finished, looking ashamed.

Double eww.

“Why?” Did she know about…

Her shadow put a hand onto her shoulder, making her look at it. I heard something, a whisper I couldn’t understand.

The girl looked back at me. “She… she never did tell me. All I ever heard was that blood was thicker than water, which is just amazingly unhelpful.” She rolled her eyes, or at least I thought she did.

She knew, dammit. No oth-

My eyes fell on her shadow. Standing behind her, its shoulders were shaking… it was laughing, silently and, somehow, smugly.

It knows, I’m sure of it.

I looked back at the girl. She was still avoiding eye contact, but I could also tell, from her face and her eyes, that she was annoyed at the lack of an answer she got from her mother.

Throwing the shadow a suspicious glare – it had stopped moving and was just… well, I was pretty sure it was looking at me, but it was hard to tell… anyway, I was pretty sure that it knew, but she didn’t.

And it knew that I knew that it knew. Because it put a finger to its lips, as if to hush me.

The bottom fell off my stomach, and I felt my heart – and other assorted organs – drop down into my shoes.

She was in the same boat as Hennessy, if in a different way. Her power had a mind of its own, and it could keep secrets from her.

And now I knew, beyond any doubt, that she was my daughter. Even without the eyes, and her mother’s manipulative nature (she’d been famous for it, even without factoring in her power), which when coupled with her legendary lust for power certainly made such a plot probable, I’d always known that having children might be a bad idea. One of the few advises my father gave me, which I actually was thankful for (most of them were just… creepy to give to your child) was that I should be extremely careful about having children… that I should be absolutely sure that I wanted a child, and that I should make sure to be present for it… because they were likely to have issues with their powers.

Though, as usual, he hadn’t explained why any of my children would have issues with their powers. He was an asshole about that.

And now both my daughters… I remembered the figure I’d seen inside Hennessy’s head (or wherever the hell we’d been), and that thing had certainly been alive, though it had not been as overtly distinct from her as this girl’s shadow was.

“… papa?”

“Huh?” I looked up. She was staring at me, worried.

I noticed that I’d been brooding. “Sorry, I spaced out, didn’t I?”

“Uhh, yeah, you could call it that…” she replied, sounding shaken.

Strange.

“I know this is a lot to drop onto your lap all at once, and I know you don’t owe me anything, but…” She stopped, staring to the side. Her shadow whispered something, again, but she waved it off.

I waited for her to continue, folding my hands in front of my face and looking at her over them. I wasn’t the most… savvy person, especially regarding the feelings of others, but I could tell that she was, for some reason, close to a breakdown.

And I had no idea how to deal with it.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she gave me a longing look. “I… If you want, we could… I mean, you probably want to reestablish yourself here, and if you want, you can work with me… or I can work for you, I mean, you’re way more experienced… and it would be really useful for both of us, if…”

Her shadow put a hand to its forehead, shaking its head while she continued babbling.

I just rose from my seat and walked around the table. She only sped up, trying to throw more good arguments at me for why I should join her, or she join me, or… well, she certainly was no smarter than I was, it seemed.

Stopping next to her, I grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her up into a hug, lifting her off her chair and off the ground, her feet dangling in the air as I buried my face in her rich hair.

“What’s your name?”

She choked, then answered: “Elouise. Elouise Luviere.”

“I’m Kevin Paterson. Call me Kevin, or papa if you insist.” I hugged her close, but not hard enough to risk hurting her.

“Are you… do you mean it? I mean, you never wanted me, and my organization isn’t that great an-“

“Oh, shut up.” I hugged her harder. “I don’t give two shits about any organization or power or money or political advantage. Don’t need any of that, as far as I’m concerned, anyway.” I tried to put as much… how to even call it… you know, that fuzzy tone fathers can put into their voice when they want to reassure their children? I hadn’t exactly gotten much of that, in my time (though I’ll admit that my father tried to be like that), so I didn’t exactly know how to call it. But I tried a fatherly voice, going by what I’d heard from others over the years. “I don’t know you… but I’d like to change that. Try to be a family.”

And I wish I could have just said that to Hennessy. Why didn’t I get my act together back there?

She shuddered, then hugged me back. I thought I heard her crying, but I don’t think she’d have appreciated me commenting on it.

I held her. Don’t ask me how I felt for the year or so we spent like that, because I honestly can’t tell you. It was intense, but that’s all I can put into words.

* * *

After some time – don’t ask me how long – I felt her grip relax. Slowly, more reluctant than I’d thought I’d be, I let go, lowering her onto the floor.

She took a step back, turning in the same motion, right into the handkerchief her shadow was holding, and which it used to clean up her face before I could see it.

I resisted the urge to spout some pun and just waited for her to feel up to talking again.

Maybe I’ll be up to it by the time she is.

Once her shadow was done, she turned around. Her eyes were a little red, and her nose too, but otherwise she looked fine.

“Thank you,” she said, again.

I smirked. Then I reached out with both hands for her mask. She tensed up for a moment, but didn’t resist when I pulled it off.

Underneath she was… surprisingly cute. I mean, she was as beautiful as her mother had ever been, even more so. But where her mother had been gaunt and sharp-featured, she was just… soft. She looked younger than her eighteen-odd years, and I realized that her mask was designed specifically to make her look older. Pair that with her dress and she could pull off twenty-one years, I guess.

“Elouise… do you have a nickname you prefer?” I asked while putting the mask aside on the table.

“Uhh, Lise is fine, I guess,” she said. “Never had a real nickname, to be honest.”

“Really? With a name like Elouise, I’d have thought your friends-“

She laughed out loud – but it wasn’t a happy laugh.

“Friends? You really didn’t know my mother,” she said. “I had peers, rivals, sure. People I could measure myself against. But friends? They would have been a weakness. So she made damn sure I never made any.”

And I thought my dad’s an asshole…

“No friends at all? Even after… when did she die, anyway? How?”

Her face fell, again.

“Oh, uh… did you hear about the whole incident with the Ascendant, five years ago?”

I had to restrain myself not to show the sudden surge of rage I felt at being reminded of him. Her shadow seemed to notice, taking a step closer to her. Ready to protect her.

At least it keeps her safe, huh?

Somehow, that movement calmed me down. Reminded me that I needed to be on my best behaviour.

“I’ve heard of it. What exactly happened to her? She was not a frontline fighter, so…”

She looked away, again. “The boy… they call him Jabberwocky… he had some kind of danger sense and tracking, or maybe a strange kind of precognition. Could tell where the biggest threat to himself was, went right after it. So, the first thing he did was attack the base where the hero and villain superminds were. The precogs, the super-strategists, the data-analysts. It faked out the fighters, faked out even the superminds, came up in the middle of them… and started killing. They didn’t stand a chance. Mom was there because of… well, she had a slew of perception powers, as you probably know. Some low-level precognition, some enhanced awareness, empathy, and so on. A little bit of most. But… Jabberwocky could somehow resist perception powers, if he was close enough to their users, and he took almost all of them down.”

She said all this in a strangely calm voice. I couldn’t tell how she felt about it.

So I decided to just ask.

“How do you feel about that?”

Her mouth clenched up, as did her fists, and it took her a while to respond.

“I hated her, you know? I mean, I loved her, still do, but I also hated her. Still do. I’m just…”

Again, her shadow reached out, pulling her around to face it. It spoke in that incomprehensible whisper again, and she relaxed.

Turning around again, she faced me as her shadow put its arms over her shoulders, letting them dangle limply as it put its head next to hers.

“Sorry, I’m a little… emotional today,” she said.

God, she takes way too much after me. “I can tell.” I took her hand and sat down, pulling her down onto my lap. Thankfully, her shadow melted away, sinking back into the floor.

Maybe it doesn’t see me as a threat anymore?

“Look, Lise, there is a lot I want to talk to you about, but I think we both need some time to really let this sink in, alright?” I certainly do. “Also, I did come here for some business that is quite… pressing. Sorry for bringing it up.”

She shook her head, snuggling against my chest. Damn, she was young, younger than I’d been at her age. “It’s alright. I guess reestablishing yourself after eighteen years – by the way, you really need to tell me what you’ve been doing – is quite a chore.”

She thinks I want to be a supervillain again. I didn’t think that I wanted that. To be honest, my plans consisted of three points. Find the Ascendant. Kill him slowly and painfully. Take care of your daughters, moron!

Three simple points, no overarching plot or anything. Not that I’d ever been prone to those.

“Look, I heard the Ascendant is back in town. I need to find him. Preferably before he pulls any large or small operation.” I managed to restrain the hatred in my voice, and I prayed to God her shadow wouldn’t pick up on it and tell her. It seemed to be… sensitive.

“What for? Do you want an in with him? You’d have all the heroes around after you, if you did. Especially that bitch Chayot and her pals.”

Now I felt like slapping her for using that kind of word in regards to her sister. But she didn’t know. And I wasn’t comfortable with complicating things even more right now.

“Let’s just say there is some old, unfinished business between us. And it’s really urgent. If there is any way for you to get me an in? Just an audience?” Her organization may be diminished, but she is the heir of one of the old guard.

She nodded, never parting from my embrace. “I’ll see what I can do.” Her shadow slithered out of the room. “But it’ll probably take a while.”

“Sure thing, sweetie.”

She giggled and snuggled closer.

This is actually nice. And the monkey hadn’t even tried pissing me off for a while.

* * *

After a while, Elouise had to take care of some business. She put on her mask, aging by at least three years with it, kissed me on the cheek (I kissed her on both, and on the top of her head, which for some reason made her giggle) and went off to work, inviting me to make myself at home.

I told her I wanted to visit my old house and gave her my address and my phone number, both of which she took gleefully in exchange for her own (she lived at the casino, but she had a private cellphone number).

Then, me and Cartastrophy left, taking his car back home.

“Damn, now I’ll lose the other poster, too,” he grumbled.

Thinking about it, I actually said: “Dude, she gave you that one herself. It’s alright, keep it.”

He shook his head. “No way pal. You know why I like those posters. No way I’ll have my friend’s daughter on one of those posters.”

I grunted in affirmation.

We reached the block next to the one I lived at, and I got out of the car to walk the rest of the way.

Merlin Street hadn’t changed at all in the last eighteen years. The houses still looked like they came out of a cheap horror novel, all faux-victorian stonework and stuff. Really gloomy, but with way too much colour in the flowerbeds and on the roofs to feel depressing.

My house was unchanged, too. Someone (probably Dad) had been taking care of it.

I stepped into the old, almost fortress-like building, and was immediately assaulted by the smell of old books, musty wood and carpet.

And there was someone there. The monkey wasn’t smelling anyone, but I could hear someone riffling through my bar. The bottles were clinking against each other.

Without hesitation, I stormed into the living room, half-ready to manifest my monkey hand-

A man stood behind the bar, clad in a dark blue robe with a hood and wide sleeves. As I entered, he turned around, unconcerned, with two glasses and a bottle of seventy-year-old scotch in hand.

“Want a drink?” the most powerful man in the world asked in a thousand and no voices. I could barely see his mirror-like, featureless facemask. It was more of a helmet, really, but almost skintight and shaped so at least a nose and some basic facial lines were suggested by the mirror.

Not that anyone ever paid attention to the mirror itself, because the images it showed usually commanded all of your attention.

Though, seeing how they never made any fucking sense, I’d just gotten used to not paying them attention.

“Hello Journeyman. What have you been up to?” I sat down on a stool in front of the bar counter.

He filled the two glasses, then held out one for me. I took it, we knocked glasses and drank. His glass moved through his mask like it wasn’t even there.

Ah, life gets immediately better once you drink a scotch that’s twice as old as you are.

“Journeying around the world, of course. And then some,” he answered in his freakass voices, his mask showing… images of countless people. Some of them looked like heroes, or villains, or people out of a fantasy novel.

“Anything in particular?”

“Spaceworms,” he said. “Godlike spaceworms, and dancing. But in the end it came down to a little girl with serious control issues.”

“You still don’t make any sense.”

He chuckled, which was really creepy, because it was like a whole opera house was chuckling all at once.

“I pride myself on that. I hear you’ve had some… interesting experiences?”

I took another swig. “Did you know about my daughters?” No use trying to keep a secret from this guy.

He shook his head, his mask flashing through images of Hennessy and Elouise, from childhood to now. Some of them scared me, a lot.

“Had I known, I would have brought you back here immediately. Alas, even my knowledge is limited.”

I snorted and took another drink (Journeyman always knew when to fill up and when to stop).

“I need a break. Got any funny stories to tell?”

“Well, there’s this one about magical lost romans who fight naked elves on giant sloths.”

“Sounds like my kind of story. Shoot.”

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Interlude 7 – Monkey Business (Part 3)

Posted on November 25, 2013 by tieshaunn

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Promising your ex to murder your daughter’s tormentor must be a great way to fix up a relationship, because five minutes later, we were sitting on the same couch (though we did keep a certain distance) and chatting.

She was avoiding the question I knew she wanted to ask, perhaps even more than the question for me to kill someone. I wasn’t sure I could have answered her, anyway. It wouldn’t have been fair.

“So, you and Phil? How did that happen?” I asked, maybe a bit too curious. He wasn’t anything like the kind of guy I’d have thought she’d ever fall for.

She looked down at her feet (wearing plush pink slippers that looked like cats – something told me Charity had chosen them), half sad and half smiling.

“Uh, well, after… after you left, and after Henny was born, I kind of lost interest in… in bad boys. And the life, as a whole. I just wanted something stable, for myself, but even more for Henny,” she half-whispered.

Punch. Gut. Hurts. Deserve it.

“I’m glad you found him. That you found what you looked for, without me,” I said with total (fake) honesty. My dad was an asshole, but at least his lessons in proper lying turned out useful. “You deserve this and more.” That, at least, was no lie.

She looked up with slightly wet eyes, nodding. “Thank you, for… for understanding it.”

I snorted. “You talk as if I had cause to hold it against you. I screwed up, not you, so don’t you think you need to thank me for anything,”

Suddenly, I clapped my hands, loudly. She jumped in her seat.

Then she looked at me, and giggled. “Oh God, you still do that?” she asked in between trying to take a breath.

“Some things never change. And it got me a smile and a giggle,” I replied, winking. “Now, I’d like to talk to Hennessy before I go. Do you know how long she’ll sleep?”

Tamara shrugged, looking so helpless I wanted to hug her. I didn’t. I didn’t have that right anymore.

“I… I don’t know. She’s only lost control a few times like that. Once, it only took three hours for her to wake up. Another time, nearly a week.”

Reaching out, I took her hand, holding it with a light grip. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have just turned up like that.”

“No, no, you couldn’t have known. I just… I wish you’d shown up earlier. The day after you left, with that surprise you promised me,” she said, half-choked.

Stab. Twist.

“Do… do you want to know? What I wanted to do?” Please say no.

She shook her head. “I… I think it would be better if I didn’t… didn’t know. For now. Maybe… maybe once I’ve worked this out.”

Same for me, I think.

“Tamara… I’m sorry. I just need to say it again. I’m sorry I wasn’t here, and I… I hope to make it up to you. And I don’t mean killing that piece of scat.”

She looked choked, then insecure, then… I couldn’t tell.

“Don’t. Don’t make it up to me, you didn’t wrong me,” she said. Her eyes were wet again. “It was Hennessy who suffered. Even before… even before he took her. She always yearned to know her father, but I couldn’t even tell her your name. She didn’t know whether to hate you for leaving, or to long to see you again, and it’s torn her up inside.”

That… hurt worse than getting pounded by Desolation-in-Light. Way worse.

“I will do whatever I have to to make amends. I swear it,” I said, as fervently as I could.

“Do so. It won’t be easy. She hates you… and she loves you. Even if she doesn’t know you at all.”

Suddenly, she gripped my hand like a steel vise, and her eyes transfixed me, as if she was looking right down into my soul. Hopefully not. She’s never seen the monkey.

“You won’t disappear again, understand?” Her voice was steel and her nails were digging into my arm, cutting into the fabric of my suit. “If you vanish again, I’ll come after you, and I‘ll kill you. got it? You will not abandon your daughter, is that clear?”

She’s never looked so beautiful. “Crystal. I’m here to stay.” There was nothing else to say.

As if on cue, Dearheart – Camille Schmitz, as I’d learned earlier – came down the stairs, dressed in sweatpants and a shirt. “Henny has woken up.”

* * *

Hennessy was lying on her bed, dressed in a pink silken pajama covered in hopping bunnies. Something told me that the princess ruled this house.

She looked at us, her purple eyes tired, but awake. She looked at me, paused… and looked away and at her mother.

Of course. I’m still the badguy.

“Oh Henny!” Tamara knelt down next to her daughter’s bed and took her hand in both of her own, squeezing it hard.

I expected them to talk, but they didn’t. Instead, they just looked each other in the eyes, and seemed to be communicating that way.

Leaning over to Camille, I asked: “How… how does her power mess up her speech?”

She gave me a scorching gaze that, by all means, should leave only a blast shadow of me on the wall, but answered, “She can’t speak. She can’t read or write, and she has no unconscious body language. She has trouble understanding body language, and she needs to really, really strain herself to understand spoken language.”

I’m almost tempted to ask dad for help with the Ascendant. Almost.

“So we can only really communicate through mental contact?”

This is going to be bad. Real bad. Fucking monkey.

“Right. I so look forward to having her brainblast you to next month.”

I didn’t reply.

A minute or so later, Tamara rose from her position and came over to us.

“She’ll speak to you – alone,” she said, looking years younger, now that her daughter was well again. Or as well as she could be. “Camille, come on, let’s leave them.”

Camille looked ready to object, but then she turned to face Hennessy… and walked out with another word, closely followed by Tamara.

Leaving me alone with my daughter.

We looked each other in the eyes, and I could feel her power reach into my mind, slipping right past the monkey. If I was right about my suspicions, this was not a quirk of her power, but due to the… contact we’d made all those years past. Somehow, the monkey didn’t really recognize her power as foreign, and thus did not defend against it all that well.

Also, if what I’d learned so far was right, then even this power, elementary though it was, drained her already limited reserves. Even her sole, reliable means of both interpreting others and expressing herself were limited.

Least I could do was make it easy for her, so I suppressed the monkey as far as I could, and opened myself up as far as I could.

Yeah, I wasn’t really good at either.

“Hennessy, may I come closer to you?” I said, speaking loudly and clearly, even though I felt like whispering.

It visibly took her a second or two to understand the sentence, then she answered.

Acceptance.

Whoa, I thought, but then I tried to answer in kind as I approached. Gratitude. It wasn’t pure, I could tell, not as simple as hers – there was also relief, and hesitation, and a host of other emotions mixed in.

But she nodded, so she’d gotten the message. Probably had learned to seperate the important parts from the chaos of human emotions.

I knelt down in front of her. That was a gesture she should be able to easily interpret, regardless of all issues. I didn’t touch her though, didn’t take her hands into mine, even if I ached to get closer to her.

To tell her that everything would be alright. That I was sorry. So incredibly, incredibly sorry.

She laid her head to the side, as if looking at something strange, unfamiliar. I couldn’t read her, at all. Her face was calm, solemn, emotionless.

All the markers, all the usual hints we humans used to understand each other, even if it was subconscious… they weren’t there.

She smells good, at least. Like flowers, though I’ll be damned if I could tell which ones.

And I was getting sidetracked at least. A lifetime of not taking things too serious, catching up now.

Soft, smooth fingertips touched my cheek. Warm, they were so incredibly warm.

I looked up again, not having noticed how I’d been looking at the ground. She was as solemn as ever, but her eyes were pained, though I couldn’t tell by what.

Clarity. Sadness, Emptiness.

“I’m so sorry, Hennessy. I should have been here, with you.” I always promised myself I’d be a better father than my own had been.

Her eyes half-closed, and she raised my chin.

Lack.

It wasn’t enough. My remorse, it wasn’t enough for her.

“What can I do? Tell me, I’ll do it!”

Clarity.

“About what? Clarity about what?” I focused on the confusion, trying to get it through to her.

Clarity. Sadness. Pain. Loneliness. Anger, rage, hatred.

She was all but pounding my head, trying to get through my thick skull.

She wants me to feel all that she felt.

“Do it. Show me.” Acceptance. Gratitude.

She reached out with her hands, cupping my face. Leaning forward, she pressed her lips to my forehead.

Any other moment, I would have loved it, but she didn’t let me enjoy it even for a second.

Instead, once again, she let the world break.

* * *

I was drawn into a maelstrom of emotions and memories, drowned in it.

A memory, her mother putting her to bed in that dingy old apartment of hers. She was barely five, and a happy child, though she always got sad when her mother cried.

And her mother cried a lot, but never in front of her. She put her to bed, then she went into the living room – the apartment only had a bedroom and a living room – turned on the TV so Hennessy wouldn’t be able to hear (but she still did) and just cried.

Deeper, deeper…

The other children always made fun of her, because her clothes were old and she had no daddy. At the school, on the playground, most of them were so mean, and she couldn’t really get why.

I saw the garden again, limbs and bodies and more still, but less than before, pieces burning away as she used her power to show me.

Age nine, close to christmas. Her mother had lost another job. They barely had enough money to eat, no money to keep the heating up. They’d huddled together under all of their blankets for the night, and her mother was reading her a book.

It was too cold for her mother to go cry in the living room at night. She wouldn’t let her daughter freeze. So she waited until she thought her asleep, and cried then. Not as often as earlier, when she’d been younger, but she still did it every now and then. Santa Clause wasn’t coming this year. Again.

Her twelveth birthday and mommy was taking her and Marge to the movies! Tickets had become really cheap, because of Screensaver, who was now her super-favourite hero, even if he couldn’t fly! She could finally go to the movies with her pocket money, not just when a friend took her on a birthday or something!

The movie had barely started when she suddenly started getting drowsy, dizzy. It wasn’t boring, so why was she falling asleep? She turned her head to look at her mother, to ask what was wrong with her, but that movement was enough to make her fall off her seat.

The world got blurry as she saw her mother slide down onto the floor, trying to pull her into an embrace. She could taste the buttery popcorn they had bought on her tongue, but also something bitter.

Hands in black gloves grabbed her mother, pulling her away. Other hands in black gloves, strong and ungentle, grabbed her, lifting her like a wet sack. She saw men in black costumes, with angel’s faces on their masks, grabbing Marge and other children. Her whole body was so numb, so weak, she couldn’t even try to push the bad man with the angel face away.

The man stepped over her prone mother, but she tried to grab him, even though she looked so weak. He kicked her in the face, and the last thing Hennessy saw before she blacked out was blood gushing from her mother’s shattered nose.

She woke up again to see the man who’d taken her, who’d kicked her mother, take his helmet off as she lay on a cold table. Another man in a priest’s robe with a white angelmask walked into her field of vision, holding a syringe.

Her tongue was still numb, her whole body was, and she could only watch as he moved the syringe towards her right eye… she couldn’t even move her eye around, she felt so heavy. And then the needle went into her eye, there was pain and then pure bliss…

* * *

My eyes flew open after what felt like hours and hours and days of torture that made my last eighteen years seem like a holiday vacation.

Even if it hadn’t been my daughter who went through it, it would be crushing. But it was her, and I felt like exploding, going on a rampage, killing and killing everyone even tangentially responsible.

I looked up at her from the ground. She was so beautiful. So solemn. A serene judge (in pink bunny pajamas), sitting on the edge of her bed, looking down on me with those purple eyes. My eyes. Exactly mine.

She went through it with me. Crazy girl, you shouldn’t have.

I threw myself at her, wrapping my arms around her waist. She didn’t flinch, probably saw it coming, or maybe her body really was that devoid of unconscious reaction.

“Oh Hennessy, I…” I choked, unable to form words, but she could probably feel what I was feeling, right now.

I don’t know how long I cried into her lap like a baby, but I finally regained my composure and pulled back, looking up at her empty face.

There were no tears in her eyes. But the emotions she was projecting… so much pain, so much hatred. Not just in regards to me but…

She suffered so much, and I became the target of all her hatred and frustration, I realized. Every time she was hurt, every time her mother was hurt… I was the only one she could really blame for it all.

And she was right to, as far as I was concerned.

I opened my mouth to say something, but she put a finger on my lips.

Refusal. Betrayal. Pain. Rejection.

Understanding, I took her hand with my own. It was so slender, so warm… so soft. Not like my hands.

Before she could react, I kissed the palm of her hand, then its back. Then I rose up, bowing.

“I’m here to stay, Hennessy,” Reassurance, Sincerity, “If you want anything… need anything, no matter what, just call this number,” I wrote it down on a post-it note, folding the paper so the sticky side was covered up, and put it into her hand, “Or just come to four-one Merlin street. The house with the red door.” I’d checked by phone, my old place still stood, and it was still mine. Something to thank Dad for, probably.

She didn’t respond, didn’t give any response, but she didn’t discard the paper, either.

I left her room.

* * *

Camille, Tamara, Phil and Charity were all waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

Camille looked like she was just waiting for an excuse to tear me to shreds (I was sure she was sincere), Phil looked sympathetic (the guy was way too nice), Tamara looked hopeful for a moment – until she saw my facial expression – and Charity looked confused at the whole scene.

“I’ll be going now,” I said to Tamara. Then I turned to Phil, saying, “Thank you for being so… nice about this. I probably would have reacted worse in your place.” He just shrugged.

I knelt in front of the little princess. “I’m sorry for scaring you, my dear. Please, don’t be angry at or afraid of your sister. She deserves neither.”

Nodding at Camille as I rose (she didn’t nod back and kept staring daggers) I opened the door. Then I turned around just in time for Tamara to hug me as hard as she could.

Old memories reared up, of tender nights and- No, that way lies madness.

For just a moment, I rested my chin on top of her head (being six foot ten made that easy), hugged her back, and then I left without a word.

That part of my life was over. Of our life. I knew I had no chance to ever get back with her again the moment she asked me to commit murder, no matter how justified it might be.

And Hennessy was unlikely to ever forgive me, regardless of what I did.

I got into the car and drove away.

* * *

I drove to Cartastrophy’s workshop over near the industrial district (well, what little of that remained). It was just as well-hidden as ever, basically an oversized garage-slash-basement-lair underneath (fittingly, or perhaps ironically) a car repair shop operated by his sister and her boyfriend.

Husband, actually. They’d actually gotten married, she told me after a series of hugs and kisses (she’d first gone after me, but I’d never shown any more than polite interest, and she’d only later fallen for Warren’s older brother). And they’d had six children (which showed, if barely, on her hips and chest), one of which was a Gadgeteer like his uncle and had joined the Junior Heroes, while one of their daughters had turned into a flying brick and was working for the Matriarch now (of course, she was still around. She’d been one of the first supervillains, back in the day, and she’d probably be around long after I bit the dust), which made family gatherings awkward, even if her hero brother didn’t know about it…

And she kept on chattering until we reached the secret entrance to Warren’s underground workshop, where she just let me enter and went back up.

“Aap? Is that you, buddy?!” shouted a high, agitated voice from a mound of half-assembled car parts.

“Who else could it be?” I asked jokingly, buffing my suit (Vek had fixed it after the fight – that woman’s power was way useful for this kind of lifestyle).

He leapt out of the pile of scrap and tackled me into a hug – ruining my suit, because he was, as always, covered in grease – though I barely moved. Even if I didn’t have the monkey’s passive enhancements, Warren barely cracked five feet, was underweight even for his height and had even lost what little hair he’d had back in the day (curse of genetics – his whole family had to deal with early loss of hair). Dressed in a dirty white undershirt and greasy overalls of indeterminate original colour, he was the very image of the underground, low-level techno-villain.

I hugged the little man right back, laughing. “God above, how I missed you! How’s it going, Cartastrophy?”

He chuckled, pulling back to look up (and up, and up), “Awesome! I got nephews and nieces crawling up my butt, I got a few patents going through my nephew over at the Juniors and I won the lottery a few years back, so I’m set for life!”

Chuckling, I patted his back as he took me towards the living area of his workshop. Which was also his home, all in all. He rarely left.

Then I saw the poster over his workbench, and froze.

“… and little Quentin is al- Aap? What’s going on, budd- oh, you’ve seen it? Hot, eh? Cost me a mint to get it.”

He had a life-sized, full-colour poster of Chayot and Dearheart on his wall. The background looked like a blasted battlefield, the two of them were barely decent, their costumes torn, and they were wrapped around each other, kissing passionately. And not in the “we’re really good friends” way, more like “we’re way past the fourth date and home base” way.

“Guy who managed to get the shot was auctioning it. Cost me ten grand to get it, and I was lucky,” he explained with utter pride. “Keeps me warm at night, you know. I mean, I know they’re underage, but they’ve got to be the second and third-hottest girls in the state, and Chayot could probably tie with number one if she wasn’t always dressed like that.”

He pointed at another poster next to it. It showed a stunning young woman – a girl, really, probably around Hennessy’s age – with long, lustrous white hair, purple eyes and full, pouty lips. She was dressed in a black costume somewhere between a skintight suit and an evening dress, skintight above the waist, less tight below, with deep red stockings beneath, very elegant while still showing off that she was very obviously a high-level adonis and proud of it. And yes, her costume incorporated high heels. Very pointy ones, in fact. Finally, she also wore an elegant golden half-mask, covering her eyes, nose and part of her forehead, finely wrought to suggest some manner of bird, or something similar, perhaps.

She was also, quite clearly, posing for the shot. No way it was accidental, with the way she was sitting, one leg pulled up so her cheek was resting on her knee.

“Matriarch the second, that is,” explained Warren.

“Seriously? Did number one finally bite it?” I was surprised. The first matriarch had possibly been the first female supervillain, ever. She’d been around since the early twenties, and she’d never been caught. She’d also been a really good lay, even if I’d only had the pleasure once before I got together with Tamara.

“Yeah, she did. Three years ago. But her daughter had already been her sidekick, and she took up the name and what she could salvage from her old organization. Seeing how it was basically a family business, most of her mom’s people stuck with her, and she’s already the local Queen of the Underworld,” he said. “Also, quite hot, just like the other two. And Chayot’s archenemy, they got a real classic rivalry going. Man, some of the stories that go around ab-“

“Warren, before you put your foot into your mouth any further, I should tell you that Chayot happens to be my daughter,” I said quickly, before the urge to break his legs (and other parts) became too strong.

He turned as pale as a corpse. “Oh shit!”

Running forward, he tore the poster of my daughter and her lover (this actually explained a lot about Camille’s behaviour, I thought) off the wall, feeding it immediately into a nearby furnace.

“Sorry man, I didn’t kn- shit man, your daughter!?” He turned to look at me. “Wait… Meow-meow’s and yours!?”

I nodded, relaxing. “Yeah man. Found out just a few hours ago,” I replied.

He walked up to me, taking my hand in his, squeezing it as hard as he could.

“Man, I don’t know what… I mean, you had… I’m so sorry man, had I known, I’d have been keeping an eye on her, you know? But… shit man… What about Meow-meow, is she taking you back?”

I shook my head. “Married, got another kid by the new guy. She’s happy there.”

“Shit man.”

“Yeah, shit man,” was all I could say. I sat down on a stool, and he pulled another one over to sit opposite of me.

“Have you heard about…?”

I nodded. “That’s one of the reasons why I’m here. He’s back, and I want his head,” I explained.

He nodded. “There isn’t much I can tell you, I’m afraid. The Ascendant is way, way above my weightclass. But I know he’s a major member of a bigger group, calling itself ‘The Companions of the Future’. Real crazy old-school supervillain group, trying to turn everyone into metahumans and kill all those who can’t manifest.”

“Sounds a lot like Weisswald’s ideology,” I said. I’d heard rumors about the Companions before, but never anything concrete.

He nodded, his face serious. “They’re way old, some say they go back to the late twenties. There are even rumors that Weisswald used to be a member, or at least had some ties to them.”

“I see. Do you have any idea how to find the Ascendant? I really want to get my hands on him.” Some of the monkey must have shown through my eyes, because he flinched, growing nervous. He’d seen me let the monkey out, once.

“No, buddy, sorry. But,” he replied, looking at the poster of the Matriarch. “If anyone knows, she does. And I’m sure I can get you a meeting.”

Raising an eyebrow, I asked bemused, “Oh? The basement dweller knows the queen bee of Chicago’s underworld? How come?”

He snickered. “Hey, I didn’t buy that poster at the shop, you know? I do jobs for her, fixing her cars or motorcycles and all. Plus, she really likes stories of our old pranking days.”

“Well, maybe she’ll even like me then.”

He snorted. “Oh, shut up. You’ll probably have her swooning.” He’d always been jealous of my looks, even if I’d never lorded them over him.

“Now, let me make a few calls,” he said as he walked towards a wall-mounted telephone.

* * *

Warren changed into his Cartastrophy costume – basically armoured overalls with lots of tools and special parts in pouches and on several belts, and a helmet that looked like a motorcycle helmet with a car’s grille on the front, all in chrome and black. If he wasn’t, well, barely five feet tall, he’d probably strike an imposing figure in it.

We took his current favourite car – he was always overhauling them, to the point where no single car really lasted more than a few months at a time, even if it wasn’t destroyed – outside and made our way to the Matriarch’s base – the Seventh Cloud Casino. It stood right in the middle of the entertainment district of Chicago and was incredibly garish. Always had been.

“What can you tell me about the new Matriarch? Same powers as her mother?” Things might get difficult if she had her mother’s mental abilities. I’d have a hard time convincing her to help me piss off the Companions.

“Not quite. She’s only really got one power, apart from her physique six rating,” he explained.

“Physique?” That was a new one.

Slapping his forehead (fortunately, he’d taken off his helmet, or he might have hurt himself) he replied: “Ah, you don’t know it yet. We got a new rating system for powers. Way less confusing than the old one. I’ll explain it later, when we got more time.”

I nodded and urged him on to tell me about the Matriarch.

“Well, she’s a spawner – formerly Tiamat – and an Apex Tier to boot. Her shadow’s alive, and it’ll strangle you to death if she wants it to. Also, it has some weird precognition, or maybe just a really good danger sense going, plus a host of other minor powers,” he explained. “Defends her, keeps her out of danger and all. Also, knocking her out or mind controlling her – someone tried, once – ain’t smart, cause her shadow is always active and it’ll tear you to pieces for even trying.”

“Damn, the kids keep getting stronger nowadays,” I sighed, rubbing my forehead.

“They do. Reason why I’m not out there any more, not actively. Though even if not, I’d have probably hung up the helmet anyway when the Speedfreakz disbanded.”

I choked, hard. Even though I hadn’t been drinking. “The Speedfreakz disbanded? Why?” They’d been some of my favourite adversaries.

His shoulders slumped a little. “Savage Six attacked Austin about a year after you went off to war. The Speedfreakz happened to be there. Twinkletoe and Celeritas died. Afterwards, Hotrod went into support, he’s just building vehicles for other heroes now, and Ignipes just vanished. Rumor has it that he adopted Twinkletoe’s and Celeritas’ child. They’d just had one.”

“Fuckin’ damn.”

“Amen, brother.”

I pulled myself back out of the memories that were welling up – I’d have to visit their graves as soon as I worked things out here – and continued: “Back to the matter at hand. Anything else I need to be aware of for this?”

“Yeah, my oldest niece is working for her. Girl got a screw loose, but she’s still family, so no fighting, alright?”

“Of course. Though it does worry me that you consider her to have a screw loose.”

“You’ll see what I mean.”

* * *

We reached the Seventh Cloud Casino and he drove into a back entrance that led us into an underground garage. A valet took the car – Cartastrophy already knew him – and we took the elevator up.

When the doors opened, we were greeted by the most ridiculously dressed teenager I had ever seen. She could not be more than sixteen years old, had a body like a pornstar, peroxide blonde straight hair in lots of braids, and was wearing the upper half of… a blue japanese school uniform? It barely covered her breasts, revealing the lower half, and were connected to a barely existent skirt by a set of pink suspenders. She was also wearing thigh high white socks and high-heeled boots. Really high heeled boots. Also, a traditional japanese fox mask.

Cartastrophy took a step forward and embraced her in a tight hug, which she returned.

Well, now I know.

“Aap Oordra, may I introduce, my niece Kakitsune,” I almost slapped my forehead, “Who is one of the Matriarch’s chief enforcers.” Either this girl was more powerful – and competent – than she looked, or the new Matriarch was really starved for metahuman muscle.

“A pleasure to meet you, my dear,” I said, focusing my eyes solely on her mask.

“The same, man. I’ve heard a gazillion stories about you, you know?” she replied with a drawl in her voice I couldn’t quite place. Maybe a badly affected accent?

“Ka-chan,” Slapping my forehead was getting more and more seductive, “My dear, we can chat later, can you take us to your boss quickly? I’m afraid our business is urgent,” he said. She nodded, fortunately, and took us through the hallway to a grand double door.

Through it, we entered a hall covered in heavy carpet, with a ceiling so high it could have been a cathedral, and pillars covered in mythological imagery. The original Matriarch had been grand on showmanship, and her daughter had obviously kept the decorations.

I also noticed a human-shaped shadow gliding over the floor, walls and ceiling, all around the grand room. A shadow no one was throwing. So, a living shadow, huh?

Said daughter was reclining on a divan, looking quite restless despite the relaxed setting. She was ringed by eleven minions – twelve, counting Kakitsune – who were very obviously metahumans (four of them didn’t look human, and the rest were way too beautiful to be normal).

We approached, and I realized that she was even more beautiful in the flesh than on the poster. A match for Hennessy, dark where she was light. They make good archenemies, I’m sure.

She rose from her divan as we approached, seeming… nervous.

Could I have a groupie here? It would make things considerably easier. Man, I hoped it was that.

“Greetings, Ma-” Cartastrophy began, but she just barreled past him and threw her arms around my neck.

What?

“Finally, you’ve come,” she said, looking up at me with misty, purple eyes. My eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you, papa.”

What.

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Interlude 7 – Monkey Business (Part 2)

Posted on November 18, 2013 by tieshaunn

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That looks extraordinarily unhealthy – for me.

She pounced on me, wings folded back, spear thrusting at me, clearing several hundred feet in a single bound. The monkey afforded me a lot of protection, even if I only used it partially, but… I had no idea how her power actually worked, and while she seemed to be largely limited to the paragon and apex tier (those exploding spheres had gotten intense), there seemed to be no clear theme to her capabilities, nothing to catch on to; telekinetic blasts, then remote kinetic detonations, receptive and projective empathy, flight, enhanced vision (and probably other senses, as well), protective force fields, fire balls, exploding fire balls, not to mention all the limbs and now full angelic bodies she created; I couldn’t be sure that I’d be able to defend myself against those burning weapons if I took a direct hit, so I evaded by burrowing.

Why did I feel as if I was over my head while fighting a seventeen year old girl? Alright, I’d fought Desolation-in-Light a few times, back in the day, when she’d still technically been a toddler, but…

Hell’s Bells, I’m comparing my daughter to Desolation in Light! Get your act together, buster, and find a way to stop her from tearing you to pieces!

All of those thoughts shot through my head in the time it took me to dig about thirty feet directly downwards, to get some space to breath – yeah, underground breathing room, but still better than staying up there with pointy fire death sticks and my estranged, probably-at-least-partially-insane and definitely-pissed-off-beyond-belief daughter.

That was not to be, however, as I suddenly felt a tug on the small of my back, and then I was torn out of the earth and right into the path of a swing of that wicked, long sword. That very long, very sharp and very hot sword.

Jesus fuck this hurts!

The blade bit into and through the partially manifested chest of the monkey, through my suit and into my skin – if it wasn’t for the monkey, it’d have bisected me for sure.

Oh nonono, no-

I cut myself off before I could flip out and hurt her. That was just the monkey, losing what little restraint it had… and this was my fault, after all, not hers. I was not going to hurt her over this.

Repeating those words in my head, over and over, I did my best to put some distance between us – her new form was not nearly as fast as before, and she seemed to have lost her ranged offense, or perhaps discarded it – so I kept retreating to the back and the side, leading her on circles as all her legs tore into the ground to catch up to me.

She’d make a great plough.

The monkey was already knitting my flesh, closing the wound she’d cut into my chest, but I was not up to going face to face with her unless I let the monkey out entirely, and that would be… unacceptable.

I need some time.

Using her powers cost her. I knew that much, from the vision earlier. She had a well, and it was finite. I didn’t know how deep it went, nor what would happen if it ran dry, but I hoped that, at some point, she’d be forced to conserve her resources, whatever they were.

I need to talk to Tam, to her teammates. They’ve got to know something that can be done.

I circled around her, hoping to fake her out or somehow trap her.

Chayot – not Hennessy, not now – pounced once more, even though she was further away from before, using her wings to carry herself over the distance she could not clear with a simple jump.

But she was still jumping, not flying, and that gave me an opening. I dove down into the soft earth she’d just torn up, tapping into the monkey’s speed and strength to tear into the soil.

For just a moment, underground, I let the monkey cover all but my face, and I moved like a fish in the water, tearing through the earth, breaking it down.

When Chayot landed, she sunk to her… gut… into the earth, howling in frustration as I pulled her lower body down deep, fixing it in place with a few boulders. Then I burst out of the earth some distance away, with the monkey once more only covering half of my body, and made a beeline for our spectators.

Something pulled on my waist, stopping me dead in the middle of the run. Looking behind, I saw a golden thread run from my back to one of her snake limbs. Probably how she’d wrenched my sorry ass out of the earth earlier on.

Ah, baby girl, you don’t wanna get into a wrestling match with me.

Not that I’d ever refuse a friendly one.

Still, I had her where I wanted her and there was no use in pulling her out of the sinkhole I’d made, so I grabbed the glowing line – damn, this burns! – and snapped it with raw strength.

She howled as if someone had cut her arm off, and for a moment I was afraid I might really have hurt her; but then I realized the howl was just one of rage, not pain, so I ran quickly over to the others. Everyone but Tam, Vek, Dearheart and a goat-like boy – Is he Vek’s child? – had fled the moment Hennessy had turned into the pseudo-cherubim. Something tells me they didn’t flee due to cowardice.

“Tam!”, I half-shouted, stopping in front of her. “What is going on, and how can I help her!?”

“You, help her!?” shouted Dearheart. “It’s your fault she’s flipped out this bad in the first place, dickwad!”

What a pleasant girl.

“Dearheart, shut up,” Vek said. “Mister Paterson… Aap Oordra. Chayot has always had issues controlling her power. And I’m afraid the agitation from the battle today, plus, well, your… return, was just too much for her all at once. Her power is based completely on emotions-“

“Really? Because it seems to me like her power really is built on knocking me around and trying to roast me alive,” I couldn’t stop my mouth from rattling off. “Not to mention all that pretty angelic imagery and inappropriate groping of herself.”

Dearheart almost threw another insult at me, I was sure, but Tam put a hand on her shoulder, while her eyes remained transfixed on the thrashing monstrosity that was slowly clawing her out of the trap I’d improvised.

“She eats emotions. People give off emotional energy like body heat, and she soaks it up. All of her powers burn through her reserves, no matter what she does with them – just maintaining them costs her,” she explained in a monotonous voice. “If she absorbs too much of a single emotion, and is also provoked into indulging in that emotion herself, she might lose control and… that happens.”

Breathing deeply for a few seconds, she calmed herself. “The others left so they don’t provide her with more energy. We need to knock her out before she burns herself out – it might be lethal!” She was almost crying with fear at the end.

I had to swallow a few times to get the lump out of my throat. My life. Hate it.

“She has a weakpoint,” Vek threw in. “Trained herself to always include that crystal, in case she ever went berserk and needed to be stopped. Find it, crush it – it’s really durable – and her power will shut down.”

“Don’t tell him that!” shouted Dearheart, again. “He’s a villain, remember!? What if he uses that against her, or sells it to o-“

Tamara whirled around and slapped Dearheart, hard. She wasn’t all that strong, by Adonis standards, but it still had a lot of weight behind it.

“Young lady, my daughter needs help, now! Shut your mouth and help him, we can sort everything else out later on!” she half-screamed.

Dearheart looked stunned, and Vek took charge: “I can’t help much here, so I’ll stay with Mrs Benning. Mister Paterson, please, you have to help us here, Dearheart and Slough can’t stop her by themselves!” She gestured at the goat boy and little miss rudeness.

“I shall, but you all should lea-“

“No,” Dearheart simply replied. “I’m not leaving. My power can counter hers to a degree. And Slough here might be able to help, too.” Goatboy – Slough – nodded fervently.

There was true steel in her voice, and I suddenly liked her a little more. No matter what else, she obviously cared about Hennessy.

Speak of the devil – I heard a massive rumbling, and then the earth around Chayot burst apart.

Both Dearheart and I took off, she flying up while I circled towards Chayot, so she wouldn’t attack in the direction of her mother.

The teenage heroine approached me and said: “Her crystal core is always somewhere different, but she can’t move it once her form is set.”

Chayot leapt out of the smoke, her legs morphed to all resemble a spider’s legs with cloven hoofs, her lower body swelling in size, and threw her spear at us, the blazing projectile flying faster than any cruise missiles I’d ever seen before.

I got ready to evade, but Dearheart simply raised her right hand, pointing at the spear – it flickered, then exploded into harmless sparks, which promptly vanished into nothingness.

She raised her other hand, pointing the palm at the charging Chayot,who stumbled, then fell, as all of her limbs seized up at the same time. At the same time, a burst of scarlet fire from her lower center head (the ox) destroyed said head.

It made all of remaining her mouths scream, but at the same time, the arms of the upper body disintegrated, as did its wings, and then a halo of five floating arms, two tipped with razor sharp nails as long as I was tall.

“What exactly is her power?” I asked.

“She’s a power shifter. Takes on different powers, but just maintaining, much less using, them costs her. Luckily enough, she’s limited to apex tier powers at most.”

My mouth gaped open. Of all the fucking unfair, broken powers out there, she just has to be a power shifter. And what does that mean, limited to Apex Tier? That’s NOT a limit! You can level a city just fine by combining the right apex powers! You can fuck up anyone’s day by choosing the right ones!

The spear piercing Chayot’s chest faded away, just as three of her free-floating arms (one of them with the freaky pointy death blades) opened fire on us, unleashing lightning bolts, a stream of acid and her earlier fire spheres.

I evaded the spheres and the lightning bolt, but Dearheart charged forward and made the acid vanish simply by pointing at it.

That’s one hell of a power she’s got.

Unfortunately, Chayot could tell as much, because she let the three arms she’d used disintegrate and the other two got into position.

“Dearheart, get away!” I screamed, but she didn’t.

I tapped deep into the monkey’s speed, ran up to them and jumped off, tackling Dearheart out of the way of the reaching unclawed hand trying to grab her.

“Get your hands off me!” she shouted in exasperation.

You try to be a hero, and what do you get?

“Need to g-“

Chayot slapped me down, hard, with a swing of her right snake limb, driving me into the ground.

Dearheart growled as I threw her aside at the last moment, then aimed her hand at Chayot again before she could follow up on the strike.

Pointing at the upper body – personally, I’d have gone for the lower one, bigger target, more likely to house the core – she used whatever kind of power she had. The golden woman’s flesh began to twist and boil, whole sections of it just sloughing off and disintegrating.

No wonder I had gotten odd vibes from these two earlier. Whatever the particulars of their powers were, they were not normal.

Either way, her power was useful, and Chayot seemed slow to push the advantage of her power. Or maybe she was instinctively holding back to conserve energy?

So I charged into her, slamming right into her lion-head’s mouth, letting the monkey coat the lower right half of my body too, as well as my right forearm. She probably screamed, but I couldn’t tell, because I was already tearing into her flesh, digging deeper into her body.

Find the core. Great advice.

I let the monkey’s eyes emerge so I could actually see something, then I simply tore apart her lower body, looking for anything that might constitute a core. She seemed to have most major organs covered in this form, and they even seemed functional, which implied that destroying them would disrupt her, so I did just that while working my way through to her rear end, bursting out of it in a shower of blood that turned into fading motes of light before it even touched the ground.

Behind me, her form collapsed – or, as I saw when I turned around, she’d simply dropped the lower half and was now a floating sphere formed by two rotating, eye-ringed rings topped by golden body that was twisting and boiling under the sustained effects of Dearheart’s power.

New flesh was already blooming on the lower end of the sphere.

“I can’t lock her down for long, asshole! Find the core, crush it!”

Such a charmer.

Just at that moment, Slough – whom I’d completely forgotten about – dove out of the ground, now looking more like a cross between a snake and a mole. His back arched, then turned hunchbacked, and then it split, the outer layers of his body sloughing off to let a new form emerge and dive into the mass of flesh that was forming – rather slowly, compared to earlier – underneath the sphere. He looked like a hermaphroditic marble statue now.

No matter what was going on with that power, the two of them gave me an opening – and I jumped directly onto the rotating rings, grabbing the outer one.

Unfortunately, there was no outer one – the two rings were of equal size, yet still somehow moved within each other at the same time. When they intersected, they sheared through my monkey hand’s fingers and I would have dropped had I not grabbed one of the rings and used it to propel myself upwards.

Careful to stay on the golden figure’s back – I didn’t want to get hit by whatever effect Dearheart was putting out – I started to rip into her surprisingly tough flesh, even as her burning wings struck again and again, burning into the monkey’s back – but thankfully not through it, at least not yet.

Dearheart screamed, and I felt something shatter again.

* * *

I saw the world of flesh again, though this time, a whole section of the forest of limbs had been cut away, leaving bare bleeding flesh behind to form a lake of the red liquid.

I looked up and saw a… a portal, or maybe an intersection, between this world and another. Light, flashing randomly in all colours, making my head hurt just by looking at it, was pouring into this vast world, causing pure chaos. And yet, it was not wholly unwelcome here. Part of Chayot was accepting the intrusion, I could just tell.

Must be Dearheart’s power.

I looked, and I saw – there was one figure I had not seen before. It floated above the land, a towering beauty at least twenty feet tall, her body woven of pure black light and marble white flesh. Her beauty was solemn, inhuman, utterly alien and yet incredibly alluring. She also had no eyes, only smooth flesh stretching over her eye sockets, with locks of black light almost hiding them.

Hennessy, curled up into a fetal position – and thank God for that, because she was naked here, and I did not want to piss her off more by seeing her naked – was floating inbetween the figure’s half-cupped hands.

What are you, and what are you doing to my daughter?

The figure looked at me without eyes and suddenly I knew her.

* * *

Nearly five years ago, during a particularly bad time for me, I’d found myself in a dream one night.

It had started innocently enough, mostly me, lying on an indistinct hill under the starry sky, with Tamara in my arms after we’d made love. She was asleep and I was just luxuriating in the warmth of her body, the scent of her sweat, the sound of her breathing.

Even though I had known it to be a dream, I couldn’t help but enjoy it, despite the inevitable disappointment and despair upon waking.

And then, a star had begun to flicker, then burn several times brighter.

I had reached out to that star, and somehow, we’d connected, if only for the fraction of a second.

Now I knew who that person had been.

I had met my daughter, back then.

* * *

I know you.

She unleashed a wave of raw dread on me, every single fear of my life crashing down on me at once – but the monkey was still there, even here, and took the brunt of the attack.

I know you. We met before. You know me. Please, stop this.

The dread changed into blind rage, goading me to just attack, but that was something I was intimately familiar with, and didn’t even need the monkey to block.

I could see her burning away flesh from beneath to maintain the attack.

You know me. I know you. I am no enemy. I have failed you, failed you as no father should, but I am not your enemy, nor will I ever be.

Crushing sadness, loss, a deep longing for connection.

My eyes teared up – could they even do that here, since I assumed I wasn’t in my body right now? – and I had to fight not to break down, as her attack slipped past my own defenses, and was only stopped by the monkey interposing itself to take the brunt of it.

Even then, it almost made me give up and go silent.

Please, I am sorry. Give me a chance to make it up to you, in any way possible!

She couldn’t speak, probably had trouble with normal language. I guessed, since her power was so deeply entrenched in emotions of all kinds, that she communicated primarily through them. So I poured all my regret, my desire to apologize, and what love I could muster for this half-strange girl I had only just met.

The figure – was it Hennessy, was it just a manifestation of her power, or was it something more… strange? – tilted her head to the side, and then my vision blinked out.

* * *

I was back in my body, and still clinging to the golden woman’s back.

But just as I was regaining my bearings, her body began to dissolve into motes of light that faded away, dropping me.

“Henny!” screamed three voices – Dearheart, Tamara and a distorted voice I guessed belonged to Slough.

They all – even Tam, bless her heart, who was far too far away to catch her daughter in time – dove towards her, Slough even, well, sloughing out of his current form into a new, insectoid one to catch her even though he was falling beneath her.

But I was faster, air jumping to her and grabbing her in a bridal carry.

I landed on the ground, letting the monkey absorb the entire impact, cradling the child I had never known of and yet met before.

You reached out to me, once. Across the world, even though we’d never known each other.

She was so light, seemed so frail.

I’d never really thought about having children. Or rather, I’d been planning to think about the possibility of considering children together with Tamara, all those years ago. I’d never seen myself as responsible enough to do right by a child. People with my kind of background usually ended up screwing their children up something fierce.

But now, holding her small, warm body in my arms as the monkey melted away, I suddenly had to fight back the tears at everything I had missed… I had failed her, in more ways than I’d known. What must she have gone through to become this?

Could I have prevented it?

Somewhere else, Dearheart was shouting at me to let go of her, Slough was bristling for some reason and Tamara and Vek were running to get to us, Tamara running so fast she left the other woman behind.

But right now, I could only look at my daughter’s unconscious face, and wonder.

Wonder about how I could have been so stupid, back then.

Wonder about whether or not she would ever accept me.

Wonder about how many people I would have to pull apart piece by piece, until I got my hands on whoever had done this to her, if there was someone responsible – oh please, let there be someone.

Wonder about how I could ever make it up to her, express just how sorry I was.

* * *

Two hours later…

It took quite a while to sort things out – the local director tried to stick me with the responsibility for starting the battle and endangering innocents – but Vek, Tamara and the other heroes, save for Dearheart (who wanted my head on a platter, preferably with my balls in my mouth) vouched for me, plus I still had that nifty medal.

By the time we got back to Three Heavens Gates – Tamara insisted that it was best for Hennessy to rest at home, where she had a gentle, familiar emotional backdrop – nearly two hours had gone by.

So we took her there, and I was even allowed to carry her out of the armored taxi they provided and into her bedroom (she had a lot of plush toys in all sizes) and to lay her to bed.

I almost kissed her on the forehead once she was lying there, but Dearheart – Camille when out of costume – would probably have ripped my crown jewels off to arrange said platter if I’d done that, so I restrained myself.

Besides, that was a right I had yet to earn.

Dearheart threw me out, saying that she would change Hennessy’s clothes, giving me a murderous glare as if daring me to demand to do that, while Slough remained outside the door to stand watch, now looking like… well, he had a lot of dog and some bird in his form.

What kind of perverted scumbag did she take me for?

Tamara took me down to the empty living room and we sat down, her on an armchair, me on the couch.

I idly wondered where Phil and the little princess were.

“Phil took Charity out for a walk, to calm her down. She’s never witnessed Henny lose control like that before,” she explained, interpreting my curious glance just right.

“I see.”

We sat there, looking at each other.

After about ten minutes, I finally spoke up.

“Tamara… there is so much I want to tell you, to explain to you…”

“Yes?” she asked, perhaps a little hopeful?

“But… what in the name of God’s light switch happened to her!?“

She turned pale, looking down at her feet in shame.

I gulped down the anger, feeling ashamed in turn. If anyone deserved being accused of not doing a proper parenting job, it was me, not her.

“Tam, I’m sorry, but…”

“No, I understand,” she whispered, then looked up at me. “How do you know something bad happened to her?”

“Five… no, six years ago. Or at least almost six years. Closer to five, to be honest… I felt a… a connection. My power reacted, I reacted, and I connected with someone, someone suffering unimaginably, but still… well, that person helped me a lot, actually. Even though I thought it a fever dream until just a few hours ago.”

She paled even more… and then she looked me straight in the eyes, transfixing mine to hers.

“I… I need your help, Aap,” she said.

Using my cape name. She wants something bad.

“Say it.”

Not smart, to give her a carte blanche. I didn’t care.

“When she was twelve… there was a supervillain. A contriver, calls himself ‘the Ascendant’. Real madman, wants to elevate all humanity to godhood, yadayada…”

My stomach began to twist as I was already connecting the dots. Though I couldn’t tell if it was dread, sadness, shame or murderous hatred. Probably all four.

“He… he kidnapped sixty-six children and… he did things to them. Drugged them up with contrived drugs, tortured them, put them into death courses…” Her voice broke for a moment, and she pulled a handkerchief from a pocket, wiping her nose.

I, in contrast, was already cool. Really cool.

“She… most of them died. Only four survived for more than three days. The… the UH had just tracked him down, was attacking his base, some hellhole beneath a cabin in the woods outside the city, when he decided to bet it all on one chance. He… he overdosed all four of them. Lethally.”

Please let him still be alive and at large.

“They all triggered. Manifested. Whatever. All four of them, two girls and two boys. But…” She broke down again, sobbing.

I moved over to kneel in front of her, cupping her cheek with one hand. Cool. Totally C.O.O.L. Not even a hint of a tremble.

“Shsh. Tell me at your pace if you need a break,” my mouth said.

I want names, details, targets, now, my brain thought.

The monkey was even more single-minded.

“One of the boys… he manifested first. A… an S-Class. His power was… it was just wrong. And it somehow tainted them, even as they… as they manifested while they lay dying,” she sobbed.

“Then the other three manifested… the heroes, some villains who’d been helping with the search – even the Dark was helping, he thought it was disgusting what the Ascendant was doing – they managed to take the poor boy down. Killed him. Had to kill him. And even then, if it wasn’t for the three children helping, he might have broken through to the city.”

“What happened to the other two children?”

I could guess already.

“Dearheart and Slough. They all joined the Junior Heroes, after two years of largely unsuccessful therapy,” she explained.

No wonder these kids had such messed up powers.

“What happened to the Ascendant? And what do you need my help for?”

“He escaped. And he’s back. That’s why she’s wound so tight, why Dearheart is so aggressive. They’re all terrified.”

She looked at me, pure hatred in her eyes.

“That monster came back here and sent them a letter. Said he wanted his children to return to him.”

If I’d been an unstoppable rage monster, I would have gone on a rampage right about now. Fortunately, I had the monkey to outsource that to, for the moment.

She took a deep breath, drying her eyes and cheeks with a handkerchief.

“I want you to kill him.”

“With pleasure.“

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Tieshaunn

The World is vast, and full of Wonders

Tag Archives: Aap Oordra

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