Athwart History (Closed)

[Obuzeti]

"I did," Elias replies, without moving, a simple affirmation. "Let me know when you're ready, Marie. I will be here."

As with everything else he had said in the conversation, it was an intentionally ambiguous statement. For now, it was just an acceptance of working together - but Elias built foundations for his friendships, and in the quiet reaches of his mind knew this would be a conversation Marie would revisit and consider in the future. To the Marie then and to the Marie now, he speaks equally.

And he lets her go, now, retreating back into her lair, and silently Elias exhales, tension rising from his shoulders and broad back at what had been the tensest conversation he'd had since the last time he saw Cid. Marie's intensity is - difficult to handle, at the best of times. Now, particularly, it has been sharpened to a barbed point. At least the groundwork for something better has been laid.

He kicks back and lies on the concrete of the dock, staring at the dim stars barely visible through the light pollution of the nearby city of Samson.

Anymore, yes; but as things changed once, so they will change again. Adamant - Elias - is willing to wait for the right time.

He wonders how Jenna is, and Sarah, and the rest of his scattered friends, his family estranged, as he falls asleep without regret.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Hello?"
"Uh, hey Dad it's-"
*Click*

Jenna listened to the silence and then the ring tone before redialing. This time, the phone rang and rang and rang but no one picked up. Reluctantly, she slowly returned the headset to it's cradle. She realized a little late that Paulo had returned from the front counter. She smiled with a shrug. "Bad connection, musta been driving." And then with a wave and a thanks, she lit out of there.

Back to the Coulee. She doesn't really know what else to do with herself. Whatever Elias had done for her side, it was wearing off. It gives her something other than her burning eyes and tightened throat to focus on.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

She ate her mother's cooking and a dozen of the thirty six donuts she'd brought back from Sweetwater's Donuts. She hadn't really thought she was hungry, but she needed to eat-and turned out she'd been starving. And again, it was something to focus on. She thought about playing Tennis with herself, but she didn't want to wear a path in Elias' yard, or make a bunch of noise and scare off the birds and frogs.

Plus she was tired. But if she slowed down, she'd end up thinking, and she really didn't want to think right now. The speedster showered and borrowed a set of sweats, feeling bad for being in Elias' house without him. She didn't snoop, just looked at the stuff on the mantle again before her side hurt too much to try and ignore.

Ugh.

She sank down on the couch, sitting there blankly a moment, one of her hands to her ribs. Yeah, she should have gone after Roland a lot harder. Elias had said Laura had been able to manipulate the speed force aura...could that make for cushioned blows and therefore stronger attacks?

But that's not really what she's thinking about. She's thinking about Miss Sarah, and she's thinking about how awful the Tower was when it shouldn't have been, and she's still sick over the devastation wrecked by Nergal, the loss of life. She was tearing up about it all over again, Cid's words, Tectonic's words echoing through her head. She tried to focus on what Elias had said, but the past week she'd been haunted by that image, the body bags, the death toll. Elias had made it clear that the deaths were not her fault. Disasters couldn't somehow be prevented, they could only be responded to.

She had gone with him. And she would have gone even if she'd only seen it on the news, alone. Just like she'd gone to face Rush again. Just like, before the powers, charging those guys behind the club to stop them from straight up raping a woman. Sometimes there wasn't time to sit back and think. Sometimes it was just time to move.

But she had never really stopped to consider just how dangerous heroing could be, or what would happen if she was outed, what her parents would think, what she could lose. She was literally homeless now-that had never been a considered possibility before, what was she going to do?

But what good would knowing all the trouble the mask would bring have done her anyway? She felt responsible. Laura's echo had trusted her, asked her to help.

Those guys had been pissed and intent on violence. She wasn't big enough to withstand a curbstomping, it wasn't an exaggeration to say that tapping into the speed force saved her life. It also ruined it, but there was no sense ruminating over what might've been now that her plans had been dashed.

She was doing the right thing in sticking with it. It was hard, but it was the right thing. She was grateful for Elias and Marie, and hoped to get more people on their side. Try and help the heroes in the tower see the good they could do, the good that needed doing-not just Cid's P.R. moves. She wanted to help Miss Sarah, because Elias was right-she did deserve better.

But she also wanted her dad to talk to her again. Jenna ran a hand through her hair, closing her eyes tight and trying to stop with this, repressed sobs wracking her smaller frame and causing a world of pain in her side. What if he never did forgive her? And Mindmelt, Rush-they would have gone after them, she was sure of it. She'd nearly gotten them killed. Not a good way to repay 21 years of love and nurture. They were good parents. She was very lucky, had been lucky, and knew it.

It hurt her to have risked them, and it hurt her she might've lost her dad for good if he didn't ever forgive her. She knows he's disappointed. She knows he's worried. She also knows he's angry, and both of her parents thought their good little daughter had bucked everything she'd been raised to work for and was going to get herself killed.

It wasn't like she was on drugs and dropped out of school though. Would they come around? Was she a bad daughter? By staying Velocity, wasn't she essentially dismissing their feelings and ignoring their wishes?

Her side hurt bad, but so did her heart, and she had to go wash her face and stop thinking about it, because it was just-it was awful no matter what she did, and it sucked that the right choice brought such awful consequences.

By the time she slinked back to the couch, she was just bone tired. The nap in the boat had helped a little, but she'd stayed up for too many hours before then, got herself worked up preparing to argue for her release with Miss Sarah and then had run across the globe and back four times today...er, yesterday? She can't quite put that together-her first instinct is to flop down, but her ribs...instead, she carefully crawls across the cushions, lying on her opposite side under the same afghan from before.

It didn't take long for the mentally and physically exhausted heroine to drift away.

 

[Obuzeti]

In the morning, Elias goes shopping and gets the basics: a variety of actual, fresh fruit, and three sets of black scrubs in Marie's size. The utilitarian and functional clothing is as close to her type as anything is likely to get, and he knows what you wear, how you treat yourself is a central part of self-esteem. If this gets her out of those minimalistic, masochistic shorts she insists on, he'll count it a victory. The fruit is healthy, but an indulgence of the senses she hasn't probably committed to in years. Living off granola and supplements, most like. He boxes it all up, puts it in the elevator in the morning, then just draws the League symbol on it and wanders off again.

Aware both of the women have likely been pushed farther than they like recently, rather than ambling up in person he keys the communicator to the channel he'd set up for the three of them (the limits of his technical expertise). "We all up and running this morning?" he says, amiable. "Jenna, Coulee's stocked with food; you're a grown-ass woman, make food for yourself. Marie, how's the doohickey coming? Is it safe for use or should I be throwing it at goons for personal amusement and mass destruction?"

What he does best: generate noise so that other people can get on with their lives. Sometimes it's inspirational noise, but that doesn't dilute his point in any particular fashion.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Yer a grown-ass woman-" Jenna's sleepy voice comes through-and then it was like she suddenly realized he had said 'we', a hurried. "Er, I mean-"

"Protagonist." Marie's terse correction cuts off the young speedster's awkward floundering, a note of impatience to what was normally monotoned surety. "Not ready yet. Will be." She had heard the alert this morning and glanced just long enough to see Elias come in, drop off a box, and leave. She had assumed hard drives.

The box did not contain hard drives.

"Velocity. Watch is functional-bring hard drives." And she cut the communication almost immediately-not that it couldn't be started right back up.

Silence on Jenna's end for a beat, then: "Well hey, awesome!" Quick and fast recovery. "I'll take her those and get Laura's watch-you think we can head to South Bend later, Elias? Maybe meet up there?"

//////////////////////////////////////////////////

Two impossibly fast trips of her sensors, and then the substitute was on her doorstep. Protagonist didn't even look up as she hit the button to let her in, then the one to activate the elevator-but she did glance to the tablet's clock. Forty five minutes after the communication. She hadn't put it off long. Good.

The elevator dings open, the sound of a light person stepping on the platform. Protagonist picks up the watch as her other hand grips a wheel in preparation to turn around-but the girl was suddenly right there, making her eye and right arm twitch as she repressed the flying elbow that almost happened.

"Okay, so I made off with about as many of these as I could-mostly ones out of fancier offices and work stations." Protagonist glared at her but the kid was distracted, holding and looking into a shelled case of a computer tower in both of her silver gloved hands, shifting it one way or another so that the neatly placed hard drives click lightly where the tops touched.

The silver goggles are large and ridiculous, a new addition that ruined the stream lined effect of the costume and probably interfered with her peripheral vision. Even with them however, Protagonist can tell the exact moment she noticed her legs-that minute tightening of her lips and slight pause. She imagined an aversion of her eyes behind those goggles too. Hn. Didn't consider that-goggles hid her gaze. Convienent and one time disguise.

She expected a retreat but instead the substitute set the case on the small work table and hooked her thumb beneath the bridge of the goggles, yanking them up further on her hairline to reveal not staring but direct eye contact. Smiling brightly at her, she stuck out a hand to shake without any hesitation. "I'm Jenna by the way. Jenna-"

"Paige." Marie bit off, ignoring the hand to roll backwards, dropping the watch on the small work space next to her keyboard, her nerves stretched taut. She has no idea what the hell to do with the kid, was already at max capacity from dealing with Elias.

"Oh, yeah, guess you would know that." The substitute says, picking up the watch, a blur of her right hand as she buckled it around her right. Protagonist didn't even dignify that with a response. "Thanks so much, by the way-I was really upset when it stopped wor-."

"It works. New features." Protagonist gestures to the elevator. She has things to do. This interaction was over.

There was a pause, the girl clearly uncomfortable-good she'd leave-but then she snaps to another smile.

"Almost forgot!" The girl blurs and there's a rush of air in the heated room, and then another as she returns-with the fucking box. The one she had been set to ignore. "This was in there too, did-"

"Not mine." Her eyes narrowed, teeth gritting together as her hands tighten on the wheels. A blur of silver and then the box is open, the girl giving a peek inside. Marie knows what's in it. Clothes, some kind of fruit-distractions. Elias and his distractions. Was this a joke? A ruse of some kind? He left something behind, knew she'd ignore it, and then sent the kid to 'blunder' across it?

"Er, it's not?" Maybe she was legitimately clueless. Marie can't decide if that's better or worse.

"No. Take it out, throw it away."

"...I uh, I mean, it looks like it's for you...? Strawberries and stuff. Maybe Elias left it?" Her voice sounds legitimately quizzical, puzzling this out. Marie felt her blood start to boil. "He was just here last night and-"

"You might be able to move at the speed of light, but that elevator doesn't. Take. It. Out." She says darkly.

The kid blinks, her almond shaped eyes finally flicking up to meet her gaze and widening a fraction at her obvious hostility. Then they flick back down into the box, conflicted, nervous, intimidated. But she tried -again-. "I think you'd better keep it, I mean, don't you like strawberr-"

"Go. " The growled word was hellish and ground out, rough-and seemed to make the substitute's hair stand on end. Marie hadn't even blinked, but the kid was suddenly in the elevator, wide eyed with the box now in the corner and closed back up. "Soyeahthanksforwatchjustgonnaleavethisherethenseeyabye!"

The kid must have hit the up button a hundred times before the doors slid closed.

Hn. At least someone was still afraid of her, but apparently not afraid enough to take the fucking box out- seething, Protagonist dug a few docking stations out of a drawer and began popping drives into them, tried to forget about the ridiculousness of the entire interaction.


///////////////////


"She might've been about to eat you, Jenna." blink's green flecked hazel eyes were wide across the table. The two young women were sitting in a booth at a Steak n Shake, three entire cities from the Tower.

It had taken a bit of persuading and some assurances, but blink, aka Elana Sanderson, had eventually agreed to the 'unauthorized outing', whatever the hell that was.

"I've heard terrible stories. She was a demon wasn't she? Or possessed or something?"

"Nah. Elias says she's not a demon. I don't know what powers she has, but she looked normal, if grumpy."

"No steel jaw? Sharp teeth?"

"Nope. She's just this normal looking lady. Probably thirty or so." Jenna says with a shrug, another sip on her oreo milk shake. She maaaaybe was scared for a minute there, but she's not going to tell Ellie that.

"Really?" Genuine surprise, and then an uncertain worrying at her lip. "That doesn't mean she doesn't eat people."

Jenna laughed. Protagonist had had her own mythos and reputation in the Front, but it was strongest on her home turf. Ellie would know, she was from Samson. "How come she doesn't fight anymore, if she's not retired?"

Jenna sobered up, her expression turning serious. "Her legs are...Elias said she'd been in a crash. They're...they're really messed up. She's in a wheelchair now."

"Oh. That's sad."

They both fell silent, eyes on their milkshakes.

The speedster was sporting a pair of cheap purple sunglasses and the shapeless grey sweats from Elias' house, under which was her costume. She didn't want to get Ellie in trouble, and getting her caught out and about with her seemed like a terrible idea.

On the table in front of the timid redhead was Jenna's written account of what had happened. She had listened wide eyed to her more personal, unobjective account, utterly absorbed in the story and its aftermath mission, the description of the mythic, shadowy Protagonist in her lair and corrupt city, the oil rig, Adamant glowing and having legit looking galaxies inside of him-though she left out some of the things he had revealed just in case. She owed him his privacy.

Jenna hadn't mentioned being basically imprisoned for a week-Ellie looked up to Cid, was very grateful for her place in the Tower. And you didn't win friends by bashing their heroes. According to Ellie, everyone just thought she'd been sick and was finally coming to stay at the Tower for good.

"He really is just like the old news stories? Not...well...you know..."

"Crazy? Yeah, he's not crazy. Feats of strength and power, crazy regeneration, confidence and leadership-just as cool as I imagined as a kid. He can really jump -buildings-. And! He made me pancakes!"

"THE Adamant made you pancakes? "

"Yep."

"Wow."

"You should come meet him sometime."

"Oh, I don't know Jenna." Ellie said anxiously, looking a mixture of hopeful and anxious. "I mean..."

"Who'd even know? You already said you blink out of there sometimes."

"Sometimes. And they don't know that I do it. It's not like with you Jenna. The rest of us get in serious trouble."

"What are they going to do, kick you out?"

"Maybe."

"Miss Sarah wouldn't do that."

Ellie fidgeted with a lock of hair. "No, but I...I don't want to get in trouble."

Jenna let it go. She was getting anxious, maybe even afraid. It was bullshit. It wasn't Miss Sarah she was afraid of pissing off, and that made her mad-she remembered how Ellie had fled when they ran into Tectonic. Bunch of bullies.

"They ever send you on missions?"

"Oh no, not me. Not yet. I don't know what I would even do-"

"Like 90 percent of heroing for people like us just rapid fire strikes to folks who can't hit us back. It's easy. You pop in and POW, punch a dude smack in the face."

"In the face?" Ellie repeated, wide eyed.

"Or kick him where it hurts, whichever."

"Me?"

"Well sure! You look like a groin kicker."

Ellie's face was starting to turn red. "I don't...Th-that is not all y-you do!"

"You're right, sometimes I trip people. You any good at that?"

Ellie's mouth opened, then closed. Her brows furrowed, and Jenna thought she might be catching on. "Come out with me sometime, in South Bend? You poof in on your hands and knees behind the bad guys and then I'll run up and shove 'em. We'll be unstoppable."

"Y-you're being silly."

Jenna grinned. "Maybe, but you can't deny that'd be -hilarious-."

Ellie smiled and shook her head rising to stand. "I gotta get back. Someone'll notice if I don't show up for lunch."

"Sure. Thanks for hanging out a minute."

Ellie nodded, starting for the women's restroom before she paused, turning back. "Will you...will you ask maybe? If I can meet him?"

"Totally!"

///////////////////////////

Jenna sat on the front stoop of the decaying building, waiting for Elias and messing around with the watch. She'd caught up on the news this morning, and as she had thought he would, Cid told the story he had wanted to tell, and not what was. He hadn't -lied- exactly, but that didn't make him honest. Slippery jerk.

Tectonic and his teammates were in South Bend and had been for a week. The university students weren't fond-she saw a headline "Where's Velocity?" in the school paper, and a few articles disapproving of some of the team's harsher methods.

The city at large seemed mostly okay though-some sort of Junior Citizen Hero program had been started up that folks were positive about. Everything else had raised a few eyebrows in articles on backpages-but nothing like the younger crowd. That's what was all over facebook and twitter, the university reddit page.

She felt bad for not coming back here immediately. She felt bad for having been stuck at the Tower.

But she was here now, and she wasn't giving her adopted city, Laura's city up.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias emerges from down the street, and makes no secret of it; his bomber coat and boots and just sheer size makes it obvious who he is at a glance - Adamant stands six-ten easy, towering over almost everyone around him, and even then has the broad chest and limbs of a lumberjack. He eats up space both with sheer physicality and the assured confidence he radiates, and it's this potent mixture that clears the way as he ambles down towards Jenna.

He has a junior hero sticker on.

The mountain of man slows to a stop before Jenna, and thumbs his chest solemnly. "I'm a real hero now, y'know," he says, doleful. "Cid says so."

He blinks, long and slow, and then the corner of his mouth quirks as he peels the sticker off and flicks it aside. The absentminded gesture propels it so hard the air resistance sets it afire and it impacts the concrete wall with an audible smack, crumbling into ashes rapidly.

Adamant glances aside at the curious batch of onlookers at the nearby bus stop - only five or six for now, but surely soon to grow if they both stay idle - and can't help but smile. "Your people are missin' you, hon. It's good to know you've got someplace to call your own, isn't it? Someplace where your hard work has made you welcome by your own effort."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"I'm a real hero now, y'know, Cid says so."

Jenna blurs to her feet, a hand on her cocked hip and the other gesturing to the sticker.

"Well it's about time you made something of yourself." She says in the same vein-then grins when he smiles, a laugh. "Jeez, did you really go and register? What was that like?" She might've thought the initiative was cool a few weeks before, but now she just feels vaguely uneasy.

He already had a whole tower of heroes under his thumb, did he really need more control outside of it?

Jenna lets the thought go as she gives a cheerful wave to the onlookers. "Yeah..." She says to Elias, smiling absently. "And I'm not giving it up for anything." She loves South Bend. Enough she had braved Rush a second time.

"Thanks for coming Elias. C'mon, I'm just around the corner."

The speedster flits to the corner of the sidewalk, still just long enough to wave at him-and then vanishes down the street. It's another ugly looking, dilapidated two story house, long abandoned.

Laura had been a woman of some means and had had a swanky apartment uptown, but she'd bought this plot not for the building-but for what was beneath it.

Jenna's down the alley on one side of it, looking to Elias, then the window she usually used-and someone bigger than her had used-before rubbing the back of her head. "Yeah, I don't think you're going to fit through there at all." She laughs a little, moving around to the back, the large piece of plywood nailed into place over the door.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Nah, I just walked up and took a sticker," Elias says, dismissive. "They've got this tourist-ass kiosk set up with clipboards and registrations and one bored-as-fuck looking techie hero kid, probably from the Tower, overlooking it all with about two dozen tweens harassing him about everything. Absolutely none of that is my style. The kid complained, but I told him I wanted to speak to his manager then escaped while he tried to work his way through Cid's answering machine."

It has options as to which mailbox you want to go to, like a fucking insurance hotline. There's a dedicated one for public outreach. He's pretty sure that's the only one that doesn't have dust on it.

He doesn't sprint after Jenna - trying to keep up with her is a loser's game - and instead patiently ambles after, tortoise to her hare. When he finally catches up he glances over the boarded-up window, scratching his chin with one hand, and then nods. "You're right, not my style."

For a moment, he looks up at the second floor window, his eyes gleaming in fell amusement as he shifts on the balls of his feet - and then settles back down and follows after Jenna instead to the back door, nonchalantly pulling the plywood off with one hand and setting it aside. "Crummy place," he says, glancing around at the coat of dust on everything inside. "Laura used to have a maid - dunno if that's the right word, caretaker or whatever - come by and clean up the place once a month, check the alarms, whatever. I think she actually stayed here all of twice and hated it both times."

Elias nudges a ratty armchair with one foot, making a face when a coat of dust billows off of it at the light touch. "I hope you're not allergic to dust mites. Actually you know what? After we get your stuff, let's rig this place to come down. We can drop it on the next bozo that comes to jack your style."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Elias was like a big kid sometimes. She's glad he didn't decide on jumping through a window up top-might knock the whole place down. He makes quick work of the plywood and they're in.

"Oh. Wait, so it's actually in disrepair?" Jenna looks vaguely horrified. "I-I thought it was just part of the disguise or something!" And she hadn't cleaned anything up since coming here nearly a year and a half ago.

Jesus Jenna, you are the worst caretaker of Laura's stuff EVER.

"No...no. I don't want to hurt anyone-never know who could end up sniffing around." She flits down to the basement, old wood paneling straight out of the eighties. A section of it slides away to reveal the vault door. "See, no one should have even been able to get in here. For a horrible moment I thought maybe Rush but..."

She stands to one side and grasps the crank-her arm a blur as she turned it an unearthly amount of times before the heavy inner workings slide aside and the door slowly swings outward. Jenna zips down the revealed stairs-and then slows up, stopped at the base of them in the lit, unfinished subway tunnel, a rumble as one goes past in the actual one next door.

Jenna slides her goggles up over her hairline, eyes on the door at the opposite end. It was open and what lay beyond was in ruins. Concrete slabs had cracked and fallen inwards, broken glass from the monitors littered the far, unreachable side-and the closest space to the door would fit hardly anyone at all.

"So...yeah. This is how I found it when I came back...caved in like that." She'd walk beside him, rubbing the back of her neck. "I mean. Bright side I wasn't in it when this happened, right...?" She looks a little miserable. Guilty. "I basically moved in here when I had to leave my dorm, so just everything I came to the city with is in there. I couldn't get in though. I just...grabbed my Tennis racket-" A gesture to the pink tennis balls still littering the tunnel- "-and left."

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias just looks amused. "Hon, the thing about secret lairs is that you have to clean them just as often as anyplace else you want to live otherwise you get termites and cobwebs and shit, and then it just goes to shit. Most guys in the super business just have regular old lairs they sleep in. The first time you have to drain the sewage tank of your secret lair or put a layer of wax on the steel doors, it stops being a secret."

He ambles down through the subway section and shrugs. "If there's machinery there's a way to trick it - maintenance cycles, resetting the breaker, wiping the chip with an EM burst and then setting a new user account. If you can get at the mainframe we can try to check what went wrong, but otherwise consider this place compromised. You don't know how long they had to fuck it up or what they did."

Talked out, he moves up to the rubble-choked entrance to Laura's base, and glances at the mess. The ceiling's collapsed inwards, and shattered rubble is the order of the obstacle in his way: it looks like a structural collapse, induced or otherwise. Elias grimaces and sets his hands on the closest piece of concrete as his broad forearms begin to gleam - then he pushes his hands together, slowly, and fucking powders the material between them with sheer pressure and a quiet grunt of effort.

"If you have a shovel or something, I'd get it," Adamant says, moving onto the next chunk of rubble and beginning to crush it as well, but now into transportable chunks that he tosses out the open doorway. "This'll take me maybe ten minutes, but anything that survived is going to be caught under a stress fracture or something that bore the weight for it, and is probably covered in like fifteen pounds of loose rubble or something. We'll take what we find, no matter what, alright?"

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"I didn't know how to work much more than her computer...the little one anyway." Jenna was starting to feel a little...well, 'junior'. "I was teaching myself and juggling it with school work." She says with mild defensiveness that was mostly awkward embarrassment. "Plus I'm not very 'techy'. No more than anyone else in my generation, anyway."

"I got the watch working though! Til it stopped, anyway."

Elias' hands and arms glow, his hands coming together on either side of a piece of concrete. Jenna's eyes flicked from it to his face, wisely deciding to blur backwards several feet.

Whoa. "Yeah...anything we salvage is more than I could have done by myself. Thanks again Elias. I'll find a shovel." And she blurs back down the tunnel and up the stairs.

/////////////////////

Miles and miles away, Velocity zipped past a grizzled groundskeeper just leaving the maintenance shed on the northern side of the engineering campus. The man blinked as the shimmering blue blur raced past-and then returned to a stop in front of him holding, of all things, a shovel. "Hey, can I borrow this a few? Promise I'll bring it right back."

Wide eyed, the man only mutely nodded in response.

"Thanks!" And with a grin, she was gone.

/////////////////////////////

"Found a shovel! It's not super big, but hey, neither am I. Figured I could pull my weight, at least a little." Small shovelfuls added up when you could do a hundred of 'em in minutes. She had also borrowed a handkerchief, the red cloth waved around like a flag a moment. "You want this? Probably not good to uh, breathe that in..."

She says to a man she's seen recover from a hole in his chest.

 

[Obuzeti]

"Well, shit, not like anyone taught you to use this stuff," Elias says amusedly. "Don't sweat it. This place ain't a museum. You used it for its purpose until somebody else trashed it: that's good enough for me. Everything I'm saying is just reference for when we go kick over someone else's anthill, yeah?"

He continues to haul and concrete as he speaks: the size of the pieces he carries has more to do with whether they'll fit through the doorway than their weight. Bits of powder quickly coat his clothing and skin under he starts to look more like a badly-CGI'd ghost than a person. It doesn't seem to bother him much.

"Don't worry about me," he says with a faintly awkward laugh. "Check this out."

Elias pauses, and something flexes in his chest, his ribcage moving in a way that is viscerally uncomfortable to witness. His shoulders buckle inward, and a sound like plumbing unstopping carks through the room, loud and abrupt, once-twice-thrice, as every time his chest bows inward due to some internal pressure. Then, abruptly, he turns and hawks up what looks like nothing so much as a concrete hairball, wet and to be honest pretty disgusting.

"So, uh, I can't choke on stuff," Elias says with a half-laugh. "I have, like, Hulk lungs. It just comes right back up rather than gets stuck. I can't smoke either, same thing happens. No Marlon Brando ads for me."

He smiles, eyes flicking aside, and then wrenches aside the last piece of concrete rubble, the major pieces pushed to the side to form a makeshift tunnel. The door stands before them, with a pile of rocks in front of it that Adamant starts to kick aside negligently. "Alright, checkout's at noon, get your stuff and let's go before they charge us for another night.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

It looks wrong, wrong enough it makes her stomach twist up a little and a clear look of concern etched on her features. Her left hand subconsciously moves to her sternum, a slight frown-and then wide eyed disbelief.

"Jesus Elias, just use the handkerchief!" Jenna blurts, her widened dark eyes flicking back to his face. "That just can't feel good." Blech.

Peering under his arm and into the makeshift tunnel, Jenna sees debris and dust a foot thick piled high on the simple militaristic bed, her bright purple bedspread now a ghostly white. They might not need a shovel after all-her open suitcase with it's messy contents was open underneath the bed, bit dusty but not piled on.

An uncertain glance towards the ceiling of the tunnel-and then Jenna zips in, grasps the handle to the purple suitcase-and yanks it out with her, flipping it closed.

"This was...er, pretty much it." She peeks around the immediate corner and realizes what's missing. "Hey-there was this treadmill thing right there! It was huge-and now it's gone." Her brow furrows.

"And shit, that's the tower to the computer...." It had been torn open on one side, was clearly missing the hard drive. She hadn't really thought this was a natural happenstance-but she had wanted to believe it.

"...why'd they do it? Did they do it? I mean...the vault door...how...?" But mostly, why? Who'd do such a mean spirited then, and to what purpose? Were they trying to run her out of her own city? Was it just plain meanness? What the heck had she done to deserve getting her...getting Laura's base wrecked?

Elias had said it wasn't a museum but...it had still been hers.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias shrugs and lets the topic go.

"Yeah, this was a smash and grab," he diagnoses, glancing at all the wrecked tech around the room. "Not a villain hit - they like to leave messages, taunt you so you come for a fight. A regular human squad or contractor wouldn't have been able to deal with the door either, so I'm guessing this is Cid playing games. Stealing tech is right up his alley. The destruction's a bit petty, but it's deniable so he'd do it, 100%. Plus, petty is pretty much how I'd summarize Cid if I had to do it in one word."

Adamant indicates the ceiling with a flippant gesture. "If I had to guess, whoever did it either affects mass, gravity, or earth, because they pulled in the fucking ceiling like paper without unsettling the house's foundations. That's fine control, not brute force. The fact they didn't just take down the house too also makes me think it's Cid, because he'd think it's too messy."

Elias moves up beside Jenna and loops an arm around her shoulders comfortably, drawing her into his chest. It doesn't quite come off as comforting as he wants because that poofs rock dust into her face, but the gesture's there. "Why? I'd guess to fuck with you. Make sure you've got nowhere to go. He's got your base and he's trying to move on your city so you've got no ground to stand on. Cid's great at making you feel like you've got no choice."

Adamant releases her and shrugs again with a devil-may-care smile. "The appropriate response, in my professional opinion, is to tell him to go fuck himself. Wanna go stop a crime or two in front of a camera?"

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Yeah, well, there's always a choice." Jenna mutters, more than a little troubled-but the one armed hug, even a dusty one that makes her cough-it makes her feel better. Because she does have choices, and none of them are even all that Pyrrhic, as they might've been on her own.

She swipes some of the dust off the one side of her face, russet brown through the white. "Your very professional opinion." She teases with a laugh and offering up the handkerchief, looking to the little watch but... "Nothing's really going on, not that I'd want to go show pony it up exactly, not while working." She'd become famous on accident, not through craft. "They can't hope to beat me to things though, ya know? Maybe eventually they'll get sick of being late to the party and go home."

Jenna frowns as something pops up on the impossibly fast little digital screen.

"Sergeant McSerious is giving a press conference on campus. The students don't seem to like him. Can't imagine why."

 

[Obuzeti]

Adamant shrugs, unbothered. "When it comes to the hero business, who's done it longer than me?" he notes, and it's a fair argument - he'd been fighting on the streets of Gary since before the sisters came to recruit him for what would become the fledgling League. "But, hey, we're not here to talk about my swagger. This is your town. Let's go poke War Face in the ass."

Adamant pauses.

"I may have mixed those two up," he muses. "Whatever."

He brushes himself off with the handkerchief and hands it back, near-crusty with concrete dust now. Then Elias paces to the other side of the room and sucks in a breath of air, bracing himself.

He sneezes. The floor cracks under the whipcrack motion as his entire body shudders, and there's a thin crack as the sound barrier is broken somewhere. The dust poofs off of him in a heavy cloud, tossed off by the convulsive movement, and the hero ambles back out, fanning the airborne contaminant away with one hand. "Alright, I'm good," Elias says cheerfully, having completely wasted Jenna's handkerchief for nothing. "Let's go step on Mudblood's dick. But we do it smoothly. No antagonism. Just be amazing, and the contrasts will draw themselves."

Adamant gives Jenna a fond smile. "It won't be hard for you, yeah?"

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Jenna gave Elias a thumbs up and a wink. "Kill 'em with kindness." She was nervous to attend but dang it-she was already famous. What was the worst that could happen? This was her city...Laura's city.

She wasn't giving it up for anything.

////////////////////////////////////////////////

He wasn't winning them over, not yet. These young people were entitled, self absorbed, coddled in his opinion-he had little patience for them, really. But they were too large a demographic in South Bend to ignore, too large a piece of Paige's powerbase.

Matter of fact, they would not let the subject of her whereabouts drop. They didn't seem all that interested in the Junior hero initiative in the least.

"As I said, I'm really not at liberty to discuss her whereabouts. After the battle on Lake Michigan, it's no wonder she's taken a break. We've all seen the footage." He hid his irritation in favor of false concern. He wanted them to believe it was in the young upstart's best interest to let the topic go.

"When will she return? How long do you intend to stay?"

"That is unknown at this time. But in the interim, my squad and I-"

"Incidents like the one on Cork Street are simply not acceptable Mr. Tectonic. And there are concerns the Association is attempting to replace Velocity in South Bend-."

"The Association heroes are everyone's heroes. I would really like to return to this press conference's topic, please." Harder hitting questions, Christ. "Miss Paige is an Association member now, there are other concerns that-"

"We do not need nor want a replacement for Velocity. Where is Jenna Paige? Are you insinuating she has abandoned South Bend?"

Tectonic felt his jaw tighten, but he summoned a handsome smile, mind working to get them under control. Maybe he could work this in their favor, paint her as irresponsible-which in his mind, she very much was. But then the worst happened. His eye caught that damnable shimmering blue blur-and then the girl in question was there, hands on her hips and her back straight, posture perfect as she grinned unabashedly at the surprised-and then nearly gleeful students. "I wouldn't dream of it folks. I hope you've missed me as much as I've missed South Bend."

Tectonic's grip on the podium tightened, a twitch of his left eye as excited murmurs moved through the crowd, the blonde reporter in question looking notably relieved. "Miss Paige. I thought we had discussed-"

"I know I know-but I'm back in action. And really Tectonic, you guys have helped me out, helped South Bend out. Thanks for subbing while I rested up." She blurred and suddenly she was at the podium, a pat to his back and his hand suddenly in his, a vigorous shake. He tightened his grip but and fixed her with a stern gaze, an impassive expression. He wanted to wipe that goddamned grin off of her face. He couldn't see her eyes through the opaque silver goggles, but he was sure she was mocking him, hamming it up.

"I think you're returning a bit early-" He quickly said. "After a fight like that there are still concerns about your health." He swept his hand over the crowd. "I doubt your fans and fellow citizens want anything but the best of you, here."

"And they'll get it, as always. Everything I've got." Her thumb hooked the nose piece of the goggles and slid them up past her hairline. Her grin didn't entirely reach her eyes-she was wary but determined. Stubborn brat. And the gall to offer the magnanimous peace offering-he wasn't fooled, even if the press was.

He turned serious. A public rebuke was the way to go, now. "You weren't cleared to leave the tower. You're an Association member now, Miss Paige. And you need to fall into line."

 

[Obuzeti]

The crowd parts behind Jenna. Where she had slid between them, smooth as a swordfish parting the water, now comes the behemoth crashing through without regard, visible even over the cameras and boom mikes and sound equipment that blocked out half the space around them - a towering man-mountain that draws near as much attention as the speedster herself, simply for being so far out of his home territory. Adamant plods up behind, glances at his compatriot over in front of the microphones, and nods fondly; then he ambles over to Tectonic, interrupting his spiel with raw physical presence, as he moves right up to the smaller man, who unintentionally steps back to maintain personal space. He's not short by any means, but everyone feels a little puny next to this monolithic legend.

Adamant cocks an eyebrow at him.

Then he turns around to focus on Jenna instead, his voice easily carrying to the microphones, basso and commanding of attention. "Velocity gave me a hand wrapping up some villains I had difficulty catching," he says. "She shows a lot of promise, and fulfills it."

He cracks a faint smile, that offbeat, offset asshole grin he's worn for decades. "I'll probably start tapping her whenever I need a hand, or vice versa," he informs the forest of microphones, starting more conversations and photographs than anything said up to that point. "Feels pretty familiar, to be honest."

And there it is; the confirmation.

One of the cameramen manages to spot the beat-up League communicator hanging on Jenna's waist, and the crowd explodes into brief cheers, overwhelming whatever questions or comments the reporters may have raised; because while no one doubted that she's a hero, there's no finer stamp of legitimacy that what she has fastened at her waist now, and no greater acceptance of her legacy.

Elias just smiles, basking in the point-blank love these people, and this town, have for Jenna.

Behind him, Tectonic isn't even visible.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Tectonic had been ready to give her a public smackdown. She couldn't exactly tell him to fuck off on television, nor would she in private, really-but dammit, she didn't need to fall in line, HE needed to fall in line, the douchebag. The line of basic human respect and decency.

But Elias had come to the rescue, nipped whatever else he might've said in the bud-heck, even she half forgot about Tectonic, just as focused on Adamant as everyone else was. "She shows a lot of promise, and fulfills it." She was sure her face had reddened a bit, but luckily she was dark enough it wasn't terribly obvious-but holy shit, he had just validated her and everything she'd been working at for the last year.

Adamant.

The Adamant.

Publicly giving her the seal of approval.

South Bend had accepted her as a hero and kept her buoyant, but to be looped in with Adamant-her heart was so full she thought it might burst, and her usual energy intensified and could hardly be contained, because holy shit. This was how she thought the Tower might be, what she hoped to find in the hero community. The silver lining to cheer her up, the chance to do more, to extend her reach, help more people.

The chance to live up to Velocity's mythos even half way.

But here that validation was in the easily extended friendship and camaraderie of one of the greatest heroes that had ever lived and probably ever would live. If her costume wasn't so thick and protective, she would have pinched herself to make sure she was awake.

The speedster beamed, giving one of those cheery waves and, still over the moon, shaking Elias' hand happily.

Tectonic had stalked off stage. Well. Suppose she'd at least try to reason with him...and see about getting him and his cronies to pack up. She could police the city alone and more effectively, darn it-she couldn't be in two places at once, but she could come close.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

"This is ridiculous. Do you think Tower guidelines are suggestions Paige? That you can just flaunt them whenever the mood strikes you?"

Jenna exhaled, flitting to a large bamboo base and spinning it in place, frowning at him. She really didn't like this guy, and he seemed to straight up HATE her. She had wanted to like him, she used to admire him! He came from heroes, was a hero-but he just...set her on edge, especially after whatever...whatever had gone on in that office. He'd twisted her up just as much as Cid had. He hated her guts for no reason. Was way more hostile than Cid. Heck, if it weren't for Elias' information, she probably wouldn't think Cid was even all that bad.

...holy shit, she might have even 'fallen into line'.

He moved towards her and reached to steady the vase, stop her fidgeting-but she just flitted elsewhere, out from under his glower and intimidation attempts. Tectonic could throw his weight around all he wanted, she wasn't afraid of him. Heroes didn't fight heroes, and besides-he couldn't catch her. But the chance for manipulation-well, that made her wary.

But Elias was here too, and he wouldn't brook his bullshit. He'd probably come back too, she was sure of it.

"Well?"

Half because it'd make Tectonic mad and half to keep herself occupied, Jenna picked up a few wax fruit items and started to juggle them, a shrug. "Well, the infantalizing ones, yeah. I was already working when I signed up Tec, I never agreed to stop what I was doing in South Bend-"

"The Tower supersedes anything else you could possibly have going on. Need I remind you of your responsibilities? Of our policies? Of the dangers of outside fraternization?" His eyes flicked to Elias and the fruit was suddenly back in the bowl, the speedster blurring and reappearing to lean against a large roman column-or at least a light plaster one. She crossed her arms, her eyes narrowed a fraction on him. Maybe Tectonic had drank the kool aid and believed Elias was a little crazy. Maybe he was just intent to discredit him, at least to the other new heroes. Why? Keep them from seeking the large man out? Like she had done, and find something away from the Tower?

"I think YOU need reminded, not me. I'm here for the little guy and the good fight, and you and Cid seem intent to keep me from it, given the week I just had. If I want to team up with Adamant-" Oh man that was so cool to say- "To help accomplish those two things, I not only can, but I will."

"This is you not thinking before acting again-"

 

[Obuzeti]

Tectonic and Jenna both disappear backstage, and while his instincts pull him there, Elias lets his protective impulses simmer for the moment. There's a better target right in front of him, and he can punch harder with a bigger target to hit.

"Have you got a chance to answer a few questions, Adamant?" one of the reporters bravely calls, and the professional hero just grins, leaning back against the wall and idly parking his hands in his pockets, hung by the thumbs in a picture of casual ease. The wall groans a little under the weight.

Namely: Cid's ego.

"Sure," Elias says, and if the presence of half a dozen cameras, microphones, and more public scrutiny than he's dealt with since getting thrown out of the wedding bothers him, it doesn't show at all. He looks indolent - at ease. "Shoot."

"What brought you to Jenna," the reporter asks, "and how'd you start working together?"

Elias looks at the man. Short and dark-haired, his suit clean but not fresh-pressed, the stylized stenciling of a television station absent from his lapel, glasses with thick rims - not the light, near-absent frames that are so expensive, but ones the man probably bought himself, not off a company vision policy. No press credentials, but those are just legacy games in the media world anyways, and it means that no one owns him yet. The hero makes a snap decision.

"Hey, what's your name?" he asks.

The reporter blinks, shook. "Um. Timothy Veigh."

"Cool," Adamant says, unruffled. "Velocity was swinging up through my neck of town - it's a ways, but she covers ground quick, y'know? She punched some guys down. It was clean enough work that I decided to ask her if she wanted to swing by and help me put a boot up Nergal's ass; she moved quick and didn't look likely to freeze up. Helped out later a lot."

Timmy nods, regaining his ease a little, and starts to step back when Adamant puts him right back on the spot, ignoring the other reporters entirely. "What else?"

He freezes and coughs in surprise, but recovers from the sudden attention. "Uh, that dock fight. That was kind of a mess."

It's not a question, but Adamant acknowledges it with a nod. "Yeah, Paul Marrane showing up wasn't expected. He picked a fight with Nergal before we even landed, and then they made up by jumping me together as soon as I landed. Nasty fight."

"The Parahuman Insurance Advisory estimated the damage at just short of a hundred and forty million dollars," Tim says, his expression getting a little more intense as he starts homing in on a point. "That's more damage than anything that's happened in eight years. Was there a way it could have been prevented or lowered?"

"No," Adamant says, blunt. "I can't stop shit if I'm not there before it starts. Even then, Eddie blows shit up by looking at it. Unless I can clock him with a fastball projectile before he knows I'm there, he's going to blow up everything possible to get in my way, endanger civilians, force me to deal with other shit. He can wreck cities faster than I can get in the way. Only solution is to fight to him and take him down, fast as possible. It'll never be pretty."

"Eddie?" Tim repeats, derailed.

"S'what I call Nergal," Adamant says, nonplussed.

Tim stares at him.

"Anything else?" Adamant nudges.

Tim gives himself a shake, composes himself. "Right. Uh, the Tower. Any comments on your relationship with it and its authority? There's never been any official commentary from you on it, and that's mostly been reciprocated, but . . ."

Cid has always liked to make comments about rogue, uncontrolled heroes and vigilantes, though as ever he won't call out names directly. Elias isn't an idiot and no one else is, either. When your metaphor is about rogue heroes tearing buildings in half and pitching light poles across highways, it's pretty obvious that you're not talking about the bog-standard stock of hero material.

Adamant cocks his head.

"I think Sarah does good work," he says, with a smile. "Anyways, I'm out. Kids are arguing. Catch y'all later."

Adamant pushes off the wall behind him, which groans again in protest, and then ambles down the backstage stairs after pointing at Tim and crooking a finger at him.

~*~

Adamant comes down the stairs, good-natured and smiling, and promptly ambles over to lean against the opposite side of the pillar as Jenna. It doesn't really work thanks to the difference in weight - the thing starts pushing over on her side almost instantly. Elias grimaces and catches it, settling it back in place with one mammoth hand. "Whoops. Hey, Jenna, you having fun down here?"

He glances over to Tectonic and grants him a single upwards nod. "'Sup, Motte n' Bailey. You draw the short straw today?"

He doesn't openly antagonize either yet, just letting them react to him before he really starts to put his foot down. There's plenty of rope waiting for Tectonic to hang himself with, especially with Tim hanging back just at the top of the stairs, out of the immediate line of sight where the trio of heroes have converged.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

The younger heroine was glad he'd come down. Tectonic was more than a little hostile and she was still feeling iffy about him. Elias moved to also lean against the pillar but yikes! Jenna blurred forward to avoid possibly getting smooshed, not about to lose on that one. He was a giant compared to her-and just about everyone else.

"Everywhere I go." Jenna says absently. Tectonic didn't respond, just eyed the much larger man a moment, jaw tightening. She's not entirely sure how the two would interact-but Elias seemed himself, genial and affable, so hopefully Tectonic wouldn't feel...ganged up on?

Jenna doesn't want to gang up on him. He was an authoritative asshole and a bully, but he was still a hero. A hero who most definitely had wrecked her base, Laura's base but well...other cheek? She needed to find some common ground with this guy. He was not a fan of her heroine M.O. and fine-but dammit, they didn't have to be adversaries, right?

"I read your dad was military. Mine too. I get why me shaking things up bothers you."

"Do you?" Acidic.

Yeah, he hates me. Between him and Marie, she's starting to half doubt she's as likable as she'd always kinda thought. Jenna glanced to Elias, then tried again.

"Look, Tectonic-" She dropped the shortened version of his name, offering a bit less flippancy and a genuine stroke of respect. "I was stoked to join up, and I'm still stoked to be a member of the Association." That was kind of a lie. She had wanted to quit. But Miss Sarah had asked her not to, and really...it would have been selfish to quit. She couldn't help anyone in that place if she was a pariah, an outsider. "And I'll be there if and when Miss Sarah calls on me, in a heartbeat! But I'm still, ya know, Velocity. And Velocity looks out for South Bend. Not chasing you out but I mean...you guys can't beat my response times. Being fast is my shtick, there's gotta be better places for you to be, right? I'm plenty independent. "

"You managed to earn a name for yourself rounding up run of the mill criminals while coasting on the popularity of your predecessor, if that's the 'independence' you're referencing. Gallivanting around with-" She catches him glance towards Elias, his face darkening. "-non members against policy, ignoring directives and disciplinary measures-"

Jenna's eyes narrowed and the girl stilled for once. No fidgeting, no flitting about the room, just still and without her characteristic grin. She was frowning, in fact.

Disciplinary measures? What, her base? The super illegal yet oh so deniable false imprisonment? The way they'd twisted her up in that upbraiding? Is she sure she wants to be on this asshole's good side? "Listen Tec-you're not the boss of me. I'm working for the little guy like I said, and that frees me up to work with anyone doing the same, Association member or not."

"Did you forget everything you were told, the warnings? The cost of your carelessness and rash action is too high, was too high." An accusatory gloved finger pointed angrily at her. "And playing sidekick to a rogue hero doesn't legitimize you, NOR will it impress anyone when you're killed due to your own recklessness. That's where you're heading, maybe with a second death toll on your ledger."

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias's features darken as the argument continues. His shoulders roll and spread, his feet plant, and his head lowers, blue eyes sparking up beneath his lowered brow, like a bull pawing the ground. The sour twist at one corner of his mouth well-speaks his disgust.

"Heads-up, you two," he says, interrupting them both. He speaks more quietly than either, but the weight and heat of his voice has the momentum of a freight train, bowling right over their words. "Lemme talk for a second."

"Tectonic," he says, and glances over at the other man. The casual disregard from before is gone - his glare is straight and solid, locking stares with the other man. "Is there a contract you sign for the Tower? What rights and responsibilities does Cid have for your people, and what does he offer in return? I don't fucking like Cid, but I don't know the way he works. You do. Educate me: why should Jenna be at the Tower? What's worth the infighting you're clearly having instead of letting her go her own way?"

The big hero jerks his head back at the auditorium they'd just left. "Look, you're out here on the raw edge of the deal by yourself, and you're still holding the line. I can get that. I can respect that. What I want to know is why you want to do it - why you're out here by yourself, out with the sharks. This can't be where you're comfortable. What's going on?"

The jokes and wry asshole behavior is just gone. What's left is immediate professionalism and pragmatism - the commander and leader he'd been of the League moving to the fore, superceding his personal tastes in the moment.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Paige spares Elias a glance and colors a fraction, almost chastened-so she will shut up out of respect-before she's animated again, flitting back away from where he'd been towering over her, her brassy brief stand off interrupted.

He could give her credit for that-she wasn't afraid of him. Over confidence. She's spinning that watch on her wrist faster than his eye can see. He'd had no warning she was coming. Shouldn't the have? Was this some kind of test?

"Shoot." The girl says with a shrug, not quite as flippant as typical-the mountainous hero had her full attention.

For however long that ever lasted.

Tectonic was irritated and maybe even angry, but he's not tunnel visioned on the speedster-that'd be dangerous. His eyes cut to the legendary Adamant, half expecting him to start in on him too-maybe throw his weight around. To hear Cid tell it, Adamant was little more than a glorified thug. Tyler's not so sure. He had served in the junior league as a teen, they all had lived and breathed the stories of their instructors and role models, the same as anyone else in the general public-but greater. Heroes to aspire to. He might've been on the tail end of that, but he'd still been there. And his mother had been big on Halwell. Sometimes the "If I was ten years younger and single..." variety, but still-she wouldn't have supported a thug.

"Tectonic. Is there a contract you sign for the Tower? What rights and responsibilities does Cid have for your people, and what does he offer in return?"

Tectonic's face shifts to a near emotionless expression, stoic and impassive as he straightens back to his full height-but his five eleven is dwarfed by Halwell's sheer bulk. He removes the dark red, open faced, open crown helm, taking a step back and to the side to set it on a pedestal. Really, he was taking that minute to think and to get that extra bit of space. They aren't standing very close, but Halwell fills the room. Presence. Like Cid, he has presence-and the size to further it. He turns back and folds his arms in front of his costume's dark red chest, his eyes sharp and determined, weighing the questions, weighing him.

Tectonic doesn't look happy to be here, either. He had helped to put Paige in her place in Cid's office, but Cid wasn't here. He wasn't as talented or as skilled at maneuvering as his leader was. The amount of forethought that went into everything...no, he was leagues behind the veteran hero. Cid was a scalpel. Precise, clean, and easily concealed. Him though, he was just a cudgel. A soldier.

He should be wary here. There was a reason Adamant and Cid were enemies. At the same time, Elias might understand, might even be able to influence the girl to do what he told her to goddamned do.

If nothing else, at least the adults were talking now.

"I go where I'm sent." He says firmly but in a somewhat dismissive, almost evasive tone. The once junior Leaguer can't entirely blow off Adamant however.

"...but you're right. There are contracts and...nondisclosure agreements. That's not really in my scope or specialty."

That doesn't feel like enough. He needs to get the troublesome recruit back to the Tower and to Cid, but for a moment he sets the directive aside, responding to the more serious note of inquiry.

"What does he offer? The Association is the only hero organization left, Adamant. Training, costumers, medical care and dorms-it's a full suite for a sometimes thankless job. Numbers aren't at all what they used to be. It's not like before. ...you know it isn't." For a moment, he feels a pang of regret, and it's uncomfortable. The sheer number of casualties, just...all of it.

He had tried to go too. They wouldn't hear of it. A few of his friends had gone defiantly anyway. And died.

Him though. He followed orders.

...

His resolve hardens. "These aren't veterans, they're fresh faced recruits picked up where they're found. Daybreak is training them directly. I grew up in all of this, but most of them haven't-and the average age of a cape these days is 20. It's all a team game now, not a solo one." He hadn't branched out on his own. No one had, it just...wasn't a thing anymore. Near impossible without Tower support, and a lot of these recruits-

"Not everyone can endure or outrun the horrific remnants of villainy out there." He cut a sharp glance to Paige. "Cid was kind and courted the press, but the fact is Miss Paige was brought into the fold and placed under our protection. You may not be aware, but after a near year of part time heroing-she had finally got the attention of bigger, badder guns in Mindmelt and Rush. She managed to have her identity sold and splattered across the dark web, and if Velocity's old enemies hadn't taken note before, they sure will have by now."

////////////////////////////////////////////////

"Not everyone can endure or outrun the horrific remnants of villainy out there."

Jenna wasn't sure how to feel about this new tack. He sounded a bit less like a bully and more like a concerned older brother, but none of that could really apply to her because she COULD outrun whatever was out there. Roland's weird power and Rush not withstanding, and even then...

As he went on her brows furrow-and then lift as a clear look of shock and surprise strike her features. The dark web? Was that what had happened, what had gotten her outed so bad? She had known Rush had told the press, told somebody, that the creeptastic fuck who had somehow found her at school had to have been in league with her-but sold? They had sold her out, literally? To who? Why?

And if they had known about that, did everyone know? Had Elias known? He didn't sound like he was full of it, but he must be, right? Or was she some kind of big secret joke?

Her dark eyes dart to Elias with a blurred turn of her head, suddenly a lot less certain of her right to be independent. And what he maybe would think, hearing about that.

"So we've got this mostly untested young woman using the moniker and suit of a one time big leaguer, able to tap into a poorly understood force- a force that claimed her predecessor-and then we tune into the news and find she's been in a warzone with a non Association member, someone our leader isn't supportive of- without calling in, without waiting for orders, and what's worse, with a body snatcher in the area."

She could feel herself waffling. He wasn't talking about the body count, but she can still see the bags in her mind's eye, the image seared there forever. They had told her part of the death toll was her fault. They might've been a little right-she hadn't gone straight there. Or maybe that was just...hindsight plaguing her? She's not sure.

What if she was being a moron, ignoring cautioning meant for her best interest?

...no, they had falsely imprisoned her, that wasn't-they can't paint that nice. Miss Sarah had seemed horrified, even. Something...something was off about that place, and definitely Cid.

Right?

 

[Obuzeti]

Adamant snorts a breath and reaches out with one hand, lifting the pillar with one hand and setting it down longways, then promptly takes a seat on it. "Siddown, let me talk at both of you for a moment," he says. "There's some shit about parahumans in general you need to know."

"The longer one of us uses our powers, and the more heavily we use it," the old hero says, heavily, "The more it will change you: mentally, physically, because their nature adapts you internally as you exert them externally. That's not a metaphor."

He leans back, pulls the high fur collar of his bomber jacket down, then presses fingers to either side of his throat - and rather than the recognizable lump of an Adam's apple, there is a smooth cylindrical shape with visible partitions. "When I got my throat cut by Razormind back in '03, it healed back with an internal trachea and a chitin shell around it. I know Sarah can photosynthesize outright, and it's been years since I've seen her - there's probably been other changes. The same stands for the rest of the old guard. I deeply suspect that what happened to Laura was an extreme example of these changes - her base resting state accelerated and she literally moved out of phase with the rest of the universe, or something. I don't know the specifics, obviously. "

Adamant releases his throat, and pins Tectonic with an even stare. "So when I tell you that Cid is intrinsically offended by things that he doesn't control, that's not a judgement on the man himself, but it is what his power has lead him towards. The Lord's Mark he throws out on people has always made him a de facto leader, but over time he has become less able to accept any other reality. You should keep that in mind, and work to ameliorate those impulses, because to us it's as natural as breath."

"The fights are lesser and you know it. I can't think of the last time the Tower brought down something that wasn't a petty crime, and with the tools at his disposal Cid should be capable of much more, but he doesn't try for it. When was the last time a villain with more than two years out in the field was brought in?"

"When I operated we had four, five groups of maybe seven apiece, and maybe the risks were greater but we got more done. Everyone knew the area they covered, had local contacts. Cid's come out against these things, against independent heroes, and the result is that meaningful work is not getting done. When was the last time you deployed to either coast, or did disaster relief work?"

Adamant gestures at Jenna. "Cid's coming down on Velocity because she has those resources, because she can operate on her own and she's proved it. She took on those two, yes, and I know about that, but she won. Came out scarred, but won. When was the last time the Tower tangled with either Mindmelt or Rush? Then some solo rookie takes them both out?"

He leans forward and matches gazes with the younger man. "Cid is being moved by the inclinations of his power and not his better wisdom. And you would aid him most by focusing him on the fights that matter, instead of wasting his time on every rookie that goes their own way."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Tectonic listened, his arms tightening a fraction across his chest. His expression remained serious and reflected nothing of his internal opinions on what Adamant said-if indeed he had any. Though...there was a slight frown on his lips, and it deepened with each rhetorical question.

He's not entirely comfortable being on this side of things. What's more, he doesn't have a lot of answers, either. Cid was in charge, and things were different than the old days. There was a reason for that. Numerous good reasons.

He's not going to get anywhere further here with Paige, not with Adamant there. For whatever reason, he was firmly in her camp. It only really irritates him further, but he's not dumb enough to continue leaning on her. Or to openly antagonize the veteran hero.

"Alright, Adamant." He finally says, his expression becoming grave. "I'll tell Cid I encouraged her to come back in, but she felt she had things to do here." He finally says, lifting the helm back off the pedestal and glancing to it a moment.

"But understand she's enjoying far more privileges than her peers. It can't be that way forever, nor will it." He turned his head to fix her with a look. "And if Cid sends you a direct summons Paige." He brought the helm down on his head, turning it into place. "Don't make me come get you."

He gave Adamant a nod, then turned to leave.

"Tectonic-" Jenna said, a step towards Elias but her gaze on him. "...the junior initiative sounds cool. I'll uh, I'll talk it up in your absence here." But the olive branch was seemingly rejected, a slight snarl to his lip before he turned his back on her.

The speedster was uncharacteristically quiet. Elias clearly hadn't approved of their bickering. She also doesn't quite know what to say about his defense of her. Or his knowledge of her encounter with Mindmelt.

For once, she was moving at normal speed, less of that explosive energy and more of a...troubled feeling to her. She stopped a pace or two away from him, trying to work out what to say.

"...thanks." And a more tentative smile, a glance back at the stairs. "I'll win him over eventually." The words were sure enough, but quite as overly confident as she usually was. She gave the watch a spin on her wrist, distracted by her thoughts.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Metal screamed and so did a woman somewhere as the jet spun through the air, the throttle impossible to control now that a hole the size of a Cessna had been punched through the left wing-the cockpit hadn't fared any better. Molten rock had torn the plane open like a tin can, twists of jagged metal to her immediate left, a blinding pain-her legs, there's something horrifically wrong with her legs, something she can't fully process with the amount of adrenaline pumping through her veins.

Even in this tumbling chaos she's angry. She slams her fist down on the half destroyed control panel to launch what was left of the heat seeking, million dollar U.S.A.F. missiles neither she nor anyone else really expected to help, catches them on the radar for a split second-and then the windshield explodes inward with a gush of water, her bloody legs crushed beneath the console as the nose of the plane crumpled in on them.

Salt stings at her eyes. In the blinking emergency lights she can see the dark cloud rising from her lap, billowing ever larger. She's as good as dead.

But even then she fights. She doesn't know how to do anything else- tearing out of the seat belt and shoving hard against the console, pain ripped a bubbled scream past her grit teeth, forces water down her throat as she involuntarily gasps. She's not just pinned here-her thigh is skewered on metal. As if this jagged metal cage had ensnared her, was intent on dragging her into the depths.

"Marie, you can't be here, not you-you'll die. God-we're all going to die."

She sat up with a start, tasted salt and copper, her leg radiating pain. Jesus. Jesus.

It wasn't unusual, the dream. But Samantha's voice...when was the last time she'd heard it? A long time. A long, long time. She glanced to the small digital alarm clock sitting in the seat of her chair. She's in her lair, as always. She's lying on the shitty cot off to the side, the hum of servers, the uncomfortable heat-deep beneath the cesspit that was her city. She picks up the clock. Two minutes before the forty five minute power nap was supposed to be over. She turned off the alarm and dropped it on the taut canvas of the cot.

That was the only way she slept anymore. Forty five minute intervals on a set, rigid schedule. Just enough to keep her functional, but not enough for grogginess, for actual rest.

She doesn't need rest.

Reaching for the strap dangling from the ceiling, she hauled herself into her damnable wheelchair and gripped the wheels tightly. She gave a hard spin back on the wheels, ignoring the agonizing pangs as her useless legs dragged off the cot.

She wasn't a paraplegic. There was feeling in the scarred and ugly appendages, just no use. One leg had so much muscle missing it was hardly functional anyway, and both of them had been so broken by the plane crunching in on her that they'd never support her weight again. She should have died. But she just...never knew when to quit. Never knew when to stop.

Sam's voice hadn't been in the dream in a long time. She wondered if it would be in sequence, next time. The entire exchange...the others.

She hoped not.

Shaking her head with a growl, she hauled off to clean up, down a shake-and get back to it, settling into herself once more, putting the dream and the remembrances aside for what mattered.

Remainder had returned the schematics. The AI was housed in a government facility somewhere, mostly off grid-and that's where it wanted to stay, for the most part.

Protagonist scanned them with a practiced eye, frowning.

That fruit was going to rot in that damned box. She'd take it out herself, but that'd involve acknowledging it, and she refuses to do so any further than she already had. But rotting fruit meant insects, and insects lead to infestations, and-she hadn't really left this place in years. Teleporting up top had been easy, angry.

But making a conscious decision to leave was too much to fathom, not for such a wasted effort, not when there was work to do. No, not now.