Oh, and it'll probably allow me to cast the Millenium Spell one day if I happen to conveniently stumble upon ninety-nine souls that I won't mind forever consigning to the Shadow Realm and have seven days to spare with nothing better to do.
A bit of a crapshot, I admit, but it could be a potential ace in my sleeve at some point.
I thought about it, really, really thought about it, even to the point of trying to idiot-proof my impulsivity by asking my twelve year old friends if they thought it was a good idea – they didn't help, not one bit – and I ultimately decided that I wanted to take the shot.
Because while I know that I'm not supposed to suffer a wytch to live, well…
"Yolo, as the hip and cool say," I snicker to myself while carefully drawing another hieroglyph while hunched over on my desk, the moon already high in the sky and the house long gone quiet.
I really want to know who my Spirit will be.
"Maybe it'll be the Dark Magician Girl," I hum, "I hope it will be the Dark Magician Girl."
[AN: Second Missy PoV? Second Missy PoV!
And we get into Jacky's plans regarding her current specialization, as well as her very well thought out reasons about why she's going ovaries-deep into magic without blinking – which, you know, basically boils down to 'fuck it, I want to'.
Also, time for a bit of a rant: I wasn't expecting the backlash I got for the previous chapter, and it took me a bit by surprise, so I wanted to clarify something.
Shards. Are. Dumb. And that's fucking. Canon.
Wibbles' answer to Fermi's paradox is that we're alone in the galaxy because all other sapient species got nom-nom'ed by hive-minded idiot savants – with an emphasis on both terms – who apparently lost their capacity to innovate somewhere along their evolutionary path. By the time they land on Earth, they have thrown every possible things at the wall in an attempt to find the Solution and nothing stuck – except apparently they already had it and only needed to be dope-slapped by Miss Special Snowflake and Fragile One in Shard-space for them to recall that a hive-mind is supposed to communicate with its many parts, but I'm not delving into that.
Multiversal Oculus, as a Shard that uses a host species' branching paths of innovation to do its clarktech-bs, doesn't work for the Shards themselves since they're already at the end of every possible innovative branches they already conceived and need to tap into our own imagination to grok more by throwing the equivalent of toenail clippings' worth of their vast computational power our way!
Shards know everything – hence savant – but they lack imagination – hence idiot. That's literally why they're apparently unable to empty a boot full of water with instructions written on the heel without their hosts holding their hands. They are fucking dumbasses.
Even when I'm writing by the seat of my pants, I think when I do so. And if I'm asspulling an original Shard who could kinda-sorta emulate the ToF package out of its many bits, it's for a reason. On the same hand, I'm also going to make it canon compliant. Which it is!
Shards have lost the capacity to innovate somewhere along the way, they tried to ape it with a new Shard, it failed, they deployed it, it failed harder because it turns out there are a lot of ways to blow up a planet, and they ended up putting it in the naughty corner just in case.
2.1 Geb
1st of February, 2011
The ringing of the doorbell heralding the arrival of a new client successfully manages to do what his monthly inventory hadn't this afternoon, which is actually rousing Gerald's attention.
The man vaguely straightens behind his counter, his eyes roaming among the display cases and storage shelves of his modest tech shop to finally land on the newcomer.
He finds the girl already half-crouched as she looks at a camera's specs, messy dark hair tied in a low ponytail and dark eyes narrowed in focus. The girl isn't wearing a school uniform, which probably means that she doesn't come from the hooty-tooty school further downtown.
Admittedly, in a craphole like the Bay, it doesn't exactly narrow down where the girl gets her education from. For all Gerald knows, she could even be one of those waste of spaces hanging around in the slums bordering the city. Girl looks clean, but that doesn't say much in his experience.
"Can I help you, girlie?" he grunts while crossing his arms over his chest, his voice pitched just the right way to make her know not to mess with him.
"If this is the best you got?" she answers back while showcasing the camera still clutched in her hands before snorting derisively, "Doubtful."
Gerald's brow creases in irritation. First, the brat doesn't even say hello and stroll into his shop like she owns it, then she talks shit about his wares?
"Don't let the door hit you on the way back then," he drawls, demonstrating all the patience he exactly has left for fuckwit customers after a decade of the job.
At least she's the right sort, but that doesn't make her any less of a bother.
"Geez, relax," she theatrically rolls her eyes while standing up.
Looking all swallowed up in a too big black sweater and wearing a pair of what he'd have called booty shorts on someone way older than the brat over thick leggins, the girl takes his attitude for the invitation it clearly isn't as she strolls closer to his counter, blowing a bubble-gum as she does so.
"Your stuff simply doesn't have the specs I'm looking for," she explains mildly, undeterred by Gerald's stormy frown as she distractedly keep chewing at her gum, "But I heard from a friend of a friend that you have parts I could use for a project of mine."
"Oh yeah?" he looks down her nose at the lanky thirteen-something while barely clamping down on his urge to sneer, "What kind of project exactly?"
"My PC's an old piece of junk," the girl grumbles while tapping her booted toes against his counter, which irks Gerald something fierce, but now they're talking business, so he should at least make a token effort to keep a lead on his temper, "Thermal paste is toast, fans are gunked up to hell and back and I need to replace at least three electrolytic capacitors before they give up the ghost. Could use a new motherboard, but my allowance isn't that big, so I will have to wait for a better opportunity."
Gerald finds himself both relaxing a notch while he mentally perks up.
The girl seems to know her stuff, which can mean two things. Either she a budding scraphead like he once was, or she one of those brainy capes his drinking buddies asked him to keep an eye out for.
"Your PC, what's the specs?" he grumbles while simultaneously focusing as hard as he can on the girl's appearance.
His surveillance system is a badly cobbled together thing he threw together six years ago and barely updated since and the quality of the recording is admittedly a bit spotty. For all he can bitch about her attitude, girl's right; everything optic in his shop is kinda shit.
"Well, its power supply is–" she promptly launches herself in a long rambling explanation, that Gerald only follows with one ear as he's already looking at his stocks to find something that'll do the job.
They go through the whole usual back and forth for a good fifteen minutes before the girl eventually leaves a hundred and twenty bucks poorer and with a bag of her purchase hanging from her arm.
The doorbell rings once again as she fucks off.
Gerald purses his lips, eventually shrugging before fishing his cellphone out of his pockets.
Brat was alright after the shitty first impression, but a bounty's a bounty. Plus, he figures one more brain the Empire's side could always help. Not like he's sure-sure about her being a brainy cape, but her young age and know-how makes him wanna take the bet. And if he's wrong? His buddies could probably use another techie to further the cause.
The phone rings once, twice.
"Morrison speaking," a man answers with a dispassionate tone.
"Grant," Gerald greets, "It's Gerald. Listen, I think I found someone our friends should look into."
***
2nd of February, 2011
I silently slip back into the Barnes' house attics after another successful 'supply run', feeling inordinately satisfied with myself and my two duffel bags worth of electronic, optical and computer hardware.
Because while my current priority is the Millenium Spellbook, that doesn't mean that I can't anticipate my future tinker needs. Hence why I went ahead and cased another target this afternoon. Little tech shop, less than fifteen city blocks from home and just a bit too deep into Empire territory for me to feel guilty about.
Very, very poor security too. I was able to execute my little operation whisper-quiet. Which had been the intended benefit behind going relatively 'loud' with my first op. This way, it'll keep people guessing, wondering. Is Nightflyer at it again, or is it another thief?
Thing is, investigations take time. Which is one of the main reason why everyone and their mothers clamor after recruiting Thinkers in this world; having the humanoid equivalent of a magic eight ball on your payroll drastically shorten the times you're spending fucking around trying to play CSI when you're not qualified to do so.
Except most of the time the magic eight ball in question gives you answers just as cryptic as you'd have gotten by investigating the matter yourself while knowing jack-and-shit about what you're looking for, but confirmation bias is one hell of a thing, and since Watchdog is a thing that exists, it surely means those thinky-capes must be good for something!
Dinah, Tattletale, Accord: all of them are the exception that confirms the rule, outliers vastly above their peers. And while I have very little doubts that Coil is already looking in my direction for one reason or another after 'going public' less than two weeks ago – though Calvert being an obsessive control-freak is by far the meat of my thoughts on the matter – I am currently winning the information game that he still thinks in his favor, and his blonde and smug gopher will have to play catch-up for a while longer if I have any say about it.
Ergo, alternating my modus operandi along several parameters. Acting quick, acting slow; getting seen, being a ghost; robbing a drugstore one day, a tech store the next and a jewelry shop the day after. All to feed those on my trail an erratic mess of data out of which they can't immediately asspull an accurate profile.
It isn't foolproof, it isn't perfect, because nothing truly ever is and believing the opposite is the height of hubris, but it should do a good enough job while I build myself up until I can take care of the issue.
I finish putting my bounty away while silently making an inventory of my resources.
I still have some chemical supplies left from my previous tinkering session, but those are all more-or-less bookmarked to replenish my Synskin Bodyglove stock, since I'll only have three Synskin-solvent duo left after tonight, and I'd like a bit more of a buffer to be comfortable. I'm down one dose of Polymorphine-2 out of the dozen I made last week – as a side-note, worked like a charm, though still as mind-numbingly painful as ever – and still have a similar number of doses of Panacea on hand – one spent putting myself back together after pushing way too hard against Sophia, and another spent two days afterward to see if it dealt with my more feminine troubles (it did not). I have… roughly two months' worth of DAoT supplements for my conditioning, assuming I don't have to tune either up or down my regimen, which only time – and potentially my third specialization – will tell.
All in all, I'm relatively comfortable for the time being. I can take the rest of the week to finish writing the Spellbook before playing my next card on Saturday: being all cute and sorrowful at my guardians about an old hobby.
***
5th of February, 2011
Alan enters the art and craft shops while always keeping an eye on his charge, his eyes regularly darting behind the two of them.
It had taken him months to stop doing so after the… incident, but the habits were coming back to the surface now that what he tried so hard to pretend never happened had come back with a thunder to firmly bite him in the ass.
In some twisted way, it was a relief. Despite being a certified liar in court, he has never felt comfortable lying to his wife, and hiding to her what happened that day had him constantly stressed for a long, long time.
But it had been his fault. He had made the decision to go through that alleyway, and without that…
Alan slowly shakes his head while hiding a sigh under his breath as his charge scampers deeper in the art and craft shop, warm brown eyes open wide in a mix of wonder and anticipation as she keeps looking this way and that.
He quietly steps behind her, letting her do her thing while he keeps reminiscing, his body moving like an automaton as he gets lost in his thoughts.
Inwardly, and as much as it pains him to admit it, he is glad that his lies and his baby girl's… worsening condition have gotten exposed. And while having to deal with his shame once again hasn't been any more pleasant than the first time around, he has to admit that he has been failing Emma despite what he spent countless nights telling himself.
His little girl wasn't well. Since the incident, she had crafted for herself that pseudo-darwinian model of life somewhere along the way and tried her hardest to adhere to it for…
Alan is sure there's a reason behind it, but he doesn't quite know what.
And it had been causing issues. Issues at home with Zoey and him, when Emma had showed herself to be confrontational and wanting everything to go her way; issues at school, if the multiple times Principal Blackwell had called him last year about a trouble-maker levying accusations his daughter's way weren't complete fabrication – and he just knows they probably weren't; and finally issues with Jacqueline, when his baby girl had taken one good look at her cousin and decided that she apparently didn't like her for some reasons.
Alan himself felt… confused about his brother's daughter now living with them. The two of them hadn't exactly parted on good terms after Robert had informed them during their last family dinner together that he had found a job across the pond. There had been some words, hurtful ones, traded that day.
Robert had called him a vulture preying on people's unhappiness to his face. Alan had looked down his nose at him while calling him a corporate stooge. They hadn't exchanged one word since that fateful day.
And now the occasion to mend that particular bridge has long passed.
All that is left of his brother is a too-serious child with his hair and freckles swallowing back her pain each time she looks at him.
Jacqueline comes to a stop in front of a storage shelf, prompting Allan to do the same.
I should say something, he tells himself as seconds stretch by, his brother's little girl looking at different shades of paints with a critical eye, the silence is killing me.
"Say Jacky," he not-quite blurts out, the words getting half-strangled in his throat, "You never told us where you learned to paint."
The girl pauses, before side-eyeing me.
"... That was Maman's hobby," she ends up saying in her accented voice after a beat of silence, her eyes locked on the shelf once again, "Papa had golf with his colleagues, but she liked to paint on the weekend. I learned with her."
Another pause, the girl lets out a weak chuckle.
"I was terrible at first," she admits with a crooked smile, "I was… five or six I think? When I ended up annoying her so much that she gave up, bought that little flimsy easel, put it down next to hers, gave me a bunch of paint and told me to 'go wild'."
Alan's brow creases at the picture of the scene in his mind.
"She didn't try to teach you?" he asks, the awkwardness slowly tawning off now that the conversation had properly kicked in, "Nothing about techniques, famous painters?"
"Maman always told me that painting isn't about techniques or skills, it's about feelings," Jacqueline answers matter-of-factly without looking at him, "What's the point of learning the proper way to hold a brush if you're unable to paint with your heart, condemned to forever copy those who pour their soul wholesale on a canva."
Alan mulls over the girl's words for a beat, before slowly nodding to himself.
If he had any doubts, he now knows for certain that the girl is definitely Margaret's girl. This is exactly the kind of poetic, flowery nonsense Robert's fiance would have casually spouted during dinner.
He suppress a wince at thinking ill of the dead, before plastering as honest a smile as he can manage on his face.
"I think your mother was in the right," he lies.
"Maman i- was the best," the girl answers, barely correcting herself, her face going from gushing to stone-faced in a heartbeat.
A pause.
"Did you find what you needed?" Alan asks in a bid to banish the awkwardness.
"Uh-huh," Jacqueline answers distractedly, "I should be good with the paint, but I still need an easel, a couple of canvas and a few brushes, uncle Alan."
He sagely nods with all the ease of a man who raised two daughters and somehow managed not to come out a depressed wreck on the other end as the girl takes her little basket and scampers deeper in the art and craft shop.
All the while, he can't help but think to himself that things are beginning to look up.
Sure, he still sleeps on the couch every night, his little girl is going to see a shrink twice a week for the foreseeable future and the ghost of his late brother now haunts him on a daily basis–
–but at least he doesn't need to pretend everything is fine anymore, and that's a relief in itself.