2.5 Geb
13th of February, 2011
"Assault, Battery," the voice of the PRT agent on console duty suddenly interrupts Ethan's light banter with his wife as they patrol the border of the ABB run territory with the downtown area at ass-o'clock in the morning, "We've got a robbery in-progress. Three blocks away, south-south-east from your position, a tech store's silent alarm got triggered by the perp."
"Copy that, we're on our way," his puppy answers first as he distractedly brings his hand to his ear in a bid to better make the agent's voice, the two heroes already jogging their way toward the crime in progress, "ETA before the BBPD gets here?"
"Ten minutes, it's pretty far from their patrol route," the agent – Robert, that was his name! – answers.
"Roger-Roger," Ethan lets out one last quip, stoically bears the dope-slap absentmindedly thrown his way by wife, then puts his better game face on as the two tear through the pavement in an attempt to catch the thief before they leave the premises.
They make it to the site of the robbery less than three minutes later, right on time to catch a tiny, black-clad figure stepping out of the place with a couple of duffle bags hanging from their shoulders.
"Stop right there!" his puppy barks, and Ethan frowns a little under his mask at the forcefulness of her tone – doesn't really make for a good impression, and those are always the difference between a peaceful surrender and a chase followed by a pitched battle.
To his very carefully concealed surprise, the perp stops right where they are, before turning themselves their way.
"Mister Assault, Miss Battery," an utterly bland – and weirdly impersonal so neutral it is – feminine voice answers as the bay's latest thief extraordinaire dips her creepy bone-white mask their way in greetings, "... This little Nightflyer is agreeably surprised, the last greeting a hero gave me ended up being… rather pointed."
Under the street lamps' lights, Ethan finds himself forced to agree with Shadow Stalker's testimonial: the girl – because if her voice left any doubt, her skintight suit certainly does not – is ridiculously tiny.
"And we're very sorry about that," he pounces on the opening the girl just gave him, thinking fast as he takes a step forward and smiles disarmingly the girl's way, idly noticing the knife strapped to her right thigh, "Mighty kind of you not to make more of a public ruckus about it."
He'd probably get chewed off later for saying that, but the girl keeping quiet on her – sadly accurate – suspicions prevented the PRT ENE from taking any more of a PR hit that Stalker's 'quiet' transfer to Eagleton and following announcement already did.
Ethan himself doesn't really know what ultimately motivated Director Piggot's decision, but with how positively apoplectic the woman had looked after a closed meeting with Armsmaster two weeks ago, he wasn't in any hurry to learn about it for once.
The girl tilts her head in a distinctively bird-like way before answering a beat later.
"A stable Bay is preferable for all," the thief answers, her head snapping to the other side as she speaks, sending shivers through Ethan's spine because that cannot possibly be good for her neck, "This little Nightflyer included. Plus, Miss Stalker showed herself to be… an adequate dance partner," her head snaps back upright, "Why, she left me all hot and bothered after our torrid tango together."
Once again, he finds himself shivering a little in discomfort at seeing a girl Vista's age slowly fanning herself like a love-struck maiden.
"Such a shame it ended on such a jagged note, this little Nightflyer must bemoan," the girl theatrically slumps, before snapping back upright in a jerky motion, "So, what can I do for you fine gents this evening?"
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSL6KqWKFvo&list=RD3hFKppDtUqc&index=21
"Besides playing along while you stall for the rest of you to show up, of course," the girl's body language suddenly shifts from creepy-cute to battle-ready.
The tonal shift instantly rings alarm bells in Ethan's mind.
"If you know that, then you're aware that you'd better surrender without a fuss," his puppy interjects with a sigh as she steps next to him with her arms crossed, which is about the worst thing she could have done and they would have words about it later, "Drop the loot, give up and come quietly. The PRT will be–"
"–Absolutely stoked to have you among our Wards," he interjects while throwing a sharp look his wife's way, "The worst you did was defend yourself against someone who should've known better and a few robberies," he hazards, but thinks he has the girl more-or-less figured out by now, "I'm sure we'd be able to come to an understanding. So! How about signing up with the good guys? We even have cookies. Oh, and Vista too I suppose, if you'd like a friend your age," he ends with a joke.
The girl's shoulders bob up and down a few times and Ethan realizes that she's silently laughing.
"This little Nightflyer is flattered that you'd promise her so much, but must politely decline," her oddly neutral voice doesn't exactly hide the mirth in it as she shrugs in a 'what can you do'-way, "I have places to be, things to do, a life to live beyond getting paraded like a prized pony on the Boardwalk on a weekly basis."
And that's what Ethan had been afraid of, because if his reading of the girl's attitude is good enough–
"Fine," his wife grunts, arms dropping alongside her body, "Hard way it is."
"Battery, don't!" he barks, but she's already gone in a blur straight for the girl.
It happens in a flash.
One instant, the black-clad figure of Nightflyer stands at the ready under the streetlight, the next she's her own blur of motions.
His puppy gets sent flying over the thief in something that looks like a Judo-throw, but probably is anything but if the girl's still extended elbow is anything to go by and the way his wife pukes mid-air before landing in a tumble.
Ethan's jaw drops.
"... This little Nightflyer is going to feel it in the morning," the girl muses while dropping her stance, her free hand coming to rub at her elbow, "Miss Battery should stop running in a straight line, it's incredibly easy to anticipate."
The seemingly neutral tone affected by the thief does nothing to hide the grin in her voice.
I was right, there was no way she'll ever surrender quietly, he bemoans, because of course, she's an adrenaline junkie!
But the same trick that worked against puppy won't work against me, his eyes narrow behind his visor, and now I owe the brat a correction, just a bit.
"Shall we continue?" the girl tilts her head in her bird-like way, her right hand going to her thigh as Ethan's other half weakly stands at her back while cradling her abdomen with one arm and angrily wiping the puke off her chin with the other.
He trades a look over the girl's head with his wife.
She nods back.
Then there's no more time for banters as both heroes dash for the girl.
They clash once more, and the girl blurs once more, falling into a split between one moment and the next to evade his wife's charge, tripping her in the motion and sending her ass over teakettle for the second time in a row–
–but it's all the opening Ethan needs as he uses a nearby wall to bounce off, bleeding his momentum right next to the girl, one moment away from clamping around her forearm–
–another blur–
–a flash of actinic blue light accompanied by a shrieking crackle of electricity-but-not.
"ARGH!" Ethan gasps aloud as a painful line gets drawn across the back of his shins, somehow, and he falls face-first against the pavement as the girl cartwheels away from him.
"ASSAULT!" his puppy yells, and yeah, he kinda gets why after taking one good, if very blurry, look at both of his achilles heels.
"Nice little toy, isn't it?" his eyes snap back toward the thief as she flips the knife now in her hand with a giggle, "This little Nightflyer always gets the best toys!"
With a wordless cry of anger, Ethan's wife runs back into the fray, to very predictable results by this point. His puppy gets sent for an intimate reunion with the nearby wall, and doesn't instantly jump back on her feet, slurringly swearing under her breath as she tires and fails to stand up.
"You dance well too, but this little Nightflyer was never one to share her dance partner," the girl quips while holstering her knife, "If that's all, I wish the both of you a pleasant remainder of the night. Toodles!"
Then she's gone, fleeing through a nearby back alley.
Hissing under his breath as he weakly flops on his back while desperately trying not to put any weight on his feet, Ethan's hand reaches for his communicator.
"Hey, Robert?" he says, "Mind sending an EMT our way? I've fallen, and I can't get up."
***
Missy slowly wakes up in the morning to answer nature's call and instantly finds herself rather impaired.
She cracks an eye open, only to find herself in very close proximity with Jacky Barnes as she's in the process of hugging the stuffing out of her while asleep.
Figures, she grumbles in the privacy of her mind while trying to extricate herself from her predicament, the new girl is a grabby sleeper.
Between Louise's snoring, Caroline's babbling and Adelaid's flailing, now I've got the full suite.
It's a battle of wits, perseverance and clever thinking, but she eventually succeeds at shimmying out of the redhead's grasp, to the girl's disappointed, tiny whines of protests.
Quietly closing Louise's bedroom door after her, Missy has to stop herself from shrieking for everything she's worth and clamp down on her first first reflex of adding thirty meters worth of space in the corridor when she finds herself facing her friend's mother out of the blue while still half-asleep.
"Hello, Missy," Louise's mom greets her in a hushed tone and with laughter in her eyes, "Did you sleep well?"
"Erh, yes, I did," she mumbles back while trying to fight back a blush – she faced down Hookwolf, she's better than that damnit!
"Good," the woman nods, "Do you mind trying to wake up the sleepy heads once you've done your little business? Breakfast is ready, but Louise will take it better if it's her friend waking her up on the weekend than her mother," she finishes with a wink.
"W-Will do, ma'am," Missy stutters, before scampering toward the bathroom, a light chuckle echoing at her back.
***
A dramatic gasp followed by a strangled cough prompts all of us seated at the breakfast table to give Louise a concerned look as she pounds on her chest with one hand while waving her cellphone like a woman possessed with the other in our general direction.
Half a minute and an aborted Hemlich maneuver later, we're finally able to hear from Louise's mouth what has the girl so excited.
"This is blowing up on PHO!" she rattles while bouncing on her seat, "Trending topic: 'Assault and Battery gets schooled!' Look! There's even a video of the fight! A video!"
I tune out most of the table's reactions as I take the time to savor the title, before ultimately deciding that I like it.
Still, I have a reputation to maintain.
"Cape nerd~," I sing-song amid a lull.
Louise flushes harder than I thought it was possible, her father cracks a grin, her mother hides a laugh behind her hand, and the rest of the girls bar Missy giggle, the Ward looking almost confused as she looks at her own phone.
***
Emma knows there's something wrong with the parasite's painting, even if her parents refuse to admit it!
Every time she even thinks about burning or slashing it she–
A noose, tightening around her neck–
–that happens, but her parents don't believe her!
That's how she came to the only conclusion possible. The parasite had to be a cape, a villain, of some sort!
Yet, she had looked almost everywhere around the house, and she's been unable to find even the slightest clue! She even forced herself to comb through the parasite's room while being assailed by creepy feelings until she had been a trembling, shivering mess!
She had looked everywhere–
–except into the attics!
Her mouth set flatly, she opens the door in a dramatic sweeping motion–
–and finds absolutely nothing under the house's dusty rafters, no matter how hard her eyes rack over the place.
"Gah! Damnit!" she curses and stomps her foot, "The proof has to be somewhere, I know it!"
She slams the door shut behind her in a huff before stomping away, her hands grasping uselessly at her sides.
Unknown to her, and to a certain spirit's unending mirth, the perfectly normal image of the Barnes' attics flickers for a moment before the holographic generator hiding exactly how it has changed for the past month compensates for the vibration unleashed by the teenager's tantrum.
2.6 Geb
13th of February, 2011
As she stands in the PRT HQ infirmary in front of a couple of beds, Emily is suddenly struck by a certain feeling of déjà-vu.
Twice some of her parahuman assets have met the bay's latest cape in the streets and twice they ended up coming back on a stretcher. The Director could already see a pattern forming and she didn't like it one bit.
"Alright, what went wrong?" she asks, a frown firmly set on her face and her arms crossed over her torso.
"I-I messed up, ma'am," contrary to her expectations, Battery ends up taking the lead over her insufferable husband for once, the woman looking almost chagrined, "I thought a harder sell would work on Nightflyer since she seems so young, but it only made her more stubborn."
A pause as the parahuman takes a breath, before sighing.
"Once I understood that we wouldn't be able to make her surrender, it rubbed me wrong. She's young, Director, she shouldn't be robbing places in the dead of the night, it's just… wrong. I figured that she wouldn't be able to counter a blitz-and-capture maneuver," she scowls, "But it backfired."
Three floating ribs cracked, a hairline fracture of the cranium and a light concussion, Emily mentally drawls – though not entirely without sympathy, backfired is putting it mildly.
And that's without speaking of the public backlash of having the Bay's most well-known duo getting owned on camera by what looks like a middle schooler in a skintight suit that looks painted-on.
"A soft sell wouldn't have worked anyway," Assault chimes in, a painful hiss escaping his lips as he hikes himself higher on the bed, "Girly's in it for the thrill. The way she's leaning hard into her persona… she likes getting seen and running circles around her opponents. She's in it for the game."
"It's not a game!" his wife insists with a glare and her hands all balled up, to which Emily can only agree.
"I never said it was," the man answers back, hands raised in a gesture of surrender, "But she looks like she's maybe Vista's age at most. Kids don't think about tomorrow at that age, they think about today. Right now? She's probably still getting a kick over the fact that she soundly beat us and that's all that matters to her."
"We'll come back to her psych profile later," Emily cuts through the brewing argument in a bid to get the conversation back on track, "What could you make of her powers?"
"Definitely a combat Thinker," Assault answers with another wince, "She effortlessly dismantled us as soon as we entered her range. And I'd bet my desserts for the month that she's the gopher of a new Tinker."
His statement Emily pauses even as she nods along.
"Elaborate," she commands.
"Suit looks too well made to be something the kid cobbled together in her basement behind her parents' back and her knife's worth a Striker rating on its own," he answers, his tone turning a little snide when mentioning the weapon used to disable him, "There's also a couple things she said during the fight. Girly said she was 'going to feel it in the morning' when she disabled puppy mid-charge, which makes me think she's reliant on the suit for her Brute rating. She also joked about 'always getting the best toys' after hacking through my power like it wasn't even there with her very scary blade.
"I think we've got a new Tinker in town who's supplying her in exchange for ressources," he concludes, his expression curling in distaste, "They must have somehow found the girl early on and lured her to their side with shiny trinkets and the promise for more, and now they're enabling her thrill-seeking tendencies."
"... Nightflyer being associated with an unknown Tinker was one of Armsmaster's prevalent theories concerning her," Emily admits through pursed lips, "We thought she could have been tied to Coil's organization for a bit, but–"
"Not the guy's M.O.," Assault nods along in understanding, brows creased in focus, "Unless his operation underwent a drastic shift we aren't aware of yet."
"Unlikely," the Director shakes her head, "No, the likeliest explanation is that we've got a new player in the bay, one who managed to stay hidden for now and who's not afraid to exploit a fresh trigger to their benefits."
"And now everyone is going to be aware of the girl," the man's scowls worsen as he crosses his arms over his chest, "And like every 'independents' in the Bay, she's either going to become a target for recruitment–"
"–or one to be dealt with," his wife somberly concludes.
***
"Tattletale–," her prick of a boss starts speaking as soon as Lisa picks up the call.
"If it's about Nightflyer and her unknown friend, I'm already on it boss," she cuts him off after wedging her phone between her ear and her shoulder, absentmindedly blowing away an errant lock of hair as her eyes remain locked on her laptop's screen, "Would've been hard to miss it in any case, considering how it's blowing up on PHO."
"... Very well," – unhappy at being cut off; pleased that you're already investigating –, "Preliminary thoughts?"
"The girl either has a Tinker in her backpocket or she is the most bullshit Tinker I've ever seen, but my money's on the first," Lisa answers after taking a second to gather her thoughts, "The suit she has? Some sort of reactive gel-like substance that both protects and enhances her strength and agility. As for her knife, it's the scariest anti-Brute weapon I've ever seen; the tech it uses to generate the field that allowed her to hamstring Assault despite his very sketchy relationship with kinetic energy tears through matter's molecules along its edge. If she wanted, she could cut through the Rig's supporting pillars given enough time alone with those, and it wouldn't even take her that long.
"Off the top of my head, only Krieg and Lung can stand toe-to-toe in close-quarter with her once she stops playing around. And that's mostly because the first can cut her mobility down and the second can regenerate if she doesn't go straight for the kill. Oh, and also charcoal her with his aura if sufficiently ramped up."
"I see," her boss pauses – considering; curious; hungry –, "And how certain are you that she is not the tinker behind those items?"
"Near one hundred percent," Lisa answers while leaning back after unhooking her phone from between her shoulder and her ear to hold it in her hand, "There's multiple times during the fight where she has to overcompensate her first, immediate reflex, because otherwise? Both Assault and battery would be dead."
She pauses for emphasis – unsettled – and cracks a little grin at getting under her boss' skin with nothing but the truth.
"It's almost imperceptible," but not for her, she inwardly preens, "But the girl keeps holding herself back from going straight for the kill. Don't get me wrong, she's scarily good at keeping a lead on her first instinctual response, but that's why I'm positive she's a combat Thinker. One whose power is to make her uncannily efficient at killing things dead in close quarters."
She marks another pause, before adding.
"Either that or our unknown tinker found a way to turn people into deadly super-soldiers and used it on a random young teenage girl," she jokes, "But my money's on the combat Thinker rating."
***
"I may have a lead on the girl's identity," James politely interjects, prompting both Max and Brad to look his way.
"One of our quiet supporters got robbed during the night a little under two weeks ago," he preludes while turning his laptop the others' way, "A clean, professionally executed operation. The thief left nothing behind them, I had Victor check. Except that earlier in the day, the victim got a visitor he flagged as suspicious," he makes a show of gesturing toward the image of a lanky, young teenage girl with messy dark hair.
"Has to be her," Brad grunts, his arms crossed over his torso.
"... At least she's the right sort," Max muses aloud, one hand distractedly rubbing at his chin as he looks at the screen before locking eyes with James after a beat, "Find the girl."
"Of course," James nods in assent while taking his laptop back, "And then?"
"We'll have to show her the error of her ways. It wouldn't do if some people start thinking they can rob us and get away with it. Then we'll 'convince' her to join the Empire, or else." the man known to few as Kaiser declares while leaning deeper inside his comfortable seat.
Brad grunts his approval while James nods once again in assent.
***
I had accomplished each objective I had set for myself with last night's – or more accurately, very early this morning – operation, and all it has cost me is another dose of Panacea.
Granted, it has been needed. The little stunt I pulled when I let Battery nearly impale herself on my elbow nearly busted said articulation and I had to overtax myself to keep up with the ridiculously fast-paced if short-lived exchange that followed. Once again, I came out of the other side victorious although with bruises on the top of my bruises for my reward.
Well, not my only reward. I hadn't exactly planned for another heist so soon, but hitting another tech shop nearly guarantees the fact that I should be golden for the foreseeable future – or at the very least, until the end of my current specialization.
Which means that I can now more-or-less rest on my laurels and quietly tinker at home while everybody scrambles to catch up with my purposefully misleading trail, all the while a certain Ward will be left convinced that I can't possibly be the daring thief who put her elders in the infirmary.
I'll be probably giving Dell its well-deserved glow up this week and then–
A colder-than-the-grave finger, insistently poking at my cheek.
"Apologies, Dark-chan," I acknowledge my Spirit after pouting making a show of batting her questing digit away, "I got lost in my thoughts."
A feeling of fond exasperation hovers at the edge of my thoughts.
"So! Magic!" I clap my hands while sitting on the edge of my bed, rocking back and forth a little in suppressed giddiness, "How do we start?"
A phantom hand, firmly gripping my shoulder.
I blink–
–and I am––elsewhere.
I am back in this realm of pitch-black darkness and oily waters.
I wonder what this place is? Is this some manner of in-between?
Is this a representation of my soul?
I hope it isn't, because it's depressingly dreary and empty.
The hand on my shoulder suddenly feels infinitely more real, and I look at my side. The fiendish, pointy-eared figure of my corpse-blue mentor looks down at me, a grin of anticipation firmly carved on her lips, her doll's eyes rolling in their orbits to stare at me.
I try to speak, but no words come out, leaving me confused.
How are we supposed to communicate in this place if it doesn't allow words?
The grin on Dark-chan's face turns a little more genuine as she steps away from me before tapping on her bosom with her finger two times in a row.
I blankly look back at her for a moment, until it suddenly hits me.
I'm not supposed to speak with my words, but with my heart!
My face scrunches all up in focus as I try to 'tell' Dark-chan that I understand with my heart, with my soul.
It… apparently kinda works, sorta? But if the way she openly laughs at me with her dirty yellow eyes all swallowed amid ebony-black sclera crinkled in mirth is anything to go by, I've still a lot of work to do on my 'pronunciation'.
I pout.
She steps closer to pat my head a couple of times which only makes me pout harder before sending my way a powerful and very nuanced feeling.
I get the gist of it instantly.
~Watch, and learn.~
Then she straightens and angle herself away from me, before, for a lack of a better description, throwing an especially mean look at nothing in particular–
–except it is so, so much more than that.
In this not-space, I have a front row seat to the interplay between Dark-chan's Ba and the Ka I forever surrendered to her.
I can see how they meld and intertwine under the command of her Ib, her heart, turning a simple gesture into an act of unfettered magical destruction.
I only realize that I'm gaping like a beached fish when she turns herself back my way.
~Now, try.~
My jaw clicks shut and I've never nodded so fast in assent in either of my lives.
After all, what kind of teenager has never fantasized about having their own Evil Eye power?
[AN: Reactions! Jacky feeling proud of herself! Learning magic on Dark-chan's knees!
So, fun fact: in the YuGiOh show, Dark Necrofear's attack is called 'Doom Gaze', and it's shown as her looking real mean at another DMS and them taking damage in turn.
It's totally an Evil Eye power, and you won't be able to change my mind about it.
Let the chuuni grow, Jacky, you know you want to!
Hope you enjoy, xoxo!]
2.7 Geb
19th of February, 2011
~Well done,~ Dark-chan whispers in my heart, ~You can let go of the spell form.~
I slump in a mix of relief tinted with mental exhaustion, my arms going slack alongside my body.
~You're free to do as you please for the rest of the week, now,~ the harshest taskmistress I've ever met in either of my life adds as an afterthought, her free hand patting me on the head a couple of times before leaving the mind-slash-soulscape that has come an all too-regular vista for the past week.
I weakly grumble something that vaguely feels like an acknowledgement before turning my focus outward–
–and I–
-am back both among the living and in my bed.
I throw a distracted look my windows' way and mentally count my blessings when I realize the sun has yet to rise.
So, it turns out, learning magic is hard, mentally exhausting work! And Dark-chan is a very exacting teacher, tolerating nothing but perfection from her only student!
Nearly two weeks ago, I had promised her that I'd learn not one, but two spells this week in exchange for her letting me blitz through YuGiOh's hologram's techtree.
I can now safely say that this was a mistake! Every single minute of my free time at home has been spent in the absolute dreariness of the Realm Between – name pending, I'm still not too clear where I exactly go when I train with my Spirit – repeating the same two spell forms over, and over, and over again!
Which, on one hand, I had a great time! Except I still had things I want to do in the real world and Dark-chan had flat-out refused to take 'maybe later' as a possible answer when I begged off training two days ago!
"Poor, poor Dell," I whisper under my breath while limply giving my badly abused pseudo-Cogitator a couple of commiserating pats, "Forced to deal with subpar hardware because a meanie Dark-chan didn't want to give me a little break."
A flicker of amusement hovers at the edge of my thoughts and I make the monumental effort to hike myself on my elbows to childishly pull my tongue at a certain Spirit's portrait.
"I'll look at you tonight, promise," I reassure the Machine Spirit after giving it one last pat for good measure before slumping back in my bed.
At least this week's grind had been worth the reward, in my humble opinion. As of a few minutes ago, I have successfully learned two spells with Dark-chan's help.
The first is of course her famous Doom Gaze – which is totally an Evil Eye power, making it at least three-hundred percent cooler than any other spell! – which took me a grand total of four days of continuous casting to finally get right. I can now set someone else's spirit ablaze in darkness with the power of a very pointed mean look and I have no words to properly express how super-duper-cool this is. About the only thing I can bitch about is the fact that I heavily, sincerely doubt it'll ever work on Zion – or even an Endbringer for that matter – but oh well.
I'm a Tinker of Fiction. Finding a way to eventually deal with the central control-node of the local xeno hive-mind issue is almost guaranteed in the long run, I'm not too beat up over it.
The second spell I learned – and in just two days! – is something that I dubbed Haunting Possession since Dark-chan doesn't really have a name for it. Simply put, it's her innate ability to mind-control an enemy Duel Monster Spirit after getting sent to the graveyard.
Sounds cool, right? Well, aside from the tiny little detail where it's completely useless for me if I have to fraking die to use it!
Or so I thought and loudly bitched about to Dark-chan, until she got fed up with my grumbling, sat me down and explained to me that this was basically a prerequirement for another, more complicated bit of spellwork. And it's only halfway through the conversation that I recalled one very particular detail.
Dark Necrofear is only her first stage as a Duel Monster Spirit; she has another one as Curse Necrofear, a Fiend that can self-revive itself! According to a bunch of rules in-game, but things are more… flexible when she's not bound by the needs to balance a trading card game – one who admittedly solved human wars forever in its home reality, but still a TCG.
So I did the mature thing and asked if this was her end goal, momentarily gobsmacking her and, after way too long spent faffing about it, my Spirit eventually admitted, while looking incredibly awkward about it, that yes, it was. Which kinda recontextualized why she's been so gung-ho about me learning her magic; if I'm not at the risk of dying, then she won't lose her summoner out of the blue and won't have to go back to the Spirit world.
I didn't ask why she didn't want to go back – though I'm assuming that this is a case of 'just another big fish in a really big pond' – but having finally narrowed down her motivations has lifted a weight off my shoulders I didn't know was there.
Plus, being able to jumpscare people by coming back to life after messily dying sounds fraking awesome! Truly, Alabaster missed his true calling by not exploiting his gift in a haunted house.
Aside from all of that, my week has been extremely quiet, almost boring even. The 'Assault & Battery getting owned'-drama died down around Monday afternoon after the former made a very public appearance on his two legs and with a smile on his face, and school had been, well, school.
And sure, I basically did nothing tinker-related this week, but I consider my progress on the road of magically-ensured pseudo-immortality an investment worth the loss of progress on my tinkering a hundred times over. I still have a little over a week with YuGiOh anyway and should be able to manage turning Dell into something both more portable and worthy of a Machine Spirit and get a look into the Ener-D technology during the next eight or so days.
All in all, not a bad week. Not a bad week at all!
***
Lisa was not having a good week, not a good week at all!
After Nightflyer's little public stunt last Sunday morning, her boss had turned positively obsessed with finding the girl and her Tinker associate/boss/friend. Which naturally made it Lisa's problem, because of course the prick had to offload his busywork on her. And now she had to find one specific young teenager among a city of three hundred fifty thousand people and counting, as if it was that easy! A very dangerous girl who could very well gut her like a blonde, freckled fish if the two ever met in close quarters after Lisa was done tattling on her!
And from where Lisa was standing, that sounds like a really, really bad thing for her.
Even worse! She has spent almost the entire week trawling through social media and prowling the usual haunts of the younger crowd, and she had basically nothing to show for it!
Granted, it wasn't helping her at all that the girl's suit did such a good job at hiding her identity despite how form-fitting it is – even bordering on lewd, and she is the one prancing around in a catsuit when caping! Aside from her general body shape and the deep-rooted certainty that the girl was both deliberately putting on a show and enjoying way too much hamming it up in her cape persona, Lisa basically had jack-and-shit about her true identity!
And now she has a migraine for the sixth day in a row, has run out of painkillers since earlier last night and her phone is ringing first thing first in the morning.
The Thinker doesn't make even a token effort at looking at the caller's I.D. – it's not like anyone but her boss would call her if they had the choice, and by god is that a depressing thought – weakly flopping her hand in the vague direction of her bedside table until she finally succeed in blindly finding where her cellphone is and accept the call just before it goes to voicemail.
"Tattletale," her boss' oily voice stabs white-hot needles of yikes in her brain, "I was expecting an update."
"Still nothing, boss," she whines answers primly, "... I've got too few details to work on. Unless you find a better lead for me to work with, it's going to take time."
A pause.
"You wouldn't happen to keep things from me, Sarah?" Coil asks, his tone cold, low and threatening.
"Listen, I get it," she finally snaps back, "You really want to put your grubby, slimy hands on the Tinker working with her and you're willing to pull all the stops to do it. But I'm looking for a fucking needle in a fucking haystack here! So, unless you have an update on the Nightflyer case or a mission for the team, stop busting my ovaries every. Five. Minutes. And let me sleep my migraine off, fucks sake!"
Then she hangs up and promptly puts her cellphone in airplane mode.
She'll probably come to regret this stunt later, but she really needs her beauty sleep right about now.
Also, serves him right to get a taste of his own medicine, after all the times he hung up on her.
"Fucking prick," she grumbles in her pillow before making a very concerted effort to fall back asleep.
***
"Do you have an update on our little thief problem, James?" Max asks his second in command and Gesellschaft contact during their weekly meeting.
"... I do not," he concedes after a beat, his lips pursed into a frown, "I've had some of our computer wiz run facial recognition softwares and Victor has spent some time on and off putting his skills to use on social media, but we weren't able to find her."
"Annoying," the Empire leader sighs, "Do you have a lead, at the very least?"
"I've sent one of my men to talk with Gerald Jones, the owner of the store she robbed," James answers, "The man mentioned that she looked a little wild, unkempt. I've started to send quiet feelers toward the less fortunate neighborhoods. Maybe we will have more success if we look further afield than our territory."
"Maybe," the man slowly nods in agreement, "Keep me updated once you've found something."
"Will do, Max."
***
"Have you considered the possibility that you could be mistaken?" his interlocutor asks, prompting Colin to lock eyes with her through his secondary screen.
"I am not," he answers back, his jaw set and his tone dripping with certainty, "The Tinker behind Nightflyer's gear made something superior to my own Nanothorn project's most optimistic projection."
Dragon's expression turns a little complicated at that.
Still, he does not relent his point of view.
"I've studied in details both the EMT's diagnostic of Assault's injuries and Panacea's own report; the dagger Nightflyer used cut through his Brute rating like it was a mere afterthought, and Panacea indicated that the cut, while oddly jagged at times, dug a straight line through everything in its wake, including DNA strands," he explains, only letting a sliver of the annoyance he feels at getting outdone in such a matter leak through his tone.
"That doesn't mean your own project is worthless," his friend colleague points out.
"No, but it means that I have to get my hands on that technology," he answers with bone-deep certainty, "Think about it; if this is in any way replicable, it could be a boon in our war against the Endbringers. A blade that nothing can stop the path of, a hero's blade."
Hidden under his desk, his fists tighten.
"I have to analyze it," he reiterates, not seeing the concerned look Dragon gives him, "I have to."