The Sentinels withdraw from the kriegsmarine vessel as it ignites its retrothrusters. Inquiry reconfigures itself for passengers and then exits from a large ventral airlock.
The rift's lightshow is still a discordant array of temporal flux energies surrounding the Tirpitz II. The massive vessel struggles against it, but its powerful thrusters make some headway. Before too long, it begins receding into the dwindling rift.
While much of the attention of Inquiry's crew is on the retreating Nazi spaceship, the trio also keeps an eye out for the Somnambulist. Initially, Isaiah cannot find the GSF ship. Then, his sensors detect a tightly packed debris field indicative of a recently-destroyed ship!
As Praetoria is watching these developments, she thinks she hears Psyche's telepathic voice, though from a far distance away or like she's deep underwater. "Kayla? Are you there?"
Psyche, while you're hopeful that Kayla heard your psychic shout, you're extremely doubtful that you could hear anything in response.
As she jets towards Praetorian Tower, Mattie sends back to Kylie. "What's happened? What's wrong with you? Are you safe? I'm not waiting. The others are too slow. I'll be there as soon as I can. Just hold on."
Quickly she sends a second message to Rory and Holly over her communicator. "Something's wrong back at the tower. Something's up with Kylie and Kayla's grandma's missing. Be careful - its something to do with Apotheosis but get back as quick as you can!"
"Roger Wilco," Rory replies to confirm the message was received and he would follow her advice to regroup ASAP. Rory finishes loading the gear into the rhino.
"...I don't like just letting them go. I dont know what's up with whatever time line they're from, but it makes me queasy to leave like this," Shin admits as he watches with clenched fists. He turns his attention away from the space Nazis and checks in with Isaiah looking for the GSF ship. The news he gives is startling.
"...they were wiped out? How? When?" Shin exclaims, shocked to see that. They must have been ambushed, but how? He grits his teeth. The bastards they just let go must have destroyed them while they were assaulting their ship.
"We should search for survivors and then head back. Hopefully we have the equipment to treat alien injuries..."
::Yes...Yes I’m here, what’s up?::
”Me either, Shin. But we can’t be responsible for their dimension too. We’re barely able to help our own. And who was wiped out?” she asks as realization settles on her as well. ”Oh...yeah, I'll go out and help search too,” she adds as she replaces her comm link before heading out Inquiry’s airlock.
She looks around for anything or anyone she can help, but it all looks like rubble to her...
"I'm fine.
Just be careful, okay Mattie? Please?"
Psyche bit the inside of her cheek before continuing with Angela, "I left a message for Kayla. She should call in or show back up soon. In the meantime, what happened to Eternia? Did someone take her? Or did she just... Leave?"
"This... is kind of fishy, actually. I didn't think that ship had the time or focus to cause this level of destruction, and even an old GSF interdictor should have put up a better fight against that kind of low-tech battleship."
Isaiah/Inqiury searched among the wreckage, looking both for survivors, whether living or reinforced AI cores, and for indications of what destroyed the Somnambulist, which should have at least been able to put up a good fight against the likes of the Tirpitz II.
Per the Rulebook: Clearing Insecure means following your worst, most impulsive instincts without consulting anybody first. You feel doubtful of your own abilities, so you’re proving yourself by following your own plan without talking to anyone first. That could be anything from deciding to attack the bad guy while the rest of your team waits in stealth to agreeing to give up the crucial component for the death ray in exchange for escaping right now, all without anyone else’s input.
I'm going to say that flying across town without a firm belief that it's dangerous and reckless isn't enough. So no, your Insecure isn't cleared quite yet.
Praetoria explores the wreckage, but cannot pick out anything of significance amongst the debris.
Inquiry's scans are a little more productive, but they really only note that the Somnambulist's destruction is complete. The sensors can manage to confirm only one fact with 100% certainty: The Terpitz II did not do this.
What do you do??
Angel shakes her head. "We don't know. Around 2 in the morning last night, the security and surveillance we had around her room went out. When it came back on and we were notified, she was gone."
”Guys...I don’t think there were any survivors,” Praetoria says through her comms. ”Let’s recover what we can of importance and head back home. Kylie tried to contact me but hasn’t replied back.”
She then collects a few of the more important looking bits and brings them aboard Inquiry before taking a seat beside Shin and Isaiah.
”So...what’re you guys feeling up to when we get back? Like I said...dinner’s my treat. After this insanity, I think we deserve a good meal!”
"...Do you guys think I caused all of that?" Shin asks suddenly. "It can't be a coincidence that the day we all come up to test my powers two time stranded spaceships pop out of a temporal rift we hadn't seen before so close to us. I mean...it's uncanny. If me being close to a rift like that can draw things out of it..." He trails off, worry etched into his face.
"...I think maybe I just need to see Kylie for a bit. I'm feeling a little down. She can usually cheer me up." As Isaiah manages to make it down past the atmosphere, he tries to reach out to her mentally, but the connection seems to be faint for the moment. He'd see her as soon as he could.
"She's not capable of discretely dismantling the security, is she? Of course she was taken!"
"...Yeah, we may want to head back. I'm still curious about what destroyed the Somnambulist, but there's nothing to be found here. Perhaps it was actually destroyed long ago, and it only now caught up to it. Perhaps there's...something else out here that did it. Regardless, let's get out of here before anything else strange happens."
Inquiry picked up its passengers and headed back, though it remained alert. Something strange was happening, and it would do its best not to be caught off guard.
Kayla, still in her Praetoria outfit, steps out of Inquiry once it lands and activates her comms. ”Psyche, we just got back to the Tower. What’s going on?” she asks as she steps into the elevator and heads down to the families common area.
Inquiry lands in one of the internal bays of the tower and the Sentinels reunite after their various adventures.
Eternia's gone. Someone or something disabled the security in her room while she vanished. But if we go over that room with a fine-toothed comb, maybe we can figure out more.
She very nearly stopped there, but they needed to know that trust could be dangerous.
Also, this isn't really anything new, but Apotheosis made a play for me. It didn't work and I'm fine. But he has Gothic's abilities, and he was able to use alternate versions of the Heralds to trick me. So please be careful. He's very, very angry."
Grammie!
Kayla hustles through the rest of the Tower to meet up with the others, eventually finding Kylie and her Aunt Angela. ”Aunt Angel! What happened? Where are the others?” she asked hurriedly, not caring if her aunt had any commentary on how her uniform looked.
::What happened with you and Apotheosis? And are the others...:: her mental Inquiry is cut off by the return of the rest of the Sentinels. She was relieved to see everyone back safe after what had seemed to be shaping up to be a normal day but went terribly askew.
Message to Silver Shield: Heading to Praetor tower some sort of emergency details unclear. I have the gear loaded in the rhino with me, I will try to connect back up with you when I know more.
Rory finally arrived at the tower, "So what's going on, I got Eternia missing and Apotheosis."
”Well...there was also a bit of a debacle in orbit, but that’s settled for now,” Kayla replies to Rory, concern heavy in her tone.
"Orbit... For now... well none of that sounds good." Rory replied equally confused and concerned.
"Apotheosis...went after you?!"
Shin looked the most shocked by the news. A welling emotions stirred up in him. Add to that the frustrations he'd felt up in space, and his mood was already close to snapping. He looked at Kylie in concern, wondering if she was all right.
"...I'm glad you're safe," He finished. She was more concerned with what happened with Eternia right now. But he knew that he couldn't let this issue lie again. He had to protect Kylie. She managed to get away because she was underestimated, but that wouldn't happen again, he was certain.
For now though, while he was brimming with anger still, he tried to console Kylie. Hugging was still awkward for him, but it seemed like something she liked, which was why he did it. "I'm sorry I wasn't here. I'll make sure that bastard pays if he tries that again."
A chill ran through her at Shin's words, and she sent privately, "I'm glad you weren't there. It was really everything I could manage to keep my mind safe while we fought. I don't know how I could have protected you at the same time.
"That's what scares me the most. He said he'd come after my friends next."
More broadly, a note of faint surprise floated beneath Psyche's words as Shin briefly squeezed the breath from her, "We already knew that Apotheosis was trying to capture me. I was surprised by the manner of trickery he used, but it's not surprising that he wanted to attack me while I was alone. I don't think either of us will underestimate the other like that next time. We may have one advantage though, if he attacks again soon. I don't know how easily he can see the realities he borrows from; he might think I'm still trapped in Hell."
When Praetoria arrives at the Tower, Angel is immediately moving toward her with arms wide for a comforting embrace. She falters for a moment when she sees the armor configuration and the startling amount of skin Kayla is showing.
The hug is abbreviated, and Angela pinches her where the armor isn't. "We'll need to talk about this soon. But for right now, you need to know. Our grandmother has gone missing. Likely taken, but we've no idea by whom, and for what reason."
Kayla jumps a bit at Angela’s pinch at her stomach, and mutters ”There’s nothing to discuss about it,” before asking in a more natural volume ”Psyche told me on my way in! Have the rest of the family made contact?”
"His tactics seem pretty much divide and conquer. As long as we stick together, I think that it's unlikely we'll lose to him. But...I guess we should focus on Eternia for now. I know Prae must be worried sick. Especially since we were stuck fighting space Nazis for a bit..."
He isn't sure what to do, as investigations aren't his forte, and he's still wired and angry and depressed from recent events. It's no reason for him not to try something. Giving Kylie one more gentle squeeze, he heads to where Eternia slept, and tries to look for some energy signatures. Feeling out anything that was out of the ordinary for the usual background radiation. If she was teleported or the like he might be able to tell.
"Isaiah, Kylie, can you guys help? I'm trying to find out if there's any sign of some power causing her to disappear here..."
Angel gives Kayla a stern look, but drops the subject of her regalia. "Most of them are involved in other matters, but they've all been advised. Shane's with your uncle at the hospital, looking for clues."
Frostbite, you receive a communication from Silver Shield. "Copy that. I'm working out some things out with A.E.G.I.S. personnel. They tell me you spirited away with some outlaw tech. Don't mess with it -- there's no telling what sort of hidden surprises those things have in them."
”So...how can we help? What is Shane able to really do, or is Uncle Gus having to baby sit him and search for clues at the same time? Should we go there and give him a hand in the search?”
Angela scowls at Kayla. "He's your brother and he's a Taylor. It's time to get him used to this kind of work -- it's hard enough on him knowing that he won't be the next Praetorian. Because some half-dressed teen decided to take the name for herself."
The scowl fades, but she looks no less severe. She folds her arms. "No, I don't think you and your team need to go and walk all over Shane's efforts to contribute to the family. Do you?"
Received Rory responds sheepishly
Kayla sheepishly hangs her head at her Aunt’s rebuke, folding her arms across her stomach, suddenly embarrassed. The armor shifts to its original, more reserved appearance. She looks to the rest of her team, her embarrassment at being reprimanded openly in front of them evident. She then looks away from them back to the floor after making brief eye contact with Rory.
Recognizing the look on Kayla's face, he makes it quite often, and moves next to her interposing himself between her and her aunt. "Hey, no matter what I got your back."
A spike of annoyance shot through Kylie at Angel's overwhelming pettiness in how she was chiding Kayla. Her hair ruffled for a moment in a fit of telekinetic pique, but instead she let her scorn show through her voice.
"Really? You don't have any ideas of how Kayla could help? No old enemies who might have just learned that Eternia's still alive? No new leads on where Dread might be hiding? Nothing?!"
Angela looks partially mollified by Kayla's adjustment to her armor and gives her a nod. The angel-winged Taylor then turns her unruffled gaze at Psyche. "We do not go off half-cocked. We investigate, prepare, then act. But by all means, go to the nursing homes and geriatric wards of the prisons and shake down some old acquaintances of Eternia. Or, on second thought, don't."
She turns abruptly and walks to the command center. Numerous monitors are showing a variety of security feeds all synched to the same time frame, showing external and internal views of the hospital. "If you truly want to help, you can review the security videos leading up to the blackout. Perhaps you'll recognize something the facial recognition software hasn't."
What do you do?
Isaiah did his best to rub his chin contemplatively. "We should definately stay on guard for Apotheosis. Don't go out alone, and keep in touch with each other so we know if anything is up."
Isaiah also considered the security videos, scanning them for any potential clues. "Visible light only? Any thermal scans, vibration sensors, or so forth? And can I hook up Inqiury to a direct data feed for expedited processing?"
Mattie arrived, ahead of the others, on the tower's rooftop helipad and ran down the stairwell to the appartments. Seeing Kylie, she ran straight up to her and engulfed her in a hug, fro the moment ignoring the winged figure of Angela. At the news that Apotheosis had tried to capture Kylie, she paled, her eyes hardening. She nodded along with Shin's words. "He tries that again and he'll wish he hadn't." she adds, her voice tinged with palace, but also concern. "Did you get any sense of where he might be hiding or what his grand plan might be?"
As Angela berates Kayla, Mattie stands glowering at the older woman but remains silent, not wanting to make things worse.
Kayla walks quietly off to the room with the families super computer. It has multiple access points for more than one person to use its massive computing power simultaneously. She sits in one of the chairs and gives it a push with her legs to roll over to to one of the terminals and puts her hands on the keyboard and mouse, but does nothing for a moment as she tries to not let any actual tears fall.
"This is real work, Kayla. Even if Angel doesn't have any other ideas, there are plenty of next steps for us to take. "
***
Psyche endured Mattie's hug just like she had Shin's, even if she felt like the hug was more to reassure both of them that she was fine, than the other way around.
"No. Sorry. It's so easy for Apotheosis to move things around, and he has Gothic's powers now. I might be able to get something out of him next time, but his mind is far too strong to read easily."
::I know. I know. I’ll try and focus...::
Then we need to plan five steps ahead of him. Just like on the shogi board, we need to consider his every possible move and have a counter plan in place for it. If he has Gothic's powers, then our plan for an Isaiah double is neutralized. All he needs is to do a scan and know that it isn't you. Unless there's a way...to make Isaiah believe that he's you? You've said you can split your mind, could you implant yourself into another body? Shin asks, mind whirling with a possible plan of action.
It was like playing shogi in a way. There were only so many possible moves, and a man like Apotheosis wasn't the type to toss the board. So he needed to figure out a way to trick him out into the open. There were things they knew now about his powers. Not just being able to alter his own reality, but to draw others from different realities was in his power. If that was the case, it was possible his next play would be to draw an alternate Shin, Kayla or Mattie to come out and lure her into another trap.
For now at least, you shouldn't go anywhere alone. Always be with someone from the team. Don't use your powers if you are outside in disguise, because he's sure to find you that way. We can probably use Mattie's powers to our advantage as well, since he probably doesn't know about her new abilities. This is all just prep work for the moment, though. We also still have Kayla's grandmother to deal with here. He shouldn't try to make another play for you so soon, so we can focus on that for now.
TO that end, Shin put his focus on the video feeds from the hospital, looking for anything potentially interesting from them. It takes him a moment before something catches his eye, as he pauses a frame. A face that only passes by a small window in a stairwell. One that seems familiar enough to him.
"What's one of the Duskguard doing at that hospital?" He murmurs, zooming in on the face. "I think that's Eventide. I recognize the face from my research."
She barely resisted pinching her new-feeling flesh. "It might be difficult to interface properly with Isaiah, but yes, I think I could put myself in another body.
But Shin... I have a lot of ways to escape just about anything, but there are a lot of them that I'm not sure anyone else could survive. If he comes for me while I'm with someone else, I'll have to fight."
***
The idea of hugging Kayla still felt totally wrong. Not that there was anything wrong with Kayla, but she still felt so... disconnected from herself.
Still, Kayla needed something. Kylie actually preferred Kayla's current, less revealing uniform, so she wouldn't lie about that, but she hated that Angel had shamed Kayla into an outfit that she hadn't chosen.
She put a little, obviously fake piece of herself in Kayla's mind while she was looking through the footage. So suddenly there was a tiny Tinkerbell-sized Psyche sitting on her shoulder, hands splayed out as she looked over at the screen, occasionally giving her a pat of reassurance.
"I know you'll save her. If anyone can it'll be you."
Angela folds her arms and steps back, watching as the Sentinels get to work.
Isaiah is immediately disappointed in that the surveillance is all visual spectrum information, with nothing recorded beyond what is detectable by the human eye.
Though Shin thinks he's found a surprise connection by identifying a member of the Duskguard, the computer's facial recognition rules out the individual in the surveillance still as Eventide. A different camera catches her full profile, showing a different jaw structure and a clearly unbroken nose.
The computer runs through its various forensic algorithms, identifying visitors to the hospital and cross-referencing them for associations or criminal backgrounds.
The data it spews out is not very promising. Any connections are tenuous at best, or purely coincidental.
Then, a curious bit of information is produced. At least six individuals, including recently checked out patients and unrelated visitors, are members of the Church of Psyche.
What do you do??
A few minutes after command center split up Rory walked into the computer room where Praetoria was sitting, "Hey, Kayla can I get your help with some questions I have?" Rory hands her aas handwritten list written in nearly incomprehensible teenage boy handwriting ever.
How long were cameras down?
What caused the outage? Internal/External?
How was the system restored?
Where was security? Eye witnesses? Anyone injured?
Did anyone else go missing?
Her condition sounded serious was she not a 1 to 1?
The Church of Psyche? That seemed like a possible lead. A faint thread, but one nonetheless. He looked over at Kylie over his shoulder.
"Kylie, do you know if the members of your church might...I don't know, rescue Eternia? Do they have some understanding of your involvement with Kayla and the Taylors?" He asked in a non-judgmental tone. Just following up on his lead without thinking of how the implications terrified him.
"Could you bring us to their main headquarters?"
"... I don't know. None of them have ever mentioned the Taylors to me, I don't think."
Why is Kayla's supercomputer tracking who's in the Church of Psyche?
"I don't really know who to really talk to, but there's a prayer circle that's invited me to visit on numerous occasions. I accepted one of those oversized checks from them on behalf of a charity that works to prevent childhood blindness, so they've got the number of one of my cellphones. I could reach out to them I suppose if you think they're concerned with kidnapping octogenarians as well as giving vitamin A to toddlers. We could also just go to the biggest church and ask to speak with someone if you think that would help."
Kayla takes Rory’s notes, and half-chuckles and looks at him like a kid doing something silly. ”Yeah, you are gonna have to translate those cave drawings. Where did you learn to write, ancient Egypt?”
As Rory translates his questions, Kayla starts shifting through the data that can be gathered on the computer. As they sit there close to one another, she whispers quietly to him ”Thanks, for back there. Angela...she basically runs the PR for the family. It always seems that eventually she gets her way. And she is old school thinking, despite how she shows herself on TV as some ‘trendy modern woman,’ she was one of the ones most upset with my powerset and choice of name. Several of them were...honestly. But, I mean, come on!” she whispers gesturing to herself, ”Isn’t it kinda obvious that I’m the next one? Or...or do you think I’m being selfish? What if Shane gets an even more powerful set of these powers...”
Holly finished sending the footage to ms. Lester, with a message reading wound up taking both siblings, and Gallow made a guest appearance, but I think it looked good
and walked up into a freaking maelstrom of activity. It looked like someone else was missing, and Kylie was one bit of bad news away from a panic attack Don't think that too loud and Kayla was dealing with her family.
Are you okay she asks Isaiah, putting a hand on his shoulder. when he answers, she moves to the cluster of people.
Well, I was hoping we could talk about playing to the camera a little more... But I think that is shelved for now. who went missing, and who took them, and... wow, It looks like a lot happened while we did the tech sting thing.
When Holly enters and begins trying to catch up, that seems to be the tipping point for Kayla. She gets up and goes over to her, her eyes welling up with tears as she wraps her arms around her in a hug. ”It’s Grammie, Holls. Someone took her from the hospital!”
Isaiah sighs at the recordings. "A world where invisible people are a thing that can happen, and this is considered high quality security?"
---
Isaiah considered the modifications to the decoy plan. Glancing briefly at Angel, still close enough to overhear, he kept most of his comments telepathic. "Hmm..." Remember how I mentioned that the easily read portion of my mind is an artificial construct? I can certainly try to make it look more like Psyche's, though I'd need her help. Or I could bring her along for the ride; I can carry other minds with me, and she has experience with the procedure as well. It would be true that we'd be getting a little committed... though I have a few tricks up my sleeve that could get me out of that jam. Just would prefer not to have to play those cards yet."
----
"It's possible we might be dealing with some splinter faction or radical cell in the Church of Psyche. Going to the main leaders might only give away that we're on to them. Even if most are harmless, there's always the chance that some sub-group has started getting a bit extremist."
----
Isaiah nodded to Holly. "I'm alright. Had a bit of excitment with a time-displaced alternate universe Nazi spaceship, but we got it sorted out. Now we need to find out what's happening here, and keep watch for Apotheosis."
You what- nevermind, I'll ask later.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Holly returns the hug, and lets her cry a little. she wanted to say something, to promise it would get better, that they would get her back... but she did't know that. they had stumbled their way through every encounter so far, her more than most. knocked out, trapped, taken hostage, knocked out, and mildly shot... it wasn't a great record for her.
was you grandmother a- was it apotheosis?
Mattie leans over and peers at the images of the church members. "What if someone disguised themselves as you?" she asks. "Some of them would do whatever they were told if they thought it was you. Wouldn't they? Anyway, maybe the Church's base would be a good place to start looking?"
"They'd probably at least need to speak into their minds, but... I can't picture someone believing that I'd ask them to do something horrible and still wanting to follow me. I guess it's a lead worth following though. It's not like there's some sort of hidden base, they're eccentric but they're not a bunch of loons. We could visit the largest church though."
Privately she sent to Kayla,
"I don't really like appearing to the Church as Psyche, but this is your grandmother. Do you think it will help?"