Horizon floated above a cloud. It was actually quite nice here, the day after. It would be impossible for anyone to find him up here unless they could also fly, and even then the cloud concealed him from view. Being this high up also afforded him the opportunity to be able to listen to numerous frequencies on the police scanner.
He had given Whippoorwill a written report sent to her on the events of the previous encounter. It was succinct up to the point where he'd ended up falling unconscious, where it ended. That was all he felt he could tell her. But his conversation with Femtite had worsened a crack in him. He had to talk to someone. There was only one other Alliance member he trusted as much as Whippoorwill. So he listened for Imagerie's name, seeing where she was being spotted on patrol or reporting to aid in some crime in progress.
Horizon comes upon Imagerie and Foray as they're just finishing up dealing with a pair of oversized brutes, Hammer and Anvil. The skilled fighter and the illusionist had apparently made short work of them, disrupting their attempted robbery of an armored vehicle.
It's already over by the time Horizon lands and gets Imagerie's attention. She smiles brightly at him and motions him over. "Hello, Horizon! We're already finished here. Sorry!"
"Ah, it's fine!" Horizon's got a big smile on his face, so much so that it seems a little forced. "I'm still feeling a little sore after my fight yesterday, so I would probably just have been able to support from the sidelines. You do good work though. Shame about that billboard," He says, noting the big board that's gotten it's face smashed in with the armored truck still sticking out of it halfway. "Better than letting it smash into traffic though."
He stretches and twitches slightly, before looking at Imagerie. "Oh, since I'm here, there has been some things on my mind lately that I was hoping to talk with you about," He says to Imagerie as brightly as he can. "Do you have some time for discussion in private?"
Foray focuses his ki and strikes the vehicle, sending it back to street level. Then he turns to Imagerie and gives her the go ahead while cleanup crews arrive to take care of the rest of the mess and haul away the villains.
"Let's go," Imagerie says, and the scenery around them shifts slightly. Horizon realizes what's different. Though there are the sounds of the city, he doesn't see any people. She starts walking, inviting him to join her.
"Oh that's very neat. Just to clarify some details," Horizon says as he follows while floating along next to her under his own power. "No one around us will be able to hear or see us at all?"
"Correct," she answers. "Well, almost no one. If Gothic were lurking about, I wouldn't be able to hide us from her. Remote drones could be a problem, too. But unlikely. So, what did you want to talk about?"
Horizon's smile lessens, more and more as he slowly settles himself down onto the pavement until he's walking next to Imagerie. "...before you got your powers, what did you want to do with your life? What was your dream?" He asks to both understand her more and to give himself time to screw up his courage.
Imagerie grows silent for a moment. "Shin, I'm not the right one to answer that kind of question. My powers manifested early, and I was sent to the Estate. I've never known an adult's -- or even a young woman's -- dream for a life other than... well, this." She sweeps her hands over her.
"Ahh, fair. It wasn't the right person to ask that question. Maybe if I'd phrased it differently...so, technically speaking, I've only had superpowers for less than a year. It's been more than a wild ride getting to this point. And I have sensei to thank for a lot of her support of me. I feel like maybe I can cast off the shadow of Dusk finally. But..."
He stops in the street. "...I try to keep myself presented well to the team. To be someone they can rely on. I want them to feel like I've always got a plan or that I consider their opinions or that I'm being as fair as possible to them. I'm becoming a lot better at tactics and learning their strengths and weaknesses and supplementing them as best as I can. I'm supposed to be their pillar of support. The foundation."
"I can show small flaws that make me seem more relatable. I know I can't be perfect. And I know I'm rambling a little here," He admits to Imagerie. "...someone asked me what it was that I wanted. And it scared me to the point that I hit her where it hurt the most because I didn't want to tell her what I really want."
Imagerie stops abruptly and stares at Horizon. "Oh..." she says, her eyes going wide. "I told her," she says, shaking her head.
"All right. Turn left here," she instructs, pointing to a small alley. The instant they step inside, the scene changes to a Japanese Zen garden. The sounds of the city disappear, replaced by the steady trickle of water, the soft hum of cicadas, and a gentle breeze through the nearby bamboo grove. The ground is lush and green, the meditation pond has colorful koi swimming lazily within, and a rock garden is meticulously designed.
"Take all the time you need."
Horizon looks a little confused as they enter the garden together. Not at the shift in their surroundings but in Imagerie's words. "...Not exactly sure what you mean by 'I told her'. You told sensei?" He asked, before getting pieces fit together in my mind. "You've been concerned about me and how she's been coaching me, right?"
"Well of course," she says. "Whippoorwill is many things, most of them good. But she focuses far too much on external threats. She's not the best at introspection. She's too many demons." Imagerie sighs as she studies the koi.
"She wants the best for you. She doesn't want you to get hurt, so she teaches you how to fight. She doesn't want your team to be hurt, so she teaches you how to lead. She doesn't want innocents hurt, so she teaches you how to be a hero."
She straightens and turns to look at Shin. "She doesn't know how to keep you from hurting yourself, trying to live up to her expectations."
"...I noticed how stiff she was when I asked us to have tea together. I was trying to connect with her there, and she was uncomfortable. I thought that she's loosen up more talking to me on her own in a private setting," Horizon admits, taking a seat by the sand. "...I would often talk to my mother about problems over tea. She would tell me stories about her childhood and lessons she drew from that. I miss that."
He trembles. "...the thing I want that I can't say? Because admitting it means I'm admitting that all of my efforts to conform to this era, to make new connections and friends and fall in love and carve a place for myself here is just pretending that I don't want to go home. Not just because I miss them, but because I know exactly what happens to them and I can't do anything to stop it!"
"Shin, don't be afraid to admit that. It's natural. You miss your family. You're not the first one to have been ripped away from everything you knew. That sort of trauma takes time to process and heal from. Obviously, the time jump... knowing that your loved ones lived on after you... that's a unique twist. But it doesn't change the fact that you're still mourning what you've lost."
Imagerie doesn't move from where she's standing. "I'll talk to Whippoorwill, if you'd like me to. I know some very good grief counselors who can help guide you through this time. I'm very sorry I didn't see it before now."
"It's not just them! I had something that was new and fun and exciting. I had a team. And then...I didn't. Everyone left me!" He screams, and the surroundings become darker, dimming in his power. "And then, barely a month later, I get a new team pushed on me, and it's only a matter of time until they all leave me too! And yet...I still can't stop myself from caring so much, from wanting to help and falling in love and getting into arguments, and it hurts so much because it's so similar. I see Isaiah in Femtite, and Rory in Caio, and Psyche in Connie, and Prae in Grace. I lost them, and I just...can't remember how or why."
Imagerie shakes her head sympathetically. "I understand wanting to stop yourself from caring. Walling yourself off from those around you, to spare you the hurt that comes if they leave or if things don't work out... it's so natural to want to do that."
She steps closer and puts a hand gently on his shoulder. "I don't blame you for not having shared this with anyone. But, now that you have... what would you like to do next? Do you want to continue to share? Or just work with me for a while? And take your time. I can create some illusory duplicates of your teammates for you to practice, if you want."
Horizon finally starts to settle down, feeling tired and itchy from his bandages. He scratches at his arm as he responds to Imagerie. "...I feel pathetic anyways. My feelings shouldn't be important in the grand scheme of things. How am I supposed to be able to lead a team when I can't shake the feeling they'll abandon me? Like Psyche and Grace," He says.
"Horizon, I'm an empath. Feelings are my power," she says in a serious tone, then smiles at him. "So in the 'grand scheme of things,' they're the most important. Never feel ashamed of having feelings. They're not your enemy unless you treat them like one. Give yourself permission to feel them, explore why you feel them, and talk with someone about them who can listen non-judgmentally.
"There also may be some cultural issues that are at play. I'm not well-versed on how a Japanese-American was raised in the 1940s."
Horizon takes off his visor, and Shin looks out at the zen garden. "Back home, I had just started seeing just how unfair things were for my family and everyone else in my community. My father was a research professor at university, but we still couldn't afford to move out of a small two-bedroom apartment in a poor neighborhood. Gaining my powers, part of me thought that was the start of change that day. And then I got bamboozled in my first super fight and ended up booted nearly a century into the future."
He lays his visor down onto the stones beside himself. He's got some tears in his eyes still, but is calmer the more he talks this through. "I thought that I had adapted well to this world. I thought a lot of it was strange to begin with, and Psyche helped me a lot. She got me really thinking introspectively about things like relationships. It was fine when we were together and she and Mattie also cared for each other because I cared for Mattie, even if not romantically. And I thought that was supposed to be normal now. But now with Grace and Max...I feel like a satellite around them even though I had my relationship with Grace first, before either of us even knew we were harboring secret identities. There's something wrong with this relationship. Femtite was trying to get me to see. Damn, that's what she was trying to do. And I pushed her away."
Imagerie listens quietly. Her lips purse in thought after he finishes, but she doesn't protract the silence. "Horizon. This is a lot. This will take months, if not years, to unpack with a good therapist. I can't just say a few wise words and sort it all out. You understand that, right? I'm sorry."
She sighs and offers what she can. "It sounds to me like you've been trying to accept and internalize concepts that just didn't exist commonly in 1940. Acceptance doesn't mean you have to participate if you're not comfortable. You've been drinking from a firehose ever since you've arrived. It's probably past time you stopped to swallow and let it sink in. To decide how you want to incorporate the new with what you've brought with you."
Shin looks fully deflated, knees up to his chest as he curls in and places his forehead down. "...I can't let Whippoorwill know about this. I can't let the team or her see me as weak. If I'm weak, I'm corruptible. If I'm corruptible, I can still become Dusk. I've followed sensei's path to avoid that future. I know it can work." He inhales and exhales slowly. "I'm sorry for putting this all on you. I...honestly, I came to you because I know you can keep people from seeing how badly I'm doing in the moment."
He winces as he tries to extend his limbs again. "...that's not even getting into how I'm currently full of new holes. And the painkillers wore off a few hours ago."
"Shin," Imagerie says insistently. "Listen to yourself. If one of your teammates was talking like that, what would you say to them?"
Shin doesn't hesitate to answer. "I would tell them to hold still and check to see what I could do for them in the moment, then bring them to Unity Station if I couldn't treat it in the field. And...yeah. I know, I probably shouldn't have snuck out of the hospital like that."
He's quiet for another moment. "...I know I've laid a lot on you already. I don't want to burden you with another worry. But does the Alliance know about how my body's been changing?"
"Probably not enough, given how this conversation has gone so far," she says with a note of bewilderment.
Her tone gets serious, giving Whip a run for her money. "Shin. You came to me in confidence, so I can't share most of this without your permission. But as an Alliance member, I can bench you. You're not weak because you take a break. You won't turn into Dusk if you see a counselor. In fact, you'll be less likely."
"...They tried to give me X-rays at the hospital. I apparently absorb those even unconsciously, so they couldn't tell me anything about what's going on with me. But I'm fairly certain that when these punctures heal, I'm going to have those vantablack scars where the skin will be. It scares me. It's the iceberg's tip of my worries," He tells Imagerie. "...I think seeing a counselor would be good. Is that something you can set up for me? Do you...have to let Whippoorwill know about it?"
"I certainly can get you a counselor. And I don't have to tell Whippoorwill, but I strongly suggest you tell her."
"...Okay." He's spent. Shin looks up at Imagerie. "...Thank you."
"So, the news is talking about the Franklin High School football stadium getting destroyed by some sort of super hero fight. Any chance you and your friends were involved? I know you were out all night." She smiles, trying to be supportive. "And did you get the bad guy?"
”I was and we did,” Grace boasts as she hops up and sits on the counter, casually taking a big bite out of a strip of bacon.
(Sorry, just saw this. Was slammed today and didn’t notice it until the ping!)
Clearing her throat, her mom points to the kitchen chair. "We still use furniture in this house, young lady!"
(No worries. As the day went on, I figured you'd need the ping!)
Grace shrugs. ”Can’t stay long anyway,” she says as she picks up three more strips of bacon for the road. ”Got some kids at school I need to talk to,” she adds as she heads for the door, seemingly fully intent on wearing a heavily cropped top and Daisy Duke shorts to school.
Her mom sighs. "Take a sash, at the very least! I can't pick you up from school if you're not meeting the dress code! I have three houses to show!"
Grace rolls her eyes. ”What are they gonna say? I’m covered…in fur! And besides, I’m a known hero now! Comes with benefits!”
"Except that acting like the rules don't apply to you is a recipe for disaster. Be a good role model."
She walks up to Grace and puts her hand on her shoulder. Her tone softens. "I'm proud of you, never forget that. I'd like to hear about last night, when we're not so rushed. Promise me you'll make time, okay?"
”We fought a werewolf queen, basically. We took her down…and…” she pauses, almost about to burst with excitement ”I…sort of…got her power? I think?”
Grace's mom is still as she tries to process this. Confusion reigns on her face, even though she does a heroic job of trying to look like she's sharing in Grace's excitement. "Werewolf... queen? Isn't there a werewolf already on your team? And... don't they change with the moon? And aren't you a cat... person?"
”Yeah, I don’t get it either, really, but, like, the team wizard pulled her special ‘wolfiness’ out of her and had to get rid of it somewhere and ultimately put it in me, and since then I’ve been stronger, faster, sharper, and awesome!” she replies in a rapid fire burst of energetic words.
Her mother sways as her eyes get wider. "Oh. Oh." She starts to wring her hands but she stops herself. "Oh. 'Wolfiness.' That's, um, awesome," she forces herself to agree. She steps close and puts her hands on either side of Grace's face as she looks deep in her eyes. "Promise me you'll stay Grace. Sure, a stronger, faster, more awesome Grace, but stay Grace. Okay?"
”There is no Grace, only Zuul!” Grace growls sternly.
"What!?!"
Grace starts snickering before laughing hysterically. ”Ghostbusters joke, mom!” she stammers out as she tries to catch her breath.
Her mom laughs in relief. "Oh! Right! Sigourney Weaver!" She hugs her. "You growl very scary. Use it on the bad guys next time," she says with a smile.
”I will!” Grace says as she picks up her backpack. She practically skips out the door as she calls back ”Love you! See you later!”
Caio: "Hey Sky. We stopped Lua. She is arrested and will be deported. Let me know when you want to see me."
After the better part of an hour passes by, Caio gets a text back. "Good.
Four minutes later, there's a smiley face emoji.
A minute after that, she sends a heart emoji.
"Should I come by?" He asks
"Yeah"
Caio was eating something close to the dorms by chance, so it doesn't take too long for him to knock on Skylers door. There was enough time for him to take a shower, so he was at least presentable.
So much had happened in the last couple hours that it was hard to believe that earlier they were on his bedroom enjoying themselves.
Skyler opens the door and steps back into her room. She's wearing oversized flannel pajamas with sleeves long enough that her hands are completely swallowed. She only takes brief glances at him, generally avoiding looking at his face and eyes. "So, um, is that it? You beat her, so no more wolf?"
"The Wolf is still there, that didn't change and I'll still have to deal with him." He explains. "But now I have a bit more time to do so."
She nods. "Oh, right. Yeah, sorry. Wolf is in you, and the lady was..." Skyler looks up at him, her eyes lingering on his face a little longer before dropping her gaze. "I remember."
She gets a brief look of frustration, shakes her head, and then sits on her bed, drawing her legs up underneath her. She seems to have forced aside her melancholy for a moment and looks up at him with something like a smile. She pats an empty part of her bed. "Would you like to sit down and tell me about it? Or something completely unrelated?"
Caio sits by her side, wrapping his hand around her waist. "There isn't much to tell about it, since I stayed behind, otherwise she'd use me against them. Horizon got hurt pretty bad and Indarius siphoned Lua's power into Grace, so I still don't know how bad it is."
"Scar got me a magic sword to help fight the Wolf, but I still need to prove myself to it, if that is possible at all..." He says, obviously tired, but hopeful.
Skyler at first stiffens when Caio puts his hand around her, but she slowly relaxes. She scoots a little closer when he finishes.
"A magic sword? Really? Is Scar really Gandalf or something?" She leans her head against his chest.
"Hard to be sure, but I think Scar is just a normal dude." He says, enjoying the smell of Skyler's hair.
Caio is silent for a moment before adding something. "Sorry about earlier when we met Lua and I dropped a 'Love You'... I was so sure I was done that I wanted for you to know, but it was kind of selfish, right?"
"Did you not mean it, then?" she asks, looking up.
"I did, one hundred percent." He says, looking into her eyes. "But I do know that those words have weight, expectations, pressures, whatever... I'm just trying to say that I don't want to pressure you about anything."
Her voice is droll, but she gives him a smile. "I was pretty sure you weren't saying that at the time just to get me to say it back."
She sits up and turns her body so she's facing him. "I appreciate that you're not wanting to pressure me. I'll just say that... I don't really know where my feelings are right now. On a lot of things. So. You can understand that, right?"
"Yes. You have a lot going, and I want to help you however I can... even if just by not adding yet more things for you to worry about." He says, holding her hands.
"I feel you are not used to trust people, but... I promise I'll never lie or hide things from you."
"That's not true," she says skeptically. "There's always something you need to hide, even if it's just a stinky fart." Skyler arches an eyebrow at him. "And your job, or whatever it is. I know it's complicated. You can keep me in the dark about stuff."
"Yeah, you are right. This do seem like an impossible promise." He says, a bit guilty. "I do not intend on hiding things about us, though."
"Well, yeah," she says. "I get it. But maybe, just, put a pause on all the promises of undying devotion for a while. That is pressure. Like, you're taking this so seriously that it's work."
She rises up on her knees and puts her hands over his eyes. "Here. Just... relax. What are you... what do you smell right now?"
Caio smiles, realizing that she is right... he was putting some pressure on them by trying to remove the pressure on them. "All right..." He agrees, closing his eyes and trying to relax. "I smell your shampoo... roses, perhaps? I'm not good with flowers, but there is also a fruit somewhere... passion fruit?"
"Papaya. Passion fruit. I see where your mind is. Okay. Renée is next door. What kind of coffee is she always drinking?"
Caio laughs. "I'm not messing with you! No way I'd mix papaya with passion fruit, as both are from Brazil." He sniffs again and unfortunately for him it is gone, leaving him no means to prove he was telling the truth. "Now, the coffee... I have no idea, since I never liked it, but one thing I'm completely sure is that she is mixing it with cognac."
"You're expecting a bargain-bin Infini-Mart shampoo to know its fruits?"
She sits back, taking her hands from Caio's eyes. "All right. Wasn't looking for gossip. Just wanted to let you show off. Feel better?"
"A bit, yeah..." He answers. In fact he was better not because he was showing off, but because she was trying to help him and thus was helping herself as well.
He could keep playing the damsel in distress some more. "If everything go as planned and I can deal with the Wolf... Then I'll be a normal guy with no powers. And I don't know how I'll deal with it..."
Skyler tilts her head. "Whatever happened to culinary school? Being a chef? Seeing the world?"
"I know... it makes no sense! All I've ever wanted was to be normal and free of my curse and yet... why do I feel that I'm lost?" He asks, frustrated. "I mean, there is no doubt that getting rid of the Wolf is the right thing to do, but then... will there be enough 'me' left?"
He looks Skyler, worried. "Where do the Wolf ends and the 'me' starts? Can you see something?"
She shrinks back, looking away. "Don't ask me. I don't know what the f~+*ing auras mean. I never have." Her posture is closed off. "I can't answer that, Caio."
"I did not mean just with your power, but more how you feel..." He says, defensively, knowing how sensitive she is about her powers at the moment. "Like, do you feel that what is left will be enough... for you?"
Skyler draws her knees up to her chest and rests her head on them for a moment. She takes a deep breath, then looks up at him. "Caio, I didn't agree to go out with you because you have powers. I was more interested in seeing who you were as a regular person anyway.
"Perspective time. You're super strong and tough but have a curse that means you could lose control and kill a lot of people. You now -- I guess -- have something that could get rid of the curse but at the cost of what you think makes you special."
She shifts her posture into sitting cross-legged as she reaches up and touches Caio's cheek. "The other night, you backed off immediately when I said no, even though I'd been saying yes all day. Was that the Wolf or you?" she asks rhetorically. "You have no idea what that meant. Means, still."
Her eyes are glistening. She pulls away, looking up and trying to stave off tears.
Caio pulls Skyler closer to him in a tight hug. "I'm sorry... I came here to cheer you up and not the other way around, but thank you... You are right about everything and I think that deep down I knew it already, but it is still nice to hear it."
"I'll have to learn more vegan recipes though." He jokes, trying to bring the mood back to happier moment. He keeps holding her close to him, specially if he feels she'd like to stop holding those tears.
Skyler leans into the embrace. She closes her eyes and lets Caio hold her.
Once Connie arrives at the meeting place, Love Bug, The grows. The magenta dome opens. Femtite is not wearing an outrageously sexy outfit, just her ordinary ensemble.
She is smiling. It looks like smiling hurts.
”Hey,” she says not-cheerfully.
"Hey Femms..." Connie approached carefully "Everything okay? You look like your favorite spores just became flame-retardant."
Did Shin die and she didn't tell us?! No. No he called in...
Femtite replies, ”Oh no… if that happened, I would look more like this.”
She makes her lips extra pouty, trying to manage humor into the situation. But she won’t dodge the subject.
”I’m upset at Shin. He’s hurt—not just physically, emotionally—”
Despite being mad at Shin, Fem remembers her promise not to discuss the conversation with anyone.
But then, she didn’t expect Shin to be so abusive. Abuse is not a secret I’ll keep.
”—and when I tried to be a friend to him, he lashed out at me. And I’m such an idiot for caring.
“It’s not like it’s the first time he’s lashed out. And it’s also not the first time I noticed his jealousy of me because you’re my girlfriend.
“His love triangle is not equilateral. He’s a third wheel, the one left in the garage while the other two go off on a joy ride.”
Femtite looks more sickened than sad. ”DD is my friend. Shin is my friend. Grace is not because that stupid armor, I never got to know her, and this fake-throuple does not give me a good first impression.
“I need to get away. From them. Not from you.”
She wills labels to appear between the punch and kick buttons:
‘B’, ‘A’ and ‘START.’
Careful Connie, you're in a hell of a glass house if you start throwing stones about blowing up at people
"That's so s@%&ty, Femms, it sounds like he just slapped away an outstretched hand and... Yeah. It's s@$+ty."
She pauses helplessly before trying to move to something where the ground is clearer to her. "As for Grace... Yeah, I'm hoping to get to know her better. I don't know if Max is the first gal she's been with, and I try to hold a lot of space for messy behavior when someone's figuring out that kind of thing, but... Yeah, cheating on someone is a pretty bad way to start a happy throuple with them. I wouldn't call it fake cause I'm not really clued in on their deal and it could take a lot of shapes, but yeah, it looks bad from here."
"Sooooo a vacay sounds great! But uh, do we have a way for me to control regrowing? I have some thoughts, but they're pretty much a ripcord deal, and it wouldn't be super safe to do on-site."
Happy to change the topic, Femtite shakes her head to the regrow question.
”I actually didn’t know what the sacred code would do until the fey ball.
“So let’s talk about what being a pixite means:
“Subatomic size. You’ll be a picometer tall. It means electrons will be visible. The firefly’s light is roughy the proportion.”
She takes Connie’s hand before going into the second change:
”Pixite biology. You’ll have a partially exoskeletal body, wings, antenna, fire on the insides, a vagina, eyes that don’t blink, and… nutritional needs you’re not used to. Sweet-spotted fungi will be best for you, especially if you cannot change size.
“Size-changing. That is an unknown. Most pixites can change size within the picometric scale.”
She thinks a moment.
”I should be able to access pixite tech to reverse the change. But what is your ‘ripcord’ plan?” Looking into Connie’s eyes, she asks, ”And more importantly, are you comfortable with these changes?”
Connie sits and thinks for a bit before answering. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so... I've got a lot of body... stuff." She gestures at her head. "So I can't guarantee full equanimity, but there aren't any blinking neon signs in my brain going 'F~@~ THAT,' which is definitely a good sign."
She grins to soften things. "The ripcord is basically a factory reset of my body to counter transformations. So if we were still on Nanometeor, it would be really hard for me to use safely."
Femtite agrees. ”Yes. You need to leave the glass case before changing back, and I should grow the Bug back first.
“As for clothing and piercings, and actually… your tattoos too… all of that will be gone. Likely, it will be stored in the Bug as subatomic unstructure.
“In case my theory is correct, you’ll want to be in the Bug when you revert anyway.”
Once outside the museum, Femtite enters the commands with her control stick, then the buttons, B, A…
Pointing to a button on the right, she tells Connie, ”If you’re ready, press Start.”
Connie just grins and hits the button.
Femtite grins as Connie fearlessly completes the code. As the magenta dome glows strangely violet, she says,
”This is gonna be my best home visit ever. You can meet my other mom too. Mel’s really happy about you. I told her you said the Earth way is to call both female parents Mom whether they birthed you or not.
“I’m her only daughter, so me calling her Mom really is a very big deal… and my relationship with her I feel has grown.
“You did that, Connie!”
"Cause if there's one thing that's my specialty it's healthy parental relationships." With an effort of will, she doesn't roll her eyes, replying, "Sorry. I just sometimes wish I had a relationship like that worth repairing."
Fem resists the urge to hug Connie, knowing she could shrink away any moment.
”You have nothing to be sorry about, Connie. And you do have that—any relationship with you is worth fixing. It’s your father who fails to see this.”
"Femms, what?! If f%%#ing only. For a relationship to have value both parties have to at worst provide something neutral to the other - do you have the sense that I'm anywhere close to that with Dear Old Dad? Whatever, there's no way that's going to come up on this trip. Let's just focus on your moms. And having fun."
Oh, I meant it’s her father’s failing, but…
”You’re right. Now is the time to leave Earth behind!”
When the sequence is entered, Love Bug, The shudders. The controls glow bright, then the entire craft seals up tight and bathes the interior with a barrage of esoteric energies. Then the craft shrinks rapidly and flies unerringly toward Nanometeor, flying through the space between molecules as it shrinks farther and farther into the pixometric scale!
Conflux gets her first true vision of the breathtaking beauty of Femtite's home -- a dizzying panorama of a structure behind and beneath the fundamental building blocks of her previous existence. Bright motes of light dance amongst the overhead buzzing of electrons whooshing past like low-flying helicopters. Love Bug, The gets smaller yet, and the tiny motes resolve into Pixites while the vaguely crystalline structure resolves into lavender-shaded fields with grass-like cilia waving amid the photons passing by.
Their craft orients itself towards the towering Lavender Spire that rises up from the horizon and Queen Millie herself. Suddenly, Femtite is spat out a micrometer from the spire, and Love Bug, The zooms on ahead with Connie still inside!!
Femtite, what do you do??
The first half of first period for every school in Halcyon has the same new routine. All the student athletes file into the gymnasium to receive their daily medicine. The researchers at the Dawkins genetics facility have managed to isolate the suppressant from the mutagenic compound, which works as a temporary measure to keep a large percentage of Halcyon's youth from spontaneously turning into an animal-human hybrid.
(That last part has been pretty much hush-hushed, though the seriousness of the endeavor is not to be underestimated.)
Scientists and A.E.G.I.S. specialists are on hand along with school officials, running through a checklist to make sure that no one misses a dose.
The two students in Halcyon who know exactly the consequences of not taking the suppressant -- Ne'veah Johnson and Grace Gilliam -- are sitting in the bleachers watching the lines of athletes, some of them their former teammates, waiting for their turn.
"This is B-S," Ne'veah says to Grace. She looks agitated, even though her parents have allowed her back in school. "They can't do that to us. I mean sure. The Hornets? Who would want to be a bug person? But look at us! We're so much better!"
She stands up and shouts down to the students and officials. "HEY! Panther Pride! Don't take the pills! They can't make you! Panther Pride!!"
One of the A.E.G.I.S. agents holds up a megaphone. "That's enough, Miss Johnson. Go back to your first period class."
Caio sighs as he passes by and overhears Ne'veah protesting against the pills. "That one will still cause a lot of trouble for us." He says to Skyler (and the others, if they are nearby).
"All right. Is there a place that's private? I'm afraid I'll cause too much of a stir if I met you in the cafeteria or student's lounge," she replies.
"Rooftop should be fine, I think." It wouldn't be too strenuous for his injured body to bring up a folding table and chairs. A portable thermos of boiling water for the tea and cups from his dorm room seemed to work out well. Though he wished he had a heavier robe to wear up here as it was getting chillier in the year. Thanksgiving was only a couple weeks away.
Whippoorwill lands on the roof, not looking like the cold bothers her. When she sees that Horizon appears cold, she reaches into a pouch and tosses a coin-sized device onto the roof. It sends out warm pulses at regular intervals which helps immensely.
She sits down and accepts her cup of tea, testing its temperature before sipping. "Imagerie told me to expect a call from you." She looks concerned.
The tea should be hot still. Shin had prepared a green tea blend that he thought was comparable to the brand he would have back home.
"I had a talk with Imagerie. We decided that I should speak with a counselor and start going to therapy." Shin tells her as he takes a sip.
She nods. "That's fine. Good, even." She looks unsure of what to say, so she takes another sip. "This is good."
Whippoorwill takes a breath. "Imagerie didn't tell me much, but I know how she gets. I've been pushing you too hard. Or setting my expectations too high. Right?"
"That's not it at all. I've been reflecting since my talk...no, since I effectively broke down in front of Imagerie because I couldn't hold on to the image of how I think I should be," Shin admits. "It was embarrassing. I must have looked like a snot nosed brat at the end of it all with my blubbering."
He looks pained as he says the next part. "I think the worst part though was that I didn't want you to see me like that. To fail to measure up to your own detachment. That I'm too emotional to lead the team."
Whippoorwill pinches her brow. "Oh, Shin. You shouldn't -- dammit -- you shouldn't worry about me not seeing you at your best. You think that I'd yank you just because you--" she cuts herself off and looks into the sky.
"Okay. Yeah. That's on me," she says after a moment. "Listen. I compartmentalize. I don't... detach. Or repress. I give myself time, privately, to deal with all the baggage I carry and pick up along the way. I didn't think that... you'd see it another way. I'm sorry."
"...is it wrong to want to help you carry some of your baggage, sensei?" Shin asks. "I've been holding my own without asking any of my team to bear the burden with me. Though things aren't great with them right now. That's on me. Someone on my team reached out to me, and I hurt her in response. Because I was thinking that would less painful than exposing my own feelings."
He laughs at his own foolishness. "And now I'm waiting to apologize and tell her she was right. And also wondering how to manage a team with a person I just broke up with on it."
"It's not wrong, unless you break under the strain of carrying it." Whippoorwill sips her tea for a moment to let that sink in and to think herself.
"Let's take the analogy further. If it's not wrong for you to take some burdens off me, then it's not wrong for your teammates to take some off you.
"You say you've been holding your own, but have you? Really?" She gives him a pointed look.
"When this new team was formed, I needed you there. You had experience, you had a good head on your shoulders, you didn't have an ego. You stepped up. You should be proud of that. So don't take this the wrong way. Maybe it's time to let the others take a swing at it. Rotate the team captain role. A good leader is always looking out for someone to be his replacement." She offers Shin a smile.
"I've thought about that and how to implement it. In the last team...I pushed Praetoria to step up, but her impulses made her a poor fit. Frostbite should have stepped up but he was more interested in pursuing his personal goals. As for this team...well. Caio's shown a lot of growth. I could see him taking the lead. Same with Indarius. It really should be on a case by case basis. Magical events I would recommend Indarius over Caio." He proposes.
"...there's one more thing on my mind. And I've put it off because of my duties leading this team and not wanting to bring them into a personal matter. Dusk is still watching me. I don't want to wait for him to play his hand. I'd rather go after him and face him on my own terms. That...is still not something immediate for me though. I really do need to have a prolonged recovery from my injuries before I think of doing that."
Whippoorwill nods in approval as Shin starts thinking about handing off leadership roles. "Don't forget to give the others a chance too. Especially Conflux, but even Femtite or Max. See how they respond. You can always work it into a practice session."
She gets serious. "As far as your breakup... that's a minefield. Feelings are going to be raw. Others usually get dragged in, forced to choose sides. Only way you can maybe avoid it is open communication. And I mean maybe.
"You have a lot on your plate still. Heal up. Talk to your therapist. I've been doing what I can to keep the Duskguard out of your orbit. Do what you can to take things one at a time."
Whippoorwill would notice a shift in his eyes when she mentions Conflux, but he doesn't say anything about it.
"Yeah, I'll make a public declaration to the team once Fem comes back from the Nanometeor. I'll be doing plenty of recovery in the meantime," He sighs.
He tugs his robe over one of his shoulders. The bandaged wound seems to have stopped bleeding on him at least. "I checked the wounds. Thankfully, they don't look like they're going to be more of those black scars. I don't know the correlation for that. Maybe because it happened when I didn't lose control over my powers."
"All right," Whippoorwill says in an approving tone. She finishes her tea in silence.
Setting her cup down, she leans forward. "I'm glad you went to Imagerie for help. I'm not perfect, and... well, I'll try to be more open. In case you need more from me. Don't take that to be an order. If the therapist is working out, great. But don't think of me as someone you can't talk with too."
"Then...I guess there's something I want to know about you, sensei. It's a selfish request...but I figure it must have happened to you before."
He sets his cup down. "How have you dealt with a betrayal by a friend?"
"Oh, God," Whippoorwill says as her eyes grow haunted. "That's... a pain that will not get easier with practice. You can try to understand, try to empathize with them. Sometimes the betrayal comes out of desperation. Sometimes they were your enemy all along. Sometimes they're just weak, and fall to temptation. Or you stop seeing eye-to-eye and you go your separate ways, even though you might have once thought you'd be together until the end."
She sags in her seat and for once, looks not like a larger-than-life hero but a very tired and damaged person. "You mourn for them. You mourn for the relationship. If you're lucky there might be something that can be repaired and rebuilt. But it'll never be the same."
She straightens and offers him a weak smile. "Or you find out it was mind control the whole time."
"If only it was always mind control. It could be so much easier to blame whatever monster is at the top of the pyramid," Shin agrees with his mentor. He looks down at his nearly empty cup. "Thank you for coming sensei. And for sharing as much as you have. It's not easy. I don't think I have it in me to compartmentalize my feelings. At least not without eventually self destructing. I think I have to try and process them out whenever the opportunity arises."
Physically, and emotionally.
Inside of his dorm room, the door unlocked for anyone to come in, Shin sat with some support of pillows to prop up and focus what energy wasn't being used to recover on his power. It was mostly an exercise started in boredom, starting with generating one 'singularity' that orbited above him, before adding three more while concentrating on the previous ones. They were all just points in his room he was specifically drawing light and energy from in a targeted way. He doubted this trick had a real application in the field, though one never knew.
Max knocks on the door, then enters when she realizes it's unlocked. "I, uh, brought your school work," she says, stopping when she seed Shin meditating. She doesn't want to disturb him.
"Which classes? I know Mr. Hahn was expecting an essay this week. Did he send the rough draft back with his input?" Shin asks as he slowly makes each ball of darkness above him vanish, one by one.
Max thumbs through the stack of papers. "Yes. There's some math worksheets here too, and there was a pop quiz in social studies you'll have to make up later."
"Ugh...that was probably about the space program and the Apollo missions," Shin shakes his head. "If my recovery program goes well I should be able to make it up next week. Mostly it's just letting the flesh and muscles heal enough that I can walk around without feeling sore afterwards. Doing strength training helps with that. So you have no reason to feel responsible for my condition," He tells Max, absolving her.
Max frowns. "Yeah. I appreciate that, but it still doesn't make me feel much better for what happened," the demoness says. Her tail lashes behind her.
"I don't know much about what happened after I was knocked out. What do you remember?" Shin asks her as he goes through the class sheets on his lap.
"Not a whole lot, either. I was pounding on Lua, trying to take her out of the fight. Then she did something and I...lost myself. I remember excruciating pain when Indarius did whatever he did to me. The I woke up and the fight was over, and Femtite had already taken you to the hospital."
"That's understandable. It was a tough fight for everyone. You and me and Grace. I know I responded badly then to hospitalization," He admits. "I hope that you and Grace were better about your own exams than I was."
”Yeah,” Max says. She lowers her eyes. ”Speaking of Grace... She was really upset the other day after you ended things with her. I understand why you did it, though. How have you been feeling since then?”
"What do you understand, Max?" Shin asks her. "Please, tell me. Why do you think I broke up with Grace?"
”It was taking a toll on your mental health. Especially after I entered the picture. And the way that happened... It wasn’t right.” She meets Shin’s gaze. ”Even so, I thought we could make it work with the arrangement Grace came up with. But I could see the hurt in your eyes when you looked at us together. You deserve to be happy. And you shouldn’t sacrifice your own happiness to try to please somebody else.”
"...wow. That is a very measured, mature assessment of the situation. I like the part where you care deeply about my happiness. It's really touching." Shin's voice is firm, brimming with restrained anger, before finally overflowing.
He roars so loud it's impossible that anyone else in the building could have missed it.
Max is taken aback by Shin's sudden fury. Her eyes are wide, and she raises her hands defensively. "No! It... it wasn't like that...She came to me!" she insists. "She came to me because she felt alone! She needed a friend, and I was happy to be that for her. And then she wanted more. I tried to talk her down. I tried to get her to at least talk to you first before anything happened between us.
The demoness's eyes narrow, and her tail whips back and forth. [b]"She made the first move, Shin. Why do you think that is? Her needs weren't being fulfiflled in your relationship. You were putting your mission first before your girlfriend. Where were you at the Halloween dance, when she needed you the most? I found her crying in the locker room, while you were flying off, trying to be a hero. I get that that's important, Shin, to you and to the people who were trying to protect. But you should have been her hero first."
"Don't you f!#&ing dare try to justify this," Shin said as he balled his fists up in the sheets. "And don't you f**$ing pin the blame on her and me and everyone but you, Max! YOU could have walked away! YOU just told me it wasn't a spur of the moment mistake! YOU ACTIVELY CHOSE TO F#!* SOMEONE ELSE'S PARTNER!" Shin shouts at her.
"You can talk about Halloween all you want, how I wasn't there for her. What the f@#* do you know? You have any idea how much time and resources I spent to keep her secret? That I was looking to find a cure before what happened to Ne'veah happened to her? She was always my first priority - but what I didn't know then is that you had already f&&#ed me over!"
Devil Diva — Today at 10:08 AM
Max grits her teeth and weathers the storm of Shin's fury. Her hands curl into fists as he yells at her, but she takes several deep breaths as she tries to maintain her composure.
"I am willing to take responsibility for what I did, and accept the blame for it. You've every right to be angry at me, and if this is the end of our friendship, then so be it. But I know that I am not the only one to blame for what happened, and I doubt we will ever see eye-to-eye on that."
"It's nice to see you throw your girlfriend under the bus instead of protecting her. That's going to be great for a long-lasting relationship," Shin says to Max as he stares daggers through her. "Are you going to blame it on your powers next? Or maybe it's just the influence of the demon in your head? Anything else you want to diffuse blame for your own f+~& up to make yourself feel better about choices, Max? Grace might have given you the gun, and I might have given her the bullet, but you're the one who shot me in the back."
"Right. Well, here's your homework," Max says, dropping it unceremoniously on the desk. "Good luck with it. I've got some place else to be."
She turns and walks out of Shin's dorm room.
Grace can be seen sitting beside Nev, her legs propped on the seat in front of and below her, and her back and arms lounging on the seat behind her. She giggles at Nev’s protest. When the AEGIS agent orders her to be quiet, Grace retorts ”Why? I’m pretty sure it’s still a free country, and we have the right to our own opinions! Like how the change isn’t that bad!”
"Not in here, Miss Gilliam," the A.E.G.I.S. agent snaps. "You can have your opinions, and you can keep them to yourself. Now. Out!"
The school officials hastily send Grace and Ne'veah off to their first period classes so there are no further disruptions.
School otherwise is relatively uneventful. Femtite and Connie are marked absent today, and Shin is given an excused absence for his injuries, but otherwise the day progresses normally.
Skyler shares what time she and Caio can spend together, but they have several periods where they're in different classes.
Max has another appointment with Angel at Taylor International that evening. Harper meets Max upon her arrival at Taylor Tower, bouncing with excitement. "Good evening, Max! I'm soooo looking forward to your first social media event! Why don't you come with me! We've got a photo studio set up, and a new fashion line that I'm sure you'll love!"
She leads Max through several hallways into a bona fide photo studio, complete with props and numerous backdrops. There's a makeup and wardrobe studio next to it, and several professionals waiting for her arrival.
"Why don't you go ahead and get seated, so Armando can work his magic!" Harper says, gesturing to a chair in front of a mirror and bank of lights.
Max looks around the studio in awe. This is rather far outside her normal realm of experience, and she’s both nervous and excited about how it’s all going to play out. She nods to Harper and sits on the indicated chair.
Armando isn't as flamboyant as one might expect, but he's clearly a professional and soon has a number of powders and pigments highlighting Max's unusual skin tone. He also works wonders with her hair -- which generally doesn't need much help thanks to its demonic luster.
After the better part of an hour, Max is radiant. Harper gushes. "You're going to knock them dead! You're probably the prettiest of all your sisters!"
The curtains are drawn and Max sees Scarlett and Cyan lounging on some furniture in front of a number of cameras. They beckon her with crimson-tipped nails. "Come along, Maximilian! Our public awaits!"
What do you do??
Max's skin prickles when Harper mentions her sisters. "What? How did you--?" She chokes back a snarl when she sees Scarlett and Cyan on the other side of the curtain!
"What is this?!? What are you doing here?" she cries, instinctively taking a step back from the other demonesses.
He gulped down some water, checking the time, before opening up the conference session after making sure that he was looking all right. Well, as all right as he could with the bandages underneath his T-shirt. When it came on, he waved from the foot of his bed, pulling the chair up.
"Hello Dr. Brighthop. I'm Shin. Ah, I guess that Imagerie must have spoken to you a little bit about my situation?"
The woman on the other side of the screen tapped a pen on her desk, looking at him seemingly directly. "I tend to not let others explain the reasons for my patients coming to see me. I understand you're too hurt physically to travel to meet me, which is why we're doing this here."]
Shin nodded, and felt a bit awkward. "So...how does this work?"
"Right now? I just want you to talk to me on a level that you're comfortable with and maybe ask some questions for clarity. We don't have to talk about anything that you don't want to discuss." The doctor suggests.
"Okay...yeah...well. I don't know where to start really. Can you suggest something to me?" Shin asks.
The doctor seemed to write something down on a pad outside of his view. "Well, tell me something about your past. Though I do know it's irregular, being your past is quite far back."
"Ah. Yeah, I guess. I don't think it's really all that special though. I mean, I was raised in Halcyon. My father was a research professor of physics, my mother took care of me and my younger siblings..." Shin starts to describe life for himself before gaining powers. How he'd play with kids like himself in his neighbor, fight older kids making trouble for his siblings and studying to follow his father's desire for him to become a doctor. How tough it could be for them living in a small apartment with no way to get better housing for the family.
"...I was small-minded then. Wasn't really looking at the big picture. Not the way that Dusk saw it." Shin admits.
"Do you think a lot about what your other self perceives about the world?" The doctor asks.
"I mean, not as much as I was when I first came to this era. But I don't disagree with the idea that things are still bad. That there's inequity and prejudices that make the world a worse place. I just can't agree with the methods he decided was the only way to make people listen..."
Harper claps her hands in joy as the three sisters are reunited. "I know! Isn't it great!?! They showed up a couple days ago! The public is going to adore the three of you!"
Cyan rises slowly and sensually from the divan she'd been lounging on. "You look absolutely lovely, dearest sister. Why don't you join us for our first photo shoot? The last time we posed together, that da Vinci fellow couldn't get the portrait done quick enough before... well, you remember, right? Violet?"
Max hesitates, trying to get a read on the two demonic sisters...
Scarlett giggles at Max's stunned silence. "She sure is surprised. I love it." She turns to the photographer. "Philipe, can you take a few pictures of that expression? For my personal collection?"
Cyan titters in laughter at the situation. "Quit teasing our sister! Come on, join us! We're really quite fun. Why don't you give us a chance?"
What do you do?
Max grits her teeth, reluctantly stepping forward to join the other demons. "Fine. But you will keep your hands off of me. We'll do this photoshoot, and then we'll talk about what you're really doing here."
The demons pout at being told not to touch her. Philipe begins the shoot, their assistants moving about the studio, adjusting lighting, and making sure fans blow the lustrous manes of hair just right.
Backdrops are switched out, wardrobe changes outfits, makeup gets touched up, during the lengthy shoot.
Max does her best to keep up with the demanding photoshoot, but it's clear this is her first time doing it. It doesn't help that Scarlett and Cyan are stealing the show out from under her! By the end of the session, Max is rather flustered and frustrated!
Cyan looks over the proofs, frowning. "They would have been better if we were allowed to touch. Look at these," she points to a couple of shots where Cyan and Scarlett are sitting close on a big comfy couch, with Max sitting apart. It looks like they're having fun and Max... isn't.
Scarlett nods. "One of these things is not like the other," she sing-songs. "Come on. What can we do to get you to relax around us?"
Ne'veah is waiting on Grace as she is about to leave the campus. She hops down from her perch on the wall, landing silently. "Hey! How's it going?"
"Well, for starters, you could not be so eager to corrupt my soul," Max says bitterly. She scowls down at the proofs. "This was supposed to be my debut photoshoot, and you two had to come and ruin it. I am trying to rehabilitate my image in the eyes of the media, and you are making it way more difficult! Do I need to call my friend Praetoria to come and give you another thrashing?"
Grace smiles at her as she carries her books against her bare, fur covered stomach. ”Hey Nev! I’m…great actually. Well, Shin broke up with me. But hey, his loss. F@&+ him,” she replies as her tail flicks behind her. ”I’m glad you are back in school!”
"Maximilian, we wouldn't dream of corrupting your soul," Scarlett says. "In fact, we want you to teach us how to be super heroes!"
Cyan chimes in. "Yes, Maxie! Show us how to use our powers for good!" She looks contrite. "We're sorry your photo shoot got ruined."
"Yeah, we didn't think you'd be that bad." Scarlett holds her hands up in surrender. "Don't call Praetoria, please. How can we make it up to you?"
put.
Ne'veah laughs sharply. "Right! Let me guess: he couldn't handle the 'new you'? Forget him. Actually, did he...? No, never mind. He was talking baseball, but those players never got the supplements. Too bad, huh? Dontavius would look great if he changed."
She gives Grace a toothy smile. "Yeah, glad to be back. It took my parents disowning me, but f~$% them, right? How'd your mom take the news?"
Max looks at the other two demons, then heaves a heavy sigh. "Fine. I guess if I can't stop you two from hanging around, I might as well try to redirect your energy. You want to learn how to be super heroes? I can show you the ropes. Even though I'm kind of still learning them, myself."
She gets to her feet, the cursed dress she wears slithering over her body to transform into her superhero costume. "Let's go out on patrol. We'll find some criminals to stop, together."
Grace smirks. ”Her and dad both had super hero envy. So she’s taking it better than I could have had. Not thrilled, but not angry either.”
She pauses and asks ”You need a place to stay?”
Shin pauses. He's realizing how he's more or less said the same criticisms of his future self over and over again for the past ten minutes and now he feels a bit embarrassed. "Sorry. I...well. The first team or the current team?" He asks.
"Whichever you want to talk about first. I can understand if the former is harder to speak about though."
Shin nods, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "My first team then. They were...it was hard at first, trying to assimilate. That's the lesson I know from my dad. That you have to show people you're like them and don't stand out. And they helped out in their own ways. Especially Psyche. She was...she is something special."
"Sounds like you care about her a great deal."
"I do. But...before the team broke up, it felt like..." He hesitates. It's hard to say. But Dr. Brighthop didn't pressure him and let him speak on his own terms.
"...it felt like we were heading to a break up of some kind. She wasn't taking care of her body. A body we literally jumped through dimensions to help her get back. I kept trying to suggest that she take some better care, that she was more than this psychic presence...and then the team fell apart. I fell into a brief coma. I've been trying to piece together the last day we all had together since then and struggling to recall fragments."
"Why do you think you're struggling, Shin?" Dr. Brighthop asks.
"I mean, head trauma." Shin half-jokes. After a bout of silence, he continues. "And what I have remembered...it's bad. Whatever happened was a horrible moment. Siphon...whatever happened with her scares me enough that a Duskguard was able to use that image to fool me. I...should I be saying this much?"
"Anything that you tell me is in confidence. But I'm also well equipped for the more unusual nature of heroes and powered people," She explains. She glances over at something on her desk. "We do have only a few more minutes left. Is there anything else you would like to touch base on before we finish?"
They were already nearly done? That was quick. Shin wasn't sure what to say here. Something they hadn't discussed that was pertinent? "...I was put in charge of this new team. But now I'm letting others take the lead. And...honestly? I'm scared."
"What are you scared of, Shin?"
"That things will fall apart again. I feel...maybe if I'd stepped up in my old team instead of pressing others to lead, it would still be going. If I failed, then at least I did everything I could to keep it all together. But now I'm doing that same thing here. Letting others lead while I fall back into a support role. And what if that leads to more chaos? I'm already causing so much strife because of breaking up with Grace and fighting with Femtite."
Dr. Brighthop nods, writing down on her notepad to the side. "I think that's something to reflect on for our next session. But if I can give one piece of advice? Just because you're not leading doesn't mean you're not doing everything you can for the team. Look at the things that you can do and the things that the team needs and fulfill those roles the best that you can."
"Okay...thanks, doctor." Shin nods to her.
"It's no problem. But I'm hoping that we'll finally meet face-to-face in your next session. I'll see you again next time," She tells him, as the conference meeting ends.
|
Percy kept his head down at school his head throbbed after all the action over the weekend and he thought that maybe for the first time in a very long time he was actually coming down with something. His presence anytime that wasn't classes was short lived as he retreated to his room for comfort food or to down some medication in an attempt to assuage the ensuing migraine.
He sent a text out to the group instead of using the communicator for the day.
LT: Hey all, not feeling the hottest today. Might take a break from capeing till I can shake this headache. Not to downplay what happened to Shin, but kind of impossible for me when I can't think straight. I'll be at my dorm after classes, text or stop by if you need me.
With that out in the air he tried to slog through the rest of the day, avoiding Caio if possible or making himself scarce at the very least.
The pair of demons exchange an excited smile with each other, then follow Max out on patrol!
After an hour of jumping and gliding from rooftop to rooftop, the sound of sirens reach the three demons' ears. Rushing to the ledge of the roof they're currently on, they see a police car in hot pursuit behind a sedan, which is weaving through traffic trying to elude them!
Cyan and Scarlett look to Max.
What do you do?
"I'm staying on campus, but you know how it is. Or, maybe you don't -- you never lived on campus, have you?"
She stretches her long limbs. "I think it'd be killer to go out on a hunt sometime. You know, in the wild? Or we could go do your super hero thing! How's that working out for you? Now that you're out of a tin can and able to see, hear, breathe and hunt?"
”We don’t hunt, Nev. We aren’t animals, but…we aren’t people either. We are something more, so we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard,” Grace says bluntly. ”And no, I’ve always walked to school from home. But if you wanna join the team, I’m sure I can work that out.”
Max looks at her sisters. "Okay, first lesson: always look before you leap. Don't just rush into a situation. Take a moment to look around so you understand what's going on and can figure out the best way to resolve the problem without making it worse."
Having said that, Max turns to assess what's happening.
”MOTHER?!” she shouts as her own craft speeds away. ”Why would you…? Oh, Connie!”
She flies to the obvious destination, though without growing considerably larger, she won’t be able to catch up.
Femtite flies as fast as she can, but Love Bug, The fades into the distance! When she finally arrives at the Lavender Spire, the Kirby craft is nowhere to be seen!
The legions of Pixite guards bow and genuflect as she speeds past them. The palace's interior walls are a blur until Femtite is outside Queen Millie's chambers. She unfortunately has to wait for several nanoseconds until finally the doors open.
"Femi! Welcome home!"
Femtite does not hug her mother.
”Mommy? I… I was ejected from my own craft. Wh—“ She almost asks ‘why,’ but instead asks, ”Where’s Connie?”
Queen Millie smiles at her daughter. "Getting ready for her big reveal, my dear. This is a momentous occasion! Surely a little anticipation will sweeten the surprise!" She extends her hand, inviting Femtite to take it an be led further into the palace.
Femtite can’t help herself. It’s her mother.
”Oh, so at the fey ball… you and Connie planned… um?”
She can’t help but suspect she is rationalizing her mother’s irrational behavior. And with Connie’s ripcord…
Femtite takes her mother’s hand.
The queen leads her daughter through several hallways until they reach a grand chamber that Femtite's not entirely sure she ever visited. A large retinue of Pixites excitedly hum in galleries along both sides, all focusing on a raised pedestal shrouded in diaphanous energies. The Pixites cheer as Queen Millie and Princess Femtite arrive.
Lying upon the pedestal in lavender pillows is a sleeping Pixite. "Go to her," Queen Millie urges with joy. "Give her a kiss to wake her and welcome Connie to her new life as your consort."
Femtite rushes to Connie. She wants to kiss her, but not without consent.
”Connie?” she tries to gently wake her with a hand on the shoulder.
The Pixite on the dais is beautiful. She looks strikingly like Connie in her face, although she is clearly a Pixite in every way.
Femtite asks her mother, ”Have you and Connie talked? Is she… why is she asleep?”
The princess tries not to let her voice show how freaked out she is. Connie is gonna be so pissed!
The Queen's excited smile doesn't falter. "So you can wake her up! The mind transfer took some out of her, so she'll be a little disoriented at first. Better she see you when she opens her eyes for the first time!" She clasps her hands together and squees. "This is so romantic!"
Fem’s eyes glow pale. ”The muh—th’ m-muh?” she stammers. ”Oh! Of, um… courrrse?
“I should… kiss. Wakey kiss, yes. I just um… need a closer look. A moment please.”
Femtite becomes a femtometer tall, tinier than a pixite wing is thin then infinitely smaller until even to a pixite, she is nothing!
Femtite sees many magical bonds tied to Connie, as is the case with human Connie, but none are fey threads which lead to Queen Millie—as Fem feared.
Okay… so she at least didn’t make a deal with the Fey Queen. Not one tied to this kiss.
And kissing Connie will awaken her. That much is true.
Femtite isn’t shrunken from sight for long. She kneels by the dais and gently strokes Connie’s cheek.
”Oh, Connie…” I hope you believe me when I say I’m not taking advantage of you. I need you to wake up.
She gently kisses Connie on the lips. Then pulls away slightly, but clasps Connie’s hand.
Connie's eyes flutter open and she smiles into Femtite's kiss. "Heyyyy," she croaks, "That, was a rougher landing than you promised." She begins to sit up, stops, and a moment later her face begins to form into a mask of discomfort. "Oh, yep, this is not my body."
Femtite offers a hand to help her steady herself. ”Your soul is inside, Connie. A shrunken human body would die at this size.
“I’m not exactly sure how this transformation worked, but I will use the Bug to record this. You look so adorable as a pixite!”
Connie blinks experimentally, her eyelids just the slightest bit out of sync. "Yeah, I know. I've done the reading and math on physiological limits, [smaller] and then double checked once we started dating. So uhh... What's-" one of her wings twitches- Uh, what's next?
Queen Millie orbits nearby. At Connie's question, she flits in closer. "We introduce you! Welcome, Consort Connie Westcott Mathers to the Lavender Spire!" She spreads her arms wide as her voice echoes across the chamber, and the assembled Pixites cheer.
"Then, you two will be given plenty of time to explore each other and get yourselves acquainted and re-acquainted to your home! Then the training begins, to prepare you, Princess Femtite, for the duties and obligations of being queen. And you, Connie, will learn all the duties of consort." The delight in Queen Millie's voice is impossible to quantify. "Now, wave to the masses -- at least those masses who were able to drop everything on such short notice! Then you two love bugs can have some private time!!"
”Uh, hi masses. Thanks for stopping by.” Femtite waves awkwardly.
She then turns to her mother, maintaining the pleasant expression like a saleslady ventriloquist, ”Mommy, Earth has Age of Consent laws… and then there’s consent.
“Is there a reason you’re rushing things? I’m glad you approve of my relationship with Connie, but so far we are the only couple of our circle of friends to stay together.
“I’m grateful you found a way for Connie to be a pixite, but I assumed this was a magic that can allow her to go to Earth, the Nanometeor, Earth. Can we talk about this?”
Either I’m the voice of reason, or I just alienated both mother and girlfriend.
The queen's smile starts looking impatient. "This is my gift to you, my sweet daughter. I've made it so you two can be together! Connie is everything she was, but now able to be everything you want!"
”You’ve done something I believed to be impossible, Mother! It’s just that… you don’t know all of what attracts me to Connie.
“She’s strong. Not superhero strong, but something greater—she knows what she wants, who she is, and won’t conform for anybody. To be changed on terms that are not her own… that isn’t Connie.
“And yes, I want to explore her in this pixite body—I truly do—but I’ve never been human enough for her in a way that is physically safe, and we are a couple in spite of our obstacles! She takes pride in the burn on her neck from my kiss. I became water for her once. And she was willing to risk your wonderful gift because she chose to meet you, and yes, enter the Lavender Spire—to honor you, Mother!
“But… with a visit.”
Queen Millie's smile falters as she runs a hand along her daughter's cheek. "Oh, this was a one-way trip for her. It's for the best, you'll see. You'll have her here, without the challenges or obstacles!"
Connie thinks, This kind of thing is why I have trust issues.
Femtite notes Connie’s silence. She’s pissed, but won’t defy the queen. Well if Mother expects me to be queen, I can’t back down.
”Mother… I beg to differ.
“Every success I’ve had with defending people of Halcyon City, keeping the Nanometeor safe, and relationships with teammates and especially Connie is from following my heart.
“So what kind of Queen will I be if I do to Connie what I know, in my heart, to be so terribly wrong? If I can give up on the girl I care about most, how easily will I give up on everything else? The other four queens will surely test that, after seeing my weakness is not just a bent antenna, but something vile and selfish and heartless. Then everything you worked for will dwindle.”
Connie says, "And not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm definitely not staying now anyways."
There is a sickened look in Femtite’s eyes as Connie speaks. Her golden glow pales to a dim off-white.
But before she paints the grim picture of the Armageddon Connie’s ripcord would cause, she gives her mother a moment to respond.
Queen Millie waves a hand and the Pixite audience begins to disperse. She leans in closer. "We shouldn't be discussing this in public."
She motions for Femtite and Connie to follow her out of the grand chamber and into a far more intimate setting. It's lush, with muted colors beyond the human spectrum -- the perfect honeymoon suite for a pair of Pixites.
"You're ruining my gift to you, and appearing ungrateful," her mother chides. "Don't tell me you thought you and she could snap back and forth on a whim? You're smarter than that. There was only one way for this to work, and that was to have Love Bug, The capture Connie's essence while her body is obliterated, and placed in a specially-prepared body. If you didn't think to ask, it's your fault for not asking more questions. Now. Why don't you two celebrate your new lives together?"
She turns to leave.
Femtite pleads, ”You mean this isn’t a test?”
A naïve part of her hoped her mother wanted a strong daughter, or one who would show her love by defending Connie. But it seems Connie is property as far as the Queen Mother is concerned.
”Oh, Mother, do you realize how dangerous humans could be to our entire civilization? The whole point of me growing to their size is to protect our world.
“How can I do that if we kidnap Connie?—who can reverse the process!”
She’s not sure if her mother OR Connie has considered what a catastrophe that would be. A human sitting on the Nanometeor is like Saturn sitting on Earth. And shards of glass would rain onto the world from the shattered case, just to make the transformation that much more chaotic.
”Mother, this IS a great gift. I’m not turning against you. I have the smartest Earthling there is at my side—there’s a way the Bug can store her pixite essence too, then back-and-forth is possible.”
…she hopes.
And I hope Connie gets that if I don’t play to Mother’s ego, she’ll never come around.
The queen pauses and looks over her shoulder. "Oh, I know. I know all too well what sort of threat the humans pose to us. You're not the only one working to ensure our safety."
On that note, Queen Millie strides out of the suite.
Fem turns to Connie. ”Uh… that last part makes things even worse than I feared. She’s acting out of fear and keeping me in the dark.
“I just wish she did so at my expense, not y—”
Fem looks at Connie. She is obviously terrified.
But she’s also a princess.
”We need to go to my other mother. No one knows Love Bug, The better than Mel.”
"Yeah. I hadn't asked, but I assume Bug isn't a unique concept?" Connie's face is hard to read. "Either way, Mel's seems like the place to be."
Femtite shakes her head. ”It is the second-most advanced craft in the Nanometeor.”
Not wanting to come off as insensitive, Fem takes Connie’s hand.
”Connie… I’m sorry my tiny world proved to be a huge disappointment.“
She doesn’t burst into tears. Femtite is in a fight-flight mode, eyes roaming the strange room.
Connie mechanically squeezes Femms's hand. "The world's fine by me..."
Femtite replies, ”I appreciate you not blaming the world for…”
She can’t bring herself to say it. Her eyes grow sickly pale again.
”Let’s get out of here,” she says coldly.
The Pixite Mel flies out from beneath a strange contraption in her garage. "Femtite! What a pleasure! Is this... who I think it is?" she asks, looking at Pixite Connie.
”Yes, Mom! This is Connie—Connie, this is Mom! I guess you call her Mel, but I don’t. She’s… sh-she’s M-Mom-m.”
The glow returns to Femtite as she throws her arms around her mother. ”Mom…” she sobs, ”…she betrayed us both.”
Connie says, "Yeah. What's that word for when you're shocked but not surprised?"
Mel takes Femtite into her arms for an embrace. "No, she didn't betray you. I did."
Connie's eyes, already a bit unfocused, go flat.
Mel says, "I'm so sorry. I can't say no to your mother. I love her. You understand that, right? Even when you know it's wrong, you do it any way?"
Fem shakes her head. She places a hand on Connie’s. ”No. It’s not a betrayal. You didn’t know. She tricked us both.
“And I trust you, Mom. I know you hooked up the device in the Bug under Mother’s orders.
“And I know you can help us. Connie…” Fem turns to her. ”…I wanted us to enjoy each other like this, to explore my world. But…” She faces Mel again. ”…I thought Mother would let her and I travel freely. How perfect would it be if we could both belong in two worlds?
“I was blinded by possibility and failed to see the truth.”
Connie asks, "Where's my body?"
Femtite asks, ”Stored in the Bug, right?”
Connie ignores Femms's response, watching Mel closely.
Mel sighs as she looks at the two Pixites in front of her. "I hoped that... you'd eventually like it? Like Millie promised?"
She deflates as Connie speaks up. "Um. Gone. Blown up. The Bug served its purpose.
Fem interjects, ”Wait… the body is, but the essence is stored in the Bug, isn’t it?”
Mel continues, "But, I went ahead and saved a backup. Just in case. Millie will kill me. Maybe not literally, but... close enough."
Fem says, ”I knew I could trust you!”
Connie just stares, uninterested in making Mel feel any better about what she did.
Mel's smile at Femtite is sad. "I don't know what good it'll do. There's just no way to rebuild Connie's body here -- at this scale her atoms would be compressed into a singularity. But an ordinary Pixite cannot grow to the size of a human without going supernova," she explains.
Fem offers, ”Then what if I take you to Earth with me? As long as you remain in the Bug…”
She pauses. Love Bug, The served its purpose.
”Love Bug, The was obliterated too, wasn’t it?”
Mel nods solemnly. "I'm working on its replacement. Love Bug Two, Electric Bugaloo. I'm not sure I like the name."
Femtite can’t help but giggle, even in this dire situation. ”I love it, Mom!”
She turns to Connie, checking to see how she’s holding up. There’s hope… but I think best case is she detests Good Mom less than Queen Mom.
Mel looks relieved, or at least as relieved as she can be under the circumstances. She moves to the contraption and starts tinkering with it. "I might have a temporary solution. But it's not ready yet. Best that you don't make your mother suspicious about what I'm doing. Understand?"
Connie replies, "Yeah. She might do something terrible."
Femtite kisses her mother on the cheek. ”Played the crown princess role for sixteen years. I can handle it.”
She turns to Connie. ”How about we fly over the Mauve Mountains? There’s a cavernous summit with an abundance of sweet-spotted fungi. Even if this pixite body is only temporary…”
At the word ‘temporary,’ Femtite’s voice falters. All she wants to say is you still need to eat, but the idea that Queen Millie so casually destroyed Connie’s body—and that the solution is to permanently destroy this lovely pixite form—Femtite is too overwhelmed with grief to speak.
And she definitely needs to stay away from her Queen Mother for the time being.
Cyan and Scarlett twitch in impatience next to Max as she plans the best move. Stopping the fleeing vehicle would be the surest way of ending the current crisis quickly; either by sheer brute force or imposing some sort of barrier that would force the driver to stop. Unless the vehicle's occupants have powers, they could be overwhelmed easily enough.
What do you do?
"Blah blah blah," Ne'veah says. "I know butcher shops are so much more convenient, but I still want to try a fresh kill."
She walks along the streets with Grace, ears twitching at the sound of distant sirens and the noises of the city. "I don't want to join your team, Grace. I want a team of my own. Has anyone, you know, come to you? About wanting to change? Or, we should recruit. I don't know about Sophie, but I think Jasmine or even Siobhan. Then we need a couple males. A-Rob, for starters. Who would you pick? I know you're in rebound-mode, but we gotta move quick before they actually come up with a cure."
"Alright, we've got to stop that car. I'm going to get in front of it and cut off its escape route. If the people inside are violent, use your powers to charm them and stop them from hurting anybody. But don't hurt them, and don't do anything lewd to them, either!" Max says.
She rushes along the rooftops, then leaps down in front of the speeding sedan. She grabs a hold of the bumper and strains, using all of her inhuman might to hold fast and stop the car!
Grace comments ”I am still dating Max. And I don’t want to leave the team I’m on, but I definitely can see myself leading up a pride of Halcyon Panthers. Who else do you think we could convince. I bet Sophie would roll over also, with a bit of convincing. S%$+, she basically twisted my arm to get me to take the pill to begin with!”
Devil Diva leaps down and catches the car just as it swerves around a corner. Unbeknownst to everyone, there was a line of people waiting to get into a club! The hood of the car crumples as it slams into the Transformed, and she slides back just scant feet away from the club going hopefuls!
Cyan and Scarlett swoop in moments after and rip off the doors of the car with their own demonic strength. The blue demon yanks the driver out of his seat. The red one first grabs the barrel of a gun and twists it from the passenger's hand before also pulling him out.
The police cruisers in pursuit slam on their brakes and squeal tires as they come to a stop, blocking that end of the street.
The chase is over in seconds. There's a tense moment when Cyan and Scarlett could do anything to the pair, but it's over when Cyan blows a kiss to her target. The officers quickly take control of the situation and place the pair under arrest.
The small crowd outside the club cheer and train their cell phone cameras on the three demon girls.
"That was fun!" Scarlett exclaims, and strikes a pose so the bystanders can get her good side. Immediately the crowd starts asking about there being three Devil Divas.
What do you do??
Ne'veah's eyes go wide when Grace says she's still seeing Max. "Look at you! Dating Max, and Shin? Sounds like you're still one short. Unless Max is enough for you?" Her expression is a little conflicted, because the school siding with Max was what prompted her parents to pull her out of school in the first place. But without that, she wouldn't have changed.
"I don't know about Sophie. I think she'd want to be in control. I get it, it's funny that she pushed most of us into the pills, but once she changes I think she'll want to take credit for all of it. Not saying we couldn't take her, but why bother?"
Max smiles and waves to the crowd, basking in her hero moment. When the questions start coming about the Diva Trio, she merely says, "You'll hear more soon!"
She quickly ushers Cyan and Scarlett out of the limelight before she gets in too deep. Once they are alone again, she can't help but grin at her sisters. "Okay. That was pretty good for your first outing. You followed orders well. Maybe there is some hope for you, after all."
Grace looks over at Nev and says ”There’s only one at the top, and that is me,” as she subconsciously adds the weight of her influence behind the statement. ”And I meant what I said. No. Hunting. We are better than that.”
She brushes her hair back behind her head and ties it into a ponytail. ”Anyway. Let’s talk to them all as we can. The more that see how good the change makes them feel, the more that will stop being scared of it!”
Cyan and Scarlett protest Max pulling them away from the crowd. "What are you doing? They love us! And that's The Coupe Club! I've always wanted to check it out! I'll bet you they'll let us in no problem (well, we're always let in) and we'll drink for free!"
"We always drink for free too, Scarlett," Cyan points out.
The red demon shimmies her shoulders. "All the more reason to celebrate! Come on! Maxie has shown us the way of the superhero, now let's show her how to have a little fun!"
They tug Max back toward the nightclub. What do you do??
Ne'veah takes an unconscious step back, her eyes widening. At this point, Grace may have expected her longtime friend to challenge her, assume she's joking, or blow it off.
Instead, she just nods.
After a couple seconds where she's uncharacteristically flustered, Ne'veah clears her throat. "Yeah. It's great, so let's show them!"
Max pulls away from the other demons. ”No. First of all, I’m not even old enough to be in that place. Secondly, ‘celebrating’ with the two of you will not be good for my hero image. I think that’s enough hero lessons for one day. I’ve got school work to catch up on.”
Cyan and Scarlett look disappointed that Max doesn't go party with them, but they don't press the issue. When Max takes their leave of them, he last sees them selecting a couple people in the line and escorting them into the club.
The Mauve Mountains are breathtaking. It's hard to imagine that they're microscopic, yet they rival the picturesque French Alps in scope and grandeur. Amid the dizzying crystalline spires, spotted fungus spores are impaled upon the delicate lattice work and scores of Pixites labor to harvest the delectable foodstuff.
Femtite picks a sweet-spotted fungi and offers it to Connie.
”I know this sounds stupid. I really wanted to feed these to you one spot at a time—the way a harem girl treats a princess. I wanted this to be fun, romantic, and… safe.”
"Well, that makes you 0 for 3, which if I've overheard Shin's baseball jargon correctly means you have fully struck out. Not hungry anyways."
Fem clarifies, ”I don’t mean now. I meant the plan before. And I struck extra outings, as a baseball quarterback might say, because the timing of this getaway was to get away from the drama, suspicion, betrayal, unprovoked cruelty.
“But you do need to eat. You’ll get fatigued. You don’t want to give my Queen Mother and excuse to have her harem give you a Dining Lesson.”
"Femtite, I am not hungry."
What horrifies Femtite about Connie’s reply is all that wasn’t said.
”Okay.” Femtite is hesitant to say more than that.
I struck out. I’m zero.
”Then please… say what’s on your mind.
Connie is completely unreadable. Femtite can only hope that Connie will open up, and the harsh truth is something Fem can handle.
"Is it actually unclear what's on my mind? Like, at all? Would me giving you a list really help you understand, or just let you pick at whatever's easiest to address?"
Connie’s feigned calmness is almost worse than if she were yelling and swearing, except for the part where yelling and swearing would draw attention.
”Yes, it is. I mean, why you’re upset is obvious… but who you’re upset at most is not. What you expect me to do is not. And I don’t know if the pretense with my mother made you think I didn’t care, and if the way my mother’s betrayal shut me down seemed to affirm that.
“But that’s not true. I’m trying very hard to stay strong because if I burst into a hot mess, I’m no good to you.”
"Femtite, I really don't care about ranking blame right now. Waiting for Mel's next move seems like the fix with the best odds, and it gives me time to try to get solutions that don't lead to widespread havoc or require me to recreate entire philosophies of magic for a literally alien cultural context."
Femtite is visibly calmer at these words. She doesn’t hate me for this then… just being rational.
”I see. You’re just calculating and… not letting my Queen Mother get to you.
“We can lay low here then move to a new location as the Gatherers finish their work day. In the meantime, I should give you a bit of what’s on my mind—
“I’m just completely amazed at how calm you are in a situation where you have every right to be—“ Femtite never swears. ”—miffed.
“I’m sure you’re holding back a lot, as I am. But you’re my top priority right now—please know this.”
Image
She truly is very proud of Connie, and not so worried that she’s looking at a calm-before-storm (which is the case for herself).
"I. Am not. Calm."
"But if you get me some jumper cables and scissors, local equivalents obviously, I can contact the team."
”Between you and Mom, that should be possible…
“Then maybe we take a roundabout route to get there, and go now.”
Once in flight, far from prying antennae, Fem says, ”I hope you know I didn’t think my Mother was capable of this.
“Connie, I’m trying but… just tell me what I should or shouldn’t do to be the best girlfriend to you that I can be in this situation. I feel like I’m failing you.
“Please just give me a tip… at least one, so I don’t make things worse.”
"Femtite, I get that your parents hurt someone you care about in a horrible way, and I get how much that betrayal stings, but as the person who is being hurt in the horrible way, I've gotta put on my own f&~~ing oxygen mask first! Okay?!"
Femtite stifles herself as advised!
She leads Connie to Mel’s.
When they arrive at Mel's garage, there are a pair of royal Pixite guards stationed outside!
"Not looking to hurt them. Do you have like, actual authority to tell them to let us in? I don't know how flexible this form is for size-shifting, and we'd still have to carry everything out."
”Both my mothers are there. Let’s back off. I have safer means of contacting the team:
“The museum has a phone.”
Connie can only be 1pm tall, which makes it stupidly risky to fly her off of the Nanometeor.
But if Connie is fine with hiding somewhere (Mauve Mountains, or a place they haven’t yet been), Fem will fly out of the glass case (where no guard is posted) and make a call.
• • •
Femtite gets Shin’s number from Connie.
She then subatomically escapes her planets, and devours a few germs by the pay-phone before growing full size to use it.
She calls Shin. ”It’s Femtite. Get the team to the museum and call me back when all are assembled.
“Connie needs help. I can’t save her alone.”
She hangs up, or so it seems on Shin’s end. But in reality, she destroyed the museum’s pay phone.
Image
A strange and useless pinkish-purplish material is on the wall where an old pay phone used to be.
The phone is now a subatomic unstructure that Femtite is taking with her as she races back to Pixite Connie!
School is the same as usual, though Connie and Femtite do not show up to any of their classes.
Ne'veah catches Grace's attention and the two of them manage to corner Sophie in the halls. The volleyball team captain looks somewhat nervous as the two felinoids press in close.
"Hey, Sophiaaaa," Ne'veah purrs. "You know, me and Grace were thinking, you should join us, right? Quit taking those morning pills, be strong and fast and agile. It's such a rush. Whaddya say?"
Sophie shakes her head. "No! I'm sorry I got you into this, but I don't want... I don't want to change! Not that you don't, you know, look great and all! Really!"
She looks at Grace, worry and guilt on her face.
What do you do??
Midway through the day, Shin gets a call on his phone. The connection is bad, and the voice on the other end is tinny, but he's pretty sure it's Femtite.
”It’s Femtite. Get the team to the museum and call me back when all are assembled.
“Connie needs help. I can’t save her alone.”
The line goes dead.
What do you do??
"Fem? Fem!" Shin calls back on the other line. He's worried. There's an icy dread from Fem's worry for Connie. What was wrong with her?
He doesn't know what's going on, but he puts the call our through their comms to everyone - Percy, Grace, Caio and Max. "We've got an emergency situation. Femtite and Conflux are in trouble at the museum. I don't know the specifics, but I can assume it has something to do with Femtite's home on the Nanometeor. Drop whatever you're doing and get there on the double!"
Shin was still hurting. He should still have a couple more days of recuperation before he went out into the field. But this was a call to him from Fem. She wouldn't have called him specifically after his awfulness if the situation wasn't dire enough to need all hands on deck. So he suited up, downed a couple ibuprofen to help with the pain, and flew off towards the museum as fast as possible.
He waits at the entrance to the museum for the rest of the team, anxious and worried as he looks for any sign of Femtite and Conflux here.
Grace shrugs. ”Why not? Exactly? I mean, it’s actually VERY liberating! Before, I felt like I had to walk on egg shells so nobody figured me out. But now,” she stretches and flaunts her much curvier, stronger body, ”Nev and I are at our peaks!”
Grace then brings a hand to her ear and listens, then sighs and rolls her eyes. ”I got a hero call to go tend to. Listen, Soph. I wouldn’t try and pressure you into something that would hurt you! This was a game you started, so why quit half through? Think about it! Panther pride and all that! When the other schools students all start seeing the light and turning, do we want to be behind the curve or at the head of the race?”
She then lifts off her shirt and shimmies out of her shorts, revealing her new super suit underneath which was basically a long loincloth that left the sides of her legs bare, some undergarments, and a sports bra. All black in color which provided a stark contrast to her golden fur. ”See ya around!” she adds with a wink before darting off!
Max was still thinking about her encounter with her sisters the other day. A part of her had wanted to join them in the club, just let loose and see what happened. Was that Violet's influence? What would become of her if she let that voice inside win?
Shin's call comes as a welcome distraction. Max ducks out of the classroom and makes a beeline for the museum, her clothes slithering across her body to transform into her hero costume. She leaps from rooftop to rooftop, landing in a crouch outside the museum's entrance.
Of course, she would be the first one there aside from Shin. Max had been avoiding him since their last confrontation the other day. She gives him a wary look. "Horizon," she says, her tone measured and guarded.
As Grace leaves, Nev gives her a wink while Sophie still looks uncertain.
The Halcyon Museum of Natural History is open, with its regular midday business. There are a couple school buses parked on the street outside, and a few classes of grade schoolers on a field trip being herded by teachers and chaperones near the lobby.
As you return back to Nanometeor and Connie's hiding place, you're able to see from a distance Queen Millie and her guards flying back to the palace. Mel is not among them, and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with her garage.
What do you do??
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Percy hears his communicator ringing and is about to protest that he specifically said not to call him about any superheroing, that is until Shin mentions that Connie is in trouble. He doesn't exactly spring into action but he goes about donning his robes and gear as he usually would before he feels the phlegm in his throat coalesce and cause him to gag mid teleportation spell, causing a cup of mechanical pencils to embed themselves halfway into the wall.
He hacks up the phlegmy ball and spits it into his bathroom sink and looks up into the mirror with tired eyes. Pressing his Communicator and speaking in a voice that betrays his current state, "Horizon let me know when you get to the museum, find a mirror and call me back.. I don't know if I can risk actually going out right now. I just choked and shotgunned a bunch of pencils into the wall."
Caio overhears the conversation between the three girls and frowns, worried as he gets the message from Shin. As Grace bolts away, Caio approaches Ne'veah and Sophie. "Do as they say and this will change your life forever, girl." He simply says. "Don't give up on your dreams just to fit in." Caio is then off and after Grace.
---
Caio arrives at the museum a couple minutes after Grace, nodding to the others.
"Understood, Indarius. I'll keep you updated, but get here as soon as you can," Horizon says over comms to Percy. "This feels like a situation that might call for some magic."
Once everyone else is gathered, he fills them in on what's happened, before heading in with them into the area that holds a bunch of natural minerals and other stones, including the Nanometeor. Horizon keeps a good twenty feet away from that display case though. "Far as I can tell, she called my phone from a number that looks like it's from a payphone...which is no longer around. I'm going to try calling it back and see if anyone picks up."
He starts to dial, then pauses. "...So, I'm assuming they must not have access to their comms if they're calling my phone. If they're microscopic...I would assume that my ambient powers might interfere with any signal they send. Fem's voice on the phone was definitely hard to hear."
He hands the phone over to Caio to redial. "Get up to the display case for the best signal. Try and reach Femtite and Conflux. We need to clarify what's happened so we can figure out how to help them."
Horizon pointedly steps further back from the case as he lets Caio take the lead here, not trusting that he might interfere with his powers without knowing. He was also quite purposefully giving space between himself and Max and Grace specifically.
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While the rest of the group physically travels to the museum Percy locks his door and sits down in front of his bed wrapping himself in a blanket for a bit. He then projects himself astrally towards the museum trying to search out for the group via any of the mirrored surfaces, eventually he spots them and focus's.
For a few seconds Horizon thinks he spots the reflection of Indarius in one of the glass panels he's walking past as they near the natural minerals display area, but the second he turns to look it's gone as if it were simply a figment of his imagination. A small time later a very realistic copy of Indarius appears next to the squad looking not nearly as hagard as the real Indy. Their comms all chime with the stuffy sounding Percy, "Alright sorry I couldn't be here in person, but this simulacrum should work well enough."
Grace remained as far from Horizon as possible as the group came together, purposely waiting until some others arrived before she actually approached. She lets him do his “briefing” asking ”How do we know this is an emergency and not some over reaction?” she asks, adding pointed emphasis to the last word.
If only Mel is inside, Femtite grows back and asks, ”Mom—is everything okay?”
Caio interrupts Grace and Nev's pressure on Sophie. The volleyball captain, still looking conflicted, hurries off to the next class. Ne'veah's eyes narrow into slits and mutters, "Okay. Wolf-boy's going down."
Femtite sees that Mel is alone. She smiles at her weakly.
"The queen paid me a visit. She... knows me too well. She's afraid I might help you get Connie out of Nanometeor. She's bid me ground Love Bug Two. It's a direct order... I'm so sorry, dear."
She looks sick to her thorax. After a moment, she looks at Femtite, alarmed. "Is-- is she okay? How is she taking it?"