Displaced 1.1
Surprise is not something that I fall prey to often, given the capabilities...
Surprise is not something that I fall prey to often, given the capabilities...
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Displaced 1.1
ellf
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
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Displaced 1.1
Surprise is not something that I fall prey to often, given the capabilities and information at my disposal. The precautions that I have taken after the last time surprise came to me and fail safes that I put into place should have prevented anything on Earth or the Nevernever from inducing that state. Due to the dismissal of my driver, the additional precautions that he would put into place were not something that I could count on. I was not paying him anymore, after all. At least the ones who made an attempt on me the last time, the Denarians, would suffer the consequences for violating the Unseelie Accords. Mab is a stickler for rules, after all, and she must enforce the neutrality that my station grants.
It is the duty of the Archive to remain neutral, and when my grandmother signed on to Mab's Accords, she ensured that the Archive would remain a neutral party there as well. It was a stipulation agreed upon by both Mab and my grandmother. After all, Mab knew the true purpose of the Archive, and she even agreed with it, once she and Titania had ingrained themselves as far into the culture of society as they had in all of their identities. The Fae were hardly the worst things to survive the purging of the Oblivion War.
Of course, that didn't matter now. Surprise was not an emotion that came easily to me, as I said, but imagine the surprise that I felt when I stepped through the door of the hotel room I was staying at in Youngstown, Ohio and into someone's apartment. Teleportation was not something I did casually, nor would I cross a threshold without an invitation. That just would invite trouble on its own. Of course, most buildings had their carpet be in the gravitational down direction. They didn't have windows on the ceiling, drapes hanging down like ropes, and their furniture was usually on the carpeted ground, not bunched up in heaps on what would be the walls. The body of an unconscious woman under some computers, not two feet from where I'd appeared, bleeding out her nose and mouth was also something unusual.
Then there was the scream, echoing in my skull. It wasn't out loud, and its timbre never changed, the pitch remaining the same until it faded to a dull whisper before disappearing entirely. The Archive has measures to protect itself from mental tampering, and it extends those measures to me. Forcibly manipulating me through my mind alone is nearly impossible. Many have tried, all have failed. The countermeasures are in place to allow me, like those before me, to perform the duties of the Archive and eliminate the beings that deserve Oblivion.
Unfortunately, the same protections did not extend to the mortals near me. I walked over to the girl and crouched down next to her, feeling her pulse. She was alive, but only just. Her breathing was shallow, and her pulse was faint. If she did not get to a hospital soon or receive some form of healing, she would likely pass. I let out a breath as the building rocked, indicating a sort of impact from outside. I allowed some of my energy to permeate into her. While this was unnecessary if I wasn't planning to heal the girl, this Noelle Meinhardt, as her identification said, I was unsure as to where specifically I had ended up. Queries indicated that I was on another version of Earth, and if I were to help this person, I would have someone to vouch for me. If not her, then one of her companions. I expended a simple effort of will to remove the computer equipment from her, likely frying what was left of the electronics in the process. Moving Miss Meinhardt without doing further damage to her body would be difficult in this area.
"Noelle!" A young man with long dark hair and light brown skin, perhaps a few years older than myself, climbed over the furniture. He wore sweats and a hoodie. Francis Krouse, according to his own identification. He swiftly made his way to Noelle's side, crouching near her. He felt for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief, but then he noticed me. "Wait… where did you come from?"
"Is that what you really should be worrying about at the moment, Mister Krouse?" I asked, gesturing at the rest of the apartment and then Noelle. "She's not in great shape, but she is alive. We need to get her out of the building before she can be treated."
Krouse let out an impressive swear word, and he made his way over to the wall that would have led to the kitchen. The doorway was now ten feet above us, and the lower wall that had encircled it now created a surface on which a few more people rested. Luke Brito, Cody Schuman, Marissa Newland, Jessica Smith, and Oliver Jones were alive, but I detected no life signs from the body under a bookcase, Christopher Howland. These poor people had lost a friend. Such a pity.
I knew how that felt, and my friend wasn't even as close to me in age as theirs was. They were all close to me in age.
Which explained how they were dealing with the situation. The echoing "Oh god" coming from one of the girls up top indicated that such a situation was new for them. In a way, I envied their innocence. These things were old hat to me from the moment I was born. As much as I knew Harry would have preferred otherwise, he could not stop what had already happened. I still appreciated the gift he gave me, my name. Yes. If my mother had actually been a mother, perhaps she would have given me a name rather than punishing me for my birth with her suicide. Yet I couldn't bring myself to hate her. My grandmother loved her daughter, and I remembered my mother's childhood, before my grandmother had gotten the mantle. It had been good. Everything I had been unable to have.
"Noelle's hurt," Krouse said. "But there's some middle schooler by her side, helping her out."
I took some slight offense to that. If I were to attend school, I would be a sophomore in high school due to my age.
"Chris is dead," Luke Brito said, brushing some blood off his face. I met his eyes for a second as he looked me over impassively. It wasn't long enough to initiate a soulgaze before I turned my attention back down to Noelle. I used my energy to feel out her injuries. The trauma to her fibula meant she would likely need a cast, but the concussive damage to her skull could be an indication of brain damage. Without some sort of healing, the longer we took to get to a hospital, the worse her chances looked.
Very well.
"I'm not certain that you can hear me, Noelle," I said, leaning closer to the girl. "But if you accept this healing, it will work even better. Just open yourself to it if you can."
Without waiting for an acknowledgement that wouldn't come, I crafted the spellform. The healing spell is not something most practitioners are capable of casting, as it's complicated and requires a knowledge of the human form that a medical doctor does not typically have the memory to retain. There is a reason they have their books after all. The spells origins are numerous. Some are from pre-Judaic traditions, both pagan and Abrahamic, some from druids and other Celtic mythological factions, some, like myself, come from Merlin, and some come from the Christ himself. Whether the man was indeed the Son of God or not is a long debate that I didn't dare have on my own, but what wasn't debatable were his miracles and the magic he used. The spell I was using here combined Celic traditions with the Merlin-focused traditions, and it combined use of the target's will and the ambient energy of the surrounding area. Briefly, my eyes glanced up at the apartment's effective skylights, and for a second, I caught a glimpse of golden light.
Whatever that was, it could wait until after I was complete. I could feel the Archive stirring at the thought of being called upon, but I shifted my focus back to the girl.
I spoke a word so ancient that it was unlikely anyone on this Earth or any Earth even knew the language existed and used it to focus my spell. I directed the energy of the spell into Noelle Meinhardt, picturing the way her body should be. A major benefit to what I am made the manipulation of energy as simple as manipulating a physical object with your hands. Applied knowledge goes a long way, and when you are the repository of all of humanity's knowledge, there is a nigh infinite amount of knowledge to apply. Of course, about eighty percent of it was either useless or full of adult material, but none of that affected the healing. Instead, I could see the results beginning. The physical trauma to her fibula and the other bone issues had begun to repair. If there was brain damage, it would take longer to fix, and I intended on helping that along as best I could.
"What are you doing to her?" Francis Krouse asked. He clearly was concerned about the girl.
"Healing her," I said, keeping a hand on her body. Her breath was becoming more stable and her pulse less faint. "She'll likely wake up on her own in half an hour, and she should be able to walk. She's certainly stable for now."
"Does that mean she can be moved?" Krouse asked.
I nodded.
"Good," Luke said from his place on the higher wall. "Because we need to get out of here. I don't trust the building not to collapse on us."
Krouse lifted Noelle off the ground and onto his shoulder. He staggered a bit under the weight, and I wordlessly cast another spell I knew to lighten his load some. I shifted the effects of gravity on Noelle to about the strength of the moon.
Luke disappeared from view for a second, and not long after, he returned with a knotted sheet that he threw down one end of.
"Do you mind if I head up first?" Krouse asked me.
I shook my head. "Get up there."
He climbed the rope, and when he was high enough, Luke finished helping him up the rest of the way. Luke and Krouse both called out to the others up there about me, and Luke looked back down.
"You coming up, kid?" Luke asked.
I grabbed on and climbed, thanking my past self for the prescience I had to actually exercise. Some of it had been at Kincaid's insistence, but I'd kept up with it.
When I made it to the room above, I took stock. Jessica Smith was caught between a couch and a bookshelf, or rather her wheelchair was. Being an obvious paraplegic, she likely was stuck there, and the blood running from her bloodshot right eye indicated she was lucky that was one of her only injuries.
Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for Christopher. The top of the bookcase had bisected his head, and… while that was not the worst death I had seen in person, it was possibly in the top ten.
"Who the hell is this?" Cody Schuman asked, gesturing to me.
"She healed Noelle," Krouse said. "Without prompting."
"A cape? A parahuman?" Marissa Newland asked, her chanting stopped as she looked up from her dead friend. She met my eyes for a second, and as I looked away, I gave a slight shake of my head. I wasn't what anyone would call a cape, though I supposed the term parahuman might apply.
"Call me Ivy," I said, forestalling any sort of question with a raised hand.
"What, do you have the power to control plants?" Cody asked.
"That's my name," I said. The words "and I'm not a cape" died on my lips as I looked over the seven of them. This wasn't their world. There weren't any records of any of them on any rosters that I could find either locally or otherwise. Whichever Earth they were from, they like me, were displaced. Though I wasn't on my world, if I were dealing with supernatural parties, I would be required to be neutral. However, my neutrality didn't hold when preservation of my life came to mind. And my own personal choices involved four words.
What would Harry do?
This group needed some sliver of hope. They'd lost a friend and nearly lost another. If identifying myself as a cape, one willing to protect them, gave them that hope? Why should I deny it? This was a situation where I could freely act with my own will, and I was planning to take advantage of that. It was easy to know Harry's choices.
"Very well," I said, and I muttered one more spell, a short-range transportation spell. It was not unlike stepping into the Nevernever, but it was direct, and the energy build-up I had managed to gather allowed it to open at the base of the fallen building. Outside, snow fell, and a glimpse of the air showed… something happening. I couldn't tell what at this distance, but it had to be better than staying here. I smiled at the group. "I am the Archive. Come with me if you want to live."
The only thing Harry might have done differently was lighting the building on fire. Of course, judging from the smoke I smelled, that might have been redundant.
At least it wasn't my fault.
Surprise is not something that I fall prey to often, given the capabilities and information at my disposal. The precautions that I have taken after the last time surprise came to me and fail safes that I put into place should have prevented anything on Earth or the Nevernever from inducing that state. Due to the dismissal of my driver, the additional precautions that he would put into place were not something that I could count on. I was not paying him anymore, after all. At least the ones who made an attempt on me the last time, the Denarians, would suffer the consequences for violating the Unseelie Accords. Mab is a stickler for rules, after all, and she must enforce the neutrality that my station grants.
It is the duty of the Archive to remain neutral, and when my grandmother signed on to Mab's Accords, she ensured that the Archive would remain a neutral party there as well. It was a stipulation agreed upon by both Mab and my grandmother. After all, Mab knew the true purpose of the Archive, and she even agreed with it, once she and Titania had ingrained themselves as far into the culture of society as they had in all of their identities. The Fae were hardly the worst things to survive the purging of the Oblivion War.
Of course, that didn't matter now. Surprise was not an emotion that came easily to me, as I said, but imagine the surprise that I felt when I stepped through the door of the hotel room I was staying at in Youngstown, Ohio and into someone's apartment. Teleportation was not something I did casually, nor would I cross a threshold without an invitation. That just would invite trouble on its own. Of course, most buildings had their carpet be in the gravitational down direction. They didn't have windows on the ceiling, drapes hanging down like ropes, and their furniture was usually on the carpeted ground, not bunched up in heaps on what would be the walls. The body of an unconscious woman under some computers, not two feet from where I'd appeared, bleeding out her nose and mouth was also something unusual.
Then there was the scream, echoing in my skull. It wasn't out loud, and its timbre never changed, the pitch remaining the same until it faded to a dull whisper before disappearing entirely. The Archive has measures to protect itself from mental tampering, and it extends those measures to me. Forcibly manipulating me through my mind alone is nearly impossible. Many have tried, all have failed. The countermeasures are in place to allow me, like those before me, to perform the duties of the Archive and eliminate the beings that deserve Oblivion.
Unfortunately, the same protections did not extend to the mortals near me. I walked over to the girl and crouched down next to her, feeling her pulse. She was alive, but only just. Her breathing was shallow, and her pulse was faint. If she did not get to a hospital soon or receive some form of healing, she would likely pass. I let out a breath as the building rocked, indicating a sort of impact from outside. I allowed some of my energy to permeate into her. While this was unnecessary if I wasn't planning to heal the girl, this Noelle Meinhardt, as her identification said, I was unsure as to where specifically I had ended up. Queries indicated that I was on another version of Earth, and if I were to help this person, I would have someone to vouch for me. If not her, then one of her companions. I expended a simple effort of will to remove the computer equipment from her, likely frying what was left of the electronics in the process. Moving Miss Meinhardt without doing further damage to her body would be difficult in this area.
"Noelle!" A young man with long dark hair and light brown skin, perhaps a few years older than myself, climbed over the furniture. He wore sweats and a hoodie. Francis Krouse, according to his own identification. He swiftly made his way to Noelle's side, crouching near her. He felt for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief, but then he noticed me. "Wait… where did you come from?"
"Is that what you really should be worrying about at the moment, Mister Krouse?" I asked, gesturing at the rest of the apartment and then Noelle. "She's not in great shape, but she is alive. We need to get her out of the building before she can be treated."
Krouse let out an impressive swear word, and he made his way over to the wall that would have led to the kitchen. The doorway was now ten feet above us, and the lower wall that had encircled it now created a surface on which a few more people rested. Luke Brito, Cody Schuman, Marissa Newland, Jessica Smith, and Oliver Jones were alive, but I detected no life signs from the body under a bookcase, Christopher Howland. These poor people had lost a friend. Such a pity.
I knew how that felt, and my friend wasn't even as close to me in age as theirs was. They were all close to me in age.
Which explained how they were dealing with the situation. The echoing "Oh god" coming from one of the girls up top indicated that such a situation was new for them. In a way, I envied their innocence. These things were old hat to me from the moment I was born. As much as I knew Harry would have preferred otherwise, he could not stop what had already happened. I still appreciated the gift he gave me, my name. Yes. If my mother had actually been a mother, perhaps she would have given me a name rather than punishing me for my birth with her suicide. Yet I couldn't bring myself to hate her. My grandmother loved her daughter, and I remembered my mother's childhood, before my grandmother had gotten the mantle. It had been good. Everything I had been unable to have.
"Noelle's hurt," Krouse said. "But there's some middle schooler by her side, helping her out."
I took some slight offense to that. If I were to attend school, I would be a sophomore in high school due to my age.
"Chris is dead," Luke Brito said, brushing some blood off his face. I met his eyes for a second as he looked me over impassively. It wasn't long enough to initiate a soulgaze before I turned my attention back down to Noelle. I used my energy to feel out her injuries. The trauma to her fibula meant she would likely need a cast, but the concussive damage to her skull could be an indication of brain damage. Without some sort of healing, the longer we took to get to a hospital, the worse her chances looked.
Very well.
"I'm not certain that you can hear me, Noelle," I said, leaning closer to the girl. "But if you accept this healing, it will work even better. Just open yourself to it if you can."
Without waiting for an acknowledgement that wouldn't come, I crafted the spellform. The healing spell is not something most practitioners are capable of casting, as it's complicated and requires a knowledge of the human form that a medical doctor does not typically have the memory to retain. There is a reason they have their books after all. The spells origins are numerous. Some are from pre-Judaic traditions, both pagan and Abrahamic, some from druids and other Celtic mythological factions, some, like myself, come from Merlin, and some come from the Christ himself. Whether the man was indeed the Son of God or not is a long debate that I didn't dare have on my own, but what wasn't debatable were his miracles and the magic he used. The spell I was using here combined Celic traditions with the Merlin-focused traditions, and it combined use of the target's will and the ambient energy of the surrounding area. Briefly, my eyes glanced up at the apartment's effective skylights, and for a second, I caught a glimpse of golden light.
Whatever that was, it could wait until after I was complete. I could feel the Archive stirring at the thought of being called upon, but I shifted my focus back to the girl.
I spoke a word so ancient that it was unlikely anyone on this Earth or any Earth even knew the language existed and used it to focus my spell. I directed the energy of the spell into Noelle Meinhardt, picturing the way her body should be. A major benefit to what I am made the manipulation of energy as simple as manipulating a physical object with your hands. Applied knowledge goes a long way, and when you are the repository of all of humanity's knowledge, there is a nigh infinite amount of knowledge to apply. Of course, about eighty percent of it was either useless or full of adult material, but none of that affected the healing. Instead, I could see the results beginning. The physical trauma to her fibula and the other bone issues had begun to repair. If there was brain damage, it would take longer to fix, and I intended on helping that along as best I could.
"What are you doing to her?" Francis Krouse asked. He clearly was concerned about the girl.
"Healing her," I said, keeping a hand on her body. Her breath was becoming more stable and her pulse less faint. "She'll likely wake up on her own in half an hour, and she should be able to walk. She's certainly stable for now."
"Does that mean she can be moved?" Krouse asked.
I nodded.
"Good," Luke said from his place on the higher wall. "Because we need to get out of here. I don't trust the building not to collapse on us."
Krouse lifted Noelle off the ground and onto his shoulder. He staggered a bit under the weight, and I wordlessly cast another spell I knew to lighten his load some. I shifted the effects of gravity on Noelle to about the strength of the moon.
Luke disappeared from view for a second, and not long after, he returned with a knotted sheet that he threw down one end of.
"Do you mind if I head up first?" Krouse asked me.
I shook my head. "Get up there."
He climbed the rope, and when he was high enough, Luke finished helping him up the rest of the way. Luke and Krouse both called out to the others up there about me, and Luke looked back down.
"You coming up, kid?" Luke asked.
I grabbed on and climbed, thanking my past self for the prescience I had to actually exercise. Some of it had been at Kincaid's insistence, but I'd kept up with it.
When I made it to the room above, I took stock. Jessica Smith was caught between a couch and a bookshelf, or rather her wheelchair was. Being an obvious paraplegic, she likely was stuck there, and the blood running from her bloodshot right eye indicated she was lucky that was one of her only injuries.
Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for Christopher. The top of the bookcase had bisected his head, and… while that was not the worst death I had seen in person, it was possibly in the top ten.
"Who the hell is this?" Cody Schuman asked, gesturing to me.
"She healed Noelle," Krouse said. "Without prompting."
"A cape? A parahuman?" Marissa Newland asked, her chanting stopped as she looked up from her dead friend. She met my eyes for a second, and as I looked away, I gave a slight shake of my head. I wasn't what anyone would call a cape, though I supposed the term parahuman might apply.
"Call me Ivy," I said, forestalling any sort of question with a raised hand.
"What, do you have the power to control plants?" Cody asked.
"That's my name," I said. The words "and I'm not a cape" died on my lips as I looked over the seven of them. This wasn't their world. There weren't any records of any of them on any rosters that I could find either locally or otherwise. Whichever Earth they were from, they like me, were displaced. Though I wasn't on my world, if I were dealing with supernatural parties, I would be required to be neutral. However, my neutrality didn't hold when preservation of my life came to mind. And my own personal choices involved four words.
What would Harry do?
This group needed some sliver of hope. They'd lost a friend and nearly lost another. If identifying myself as a cape, one willing to protect them, gave them that hope? Why should I deny it? This was a situation where I could freely act with my own will, and I was planning to take advantage of that. It was easy to know Harry's choices.
"Very well," I said, and I muttered one more spell, a short-range transportation spell. It was not unlike stepping into the Nevernever, but it was direct, and the energy build-up I had managed to gather allowed it to open at the base of the fallen building. Outside, snow fell, and a glimpse of the air showed… something happening. I couldn't tell what at this distance, but it had to be better than staying here. I smiled at the group. "I am the Archive. Come with me if you want to live."
The only thing Harry might have done differently was lighting the building on fire. Of course, judging from the smoke I smelled, that might have been redundant.
At least it wasn't my fault.
Displaced 1.2
ellf
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2014
- Messages
- 272
- Likes received
- 7,199
Displaced 1.2
Madison, Wisconsin was not a city that I commonly needed to attend to back home. It was neither a battleground of supernatural proportions nor any area that commonly attracted worshippers of Unseen Things. Honestly, the primary supernatural things near Madison tended to be the Forest People, and I had no need to interact with them unless very specific circumstances came up. My grandmother did interact with the citizens of Milwaukee during the Unseelie Incursion of 1994, when the entire city simply vanished for two hours. Well, technically her interaction with them was after she had managed to broker the tentative peace between the Summer and Winter Courts, culminating in the Unseelie Accords and the Archive's neutrality in them. The people of Milwaukee had lost two hours of their day and were none the wiser for it, and perhaps some things had changed around the city. Of course, Milwaukee was only an hour east of the capital city of Wisconsin.
But this wasn't my Madison. As I stepped through the portal I'd created, I took a look around while waiting for the older teenagers that had been in the apartment. The area around the building was in shambles. Snow had been stirred into clouds, and half a dozen additional buildings had been knocked down, judging from the wreckage. The building we'd come from had toppled, but thankfully, the portal I had made placed us on the ground rather than on top of the building.
Francis Krouse stepped through the portal first, carrying the unconscious form of Noelle Meinhardt. Cody Schuman pushed Jessica Smith out the portal next in her wheelchair, and they were followed quickly by Marissa Newland, Oliver Jones, and Luke Brito. None of them were dressed for the weather, and Luke didn't even have shoes on, opting for his socks only. Jessica's wheelchair was far from being in the best shape, but it still wheeled, and that meant that nobody was taking up energy to carry her the way they were Noelle.
Ideally, the spell I cast on her would allow me to wake her properly soon, and then we could continue our movements.
"We're out of the building?" Francis Krouse asked. He frowned as he looked at me, meeting my eyes for a second before I looked away. It wasn't that I worried about a soulgaze the way wizards did (while I could initiate one, it would only be on purpose, not by accident), but it was generally a good habit to have with unknown people in the supernatural community. Yes, near as I could tell, none of these people had power in that fashion, but such habits are hard to break. He studied me for a second. "Archive, how did you do that? And why aren't you wearing a costume?"
Costume. Cape. While I had Power due to my mantle, this likely wasn't what they were expecting. I did a quick cross-reference on Cape and Costume, discarding anything related to Halloween, and a list of several associated terms came to mind. Parahuman. Parahumans Online. Thinker. Tinker. Master. Blaster. Brute. Stranger. Changer. Shaker. Mover. Breaker. Striker. Trump. Protectorate. Active villains. S-Class threats. Idly, I glanced through relevant information while I readied myself to address the problems at hand.
"It doesn't matter how I did it, Mister Krouse, just that I did," I said. "We are no longer in danger of having the building collapse upon us, but I suggest that we continue to move to an area out of the potential line of fire."
I intentionally avoided talking about my clothing as I gestured around at the collapsed buildings. Something had caused that, and I was working on determining specifics. Near as I could tell, my life was potentially in danger, which meant I could justify certain aspects of power use more than normal.
"That music," Marissa Newland complained. "Driving me crazy…"
Music. Was she talking about the scream that I'd heard for a short time when I first arrived? My mantle shielded me from it, but the seven of them would have no such luck.
"You hear it too?" Francis Krouse asked as he covered his ears with his hands. I presumed that he was cold, given the weather. To be fair, so was I, and I was more dressed for it than they were.
"I thought it was a siren," Oliver Jones said.
"It isn't," I said softly, giving them an apologetic look. "I'm sorry."
"It's in our heads," Francis Krouse said franticly. "Try covering your ears."
I scanned the sky as they did so. The scream had to have a source, and there was only one thing that showed up on local records as having anything resembling a telepathic scream, and I spotted her in the sky. Three buildings floated in midair, hovering a good distance away from us. The lower floors of the buildings looked torn up and ragged from where they were wrenched from the ground. The buildings, one at a time, were lobbed through the air toward something a distance away. Even impacting the ground half a mile away, the ground shook enough that I had to adjust my stance.
Then a flash of golden light ignited, and an irregular shape hurled toward the building, but it somehow redirected to land atop the building immediately above us rather than in the street beside it. The impact was milder than it should have been given the size and speed, and the shape of the being was hard to see through the cloud of snow and debris kicked up, including glass.
But I knew. I felt the power there. It wasn't human. It never had been human, and as it unfurled, as she unfurled, the Simurgh made herself visible to us. She was humanoid, true, albeit fifteen feet tall, waif-thin and unclothed Her platinum-white hair whipped around her, and her many wings stretched around her, giving some sort of illusion of modesty. She was known as Simurgh. Known as Ziz. Yet she had the mantle of neither. Though she had power, energy flowing through her, none of it was spiritual in nature, but instead it was something else.
As she settled onto her tiptoes, I noted that parts of her were translucent, revealing an inky blackness below. She quickly brought up a wing to shield herself as a beam of golden light speared through the clouds. Feathers glowed a golden orange as they were blasted free and dissipated into sparks and motes of light, not dissimilar to evaporating ectoplasm.
"It's the smurf," Cody Shuman said, warily. It wasn't a correct pronunciation, and
"The Simurgh," Jessica corrected in a small voice. "What's she doing here? Why---"
"Enough," I said, cutting her off. It was obvious to me that the group still thought they were on their Earth of origin. That was definitely not the case. "Those questions can be answered later, Miss Smith."
"Call me Jess," she said. "Cody's the one wheeling me. Luke's over there, and Krouse is holding Noelle. Mars and Oliver are right here."
When the others looked at her, she shrugged. "We know her name, and while she knows our names, we never told them."
I nodded, looking up at the Simurgh. She took a brief moment away from watching the sky to meet my gaze with one of her own. The cold calculation I saw in those eyes caused me to raise an eyebrow. She frowned and turned to focus on the more immediate problem, the muscular golden man in the sky wearing a white bodysuit. Scion.
"We need to move, don't we?" Krouse asked.
"Yes," I said, and I took the lead. "This way."
Together, we ran, quick as we can along the streets. Explosions echoed behind us as Scion and the Simurgh fought, gold beams striking at her, only to be dodged last minute as the Endbringer ducked for cover. One of the heroes, Grandiose, was marked as down, and his exposure time was judged to be too long. The AI in charge of maintaining things had to make a tough decision there, and she ended his life. I could see the decision as it happened.
I turned us down a street away from the fighting, near a row of evacuated homes. I picked one and ran up to it, checking the front door with a simple turn of the knob. I frowned at the locked door, but I made a simple effort of will to unlock the door.
"Why are we stopping here?" Cody asked. "Shouldn't we be going for a hospital?"
"Because we won't make it to a hospital," I said. "And Noelle just needs to rest for a little longer."
"What do you mean we won't make it to a hospital?" Jess asked. "Is it because… never mind."
She knew. She realized where we were, and she was planning to keep it to herself. She didn't want to unnecessarily worry her friends and teammates. I simply nodded, and I gestured for the boys to help get Jess up the stairs of the house's porch.
As I passed through the front door, I frowned at the lack of threshold. While it was useful to have full access to my abilities the lack of threshold indicated that either there was nobody that considered this place home or… nobody considered this place home anymore. Without death certificates, I would have no way of confirming whether the Roberts family lived or not, but the lack of threshold certainly was an indicator.
The house itself looked lived in, from the mess. Stacks of magazines covered every surface in the living room, plastic bags with tied tops sat underneath the hall table, and artwork sat on every surface that wasn't taken already. Nobody would willingly give up a home like this, from what I knew of people. In a way, it reminded me of the home Harry had that I had visited before. Before it had burned down.
Of course, his place was an apartment.
The others came inside, and Krouse laid Noelle down on the living room couch, on her side, at Marissa's suggestion. Krouse then sat across from her, on an oak coffee table.
"You said you helped her," Krouse said. "Miss Archive. Ivy. Whatever you want to be called. Why hasn't she woken up yet?"
"Because her body still needs to repair itself," I said. "It's doing so, but it's not exactly easy to rest with what's going on."
"You mean she has the scream in her head too?" Marissa asked.
I nodded. "I suspect everyone in the area does."
"Why haven't we just gotten out of here then? Another thing like what you did for the building?" Luke asked. "A… what do you call it? A portal."
I frowned. "That particular ability is not one that I use lightly. There is something like that which can be used, but I would not dare to use it at the moment."
Opening a gateway to the Nevernever when I had no clue on what to expect on the other side did not seem like a wise plan. It chafed that I didn't know the answer to that. What was on the other side? The only real way to find out would be to open the gate, but with the Endbringer around, with Scion around, it did not seem to be the wisest idea.
New information. Not fully new, but new. Ziz had opened her own gateway now. Portals to a compound somewhere that did research on cape-creating formulas. The records of how the formulas were obtained did not seem to be accessible via the place brought, but apparently records of buyers did. A list of capes, both labeled as heroes and villains, along with their secret identities and what they paid for their powers was wherever Ziz had opened a portal to.
I don't think that the Archive mantle was designed to access information from multiple Earths simultaneously, but it was managing it. I decided to take advantage of the AI to locate the combatants in the area. As she kept logs of all of her actions, I had an ever so slight latency delay of a few milliseconds on cape locations along with the timers they had remaining.
Two capes, one Myrddin and one Armsmaster, not together, but they were out there, searching for… what appeared to be whatever the Simurgh had brought over. They were not currently under the time limit issue that had befallen Grandiose. Unfortunately, the AI was not tracking the creatures that had been released by the Simurgh, but I could feel their power. Powers.
The power had energy, coming from an outside source. I would need to study a person with powers before I could say for certain, but it was not unlike ritual magic in a way. Requesting power from an outside source and then getting it? Very much a ritual. The question became what the outside being would get in return, whatever it was.
And how was it related to Scion? The powers must have been related to each other in some manner. I needed more information, information that I didn't have. This was a new experience for me, and I wasn't sure that I cared too much for it.
The creatures… people, possibly, if the records kept were correct, were unlikely to be civil when encountered. I would be able to deal with them, but would I be able to protect this group at the same time?
"We're going to have company," I said. "Soon."
"What sort of company?" Cody asked. "And why are we all deferring to you?"
"Cody, she saved our asses," Luke said. "She's healing Noelle."
"Did she?" Cody asked. "Is she? How do we know? She appeared in your apartment when it got toppled by the freaking Simurgh, and you heard what Jess said about her."
"She got us out of that apartment too," Krouse said. "And Noelle looked a lot worse than she does now before the Archive did whatever she did."
I held up a hand. "Cody is not wrong to be suspicious. The Simurgh is attacking your minds with her ability. I may be able to mitigate some of the effects, but I would have to take a look at you after she is no longer an immediate issue."
"What about her effects on you?" Jess asked, meeting my eyes. I switched to looking at her nose shortly afterward. "And the other t—never mind. Just the first question."
I stared at her for a second. She must have realized where we were but didn't want to share lest she worried the others unduly. I offered a smile to her, as warm as I could make it. "I have some measure of mental protection due to my nature. You may not precisely understand it, but I highly doubt that Ziz can affect me directly."
There were a number of things that a creature like her with sufficient precognition could set up to affect me without needing to harm my mind. I would need to rely on the mantle to help distance myself from it.
"I still think that Noelle should see a doctor," Marissa said. "I don't know if anyone else needs one, but we were in a building that fell over."
She left out the fact that the process killed her friend. Perhaps she was coping better now, or perhaps instead she was using this to distract her. Regardless of whatever it was, it would be easier to handle now.
"Why are we still within the Simurgh's range?" Cody asked. "Why couldn't we just get to the hospital or something?"
"Because the authorities have quarantined this area, and I will need to figure a way around that," I said, turning toward the door. "Stay here. Get something to drink, some food, and take care of each other. If Noelle does wake up in the meantime, check her responses. I will return here soon."
Krouse nodded, offering his hand to shake. I did so, and unsurprisingly, there was no tingle of power. He had nothing. "Thank you, Ivy. I can't imagine what we'd do here without you."
I nodded. "Stay here, if you can, and stay safe." Giving that last warning, I made my way out of the house, heading toward where I knew the older superheroes were purported to be, per the AI logs of Dragon. Clever name for an AI, but unless I was to speak with it… her, I was not going to pass judgement on her. AI are not usually compatible with events that truly require the use of the Archive.
Carefully, I made my way into the street. I spotted one of the creatures that the Simurgh had brought. She had not yet spotted me. Each of the creatures had a tattoo on them that vaguely resembled the omega symbol, at different parts of their body. The one in front of me stood larger than the average human, albeit on extended, clawed arms. Her hair was in long, red and green dreads, each one moving independently. I'd seen far worse. I'd killed far worse.
Still, unless I was to be attacked first, I'd leave her alone. I walked further down the street, casually pulling up a veil in the process. The woman looked around franticly, confusion evident on her face. She wasn't expecting to be here. Perhaps with whatever was done to her, she was further worried about future experimentation. Whatever portal the Simurgh had connected to had lost its connection, thus I had lost mine to wherever these creatures had come from. The brief moment that we'd been connected to that plane of existence had not quite been enough for the Archive to get a full update. However, the brief mention that I did get was unnerving. Human experimentation always was.
Myrddin and Armsmaster were purported to be less than a block from me. I made my way over.
I heard them both before I could see them. One was a man in specially made armor, and the other dressed the part of a wizard, wearing robes, holding a staff. It was pretty obvious which was which as I looked them over.
"How are we for exposure, Dragon?" the man in armor asked. Armsmaster, according to the record on his armband. Exactly who I'd have though tit was.
"Both of you have at least another twenty-seven minutes. Thirty, if we push it. You don't need to worry, Armsmaster, I can have a flight to you shortly."
"I'm not worried," Armsmaster said. "Myrddin?"
"I'm good for now, Armsmaster," Myrddin said. Wait. I knew that voice. It was impossible, but I knew that voice. "We can head to the target, assuming we don't come across more dangerous Monstrous Capes along the way."
"Mouse would say you just jinxed it," Armsmaster said.
"Well, she's not here," Myrddin said in his way too familiar voice.
I paused, dropping my veil. Both capes immediately got into defensive positions, but I just looked at Myrddin. It couldn't be him. It really just couldn't. Kincaid had done a chest shot, after all. There was just no way it could have been. This wasn't my Earth. He wasn't…
"Harry?"
Madison, Wisconsin was not a city that I commonly needed to attend to back home. It was neither a battleground of supernatural proportions nor any area that commonly attracted worshippers of Unseen Things. Honestly, the primary supernatural things near Madison tended to be the Forest People, and I had no need to interact with them unless very specific circumstances came up. My grandmother did interact with the citizens of Milwaukee during the Unseelie Incursion of 1994, when the entire city simply vanished for two hours. Well, technically her interaction with them was after she had managed to broker the tentative peace between the Summer and Winter Courts, culminating in the Unseelie Accords and the Archive's neutrality in them. The people of Milwaukee had lost two hours of their day and were none the wiser for it, and perhaps some things had changed around the city. Of course, Milwaukee was only an hour east of the capital city of Wisconsin.
But this wasn't my Madison. As I stepped through the portal I'd created, I took a look around while waiting for the older teenagers that had been in the apartment. The area around the building was in shambles. Snow had been stirred into clouds, and half a dozen additional buildings had been knocked down, judging from the wreckage. The building we'd come from had toppled, but thankfully, the portal I had made placed us on the ground rather than on top of the building.
Francis Krouse stepped through the portal first, carrying the unconscious form of Noelle Meinhardt. Cody Schuman pushed Jessica Smith out the portal next in her wheelchair, and they were followed quickly by Marissa Newland, Oliver Jones, and Luke Brito. None of them were dressed for the weather, and Luke didn't even have shoes on, opting for his socks only. Jessica's wheelchair was far from being in the best shape, but it still wheeled, and that meant that nobody was taking up energy to carry her the way they were Noelle.
Ideally, the spell I cast on her would allow me to wake her properly soon, and then we could continue our movements.
"We're out of the building?" Francis Krouse asked. He frowned as he looked at me, meeting my eyes for a second before I looked away. It wasn't that I worried about a soulgaze the way wizards did (while I could initiate one, it would only be on purpose, not by accident), but it was generally a good habit to have with unknown people in the supernatural community. Yes, near as I could tell, none of these people had power in that fashion, but such habits are hard to break. He studied me for a second. "Archive, how did you do that? And why aren't you wearing a costume?"
Costume. Cape. While I had Power due to my mantle, this likely wasn't what they were expecting. I did a quick cross-reference on Cape and Costume, discarding anything related to Halloween, and a list of several associated terms came to mind. Parahuman. Parahumans Online. Thinker. Tinker. Master. Blaster. Brute. Stranger. Changer. Shaker. Mover. Breaker. Striker. Trump. Protectorate. Active villains. S-Class threats. Idly, I glanced through relevant information while I readied myself to address the problems at hand.
"It doesn't matter how I did it, Mister Krouse, just that I did," I said. "We are no longer in danger of having the building collapse upon us, but I suggest that we continue to move to an area out of the potential line of fire."
I intentionally avoided talking about my clothing as I gestured around at the collapsed buildings. Something had caused that, and I was working on determining specifics. Near as I could tell, my life was potentially in danger, which meant I could justify certain aspects of power use more than normal.
"That music," Marissa Newland complained. "Driving me crazy…"
Music. Was she talking about the scream that I'd heard for a short time when I first arrived? My mantle shielded me from it, but the seven of them would have no such luck.
"You hear it too?" Francis Krouse asked as he covered his ears with his hands. I presumed that he was cold, given the weather. To be fair, so was I, and I was more dressed for it than they were.
"I thought it was a siren," Oliver Jones said.
"It isn't," I said softly, giving them an apologetic look. "I'm sorry."
"It's in our heads," Francis Krouse said franticly. "Try covering your ears."
I scanned the sky as they did so. The scream had to have a source, and there was only one thing that showed up on local records as having anything resembling a telepathic scream, and I spotted her in the sky. Three buildings floated in midair, hovering a good distance away from us. The lower floors of the buildings looked torn up and ragged from where they were wrenched from the ground. The buildings, one at a time, were lobbed through the air toward something a distance away. Even impacting the ground half a mile away, the ground shook enough that I had to adjust my stance.
Then a flash of golden light ignited, and an irregular shape hurled toward the building, but it somehow redirected to land atop the building immediately above us rather than in the street beside it. The impact was milder than it should have been given the size and speed, and the shape of the being was hard to see through the cloud of snow and debris kicked up, including glass.
But I knew. I felt the power there. It wasn't human. It never had been human, and as it unfurled, as she unfurled, the Simurgh made herself visible to us. She was humanoid, true, albeit fifteen feet tall, waif-thin and unclothed Her platinum-white hair whipped around her, and her many wings stretched around her, giving some sort of illusion of modesty. She was known as Simurgh. Known as Ziz. Yet she had the mantle of neither. Though she had power, energy flowing through her, none of it was spiritual in nature, but instead it was something else.
As she settled onto her tiptoes, I noted that parts of her were translucent, revealing an inky blackness below. She quickly brought up a wing to shield herself as a beam of golden light speared through the clouds. Feathers glowed a golden orange as they were blasted free and dissipated into sparks and motes of light, not dissimilar to evaporating ectoplasm.
"It's the smurf," Cody Shuman said, warily. It wasn't a correct pronunciation, and
"The Simurgh," Jessica corrected in a small voice. "What's she doing here? Why---"
"Enough," I said, cutting her off. It was obvious to me that the group still thought they were on their Earth of origin. That was definitely not the case. "Those questions can be answered later, Miss Smith."
"Call me Jess," she said. "Cody's the one wheeling me. Luke's over there, and Krouse is holding Noelle. Mars and Oliver are right here."
When the others looked at her, she shrugged. "We know her name, and while she knows our names, we never told them."
I nodded, looking up at the Simurgh. She took a brief moment away from watching the sky to meet my gaze with one of her own. The cold calculation I saw in those eyes caused me to raise an eyebrow. She frowned and turned to focus on the more immediate problem, the muscular golden man in the sky wearing a white bodysuit. Scion.
"We need to move, don't we?" Krouse asked.
"Yes," I said, and I took the lead. "This way."
Together, we ran, quick as we can along the streets. Explosions echoed behind us as Scion and the Simurgh fought, gold beams striking at her, only to be dodged last minute as the Endbringer ducked for cover. One of the heroes, Grandiose, was marked as down, and his exposure time was judged to be too long. The AI in charge of maintaining things had to make a tough decision there, and she ended his life. I could see the decision as it happened.
I turned us down a street away from the fighting, near a row of evacuated homes. I picked one and ran up to it, checking the front door with a simple turn of the knob. I frowned at the locked door, but I made a simple effort of will to unlock the door.
"Why are we stopping here?" Cody asked. "Shouldn't we be going for a hospital?"
"Because we won't make it to a hospital," I said. "And Noelle just needs to rest for a little longer."
"What do you mean we won't make it to a hospital?" Jess asked. "Is it because… never mind."
She knew. She realized where we were, and she was planning to keep it to herself. She didn't want to unnecessarily worry her friends and teammates. I simply nodded, and I gestured for the boys to help get Jess up the stairs of the house's porch.
As I passed through the front door, I frowned at the lack of threshold. While it was useful to have full access to my abilities the lack of threshold indicated that either there was nobody that considered this place home or… nobody considered this place home anymore. Without death certificates, I would have no way of confirming whether the Roberts family lived or not, but the lack of threshold certainly was an indicator.
The house itself looked lived in, from the mess. Stacks of magazines covered every surface in the living room, plastic bags with tied tops sat underneath the hall table, and artwork sat on every surface that wasn't taken already. Nobody would willingly give up a home like this, from what I knew of people. In a way, it reminded me of the home Harry had that I had visited before. Before it had burned down.
Of course, his place was an apartment.
The others came inside, and Krouse laid Noelle down on the living room couch, on her side, at Marissa's suggestion. Krouse then sat across from her, on an oak coffee table.
"You said you helped her," Krouse said. "Miss Archive. Ivy. Whatever you want to be called. Why hasn't she woken up yet?"
"Because her body still needs to repair itself," I said. "It's doing so, but it's not exactly easy to rest with what's going on."
"You mean she has the scream in her head too?" Marissa asked.
I nodded. "I suspect everyone in the area does."
"Why haven't we just gotten out of here then? Another thing like what you did for the building?" Luke asked. "A… what do you call it? A portal."
I frowned. "That particular ability is not one that I use lightly. There is something like that which can be used, but I would not dare to use it at the moment."
Opening a gateway to the Nevernever when I had no clue on what to expect on the other side did not seem like a wise plan. It chafed that I didn't know the answer to that. What was on the other side? The only real way to find out would be to open the gate, but with the Endbringer around, with Scion around, it did not seem to be the wisest idea.
New information. Not fully new, but new. Ziz had opened her own gateway now. Portals to a compound somewhere that did research on cape-creating formulas. The records of how the formulas were obtained did not seem to be accessible via the place brought, but apparently records of buyers did. A list of capes, both labeled as heroes and villains, along with their secret identities and what they paid for their powers was wherever Ziz had opened a portal to.
I don't think that the Archive mantle was designed to access information from multiple Earths simultaneously, but it was managing it. I decided to take advantage of the AI to locate the combatants in the area. As she kept logs of all of her actions, I had an ever so slight latency delay of a few milliseconds on cape locations along with the timers they had remaining.
Two capes, one Myrddin and one Armsmaster, not together, but they were out there, searching for… what appeared to be whatever the Simurgh had brought over. They were not currently under the time limit issue that had befallen Grandiose. Unfortunately, the AI was not tracking the creatures that had been released by the Simurgh, but I could feel their power. Powers.
The power had energy, coming from an outside source. I would need to study a person with powers before I could say for certain, but it was not unlike ritual magic in a way. Requesting power from an outside source and then getting it? Very much a ritual. The question became what the outside being would get in return, whatever it was.
And how was it related to Scion? The powers must have been related to each other in some manner. I needed more information, information that I didn't have. This was a new experience for me, and I wasn't sure that I cared too much for it.
The creatures… people, possibly, if the records kept were correct, were unlikely to be civil when encountered. I would be able to deal with them, but would I be able to protect this group at the same time?
"We're going to have company," I said. "Soon."
"What sort of company?" Cody asked. "And why are we all deferring to you?"
"Cody, she saved our asses," Luke said. "She's healing Noelle."
"Did she?" Cody asked. "Is she? How do we know? She appeared in your apartment when it got toppled by the freaking Simurgh, and you heard what Jess said about her."
"She got us out of that apartment too," Krouse said. "And Noelle looked a lot worse than she does now before the Archive did whatever she did."
I held up a hand. "Cody is not wrong to be suspicious. The Simurgh is attacking your minds with her ability. I may be able to mitigate some of the effects, but I would have to take a look at you after she is no longer an immediate issue."
"What about her effects on you?" Jess asked, meeting my eyes. I switched to looking at her nose shortly afterward. "And the other t—never mind. Just the first question."
I stared at her for a second. She must have realized where we were but didn't want to share lest she worried the others unduly. I offered a smile to her, as warm as I could make it. "I have some measure of mental protection due to my nature. You may not precisely understand it, but I highly doubt that Ziz can affect me directly."
There were a number of things that a creature like her with sufficient precognition could set up to affect me without needing to harm my mind. I would need to rely on the mantle to help distance myself from it.
"I still think that Noelle should see a doctor," Marissa said. "I don't know if anyone else needs one, but we were in a building that fell over."
She left out the fact that the process killed her friend. Perhaps she was coping better now, or perhaps instead she was using this to distract her. Regardless of whatever it was, it would be easier to handle now.
"Why are we still within the Simurgh's range?" Cody asked. "Why couldn't we just get to the hospital or something?"
"Because the authorities have quarantined this area, and I will need to figure a way around that," I said, turning toward the door. "Stay here. Get something to drink, some food, and take care of each other. If Noelle does wake up in the meantime, check her responses. I will return here soon."
Krouse nodded, offering his hand to shake. I did so, and unsurprisingly, there was no tingle of power. He had nothing. "Thank you, Ivy. I can't imagine what we'd do here without you."
I nodded. "Stay here, if you can, and stay safe." Giving that last warning, I made my way out of the house, heading toward where I knew the older superheroes were purported to be, per the AI logs of Dragon. Clever name for an AI, but unless I was to speak with it… her, I was not going to pass judgement on her. AI are not usually compatible with events that truly require the use of the Archive.
Carefully, I made my way into the street. I spotted one of the creatures that the Simurgh had brought. She had not yet spotted me. Each of the creatures had a tattoo on them that vaguely resembled the omega symbol, at different parts of their body. The one in front of me stood larger than the average human, albeit on extended, clawed arms. Her hair was in long, red and green dreads, each one moving independently. I'd seen far worse. I'd killed far worse.
Still, unless I was to be attacked first, I'd leave her alone. I walked further down the street, casually pulling up a veil in the process. The woman looked around franticly, confusion evident on her face. She wasn't expecting to be here. Perhaps with whatever was done to her, she was further worried about future experimentation. Whatever portal the Simurgh had connected to had lost its connection, thus I had lost mine to wherever these creatures had come from. The brief moment that we'd been connected to that plane of existence had not quite been enough for the Archive to get a full update. However, the brief mention that I did get was unnerving. Human experimentation always was.
Myrddin and Armsmaster were purported to be less than a block from me. I made my way over.
I heard them both before I could see them. One was a man in specially made armor, and the other dressed the part of a wizard, wearing robes, holding a staff. It was pretty obvious which was which as I looked them over.
"How are we for exposure, Dragon?" the man in armor asked. Armsmaster, according to the record on his armband. Exactly who I'd have though tit was.
"Both of you have at least another twenty-seven minutes. Thirty, if we push it. You don't need to worry, Armsmaster, I can have a flight to you shortly."
"I'm not worried," Armsmaster said. "Myrddin?"
"I'm good for now, Armsmaster," Myrddin said. Wait. I knew that voice. It was impossible, but I knew that voice. "We can head to the target, assuming we don't come across more dangerous Monstrous Capes along the way."
"Mouse would say you just jinxed it," Armsmaster said.
"Well, she's not here," Myrddin said in his way too familiar voice.
I paused, dropping my veil. Both capes immediately got into defensive positions, but I just looked at Myrddin. It couldn't be him. It really just couldn't. Kincaid had done a chest shot, after all. There was just no way it could have been. This wasn't my Earth. He wasn't…
"Harry?"
Displaced 1.3
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Displaced 1.3
Stupid. Impulsiveness as the Archive is something that I cannot afford to be, but given what one of my only friends had done to my other friend, perhaps a small expression of emotion could be allowed for. Still, I knew that this wasn't my Harry. Myrddin was a native of this Earth, this Earth Bet, which was different from the Earth that the group of teenagers I had taken responsibility for was from as well. And, according to his dossier, his name was not Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Myrddin's last name was Dresden, yes, but it surprised me that this wasn't Harry's alternate.
It was his father's.
Malcolm "Myrddin" Dresden gripped his gnarled wooden staff, leveling it at me the way any wizard would, and I could see a frown on his shadowed face. "A civilian? Where did you come from, girl? Why did you ask that name?"
Now that he could see me, his voice took on a deeper, more dramatic tone.
"And who are you?" Colin "Armsmaster" Wallis asked. His stance shifted away from the defensive one that he'd been in, but he still held tightly onto the halberd.
"I'm known as The Archive," I said simply. While I had no costume, there was no need to obscure my identity from the heroes. There were no active capes with that name, odd to be certain, but historically, it was associated with capes of the type known as "thinker." "I'm not from around here."
"Neither are we," Myrddin said. "And you're not dressed like a cape. You don't have one of Dragon's armbands either."
I shrugged.
"There's no record of any cape known as Archive showing up for the fight," Dragon said over the armband. To doublecheck, the AI had swiftly reviewed all cape identifications that she'd had in her database. "She may be a local."
"It doesn't matter," I said, and I gestured at the Simurgh and the gold streaks of light Scion left when fighting her. I doubted that either of them would believe me about the Endbringer's lack of effect on my mental state. Not when they were already being affected, and certainly not when they were unable to verify my identity. "We should move, not be caught out in the open if one of the creatures she brought here decides to find us."
"You didn't answer my questions, Archive," Myrddin said. "Where did you come from? Why did you ask that name?"
I held up a hand, veiled myself for a second and then released the veil. It was an easy enough demonstration of that ability, and unlike most magic users, I didn't need to verbalize anything to execute the spell. "You sound like Harry Dresden. My Harry Dresden."
If it was possible, Myrddin stiffened more. "Your Harry Dresden."
I frowned as I looked them over. Their jobs here, according to the logs that Dragon had, were to keep the area contained until the fighting between Scion and the Simurgh was over. They had a set amount of time before they absolutely needed to leave.
"You aren't Harry though," I said. "I was wrong. Acting via assumption rather than verifying. Harry Dresden of Earth Bet is—"
Malcolm Dresden stiffened once more, and I felt the build-up of power before he released it, crying "BEGONE!"
Utilizing the training that I'd imitated Kincaid to get, I dodged his banishment power. I would not attack him back, as I could understand the needs of a parent to protect their child, something that I wished my mother had done for me, the way my grandmother had done for her. Of course, it wasn't exactly something that could be helped, not at the moment, anyway.
I veiled again, taking into account the visor that Armsmaster wore. Electronic equipment didn't easily deal with any sort of magic detection, but tinkertech was different. Without experimentation, it would not be easy to tell exactly how well his visor's scanners worked. So, I included various parts of the electromagnetic spectrum into what the veil hid. I made sure to move from the spot I was in quickly, so that they couldn't just shoot there and get me.
"She disappeared again," Myrddin said.
"We probably shouldn't have spoken with her," Armsmaster said. "She did appear human, though."
Myrddin looked around, and he lashed out with his power a few more times, enough that I could get a better reading on the specific energies it output. His power shifted reality slightly, creating and accessing pocket dimensions. The versatility he had with that was on par with many high-end sorcerers, even if he wasn't quite wizard tier. It also wasn't strictly magic, per se.
Or at least it wasn't his magic. His body directed and channeled the energy, yes, but the power came from somewhere else. Interesting.
"If you are still here, Archive," Myrddin said. "I suggest you find some place to hunker down and stay put. I don't like what needs to happen here, but if you are local, you're stuck. This part of Madison is going to get quarantined thanks to the Simurgh."
"Myrddin," Armsmaster said.
"She needs to know," Myrddin said. "They're blocking this part of the city off. The military will shoot you if you approach. It's not right, nor is it fair."
"It's orders," Dragon said.
"Fuck orders," Myrddin said. "The kid knows Harry, Dragon. I want to know how. I want to know where the fucking Simurgh grabbed her from. If the winged bitch is using my kid to get to me…"
While my heart went out to the hero, I doubted that we would be able to have a successful conversation here. As I started back toward the house that I'd left the others at, I made sure to bring up everything on Myrddin. For a normal mortal, it would take decades to do research to the level that I was capable of. I knew everything about Malcolm Henry Dresden II, from the notes his psychologist took at his various sessions, to the private journals he wrote when he was a child. I knew the moment that he had met his wife, Margaret, and I knew that he had taken her elder son, Thomas, as his own, in addition to their younger son, Harry that they had together.
I knew his arrest record with the Protectorate, all his performance reviews, and I knew how he got his powers. I also knew that he quite likely did not like the idea of how the quarantine was to be handled. Harry's sense of justice and morality came from somewhere, and while Ebenezar McCoy was a large part of it, Malcolm Dresden helped.
I'd keep an eye on this Malcolm. On a whim, I made sure I knew everything about Colin Wallis as well, and interestingly, that brought up schematics and blueprints for his technology. Well, I say brought up, but that's not entirely accurate. To someone who isn't the Archive, it works as an analogy, but the reality is much different.
As the Archive, I am a repository of all human knowledge, or rather the Archive is that repository. I don't need to learn things that are written down anywhere. I know it. I understand it. However, my body, my mind that houses the Archive, is still that of a fifteen-year-old girl. I have bits of knowledge that I prefer to focus on, and not everything that I know is directly relevant to any particular situation I may find myself in. I understand scientific principles. Magical ones, and even ways to combine the two to create new engineering forms.
The reason Colin Wallis's schematics and blueprints were interesting? They violated the very scientific principles that they were ostensibly supposed to be based upon. Not completely, of course. A layman would be able to look at them and get an idea of what his weapon was supposed to be able to do. An engineer would be able to follow along and understand what Armsmaster was able to accomplish.
But no manufacturer would be able to successfully manufacture anything from these blueprints, schematics, and drawings.
Curious.
Yet ultimately, irrelevant to the situation at hand. I'd study his and other tinker schematics later when I wasn't worrying about the mortals I'd saved. When I wasn't worrying about the reason that I was here in the first place. Haywire's technology was designed to connect specifically to Earth Aleph. Yes, the Simurgh had made modifications to it to allow her to bring the so-called monsters here, but her initial work had brought people from Earth Aleph.
I stopped at a corner, looking both ways. It wasn't that I expected to see a car coming, but old habits die hard, and when you're veiled, you need to make sure you don't just run into anything. I was glad I did.
The burger joint across the street had three beings on their way toward it, lumbering toward it. Among their number was a long-necked man with a gnarled hump plated in armor on his back. His arms split at the elbow, with one set of hands and then another set of limbs that ended in scythes. He wore an ill-fitting jacket that he had to keep pushing up over his arms.
Next to him was a large, tall woman, maybe seven feet tall. She was heavy, somewhere between the idea of being fat and being muscular, with a large frame to carry it. She had blunt features and thick skin, with a piglike nose and cauliflower ears. Her lips curled away from her teeth with how big they were, and her fingers were stubby. She had a lot of power in her weight, and she wore a set of grays that resembled a prison uniform. While I couldn't make out the word on the back of it, I knew it said "GWERRUS."
The final member of their group was a young woman with thin black horizontal lines striping her body, crossing her eyes and extending from her mouth's corners. They traced all over, and while she wore the same prison grays as the large woman, she had put on a jacket and boots. Her blonde hair hung straight behind her. She moved far too rigidly to be natural, but I suspected that was a result of whatever had her become the way she was. Her prison uniform said "MATRYOSHKA."
The identification the third had on him identified him as Egesa. All three names and appearances burned into my brain, and I knew them. They were human. Mortal. Cape. There were records of them that had been shifted over, found on papers nearby, and I knew who they had been. I knew where they had been prior to here. However, they were irrelevant. I needed to go check on the people I had already saved once. Noelle would likely wake soon, and the rest of them seemed like they were starting to get antsy.
Then the monstrous capes burst into the burger restaurant across the street, and the nine people hiding out in the restaurant immediately started screaming. The murderous glee that came off of Gwerrus and Egesa gave me a brief pause, especially since I didn't feel it coming from Matryoshka as well. I turned to face the restaurant. I could do something about this, but it really wasn't my problem. I had seven teenagers that I had already taken responsibility for. Did I really need to be responsible for nine more people, to save nine more people?
I needed to consider things. What should I do?
I knew what Harry Dresden would do in the situation, and logically, I knew what I should have been doing from the start. I should have just left, taken to the Nevernever and returned home if it were possible. As the Archive, I'm supposed to distance myself from my emotions, from my desires, and from people, as if I give in too much to it, there is the chance that the previous holders of the Archive could exert their own desires and needs. I was supposed to be, first and foremost, protecting myself. Until I had an heir, I needed to keep myself from danger, protecting the repository of information that the Archive was, and I needed to be able to direct the Oblivion War efforts, something that didn't come up as often as some might think.
I should not have crossed the street and glanced into the burger restaurant, where Egesa and Gwerrus terrorized the people inside. Gwerrus had reached over, pinning a dark-haired woman underneath her, rearing back for a punch. Egesa had taken to climbing onto one of the tables, menacing the remaining eight inhabitants with his scythes. Matryoshka stood off to the side rigidly, observing what happened, and she did not seem to know how to handle this.
What I most definitely should not have done in this situation was rip the doors off their hinges with an effort of will, revealing myself in an aura that radiated awe and majesty. I should not have stepped in, hair furling behind me with the power I intentionally radiated. Gwerrus looked up from her victim, and her surprise gave me enough time to use that power to throw her from the victim, slamming her into the ordering counter, twice. The counter shattered far more than it should have, and a wave of kinetic energy slammed toward me. I grounded it into a divot before it could touch me.
I should not have needed to sidestep as Egesa leapt at me, scythes flaring. Holding up my left hand, I exercised my will some more, thickening the air around him, leaving him frozen in place, unable to advance forward and unable to find purchase on anything to change his trajectory.
I should not have turned to glare at Matryoshka as she unfurled her body, holding my right hand flat, allowing a ball of flame to form overtop of it. It was no Mordite, but it would suit the job I needed it for, should it be needed. Unlike the White Council, I had some measure of protection against black magic.
I should not have taunted the girl, saying "Try it, if you dare."
But I will admit, this all was something Harry would do.
Matryoshka spoke, her words coming out with a slightly Eastern European accent. "What you intend to do?"
"Stop you from hurting more people," I said. "What were you planning to do?"
"Let me go, you bitch!" Egesa snarled in his native tongue, anger roiling off him. "I'll rip you apart!"
I looked him over consideringly.
"Egesa say 'let me go'," Gwerrus said, her low voice rumbling. She climbed to her feet, and I was surprised that she did not express any rage. Instead, I could see fear in those eyes. She sensed my power, perhaps more than Egesa had.
"I will not," I said. I did not let them know that I understood Egesa perfectly.
"Why you hunt us?" Gwerrus asked. "We do nothing!"
"And these people did nothing to you," I said, gesturing at the nine. Four men, three women, two children. Yes, Harry definitely would have stepped in here. However, he would probably have been far less diplomatic than me. "I will give you one chance. Leave this restaurant, all three of you. Find somewhere else."
"We need escape," Gwerrus said. "Matryoshka, can fold. Take women and men."
"No!" Matryoshka said. I couldn't blame her. The way her power worked, if she absorbed someone for too long, they would digest, die. And her own memories and personality would be muddled. Her jailers had not been kind to her, forcing her to use her powers to help keep the other prisoners in line.
The information regarding the three of these people was incomplete. Either not all of it was written down, or, equally likely, as this world had access to alternate Earths, the records were not on this Earth. The records that had come with the monstrous ones were not perfect, but I did know names and general abilities.
I also knew personal names as someone had taken the time to record that. However, neither Janus "Egesa" Mirkovich, Natalya "Gwerrus" Kravtsov, nor Marta "Matryoshka" Romanova were from Earth Bet. However, all three were apparently from the same Earth, dubbed Earth Dalet by Cauldron's handlers.
"Like I said. I will allow you to leave," I said. "Take it. Please."
"Free Egesa first," Gwerrus said.
"Yeah. Free me, you little bitch, and see what happens!" Egesa said, apparently unable or unwilling to speak English. Perhaps he did understand it though. He should have, given what his records said. He just refused to say things in English. His psychological profile from before and after gaining powers had not changed much, and it very much was why his jailers had chosen to experiment on him.
"The moment I do, you will have twenty seconds to leave," I said. "Please communicate that to him."
Gwerrus nodded, and then she said, "she will free you. Then we will attack her together, yes?"
"Yes," Egesa said. "What about Matryoshka?"
"She can fold the girl into herself to gain her help," Gwerrus said. "And then we can go after the hunters."
I glanced to Matryoshka, and I whispered quietly, directing my voice only to her. "Leave this place. You need not join your comrades. Run, the moment I drop him."
She gave an ever so slight nod as I turned my attention back to Egesa. I offered a bright smile to the monstrous Cape… Case 53, according to Protectorate and PRT records. Then I dropped him to the ground, canceling the spell out instantly.
"Now!" Egesa cried, and he and Gwerrus charged me.
Rather, they charged what they thought was me. It didn't take much to fool their minds enough to have Gwerrus tackle an empty table, and Egesa did similar.
Mid-air, I caught Egesa again, and then I came to the natural conclusion for handling threats to the Archive. I pulled him apart with my mind. Blade arms off first, and then regular arms, splaying him out, and I threw him out the restaurant's front window, shattering it. Then, I drove a large piece of glass through his heart.
For Gwerrus, I shattered the table she landed on, and I forced the splinters to be unnaturally sharp as I drove them into her. Her power flared, attempting to reflect the damage on me in retribution. My shield came up in time to catch most of it, but my left arm started bleeding as if I were stabbed.
I gasped in pain, and the Archive's defense was paramount. I hurled her out the door, following Egesa. She landed on top of him, and then I hurled his scythed arms at her, blades first. I finished with a lance of flame, catching them on fire, and the abandoned building behind them.
Matryoshka took my advice and ran at that. Good. I didn't want to have to deal with her.
I turned to the people in the room. James Draper, Matthew Lillard, Jason Smith, Angela Lillard, Jennifer Francis, Maya Jones, Lisa Berkowitz, and the two children, Chris Smith and Millicent Lillard all were from here in Madison, WI, and as they had been stuck here during the attack from Ziz, they would be under quarantine like the rest of everyone.
I let out a sigh, and I spoke up. "I suggest you arm yourselves and find a better place to hide. Those two are not the only ones out for blood."
They seemed to take my words to heart, and after veiling once more, I left the burger restaurant, headed for the house.
I remained veiled as I entered, and I came upon Krouse and Cody arguing while Luke sat down with a newly awakened Noelle. Sitting on the coffee table in the living room was a metal briefcase. There were papers associated with the briefcase, and I knew what they said.
Congratulations on your newly purchased superpowers.
Vials, like the ones taken by the Case 53s out there, and now they were here, being argued about.
As Cody started off on another tangent, I decided to make myself known, releasing my hold on the veil.
"Jess was right," I said. "You should destroy the vials." Then I frowned. That wasn't supposed to be anywhere near here. I should not have felt the presence of any information along those lines here on Earth Bet.
Yet, among the artifacts that the Simurgh had brought over, three had recorded names and rituals on contacting otherworldly beings. Specifically, they sought to contact something that was on my purview.
I would not be able to handle this alone.
"That's easy for you to say," Cody said, pointing at me. "You have superpowers already. The vials can give us that."
I yanked the briefcase, closing it in the process and then I looked at each of them. "Six vials. Seven of you. You do not want to drink only half of one. It has potential to go very poorly. If you choose to take the powers, I will do what I can to help you learn to use them effectively. For the one who does not drink the vials, I may be able to help you keep your parity."
"This sounds a little too good to be true," Luke said. "Cody was right about one thing. You appeared out of nowhere, helped Noelle and us escape from the apartment. And now you're willing to offer us the powers that Krouse found while exploring, even while saying to destroy them."
"You shouldn't have gone out," I said.
"Doesn't matter," Luke said. "Only Cody, Krouse and Mars went out. What sort of catch is there here?"
I grimaced. I didn't like having to do this. Especially not to people close to me in age. However, needs must when confronted with something like this.
"You will help me in a slightly different way that I helped you," I said. "Now, if you take the powers, I will have a job for you…"
They all looked confused. "What sort of job?" Krouse asked.
"Information gathering, study, and retrieval," I said. "Occasionally matched with beings that might require a bit more thought."
"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Cody asked. "What does this job lead to?"
"It leads to stopping something before it has a chance to get its hooks into this world," I said. "It means that you are going to be recruited."
"Into what?" Noelle asked from her spot on the couch.
"The Oblivion War," I said, simply. They might not have understood just yet, but they were now a part of things. "Welcome to the Venatori."
Hopefully, the powers they got would help with their new duties.
I'd help them as-needed, but the truth was, I needed them.
I needed my Venatori, and I was stuck with some teenagers from Earth Aleph. At least they would have powers soon. Six of the seven, anyway.
I wondered what they would end up like.
Stupid. Impulsiveness as the Archive is something that I cannot afford to be, but given what one of my only friends had done to my other friend, perhaps a small expression of emotion could be allowed for. Still, I knew that this wasn't my Harry. Myrddin was a native of this Earth, this Earth Bet, which was different from the Earth that the group of teenagers I had taken responsibility for was from as well. And, according to his dossier, his name was not Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Myrddin's last name was Dresden, yes, but it surprised me that this wasn't Harry's alternate.
It was his father's.
Malcolm "Myrddin" Dresden gripped his gnarled wooden staff, leveling it at me the way any wizard would, and I could see a frown on his shadowed face. "A civilian? Where did you come from, girl? Why did you ask that name?"
Now that he could see me, his voice took on a deeper, more dramatic tone.
"And who are you?" Colin "Armsmaster" Wallis asked. His stance shifted away from the defensive one that he'd been in, but he still held tightly onto the halberd.
"I'm known as The Archive," I said simply. While I had no costume, there was no need to obscure my identity from the heroes. There were no active capes with that name, odd to be certain, but historically, it was associated with capes of the type known as "thinker." "I'm not from around here."
"Neither are we," Myrddin said. "And you're not dressed like a cape. You don't have one of Dragon's armbands either."
I shrugged.
"There's no record of any cape known as Archive showing up for the fight," Dragon said over the armband. To doublecheck, the AI had swiftly reviewed all cape identifications that she'd had in her database. "She may be a local."
"It doesn't matter," I said, and I gestured at the Simurgh and the gold streaks of light Scion left when fighting her. I doubted that either of them would believe me about the Endbringer's lack of effect on my mental state. Not when they were already being affected, and certainly not when they were unable to verify my identity. "We should move, not be caught out in the open if one of the creatures she brought here decides to find us."
"You didn't answer my questions, Archive," Myrddin said. "Where did you come from? Why did you ask that name?"
I held up a hand, veiled myself for a second and then released the veil. It was an easy enough demonstration of that ability, and unlike most magic users, I didn't need to verbalize anything to execute the spell. "You sound like Harry Dresden. My Harry Dresden."
If it was possible, Myrddin stiffened more. "Your Harry Dresden."
I frowned as I looked them over. Their jobs here, according to the logs that Dragon had, were to keep the area contained until the fighting between Scion and the Simurgh was over. They had a set amount of time before they absolutely needed to leave.
"You aren't Harry though," I said. "I was wrong. Acting via assumption rather than verifying. Harry Dresden of Earth Bet is—"
Malcolm Dresden stiffened once more, and I felt the build-up of power before he released it, crying "BEGONE!"
Utilizing the training that I'd imitated Kincaid to get, I dodged his banishment power. I would not attack him back, as I could understand the needs of a parent to protect their child, something that I wished my mother had done for me, the way my grandmother had done for her. Of course, it wasn't exactly something that could be helped, not at the moment, anyway.
I veiled again, taking into account the visor that Armsmaster wore. Electronic equipment didn't easily deal with any sort of magic detection, but tinkertech was different. Without experimentation, it would not be easy to tell exactly how well his visor's scanners worked. So, I included various parts of the electromagnetic spectrum into what the veil hid. I made sure to move from the spot I was in quickly, so that they couldn't just shoot there and get me.
"She disappeared again," Myrddin said.
"We probably shouldn't have spoken with her," Armsmaster said. "She did appear human, though."
Myrddin looked around, and he lashed out with his power a few more times, enough that I could get a better reading on the specific energies it output. His power shifted reality slightly, creating and accessing pocket dimensions. The versatility he had with that was on par with many high-end sorcerers, even if he wasn't quite wizard tier. It also wasn't strictly magic, per se.
Or at least it wasn't his magic. His body directed and channeled the energy, yes, but the power came from somewhere else. Interesting.
"If you are still here, Archive," Myrddin said. "I suggest you find some place to hunker down and stay put. I don't like what needs to happen here, but if you are local, you're stuck. This part of Madison is going to get quarantined thanks to the Simurgh."
"Myrddin," Armsmaster said.
"She needs to know," Myrddin said. "They're blocking this part of the city off. The military will shoot you if you approach. It's not right, nor is it fair."
"It's orders," Dragon said.
"Fuck orders," Myrddin said. "The kid knows Harry, Dragon. I want to know how. I want to know where the fucking Simurgh grabbed her from. If the winged bitch is using my kid to get to me…"
While my heart went out to the hero, I doubted that we would be able to have a successful conversation here. As I started back toward the house that I'd left the others at, I made sure to bring up everything on Myrddin. For a normal mortal, it would take decades to do research to the level that I was capable of. I knew everything about Malcolm Henry Dresden II, from the notes his psychologist took at his various sessions, to the private journals he wrote when he was a child. I knew the moment that he had met his wife, Margaret, and I knew that he had taken her elder son, Thomas, as his own, in addition to their younger son, Harry that they had together.
I knew his arrest record with the Protectorate, all his performance reviews, and I knew how he got his powers. I also knew that he quite likely did not like the idea of how the quarantine was to be handled. Harry's sense of justice and morality came from somewhere, and while Ebenezar McCoy was a large part of it, Malcolm Dresden helped.
I'd keep an eye on this Malcolm. On a whim, I made sure I knew everything about Colin Wallis as well, and interestingly, that brought up schematics and blueprints for his technology. Well, I say brought up, but that's not entirely accurate. To someone who isn't the Archive, it works as an analogy, but the reality is much different.
As the Archive, I am a repository of all human knowledge, or rather the Archive is that repository. I don't need to learn things that are written down anywhere. I know it. I understand it. However, my body, my mind that houses the Archive, is still that of a fifteen-year-old girl. I have bits of knowledge that I prefer to focus on, and not everything that I know is directly relevant to any particular situation I may find myself in. I understand scientific principles. Magical ones, and even ways to combine the two to create new engineering forms.
The reason Colin Wallis's schematics and blueprints were interesting? They violated the very scientific principles that they were ostensibly supposed to be based upon. Not completely, of course. A layman would be able to look at them and get an idea of what his weapon was supposed to be able to do. An engineer would be able to follow along and understand what Armsmaster was able to accomplish.
But no manufacturer would be able to successfully manufacture anything from these blueprints, schematics, and drawings.
Curious.
Yet ultimately, irrelevant to the situation at hand. I'd study his and other tinker schematics later when I wasn't worrying about the mortals I'd saved. When I wasn't worrying about the reason that I was here in the first place. Haywire's technology was designed to connect specifically to Earth Aleph. Yes, the Simurgh had made modifications to it to allow her to bring the so-called monsters here, but her initial work had brought people from Earth Aleph.
I stopped at a corner, looking both ways. It wasn't that I expected to see a car coming, but old habits die hard, and when you're veiled, you need to make sure you don't just run into anything. I was glad I did.
The burger joint across the street had three beings on their way toward it, lumbering toward it. Among their number was a long-necked man with a gnarled hump plated in armor on his back. His arms split at the elbow, with one set of hands and then another set of limbs that ended in scythes. He wore an ill-fitting jacket that he had to keep pushing up over his arms.
Next to him was a large, tall woman, maybe seven feet tall. She was heavy, somewhere between the idea of being fat and being muscular, with a large frame to carry it. She had blunt features and thick skin, with a piglike nose and cauliflower ears. Her lips curled away from her teeth with how big they were, and her fingers were stubby. She had a lot of power in her weight, and she wore a set of grays that resembled a prison uniform. While I couldn't make out the word on the back of it, I knew it said "GWERRUS."
The final member of their group was a young woman with thin black horizontal lines striping her body, crossing her eyes and extending from her mouth's corners. They traced all over, and while she wore the same prison grays as the large woman, she had put on a jacket and boots. Her blonde hair hung straight behind her. She moved far too rigidly to be natural, but I suspected that was a result of whatever had her become the way she was. Her prison uniform said "MATRYOSHKA."
The identification the third had on him identified him as Egesa. All three names and appearances burned into my brain, and I knew them. They were human. Mortal. Cape. There were records of them that had been shifted over, found on papers nearby, and I knew who they had been. I knew where they had been prior to here. However, they were irrelevant. I needed to go check on the people I had already saved once. Noelle would likely wake soon, and the rest of them seemed like they were starting to get antsy.
Then the monstrous capes burst into the burger restaurant across the street, and the nine people hiding out in the restaurant immediately started screaming. The murderous glee that came off of Gwerrus and Egesa gave me a brief pause, especially since I didn't feel it coming from Matryoshka as well. I turned to face the restaurant. I could do something about this, but it really wasn't my problem. I had seven teenagers that I had already taken responsibility for. Did I really need to be responsible for nine more people, to save nine more people?
I needed to consider things. What should I do?
I knew what Harry Dresden would do in the situation, and logically, I knew what I should have been doing from the start. I should have just left, taken to the Nevernever and returned home if it were possible. As the Archive, I'm supposed to distance myself from my emotions, from my desires, and from people, as if I give in too much to it, there is the chance that the previous holders of the Archive could exert their own desires and needs. I was supposed to be, first and foremost, protecting myself. Until I had an heir, I needed to keep myself from danger, protecting the repository of information that the Archive was, and I needed to be able to direct the Oblivion War efforts, something that didn't come up as often as some might think.
I should not have crossed the street and glanced into the burger restaurant, where Egesa and Gwerrus terrorized the people inside. Gwerrus had reached over, pinning a dark-haired woman underneath her, rearing back for a punch. Egesa had taken to climbing onto one of the tables, menacing the remaining eight inhabitants with his scythes. Matryoshka stood off to the side rigidly, observing what happened, and she did not seem to know how to handle this.
What I most definitely should not have done in this situation was rip the doors off their hinges with an effort of will, revealing myself in an aura that radiated awe and majesty. I should not have stepped in, hair furling behind me with the power I intentionally radiated. Gwerrus looked up from her victim, and her surprise gave me enough time to use that power to throw her from the victim, slamming her into the ordering counter, twice. The counter shattered far more than it should have, and a wave of kinetic energy slammed toward me. I grounded it into a divot before it could touch me.
I should not have needed to sidestep as Egesa leapt at me, scythes flaring. Holding up my left hand, I exercised my will some more, thickening the air around him, leaving him frozen in place, unable to advance forward and unable to find purchase on anything to change his trajectory.
I should not have turned to glare at Matryoshka as she unfurled her body, holding my right hand flat, allowing a ball of flame to form overtop of it. It was no Mordite, but it would suit the job I needed it for, should it be needed. Unlike the White Council, I had some measure of protection against black magic.
I should not have taunted the girl, saying "Try it, if you dare."
But I will admit, this all was something Harry would do.
Matryoshka spoke, her words coming out with a slightly Eastern European accent. "What you intend to do?"
"Stop you from hurting more people," I said. "What were you planning to do?"
"Let me go, you bitch!" Egesa snarled in his native tongue, anger roiling off him. "I'll rip you apart!"
I looked him over consideringly.
"Egesa say 'let me go'," Gwerrus said, her low voice rumbling. She climbed to her feet, and I was surprised that she did not express any rage. Instead, I could see fear in those eyes. She sensed my power, perhaps more than Egesa had.
"I will not," I said. I did not let them know that I understood Egesa perfectly.
"Why you hunt us?" Gwerrus asked. "We do nothing!"
"And these people did nothing to you," I said, gesturing at the nine. Four men, three women, two children. Yes, Harry definitely would have stepped in here. However, he would probably have been far less diplomatic than me. "I will give you one chance. Leave this restaurant, all three of you. Find somewhere else."
"We need escape," Gwerrus said. "Matryoshka, can fold. Take women and men."
"No!" Matryoshka said. I couldn't blame her. The way her power worked, if she absorbed someone for too long, they would digest, die. And her own memories and personality would be muddled. Her jailers had not been kind to her, forcing her to use her powers to help keep the other prisoners in line.
The information regarding the three of these people was incomplete. Either not all of it was written down, or, equally likely, as this world had access to alternate Earths, the records were not on this Earth. The records that had come with the monstrous ones were not perfect, but I did know names and general abilities.
I also knew personal names as someone had taken the time to record that. However, neither Janus "Egesa" Mirkovich, Natalya "Gwerrus" Kravtsov, nor Marta "Matryoshka" Romanova were from Earth Bet. However, all three were apparently from the same Earth, dubbed Earth Dalet by Cauldron's handlers.
"Like I said. I will allow you to leave," I said. "Take it. Please."
"Free Egesa first," Gwerrus said.
"Yeah. Free me, you little bitch, and see what happens!" Egesa said, apparently unable or unwilling to speak English. Perhaps he did understand it though. He should have, given what his records said. He just refused to say things in English. His psychological profile from before and after gaining powers had not changed much, and it very much was why his jailers had chosen to experiment on him.
"The moment I do, you will have twenty seconds to leave," I said. "Please communicate that to him."
Gwerrus nodded, and then she said, "she will free you. Then we will attack her together, yes?"
"Yes," Egesa said. "What about Matryoshka?"
"She can fold the girl into herself to gain her help," Gwerrus said. "And then we can go after the hunters."
I glanced to Matryoshka, and I whispered quietly, directing my voice only to her. "Leave this place. You need not join your comrades. Run, the moment I drop him."
She gave an ever so slight nod as I turned my attention back to Egesa. I offered a bright smile to the monstrous Cape… Case 53, according to Protectorate and PRT records. Then I dropped him to the ground, canceling the spell out instantly.
"Now!" Egesa cried, and he and Gwerrus charged me.
Rather, they charged what they thought was me. It didn't take much to fool their minds enough to have Gwerrus tackle an empty table, and Egesa did similar.
Mid-air, I caught Egesa again, and then I came to the natural conclusion for handling threats to the Archive. I pulled him apart with my mind. Blade arms off first, and then regular arms, splaying him out, and I threw him out the restaurant's front window, shattering it. Then, I drove a large piece of glass through his heart.
For Gwerrus, I shattered the table she landed on, and I forced the splinters to be unnaturally sharp as I drove them into her. Her power flared, attempting to reflect the damage on me in retribution. My shield came up in time to catch most of it, but my left arm started bleeding as if I were stabbed.
I gasped in pain, and the Archive's defense was paramount. I hurled her out the door, following Egesa. She landed on top of him, and then I hurled his scythed arms at her, blades first. I finished with a lance of flame, catching them on fire, and the abandoned building behind them.
Matryoshka took my advice and ran at that. Good. I didn't want to have to deal with her.
I turned to the people in the room. James Draper, Matthew Lillard, Jason Smith, Angela Lillard, Jennifer Francis, Maya Jones, Lisa Berkowitz, and the two children, Chris Smith and Millicent Lillard all were from here in Madison, WI, and as they had been stuck here during the attack from Ziz, they would be under quarantine like the rest of everyone.
I let out a sigh, and I spoke up. "I suggest you arm yourselves and find a better place to hide. Those two are not the only ones out for blood."
They seemed to take my words to heart, and after veiling once more, I left the burger restaurant, headed for the house.
I remained veiled as I entered, and I came upon Krouse and Cody arguing while Luke sat down with a newly awakened Noelle. Sitting on the coffee table in the living room was a metal briefcase. There were papers associated with the briefcase, and I knew what they said.
Congratulations on your newly purchased superpowers.
Vials, like the ones taken by the Case 53s out there, and now they were here, being argued about.
As Cody started off on another tangent, I decided to make myself known, releasing my hold on the veil.
"Jess was right," I said. "You should destroy the vials." Then I frowned. That wasn't supposed to be anywhere near here. I should not have felt the presence of any information along those lines here on Earth Bet.
Yet, among the artifacts that the Simurgh had brought over, three had recorded names and rituals on contacting otherworldly beings. Specifically, they sought to contact something that was on my purview.
I would not be able to handle this alone.
"That's easy for you to say," Cody said, pointing at me. "You have superpowers already. The vials can give us that."
I yanked the briefcase, closing it in the process and then I looked at each of them. "Six vials. Seven of you. You do not want to drink only half of one. It has potential to go very poorly. If you choose to take the powers, I will do what I can to help you learn to use them effectively. For the one who does not drink the vials, I may be able to help you keep your parity."
"This sounds a little too good to be true," Luke said. "Cody was right about one thing. You appeared out of nowhere, helped Noelle and us escape from the apartment. And now you're willing to offer us the powers that Krouse found while exploring, even while saying to destroy them."
"You shouldn't have gone out," I said.
"Doesn't matter," Luke said. "Only Cody, Krouse and Mars went out. What sort of catch is there here?"
I grimaced. I didn't like having to do this. Especially not to people close to me in age. However, needs must when confronted with something like this.
"You will help me in a slightly different way that I helped you," I said. "Now, if you take the powers, I will have a job for you…"
They all looked confused. "What sort of job?" Krouse asked.
"Information gathering, study, and retrieval," I said. "Occasionally matched with beings that might require a bit more thought."
"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Cody asked. "What does this job lead to?"
"It leads to stopping something before it has a chance to get its hooks into this world," I said. "It means that you are going to be recruited."
"Into what?" Noelle asked from her spot on the couch.
"The Oblivion War," I said, simply. They might not have understood just yet, but they were now a part of things. "Welcome to the Venatori."
Hopefully, the powers they got would help with their new duties.
I'd help them as-needed, but the truth was, I needed them.
I needed my Venatori, and I was stuck with some teenagers from Earth Aleph. At least they would have powers soon. Six of the seven, anyway.
I wondered what they would end up like.