Refraction 1.8
◭
Taylor
"Keep an eye out, I'll be right back."
I watched Lisa wink and turn around, jogging towards a cracked planter next to some building's front porch. Just like yesterday, our path to the Boardwalk included a visit to an alley — a different one this time, but still. Simply standing here made me feel uneasy, but apparently we both needed whatever it was that Lisa ordered, so I pushed the uncomfortable feeling down. She couldn't just mail whatever she wanted home, after all — dad would surely get suspicious if he noticed, and that wasn't even mentioning the paper trails.
"All done," Lisa said to my right, startling me. She had a small package tucked under her arm, and was looking at me with amusement, her other hand on her hip. "Let's go, it should've started by now."
Due to the chaos that unfolded at the Lord Street Market, as well as the looming threats of Sophia and Coil, we decided to focus on getting ourselves some proper costumes. My original attempt at one was okay for the small budget I had at the time, but with Lisa's help I could make one that was much, much better in comparison. Also, Lisa herself was done with her Tattletale persona, which meant that she had to get a wardrobe change of her own too.
The evening I stumbled upon her drawing her new outfit, I quickly got roped into the endeavor. It was quite calming, especially when done with company, and it was something I haven't done in ages. Not since Emma's betrayal.
We've been drawing a bit before bed every day since, brainstorming and criticizing each other's works. It was only last night that both costume designs were finally finished, which was when Lisa suggested we commission Parian, a doll-themed rogue that did puppet shows on the weekends at the Boardwalk.
As it was Saturday, one such show was unfolding right now as me and Lisa approached the store it was advertising, joining a relatively large crowd. While I wasn't a fan of puppet shows myself, finding them rather unsettling, the way Parian controlled her dolls as if they were real, living beings was definitely impressive. I wondered how it felt, being able to do so with such finesse; maybe I could try it someday?
I heard the crowd clapping as the show came to a close, and felt Lisa tugging my arm to the side. I followed her to a discreet corner where she handed me a plain domino mask, the same brand as the one I bought for my first costume. She already had hers donned, so I just shrugged and put mine on, trusting that she had a plan in motion. Several seconds later, I saw Parian passing by us alongside her living toys.
"Excuse me, Parian." I watched Lisa say as we approached her. "You do commissions, right?"
The doll turned and looked at us with an odd air of apprehension before speaking. "...What kind of commissions are you asking me for, exactly?" Was she scared of us?
"The heroic kind," Lisa answered, smiling slightly. "Y'know, costumes?"
Parian seemed to relax at the mention that we were heroes, and nodded. "Yes, I can do that. It won't be cheap, though."
"We know, that's not an issue."
"Alright." Parian seemed to have glanced away for a moment, likely hesitating. Then again, her mask wasn't the best at displaying emotions. "In that case, please follow me."
We arrived at a door after a few minutes of silent walking; the puppet cape and her cloth-based entourage filing in before me and Lisa. The animated beings walked further down the hall while we stood near the entrance, watching Parian clean one of her tables. Most of the mannequins populating this place wore different kinds of dresses, all made impeccably well. Clearly, we were dealing with a professional here.
"So," she said, finally sitting down. "What do you have in mind?"
We sat as well and I took out two folders from my bag, sliding them over. Naturally, the folders contained all of our sketches, and Parian seemed pleasantly surprised upon finding that out. She took her time studying each and every one, humming to herself periodically, and nodded after a while, seemingly satisfied.
"Usually,
I'm the one who has to do all of this." She said, pointing at the drawings. "Nice designs, though there are some things I'd still change. First, though… What are these? They don't look like cloth, so I wouldn't be able to make them." She pointed at the brooch-like things Lisa suggested we incorporate into our costumes, hers circular while mine was triangular. Honestly, I didn't know what they were either, but they did look nice and fit our themes.
"Cosmetic tinkertech!" Lisa explained enthusiastically, lifting her package from her lap onto the table. "In fact, I got 'em right here." She tapped it.
Parian inclined her head to the side, staring at the package, then shrugged. "Need help opening it?"
"Actually, I think I got this." I raised my hand weakly. Lisa looked confused for a moment before her expression lit up with understanding and she slid the object over with a nod.
I held it down with my hands while a newly-summoned thorn swiftly cut through the seam in one clean movement. Thorn dismissed and the package opened, I handed the latter back to Lisa.
Me and the puppeteer both watched as she took out two identical boxes, each about the size of a fist.
Inside each was one of the mystery brooch-like accessories. They were both about two inches wide, with smoky black surfaces, a bit like my new phone when the screen was turned off, except it was obvious that they were three-dimensional. The backsides were flat, also black, and had countless tiny loops adorning the perimeters. Interesting.
Alongside the Tinker brooches, each box contained a strange USB cable that ended with a nail-sized flat metal circle, as well as what I assumed was a user manual. Lisa pocketed one cable and manual pair, then slid the other across towards Parian along with the brooches.
"These loops are for strings, that much is obvious. Shouldn't be hard to attach," she muttered while inspecting one of them. Afterwards, she put it down and switched her gaze towards her cable and manual. "Okay, what about these, why are you giving them to me?"
"Just in case you wanted to test them. They create visual effects, though we'll have to code our own." Lisa elaborated with a shrug, digging into her own user manual. "Pretty sure there are some preset ones… Ah, yup, there they are. Page 26. Oh, and if you're worried about power, these things charge using body heat. Or, well, any heat."
"What a strange project…" Parian let out a 'hmm' of contemplation. "Alright, I'm in."
"Nice," my companion said with a grin. "So, about those criticisms…"
◭
After a while, we had our measurements taken and were summarily released. There was so much fashion talk it managed to make my head spin. We did get ice cream on our way back home though, which was nice. Even if it didn't help my fraying mood much.
We were sitting in my room atop my bed now, Lisa playing around with her new laptop while I watched her. Under any other circumstances, I would be pretty relaxed, especially considering our costume ministrations were being relegated to someone else, but right now I felt like a wound spring. My restlessness was, of course, perfectly natural — there were at least two lingering threats hanging over our heads, a fact that was rather stressful to acknowledge at the best of times.
How the hell did Lisa deal with this all the time?
"You get used to it," I heard her say. She was looking at me from the side, a rueful smile on her face. "Just gotta keep busy and try not to think of all the ways everything can go horribly, horribly wrong. Preparation helps too, I suppose."
"Am I really that obvious?" I asked with a weak smile of my own.
"Maybe," the blonde replied, then tapped her head twice. "Even without my power it's pretty easy to see that you're worried about something. You're still tense, and you've been doing
that for the last, what, twenty minutes?"
I followed her gaze to the curling and uncurling toes on my right foot. Yeah, that
was obvious. I stopped it.
"I gotta do
something, Lisa." I whined and flopped down, stretching. "If one of us gets hurt because I was too lazy to prepare better…"
Lisa sighed and leaned back to look at me with a sad expression. "I get that, Taylor, but we've done all we can, short of stocking up on guns and tasers or whatever. You don't have to run yourself ragged for my sake."
"I want to, though." I met her eyes. "For the both of us."
She shook her head and closed the laptop, sliding it off her lap with one arm.
"Look around, Taylor." She laid down next to me and gestured at the walls of my room — all of the fairy lights we bought yesterday were already set up by us last night, glowing faintly. It was rather cozy, all things considered. "We pretty much got Stalker taken care of. Not the most impenetrable defense, sure, but at least your room's safe. Should probably get a taser, though… Ask your dad for one, maybe?"
I hummed in agreement, staring at the ceiling. Were there any other ways we could gain an advantage?
"As for Coil…" Lisa continued a bit quieter. "...There's nothing we can do about him at the moment. Just have to not get seen, because if we do, we're as good as dead."
I felt a chill lance through me.
"Nothing..?" I whispered, dread made audible. She was the smartest person I knew; surely she could think of something, right?
"Nothing," she echoed, oddly hollow. "Imagine that, one day, you get a knock on the door. You open it, only to find yourself staring down the barrel of a tinkertech rifle. You try to fight back — you die. You try to run — you die. You don't open the door at all, and hide instead — you
still fucking die once his mercs inevitably find you. So, you surrender yourself to his mercy in hope that he won't kill you, but at that point you've already lost." I could hear her breathe slowly, as if trying to calm herself. "Oh, and if you were hoping for a lucky break... With his power, luck is never on your side."
That…
That was horrifying.
I turned my head towards Lisa at a glacial pace, my neck almost creaking, only to see her eyes closed and tears rolling. Without hesitation, I immediately rolled over and snatched her into a hug.
"I shouldn't have come here…" I heard her whisper into my shoulder.
"It was my offer, not yours," I answered warmly.
"You didn't understand how scary he was at the time."
"You said plenty. I made my choice."
"I'm endangering both you and your father's lives, Taylor. Every day I spend in this house is a day you two are at risk! How can you not see that?"
I exhaled slowly, looking down at the top of her head.
This was a person who was at rock bottom, who so desperately needed a helping hand. This was a girl that had known pain as intimately as me, if not more. This was the first and only friend I had in years. Someone who seemed to genuinely care about me, and someone who I cared about as well.
I refused to let her hurt any longer.
"I know, Lisa. I know. You think I'm not afraid of one of us dying?" I pulled back a little to let her see my face. Hers was a bit flushed, still somewhat wet like the shoulder she cried on. "I'm
terrified. Before this Monday, I never would have thought that cape stuff was so… dangerous. Sure, it may have crossed my mind a few times, but it's another thing entirely to experience it firsthand…"
"Then why? Why put up with me?" She had a watery, self-deprecating smile now, and was still clinging to my waist with a weak grip.
"Because you're not alone anymore," I answered while smiling as well, repeating her own statement from a few days ago. I'd never forget it, of that I was certain. "Remember?"
Lisa paused, then exhaled a short giggle-like noise before leaning back into our hug.
"Dork," she said with a small smirk.
"We'll get through this, Lise. Somehow."
◭
"So," Lisa said after biting into a cracker with cheese. "I've been thinking."
I snorted. "You're always thinking. That's literally your thing."
"I'm glad you agree," she said smugly, finishing her treat.
"What have you been thinking about this time?" I asked, nibbling on a cracker too.
"Your power." She waved yet another one in my general direction. "It's weird."
"Most powers are," I retorted playfully.
"Yeah, but mine says yours still has secrets to tell." Lisa leaned in with a smirk. "And I
love secrets, so spill."
"Well, I'm not sure what to tell you." I watched her narrow her eyes. "No, really!"
The Thinker framed her chin between her thumb and index finger, locking her mischievous eyes with mine. The smirk she had before quickly grew into a grin before she popped another cracker in her mouth.
"How about some testing?" she said, chewing away.
That
did sound fun. I had some questions of my own, after all…
"Why the hell not," I agreed with a shrug. "Let's go upstairs."
I took the plate of cheese and crackers with me, and we quickly returned back to my room. I sat on my bed, while Lisa chose to remain at the desk.
"Alright." She grabbed an empty sheet of paper and wrote 'Basics' at the top with a pen, then leaned back with a playful flourish. "Tell me, Miss Hebert — what can you do?"
I rolled my eyes and outstretched my hand. "I summon thorns," I deadpanned, doing exactly that above my palm. I saw Lisa jot down 'Summon' on the left side of the sheet.
She nodded. "What else?"
"Uh, I can dismiss them too..?" I demonstrated. "Does that count?"
Another nod. "Yup, everything counts." 'Dismiss' joined the list, and Lisa's eyes were back on me. "More."
"Uhhh..." I faltered before remembering the day prior. "Right, numbers!"
"Numbers?" I watched an eyebrow rise to the heavens.
"Yeah, so… Remember the thing with the aura yesterday? The one Glory Girl had?"
She blinked, then tilted her head to the side. "You did that with numbers?"
"Well, yes," I confirmed, trying to put my thoughts into words. "Back when I last practiced a bit with my power, I found out I could do two more of these instinctual things, kinda like summoning and dismissing but not. One of them was that I could give a thorn a number. That's… about it. They don't even change visually."
"Huh, interesting. Hold on." Lisa wrote 'Numbers?' on her paper before continuing. "What numbers can you give?"
I summoned a thorn and tried giving it the number -7, but nothing happened, just as predicted. I then tried 2011, which worked just fine.
"Okay, so apparently I can do any number that's not negative or zero," I said.
The frowning blonde hummed in thought. "How about fractions?" She asked.
Good question, though I doubted it would work. I dismissed the thorn and summoned a new one, attempting to give it ⅔ which failed spectacularly. Oh well.
"Nope."
Lisa shrugged. "Fair. Now, then, what did you do with the aura, exactly?"
"Well…" I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to recall my actions. "I summoned a thorn with the number 1, which turned to 0 pretty much instantly. It didn't fill up with Glory Girl's power like the rest, though."
"Did you try numbering one of the Dallon-flavored thorns instead?" She queried with a smirk.
"No, but I had a hunch that it would do nothing." I levitated the thorn in my hand over to Lisa. "Try it?"
She touched the floating object, quickly turning it space-themed. I then tried to give it the number 4, but the number was simply rejected.
"Didn't work," I shrugged.
"I may have a theory… Summon a new one, give it a number that isn't 1, and let me touch it."
I obliged, going with the number 4. She then booped it. "Alright, it went down from 4 to 3, but that's it."
My smug assistant tapped it a few times more before leaning back. "Still 3?"
"Uh-huh."
With a grin, she crossed out 'Numbers?' and wrote 'Ignore' beside it. "Cracked it," She said. When she saw my confused look, she decided to elaborate. "Apparently, it's a sort of ignorance system. Basically, you give a thorn a number, and it will ignore that many unique powers it interacts with first, adding them to an internal blacklist of sorts. Obviously, any further interactions with blacklisted powers won't do shit. Pretty useful."
Yeah, okay, that made sense. "So, like on PHO? Except instead of users, it's powers?" I asked.
"Exactly!" She exclaimed, then grabbed another cheese cracker.
"Neat. Okay, what next?" This was fun!
"That other 'thing' you mentioned," Lisa said, obviously excited, leaning towards me. "Might be the secret my power is so enthusiastic about."
That was certainly intriguing, if mildly foreboding.
"Well, it wants me to select several thorns, and when I do they turn into a spike." I had discovered this ability a few weeks ago, but, so far, there weren't any reasons for me to use it. Sure, having a large spike made out of several thorns is cool and all, but most of the time it's too bulky to bother with.
I looked away from my thorn, only to see that Lisa's eyes were beginning to resemble dinner plates.
"Show me. Now." She intoned with an odd urgency in her voice.
A bit unsettled by the way she said that, I summoned three more thorns and selected all four. All but one quickly floated to the stationary one; the one I selected first. They aligned themselves around it, then connected, all at once. When that happened, the resulting spike's components no longer remained in my mind's vision — the spike was a singular,
whole thing; just like a normal thorn, and thus felt rather similar.
"H-holy shit." I heard Lisa say, almost… scared? No, that couldn't be right. "Holy
fucking shit." In awe, maybe?
"Lisa? W-what's wrong?" I asked, trying not to panic. "Lise?"
She looked me in my eyes, an absolutely
feral grin splitting her face.
"It seems, dear Taylor, that copying powers isn't the only thing you can do."
She started giggling, slightly wincing at the migraine she was probably having right now. I watched her unexpected hysterics, racking my brain on the reason she was so hyper all of a sudden.
However, right before my mind could catch up, before it could reach the revelation on its own, Lisa finally stopped and leaned further forward, her face inches away from mine.
"You can combine them too."
