Jaunt 2.2
I stood there for a moment, feeling a bit awkward as the receptionist stared into my face with eyes that were beginning to glaze over.
"Um, excuse me? Ma'am?" I said. I glanced at her name tag. "Ah, Margaret?" A general cessation of conversation around me caused me to glance behind me.
It appeared that everyone within earshot had stopped whatever they were doing and turned to stare in my direction. As I looked, I saw more than a few pairs of eyes widen, presumably after seeing my face. Some of them were edging away from me. The security guard nearest to me had tightened his grip on his grenade launcher, his other hand going to his bandolier of special grenades.
Well, there go my hopes of an uneventful meeting. I knew my voice was different without my face on, but is it really that strange?
I turned back to see that one of the other receptionists had wheeled her chair over next to Margaret, and was poking her in the shoulder. She turned to me with accusation in her eyes, her gaze fixed firmly on my chest in an obvious attempt to not look at my face. "What did you do to her?" she asked.
I held my hands up in what I hoped was a nonthreatening gesture. "Um, honestly? I didn't do anything. That's never happened before."
Of course, I haven't shown this face to very many people, so...
She continued to scowl at my torso. I peeked at her name tag, which read 'Vera.' "So what are you here for, anyway?" she asked.
"Miss Militia asked me to drop by. I'm Starfield, by the way."
Evidently curiosity won out against caution, and she glanced up at my face. She paused for a moment, then said, "Huh. That's kinda pretty."
"...Thanks?"
She turned back to her coworker and shook her shoulder, and finally got a response. "...Full of stars," Margaret mumbled as she jerked upright. She glanced around for a bit as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then turned to Vera and asked, "What just happened?"
Her coworker sighed and shook her head. "You looked at the cape lady's face and spaced out," she said, gesturing to me. "She says she didn't do anything to you, so I guess it's just you being you again." She ended her statement with a wry little grin and a poke to the shoulder.
Margaret shot her a halfhearted scowl, then turned back to me. "I'm sorry about that, ma'am," she said, her eyes carefully at my chest and not at my face. "So is there anything I can help you with?"
I would have raised an eyebrow if I had one. "I was asked by Miss Militia to stop by here. I'm Starfield."
She clicked through some things on her computer for a few moments, before saying, "Ah. There's a note saying that you'd come by, though it says something about wings..." She paused for a moment, then shrugged. "In any case, I've notified them of your arrival. Someone will be here shortly to escort you."
"Thank you."
I moved to the side so she could help the next person. Vera stared at my face for a little while, then rolled back to her place at the counter.
Hardly a minute passed before I heard a woman's voice call out, "Starfield!" I turned towards the source to see Miss Militia waving to me as she approached. In her other hand she carried a briefcase that had an American flag charm hanging off its handle. Her weapon appeared to have taken the form of a large combat knife hanging from her belt. "Thanks for coming so early. Come, I'll show you where we need to go."
She led me to a meeting room in a section of the building that I didn't think was open to the public. "First," she said, "we'd like you to give us a more thorough statement of what happened during the incident, as well as answer a few questions. It shouldn't take too long. After that I'll take you up to see the director, and once that's done you can go meet the Wards. Is that alright with you?"
I nodded. "Sure. Let me just get out of this hoodie first."
She gave her assent, and I took of my hat and the garment in question, which I rolled up tightly.
"Would you like some place to put those?" she asked.
"No, thank you," I said. I then quietly asked Aria to take the items of apparel, which she did.
Miss Militia stared for a bit, then visibly shook herself and said, "Ah, yes. You did the same with the cell phone I gave you. That seems rather useful. Now let's get started then, shall we?"
.o.o.o.
"Was Thursday your first night out?" Miss Militia asked.
"Um, yes and no."
The older cape raised an eyebrow.
"Well, you see, I hadn't been planning on making my debut then. My house isn't really the best place to practice some of my stuff, so I've been flying out to the Boat Graveyard every now and then. I hadn't really seen anybody below me the previous times I'd flown, probably because of the weather, so I decided to walk part of the way there on Thursday. Then that guy tried to mug me."
I sighed, then noticed the other cape twitch in response.
Huh. I guess my sighs sound weird to other people as well.
"I honestly don't know how he didn't notice that I was a cape," I continued. "You'd think the huge wings coming out of my back would have tipped him off."
"So where are those wings now?" Miss Militia asked. "Pardon my interruption. It would be rather difficult to miss their absence. I noticed that there doesn't seem to be any indication of their presence on your back. And I believe you had a tail as well?"
I nodded. "Yeah. I didn't want to attract too much attention when I came in, so I didn't bring them out. Though I guess I attracted a lot anyway."
"I see," she said, making another note on her notepad. She then motioned for me to continue.
"Where was... Oh, yeah. Anyway, when the guy freaked out and tried to stab me, I panicked a little and attempted to grab his hand. I meant to just grab it with a tendril, but I accidentally used a mouth and ended up biting off half his hand. That's one of the things I want to work on before I actually debut."
"I see," the cape sitting across from me said once more. "Now, I have a few more questions. First, have you experienced any significant cases of amnesia, and do you have any tattoos anywhere on your body?"
I paused at the odd and unexpected combination of questions. "Um, I've never had any form of amnesia, and I don't have any tattoos. Why do you ask?"
"I am trying to see if you are a Case 53," she replied as another note was added to her notepad. I started to ask her for an explanation of the term, but she answered me before I even said the first word. "'Case 53' is the term given to a certain category of parahuman. They have no memory from before they appeared in this world with their powers, and each of them has a certain symbol tattooed somewhere on them, or otherwise inscribed if they cannot be tattooed. In addition, every Case 53 cape to date has had his or her body altered in some way by their powers."
"Oh, I think remember now," I said. I read about them on Parahumans Online. "They're the so-called monstrous capes, right?"
"I wouldn't use the word myself, but essentially, yes."
"So you thought I was one of these Case 53's?"
"From what we saw of you the other night, we felt it was safe to assume you were a Case 53, had a Changer power, or both. Since Case 53's tend to not have civilian identities or even homes or families to return to, we would have to be ready to provide special accommodations If you were to join."
Wait, join? I haven't decided to join anything yet, really. "Ah, yes. I have a civilian identity and all that."
"Excellent. Now on a somewhat related topic, are you below the age of eighteen?"
.o.o.o.
Miss Militia had been right when she said that the session wouldn't take too long. It took only a little over twenty-five minutes, and as such didn't have the time to become boring. When we had finished, Miss Militia put the notepad and pen she had been using away in her briefcase, then led me out of the room. "We'll go and see Director Piggot now," she explained.
She led me to a set of elevators that were obviously of tinker origin. The ride was so smooth I could barely tell that we were moving. Once we got off, she led me to a room containing a desk, behind which sat a woman who was presumably the director's secretary. As we entered, the secretary looked up and quickly glanced over us until her gaze fell upon my face, where it stopped as if entrapped. She stayed like that without moving, not even to blink, for a number of seconds until Miss Militia cleared her throat pointedly, the sound startling the lady out of whatever state she was it.
"Ah, s-sorry about that," she stammered. "No idea what came over me. So it's Miss Militia and, ah, Starfield, correct?" We nodded in response. "I'll just let the director know you're here."
As she notified the director, Miss Militia glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. I shrugged in response.
"Director Piggot will see you now."
Upon entering the office I saw the director of the Brockton Bay branch of the PRT standing behind a large desk, windows behind her showing the clouds crawling across the sky. She was a heavyset woman with a bob haircut, and a small frown on her face that gave me the impression that she didn't like me very much. In fact, she seemed to have similar distaste for Miss Militia as well. The frown was quickly replaced by a polite little smile that did not reach her eyes.
"Please, come in. Have a seat," she said, gesturing to a couple of chairs in front of her desk. I sat in one of them, but Miss Militia chose to stand against the wall beside the desk. The director lowered herself into her own leather-bound chair.
"As I am sure you have no doubt gathered, I am Director Emily Piggot of this city's PRT branch. You are Starfield, I presume?" I nodded. She directed her gaze to where my eyes would normally be, but showed no sign of freezing up like the two women from before. "An apt cape name." She turned her head to look at Miss Militia.
"She's under eighteen and she's not a Case 53," the Protectorate cape said.
Piggot nodded, then returned her gaze to me. "Starfield," she said, "I would like to offer you a position in the Wards program."
If I had had eyes I might have blinked them in surprise. I had known that the offer was a possibility, and Miss Militia had hinted about it fairly strongly in our earlier conversation, but I hadn't really expected it, at least not this early in the meeting. Surprise quickly turned to uncertainty as I thought about the offer. I had considered joining the Wards a couple times before, but both times I had decided against doing so. Most of my reasons for becoming a cape, for becoming a hero, involved it being an escape from my situation at school. Joining up with a group of teenagers didn't seem like the best method for escaping a social situation. Not to mention that, as a more-or-less complete unknown with no achievements to my name, I would find myself at the bottom of the totem pole. And if one of the Wards was another Emma, another Sophia, that I would have to deal with outside of school? Ha. Forget dealing with it, I'd probably snap on the spot.
But it might not be completely terrible. I had my friends Aria and Melody, and their companionship could make things more bearable. When I met them on Thursday, Vista seemed nice, and Kid Win was... loyal, I guess, though I hadn't seen much of him. And from what I remembered all the Wards attended Arcadia High, so if I joined up I might get accepted there and be able to escape my tormentors.
Piggot's voice cut through my musings. "The Wards program exists for people like you. It's designed to help you figure out your powers and make sure you have the support you need. If you join you will receive a stipend, and the PRT will put together a trust fund for you that you can access once you reach majority. In addition, unless you are already attending or do not wish to attend, you will be transferred to Arcadia High."
The confirmation about the Arcadia transfer was nice, but it felt like she was leaving something out.
"Are there any requirements for joining the Wards that I should know about?" I asked.
She grimaced a bit, but answered. "You would have to inform us of your identity, and since you are still a minor your parents or guardians would have to come by and help you with the paperwork."
Dad. I flinched slightly at the thought, then froze. I... I didn't really want to tell him. I had seen it in how he hovered over me after the locker incident, his worry so visible it almost physically pained me to see it, outstripped only by his rage at the ones who had attacked me and at his own inability to help me. Its severity had lessened as I recovered, but it was far from gone. If I told him that I was a cape, it would only add to his burden.
Piggot observed me as I sat in my chair, thinking. She suddenly asked, "Do you know what a trigger event is?"
The apparent non-sequitur startled me enough that I lost my train of thought. "Huh?" I responded wittily. "Oh. Um, a trigger event is the time that a parahuman gets their powers, right?"
"It's the worst moment of our lives," Miss Militia interjected. "When we're pushed to the edge, fight or flight responses pushed to the limit, or even beyond."
"Thank you," Piggot said as she inclined her head toward the lady cape before returning her attention to me. "Was your trigger event the result of abuse?"
"Yes?"
Where are you going with this?
"Was it the result of parental abuse? Because if it was, we have ways to help–"
"What?!" I interrupted, my voice shrill with outrage. Both of the women in the room with me flinched at my tone. "No! Dad would never do anything like that to me!"
Piggot held up her hands in a placating gesture. "Alright, alright," she said. "It was a little difficult to read your body language, and I am required to ask if there is even the slightest possibility of child abuse."
I deflated, saying, "Oh. Okay." I sighed to help calm myself down, then asked, haltingly, "Can i... Can I take some time to think things over before I decide whether or not to join?"
"Certainly. Take all the time you need. I cannot force you to join," she said, before muttering under her breath, "Much as I would like to in a certain few cases." She then pulled out a cell phone and started typing out a message. "If you want, you could spend some time visiting with the Wards members."
It seemed like a fairly transparent ploy to help convince me to join, but I didn't really see any harm in it, so I said, "Sure."
She finished her message and sent it off. A reply came within a minute. After reading the reply, Piggot said, "Vista will be up momentarily to escort you to their area of the building, if you'll wait out in the hallway for her."
.o.o.o.
The door closed behind me, leaving me alone in the hallway. I took a few steps down the hall, then turned to lean my back against the wall.
After less than a minute of waiting I spotted Vista approaching me at a much faster speed than her sedate walk should have allowed for. She stopped warping about twenty feet away from me and completed her journey at a normal walking pace.
"Hi there, Starfield! Glad you could come today," she said, a smile adorning her face as she came to a stop about five feet away from me. She gestured to the direction from whence she had come. "The Wards HQ is over that way, so if you'll follow me?"
I returned the greeting and we started walking in the indicated direction, though Vista did not use her power to shorten the journey. I noticed that she maintained a gap of a few feet between us.
"So," she said. "Are you going to be joining us Wards?"
"I haven't actually decided whether I want to join or not yet," I replied.
"Oh. It would be nice if you did join so we'd have another girl on the team. It's nearly all boys as it is."
"Isn't Shadow Stalker a girl?"
"Eh. She doesn't really count," she said, waving her hand dismissively as we rounded a corner.
We walked in silence for a little while, and then Vista said, "Oh, yeah. I was going to give you this." She thrust her hand into a cleverly hidden pocket in her costume's skirt. "You visit Parahumans Online, right?"
I nodded, and the younger cape said, "Great." She pulled out a folded piece of paper. "I spoke with a few of the mods on the forum, and they were able to make a verified cape account for you. It's got a temporary password on it, so be sure to change that when you log on."
Surprise and uncertainty mixed with gratitude within me, though a shade of suspicion darkened it.
When was the last time someone other than Dad gave me a gift? "Oh, th-thanks," I stammered. "Was there something you wanted for that?"
The little space warper looked shocked at the suggestion. "What? No! There's no need for anything like that. I just wanted to be friends with another female cape, is all. Besides, it didn't really take much effort to get this." She altered her path so she ended up next to me and pressed the paper into my hand. Once I was holding it she swiftly returned to her previous distance from me.
I would have frowned at that. "Is there a reason why you don't seem to want to get near me?" I asked.
"Oh, that." She rubbed the back of her head. "Our powers don't seem to interact very well. If my power touches you it makes me feel nauseated, and it's easier to not touch you with it if there's some space between us. I don't blame you or anything, though."
"Ah." That... was unfortunate.
"So yeah," she said as we stopped in front of an elevator. "Please don't be offended if I keep a little distance between us."
"Alright."
I cast my gaze down at the paper in my hand.
I guess it couldn't hurt to try.
"Aria?" I murmured.
"
Sure! Let me get that for you," she chirped, reaching a tendril out to snag the note. "
I'll just assume you don't want this eaten. Ooo, symbols!"
I looked up to see Vista, unsurprisingly, staring at my face. "You did that with the phone Miss Militia gave you the other night," she said. "Do you have a pocket universe in there or something?"
"Something like that."
"Huh. Interesting thing to use as a mask."
Any response I might have made was cut off by the elevator doors opening. We stepped inside and Vista punched one of the buttons. The interior was a bit fancier than that of the elevator I had taken earlier with Miss Militia, and the ride was so smooth only the button Vista had pressed told me we were descending. The ride was fairly brief, and once it was over we exited into a long corridor of chrome steel.
As she led me up to a security terminal at the far end of the corridor, Vista said, "Kid Win and I decided not to tell the others much of anything about you, mostly because we want to see their reactions." With that said, she stood up on her toes to let the terminal scan her eyes. With a metallic click and a barely audible whirr, steel doors whisked open and allowed us entry.
The room she led me in to was roughly dome-shaped. Walls were present, but they seemed like the type that could be easily dismantled and moved. A number of doors were set into various walls, some of which presumably led to sectioned-off parts of the main room, while others likely led to other rooms entirely. On one side of the room was a networked series of computers with large monitors surrounded by a number of chairs. Some of the monitors were occupied with screensavers, while others displayed camera images of key locations in the city. In the middle of the room were a number of comfortable-looking couches and chairs arranged in a rough semicircle, their occupants rising as we entered.
Kid Win's red and gold costume and red visor were similar to the same-colored body armor he had been wearing on Thursday, though I spotted a few differences. Like almost all tinker capes, Kid Win's costume was subject to frequent changes as he added and replaced bits of tech he designed.
Beside him stood someone wearing what could only be described as the offspring of a pulp science fiction hero's suit and a medieval knight's plate mail, in silver and gunmetal. From what I remembered this was Gallant, a cape who could fire emotionally-charged bolts of energy.
Across from them stood a boy in a skintight white bodysuit with glossy white body armor. Images of clocks in dark gray adorned the armor, some animated to float around its surface while others had ticking hands. A smooth, featureless helmet covered his entire head, a clock's face ticking away where his real face would be. The plentiful imagery indicated that the guy was Clockblocker, a cape who could freeze objects and people in time with a touch.
The final occupant of the room was Aegis, the current leader of the Brockton Bay Wards. He was large and tan, and wore a rust red helmet that matched his costume. Both had silvery-white trim, and a shield emblem adorned his chest. His powerset was a version of what was known as the "Alexandria Package"; strength, durability, and flight. His variant was somewhat different from most instances, but I could not recall if the Parahumans Online wiki had said how it differed.
Kid Win greeted me with a nod and a smile. I was glad that he didn't seem to bear me any animosity from our previous encounter.
Or he's good at hiding it, a little voice in the back of my mind said. I squelched the thought, as well as the subsequent train of thought of how deep in my head the back of my mind was now.
As I reciprocated Kid Win's greeting with a little wave, he frowned, though not with anger. He then shrugged and turned his attention to the other guys. I redirected my attention similarly.
They had each frozen in the manner I had become rather familiar with over the course of the day. Honestly, it was becoming mildly irritating. Due to their masks, the only one whose eyes I could see was Aegis. To my relief, it did not seem that his eyes were in any danger of glazing over. He straightened and said, "Well. I must admit when we were told a new cape would be visiting I didn't imagine anything quite like that. It is rather pretty."
"Oh, um, thanks," I said. The three started slightly at the sound.
"Interesting voice," Gallant murmured.
"Introductions are in order, I suppose. You're Starfield, right?"
"That's a nice name, by the way," Clockblocker said. "Though it makes me think of a joke–"
"No, Clockblocker," the rest of the Wards interrupted him in perfect unison.
I mentally blinked at their synchronized response, then said, "Yes, I'm Starfield. I've already met Vista and Kid Win, which would make you Gallant, you Clockblocker, and you Aegis." I pointed at each cape as I named them, and they nodded in response when I named them correctly. "I don't see Shadow Stalker here, though. Where is she?"
"Shadow Stalker is a bit busy right now, but she'll be back in an hour or less if you want to meet her," Aegis replied.
"I might as well," I said.
"In any case, this is a little awkward," the leader of the Wards said. "Since it's getting close to noon, I thought we could all have lunch together, but, ah..."
I tilted my head for a moment before I realized what he was referring to. "Oh, is it the mouth thing?" He nodded. "Don't worry. I can eat lunch." He seemed to relax a bit at that.
"I was wondering why you two went to so much effort to convince us not to read the reports from Thursday," said Clockblocker. "Were our reactions to your liking, Kid?" he asked, his voice implying a raised eyebrow.
Kid Win wiggled his hand in front of him. "Eh. So-so. But then, you didn't get the full experience." He turned to me. "Where are your wings and tail, anyway?"
"I was wondering the same thing," said Vista. "I don't see anywhere for them to be on your back, either."
"Well, I didn't want to draw too much attention when I visited, so I decided not to have them out. Do you want me to get them out?"
"Sure, if it's not too much trouble."
It didn't seem like it could hurt. "Alright. Is there somewhere private I could do it, preferably with no cameras or anything?"
Vista's expression seemed to soften. "Shy about your powers?" she asked. She gestured to one of the many doors. "The bathrooms are through there."
I thanked her and made my way to the indicated door.
.o.o.o.
"Aria? Could I borrow a few tendrils?"
"
Sure thing," she chirped, and a couple feet of her passed through the lower part of my face.
I maneuvered the tendril around to my back and trifurcated it, then bifurcating each of the resulting tendrils. I formed eyes on the tips of three of the tendrils, and paired each of them with a tendril tipped with a single, wafer-thin tooth. "I'm going to make the slits for what we usually do, Melody," I said as the teeth sliced open my back.
"
Alright," she said. "
It would be nice to feel what is going on out there. And on a side note, Taylor, what happened a little while ago that made you so angry?"
"Oh, that?" I replied as I reformed the tendrils to slit open my fingertips. "I was asked if my father had abused me, which he would never do. The question offended me, but since the person who asked the question was required to ask it and didn't mean to offend me there wasn't much point in remaining angry. And no, it didn't have anything to do with yesterday's thing."
"
I never said it did," she said, her wings and tail emerging from my back. "
But since you mentioned it, don't forget that you are going to tell us about it at some point."
"I know. Just, not now," I said as I watched her claws emerge through my fingertips. "Also, Aria? I'm going to have lunch soon, but since I'm like this you'll get to eat it."
"
Yay!"
.o.o.o.
"–to my little friend!" Clockblocker was saying as I returned to the main area. The other Wards either groaned softly, held their face in their hands, or did both. While I was gone they had all taken seats.
"Do I want to know?" I asked as I approached. Vista looked up at me.
"KW just had to ask what Clockblocker's joke was," she replied. "So no, I don't think you want to know."
"Aw, come on, guys!" protested Clockblocker. "It wasn't that bad."
"I suppose that's true," Kid Win said, removing his hand from his face. The white-clad cape turned to the tinker, likely with a hopeful expression under his mask. "It wasn't painful to listen to. It just wasn't funny."
Clockblocker slumped in his chair with a sigh. Then he shrugged and turned his attention towards me. After a moment of staring he said, "Nice wings."
"Thanks, I guess," I replied.
"I think they're pretty cool," said Aegis. He then rose from his seat and said, "Well then, everyone. Let's go get lunch."
"Where are we eating?" I asked.
"There's a cafeteria up in the PRT building that's pretty good," came the reply as the rest of the Wards stood up. "Is that okay with you?"
"Yeah, that's fine," I replied as I followed them out the door.
~~~