JingHave you hashed out how the rolls are going to work for crafting lube? 8D
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Huh, on second thought, it'd probably be easier to remove pings since it's not like anyone in this game relies on the forum @mentions to know when an update's out.
Yeah, guys, moving forward I'll just remove the ping list and save you all one grisly, horrifying notification.
Yeah, guys, moving forward I'll just remove the ping list and save you all one grisly, horrifying notification.
Pfft, copypasta ping template. You're removed.
𝕎𝕖𝕕: 𝕆𝕔𝕥. 𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝔹𝕒𝕝𝕕 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕 𝕀𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕 / / ℤ𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕘'𝕤 𝔼𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕖 / / ~𝟘𝟝𝟘𝟘
As evening wound down into night, Bald Head Island settled for another rest, creatures and subnaturals alike slipping back into the comforts of shelter and sleep as dark clouds obscured the moon, heralding the heavy storm to assail the island. Aldrich was performing the rounds of the estate and its far reaches, checking in with several soldiers in person and finally calling Andrew on his way back, sorely regretting not bringing an umbrella along as rain began pouring. The café owner had long been a friend and one of the few privy to Aldrich’s best-kept secret. Between the de facto leaders of the island’s two social divisions—those who lived on the estate and those who refused to—they kept a steady sort of peace and Aldrich made sure to provide Andrew with enough supplies to prevent the town from starving itself into nonexistence out of sheer stubbornness.
“Aldrich!” The panicked voice on the other line was followed by the unmistakable sound of stubble being scratched, one of the man’s nervous tics.“Christ! Finally got a hold of you!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Wish I knew it all, but you know how my power is. Won’t get me anything I want to know. Caught a glimpse while fishing—Amigos. Already on the island, but I can’t tell where. Landed off the north coast by the looks of those rocks.”
“Why didn’t I hear of this until now?”
“Couldn’t reach you all day. Went to the estate myself but they said you were off doing rounds. Signal’s really killing me on this island. The maid girl—Elvia I think—she said she’d go herself to find out and report to you, but if you hadn’t heard nothing ‘til now…”
“North coast, right?”
“Yeah, but doubt they’ll still be there when you get there.”
“Any idea why they’re here?”
“Not a recon group, tell you that. Armed to the teeth and nails. Teitel’s works. Siege, more like. Talked to that girl hours ago.”
“All right.”
Aldrich pulled a red flare gun from his coat’s inner pocket, firing it into the air immediately as he sprinted back to the estate. The watcher that night was Lucas, a newer addition to the estate, and already he worried the boy had fallen asleep on the job. A quick stop to send a warning to the soldiers’ phones, but his priority was the students in the estate. For the Amigos to mount a siege now was too much of a coincidence.
Luckily, Olivia was the one to catch the flare in Lucas’s stead, late from tending to the greenhouse. She dropped the watering can, abandoning her pumps for speed and running on stockinged feet back to the manor, screaming “Attack! There’s an attack!” at the top of her lungs. The reaction was instantaneous. Lights all across the manor lit up as the rest of the staff woke, the earliest responders already pulling on the warning siren installed throughout the estate.
High-pitched screeching pierced the night's downpour and several disheveled staff members were already unlocking the doors to the students’ rooms, rushing in to wake them. Any who seemed too groggy were picked up and carried swiftly downstairs to the basement where the more combat-capable staff members—relatively—were already preparing defenses. Several looked decidedly inhuman ranging from a bundle of ghostly wisps to a redhead who looked like she was smearing the air around her with every movement of her hands. As the last of the students entered the basement storage room, she slid her hands across the surface of the door, smudging the edges, the hinges, and the door handles until the door looked like a childish paint smear on the adjoining wall.
“Wait, we’re missing people!” one of the butlers shouted, hurrying to the door and trying to pry it back to its original form, but it was entirely two-dimensional now.
“Who?!” the girl shouted back, curly hair looking like a nest around her head.
“The singer girl—Lachance—and the Gregory boy! Elvia, too—” the butler stammered, turning back to the door.
“Aldrich is still out there, just leave it to him. You know the procedures!” An older girl snapped, hands dripping what looked like black ink. “Red flare is high danger. No chances! Anyone who didn’t make back here will have to find some other way to—”
A rolling rumble cut her off, rippling through the island as if right below their feet and shaking the very foundations of the manor. Rubble and dust rained upon them as the jolting shudder of the land finally died down. One of the floating wisps flitted up to check the structural damage and returned announcing, in a whispering voice, that no damage had been done, outside of small cracks that had sprung up in the tremor.
“Wait for Aldrich,” another of the wisps spoke in the same soft voice. “Three hours maximum. After, we head to the ferry. Get you guys off the island.”
A bright red whip snapped towards the Hellcat perched a safe distance away from the cliff edge, flying towards the driver’s seat from the right and narrowly missing Angel’s torso. Instead it simply split the car’s front end away, cutting away the vehicle’s front just before the steering wheel.
And both of Angel’s legs at the knees.
Before the girl could even comprehend what was happening, a shrill laugh echoed and something wrapped long, cold fingers around her neck, yanking her body out of the driver’s seat and away from the stumps of the singer’s calves. In the process it slammed her head against the new edge of the newly truncated car, knocking her out in the process.
“Get her cuff off right?” A dark blue sphere floated in the man’s hand as he addressed the stringy, tattooed girl beside him, her dangling red whips mowing the grass around her feet clean. Behind them stood a group of nine fellow Aberrations, all armed with either mundane weaponry or more exotic gear shimmering like the weapons couldn’t decide if they were real or not. Several of them were bloodied and bruised while one stumbled along, one arm twisted at a hideous angle.
“ ‘Course I fucking did. I don’t miss,” she spat back, turning frenzied brown eyes in his direction, the whites lined with red capillaries. “You think I shoot up a bit and can’t aim? That what this is? Think ‘cuz Teitel likes you best you get to boss me around like—”
An unseen force slammed her temple, sending her careening to the ground and pinning her arms down before she could retaliate.
“Don’t need you if you can’t control yourself,” the dark-skinned man replied, orb pulsating rapidly in his hand.
“…Fuck you,” the girl growled, but she dissipated her whips. Only when she had let the fight drain from her shoulders did the man let go, turning to the hulking shadow creature that had by now approached them, holding a legless girl in its grip and patiently waiting for instructions.
“Thi, patch her up. When that’s done, take her to the boat.”
“Right away, sir.” A small, Asian woman with a short bob cut carrying a metallic briefcase approached the bleeding girl, kneeling down to unlatch the case and pull out a long chain from which strange surgical instruments dangled, their forms twisted and seemingly unusable. She pulled a long saw from the chain, its end still attached to the main tool line by a thin, purple thread. Holding it out to her side she nodded at another member of the large group, a young man with half his hair shaven off and piercings along ear and lip. He grabbed the blade of the saw for a moment, then let go once it had heated to a white-hot gleam. A quick slide across both of Angel’s stumps cauterized the amputations and the shadow beast stalked off, the subnatural girl dangling in its hands like a toy.
“We still gonna hunt for the fucker?” the tattooed girl stood up, rubbing at the blooming bruise across her face. “Should just blow this entire place to hell.”
“We give Zhang a bigger reason to attack us than the monsters and we’ll get exactly that. Teitel wanted just one of her new toys and the client wanted the generator on the sole condition that we manage it without attracting Zhang’s ire. He’s made too much of a commotion now. We’ll have to leave.”
“Hah, this island full of fucking rejects. I can take ‘em all.”
“No. You can’t.” The counter was delivered as curtly and firmly as a universal truth and the group’s leader turned back, heading towards the direction of their docked boat.
He stopped at the sight of a bespectacled maid glowing like a beacon. Even as a crushing force threw her back, her body had already let off a burst of light bright enough to wash the entire cliff field in white, permanently blinding several of the enemies in the area. The subnatural surgeon, lucky enough to have been turned around and gathering up her gear in the flash of light managed to get away with several seconds of blindness and heavy afterimages. She pulled at a strange pair of gloves on the chain, where each finger looked as if twisted needles grew from the tips. Donning the gloves in one hand, she took tongs in another and pried out one of her eyeballs, revealing heavy modification along the inside of her skull and along the length of the optic nerve, glimmering purple and black with her power. Easy enough for the suddenly living needles on the glove to repair the damaged nerve ends of her eyes once they made the right contacts and before long one eye was restored to normal. She tucked it back into its socket, adjusting the flap of her eyelid back to normal before working on her second eye as well.
By the time she was done, the maid had escaped, leaving behind a group of blinded Aberrations in her wake.
Thi set to work fixing her comrades, all of them already heavily modified by her powers and easily reparable once she had her hands on them. Whatever the maid had hoped to achieve would be quickly undone.
Once everyone had vision again, the group of Aberrations reoriented themselves and continued towards the beach, wary for any more attackers and moving on hair triggers as they headed toward their escape route. Despite the tension, the walk was relatively smooth and quiet, save for the wiry tattooed female’s occasional whines.
“Man, we could totally take ‘em.” -She gritted the words out, stepping over a puddle of mud –“Maybe if you stop bein’ a lil’ bitch.”
“Maybe you shut your whore mouth, Isa.” -A tall blond commented, finally having had enough of the ramblings.
“Maybe you shut up, cabrão.” -The heavily tattooed Aberration snapped, fists clenched and shoulders squared, ready for a confrontation. The blond only gave her a withering look, but the brown of his eyes suddenly flared red, like heated copper.
Other members of the group stopped dead in their tracks, gazes darting between both of them and their leader, waiting for the tension to sort itself out.
Then something clicked, metallic, like a chime. A round, heavy object rolled at their feet.
“Rhohan!”
The shadow creature lunged past them and threw itself onto the grenade, just mere moments before it went off. However, the muted explosion only heralded a rain of gunfire upon them, mundane weapons, but more than enough to kill.
Yet, the Amigos were also adept at what they did. Especially those that survived this long.
The tall blonde ducked, turning his molten eyes toward where the muzzle flashes were, while his nearby comrade had already had her laser whip out. A wall of solid ground rose between them, bullets lodged themselves uselessly in packed dirt while the shadow creature leapt up and into the slaughter.
Minutes passed, and the last of the gunshots were finally silenced.
Most of the Aberrations still stood tall, some bloodied but Thi had already begun working on that. Still, her power did not work on the dead, so one of their own was lying still, broken beyond repair. The others only gave him a passing glance before they kept on moving, deaths and losses having already become an all too familiar part of their violent, fast lives.
However, another issue presented itself when the group finally made it to the site of their ship. The only thing left of the vessel was its charred hull sticking out from the shallow water. Obviously, they had not hidden it as well as they thought they did. That forced their leader to consider alternatives, and a certain boat docked at a southward pier.
𝕎𝕖𝕕: 𝕆𝕔𝕥. 𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝔹𝕒𝕝𝕕 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕 𝕀𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕 / / ℤ𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕘'𝕤 𝔼𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕖 / / ~𝟘𝟞𝟛𝟘
Aldrich returned to the estate to find everyone gone, which was exactly as he had hoped. He tracked mud and water into the hallway and ducked under the mantle of a nearby fireplace that always remained unlit despite constantly filled with firewood. "Decorative" was how most of the staff explained it to anyone who asked, but a small switch hidden in a concealed crevice opened the back wall of the fireplace, sliding it down to reveal a small shaft with a simple metal ladder installed against the lip. Aldrich leapt onto the ladder, flicking the switch and the sliding door closed before descending into a narrow hallway in the basement—another hidden passageway in the manor walls for exactly these sorts of situations. The bookcase door hiding the exit from the hallway took several slams of the man’s shoulder to open, stuck as it was from months of disuse. When he finally shoved it aside and stepped into the main storage room, the entire house’s staff along the students were there, but a quick headcount told him they were already missing two of the kids as well as a member of the staff. And there was no time to look.
Several of the estate subnaturals had already aimed varying weapons at the bookcase filled with miscellaneous boxes and old, folded clothing, but they visibly relaxed on seeing the head of staff despite the dripping rainwater and the man's heavy breaths from the sprint.
”Move! Go!” he shouted at them, pointing towards what appeared to be a clean section of the far wall. At his command several of the staff hurried to shove aside boxes and crates, clearing the path until one of them finally hammered a fist on a spot high on the wall. Something clicked and the wall opened inward into a door-sized passageway large enough for two people at a time to enter.
The walls of the hidden route were lined with simple support beams and basic wooden planks for flooring, but recent upkeep had kept it clean and the single line of small, electric lights flickered to life as the doors open, triggered by motion.
”Hostiles on the island. Amigos do Paí, if you know of them, and they’re not pulling their punches. Not enough information on why they’re here, but we need to evacuate the guests first. Follow the passageway. It’ll take you to the lighthouse in town, near the ferry. I need to remain here and make sure to buy time if they attack the house.”
”Aldrich—Elvia is—” One of the maids spoke up, the redhead from before.
”Dead until proven otherwise. Don’t take chances with the Amigos. She knows what it means to not return here in the event of an attack.” If he grieved for the missing girl, Aldrich didn’t show it, directing the students towards the secret passage with a firm raise of his hand. ”Leave, now. If they decide to attack the town and destroy that ferry, you’ll have no transportation out of here for at least an hour.”
He was already turning around to the bookcase entrance as he spoke, shoulders squared for a fight he knew he wouldn’t win.
In the chaos of both sound and storm, Gregory had been caught unawares outside, fiddling with the guns in the hunting shed as he alternated between testing out his new capabilities and conventional firearms. The flash of red in the sky out the window had caught his attention, however, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out something was wrong. He picked up a pistol and a pack of ammunition, stepping out of the shed and into the heavy rain warily before hurrying along the beaten path back to the mansion, eyes alert for any signs of approach and letting his Stigma fill in the blanks of shapes and shadows in the dark forest, approximating size and distance as well as what the object was. 5.322cm twig. Oak. Freshly snapped. Pinecone. 7.112cm in length, 5.896cm width at largest point.
He shook his head, trying to clear water from his eyes and as well as the influx of facts and figures that threatened to overwhelm him again. Letting his Stigma progress to a certain point had its benefits, but he had pushed it a bit too far and now textures and colors were starting to define themselves in his mind as well. It was debilitating at its worst when his mind couldn’t escape the mental crossfire of information and overloaded he had almost forgotten how to breathe. Now, though, he heaved steadying breaths and continued on, ignoring the exact weight in kilograms of the gun in his hand, the increasing weight of waterlogged clothes on his body, and the dizzying amount of calculations it took a human to take even a single, balanced step.
Sudden thumping and splashing to his left had him firing shots blindly into the darkness as panic overtook him, but his Stigma had its uses when it wasn’t blindsiding him with an overabundance of unnecessary information. The approximation was a giant rabbit, something he could hardly believe were it not for the certainty of his Stigma.
It bounded away terrified by the gunshots that had—by all calculations of his curse—completely missed.
One detail popped out to him in the steadily overflowing wave of data, though.
One thought. “Likelihood of noise attracting danger, approximating from location of flare, 43.76%.”
He ran faster, tripping over smaller logs and bushes when his feet couldn’t react to the information in his mind and stumbling on slippery patches of rocks and dirt. But it didn’t matter. He needed to get to safety first, and in this unfamiliar place only the manor meant “safety.” Relatively speaking, his Stigma reminded.
Uuuugh, Christmas has an upgrade. It's as potatoes as he is, but whatever.
Yeah, I'm just gonna pull Star and, I guess, Valen by extension since they're kind of a set pair.
Probably some emergency in Aldebaran. They left soon before the main group set out.
Probably some emergency in Aldebaran. They left soon before the main group set out.
"𝕋𝕙𝕖𝕪'𝕣𝕖 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕨𝕖 𝕗𝕖𝕒𝕣. 𝔸𝕟𝕕 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕨𝕖 𝕟𝕖𝕖𝕕."
𝕊𝕦𝕟: 𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟚𝟘, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕎𝕒𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕠𝕟, 𝔻.ℂ. / / 𝔼𝕧𝕒𝕔𝕦𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 ℙ𝕠𝕚𝕟𝕥 / / ~𝟙𝟛𝟙𝟘
Most of the students were already back at the temporary camp; Kadabra dropped some of them off earlier to the gasps and relief of the normal survivors as a building lowered itself gently to the ground nearby and several more shaken civilians stumbled out. The APC brought the rest just a few minutes prior, and the unconscious blood mage was carried in last after soldiers found him collapsed en route to the evacuation point, a trail of demolished buildings and shredded concrete behind him. As soon as the students were collected, their injuries were also healed with syringes of magical blood. For those who were there before, namely Callan and Hazel, their wounds had already been treated with Christmas’ blood. Both were currently resting in one of the tents nearby. The healer in question was in another tent, still hooked up to IV drips and blood bags, his power put to good use.
However, the students had only minutes to recover. Soon enough, they were given orders to move and guards were herding them onto an APC, not unlike their first day at USARLN East. The unconscious ones were simply strapped to their seats, and any attempt at asking for clarification was met with silent glares and grunts. The urgency of their situation was palpable, but went unsaid. Christmas, however, remained behind. His power was simply too integral to salvaging the bloody aftermath of DC.
Director Zhang watched passively as the last of the soldiers left in the second APC, escorting Unit B to one of her personal safehouses in the southeastern seaboard of North Carolina. Now that the students had done their part, she needed to be able to do hers. And that meant keeping them out of sight and out of mind. Surely, once the survivors regrouped and the situation in DC was stabilized, rumors, testimonies and survivors’ stories would definitely begin to circulate. Then the media would dive for them like hungry hawks. She was confident that she could handle all this. But she needed an early head start, and what was better than coordinating the relief efforts here, with a powerful healer at her disposal. Then she would work on their publicity. Opinions of the masses were easy enough to sway, with just the release of selected footage. Claims of injuries and violence would be harder to verify, especially when the wounds were healed by magical means. As for those who were more persistent with their accusations, she could just blame it on the desire for compensation.
It might seem cruel, to twist their words and minds in such a way, but every miracle required sacrifices. And looking around, this world could really use a miracle or two.
The Director retreated from the forefront of attention once the students had been taken away, letting the chaos of the aftermath swallow up everyone else’s attention completely. She pulled out a separate, secured phone not connected to military systems and scrolled through the list of contacts, each name encrypted into gibberish and memorized long ago.
Not all sacrifices were bloodless, and there was only a small window for the actions she wanted to pursue. Her finger paused, the nonsense list of names barely visible on the screen in the bright day. A hand covered her eyes as if shielding them from the light. She stood still a second longer then lowered her hand, tapping swiftly a contact from the list.
The phone rang only once before Morph picked up.
“Director.” The girl’s soft voice betrayed no surprise, though there was the sound like a utensil clinking against a bowl or dish on the other end.
“How are you?”
“Available.” A light rustling followed the sound of a chair being pushed back.
“That’s good. There’s an emergency in Washington. I assume you’re nearby.”
“I’ll be there within two hours.”
“Details when you arrive. Remember to bring your phone.”
“…I understand.”
𝕊𝕦𝕟: 𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟚𝟘, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝔹𝕒𝕝𝕕 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕 𝕀𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕 / / ℤ𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕘'𝕤 𝔼𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕖 / / ~𝟚𝟘𝟜𝟘
The trucks drove for over seven hours with minimal rest, stopping only briefly at gas stations for quick refuels and a large helping of the snacks in the store, moving them southward along the I-95 S. Cities and towns gave way to large, open stretches of lonely road punctuated by the occasional town and smaller city that passed them by outside the windows. Everywhere they went, there were soldiers and militia roaming and several times a smaller town would have the nerve to stop the procession of trucks for questions before the matter was quickly cleared up by the sight of the cuffed students.
As they continued further south, their route moved into lusher farmlands heavily fortified with fencing, light walls, and soldiers on the perimeter. Signs of battles and losses against Dreamcatcher’s monsters lined the gouges and decimated earth along several miles of fortifications. The soldiers were tense, moving through territory that had seen its fair share of battles, but there was no hesitation—they had jobs to do, even if the world wanted to fall apart around them. Most were there to keep subnaturals in check through the Institutes’ employ, but several knew there was little else they could do to make a difference. Time had proven, more than anything else, that magic was an absolute necessity now to fight back.
By the time they reached the southern end of North Carolina, the soldiers were just as eager to rest, though they didn’t reveal it as easily. The tiny town held little by way of interest for most people, and many of its residents had relocated to safer locales in the last several years, leaving behind unclaimed homes and businesses that had fallen into disrepair. Those who stayed were the old and the uncertain and the paltry militia had neither the means nor the training to fend off any serious attacks. But for all that seemed impractical about the location, there was a elegance to the area—sweeping rows of farmland, some overgrown where the owners had left and others still well-maintained despite the lack of protection, a clear, glistening river mere miles from the main town of Southport, and a soft, balmy temperature that was cooling down significantly as the seasons shifted slowly towards the end of autumn. Dogwood trees were bare of their characteristic spring blooms, but the warm shades of autumn lingered in the browns, reds, and oranges of the fallen leaves. Across the river lay a thick forest that had once been a carefully observed national reserve, but had by now been abandoned for more pressing matters. There, too, the vegetation was aging with fall and a stubbornly functioning lighthouse illuminated the night with flashes of brown and old green.
The students were shoved onto a short ferry ride towards Bald Head Island, with unconscious students or heavy sleepers carried on stretchers onto a ferry that, despite the look of the worn down town, was still crisply maintained, its red paint and polish recently buffed to a bright sheen. Water and the smell of the ocean buffeted the boat for some time, but around an hour later they had arrived at the island, stepping off the pier and onto the smooth sand of the beach. Instead of the usual pier the ferry docked at for the journey, this pier was an unmarked location several miles north of the main village on the island and well into the territory of the island’s previous natural reserve left unchecked and untouched since the Slumber.
South of their location, at the usual ferry route, lay a small village of little more than 80 or so residents, the broken down housing either patched up by obviously amateur work or in complete dilapidation. But electricity flowed there, as did running water, and the people lived as comfortably as they could manage. Supplies seemed low, since the remaining convenience store in town had shelves half empty or half spoiled, but people came and went all the same, the only notable oddity being that they brought in items and came out with entirely different items.
Further down the short road was a gas station that pumped no gas, but still refilled cars just as well. A mystery, really, and for some strange reason the majority of people felt a natural aversion to the location, as if they simply didn’t want to go there. It suited the purposes of the inhabitants just fine and instead of living in designated homes, most people preferred to stay in the large motel at the village center, living apparently for free while those who preferred their own forms of privacy took up abandoned houses around town. A single tavern—it would be a stretch to call it a proper bar—was the sole source of guilty pleasure entertainment around the place, since the movie theater was entirely nonfunctional and no one had found the motivation to repair the projector in every theater room.
It would take someone braver than usual to figure out that the town’s inhabitants were all subnaturals.
The commanding officer of their group checked his phone once more, then led them past the lapping waves and into the underbrush, every soldier flicking their mounted flashlights on immediately as the darkness of the forest swallowed the group.
There was an animal trail to follow, and the sounds of rustling terrestrial creatures and disturbed birds permeated the crunching of leaves and twigs beneath their feet. The trek, luckily, did not last too long. Just thirty minutes later moonlight broke through the leaves as they entered a vast clearing of land that looked to be an old estate. In the distance, a large three-story house built in the old colonial style with creaking wooden porches and ornate columns sat alone among the swaying grass and meadow saffrons that dotted the field, lights bright inside its many windows and carefully carved doorways.
A cobblestone path led the way to the front steps of the porch and several maids and butlers stepped out from behind the grand double oak doors, bowing politely to the students. The maids all sported the same outfit of ruffled white lace over a black, knee-length dress and each had their hair neatly tied into a doughnut bun. The men wore a similar uniform in tailored, double-breasted suits and slicked hair swept back over their heads.
The soldiers seemed uneasy on approach and once closer there was an obvious reason why: every staff member of the house was a subnatural—all were white marks and hardly older than the students save for a much older, unmarked man who appeared to be in his late forties with a trim, graying beard and a sharp glare to his natural countenance. He approached the group, nodding once to the commanding officer before regarding the sorry states of the students.
“The Director will house everyone in her private estate for now,” he announced, voice deep and clear despite the signs of his age. “My staff will show you to your rooms. Anyone incapable of moving will be brought to the infirmary in the back of the mansion.” He turned to the soldiers then, regarding them coolly. ”There are also quarters to accommodate your men, Officer. I imagine you’ll be stationed on the island perimeter at this rate?”
“Affirmative. We’ll leave them with you,” the soldier replied, glancing once more at the students before signaling his men to stand down. Weapons and shoulders relaxed and a maid gestured for the military units to follow her while others rushed to take the stretchers from several soldiers.
”Follow the maids to your rooms, please,” the older man spoke again, looking towards the students. As he talked, the maids were already surrounding the students, herding the uninjured into the building’s vestibule and down the west wing of the mansion towards a set of stairs that led to the second floor hallway and a series of similar rooms, ten on each side, with a plaque boldly announcing the intended occupant’s name on every door. The only exception to the group was, once again, Hazel who remained surrounded by four guards on each end of her stretcher. Two carried her into her designated room and remained on alert in case she attempted any sudden moves upon waking, weapons at the ready. Two more stood guard outside the door.
Each room contained sets of nondescript, white pajamas for the students in their size and a small armoire of clothes that had apparently come from their dorm rooms at the Institute. A folded set of swimwear lay in the back of the bottom drawer and gentle lighting from the rectangular wall scones revealed that there was electricity in the place despite its remote location. The walls were decorated in striped pastels of cream and white while a mahogany, canopied bed accented the cozy room with a matching sofa and coffee table against the far wall. There was a pastoral charm to the gold ivy and vine filigree that trimmed the edges of the bed and nightstand, and the old-fashioned style of adding entablatures and pediments to the tops of doorways was displayed in its finest here as every entrance looked hand-carved in uniform floral designs. A silver chain hung beside each bed, within reaching distance—a bell mechanism that would ring for a maid at the occupant’s convenience.
”For any inconvenience, please summon a staff member with the silver chain beside your beds. You are free to select your own rooms, but bear in mind we added your clothes according to the name plaques on the doors.”
With another bow, the brown-haired girl left, followed by the majority of the maid. An older-looking blonde remained and gave them several more reminders.
”The baths are in the east wing, accessible from the hallway at the far end. Food has been prepared in the dining hall on the first floor. From the foyer, please head straight towards the double doors in the back to find the dining area. You’re free to move about as you like while here, including forays to the beach, but please do not leave the island or move beyond the perimeter. Guards will open fire without question if you choose to and we will also be obligated to stop you if we believe you are attempting to escape.”
With a kind smile, she curtsied and left as well.
The estate's distant location from proper centers of civilization meant there was little by way of cell signal. Calls in the area often dropped or refused to patch through. As if to ease the burden of communication, internet was available in the estate and there were studies bordering a library on the third floor with computers for open use. A small gallery nested in a corner on the third floor, connected to the library by a short hallway. Various paintings by foreign artists were compiled in the private collection and covered a range of styles from classical to abstract to contemporary.
A large billiard room sat on the second floor, east wing, containing a TV, several sofas, the customary billiard table, several small two-seater tables, and a wine rack on the wall. Connected to the billiard room by another set of doors was a small gym with basic exercise equipment. These particular rooms laid along the same hallway as the bathrooms containing both a large bathtub and a separate shower stall. Along the walls of the bathroom were long, wooden shelves filled with folded, soft towels and expensive soaps and shampoos, freshly purchased for the recent occupants.
On the first floor, to either side of the main foyer (before arriving at the back doors that entered the dining hall) were two sitting rooms with recliners and massage tables. Here, too, were silver chains to be pulled for summoning staff. A small music room beside the west sitting room on the first floor housed a piano, two cellos, a violin, and several stands with flutes and clarinets. Behind the main dining room were the kitchens, which also bordered the infirmary even further behind that, positioning the food preparation place in between the two rooms that would need it most. Private chambers for the servants were attached to the side of the mansion and a particular private chamber took up the entire attic space.
Below the mansion laid a wine cellar, a larder, a pantry, and various storage rooms filled with crates of miscellaneous tools, decor items, and nonperishable foods. Towards the back of the underground hallways were cleaning rooms equipped with various detergents, softeners, and dry-cleaning chemicals for laundry purposes. An easy stairwell allowed access to the open grounds above the laundry rooms via a trapdoor where certain larger items such as delicate down comforters and long tablecloths hung on a clothesline, fluttering gently in the night air.
Outside, a large garage connected loosely to the back of the mansion and contained several white bicycles of varying heights and two gleaming cars, the models several years old by now, but still very clearly black Dodge Charger Hellcats, a model known for its unnecessary acceleration and horsepower.
Behind the mansion was an outdoor pool with floor lighting accompanied by a pool house and a large greenhouse where various vegetation were grown for both visual enjoyment and for practical, kitchen purposes. A short distance away, asphalt had been laid down for a tennis court and a basketball court, the required supplies for each sport resting in sheds nearby. A quarter of a mile from the mansion's backend accommodations was a shooting range and another shed filled with various hunting equipment from crossbows to rifles to skinning knives, all impeccably maintained and cleaned alongside a large table, though the cloying, gamey smell in the air revealed the shed had seen plenty of use recently.
Further away were the stables, home to three horses (a black Thoroughbred, a white Andalusian, and a brown-white tobiano-patterned Pintabian), the entire structure completed with a large tack room filled with saddles, bridles, and grooming equipment, along with the feed.
The entirety of the estate, despite the rustic appeal of its decor, revealed a careful attention to maintenance and cleaning, marrying the old-fashioned style with a modern cleanliness that made banister railings and mirrors sparkle immaculately.
In the midst of it all, the various questions surrounding the location and its staff were easy to forget--for the moment.
As the class undertook their quiet retreat the world kept moving, processing the annihilation of the United States’ most secure citadel. Yet in the midst of this widespread apprehension, USARILN East’s unnamed unit of subnatural teens took the spotlight once more, acquiring a cult following that only blew to immeasurable proportions as the days passed. Public debate ignited with a previously unseen fervor, heated discussion covering the question of whether or not these recent public appearances would put these subnaturals in a whole new light. The media was lit ablaze.
The catalyst was a series of videos of unknown origin. “Leaked” footage from the perspectives of the teenagers that had so bravely battled the odds to be the heroes the city needed.
The voice of Proteus sharply giving orders to his squad, culminating in the defeat of the crusher and the slime creature in an impressive collaboration with Kadabra. A girl with an ethereal sword. A long-haired boy flinging re-purposed pipes at the slime. A brown-haired girl in chainmail crushing the ice giant to pieces with monstrous, astral limbs. The girl previously identified as “Siena Santana” diving through solid concrete in her rescue efforts. Time Scar receiving tearful thanks from a dust-covered civilian. Emma from the news getting thrown to her side, only to continue digging with a grim resolution moments later. Angelique Lachance and a small girl with shining eyes working together to locate trapped victims, with ethereal chains moving to the sites as they were pointed out. A recording of the underbelly of a colossal reptilian beast as it tore through cars and charged towards the slime monster. A blonde girl with a pregnant woman, healing individuals in a crowd with a black thread. A censored shot of a pale, lanky boy with wisps of red smoke rising from his naked body leaning down to pick up an aquamarine-haired girl while holding another bleeding girl over one shoulder. A short segment of footage from a third-person perspective, filmed with a steady hand, showcased an unconscious subnatural boy attached to multiple bags of blood along one arm while paramedics withdrew blood from both his other arm and a leg, injecting the healing liquid rapidly into the nearby gurneys of severely injured people.
It didn’t take the netizens much critical thinking to deduce the nature of the shaky footage. Skewed, low angle shots and nondescript watermarks such as the “B-15 42782 Roless, B.” in the footage featuring Proteus’ team were consistent features throughout all the videos. Someone had obviously broken into USARILN’s impenetrable database and released recordings of the battle from the students’ ankle cuffs. But if slander had been their intention then the leaker had fallen short. From the selective clips released online, it was incredibly difficult finding anything malicious around the courage and goodwill displayed by the teenagers. If more footage could be found then perhaps a more critical view could be taken towards the subnaturals but alas, there was nothing.
Strangely enough, out of all the leaks only the footage from a “B-02 15263 Bloodworth, K.” had been missing its audio. The issue was passed over easily though. Never in this decade of terror had there been such a treasure trove of raw, in-depth subnatural footage available to the public aside from the carefully curated footage of the Precursors’ battle with Garrote that had been heavily edited for public disclosure and the usually unclear news broadcasts of random subnatural attacks. Not many people bothered to look a gift horse in the mouth. Rumors of a murderous riot in the middle of the disaster had been similarly passed over, or erased before anyone could check back on them.
Of course with the public knowledge of these new subnaturals and their abilities, the online forums went hard to work, compiling background research and theories to cover these new figures. Emma Halwell had already been christened with “Pandora”, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the saccharine image she had displayed in her talk with Darren Lingard. The juxtaposition of the sweet girl and the dark, shadowy figures she unleashed with their myriad talents were enough for several astute viewers to coin her the name of the Greek myth Pandora—the “all-gifting,” the woman who released evil into the world, but held hope close to her bosom, sealed tight within the jar. It was as close as the public would come for now to admitting that they needed subnaturals—that the monstrous plague upon the world could be solved by the very same powers that brought them to being guided by the subnaturals that people had yet to accept.
The unhinged redhead from the WJLA interview hadn’t gone without her own brand of bad publicity either, proving herself as the prime evidence that the world’s governments were more than correct in their legislations against the magical youths. Czernobog was the name given to Zoe. “Black God”, the Slavic personification of evil and bad luck. Even in the dim night light, the black mist and tattoos brought forth by the X-mark’s power had been visible and described in close detail in the testimonial Barbra Tyson had delivered after the interview. It was more than enough to condemn almost all the Washington subnaturals.
And yet Barbra’s smear campaign had been easily overshadowed by the tragedy that had befallen the capital.
The internet was abuzz instead with the fervor of naming their new subnaturals that had been revealed to the public. Whether they would see more of them in the future didn’t worry most people and arguments over names set the web on fire. But the majority always seemed to win out in the end and Siena was named Sylph for the way she seemed to move like air through the material of the building. Hazel’s name flipped between Marionette and Puppeteer for several hours, but by the end of the various discussions on Reddit’s r/subnaturals “Marionette” had finally won out as the popular choice. The dragon that had attempted to take on the slime was given a large pool of names to draw from, but the final call was Kilgharrah after the Arthurian dragon of the same name who, in some renditions, allied with Merlin and—by internet logic—humans. Sophia took Seer by a landslide, with some wondering if she might have a similar power to Foresight, but relegated to viewing only the present time. Black threads that seemed to move wounds from one source to another gave Lily the name of Norn, the name for beings that controlled man’s fate and often visually depicted with threads. Angel’s display of power netted her the name of Siren, though with less reference to the mythological temptresses and more to the effects of a police or ambulance siren; something that draws the ear. Large amounts of interest cropped up for Grant, whose matter manipulation and control gave way to much speculation about his capabilities. One of the end results was his nickname—Gleipnir—the impossible chain that could bind a monster.
The most impressive of the clips, however, was the girl whose immaterial sword seemed to destroy the slime on contact as she reached out towards a raging surge of the dense liquid mass. A sword to fight the monsters. Multiple jokes about the “Infinity +1” sword were thrown around, but the end name for her was Excalibur, drawing again from famous Arthurian legends that, if the theory of Dreamcatcher’s existence was to be believed, might not have been legends at all.
Meanwhile the long-haired mage firing projectiles at the slime near Excalibur’s position was, for most people, somewhat unimpressive given the scale of what Kadabra could do, but people were fascinated all the same, wondering how the details of the power worked and noting the drawn line. Gregory was named Ballista, though Rifle was also a close contender. Once laughter and derision over the naked student had died down, his speed and red smoke earned him the name Ifrit, though the nickname was less of a focus while people tried and failed to uncensor the footage just to appease the question of whether this particularly tall guy had genitals to match.
As talk surged about a new team of superheroes to replace the Precursors (with equal amounts of scoffing and scorn on the opposition), the Director remained in the thick of it, manipulating information through rumors and hearsay and spreading the leaked clips on various accounts bounced through proxies and foreign locations, looking as if there had been a data breach. A particular rumor that she did not spread, however, was that a mage whose power involved technology and networking had been at the root of the data breach. It seemed silly and far too convenient for her to spread the thought, but the minds of the internet had come up with a story for her, so she pretended to field the DOD’s questions with the answer that she was currently investigating the leak, but of course all checks came up clean and the world held too many possibilities for even the craftiest to consider everything. It occurred to very few (and even they dismissed the thought) that the Director could be lying. She seemed too austere to be the sort. Too severe. Too heartless to help the subnaturals that way.
Her private estate, however, told a different story.
𝕊𝕦𝕟: 𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟚𝟘, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕎𝕒𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕠𝕟, 𝔻.ℂ. / / ℂ𝕚𝕥𝕪 / / ~𝟙𝟛𝟘𝟘
“They’re taking too long,” Director Zhang muttered to herself, eyes narrowing at the stalled dots on her phone’s display. And with every passing minute that she couldn’t get a handle on the situation was the lowering probability that she would be able to fix it, period. There was no time to wait on them.
She cast her gaze around the chaos ringing her where soldiers barked orders and confirmations over their phones and civilians huddled and cried for help, demanding special attention to their loved ones. It was an exodus not unlike the aftermath of China’s devastation, where survivors on the fringe of the destruction had flooded the western European borders searching desperately for refuge and rescue. Lina Zhang had been younger and kinder then, unmarked by the scars of simply living in the hostile new age. An ambassador’s intern at the time in a chancery bordering the Tibetan Highlands of southwestern China, Lina had been solely focused on the task of funneling Western aid towards future development of the region. It was a small role in a nondescript location, but she had harbored plans of taking control once the locale had settled. She had not been—and would not have ever been—ready for the razing that shook the land and grayed out the sky with smoke and ashes. Evacuation was impossible. Flights had either flown or could no longer fly in the darkness. Pandemonium stretched even as far as the fringes of the barren highlands and what had been paperwork, numbers, and endless contracts became a daily struggle to provide the basic necessities for desperate refugees who had gone as far as their legs or gas tanks would allow. Anything to escape what they thought was the world’s end.
The memory aligned perfectly with the scene in front of her eyes, but the Director watched impassively now, concerned only with her goal and little else. People watched her warily, but remained quiet, unwilling to face the ring of soldiers around her to ask for help.
At least for the first few minutes of her presence there.
A man approached tentatively, hope on his sun-tanned face as he addressed the renowned director.
“M-my wife was shopping for groceries and I couldn’t—”
“Not now,” the Director responded, not bothering to even listen. On cue, a soldier raised a hand at the man, in a gesture to step back.
“But you have to help!” The ravenous need to be allotted special consideration lined the man’s words until they thickened with emotion and instead of stepping back he stepped forward. “She’s pregnant! You can’t just leave her—”
Before even the soldiers could point their guns at him, the Director already had.
“Not now,” she repeated, voice gentler. Her finger curved onto the trigger of the Hephaestus weapon.
She watched his pockmarked face break and could almost hear the hopes crashing around him. He stepped back, fighting the tremors of stress and panic across his body and the newly arrived tears welling up in his eyes.
A separate set of soldiers nudged him back towards his group of evacuees, checking over every person for any injuries that weren’t immediately apparent. In the back and separated from the groups of recovering citizens was the unconscious healer, already hooked up to several transfusion bags while paramedics injected his converted blood into the worst of the injured citizens, marveling briefly at every blossom of white, glassy mist that sheathed an affected target’s torso. More trucks commandeered from nearby towns were already on the way to help evacuate citizens, but the wait allowed most of them the time to recover with the magic they scorned so much.
“Send a squad towards their location. Bring them here,” she nodded at one of the soldiers making up her protective ring. He saluted and relayed the order through his phone, selecting a group already close to the subnatural team’s location.
“What about the civilians, ma’am?” he said, turning towards the Director again.
“Pick up convenient ones. Leave the rest.”
“…Yes, ma’am.”
The fury of a dragon, even an injured one, was nothing to trifle with and despite retreating quickly into itself to thicken its density, the slime closest to Chris’s fiery explosion and burning fuel still boiled and bubbled as the dragon raked claws through the material. Unwilling to let the damage spread further, the main body sectioned itself off, withdrawing veins and arteries and leaving behind a semicircular lump of clear ooze. The amount was still nearly five times the size of the attacking dragon, but it cleared the damage away. Nearby, tendrils and growth began devouring the nearby buildings, slowly replenishing the lost and damaged material.
All in vain, and the woman the slime once was realized this too late. Common parlance dubbed the experience “life flashing before one’s eyes,” but to her it was nothing short of hellfire racing across the lines of her nerves.
Gregory’s projectile made contact. Allison’s blade connected. Brent’s gun was faster—so much faster—than the crusher’s reactions.
The bolt of light vaporized the crusher’s head, searing through slime and concrete with equal ease. The weapon dissolved away in Brent's hands, scorching his skin but not long enough to cause permanent damage. Meanwhile, Sander’s wild, unstoppable motions were jolted forward by the sudden surge of free, open air over his upper body as the area of slime surrounding him and the headless crusher retreated, the injury from the heavy damage triggering a reflexive recoil. Human, after all.
Cauterized veins and arteries that had been unable to withdraw in time spasmed where healthy tissue met damaged sectors and the slime began digesting the body of its dead ally, desperately attempting to replenish its form.
All in vain. All in vain.
Allison’s blade made the barest of contact with the slime’s surface, but it was enough. The mass shuddered, the trembling vibration coursing through the ground and into the surrounding buildings. Large segments of its body sloughed off even as Zoe’s rot spread like wildfire along the lines of its organic nervous system leaving behind nothing but putrefying liquid that spread into dollops of black inside the dense liquid. The heart and brain slid quickly away from the encroaching damage, moving well out of range as the slime closest to Zoe lost its steady control and began sliding down.
At the edges of the necrotizing Aberration’s power, the rot stopped, but the damage had been done. The Animus spasmed again, trying to gather back the scattered remnants of its slime flesh, each piece an amorphous, unresponsive blob of clear muck the size of large tractors. The process was slow, Allison’s power severance having reset the process of its growth back to the initial levels and preventing it from controlling the bulk of its body, though the girl’s ability fought a losing battle against the sheer might of what she was truly cutting.
But without the crusher to help ward off Kadabra’s attacks, the decaying, weakened slime had no method of stopping the Precursor.
So Kadabra tried again, wrestling mentally with the recovering Animus for control of its inorganic body. Still in contact with Allison’s blade, the creature lost the fight this time just as the young woman collapsed unconscious, her power flickering away as her body gave in to the strain of what she had just attempted to cut—and not even cleanly. Regardless, she had done her job.
It ended as quickly as it began.
The moment Kadabra felt his magic encompass the creature, he pushed the mass inward, crushing towards an arbitrary center and ignoring the organs’ attempts to rocket around the body. It didn’t matter where they went. All paths led to death. Slime surged again, rippling under the weight of the Precursor’s will, but Allison’s attack had reduced its control to almost nothing and the pain of Zoe’s rot had already scattered its focus to the winds.
The sound was muffled under the slime, like a footstep into thick mud. A bloody paste remained where the heart and brain had been. The body collapsed, tearing down several buildings as the liquid surged outward, engulfing Sander once again and pushing him with its motion, but this time without mind and purpose.
Not ungrateful for the subnaturals that had helped, Kadabra lifted their building away from the flood of muck, bringing it closer to his lofted perch as he scanned the area for any more potential disasters lurking. Their immediate location had been cleared of bystanders. The bodies that remained were only good for funerals.
He shifted the building, dipping it lower until the students’ floor was on the same elevation as his floating platform, still broadly displaying the red lettering of some restaurant’s “Grand Opening!” Dust and debris caked the Precursor’s clothes and in the afternoon light he looked as weary as the students, eyes strained and face drawn from the repeated stress of battle after battle. He watched them in silence for a moment, scattered across the floor of the room from the sudden lift of the building. One was out cold, but that would have to be dealt with later. He was no doctor.
“…Good work. I understand you have never fought Dreamcatcher’s real monsters before, so congratulations. This is what victory looks like.”
The words were clean, washed of emotion as Kadabra turned and looked upon the broken fragments of buildings and people coated in a sheen of now-dead slime. Livelihoods and lives. After the appearance of the ice maiden and Firestarter’s light that had annihilated the frost monster, the skies had slowly cleared and now unfitting sunlight clarified the fine details of slaughter and senseless destruction.
It was different from seeing a desolate wasteland or a small village obliterated. This was a city where bright lights and loud, angry cars had rumbled and honked their ways through the streets crawling with people of all shapes and sizes. It was safety disrupted. An oasis set aflame. Crumbling buildings and geysers of water bursting from broken fire hydrants dotted the ruined cityscape and Kadabra realized only as he began that he was heaving a long, heavy sigh.
“I’ll move you to the evacuation point,” he addressed the students inside the building, making sure to keep the broken edifice level so they could stand easily. A phone slid out from the front pocket of his brown sweatshirt, positioning itself next to his ear and dialing on its own. When he reached the other end, the message was short and sweet: “Targets eliminated. Retrieving USARILN East students. Send coordinates for any more in the area.”
A moment of silence passed in pale imitation of a mourner’s respect and the phone shifted to hover in front of the Precursor’s face. He briefly glanced at the naked, pseudo-vampire and the dragon far below them, but the information the Director had provided gave him a reason to not worry about one of the two. That one, at least, would be fine on his own—-would likely be faster on his own as well, assuming nothing else cropped up. He picked up the bleeding, burning dragon on a large section of concrete instead, shearing away a spacious chunk right below Chris's clawed feet and lifting the injured Arbiter with them.
Without another word Kadabra moved the platforms and the floating building, the motion slow and steady now that there was time to breathe after the storm had passed. Below them, the passing lines of asphalt and intersections broke at random where collapsed buildings, dented cars, and broken people had become morbid decor in the devastation.
These were the victories they had to settle for.
@Zelosse Nah, you're killing him because your character has a pollen allergy that just became a thing.
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