The receptionist weathered Chinami’s demands remarkably well. Perhaps she too had “seen some shit” while working for Nightman. Or maybe she was emboldened by having a ready made response for the girl.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t just give out information about our patients. I’m sure you understand. You wouldn’t want your own information just handed out to anyone who walked in off the street, would you?” The woman smiled pleasantly. “If you have an appointment of your own, you-”
“-can discuss any concerns you might have with me yourself.” Nightman walked into the waiting room, hands folded behind his back. “You do have an appointment, Chinami, and I’m quite free at the moment. Why don’t we discuss this privately. You simply can’t keep barging in here like this.”
Pursing her lips, Chinami turned towards the Doctor, still keeping her hands clasped behind her back, in large part to conceal how hard she was clenching her fists in anxiety and anger. Even now, seeing him in person and knowing -or hoping, rather- that she was protected from him, the Goth couldn’t help her stomach curdling in muted fear. She mulled over his words, half-entertaining going along with them. Even now, even after going this far… some large part of her was holding back, desperately clinging to the idea that she could solve this without violence. That was why she hadn’t just smashed through the door outright or gotten rougher with the receptionist. She still wanted this to be as diplomatic as possible, wanted to cling to even the smallest chance of the perfect ending.
What did she want out of this exchange ideally? She wanted the Doctor to give up his crusade with her, and she wanted to avoid being psychoanalyzed by someone that had no respect for her as a patient or person, given the egregious invasion of privacy. She also wanted to ensure the safety of the two boys -and any others that might be here besides, but that was somewhat notably lesser in priority compared to protecting herself and her mother.
Ultimately, however, there was only one answer she could give.
“No.” She snorted almost derisively.
“Unless you’re particularly delusional, you know there’s only a couple ways this can go, and not a single one of them involves you and me alone in a room together.” Rolling her jaw, she exhaled deeply, trying to settle her thundering pulse down.
“And the only thing it could be is delusion at this point. You seem to have a knack for knowing things it should be impossible to know, and yet, you can’t seem to grasp the most obvious, personal things about me.” She tilted her head.
“A limit of your Gift, perhaps? Or maybe just the user?”She shook her head.
“Regardless, I am here for a singular purpose… maybe two. Whatever else happens today, I shall be leaving unaccosted by your attentions. Now then.” She straightened up.
“The boys, where are they?”Nightman sighed, and lifted a hand, gesturing to the receptionist, “Why don’t you take a break?” The woman nodded and then stepped away from the desk, heading out through another door, leaving the other two alone in the room. He then turned back to Chinami, “I’m afraid the boys are none of your business. Any doctor would tell you the same. If you’re concerned for their safety, I can assure you they’re alive and uninjured.” There was no sign of him lying so far.
He continued to stand there, his arms behind his back with his guard down. “It’s ironic, really. I find those who need my help the most are almost always the most resistant. You’re no different. I can feel your anger. Your paranoia. All that stress. I could help you, but you’ll never just let me, will you? I feel no matter how I had approached, you never would have. Am I wrong?”
Chinami barely concealed her reaction, but she could not deny that, to her wired, paranoid mind, the Doctor ushering his secretary out looked dangerously like mental influence to her. Unfortunately, her current mental protections most certainly didn’t come with a side of actually being psychic herself. She might as well have been as blind and deaf to Nightman’s Gift as he was hers. Taking another calming breath, she also couldn’t help, however, being irked by the fact that Nightman had instantly debunked her prior declaration in some petty manner. Her Pride curdled at the insult, but by this point, he was already so deep in the hole with her that it was just another pebble on the pile.
Gritting her teeth, she managed to keep her expression locked into something approaching impassive, as her eyes narrowed.
“Normally, I’d be inclined to leave things at that and afford people their privacy. Only…” Her head tilted in mock thought.
“You afforded me none, so why the hell should I give you any in return?”She scoffed.
“You’re both wrong and right… but mostly right.” She had everything she could want, a path to follow, a good school, a couple people she could hazard to call friends, and a quiet mostly nonviolent life. The nature of the Academies simply kept total peace while attending them a pipe dream, but some sacrifices had to be made. She turned over the Doctor’s other statements in her head, eyes narrowed. With her current protections, he had to be either bluffing about being able to emphatically read her… or something else was going on. It was more likely than not that he was simply regurgitating the mindset he’d felt before she escaped, but there was always that chance that she hadn’t quite covered everything… It was impossible to say without knowing his exact Gift.
She rolled her jaw, taking a step back mentally to examine the situation, using her Spirit’s enhanced perceptions to take an extended moment to think. She was currently dueling for control of the conversation. The Doctor wanted to do his thing. She wanted to bull through this bullshit and find the boys, but she was holding back. If there was the slightest chance that he was genuine and that the boys were in no danger, setting her bias and fear aside, she wanted to grasp that peace with both hands.
Currently, she was on the backfoot. That was clear. She was locked into answering his own questions, and her own had been deflected almost casually. She had to pick him apart, tear his arguments down from the ground up. But how? Straightening up, she stared Nightman in the eyes.
“The practice of therapy relies upon the singular principle of trust. Without it, there is nothing. It requires a patient to actually want what is on offer, and it requires that it not be thrust upon them against their will.” Inhaling sharply, she frowned now.
“In every aspect of my handling, you’ve screwed the pooch, either through malice or blithering arrogance. You successfully, from day one, from the moment you insisted despite my firm rejection, from the moment you ignored my free will and threatened my Quiet Life, managed to destroy any chance of there ever being the kind of trust between us that I -as a potential patent- absolutely require without question from an individual of your profession.” Exhaling calmingly, she tempered her glare’s hostility.
“Oh,” abruptly came a noise laced with something like realization, as a sly smile overtook her expression.
“You know, if you’re so very invested in me, there’s one little itty bitty thing you could do to mend some of that damage. I’m not going to lie and say it’s guaranteed or anything… but I don’t think I’m asking for a lot. Just let me talk to the boys…” Her eyes sharpened.
“That’s all. Just let me hear from them how great and genuine you are in person…”Nightman raised an eyebrow at her suggestion.
“I see. Well you’ve made a few fundamental mistakes, child. At this point, you aren’t threatening
my privacy, but theirs. Furthermore, it is not up to me whether or not you speak with them, nor would it be appropriate for me to involve them in this.” He shook his head. “Let me tell you what I feel I’ve already gleaned about you, shall I? You see, in this world, almost every single one of us has been granted a gift that was originally meant for
war. We cannot control it or limit it, simply live
with it. We all say we value our privacy, yet when someone snaps we always ask ‘why didn’t they do more?’
“So you see, I’d rather risk offense than do nothing. I’d rather take the first step myself. That letter I sent you wasn’t so that I could attempt to start my work, but the start of it itself. Your reaction has told me almost everything. You desire control.” He chuckled. “Well, what child your age doesn’t? After years chafing under one’s parents, any child might want to start making moves on their own, but most benefit from that control. They need it to compensate for their lack of experience. The difference is what that control, or lack of it,
cost you. Now I don’t know what that incident was, but it’s no secret your current situation. What did I
really do to you?” he asked, and then held up his index finger.
“
One letter. And it led to all of this. You desire control, but if that was all it took to send you into this spiral. In that case, can we really say you ever had any control to begin with? This would not be your last test, Chinami. If your grasp on yourself is so fragile, you would be unfathomably lucky to never crumble in the future.”
He took a few steps toward her, “And yet, you are allowed to exist with these issues unchecked so long as you have good grades. I find it deplorable.”
“Fragile grasp of myself?” Chinami’s voice was a dangerous whisper.
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” She stepped to the side, her fists clenched behind her back tighter than ever, as she began -to lack a better word-
prowl in a half-circle around Nightman, slowly edging the distance between them wider, as she moved inexorably closer towards the hallway leading to the rest of the building, her crimson eyes narrowed at Nightman in the corner of her vision.
“I have mistaken nothing, Nightman. I am not asking to invade a patient’s privacy. What I am demanding is a simple, objective review of your services from what I presume are first-timers.” Her jaw clenched.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion. I was simply informing you of my decision, my price.” She chuckled humorlessly.
“You’re right, of course, but you’re not telling me anything I didn’t already know all too well. My Gift, itself, is a living eternal expression of my desire for control, which should give you some idea just how integral that is to me… and just how dangerous the ground you are treading right now is. I need control almost as much as I need air to breathe, and you are stealing what’s mine, what I need to live.”Her stride only stopped once their positions were roughly inverted from the original.
“So…” She almost seemed to taste the potential words on her tongue, savoring the feeling of standing on the edge of a chasm.
“No more talk. No more words. No more delays. Either do as I say, or get out of my way. I’ll go find the boys myself… Feel free to try and stop me.”Nightman wasn’t blind to what Chinami was trying to do. After the first few steps, her goal became clear. He gave her a few more before he simply took one big step backward to place himself back into the doorway to the rest of the building.
“Children these days. So quick to resort to threats of bodily harm when they don’t get their way. Even murder.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. “If you want that review so badly, feel free to track them down out of this building where it is no longer my concern. However, beyond this doorway
is my concern. If you’re so confident you can deal with me, though, you’re welcome to try.” He shrugged, arms still held behind his back and posture relaxed. They had both issued their challenges, now it was up to Chinami to decide if she was going to go through with it.
“Well… if you insist.” Her grin was a touch feral, as she strode closer. Her arms no longer were folded behind her back.
“A probing strike, then? Just to see what you can take. You’re a pest, but I don’t quite want to swat you dead… yet.” Punctuating that statement, as she acquired melee range, was an initial blindingly fast -certainly well above human norms- jab at the doctor’s jaw, hoping to lightly rattle his brain and knock him unconscious relatively harmlessly. She held back a fair amount, not intending to actually break bones.
His expression did not change as she launched her attack. At first it might have seemed she was simply moving too fast for him to react to begin with, but just before her strike landed, he leaned his head aside ever so slightly… and then her hand froze in place, gripped by some unseen force.
No, not unseen, just transparent. A specter quite like the spirit currently reinforcing her body had manifested and grabbed her by the wrist to hold her strike back.
“What?” Chinami uttered in unrestrained shock, eyes widening, a cold pit of recognition dropping into her gut.
Nightman sighed, shaking his head before lifting his own hand to clamp down on Chinami’s wrist before she could pull it away.
“You’re so
weak,” he said derisively. “All this wild flailing. The greatest, cosmic joke is that individuals like you are granted power like
this. You’re a loose cannon that needs to be disarmed.” It was at that point, as she fought against him, she’d finally notice something was terribly off.
Not about him, but her.
She was neither as fast nor strong as she should have been. Before, when she’d been loading herself up with abilities she’d yet to use up her stamina, never mind the mental distress she’d been under. Now, in the midst of battle, when she was being tested directly, it was all too apparent.
Something had already been done to her, perhaps before she’d attempted to defend herself from it.
“All this
anger and
pain. Like an open wound. And you, in all your arrogance, you flooded this place with your power. I was swimming in it even before you directed it at me to drop that note. Oh, and let’s not forget your little stint at eavesdropping, drilling all that hate into the back of my skull.” He laughed. “It was everything I could do to focus on my appointment.”
He then tilted his head curiously, even as his grip on her wrist tightened and she felt the reinforcing strength from her spirit begin to wane ever so slowly.
“Ahaha, interesting. You came prepared. But… putting a bandage over a sliver doesn’t stop it from festering.” A searing pain stabbed through her mind as the mental defense she put in place was pried at, like a loose rock being torn from a stone wall. “This will take some effort. Why don’t we do this somewhere else?”
His other hand shot out to clamp down over her mouth, keeping her from shouting. Though, before doing anything else, he glanced over his shoulder, “Do see to the boys, would you? Let me know when they wake up.” He then turned his gaze back to Chinami. “Now… how did you do that trick?” A few moments later, however, she once more felt that sensation of existing in two places at once. Then, they were somewhere else, a building in the midst of renovation it seemed. She was thrown down into a folding, metal chair as Nightman paced around her.
That said, even with him no longer touching her, she still felt that feeling like something was squirming its way through her, through the cracks in her psyche.
“Care to give it another go, child?” Nightman held his arms out. One might notice in that moment the glint of a ring on his finger that hadn’t been there last Chinami had spied on him…
What? What the fuck?!He was a
Gift copier of some sort! Or at least, he was
draining hers, which shouldn’t even be possible! Except-! Except if he’d already gotten some of it before, on a technical level, he was on equal grounds with her. There was no reason he couldn’t rip her own defenses to shreds with his own version. On a metaphysical level, he now possessed a Gift equal to hers. This…
This was worse than anything she’d imagined in her wildest dreams. Screw saving the boys! She’d barely be able to save
herself!
Immediately, she slammed two charges home.
Enhancement solidity, to protect her defenses and personal enhancements from being torn down any more, and
Mental Purge, immediately flushing the remainder of the mental assault out. Gritting her teeth, she considered her options, as she trembled in fresh exhaustion and barely restrained renewed terror. Now that she was aware, she’d plugged the holes he’d exploited, but even so, if he had copied her Gift -
stolen it, there was no reason he couldn’t beat the shit out of her manually. And given how tired she was?
That just wasn’t a battle she could win. Not with only a single safe charge left.
Her mouth dried up.
She’d have to run.
Again.
Her Pride raged at the admission, but it was an undeniable truth. She couldn't win. It was delusional to even
think of facing her own power head-on while her opponent was nearly fresh as a daisy. Or
worse… She knew he couldn’t read her mind right now, which was the only saving grace, as a traitorous thought flickered across her perception.
She
could win.
But it would require her to break her number one rule. She could only
pray the Doctor hadn’t discovered that sinisterly simple application of her ability. If he had… There might be no winning. She needed a way to get her power back from him. She needed to know how his stealing actually worked. Clearly, it acted at range, and the implication was that it also acted if the power came into contact with him in some manner. He could sense Gifts to some degree. But how long did he keep them? Clearly, distance wasn’t a factor… or not much of one, anyway. He’d stolen her power before she initially escaped and retained it for entire minutes even while she was halfway across the city. He said he could feel her power infusing the clinic, implying her could -and possibly had- drained everything she’d injected into himself and somehow extrapolated her whole-ass power out of it. So, he didn’t even need to be targeted with it directly to charge; merely touching another affected thing was likely enough.
The only limitation she could possibly guess he had was
time and maybe a finite pool of stored energy, which meant she’d need to avoid him for an indeterminate amount of time… an unfeasibly long time. With her power, he could find her from anywhere, teleport to her, and it would be all over. She… couldn’t run. And worse, even if she could, he could just use her own power to make his retention permanent, assuming he hadn’t done so already.
This…
She’d gone into this with the will to stop holding back, and yet, she’d choked when it mattered most. And further… she still had yet to shatter the final set of chains… She trembled in that chair now not simply in exhaustion or fear of the Doctor… but apprehension of herself… of what taking another step would mean… of the now near inevitability laid out before her. If she cut loose, really and truly, a battle between herself and someone else with her unchained power could wreak untold devastation. She’d… never be anonymous again. In defeating this man, she’d almost be guaranteed to make such a spectacle of herself that her Quiet Life would never survive.
The chains -mental roadblocks, deliberately imposed- squealed horrifically under the strain.Nearly all emotion drained out of her expression.
But there wasn’t any choice. It was this, or her end.
It wasn’t even death. It was so much worse that potentially awaited her.
Her power, unchained by even the veneer of morals or restraint was a cataclysmic threat to all.
And worse, it was in the hands of twisted scum like Doctor Nightman.
So, could it really be said she had options at all?
No. Nightman had
stolen them.
With a sound only she could hear, more a metaphysical thing than not, the chains shattered.Her last charge slammed home, instantly purging the crippling exhaustion from her body and spirit… and leaving her immune to attaining more for the next several hours. As of now, her primary limits… did not exist, as she sucked in a much steadier breath and snapped her fingers.
She needed to be able to last long enough to figure out how his original ability actually worked. Only then, could she specifically target it. Which meant, first, she needed to close the information gap he currently led on her, and she needed to stop this battle from devolving into a slugfest of categorical devastation as quickly as possible. If this went on for any significant amount of time, the two of them would simply continue ramping up to the point that even the Rhean military or police force might take notice… or potentially much
much worse. Of that, she was particularly genuinely worried; it was one of the main things that had long since truly quelled any real uprising of arrogance or grand plans within her. Originally, she hadn’t had the power to waste on scrying, but now she had more than enough.
Gift Appraisal. Item Appraisal. Individual Scrying. To limit her invasiveness of the surrounding area and the mental strain, the last one would allow her to specifically pinpoint the location of only someone she had seen before… in particular, the boys. She prayed silently that Nightman hadn’t already set up his own protections against information gathering, as she attempted to analyze his Core Gift and the rather strangely conspicuous ring upon his finger. Even as she was doing that, she was locating the boys as fast as possible and preparing a jump to their location, more concerned for the moment with escaping than getting a full look at the Doctor’s supernatural assets.
As she observed him, she was suddenly barraged by far more information than she'd ever expected.
The ring, Gimlé, providing a shield.
Then at his neck, The Ankh of life, beneath his vest. It gave healing.
Then… far more…
Core power, Highest Heaven, Lowest Hell, magical reinforcement-
Core power, Proud Soul, that was her own
Core power, Second Skin, create a second-
Core power, Throne de Lux, the powers of a celestial-
Core Power, Psionic Bridge, link to another-
Then, finally all the competing streams of information stopped at one last destination:
Core Power: Domination , the ability to inv- . . . The stream of information began to distort and warp in her mind.Again, she tried to read it:
Core Power: Domination , . . .Nice Try
Moments ago, amidst the chaos
As Nightman vanished with Chinami, the man in the suit strode down the hall. He cracked open the door to Reverio's room to see the boy still "resting," and then Ken's to find the same. With Chinami taken away, none would be the wiser to what had transpired here.
Except, they had made one miscalculation. Reverio had been far closer to consciousness than they'd anticipated. In fact, he was all but wide awake. With Chinami challenging him and the boys "asleep," Nightman had thrown subtlety to aside, but Reverio's room was rather close to the hallway entrance and voices carried.
Reverio would feel that something was off about his powers as he fought off the unnatural sleep, but it was a subtle feeling. By nature of his powers, the grasp Nightman had over him had been,
was, tenuous.
Nightman, it seemed, was out of the office for a moment, and those who remained did not know he was awake. If he was going to make a move, now would be the time. Perhaps there were others in need of rousing...
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