Guilt, Chinese Mountains -
<Oh my. You are a destructive one, aren't you?>
Looking up, Guilt recognised the sound of a voice in her head. Immediately a list of possible telepaths began cycling through her head.
Currently Guilt stood in a small alley, looking down at the corpse of an attempted murderer. His top half had been removed from the lower, and then spread out across the walls. In truth the injury had been caused by a block of stone moving at terminal velocity, not that the police would ever figure that out. An advantage of her power was that it afforded Guilt a certain amount of creativity when it came to killing. Although even Guilt had to admit the 'violent' comment was rather warranted, considering the situation.
The lack of people around her indicated a powerful telepath, considering most were limited in range. Now the easy answer was that this was, in fact, the MOST powerful telepath. But to jump to that conclusion was silly. As such Guilt closed her eyes and vanished, reappearing quite some distance away in the nearby town of Border. If the Telepath was still capable of contacting Guilt, then it was most likely the High Clairvoyant, which would be most unfortunate.
<We could be a relayed series of telepaths, working together to track you. Not necessarily the High.>
Another possibility, of course. Although there were limits even to such power. And if this was the High speaking, then it was an excellent opportunity to obtain valuable information. Nothing that the High said was worthwhile, lies came easy for telepaths. The ability to see the secrets of others made secretive people out of them, and there was no doubt that Guilt had been contacted for a reason. As such, Guilt merely focused once more, and once more vanished, appearing on the other side of the country. Although there was a limit to Void's range, it was quite easily bypassed through a series of rapid jumps. When every step took less than a second, and a single step could take you five miles further, travel became easy.
Once more Guilt waited patiently to see whether she had no exceeded the telepath's range, being over 100 miles away from Epic City. Perhaps this could be used to discover whether even the High had limits, and if so what those were. Or, at the very least, how many telepaths it took working together to reach out this far.
....................................
Nothing. So then this was the limit? Perhaps it was. But then, on the other hand, perhaps it wasn't. There was no way to know for certain. So the safe thing to do was to leave, and come back in a bit. Once she no longer had the attention of such a powerful telepath. If they had anything important to say they would speak up, if not there were more important things to do. And as such Guilt turned to leave, already calling upon the power of Void to take her to the other side of the planet itself.
Guilt spent the rest of the day and the next night in the Chinese mountains, fighting off local monstrous Freaks and gathering useful materials into Void. This was one of her 'safehouses', areas where she could hide out if necessary. Places she knew off the top of her head, and could travel to in an instant. And there was always time to do some work at these safehouses. After all, with a telepath's attention on her, it was probably best to wait a bit before returning to Epic City.
Of course, the next morning was not as restful as she might have hoped.
<Good morning, Maya. This is your conscience speaking. I thought you'd like to know that you're a very bad person.>
Even on the other side of the world? So most definitely the High Clairvoyant, then. Interesting. Even for such a powerful Epic it would require definitive effort to track and speak to someone on the other side of the planet. So then what was it about Guilt that warranted the personal attention of the High Clairvoyant? Clearly, she must be doing something right.
"Hello, Clairvoyant, this is the world speaking. Are you still crying in the corner of Epic City, or are you ready to come out and be useful now?"
Sassing one of Those on High was probably a bad idea. Then again, she already had the Clairvoyant's attention. That meant either certain death, or that she was about to get an ominous prophecy of some kind. So if she was doomed, she might as well die defiant. The thought occurred to try to blow up Epic City as a final act, but it was immediately dismissed. The moment she decided to actually do it the Clairvoyant would act. Even if it were possible to take such a being by surprise in the first place, it was impossible to do so when they were paying attention to you in particular. Any plan she could make would have been preempted.
"So to what do I owe this particular honour?"
An image flickered into existence, standing on the other side of the room. The image was of a woman, in her twenties. She had light blue eyes and titanium blonde hair. She wore her hair short, hanging just below the ears. In clear contrast to Guilt her clothing was typical for a civilian. Blue jeans held up with a white belt, a black shirt with the logo of some obscure band in the corner and a blue denim vest worn over it. She was unscarred, inexperienced, spotless.
<You're not honoured. Not even in the slightest. And you shouldn't be. This is just your conscience talking to you. Since you didn't seem to have one, the High Clairvoyant put one in. Hi.>
The image irked Guilt. It was an image of Maya, all right. Without scars, without burns, without a mask. Stainless, spotless, both on the outside and on the inside. It was an image that had stripped away everything that was her, everything that defined who she was. Not a reflection of Guilt, not the soldier who would save the world, but Claire, a useless civilian. The kind of person who can't achieve anything of significance. It was what Guilt had left behind.
But, even if it was a futile action when faced with a telepath, Guilt hid her distaste. After all, this was just another illusion. Perhaps the clairvoyant enjoyed putting up an act, perhaps they really had put some kind of presence inside of her head. Either way, it was just the same. "A being without a conscience giving one to me? A pointless thought. If you represent the Clairvoyant's idea of justice, then you are a twisted and worthless view of the world. The morals of a monster." With a wave of her hand, Guilt dismissed the strange presence. She would not be influenced by the enemy, nor by their agents. To drop one's mental guard against a telepath was suicide. "Return to whatever dark corner you crawled out of. I have no need for your advice."
<Well, I don't remember anything but what you remember. Except that there's a lot of holes in here and I'm actually scared. I want to be somewhere safe, where I don't have to run away. That Traveler was nice. Maybe she was sincere about helping.>
"Fear is a weakness. If you have time to be scared, you have time to be productive. Sides, you don't need to run anywhere. You're in my head." Sighing, Guilt sat down to sift through the evidence she'd gathered on Traveller. Nice or not, she was a potential threat. And it turned out she was a potential threat with a.... friend? Sibling? Not a romantic partner, based on the conversation. Shame she hadn't been able to grab the phone as well, then she might have been able to track this 'Rox'. Probably stood for Roxanne. Might be able to track her down anyway, though, based on how careless the two were. People work wasn't particularly in Guilt's skillset, but with the amount of stuff people put online nowadays there was a lot to track. Astounding how much a simple name+location search could pull up, and if you threw in the connection with Traveller... Oh well, stuff to do in the morning. For now, sleep.
Turning towards the mental image... thing, she wondered what she'd do with it. What it's purpose was. Clearly she was being messed with by someone, the High Clairvoyant most likely. That was the only person she was aware of with this kind of power. But if this was a leftover image, something that had been planted in her mind, then maybe that meant she'd exited the clairvoyant's range. If this was indeed out of their range... then she'd be able to target them from here. If she was fast enough, if she had the right plan. "If you do know everything that I know, then you know I'm not going to listen to a damn thing you say. But hey, maybe you can be useful. Sift through my memories while I'm napping, see if there was anything I missed. Something that might be useful."
<They're coming.>
"You're going to need to do better than that if you want to be useful to me" Guilt responded, although she did look up from her data. Was this the 'ominous prophecy' part?
<They can follow the Void. Or at least how we use it, we know that and they're coming! Don't sleep! Can't sleep! Run!>
Them? It had been a while since they'd tried anything, but it had been a while since she'd been outside Epic City for any real amount of time. But over here, on the other side of the planet? Even if they could track her somehow, there was no way they could actually find her here. Was this... entity lying? Then again it was a being created by the High Clairvoyant, the most powerful telepath in the world. Chances were it knew something that Guilt didn't. Or it was lying. Either way, if she could catch those people this time, it would be a boon.
A hole in the roof of the building allowed Guilt to disappear, reappearing high in the sky. From here she could see the entire area, a small monastery town in the Chinese mountains. This place had been abandoned for years, after Freaks slaughtered the locals. Across the world there were many places like this, where monsters had killed all humans. But the monsters who lived in these particular mountains had learned to fear her, and unless a new warlord had emerged they wouldn't try anything. Just to be sure she placed motion detectors in various places across the town, together with a number of strategically placed cameras. This was one of the perks of her ability. The data would be stored on a hard drive placed in a hot air balloon she caused to appear out of nowhere. If anyone did attempt to come after her their movements and faces would be logged on here, and via there on the cloud.
Having done this, Guilt killed off her momentum and then returned to the ground. She would have to sleep in her bunker, just like she did every night. Even if she didn't feel like returning to Epic City, things like that were hardly an inconvenience for her. Choosing any random location she started digging a hole, until it was a good 200 meters deep. Teleporting down she refilled the area above her, arranging it so it wouldn't fall. A few uneven edges in the sturdier rock bits and good old friction would keep a pillar of that size in place better than any cement could. At that depth, in the mountains, it was pretty much all solid rock after all. After she created a light, generator, and she'd created a couple of bottles of spare oxygen she was satisfied. A bed popped out of nowhere, and she sat down to rest.
"All right. That's settled. Now, I've taken every possible security precaution, there's no way they can get through 150 meters of solid rock to get me. So how about you calm down and let me sleep?"
<We need to go home>
"Home is a pile of smouldering rocks and ashes. Unless you're particular to corpses, I'd rather we stay in this bunker." Closing her eyes, Guilt decided to get to sleep. She'd figure out this 'conscience' thing tomorrow. Not much she could do to the High Clairvoyant, they were too powerful for her to fight. If it was the High Venom or High Island she might have a chance, at least. Her abilities could at least defend against attacks of that type. But there was nothing they could do against a psionic assault.
<home is with friends...>
"Didn't I just say? Unless you're particular to corpses..." With that last thought, Guilt sank off to an uncomfortable sleep. Old unpleasant memories kept her company that night, and scenes from her distant past replayed in front of her mind's eye. And in this unpleasant limbo she would sleep throughout the day, to wake up the next evening. Soon she'd have to return to Epic City, High Clairvoyant or not, and finish what she had started.
Member
