Main Content
Archive of Our OwnArchive of Our OwnHi, TheBrimmedHat!PostLog Out
FandomsBrowseSearchAboutWork Search
tip: katekyou "alternate universe" sort:>words
Actions
Entire Work ← Previous Chapter Next Chapter → Chapter Index Edit Bookmark Mark for Later Comments Share Download
Work Header
Rating:
Mature
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category:
Gen
Fandoms:
Parahumans Series - Wildbow亜人 - 三浦追儺 & 桜井画門 | Ajin - Miura Tsuina & Sakurai Gamon (Anime & Manga)
Characters:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverDanny HebertBrockton Bay WardsLisa Wilbourn | Tattletale
Additional Tags:
Canon-Typical ViolenceCanon-Typical Body Horrorshard-altered psychologytags to be added as we go
Language:
English
Collections:
Timballisto's Curated Works
Stats:
Published:2019-05-24Updated:2020-03-11Words:99,568Chapters:29/?Comments:226Kudos:730Bookmarks:266Hits:29,366
(Restricted) The Shadow Over Brockton Bay
Temeritous
Chapter 3: Draugr 1.3
Chapter Text
The Wards got out of school early on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as part of an internship work program. Probably most of Arcadia knew that the Wards were part of the early-release program, but so were over a hundred other students.
On Wednesday, the day after my meeting at the PRT and everything that happened after it, I went to go meet the Wards.
I didn't know who eye-see-all was, or why they apparently cared enough to arm me with information beforehand. I was grateful, however, that I wouldn't be blindsided with the knowledge of Shadow Stalker's secret identity in the middle of meeting my new teammates. If she even dared to show me her face.
I hadn't decided if I would reveal her crimes and reap some well-sown revenge, or if I'd hold it over her head. Revenge would satisfy my pride, but only the once. First I could make her sick with fear of what I would do, crush her the way she'd tried to crush me. Hold her inferiority over her head.
My silent transport was a PRT trooper in another black SUV, who picked me up from a corner a few blocks down from my house. The door slid open, he flashed some ID I didn't bother to look at, and off we went.
You can call that careless, but I'm immortal.
The SUV went straight for the PRT building, sliding right through a metal gate into the underground parking structure.
"Know the way?" my trooper asked after he'd put the car in park.
"Yeah, I remember," I told him, already unbuckling and opening the door.
I got Coryn out after me, draping a red shawl over her shoulders. Miss Militia had informed me yesterday that it would probably be polite to have something to mark where Coryn was, so that people didn't wonder what my invisible minion was up to. They'd just find that she was still and silent every time I wasn't directly making her do something.
Coryn and I headed for the elevator, taking it up to the first floor. I thought I knew where the entrance to the Wards' section was, but my sensors hadn't been able to find a way in yesterday.
I was met in the lobby by a rotund woman with a blonde bob cut. She heaved out of one the chairs behind the desk, glanced around the room, and put her hand out.
"Good afternoon," she said. "I'm Director Piggot. I've been informed of your preference against domino masks, but I'm going to have to insist for the next while at least." She pulled a mask out from behind the receptionist desk.
I took it, put it on, and hung my glasses on the front of my shirt. I'd decided not to even bother with them today; instead I layered an owl mask over my face, which was invisible to everyone else and blocked my own eyes, but which I could see out of with perfect vision. I just had to remember that even though I felt completely covered, the lower half of my face was still visible.
"Nice to meet you," I said. "I'm Lazarus."
"So I've heard," her tone was dry, maybe a little sarcastic. I fought down a flicker of contempt for this fat woman who thought she could judge me.
She took me first to an empty office, where there were more forms waiting for me to sign. She explained them all in simple, clipped terms, and I signed without reading. It was too much effort, and I knew that bureaucracy could fuck you over whether you signed something or not. It always boiled down to power and connections. Law, order, and common decency all bend down for power.
When we were finally finished, Piggot nodded. "This way to the Wards section."
As I'd thought, the Wards were on the other side of the futuristic door, every section sliding against another in a swirl of artistic shapes pulling back to reveal... an elevator car. If they were underground, that explained why I hadn't found them in my explorations.
Piggot walked slower than I would have liked, and for some reason even the sound of her breathing was irritating, but eventually the elevator ride ended and the doors opened again to reveal an excessively long hallway.
"An alarm sounds when the elevator hits the bottom," Piggot explained. "Telling the Wards they have a minute to get their masks and, ideally, costumes on. The main room is semi-public; there are windows that turn transparent after the minute is up, and the premium tour group gets to enter the room, although they are escorted by PRT agents and heavily discouraged from trying to engage with the Wards without prompting. If you don't want to be disturbed, there are private quarters and other rooms off the main one."
At the end of the hall was another sliding door, a retinal scan that Piggot leaned in for, and a thumbprint scanner. "Usually only the retinal is required, but we need to enter you into the system."
She pressed some things on the screen, and then waved me forward. I let the machine scan my eye, wondering if my eyes grew back the same every time or if there were ever any minute differences.
"I'm going to supervise the first meeting, and after that I'll leave you all to acquaint yourselves. Any questions before we go in?"
"Will they know my name?" I asked, pulling my hair back into a ponytail high up on the back of my head and holding it there with a band of Dust. I had never worn it like this at school, where leaving the back of my neck exposed was just asking for something to be put down my shirt. Hopefully it would throw Sophia off from immediately identifying me.
"You aren't required to reveal your identity to anyone, although it's recommended for teamwork purposes. They may or may not decide to unmask to you right away. It's your choice."
I grinned, finally feeling the nervous butterflies that I'd been waiting for all this time. "Okay. I'm ready."
On the other side of the door was a big, domed room. Bright lights high above gave it an airy feeling at odds with the knowledge that we were underground, and kind of made up for the lack of windows. Another thing making up for the lack was an abundance of screens, showing camera feeds, some sort of timer, and a whole cluster around the console showing a stock photo of a lush green forest.
The Wards were gathered in the center of the room, all sitting on the four curved couches that described a circle. In the middle of the circle was a low coffee table, set up with a pitcher of water, a carafe, and a stack of styrofoam cups. The styrofoam in the midst of all the rest of the high-tech was unexpected, drawing my eye.
The Ward I recognized as Aegis stood up and met us halfway, his hand outstretched to me. I shook it, reflecting that I was getting a lot of practice at this hand-shaking thing.
"Hi," he said, smiling at me. "I'm Aegis. Guys, come on," he waved around the circle.
I flicked my hand, trying to express that they should stay sitting. "I actually know all of your cape names, I did my research. I should be the one doing introductions. Hello everyone, I'm Lazarus."
"Cool name," Clockblocker said. He was lounging, completely reclined with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee to prop his leg up. "I mean, not the best here but still pretty cool. You a Brute?"
"Resurrection cape," I told him, scanning the circle. Kid Win was on the same couch as Aegis, Vista and Clockblocker sat together - Vista's small frame probably the only one that would fit with Clockblocker taking up so much room - and then it was Gallant on one couch and Shadow Stalker on the last.
Sophia.
"Nothing keeps me down," I said with a grin, looking around the circle. I know it had a nasty edge that only Sophia would have reason to catch on to. "And this is Coryn, she's part of my power too."
Aegis suggested it, and it was agreed that we should all go around in a circle doing show-and-tell with our powers. I sat next to Gallant, kicking it off with the by-now rote explanation of Coryn and my Dust, and just barely touching on my resurrection power. I didn't get into the details, since they had seemed to disturb Miss Militia more than I thought they would.
Gallant turned out to have an emotion power that wasn't on his wiki page, Vista was quiet and happy to have another girl on the team, and Clockblocker told me that he had a secondary power too and reached out to show me. As he did, I jolted out of my body.
There was a moment where I thought that Clockblocker's second power was some sort of forced astral projection thing; and then I realized that I was just Coryn again, and that my body was frozen in time, leaning forward with interest toward him and holding out one hand for him to touch. Clockblocker slapped his knee, cackling, and the rest of the circle was rolling their eyes or groaning.
"Dennis, goddamn it," Aegis picked up and threw a cup at Clockblocker. "How many f-freakin times did I tell you not to pull this sh-stuff again?" His eyes flickered over to where Piggot was sitting, in the console chair, apparently engrossed in something on her tablet, as he held back the curse words.
"Be right back," Sophia said, standing abruptly.
I didn't want to leave, but I didn't want to let her go unwatched. I split Coryn into two half-sized versions of herself, sending one to follow Sophia and leaving the other to watch the Wards.
"She seems nice," Vista commented. "And it seems like a good power, too."
Before they started talking more about me, I decided I should announce my 'presence' before they realized that Coryn's red shawl was still floating in place, and realized it on their own. I moved carefully between the couches, picked up the coffee carafe, and spilled a bit of it out onto the flat metal tray. I looked up and met Aegis' wide eyes, although he didn't realize it.
"Lazarus?" he asked.
YES, I traced out in the spilled coffee. It was harder than I thought it would be. STILL HERE.
"Well, shit," Clockblocker said, blinking. "That's not how it usually works. Usually I just touch people and their powers... stop."
If I wanted to labor through it, I could probably trace out an explanation that my control of the Dust was pretty much unrelated to my body; that I could control it even while I was physically nothing but a smear of red on the ground.
Instead I just shrugged and wrote, CONTINUE?
Meanwhile, I was also paying attention to Sophia's every movement. She left through a door leading to a long hallway with six doors on either side, and entered the second one on the right. Inside was a small dorm room, just a bed, desk with laptop, and a standing closet. I darted through the doorway right before she slammed it shut, turning sharply against the frame and crawling up the wall and along the ceiling to stay out of her way in the small space.
She went straight to the laptop, cracking it open and typing in a password I didn't see. I split off a mask and hovered it over her shoulder to get a better look.
Sophia opened up an instant-messenger program and started typing.
Have you heard anything about Heb
I didn't let her get more than a few words down before my fury rose and nearly choked me, sending my hand back in the common room skidding through the spilled coffee.
In Sophia's room, I reached down delicately with one talon and pressed on the power button of her laptop. After a long few seconds, her screen blacked out.
"What the fuck?" she muttered, taking both hands off the laptop. She slammed them back onto the desk in disgust, then ducked underneath to check on the power cord.
How could I communicate with her? I could claw words into the surface of the desk, but that would leave evidence. I sighed.
"Hello? Is there someone in here?" Sophia's voice was tense, but still quiet. She didn't want to be heard.
Could I speak as Coryn? I'd never tried before.
"Sophia," I tested it, and then was delighted to see her whip around and clench up even more. My voice was barely above a whisper. "None of that, Sophia. Tk, tk, tk," I made my best approximation of a clicking noise. "Did you think I wouldn't watch you?"
"Who the fuck are you," she demanded, soft but snarling. Her eyes darted around, her fingers clenching at her sides.
"I always knew you were a brainless thug, but this is pushing it," I said. I'll admit, I was reveling in the freedom of saying whatever I wanted to her. "How stupid can you be? I just told you what I could do."
"T - Lazarus ?"
"Please, Sophia, we both know better. Come on, say my name."
Her hands curled into fists, Sophia swallowed and said, "...Hebert. You triggered. I... I made you trigger."
I laughed, realizing as the noise came out that it sounded wrong like this. Too much air, not enough noise. "You give yourself too much credit, Sophia. I was always like this. All you did... was give me a little push." I shoved her chair as I said it, making it rattle and her jerk in place. "Now, shhhh... the others are sending someone to come get you. Be quiet, and let me decide what I want to do with you."
I could tell she wanted to retort, to snarl and rage at me some more, but that was when Gallant knocked on her door. I slipped out after her, rejoining the two Coryns and stationing her behind my now-unfrozen body.
"And here's Shadow Stalker," Gallant said, saving to the surly girl following behind him. She glared daggers straight at me, but that must not have been very different from her normal self because no one commented on it. "Stalker, want to tell Lazarus your powers?"
I made my face blandly pleasant, and enjoyed how much it seemed to affect Sophia. "No," she ground out, "You tell her." She turned around and headed straight back for her room.
"Rude!" Clockblocker called after her. He turned back to me. "Sorry, she's kind of a bitch... all the time. So, you have any ideas for your costume yet? Better get them in fast before PR starts working sh-stuff up without asking you."
Clockblocker levered himself up and craned his head around the room. "Hey, Piggy's gone. We can talk normal."
At some point, Director Piggot had decided we didn't need any more supervision and had left. I thought it was around the time Aegis was explaining his redundant biology.
"I was thinking some sort of owl theme, since that's what Coryn looks like," I explained, "But other than that, if you have any suggestions...."
After my meeting with the Wards, it was power testing time. Aegis and I were loaded into an SUV, with the same driver as the one who'd taken me to the PRT building, and we set off for PHQ where their robust facilities and commuted-in specialists waited for me.
"I get to come with because I'm the team leader," Aegis said during the drive. "Before me it was Triumph, who left for the Protectorate about a month ago."
"Right before the thing with Challenger and Vista," I said, prodding for information.
Aegis's head turned away, but of course I couldn't see much of his expression with the mask. "Yeah... you heard about that?"
"Miss Militia mentioned it," I offered. "But we got interrupted before I got the whole story. It sounded kind of important, though."
"Ha, I don't know about important. Just kind of a fuck-up. Vista and Challenger were on a joint patrol because we were short-handed, so they were connected to the Protectorate console. Their patrol ran into Skidmark, the Merchants' leader, in the middle of receiving a shipment of some drugs. Challenger called into console for permission to engage and... Armsmaster was on duty. He did things by the book, completely, y'know? He checked the sitch and gave them the go-ahead. Turned out Squealer was hiding nearby, and she came gunning to Skidmark's defense. Armsmaster directed backup to them, but Challenger had to take a hit for Vista before they got there. So, she lost an eye, Vista's... not doing great about it, and Armsmaster got a reprimand."
"If he did what he was supposed to, why did he get reprimanded?" I thought back to our brief but illuminating meeting. Had he been short-spoken because he was still angry? It seemed like a long time to keep that up.
Aegis sighed. "Turned out he was distracted on console, tinkering with something at the same time. The investigation decided that he could have noticed Squealer if he was paying full attention. Which is kinda bullshit, hindsight is twenty-twenty, but anyway Piggot used it to take command of the Wards and move us into the PRT base. We used to work out of PHQ with the Protectorate."
"Thanks for telling me," I said, nodding at him.
"No problem. Hey, you said that your power lets you come back from dying, right? What's that like?"
I grinned; I could talk about my powers all day. "Mostly like being a normal person. I get my throat cut, I bleed out, then come back to life after a few seconds. What about your biology?"
"My throat doesn't bleed much more than a papercut," he leaned in toward me, apparently interested to compare our Brute ratings. "So, do you still feel pain like you did before?"
I held up my hand and rocked it back and forth. "Kinda. I think it's the same pain, it just matters less. Like, when I cut off my finger to see if it would grow back, it hurt but I could just tell myself that it was temporary and ignore it. You?"
"Less pain, for sure, when Hookwolf ripped my arm off it was really inconvenient but it didn't put me on the ground or anything. And it reattached as soon as I got it into the socket again."
"Something similar happens with mine, but I have to reset first...."
We spent the rest of the drive comparing injuries, eventually deciding that my power was better for survivability, but in everyday life Aegis' probably topped it. He didn't have to deal with the little inconveniences like stubbed toes or papercuts.
We were met at the PHQ by a woman in a lab coat and office clothes, holding a thick tablet. She smiled and showed us to the testing room, which was the size of a football field and twenty feet tall. There was a running track around the perimeter and what looked like high-tech exercise machines in the middle.
Aegis left, waving goodbye, for the observation deck set high up in one wall. I sent a sensor pair up there, both to watch myself and to listen to what they were saying; there were two more people with lab coats in the room with Aegis.
He didn't greet them with more than a nod, which was surprising given how friendly he'd been so far.
The woman introduced herself as Doctor Alice Williams, but I could call her Doctor Alice. She ran me through a gauntlet of physical tests, each more annoying than the last, She wasn't listening when I told her there was nothing specially strong about my human body.
By the end of it, I was ready to force a reset just to get rid of the burning in my muscles and my pounding heart.
"Okay, now for the minion... Coryn, right?"
I stayed on the floor, stretching out my aching legs, and waved toward where Coryn was standing. I had her quickly fix her shawl to lay more evenly.
"Hm. This would be easier if we could see all of her. Paint!"
I looked up at her, absolutely baffled by the sudden exclamation, but then a slot in the wall opened and there was a can of paint inside it. Fucking weird.
The paint was a vibrant blue and briefly outlined Coryn as she tipped it over her head and it slid down her body and straight to the floor. It was difficult to get things to stick to Coryn or any Dust, I remembered belatedly.
"Hm," Alice said again, writing on her tablet. "Spray paint!"
As Alice retrieved the can of blue spray paint, I focused on Coryn. I hoped the new texture to her surface would let it hold the fine droplets of paint, since it was now a layer of dermal denticles like I had seen on close-ups of sharkskin. Her skin was rough now, the first time I had touched Dust and felt any kind of texture.
"Stand back, please, Lazarus."
The blue spray paint stuck much better, although when I tested it covertly on a wingtip I found that I could turn Coryn friction-less again and the paint just dropped right off.
"Well, she's bigger than I thought," Alice said, standing back to look at all of Coryn.
She was a head taller than me, but far skinnier. Her legs were skeletal, her waist as thin as her neck, and there was of course the claw-tipped wings. I realized I could only see blue out of her eyes, and turned them back to normal to drop the paint off them. Fathomless black eyes stared back at me, though Alice could only see holes in the thin paint-shell.
"She's a construct out of your... invisible black matter, right? Can you change her shape?"
Alice ran through questions I felt I'd answered six times already, but this was for the official report; yes, I could change Coryn's shape. This was her default, and no, I didn't know why that was.
That part is a lie, of course. Coryn looks like an owl because my mother used to call me her little owl, but I'm not about to share that with these people.
She was the first person to ask more about the Dust and its properties, which led into a discussion of my range and control.
"And what would you say is the extent of your control? Is it more like giving a command to an independent creature, or more like moving a part of your own body?"
"Like moving my own body," I answered, though my eyes drifted to Coryn's. That was true, but I had my own thoughts about Coryn.
"And what happens to your Dust or Coryn when they leave your range? When you fall asleep or unconscious?"
"While this body sleeps, my consciousness is in Coryn and the rest of my Dust; same thing happens when I'm knocked out or I die, or when Clockblocker freezes me. And if any of them leave my range, they just start to dissipate."
Except for Coryn, again, but I didn't tell them that. It felt too personal, in the same way I couldn't tell them about my mother.
Alice ran us through a few tests of coordination, separating myself and Coryn to see how well I could control both of us at the same time. I failed out on the conversation aspect, since I couldn't pay attention to two people speaking at once, but aced everything else.
"Decent results," Alice muttered, marking something else on her tablet. I was beginning to itch to see her screen, then remembered I could. My sensor over her shoulder couldn't really make sense of her shorthand, though. "You've mentioned you can control Dust outside of your minion, potentially to make more constructs like it. How many of these can you create?"
I thought back to all the sensors I'd created to simultaneously explore the PRT building, and the streets around me on my only 'patrol'. "As many as I have Dust for. Hundreds, once."
She frowned, nodded, and wrote. "Please rate your control of five minions, on a scale of one to ten with ten being 'like your own body' and one being 'barely at all'."
"Ten, easily."
Mark . "Please rate your control of twenty minions, same scale."
"Ten." I thought about telling her it would always be ten, but I also kinda wanted to know how high she'd go before she just asked me.
Mark . "Please rate your control of a hundred minions."
"Ten." I stretched again, wondering how much more of this there was.
Mark . "Two hundred."
"Ten." I noticed her giving me a withering look.
"Please take this seriously, Lazarus. When you controlled 'hundreds' of minions, did you notice any loss of control or awareness of your own body?"
"I am being serious. It's always ten, whether I'm controlling just myself or Coryn and a million specks of Dust." I tried not to sound egotistic when I continued, "I really don't expect you or anyone else to understand; you're not like me, so you can't. I'm bigger than just myself. I control my Dust the way you control your fingers on that tablet."
Alice sighed. "Alright, good enough. Time for power-testing for the minion."
Her name is Coryn. It wasn't worth saying out loud, but I still wanted to see the back of Alice as fast as possible.
"Your... resurrection power will be recorded but not tested. For legal reasons we can't condone any kind of self-harm or self-mutilation that isn't directly tied to an aspect of your power."
"What does that even mean," I grumbled, crossing my arms.
"It's worded like that because there are some heroes who become stronger the more injured they are, and other such situations. Your resurrection, by your own admission, doesn't affect your other powers. It just gives you a Brute one rating."
I suppressed my aggravation; I really wanted to be finished, and I'd been looking forward to a reset at the end to fix my aching body. "Fine. Are we done with power testing then?"
"Yes, you're free to go. Aegis will be able to show you - "
"Yeah, hang on, I'll be right back." I turned and took a few steps away from her, having Coryn come up to me. Coryn reached out, still visible, and took my head between her two wing-tips.
I didn't want to have to wait to bleed out, so she snapped my neck.
New Dust filtered into the world, from wherever it came from. I let it gather unimpeded around my body, which Coryn was still cradling upright, and coat me from head to toe. Distantly, I was aware of Alice raising her voice and backing away, but it wasn't important. I was focusing on the Dust, trying to discern what it was doing. Maybe if I could make it do this when I wasn't dead, I could figure out how to fix myself without dying first.
With a gasp, I was back in my body. Coryn pushed me gently upright, leaving paint streaks on my clothes and face. Alice, when I looked at her, had wide eyes and one hand over her mouth. Her tablet hung limply from the other.
I rolled my head around, loosening up. "Sorry, I needed that. The whole exercise testing really tired me out."
"Please leave," she said.
Actions
↑ Top ← Previous Chapter Next Chapter → Edit Bookmark Comments (7)
Kudos
Apathy_Incarnate, PettyBop, Abaivonin, CinderedShadow, ApollosRaven, Hansledane, arturus, Notzyx, Trason, Starkiller666, Ruffus36, Yarkimp, Pear399, Sherpano, Minny123, Detro, Kharosian, Uru_el, peperlizia, KRIKEY26, Whynotmeforonce, Aeviterna, creaky_crow, Kazeshii, Itisn1tmyname, dizzyspe11, pekarekmatthew, DeannaLatte, jaded_blade, onecentwonder, The_Watcher_With_1000_Eyes, Basil_Terry, L_C_F_R, Jesienny, Wolfmadmax, Narshalla, Reddaemon, TankerOfTheEast, Yuri_Dhjeeyn, Taryth, Laicosnu, AbyssVale, PhenomenalDaisy, ProSkrub, bradztag, leftwards, Kwlll19, whod99, Blockhead30, SwagBro420, and 404 more users as well as 276 guests left kudos on this work!
Comments
Post Comment
Comment as TheBrimmedHat
Plain text with limited HTML ?
Comment
10000 characters left
Footer
Customize
Default
Low Vision Default
Reversi
Snow Blue
About the Archive
Site Map
Diversity Statement
Terms of Service
Content Policy
Privacy Policy
DMCA & TIDA Policies
Site Status
Contact Us
Policy Questions & Abuse Reports
Technical Support & Feedback
Development
otwarchive v1.5.0.1
Known Issues
GPL-2.0-or-later by the OTW