Providence
October 2, 14:14
Every idea I had on how to spend the week off had one problem; guilt over the fact I wanted to relax while the world was on fire.
There were mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and friends grieving the loss of their loved ones right now. And I wanted to take my daughter on a picnic and distract not just her but myself from their pain and my own.
The guilt weighed on thick, and I almost didn't get out of bed as a result. Cassandra, Mike, and Felicity were the only reasons I did. Mostly Cassandra though. While I was fine wallowing in my guilt alone, that was just the thing, I wasn't alone.
I couldn't let my personal issues get in the way of my daughter's happiness. Because like it or not, my depressed mood would not stay in the bedroom with me. It would leak out and spread through the whole house, affecting everyone else.
And this was the situation without Cass' ability to read me like a picture book factored in. Yeah, nah. I had to think about her and get off my ass. I had to do my job and take her mind off the current state of things.
I had to ensure to give her the life a seven year old girl was supposed to have.
With that in mind, I forced myself up, took a shower and joined the family for breakfast. Felicity looked surprised but was happy nonetheless. Her and Cassandra's smiles helped things a little and made me more assured of what I was doing.
After the meal, I suggested a trip around the island. Cassandra had been exploring it for a while now, and I wanted her to show us some good spots she'd found. The little girl's face lit up with excitement at the suggestion, and that put more pep in my step.
The original plan of a picnic hadn't changed. It had just been shifted.
Mike prepared everything for us and we set off in a flying car. To keep Cassandra more active and have her speak more, I took the wheel and let her give the directions.
The vehicle's lack of a roof allowed us to experience the island's fresh air. Of course, the moderate, cruising speed helped. And so did the forcefield that kept out insects and the like.
I already know the sheer scope of what we set out to achieve today. Cassandra always had a tracker on her explorations, so I had some idea where today's trip would take us; the whole island.
It wasn't that surprising since "half the size of Ireland" was quite big. The aforementioned country was well, a country, but even a full Ireland was over 20 times smaller than Alaska, a state.
Hence, in order to prolong the journey as much as possible, I told Cassandra to forget what I told her earlier, giving her a new directive to take us wherever she wanted and do her own thing.
Soon enough, the thoughts and feelings of guilt went away. Same for the boredom I thought I'd have to fight. It was just hard to experience these negative emotions when Cassandra looked so happy pointing out the little quirks she'd noticed about the locations.
Eventually however, the fun had to come to an end. What signaled us to stop was the protest of the little girl's stomach. Felicity and I laughed at her embarrassment, making the red in her cheeks deepen.
We quickly found her next spot after that and set the picnic up.
Utilizing my control over the island and tapping into my overflowing reserves of magic, I flattened the terrain, making it even for several meters in all directions, sucking any rocks and debris deep into the earth. I ended by creating a sort of backrest with a tree and some thick brushes.
After my display, I explained how I envisioned the picnic and asked for their input. We discussed it while working and settled on using two blankets. We only packed one but I made a copy with magic and draped that one over the vines and bushes forming the backrest.
Lunch soon followed. Out of all us, Cassandra ate the most. My regular appetite had taken a nosedive due to recent events and Felicity didn't eat much anyway. Though I could sense she held back on account of me.
Probably due to guilt as well.
Ever since I began to parent Cass, I'd noticed things that reminded me of my own childhood from time to time. One of those things which was perhaps the most jarring was the fact that children in general were terrible liars.
Yes, even if they were raised to be the world's premier assassin by a mother whose only positive contribution to her daughter's existence and upbringing was serving as an incubator.
Cassandra noticed the weirdness with a single glance and her own mood plummeted, even though she tried to hide it by eating more. I clapped to dispel the foul air taking root and told her not to worry, and that I was having a bad day and that it would pass.
Luckily for me, that seemed to work somewhat. She finished her food and played around with the cat for a bit, ending up asleep on Felicity's legs, the cat curled next to her.
When we were sure she'd really fallen asleep, I let the mask slip, exhaling loudly as I lowered my head and closed my eyes. Felicity took my hand and gently squeezed it. She asked, her tone faint and hesitant, "Do you… want to talk about it?"
I opened my eyes and gave her a forced smile, interlocking my fingers with hers. "With you? Always."
Her appreciative smile helped a bit, but I took some time before continuing.
"I can't stop thinking about… about them."
When I said this, I didn't really expect any response. Because what does one say to this? I'm sorry? It's going to be okay? Felicity knew the facts of the matter and she knew me. Yeah, she knew me. Which is why what she said next proved unexpected but helped more than anything.
"Don't take this the wrong way… but why would you want to stop thinking about them?"
I looked at her, my smile gone, something else I couldn't describe in its place.
She continued, "Something terrible happened. All those children…" Her face quivered like she'd burst into tears. She closed her eyes and turned away to center herself.
"Why would you want to forget it? Forget them?" she asked after taking a deep breath. "Think about it. What would the opposite look like?"
The answer came all too easily, and I didn't like the me I saw.
"What kind of person, what kind of hero, would you be if you went about your day without a care in the world? Like nothing happened?"
"I—"
"You certainly wouldn't be the man who makes me want to be better every single day. And you certainly wouldn't be the man I love. Don't try to push away the memories. Hold on to them. You don't want to forget them. Trust me. As for the guilt, you know better than to blame yourself for this. You're grieving, and that's okay."
It took everything to hold back the tears. It felt like there were buckets behind my eyes. There weren't words to describe how I currently felt. Her words had triggered all sorts of emotions within me.
And the more I thought about it, the looser my grip on the tears became. I placed a hand over my eyes and turned my head away when they finally gave in.
.
.
.
.
Providence
October 9, 14:14
Taking some time off had proven to be one of my best decisions yet. It was amazing what a few days of cherishing your loved ones could do to your mental health and energy levels.
There was still a hole in my chest that bled every time I thought about… you know. But I welcomed it now. For it proved that I was human and not an unfeeling monster. Felicity's timely explanation had saved me from a spiral I could clearly foresee now.
God I loved that woman. I wish she would let me marry her. Her relationship with her father(whom she refused to speak about) and how he just upped and left her mother even though they had made oaths to each other had left her jaded about the concept.
And I understood. This was one of those situations where you could not tell the person you were different and would not do that to them. It just didn't work that way. Neither was telling her to get over it.
Still, I was going to ask. I'd rather get a straight answer from her rather than make assumptions. At least, she'd know my heart even if she said no.
"What's got you so chummy?"
I blinked and looked up from the tablet, finding Grace and the rest of the team turning their gazes away from Pamela to look at me.
"… Just thinking about my girl, on the aisle, walking toward me..." I answered, looking off into empty space.
"Welp, all the shit happening has made him baby crazy."
This earned grimaces from everyone and elbow in the ribs from Wally. "Grace! Ow!"
The speedster earned a bruise for his efforts, and while he nursed it, an elbow in return that sent him staggering.
While the others scrambled to put a filter on the crass girl, I considered her words.
"Huh… perhaps there is some truth to that. I only knew she was the one after we talked about the… attack."
"Good for you SP," Rob patted my shoulder.
"Yeah. We're happy for you bossman," said Artemis.
"So do we get to see her now?"
I chuckled at Wally's question and noticed the others preen. Kaldur's unexpected support for his impulsive friend threw me off. Maybe I had been doing a bit too much keeping Felicity away from them.
"Sure. But only after she agrees."
"Awesome. When is that?"
"I don't know Wally. She might say no."
"Oh…"
"Well, this conversation just took a dump."
"Shut up Grace."
"Come here and make me."
I took my attention off the bickering duo and focused on Robin and Aqualad. "Alright, you guys recording?"
"Me?" Rob asked, throwing both eyebrows up and bringing attention to his shades. "Always."
"I trust in Robin's handling the digital side of things. It is okay if I only spectate."
"I'll begin then."
Out of the pocket of my labcoat, I removed the Father Box and gave it a silent command with Technopathy. A quiet hush went unnoticed by some of the guests, however the large portal of bright yellow light that followed it caught their attention in an instant.
I walked straight into it and appeared out of the other one that had opened inside the lab where Poison Ivy lay in stasis. The questioning stares bore into my back with familiar intensity, but I paid them no heed and just raised my hand, giving them a thumbs up to know I was starting.
Looking out the corner of my vision showed my message had been received, so I went ahead and gave the Father Box another command.
A dedicated session of using Tech-Adapting on the living computer had netted me a list of capabilities that was mind boggling. One of them, not the most powerful but it was up there, was the ability to uncover past events and calculate the likelihood of future ones.
If you compared this to the healing, resurrection, and near omniscience it boasted, then it seemed tame and unimpressive. However, deciphering how things happened in the past had so many applications I needed to sit down and note them down.
I'm certain a lot of history alone would need revisioning.
Today however, I would settle for unearthing the events that led to Pamela Isley becoming Poison Ivy. Another command entered the Father Box's systems and its invisible gears began to turn.
A beam of red light pierced into Pamela's static form and creeped over her till she became wreathed completely. A ping that simultaneously sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil reverberated through every skeleton present.
The red beam began to pulse, and I rechecked my hold on the Box's internal systems, making sure its natural desire to corrupt everything was not affecting the process. Ivy could be described as corrupted enough as it was.
These pings went on for about a minute before the beam retracted abruptly. My hooks into the Box told me it had everything I needed, so I gave it a new directive and the beam of red appeared again, this time from the top of the device.
It spread open into multiple lines before forming a holographic screen. True to its nature as a living thing, the Father Box understood context and showed the story from the very start, this being Pamela's time in college and her inexperience with romantic matters.
From there we learned of the man responsible for the suffering she'd go through and why she came to hate the entire gender he belonged to. Jason Woodrue, a professor who easily seduced her and used the trust to kidnap her for his experiments.
This is where I focused on things more intently, letting the Father Box's findings and my own mesh to create an increasingly clearer image of her situation.
"Ah, I see…" I said when the tale reached the portion where the military cut Pamela out of the tree that grew from the seed she turned into. Yes, an actual, literal seed.
Woodrue's torture—the things he did to her could not be called experiments, for he was basically shooting in the dark with poorly crafted bullets hoping the enemy he hoped to conquer would fall from one.
His torture ended in Ivy's demise, though from what I could tell, he soul didn't depart from her transitional remains. It just clung to the green sludge the drugs she'd been pumped full of turned her into, undergoing its own metamorphosis alongside her physical form.
These changes in her spirit, I realized at the end of the horror movie, were the root cause of her insanity and hate for humans in general. Yeah, she didn't hate only men. Her vines were rated E.
And this was due to her connection to the plants. To her, they had clear and concise words backed by desires like every sapient human. And they all wanted one thing, each and everyone of them; for every human to die gruesome, horrible deaths.
Grace spoke first after I explained this to them. "Sheesh. I wouldn't wanna be her… even though being smoking hot is part of the deal."
"That's…" Ron said and looked around.
"Pretty insane," Roy finished it for him.
"You can still help her right?"
"Hmm," I thought about Wally's question and the solutions already forming in mind. "Well, the problem is bandwidth. Her communication with the plants is two way street. It's just, there's a lot of them and—"
"They also have more bandwidth."
"Right. We just need to adjust this side of her powers. Tune things down on the other end."
"I still can't believe plants want us dead," said Artemis.
It came as a shock to me too, but I knew better than to focus on the problem and not the solution. Especially in front of the kids.
"Well, think of it this way. Once Ivy can listen to her own thoughts without being told to kill everyone she comes across, we can support her in getting the plants on our side, or at least, to become neutral. Point is, this is not something to worry about."
"The vegetarians are gonna freak out when they find out they're on an environmental hitlist."
"Grace…" I said in a stern tone.
"Wait, if plants can talk, doesn't it mean animals should be able to?"
'Should I tell them about The Red?' I thought in amusement.
*********************
10 advanced chapters on: https://patreon.com/MasterReigen