Athwart History (Closed)

[Obuzeti]

Elias glances up at Lana, his lips curling into a smile, before he bounds forward to meet Lana mid-charge. His shoulder rolls forward and his right arm bends back to present his elbow, braced by his other hand on his bicep - and then he drives that reinforced elbow straight into Lana's diving fist. The sheer impact blasts him backwards into a roll that nearly bowls over Jenna as she appears behind his back, and he comes back up to his feet laughing and shaking out his elbow.

"Hell of a hit, Lana," he calls. "Little telegraphed, maybe? Jenna, hon, be aggressive. Lana's got a lot more power than you - put her in a good position to hit me, yeah?"

This time he takes the initiative, sliding forward in a boxing stance and throwing out a few air jabs before he surges forward in a smooth rush, bobbing and swaying. His front hand dips for a moment and then lashes out and up, driving an uppercut at Lana's jaw as he slides in on dancing feet.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“I did not wish to surprise the ‘kung fu master’.” Lana replies with a straight face, shaking out her hand. “Jenna-put on a mean face.”

“Yeahokay.Itotallygotoneofthose.” The shimmering blue blur was all over the place-flitting this way and that. When Elias moves in again she’s there, pushing Lana around him in a semicircle before flitting away again-and allowing a follow up attack from the much stronger, denser veteran heroine.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias's snappy uppercut misses completely when Lana just isn't there anymore, and he stops short and goes for a turning elbow up at her jaw when the Atlantiean's fist intercepts his kidney. The blow just about throws his feet out from under Elias and puts an acid taste in his mouth as the organ protests - but dust puffs from the ground and rock crumbles as he locks his legs and takes the blow with damning fortitude.

His elbow turns and he drops the point of it onto Lana's wrist where her fist is still buried in his side, and then he tries to grab hold of her arm, which presages terrible, awful things if he gets a grip.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Ominously, Velocity’s shimmering blue blur was absent-not that Lana picked up on that exactly-it hadn’t been gone long.

Elias would find himself grabbing not the dense arm of Deep Blue but a shoddily made scepter-some forked thick stick with a pinecone jammed into the bend, trailing vines curled around it and tied into a bow.

And Lana’s halfway across the moonlit clearing regaining her balance now that her fist was driving forward into air. She’s wearing a pine cone, leafy crown of some kind originally meant for Elias-but Jenna wasn’t tall enough to plop it on his head, so to Lana it went.

Lana pulls the ‘crown’ off her head with a serious frown. “Jenna.” And then she hurled the crown in Elias’ direction like a discus. It didn't seem like the junior heroine quite knew what to do with herself, here.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias turns to face then both, deeply amused. He twirls the stick in between two fingers, then starts idly breaking pieces of it off and stuffing them into his hand. "She's doing fine. Jenna's mostly fought other speedsters up to this point, so there was always something for her to do. At our speeds? She could probably knit socks in between our punches."

He grips a fistful of wood and bark now and squeezes, powdering it as silvery light pours down his forearm like stellar rain. "But there are things she can learn from us still. First lesson: your main threats are sensory attacks and wide-area attacks, like -"

His arm blurs up and flicks the handful of powder with an ear-shattering bang, the limb shattering the sound barrier in an instant. The air friction superheats the wood particles into coal-hot flinders - and then they ignite barely a foot from his hand, the makeshift sawdust exploding into a thermobaric fireball. It's not huge, only maybe twice the size of a beach ball, but it's loud and bright and Elias has already trucked through the flames before they're even finished forming, a shooting comet that charges Lana with lowered shoulder like a ram.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Lana’s not sure what he’s doing with the silly toy Jenna had crafted for him ‘in her spare time’-and neither was Jenna. The former watched him suspiciously while the latter seemed altogether too pleased with her joke, though her features were soon obscured as she blurred in place.

The golden eel shaped band spiraling around Lana’s upper right arm catches the light of the flash bang even as Lana turns her head and takes a step back-the glittering sapphire blue gems briefly lost in a flow of water that spirals down the rest of Lana’s arm-and impossibly remains coiled in the palm of her hand, ready to answer the call of it’s mistress.

Cool.

Jenna’s mirrored goggles had prevented her from being too blinded, her resting speed making everything appear to be in slow motion. Even so, Elias is fast. Not fast enough, though.

The speedster once again absconds with his target, spiriting the much larger woman away before she even sucks in her next breath. Like before, Jenna takes her around Elias-this time she gives Lana a second for the wind up, to realize what's happening-but then extra extra surprise, flits the warrior around to his opposite side-and in for the attack!

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias has no ability to respond in time - the flickered movement comes in from first his left, then his right, and Lana's water palm connects with his side then explodes outward like a tsunami, trying to blast him away with water pressure. He bears it and breaks the wave with his body, turning against the current -

And then Lana is already gone, and the wave hits him from behind instead, the Atlantiean repositioned mid-tsunami by Jenna, and the force combined with the brace of his muscles throws Elias across the clearing in a deluge of chest-high water. He throws himself back up out of the sudden flood in a spray of water, skipping backwards -

A star rises, radiant, as an unfathomable flood of power courses through Adamant. He grins as the patterns of the night sky scroll across his skin, starry and celestial, and -

- powers down, sinking back into bland mortality.

"Honestly, when you do that there's not a whole lot I can do in response without just breaking the area, and I like living here," Elias admits. "Speedsters counter me pretty hard. Well done, Jenna."

He shrugs and does a straight punch to the side. The air ripples and roils in response as a sonic crack announces the air in the way of his fist being accelerated to post-mach speeds. "That's basically my only response, and I have to scale way the fuck up to have a shot at hitting either of you. Let's not do that. Call it your win."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“We both know that would be no contest.” Lana spreads her hands and the water she’d gathered up around them returns with a splash, the coiled arm bracelets eyes glinting, sapphires back in place on the hollow band of gold.

She punches him in the arm without force, fond and with a sharp toothed grin.

“I don’t have jack for durability.” Jenna agrees, rubbing her shoulder absently. That’s always what her mind drifts to-that first encounter with Rush, the horrified realization of just what she was dealing with before the villainess put the beat down on her.

Lady Burglar indeed.

“I could always like, dump a bad guy off in a corn field somewhere, if it came to it.” Jenna’s on cloud nine hanging around the two of them, thrumming with energy as she hooks a thumb beneath the bridge of her goggles and jerks them up to rest against her jet black hair. “A herbie curbie’s the current record, but that wasn’t real far and it was empty.” She considers. “I uh, you’re the next thing down from that.” And the Filipina laughs.

Lana makes an amused noise. “Laura had a penchant for making the bad guys look like fools.” Jenna’s young and nostalgically wholesome, a welcome change to the old men firmly stuck in their ways she’s been dealing with lately.

“That was fun.” Lana says. “And we did not even mush up your yard.”

“I tried not to go to fast.” Jenna concurs. She can wear a path anywhere, pretty easy.

"And now...the popcorn?" Lana muses, considering.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias shrugs and smiles, opens his mouth - says nothing. Closes it. His eyes sparkle, wet in the dim light of the Coulee.

"I have teammates again," he says, soft, his smile helpless, his joy incredulous. "I have a family again. My God, my God. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum."

He closes his eyes for a moment, shuts them tight. A tear runs from under his eyelids and he shakes but once, biting his lip even as his smile turns his lips wide. He looks up at these two - at Jenna, at Lana - and beams at them. "Yes. Yes, I think a movie will cap this off just fine. Come on inside, you two."

He moves ahead of them, and sets the TV over the warm fireplace on, and then immediately bustles into the kitchen to make popcorn, humming happily as he pours the kernels and melts the butter over them. "I have the Princess Bride still if you want to throw that in. Some other stuff, but I really feel like a classic should be the order of the night. That or like, Lord of the Rings? Something timeless."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

He's going to make her cry too. It's exactly what he needs, and exactly what -she- needed too. It had been almost second nature to think of a movie, of 'chilling' after a fight. Old times. Good times. And Jenna fit right in there, as if she had known the kid forever.

Free will and autonomy, and the comfort of friends and, as he had said-family. Their people. -Their- people.

"Oh man, the sword fight in that movie-"

Lana's not sure when it happened, but Jenna was now in pajamas. There's some kind of fluffy...goat? Sheep? Printed all over them. She still had the short ponytail and those goggles, one silver glove she was just now absently discarding. Her bubbly excitement is contagious. It's all she can do not to pat her on the head.

"Is that the one where he calls the prince a..." Lana pauses, trying to remember the exact dreadful phrasing. "'Miserable, vomitous mass'?"

"And a warthog faced buffoon!" Jenna provides cheerfully. "It's great!"

 

[Obuzeti]

"It is," Elias calls across the kitchen to his two, "The swordfight took them eight months to film because Reiner - the producer - kept making them restart and practice. Nowadays, though, it's still shown in fencing academies because of how clean the techniques involved are. They call out a bunch of specific swordfighting techniques, too."

He sets the popcorn to heat and waves at Jenna and Lana. "Go ahead and pop it in while I'm cooking the popcorn, be there soon enough."

He slips back into the kitchen - and then past it, into the larder on the other side, where he puts the voluminous quantities of food necessary to feed an entire horde of heroes every time they visit. He pulls out his communicator and lets it dial - but stops before it goes to voice call. He doesn't think she'd appreciate that, at the moment, but he can't just leave Marie alone. Not now.

The line clicks on. In the background, popcorn is popping, and the familiar strains of Princess Bride are beginning.

"Marie," he says, soft. "We've got Lana here. She's going to stay, and Jenna's got her stuff up here too. I know I asked you to find out - everything - but you should know that you have a standing invitation here too. This home is your home. Wherever you hurt least, stay there, but know that you have people that love you yet, and have not let you go. I will not let you go. And maybe you know this, but you should be told it. You are not alone, and neither are we."

Elias bites his lip, and swallows. "Thank you for everything, Marie. And thank you for letting any part of me back into your life, and giving me the foothold I needed to put even the smallest part of my family back together again. And thank you for being a part of it."

There are words to say after that but he can't quite shape them - something formless, not gratefulness, not joy. Something wistful, an unformed need. It's so rare that Elias doesn't know what to say that he leaves an open, hanging space in the airtime while he tries to figure it out, and eventually just chuckles at himself.

"I want you here," is what he says, and it's true, but not all of it. "Take care; I'll see you soon."

He hangs up and looks at his phone, faintly wondering.

Then Elias opens the door back to the kitchen, and steps out to join the rest of his family, the popcorn fresh and the movie going.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Family Movie Night

Jenna was both the best and the worst sort to watch a film with. Too much energy to just settle in and veg out-she cracks jokes and talks excitedly about various aspects and people as they come on screen, and while someone very impatient might have wanted to strangle her for it, her comments and chit chat were endearing and surprisingly engaging.

For her part, Lana (again) openly disapproved of Humperdink's nefarious, cowardly plan. ('Just start the war! You're the leader, you don't need this convoluted mess and bride killing.') and GREATLY approved of the Spaniard's 'gentlemanly' revenge. Another movie was decided on, and then one after that-until even Jenna dozed off, silver goggles still on her head, the glint of them against her black hair all that was visible from beneath the small afghan ball she made in one corner of the couch.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Samson: Protagonist's Lair

(Formatting, hold on to your hats!)


She'd been with several others in League headquarters. Support. Coordinating various groups of heroes, at the beginning. Satellite images, what little reports the military was sending in-trying to sort it out, trying to strategize with the handful of others doing the same. And then it went all to hell. They had already been losing. Immolation just...

People had cried. Tensions rose and things broke down, those that could wanting to join the fray, and those that couldn't squabbling with one another. There was nothing more to do. There was hardly anyone left to direct. Victor was dead. She was sure Gideon had been obliterated too, but he had radioed in to report- had missed it by twenty minutes, had just left to fly recon.

He had told her where he'd last seen the others. And that's when she had climbed into the jet and made the unauthorized take off.

The jet had cost one of the so called 'Barons' of Samson several million dollars in dirty money, had been commandeered and re-outfitted for League use-but she was the only one who really knew how to fly the damned thing.

That hadn't entirely been an oversight on her part.

"Marie? Oh my God, you can't be here-" Even filtering tinny through the headset, Sam's voice was strained, filled with an exhausted anxiety. Protagonist said nothing, her eyes narrowing over the top of the oxygen mask as she flipped a row of switches in tandem, took the jet lower. Her eyes burn and there's a thrum to her blood Protagonist doesn't like, a jittery feeling. She hadn't slept since it started. Hadn't had time, couldn't think of it. Reluctantly she'd finally taken some chems a few hours before Immolation-and more before climbing into the jet. She didn't want to know what kind of poisons were in them. Between that and sheer obstinate willpower she was still figuratively on her feet-for whatever good that'd do.

"It's the worst it's been-" The anxiety ridden voice continued before being interrupted by an explosion of earth, and for the first time in years Marie felt her heart seize.

When was the last time she had felt afraid? She hardly recognized it for what it was.

"You'll die." Tears in that voice, now.

"We're all going to die-" Anhinga’s voice filtered in. "There's no winning. They've called us here to martyr ourselves."

"That's enough." Protagonist ground out, ripping the oxygen mask away from her face as a flare of anger sparked in her chest, fanned into the familiar flames that burned through the fear, the dread another person would have continued feeling. They weren’t wrong, but Sam didn’t need to hear it. "I'm nearly there. I'm coming to get you.” Or die trying. “Stay focused."

"Marie, please-" Sam, still talking when she should be focusing on the fight, on staying alive. "Turn around. Don't do this."

"Focus Sam." Protagonist growled, disliking, as always, having to repeat herself. She turned her attention to the black souled team member that had followed her out from HQ.

"Gideon!" Protagonist barked, her nerves stretched tight over that fueling fire, the grim inevitability she persistently denies.

"West and South!" The hero barked back, wind in the comm as he flew alongside the jet. A hero named Ricken was with him, had come with her when they'd left headquarters. He had never been much of a fighter, she wasn't sure what he thought he'd do here-but he’d come all the same.

They've arrived, and it's a mess. She'd seen the satellite images, watched the damage from afar-but they hadn't captured the nature of it, not really. She flew past but veered away from the coast, dipping dangerously low to the waves. Her brain calculated right along with her instruments, fine tuned controls to keep herself from exploding on the waves.

Skimming the waves, picking up weight and water as she pulled back on the stick, picked up altitude, she sees Ricken peel off the radar, no doubt to offer support to his own team. She and Gideon moved in on theirs-and the beast, or at least, some part of the beast.

She fires targeted, million dollar U.S.A.F. missiles into the armored, rock encased side of the thing. Energy beams fill her peripheral vision with green light, a second pass of beams from what she thinks is Arkansas, but she's busy readying the water gun.

Magma erupted, tore the land asunder-

The force of the water jet blows the magma and molten rock sideways, cooling some of it instantly-steam obscures the colorful costumes of Sam and Lady Victory. That had nearly been it, the magma would have killed them, super strength and magic amulets encased and burned away. If she had left just a few minutes later than she had...

"Get them out from the cliffside!" She orders Gideon, catches the gold bullet streaking downwards, his blip on her radar. Where was Lana? The water was boiling down there-and Anhinga? Had they actually shut up when asked to, for once?

Another skim of the waves, gallons and gallons of water. Pulled back yet again. Lana's had to be in the water. She's not sure how deep-or how she could possibly retrieve her, at this rate. Arkansas joins her on the return, iridescent beams of energy blasted alongside the body of the beast as she fires on it again.

And then another targeted gush of water in another sector, she thinks she sees Lizard and Coy, she's not sure. She needs to get back to that cliff, she needs to fucking do something-and then another eruption hits, this one worse, this one from multiple places and angles everywhere she can see.

I love you Marie. I love you, I love you, I love you-

The hysterical, panic stricken message overwrites everything of her own thoughts, Sam broadcasting straight into the vigilante's head as she had once sworn to never, ever do again. The intensity of it, the swell and wash of emotions-her mental training naturally suppresses some of it, but the vulnerability and the fear lances through her heart and she’s not sure what’s Sam’s and what’s hers. She has nothing to think, nothing to say. What could she possibly say? What comfort could Protagonist offer?

Or even Marie?

Christ. Christ.

Nothing from Gideon. She doesn't request an update-she's not sure there would be a response. She tries to somehow focus on that connection Sam had made-but it’s gone.

She hadn't known she had heart left to hurt, pieces of anything large enough to break. She feels as if she's been sucker punched.

Everything...everything is wrong.

The jet shook, the sudden air change, the rock-fuck. She glanced out her side view and saw Arkansas go down. Time seemed to slow even further. There’s no escaping this. Her jaw set and she veered, firing along the beast's body-water, missiles, guns-but it's suicide.

She knows it's suicide, a delay of the inevitable.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not together, not with her friends and allies. She was supposed to die on the streets of her filthy city. Not out here playing hero, not alongside the actual best society had to offer.

Sam. Sam…

Molten rock punched through the right wing and the metal buckled, glass shattering as the left side of the cockpit was ripped apart. There's white hot, burning pain in her left leg but she doesn't look, air tearing at her hair, her cloak as she bites back on the scream. She slams a fist into the control panel and fires the last of the missiles seconds before the plane finished it's spin and rocketed into the water.

What was left of the windshield blows in as water blasts into her, pins her back to her seat as the console crumples in on her legs. Even then she fights. She never knows when to stop, never learns her lesson, never acknowledges the curse and pointlessness of her stupid fucking existence. She presses forward, leaves the shattered pieces trailing behind her in the dark because she doesn't know what else to do, how else to be.

She tears out of the seatbelt, grasps hold of the facemask still around her neck-but the hose is damaged, not connected anymore. No bubbles, no air. She shoves hard on the console-and screams, sucks in water in the blinking emergency light, jagged metal that had stabbed through her leg shearing muscle from bone. Her eyes burn, her chest burns, her hands clamp over her mouth and nose as she chokes on the scream and the water she's about to drown in, a billowing dark cloud of blood in her lap. It's over. It's finally fucking over.

Yet even then she rejects the siren song of oblivion, the end to all the pain and the grief, the futility of her war with the world, the scum, her city. There was neither fear nor peace here on the edge of eternity, on the steps of Hell.

Even regret is absent.

All that she feels, all that ever seems to be left to her is her rage.

!

Marie's eyes opened with a sharp, involuntary gasp of air, a twitch of her right hand for a railing that isn’t there. She’s met not with the hospital room ceiling but the dark rafters of her lair, what should have been an uncomfortable heat now a pleasant, slightly above room temperature warmth, the sound of the servers dulled by the white noise of Elias' air conditioner.

What...when...she catches sight of her own grasping, loosened hands.

They're trembling.

Marie curls them into fists and sits up, groggier than she’s been in a long time-and glances at the small clock next to the cot. She had somehow slept through the alarm or failed to set it, something- she's been asleep for five straight hours.

"Son of a bitch-" The clock was picked up and hurled across the room in a single motion of impulsive and irrational anger, something that was beneath her but yanked her out of the past and firmly into the present. It shattered into pieces on the other side of the walkway but she paid it no mind, already grasping at the black strap to haul herself into her wheelchair. Five hours. Five hours. Three hundred minutes! So much could happen in five hours-and it could potentially take her another two to catch up. What had she missed? Why was there so much of the fucking dream this time? If she hadn't overslept there wouldn't have been so much of it to unpack from her subconscious or the mind that never let details slip, couldn't forget.

What was next, dreams about Anthony's murder? Christ. Fucking Christ-she lets her anger burn any feelings on it away, gives a hard shove to her wheels to drag her useless and pain wracked legs off the cot. Grits her teeth and growls.

The crippled vigilante rolled past the discarded futon padding and onto the raised platform walkway, furious with herself. Her vigilance should be more constant than ever, now-she’d missed serious red flags and the sting of failure was still as sharp as a blade in her ribs, but apparently not so bad she couldn't fucking nap through it[/b].

She snatched up the tablet, eyes moving from monitor to monitor as she typed in a passcode and tried to decide where the hell to start, growling to herself all the while.

She’s got a message too, from Elias.

For a brief and terrible moment, Marie thought she had missed a direct communication and then realized that no, it was in fact a message in the first place. Ah. Good. Bad enough her lapse affected what it did, it wouldn’t do to also take her off her game of information and dispatch, all she was really offering these days.

Oddly, it mollifies her a little. She’s only behind on her own schedule, no one else’s. Trackers still compiling data, records decrypting...she can catch up. She will catch up. She won't let this happen again.

Marie taps play while she tries to piece together the new shitty encryption between two low level villains in Zimbabwe, absently reflecting she needs to down a protein shake for maintenance-and making no real move to do so. The popping makes her thinks of gunshots before popcorn, until she places the sounds in context with the music and who was calling.

”"Marie. We've got Lana here. She's going to stay, and Jenna's got her stuff up here too.”

Lana surfacing is predictable but still good news. Another hero to the roster, one firmly loyal to the cause...after her vacation.

”I know I asked you to find out - everything - “

She’s further on that than she thought she’d be, but the five hour fucking nap sure set that back some.

“-but you should know that you have a standing invitation here too. This home is your home. Wherever you hurt least, stay there, but know that you have people that love you yet, and have not let you go. I will not let you go. And maybe you know this, but you should be told it. You are not alone, and-”

Marie hit pause, brow furrowed on the tablet, eyes staring hard at the encrypted messages she’s parsing.

...why did he do that? Turn outward, always. He had two heroes, two ‘family’ members in his house-why was he calling her? It’s good Lana and Jenna were with him. Shore him up, soothe him. 'Normal' after too long alone for someone like him. It’s all the more perplexing that he’d turn around and want to call her on top of that. To blather on about nothing, reach out for...there’s nobody here. How did he not understand she just wasn't...

That she can't. Can't.

She draws in a slightly unsteady breath, not angry some...how, but uneasy, twitchy. She had thought all the cracks were filled. Left alone again to recover after coming so close to losing her shit, she’d settled, recentered-focused on finding the piece of scum that had played her and everyone else so easily, sent Elias and Jenna on the scheduled mission, accepted the debriefing and papers afterward.

Now she feels the brittleness of the shell she was again, and there’s nothing to glaze the cracks. The dream? How is she...how is...vulnerable?

No.

What a stupid thought. Protagonist was not and could never be vulnerable. The dirty world simply would not allow this. She would not allow this. Her legs tense, a grounding agony that would harden her back to normal, to what she needs to fucking be to-

She’s being watched. She’s been steadfastly ignoring the glowing eyes that occasionally glint from various reaches of her lair ever since Elias and Jenna left without taking the animal with them, but now she’s sharply aware of it and it’s distracting.

She relaxes, just barely-and lets her gaze trail up from the tablet and her ravaged lap to settle on the sleek black creature boldly sitting on her console.

“...Cat.” Marie growled, glaring at it. The cat just stared back at her. It was just...sitting there, the tail curling around its feet. Out of reach, slightly to her left. Watching her.

What is...it can’t fucking be up there. What the fuck does it think it's doing up there?

Shooing it would be beneath her. Throwing something would be more satisfying, but it’s Elias’ cat and she doesn’t want to hear any bullshit about mistreating the stupid thing he had left here for whatever fucking reason. Maybe the sound of his voice had drawn it to its current spot. All the more reason not to finish the message.

...but there might be data in there somewhere.

Marie hesitates, and then is angry for hesitating. It’s just a stupid message. Words to listen to and dismiss if nothing aside from the news of Lana’s return is useful.

The cat offers no opinion one way or the other, just settles down over it’s paws.
Marie stabs the play button. She’s irrationally angry with the cat, hating it for...whatever the hell good it’d do her.

"Thank you for everything, Marie. And thank you for letting any part of me back into your life, and giving me the foothold I needed to put even the smallest part of my family back together again. And thank you for being a part of it."

The cat glanced back at her, eyes briefly half lidded before opening fully again. “Projecting.” Marie dismisses the words tersely. To...the cat. She’s talking...to the fucking cat.

...maybe she was less sane than she had previously assessed.

She almost thinks it’s over, but there’s still popping and music somewhere, the message dragging on. The hero is silent, thinking, waiting-

Marie waits also. The patience is foreign to her. Eventually, Elias chuckles, and Marie narrows her eyes on the sound waves displayed there.

"I want you here,"

…

"Take care; I'll see you soon."

“Merow.”

Marie glowered at the cat. “Well good for you, but fuck if I know what to make of that.”

Marie. Christ. Stop talking to the cat.

She eyed it warily, suddenly distrustful. It’s one thing to spend eight straight years forgetting the sound of your own voice beneath your cesspit of a city. It’s quite another to prattle on at what was basically a less efficient inanimate object.

Noise. Worse than noise. Echos of noise. Echos of noise that could ostensibly be used as evidence of insanity.

She almost tells the cat to go away, then catches herself.

Internally grumbling, Marie gets back to work.

 

[Obuzeti]

In the morning, there is breakfast.

Elias, eternally mobile and ever the first awake, hums in the kitchen. He's wearing flannel pajamas now, having changed to fit the improvised pajama party they'd wound up in last night, and now prepares victuals for his roaming band of terror. He'd bullied Jenna into watching an assortment of sausages, bacon, and eggs, while Lana is conscripted into defrosting shrimp for herself. The man of the kitchen does pancakes, toast, kelp, and bangers all at the same time, darting between pans with practiced ease.

"So this is a variation of the English breakfast: super high in calories and I'd never feed it to another human in danger of diabetes, but you exist at a higher frequency than a tuning fork so you'll probably be fine," Elias lectures, as he flips a pancake. "Lana, I refuse to believe that Atlanteans are cursed to live without cooked food, so I'm going to shove a bunch of variously prepared seafoods down your gullet until I find what's good for you. Throwing up is permitted, but not at the table."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Jenna's munching on a stolen something already, snapping to attention at Lana's helpful nudge when something starts getting a bit too crispy on one side. Cooking is definitely not her strong suit-but it's a sight better with help.

"You see what happens if I don't eat like someone six times my size-Halloween scary Jenna is not a good look." The speedster says, blurring and reappearing with a piece of bread from somewhere briefly left unguarded.

"Does everyone in South Bend feed you too? After this one really tough fight, Laura went to nine different all you can eat buffets. It was insane."

"I once ate six whole pizzas."

"Oceans preserve us."

At Elias ribbing she just grins that sharp toothed grin. "Just don't make me eat it while it's still hot. Just so very...unnatural."

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias shakes his head at that. "I'm not sure your digestive system would even take that," he says, as serious about this as fighting crime. "Your cultural and biological diet is a ton of raw, ice cold food. You can't appreciate food if you're going through systemic shock just trying to digest it. No, it's going to stay cold, I'm just going to add flavors and textures then rechill it, see if that makes any difference. I might try soaking them in different soups, chilling that, and then defrosting it to see if the flavor soaks in."

He starts throwing cholesterol-heavy foods onto a plate at a horrifying rate, then pushes it over to Jenna. "Eat up, then call your parents, hon - I promised them that this time you'd stay in touch. You ain't making a liar of me."

The big hero comes back over besides Lana, helping with the shrimp. "I know before we just caught a lot of various kinds of fish for you, and that was fine, but I like making things for people now. There's something special in a homecooked meal."

There's a pause, and then Elias says, casual: "I might drop by to see Marie later today. If you want to come, that might be good, but she - didn't make the transition as well as the rest of us."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Probably knows I have resurfaced even without my saying so. Those ‘supernatural’ abilities of hers, you know.” Lana had been on the same team, and she still hadn’t really believed Protagonist WASN’T something ‘otherworldly’ despite Sam’s very real insistence to that effect. Not until...well.

Jenna seemed interested in this bit of talk-before her phone vibrated on the coffee table. Elias thought was a nice one-but her mother practically lived on the thing. Now though, she gets to hear her dad in the background or-stars align!-talk to her old man. Usually about whatever he had caught at the docks. He’d started fishing again.

“Oops, sorry-” And the pajama’d speedster scooped what was left of her mostly devoured delicious breakfast up to go talk on the back porch.

Now Lana can start in on the ominous bit of Elias’ words. Didn’t make the transition as well…transition to what? What would someone like Protagonist even transition to?

“You said Protagonist stayed dead.” That still did not make a lick of sense to Lana. Not with what she knew. Not with what had happened between them before she left. Maybe Protagonist had eventually retired to...whatever it was the woman might do. “Sam said she used to be a cop but...none of us knew what her civilian identity had been. What she had to go back to."

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias shrugs. "She has access to everyone's communicators and their metadata. Command decision, through me and Sarah back in the day - she ran infowar, made sure that our security protocols were up to spec and that no one could jam the signal. I talked with her last night anyways, in point of fact, so she'd know from that alone."

There is a pause, as he best considers how to tell what he knows of Marie - what everyone else just seems to fucking miss, that the attitude and the sarcasm and the acid are all just defenses for a woman that cannot bear to lose even a single thing more.

"She's crippled," he says finally, bluntly. Better to know. "The crash ruined her legs and she's been in a wheelchair since. Of course that means she thought of herself as useless, so Marie immediately retreated into seclusion and started running a shadow network, feeding intel to legal authorities and sparking gang wars between rival cartels and syndicates."

He gestures emptily up in the direction of Samson. "She doesn't really have a civvie identity - she subsumed it, like I do. She's never not Protagonist, these days, because to be Marie Rivera would be to confront the fact that everything in her life has been reduced to ash. But Protagonist doesn't hurt, and doesn't relent, and doesn't die; so Protagonist is the only thing she can be. She gets grocery dropoffs via blind courier to some underground bunker, has ten versions of the same shorts-tank top combo, eats ration bars, and hasn't talked to another human since the whole shindig except me and Jenna, probably."

Elias's fingers tap on the counter, and then he turns and faces Lana dead on, face set. "You were unhappy, but Marie has done everything short of suicide to erase herself from the planet. So: are you planning to start a fight with Marie if I take you up there with me to her hideaway? Because, if you are, you're not going."

Adamant jerks his head at the Coulee's living room, at the bedrooms still yet reserved for all the guests it used to host. "You have someplace to come back to. Hell, you could jaunt back to Atlantis whenever you wanted to, for as long as you wanted. Marie has fucking nothing. Her bunker is her last refuge, and she will die before she'll leave it, so I'm not taking anyone there for an argument. She has no family and no life to go back to and no legal identity and no way to fight the good fight without relying on us, and you can guess how much that eats at her. She needs my - our - help, and will cut her own throat before she so much as thinks of it that way."

Elias exhales. It's a stressful subject. "You and me - we've had eight years to process everything. To deal with, and put away our grief and our pain, our loneliness and our failures. But Marie has permitted herself to feel absolutely fucking nothing because to do so would send her flying to pieces, and there's no one left she's willing to rely on. I will not betray that trust."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

It’s a lot to unpack. Lana is not used to any sort of...lecturing. She nearly interrupts him twice, but he was on a knightly, protective bent, he was laying out a lot of information she’s both unsure of and rather disturbed by. He sounded as if he was talking about an entirely other person. Most distressingly, he spoke as if she and Marie were old enemies. Which...would make sense, actually. They butted heads a lot.

“I did not come up here to antagonize our allies.” Lana said bluntly, those yellow eyes drifting away from him a moment, softening. “I came up here to help you, and to help our people.”

Crippled.

“I know how badly she was hurt. I am the one who ripped her out of her death trap, you know that.” Lana leaned back in her seat, briefly lost in remembering. “What I do not understand is how she did not...I mean…”

A wheelchair? Stayed in the wheelchair? There were resources. She certainly didn’t seem to lack in funds. That seemed like...that had to be a willful decision-one that made no sense.

Lana shook her head, moved backwards. “I know we did not get along, before. Not many people did get along with her. She even threatened to knock Cid on his ass once, remember?” A slow ghost of a grin. “I don’t think he ever stood waxing rhetoric in her way again.”

She thinks...perhaps, Elias was projecting. Telling him that straight out would be a poor idea. Lana would try to bond, try to ‘get to know’ who Protagonist was, try to see what the hell Sam seemed to find so worth befriending-and get rebuffed. Her and Laura. Protagonist was all about business and business only. She wasn’t interested in anything else, and Lana wasn’t sure she ever had been. “She barely tolerated any of us, except for maybe Sam. And you know how Sam was.”

“After every mission, right back to Samson she went. Her room at base stayed empty except for some duffel bag of equipment in the closet. I am not sure she ever spent much time on anything but her nightlife. I did not get it. I still do not get it. But Elias…”

Her cautionary tale.

“That is not how I felt after Immolation. The hospital, lying about who she was...I had never even seen her without the mask on, that grease paint. -I- did not really believe Sam about...about her being baseline.” She smoothed her hands over the edge of the table, remembering. For all the terror and the brutal effectiveness, for all the mythos-Marie had been reduced to an unconscious, brutalized mortal being. “The trauma of the crash, the near drowning-she was in a coma for a week or two. I found her more dead than alive in that metal death trap. I thought she was dead-crushed and torn up as she was...she'd ripped her seat belt off. I think she was still conscious when she hit the water." All that blood...

“Given how ravaged her legs were, we opted to medically induce a continued comatose state. I was there every day, Elias. The immediate aftermath of it was bad...no one knew you were alive, Cid had gathered up what little was left to him, Sarah was a mess-people were angry and the public was coming after us-I knew I was leaving. I just...did not want her to be alone. I even thought I would take Marie with me, when I did leave. She just...looked so very small. ...fragile.”

Like some of the words he had used in his projecting, small and fragile did not seem to fit in the least. But there they were. She knows better, now.

Quiet. “For Sam, if nothing else...I kept vigil.”

Lana’s yellow gaze lifted to him. “I felt just as protective as you seem to be now. Our team was dead. Most of the League was dead. I thought...at the very least, Sam’s death would-” Ahead of herself again.

“Anyway. She woke up.” And she’d been there. She’d been there every day, sorting through what there was to sort through for their fallen comrades and keeping an eye on the one that yet lived. “She woke up. I was there.”

“Do you think she inquired about our allies? Do you think she was happy to see me?” There’s no heat, but at one time, there certainly had been. “You’d be wrong. She did at least ask if the beast was dead. I told her yes. And then, IV’s in her arms, on oxygen, her legs torn to shreds, weeks having passed and our friends all killed- she wanted to get back to Samson.”

Lana is still blown away. “Back to her lair. Her war.”

Her eyes moved back to him. She wouldn’t rehash the entirety of the fight. She’s not sure she really remembers the whole thing anymore. “Marie…Protagonist. She called me a coward, Elias. The bad guys had not gone anywhere, according to her. Rahab was the opportunity of a lifetime for them-losses they’d salivate over, she said. Despite this, I almost think she was angry with me for pulling her from the depths. But nothing about Rahab rocked her. She was no different than she was before it-just as obsessed, and now with less ‘resources’ to fight with.”

Hadn’t allowed herself to feel? Or just straight didn’t have feelings? Lana felt the latter was more likely. Marie didn’t need people. She never had. Friendship was wasted, maybe even foolishly idealistic with her.

But...why stay in the chair?

“...but I do not understand why she did not seek out...a solution. Then again-flying out to Rahab in the first place…” Lana shook her head. Marie might not have feelings, but she certainly could be a hypocrite. She’d had no place out there. Blaming -her- for the crash and survival was wrong-the vigilante should have never been there in the first place. If she had followed her own strict procedures and cynical guidelines, she wouldn’t have been.

Hm.

Lana shook her head. “But no-I am not here to pick a fight with Marie. I am worried she will pick a fight with me, however. So long as everything remains straight business, even that will most likely be avoided. A social call, however…”

Was Elias making a social call?

Lana frowns. "Are...are you just going for a visit? She'll throw you out in a heart beat."

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias's fingers settle on the countertop. There is silence in the kitchen.

"Lana," he says, soft, and he is unyielding now, "Anger denies pain. I can guess precisely how Marie must have been after Immolation: like a wolf with a leg in a bear trap. She must have tried to kill anything in reach, make any fucking use of herself, once it was clear she'd survive. You think she went to the Islands, expecting to survive, to contribute, after running Top and seeing the big picture? No."

Elias sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Lana, I think she came to Immolation because she couldn't be the one left behind while all her friends died to protect her - to die alongside us - and then it happened anyways. Of course she'd come right back up fighting; anything to live up to the legacy we'd laid on her. She'll never finish paying back Sam. She just thinks she does it best by fighting, so that's all she does."

Adamant stares ahead, his gaze empty. "To know that you survived by grace not your own is a terrible thing, when so many others died. Maybe you expected thanks, but all she could have asked would have been 'why not someone better?' I know I did."

The big man purses his lips. The conversation is draining color from his cheeks, that effortless living vitality paling into alabaster and marble. But he takes a deep breath, eyes fluttering, and rolls his shoulders; the flush and warmth returns to him, as he shakes off the chill of memory. Elias glances over at Lana with a raised eyebrow, his ground restored. "I have been visiting her. I got her a cat, and she's feeding it. I'm making her eat things that aren't ration bars. I call her about every day, and mostly not about critical data, and she listens to me."

He shakes his head. "Marie leaned into the reputation, tried to become that remorseless, unfeeling hunter, to keep up with the rest of us. To be as useful in the Fight -"

The capitalization is audible.

" - against, I don't know, evil. Samson's a shithole, you know that," Elias says. "And maybe we never saw anything past that, but that is not her fault, no more than a rehab patient is to blame for their own efforts to numb the pain. She's just - addicted to anger; it keeps her moving. When it comes, the crash will be incredible. And I'm going to be there when it happens, this time."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

A cat? Phone calls? Protagonist had to be humoring him. But even that would be entirely out of character for the vigilante. Then again, there’d been a soft spot for Sam...as much as anything about Protagonist could be called ‘soft’, anyway.

“Sam could literally read minds. You’re the ultimate empath.” Lana finally...slowly concedes. “If anyone’s going to get anywhere…” The princess still sounds slightly doubting there was anywhere to get to, but she trusts him. She exhales, thinking about eight years of solitude fighting a shadow war, of being too crippled to wage it in person. Of being dependent on others to fight battles for you...and indeed, how Marie would rather cut her own throat than admit to that.

Protagonist had never been content to let others take care of business. She had done everything she could to be a force all her own. As ruthless as she was, she hadn’t seemed to afford herself any kindnesses, either. Lana was decently sure she didn’t need them.

Maybe Elias was right. Or maybe he was just as selfless and persistent as Sam had been.

“She thinks we’re fools, you know.” Lana says. “That’s why her flying out still makes no sense to me. But…” Lana is soft. “The Front got more out of Protagonist than Protagonist got out of the Front. She wouldn’t let us in Samson. Asked for nothing. She was...is...an ally to the League. To heroes. That’s something I wish...well, I think more people should have understood.”

A pause.

“I hope you can help her.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias exhales, and wraps an arm around Lana's shoulders. "Thank you," he says, brief, and squeezes. "I know she's your teammate. There's shit unsaid there, and things I don't know. The time will come when you two settle those differences - I just don't think right now is that time."

His communicator flips out in his other hand and he taps out a brief message to Marie: Stopping by later today. Lana Y/N?

The sound of Jenna chattering in the background begins to slow as the conversation winds down, and Elias nods in confirmation. "Let's get this breakfast done and eaten, and then we'll see about going to Marie. There was an oil rig we hit earlier that got wrecked - she might have you checking out the mess to try to find any clues, because honestly right now we're high and dry on targets to hit. If we can't find anything, we'll probably be visiting the last other heroes, trying to get them to come here. Vivid first, preferably. She still has a public address."

The shrimp is dethawed now, and he brings over the sauce and begins to drizzle it over the delectable crustaceans, adding a dash of flavor foreign to the sea floor. "Go grab the kid, tell her the food's ready," Elias says amusedly, and ambles over to check on the rest of the breakfast spread. "God knows the two of us aren't eating all this."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

”If you need to.”

The most welcome anyone would get, these days.

Breakfast was as enjoyable as the movie watching had been-an all around solid start to the day.

~*~

Lana had been to Protagonist’s Samson lair before, but only a handful of times. Most business had been conducted in the Front’s ‘war room’ back at their base-a rather low key but high security flat not too far from the former League headquarters.

She’d never liked Samson. And if Protagonist had been out of commission for eight years, she’s sure it’s even worse than it had been last she visited.

“Invincibelle and I were here investigating the so called ‘demon woman’, first time I ever came here.” She’s telling Jenna, settled in and comfortable towards the back of the boat. “No one League had made contact yet, she didn’t seem to be venturing outside of this place, and that’s what the Front did-Recon, less...showy missions. Intel gathering.”

“We were here for three nights before she found us.”

“Oops. How did...I mean...?”

“I still have no idea. Protagonist was…is very good at what she does.” Lana laughed a little. “She essentially booted us out of her city. Month later we were trying to bring in Mauve Zero, and the villainess retreated to the side of some baron of Samson. Protagonist showed up irritated we were back in her city, then went in and got her. Invincibelle went off script and somehow recruited her to the cause after that. That’s when we really were the Front, I think.”

The docks looked largely the same-in broad daylight the city curling around the bay almost looks benign. The sprawling, empty factory with a door Lana’s not sure she could get through on a good day, heavy bolt locks-and the elevator.

She can feel the tension mounting.

It will be fine. Stick to business, the mission. Protagonist will not waste time on old arguments if there is work to be done.

Besides. Elias was there.

“We locked up down here after fighting with Paul the second time.” Jenna chatters. “Nothing coulda gotten in, pretty sure. Fort Knox.”

Her bubbly energy cannot be something Marie tolerates well, but it buoyed Lana’s spirits. Laura would have liked the kid.

~*~

The doors opened. It was much the same...just dustier. A few indications that Marie was indeed living down here now. A cot. Little air conditioner. Oddly there’s some sort of couch cushioning piled into a corner rather than on the cot, and what looks to be a broken...clock? shattered just off the raised walkway on the server side rather than the cot side.

And there’s Protagonist...no costume, no mask. The woman did not glance up from whatever she was doing on some sort of lit device before her. She was in a wheelchair. There’s no handles and only half a back to it, and from here Lana can’t see her legs-and she’s not certain she wants to. Why the chair? Why stay so grievously wounded?

Lana steps inside. Jenna’s already darted around to the backside of the console, trying to entice the cat over to be pet. Fittingly, the sleek creature was black.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias moves right through the basement with the ease of familiarity, a cooler on one shoulder that he deposits and begins to sort through - various sundries that he sorts out, like actual bedding, a litter box for the cat, shampoos and soap for the shower stall, some kind of camping oven that he deposits in a corner. "Dropping off some more stuff in case we end up bunkered here again," he calls to Marie, already setting up the litter box. "Thanks for taking us in that time, by the by."

He bustles over to clean up the clock, dumping it into a plastic grocery bag to throw away somewhere else. "I got in contact with Tweedledee last night, he says that Vivienne -" Vivid Walker's civilian name, " - missed their last meetup, but did send word. Someone tried to do something to all the frames at her house so she's stayed absent from them. I told him to organize a meet at the Newfields art museum in Indiana; I'll take the girls with me there and pick her up."

He's always careful to take some business when he intrudes physically into the bunker; never letting it slide into full personal territory, leaving that for the phone calls and messages where Marie can establish some space from her emotions. He's spent weeks drawing her out carefully - there's no value in making her retreat inside her own space.

Elias also doesn't comment on why the clock is across the walkway from where it's normally plugged in, and broken. He's got a good guess.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Hn.” More useless crap she didn’t need-but the excuse actually had merit. Everything she’d been able to offer to Jenna that night had really been extensions of Elias’ kindness, and that hadn’t been entirely lost on her. Still, she wishes he’d stop.

The girl was trying to coax the cat to where she could reach her. Good, get the damned thing off the console, it’d been there too long. But the cat remained in place, staring at her placidly. Marie ignored it. She also ignored Lana in the immediate, refusing to turn around just yet.

”Someone tried to do something to all the frames at her house so she's stayed absent from them. I told him to organize a meet at the Newfields art museum in Indiana; I'll take the girls with me there and pick her up.”

Something to her frames? The hell did that mean? But good. Good news, good data.

“Vivid Walker, Deep Blue, Adamant, Velocity.” The list is terse, gruffly spoken as she closes out of the keylogging program she’s running remotely, the user she’s spying on having logged off after a fruitful conversation with one of his underlings. The cat seemed to be content now that she’s said something-it finally rises from its perch, stretching out before turning to trot in Jenna’s direction.

She set the tablet aside to press open a compartment, retrieve one of the ten or so mesh bags within. She wheels backwards at an angle, finally fixing Lana with a look. Back from the depths, apparently. Yellow eyes meet her gaze flatly, waiting for something.

Maybe an insult. Maybe noise. Marie doesn’t much care-she doesn’t want to think beyond the war, right now. She sticks to fact and flatness.

“Teleporter, updated codes for the flat.” Marie tosses the bag to the Atlantean princess before dismissing her entirely. “I have targets but we should focus on our allies at the moment. Not that I care, but there’s some bad press.” The heat wasn’t in the U.S. Adamant was Adamant, and Jenna was the newest media darling the public just couldn’t get enough of. But the skewed reports with ‘security experts’-former but actual still scum-hadn’t gone unnoticed.

She doesn’t want Cid to have the satisfaction of twisting their efforts to his-or anyone else’s- narrative should they creep up here. She’s also understandably on edge about Paul getting to those that remained.

~*~

Lana could see all she needed to see with Marie in profile, but in turning around, she’s hit with the full horror of it. The scars are terrible. Like the other woman had been set upon by sharks. Suddenly she’s back in that jagged, flashing death trap, blood on the water and the body of a teammate floating loose, her legs crushed and skewered.

She busies herself with the mesh bag to distract herself from asking why. The question burns at her though, and despite the argument, despite Marie’s venomous accusations of cowardice-Lana feels guilty.

She doesn’t understand, but also can’t imagine being down here alone for nearly a decade. Even if she didn’t need people...how had she not lost her mind in that kind of isolated solitude? How was she not hurting? She’s so pale and gaunt looking...

"I can show you how to use it." Jenna pipes up, the cat content in her arms as she walks -normal speed- back around, at ease, comfortable. Apparently Marie was tolerant of the kid if she's not tiptoeing around the place whispering.