Athwart History (Closed)

[Obuzeti]

Elias shrugs at the bad press. He's always had a hard time giving a fuck about people that talk to each other and not him. "My priorities are obvious. I'll always get more of my people instead of go smack down some goddamn fools. I have eleven family left. We'll never run out of fools."

He grimaces and moves over to beside Marie's wheelchair, dropping to balance on his haunches as he opens his mouth - and nothing comes. Again. He closes it, vague confusion clouding his gaze, and finally just shakes his head. He shifts into a proper kneel, one knee down, and merely sits there beside her instead; lets his brain percolate.

The bitter shortness is a backslide. Maybe a bad morning, maybe Lana's presence. Maybe him dropping off yet more useless stuff. There's no way to tell without asking, and that would be acknowledging a crack in Marie's shell - with a visitor present, no less. That's a crudity he won't fall to, and she won't talk with him when reduced to this terseness.

Some things can't be solved with words.

So instead, Elias just exists there, silent and present.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“We'll never run out of fools.”

“No. We won’t.” She has bad news to impart on that note, as well-but Marie isn’t sure she can handle an influx of questions sure to follow. She prefers Jenna in this mood rather than the shellshocked one, but it’s still more than she can entirely take for any length of time. The cat provided for a good distraction-but as soon as Elias had knelt down it had leapt loose of the heroine and darted to greet him instead.

The proximity sets her on edge. So does Lana’s presence, truth to be told. Though Jenna seemed set to explain the teleporter. Which was good-she hadn’t been planning on it.

“Lair’s insulated from the tech.” Marie notes matter of factly, her eyes following the movements of the cat. “You can teleport out, but not in.” Unless she shut down certain insulating systems-not a chance of that.

“Oh, okay-upstairs? Or the docks! We’ll go on the docks. That’s the only coord I know by heart, anyway. I’d rather run for the most part but-” Jenna was still chattering when the elevator doors closed behind the pair.

Lana had been uncomfortable but quiet. Marie would take it. She’s decently sure Jenna’s motivations had been two fold in taking Lana out to test the teleporter, on that note. Kid was smarter than she’d given her credit for, at times.

Dark eyes flick from the elevator to Elias, and she finally draws in a breath of air, a fraction of the tension in her shoulders relaxing. “Rush has escaped. Again.” She’s more tired than terse now, wheeling backwards to return to the console and her tablet, though she doesn’t do much with the latter once she picks it up.

“Given how offended she seems to be with Jenna, best to have the kid on her guard.”

 

[Obuzeti]

The cat just point-blank climbs on Elias, up his kneeling leg, climbing up his flannel sleeve with nimble claws and a short hop, then parking itself on a broad shoulder right beside his head. His eyebrow twitches. Animals had always climbed all over him for no fucking reason he could understand. It was cool, sometimes.

"Rush," he says, resignedly. "Well, that'll be coming for Jenna. I'll take care of it."

Take care of it.

It wasn't often discussed, but Adamant had by far the highest kill rate of any hero. When he got going he tended to kill villains entirely by accident just by arriving or hitting something nearby with a ballistic strike that could annihilate entire blocks. Attempting to kill members of his League invariably resulted in the offender being turned into meat paste, exploding into gruesome bits as Elias simply threw them so hard into things that they fell apart. His presence alone, and the threat of it, had forced an unofficial code of conduct on the battles between heroes and villains: treat each other with decency, or be unmade. He couldn't be killed, he would remember, and eventually, Adamant would find you.

His rampage through the Los Dovos cartel before his integration into the League alone had racked up more than three dozen deaths. Indiana, in a state of martial law before his arrival, had turned quiet inside of weeks. They still occasionally found bones from where he had bodily shredded cartel thugs and just tossed the pieces aside, arcing for miles.

After reading the details of Rush and Mindmelt's assault, Elias had no mercy left for them.

"I'll warn Jenna. If you get further details, forward them to just me," Elias says, eyes blue like early winter. "Her and Mindmelt. I'll deal with them both."

You didn't keep a family together and alive in superhuman warfare by being someone that could be fucked with.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Mistress Rush was a particular brand of scum someone that should have been put down a long time ago. Why Laura-and Marie was dead certain it had been Laura-had broken her out of that metahuman villain prison was still beyond her. The sadistic murderer deserved worse than the ‘treatments’ that had later been revealed to have gone on there.

And Mindmelt-

Marie’s eyes narrowed. No, they would not let that dredged up scum anywhere near the new Velocity, not ever again. Sheer dumb luck, maybe the uniqueness that was a mind touched by the Speed Force were the only things that had prevented a very real and very potent tragedy. Making the kid- as far as Marie knew-one of two heroes to survive his attacks without their minds shattering.

“...if I knew where to find him...” Protagonist growled, low and with a singular, black hatred that was palpable. It burned through the bitterness and ire she had ignored for tense professionalism with Lana, spiraled past any protective feelings for Jenna, tore through her exhaustion.

That the piece of shit lived in the place of his sister was some of the most compelling evidence that the world was nothing more than an ugly cesspit. Whatever Elias would or could do to him, it wouldn’t be enough.

“Meow.”

Marie turned her head to cast the ‘mangy’ cat on Elias’ shoulder an irritated glance-it’s staring at her again. She hates that thing too. Not as much obviously, but it just-distracting. Why was he keeping his cat here? She hates cats. The only reason it’s not running around on the docks for food was because it was his cat-that and she didn’t want to have to put up with any questions from Jenna about it.

“...never said if it had a name.” She finally says, still delaying-for reasons she’s uncertain of-returning to any of her tasks.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias's face is still grim. "He knows. The last time I saw him was a couple months before the fucking calamari showed up. Teamed up with Valefor, took over some South American town. Hundreds of people enslaved. Entire harems for both of them. When I arrived he had his cock in some little girl, making her pirouette on him while he broke her fingers one at a time."

The big man is tense now, teeth coming out between his lips, baring. Valefor had been another mind-controlling villain, whose voice could turn anyone drowsy and blank out their thoughts, drawing them to a blank and mindless standstill. Listen too long, and he could give you commands, like the Pied Piper of men. Between the two, free will had been a joke. "They threw the entire population at me. Fucking hundreds of starving people, just rushing me, most of them stabbing themselves with anything they could get just to catch my attention. Try to make me help them, get bogged down. I remember the two of them running in opposite directions from the back of the stage they'd been on - bunch of decoys dressed just like them, to confuse the trail. One group went for a boat, and one for a little airplane in the back."

"As it turns out," Elias says, still as death, "Valefor went for the boat."

The cat meows again and pokes at his ear with a soft paw.

Elias sighs and leans his head against the animal's side. It murrs disagreeably and climbs over his noggin to the opposite shoulder, closer to Marie now. Its legs bunch up beneath it as it considers the woman and her wheelchair.

"Jasper," he says eventually, "After the gemstone. Smoky black, individual. The nurturer; giver of courage and wisdom. If you buy into the gemstone healing bit, anyways."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

"Valefor went for the boat."

News of the villain’s end was darkly pleasing to Marie. Scum-but it’s the stupid cat that’s absorbed her attention, seemed to take offense with the continued subject with another meow, this time for Elias as it walked across his shoulders.

"If you buy into the gemstone healing bit, anyways."

“I don’t.” What a strange thing to name a fucking cat. She had expected...she wasn't sure what she had expected.

Marie eyes the cat-apparently named Jasper-back. Of all things, Wedgwood cameos come to mind. It’s something she hadn’t thought about in a long time...had no reason to think about. The image of a white rose against a gold flame, baked onto black and framed in silver drifts across her mind’s eye.

Jasper watches her, and Marie turns her attention back to the tablet. She finds the generic, consumer internet browser she hasn’t used since...well, possibly ever on this thing. She taps something out, then offers the lit device to Elias without saying anything.

Images and images of cameo pendants, vases, plaques and teapots of all things-mostly in a pale blue color, but some black, all with white relief images standing out in stark contrast. A type of sprig pottery, she thinks it’s called. Not carved, but molded and applied before firing.

“Jasperware.” The broken bodied vigilante finally reveals absently.

It has nothing to do with anything that matters, and Marie immediately feels out of sorts, even disturbed by her own continued distraction, the rusted, catching gears of...conversation? The brief bit of calm? Normalcy? The white noise of the air conditioner suddenly grates on her nerves. She doesn’t like it. Five hours should have been enough lazing around. She frowns, a shake of her head.

“Vivid doesn’t need to be brought here, too.” Marie says, retrieving a mesh bag for him to give to her instead. She doesn’t want Lana back either, but can’t think of a way to say so without feeling more annoyed, or acknowledging the bitter feelings of betrayal, the tar and venom that had mostly been absent in her and Elias’ dealings.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias hums in consideration as he looks at the range of cookery, all apparently made from the same gemstone as their little cat's namesake. "I might have to pick up some," he says. "The old tea set went with Rowan, and his place is a mess now. I don't think I have anything to serve properly English food with nowadays."

The man is always thinking about cooking.

"God no. Vivienne here?" Elias says with a grimace. "You're not the artsy type. You don't have any art at all. She'd start with a shadow puppet and graffiti every-fucking-thing in sight so she could wander through it. What a fucking disaster that'd be. No, I'm going to set up a galleria around the Coulee's living room for her to stay in. Maybe a mini-TV or laptop set to an art channel so she can veg out to it. I don't know how I'm going to convince her to stay put."

He's babbling a little. Elias shakes his head and takes a breath, then considers what needs to be said. Then, what he wants to say.

Finally he just shrugs.

"I thought Lana would be good for you," he says, baldly. Go straight forward, and don't regret. "I thought she would say something, or try to help you, but she didn't and then just made you uncomfortable in your zone. That's my bad. You want to punch me?"

It's a free offer, not that it's particularly meaningful given that he won't even bruise. The sense of humor might appeal to her, though, and it's a real a topic as she'll handle - motion in the real world, not just numbers on a screen.

As always, he's just winging it.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Good for…help me?” He could have struck her and she would have been less immediately and irreversibly on edge, borderline hostile. Is that what he thought he was doing? What she needed? Help? Comfort?

Her hands are tight on her wheels and she uses them, regaining space by angrily moving backwards down the walkway in quick, powerful spins on the infernal things. All the tension in her shoulders was returning, body tightening all the way down to the awful agony that were her legs-nerves pulled tight over a razor blade and fraying.

“Lana left.” The words could have sliced through titanium. The bitter betrayal, the anger and the hate-it’s all there now, thick tar in the ragged hole where her heart should be. “She doesn’t make me ‘uncomfortable’, she makes me angry.” All of them. All of them make her so goddamned angry. They had all left, snuffed out their own lights to give the scum more of an edge than ever in the fallout of Immolation. Scattered themselves to the wind to be picked off by a psychopath, his tracks covered by a shadow that had managed, for now, to evade even her.

Elias had been dead. He gets a pass, but that pass did not involve these forever fucking distractions, the condescension of ‘help’. There’s no one here to help. He had to get it through his fucking skull that this is all she is now. All she can stand to be.

Can’t. She fucking can’t.

“Been over this.” Protagonist growls, malice rolling off of her in waves. “Can use you and anyone you recruit to your side. Framework was maintained-” She didn’t fucking retire to paintings or royal watery kingdoms- “-and I remain functional to the cause despite the chair.” Which she -also- despises. But that’s what was on offer-this tech and her sprawling network, her mind. She had promised the means for vengeance against their enemies, and he would have it.

Anything else he made of things were side benefits specific to him-and by necessity excluding her. His popcorn and his movies were nothing she had any use for-just like the damnable unnecessary and pointless crap he continued to dump off here to make himself feel better. The white noise of the air conditioner suddenly felt as loud as a jet turbine, and all she can think about is the stupid five hour nap and the regurgitation of her memories in that stupid dream.

The bare minimum physical maintenance, the necessary and the efficient only-that was all she deserved. It was bad enough she still lived at all, and here he is talking about -Lana- of all people making her -uncomfortable-.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias looks at her, face even, weathering the storm. He doesn't flinch and doesn't back away.

"She did," he says, soft but unbending. "They all did."

They left him as well. Left him dead, didn't even check for the body. Or maybe they did and gave up. Who knows. That absolute, soul-scarring fact is what lets him stare Marie in the face. She had been crippled, but someone came for her. Whatever the argument, Lana had cared enough to carry Marie away.

"You are useful," Elias continues, implacable. "Never doubt that. But you will never be just a gun in my hand. There will never be an end to the fools we have to fight. There are so few left of us, and every one of them I will treasure."

Adamant doesn't so much as blink as he stares Protagonist down.

I will not let you go again.

He doesn't say it. Can feel the anger frothing, underneath Marie's skin, bitter and black. Such a commandment would be a chain she'd choke herself to death on just to spite him.

Elias rises to his feet instead.

"You are worthy," he pronounces, firm and flat, absolute, and he knows this is something she will not accept.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

The boiling ugly anger glinting in her eyes, the hatred carved into her gaunt face seem to almost stymie at his validation. No excuses were offered for their former and present comrades, no simpering justifications-just complete and utterly unflinching agreement, understanding.

It briefly throws the woman off, visibly confuses her. The buried, unrecognized embers of hurt flare somewhere beneath the cracking shell of anger and fury, her fiercely denied vulnerability found out in a near instant.

They did. They all did. And the impotent joke that remained had even turned Elias away. She railed against the dousing of the torch, but he had lost what he had considered his family.

"You are useful. Never doubt that. But you will never be just a gun in my hand. There will never be an end to the fools we have to fight. There are so few left of us, and every one of them I will treasure."

Her dark eyes narrow and she growls, looking feral, letting the venom boil over. She can feel the cracks at the edge of something, and it’s her rage that will keep them filled, keep her together. Fight. She has to fight, it’s all she knows how to fucking do, she can’t afford this venture could not afford for her to be weak, to be anything but what’s left to her.

"You are worthy,"

Protagonist curses darkly in Spanish, a hellish growling noise as she advances on him. The agile Jasper fled in the face of her vicious violent intensity, disappearing somewhere in the dark reaches of her lair. And then she’s there, furious as any one would have ever seen her and not ended up brain damaged or, in the one and only case, dead. But it’s Elias. It’s Elias, and what in the hell did she really think she would or could do to him? She’d throw him out but can’t form the words, felt he had a right to be here. She’d attack him but the idea is somehow sickening.

Her lips pull back from snarling teeth and she tries to burn him out of existence just by glaring.

“You don’t know me.” She asserts angrily. Her sins, her failures, her lusts, her crimes, her bitter fucking ugliness. She’s no better than the scum she despises so much, than the worst of the fucking monsters out there. He can’t see it, he doesn’t know it because he was good. He was the best humanity had to fucking offer, this shining example of everything that was and could be right in the world, just like Sam. And -just- like Sam, it wouldn’t net him anything but ashes to treat her anything more than a useful tool, than a gun in his hand, because that was all she was good for. All she knows how to do is fight. That’s it. That’s all-her rage is the only thing powering her through and making her at all useful in any and all capacity.

To ascribe value to any other supposed attribute, to her as the person she no longer remembers being is folley. Can’t. She can’t. No one here. No one home. Her hands are starting to tremble again, those cracks spider webbing out of control even as she flexes her thighs, tries to recenter in the agony of her worst failure. Far beneath her dirty city and broken supposed ‘legacy’.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias nods in acceptance of this.

"I do not," he agrees. "But I want to."

He takes in the entire visage of this woman - scarred and strung across a wheelchair, wounded and vicious and fighting for god knows how long in this hole of a bunker, and sees the parallels. Unable to die, unable to stop fighting, unwilling to surrender, even against the wall. Retreating to that last bit of territory, for the last stand.

He doesn't know Protagonist, but he feels like he definitely understands Marie a lot more.

"You alone kept the fight going," he says, meeting her gaze with the steadiness of a cliff side. "In my absence and my -"

He nearly chokes on the word.

" - death," he finally says, and the word is poison in his mouth, an acknowledgement he loathes more than anything to date, "You kept fighting. That tenacity might disgust you. It doesn't disgust me. None of this does, of you, does. It's passion."

That it would take a normal, human woman to find someone that would try to keep up with him, instead of falling behind in his wake.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Call it whatever you want, but it should.” It should disgust him, she should disgust him. That she doesn’t is just more evidence to his good nature and the fact that he did not, in fact, know her. Why the hell he’d want to is just as beyond her as anything. But he at least knows what she’s good for, and wouldn’t get in the way of it.

Marie high strung tensions diminish but just barely, all the coiled anger and hate returning to a low simmer. Even the stupid air conditioner is tolerable again. Stupid, distracting-but tolerable. If it made him feel better to dump this crap off, then let him.

She glances beyond the console and sees the glinting orbs in the dark. She’ll put up with the stupid cat too. At least its name was something dignified sounding, for whatever that mattered.

“The Coulee or The Front’s flat. Better than down here, if there’s a need for headquarters.” Picking the thread of things back up from before they exploded. He had agreed not to bring Vivienne down here. Lana would probably not make a reappearance. Marie looks grumpy, retrieving the tablet. “...you’re welcome to visit the cat-” A grumpier expression as she corrected herself mid sentence, “Jasper whenever.”

He’d been dead, then turned away. It’s a shitty consolation prize, but...he could always come here.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias is silent.

He reaches out and touches Marie's shoulder. Not a hold, not a squeeze - two fingers, light as a feather, on her shoulder. Just a touch.

"I will," he says, and then he turns and goes.

~*~​

At the top of the elevator, Elias rolls his shoulders and exhales, aware of his teammate's eyes on him. But he's got nothing to say about it. Not to them.

"Alright, who's ready to go browse art and get paint slapped all over them?" he says resignedly, but manages to grin at Jenna nonetheless, fiddling with the teleporter and managing to get a grand total of nothing done.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Jenna’s not sure what all was going on down there. It’s over her head and maybe pay grade, but Lana and Marie did not exactly seem like best of friends even if they were old teammates, and Elias comes up looking...well. Sometimes it felt like dealing with Miss Marie takes something out of him each time or something.

She’s heartened to see he’s not carrying the cat back out though-that has to be a good sign if the vigilante was keeping the kitty, right? She should find a cool collar for her.

“Oooh, me. I want to meet Miss Vivienne. Always down to meet heroes.” She’s no art expert, but she’s seen works in person by Vivid Walker before-no denying talent!

For her part, Lana vaguely feels like she let him down. There may not have been an argument, but the reception had not been warm, either. She’s also still worrying over the length of years alone and Protagonist’s physical condition-her reasoning for staying in the chair. There were options. Mannequin if nothing else.

If she had stayed on land, kept to things, would Marie have stayed in the hospital and sought out a solution? Had she come here and, as Elias had said, done all she could to erase herself from the world while fighting a shadow war?

Jenna has her arm, squeezed her elbow. “You know her too, don’t you?”

“Ah. Yes. Vivienne is...well, she is one of a kind.” Difficult was too cruel-and lacking-a word for the artist.

 

[Obuzeti]

Elias sets both hands on his hips. His thumbs tap as he looks for the words, slipping back into his role a little awkwardly at first.

"Vivienne's very independent, and I don't really expect her to do anything I tell her to do," he says with some measure of resignation. "She is deliberately contrary, and being polite is just going to immediately put her on edge. Earnesty does get through, so I think she'll like you, but - well, for example, Lana's always very courteous, so they'll get along like a house on fire, probably."

He shrugs, unhappy about that but also unwilling to concede the point. "Which is, honestly, her problem. You don't do the courtesy for anyone, Lana, it's just part of who you are. So she'll have to suck that up."

It sounds like an old complaint.

"Let's get the show on the road," he says, finally, and plugs in the code on the teleporter.


~*~

Newfields is a gardener's take on an art exhibit. Carefully curated greenhouses soar over indoor gardens with art scattered about, each piece laminated in sealed plastic to prevent the surrounding environs from eating away the preserved art. The dizzying switch between the hinted outdoors and the nigh-sterile interior, with its absence of all the wildlife that should be present, feels a little disturbing.

"I hate this place," Elias says, conversationally, as they wander down a curving path between two hedgerows. The outer wall is adorned with modern art, which is to say there is a lot of color and not a lot of direction about what it's doing. "Feels like a college dean had a fistfight with a camping enthusiast and their mothers had to negotiate a compromise while on their lunch breaks. All fucking rushed and mashed together."

The turn approaches, and he stops short at the next sight: a chamber woven from tree branches neatly trimmed into a circular space about thirty feet wide. Sculpture and paintings stand haphazard across the area, with spotlights overhead to reflect from artistically placed mirrors that actually make it pretty fucking hard to see anything, due to light scatter.

"Ambush," he sighs. "Tweedledee's here. Maybe not a fight, but . . . not gonna be pretty. Petty, mostly."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

She's the only one in costume. Jenna doesn't mind. She wants to be ready for anything, prepared. And the last time she had done hero business in street clothes, she'd gotten all kinds of burned up by her own speed. Hadn't lasted long, but super itchy in the meantime.

Besides, her costume is -cool-.

Lana was wearing a black sleeveless turtleneck and light colored dress pants, classy as always and watching Jenna flit from piece to piece with mild amusement.

"They made you take an art appreciation class no matter what your major." Jenna replies to Elias commentary, pausing an extra moment on an orange and purple piece that looked...a bit like vomit, actually.

"I like the classical stuff more than this abstract stuff, but some folks really love it." Not Elias apparently. His description was actually fairly accurate.

The speedster fell back into step with her taller companions, slight blurs of her legs as she moved to keep up. "Do they have art in Atlantis?"

"Sculpture and architecture mainly. It all predates me...maybe even my father. Not a lot of up and coming artists." Lana was thoughtful. "Maybe that will change under Laurent's rule."

The next area was a confusing, somewhat dim area, Lana's yellow reflective eyes reduced to a thin circle around large luminescent pupils before they narrowed again-a hand coming to her forehead to shade them from the bright spotlights in the dimness. She has an immediate headache.

"Ambush?" Lana repeats incredulously. Was he serious? Couldn't anything be easy today?

Jenna looks more inquisitive than anything, in contrast. Her mirrored goggles reflected the odd lighting and hid where she was looking exactly, but her posture is relaxed and companionable. At ease. "We're all friends here, right?" She says with a mixture of assurance and optimism. "Just meeting up in an art museum for a chat. I'm excited." A nod.

 

[Obuzeti]

"You'll see," Elias says with a shake of his head, and heads on in, hands hung from his pockets by his thumbs. He walks directly into the center of the art circle and then waits, ignoring the awkwardly placed beams of light to stare at the white marble statue of a slim teenage girl, posed with her feet dangling daintily from a grassy knoll, looking up at the sky.

Her feet begin to swing.

"I hadn't really believed that you lived, you know," the statue says. Her voice is musical and light, the kind an operetta would die to have. There's an easy trickle of scales in her voice that probably weakens men's knees. "I figured it was, like, an Elvis impersonator, for the longest time. There was no way Elias Halwell would live and not try to put his family back together, right? I waited for that. I waited for eight years."

The statue turns her head to look at him. The eyes are shocking green, deep and bright against the pale sculpture. "Nothing."

Vivianne, also known as the heroine Vivid Walker, kicks her feet off of the knoll and drops to the ground. She wiggles her toes in the damp grass and stretches - a little showmanship, as the statues wearing only daisy dukes and a teenager's T-shirt, all a little too tight on her young and perky form. The longer she moves, the more exact the details get; little freckles are forming, the hair separating from a sculpted mass into fine strands that flow in the breeze; a ponytail of stone, whispering in the wind.

"So," she says, and turns from Adamant deliberately, to face the other two. Lana she simply rolls her eyes at and ignores as well, not even giving such a snide greeting as she had to Elias. Instead she moves right on to Jenna with a welcoming smile, offering a hand to the young hero. "Peter's mentioned you, I think. You're Jenna? You're a star at the Tower, you know."

Elias's face darkens at the mention of that place.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Watching the marble statue come to life, the expression on Jenna's face had been nothing short of wonder. This was -amazing-, and she wishes she were moving so she could watch Vivienne in slow motion.

Woooow. Wow.

The words her musical voice offers up are not exactly friendly, however. There's an accusation being leveled at Elias and for a moment it was hard not to dislike Vivienne on her snide commentary alone-but Jenna doesn't really do dislike.

She's sure that if Miss Vivienne had seen him the morning he had asked for help, came to realize how dire the situation had become she wouldn't talk like that. Whatever hurt there was, she wouldn't talk like that. But Jenna's here to help. She's here to help everybody.

"You know Peter!" Jenna says with pleasant surprise, one of her silver gloves blurring into the crook of her other arm before she's happily shaking the statue's hand. She was curious whether it'd be stone or flesh-and she's eager and psyched as ever to meet another veteran. "Jenna Paige, yes ma'am. Very honored to meet you-and see you in action, wow.". Bubbling, youthful energy, an utterly unabashed pixie grin. Jenna looked and seemed earnestly excited to meet her. Mildly starstruck even.

As for being a star at the Tower-well, Jenna's still sorting out her feelings about that place. She's going to help make it better. She's going to help wherever she can.

 

[Obuzeti]

The attention draws colour into Vivienne's cheeks - an actual flush, faint as it may be against the alabaster. She smiles prettily, eyes twinkling, and faces Jenna completely as she takes the younger woman's hand in both of her for a moment. "Well, I haven't done very much yet," she teases lightly, as she releases and hides her hands behind her back, bouncing on the balls of her feet. It's a curiously playful gesture, and combined with the youthfulness of her features she looks girlish and young. "I can only hope to impress you further."

The artiste gestures to a bench nearby, leading Jenna over to it with a crooked finger, perfect as the Mona Lisa. "Yes, Peter writes the most darling columns! He does a little art critique article each time I release an exhibit, though I haven't the slightest how he finds the time to attend them. I did a little searching, and he did the same for Maestro and Machinist's performances, though that trailed off after they retired, I understand."

Vivienne makes a fluttery gesture at herself with a demure smile. "However, the artist in me knows no rest - I shall continue to contribute to the great cause of art. How can I not, given what I am?"

Her smile widens, now, and her lidded eyes fixate on Jenna. One delicate finger touches her cheek playfully. "And what adventures have you been on, my dear? You look - ready. A little weathered, but primed for 'the good fight'. I think Laura called it that."

~*~​

Elias watches, idle, as Vivienne kidnaps the youngest member of their party. "Social games," he remarks quietly to Lana. "You've done the high-society dance, you probably know the score card here. Keep an eye on Jenna. I'll go see what I can get from Tweedledee.

He's fairly sure that Vivienne is just trying to provoke a jealous or irritated reaction, but that's a juvenile ploy. He's just surprised she's still using it. Meanwhile, there's still one other person here that isn't going to waste his time. Adamant wanders over next to one of the large mirrors and seats himself there, closing his eyes. He waits.

After a time, a blurry figure moves around the edge of the mirror and sits there too, back to back with the huge man, leeching off his heat.

They say nothing.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Well, now it seemed like Vivienne was perfectly capable of being sweet. Jenna’s glad for it. Vivid was older than this teenaged appearance she knows, but she identifies with the bubbliness just the same.

“He’s a journalist for sure.” Jenna says happily-letting the time comment wash over her as she follows the statue back to the bench. It makes her think, though. With how nervous Ellie was about straying too far from the Tower, being ‘caught’ sneaking out-Jenna can’t help but wonder on the limitations set in general, and if Peter was...well, she knows he must be-ducking them.

Good if he was. They were mega restrictive anyway. That’s part of what she wants to make better. The place just wasn’t fair. She still had to determine the quantity of that unfairness, and that’ll come with more time spent in the Tower-something she can’t put off anymore.

There’s a minute tightening of Jenna’s lips, a solemness at the mention of Maestro-but that’s not news Jenna has any right to deliver. It makes her very sad, and that much more determined to befriend the heroine before her. They had to come together. They all did.

~*~

Lana gives a nod. She’s a little disquieted-but Vivienne likes attention, and if Jenna’s willing and able to give it to her to keep her happy, fine. After that little display, Lana’s not sure she wants to speak with her much anyway. Still, she’s watchful. Jenna was young and entirely too trusting, and while Vivid Walker was not their enemy, Lana’s not certain she’s a friend, either. Could be the artist was looking for the weak link in their fledgling group. Or, maybe she had been back home for too long, dealing with politics.

~*~

“Yeah, the Good Fight!” Jenna beams, taking heart immediately. Her thumb hooks the nosepiece of her goggles, slides them up to reveal matching, warm smiling eyes. “Just keeping an eye on South Bend like I’ve been doing, tangling with a few bigger baddies here and there-and lately, kind of hoping to help with a revival of sorts. I grew up on heroes, you know-all of you guys were just...big inspirations. I’m psyched to be walking in your footsteps.”

The Filipina casts a slow glance around at the displays, a happy resting expression-and then those warm eyes return, a sharing sort of smile, a secret. “Maybe high time for a resurgence, you know?”

 

[Obuzeti]

Vivienne beams at the unintentional compliment. "Well, I've always appreciated a disciple or two, even if it's in this particular line of business," she says, crossing her legs comfortably. "A resurgence, you say? Even with the Tower on every news channel, at dinnertime? My, there must be something spectacular brewing if we're not to count that."

Her smile is pretty and sharp - stained glass, glistening in the light. Warm enough to cut beneath the skin, and all you'd feel is her lips.

"It was my understanding," she says, delicately, "That the footsteps were perhaps - a trifle heavy, if you take my meaning."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

There’s something about this that was suddenly reminiscent of Cid. And Jenna...Jenna didn’t trust Cid. He’d twisted her all up, him and Tectonic, and she still laid awake and wondered about that sometimes, when she let herself think about it at all.

“The Tower does count. But there’s a lot going on outside of it too. Everything feels...isolated. The Tower from heroes outside of the Tower-” And honestly, the Tower and its inhabitants from the world, but she’s not here to throw shade. “-former friends and allies from each other-that’s what I mean.” Needed to all come together. There was some...very scary stuff out there.

"That the footsteps were perhaps - a trifle heavy, if you take my meaning."

Jenna frowns, a tip of her head. She can see Lana cross her arms, adjust her stance in the corner of her eye-clearly unhappy. That’s an argument Jenna’s not willing to have by proxy with anybody-like spiriting Lana out of Marie’s lair, she was trying to smartly avoid things above her pay grade. She admires these people. All of them. She won't wade in on things she doesn't fully understand.

“I’ve come to learn there’s bad stuff out there currently not being stepped on at all, Miss Vivienne.” Jenna says, quiet. “And no one of us can apply enough pressure, alone. We need help.”

She fiddles with her glove, wishing Lana would say something while dropping all attempts at continued socializing. She’s too troubled now, the image of that very short list in her mind. “And barring that, I guess we’re here to warn you.”

 

[Obuzeti]

Vivienne considers Jenna's face for a moment, that edged happiness fading in favor of businesslike weighing. She judges the girl for a moment - eyes flicking over to Lana - before she sighs dramatically and makes a dismissive gesture with one hand, a little flick. "Well, I can see you're here for my, ahem, benefit. What was the pitch, again? Join dear Elias in his lodge and save the world from evil? Do I have the gist of it?"

Her face is pixieish and at odds with the cutting words, but there's a hard glimmer in her green eyes. "Something's happened, hasn't it. It matters more, now. Allow me to cut to the chase: I want to know why. I'm not going to walk back in under another man's dominion with a good reason why I should be doing it."

A light, girlish laugh trickles from her throat, like the stroke of a lyre. Vivienne's head tilts, and there's a teasing bent to her eyes as she looks up at Jenna through lashes sculpted to perfection, dark and heavy. "As scrumptious as you are, I'm afraid that it's not enough by itself."

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Lana can't believe the impiety of it. It irks her and she suddenly wonders if this was how Marie felt all the damned time. Because for water's sake, if Vivienne is perceptive enough to know something major has happened, why isn't she mature enough to take it -seriously-?!

She steps forward, out of patience and about to lay out EXACTLY what has happened-but Jenna seems to have endless stores of patience and compassion, stopping her with a soft glance. The sadness there stops the princess in her tracks.

Vivienne's comment might have made Jenna blush or stutter on another day, might not have been half missed-but the news she bears is too heavy, the implications too severe.

"You're right to want to know everything we do, Miss Vivienne." To weigh out all the information available, make her own choices. They wanted her help, but more than anything Jenna wants this heroine and artist to be -safe-. If Elias is busy and Lana too irritated, Jenna would tell her what she knows. What she saw.

She lays a hand on one of Vivienne's marble arms, dark eyed gaze troubled.

"Something...a lot of somethings have happened.". Jenna begins softly. "Maestro is gone. Elias and I went to his house and...and Paul Marrane, Ashaver was there."

There's a very deep, very dry sadness, a slow burning, remembered horror as she takes her hand back, spins (slowly!) the black smart watch on her bronze, slender wrist.

Staring past it, she's seeing the dark and the green glowing glyphs, the blood. Those stark white bones.

"He had set a trap under Maestro's vineyard, his house. He was ready for someone to discover his crime, add them to his body count."

"I-we want your help. But more than that, we want you safe. I want everyone safe. Elias is...Elias and I-I'm the...I am the fastest thing alive. And we did not get out easy. I almost did not get out at all. It was -awful-."

She can't repress the shiver. All those bugs, the foul magic attack that had turned her friend to a glowing melted corpse-God. "It was awful, and he has killed so many others...and someone else had been covering these deaths up. I don't know why. I don't understand. But I know it has to stop."

Lana speaks up, finally. "Vivienne. Not counting the Tower, you are one of ten...-ten- survivors. Paul has killed...hunted down everyone else." Her yellow eyes are steady, hard. "Jenna makes for eleven, and she's faced him twice already."

Vivid Walker is no warrior. Lana knows this, Vivienne knows it too. She can be as kindly vicious as she wants, but there was safety in numbers. Safety with Adamant.

"I'm sorry this is the news we have.". Jenna offers, her eyes widening slightly on her wristwatch, daring a glance to the marble artist. Her voice gets even quieter, miserable. "I really am."

 

[Obuzeti]

Vivienne goes still. The features of the sculpture visibly fade for a long moment as her hands raise - dance - brush back her hair, the motion restoring her form. "They're -" she says, and stops. Starts again. "Ten? Ten? But -"

There had been an amused cockiness about Vivienne, before. An awareness of a superior position, of history and weight behind and beneath her, supporting her. Her face had that exact realization of the fall: the sudden, empty awareness of space where there had been solid ground. Her eyes fade to the shade of watercolor, painted on and thin, no longer vivid. She curls downwards slightly, and her hands slide up to her cheeks. Vivienne is still.

She takes a long, shuddering breath.

"Neal's dead," she says, with real grief. Her face scrunches up. "Oh, God. And I thought - Oh, God."

Neal Kenters, also known as Maestro.

"And every -" Vivienne halts mid-sentence and shudders, as she looks around the little art plaza, taking in the sight of Elias, Jenna, Lana, Tweedledee and herself. Almost half of what remains of the League, already. "Shit. Shit."

Vivienne purses her lips and scrubs a hand over her face, holding it over her mouth. "And Paul," she says weakly. "He's - oh, God."

Vivienne curls in a little again. Her shoulders start to shake, her hands clenched over her mouth and other forearm. But no matter what she does, her face stays dry.