January 28th, 2011
I barely contained my shriek, startling awake and nearly falling out of my bed.
My heart was beating loudly against my eardrums, as I took deep breaths, trying to calm down, my skin cold and clammy, my fingers trembling slightly.
My eyes drifted to the curtains, uncomfortably bright light peeking into the room through them.
With a rising sense of dread, I stood up, approached, and peeked behind the fabric.
Snow.
Just snow.
So much snow, again.
I looked at the alarm clock - just half a hour before I had to wake up - and exhaled in frustration. No point in getting back into bed.
I picked up the dream journal - Dee recommended starting one for now - and logged what I could remember of today's nightmare.
I was annoyed at the snow, and decided to melt it using a Sun portal. Then I watched in horror fascination? as it spiralled out of control and destroyed everything.
It was the… seventh nightmare like this since Ellisburg. Which was worrying, considering it had only been ten days since I destroyed the accursed city, killing every single one of its bioengineered citizens. And since then, the sheer destructive power I wielded on that day came to me over and over again as I slept - usually, destroying Brockton Bay in the process.
Though on one occasion I threw it at the golden visage of Scion for some reason?
Which was weird, because as powerful as the First Parahuman was, he was also a harmless dumbass incapable of prioritising things as he tirelessly zoomed around the globe, just as likely to decide to save a kitten from being stuck in a tree as he was to save a megapolis from a tsunami.
I did not care for the title of 'the most powerful in the world', so why would I ever want to throw down with the golden buffoon?
After putting away the dream journal and making sure my alarm was off, I went on to take a much needed shower. I tried to enjoy the hot water. I failed, the heat washing over me reminding me of the scenes of destruction a single tendril of the Sun could cause to everything in its path.
I wasn't even physically present there, why the hell did I associate heat with that scene?!
I went back to my room to dress up - it was Friday, and even if I had an inclination on how it was gonna go, I did not plan to laze around the house all day. Somewhere through the middle of it, I heard Dad shambling out of his room and into the bathroom as well, to prepare for his own day of work.
In just a few minutes, I found myself in the kitchen already, frying sunny side up eggs for three sets of sandwiches, one set for each inhabitant of the Hebert household. I could almost power through the heat radiating from the pan without my mind flashing back to the scenes of utter desolation on a scale that was barely comprehensible to a human mind.
Almost.
"Hey, Taylor." Dad entered the kitchen and sat at the table, clear worry in his features. "That bad?"
"About the same as before," I sighed, sliding a plate with two sandwiches in front of him. Thin tomato slices, that good cheese from Naples, a sunny side up egg and a leaf of fresh basil, in-between two lightly toasted bread slices.
"Thank you," he nodded, before turning back to me. "Did the last session with Dee help, or-"
"This is kind of outside her speciality, so she wanted to consult some of her colleagues. Either they'll help her prepare better, or she'll know to send me their way. Told me to keep a dream journal in the meantime, which I sort of get. Mindfulness exercises go well with a lot of things." I couldn't exactly keep the grim notes from my voice. After all, I'd been feeling grim for a while now, not helped by the weather.
Speaking of…
I turned on the TV.
"…IT'S THE FOURTH DAY OF UNPRECEDENTED ABNORMAL WEATHER OVER THE COUNTRY, AND AS YOU CAN SEE, EVEN BROCKTON DOWNTOWN IS NEARLY BURIED UNDER SNOW," the reporter in a heavy, fluffy parka yelled over the wind, the cityscape behind him barely perceptible through the thick, unending snowfall. "TODAY, THE CITY COUNCIL ANNOUNCED THE FOURTH SNOW DAY IN A ROW-"
Shit.
It took most of my willpower not to throw my own plate at the TV.
I. Hated. Snow days.
Normally, Brockton Bay in the winter had just thick enough snow to make a sorry-looking, dirty snowman that eventually melted into half its volume in (hopefully) dog poop, used syringes and cigarette butts. This meant that the city was woefully unprepared for heavy snowfall and had, like, five snow plows across the entire Bay. Which meant that when the snow went past a couple of inches, the roads were really unsafe - and every school (and a lot of workplaces) stopped their everything for the time being.
These last four days, the snow on less used roads went up to your knees - or sometimes, up to your waist.
"I just wanted to go to school. Is it really too much to ask?!" I bemoaned. Thankfully, Dad kept quiet about 'teenagers wanting to go to school'. Even if I knew he wanted to quip.
The school was one place where I tried not to even THINK about parahuman matters. For its duration, most of my concerns were about keeping up with my schoolwork, tolerating the company of Victoria's clique, and pushing myself in the school gym. At this point, it was almost like Pavlovian conditioning - as soon as I entered the premises of Arcadia, my mind blissfully slowed down from thinking a million equally important things a minute to a more tolerable speed, giving me a much needed reprieve from the endless routine of tinkering, meetings and looking out for any signs of trouble in the city.
And thanks to this stupid weather cancelling school AGAIN, my days were turning into this thick, messy, brain-rotting slurry with a pinch of nightmares and trauma on top.
"Well, at least the DWA's got some jobs out of it," Dad sighed. Because yeah, after Miko of Miracles pulled the entire Boat Graveyard processing job out of their hands with her giant robot stunt, they kinda needed something else to make up for the ruined plans.
"Please drive safely," I looked at him seriously.
"Always," he nodded. "What are you planning today?"
"Whatever schoolwork they sent over email. Looking over the Arenas. Tinkering," I shrugged. There was that ONE project I could maybe start working on, but… eh, I was gonna play it by the ear.
"Don't forget to drag Lisa out of bed," Dad chuckled. "Or she'll spend the entire day there."
"Yeah, yeah."
Soon, he was heating up the truck and clearing his way out of our driveway with a snow shovel. In the meantime, I decided to start being productive with my day.
I went to Lisa's room and knocked on the door until I got a drowsy 'Imawaaaake' from the other side. Booted up my new laptop (I kept one for personal use after Dragon confirmed it was clean of trackers) and checked my Arcadia email for the assigned schoolwork. Spent half a hour on completing the math assignment. Returned to Lisa's room to knock on the door again, because I did not hear her leave, and kept knocking past 'Ahmawaaake', 'Imuuuuup' and 'shudduuuuup', until she FINALLY shambled out of the door with the grace of the living dead on Brute-rated tranquilizers.
Spent another hour doing an English assignment - we were going through Bram Stoker's Dracula, and were told to complete Jonathan Harker's part, which… was kind of an interesting read, from the point of view of a XXI century reader who knew A LOT about vampires just through cultural osmosis. Then went to knock on Lisa's door again, because she returned from the bathroom and went back to sleep instead of having her (already cold) breakfast in the kitchen. Then, spent half a hour at the computer class assignment, and…
Sigh.
That was about it. Not even chemistry or physics like yesterday - I was done with the schoolwork in half the time I usually spent at Arcadia, and now my brain was back to the parahuman-related bullshit.
"This suuuuucks," I groaned, closing the laptop, my mind already flickering over various feeds from my network. There had been no issues - or they would've pulled my attention already. The Arenas were still operating at their maximum capacity, the lines to just enter and throw lasers for a bit going for an entire city block even in this horrid weather. The PRT opened a soup kitchen in the Docks - I was fairly certain I knew where their foodstuffs came from. Ah, and Miko of Miracles seemed to have started giving away alms, the line to her 'grand shrine' even longer than to any of the Arenas.
Things were calm - at least for now. Meaning, I technically could finish reading Dracula before going on with my schedule.
Except, every few moments, my mind jumped back to what I could see through my network. The Arenas. The PRT soup kitchen. The 'grand shrine'. Luckily, not to Ellisburg-NO DON'T THINK ABOUT IT, here, a scary boat with no living passengers appeared in the vampire book!
Dammit.
Maybe…
Maybe I could just stick a Notice Me Talisman onto the book, so I could finish it in peace?
No, it was a terrible idea - if something bad happened while I was distracted, I wasn't gonna be able to intervene.
Bah! How I wished I could just clear my schedule and get drunk, even for a day…
But no. No drinking either.
…
I guess I could tinker instead. I could start with THAT project today, even if I only had a few hours before I had to go interview candidates for the position of Director of Arena Control, Central Office and Research Division.
I found Lisa languidly chewing on her sandwich over a hot cup of coffee.
"I'm going off to deal with Leviathan's corpse," I noted. "If you're not at the office half an hour ahead of the interviews, I'm dragging you there via Hanzo Express."
"I… I'll be there," she tried to play it off nonchalantly, but after that one time I PULLED her along to a meeting just to make a point, she clearly didn't want a repeat.
With that out of the way, I made sure to set my own alarm for the meeting, and made a beeline for the dimension I kept Leviathan's corpse in.
By this point, the cracked orb was barely producing any water. Rather than an omnidirectional jet cutter, it was more akin to a faucet or a sprinkler, with the water still annoyingly flowing out of the slightly-ajar Barrier Box - but at a rate that was clearly low enough for me to FINALLY examine the material and determine how to proceed with it.
So, I had both of my Miko Dolls (yeah, I made another one) bring in some of my tools and a workbench. Once I dispersed the Barrier Box, they brought the sphere to the workstation, and placed it in a large, metallic (and a bit rusted) clamp to hold the thing in place. Then, I activated a 4D Barrier on myself just to be on the safe side - and approached the thing to inspect it with my own two eyes.
Leviathan's core looked like it was made of crystal, but my gut told me it was PROBABLY organic. If I were to hazard a guess… It looked like an offshoot of the material the weird power-granting eldritch being attached to Rinke was made of? Though if it WAS organic, why wasn't it decomposed even a little bit…?
Hm… From what I remembered, there was a time when the Earth had no bacteria and fungi capable of decomposing wood - so for millions of years, whenever a tree fell, it just kept lying there indefinitely, in a pile of fallen trees, until it was incorporated into a bog, or lightning struck somewhere close, and caused a fire. That was kinda where coal came from. So… if it WAS organic, maybe the bacteria to decompose it just hadn't evolved yet? Parahumans were a historically recent phenomenon, after all - just about thirty years, barely enough for any kind of evolution to take place.
Still, my power could do organic. Wood was organic, after all - and so was paper. Sure, it was macabre to repurpose someone's corpse, but I guessed using the remains of someone as abhorrent as Leviathan to do some good in the world was far from the most ghoulish thing I could do.
So, I picked a knife with a variable 3.5D-4D enchantment, and cut into the orb along one of already existing cracks.
The material parted as easily as air under the 4D effect, and with no visible unintended damage. There was just enough water pouring out of it to make the process slightly annoying - but not enough to obstruct my view of the inner workings of the orb. And they were…
Huh.
There were these canals going through the entire structure - sorta like veins, forming lines upon lines in the material. In some spaces, there were tiny, separated, dot-like 'pools' that served some unknown purpose - maybe they were like internal organs, maybe they had some other function, like controlling and rerouting surrounding currents.
And just from concentrating on specific parts of the structure, I could tell what their purpose was, from matter generation to… some sort of puppetry… …to telekinetic control of liquids and perception through them…?
I took a shuddering breath, and closed my eyes for a few moments, wishing against all odds that when I opened them, things would've started make more- no, LESS sense.
Then, I opened my eyes again, and stared at the cracked open orb in front of me.
An orb that, if it wasn't somehow grown organically, could've well originated from my own workshop.
January 31st, 2011
My nerves gave out that Saturday, on the fifth consecutive day of heavy snowfall.
I couldn't do this anymore. If I was to skip one more school day because of this stupid weather, I was gonna do something stupid, something absolutely idiotic, just something outright unhingedly dumbass, like building a massive, city-wide climate control array to swap Brockton Bay's air with another dimension. Like, could you IMAGINE the sheer meteorological destruction that could be created by an entire geographical area's worth of hot air suddenly appearing amidst the winter frigidness that currently blanketed the entire continent?!
I mean, even children knew that hot air was lighter than cold air! And creating an entire bubble of hot air the size of a city mid-winter was gonna start off an entire convection-based chain reaction of rapidly shifting air currents that only a meteorologist could predict accurately, but that anyone with even a couple of brain cells to rub together could tell was gonna wreak untold havoc on the area!
No, rather than go full dumbass, I consulted my friends and Dad, and came up with a much easier solution than that.
Floating Engine snow plows.
Just a large wooden board Floating Engine, remote controlled by a glove (or by me, of course). The only TRULY unusual part of it was that it stopped in its tracks if it directly interacted with any object with a Karmic value, and projected a Zero Gravity field on one side for up to a certain total weight, allowing it to potentially move literal metric tons of stuff.
I pitched the idea to the DWA committee on Saturday morning, and they had managed to procure and fill out the necessary paperwork for 'tinkertech-based heavy duty machinery' by the time I brought in the first bunch of Engines. Thanks to the fact that the Association was decidedly NOT a governmental organisation and could potentially use any kind of tech (as long as they had the necessary paperwork), I didn't even NEED the approval of the city council to rent out my Floating Engines to the DWA, or for them to use the things to complete the road cleaning work.
Hell, thanks to the DWA road crews being paid by-the-hour, rather than contracted to do specific streets, they really had no incentive to hold back in their duties - and by the tail end of Sunday, most of the city streets were nearly as passable as in the middle of summer!
And THANKFULLY, as a result of my weekend escapades, today was NOT declared a Snow Day, despite the yet unending snowfall. I was pretty sure I was one of the few Arcadia students who were actually happy to be back at school. I also honestly could not care less - for the first time in nearly a week, I could finally relax, even if just a little.
Which was one of the reasons I was not freaking out more about the results of Leviathan's autopsy.
I still was not sure what to think of it, so I just decided to… to shelve those thoughts for a bit. Preferably, until I had another Endbringer corpse on my hands - it was about that time already. But at the very least, until this weekend, so that I had enough time to mentally recharge by doing NORMAL things. Which, admittedly, I only had done for a fraction of my waking hours.
"Someone's in a good mood," Victoria noted, as I sat down at my usual table for lunch.
"I really missed this," I shrugged, throwing a calculating look over today's menu. Rice, breaded pork cutlet, salad, an entire orange, and a donut - and a chocolate donut at that. Yeah, I was exchanging-
"D'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!" I looked back to Victoria downright cooing at me. "You missed us!"
"I missed school in general. Maybe you too-" I was interrupted by another 'd'aaaaaw', "-but you're helping me get over it."
"Stop being a nuisance," Amelia concluded, reaching across the table to poke her sister in the ribs. The blonde finally stopped, even if she did not look sorry in the slightest.
"I'm exchanging the donut for half of a cutlet. Any takers?"
"Me!" predictably, Victoria was all too happy to get double the amount of desserts that somehow never went to her waistline. Well, I got some extra meat out of the deal, so I figured I didn't care.
The table quickly devolved into inconsequential talk. Something about winter clothes - ah, complaints about how the supposed 'winter collections' were not made with the heavy snowfall in mind. Also, Glory Girl complained that she had to cut down her flight time, both because she didn't have a parka version of her superhero costume, and because the snow was causing her visibility issues, and she did not want to put holes through buildings.
And yeah, I understood her latter comment - it had been really difficult to navigate in flight for the last week. I mitigated things somewhat with my Camera Orbs, but it was still a huge hassle.
Also, good to hear that she was paying more mind to public safety lately.
As I was done with my meal and sat back to just be the background for whatever else the group was talking about, I felt Victoria's eyes on me. I looked to her questioningly, and she gestured to the side - did she want to ask something, away from the group?
Ight, let's hear it. At least, this time she had waited until I was done with my food.
She made an excuse to the rest of the group, and had led me to another dusty, empty classroom. Chemistry this time.
"So, what's the matter?" I looked at her questioningly.
"I didn't want to put you on the spot," she began explaining, "but I've been thinking of inviting everyone to the arcade. Just, you know, play some games, maybe win some prizes? Dean's treat? I could also buy you that pizza I owe you while we're at it?"
"Arcade." I said plainly.
"Yeah? I mean, I don't know how you usually relax, but it could be fun. And, um… Sorry, but you kind of look like you need it."
"Do I now…" I sighed. "Look, I don't have more than a hour of free time per day, and I'd hate to bail in the middle of everyone's fun. That's one sure way to ruin the mood. Besides, I relax here."
"In… an abandoned chemistry classroom?"
"At school. Probably why I look terrible right now, is that we skipped a week with all the snow in the way," I grumbled.
"You relax. By being at school," Victoria said with clear disbelief in her voice.
"Yeah? I mean, it's got a rigid, structured schedule, teachers who know what they're doing, and nobody demands that we give more than a certain amount of effort. It's relaxing."
The blonde blinked for a few seconds, before furrowing her brows.
"Nope."
"Nope?"
"Nope! Are you hearing yourself? Just what kind of-" she took a deep breath, before taking a step forward, and putting both hands on my shoulders. "Look. I have no idea what you are going through right now, but it sounds like you're under an awful lot of pressure. When was the last time you did anything for fun? At all?"
Uhhhh…
Probably… that lunch with Dad? The one interrupted by Leviathan?
Huh.
Wait, did I seriously spend two months doing nothing but work, with some sleep and schoolwork in-between?
And did I seriously need an intervention from Victoria, of all people, to realise that?
"Bloody hell, this is a mess," I grumbled. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention."
"So, are you coming with us?"
"I still have-" I thought about it for a moment. I could probably reschedule anything that was not urgent. There was still ONE meeting it was inadvisable to skip, but if I could get through it right after school... "You know what? Sure. Meeting at the mall at five today works for you?"
"Yeah!" Victoria beamed.
That decided, we went about our school day without any further happenings.
Then, I went to the one meeting I was hesitant to reschedule.
See, soon after we opened the Arenas and established Arena Control, Central Office and Research Division, it became clear to us that it needed a proper director - and it couldn't be one of us. I already had too much stuff to do, Lisa lacked organisational acumen, Madison was not good with paperwork, and Tana… Could probably do it perfectly, but I felt bad about shoving even more responsibilities onto her.
Which was why, this Tuesday we hired someone for the position. Though the thing was, as competent as our new director was, he was also currently a bit high maintenance.
I arrived to the meeting exactly on time - and one of Mr. Stansfield's THREE personas proceeded with the meat of the matter right after we exchanged our greetings.
"The refitting of the Training Centre is going ALMOST according to plan," the man said, putting enough emphasis on that 'almost' to make sure I understood how it irked him. "If you had actually let me bring in my own men to do the work-"
"It wouldn't have had benefited Brockton's economy," I said calmly, peering into his new mask. "The DWA people are local, they do a good job, and I know that the money paid to them won't be directly funnelled into some shady enterprise, as was the case with Fortress Construction."
"There have been delays to step twelve of my outline," he grit out through his teeth.
"Are we doing this for our own gratification, or to help people of Brockton?" I knew for a fact what I was in this for, though it seemed like 'Mr. Unison' had to be reminded about it every now and again. "Setbacks and delays are a part of life. It's why the best plans are short, and closer to loose guidelines - the fewer points that can fail spectacularly they have, the less is it likely that they'll need further adjustments."
"Even if this would set back the opening of the Training Centre by a week?"
"A week, a month, a year. It wouldn't be pleasant, but it doesn't matter." I shook my head. "For all we know, tomorrow Brockton is hit by an earthquake, and the building's foundation is irreparably damaged, forcing us to choose another venue. Doesn't mean we should make plans for every inevitability - we'd go mad before covering half of them. But we should always expect SOMETHING to go wrong, and just hope nothing does."
'Mr. Unison' nodded slowly, clearly needing time to process my words. Now that I knew that he was a Thinker, his situation suddenly started to make more sense. From what I knew, his power was making elaborate plans - the kind that, if carried to their letter, always brought the desired results. Or, in other words, it was a supernatural ability to set goals and expectations that were juuuuust out of reach to us mere humans. The fact that he somehow managed to leverage it to found Stansfield Industries and run a somewhat successful criminal enterprise in Boston as a villain known as Accord was proof that he had some promise - which was why, when he showed up to the interview for the position of Director of the Arena Control, Central Office and Research Division, I chose him from two dozen candidates.
Naturally, there were some growing pains - it took a LOT out of the guy not to set unrealistic expectations of perfection from the people working under him - but for all his unenviable tendencies and nearly crippling OCD, he had shown a surprising amount of adaptability.
Finally, after schooling the expression of his 'Mr. Unison' mask (which was different from his Accord mask, and was made specifically for working this post so that the PRT had to pretend he was an entirely different person), he looked at me more calmly.
"Let's say there'll be a twenty percent delay to the schedule as it is at this very moment. In that case, you should be able to start installing Arena Arrays in the Training Centre in nine days. I assume, each would take you three to four hours?"
"Actually, up to one hour," I shrugged. "See, I've been thinking. These Arenas are very popular, and according to BBPD records, there's been a drop in reported violent crime since they opened. Part of it is probably the snow, but still. If things continue this way, other cities might ask us to install similar arrays. And if, at any point, I decide to update the rules, like introducing new types of projectiles…"
"It would mean, you'd have to tour every Arena to introduce the new features. Unless, you find a way to standardise them."
See? THERE'S the thinking (as opposed to Thinking).
"Exactly. So, I made a new Array - it only takes a fraction of time to make, and its only functionality is that it 'projects' the Arena Array from one of the two present in this building. Or one of the active Arenas, I guess. I just need to modify them a bit so that the 'active version' can be switched, in case I need to do some on-the-go adjustments."
"Meaning, you'll only have to modify seven Arenas with each version," he nodded. "I recommend also making an eighth Arena somewhere outside the Bay, as a backup."
"Good idea," I nodded. Making the Arena Projection Arrays switchable between eight Arenas as their templates was about as difficult as making them switchable between two. And NOT putting all my eggs in one basket was generally wise.
"This means, we should be able to open the Training Centre in ten days," 'Mr. Unison' concluded. "That should lower the traffic at the Arenas to a more manageable level."
I thought about it for a moment. In ten days it was gonna be…
"On the Sunday, February 13th… Yeah, Sunday is good enough."
"That seems to be the trend," the guy answered in resignation.
Training a Thinker cape to be less of a public nuisance was an absolutely surreal experience - I was just lucky that THIS Thinker cape was not TOO far gone and incapable of thought independent of his own powers. If I was told to choose between rehabilitating Coil 2 in the same manner or eating Brockton Bay Jinja's donation box, I would've asked for some ketchup.
The meeting ended in a short order.
And then, I re-checked my schedule, made sure there were no issues brewing anywhere my network could see them, left some notes for my friends and Dad - and went to the mall.
It was time to have some fun for a change.
February 9th, 2011
Needing an actual intervention from Glory Girl of all people had kinda put things into perspective.
Ever since Triggering over a year ago, I did my best to avoid the common pitfalls of parahuman life. I stayed away from the spotlight for as long as I could. I tried to be rational and measured in how I approached issues, problems and conflicts. I did my best to listen to people around me - even if at times, they kinda had to bludgeon me over my head with the truth. I made sure to get therapy - and kept paying one Doctor Meaner once the initial half a year of pre-paid sessions ran out. I made sure to broaden my horizons beyond what was immediately useful to my powers.
But the one thing I always struggled with was the work-life balance.
It was so damn easy to cut things out. To stop doings the things you enjoyed, because there was something more important that demanded your attention. To let Necessity consume you.
And for the past two months, I just allowed it to do so. Every waking moment outside school was spent on tinkering or working or meetings. Meetings about the Arenas, meetings about the potions, meetings about the Brockton Bay Jinja, meetings about the School Board elections, meetings about Land of Fantasy Ltd's finances - just SO DAMN MANY MEETINGS!
Even with the creation of my Miko Dolls - they were mostly there to allow me to tinker while I was busy at yet another meeting!
Sure, there were also the shrine duties, but they were not as omnipresent (though admittedly, partially because I was a rather lousy miko-in-training). For example, last Thursday was Setsubun - the day that symbolised the beginning of spring, with the tradition of tossing roasted soybeans, preferably at people wearing demonic costumes for the occasion. There was even a ceremony at the jinja in which we tossed packets of roasted soybeans into the crowd of attendees.
And yes, it did not escape me how ironic it was to celebrate the start of the spring when Brockton Bay was practically up to the waist in snow. Like it still was - the snowfall was so damn constant you'd think some Tinker's weather machine was stuck on 'Let it Snow'.
All of this to say - I had managed to turn my schedule into a veritable mess without even noticing, and it took Victoria freaking Dallon practically dragging me to the mall to hang out with her, Dean, Carlos, Amelia and Marie for me to realise just what kind of a ridiculous headspace had I pushed myself into. Again.
So, after an evening of failing to video game good at people who had much more practice at them (as well as somehow beating everyone at air hockey) and realising just how screwy my situation became, I forced myself to stop, and re-examine my priorities and my schedule.
A lot of what I was doing was important - but I probably didn't have to attend EVERY meeting I had been attending. The ones with Mr. Unison had to stay - though maybe, we could do them a bit less regularly. Not weekly - I still could not trust him NOT to go off the rails if I left the guy to his own devices for seven days, but maybe twice a week, rather than once per two days? The Land of Fantasy Ltd meetings were important - but they were also generally once a week. I could not just outright ignore Brockton Bay Jinja stuff - but Mr. Sakurai was responsible for the religious half of it, so maybe I didn't have to attend quite so often.
Then, there were the School Board and potions meetings. The former… I could probably stop doing, and just get by with having Coil 2 send me regular updates, only warranting a meeting if I saw her going off-script. As for the potions meetings… Ugh. They were the most sporadic, dependent on the PRT, the FDA and staff from various hospitals. They were also mostly organisational stuff that… I could possibly delegate to Tana entirely?
So, like… Tuesday and Friday - a meeting with Mr. Unison, Monday for a Land of Fantasy Ltd meeting, one or two meetings for the jinja whenever Mr. Sakurai called for one, up to five meetings per week… and hopefully, none on the weekends, unless something important came up.
And of course, I was NOT using that freed up time to tinker either. Instead, I brought out one of the things sent to me in the last Leviathan mail container - a small, portable video games console, the kind that was imported from Earth Aleph. Weirdly enough, it had two screens.
There was even half a dozen games I could play on it, like one about a caricature of an Italian guy running and jumping onto the heads of sentient mushrooms and turtles, one where he and his supposed enemies he previously crushed to death beneath his feet drove around on go-karts for some reason, one where a kid ran around the countryside collecting magical animals to throw them into legalised cockfights, one where a guy who looked like a girl was thrown into another dimension and had to defeat the forces of evil with a sword he found… Ah, and my favourite of the bunch - the one where I was sent to a rural village, was immediately forced into debt to a raccoon, and had to do odd jobs to repay it while furnishing my house and befriending other villagers (I know it sounds stressful, but it was the CHILL kind of stressful).
I spent half of my freed up time on that rural village game, and another half on the go-kart one, in an attempt to get to an acceptable level of proficiency. Mostly, because this newfound hobby kinda played into another plan I had brewing.
And… yeah, it took some time to get used to the go-kart game. The first hurdle was to get over the fact that in this kind of game, playing it safe was a sure way to lose. Another, was that apparently, there was a way to drastically speed up your vehicle, if you slammed the brakes during a turn - which could technically be used even in the middle of a straight stretch of track.
Then, there were various items that could be obtained by picking up boxes - and they were dependent on where you were compared to other racers. Like, if you were in first - you were likely to receive items like banana peels that caused other players to 'slip' on collision, mushrooms with eyes that sped you up for some reason, or turtle shells you had to properly aim to hit anyone. And if you were closer to the last place,you had a chance to receive a blue shell, which tracked the first player, and hit them with an almost 100% guarantee - unless they knew a specific trick to avoid it.
Rather than play to win against the CPU, I spent my time trying to learn the game as best as I could, often giving up the lead to learn what to do if I had to catch up - including from being dead last. And sure, I'd been playing video games at all and this go-kart game specifically for just a little over a week, but I was sure that I made pretty good progress from that day at the Arcade when, according to Amelia, I drove like a grandma.
And today, the results of all that practice were coming to bear fruit.
"Ahhahahaha! Eat my dust, you plebes! I am number-WHAT?! BLUE SHELL AGAIN?! CHAT, IS SHE CHEATING?!"
I tried not to pay TOO much attention to an all-too-familiar screech in my ear, as I planned to take a risky shortcut, guiding the go-kart of my bibbed baby dragon turtle towards the last set of items I'd take before I made a play for the first place.
"Ha, take that, soup girl! I'm number one now!" the white-clad boy with a faceplated helmet declared, as his weird pink dinosaur thing took the number one spot while the 'soup girl's' princess was spinning in place after being exploded.
"Not for long!" the blonde kid in green gritted out, her green moustached guy already at the heels of the leader.
The three of them were really going all out fighting for that number one spot.
Me? I was currently number eight - though not for long if I had anything to say about that. I had a lightning bolt in one slot, and picked up another item-ooooh, another blue shell? Don't mind if I do!
I took another shortcut and, as my three opponents were collectively drifting around a corner, activated the lightning bolt item - which had a nasty tendency to zap EVERYONE but the user simultaneously. Which, of course, slowed them down and forced all three of them to lose their drift.
"GAAAAAAH?!?! WHYYYYY?!" another shriek from the 'soup girl' did very little to deter me, as I picked up a trio of green shells, and went for the next shortcut I knew. "Chat, keep an eye on her! She's totally cheating!
And yeah, you've read it right. I was currently playing another version of that go-kart racing game with the Wards. Including Emma.
I was in fourth place already, not that far behind the tall green Italian stereotype - and there was just half a track ahead of us. The pink lizard thing was in the lead, and was just about to jump over a chasm - so I sent a blue shell its way. Judging by the choice swear from the white-clad boy - Clockblocker - he REALLY didn't appreciate it, as he was put back on track already behind me.
I waited for the next item line to continue my play - the blonde kid, Vista, had a habit of using her items at the first opportunity. This time, she got triple shells she immediately sent Emma's way - which probably would've missed if Clockblocker didn't get a screen-obstructing squid thingie he immediately activated.
"WHAT THE?!"
Luckily, there was just enough visibility on my part of the screen to avoid crashing into a wall - and even aim one of my own shells at the green menace.
She also got hit, and I overtook her, almost reaching the princess currently in the lead. I was not sending any shells her way yet - there was one last turn ahead of us.
Only once she was about to start drifting, did I shoot my last two shells at her, making sure that they would almost certainly hit even if she ended her drift earlier than needed.
"NOOOOOOOO!"
Finally overtaking her, I brought my bibbed baby dragon turtle to the finish line, and watched ponderously, as the rest of the players finished their race three, five and ten seconds later.
"Welp. That was fun," I smiled plainly.
"How the hell did you win?" Clockblocker turned to me. "You were in the eighth place for half the race!"
"True. The controls were weird, took me a bit to learn them," I shrugged.
"Was she mathing things out? I feel like she was mathing things out," Vista mumbled.
"You must've cheated somehow!" Emma- no, E-Potage declared with a sneer. "And chat agrees! The peoples' will is for us to have a fair battle! So why don't you fight me instead?!"
"You want to fight me? Hold all six Arenas by the end of the season," I deadpanned. "But I'm open to playing more videogames."
For a couple of seconds, she looked like she wanted to forego all niceties and throw down here and now - only to then look to the side, where her visor displayed the chat with the people watching her stream, and after a couple of seconds, huff out in discontent.
"Whatever," she scoffed, walking to the pile of video game cases they had in the corner, and picking up another one. "Here, let's play this one!"
"You sure about that?" Clockblocker chuckled, before shrugging. "Well, your funeral."
The game she picked was about the same group of characters as the previous one, but somehow in another genre - this time it was just called 'Party'. This one didn't have my baby dragon turtle with a bib, but at least there was a turtle guy available, so I chose that one.
Why WAS I playing videogames with the Wards? Well, the answer was simple - I was hoping that it would help Emma.
From what I've read from her files, she was obsessed with proving that she was the strongest in any room she was in. With the way I made it impossible for her to challenge me in a fight unless she had met some VERY specific conditions, E-Potage couldn't just duel me as she wanted. Though if I left it at that, there WAS a chance she was eventually gonna go AWOL and try to fight me anyway.
But if I came over to hang out with the Wards and played video games with them? Well, that was another venue she could challenge me in, and one that could both broaden her metaphorical horizons, and help her bridge the gap she created with the other Wards.
All I had to do, was to come over every few days. Which gave me a reasonable way of giving her a challenge that did NOT boil down to parahuman nonsense.
Hmm… I wonder if the Wards had a ping-pong table stashed away somewhere. Pretty sure I could do well with that as well.
Oh, huh. I won…?
"HOW?!" E-Potage shrieked again, "I was in the lead! Why did they give her so many stars?!"
"Such is the game. Such bullmanure," Vista nodded sagely.
"We'll have a rematch next time, same as with the karts." I smiled at her plainly, before another idea came to me in a flash of inspiration. "Oh, do you have pool on this thing?"
"Pool?" Clockblocker froze for a moment, "Oooooh, I've GOT to see this. Hold on!"
This was not ideal, but I supposed it was nice.
"You think you can challenge me in a game of balls?! I, E-Potage, will show you the error of your ways! For I am the Queen of Balls!"
…it was okay-ish.