Warlord

Chapter 9

Stepping into my place, I sealed the bars and shut the shutters behind Lisa. The two of us now trapped in my reinforced apartment after the longest fucking day yet. Seriously, the past week happened to be the busiest, most hectic tiring mess of a week since my trigger.

Maybe the constant subpar sleep from night terrors since my trigger contributed to how shit I was starting to feel. Maybe.

Luckily my safe, secure apartment full of plushies and stim toys helped. So did my sensory filters preventing things from getting too loud or too quiet. Turned out managing reality in my immediate vicinity was the bare minimum I needed to function.

"So I promised you a talk?" Spoke the blonde teen behind me. Right she did, and I had a probably-telling-the-truth-but-maybe-actually-a-villainous-mole-or-spy-or-schemer to deal with.

Despite my tiredness my paranoia reasserted itself. So I focused on her every action, reaction before collapsing into the blanket pile. "Talk. Give me enough to trust because this is starting to feel like another one of those bad impulsive decisions that I'm gonna regret."

"Alright, now where to start…" Rubbing her temples she likewise collapsed into my couch. A small inaudible groan escaping her lips. Keeping her eyes shut she began, "So after my trigger my parents found out about my power and suddenly I was worth something to them."

Oh no, shitty parents, fuck she was relatable.

"And so they began forcing me to help them cheat the stock market and do all that stuff Watchdog was made to catch, but I was really good and the gene donors weren't completely stupid about it." Pulling her legs up against her she turned into a little blonde teenage ball of pain.

Wait, fuck, she was in pain. "Do you need some advil?"

"I got Excedrin in my stuff. My power finally fucking caught up on me. Thinker migraines fucking suck."

Summoning up her stuff I sifted through it and levitated the meds over to her and summoned her a glass of water. "Meds and water." As I watched her down a bunch of migraine meds I peeked at her brain and then decided to go the extra mile and form a mirror of her neurochemical reactions made of water that swelled and shrank with each bit of activity. It came out kinda sloppy but I was using a big general effect rather than spending the time for a more targeted one.

Sure enough her Corona Polenta seemed to be pulsing lots of activity. On one hand brains were awful to work with because neurons were fucky. On the other hand this looked plausibly doable compared to most brain stuff.

As she started her story again I cut her off, "Uh consent question, are you okay with me trying to turn the thinker headache off?"

"Can you actually? The PRT said you couldn't do brain surgery on the Bakuda victims." Well yea- wait how did she know about what the PRT said, that stuff wasn't public… Unless she hacked in with her power.

"I'm like ninety percent sure I can do it, no actual surgery involved, and if I mess up I'm almost positive it's easily harmlessly reversible."

"Please?" She begged.

I sighed. "I'm gonna need help and feedback on this, I've got a working model of your brain up, can you try opening your eyes."

Opening her eyes, Lisa immediately winced upon seeing the liquid mirror of her brain activity. "Your power is absurd, but alright go ahead."

Pointing up with a finger, I gestured to her corona which, for her, sat on her frontal lobe. "Your corona is shoving a lot pain back into your brain for no reason, so I'm gonna tinker with blocking the neuron connections, give me all the feedback, I really don't want to turn off the wrong neurons."

"Understood."

And thus we spent the next hour with me imposing rules on reality where those brain cells weren't allowed to message other brain cells in her corona, and outside of it. Apparently it uh fucked with her power a lot at first. Batches of neurons turned off somehow altered its function which was wild.

However, as the connection shut off got more comprehensive and cut off outgoing connections her migraine started to lessen noticeably. Unfortunately the line between the corona and normal brain cells was impossibly vague and basically non-existent, so we went on the safe side of a tiny bit of pain so we didn't alter her personality, which is like all the frontal lobe does.

I really really hoped Taylor never asked for this, her corona was way more fucky-shaped than Lisa's neat tidy frontal lobe tumor.

"Done!" I chirped to the now powerless teenager. "I'm pretty sure I can toggle that on or off whenever, but if you leave my aura we—"

"I'ma stop you right there, your aura makes me more durable than fucking Alexandria and lets me toggle my power and thinker headaches on and off. I am never leaving your aura again." And with that she happily flopped back pain free against the couch. "Anyway, story time?"

"If you wanna stay in my aura forever, yes."

The most grim determination took over her face. "Okay, so gene donors, total pieces of shit. Rich pieces of shit who used and abused me for my power after my trigger event, until I finally ran away. Sabotaged some stuff on the way out to give them the middle finger and then left."

She reached up and took a sip of the water from her meds-taking, which I subtly refilled when she wasn't looking. "I figured Brockton Bay with its huge cape population would let me lie low. I stayed in some homeless shelters while using my power to steal money. Then one day I'm out and about and some thugs drag me into an alleyway, put a gun to my head and show me a cape on a laptop screen doing a video call. Tells me to work for him, or die.

"His name's Coil by the way. And when I tried to run off on him, somehow his thinker power let him have thugs waiting for me to walk off the bus in the next city over. Turns out escape wasn't an option and if I didn't play along he'd lock me up in the basement with tinker tech drugs to make me his fucking pet thinker." A small shiver ran through her as she looked pale at the thought.

My own rage had been building and turned into my indestructible nails digging into my indestructible palms. Fucking fuck fuck! First Taylor and now Lisa, could someone give the kids a fucking break? I was a fucking mentally disabled twenty something, why did so many lives depend on me? Where were all the good people at? I knew there were lots of good people but this was just…

Normal people didn't become capes, horribly traumatized people did.

I should know. I was one of them.

"Luckily you came along and can keep me safe until I get my unholy revenge on the bastard, and you somehow fixed my thinker migraines. Thank you so fucking much. I owe you forever."

Rolling over in my blanket pile I made myself a Goddess burrito. Plushie snug in my bosom. "Alright, so…" I paused to yawn. God, I needed to get some sleep tonight. "So from what I hear you have trauma about being used and abused for your power?"

"Not quite but close. I was being imprisoned by bastards who didn't give a shit about me." Her palm thumped against her chest to punctuate the last word. "Who thought they were smarter than me. Well look who fucking outwitted them."

"And if I tried to do that, you'd outwit me too."

"You'd never do it, or I wouldn't have run away with you. But yea, I'd outwit you too and you know I could do it." Wow Lisa was really arrogant, and attached to her intelligence.

Also yes she was right. "I'm a dumb bitch and I can at least own up to that." Another yawn. Blanket burrito cozy…

"Stop with the self-deprecation shit, Aster. We both know you're self-aware enough to realize how not okay that is." Then she yawned too. "And maybe let's go to bed? I'm guessing this is a one bedroom?"

Levitating in my blankets I flew over to my bedroom like the laziest bitch. "Yup, uh, sorry in advance." Once under my normal covers my day clothes vanished leaving just my nightwear, and then the blankets snaked out back to their place in the pile.

Outside the bedroom she slipped into pajamas, and wandered in. "Sorry about what? Also not having my powers handing me answers is weird."

"Night terrors. I, uh, had to soundproof the apartment for the neighbors." My eyelids drooped. "I guess I can set up a noise filter. Just… I'm a little sleepy to be tinkering with reality." Slowly I put a sound filter over my head that blocked outgoing sound. "Done."

My head hit the pillow and while I didn't fall asleep immediately my brain kinda went into free association mode. Sounds, noises, sights, and memories all transitioning from one to another haphazardly, and quietly.

I almost didn't notice Lisa wiggle into bed and place some pillows between us. "Goodnight, Aster."

"Nini…"

—

"You don't have coffee?" Grumbled my forever roommate walking back from the kitchen. "Heathen, you're no goddess, you’re a demon." Her judging gaze found me at my computer sipping a glass of water. "How the hell are you functional with fucking water?"

Setting the cup down I finished my message to Taylor, very vaguely explaining I adopted Lisa, and she'd be with me next time I came over. Also a check up on if she needed me and what was going on with that whole revelation.

After that I turned back to the grumpy teen collapsing onto the couch. "Can you tone down the angry?"

"Fine. But we're getting a coffee maker and all the coffee. I need it." Lisa gave a little huff. "Especially after last night."

I winced. Apparently my night terrors involved thrashing and while I couldn't hurt her, I could wake her up. Repeatedly. Until she moved to the couch.

"Also pain's gone, toggle my power on." With a flicker of focus reality changed. "So what's the plan for today beyond coffee?"

"Uhm…" My eyes glanced over the screen showing PHO… I maybe needed to find other sites to haunt. "I was thinking a quiet day unless my friend needs something. Figuring out our roommate situation and verifying the nazi list so I can start hunting. Tomorrow."

Emerald eyes appraised me from across the room. "Gotcha. I need to figure out a disguise for civvies." Before I could even tilt my head in confusion she answered. "Boss knows what I look like, if his men, or the Undersiders, see Lisa Wilborn standing next to Aster, then you're compromised."

"Fuck."

"Yup." And she popped the P. "Luckily, I'm great with disguises and you control reality, so between the two of us I'll figure something out."

I nodded and went back to internet. My eyes glazing over as I scrolled endlessly until I couldn't get up if I wanted to because brain couldn't brain. Aster.exe stopped working. A frighteningly common experience despite my mastery over my own body. Unfortunately brains complicated and whatever part had the executive function wasn't obvious and none of the medical classes I audited covered it.

Turns out modern medicine didn't understand brains that well. And it really didn't understand mental health stuff all that great. Shit ton of ableism that made most studies really suspect. Turns out lots of psychiatrists held the same biases against the mentally ill.

Fuck they brought back asylums.

Once I took care of stuff I'd be tearing those apart. Nothing necessary about abuse factories.

An hour into my brain being kaput, Lisa waved a hand in front of my face. "You doing okay in there?"

Hugging my plushie, I shook my head. No. All the stress from the past week, even with my breaks, finally caught up with me and my brain was in overwhelmed mode. Was quiet stimming time.

"Let me know if you need anything, kay big sis?" My head bobbed with a nod and she went back to using my laptop on the couch… how'd she unlock my laptop? Either way I noticed her looking through stuff online. Bank records. Financial accounts. Bunch of stuff I didn't know what it was but it looked fancy and important. "Your internet connection is terrible by the way."

Well duh, I lived in a shitty apartment that had a policy of not asking questions about tenets because half of them were illegal immigrants. Why any of them chose Brockton Bay was something I'd never figure out. Hopefully cleaning up the nazis would help them.

Really I should've been using my power to help more. I could create food and water, but I had no clue on how to distribute any of it because I was a dumb b—no Lisa was right, no self-deprecation. I was disabled and lacking in life experience, and had weird hang ups that made it hard to figure out. There much better framing.

But I wanted to help everyone. That's why I took down Lung and Hookwolf, and tried to build a reputation as a scary powerful hero who doesn't play by the rules.

Eventually Lisa took her makeup kit and started practicing her disguise. Make up that she was good at and made me a little jealous. Even after transitioning I'd never managed to figure it out.

Upon finishing covering her freckles up, changing the contours of her face, and basically making herself look a few years older on top of it, she walked out. "So what do you think?"

My chair spun to face her and I stayed quiet for a moment. It changed her face yea, but her hair and eye color were the same, body language the same.

"I'll get hair dye and contacts, also if you want me to do your makeup just ask." How'd she— "Thinker." Right. Thinkers were weird. "Hey, You've got a thinker rating too."

Looking up, barely away from her eyes I did my best impression of a Taylor blink. What? Wait no she knew PRT secrets… wait she knew my—

A signature vulpine grin crossed her face that the makeup couldn't hide. "Oh you're curious? Want to know you're PRT threat rating? All those little details on your power they've picked up on?" She walked over to the couch and sat down triumphantly. "Well lucky for you I know. And for the low low price of a cup of coffee I'll tell you."

I pouted, but got up hugging my plushie and sat next to the haughty snug teenager. I took a bit of her hair in my hand and she made a witty comment that rolled off my mind while I tried to figure out the one skill I'd neglected. Light manipulation. Setting up little rules for reality was easy. I knew sound like the back of my hand. Time was trivial. Gravity was linked to that and so was space. Matter, effortless. Temperature, got it. But light? The most I'd done was set up my stealth aura.

Okay maybe the stealth aura took a bit more than a little light manipulation, but I hadn't done illusions.

So I tried binding a rule that shifted the light frequency like a photoshop filter on her hair. It worked, I made her hair pink, but that wasn't what I wanted. I'd need to make it darker and a natural color.

At some point in my hyperfixation she'd gone back to her computer… wait no it was my laptop. Either way I got stuck in, recolor hair with illusions and I was learning all sorts of stuff about light manipulation. Like the lines where it turned into UV/inferred. Apparently doing that turned her hair pitch black because no visible light reflected from it. It kinda reminded me of Grue's darkness.

Still after a long long long time I got her hair a nice chestnut brown. Now for her eyes. Something that felt infinitely easier because I know knew how to recolor things really well. I changed them from green to a blood red for fun. Maybe I'd give Goddess of War red eyes, that seemed fitting! And it'd mean my civvie appearance would be more protected!

"I'm thinking pale blue."

Oh right, I should have probably asked Lisa what she wanted. Either way I got them pale blue a minute later.

"Alright, let me check the mirror and lets go get coffee, and stuff for dinner. I'm cooking." And with that she ran off into the bathroom to check her new appearance. Despite the same body type she looked very different from the makeup and recoloring. She also played with how she wore her hair a bit to seem different.

Also at the mention of dinner I realized most of the day was gone. Which uh, wow. Hmm, was it time for words again? "W-words? Fuck fuck fuck." The casual fucks confirming I my speaking ability returned. "Fuck yes."

With a toss my plushie landed back in the pile, and I got up, stretched and picked a new outside outfit. Not long after we went out, picked her up coffee from a coffee shop, then headed to the grocery store where I followed her like a puppy while she bought a bunch of food stuffs.

The moment we got back I practically pounced on the blonde turned brunette. "Tell me!"

Placing all the grocery bags down on the kitchen island that I wisely had, she impassionedly sighed. "Mover 8, Shaker max, Brute max, Blaster five, Striker max, thinker four, Changer three, trump six, stranger five. Everything else is at a minimum of two." She started stowing things, and I used my power to help. All of my cabinets were empty on account of me summoning and deleting all my meals.

"Mover eight?" That seemed a bit high for someone who couldn't teleport.

"Turns out some satellites caught that whole Ziz hunt." Oh shit. "Also congrats on scaring the shit out of an endbringer, the simurgh vanished from her usual spot right before they caught you flying around the planet." A moment later she snatched the breadcrumbs out of the air. "That stays out. I'm making dinner."

"Fuck." I couldn't tell if I was more upset at the endbringer for hiding or the government for watching and still trying to arrest me later. Speaking of. "Why are the PRT still trying to arrest me?"

Lisa broke down giggling. The chicken she bought was out along with the breadcrumbs, cheese, pasta sauce and a few other thing. "Oh that? You're a nightmare for the government. The public hates your guts, they can't bully you into working with them, so they have to straddle the line of not pissing you off too much while also appeasing the masses who are terrified of you. So they have to try and arrest you in public and somehow privately convince an anarchist to obey the government."

"Yea that's sure as shit not happening, ever. Fuck the PRT." A moment later my fingers shattered the granite counter top.

"Wow, what the fuck did they do this time? Murder a child?" She spared me a look while starting to boil some water. "Oh wow, no not murder, attempted murder?" Done with that she paused prep to give me her undivided attention. "Spill it."

"One of the wards is psychotic and they cover up her crimes." I replaced the countertop with the original version a moment later. Connivent power, connivent.

"Shadow Stalker." Before I could question it she added, "She's been trying to murder Grue for months, but the PRT wasn't covering that up, she was. I checked… wait you're talking about civvies."

"Yea! In a school, with witnesses! It happens almost daily."

Somehow that stunned her into silence as the water started to sizzle behind her. "The PRT is corrupt but not that corrupt. If the director found out she'd have Shadow Stalker's head. But she doesn't which means someone's covering for her. Someone looking to hide things related to her. Direct supervisor? Probation officer? Money related? An accomplice at the school. Not Arcadia. Clarendon? Winslow? Winsl—" The water began to boil, yanking her attention back to cooking. "I need my laptop after dinner. Gonna look into that."

Summoning her laptop to the coffee table, I walked away to let her cook. Also seeing her power in action was wild. Her power shoving answers into her head with nothing but a few clues. Still she would probably know everything about Taylor's situation by the end of the night even if I didn't tell the thinker, so I'd better give Taylor a heads up.

And so I did, I looked through our private messages. The ones from earlier saying she and her dad were still working through the whole mess we uncovered. Also they talked with two separate law firms while shopping around.

A moment later I messaged her that my newest roommate is really smart and uh is good at figuring out things she hasn't been told and is looking into things despite me having basically told her nothing, and not asking.

Taylor messaged back a few minutes later. Worried about said roommate being against us, which devolved into us vaguely messaging back and forth while sorta arguing over whether or not we can trust Lisa.

An argument that ended with Taylor wanting to meet her personally. Tonight. Apparently she was coming over because she didn't trust a supervillain (other than me) to know where she lived.

"Uh guest is coming over." Only fair to give Lisa a heads up.

"You told her about me. Ugh, fine, I'm making extra anyway. Hope she likes chicken parm."

Twenty minutes later, just as Lisa finished the meal, Taylor knocked on the door.