Thursday, 17 April 2025

Whatever It Takes, Part 10/Conclusion: I Was Born To Run, I Was Born For This

-At Long Last, We Return To The Conclusion Of This Training Session-

“Oh, that- YOU-” Venny started, before she shut herself up since he was entirely right: there was no real ‘cheating’ in actual battle, so she’d better get used to it. Realizing she had a choice to make, she hauled herself up off the ground and sprang backward instead of committing further, letting her Radiance rip her from Christopher and the Leowolves and toward Vimmy instead. “Hey! HOLD IT UP!”

“Wha- OW!- OKAY!” She called back, still trying to shamble and struggle away from the Leowolves, but grabbing the wire of the net and bracing it tightly in front of her. Venny whirled and put her back into her tail following the motion, the axelike blades on the end snarling into the wire and jerking Vimmy’s arms with it. She hadn’t sliced cleanly through, but she’d made a hole, and as she whirled on her heel Vimmy redoubled herself on making it even bigger until she could at least partly wriggle out, wingblades closed and to her back.

“We’ve got no chance here if it’s not both of- shit!” She’d started, but Christopher and the Leowolves backing him up weren’t going to let them stand there and chat, having already reached the two. Vimmy still grasped what she was saying, the net clinging to her even as she bent and grabbed the weighted ends up like she was gathering stones. She couldn’t fly in this state, but she could at least run, and as the Leowolves threw more energy her way she tried to close-

Venny had narrowed her eyes, and as she returned to the air she went another ten feet up before twisting like a snake and hurling back down, right hand shimmering with a gravity charge around it. Instead of going to the attack she punched the ground itself, not so much for the divot or minor shaking it made but plunging her arm up to the shoulder in the grass to throw up enough dirt to obscure things for a moment or two. She doubted it would bother Christopher all that much, and knew the Leowolves could still just as easily smell their positions out, but all she needed was the seconds of distraction it provided to track him and lance forward, running and assisted by her Radiance.

“Sorry!” Vimmy said as she went to shoulder a Leowolf out of the way before instead throwing herself overtop it and leaping like it was a balance beam, thinking better of trying to shift something much bigger than her. Rolling and coming down on her feet she finally initialized her claws, the three projections of gravity each four feet long from her free hand. She didn’t think much of her chances of getting a hit, but if she could buy time for Venny to likewise link back up with her and engage…

Until the weights and the net she was still clutching were seized by teeth, and she was yanked hard almost off her feet. It would have to be enough, Venny rushing past her to try her luck once more. She knew Vimmy could catch herself, and she had to press on or they’d be overwhelmed as a matter of course. They were pretty close to that anyway, but they weren’t going to phone in even a moment. It wasn’t over until it was over, and as she went back on the offensive she tried to buy the time for her sister to get clear and add to the attack.

Being battered by fireballs of Stream energy, Vimmy tried to focus and get some distance, but it wasn’t proving easy as she was pressed in; Her wingblades snapped open once again as she left the ground with much less thrust than she normally had, just enough to rise before she could be brought back to earth again. As soon as she was high enough she took an angle like before, letting Venny go for the front as she tried to attack Christopher’s side almost at his back, where the Leowolves still were but weren’t quite as dense.

They both ended up flying through empty air, Christopher flash stepping away.

He didn’t counter attack, though. Instead, he put a thumb on Cull, and with a swift motion, ran the digit across the thin blade, as it dissolved into dark gray smoke that plumed out at an appalling rate, completely engulfing the battlefield and the girls.

“Your pincer zig zags are good, but they do innately favor certain angles. Probably not a concern against most foes…but against the real dangerous ones, it’s something to consider.” The girls knew this blade ‘mode’ as well. Pale Woe. The smoke was not just blinding, but it bounced Christopher’s voice around, and completely baffled the girl’s sensors. “That’s something you can consider later, though…

“I will confess…this is not fun and games to me. You’re putting me through the paces. I’m getting old. Needing to use other factors to just keep ahead of your youth and advantages granted. Now, if my lessons have borne fruit, this is right around the time that you realize you shouldn’t just be standing here listening and that I can see through this smoke while you can’t and I’m using my own machine nature to feed this sentence into your audio capacity instead of just speaking and this is where you probably realize that this sentence is far too long-”

The smoke parted with one mighty swing of Christopher’s blade.

…and that was all it hit. There were no dragons there. Also, he was walking on a chunk of ground that the girls had fled out of the smoke from and then silently pulled upward, meaning that the girls were not on the same level as him, but below him. They’d even kept the unnatural smoke ON the piece to cover this. Their gravity ability was better than he thought.

“...clever girls-”

Both dragons blasted the ground piece with their breath attacks from below, and Christopher’s form went flying across the grasslands, before he stopped himself with his clawed hand seizing onto the ground, ripping another length of torn dirt and stones. The two girls, Vimmy having finally escaped the net, and the Leowolves all ‘doggy paddling’ in the air as Venny had floated them all up and was lazily spinning them to keep them from being able to lock onto the girls, promptly both went for Christopher at max speed.

Somehow, they stopped on a dime when Celeste came in from behind Christopher, her sweeping kick just missing the two.

“But not clever enough.” Christopher said, giving Cull, back in its base form, a small twirl.

“Maybe?” Celeste said, and then spun and slammed her foot upside her husband’s head.

This tumble was a bit less graceful, though Christopher stopped himself the same way as he just had, via claw to the ground. The dragon girls stared in shock.

“...darling…I believe you were supposed to be helping ME here.” Christopher said.

“What did you say about battlefield chaos and no fairness and learning? You think you’re beyond getting a refresh on your own lessons, Christopher? Girls, by my side. Close in. CRUSH.” Celeste said, a wicked smirk on her face and a tone that told the girls that there would be no sudden second betrayals here. She was on their side, through and through.

“Oh, so THAT’S how it’s going to be.” Christopher said, his bemused tone also indicating there was no actual issue here, as he snapped his claws back into his arm and then, with a blistering white light, summoned up the Redemption blade, Cull in his other hand blooming like a flower of pain, bloody liquid erupted from within it, forming into a six foot long scimitar esque blade of dark, burning metal. Damnation, to match Redemption. “Try not to bor-”

Christopher snapped his head to the side to avoid Celeste’s thrown dagger, which let Venny come in and bash him from the other angle with her tail.

Later, the girls were surprised that the battle had lasted less than 23 seconds. It had felt like minutes, as the two girls and their ‘mother’ utterly blitzed Christopher and finally started cracking his defenses. Venny knew they were definitely getting somewhere when the ‘Damnation’ blade grazed her right wing and it shut down completely; he was not remotely playing around any more.

But despite it all, the last move was Celeste weaving through all of her husband’s strikes, some of them being blocked by the girls, before she spun and planted her foot square in his chest, sending him tumbling backwards before he bounced and smashed through a tree, shattering it before he vanished into the forest.

“And, time. I’d say that’s a good session, girls.” Celeste said, and slid her daggers back up her sleeves.

The Leowolves, free of the floating gravity trap, had stayed away, not wanting to get involved in the maelstrom, and since Celeste had declared the session done, they dropped out of battle mode and walked over, panting as Celeste tossed something on the ground…that somehow expanded into a water trough, full of water that the thirsty canines began lapping up.

“...did…anyone…get the number…of that…traitor.” Came a voice from the woods.

“37. I believe that was the age when you realized that you now couldn’t fully predict me any more. Don’t act like you’re mad that you still can learn, you old mass of blood and scars.”

The response was for the ground to erupt, another net, this one set in a brace, flipping over and trying to pin Celeste to the ground.

Key word: trying. She was gone before the net got her. And when Christopher zapped in, she had her daggers back out, blocking his attempted sneak attack, the crossed blades stopping his fist, just like Venny had managed. The force shockwave nearly knocked over the trough and ruffled the Leowolves’ fur. They paused for a moment, and then with a combined resigned look, kept drinking. He’d tried to turn her lesson back on her. And failed. Silly man.

“...I am going to choose to believe that you are fresher than me that allowed this to happen.”

“Keep telling yourself that, darling.” Celeste said, ending the block and putting away her daggers once more. “So, yes, girls. If we teach you anything else, we will do our best to give your ability to instinctually both surprise and react to surprise. Because there’s no fairness in fights by nature. So don’t be fair. And don’t expect the other side to be, and be prepared accordingly.”

Christopher tapped Venny’s disabled wing with his white Redemption blade, the disabled appendage finally starting to work again.

“And that includes the NEXT time we train like this.”

Even with machine boosts and their own altered physiology, when it was said and done Vimmy and Venny had been panting too, but exalted; It was hard for them to be worn out and worn down, but being put through their own paces had just about done them in. Neither one wanted to broadcast it, but they were supporting each other anyway, arms around one another’s shoulders.

“Sounds just fine by me! We’ve been part of fights in our time, but that was one hell of a training session.” Venny admitted before she smiled.

“We did good, right? I know we’re not perfect, but- Well, we didn’t have much time to think through every move.” Vimmy said, putting her free hand on her hip. “...We needed the refresher, anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever been caught like that before.”

“Hah! Yeah, between the smoke and the net, that’s right about when my heart sank.” Venny said before she laughed a little. “Normally we’re the ones who bring the unfairness to a fight- I think it was good to be on the back end. We can’t learn if we don’t know. Next time, we’ll keep that in mind.”

Falling in and continuing to chatter excitedly, despite being tired and a little sore the two girls had pretty high spirits. It would’ve been hard for them not to.

That night, the husband and wife had their own ‘chatter’ at length. Based on what they’d seen, all together…

Yes. Provided it was still there, and their theory would work…it’d be a perfect practical gift. Especially if Christopher’s other efforts didn’t bear fruit.

---

-Several Weeks Later. Tis The Season. And Not For Kobbers, Though That Was Coming Up Very Soon-

“I mean, if you want to use something FANCY, you can call it Pluvanje Na Zorata, that’s what most Aarde call it. Or Pakkasen Loppu, that’s what Hemel on the west side of the world call it.” Patty said.

“Neither translate well. The first one comes out to “The first thaw at dawn”, more or less. The other one comes out to ‘the end of the cold’. Some people use Thawdawn as a shorthand, but that never rolled off the tongue for me.” Christopher said.

“We should petition to steal the Kobber name.” Patty said.

“Calling the holiday Christmas when our world completely lacks the religious contexts that named it would be worse, I feel.” Celeste gave the dragon girls a sidelong glance. They knew the truth: once Weav had BEEN Earth, and had HAD Christmas. But it had been changed beyond recognition and 99 percent of the population had had the history of the past world wiped and a new history put in. Only a few remembered the truth, and they had concluded it was best to let the old truth pass on. So the Ravensky children didn’t know. But Celeste did. And she’d told the dragon girls, perhaps since they could understand in a way her children couldn’t.

“But it’s a good name!”

“Also happens much earlier. They have it in the middle of their winter. I don’t know why that should be celebrated. Better to celebrate the fact that the cold is retreating and the warmth is returning.” Christopher said. “Though places where it never really changes, in terms of temperature, I liked a name from up north. They called it ‘Solidarity’. Well, Samstoou in their local language. But the idea of it being unity, I always like that. That applies everywhere, not just places with winters and springs as we think of them.

It was just as well. It had been a while since Vimmy and Venny had had a Christmas worth celebrating. And it wasn’t like the Ravenskys put up decorations to herald their ‘Christmas’ coming: if other places on Weav did so, they hadn’t recognized them on their long trip that had ended four or so weeks ago. Heck, the only forewarning had been shortly after they’d settled back in, when Christopher had taken them down into the catacombs and pointed out a specific room and told them it was off-limits and that outside of some kind of terrible emergency, they were not ‘allowed’ to go inside it. Beyond THAT, all they knew was during a story one night when Celeste had mentioned ‘Solidarity’, which had been three days ago.

It was really all the context needed: it was an exchange of gifts, to celebrate making it through winter and to make it through to the next one. They hadn’t really told the girls because, well, they were still settling in. No need to make them feel obligated to do anything for their new family. Maybe next year.

They didn’t have wrapping paper either: the gifts were basically given in repurposed small boxes usually used for storage. Patty, the only Ravensky child at home, gave hers first: a pair of wooden bracelets that she’d hand carved and personally ‘hardened’. They didn’t do anything special; they were just jewelry, albeit given a coating so they had a nice dark sheen, and had the girl’s names carved on each. They were also, as Patty demonstrated, incredibly resistant to damage, as she showed she couldn’t break one, and neither could her mother or father, though they didn’t go ‘all out’. It just needed to be demonstrated that they didn’t have to be afraid of wearing them if trouble came along. Heck, maybe they could slide it over their fist and use it to enhance their punches, though that wasn’t what they were made for. Patty, despite her lineage, didn’t ‘do’ two in one items like that. Not intentionally, anyway.

It had been some time for both Vimmy and Venny; While they’d tried to do at least a token something for the holidays in the past, they’d had each other and that had mostly been all they’d needed to have. Either of them asking the other for more would have been a lot to ask. Still, no matter what it was called and by who, the half remembered familiarity of the season had been enough to make them happy. They’d gotten exactly what they’d wanted already by falling in and being accepted by their new family, and to them that was more than enough.

In festive sweaters the opposite of each other’s color scheme, one more red than green and one more green than red, they’d been caught a little by surprise. Both privately resolving to do a little more than hanging on this time next year, they’d settled down with everyone, happy to be somewhere they’d belonged. After Christopher had marked the room off limits, they hadn’t given it much more thought, just taking his words at face value and sticking out of there.

They’d hugged Patty at the same time from both sides, in their usual bookend formation; Getting any gifts was more or less a blessing, and they liked the personal nature of the bracelets. They immediately had put them on, Venny admiring hers while Vimmy had shot little glances down at her wrist every and then like she was making sure it was still there. Considering their rough and tumble lives, both Vimmy and Venny had quietly appreciated they wouldn’t have to worry overmuch about damage, but moreso that Patty had gone to the trouble of handcarving them and making sure of that in the first place.

“Thank you so much- it’s really cool, I like it a lot! I don’t normally wear jewelry, so this is way more my speed.” Vimmy preened.

“Yeah, thanks alot, Patty. This is way better than something from a department store.” Venny grinned.

“What’s a department store?” Patty said.

“An indoor bazaar with more generic items all sold under one group.” Christopher said.

“...sounds boring.”

“They are, mostly.”

Celeste’s box…was locked. It seemed to be some kind of symbolic gesture, a ‘know that by opening this, I am entrusting you’, as the lock was small and basic.

“You know that the various ‘magic’ items we use are called Intricacies. Thaumaturges, or Blackbirds if you prefer, like Hope, make them. As you can probably guess, there’s different kinds and classes. Those cleaning charms you’ve seen us use, even the most basic magus can make those. And so up the line, it gets harder. The real high class ones need a group, lots of time and effort, and often weird material that you have to look for, in often dangerous places. You saw Merilee’s metal horse? That’s a real high grade Intricacy. I guess if you were going to rank them numerically, it would be a 2 on a scale of 10, with the charms being a 10 or 9.” In this case, the 2 was the high ranking. “The Intricacies that could be ranked at 1 are unique and have some intangible quality about them that defies replication: you can make something like it, but never quite like it. Needless to say, they’re rare, desired by many, and often dangerous. So some are locked away with the idea it’s better that way, and the further idea that maybe one day, someone might come along who CAN use it responsibly. The ones that are too dangerous tend to get destroyed. Just so you understand what you’re looking at.” Celeste unlocked the box.

Once, it had been a high crown, with ‘arches’ that looked like sharp teeth, a shiny grey/white color on a dull green band. It wasn’t exactly a crown any more, because it had been carefully cut in half, the halves then ‘polished’ so they were now a dual item.

“This is the Wreath of Fangs. Until recently, it was in the possession of Queen Ruby’s government. It once belonged to one of their finest warriors, who had the rather unfortunate name of…well, Jimflam. Silly sounding name aside, Jimflam was a truly terrifying hand to hand fighter, and the Wreath, made by some of his mage allies to help in wars gone by, increased his ferocity even more. Too much, in the end. It started making him TOO animalistic. So, when he suffered injuries that were hard to heal, he retired. And since the Wreath wasn’t exactly dark or evil, they tried to pass it on to others, but it never worked out. The influence was too severe. Made its wearers too aggressive, too lacking in thought. So it was locked up. But, seeing you two girls ignore the Glorious AND not be much affected by the Porcine, I thought…these are the two that it was meant for. But, just to be certain, as shown, we had it split in two. I’m pretty sure if I’d read the possibility wrong, doing that would have destroyed it. It didn’t. And so, I, we, gift them to you. Because I think you were meant to have it, slash them.”

Despite paying attention, Vimmy and Venny had continued to glance down at the box as Celeste talked, curiosity deepening; They had grasped surface level information about Intricacies, but hadn’t delved too deep before since they’d thought to learn through experience and familiarity. The twin dragons had still listened at first, neither speaking quite yet (Although Vimmy had made a small sound at the sight of the Wreath) before they’d picked the individual halves up. Venny had examined it a little closer, while Vimmy had immediately put hers on and then hesitated in case she shouldn’t have, but when nothing bad happened instead she lit up.

“We have, of course, done tests to make sure they’d work. Even pulled in Cosineau. Unlike Patricia's gift, this isn’t just jewelry. It’s an item to further your development as warriors. Namely, where we feel, based on all the stuff we’ve done with you, and especially that training session with the traps and the Leowolves, where you were weaker: your ground game. In areas that can’t be easily improved via more basic means and time.” Christopher said. “Whether we can put them someplace in your bodies themselves, or if you’ll have to put them on manually, once they’ve been activated and we make sure they sync up and aren’t going to have some highly unlikely bad reaction, what we are FAIRLY sure they’ll do is slightly alter your bodies so you’ll be quadrupedal instead of bipedal. For a person, this would result in rather painful…body change. But your mechanical forms can shift easier. Might take some getting used to, like a whole body knuckle pop. Once you change, your ability to outright fly will be gone. You can likely still jump high and if you get a good start, you can probably glide…but the way you two fly now, won’t work while these are active. On the other hand, you’ll get an immense agility and speed boost. Probably run at speeds approaching 1500/1800 miles an hour. And your senses, innate and mechanical, will be so keyed up that you’ll be able to make movement reactions in the space of a millisecond. A muted, safe Timeless ultra lite, taking advantage of your bodies’ makeup. Which means the speed won’t cause you to run headlong into walls or people, you’ll be able to control yourselves enough to run around them. Or bounce off them like a rubber ball. Stop on a near dime, instant ninety degree turns, you could turn an enclosed space into a storm of moves coming from seemingly everywhere at once. For now, I think that will cover your minor weaknesses if you’re not in a wide open area. When you’re more closed in, or hindered, your movement suffers a bit if you don’t have 3D options, and your ability to dodge and strike is a bit basic, at least by my eyes. Against the average enemy, it’d be more than enough, but if you encountered something TRULY exceptional and dangerous, again, it would give you options. It will probably take you practice to switch back and forth at first. Maybe eventually you can do it near instantly, but that might take years. Basically, on the Kobber’s world, there’s a myth that tigers and dragons are rivals. These crowns will allow you to be tigers OR dragons. Though I’ll let you decide once you get the hang of it how you want your claws and teeth in that state.”

A pair of raised eyebrows and wide eyes had greeted Christopher’s words, both taken aback at first and not cutting in with questions. Anything they’d been ready to ask had been answered while he’d talked, and by the end they looked at each other in silent communication they’d shown off once or twice before.

“That- We’ll do you both proud with it, we can promise you that.” Venny swallowed. “I just, uh- sorry. Nobody’s trusted us with something like this before, at least, not without a whole bunch of strings attached. I’d say that’s right on the mark, one of our weak points was always what we could do on the ground even with all our strength and whatnot. The year that’s coming up, this is going to set a whole new pace for us.”

“We’ll work really hard and practice with the change, we promise! We’re not getting caught unawares any time soon.” Vimmy swore, turning her head so she could check herself out despite her serious tone.

“Yeah, you can count on that. We’ll make sure we’re worthy of something like the Wreath no matter what it takes. We- Well, thank you so much. It wasn’t that high a bar, but this is already the best holiday I can remember having in years.” Venny said, bowing her head before she and Vimmy once again hugged from the sides, neither hesitating beyond the initial second.

“Thanks alot, mom. It’s perfect! I didn’t know I wanted this, but it’s just what I wanted!” Vimmy said cheerfully, not as committed to being cool as Venny was.

“Yes, about that…” Celeste gave her husband a bemused look. Christopher had a moment of mild personal exasperation; he normally was utterly certain in most everything he did or tried. This was not one of them.

“...I am not very…PRACTICED in gifting items which aren’t related to handling the issues of the world, but…I am getting old. And Celeste already figured out the best option in that regard. So, then, follow me.” Christopher stood up, taking a few moments to poke at the fireplace to settle the coals, before he headed for the closest access point downstairs.

In the end, they’d ended up in front of the ‘forbidden room’.

“I didn’t want you going in here because of anything bad or belief you couldn’t handle it. I didn’t want you going in here because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.” The door’s only barricade was a semi-concealed button.

Inside was…

A kitchen? Well, it was technically a laboratory, but it had been reworked to look a fair bit like a kitchen.

“You like your peanut brittle. Which can be a small problem, because we don’t have peanuts as you know them, and trying to get it from Miss Cosineau is very much a ‘very large ask for a very small request’. So, for the last few months…I have been using what I know about survival, cooking, chemistry, and consulting some books…to try and figure out a local replacement that, cross fingers and go beyond basic thanks, as I want to actually SUCCEED, not just be told I did out of gratitude. And I began making up other forms of ‘brittle’. And since I had to explore local flavors and textures and whatnot…I ended up with a fair number of possibilities.”

All of which were arranged in beehive-esque boxes: removing a ‘slate’ revealed a ‘wax’ of the brittle variant.

“20, in the end. So, I hope we can find you something that’s…well, maybe not the SAME as peanut brittle, but also good. Variety in life is good. And it’s not like we’ll ask you to give up peanut brittle entirely. But if you end up liking one of these just as much, well, that’s good. Maybe one day we could sell it somewhere in Weav. Unless of course I somehow made 20 horrible excuses for food, but even I’m not THAT bad a chef.”

“He exaggerates. Patty and I taste tested all of these. They’re all good, in their own way. But what YOU like is you.”

“I gift you this, in solidarity of what we share and will hopefully share in the future. Or, as it might be said where you came from, Merry Christmas.” Christopher nodded and sat down on a stool, looking contently at his completed work. Maybe it was outside his area of preference and comfort, but it HAD been nicer to work on than weapons, for once.

At first just about bursting with curiosity, the girls had filed in. Even if they had put it out of their minds, both had wondered what was going on in that particular room at least once or twice. At the reveal of what Christopher had been working on, both dragons had gone still and quiet. They briefly stared at the boxes before looking between them and him and then back again, Vimmy opening her mouth and then closing it.

“Y-yeah, we-” Venny started before having to break off so her voice wouldn’t shake. She hadn’t felt quite like this in a long time, and was trying her best to keep a little control. She was more than a little touched by the gesture. “We both, it’s just about our favorite snack food. At least, if there’s another one, I sure can’t think of it.”

“You made all this for us?” Vimmy asked, not slow on the uptake but like she was trying to make sure she understood. She’d clasped her hands together and took another few seconds to remember to close her mouth. “No, it’s- I’m sure we’ll take right to it.”

This time they hadn’t needed to silently communicate through glances or small gestures, just hesitating for a second or two before they also hugged Christopher. They knew it wasn’t quite his thing, but neither one could hold it back.

“...Thank you so, so much, it means a lot to us.” Venny swallowed again.

“Aw, I’m just gonna say it, it fits too well- This is the best Christmas EVER!” Vimmy burst out, smiling big enough that she showed her teeth.

“...you’re welcome.” He was a bit awkward, even in accepting thanks, but the thought was there. “Still, I’d just nibble on one or two for now. Don’t want to spoil your appetite for dinner.”

“Oh come now dear. It’s not like our girls would overeat on junk if they were given the chance.” Celeste said.

Patty suddenly found a mixing oven VERY interesting. You’d swear she was about to do the classic ‘innocent whistling’.

Both the sisters giggled at one another, not quite needing to cross their fingers behind their backs even if it was a little tempting. “No, that’s fine- I think that’s fair. But we will try it all, and we will get back to you! Just, uh… Vimmy?”

“Yeah?”

“Let me a get a piece of each one, don’t eat it all before me.” Venny said, Vimmy narrowing her eyes at her before making agreeing and acknowledging gestures with her hand. “Yeah, no promises there…"

 ---

Eventually, it would be time. Christopher would bid his family farewell; he still preferred to stay out of the Kobber's backyard, what with how things had gone. He'd keep the home fires burning. And hopefully not end up talking to dolls again. Like father, like daughter, in that regard...

---

Said daughter was only vaguely aware of the fact that the season was almost back.

She'd 'gone dark' nearly two weeks ago. She had to. You didn’t keep off the radar for months on end without being very, VERY good at concealing oneself. Eventually, you had to cut all contact with the outside world and wholly enter that other one: any communication could be picked up and ruin the whole thing. Damn risky, but that’s why she got picked.

The ironic thing was, she still wasn’t exactly sure why this man/alien was considered such a possible issue that Dawn had basically arranged what was more likely than not going to be an assassination mission. Dawn had given a reason that she was concerned that the ‘Space Pirate Stream Access Process’ was not as erased and gone as believed, and that Raven Beak getting his hands on it would be real, real bad. Oh sure, Kobbers could destroy him, but what was better, crushing a problem after it had say, destroyed a city (Boston) or taking a chance to prevent the city destruction?

So she was off the reservation. Utterly alone. If she failed, no one was coming to rescue her. Well, not immediately. Maybe SOMETHING could eventually be done, but a lot of mess could happen between then and there. She could have backed out.

But, much like a hungry dog and a bone, sometimes you just couldn’t let go.

And it didn’t always go as planned. In a perfect world, she’d have gotten into the core of things and just had to deal primarily with her main target.

It turned out that someone who was so good at concealment was also very well versed in intelligence about dangers. She’d only made it about a third of the way inside when she’d been discovered. And her attempts to break away and hide to allow at least a little more infiltration had not shaken out; the security was too good. That left one way: through. If she ran, she might never get a chance to get close again.

And so, the sound of the ‘straight path’ rumbled outside his door. He just watched said door, passively tapping one finger on the side of his chair. He amused himself with a personal bet: would they open the door, or just try and smash right through it?

He was a touch surprised when the noise faded away, and that the person that was still standing did just open the door via the console. Backlit by fallen soldiers and destroyed machines, several guttering fires burning in her wake, Julia walked into the room, Ardent adjusting its form around her into a more defensive one.

“...Ashkar Behek.” Julia said. “You are a troublesome sort to reach.”

Despite her tone, Julia knew she was in for one hell of a challenge. Otherwise, she would have Baba Yaga out. Not for this. Things were too uncertain, too vague. She was going to start with basic hand claws and decide what to do from there.

Raven Beak said nothing, regarding this foe who hunted him with neutral curiosity. There was a story here he didn’t know, but in truth, he didn’t really care if he did or not.

There were a bunch of other things Julia could have said. But in a half second, she decided all of them were, in the end, pointless.

So she leapt at her target, as he rose off his throne.

The door slammed shut behind her.

TO BE CONTINUED IN SEASON 15

Monday, 7 April 2025

Winnowwill, Part 5/Conclusion

“Heidiiiiiii…” Came the wail from the distant room; Mannifred was, in some ways, sentimental, it seemed.

Winnow ‘honored’ that sentimentality by turning her Facade off, revealing her true face as she shoved the 3T in the belt she had and resumed running.

No Log Togs for this mission…but she still had Facade. And unlike the crude shadow and clone effects that had had obvious ‘projection lines’ that someone like Hudson could see, she’d had a little time after taking down Heidi and other guards and swapping their appearances to make a more thorough concealment. But she knew Hudson was too damn paranoid to not check for that, so she’d also doubled up on a distraction. Maybe Vesper needed a quiet sneaking entrance, but Immiserate sure didn’t when she’d set off her grenade pen, and it had arrived just in time, finding its own entrance, getting to the room, and then sacrificing itself to provide the needed extra distraction to keep Hudson off guard and looking the wrong way. Cole had nicely added to it by giving into her inner psychopath and shooting what she THOUGHT was her, Winnow, dead, something Winnow did feel a bit bad about. But it was what it was: she had the 3T, and she had to get out, NOW.

She hadn’t had time to look at any blueprints of the place, but she’d paid attention as she’d snuck in and through and she was FAIRLY sure she was running in-

-to two guards, each coming around a corner.

If Winnow was a pure human, what she did, once again, probably wouldn’t have worked.

But she was more than that, and so when she leapt and did a two-footed dropkick right into the face of one of the guards, he went flying backwards into the wall with a massive crash, Winnow hitting the ground and rolling over at rapid speed, slamming into the other guard’s legs before he could adjust his gun and knocking him down, Vesper pouncing on him like she was an octopus, grabbing his wrist with one hand and slamming her elbow into his face with her other arm, once, twice, three times, stealing his handgun like she’d done in her past mission before springing up and resuming running for it, taking a quick moment to check that the 3T was still on her. Okay, this way…then up some stairs…and provided she hadn’t somehow made a bad error…

The stairs had a man on top. Winnow juked in, then snapped back out as he fired his submachine gun down the spiral, Winnow hissing as ricocheting bullets barely missed her and caused slivers of stone to sting her face and body; the Octocamo really offered no protection in that regard. Her shots were more accurate, as she snapped back in and fired off four quick bullets, resuming her run upwards even as the man was driven backwards by the impacts and then began falling down the stairs immediately to his right.

Vesper hopped over him on the way up, using the hand rail as a brace, and put her shoulder to the door, sunlight exploding in her face as she exited from the stairway. Ah, the rain had cleared up, right fast it seemed.

She’d come out near the small power substation located next to the dam. No guards there, though she suspected they were probably close enough to beeline for her, fast. Okay…get past these generators, and she could hear the whipping noise. Good. The call had gone through; she’d sent it as soon as she’d fled the room.

Not Immiserate this time; that was still back on the floor of the broken up meeting. This was considerably larger, a Eurocopter AS350, also known as the ‘Little Bird’. Not so little, considering it had enough room for her and the two people already in it. It had swung to its side, trying to lower itself both down and towards Winnow as she ran for it, the gunner starting to lean out of the open side to offer his hand-

His jerking backwards was all Vesper needed to know, and she hit the deck before the blast of fire flew over her head.

“Going so soon? Before we’ve settled up?” The dam’s innards were a bit of a maze, and Cole was no tracker. But Winnow having stolen the man’s gun and shooting in the stairway had been exactly what she needed to zero in, and once Cole knew where to go, she was really damn fast. No matter her faults, the hunt was part of her paradigm.

Not exactly amazingly accurate though, the helicopter jerking back up and JUST avoiding the other fire blast she’d aimed at the rear rotor. Cole hissed her annoyance, before her eyes jerked back to Winnow, as she rose back up and resumed running. Smirking, Cole took another shot at her. The white flames alighting both of her swordblades were thick and cloying, a little too solid as they screamed toward Vesper in arcs.

Not quite there. But the fire exploding just behind Winnow sent her flying forward, Cole again smirking. She’d lit up again, like a doll coming to life, at the sight of Winnow being pitched forward…

No. Not just flying forward. A taken-control-of tumble, Winnow turning around in mid fall and aiming for Cole, firing bullets at her. Cole cackled; even if they hit, and they weren’t, unless that woman whipped out a grenade launcher all she was going to do was annoy her-

Winnow hit the ground proper, and emptied her gun, Cole taking the time to line up her next shot…

She never knew exactly what hit her.

But the plant had a few emergency generators that didn’t run on the hydroelectric aspects. Sometimes, you needed power NOW, and hence you had generators that ran on fuel.

Fuel which was stored in tanks.

Fuel tanks which Cole hadn’t seen that she’d put herself in front of as she shot at her targets. Fuel tanks which, with Vesper’s Stream empowered bullets, went off like a giant bomb, Cole yelling in shocked surprise as the fire and kinetic blast wave engulfed her from behind and sent her flying forward before she was planted on her face fifteen feet down.

“Wahhhh! Never a dull moment!” Roman Torchwick, ensconced in the helicopter that had arrived, was not surprised everything had gone tits up. Once again, he was mildly regretting taking this job. Apparently he was second choice.

---

“What do you mean you don’t know how to fly this thing?!?” Evolto yelled, having stupidly been the one to ‘assess’ one of Dawn’s hires.

“I mean, I don’t really know how to fly this thing, I do not know how it could be any clearer!” Gelato said.

“THEN HOW DID WE GET UP HERE?!?”

“I DON’T KNOW, I JUST STARTED PUSHING BUTTONS!”


---

One crash later, and Roman was called in, because he COULD fly a helicopter. Apparently Gelato had thought he could pick up the technique on the, well, fly. It was a trait that happened a lot with Stand users: get into a situation and improvise. Unfortunately for him and his attempt to make some money, Dawn had wanted someone who actually DID have experience flying a helicopter. One suspected that Gelato might be proscribed another poop cave mission for his stunt. Even if she didn’t, Dawn still needed a helicopter pilot.

Which was Roman. He’d done a grabbag of things back in the day, including piloting aerial craft. He had told himself that the money was worth it. Maybe he’d think that when things WEREN’T all going sideways, AGAIN.

“Aye, I’d imagine.” The other person in the helicopter was completely new to this scene. Somewhere in his head, Roman had some mild resentment that he seemed to be handling it better than he was. Then again, his Semblence wouldn’t help him here, and it was the new guy who had the weapons to shoot back.

Gundrar Ironfist. Yeah, that was a fitting name. He was a ‘dwarf’, though exactly what THAT meant, Roman didn’t know. He looked more like a darn space marine with his chosen armored getup, even though his main job was apparently some kind of miner. Or protection for miners. Apparently he was connected to the rough location the Kobbers were aiming to go to after having moved on from Whalestrand, Argo, where the mining was apparently real damn dangerous in places. Dawn had started putting down seeds there, as had her new agent, the also strange little toothy alien called Mr. Clever; assumingly, when she’d needed a ‘gunner’, she’d decided to hire local.

Despite being a ‘dwarf’, he didn’t seem to mind being airbound at the moment, though Roman was considering putting in a weight complaint, if just to make sure the point was raised that if Dawn was going to assign him to more jobs like this, she might strongly want to consider a larger helicopter. Or maybe he was just making excuses for his less than great flying/dodging. Well, at least figure out which was which.

Anyway, it had been Gundrar who had been trying to grab Winnow’s hand, though he’d had to switch his offered grip to holding onto the open door so as to not fall out. He mildly grumbled at this, saying something under his breath that might have been English or another language.

“This is too hot!” Winnow said, waving the machine off. “Fall back, we’ll set up a secondary pickup! Back off, before you get shot out of the air! GO!” Winnow knew by the time the helicopter tried to get back down to her, the minions would be converging on her, and the copter was a much bigger target than her.

“Take this first, girl.” Her usual coat fell down the ground near her, tossed by Gundrar. Perfect, her stolen gun was out of ammo again, and said coat had more of her gear, including her new favorite little gun. She picked it up in a run, throwing it over her shoulders and getting her arms through the sleeves as the helicopter went into a steep ascent, Winnow hearing some distant gunfire as it was, as she predicted, being shot at. In one smooth move, she moved the 3T from her belt to an inner coat pocket, and then twisted her wrist, getting the grapnel armed and firing it, aiming for the side and top of the dam, essentially both going back the way she came and taking the high ground, so she couldn’t be closed in on.

As the helicopter also made its exit, Cole picked herself up, wiping soot from her face, before she activated her own communication device. She barely noticed her habit burning.

“Ma’am, she managed to catch me in an explosion. Yes, fully intact. Systems are a bit screwed up. You want me to immediately resume pursuit?” Ie, not stand there and take a minute to make sure all her bodily functions were all lined up and working perfectly again. Hudson’s response was a firm “NO, IMMEDIATELY RESUME.” “Yes ma’am.” Well, she’d follow orders. Yeah she’d be slower and less effective for the lack of full reset, but that was what she’d been told to do. She idly patted out the flames and got moving.

---

Winnow reached the top of the dam and threw herself behind cover as a man on a motorcycle with a machine gun (but no cool theme) drove down the length of the dam towards her, his weapon spitting fire. Ironic: her cover had been another stairwell entrance. Winnow knew as soon as the man drove past he’d shoot into where she was. She could trade fire, but that was a big risk…wait…

The man did fire as he drove past, attempting an immediate sight and loose, but to his confusion, there was no one there…wait there was a faint black running smear…

Winnow’s gun spat fire in turn. She’d pulled enough power out of the Octocamo to get one last half-done merging with the wall; her head and jacket weren’t part of it, but between the distortion and her going into a kneel it threw off the man’s aim enough so that she could shoot back better for two seconds, which was all she needed to shoot him off his motorcycle. It crashed down to the ground, Winnow deactivating the Camo, checking her six, and then emerging, firing and shooting down more armed people the way the first one had come, one more on another motorcycle, the rest on foot, before she turned to sprint towards the first motorcycle she’d relieved its occupant of, popping her empty clip out and slapping a new one in as she ran. She pulled up the bike, letting her brain shift in the acquired knowledge. Simple enough. She checked to make sure there weren’t any bullet holes in the engine or the wheels, and then hit the gas and took off, her open coat streaming behind her as she drove off. The dam’s top connected to a rough road that would take her onto land and then off into Tennessee proper (more technically, immediately northwest into an area marked on the maps as “Beech Springs”), where she could then set up a secondary pickup…

Bullets striking the road as she actually left the dam top proper made it clear that they weren’t going to just let her drive off. Winnow fired a few wild shots in return and then gunned the engine, trying to once again outrun the problem that insisted on hounding her.



Mannifred’s men were all exiting the dam and piling into their own cars and vans to give chase when Cole walked up to the gathered driving off vehicles. Normally, she’d have just used her own two feet, but she had orders and circumstances. Having spotted another motorcyclist coming along, Cole flash stepped over (disliking the disorientation that this caused due to her systems still a bit wonky), grabbing the woman by the neck of her jacket and casually tossing her off, the motorcycle coming to an abrupt stop. Cole vaguely thought ‘Oh, I threw her off the dam’ and then forgot the woman entirely after dismissing it, getting on the motorcycle. Clutch, brake, engine, she was certain she could drive it, and she did, following after Mannifred’s goons and bringing up the rear of the chase.



But that was back at the end of the line. The car at the front had managed to catch up to Winnow alarmingly fast. It had a good engine in it, it seemed.

They were not, however, the only one.

“Get us closer, lad.” Gundrar opened a crate and removed the very large machine gun; Roman swore it should have been bolted on the helicopter instead of being in the man/dwarf’s hands. Gundrar had decided mid-retreat that just flying away was no good: maybe they couldn’t pick up Winnow/Vesper, but they could cover her. Roman had not argued, as the dwarf was armed and he wasn’t. “Ack, bit small for my taste…” The machine gun was small for him?! What the heck did he want, a literal anti-tank rifle? Roman decided he didn’t want to know and activated the sound bafflers in his headset. This was gonna be LOUD.

The roar of the firearm exploded through the helicopter a second later, Gundrar firing at Winnow’s pursuers. To their credit, the two people already leaning out the window to shoot at Winnow immediately altered their firing aim and shot at the helicopter instead, Roman jerking his head down as a few stray bullets hit non-critical parts of the helicopter. Gundrar strafed the car in turn, but he neither disabled the vehicle or hit the shooters.

Instead, one hit him, the impact making him fall back into the helicopter with a grunt. The shot had been wholly absorbed by his body armor, but his pride still hurt.

“Okay, dander is up now.” Gundrar said.

Winnow turned around, aiming and firing a few shots at the pursuing car, specifically at the driver. She didn’t know if she hit, but the way the vehicle swerved around seemed like a good sign…which matched the bad sign of the OTHER vehicle, a van this time, turning towards her further up the road. Damn. This machine, ie her stolen motorcycle, must have had some kind of tracking device on it; how else could they have so effectively intercepted her?

Actually, she was wrong in that regard. It was actually because the people in the just-arrived van weren't Mannifred’s people; it was Hudson’s, having been called in and being the closest group. Fortunately, it was just her group’s equivalent of mooks, instead of any of the high class names by Vici. Didn’t matter much to Winnow, considering she was now stuck between two automobiles, one chasing her and one driving at her.

Before Gundrar, having opened a smaller crate on the helicopter’s inner wall, removed the grenade launcher there, inserted one of the large explosive rounds, aimed, and fired.

The van heading towards Vesper lifted up on two wheels as the explosive hit its flank, but somehow it crashed back down, veering, but still driving.

“Right then.” Gundrar said, and just loaded a second explosive and fired again.

Gas tank. Bullseye. The van exploded, pieces of shrapnel flying past Winnow, the vehicle pitched upward into the air and flying off the road in a fiery tumble, crashing down as Vesper drove through the flaming patch where it had just been. Winnow again glanced behind her; Roman was now adjusting the pursuit/cover so Gundrar couldn’t fire a shot at the car behind her, and said car was still on her rear…

…and there was a second van, also arriving. THIS one was Mannifred’s people, coming the other way on the T-section that the just-exploded van had driven and turned towards Winnow on; it was coming from Vesper’s right instead of her left.

Instinct took over. Time slowed down for the woman. As had been noted, you COULD train yourself to get a reaction like that without forcibly altering your brain, on Weav anyway.

The van at her front. Assess position, distance, and speed. It wouldn’t make it in time to turn and block her, but if she turned left on the T to go away from it it might get a good shot at her. Same if she turned towards it and tried to go past it. Going offroad was a bad option. So was slamming on the brakes; it would make the car behind her catch up.

But…

What if SHE slowed down too, but not via pure braking? Her mind ripped through all the new information, mixing certain aspects of physics with granted understanding of driving…

Yeah.

The van in front of her had apparently hoped to either ram her in an intercept or shoot her otherwise.

All that went out the window when Winnow yanked her weight forward, balanced perfectly as she gently squeezed the brake, the motorcycle sliding on its front wheel, losing some speed but still going smoothly forward, the van’s attempted ramming making it overshoot and drive PAST Winnow as she drove behind them, slamming her bike's rear wheel back down as she aimed, even as she twisted in her own turn to fully zero in.

Three shots blew out the rear right tire, making the van twist. Winnow sighted the gas tank and fired the rest of the clip, adding in a touch of Stream extra kick.

The kick blew the van end over end, not quite the same explosive destruction caused by Gundrar’s grenade launcher, but Winnow wasn’t going to split hairs. Especially since the closer range of the explosion made her bike wobble, forcing her to slow down a bit to regain control as she drove past where the van had just been…

She was getting back up to speed when the car rammed into the back of her bike, nearly making her lose control again. The one still in pursuit, which had caught up despite her efforts. Winnow almost hit the gas again, and then realized if she darted ahead, she’d be an easier target.

So, seeing the car closing in again, she juked to the side, putting herself next to the driver’s side door, as she fired her gun.

Which clicked empty. She’d forgotten she’d used all the shots blowing up the second van; even she couldn’t keep track of everything.

And for further misfortune, Roman and Gundrar had returned to resume their covering fire…except now since Winnow was driving ALONGSIDE the car, Gundrar couldn’t aim without potentially hitting their ally. Mumbling, Gundrar put down the grenade launcher and hoisted up the machine gun, then concluded that was also too imprecise and looked for his handgun-

The shots fired from the car, unfortunately, were more accurate this time, smoke erupting as they tore up the area around the rear rotor, alarms going off within the machine, even as it lurched and Gundrar found himself grabbing on to prevent himself from falling out again.

“HIT! BAD HIT! Sorry man, we have to back off or WE’LL CRASH!” Roman yelled.

An annoyed grunt was a response, Roman turning to look at Winnow as she veered to dodge an attempted side slam. She was in trouble: the gunners were clearly ‘switching sides’ to aim better at the woman, and she didn’t have her gun, it seemed…

The car veered in again, trying one last sideways ram as they reached the end of the road.

Winnow couldn’t reload. Not while driving the bike in circumstances like this. She was not the Terminator, and she didn’t have a shotgun anyway.

But, grab at her coat, pull out a small glue capsule, and throw it into the car’s closest wheel?

THAT, she could do.

The car literally stopped dead, the incredibly strong adhesive immediately seizing on both the road and wheels and ripping the entire front axel off the car as it flipped over and smashed down onto several other parked cars, the sound of crunching metal and shattering safety glass echoing in Winnow’s wake as she drove on.

“Woooooo!” Roman said, taking in the sight. Gundrar just gave a brief thumbs up.

The delight faded as the THIRD SUV van drove in from the side road and finally began proper pursuit of their target. Third van AND fifth vehicle, another car was following that third van…

Then it was getting blown onto its side as Gundrar got his grenade launcher back in his hands and managed one last cover shot, Even he was mildly surprised that at the distance and angle, he’d managed it. But that was still just one problem out of two, Vesper being chased by the last(?) van, one lone gunman aiming out of the passenger side’s window and firing, the driver adding to it with handgun fire out of his own window. She couldn’t fall back past the van, she’d be a sitting duck. Same if she sped ahead. She couldn’t reload, her hands were not THAT talented to do it while driving a motorcycle while under fire.

…but she still had glue containers. Two of them.

But if she tossed them on the road, they might drive around them. She…

Saw something.

Two seconds later, she turned and threw one of the containers. Not at the road. At the van. T.A.N.G.L.E taught all sorts of aiming, and that included pitching, the glue container hitting…the van's windshield, splattering all over the glass.

“Gah, the hell-!” The driver had to stop shooting, sticking his head out the window so he could see better. Winnow tossed the other glue bomb after her. It hit…the windshield again, the whole front of the car covered in glue.

“She missed!” His passenger said. The driver instinctively tried to turn on the windshield wipers as he pulled himself back in, not knowing she was out of ammo, Winnow vanishing from his sight as he watched the wipers get immediately stuck. Growling, he stuck his head out the window again, again trying to aim.

“AHHHHHH! STOP! STOPPPP!” His passenger suddenly screamed. The driver only had time to get back inside and look in his direction as he drove through the intersection, noting that Winnow had done a hard left turn…

…the glue had destroyed his peripheral vision. But, back in the car, he could now see, through the passenger side, the 18 wheeler truck he’d been goaded into blind-driving directly in front of.

The screaming howl of both men was lost in the screaming howl as 20 tons of metal rammed hard into two tons, and the smaller mass lost, the van ripped in twain, the truck roaring its own horn as it swerved around from the accident, thankfully hitting its brakes before it also lost control, Winnow driving on and leaving the makeshift demolition derby behind her.

“I hope they’re insured!” Roman said; he was tacking too far away for Gundrar to help, but he was still close enough to see what had occurred. “Okay Ironfist, I think I can get this back under control, but I’m going to have to do a long, large loop to do it. Vesper’s on her own; if anyone else shows up, she’ll have to handle it.”

Gundrar didn’t reply, and Roman put all his attention into flying his mildly crippled craft. Huh, he was actually not going to crash. Maybe he was better at this than even he expected.

So was Winnow, as she used the breathing room to slow down a bit and reload her Walter PPK, finally. All right. Maybe it was fully set that she’d die another day…

They said that when you were riding a motorcycle, you should wear a helmet.

The irony here was that if Vesper HAD been wearing a helmet, it would have provided just that bit of extra mass so that the bullet would have just clipped ‘her head’ rather than miss by a centimeter, the super close passage bursting blood vessels in her ear.

“Where do you think you’re going?!” Cole. She’d taken a completely different route. A shortcut, more or less. How she knew the way, only Cole knew based on instinct. But she’d gotten ahead of Winnow, turned back, and was now driving down the road in front of her, towards her. Damn it, jousting/chicken again.

The handgun Cole was wielding? That had been in a holster in the bike’s handlebars. Cole wasn’t going to turn a weapon down no matter how inelegant it was compared to a blade, as she fired another shot at Winnow, and another, Winnow trying to lean away and realizing it wasn’t going to work.

So she took the next step. Literally, jumping off her motorcycle and, still holding onto the handlebars, crouching and using it as bare bones makeshift cover, the bike dragging her along. Cole could only goggle at the sight, though she kept firing, shooting up the front of the bike, and having the gun run out just before they passed each other, which kept an annoyed Cole from potentially shooting her in the side. Then they were past each other, Cole annoyingly slamming her foot down even as she yanked on her brakes, stopping her motorcycle and tearing up the road with her foot to do a tight spin, Winnow leaping back onto her seat and driving on.

Cole took a moment to draw one of her swords before she resumed the chase. This time, she would be sure.

“Faster, faster! I’m on your heels!” Cole said, and fired a blast of flame from the edge of the blade, arcing it close, trying to catch the rear of the bike. Not close enough, the blast exploding on the pavement, Cole driving past the smouldering hole she left as she took another shot. Missed again, but she was getting the range. The flames stuck behind her, igniting lines in the stone.

Winnow crouched low on her bike: she could tell herself she was being zeroed in on.

…so she’d have to aim better. Winnow drew out her Walter PPK. Turn around? No, it would cause extra wind resistance from her stance and make her less aerodynamic. Blind fire? Near pointless.

…but her rear view mirror had escaped destruction. Winnow looked at it, gave the briefest of glances back, and then looked again.

Then she aimed backwards, looking at the mirror, and fired.

The bullet hit the road, but it was close. Cole, this time, actually stopped in mid flame blast, unable to believe what this damn woman was doing without tech, based on what Hudson had said. Oh, she did have tech, but Cole was unaware of the fine details. The incredulity whet her bloodlust. She just thought this was a normal woman; maybe she had tools and gear and training, but she was just a standard human, a frail, fallible human, the thing Cole and others in Benedicine’s orbit had done their best to move past, and here she was firing at her using her damn motorcycle mirror to SIGHT-!

Not fire at.

Hit, Winnow firing five more times. Two bullets missed.

Three hit the front wheel of Cole’s bike.

“Oh, not good-” She started to herself.

The wheel broke and the bike immediately went into a complete forward crash, dumping Cole off the front, the bike going into a shattering tumble as Cole looked to do the same.

…except this time, Cole had something of an idea of what COULD happen. Even if she couldn’t believe it.

And so, THIS time, Cole didn’t faceplant. Instead, she expertly caught herself and landed on her hands, doing a speedy rolling flip and landing on her feet in turn.

“Full of tricks, are we? You aren’t the only one.” Cole said, and took off after Winnow.

Winnow barely had time for her eyes to bug before Cole was right alongside her, easily keeping pace with the motorcycle. Craned forward, she was racing along at a speed no unaltered human could’ve matched.

“Hoping to leave me behind? Not going to happen!”

Winnow aimed her Walter PPK, only for Cole to flashstep to the side and slightly forward, dodging the shots.

“Too slow!” Cole smirked, and grabbed for Winnow’s gun. In the end, Winnow had to let it go: if she tried to fight the woman she’d get yanked off the motorcycle, and at this speed she would handle the landing much worse than Cole had. Cole looked at her new ‘toy’, then snapped it in half and flash stepped forward, showing that she’d been holding back her speed.

Winnow hit the brakes, stopping, as Cole came to a stop a hundred feet down the road and turned around, waving a finger.

“The game is over, girl.” It was pretty clear what she meant. If Winnow tried to flee on the motorcycle, Cole would easily run her down. If her helicopter returned, Cole would blast it out of the sky. And if she fought, well…Cole might just literally bring her head back to Hudson, instead of figuratively. Vesper could tell just tossing the 3T away wouldn’t work either. Cole wanted HER as a trophy, not what she’d stolen.

The two stared at each other across the road, which had emptied of cars. Probably very good it had: anything that interrupted this risked getting a Cole fire blast.

Vesper ran her tongue over her upper teeth.

…yeah.

“Do you expect me to talk?”

“If you’d like, feel free. I’m more interested in hearing you scream!”

Winnow cocked her head, staring still. A few seconds ticked by.

Then braced herself on the bike and hit the engine, resuming her drive and aiming directly at Cole.

“Oh, thank you.” Cole said. She was going for the go down swinging route. That meant that Cole could take her time and no one would complain. Oh, what a mess she’d make. Tensing, she hefted her swords and readied herself to spill blood.

Winnow hunched low, the distance between the two rapidly shrinking.

Cole raised both hands, fire licking at her swords…

Back at the dam, Hudson finally managed to get outside, but her call to Cole was not answered, the warning just meeting a buzzing noise of non-connection. She’d seen it happen, and gotten outside darn fast (wheeled legs helped there)…not that it did her any good.

Cole had bashed up Immiserate pretty darn good.

But it hadn’t been destroyed. Just knocked around. It had ‘played dead’, Winnow having forgotten it until just now, in the standoff. For a moment, Cole’s eyebrow arched as she heard the sound of its rapid approach. Wait, she knew that noise…

Immiserate was more than just a ‘drone-board’. It was somewhat inconvenient for Vesper Maser/Rapanga to be carrying around the blade she used to blinkdraw. That was what Immiserate’s other main function was. Inspired by Christopher’s Great Flamel setup, one of the two main tricks of the new arrangement was transport.

The other was storage. Of the sword, which was what actually bore the name Immiserate, as the drone-board sliced down next to Vesper and she snapped her hand up.

Cole screamed in anticipation.

Her fire went wide as Winnow closed the distance and drew her blade in mid-drive from the board/sheath, hitting the trigger to add the micro-explosion to make the sword emerge even faster, the woman doing an expert slash that took Cole, who despite it all STILL managed to dodge…which meant the sword caught her at the elbow of her left arm and just above the elbow on the right, slicing both limbs off as the slash carved a groove on the road on either side of Cole, before the wind-force of such a fast strike blew her off her feet and sent her tumbling off the road and into the grasses beyond.

Nearly perfect…save for the fact that Winnow lost control of the motorcycle.

Well, you couldn’t have everything, as the vehicle rapid-wobbled and Winnow began to fall…before she managed to snag the ‘Immiserate board’ with her non-sword wielding hand, briefly balancing herself and getting a little control before the motorcycle’s front wheel twisted too hard and Winnow lost her ride entirely, holding onto Immiserate the board for another second before she lost her grip, the woman just managing to let go of her sword and wrap her coat around herself before she hit the road in a tumble, several immensely painful impacts slamming into her as she bounced a few times, before she managed enough control to get on her back and have her momentum drag her the rest of the way, her Intricacies-laced coat taking the brunt of the punishment.

For several seconds, she just lay there. In pain.

Part of her didn’t want to move. She’d hit her wall. She couldn’t do any more. All she knew was pain.

…and if she didn’t move, she knew, pain would be her world.

And that world was not enough.

So she rolled over. She found her legs hadn’t broken anything vital. She got up. Pain was temporary. Pride endured.

Immiserate-the-board was floating nearby. Vesper rolled her neck and shoulders, and then pressed on the ‘trigger tooth’ again in her mouth, the board going over to the blade and retrieving it, returning it to Vesper as she removed half of the ‘board’, equipping the sheath onto her side proper and sliding her sword back in, as she looked at where Cole was.

…no movement there. It wouldn’t last, she could tell, but at least for the immediate now, she was stunned and not a threat.

…and a familiar sound. The sound of a helicopter, coming back in. Winnow looked up, then back at Cole’s form, and then back at her ride, gesturing for them to just drop a rope ladder.

They did. Apparently, they’d remembered that they had one.



Hudson didn’t delay herself by letting her driver let her out as her SUV came to a stop this time; she COULD manage to exit these things herself, especially if she was in a hurry. Her cold eyes looked up at the sight of the helicopter as it was starting to fly away. She did a quick assessment: out of her range. She had some potential for offense, but she had always felt she had people for that. And unfortunately, none were around that were viable.

Winnow looked back, holding onto the ladder with one hand. She considered fishing out the 3T to show that she had it and wave it at Hudson, but decided in a second that was childish. This was over. Adults moved on. Despite the distance, the two seemed to manage a held gaze.

Neither said anything, and after a few more seconds, even as her form and the aerial vehicle she was on further shrank into the distance, Winnow turned and finished climbing the ladder to get back in.

Hudson watched her go in silence for the same reason; There was no point in screaming or threats she couldn’t carry out unless she could suddenly fly. While she’d marked Winnow’s face and person, and intended to dig into and find out who exactly had put her and all this into motion it was as over as could be, she had to swallow that it had come up as her loss.

“Well, guess that’s that.” She said sullenly, as Cole shifted and then sat up on her forearms soundlessly. Dribbles of blood ran from where they’d been severed, along with a few sparks. Cole looked down at them and then toward the helicopter shrinking in the distance, tight lipped before Hudson made her way over to her.

“She got you, huh?” Hudson asked, Cole going back to her wounds before rising up to her feet and considering the matter. “...I feel something.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“I feel unfulfilled. Like an empty vessel.” She said in hollow tones, turning it over in her mind like she was chewing something tough. Outside of aggression or loyalty, it was a new sort of taste she didn’t care for. “I don’t like this being unfinished.”

“You and me both, but it’s as finished as it’s going to get. Come on, she can’t be the first one that’s ever escaped you.” Hudson sighed, taking a look around and ending with the pair of hands on the floor still clenched around the hilts of Cole’s swords. From the distance between them and her, they’d just about been blown off her arms. “I thought if anyone would end up taking her head it’d be you.”

“...It’s been a very long time since I’ve failed in pursuit. Even longer since the quarry bit back hard enough to matter.” Cole confessed, before bowing her head. “Will Benedictine be disappointed in me?”

Hudson glanced at her and considered pressing the matter of the reckoning she’d threatened her with, but shrugged it off after a few seconds. There was no point kicking her when she was down, even if this had been a wash Cole had always delivered in the past. One failure didn’t need to offset countless successes… The same applied to her no matter how much money they’d have made off T3. It was more her failure than anyone, if blame was going to go around.

“No, she won’t. You did the best you could have. I’ll put in a good word either way. If the world ran on would’ve, should’ve, and could’ves, no one would ever make any mistakes and things would be perfect. But it doesn’t. Let’s pack it in and get you to someone who can put those hands back on, huh?” She sighed again, Cole slowly nodding. In her own way she was marking the occasion. She likewise wouldn’t forget Winnow any time soon.



-The Pearl-


Dawn tended towards very basic facial expressions; even now, she tended to only show emotion if she was having an extreme emotional reaction. Still, the contented look on her face, however base it was, was still in its own way, a reward, as Vesper handed the 3T over to her.

“Excellent work, Agent Winnow. A grand debut, and hopefully a herald for all your future work, should you choose to accept it.”

“...maybe if the next one isn’t so damn…petty.” Vesper said. “All that, for money.”

“It’s said to be the root of all evil for a reason. But it’s not the core of us. If you want proof, look no further than yourself. You had no skin in this game, and you devoted yourself to it, above and beyond the call of duty. The sorts of people you’ve decided to try and follow, they would say you did them proud. Lives will be saved by this. One day.” Dawn placed the container into a more secure secondary container.

“Not now?”

“This is still a product that needs a lot of work and testing. But now there’s a chance for it to be a saving grace to many people. Not just the ones with money. Mainly because since I have it, I can copy it. And once I do, no forced artificial scarcity will apply.”

“...so I took all that, for a chance.”

“...yes. The better question is, do you think you regret it?”

“..........I don’t know.”

“Good answer. Take a break, Vesper. A good, deep one. Compare this form of risk and reward. And maybe then, the full answer will be clear.”

“You’re not going to call me in again if you somehow find something that fits what I can provide, are you?”

“It wouldn’t be much of a break if I did.”



-Some Earth city, ie not on Weav-


When it was said and done, when the wounds were treated and healing, when the muscles had stopped aching and the nerves had cooled down…

…yes. She thought she COULD see why her dad had wanted this. He’d never quite gotten it, not in the pure sense. She had a feeling that he’d find it a little strange that none of his sons ever tried it, but his daughter had been the one to catch its hook. After all, wasn’t she more the type to be the secondary player in such works?

Maybe.

Sometimes, though, things got shaken up. Stir the pot. Sometimes, the new elements would bond.

“Hey Vesperrrrrr!”


One might think the speaker was Patricia Ravensky. Not this time, though. It was Sunny; she was always changing her look, and sometimes, you went for the most basic changes, in this case, just an alternate hairstyle via a wig. Patricia was more social than her older sister, but not quite as comfortable as Sunny was in her socializing. Perhaps they could work on that. But for now, it was just these two girls on a night out. Not by themselves though, it seemed.

“I found some interesting additions to our plans! You ready?”

“Damn straight. Let’s get lost.”

“Nice to meet you. My name’s Rapanga. Vesper Rapanga.”

Sunday, 6 April 2025

Whatever It Takes, Part 9: 'Cause I Love How It Feels When I Break The Chains

-Just another average day-

Well, not really. Celeste was ill.

Well, mildly ill. She had a nasty headache, one that was keeping her ‘bedridden’. She seemingly had a system; she would sleep for an hour, and then she would play checkers (or, if no one was available at the time, solo card games in the vein of solitaire) for another hour, then sleep another hour, then have some soup and read for another hour, then sleep, checkers, sleep, and so on. She said it worked, and did her best to assuage the girls that she’d be fine, she’d had it before and this had worked.

But, it had hit her when no one else was at the house. Christopher had left for a tri-monthly supply run, needing to get even more supplies as Celeste and Patty looked to be heading back to the lands of the Kobbers soon, and Patty was off with Sunny training with her over the latest ‘gift’ Sunny had been given (some piece of tech, was all the dragon girls knew). Left to their own devices otherwise, Vimmy and Venny had the run of the property and no assignments besides checking in on their mother.

Keeping themselves intermittently occupied wasn’t as hard as it could have been, the two having plenty of things to get into and distract themselves with. Either together or apart, they’d managed to fiddle with their own devices or just wile away the hours, Vimmy mostly focussing on fine tuning her drones a little more and Venny reading or sketching whatever she happened to decide to draw. Drifting in between when Celeste was awake or asleep, they’d stood watch a little uneasily. Her system did seem to be working for her, but they didn’t like seeing the effects of the headache on her when there wasn’t much they could do to help with it beyond just being around.

They’d eventually ended up at the library in the lower levels of the house, quietly reading in between small snippets of conversation. Their time in Weav had deepened their already tight bond, enough they could almost guess what the other was thinking just based on surface clues. Venny had dug into a couple of books on the surrounding areas and their flora and fauna, while Vimmy had found a few accounts of things the Ravenskys had taken part in in the past and settled down to read through them. Oh, here was an account of the Hinagon, Celeste had mentioned that before. And Dawn had video of the event, which is mainly how Vimmy knew about it. She’d only done one move at said event, one hell of a kick to the enemy, but it had been…well, one hell of a kick. Against a Harrower, everything counted. She’d broken most of the bones in her leg doing it, according to her, so she sure as heck hoped it had counted.

Vimmy had been returning some of the books she’d taken to their places on the shelves when she’d found another one that looked interesting, but when she’d gone to take it there had been some resistance to being removed, causing muffled sounds she couldn’t immediately place; A few seconds later the shelf seemed to dip and then silently parted from the wall like a door, she stepping back and making a surprised sound. Venny had looked up at her then stared as Vimmy examined the parting, pausing and turning to her with big eyes. “Uh…”

“Yeah, I see it. What’s that, do you think?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I dunno, a secret room? Maybe a passage or something?” She said hesitantly. “Come here, let’s… Let’s check it out!”

“Eh… I don’t know. Secrets are secrets for a reason, you don’t think it’s a little like snooping?” Venny asked; despite saying that, she was still rising and walking over to join her.

“I think if it were like that, there’d be no chance anybody could find it. This is probably more like a normal secret, not a life or death one.” She pointed out. Venny nodded, seeing what she meant. “Well- oh, okay. Just a peek, though.”

They held their breath as Vimmy slowly opened the bookshelf, both noticing it didn’t creak or make a real noise when she did; That probably meant the hinges weren’t old or rusty. The sight of many crates and boxes greeted their low light vision, the two of them hesitating at the entrance before walking towards them all. It seemed the room was being used for storage more than anything, from what they could tell.

“...Huh! It’s not what I was expecting.”

“What did you think it was going to be?” Venny said, smiling a little. Once she’d seen the crates stacked neatly she’d been reminded of holiday decorations bundled away in a garage, even though she knew that wasn’t the case here.

“Well, I don’t know! Some big thing you wouldn’t want people to just stumble across, I guess.” She pointed out. Venny shrugged. “I think these count. I wouldn’t want a bunch of boxes all over my house either, tripping people up and taking up space.”

“What do you think is in them?”

“I’d say it doesn’t matter, that’s a step too far. They’re in here for a reason even if it’s totally benign. I don’t want to poke around in them, we’d have been told if it was something we should have looked at in the first place.” Venny decided, Vimmy hesitating before she nodded in agreement. “Well… Huh. I wonder how many secret rooms and passages and things there are here in the house.”

“Hundreds. Maybe thousands!” Venny said, before she laughed a little. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Think you can figure out how to close it back up?”

“I sure hope so.” Vimmy said, taking a look over her shoulder at the crates as they walked back out. Despite herself, she couldn’t help but wonder…

As it turned out, closing the secret passage was just down to pulling on the false book again. The two girls resumed perusing the shelves.

It was Venny who noticed the lone book on top of said shelves, having been out of sight before the hidden door being opened had adjusted its position, apparently having been right on the ‘hinge’ between two bookshelves, and being ‘left behind’ when the door was closed again. Hovering up a bit, she pulled it down. This one was a bit dusty, but the title was clear.

THE FOUR BIDDEN LESSERS.


The book was also locked. As in, it had a lock keeping it closed, like a diary.

“Hey- look at this.” She said, after wiping the front off with her palm. “It was up top there, sort of tucked away.”

“The four bidden- the forbidden?” Vimmy asked, leaning in and squinting at the lock. “What’s that mean?”

“I think it’s actually four, or a play on words or something. It’d just say forbidden if it was forbidden. Though I guess that could be why it’s locked shut like this.” Venny said, looking down at it too.

“Huh! We’re finding all kinds of things in here. What do you think it says?”

“I have no idea. I don’t remember anybody saying anything about Lessers, four bidden or not. Do you?” Venny asked, Vimmy shaking her head. “Maybe it’s something we’re not- No, that makes it sound intentional. Maybe it’s just something that has no bearing on us, you know? Like how I wouldn’t expect Julia to know about, I dunno, ancient Roman culture or something. It’s just not something that would come up for her.”

“I get what you’re saying. Well… Let’s show it to mom, maybe she’ll tell us. Or at least, take it back and hide it better. If we weren’t supposed to see this either it probably should’ve been put somewhere we wouldn’t just run across it. At all. ” Venny suggested. Vimmy nodded before looking back down at the lock on the front. “...Why do you think it’s bound like that?”

“Probably not meant to be read by just anybody at their leisure, would be my guess. Who knows why? But that’s the only reason I could think of. That or it’s a private matter, but it comes to the same thing.” Venny pointed out. “We’ve got a few minutes before she wakes up again, let’s clean up and then we can get to the bottom of this.”



The fact that Celeste, who had woken up for her ‘soup and book’, looked a touch alarmed when the two girls showed her the book they’d found was worrisome.

“...you certainly know how to keep me on my toes. This is not the kind of reading material I should peruse at this time. For relaxation, anyway. You were down in the lower libraries?”

Yes.

“Curious little cats. Well, at least you didn’t try to open it. This keyhole is a fake. Attempting to force the book open or insert a key into it will trigger spells that would destroy it. If we don’t want it opened, it stays closed, and if someone tries to get it open anyway, well…some things are better lost. No no, it’s not an EVIL or cursed book or anything.” Celeste said as the girls looked worried in turn. “It just has…things we like to have recorded…but not things we’d like to have known.

“...but you did stumble over it, which might be an indication from the universe. I do think you girls can handle the knowledge of what’s in here. Maybe not in EXECUTION, but just so you know what it is, and why it’s hidden. All right, the actual way to open this is…hook my finger on this corner…there’s a very tiny button…the code is…three presses…” A very faint series of clicks. “Then one…then five….and then four.”

Click-clickclickclickclickclick-clickclickclickclick. The lock part on the front of the book popped off, allowing the book to be opened.

Within…was what appeared at first glance to be an anatomy book, with handwritten pages and all sorts of instructions and theorems.

“We’ve told you about the subset of Stream-based uses for combat and general use on the body and mind. T.A.N.G.L.E, thaumaturgy, and the basic techniques for using it for attack and defense. Which neither of you can use because you can’t tap the Stream, but we did still show you said basics.” One might not be able to repair an engine themselves, but they could still look at and understand the blueprints. “The Fray and the Aegis arts. Like martial arts, there are ranks to them. Various things let you do more, more power, more variety, and so on.

“Well…these are techniques off the end of the map. For combat, the Fray, that is. Stuff we personally developed because…well, we’re strong and…kind of prone to excess.” That was one way of putting it. “Techniques we’ve determined are…somewhat workable, but not feasible. Even for us, especially with extended use. Hence the name. There’s four of them, it’s wordplay…as for Lessers, it’s our naming convention. Now, as said…these are techniques we personally developed, but overall, we’ve decided that the risks and long term detriments mean we don’t want the knowledge being wide spread.We haven’t even taught any of our children these techniques. We don’t want to risk it. For the most part…every now and then, somewhere in the world, someone who’s a good person starts figuring out one of said techniques in their own way…and we, if we found them, would combine our knowledge with theirs so they could learn it in a more safe way. And do our best to make sure that knowledge stays with them. There’s been like…seven people like that, over the years. And some bad people, but we just made sure they couldn’t do anything. We haven’t even shown this book to our friends and family, the 44, any of them. But between your devotion to us, and your unique bodies meaning none of these would likely work for you, I think I can tell you. I assume, like the secret history of our world, you’ll keep it to yourselves.” Well, yes. That went without saying. The two girls would have kept very BAD secrets for their mother; ‘good’ secrets like this they’d likely die before revealing. Unless they determined it was best otherwise of course. They were still learning the finer details of that possibility; hopefully they’d never have to use that knowledge. Sort of like what was in the book, actually.

“The first one, you wouldn’t even need if you COULD use the Stream. You already sort of have it, based on your altered semi-artificial muscle fibers, the ‘merged twitch’ muscle fibers and all that. But for us normal flesh and bloods, we call the technique Heedless. It’s using the Stream to invoke full use of uninhibited muscle power at will. What makes it different than say, a panicking mother, is that it is executed across the entire body. All the muscles, in sync. Which just means more ways it can go wrong. Tear your body up horribly, break your own bones…but, it does provide a considerable strength boost. But, as said, your muscles just sort of do that naturally, so it probably wouldn’t work for you at all. Same way the Glorious didn’t affect you.” Now that they had some context, they could see how the anatomy drawings tied to what Celeste had said, the specific instructions on Stream control, the results, and the downsides. It did seem to cause severe muscle swelling, like your body was actually getting extra mass added directly to it when the technique worked…and the damage that could happen during it or if you didn’t ‘cool down’ properly.

After the book was opened they’d taken their standard formation of one dragon on each side, Vimmy and Venny blinking down at the diagrams and written notes with a little surprise. Neither one had quite expected the reality, but the gist made sense to them; There was always something new to learn in any arena, and Stream-based applications would fit right into that… especially with other people likewise working on their own understanding of it all. Still, the title being both four bidden and forbidden made a little more sense. While initially disappointed that the sum of their own Stream capabilities were and always would be a true option of last resort, it hadn’t made them any less interested or curious in a world beyond their own.

The Heedless technique sort of exemplified that, and the other takeaway; They already had so much going for them there was no reason to be greedy. The drawings and notations were a little clearer from the first, but even the obvious side effects or ways it could go wrong pointed out pretty clearly why it wasn’t something to be messed around with idly.

“...Huh. So this would sort of be, the next logical step from using the Stream to boost your own movements and capabilities, I guess…” Venny muttered, narrowing her eyes. “No wonder it’s off the edge of the map.”

“...It really does come down to anatomy to a pretty big part, doesn’t it? Even before we really knew exactly why some of the things we’ve seen and been in didn’t quite take on us, that was sort of our guess.” Vimmy said, not quite going pale but a little preoccupied by imaging the use of uninhibited muscle strength. She knew the body had locks on it, both physical and mental, to prevent just that, because of the danger and trauma, but in a pinch… She could see why it would be forbidden off the rip.

“Especially for the next technique. This is one I’ve used. I’d used. Heartless.” Ah, hence the ‘Lessers’ name. Were all of them going to be named Something-Less? “We’ve shown how Stream use acts as a growth agent for our bodies. Allows us to be more than human. This is generally a sort of all around strengthening and toughening as you learn its ways, but it CAN be targeted. The Heartless technique, we’ve basically determined that specialized training to apply an extra amount of that process to the cardiovascular system is needed. Without that, things go bad real fast. Not impossible, but…well, real bad. But, if you improve your body the right way, like I have…Heartless overclocks the cardiovascular system. Which in turn rapidly boosts the metabolic rate of the body. We also called it Hummingbirding, because when done…it sounds like a hummingbird’s wings. Made very loud. You can hear the person’s heartbeat like a muted drum even when it’s just ‘warming up’...and when it’s going, well, the average person’s heart goes at 180 or so beats a minute or so when exerting themselves…Heartless can double that, even get it close to triple that rate. It almost sounds like a buzzing low roar at that point.” From Celeste’s tone, she definitely sounded like she was speaking from experience there.

“The technique also requires a sort of ‘skin breathing’, because the lungs can’t provide enough oxygen for the blood to get the effective ‘supercharge’, you need more air. Done right, it mainly increases your capacity to utilize acceleration and torque to make your blows stronger. And it can, and pretty much will, cause blood vessel damage, cerebral hemorrhaging, damage to the brain from how fast the blood is being run through the body, we’ve noted memory loss, and hallucinations, both visual and audial. I had those, the audial ones. And of course, overdo it or go past even your extended limit, and you get heart failure and death. Or in two cases we’ve recorded…literal heart explosion, the organ just going too fast and hard and breaking completely.”

It also apparently caused skin darkening and intense vascularity, there being a drawing of Celeste with her body a mass of superficial veins bulging across her whole drawn form, including eyes stained red with burst blood vessels, which, from how it was drawn, made her look like her eyes were a midnight black.


“Patty started figuring this one out on her own…we’ve asked her to stop working on it until she turns 21. If she still wants to consider it as an option, we’ll consider teaching her the technique as we’ve designed it. I hope she changes her mind. I’m pretty sure the reason I react so badly to the cold when I’ve sealed myself is because I damaged myself using it. But…doing so saved lives. So, a worthwhile sacrifice.”

“...Oh, my god.” Vimmy said quietly. The How made sense, it followed one thing after the other… but the full reality of it still made her swallow and put a hand over her mouth. It was a specific sort of targeting, the kind of thing that would obviously be an ace held back in reserve, but the consequences were- Despite herself she could imagine it, a heart beating so hard and fast other people could hear the motion and blood pressurized beyond what anything could normally have and survive. Even though they were entirely different, she couldn’t help but wonder how a mechanically assisted heart like hers or Venny’s would compare just down to the numbers.

“Huh. So this is- Yeah, it would be the next entailment. I’m not going to pretend the implications aren’t a little terrifying, but it does make sense as progression.” Venny nodded. “You definitely weren’t kidding about the more than human part. I honestly can’t imagine anyone who wasn’t trained, ready, and prepared trying something like this and living through the next ten minutes of their life.”

Vimmy looked back down at the annotations and the drawing itself, not able to keep from it. As cut and dried as it was, and despite the scientific sort of way it was presented… the sketch of Celeste still looked like she was in pain to her, and Vimmy could just barely imagine the totality of the feeling. She leaned a little bit back and then made herself look again, because it was important.

“If it helps, Patricia’s unique ‘Bones’ technique where she can somewhat ‘rubberize’ her form might make it safer for her to use…maybe. We’ll see. And even so…Stream healing, and specialized healing like the chrono-manipulation my sister in law Christine uses can repair heart damage. And there ARE heart transplants. In THEORY, you can handle the damage the first two of these techniques can, and will, cause. The last one we’ve actually…worked out, though? Not so much. We alternately call it Timeless, or Mindless. There’s training we do that allows us various kinds of altered perception, but those are, if you can manage them, safe…well, safe-ish. Think of them like when you were growing your seeds. Correct use of the soil, water, plant food, light, all combining to make a better whole.

“This technique, however, it’s akin to feeding raw Stream energy into the seeds to induce immediate, explosive growth. Specifically, Timeless involves directly manipulating your brain’s bio-electrical signals via Stream technique to induce a condition called tachyphysia. Your brain actually enters, or more accurately, is forcibly warped into an altered state where its perception of time gets slowed down, directly. Beyond hand-eye coordination, or reflexes, or Stream empowering of those, or Christine directly fiddling with local time itself…in this state, fast movements, actions, events, they all go at a crawl, and those who are ludicrously fast, even they seem to move slow. I’ve seen Christopher catch bullets between his fingers using the technique, and someone else we helped figure it out repeatedly dodged lightning AFTER it had been fired. That is something of extreme note; if you want to dodge lightning, even if you’re as good as us with potential and training and Stream use and all that, we, and you, do it by assessing it’s coming and moving BEFORE the bolt is fired. Because lightning goes at 3,700 miles a second. Once it’s out, no amount of reflexes can help you. Unless, in our world anyway, you use Timeless. Well, and have an incredibly well honed body and reflexes, but no one who could figure out and use Timeless WOULDN’T have that.

“I’m sure you can hazard a guess on why this sort of thing is bad. But altering your brain’s own natural electrical signals is just part of the danger. It also forces your brain to process information much faster than a brain is meant to. Christopher only used it because his brain’s been altered, and he can shunt some of the danger onto the computers inside his head, interconnected with his actual brain. I…wasn’t so changed, so…I made minimal use and quickly abandoned it. And tachyphysia can go the other way: you see things happening faster than they are, instead of slower, which doesn’t help you at all, so you have to not only induce it, but induce it the right way, which adds more strain and consequence. The brain is the one part of the body that doesn’t naturally heal and get restored if it’s damaged, and that holds true with our special healing techniques as well. Christine can do more with her unique one of a kind powers, but she’s one woman. Timeless causes death, brain damage, paralysis, insanity…or well, our studies indicate that it would do that. We don’t have a lot of real world data to draw on. Even using it ‘right’, it rapidly becomes akin to basically doing one of those colored block puzzles that you have to twist around to try and make all the colors the same on each side…with one hand. On a time limit. And if you fail, you get badly electrocuted. And honestly, electrocution and death is a kindness to some ways that it could go wrong. At least, that’s what we theorize.”

Those ‘theories’ had drawings, of course. People whose heads were literally smoking, their hair on end from static electrical ‘sidecharge’, their pupils so small that they were more or less gone, inducing a sort of ‘blank madness’ in their gaze. There were also considerably less notes than the first two: the Heedless technique could have been learned out of the book, and the Heartless could probably have been put together if you had other knowledge learned from Stream technique use. But the Timeless? Only a few solid details, and otherwise a lot of theorizing and in some ways, catastrophizing.

Listening quietly, the two had nodded along as the picture of Timeless made itself clear to them; More than just a garden variety Haste effect or something like that, it was a totality of speed and reaction that made it much more. Even early on in Celeste’s explanation they were able to grasp the particulars of why it wasn’t something to be trifled with or the sort of thing that could be flippantly experimented with; Any other organ for the most part could be healed, or fixed to a degree, or something along those lines, but brains were a different matter entirely. It was partly why their own hadn’t been replaced or slotted with machines, only the outputs and inputs enhanced.

“...sounds about right. To go back to something, the whole thing of dodging lightning- Once it’s coming it’s too late, but with something along these lines, I could see that making the difference. You’re barely measuring a space between seconds, you’d be, well, the whole rate of everything would just stretch, I’d think.” Venny nodded, raising her eyebrows. The fact that Christopher and her mother had managed to utilize it surprised her on the surface level, but not much beyond that. IF anyone would have the ability to do so and live…

“I can see why this one is a lot of conjecture and thought but not a lot of practical experience. After it’s said and done I don’t think anyone would be in a state to get much information you couldn’t already guess from.” Vimmy said, once again taken by the drawings and sketches of the potential aftereffects. She’d immediately grasped why there weren’t as many notes… In their own ways, both the dragons were a little morbidly curious; If this was the third of the Lessers, what was the fourth? And their mother, after all, was a mind reader.

“The last one, well…it’s more or less just theory. It’s taking all these and combining them. Using them all at the same time. We just, for lack of a better term, call it Nevertheless.”

This was just a few small notes and sketches, mostly what looked like math equations that showed the process was essentially impossible under virtually all circumstances.

“From what we’ve learned, as we have no practical experience at all…this wouldn’t work. It can’t. The strain of it, the pain it would cause, the DAMAGE it would do to you even if you somehow got it ALL perfectly synced…well, maybe you could use it as fuel for a suicide attack, but there’s easier methods for similar results. So you’re probably wondering why we have it at all. Well…there’s a reason.

“We’ve basically come to realize that if you wanted to use this…you’d need more than a Stream hardened body, or something like your bodies. You’d need a healing factor. One of very high strength. Convert energy directly to mass strength. And…well, you’d need to basically enjoy the pain. Blocking it wouldn’t work; it would interfere with the Timeless technique. You’d need to be so warped physically and mentally that the pain of Nevertheless would be like a drug high, sheer ecstasy, all lines broken in pure SENSATION and power. And there was only one…thing we knew that fit that description.”

Over the page went as Celeste turned it, to that lone possibility, the drawing of her. They’d never seen her, but they knew her. The story fragments of her had forged a very, very firm and dark picture.

“Patricia Delhart. Agony. In her prime. She…could go on a level that might still exceed anyone else on this planet. My husband in his prime, him and his friends, him and me operating in perfect sync…she could match it and go past it. If she wasn’t so damn crazy and in need to HURT, she would have been unbeatable. We think that in terms of actual execution, she used the Nevertheless theory technique we’ve puzzled on to just keep going past even the limits we have, because she loved the pain and her body healed from everything. So, by that fact, no one else will ever be able to figure out this Nevertheless technique. To make it work, anyway. It would, will just kill anyone else. But we have it recorded, as something that might exist. What little details we think are most accurate. And the hope that if it DID exist it’s now lost and forgotten. Nothing in here is going to teach you it. It will just lead you to a horrible demise. But…while we think that such knowledge SHOULD be recorded…it needs to otherwise be locked away. Because too many would seek it anyway. And well, we can’t say with 100 percent certainty that absolutely NO ONE could figure it out, especially if there’s even the slightest hint of how.

“So, as we wrote it down, as wordplay. The Forbidden Lesses, Four Bidden Lessers. Commanding yourself to find the edge, and then go past it, draw a new line…and then, if you dare, step past THAT. To make all else before you a lesser. Hence we have it locked up as you found it.

“That is that, more or…less. I’m sure your questions are well answered. With that all said, I’m going to re-lock it. Just leave it by the bedside for now: I’ll replace it downstairs when I’m feeling better.”

Vimmy and Venny had been a little surprised by the picture of Agony more than anything; Not because of who it was, because in all the things they’d heard, and the stories they’d been told, their mental picture had been pretty close to the reality. Not a perfect one to one, but close enough that despite it just being lines on a page they were still taken aback. Any one of the individual techniques was essentially flirting with death, but all of them in one person- especially a creature that lived and breathed pain and atrocity- was a horrible thing to imagine. They understood why it all should have been recorded, but both silently agreed with locking it away.

“...Yeah. Yeah, I’d say they are. Thanks for telling us and not just glossing over it all, I don’t think either of us really grasped how far things could go if they were pushed. Even with our enhancements and what’s been done to us, it’s still… I guess there’s always going to be a line of some kind, and maybe that’s a good thing.” Venny slowly nodded.

“We’ll leave it right here.” Vimmy said, before she hugged Celeste from the side. “...Thanks, mom. We’ll be back soon.”

As they left, both in their own private thoughts over what they’d learned, Vimmy couldn’t help but look behind her at Celeste. The picture from the Heartless technique had stuck with her, and even though she knew she was made of pretty tough stuff, it was still a little worrying to her. She’d move past it soon enough, but… It was a reminder that some things were beyond the pair for a reason and to be grateful for what they had instead of what they couldn’t.