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I stare down at the magic circle in front of me, it hovered in front of me covered with glyphs and runes. It looked increasingly impressive, I could summon several varieties of them.
Each one of them has their own center image with a picture and a feel to them,
There was also my ability to manifest strings of runes, these can connect to various of my magic circles each combination feels different.
However, over the course of my testing I have found one very important thing, none of my circles or runes do anything. I typed using them to block things, move things, change things nothing worked.
Eventually, I had taken to figured my powers were visually impressive but mostly useless, when I looked into joining the wards online I found that the best-treated of the wards members were kind, useful, and powerful.
I was only one of these things, and of them, I had the worst. If it was powerful but not kind or useful then I would at least be able to earn respect. If I was useful but not kind or powerful at least I would be able to help out. But, as it is being kind doesn't do me any good.
It was with that mindset that went in search of a way to make myself useful, The school had paid for all of my medical expenses to the hospital and enough money that we were no longer hurting as bad but I knew that ever since mom died and dad had to move from a two-person income to a one-person income we had been hurting.
It didn't help that mom was the breadwinner, a tenured professor, and head of her department, whereas dad was a simple head of hiding, at a local dock workers association that was quickly crumbling.
Dad tried to hide it but I noticed, but I noticed that we were slowly eating cheaper and cheaper food, and that the computer I had was mom's old one because we had to sell the newer one we bought.
It was especially hard to not notice that we were no longer able to go on any trips, and Christmas was a sad dreary thing with few presents. It was with all this in my heart that I made up my mind
I went on PHO and made an account, I started trawling through the pages. I eventually found the one I was looking for, see heroes in this city were numerous and powerful. More so than in almost any non-triumvirate city.
We also had the highest number of villains this side of America, unfortunately, our city also had some of the worst types of crime in each of our biggest gangs, we had racists, people who forcibly addicted people to drugs, and human traffickers.
If we had people who were powerful and villainous to hold territory then we could push them out of the city and hold it long enough to let the PRT get a stronger hold here. That would cause increased investment in the city, inflate it the market, and reawaken the city’s commerce.
All that this city needed was a new villain, someone who could kick out the old guard and bring in some new blood. Someone who could when the time came back off and let things become what they could be.
Unfortunately, Taylor knew she was not that person. She was an excellent judge of character, someone who could read most people at a glance. She had made friends with Emma when she saw her in grade school.
She was fragile, and kind, she was like a spun glass person on the inside all the more beautiful because of her fragility. That hadn't stopped Taylor from trying to strengthen her, she had convinced her to go into modeling, to get into makeup, and to study harder.
She and Emma had been making progress when her mother died, Emma had been there with her throughout the entire grieving process. She had thought that going through that with Taylor would have made her stronger and tempered the glass a little.
And yet, she had broken, she had turned into something ugly with sharp edges. These edges are what cut Taylor into who she is, and it's how she knew that she wasn't a leader, she was better in the background.
As someone who worked to support others, and so she searched. She looked and researched, and finally, she found them. A group of rag-tag parahumans with incredibly mixed personalities and powers.
The group consisted of an enigmatic shadow user, a bitchy psychic, a pretentious prince, and a angry animal lover. They couldn't be more different, but I could see them working.
The prince would be seen by many as the leader but in the few videos, they had put the broody shadow user as the leader while the psychic was the tactician and the other were followers.
Their personality meanwhile were much different, the bitchy psychic was surprisingly sweet and seemed to go out of her way to make the other feel comfortable, the royal was not straight, and the dog girl was just as obviously neurodivergent.
The story they told practically told itself, all it needed was someone to bring it to fruition, I smirked this was going to be fun. I continued to research this team that I would guide, if I had my way they would rule the city, and no one would know my name.
Three days later I walked through the bad part of the city, there had been calls to the police about an illegal dog shelter in this part of town and whenever any police had tried to discover it they had been chased off by hellhound, aka bitch.
The post had said that if you had a dog you could no longer take care of and you waited in this area with the dog she would come and take them it might take several trips but it had been noted to work, she did this to provide the dogs a home.
I wandered through the area, this was the first time I had done this, I had three knives and two cans of pepper spray. I expected to be here for a few days while she assessed me and maybe talked to her friends.
I didn't know if they played themselves up in costume, I knew due to some leaked security cam footage I knew that it wasn't entirely for show. I continued to walk down the alley until I came face to face with a brown-haired woman.
She looked at me with a tilted head, just for a moment I felt something shift that had never shifted before. It felt like a part of my power moving but it was gone too fast for me to address.
She seems startled by something but shakes her head “What are you doing here”
I look at her even if she isn't the right person there is no harm in telling her “I'm looking for bitch of the undersides to see if she can get me into contact with their leader”
This seemed to take the person back, my intentions were entirely pure. I legitimately wanted to help them. She looks at me “OK you found me What do you want?”
I start as well, no way it's this easy “I want to talk to your boss”
“Why?” She seems firmer than usual at that statement
I shake my head as well “Listen no offense but as far as I know your just some nosy person pretending to be bitch to get my secrets. Can you show me some proof?”
She nods and the dog she’s walking starts to grow, it gets slightly bigger and I nod at her. “Ok I believe you, I'm a parahuman who recently got powers and is looking to join your team”
She legitimately seemed startled at this, but I somehow knew that we were communicating effectively. “Why would you want that”
“I don’t think the team is living up to its potential, I think that while each person on the team is good on their own they could be so much better together, and it's a damn shame that isn’t much better than a group of strangers”
She looks at me “If you join the team my pay cut will get smaller, What do you bring that's better than the pay I would get?”
“Well other than helping your team be a better cohesive unit, I can help you get licensing to open a proper dog shelter with government funding that will allow you to help more dogs, hire assistance to take care of things in your place, all of whom would be trained by you in how to handle dogs”
She looked at me, and considering what I had said she slowly nodded her head. “OK, you can join the team. I don't know why but you are by far the easiest person I have ever communicated with, and I know I can trust you… You're not mind controlling me are you”
I looked at her in confusion and slight apprehension, "No has that been an issue for you in the past” This team might have potential but going up against a human-controlling parahuman would be a bit much event for me.
“No, I need to call the team. I was just about to head out for a meeting with them” With that she pulled out a phone and made a call “Hey Tats, I'm bringing a new recruit with me”
She paused listening to what the other person on the phone was saying “Yes she’s the real deal, no I'm not joking, and I'll ask, what’s your name” she asked me, She listened to the phone again and clarified “your cape name”
“I don't have one yet but if you need proof that I'm a cape” and with that, I held up a hand and manifested the first link in a runic chain, She nodded and went back to talking on the phone.
The person on the other end of the phone raises their voice until I can hear it, bitch pulls her head back with a wince. She keeps listening before handing me the phone “tats wants to talk to you”
I shrugged and grab the phone “So you're the mysterious person who bitch is bringing to recruit even when she keeps saying that she doesn't want to recruit anyone else?”
I nod and say “Yes that's right Tattletale, I bribed her by saying that I would help her set up an official dog shelter that has assistance who she can personally train and get assistance from the government to maintain it.”
There was a pause “ok, bitch says you have powers what are they”
“I have the power to manifest a series of l illusions, all the same, but they interconnect and react to each other”
She takes a moment to consider this and then finally asks “Why do you want to join”
“I think your team is not living up to its potential and I think that's a shame, I want to help all of you reach your collective potential rather than all of you continue to grow as individuals but not as a unit. Then I want your help pushing the other gangs out of the city by taking and keeping territory. In exchange, I'll join your team and help forward your goals as well”
She sighed “Well at least your straight forward, have bitch take you to the base and we can continue this discussion”
With that, she hung up and I shrug at bitch, she shrugs back and she nods out of the ally, and starts walking that way
Around thirty minutes later we make it to a broken-down factory, she leads me in and up a set of stairs. The entire room is full of extremely dusty, half-covered old machines.
We make it to the top of the stairs and she opens it leading to a normal-looking apartment, It has a kitchen a living room, and even an open tiled area that looks fit for a dining room.
There are also four doors and the open door of the bathroom, it all together looks like nothing more than a decent place to live. There were also three people sitting in this place.
A boy playing video games, a girl with a foxy grin, and a man who looked older than the rest. “Hi I'm Taylor, and if you’ll have me I would love to join your team”
All of them stopped what they were doing to look at me, and the boy burst out laughing “hell yes I like her, My name is Alac, that's Brian and Lisa” he gestured to the other two “I for one say yes, it sounds like Rachel said yes already?” When Rachel nods he shakes his head and continues
“So now all she needs is one more vote to be brought in” he finishes
“And permission from the boss” I had heard tell of the enigmatic boss man, I already had a plan for him and it required me to play the enigmatic youth who is eager for allies
“Oh, I thought the undersides were solo,” I say letting some confusion enter my voice, It wasn't real but only Lisa would catch it and that was on purpose.
During my research I had come to a conclusion about her power, no matter how adamant she was that her power was telepathy it just didn't fit what she did. She knew things about people that sometimes they didn’t know about themselves.
I had however noticed something interesting, when looking over the few videos of her in action there had always been things on the person that proved what she was saying. That led to my theory that she was an entirely different type of thinker than she proclaimed to be.
Her slight widening of eyes, and her looking around without moving her eyes to three specific spots throughout the room confirmed that she got my message. There were cameras here, I had told bitch that I wanted to show off to the team in an open area and that I could do more with more space.
This allows me to take the team out of a watched space “I was hoping to win everyone” I paused when I remembered Alac's proclamation and amended “Everyone who hasn't already accepted me, with a show of my powers it however needs open space and for that we will need to go somewhere bigger”
Alac stood up, bitch was still at the door, and Lisa slowly nodded seeing everyone else agreeing Brian just sighed “Fine, do you have a place in mind?”
I smirked “I actually do, There is a construction sight that was opened cleared, and had the beginnings of construction done before the company doing it ran out of money. They have been paying people to guard the sight, unfortunately, the money for this ran out two days ago, there is lots of open space and homeless people still avoid the space”
The entire team looked stunned, even Alac who broke into a slightly disbelieving laugh “Wow, looks like someone is prepped, How’d you know about the anyways”
I just shook my head and headed out, it took around five minutes to get there, it was a happy accident that the base was in the same neighborhood as the sight. When we got there I was able to open the gate with a key, I had broken in and stolen it three days ago when the Foreman had told his crew that the next day would be their last.
I locked it behind me and I walked us deeper in and to my favorite spot, I had actually been practicing here, I could make my illusions bigger when I pushed myself.
The others looked around in appreciation, I nodded and looked at them “So do you want me to start or?”
Lisa speaks up first “Why don't you describe your powers, you said that it's illusions? What kind of illusions”
I nod “Well mostly they are of magic circles, each one is different I can choose what circle I want to summon, and I can also summon lines of runes in the air”
The others looked impressed except for Lisa who looked confused, she nods “ok Here the thing with powers all of them have a combat aspect even if we don't immediately know about that use of our power”
I nod I had known this, it came up in my research “I think my power is supposed to be used to distract and intimidate people, Like most illusions it’s about shock and awe rather than true damage”
She nods “All alright why don't you start with manifesting one”
I nod, I want to impress them so I start with the web it has a cool ominous look, and with a burst of willpower I called the spider into existence, it felt like I was weaving the web together with my power.
Lisa's eyes snaped open wide “You said this was an illusion” Her voice was accusatory, the others looked at her then looked on guard. Except for Alac who looked relaxed.
I look back at her with confusion “It is” Then I wave my hand through it and her wide eyes turn to a look of understanding
“Ok, stand down I see what happened here, bitch this is probably the best find you could have found”
With that she gestured me back and braced herself She touched the illusion and both of us gasped, the illusion pulled itself over Lisa. No, I pulled it over her, it was instinctual but an active thing I did.
It was pulled into her body, spiderwebbing around her body then sinking into her.
Lisa looked confused then started laughing “Holy fuck, no way, Taylor you have my vote. Ok, listen you're not an illusionist you're a Trump”
I blinked I had come across that term but everyone argued what it actually meant “and that is”
Lisa stops and looks at me, She then smirks harder, and suddenly the facts pull themselves together in my head and it's obvious “My power changes how other powers work… each of my magic circles has an individual effect, and my runic links alter that effect by linking two or more of them together.” I started to feel a slight headache
The knowledge kept coming and so did my words “This one works by altering the power into a master slash whatever they were before, for Lisa the power makes it so that she can use our intuition as well as hers to draw conclusions, This massively lowers the strain on her and puts it on other people. She also gains a trump aspects where she can give others the insights that she uses their brains to gain”
Lisa nodded at me and I smirked back at her, The others processed what I had said and stood in stunned silence, my powers were insanely useful. Lisa winced “ok so while it lessens the strain I still have it, also I don't think your power removes drawbacks from any powers, If someone for instance were to have to sacrifice their limbs to activate your power might be able to lower the requirement but not remove it”
She nods to herself and asks “Can you turn this off”
I was about to shake my head but then felt something interesting, I somehow knew I could. I put my hands together, pulling out a string of runes. After a certain length, the entire thing detached from my off-hand and hung down to the ground
I look at Lisa and she nods, I walk up to her and the rune sting rises up and into her, I pull it and the a illusory web connecting her to us all shatters into light and vanishes.
She staggers for a moment and seems to have a momentary struggle focusing “wow ok, that's a bit strange, I think I can get used to this but it's going to take some getting used to”
Alac walked up “OK me next can you turn me into a brute?” Seeing my confused look he amended “A person with powers that alter or augment the user's physical prowess”
The others nod, except for Lisa who has a confused look on her face, but I nod at him. I had not fully categorized my powers but it was pretty intuitive “OK there are a few options but they depend on what your powers are now, You listed as having a very small power to interfere with electrical impulses in a person's body is that true”
Alan shakes his head “I have the ability to control a person's nervous system, this control is however dependent on my ability to know a person's nervous system, I can sense them slightly but not much, when I trip people what I'm doing is causeing nerves to fire off at random. If I were to spend the time and grew comfortable I would be able to interpret a person's sense though this sense of their nerves, or even control limbs with enough understanding”
Lisa's look of confusion grew but I had enough understanding to go from there, he wanted a power that made him a fighter, I nodded at him and manifested two circles one with a man at the center and the other with a mass of colors, I then connect them with strings of runes.
I make this and following an instinct I lay it on the ground “Step in and be changed”
He chuckles and steps to the center, I pull the array over him and it collapses into him, light glows under his skin and billows out before it sinks into him entirely.
He gasped and collapses to his knees “ok, wow, what the fuck. How the fuck does that even work”
With those words he rises to stand, however, it is different from how he acts normally. This is graceful in a way that can be best described as the middle ground between poetic and dangerous.
His movements are different as well, his eyes are focused and he is looking at me. He takes a few steps, they are less graceful than he showed when standing up but still beyond human.
Over the course of a few minutes that grace reaches that same level and continues to grow. After a while his movements become faster and faster, once he reaches his seaming maximum speed he takes a step and his body contorts.
With what looks like very little movement he is standing fifteen feet up on a rebar, he twists again and is on the ground. He does this a few more times until he is moving at his old speed.
Now he is moving in three dimensions, with a final twist he is standing on the ground looking with shining eyes at Brian. “Fight me!”
Brian looks at him and shakes his head then turns to me “Remove it, we need to see if there is a master element to your power. Until we do, do not use it on me or Rachel”
Lisa spoke up “As far as my power can tell it doesn’t. Alac do you mind if I share a small part of your past” he looked over at her and then lays down on the ground with a nod to me and Lisa
I nod at him and pull out my now familiar rune lasso, and send it into him, This time it's a bit more complex. I have to pull the threads out of him while not breaking it like I did to Lisa.
I can still see the moment he no longer has the effect on him because his whole body jerks. Lias speaks up “OK, number one alacs past is one where through to use of a master power he was able to experience pretty much the entirety of the human scale of pleasure, pain, and everything in between. This caused his brain to burn out his ability to feel strong emotions”
“This is because all the pathways that he uses to experience them were overworked and stopped producing the same chemicals, and they also scared over, now That's just my supernaturally powerful guess, but if I'm right the reason he likes being under Taylor’s power so much is that powers have no natural pathways that they use to connect to the body”
“There is research into the three most common methods that they do, the first is simply that the powers simply do and ignore that the human user should not be able to, for instance, last time, the second and by far the most common is that they will retire the brain to understand the sense in question so that it can taste time as long as the user has their power, the third and by far least common, usually only seen in power granting capes.”
“The power will build entirely new, sometimes temporary pathways in the brains, these pathways are as elastic and new as a newborn and can be known to induce euphoria in the subject, this fades and the subject will experience a decrease in symptoms from physical damage to the brain as seen in both PTSD and traumatic brain injury’s”
“The best part is that this also causes the person to sometimes temporarily grow in learning capacity while the new neural pathways integrate.” She looked happy at her tirade
Alac stood up “Wow, that's actually easier to shake off than I thought, do you even know what you did to my powers?”
I shake my head, my powers seemed to get more vague the more circles where involved, especially since I only knew myself that they did anything to powers for around sixteen minutes myself interpreting more than one was difficult if i had time let alone on the spot like this
“They required me, I could feel and understand my entire neural pathway. I could move every single part of my body perfectly. Not only that but I could… soften… yeah soften my muscles and bones making me better able to take sudden movements and the like. It made me able to move perfectly how I imagined I would there was another part to”
He took a moment to think, he was still more animated than I had seen him “You know that thing that tells you where your body is, like you know your hand is in front of your face even if you can't see it, or you can get your hands to touch without looking?”
Lisa spoke up “That's called interoception”
He nods at her “Yes that, anyways I could… feel the space around me, like the air and stuff. Like I knew how far everything was from me, and I knew exactly where I could place my body to move through space”
My eyes widened, this was getting better and better. Rachel looked at me and nodded, I looked towards Brian and he nodded, he is the leader after all "OK so your power lets you grow your dogs into battle tanks yes?”
“It’s more like fleshy mechs” Alac pipes up
I nod and then think, how should I alter that? We didn't have any of her dogs with us, so it would need to affect us or not need a living target, so I started to build.
First, I pulled up my circle with a serpent at the center, it felt alive like it would write out of my metaphorical grip, the next I pulled had a tree in the center, it felt ancient and powerful like it would change things and they would stay changed.
Finally, I do something that I know is possible but feel would not be useful in most situations, and call the serpent circle again.
With this done I start threading them with runes, when I'm done I pull them together and lay them on the ground, she walks over with a touch of impatience. As soon as she stood in the center I flicked my hand to send it up around her, a wholly unnecessary gesture but it made me feel good.
The circles lift slithers into her, they seemed to form and flow along her skin all around her body, finally, they sunk deeper into her and faded she collapsed to her knees like Alac did, this time for a different reason.
She stood and barked an order at the wall, none of us expected what happened next when the wall whined and ran out of itself, or more accurately she barked a word, not an actual bark, and the wall animated and turned into an actual wall. She then stared at him as he slowly grew bigger.
She looked confused at what she was sensing, she then told it “Take whatever shape you want, I like dogs” and “fuck yes dogs have huge teeth and my dogs have large claws and spikes… no, no acid”
When she said that everyone looked concerned but she just shook her head, The thing continued to grow bigger and bigger, it also got sharper and grew what looked like a saddle.
Lisa was looking at the moving statue in confusion “its alive?”
We looked at her, she shook her head “The… the dog, statue Thing? When she uses her original power it draws mass from other universes to grow the dogs, This time The mass that is drawn is still organic but it's intrinsically changed, it's like if you take a dog and make it bigger then half turn it into concrete.”
We looked at the dog, then back at Rachel then at the dog again. We all shook our heads as the dog started to shrink. After a second we noticed that the was shedding, Rachel looked at it in confusion “Much less than usual”
Lisa looked down, then her face twisted, she looked extremely conflicted “It… its… its alive, I think, Stone doesn't die when it leaves its body, and it was part of a living creature made of that stone so, yes, I think it's alive.
She shakes her head “Taylor you think you can give me a power that will take away this headache?”
I looked at her, the thought, there were so many options I would need to start writing this down.
Brian stepped up “I guess if we're giving in to peer pressure go ahead, give me something that no one else had”
I look at him and think, darkness generation and control. How can I compliment that without something the others had? It hits me, and I pull them up, one of a fire, and one of a lens.
I link them together and bring it in front of him, he sighs and steps on it the circle drifts up to his waist turns black, and then splits in two. The circles floated to his hands and the darkness seemed to focus, then deepen and sink into him.
He doesn't fall instead he just looks confused “Well that was… pretty I guess”
“Go ahead try your powers they are different” he sighs then raises his hand, he stops
“It does feel different, like before the darkness came off my body, and now it comes from my hands, It also feels like before it was, almost like a blanket, or like a piece of cloth now it feels like, liquid?”
he shakes his head and points his hand away from us, towards the wall that bitch used for her power. his hands roiled with power, boiling into existence.
Then the darkness that gathered swirled into his hand and formed a ball, it then fired the ball shooting out and blanketing the entire wall.
He seemed shocked, then focused, and his hand that had been outstretched clenched into a fist. The darkness flashes drinking in the light and then fades.
when the darkness fades there is no longer a wall in fact the cement floor isn't there either, instead, there is only bare ground in what looks like a bowl.
We all look at Brian, he shakes his head “It feels like I ate the it, like my power eats away at things”
He fires another shot of darkness, this time when he clenches his hand the darkness boils away and doesn't bring anything with it.
Then he extended his hand flat and with his hand parallel to his arm, this time the darkness was a beam, it boiled away a line of cement.
He stops it and then tries again “It's weird, I can if I focus I can stop it from destroying things. but otherwise, it will eat away at things at all times, The ball one is easier than the ray but it is also weaker and less concentrated, plus it takes time to charge”
bitch and Brian continued to use their powers, but they both were distracted by the new uses of their powers, Lisa approached me “ok, I think, no, I know I speak for everyone when I say that you're accepted”
I look at her “You wanna see what other configurations your powers have”
She smiled and nodded, I smirked, I had been thinking about interesting combinations. I had wondered if there were better, or more applicable combinations, and so with some trepidation, I pulled up three circles.
First was the serpent, the second was the web, and the third was the tree, I pulled and threaded them together, and placed it in front of her.
She walked into the center and the circle started spinning light pealing off, snaking up around her, crawling up her skin in lines, and burrowing underneath her skin.
the light finishes flowing into her and fades, she looks confused for a second and then looks me in the eye. I feel something wrap itself around my head and ask me for permission
I start and accept, the thinking changes, now flowing into my mind and creating a knot. I waited for a moment for something to happen, then I heard in my head.
“” Wow this is weird, I can almost feel her””
“What?” she looks at me then I reach out my mind to the knot
“” Can you hear this”” I say into the knot
Her head snaps to me “Wow, yes”
I nod then say into the know “” What else can you do””
She shakes her head, “” I don't know, but this seems like a rather weak power. being able to talk at a distance”
I shake my head “” It felt like something was extended from you to me, then it asked for permission”
“” What, what did the thing feel like”
I focused on what the experience was like trying to bring it up “” It was like something clod and living was wrapped around my head, like a tentacle””
Lisa shivered “” ok wow that was weird”” She shook her head and I felt something enter mine. It was like I suddenly understood exactly what Lisa knew about her new power
She could feel something like a passage between her and me,