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Tree branch: check. Assorted lightweight seed-bearing fruits and nuts: check. Other seeds: check. Water bottle, for when she has to veer away from the river: check.
Better not linger in her starting place too much longer. Yellow's faster than her and may have already come home to a wreck. Thorn might have a habit of checking up on the place, even, just in case. She's invisible, inaudible, unsmellable - that won't help if he sends someone thorough. Or comes in person.
She sets out.
She's been flying for about thirty minutes after her shopping trip when she falls through a tear and squeaks inaudibly and lands in the middle of -
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imeanforever
imeanforever
She writes them down. "Is there anything else I should know about you, your intentions and preferences, or other topics likely to be relevant to me?"
wormcan
"I need to be planning something large-scale, to keep myself sane. I want to be in the room where it happens. I was never a major player, but did get some idea of the real big picture, the game those major players are playing, before I got caught. For instance, it may interest you to know that all the important hero and villain factions with their own agendas are under the influence, if not control, of some of the same people."
imeanforever
"That's interesting. I might be able to use your strategic advice if that's something you prefer to do, but it being a requirement for your sanity doesn't bode particularly well for releasing you unsupervised under orders tight enough for comfort. On release you in particular would not, in effect, be a cape, and your history might be a barrier to non-superpowered politics."
wormcan
"I could always change my identity, but I meant working for you. As much as I'd prefer taking over the world without reporting to anyone, that doesn't seem to be a possibility at the moment.
If it's just the release that's the problem, I could find some volunteers and some agents and do everything from here."
If it's just the release that's the problem, I could find some volunteers and some agents and do everything from here."
imeanforever
"I'm not anticipating rescinding the order not to use your powers except maybe to taper off your existing students and maybe to solve extremely dramatic emergencies which I can't solve with the entire population of the Birdcage plus several other vassals but could solve with you."
wormcan
"At all? My powers are better used in the long term and big picture. Emergencies are neither."
imeanforever
"I did mention you're why I broke into the Birdcage. It wasn't because I thought you'd be useful."
wormcan
"Well if I'm powerless either way I'll take the release option. No mind alteration at all."
imeanforever
"Noted. It'll be a while before I'm consolidated enough to get around to it and compose sufficient orders. Anything else?"
wormcan
The six hundred Birdcaged are going to take time, but at least each individual runs through quickly.
imeanforever
This is still going to take a couple of days. When she's done with the priority interviews and has a list of her vassals and their powers well underway, she puts her desk back into the wood of her tree for the night. She makes sure they all have places to sleep and access to the food. She puts up a few bulletin board type things - infrastructure projects for which she'd like volunteers (plumbing, internet, electricity that won't require periodically buying fuel), suggestion list for things she should attempt to import, any permissions/order amendments/conflict resolution someone would like to call her attention to. She lights it all up with fairylights against the growing dark and leaves pens around and goes into her tree for sleep.
wormcan
By morning the infrastructure part is heavily annotated and the list of imports is extensive. She just gave every Tinker in the Birdcage free rein to do stuff, even if it is all basic things. A few projects, the ones that can be done in a cave with a box of scraps, even get completed. (There are three competing plumbing systems by morning, each creating water from thin air or possibly just creating it and each working in completely unrelated ways. Some of Teacher's students are expanding the most reliable of these.)
imeanforever
...Good for Teacher's students.
And how do they feel about being weaned off? (Are any of them absolutely irreplaceable, looking at the other Tinkers she has on hand?)
And how do they feel about being weaned off? (Are any of them absolutely irreplaceable, looking at the other Tinkers she has on hand?)
wormcan
As Tinkers go, these are among the worst. Their strength is teamwork, which most Tinkers can't do. And her other Tinkers are among the best; weak parahumans can be held outside the Birdcage. One Tinker can make single-use technology to do practically anything, on a planet-wide scale, limited only by tools and materials. When arrested, she had been threatening to remove the moon. Teacher's plumbers and dentists are replaceable.
They do object. They have different reasons, some saying they like having powers more in demand than their own, some saying they've gotten used to their new senses and don't want to go blind, some saying they still need it, and some saying they're just happier now. But all of them say no for one reason or another.
They do object. They have different reasons, some saying they like having powers more in demand than their own, some saying they've gotten used to their new senses and don't want to go blind, some saying they still need it, and some saying they're just happier now. But all of them say no for one reason or another.
imeanforever
...They do seem lucid. The ones with the new senses in particular she sympathizes. She tots up the results of their enforced honesty to come up with a strictly spaced schedule, but if they wish to go to hell in their own fashion she isn't going to torment them coming and going. She goes and gives Teacher permission to obey this schedule, with his existing students only.
She finishes her interviews.
Internet up yet, or does she have to go to Bet to email Dragon and see how crazed the netizens are about her escapade?
She finishes her interviews.
Internet up yet, or does she have to go to Bet to email Dragon and see how crazed the netizens are about her escapade?
wormcan
There are fewer people who can do internet, but it's working on and off by the time she finishes interviews.
The answer is very. Very crazed. The Protectorate and the Guild either didn't try to cover it up or they failed, and the public now thinks Promise is the world's scariest villain. 096773 alone is big, on the same scale as 133468, and now Promise controls her plus six hundred others. Some opinions are along the lines of "I hope she killed all of them," often accompanied by lists of atrocities committed by particular inmates. Cooler heads are of the opinion that this could be much more humane but now the more dangerous villains have no option between ordinary prison and death.
Promise has almost no popular support on Earth Bet. People talk about how at least now there'll be a much stronger defense if there's another Endbringer attack, but this convinces very few people and is suspiciously conditional.
The answer is very. Very crazed. The Protectorate and the Guild either didn't try to cover it up or they failed, and the public now thinks Promise is the world's scariest villain. 096773 alone is big, on the same scale as 133468, and now Promise controls her plus six hundred others. Some opinions are along the lines of "I hope she killed all of them," often accompanied by lists of atrocities committed by particular inmates. Cooler heads are of the opinion that this could be much more humane but now the more dangerous villains have no option between ordinary prison and death.
Promise has almost no popular support on Earth Bet. People talk about how at least now there'll be a much stronger defense if there's another Endbringer attack, but this convinces very few people and is suspiciously conditional.
imeanforever
Well, that's disappointing but not out of the realm of expectation.
Promise posts a picture of one of the more photogenic unsuitable Earths she checked in the course of finding Hawthorn to her photo blog and then checks her email.
Promise posts a picture of one of the more photogenic unsuitable Earths she checked in the course of finding Hawthorn to her photo blog and then checks her email.
wormcan
She's got emails from Quinn, most of which will stay safely irrelevant as long as she doesn't get caught. Some updates from her preexisting sets of vassals, none of whom need her continuous intervention except Noelle. And a polite notification that of course you realize this means war from the person who has since become the former Director of the Brockton Bay PRT.
imeanforever
Promise replies that she hopes it does not mean so much war that she can't help nail down Glaistig Uaine if she is located (...she adds 'locate and contain Glaistig Uaine' to a bulletin board) or that she cannot give Noelle occasional booster sparrowings. And to whom should she direct future inquiries intended for a PRT official in Brockton Bay? (She does apologize for the deleterious effects on the Director's career but doesn't think anyone would listen to her telling them that it's unnecessary.)
She emails Noelle. She apologizes for the inconvenience. She is still happy to turn her into a sparrow and back but they may have to work out something cloak-and-dagger in case the PRT decides to ambush her. Or Noelle could come to Hawthorn if she doesn't mind having supervillains for neighbors.
She emails Noelle. She apologizes for the inconvenience. She is still happy to turn her into a sparrow and back but they may have to work out something cloak-and-dagger in case the PRT decides to ambush her. Or Noelle could come to Hawthorn if she doesn't mind having supervillains for neighbors.
wormcan
Glaistig Uaine is a sufficiently big deal that they'll take what help they can get. The local villains of wherever she gets found would probably even team up, if they're powerful enough to be useful and foolhardy enough to volunteer. The ex-director loudly refrains from saying the same about Noelle. She does provide an email for her replacement, though there's no name attached even if Promise looks at it on a computer that doesn't automatically censor things.
Noelle herself agrees that she might be being tracked, it's what she'd do in the PRT's position. It was still recently that being near Noelle was sufficient reason to be killed by Bonesaw's teammates, so she doesn't have a lot of attachments on Bet. And she's also indestructible, so she's less worried about supervillains than she could be. Hawthorn sounds fine.
Noelle herself agrees that she might be being tracked, it's what she'd do in the PRT's position. It was still recently that being near Noelle was sufficient reason to be killed by Bonesaw's teammates, so she doesn't have a lot of attachments on Bet. And she's also indestructible, so she's less worried about supervillains than she could be. Hawthorn sounds fine.
imeanforever
Promise emails the replacement director, apologizes for the inconvenience. Asks when and where she can pick up the time-stopping tinkertech she is owed for the most recent gate and if they will be so kind as to not attack her when she does, because bringing a large detachment of supervillain bodyguards sounds like a hassle to her.
whole_new_can
It turns out they are kind enough not to attack her. This might only be because EMPing her harmonic flattener and covering her in foam would just end with her activating her self-destruct and getting away, with no results other than tipping her off. She gets her payment with no hostility at all.
imeanforever
Well, then, she can tell Noelle when and where that will be, and invite her to come back with her then.