Elan's finally ready to accept his new powers and go wherever the Spirit wants to take him.
Okay, I'm ready to go! Thank you so much for helping me. You were really nice and I'm glad I met you.
As soon as he finishes reading the notebook's response, his vision fills with sparkling motes of colorful light. A sense of fizzy excitement fills him as the light show clears away and he gets his first look at his new surroundings.
He is on a second-storey rooftop in a dark and rundown-looking city. Possibly grimdark, it's too early to tell, but it's definitely nighttime and the streets are unlit.
Some distance down the street there's a group of men (class: street tough). A particularly big (and shirtless) man is speaking. None of them are visibly armed or armored; the light of cigarette tips glints off small metal devices some of them are holding.
If he's perceptive, he will notice a dark silhouette on the roof of the opposite building before it moves into cover.
"...the children, just shoot. Doesn’t matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure."
Despite the light show and it being nighttime, his eyes seem to be pre-adjusted to the dark. Cool! There are so many buildings… Elan doesn't think he's ever been in a city this big.
He briefly registers the silhouette but is distracted when he notices the Tough Guys, especially when he realizes what they're saying. He doesn't think before leaping down, trusting that Lightfoot and Gloryseeker will protect him here.
"Hey, shooting kids is bad and wrong! You shouldn't do that."
An unfamiliar parahuman. Not masked - perhaps it's not his real face? No visible weapon, but he leapt down from a rooftop and challenged Lung. Either the sort who thinks they're funny, or a distraction from the real threat.
"There may be others. Stay alert, let me know if you see anyone," he orders his men.
"Tell me your name," he tells the stranger. "In case it will not shame me to say that I bothered to kill you, later." His power stirs, eager for a challenge, but this is his territory and he doesn't want to destroy part of it to swat a gnat.
Well, Elan sure hopes he's funny!
"I'm Elan! I don't think you're gonna kill me, though. I guess you could give me a cool scar if you were really good at fighting? But anyway, it would be hard to protect the kids if I was dead."
Where are the kids, anyway?
"You there, shoot him." He'll either miss or the shots will have no effect, but either way Lung will learn something about the other cape's powers.
He begins to grow, his skin rippling and giving off an aura of heat, the tips of metal scales beginning to poke out. He will put down this fool who challenged him, as soon as he sees the effect the bullet has.
(There are no visible kids.)
The man he selected nervously points his device at Elan, a bit like a wand, and then there is a very loud BANG.
Naturally, when the shirtless guy starts to power up, his Soundtrack motif grows darker, richer, more dramatic. Like boss battle music. A nervous oboe pipes up as the lackey draws his weapon.
Elan could probably just stand there and get missed by the bullet anyway, but where's the fun in that? Instead, he does a twirl at just the right moment, his cape billowing artfully in a way that suggests perhaps more material than he's actually wearing. When he faces Lung again, he's retrieved a gleaming silvery rapier, modeled subconsciously on cool swords Elan's seen in plays and comic books, from who knows where.
"What did I just say?" Elan says, not realizing this was a test.
A Mouse Protector type. Could be working for the Undersiders. Probably hopes to lead Lung on a rampage that destroys his own territory but fails to hit the cape.
None of that matters, because Lung doesn't intend to miss.
He strides forward, haloed by flame.
He snarls and burns them, sending out jets of flame from his hands where the swarm is thickets. The ones that land on him die quickly, and his healing can deal with any insect bites.
...Lung ignores the insects and tries to hit or grapple the cape in front of him who must be controlling or generating them.
Whoa, cool!
"Thanks, bugs!"
Later, Elan might connect the dots between the tune that played when the swarm first descended on Lung and the sting he heard when he spotted the shadow on the rooftop. He's busy right now, though, what with the guy who thinks the bugs are his fault.
Elan dances backwards, trusting that he won't back into a wall. He's never tried to parry a grappling attempt with a sword, but there's only one way to find out if it'll work!
Lung can move forward faster than he can move backward. Also, he's eight feet tall and on fire.
Elan can still manage to dodge, but his cape has less luck! As soon as Elan realizes this, he ceases to be wearing it. Which is good, because of that whole "on fire" thing.
Elan's going to have to go on the offense for this, apparently. He presses the first gap in Fire Guy's defenses he can detect.
The sword pierces a lung. No matter, he will regenerate shortly. More importantly, while the sword is in him it cannot dodge; he grabs at it.
"Uh-oh!"
Elan lets go of the sword and dashes away while Lung is occupied removing it. What does he do next? Try and fill this guy with swords like a reverse porcupine? That probably won't work for very long.
Maybe he can try diplomacy again? After he scampers up the nearest climbable-by-him thing.
"Why are you doing all this, anyway?"
Lung breaks the sword in two and tosses it aside.
"You challenged me, on my turf. You will not walk away." He crouches and leaps, two stories up to the roof where Elan is.
Behind his dragon-mask, one eye has flattened into a slit but the other is a fiery orb.
There is a huge swarm of insects on this rooftop! It envelops Lung. They can't survive on his skin for very long, but more keep coming from somewhere.
Lung hunches over, frantically swatting himself, but when more insects keep swarming him he explodes with flames like a miniature fireball. In the few seconds that affords him he spots Elan and lunges for him with a frustrated roar.
Elan wishes that he had ever handled, like, an ice wand of some sort. That would probably be really handy against Fire Guy.
Fortunately, he can keep dodging. It's still pretty scary, but he tries to reframe that in his head as exciting.
"I only challenged you because you were talking about killing kids! And that sounded like it was happening already when I showed up, you can't blame it on me!"
"CHALLENGERS DIE."
Lung is still growing bigger and faster. At this rate he'll be able to corner Elan, or fall through the roof.
The figure points a metallic tube at him; it hisses and produces a mist-like cone attack, which erupts into flames when it comes into contact with Lung.
Lung roars loudly enough to shatter windows in distant buildings. He leaps for the newcomer but misses - surprisingly badly.
The mysterious stranger rolls to the side and then tries to freeze in place. Lung seems to be blinded, swinging his head around wildly.
Oh right, Elan took that one teamwork power! The one where he shouldn't try to be the main hero hogging the spotlight.
"Thanks, dark mysterious stranger!"
The dragon guy seems to be having trouble seeing… Elan decides that as long as he's making noise he should keep his distance from her.
"Wanna team up? Uh, by which I mean I help you too, instead of you just helping me."
Lung hits it. Despite the comical difference in sizes, this drives them a few feet apart.
Then the monstrosity shakes its head and charges Lung, carrying both of them off the roof.
"Hi puppy!"
Now that the altercation is off the roof, he decides that approaching Only Does Bugs won't needlessly endanger her.
"Huh, does everyone have animal powers around here?"
Oh god what did he just call her. Sheee is going to ignore that while running away from fighting for her life.
Really she's used to ignoring what people call her -- not the time, Taylor.
"N-no? I don't know who's controlling that thing. Um, why are you unmasked - sorry, not important right now - my bugs can't hurt Lung anymore. Can you fight him or should we run and call the PRT?"
"Oh, should I be masked? I just got here, uh… right before I started fighting Lung. I can avoid getting seriously hurt but to actually fight anyone I need a team. Is that what the PRT is?"
He didn't have his mask with him but he outed himself because Lung was going to kill some kids? Taylor really wants to be that heroic one day. (Preferably without outing herself.)
"The PRT fight villains, they work with the Protectorate who are the actual hero capes." She thought everyone knew that much, but then she took Parahuman Studies for a year and, yeah, some of the kids in her class are probably going to grow up into adults who won't know anything at all. But he's an actual hero so it's even more important that she gets him in contact with the PRT!
"There's an emergency number, do you have a phone or do we have to find a pay phone?"
Some of those concepts are unfamiliar, but he figures that "capes" is what people here call adventurers and the PRT is… well, if they're not "actual hero capes" maybe they're Neutral capes who team up with the Good ones to fight villains, or maybe they're more like law enforcement with NPC classes? Elan can wait to find out.
"Pay phone sounds good!" he says confidently, mostly because he's pretty sure he doesn't have a phone yet.
Before they can carry out their cunning plan of running away, two more monstrosities land on the roof. (They're jumping from another building.) These ones each have two humanoid riders, who get off.
"You really saved us a lot of trouble! When we heard Lung was going after us, we argued for half a day before deciding to fight him." Handshake?
Sure!
"You're welcome! He does seem pretty scary, with the getting really big and fast and lighting on fire and turning into a dragon thing. Now we're going to use a pay phone to call the PRT."
She whistles, and the two monstrosities jump down the join the fray. Lung is still fighting, but he seems to have stopped growing.
"Pepper spray, wasp and bee stings to the eyeballs, fire ants and spider bites to, ouch - it was all her, though." She points.
Um. "He helped? He drew Lung's attention - does one of you have a cellphone, we really should call the PRT."
Bystanders have called PRT already. First responder, cape. Minutes out.
"Oh, they're coming. But we have a minute for introductions! We do owe you a favor. I'm Tattletale, these are Grue, Regent and Bitch - her chosen name, the PRT call her Hellhound -"
"Shut up, Regent. We're the Undersiders. And we're leaving before the PRT gets here. Bitch, time to go."
She whistles, short-long-long, and the three huge creatures leave Lung lying in the street and climb swiftly to the rooftop.
… note to self, crown guy isn't actually in charge?
"I'm Elan, but it sounds like I should get a mask and maybe a codename?"
He's competent to keep pace with them, wherever they're heading off to.
If they're running from the PRT... and they're the ones Lung was planning to kill...
"Wait, are you guys villains?"
Both think they are heroes. Want to be heroes.
"Eh," she wiggles her hand. "Only if you ask the PRT? We don't kill or kidnap or torture people or sell drugs or anything bad like that, we're more of a - mutual support group."
Want validation as heroes. Lacking validation. Not acknowledged. Expecting to be acknowledged.
"The PRT really isn't as shiny as they pretend. You can turn in Lung but -"
Expect PRT to accept them as heroes.
"- you shouldn't believe everything they tell you, and I don't mean just about us."
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" She mounts behind Bitch.
"And yeah, definitely get a mask and a cape name. Don't tell the PRT who you are without serious thought, you can always do it later but you can't undo it. We won't tell anyone who you are, we owe you.
"What's your cape name?"
Elan listens seriously to all the complicated politics stuff. It sounds… complicated. Still, if there isn't any killing or kidnapping or torturing people involved, whatever stuff they're doing probably can't be that bad. Elan isn't sure that he's the best person to help clear up whatever misunderstanding is going on, but the Spirit chose here for a reason!
"We can probably think of stuff together, then! And I can figure out a mask style. I really like your outfit, it makes you look like a badass bug person!"
"Alive but down for a bit. We wouldn't want to make the PRT think you killed him!"
The monstrosities leap back down to street level and run away. Their footsteps are loud but they seem to be very fast. Their claws leave holes in the building walls and the road as they go.
The key to keeping up with the beasts using Lightfoot is: not thinking about it. Which means Elan can think about other things. He's glad that Lung didn't die, even if he is a pretty scary and probably mean dude. He wonders if these guys know what he was trying to accomplish, since they had been planning on fighting him earlier, or at least maybe fighting him before Elan gave them an opportunity.
He should probably workshop some sort of theme for how he presents here. That seems to be the way of things: Lung the dragon guy, Regent with the crown, Bitch with the dog mask and… are they really puppies? Maybe the name is ironic. And then there's the obvious bug theme for unnicknamed bug girl. He's not sure what themes Tattletale or Grue have (maybe the latter has darkness powers, since he's in all black?) but maybe it'll become obvious later. Or maybe they're odd ones out?
Still, themes are memorable and fun, even if they aren't mandatory…
This thinking is interrupted after about a minute when Elan realizes:
"Wait, did we leave the bug girl behind?"
A Mover - makes sense, it must be how he dodged Lung. They can lose the tail but it pays to be nice and like Tattletale said, they do owe him a bit.
"Let's go somewhere we can keep talking. Tattletale?"
"Bitch, take the next right towards the docks, then two more blocks."
They stop at the end of the residential area, next to a large metal-looking building. The place is dark and silent at this time of night.
"You wanted to talk to us?"
Weirdly, Elan feels kind of better knowing that they were trying to ditch him too.
"Well, I thought we were all going to wherever you wanted to go and we could talk there about cape names and stuff. Was she gonna… meet up later?"
Huh! Elan kind of assumed they were all friends or working together…
"Well… I probably shouldn't go back there, right? Because the PRT might be there already and I haven't decided on a fake name or anything yet."
He feels bad about leaving her behind, though. Especially because she hasn't decided on a fake name and he can change his face at will. And also make masks at will.
Grue cocks his head. "Why were you fighting Lung if you don't have a mask or a cape name yet?"
"'Cause the first thing I heard him say was telling his minion to kill kids!"
It occurs to him that it may be good to provide some more context.
"Also, I had just barely showed up here at random from a totally different world so I didn't know that masked capes were the thing people did here."
Yeah sure tonight went well and she has some power left so why not use it here?
Believes what he said. Believes it's the truth.
Didn't know about masked capes. Didn't know about capes. Didn't know about powers. Still doesn't know.
Power, that makes no sense.
Knows he has powers. Knows other people can have powers. Doesn't know about parahuman powers. Thinks his powers aren't parahuman. Thinks he has magical powers. Thinks he has nonmagical powers.
OK, her power isn't broken unless he's some sort of anti-Thinker trump, so he's just... a very weirdly deluded, probably-new cape? How new exactly?
Got new powers. Less than an hour ago. Less than an hour he remembers.
Tattletale does her best impression of walking nonchalantly over to Grue.
Grue he triggered just before the fight!!! she whispers urgently.
Oh no.
Grue wants to help the poor guy (and they owe him), but fresh capes can be very - volatile.
"Uh - I don't mean to pry, but we can help you if you need something, to get you on your feet? If you need to like make a call, or money for food or a motel or something."
Telling Regent "this is serious, just trust me" will have the opposite effect.
Telling him why - might work? It probably won't make things worse, anyway.
whisper whisper whisper
Aww, these guys are nice! Well, Grue is nice, and Tattletale also seems nice, and if the other people are being less nice it's probably because they're worried.
"I think I should be okay with my own money. I got sent here by the same person who gave me my new powers, and one of the powers is that I have enough money to make me and my friends comfortable. And when I asked about that one it said that it wouldn't steal from anyone to get the money, because that would be the kinda thing that made me sad. It's really nice to offer that, though!"
He's really curious what Tattletale and Regent are saying about him but probably he should be patient and let them have their privacy.
He what.
Power, did he get his powers from the mythical cape organization that can make more capes?
Didn't get powers from a cape.
He's just deluded then. Poor guy.
(That was a suspiciously easy answer from her power? She didn't really expect that to work!)
"I sympathize. Or, well, I don't, but you know what I mean. But indulging him won't do him any favors."
Regent might actually be right for once. Either way, Grue isn't going to dance around this, it sounds exhausting and the guy deserves to be told the truth.
"Tattletale says you triggered - got your powers - very recently. I think it messed with your memory. You weren't sent here from another world, that's not how it works."
"It's your business and I won't try to convince you if you don't want to hear it. But right after you get powers is the worst time to be getting into random fights - and Lung fights to kill."
"Forget about masks and cape names for, like, at least a week. Get your head on straight. Get your life in order, fix whatever problems you had. Figure out how the world works and what you can do. Don't do something you might regret."
"Do… a lot of people have their memory changed when they get their powers?"
Elan's pretty sure he didn't get his memory messed with, except for how he sure did choose a bunch of drawbacks that told them they would, or at least could, change his memories. So his memory did probably get messed with at least a little. His life still feels real to him: his mom, his time at Bard Camp, all of the other places and people and things he saw even before he got home to find a notebook on his bed.
Maybe he should have asked it to come along with him. He hadn't wanted to rely on asking it for advice, but it would be handy to show it to people.
But Grue says he doesn't wanna argue, so Elan should probably try to think of things that he can do if he's right or if he's wrong.
"Like, is there a place for people to go so they can get their head on straight? If I have a home and family here that I forgot about, I have no clue who or where they are. I guess I could try finding a police person and asking for help, but you just said it's dangerous to share my real name!"
Good, he's being calm and rational about it.
"It's definitely not usual for triggers to affect your memory but, well, anyone coming from another world is completely unheard of. There's contact with just one other world and I heard they can only send messages, not physical stuff."
"It's dangerous to share your name if you're a cape. You need to keep a secret identity so people don't link the cape persona to the regular one. You can ask the police for help without telling them you're a cape, if you're OK with telling them you have memory problems and so on."
"I assume you don't have, like, a wallet on you, or anything else with names or addresses or stuff? Or a key or something?"
"Maybe, but I didn't want to out you like that! It's bad enough that we know your face and name. But if you'd be OK with it, sure, I could try."
"I'm okay with it! Is figuring stuff out your power? Like the smart detective with the doctor roommate?"
He's maybe a tiny bit worried that all the evidence he's from someplace else will be hidden somehow, or that it is true he's actually from here and thus in a really big pickle, but he also took They'll Know so hopefully that makes it more likely that they'll be able to see he's telling the truth.
She grins. "Yessss I am the cape Sherlock Holmes! Fear me, miscreants!"
"Shush, you." Or I'll tell them where you came from - no stop that's a horrible idea!
Great, they're bantering and at ease and making a good impression on the stranger, that means she's on top of things.
Normally she charges for this kind of thing but knowing about a new cape in town is valuable to her (and to Coil). Not doing this was kind of the favor she owed him, but if he asks for it?
Come out and play, power. Does he have the metaphorical equivalent of mud from a particular Brockton Bay alley on his boots?
Not from Brockton Bay.
Which direction did he come from, then?
Not from the south. Not from the west. Not from the north. Not from the east. Not from direction. Not from -
She cuts it off. Her power does get things wrong sometimes. But it follows specific clues, so -
'How do I know he's not from any of those places?', she tries asking her power.
Voice, accent, mannerisms, word choice, clothes, skin, hair, fingernails, complex phenotype -
Huh, her power seems to think he looks wrong (or at least not local) in every possible way. He doesn't look weird to her - he's definitely pretty but not in a 'real people don't look like that' way. Her power is definitely picking up on something, but she hasn't met enough people like him or from the same place to pin it down.
Actually... why is he wearing a cloak? She wrote it off as part of a costume, the proverbial cape, but if he just triggered where did he get a cloak? And his trigger messed with his memories, so maybe -
Power, did his power change how he looks or behaves or his clothes?
Powers affected clothing. Affected looks. Still affects looks, ungoing, unconscious, uncontrolled. Affects cloak. Affects clothes. Affects height, eye color, mannerisms, face, features, attractiveness, voice, tone of voice -
She cuts it off at the first twinge of a headache.
...well, shit. How does she tell him that? 'Sorry, your power stole your memories and your face and any way your loved ones could identify you, and also everything about you is going to keep changing in unpredictable ways you can't stop or control, down to the clothes you wear?' That's a really fucked up Changer power!
...he's going to find out sooner or later.
(Unless his power keeps modifying his memories? Did he actually trigger a long time ago and keeps forgetting it and thinking he triggered just now? She can't afford to check right now, though, she already spent too much on this.)
What if he reacts very badly to being told (honestly very awful) news? A Mover and freeform Changer, with no visible weapon - no, no excuses, every cape is dangerous. He could move quickly enough to hurt them before Grue can spread his darkness. He could change into a dragon for all she knows. He could even have third power.
Responsible Tattletale should tell him she couldn't figure it out where he's from, and then the rest over phone or email or something when they're not next to him where he might react badly.
"I think the doctor isn't stupid," he assures Regent. "I think he's supposed to be a regular guy? Maybe I should be the doctor sidekick, except I'm not a doctor and I never fought in wars and my name isn't anything like Winston and now I have powers…"
At this point he's mostly talking to himself. He trails off, glancing over at Tattletale to see if her using her power looks like anything.
It doesn't look like anything besides that she's deep in thought for half a minute.
"The doctor's name was Watson," she automatically tells him. Unless... Power, was the Doctor's name different on Earth Aleph?
No. (Also, ouch.)
OK, fine, she was being responsible and checked but there's really no way this Elan came from another world. It was maybe reasonable of him to assume because his memories are scrambled (?) but there's really no way.
"I'm afraid I have some bad news for you though," she goes on. See how honest and transparent and friendly she's being! Do not punch the messenger!
"First, I couldn't find who you are or were or where you're from."
"Second, and the reason I couldn't, is that I think your face and voice changed when you got powers, just like your memories did." She'll hold back the even worse news for now. "Your memories might even have changed to prevent you from freaking out because you look and sound different... but that means I have nothing to go on, and neither will the police."
"I'm sorry."
"Or it could be good! Getting powers is supposed to solve the problem you're having right then." (He says, sarcastically.) "Maybe you really wanted to start a new life, fresh face and everything."
There's lots of things the doctor can be named! Like James Wilson or Joan Watson or David Dawson. Elan sits on this factoid, because:
"Oh, that makes perfect sense! See, what happened—in my memory, anyway—was after I graduated from school to be a bard, I got a diary. I think it was supposed to be a regular diary, but it wrote back and said that it was sent by a spirit that wanted to share its power with me. I thought it was a framing device at first… y'know, like when the narrator says that something really happened even if it didn't? I realized it was for real eventually. But anyway, a lot of the powers were about how I look! Like… at all times I'm supposed to look exactly how I would if this was a self-insert fanfic about my life."
Pause.
"That's… not a direct quote. But anyway, I guess that could just be something that my powers put in my head so I would have the right expectations? I don't even know for sure what I look like right now, but I was blond and blue-eyed and Northern and had 18 Charisma… anyway, um, so I guess that either way I need to find someplace to stay and can't count on any family I have here being able to find me."
He puts his hand up.
"If one of you guys has a place that's okay for me to stay at, that would be really nice? But if it would be too hard… well, so far I haven't expected to have a specific power that I didn't. So I think if I needed to find a hotel I would be able to pay for it okay, even without help."
Oh good, his false memories are blatantly fake and unrealistic. Hopefully with time he'll be able to realize this. This is much better than remembering an entirely fake but realistic life in the real world.
"Here, you can use my compact to see what you look like. Blond and blue-eyed is right!" For now, anyway.
None of them is going to trust him in their private apartment (while they're sleeping) and none of them want to unmask to him anyway.
They could maaaaybe take him to the shared loft? But someone would still need to stay and watch him, and also if he ends up going to the Protectorate or something they won't want him to know where their secret base is.
Coil would definitely have a free flat for him to use but she doesn't want to give this poor new cape to Coil, she found him he's hers that's like the opposite of being friendly.
She glances at Grue. The team leader should be the one to tell people no.
Grue's been having similar thoughts.
"We don't want to unmask to you, sorry, that's not something to decide on the spot. But we can help you find a motel that's still open and pay for a few nights and order pizza or something. And we can keep in touch, maybe meet again tomorrow or the day after."
"I'm guessing you don't have a phone?" Her power would have said if he did, because it'd be a way to track down where he came from. "Take this, it's cheap but you can call and message. No internet, obviously, you can get online in a library or something." Cheap burner phones are very useful in her line of work.