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xp_logs2020-11-13 07:17 pm
xp_cuckoos) wrote in xp_logs2020-11-13 07:17 pm
Time Stands Still || Second Nature
Echo, Skin and Sentinel (Shogo) light it up light dynamite. Maya is snarky, Angelo is competency personified and Shogo objects to the use of any other code name than White Rabbit.
When Shogo and the others had suited up to go deal with Topaz (finally!), he had to admit, stuck in a cave surrounded by glowing crystals and monsters made out of living shadows welded to dead bodies and filled in by bad mad science wiring had not been his first guess. Still, they were there now, and there wasn't really much doing about it.
He had to admit, he still didn't quite grasp the entirety of the plan, but that was fine. The others were smart too, and he had faith that them being there in that moment was exactly what was needed. Which meant that the three of them were there to do exactly what they did best.
Blow shit up.
Shogo couldn't wait.
Fingers tapped eagerly at the tops of his leg braces. He'd had to be extremely conservative with his suit's power due to the fact that he didn't have any of the easy ways to recharge it after arriving in the past, which meant that he'd largely been grounded without the freedom to suit up whenever he wanted. But it was finally, finally time to suit up and make things happen.
"Alright," he said, watching as the shadows in the dark corners of the cavern flickered under the lights of the gemstones. "Are we ready to get started? Because I suspect," he said, as a number of monster demons turned to look at them as if just noticing them for the first time, "that we don't have much of a choice."
"As I'll ever be." Angelo flexed his arms and started to stretch out his skin. "I'll get the group on the right first. Maya, you ready?"
"Save me from earnest do-gooders."
Maya sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, reaching for the memory of how her powers worked. She'd been practicing for so long now that it had almost if not quite, become second nature. She normally kept everything behind a door, better to not randomly start attacking people who just startled her but right now she needed that door open. At least this was a physical fight, she'd been getting really damn tired of the DangerRoom sessions that took away her advantage and kept throwing distance assholes at her.
Sure, it made her need to think, rather than just react, and gave her a fundamental understanding of good strategy, but she wasn't going to be telling Garrison that. He might think she was a reasonable human being or something, which would just be damn weird.
"Do I at least get to punch something while I'm being bait?"
"These things, if one of them gets near enough you can punch it as much as you want." Angelo glanced at her, then back to the creatures. "Not sure getting their blood on you would be the greatest idea, but apart from that."
"Alright!" Shogo cheered. "Let's do this!" He tapped a fist against his chest twice. "Asteroid Exosuit, Activate!"
Instantly, the braces around his legs melted into black goo and began flowing up over his clothing. The force of the process began to lift him into the air, which was normal. That... was about where the normal process ended, though.
In his haste, Shogo had failed to take several things into account, and they were beginning to make themselves known all at once. First and most obviously, the weird gravity of the cave--significantly lower than that on the asteroid base or space--meant that the anti-grav settings in his gear were spinning out of control, leading to him spinning in a series of increasingly-fast pirouettes as he tucked his arms up against his body.
Second, while the process was by necessity slightly electroluminescent, the cavern itself was full of gems that glittered with a light that splashed out onto the cave walls. They were evidently also fantastic at taking existing light and amplifying it, which his nanites were reacting to and reabsorbing to re-emit brighter. What started as a soft glow quickly spun up until Shogo was forced to shut his eyes to block out the blinding light, which had shifted from white to a brilliant cascade of pink and soft greens, matching the crystals on the walls.
Third, he had forgotten to activate silent mode, because currently, the nanites were also...
"'Cause I'm in the stars tonight, So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight!"
...doing that. It wasn't a bad song, mind you. Very catchy. There was a reason it'd made it into the History of Music Hall of Fame. It was also drawing the attention of every shadow monster in the cavern, though, and while the light of the transformation was... probably holding them back, it wouldn't last for much longer.
The nanite swarm wasted exactly no time, crawling up over his clothing to encase him up to his neck. From there, they formed up into his armor, a sleek blue and black look. He flexed his fingers, feeling the armor form down his arms and up to his hands.
Shining through the city with a little funk and soul, So I'ma light it up like dynamite! whoa oh oh
As soon as the process ended, Shogo threw the stabilizers on and stuck out his arms, coming to a stop and hovering in the air.
Light It Up Like Dynamite!
"Let's do this."
“A magical girl transformation? Really?”
Maya rolled her eyes at Shogo’s power up before turning her eyes on the monsters closing in. She stepped out in front, giving them an arrogant ‘come hither’ hand movement. She was to draw them in close enough so that Shogo and Angelo could knock them down. Her powers made her defense fast, supernatural almost. Of the three of them, she was the best at brawling even if she was exquisitely squishy up against stronger mutants.
Angelo had shielded his eyes from the sudden burst of light with a visor of skin, but pulled that back in now and grinned as the monsters started taking the bait beautifully. Just an inch or two closer and... there. He lashed out with ten strips, wrapping around the creatures' necks and arms and holding them back from retreating. "All yours, Dynamite."
"I get another code name?" Shogo asked, sounding less happy about it than he had been about the first one. "But I liked White Rabbit! See, I even put it on my armor and everything!"
He gestured at the spot above his heart, where his normal logo had been replaced by a smirking white bunny face. "Suit's technopathic," he offered by way of not actually an explanation. "Responds to thoughts."
Then he noticed the lasso full of shadow demons.
"Oh! Right!" Then he stuck out an arm and let the nanites convert extra material into missiles. "The mission. That thing. Fire in the hole!"
And then the missiles fired.
Maya ducked slightly as the missiles moved over her head, before leading with an upper-cut to a demon who had gotten a little closer and then paused as Shogo did his thing. She had to say, having a loud and obnoxious teenager from the future was definitely making her days better. It helped that he was also nice to look at, not that she would tell him that, and the distraction it granted meant this whole bait thing was turning out quite well.
Angelo watched with raised eyebrows as the demon collapsed like a sack of rocks, its fellows swarming over it. "Nice hit, Echo. Ready for the next one?" He stretched out once again to grab as many of them as he could, restraining them ready for Shogo's missiles.
The next volley of missiles came from the other arm, the nanites working overtime to convert their stored material into micro-missiles while a secondary set of nanites were converting excess surrounding materials (namely the crystals) into an octet of oversized rockets that fanned out from behind his shoulders like an oversized pair of wings.
Using them ran the risk of collapsing the caves, but that was a risk he was willing to take. Now all he needed was a proper target.
"This is too good," he exclaimed with a huge smile. "You guys get to do this all the time?!"
Angelo glanced over at him, laughing, as he prepared to corral the next group of demons. "Well, not all the time, and not often exactly like this, but... where can I get an awesome suit like yours?"
A line of electric light ran up the electric blue accent piping. "Ah... you'd have to talk to Ellie's dad, I think? It's hard, though, because like... this stuff only works for me because of my power?"
Technopathy was awesome, but so many people just didn't understand how it worked. His mom still thought it was witchcraft half the time.
"So you're some kind of machine mutant?" Maya asked, ducking quickly under a swipe from a demon that would have taken her head off if she didn't have inbuilt spatial awareness. Another little trick of her mutant power they'd figured out, it seemed to be that being able to mirror people also meant that humanoid creatures being nearby gave her a few seconds of heebie-jeebies from the feedback that let her know they were there. It was extremely useful in a fight, even if it only worked on creatures with two arms and two legs. Something about too many limbs or animal forms that just completely fucked with her mental acuity. "What's that like?"
"Oh man, that's such a weird question to try and answer. Okay..." Shogo trailed off, absently turning and blasting another pack of shadowdemonthings. It was a little like trying to explain how it feels to move a limb that other people don't have. Luckily, he just thought of the perfect metaphor.
"Okay, picture one of those puppets that dangle on strings. Like how you can tug on one and raise an arm, or twist the controls and raise a foot. Well, it's kind of like doing that with a limb that you didn't know you had and most people don't know exist."
There was a pause in the explination.
"Although actually, it's not really anything like tugging on strings. And the puppets can't talk back to you and explain why Internet Explorer is literally cancer. And there's not so much a handle as-- okay you know what? Forget the puppets."
"Sort of puppets if they had a will of their own and had to be talked into doing stuff for you instead of controlled?" Angelo suggested, grabbing a demon that was trying to reach up for Shogo's foot. "A kind of telepathy but not for people."
“Well that was useless information 101. Remind me to never ask either of you any questions in the future.”
Maya ducked the claw strike of the demon directly in front of her only to follow up with a set of neatly aimed dagger strikes of her own.
She’d kept up with the training Wade and North had provided in the way of knife fighting. While she didn’t have the big flashy powers of her two companions, she held her own just fine.
"Oh now that's hardly fair," Shogo said even as he super-punched his way through a shadow demon monster thing. "It's not my fault that English doesn't have the words needed to describe it invented."
The Frosts - all of them - shut down any chance of Alternate Evil Topaz From the Future to be effective with her empathy.
~Does this count as family bonding?~ Ruby and Garnet asked over their tight link to Emma and Fourteen. The pooled psychic potential of eight bodies thrummed under the surface of the link, white-hot and almost eager to be put to use. ~I mean, in a very literal sense...~
~When we survive this,~ 14 shot back, splitting her attention five different ways over the various groups and keeping one very dedicated eye on what the future Topaz was doing, ~I'm going to have to remember to smack you. Preferably with Phoebe. That was weapons-grade bad, and whoever has been teaching you should feel bad.~
It was an annoyingly good pun, and 14 was somewhat upset she hadn't thought of it first, truth be told. Her world had spun on its axis in the last few days, though, and even ignoring the whole 'cloned experimental kids from the future thing' (someone was very very dead, she just didn't know who yet), things were different. Emma knew, now, and probably so did everyone else. In some ways a relief, in others a very new, very scary and very dangerous new world.
Emma was talking to her now. Another new and unexpected turn. And Emma was apparently willing to at least try. A part of her screamed it was too little too late, but... the rest of her was annoyingly happy about the whole thing, and others were starting to... ew, god, notice. Something to deal with after the latest end of the world crisis.
So, bereft of familiar ground and thrown about without any of her previous walls or comforting defenses, 14 fell back to what she was best at: snark.
She was very good at the snark.
~It's a Frost family trait,~ Emma sent. ~Snark, terrible puns in times of danger and truly exquisite taste in shoes.~ She kept her attention turned mostly outwards, trusting the feel of the diamond-like net of telepathic connections between all of them. ~I haven't seen any sign of Topaz the second yet. Can any of you find a trace of her?~ She continued to send her consciousness questing through Avalon, trying to find a mind both familiar and unfamiliar.
Ruby and Garnet's thoughts were tinged with amusement, picking up on the faintest hint of curiosity coming off Emma. ~I had the both of you to teach me, of course I have a shoe collection that lesser people would die to have,~ they sent down the link as they observed the mental 'landscape' around them. ~I don't sense her, but there's...something odd. Can't quite figure it out.~ Their focus sharpened, and they paused, remembering what they knew about their mother. ~Sophie,~ they said, pulling at the single strand of the five-in-one. ~Are you seeing what we're seeing here?~
Sophie had always been the 'mom' that they wanted to deal with, after all.
There was a weird twinge at being addressed as Sophie when being looked at as a whole. Had she disassociated that much in the future? or was that just a quirk she allowed for her... daughters?
...there would be time enough to figure it out later, because she could absolutely see what Ruby and Garnet were getting at.
~Oh that is subtle,~ 14 said, impressed despite herself. ~Here, take a look at this, Emma.~ A split attention gently guided Emma's focus towards the anomaly that the future girls had been poking at.
~She's linked up to her creatures on an astral level, and every bit of combat they get in creates ripples through the astral plane. So far, so normal.~ She very carefully slipped a razor-thin probe into the fabric of their surroundings, teasing it until a dark purple strand of something poked out into existence. ~But she's using the disturbance to hide empath probes. Nearly completely impossible to detect, and more impossible to find.~ 14 grinned. ~Well, unless you're us. Obviously.~
~Oh,~ Emma’s mental note was a sigh over the wires. ~That is quite terribly clever. Topaz has obviously been studying hard.~ She reached out with her mind, soothed it over the empath probe that 14 had dug up. ~Tell me,~ she directed the question at the Ruby and Garnet sections of the diamond mind they’d built between all of them, ~does your Topaz have any weaknesses you can think of? If we’re trying to make her attention waver.~
Ruby and Garnet's facets of the Frost Diamond (and wasn't that just the loveliest most perfect metaphor for them all together) glimmered as they considered what they knew of their opponent. ~Her magic is fueled by emotion,~ they offered, remembering something Amanda Sefton had told them all before hurling them backward through time. ~She's almost a vampire like that, the more powerful emotion she can tap into, the more she can...~ The physical sensation of a person wiggling their fingers ghosted over the link.
~Isn't it funny how there are some questions you don't need to actually ask?~ 14 thought, thrumming over the link. She teased the dark psionic thread further out of its hiding place, gently coaxing it to unwrap and follow the flow that she dictated, well outside of the ripples where it hid.
Honestly, if the situation wasn't so pressing, she might have tried to keep the link intact so she could study it. It was fascinating, the way it rippled and moved in a way that was so different from anything else she'd ever 'seen' (for lack of a better word) done before... yeah there was potential there.
Shame that would screw up the rest of everyone else fighting against evil Topaz.
Alas.
~So,~ said Emma slowly, letting her power drift down the tendril that had been dug up, ~I think there’s probably two options for us then. We can either clamp off the probes, cut Topaz off from the emotions that she’s sucking out of people or - we can pull them hard, all at once, rip them out of her grasp. Which do you think is most likely to work?~ She left the question open to the other members of the Frost diamond, as everyone else in the interlink knew Topaz better than she did.
~I think the first,~ Ruby and Garnet offered. ~She's always prepared for a direct confrontation, in my experience.~ And they had too much experience with it, to be honest. ~If we just turn off the tap, she's juggling enough things that it will probably take her a while to notice the change.~ Subtlety wasn't entirely the future Topaz' strong suit.
~I'm annoyed at how good a metaphor this is for our change in status. I just want to make sure everyone is aware of that.~ 14 did sound legitimately put out by the whole thing. She dusted off her hands. ~Let's get to work?~
~Sure.~
The pause echoed across the link before the ripple from Ruby and Garnet turned mischievous.
~Mom.~
They'd been behaving this whole time, they were allowed this little bit of fun. Or at least they thought so.
And before 14 could react, their mental presence darted off to locate more of the hallmarks of Topaz' influence, with the feeling of a small child who thinks they have just gotten one over on their parent.
Emma sighed, but though she tried to make it long-suffering, she couldn’t help the smile that touched her lips. ~I’m fairly certain you find that as disconcerting as I do,~ she remarked mildly to 14 and then looked at the probe that lay in her psychic hands. ~I can clamp this one, reduce the draw, but I think there will be a lot of them. Topaz does seem the type to build in redundancies. Ruby and Garnet seem to be able to find them better than you or I, and you’ve definitely got the finesse to flense them out cleanly once she has. Do you feel like bringing me some more pretty ribbons to play with? If I end up with as many as I suspect, I think we’ll need my power to manage the clamping.~ Emma made a slightly pained noise. ~They don’t feel right,~ she added. ~Give me a nice clean telepathic probe any day, not this feelings business.~
~Tell me about it,~ 14 drawled. There was a long, heavy pause as the two just sort of watched as Ruby and Garnet had fun tracking down Topaz's psionic links from where they were hidden, tossing up the psychic equivalent of little red flags with numbers on them all over the place. Part of her was still... uncomfortable, with the path the things had taken over the last few hours and days. She was well aware that once everything calmed down, there was a non-trivial chance she'd be reliving her breakdown at least once. (Her stupid psych degree was surprisingly good for a lot of things, but she hated when it meant she ended up psychoanalyzing herself.)
It wasn't trauma in the strictest sense, of course. More the opposite. It was just embarrassing, and embarrassment was hard for 14 to forget.
Still, 14 figured...
~I suspect if we linger here for much longer, they'll tease us about being old and slow. After you,~
Beat.
~Mom.~
...it was definitely worth it.
Emma actually snorted, then laughed, a bright shimmer of delight that ran through the Frost family diamond they’d made between the three/eight of them. ~Darling girl,~ she purred. ~Let’s go and show the world how fabulous a Frost girl can be.~
When Shogo and the others had suited up to go deal with Topaz (finally!), he had to admit, stuck in a cave surrounded by glowing crystals and monsters made out of living shadows welded to dead bodies and filled in by bad mad science wiring had not been his first guess. Still, they were there now, and there wasn't really much doing about it.
He had to admit, he still didn't quite grasp the entirety of the plan, but that was fine. The others were smart too, and he had faith that them being there in that moment was exactly what was needed. Which meant that the three of them were there to do exactly what they did best.
Blow shit up.
Shogo couldn't wait.
Fingers tapped eagerly at the tops of his leg braces. He'd had to be extremely conservative with his suit's power due to the fact that he didn't have any of the easy ways to recharge it after arriving in the past, which meant that he'd largely been grounded without the freedom to suit up whenever he wanted. But it was finally, finally time to suit up and make things happen.
"Alright," he said, watching as the shadows in the dark corners of the cavern flickered under the lights of the gemstones. "Are we ready to get started? Because I suspect," he said, as a number of monster demons turned to look at them as if just noticing them for the first time, "that we don't have much of a choice."
"As I'll ever be." Angelo flexed his arms and started to stretch out his skin. "I'll get the group on the right first. Maya, you ready?"
"Save me from earnest do-gooders."
Maya sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, reaching for the memory of how her powers worked. She'd been practicing for so long now that it had almost if not quite, become second nature. She normally kept everything behind a door, better to not randomly start attacking people who just startled her but right now she needed that door open. At least this was a physical fight, she'd been getting really damn tired of the DangerRoom sessions that took away her advantage and kept throwing distance assholes at her.
Sure, it made her need to think, rather than just react, and gave her a fundamental understanding of good strategy, but she wasn't going to be telling Garrison that. He might think she was a reasonable human being or something, which would just be damn weird.
"Do I at least get to punch something while I'm being bait?"
"These things, if one of them gets near enough you can punch it as much as you want." Angelo glanced at her, then back to the creatures. "Not sure getting their blood on you would be the greatest idea, but apart from that."
"Alright!" Shogo cheered. "Let's do this!" He tapped a fist against his chest twice. "Asteroid Exosuit, Activate!"
Instantly, the braces around his legs melted into black goo and began flowing up over his clothing. The force of the process began to lift him into the air, which was normal. That... was about where the normal process ended, though.
In his haste, Shogo had failed to take several things into account, and they were beginning to make themselves known all at once. First and most obviously, the weird gravity of the cave--significantly lower than that on the asteroid base or space--meant that the anti-grav settings in his gear were spinning out of control, leading to him spinning in a series of increasingly-fast pirouettes as he tucked his arms up against his body.
Second, while the process was by necessity slightly electroluminescent, the cavern itself was full of gems that glittered with a light that splashed out onto the cave walls. They were evidently also fantastic at taking existing light and amplifying it, which his nanites were reacting to and reabsorbing to re-emit brighter. What started as a soft glow quickly spun up until Shogo was forced to shut his eyes to block out the blinding light, which had shifted from white to a brilliant cascade of pink and soft greens, matching the crystals on the walls.
Third, he had forgotten to activate silent mode, because currently, the nanites were also...
"'Cause I'm in the stars tonight, So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight!"
...doing that. It wasn't a bad song, mind you. Very catchy. There was a reason it'd made it into the History of Music Hall of Fame. It was also drawing the attention of every shadow monster in the cavern, though, and while the light of the transformation was... probably holding them back, it wouldn't last for much longer.
The nanite swarm wasted exactly no time, crawling up over his clothing to encase him up to his neck. From there, they formed up into his armor, a sleek blue and black look. He flexed his fingers, feeling the armor form down his arms and up to his hands.
Shining through the city with a little funk and soul, So I'ma light it up like dynamite! whoa oh oh
As soon as the process ended, Shogo threw the stabilizers on and stuck out his arms, coming to a stop and hovering in the air.
Light It Up Like Dynamite!
"Let's do this."
“A magical girl transformation? Really?”
Maya rolled her eyes at Shogo’s power up before turning her eyes on the monsters closing in. She stepped out in front, giving them an arrogant ‘come hither’ hand movement. She was to draw them in close enough so that Shogo and Angelo could knock them down. Her powers made her defense fast, supernatural almost. Of the three of them, she was the best at brawling even if she was exquisitely squishy up against stronger mutants.
Angelo had shielded his eyes from the sudden burst of light with a visor of skin, but pulled that back in now and grinned as the monsters started taking the bait beautifully. Just an inch or two closer and... there. He lashed out with ten strips, wrapping around the creatures' necks and arms and holding them back from retreating. "All yours, Dynamite."
"I get another code name?" Shogo asked, sounding less happy about it than he had been about the first one. "But I liked White Rabbit! See, I even put it on my armor and everything!"
He gestured at the spot above his heart, where his normal logo had been replaced by a smirking white bunny face. "Suit's technopathic," he offered by way of not actually an explanation. "Responds to thoughts."
Then he noticed the lasso full of shadow demons.
"Oh! Right!" Then he stuck out an arm and let the nanites convert extra material into missiles. "The mission. That thing. Fire in the hole!"
And then the missiles fired.
Maya ducked slightly as the missiles moved over her head, before leading with an upper-cut to a demon who had gotten a little closer and then paused as Shogo did his thing. She had to say, having a loud and obnoxious teenager from the future was definitely making her days better. It helped that he was also nice to look at, not that she would tell him that, and the distraction it granted meant this whole bait thing was turning out quite well.
Angelo watched with raised eyebrows as the demon collapsed like a sack of rocks, its fellows swarming over it. "Nice hit, Echo. Ready for the next one?" He stretched out once again to grab as many of them as he could, restraining them ready for Shogo's missiles.
The next volley of missiles came from the other arm, the nanites working overtime to convert their stored material into micro-missiles while a secondary set of nanites were converting excess surrounding materials (namely the crystals) into an octet of oversized rockets that fanned out from behind his shoulders like an oversized pair of wings.
Using them ran the risk of collapsing the caves, but that was a risk he was willing to take. Now all he needed was a proper target.
"This is too good," he exclaimed with a huge smile. "You guys get to do this all the time?!"
Angelo glanced over at him, laughing, as he prepared to corral the next group of demons. "Well, not all the time, and not often exactly like this, but... where can I get an awesome suit like yours?"
A line of electric light ran up the electric blue accent piping. "Ah... you'd have to talk to Ellie's dad, I think? It's hard, though, because like... this stuff only works for me because of my power?"
Technopathy was awesome, but so many people just didn't understand how it worked. His mom still thought it was witchcraft half the time.
"So you're some kind of machine mutant?" Maya asked, ducking quickly under a swipe from a demon that would have taken her head off if she didn't have inbuilt spatial awareness. Another little trick of her mutant power they'd figured out, it seemed to be that being able to mirror people also meant that humanoid creatures being nearby gave her a few seconds of heebie-jeebies from the feedback that let her know they were there. It was extremely useful in a fight, even if it only worked on creatures with two arms and two legs. Something about too many limbs or animal forms that just completely fucked with her mental acuity. "What's that like?"
"Oh man, that's such a weird question to try and answer. Okay..." Shogo trailed off, absently turning and blasting another pack of shadowdemonthings. It was a little like trying to explain how it feels to move a limb that other people don't have. Luckily, he just thought of the perfect metaphor.
"Okay, picture one of those puppets that dangle on strings. Like how you can tug on one and raise an arm, or twist the controls and raise a foot. Well, it's kind of like doing that with a limb that you didn't know you had and most people don't know exist."
There was a pause in the explination.
"Although actually, it's not really anything like tugging on strings. And the puppets can't talk back to you and explain why Internet Explorer is literally cancer. And there's not so much a handle as-- okay you know what? Forget the puppets."
"Sort of puppets if they had a will of their own and had to be talked into doing stuff for you instead of controlled?" Angelo suggested, grabbing a demon that was trying to reach up for Shogo's foot. "A kind of telepathy but not for people."
“Well that was useless information 101. Remind me to never ask either of you any questions in the future.”
Maya ducked the claw strike of the demon directly in front of her only to follow up with a set of neatly aimed dagger strikes of her own.
She’d kept up with the training Wade and North had provided in the way of knife fighting. While she didn’t have the big flashy powers of her two companions, she held her own just fine.
"Oh now that's hardly fair," Shogo said even as he super-punched his way through a shadow demon monster thing. "It's not my fault that English doesn't have the words needed to describe it invented."
The Frosts - all of them - shut down any chance of Alternate Evil Topaz From the Future to be effective with her empathy.
~Does this count as family bonding?~ Ruby and Garnet asked over their tight link to Emma and Fourteen. The pooled psychic potential of eight bodies thrummed under the surface of the link, white-hot and almost eager to be put to use. ~I mean, in a very literal sense...~
~When we survive this,~ 14 shot back, splitting her attention five different ways over the various groups and keeping one very dedicated eye on what the future Topaz was doing, ~I'm going to have to remember to smack you. Preferably with Phoebe. That was weapons-grade bad, and whoever has been teaching you should feel bad.~
It was an annoyingly good pun, and 14 was somewhat upset she hadn't thought of it first, truth be told. Her world had spun on its axis in the last few days, though, and even ignoring the whole 'cloned experimental kids from the future thing' (someone was very very dead, she just didn't know who yet), things were different. Emma knew, now, and probably so did everyone else. In some ways a relief, in others a very new, very scary and very dangerous new world.
Emma was talking to her now. Another new and unexpected turn. And Emma was apparently willing to at least try. A part of her screamed it was too little too late, but... the rest of her was annoyingly happy about the whole thing, and others were starting to... ew, god, notice. Something to deal with after the latest end of the world crisis.
So, bereft of familiar ground and thrown about without any of her previous walls or comforting defenses, 14 fell back to what she was best at: snark.
She was very good at the snark.
~It's a Frost family trait,~ Emma sent. ~Snark, terrible puns in times of danger and truly exquisite taste in shoes.~ She kept her attention turned mostly outwards, trusting the feel of the diamond-like net of telepathic connections between all of them. ~I haven't seen any sign of Topaz the second yet. Can any of you find a trace of her?~ She continued to send her consciousness questing through Avalon, trying to find a mind both familiar and unfamiliar.
Ruby and Garnet's thoughts were tinged with amusement, picking up on the faintest hint of curiosity coming off Emma. ~I had the both of you to teach me, of course I have a shoe collection that lesser people would die to have,~ they sent down the link as they observed the mental 'landscape' around them. ~I don't sense her, but there's...something odd. Can't quite figure it out.~ Their focus sharpened, and they paused, remembering what they knew about their mother. ~Sophie,~ they said, pulling at the single strand of the five-in-one. ~Are you seeing what we're seeing here?~
Sophie had always been the 'mom' that they wanted to deal with, after all.
There was a weird twinge at being addressed as Sophie when being looked at as a whole. Had she disassociated that much in the future? or was that just a quirk she allowed for her... daughters?
...there would be time enough to figure it out later, because she could absolutely see what Ruby and Garnet were getting at.
~Oh that is subtle,~ 14 said, impressed despite herself. ~Here, take a look at this, Emma.~ A split attention gently guided Emma's focus towards the anomaly that the future girls had been poking at.
~She's linked up to her creatures on an astral level, and every bit of combat they get in creates ripples through the astral plane. So far, so normal.~ She very carefully slipped a razor-thin probe into the fabric of their surroundings, teasing it until a dark purple strand of something poked out into existence. ~But she's using the disturbance to hide empath probes. Nearly completely impossible to detect, and more impossible to find.~ 14 grinned. ~Well, unless you're us. Obviously.~
~Oh,~ Emma’s mental note was a sigh over the wires. ~That is quite terribly clever. Topaz has obviously been studying hard.~ She reached out with her mind, soothed it over the empath probe that 14 had dug up. ~Tell me,~ she directed the question at the Ruby and Garnet sections of the diamond mind they’d built between all of them, ~does your Topaz have any weaknesses you can think of? If we’re trying to make her attention waver.~
Ruby and Garnet's facets of the Frost Diamond (and wasn't that just the loveliest most perfect metaphor for them all together) glimmered as they considered what they knew of their opponent. ~Her magic is fueled by emotion,~ they offered, remembering something Amanda Sefton had told them all before hurling them backward through time. ~She's almost a vampire like that, the more powerful emotion she can tap into, the more she can...~ The physical sensation of a person wiggling their fingers ghosted over the link.
~Isn't it funny how there are some questions you don't need to actually ask?~ 14 thought, thrumming over the link. She teased the dark psionic thread further out of its hiding place, gently coaxing it to unwrap and follow the flow that she dictated, well outside of the ripples where it hid.
Honestly, if the situation wasn't so pressing, she might have tried to keep the link intact so she could study it. It was fascinating, the way it rippled and moved in a way that was so different from anything else she'd ever 'seen' (for lack of a better word) done before... yeah there was potential there.
Shame that would screw up the rest of everyone else fighting against evil Topaz.
Alas.
~So,~ said Emma slowly, letting her power drift down the tendril that had been dug up, ~I think there’s probably two options for us then. We can either clamp off the probes, cut Topaz off from the emotions that she’s sucking out of people or - we can pull them hard, all at once, rip them out of her grasp. Which do you think is most likely to work?~ She left the question open to the other members of the Frost diamond, as everyone else in the interlink knew Topaz better than she did.
~I think the first,~ Ruby and Garnet offered. ~She's always prepared for a direct confrontation, in my experience.~ And they had too much experience with it, to be honest. ~If we just turn off the tap, she's juggling enough things that it will probably take her a while to notice the change.~ Subtlety wasn't entirely the future Topaz' strong suit.
~I'm annoyed at how good a metaphor this is for our change in status. I just want to make sure everyone is aware of that.~ 14 did sound legitimately put out by the whole thing. She dusted off her hands. ~Let's get to work?~
~Sure.~
The pause echoed across the link before the ripple from Ruby and Garnet turned mischievous.
~Mom.~
They'd been behaving this whole time, they were allowed this little bit of fun. Or at least they thought so.
And before 14 could react, their mental presence darted off to locate more of the hallmarks of Topaz' influence, with the feeling of a small child who thinks they have just gotten one over on their parent.
Emma sighed, but though she tried to make it long-suffering, she couldn’t help the smile that touched her lips. ~I’m fairly certain you find that as disconcerting as I do,~ she remarked mildly to 14 and then looked at the probe that lay in her psychic hands. ~I can clamp this one, reduce the draw, but I think there will be a lot of them. Topaz does seem the type to build in redundancies. Ruby and Garnet seem to be able to find them better than you or I, and you’ve definitely got the finesse to flense them out cleanly once she has. Do you feel like bringing me some more pretty ribbons to play with? If I end up with as many as I suspect, I think we’ll need my power to manage the clamping.~ Emma made a slightly pained noise. ~They don’t feel right,~ she added. ~Give me a nice clean telepathic probe any day, not this feelings business.~
~Tell me about it,~ 14 drawled. There was a long, heavy pause as the two just sort of watched as Ruby and Garnet had fun tracking down Topaz's psionic links from where they were hidden, tossing up the psychic equivalent of little red flags with numbers on them all over the place. Part of her was still... uncomfortable, with the path the things had taken over the last few hours and days. She was well aware that once everything calmed down, there was a non-trivial chance she'd be reliving her breakdown at least once. (Her stupid psych degree was surprisingly good for a lot of things, but she hated when it meant she ended up psychoanalyzing herself.)
It wasn't trauma in the strictest sense, of course. More the opposite. It was just embarrassing, and embarrassment was hard for 14 to forget.
Still, 14 figured...
~I suspect if we linger here for much longer, they'll tease us about being old and slow. After you,~
Beat.
~Mom.~
...it was definitely worth it.
Emma actually snorted, then laughed, a bright shimmer of delight that ran through the Frost family diamond they’d made between the three/eight of them. ~Darling girl,~ she purred. ~Let’s go and show the world how fabulous a Frost girl can be.~