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I think I am here.

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  1. I think I am here.
    The Haunt looked at the watcher woman, then at the bear. “I just don’t want to be alone,” he said quietly, and it sounded so weak. All of his motives boiled down to that. “I never wanted to be alone again,” he said, and reached for the bear that the kid held, but of course his hand passed straight through it and the dust that made it up dispersed. “And it was just so easy, to get people’s attention by doing bad things. It was easier that way than the other...”
  2. I think I am here.
    Price’a frown quirked up to a little grin when her face brightened and she began to recall more about the Instinct. She looked more comfortable in the armour as well. The scribes, meanwhile, we’re going crazy in their ledgers about how she described using the Instinct. “Alright, we can work with that. Next time you jump of the ladder —maybe choose a smaller height?— try imagining the strings are attached to you than any object. And that when you began to fall, the string pulls you a little up to lessen it?” He looeked to the assistant supervisor, who was back, and he nodded. “Begin test.”
  3. I think I am here.
    Max thought about what the Phoenix said to him, but before he could respond all feelings were wiped from him, like a clean slate with only one mark appearing, the mark of shame, and his entire thought process shaking with one thought and one thought only, that what he’d done was shameful. He doubled over and with his free hand clutched his forehead. He hated himself, he hated himself so much. He’d taken over the Phoenix, he’d captured her in her own body, just like Ruin. He was like Ruin, controlling the creatures, forcing people to bend to his will. Max wasn’t ready to handle such power, he was just a man, a simple man, and yet he’d messed up so much, he’d hurt so many people. His temper tantrum in Oasis had killed so, so many and he’d never done any good with his Rioting. He just created problems and failed to fix them, the Phoenix being a prime example. He felt such shame that he thought he might explode, he really was a monster, exploiting weaknesses to gain control, like some sort of twisted puppeteer. And — And then it was over. Five seconds extended to a timeless vortex of shame. Even with the cold air and the rain Max could feel he’d been sweating. He stood up again, a little closer to Althea. He’d been shaken up a bit. Back to the Phoenix, with it’s inevitable statements, and that he’d robbed her of life. But Max’s mind was raw from the attack the Dark Phoenix had given him and he struggled to remember the diplomatic response he had planned. Listen, he said, voice jagged. I know you like hunting. That’s why I’m not even in this city. Why would I summon my Enemy to the same city I was at? I’m in the mountains, near the grass and the rivers, maybe on the other side of the world. I might be in the Boundless Plains. I would never come to the same city you’re in. I thought you were good at hunting, well, the hunt’s on. And the last thing he sent to the Phoenix, before pulling it out and giving it back control, was a face he pulled from a photograph he’d seen as a child somewhere in the Canton, taken from some forgotten part of his memory. It was of a winking face. Rashan’s winking face. —-— Wes looked to Mike. If you ever need some help, tell me. “I will.” Wes said, adjusting his glasses. He gestured to thin air in front him. “It’s nothing compared to yours, sir.” He looked around. “And Mr. Uwik is gone somewhere. I saw that Ghostblood woman teleport him and some others out of PlasmaCore.” —-— “No family in the city,” they said. “Th-though I-I th-think sh-shopping m-malls a-are c-closed n-now.” Shez/Alask frowned. Their voice was usually two voices overlaid but now it seemed one voice was coming after the other with a small delay. They must have been getting out of sync as the power of the AlleyStorm stopped fuelling them. They walked ahead and like with the words, shortly after they walked a transparent outline of them, like an atium shadow, trailed behind after a short delay. “O-out o-of s-sync,” they said, then shut up. —-— Lusk got the message from the Guns n’ Ninjas squad and made a note on the database. As much as they were underlings they’d been key in shutting off the Vortex. Them and Freedom. He made a note on the database, maybe a promotion was in line, maybe not. He’d have to think about it some more. PlasmaCore’s going to attack the city with an army any time soon, he messaged. Be prepared.
  4. I think I am here.
    Price frowned when she hit the floor with a thud and the scribes in the corners took a break from their writing to gasp quietly. Price made some more notes on his ledger —Inexperienced beyond habitual uses. Price looked to his assistant supervisor to continue the tests but the assistant just shrugged, of what they did know about Intensity — because they did know some things — reducing the intensity of falling was a basic move. If Sagitta couldn’t do it... the assistant supervisor didn’t know if she’d be ready for the other tests at all. Price sighed and looked to Sagitta. The thing was, she was already reducing her fall, she’d said her herself. Just perhaps in a way that she’d practised, with armour. “Get some light armour,” he said to the assistant supervisor and the man ran off, out of the chamber. Price looked to Sagitta again. “When you’re in your armour, and you ‘reduce the impact of it on your joints’, what does it feel like? How do you do the action? Is it like your pushing on the metal? Pulling?” Or does it feel like, for a brief moment, the power of destruction itself? But no, that was just his own instinct. Entropy.
  5. I think I am here.
    @AonEne Rob watched Shana with more nervousness. He saw Evelyn run forward and... do something to the Voidbringers. She did something really odd, it looked like she was drawing something in the air. The symbols flashed and suddenly one of the Voidbringers had metal shoes, and another was boxed in. That looks handy. Ashlyn had come again, flanked by James, and this time she held a pistol aimed at the Voidbringers, which made Rob blink a couple times. She was a normal person, and yet she was fighting the Voidbringers. “You don’t need surges to help,” Cup whispered in his ear, shrinking a little bit at the scary scene. Shana took a couple Voidbringers down and suddenly she was on the ground too and Rob stood up. Unconscious, or dead? It didn’t matter, if she wasn’t dead she soon would be with all those Voidbringers standing over her. Taking a decently-sized rock from the sidewalk where the car was parked Rob threw one, and it sailed at the Voidbringers. It missed, but it managed to distract them enough that the second rock Rob threw hit one of them straight in the face. Throw, Rob could throw. He’d been practising throwing skills ever since he’d learnt he could transform prices of cloth into sharp throwing knives with Tension, and now it seemed to be paying off. The next rock he threw was split in half by lightning and Rob ducked behind the car as a bolt passed where he’d been standing. Fortunately one of the rock halves continued its flight path and hit a Voidbringer in the chest. Standing up Rob hefted another larger rock, but this time not at the Voidbringers, but at that crystal plant that enhanced them.
  6. I think I am here.
    Price wrote down the words, and the scribes by the sides continued scribbling whatever it was they were analysing about Sagitta. It wasn’t exactly very detailed, but that was fine. Gaining more detail was the purpose of the tests. He gestured to the ladder that leaned against the wall, about 25 feet in height. “You’re not wearing armour, would that mean you’d be able to soften more of a fall?” He asked, then noted something on the ladder. “Please climb to the maximum height of the ladder where you think you can fall without sustaining any injuries.”
  7. I think I am here.
    Cheh nodded. Four elements, water, fire, earth, air. Five if you counted energybending, which must have been how he’d bent all those shadows towards him. Cheh frowned when Arthos called lightning the sixth element, wasn’t it a sub-bending technique? Of course, Arthos must have been counting those. And that’s why he said he’d have to learn model, because there were all-types of sub-bending techniques nowadays. Of course, Cheh knew none of them, just basic earthbending. He’d never had a use for sub-bending when he’d been helping out on the farm. He looked to the glowing light in the centre of the room. John has said it was to an ‘escape pod’, but Cheh didn’t really understand that. “I guess we touch it?” He asked and reached a hand out, touched it with the palm of his hand. @John Flamesinger
  8. I think I am here.
    “The Avatar,” Cheh whispered. “Controller of four elements. To bring balance to all nations. Bridge between the real and spirit world. I wanted to tell you I appreciate the work you do for the world.”
  9. I think I am here.
    Cheh was too busy looking where Arthos had done his magic to do anything else, hands at his mouth in shock. Air, water, fire, earth, and whatever spritual bending he’d used on the shadows. The glowing eyes, it only meant one thing, unmistakably. “The Avatar,” he whispered reverently. Him, who was just a farm boy. Meeting the Avatar. Cheh didn’t know how long it had been, perhaps Korra had already died and the Avatar spirit had reincarnated. That’s what he’d meant when he implied he was much older than Cheh. He looked to Arthos following the guard and he followed him too. “It’s an honour, sir,” he whispered to Arthos. “I’d have prepared an offering if I knew you’d be here. The Avatar.”
  10. I think I am here.
  11. I think I am here.
  12. I think I am here.
    The words stung more than a little bit and the Haunt stood up, floated a little higher. He was a force of evil, someone noteworthy! Not something to be talked down to by a child. “You haven’t been alone like I have,” he said almost hastily. “You say you’re alone but you’re not, you’ve got that girl there,” he gestured to Eve. “There are orphanages. People can see you. People don’t ignore you. People haven’t been ignoring you for hundreds of years. Can you even count to that? “You are not all alone. You have never been alone. I’m alone. And I know who I am. I’m Tars Landen! And I tried to help people once, but people are cruel.” He sunk down and sat on the ground some distance away from them. “It’s called development. I opened my eyes. It doesn’t mean I lost sight of who I am, it doesn’t...”
  13. I think I am here.
    Cheh stepped back a bit, now frowning in disbelief. What did the man mean that it depended? “Please,” he said quietly, gesturing to the open space between them.
  14. I think I am here.
    Cheh smiled at the fire but then the wind picked up slightly and the smile wavered. “A-all of them?” He asked, a little quieter than before. Clearly Arthos had gotten his attention.
  15. I think I am here.
    “Just asking,” Cheh said with a shrug. The man did look older than Cheh. “Can you bend?”
  16. I think I am here.
    Cheh was focusing on what Jessy had said when the world had changed and they were all on the island. The real world, Cheh thought. The prison must have been the spirit world, and now they were in the real world of air and fire and water and earth. Almost as if to test whether it was true, Cheh stomped on the ground where the sand made way to dirt, and a stone the the size of his torso jumped up to meet him. He punched it with a grunt and the large stone shot out towards the ocean, landing in a ripple some 20 feet away. Cheh laughed. “Okay, we can still bend,” he said. “That’s good.”
  17. I think I am here.
    The guard tried to lead her to very centre of the room, right in the view of all the scribes lurking the corners observing everything they could about her and frantically scribbling on their notepads. Price took his place a little in front of them, facing Sagitta. “We’ll begin with an interview,” he said, more for the scribes than Sagitta. They’d stopped calling it an interrogation since a couple years ago, though there was no question that it was. “What can your instinct do?” He asked Sagitta in the almost completely siletnt room. “Please be as detailed as possible, any lies will be found through testing and consequences yielded to.”
  18. I think I am here.
    Why do you say lies as though they were true? You say you want something but do a different thing. You... you are not the one who called me first? The one who stood here and fought? That one understood. You don't understand. The voice caught Max off guard and he flinched at the response. It sounded... vast. And vaguely female, though of course Max knew this wasn’t Althea. Althea. She moved closer to him and Max squeezed her hand gently. The Phoenix, he realised. It was talking to him. Or was it a hallucination brought on by all the stress? Harmony knows it wouldn’t be the first one of those. The one who fought? I never fought, not you at least. Mac thought, wondered who the Phoenix could be referring to, though it didn’t take much detective work. There were only three times the Phoenix had been summoned into the public, and two of them had been Max. The third, and first one of the summonings was all the way in the Seven Day War. Rashan. Even while doing one of the seemingly impossible things of the Alleyverse Max still somehow remained in his shadow. I know who you’re thinking about. No, I’m not him. Unfortunately, Max almost let slide. And I’m sorry if I don’t understand you. I’m just confused. And I’m not lying. I don’t want to do this. I didn’t. But I did because they took my wife. Did the Phoenix even know what that was? They took someone I loved, and said they’d kill them if I didn’t summon you. And now, I just want to live, but I think you’re going to try and kill me as soon as I let you go, so I don’t let you go. It’s comlicated. It was complicated. And Max hoped the Phoenix could understand, because once the AlleyStorm dwindled the Phoenix would be out of his control anyway, and whether he wanted it to or not it would probably hunt him down. @Voidus —-— Wes took the shirt with reverence. “Thanks, sir.” He said and paused, looked at it for a second. Very quickly he ripped the tattered remains of cloak he had on and slid on the shirt, very briefly exposing the massive scar that ran across his back, thicker than a plank of wood and running down its length. Seom had seen the scar before. And Wes hoped that was all who’d seen it, though he knew, Mike had probably seen it as well now. —-— “We did succeed,” Shez/Alask said. “And that is ‘we’ as in all of us, not ‘we’ as in Shez and Alask. Although in our own way we’ve succeeded as well.” They looked around. “We should go back to the Forge. Our work is done.” @Sorana
  19. I think I am here.
    “Okay. Lucky for you, I’m also the supervisor for your tests.” He gestured for her to follow and tried to lead her and the guard to a small testing chamber dug into the ground not too far from the sleeping wards. The chamber had a couple other people in it, with documents and pencils, and had a very tall ladder leaning against one of the walls. The guard tried to look intimidating and tried to lead Sagitta into the room.
  20. I think I am here.
    “Did you do any crime?” Cheh asked. “That’s usually why people are imprisoned.”
  21. I think I am here.
    “It’s my story!” The Haunt growled, right at the watcher girl’s cold stare at him. Right, wrong. As if she was the ultimate judge of morality, this teenage girl who had the gall to try and tell his life story back to him. “Because he realised the cruelty of people,” he said to Mart, quieter. “Because even when he learnt to communicate people dismissed him, thought of him as a spren or a bother, or something less than human. They tried to trap him in a gem for their little entertainment like he was an animal. And so, he decided, there was only one way for them to see, only one way for them to see him as something more, someone deserving of attention.” He looked to the watcher girl. “And yes. That does bring us to the present. Where the main character of our story meets with a crazily naive child and a girl who already views magic people with disdain.” He’d been doing some watching of his own, too.
  22. I think I am here.
    Max controlled the Phoenix, and he could feel the instructions being yielded through amber eyes that didn’t belong to him. Just make her fly away. If you can. Althea’s voice sounded in his head quietly, and Max had a sudden pang of remembrance. Flashbacks of the Atticus/Ambrosia duel, the duel where he lost Mara, flashed in the dark place when Max closed his eyes. He’d gone crazy in the duel, he’d controlled Atticus, broken both of their minds, and Atticus had gone in a duel to the death in pretty much a suicide. And what was Max doing now? A repeat? The thought that he could handle it crossed his mind, that the AlleyStorm would enhance him, but it was overruled by the memory in the Sewers, where one of Frob’s friends had Rioted Max, made him feel all the pain and failures of his life. Is that really how it feels? He’d asked Althea. She’d said yes. Storms, he said to the Phoenix and he took back his command to hurt the Dark Phoenix, just simply said to stop. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. Could the Phoenix understand him? It definitely could think, that much was evident that Max’s could feel the hate it emanated through their link. But, it was a monster! An abomination, and what was more efficient than to use an abomination to destroy another? He was so confused, he felt like a kid again for a moment, Rioting Mara and then feeling guilty about it later. The thought crossed his mind of when Max had Rioted Mara too much, Rioted fear so much that she ran away. I’m so sorry. He was abusing the power. Was that what it was? He hadn’t thought he was. But the Phoenix hated him, that much was clear. Would letting it free cause more issues. The first time I Rioted you, it was by accident, I-I was angry. And I Rioted everyone. And the second time, it was blackmail. This was my fault, though, this control, I’m sorry. Do you even understand me? I know you can think, but... He shook his head. He wished so badly he could just make this all go away. He wished the Phoenix could just leave without Max feeling like he was the real villain. And I don’t want to let you go now, because I know you want to kill me. But, believe me, I really don’t want to do this. @Voidus —-— “Thanks,” Wes said, and walked next to Mike. “I’ve got plenty of food in my bendalloyminds,” he said. “But unfortunately I don’t know how to, you know, make it so anyone can tap it. So all this food’s for me, sadly.” —-— She moved to touch them and Shez/Alask moved away from her hand. “Can’t control that,” they said. “Withering happens anyway. But we only try to do it to people, when they break the Rules.” @Sorana
  23. I think I am here.
    Max was completely engrossed within the Rioting. A sudden image of the dark Phoenix penetrated his mind for a moment and his Rioting on that Phoenix slipped, he was gaining no purchase on the Dark Phoenix’s mind. The Red Phoenix however, that was going much better than Max thought. His brain was being stretched like an elastic band between the two monsters. Suddenly, something slipped, like Max had just reached the surface after being underwater. A moment of clarity happened, and it took Max a moment to realise something. That the Red Phoenix wasn’t struggling any longer. Althea, he said, completely unprepared. I’m in control. The Red Phoenix, I control it. Rioting the Dark Phoenix isn’t working, though. Now was the perfect time to sic the Red Phoenix against Ajax. But, Ajax hadn’t attacked yet, and Max didn’t know where he was. There was only one threat of massive proportions, apart from him, and that was the Dark Phoenix. I have an idea, he said. Taking control of the Red Phoenix was unexpected, and Max didn’t know if he could hold onto such a large amount of power for too long. But he could give some instructions. Okay, Phoenix, he said, not knowing whether the Phoenix could actually hear him. We don’t have the best of relationships, I’m sure. I don’t think you like me very much. But that doesn’t matter, you need to kill the Dark Phoenix. Kill the Dark Phoenix, and kill it far away from here. He didn’t want collateral damage to the city. Those are your instructions. —- Wes looked up and jogged after Mike and Seom. “I’m here,” he said. —- She liked them. Both of them. “When we’re angry,” they said. “And we don’t think it’s burning. Withering, maybe. But they all deserve it, for breaking the rules. Especially if they’re bad. If they’re good... we can hold back.”
  24. I think I am here.
    Sometime later there was a knock on the door and a couple men entered, using a copy of the key Shana had. One of the men was Price, who stood within the doorframe. And one of the men was a guard, unarmoured but carrying a sword. He was there in case Sagitta tried to run, as she’d obviously outmatch Price if it came to physical competition. He noted she looked much better than she had when they’d first interacted. The dirt had seemed to wash off, and now Price could better see the Ta’e’iloan features on her face. “Wake up,” he said, looking at his ledger. A little early. “Testing time.”
  25. I think I am here.
    Shana took off and Rob turned sharply towards she went. Storms, he’d messed it up. He’d said it was okay to be afraid and she’d took it to mean to ignore it. Fear was good. Fear was what kept you from charging into a group of angry Voidbringers’ line of sight. Rob clenched his teeth (fortunately Ben was to unconscious to see that show of emotion) and wondered where in storms those cops were. They were supposed to be here, to help. Had they thought Rob’s voice was too monotone to be telling the truth? There was nothing Rob could do but look at Shana endangering himself, and he hated that. “Some girlfriend,” he mumbled, looking to Ben. “I hope I don’t have to be the one telling you if she dies.” If she died... Rob would never forgive himself for that plane-crash of a pep talk. Shana was maybe the closest friend Rob had. Shaking himself out of his thoughts he sighed and looked around, trying to see if there was any way he could help.
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