New Twists in the Path

I woke up at my desk again... wait, not my desk... How did I end up... in Dr Beck's office?

Right... Father and the others suited for underwater operations went after Qli, I headed the Becks surgery to prep it for triage...

Red Fire.

I turned to see the rest of the surgery, and the pool of blood... but no body? Think, girl - what happened here?

Near as I can remember, I had an episode in the Madness. I searched the desk for notes. No receipts for the morgue, the sheriff or even the cold storage units at the Consulate... but the formulas here....

Oh, no.

After all the nagging I did about the reanimation serum, Father is going to be really upset to find out I made an alternate batch.

Now I have to find a wandering ex-corpse.

The Boxcar

I have the memories of five warriors, but this would be my first battle on home territory under my own power. Preparing for it had been by spinal reactions, but inside, there was a small corner of my brain looking for a place to hide. Waiting for the go signal, that small piece of me wanted to run, but I knew this was something that needed to be done.

Suddenly there was too much going on, keeping track of the patrol made up of Jaegers who had learned to swim and Qli taking Beck out of harm’s way - that which was called Steel Head by the urchins was cornered, even if it did not know. As soon as it realized it was cut off, we would need to banish it quickly.

Zaide’s notes said the key to the thing would be something small, easily carried by the primary life form of the plane. Finding it visually in this morass of flotsam was difficult, especially while dodging the large bodies in battle. The boxcar was huge if you were searching for something that fit in the hand, but far too small for a patrol of Jaegers to duke it out with something making a bid for demigod. At Father’s shout, I risked flying by wireframe in Sight.

THERE! It glowed feebly with Beck’s soul trapped in the web, and I was horrified to find the web was made up of the wisps of the souls caught before him! The thing was making the prison stronger with each soul it caught to anchor! Smashing it would do no good, Beck would die, and the others would not go on to the planes of their beliefs.

Papa picked up on my distress, and growled, “Do vat hyu must, Hy will coffer.” With his bulk between me and that thing that did not belong here, I had to move fast. Unmaking something made by a mind this twisted was hard, like trying to explain land physics to a fish, but I had a little help from Beck, as he roiled about in the center, and oddly enough, from Chi Yun. He had been tapped as a herald, but had been killed before the call had pulled him in completely. He writhed in impatience as we unwove the prison holding them.

Beck’s sluggish reactions meant he would need help finding his way, but we had that already. As Chi Yun joyfully folded into the space between planes for his reincarnation, and what was left of Polish Bob was gathered to Purgatory for reformation, I gathered Beck up and pitched him to the catcher on the pier, mentally shouting **Lady Fairycat! Heads up!** Even as she winced at the horrid (and really unintentional, honest!) pun, Softpaw pulled his soul and body back together.

Then Ya Yiwama got angry.

Thrashing about, it reached for the tooth, throwing the patrol around as if they were children's toys. The last bit of the tooth was still holding him here, and I frantically incinerated it, the last of the ash disintegrating to nothing just before the thing reached Papa. When it was gone, so was Steal Head, then something shifted under the boxcar, and it began to slide into the harbor. Papa shouted, “Shift out, Hy get out onder!” and he dove for the opening on the underside of the boxcar, following Decebalus and Radu.

Qli was wedged up against the wall, not moving. I was able to reach her as the water reached half-way up the tilting boxcar floor. At my touch, she initiated a galvanic transmission, [SELF-DIAGNOSIS: TESSERACTOR DESTROYED. SPINAL COLUMN DESTROYED. LIMBS DESTROYED. SAVE YOURSELVES. COLLECT ME AFTER. POWERING DOWN.] I kissed her forehead and promised, “I will be back for you after I get the diving gear.” Then I slipped between planes to the place Father had designated as the medical triage area.

Does it mean you have to throw your body off a building?

Father was fine, of course. Once I got him to the clinic, he was struck by inspiration. It seems odd, but I don’t share his passion for engineering. I left him to it and transitioned back to Steelhead. I had been awake for going on thirty hours, and needed to rest. One last patrol before sleeping, since I was still too wound up to sleep properly.

Everything was fine until I got to Shanghai. Finding a shopkeeper on the roof was not normal, but it did not look like he was preparing to jump. Still, I circled his building, letting him know I was there, and landed near him, careful of loose tiles.

“I should be doing something,” he said by way of greeting. Speaking in Russian, it took me a little bit to find the right language centers in my head. Bits of half-memories of folk-tales told by a woman’s voice helped me make the connection.

“Do you get any feelings other than that?” My pronunciation was not quite right, mostly because I had to be careful not to filter in the Romanian with it. “Anything I can do to help?”

Mr Danielovich shook his head, “Nothing specific... not even a place I should go walking... only that it is nearing the time...”

Going carefully, I tried to read his emotional aura. You have to be careful with empathic work, because someone who was borderline sensitive might be startled by the brush of something not physical. You might not even know they were sensitive until they began to have hysterics. Sitting on the edge of a roof, that would be bad. “You generally get told to go out wandering with this feeling?” I asked under the cover of a calm reassurance projection.

He shrugged, staring off into some middle distance. “You get to know when you need to be somewhere, right? Take a turn into an alley maybe one block sooner than you usually do, or go see the sights across the bay.” His focus sharpened, briefly, staring at the spot where Father's lab had been. He shivered in the warm breeze, and I remembered that he had gotten Mr Antfarm out of the wreckage. I could not remember if anyone mentioned Mr Danielovich being injured at all. Now, when I tried to pin down recollections of that time, my mind slithered away to Mr Antfarm’s treatment, Rengerin’s investigation, and anything else that was happening at the time.

“Huh, neat trick, that - being able to be there, just in time.” He had some good shields, so he was not radiating his emotional state like most humans do. It’s not that odd, finding someone shielded. Some people just grow them out of need in times of extreme adversity, and that seems to be something a lot of immigrants to our city have in their past. The ones that don’t shield tend to go mad, or drug themselves into a stupor. That reminded me I needed to check up on Dr Beck. AFTER I talked Mr Danielovich off the roof. “Does coming up here make the feeling stronger?”

He seemed to struggle with words, even though we were still talking in Russian. “It is... up, but not here, and not... now, only.... there is still the urgency....”

More soothing projections, “Would you like to try a higher altitude? I can give you a lift up higher...”

“Yes, please - this itching in my spine is becoming stronger.” He stood up, and I pulled on my grip gloves, while he got into position.

I had not noticed he was in the exact correct position for a wrist-grip pickup, and said, “Right - let’s get you into the air, Xavael.” A simple slip of the tongue, with monumental consequences. I do not know why I decided to test my theory at that moment... and at the time, I had not realized I had said the other’s name.

He stopped, becoming very still, and whispered something I did not catch. While I was hovering, waiting for him to get back on his mark, he turned to me, and said quietly, “I Remember.”

There was a light kindled in his eyes, and it swiftly grew to encompass him, and he repeated, as the wings unfolded from his back, “I Remember!” in a clear voice, no louder than we had been speaking, but it seemed to echo back from the rest of the city. The radiance grew bright enough my irises closed completely to save my retinas, and then suddenly, he was gone.

I hadn’t expected him to transform in front of me. I shakily landed on the roof, wondering what had been loosed in the world, and where the angel had gone. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep for a while.

Patrols and Reports

Antfarm found this doctor without too much guidance. It's good for him to get back on his feet, even if he had to deal with the urchins. The students were just as curious, but ever since Wolfgang, they've been a little less anxious to investigate neighbors. The air in St Helen's will do him some good, and I can leave supplies at his camp when he is on his hikes. Far enough away that the children won't have time to pester him constantly, but close enough he can get into Shanghai to see Dr Beck, it's a good spot.

The trip to Caledon meant I could not patrol as often as I used to, so I have some catching up to do. That Gloom creature was new. The children, urchins or students, are at risk until we can put this one down. Dr Beck is trying to get some information from the remains of the one found. He has more experience in this kind of investigation... and he's having flashbacks in the middle of things. I don't know him well enough yet to help with those. I'll have to sound him out on non-traditional therapies.

The therapeutic regimen he set for himself is not going to do him any good in the long run. He hasn't taken any sever damages yet, and he's still healthy enough that I'm not worried yet. His mind is till mostly intact, and his neurological reactions are still solid enough to treat others. I still trust him more than Roundtree, because even with his ghosts, he's still trying to care for the slum-dwellers.

Mama also had problems with Shanghai, centered around something in the hotel. I went over her notes, and something has moved into Dragonlands since my last patrol there. I can see why she is weirded out by it. I am going to see what Greenie can make of it, because this should be safe enough territory.