Turn 78: Concerns And Adjustments

“So… certain information has come to my attention.” She began, watching Izzy with narrowed eyes as an amused Vi and a confused Tommy sat on the couch, one having figured out what she was doing and the other having simply told to show up here. “Information involving one Isabella Williams.”

“Alright, what is this?” The middle schooler asked their older siblings.

Tommy shrugged. “No idea… I thought this was like a game night thing.”

“It is, because there is a question of somebody’s game!” She nodded, pointing at her brother to emphasize her point.

Tommy squinted. “What?”

Vi let out a snort, before whispering. “Maya’s doing a bit, just roll with it.”

“Uh, you going to explain the bit?” Tommy whispered back.

“I will!” Maya exclaimed. “It has come to my attention that on Halloween -a night we all would rather forget- Izzy developed her first crush!”

“Ooh!” Tommy’s eyes widened as both his and Vi’s darted from Maya to Izzy.

Izzy scrunched up. “I, wha- No!”

“Oh, so you don’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling when you think about the boy who saved you?” She pointedly asked. “The boy who is definitely too old for you!”

“What? No I don’t have a crush.” Izzy denied, (though the redness of her cheeks clearly mean she’s lying!!!)

(Or we’re running wild with something relatively minor.) Her inner reason suggested.

(Nonsense!) Her inner madness refuted.

“So you don’t find yourself randomly thinking about the boy?” She asked, skepticism clear.

“I-uh- No!” Izzy lied, unable to meet anyone’s eyes.

“Now there is nothing wrong with you getting a crush on someone who saved your life.” She admitted, before pointing out that, “It’s simply… uh, what was it? Transference or the suspension bridge effect! And as a strong independent young woman you should rise above these petty psychological lies! Especially since the guy is like Tommy’s age and it would be all kinds of red flags if he didn’t rip your heart out and stomp it on the ground.”

“Not the way I would’ve put it but she -when you get past the madness- does have a point.” Vi agreed, waving her hand. “Though crushing on heroes is fairly common, especially for your first crush. And given how Maya has zero room to berate you given her internet… history isn’t the word… Tommy?”

Tommy smirked before leaning forward. “List of debauchery, trash heap, house of horny horrors, actually that last one works too well with travelers…”

“Something like that.” Vi nodded.

“Wha- you guys are supposed to be on my side!” She whined. “Izzy is too young for a crush, especially on someone older than me and crazy enough to kill with his teeth!”

“Both valid points.” Vi agreed, seeing things her way. “But at the same time you really shouldn’t be bugging your hermanita about her first crush.”

“She’s right.” Tommy agreed, snapping a finger as he pointed at their older sister. “Mamá teased me about my first crush, and I don’t intend to introduce anyone I date to any of you until after the wedding. At which point they’d be too far in to back out.”

“That seems… underhanded.” She felt the need to point out.

“Love and war, hermanita.” Tommy shrugged.

“We-we’re getting off topic.” She frowned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We’re here to talk about Izzy-” She pointed at empty space. “Wha-where did she go?!”

“She evac-ed a minute ago when I got bored of you embarrassing her and decided to switch to you.” Vi answered. “Speaking of, how are things going with you and Ying lately?”

“Or that other girl you’ve been talking about Aisha?” Tommy added.

(This was a trap.) Her inner reason was realized with no small amount of betrayal.

Scene Consequences

-Grown a bit closer to Vi, and Tommy.

---

Having eventually managed to escape her elder siblings, Maya made her way to the secluded safety of her lab where she noticed an alert from a very specific computer built for a very specific reason. More specifically an alert telling her, “We found Tommy’s attacker!”

Tossing aside the parts she had in her hand she rushed over to the computer and began shifting through the information her program had managed to compile. Or rather she did that after slipping, crashing into the ground and picking herself up. (Which is why we shouldn’t run in the lab.)

(Shut up…)

Once righted she opened the program and quickly figured out what she could. “Okay, so… we don’t have the actual attacker’s ID but we have a massive list of people who have been treated for similar issues as Tommy.”

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(Doctor patient confidentiality, what’s that?) Her inner madness asked as she pulled up the list of names her program had gathered.

“Ahem, anyway by cross referencing data compiled from this list of people as well as using the tracking software installed in all phones and location pins from social media-”

(All of which we have disabled on our own equipment since the incident.) Her inner logic double checked as she opened a map covered in little red dots.

(I made sure we did.) Her inner paranoia confirmed.

Ignoring the voices in her head she continued, “By cross referencing all of that information we have narrowed down the location of Tommy’s attacker to… this neighborhood.” She decided, zooming into an area with an extremely dense number of dots before pulling up pictures of said neighborhood.

“And given how according to those Hunters ‘magic’ was involved we can further narrow things down to this magic shop… though that one is more circumstantial than the rest.” She forced herself to admit as she looked at the image of a store named ‘Meyer’s magic and books.’

(Eh, they’re filthy magic users, they deserve whatever harassment we give ‘em.) Her inner prejudice assured her.

(Let’s not take it too far, we don’t want a repeat of Decker with them calling the police on us.) Her inner reason argued.

“Right… right…” She sighed, unable to argue with herself on this one. (Nonsense we can always argue with ourselves. It’s like half our gimmick.)

(That said, we should also consider whether we’re really ready for whatever confrontation we’re bound to be looking at here.) Her logic continued, ignoring their insanity.

She paused at that and actually felt the various aches and bruises remaining from her little trip through the fight pit, before shaking her head. “We… We have those healing herbs. We can use them to patch ourselves up for any fight we might get into.”

(And our power supply?)

“Is still under ten percent…” She grimaced, knowing full well that that was nowhere near enough power to go picking a fight with a Deviant.

(Especially not one with Slaver abilities…) Her inner reason underlined, before telling her. (Now that we know where to go, it’s best to prep ourselves and then go in when properly prepared.)

(Or -hear me out- we can do some scouting stuff without fighting.) Her more impatient self suggested. (After all, they’re a store and we’re a teenager, we can lie and say we’re curious about becoming a filthy vile magic user.)

“And we don’t know one hundred percent that this is the place.” She nodded, liking the idea of doing a bit of scouting first. “Though we should do something to make sure we’re ready for whatever we might find.”

Scene Consequences

-Informant Network will now add 2D6 progress towards Elizabeth’s investigation each Turn.

-Can now choose to track down the source of Tommy’s slaver effect. (When ready.)

---

Knowing that this whole endeavor might require a subtler approach than her usual methods, after switching her Informant Network’s priorities to her other major case in Elizabeth, she began working away at an upgrade for her Stealth Protocols.

Namely making it so that the invisibility -(you mean transparency)- field remained active even if she or her DMs were to move while the field was active.

“Okay, now for the test run.” She told her LCMs as they watched her turn her Stealth Pak on.

With her body becoming largely transparent she began to slowly move, an action that previously would cause her stealth protocols to give out. “Alright, now a little faster.”

She began slowly speeding her movements up as she walked out of her lab before slowly putting on speed as she ran down the hall.

(It’s giving out.) Her inner madness informed her, when the stealth protocols went from making her entire body invisible -(transparent)- to only covering her torso.

Though when she looked down to check she saw that even then her torso was still more visible than if she’d been standing still, the light more blurring and refracting off of her than blending into the background.

“So cl-oh, shit!” She cursed, her distracted gaze causing her to trip and face plant onto the ground.

(And again, this is why we shouldn’t run in the lab.)

“But I wasn’t in the lab…” She groaned.

(Technically, the whole hospital is our lab now that we’ve cleared the Bloodhounds out and made peace with Elizabeth.) Her inner reason pointed out.

“Yeah, well… shut up…”

Scene Consequences

-Stealth Protocols upgraded to V1.1.

--[Invisibility] -([Transparency])- buff now remains active even while moving normally. However this buff will be disabled if the user performs a non-subtle action. (I.E. Attacking, Sprinting, etc.)

*A/N: There was a tie, and I wanted to undo the stealth thing since we did it already -I just forgot to remove it- unfortunately we only had one build option so I chose a random upgrade for our stealth build instead. (It was free though!)

---

Stumbling home after a successful -if mildly painful (because you’re clumsy.) (Shut up!)- series of tests to her newest upgrade, she found her Mamá sticking close to Seamus while her father looked on with a touch of concern.

“Uh, what’s up?” She asked quietly, given how a mother playing with their child should be a good thing.

Her dad grimaced before sighing and motioning for her to follow him into the kitchen. “Your uh, mom is… going through a bit of a rough patch… Not that I can blame her! But… I am getting a little worried.”

“What do you mean?” She frowned.

“Right, well with everything going on the last couple of months… Between the mess at the summer festival, the thing with Tommy, and now this Halloween mess…” Her dad sighed, going quiet for a second before continuing, “She’s uh, she’s not in a good place…”

She glanced around the corner at her Mamá and noticed that the older woman was looking a little… frayed around the edges, with notable bags under her eyes.

“I mean, I get it. There’s been a lot of dangerous stuff the last few months but… at the same time she hasn’t really let Seamus out of her sight the last few days. And honestly it was a miracle I got her to not keep all of you home this week.” Her dad finished explaining as best he could. “It’s… I get it, but I’m also starting to get worried about her.”

“Do, um, is there anything I can… do?” She asked, not really sure what she could do since whenever there was a big problem like this her parents usually ended up going to Vi or Tommy. (But that’s when they need help with the rest of you.)

Her dad grimaced before giving her a look. “Just… if you can, try not to do anything too stressful for your mom. I know it’s not a big thing, but I was also going to bring it up with Tommy and Vi, just try to spend a little more time where she can see you and know you’re okay?”

“Yeah… I uh, I can do that.” She nodded, trying very hard not to think about the fact that she was going to pick a fight with a Slaver in the next week or so. “I’ll… stay safe…”

Scene Consequences

-Grown a bit closer to dad.