Your mind swims as you come down from the experience. Being in a collective seems intimately foreign to you, and you’re unsure if you like it or you hate it. Having other people take part of your mind, able to see your thoughts, your emotions so… directly. It’s unnerving, but in an oddly pleasant way.
And even though it had been such a brief occurrence, your mind is having trouble letting go of it all. Your mind seems shattered and disconnected, and it seems to be taking its time in coming back together and becoming whole again.
Everything seems fuzzy and distant, almost like your mind is out of focus.
You sense your Dad lean down on one knee next to you. He says something, but it doesn’t quite come into your consciousness until a few moments after.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” you answer. “Just need a minute… Gotta recover.”
He says something else and gives you a nod.
As your consciousness comes back into a fine point, and as everything merges back into the present, you realize that the Watch are collecting themselves together as well. Some are up faster than others, of course.
They stumble to the ones next to them, and check to see if they’re alright. Some even administer some basic first aid to each other, bandaging wounds and administering meds and whatnot.
Nearby, the medic wraps up their dead friend, his heart full of sorrow. A few others walk up to help patch the remains together, as well as give their respects. And once they’re done, two of them pick up the dead and carry him back to the encampment.
“I wanna talk about what you did back there,” says your Dad. “It was pretty damn intense. But I think that’s gotta wait. Gotta go pay my respects.”
“Might have to wait a while,” you reply. “I intend to get on going once I’m back up on my feet.”
Your Dad opens his mouth, ready to ask you to stay. Rest for a day, that sort of thing. But he decides against it in the end. He promised not to argue with you, after all.
“What you said about moving from here, you oughta do it,” you continue. “Go north, and do it soon. Tomorrow if you can. I gotta sense that these attacks aren’t gonna stop.”
You look up at your Dad - his age is really starting to show. He might be more fit than he was when this all started, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t slowing down. He couldn’t possibly survive an attack from those Crazed, and you fear greatly for his life.
A part of you wishes that he had gained some psionic abilities. That would certainly help him cope with everything so far.
“And you really oughta start thinking about teaching rather than leading,” you keep going.
“You saying I’m too old?” he protests.
“I’m saying you provide a lot to the Watch, more than just being another gun.”
“Well maybe you oughta be staying here, helping protect people with what you can provide, which is worth a whole lot more than a dozen guns.”
You really can’t say anything to that. It’s a fair enough accusation. You want to leave for your own reasons, for your own benefit. It’s selfish of you to want to leave. But you truly believe that you need to.
“You of all people should know what I’m going through,” you say. A sigh escapes your lips before you continue. “Whatever’s going on with my head, I gotta figure it out.”
“You’re not the only one that’s been going through that,” he counters.
“Sure, but can they explode heads with their minds?”
“C-can you?”
“What if I told you that I want to? Sometimes, I daydream about popping heads. It’d solve a lot of problems so easily. But that doesn’t exactly seem like a good thing, does it? I don’t want to keep thinking like that, at all.”
The conflict on his face tells you everything you need to know.
“Really, I want the nightmares to end,” you continue. “If they don’t, I’ll go crazy. I already feel crazy sometimes, and hearing everyone’s voices everywhere isn’t helping. I feel like… if I stick around to help protect everyone, which is an awesome idea by the way. I love it.
“I feel like: what if one day I kinda just snap from it all, and actually cause heads to pop? Accidentally, or coz I’m not thinking straight, or I’m not the same person suddenly, or whatever.”
“That couldn’t happen.”
“That just happened. All of us stopped being ourselves for a few seconds. Turned out alright this time, but what about that one time it doesn’t?”
Your Dad’s expression hardens as he listens to you speak. Of course it’s hard for him to take, but he fully understands. He just doesn’t agree, and that clearly pains him.
You sense him about to give him his response, but holds back a second time. You can feel his chest tightening instead.
“We can talk about this later,” he says. “You just take care of yourself, alright?”
“You too, Dad,” you reply. “North. Fast.”
The two of you hug, then he stands up and goes back to directing his Watch. You take a few more minutes to rest, and allow the headache to completely vanish. Then, you pick yourself up, say your goodbyes, and begin your long walk.
~
You travel along the shadows of the crumbling buildings around you, quickly and also quietly. Though the searing heat is inescapable, any shade is better than direct sunlight. Despite how nimble you seem to be while moving down the street, your mind is actually filled with questions about the attack prior.
Questions you can’t seem to let go of.
Particularly, you’re curious as to who the Conductor is. Why did it attack? Does it want to kill your people, or does it just want that spot in the city? Is there something valuable there?
You do your best to shake those thoughts since you’re unable to answer them in the slightest. But they persist, over and over and over.
They’re finally interrupted when you feel a pawful of claws dig painfully into your neck. They thankfully(?) pull you out of your reverie and back into the present.
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You realize that Kaja was always there to help get you out of your circular thoughts, and now that she’s gone it’s become harder and harder to realize that you’ve trapped yourself. It’s not something you necessarily hate doing, but the more you do it, the more you risk hurting yourself. Or, now that you’re on this journey by yourself, inadvertently falling into trouble.
It would be easy to fall prey to something when your mind is off somewhere far from your body.
Thankfully Noir’s with you to help keep you sane.
“Oh, finally awake, are you?” you tease her.
You feel her furry body stretch outwards, even as she flexes her claws. They retract a few moments later, then you feel her moving around behind your head, as though searching for the most comfortable spot.
Hey, that fight took a lot out of me, she meows in complaint.
“Says the cat who didn’t move a muscle.”
Neither did you.
Yeah okay, she got you there.
“So that fight got me thinking,” you say, hoping to evade. “The psionic ranking thing I’m doing, I don’t think I’m doing it right.”
What? Noir replies. I thought you’re happy with how you’ve laid everything out.
“Yeah, but I was… I didn’t think things through. I just didn’t realize what was actually possible, until that fight. Until we did that thing.”
That thing you’re calling Living Nexus?
“We all called it a Living Nexus.”
Maybe a lot of you did, but I didn’t. I guess I went along with it in the end though.
What Noir says strikes you - she’s able to retain more of her individuality even while joined. The thought of it fascinates you to no end. It means the possibility that, while in a Living Nexus, some give more of themselves while others keep more. But still joined enough to ultimately decide one way or the other, still united in their ultimate goal.
Anyway, what I liked best was all that killing, Noir continues. That felt reeeally nice, almost like I was clawing them myself. Sure would like to do that again…
It dawns on you that the reason why you felt that joy is because Noir had also been in the Network. Her feline instincts to kill had also been woven into all of you. Along with the joy and pleasure of the kill.
A shiver runs through you on realizing that all of you are now affected by that moment, that all have a sliver of psychopathic killer in them, feline-style.
Anyway, didn’t mean to interrupt, thinks Noir. Please, continue.
“Oh, right. Where was I? Living Nexus. Ranking. Right. I’m doing the rankings wrong. First things first, I’m way overestimating some things. And I’m not taking other things into consideration.”
Like what, categories? Or were you calling it Disciplines, now?
“Right, that. Disciplines.”
You’ve figured out through your own experiences that there are three Disciplines - Control, Cognition, and Connection. Each one has their own subset of powers that seem to be evolutions of each other.
You consider yourself pretty good with Connection, which contain the powers of Surge, Read, and Telepathy (and also Network, now). You’re next best with Cognition, which contain the powers of Third Eye, ESP, and Foresight. You’re least experienced with Control, which contains the powers of Temperance and Telekinesis.
But obviously, there are more powers in those Disciplines than you realize. Far more. How could you possibly create an accurate ranking system without first knowing what else is possible?
On top of that, you had considered yourself something of an A-Tier Telepath. You had also ranked Kaja as an S-Tier Telekinetic. But after the fight earlier, you’re coming to realize that there’s a whole lot more than that going on. You certainly didn’t think that something like Network could be done, much less Orchestra or Battle Hymn.
You’ve been judging yourself and others based on their most potent powers, and ranking them due to that. As a result, you’ve overestimated yourself, and Kaja, and that shadow creature.But the fact is that every psion is a collective of powers, and not defined only by their best one.
After all, the Conductor is a consciousness that has a much greater understanding of these kinds of powers than you. And it used those powers in conjunction with each other to create a wholly effective attack force.
According to your previous ranking system, that would have made him an S-Tier. And would that mean that Kaja could have fought it evenly? Something tells you that would be wrong.
You realize you’re little more than a high Novice, with the meager powers you have. And Kaja? She would have been a low Disciple at best. What would that make the shadow creature? Or the Conductor? High Disciples? Low Adepts? And does that mean that the Living Nexus is ranked the same as them? Or is it greater?
You could be underestimating yourself at this point by calling yourself a Novice. The simple truth is that you just don’t know enough. You might have gained quite a lot of experience in the past couple of hours, but that has made you realize just how much more is out there, and how little you do know.
In any case, the Tier thing isn’t enough. Powers can mix and form and bend with each other, and that changes everything. A psion is an amalgamation of all their powers, and how they use them in conjunction with each other.
Anyway, now that you’ve got a conscious audience, you decide to let your thoughts roll out unabashedly.
“So check this out,” you begin. “I’ve got a C-Tier Temperance (which is the lowest power in Control, btw). I’ve also got a D-Tier Foresight, maybe C. That one’s a mid-level power in Cognition. Finally, I just got Network, which is the fourth power in Connection. Does that make me a ‘Seven’?”
What the hell are you talking about? Noir thinks.
You try your best to do some simple, but arbitrary calculations in your head, but they’re mixed in with all sorts of flowing thoughts. They stop you from coming to a conclusion as quickly as you’d like.
“Or maybe they’re all exponential instead of additive,” you continue, mostly to yourself. “Like, based on their Tier? Or their own hierarchy? Would that mean I’m not a ‘Seven’, but instead a… a what? A two plus six plus four? I’m a Twelve? Is that right? No, that’s gotta be wrong.”
Seriously. You’re just babbling random crap now. You like that, huh? Babbling to yourself. Bet that’s fun.
“They’ve gotta be value-based, from an individual standpoint, then added together as a whole,” you keep going. “So would that make me a…”
You count up your powers, and your Tier ranking in them, then add them all up.
“Twenty-eight? Is that right? Seems more right than not, I guess. Maybe if I can study enough scores from all kinds of people, then I can maybe start building a realistic scale.”
A clammy feeling around your palm suddenly surfaces, which breaks your concentration. When you bring your hand up to check, you realize that you’re still holding onto that katana your Dad gave you hours ago. You sheepishly loosen your sash and your belt, then slip the katana through so that it rests snugly against your body.
“And yeah, I hear you,” you eventually tell Noir. But it’s obviously way too late a response.
Mhm.
“Lemme ask you some questions about your Powers, alright. What’cha got in the three C’s?”
Okay, first, Three C’s sounds dumb, and I totally protest that name. And, I dunno what I’ve got. You’re the one making this ranking thing. You tell me.
“Start with the Discipline of Control,” you say. “Temperance is that thing where we power our bodies up. I figure it’s the most basic power in Control. Grade yourself from D to A, and then S if you think you can’t get any better at it, ever.”
But that’s self-determined, right? How could it be accurate? I’m always going to feel like I could go further, get better.
You nod your head in understanding.
“I hear you, and that’s what I’ve been thinking about,” you reply. “Even though it’s arbitrary, we can still kinda compare our powers to each other. If we get enough data points, we can at least make some kind of ranking.”
Okay, uh, then sure. I’m a B-Tier in Temperance, Noir replies. I feel kinda confident in what I can do, don’t always go all out when I need to chase down a victim or something.
“Great! How about Telekinesis? Can you throw stuff around with your mind?”
No? I don’t think so.
“You haven’t tried?”
Not really.
“Okay, then let’s get into Cognition… Can you open up your Third Eye and see Threads all over the place?”
This is gonna be a really long conversation, isn’t it?