The sound of a soft beep filled the air as a keycard was inserted into the lock outside of a hotel room somewhere in Frankfurt, Germany. The door was pushed open, revealing a single, slender figure standing mostly shrouded in the darkness. It was nighttime, late enough that almost everyone else in this hotel was sound asleep. The single figure glanced around the small room, just large enough for a queen-sized bed, a small table and chair, and a long counter holding a television, coffee maker, and microwave. A door to one side led to the bathroom, and there was a window overlooking the city below opposite from the main entrance. In all, this was just an ordinary, unimpressive hotel room like thousands of others throughout the city, and millions in the rest of the world. Nothing about it stood out at all. Exactly as its new occupant liked it. Not that they planned on staying for longer than a few days at most.
After taking in that sight for a few seconds, the newcomer stepped into the room and let the door close behind them. They carried no obvious luggage of any sort, their hands empty aside from that key card, which was slipped back into a pocket as they crossed the room to look out the window. For a minute or so, they stood there and watched the small bit of traffic that was still on the streets. They were as motionless as a statue, giving no immediate reaction even as the phone next to the bed rang. It went off twice more before the figure moved to sit on the bed and picked up the receiver. “Yeah,” they started in a soft voice, “I made it. Of course, thanks. I’ll check in tomorrow for the visit to that university. Two o’clock, right? Yeah. Bye.”
The receiver went back to the hook, and the figure sat on the edge of that bed. They took in a long, deep breath, then let it out while allowing themself to fall backward, laying across the width of the bed. Their body almost disappeared in the darkness like that, fading away into the shadows.
These were the moments they treasured. Now, right here, they were absolutely anonymous. No one who knew who they were knew which hotel they were in, and no one who knew they were at this hotel knew who they were. There were no extra responsibilities, no expectations, no requirements. They didn’t have to uphold a certain image right now. No one here in this building cared what they did. They could simply live in this moment. It was glorious precisely because it was so utterly mundane. There was nothing interesting about this room or the building it was in. Which was absolutely perfect, because they had quite enough of ‘interesting’ in every other aspect of their lives.
As a general rule, every Touched always led very interesting lives. At least to an extent. It came with the territory. That went double for the one lying on that bed. They were known to the rest of the world as Baldur, though their real name was Adelais Becker. Or their real names, rather. Every version of themselves they had been connected to had a name either identical to that or at least somewhat similar, regardless of their gender or other particulars. Whether that was a universal rule, or had something to do with how they were linked to one another, none of them knew for certain. But it was a fact.
Yes, other versions of themselves. That was Adelais Becker’s power. Or secondary power, at least. There was an entire multiverse of possible Earths out there, and hundreds of versions of Adelais were connected to one another. What’s more, they were able to shift their physical bodies back and forth through this connection. The same consciousness stayed in the world, as it was placed within the body from any of those other worlds. A body which could have any number of other powers. A single personality/mind switching between hundreds of other versions of their own body, with various powers they could use for any possible situation. As long as that particular body and power were available.
They were an entire community of the same person. Hundreds of versions of Adelais who all stayed in mental contact with one another. They had rules about how much information they shared, of course. There was too much of a chance that they might unwillingly change things for the worse if they interfered with one another’s worlds. That had happened before. They’d thought they were helping, and ended up turning one of their worlds into a hellscape in the process. And before they could help that version of themselves fix it, the world was cut off. The rest of the Adelais community never heard from that version again. The only possible answer was that that one had died. They lost one, after accidentally making that world so much worse. All because they had tried to take advantage of knowledge from other worlds to change things.
So, they made their rules. No telling one another specifics about what happened in their worlds. They could share certain things, but nothing that might change the course of history in their own home. Sometimes it was hard to stick with that, but they always made themselves do so in the end, and every new version who eventually connected to their collective when they Touched was informed of that terrible mistake so they wouldn’t repeat it.
Not that they refused to share any information, of course. They just had strict rules about what could and not be passed along. Some might have considered it overkill, but those rules had worked so far.
Now, Adelais felt a tugging from that collective. The body they were currently using was a powerful Pyrokinetic, and that power was needed by one of the others for a fight they were in on their own world. With a thought, the two exchanged forms, and the one on the bed went from a tall, masculine form, to a shorter, feminine figure. They had always considered themself fairly fluid in that regard even as a child, though they weren't sure if that was a coincidence, some form of their power that had existed even before they actually Touched (science was a bit vague on how that worked, if the whole Touching thing was simply bringing out potential that had always existed), or if the fact that they were fluid had influenced how their power turned out. Whatever the reasoning, ever since they had Touched for the first time when they were only thirteen years old, they had shifted through bodies far more often than anyone else changed their shirt. Hell, more often than the average person even noticed their own appearance. They often went through a few dozen bodies in a single day even when things were slow, all the way up to shifting over a hundred times or more.
In the end, their bodies always looked somewhat similar to one another, of course. Every version of themselves could be twins, siblings, or at worst close cousins. They came from all different manner of lives and upbringings, had any number of hair colors, body types, and more. But they looked related.
Maybe that was why they preferred this way of living. Others often asked them why they didn't have a house somewhere. They could afford it, of course. As the leader of the world's premier Star-Touched team, they actually made a rather obscene salary. And even if it hadn't been enough, there were dozens of corporations lining up to give sponsorship deals. But Adelais refused all of them. Something about the offers always just felt… wrong. And in any case, they didn’t want a house. They liked living like this. Owning a house and living in it meant everyone always knew where you were. They were always so famous in their Touched identity that the idea of being pinned down to one location as a civilian was just.. abhorrent. Living like this, constantly traveling between random hotels anywhere in the entirety of western Europe, allowed them to cling to at least some semblance of anonymity. They could turn off being the most famous Touched in the world and simply sit in a quiet room watching television for a while.
Some part of them always felt guilty about that, as though they should be out there constantly dealing with every bit of crime and suffering that existed. For a while they, and others within their collective from across the multiverse, had tried to do just that. But other, wiser versions of themselves, many who had also done the same, taught them the folly of burning themselves out. There was no way to survive like that for long. They had to shut off being Baldur regularly so they could simply cope with everything they thought and were responsible for it. The harsh truth was that even with their power, they couldn't save everyone.
And, of course, there was another reason to live like this, which helped ease the guilt they felt for doing so.
After sitting in silence and darkness for a couple of blissful minutes, Adelais picked up the remote for the television and clicked it on. They immediately switched away from the news, having absolutely no desire to focus on anything real. A few more clicks brought them to a silly, meaningless cartoon. That was good enough. They could vegetate and just escape the real world, and all the responsibilities inherent within that, for a little while.
At that point, there was another tug from two of their other selves. The body they were currently using was capable of incredibly fast flight as well as shifting from being intangible to the densest material on the planet. They used that to perform what amounted to becoming a living cannonball, launching themself at several times mach speed before shifting to their densest form in order to destroy anything in their path. Right now, that power was needed in a fight against another world’s Abyssal. Simultaneously, the second Adelais who was part of the ‘call’ needed the invisibility power the first was currently holding onto.
There was a quick shuffling of powers then. The Adelais in the hotel room passed the cannonball powers over to the one fighting the Abyssal, while that one passed their invisibility to the one attempting to infiltrate an evil, oppressive government headquarters, and they in turn passed their acid creation and control power to the one in the hotel.
All of that passed without much in the way of conscious thought or effort. Adelais simply knew what they needed and why, and exchanged powers the way most people might have reached back to scratch an itch on their neck. Now their form had switched to another female, though this one was rather more buxom than the previous version. Their attention never left the cartoon. Reacting to such requests had become second nature in the twenty years since they had gained these powers. From the age of thirteen to now being thirty-three, they had been in constant contact with hundreds of versions of themselves. They were always there in the background of their thoughts, some more talkative than others, but ever-present. It had taken some time to grow accustomed to that, and to ignore all those extra thoughts until they were important and actually directed at them. By this point, however, it was second nature. Like ignoring a quiet conversation across the room that didn’t involve you and simply tuning it out.
Still staring at the television to watch the silly cartoon, they reached out to pick up the phone once more and ordered a pizza and beer. Within half an hour, a knock at the door informed them that their meal had arrived. They muted the television, standing before glancing down at their current body. Oh, yes, they were wearing the same costume this version of themselves had worn through a recent fight with a rather thorny plant-based villain. Which meant opening the door would have revealed what amounted to a battle-damaged, skin-tight costume with near anime-esque convenient holes exposing near scandalous amounts of flesh.
Yes, this was probably a bad way to remain anonymous. Shaking their head, Adelais reached up to touch a simple-looking earring. Every version of themselves wore its equivalent, since one of their Tech-Touched selves had created it and shared the specific blueprints amongst themselves. At the touch, the heavily-damaged, nearly X-rated costume they were wearing was instantly replaced with civilian clothes. Jeans and a light, long sleeved shirt. That was good enough. Satisfied they wouldn't immediately attract too much attention from a shocked pizza boy, they opened the door and accepted their dinner, paying him a substantial tip and quietly thanking him before going back to sit in the darkness and watch more television. These moments, times when they could turn off their brain, eat junk food, and simply watch mindless entertainment, were how they maintained their sanity in a world that seemed to constantly demand more and more of their attention and effort. The only way they could survive with that sort of weight was by taking off the weight now and then.
But, of course, that couldn't last forever. After a couple hours of resting and watching television, Adelais’s attention was drawn to the distant, muffled cry through the nearby open window. Clicking the television off, they turned to look that way, sending their own request through their collective. In an instant, they had exchanged their acid-controlling female body for a smaller, male figure who was still a teenager. He'd only been connected to the group for a few years, but his powers were quite useful in this moment. Adelais was able to look straight through the wall of the building, see in the darkness as though it was bright daylight, and zoom all the way to an alley across the street. There. A young man, probably barely in his twenties, was being dragged out of sight by three thugs with knives. One of them had a hand over their victim’s mouth, preventing another scream like the one that had already given away their attack to possibly the worst person in the world, from their perspective.
Carefully cataloging everything about the three men over the next couple seconds, just to ensure there wouldn't be any surprises, Adelais stood and walked to the window. On the way, they once more changed bodies, becoming a much taller male with very thin arms and a narrow face. This version wore a dark blue bodysuit with white piping, and a simple domino mask with added blue lenses over the eyes. After another step, they walked right into a shadow on the wall, emerging from another shadow within the same alley those men had been dragging their victim into.
Teleportation powers of any kind were in rather high demand amongst the collective, so the moment they had arrived behind the thugs, Adelais exchanged that body for another. These men weren’t likely to be any sort of real threat, meaning they wouldn’t need that much power to deal with them. Their body shifted once more to a decently-muscled female form, standing a couple inches under six feet. This one’s power provided enhanced strength, reflexes, coordination, and so forth, but only enough to put them slightly over what a normal human was capable of. It was one of the collective’s most minor powers, but they didn’t need anything better than that for this situation.
While the thugs were snarling for their victim to shut the fuck up, Adelais cleared their throat. The men spun, only to see that shadowy figure, wearing cargo pants, combat boots, a sleeveless red shirt with a black eternity symbol across the chest, black gloves, and a matching dark combat helmet with a red visor. Nothing about the figure they were looking at told them exactly who they were facing, only that it was almost certainly another Touched.
Naturally, they reacted instantly. Two of the men launched themselves at the figure in front of them, knives already swinging. The other quickly stepped behind their victim and put his own knife to the man's throat as a hostage.
Despite the relative mundanity of their current powers, Adelais had been doing this sort of thing for a couple decades by this point. They had more training and combat experience than the vast majority of actual soldiers, and always had a body that could take full advantage of that. Without missing a single beat, they took a quick step forward, catching the first man's extended arm by the elbow in order to lock it in place so he couldn’t bring that knife around. While the man cursed loudly, they shoved him aside with enough force to send him stumbling into a couple trash cans. With one more step, their other hand snapped out to instantly strip the knife from the second man while simultaneously slamming their foot into the man's knee. He crumpled, his body falling out of the way just as they hurled the knife they’d stripped from the man through the space where his head had just been. The blade collided directly with the weapon the third man was holding to their victim’s throat, safely knocking it away before he could use it.
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Within the span of the next second, Adelais had reached the third man. They yanked the hostage out of his grip, easily pulling him around behind themself while using their other hand to punch his attacker in the throat with just enough force to make him stagger and choke a bit. While he was still reacting to that, they caught the back of his neck and almost casually slammed his face into the nearby wall. He rebounded off the brick, collapsing limply to the ground while groaning in pain.
By that point, the man who had been shoved into the trash cans had picked himself up and was pivoting to throw his own knife at the figure who had attacked them. Adelais snapped their head out of the way to allow the blade to hit the wall behind them, still holding the hostage with one hand. A quick, gentle yet firm shove sent that guy against the opposite wall for the moment, while they snapped one foot out to kick the second man, who was just starting to collect himself on the ground. The force of that blow knocked him onto his back, while Adelais quickly dashed toward the other man, who had just thrown his knife. Seeing them coming, that guy pivoted to run away. But he only managed half a dozen steps before the Star-Touched caught hold of a trash can lid and sent it flying like a frisbee into the back of his head. It was his turn to hit the ground, where he stayed, groaning in pain.
From there, they took in the rest of the scene. The thugs were safely down, none of them looking ready to jump up and start more trouble any time soon. Once Adelais was convinced of that, they turned to focus on the man who had been dragged into the alley in the first place. “Are you alright?” they asked, in German, of course. “Do you know these guys?” It seemed like a simple mugging, or something to that effect. But if they had learned anything over the two decades they had been doing this, it was that making assumptions could easily backfire.
The man himself, who stood a bit on the shorter side at just over five foot six, with a thin build and graying goatee to match his thinning hair, made a noise in the back of his throat. He seemed nervous, even now, which to an extent was understandable. But something seemed a bit off about it. Finally, he managed (also speaking German), “I--I don’t know who you are, but thanks. You--they wanted to stop me from warning anyone about the attack.”
“Attack?” Now Adelais devoted their full attention to the man. “What attack?”
Giving a start as though only just then realizing he hadn’t explained that much, the man quickly stammered, “Th-the new Doehring Power Station, the experimental one! Nachtkrapp, they’re targeting it. These guys work for them!”
Nachtkrapp. It was a German myth about a giant raven-like creature that liked to abduct children who didn’t go to bed on time so it could take them back to its nest to pick apart and devour. The Fell-Touched gang who took the name weren’t cannibals and didn’t eat children. But they did abduct teens and brainwash them to work as foot soldiers for them. Their leader was a woman known as Klagmuhme, another mythological figure who was their equivalent of a banshee, essentially. She and her people were always trying to bring about one apocalypse or another, believing all Touched had some grand destiny to rule humanity. Which they wanted to force into being by destroying the extant society so they could create a new one that would follow the rules they put in place. Tear down the old world to craft one in their own image, or something to that effect. They had already been stopped multiple times, with nearly the entire organization being torn down and all of Klagmuhme’s lieutenants arrested. But the woman herself always escaped in the end and kept rebuilding to try again. And now she was targeting the newest experimental Touched-Tech power plant? Yeah, that made sense. They had their own security, of course. Including several Sell-Touched of their own to permanently guard their facilities. But still, if Nachtkrapp were involved, this was bad.
“Tell me everything you know about it,” Adelais ordered, absently responding to a request from the collective by passing along the body they were currently using in exchange for a short, male form that could speak to rodents.
Seeing that change, the man’s eyes widened in sudden realization. “B-Baldur!? I didn’t--I’m sorry, I didn’t know what you were--yes, yes, of course!” He immediately launched into a quick explanation, tripping a bit over his words but staying relatively coherent for the most part. It turned out that his name was Ebert Krantz, a low-level maintenance worker at the new power plant. One of his coworkers had been acting suspiciously, so Ebert had followed him after their latest shift, and ended up eavesdropping on a meeting between the members of Nachtkrapp as they finalized their plans to invade and sabotage the plant that very night. If they had their way, their sabotage would cause an apocalyptic event across much of the continent. And, from there, essentially create the whole new world they wanted. One where much of the population was dead and they could rule over what remained.
Krantz tried to get out of there to warn someone, but had been spotted and those three men had been sent to silence him while the rest carried out their plan. Which meant this was going down right now. At any minute, the power plant could go critical, and then it would be too late.
At an earlier part in their life, Adelais might have wondered a bit at the sheer odds of just happening across something like this simply by sitting in the right motel room at the right time. But over the past couple of decades, they had come to the understanding that some minor part of their power, in addition to connecting them to their other selves all across the multiverse, also gave them some sort of connection to… possibilities. Specifically, it drew them toward things that could possibly create a cataclysmically-destructive event. Not always, and there were many of those that they missed entirely and had to be solved by someone else. But they were indeed unnaturally pulled to such events, too regularly to be a true coincidence.
And that, of course, was part of the reason why they allowed themself these mindless excursions. Their ability to find the most dangerous trouble like this seemed to function most effectively when they relaxed and simply chose their destinations at random. So, when not acting directly with the rest of Armistice, that's what they did. They traveled completely randomly, allowing whim and the subtle direction of that extra power to direct them toward the next major problem. Often nothing happened at all, but at times like this, when they randomly stumbled across a situation as dangerous as an attack on that power plant, they were glad to have it. And glad that they at least understood it well enough to find these situations before it was too late.
Many Touched had additional powers like that, things that provided various boosts to what they were trying to do. Or what they were meant to do. That much wasn't clear. Even now, with everything they knew about Touched powers both here and all across those other worlds, Adelais still had no real idea what the true origin of those orbs was, or what their final intentions were. There were some, both among the general population and among other versions of Baldur themself, who believed the orbs were connected to some sort of interstellar alien race crossing the cosmos and using humanity, as well as other species, to test or train the powers they could bestow, for some unknown purpose. Others, meanwhile, thought that ancient humans had been seeded and genetically manipulated to have the potential of these powers, and that the orbs were sent to unlock that potential now that it had grown over countless generations.
Whatever the truth, now wasn’t the time to dwell on it. There would be plenty more opportunities for that, and many of their other selves enjoyed nothing more than to spend hours debating amongst themselves and comparing notes. But right now, this version of Adelais had a job to do.
To start with that, they sent a request for a speed power to the collective, with a high emergency note attached. This couldn't wait. Not when they had no idea just how far along those people were with their plan to destroy the plant.
In almost no time at all, their body shifted once more, becoming a lanky female with a dark green helmet. Black lenses protecting their eyes, and the rest of the costume consisted of a black and green armored suit that looked as though it had been poured onto them in liquid form before solidifying against every contour of their form, showing off muscles and more. It seemed almost impossible for a real person to wear, given how much it fit like a second skin, yet appeared (and felt) to be as hard as steel.
Once their form had changed, they told Krantz to call the police, using a few cuffs summoned from a nearly-unlimited supply within one of the suit’s extradimensional storage pockets to make certain the three men wouldn’t be going anywhere or pose any more of a threat. Then the hero known as Baldur pivoted on one foot, facing the direction of the power plant. It was almost fifty kilometers away, out in the middle of nowhere. But that distance would mean nothing if Nachtkrapp got their way. Fifty kilometers or sixteen thousand, it would make no difference.
With that thought filling their mind, Baldur took off. This body possessed one of their better superspeed gifts, though it had its own drawbacks. Essentially, it could move at nearly sixteen hundred kilometers per second at top speed. But as it did so, the body became ghost-like and insubstantial. It looked a bit like a colorful fog, the form itself literally drifting further apart the more distance they traveled. By the end of a sprint, their body would be scattered across potentially several kilometers worth of distance and would take anywhere from several seconds to a full minute to pull back together and solidify in the place they actually wanted to be. The further they went, the harder it was to pull together.
Fortunately, that was where this suit came in. It was a Touched-Tech design created by several of those within the collective, and helped contain the body so it couldn’t drift apart like that. It still became fog-like, but that fog was kept within the suit so they could pull it together within an instant after arriving at the destination. It helped turn what would have been an almost crippling downside into a minor inconvenience, drastically raising the potential of this speed power. That was one thing the collective was excellent at, working together to find the limits of a power and create ways around it. They all used those powers, so they both understood how they worked, and had a vested interest in making them even better. Between that and the fact that they had their own Tech-Touched powers to use, there were many examples of powers within their catalog that were much more useful thanks to intervention like that.
Fifty kilometers, to someone who could run a thousand in a second, was almost literally nothing. In the span of a blink, Baldur went from standing in that alley to being in front of the power plant. Most of the building was underground, the only visible structures being an unassuming-looking rectangular building with a smokestack next to it, both behind a heavy steel wall as well as an electrified fence. Ominous guard towers surrounded the facility, containing snipers and spotlights.
Or at least, they should have. Now the guards were dead, there was a hole in the fence and wall, and a dozen well-armed Nachtkrapp Prev troops, as well as a couple Touched, stood around the rectangular building. The rest of the troops had clearly already gone inside.
Without wasting another second, and before the Fell-Gang could notice their arrival, Baldur was moving again. With their speed at the moment, every person standing outside that building appeared to be completely frozen. One by one, over what amounted to the blink of an eye, their weapons were yanked away from them, they were slammed to the ground, and their hands and ankles secured together with more cuffs from the suit’s storage pocket.
The two Touched who were standing guard technically presented more of an issue than the Prevs. But not much of one. The two were hit completely unexpectedly, giving them no time to react or mount an actual defense. The first, a tall, heavyset man with the power to create and control terrifyingly powerful blasts of wind and fire, found himself pummeled into unconsciousness from a hundred blows that struck him out of nowhere from all sides, leaving the man lying in a heap on the ground. His own hands were secured with special cuffs that would generate a crippling electric shock any time he attempted to use his powers.
Meanwhile, the other Touched was one of the physically strongest beings in the world. Within the top ten or fifteen, at least. He could easily rip apart a tank, and would have pounded this version of Baldur into hamburger in a fair fight. had his opponent actually stood still. But of course, Baldur didn’t do that, and had no interest in a fair fight. The strong man, who went by the name of Zerstörung, or simply ‘Destruction/Annihilation,’ never even knew he was in a fight at all until it was too late. Baldur didn’t bother punching the invulnerable man. Instead, they ran straight into him, using their own momentum to lift the man off the ground. Two seconds later, they had gone from just outside Frankfurt, Germany, to somewhere near Istanbul. Zerstörung was simply left standing in the middle of nowhere with no way to get back in time to pose a threat. In other instances, Baldur would have taken more time to secure the man. But considering they had no idea how far along this threat was, this would have to do. Every second counted right now. The man could be as strong and invulnerable as he wanted to be, over two thousand kilometers away from the real fight.
Abandoning the man there, with a mental promise to come back and find him again as soon as this was over, Baldur raced back to the facility. That time, they went through the broken doorway into the main building. All the employees there had been slaughtered as well, the sight of their broken, dead bodies filling Adelais with anger and determination. Or possibly resignation. They had to put a stop to this, or these people would only be the heralds of billions more. This had to end, now.
Two Prev troops stood guard in front of the elevator. Both were slammed into the wall behind themselves and knocked unconscious before they even registered the blur of motion coming toward them. The electricity-manipulating Touched who came out of the nearby doorway to see what that sound was fell just as quickly, finding herself lying on the ground under the control of a set of cuffs, which immediately injected a drug into her veins that would keep her unconscious for hours.
A thought back to the collective exchanged this super speed power for the teenage male from earlier who could see through walls and darkness. They used that power, while standing in the room next to the elevator, to track and mark every threat below them. But only one really mattered in the end. Klagmuhme was the real threat here. And she was already standing just outside the main reactor, using her power. It was a gift that allowed the six-foot-tall, muscular woman wearing a flowing gray hood, cloak, and matching body armor to literally liquify objects (or people) by screaming at them, or physically manipulate them similar to telekinesis by singing. A toneless scream would destroy something, while a haunting, melodic lullaby would take control of the person, or object, and move it around under her control.
Once they had the exact location of their main target, Baldur shifted bodies yet again. That time, they accepted a teleporter who could travel to any spot they had physically seen within the past month. That included what they had seen through their other body’s vision power a moment earlier.
An instant later, they appeared there in that hallway a couple kilometers below ground, bypassing every threat Klagmuhme had left in place throughout the rest of the facility to stall anyone who wanted to stop them. She had already melted through three quarters of the incredibly thick metal door that was blocking her from the reactor itself, and would be inside in another second. But that was a second they weren’t going to give her. Even as two more powerful Touched standing guard over their boss spun toward them, Baldur changed to a new body. This one was a female wearing a simple costume of dark jeans, a red shirt and matching leather jacket, and a black helmet. Raising both hands, they sent blasts of concussive force slamming into the two figures. Those blasts struck the two of them hard enough to send them crashing into the nearby walls, where they fell and stayed motionless, threats no longer.
Klagmuhme, of course, reacted instantly by spinning around to send her destructive scream that way. But Baldur had already shifted to a blond-haired, brown-eyed male figure wearing another armored suit and a bandana over the lower half of his face. At a thought, the scream that could turn their body to liquid was blocked by a sound-and-force nullifying energy shield. Another thought shifted their body to a young, still-teenaged brunette female with flowing dark robes, a hood, and black mask. Shadows swirled around their form even as the shield their last body had summoned began to fade away. Those shadows enveloped their body, and they vanished from that spot just as the dangerous scream blasted through it.
Instantly reappearing behind the woman in a cloud of shadows, Baldur enveloped her within that darkness. She was blinded, her power muted. In addition to short range, line of sight teleportation, this particular body was capable of creating areas of blackness where sound, light, and even physical sensation were either dampened or outright shut off. Her power was useless within its confines.
Unfortunately, what was not useless was the emergency teleportation device the woman activated with a flick of her finger before Baldur could grab hold of her. Just like that, she was gone. Once again, Klagmuhme had escaped at the last second.
For a moment, Baldur felt a wave of frustration and anger. But they let it go just as quickly. Klagmuhme’s time would come. What mattered right now was securing the rest of the facility and making certain it got the protection it really needed. At least with their leader gone, whatever remained of Nachtkrapp who hadn’t also already fled would fall apart quickly enough.
And maybe, when this was all over, Adelais would still have enough time to get back to that hotel and relax some more before their responsibilities made themselves known once again.