“They came willingly?” Emily asked.
“Yes,” Armsmaster replied. “They were quite eager to get under cover before the sun rose.”
Emily nodded. Did they come because they needed help or because they think they can leave? They weren’t under suspicion of a crime—to the contrary, the girl and the two case 55s had prioritized civilians. The older man, not so much. He’d been more or less dismissive of the whole thing until Leet had sent some robots against him…then he’d demolished them in seconds.
“And they’re definitely from an alternate?”
“As near as we can tell. No signs of a Haywire-style device, but scans indicated quantum differences. They’re definitely case 55s, since they have stated they have full memories of their childhood. They certainly don’t understand cape culture here.”
Emily nodded. The two teens had both surrendered immediately, hadn’t caused problems, and had even given the PRT their address.
Which had kicked off a number of alerts when it was found out that their home didn’t exist.
Oh, and the fact that both the teenaged case 55 and his companion had taken off their armor, him by some changer power and her by the simple expedient of asking to borrow the bathroom. Now he was wearing jeans and a “New Jersey Immigrant” shirt that barely fit over his chest and she was wearing a purple jacket with a shirt bearing a skull and “HAMLET” under it, along with a skirt and leggings.
And Emily got the distinct impression they had done it to be less threatening.
Not exactly a common behavior among teens or capes.
“Let’s go,” she said.
----------------------------------------
Claire was leaning against Jim when the door opened, and the man who had taken them from the police entered, along with a short, rotund woman.
“Ah! Finally!” The big Case-55 said. “I was wondering if we had been left to starve.”
“I’m sorry, I’m Emily Piggot, director of the PRT ENE and this is Armsmaster, head of the local Protectorate Team.
“I am Blinkous Galadrigal, and these two are the Trollhunter, James Lake Jr. and the Fair Claire. Now, why have we been detained—”
“You’re not being detained, Mr. Galadrigal,” Emily said. “But when parahumans just appear and intervene in a public disturbance, it is our mandate to investigate. Especially since there are… facts that you may not be aware of.”
“What would that be, Director Piggot? And… PRT?” The girl asked.
“That would be the Parahuman Response Team. Firstly however,” Emily turned to the older man, “your name would be?”
“Merlin.”
“I see. Understand that a cape name may not protect your identity given that your face is uncovered.”
“No, that is my name, and when are you going to get around to telling the others that this isn’t their world?”
“What?” James said. Armsmaster glanced over at “Merlin.”
“How are you aware of that?”
“I am a wizard. How do you think? The manaflows are entirely different here.”
Oh God, another delusional cape.
“You didn’t tell us?” Blinkous said.
“Why? You would find out soon enough, and I wanted to see if our hosts knew. From the way they spoke, I expect they did.”
Piggot noted that nobody else seemed to like this Merlin, a feeling she was swiftly understanding.
“Wait, the problems you had…” The teen looked over at her, almost looming over Emily despite sitting down. “You couldn’t find our families, could you?”
“No. Arcadia never existed, and the city built on its site, Greenfield, was destroyed by the Behemoth in 1998.” Emily looked at them. “So you didn’t come here deliberately?”
“No,” Claire said. “We were attacked, and I used my powers to pull us out, but… Something strange, it was like a tugging.”
“A villain known as Leet was using a space-warping device for his latest crime,” Armsmaster said. “It must have interacted with your power—”
“Magic.”
“Power,” Armsmaster said.
“So we use it to go back,” James said.
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Emily said. “First of all, there are laws regarding travel to and from alternate realities. Second of all, Leet’s device was destroyed, and he is… rarely successful at building replacements, even if he was so inclined.”
The room fell silent. Then Blinkous looked over at Merlin. “So you can return us. After all, you’ve caused enough problems!”
“I can return us, possibly, but the question is… Should I?”
“Of course you should!” James said.
“You still don’t listen,” Merlin said. “A city, destroyed by ‘The Behemoth.’ An entire organization dedicated to managing… parahumans. A door can open in both directions. I should like to know what I might be unleashing on our home before I go about casting spells to send us back. In any case, I would need a lab for my ritual equipment.”
Next to her, Emily could hear Armsmaster’s jaw creaking from his effort to not say the first thing that came to mind.
Of course, it couldn’t be easy. It’s the Bay.
----------------------------------------
“So, ratings?” Emily asked. The Protectorate members were here while their guests were being shown the Wards room. She’d managed to convince Mr. Blinky that it would be wisest for them to stay here, especially given the potential for other factions to be interested in them.
Thank God the Guild isn’t here. Of all the groups in the Bay, only the PRT and Protectorate would be of interest to them, as far as Emily could tell, and the orders from on high had been both firm and immediate regarding their visitors.
Keep them happy and make certain nobody poaches them.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Colin nodded. “They were very willing to work with us and willingly, with one notable exception, participated in power testing. I’ll start with the teens.”
He called up an image of Jim. Assault whistled.
“Case 53?”
“No.” Miss Militia’s voice could have frozen helium and her power kept shifting between big pistols. The others frowned at Miss Militia’s tone.
“We’ll get to their origins later,” Emily said. “But he’s a case-55/35.” A parahuman whose power had led to massive changes and a dimensionally displaced human.
“James Lake Jr., although he prefers the name Jim,” Colin said. “Brute 6, Mover 4, Striker 5. He is extremely fast, strong, and skilled with his weapon.” The screen came up showing James lifting over a ton, moving in the test chamber, and lastly, bisecting a block of steel with Eclipse. “Some of his capabilities, such as his armor and sword, are based on a… Tinkertech item, though they insist on calling it magic.”
“How good is he?” Velocity asked.
“He offered to spar with me. Even adjusting for his greater strength, he is a… challenging opponent.” He displayed a clip, and the image of Colin and Jim sparring showed. Colin had the same controlled, elegant style he always used, but the taller teen was keeping up with him. “I cannot honestly say how a serious fight would play out, save that it would likely end with one of us seriously injured or dead.”
Assault whistled. “Yeah, I can see why we’d want to keep him friendly.”
“However, he does have one severe weakness—sunlight. It could be nearly instantly fatal to him.” Colin looked down at his papers. “The interaction is odd, but apparently artificially generated UV lights or even light indistinguishable from natural sunlight, while damaging is not nearly as deadly as natural sunlight.”
“Magic.” Assault grinned at Colin’s glare.
“Moving on,” Colin said. “Claire Nunez. Physically a normal human, but tentatively… Brute 2, Blaster 4, Mover 5/8. She has the ability to create a variety of portals and depending on her familiarity with the location, she can extend some portals to continental ranges. She’s also been learning how to use her… Magic, to use her powers to blast enemies and create a form of telekineses. The mover rating is tentative, and presuming she is telling the truth, will only grow with time as she becomes linked to more locations, thus the upper limit of 8. She has no ability to breach dimensional barriers—she evidently has tried. Her armor is not as durable as Jim’s and is the reason for the brute rating. Without it, she’s a normal, albeit fit, girl. There may also be a trump aspect to her powers, according to… Merlin.” There was distaste in Colin’s voice.
“Mr. Blinky,” he continued. “Brute 3, with a similar allergy to sunlight. Evidently their mentor and guardian and… Not skilled at combat.”
“Now for the wizard…” Assault said. When Colin looked at him, he raised his hands. “Hey, we have Myrddin, and he has a staff.”
“Very well. Merlin, unknown ratings in most areas, because he didn’t deign to join in the testing,” Colin said. “However, he created the armor and weapons for his companions and so tentative ratings… Tinker/Trump 9+.”
Everyone fell silent. Then Battery raised her hand. “That armor looks nice, but nine?”
“He also evidently was the party who transformed James Lake Jr. From this—” Colin pulled up an image of a black-haired teen standing next to Claire. She was smiling and waving, and he looked… Really nervous.
“Wow, first date?” Velocity murmured.
“They provided the photo to me, but I didn’t ask what they were doing. But Merlin transformed Mr. Lake to this.” And the next image was of the hulking figure that had walked in their doors. “Evidently, the transformation was irreversible, and done because Merlin felt that as a human, he would be ineffective in the war he had been enlisted in.”
There was a sound as Miss Militia’s gun morphed into a thick blade in her hand. She slammed it onto the top of the table.
“The ability to create stable changes, to effectively create parahumans, is very rare.” Emily looked around at them. “The willingness to enlist a fifteen-year-old into what was by all their accounts a war, along with Ms. Nunez and another child, and then change that teen into a form more suited for battle and utterly unsuited for anything like a normal life is troubling. Very troubling. According to them, Jim was “chosen” by the amulet, and it would be easy enough for a tinker to code such a choice.”
“A war?” Battery asked.
“According to their debrief, and my analysis gives no cause to doubt them, Jim and Claire killed a large number of nonhuman… Trolls during a conflict on their world, some of them former acquaintances, who had been enslaved by an effect close to Heartbreaker’s.” Colin frowned. He had already brought the way Jim’s voice had trembled at that last recollection up with Emily, and they had decided to not bring it up in front of Miss Militia.
Even Assault didn’t joke at that.
“So the question is,” Miss Militia said. “Why are we even entertaining the suggestion that this Merlin should have any contact with these children at all. He clearly has no care for their welfare.”
“Because of something that happened after testing,” Emily said. “Merlin isn’t just rated as Trump 9 because of any of this. When they were leaving the testing room, Clockblocker had frozen a door as part of some unauthorized power testing of his own. Merlin countered his freeze.”
Absolute silence fell.
Emily nodded. “And it was after that that I was personally ordered by Director Costa-Brown to do everything in my power to convince Merlin to see if he could do the same thing for Gray Boy loops.”
“Damn.” Battery shook her head. “So we’re going to ignore everything else?”
“No.” Emily shook her head. “We asked, and Mr. Ah, Blinky, in his capacity as their guardian, a capacity that both teens were comfortable with, agreed to temporarily place them with the Wards.” She paused. “I think I should note that none of them even considered the possibility that Merlin might be a good guardian.”
“If they’re that used to fighting…” Velocity frowned. “Are they going to be a good fit? I mean, we already have one problem child.”
“Stalker, yes.” Emily nodded. “I asked them about that, and Mr. Lake’s response was. ‘No more fights to the death? Where do I sign?’” She shook her head. “Seen the elephant, indeed, but neither he nor Ms. Nunez were put off by the idea that we wouldn’t be throwing them into a full-scale war.” She paused. “But there is another factor here. They are displaced from another world, not Earth Aleph, and what I’m about to say doesn’t leave this room.”
Everyone leaned forward, as Emily gestured to Armsmaster. “While it is uncertain,” Armsmaster said. “We have verified, as far as we can, that there are no “trolls” on Earth Bet. Some of that was by examining the records, especially of an event called the “Milk Carton Epidemic” which involved an incursion by hostile trolls, but did not happen here. Notably, this occurred in the 1970s. Other examinations by thinkers, although we cannot be certain that troll society doesn’t have some Stranger effect, have indicated that there has never been a troll society on Earth Bet. As another example, according to Ms. Nunez, President Richard M. Nixon did not resign, but was convicted and removed from office.”
“Wait,” Battery said. “I thought that it was agreed that our divergence point was the appearance of powers.”
“Until now, yes, but this shows that Earth Tav as it has been designated, diverged from our own Earth thousands of years ago— possibly millions of years ago, and if we are to believe Merlin, has had parahuman powers, many quite flexible, for much of that time, although obviously, they adopted a superstitious mode of thinking regarding them.”
“And that means that contact with Earth Tav could be very beneficial or harmful, and so we must keep our visitors safe—and happy.” She looked around to make certain everyone got the point.
----------------------------------------
Jim had called the armor back into the amulet and was in his civilian clothes when he and Claire were invited to meet the Wards who were currently at the HQ.
Masks. That’s weird. Merlin and Blinky had left, Merlin with a snort about their dress-up games, Blinky to talk about housing and Jim’s dietary needs. Jim shook his head. All the way from California to New Jersey, Blinky had badgered him about his diet.
A growing troll needs to eat, Master Jim!
“Most everyone else is out showing the flag,” the girl, Vista said. They were with her and a teen about Jim’s age named Clockblocker. “It’s just before Christmas, and well, you get people out trying to score.”
“You fight crime?” Claire asked.
“Sometimes,” Vista said. “We mostly just do PR and sometimes if it’s not violent, I…” she reached out and suddenly the refrigerator wasn’t in the kitchen anymore but in front of her. “Can pull suspects back so the police can grab them.”
“Or I just freeze them.” Clockblocker grabbed a coke. “Want one?”
“Diet, please,” Claire said.
“Sorry, I can’t drink coke anymore. But do you have any empty cans?”
“Sure, I—okay…” Clockblocker trailed off as he handed Jim a can from the recycle bin and Jim casually ate it, the metal crunching in the room.
“Yeah, I know, it was pretty weird for me as well, at least at first,” Jim said, after he swallowed the first can.
“So what are the Wards like?” Claire asked. “We were told that you mostly supported the Protectorate.”
“Pretty much. We’re outnumbered here,” Clockblocker said. “I mean, you should have arranged to be dropped out into LA, so you could have sun”—he saw Jim wince—” or at least good surfing along with the chance to see Alexandria. You’re here in Brockton Bay with the Rage Dragon and Nazis.”
Jim swallowed a mouthful of metal and then stared at Clockblocker. “Wait, you have a dragon?”
Moments later, Claire spoke. “You have Nazis?”
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