Home 26: Rooms to let, fifty cents

[bc56]

Suburban Street
Jade rubs up against Aries. "Yip!" She looks frustrated. "Yip yip!" She's not talking right. Is something wrong?

Jason shakes his head. "Nope. You're what, 12? She was at least 16. You don't have her powers either. You've apparently done some research, but that trick won't work on me."

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

"What's wrong?" Aries asks, sounding even more concerned now.
"Hey you can still understand us, right?" Drakaina asks. "Do you know Morse Code?"

Aries blinks back at his sister. That is absolutely brilliant and exactly the sort of thing Drakaina would think up.

Meanwhile!

Khannie lets out the ughest of "UGH!"s

"I don't have the same powers because-" she begins, looking irritated to even be saying this. "Because I used to be a pokemon. I had this magic item that let me look human. But I met this cat-thing that grants wishes to kids and if they make a wish they become a Magical Girl. I wished to be a real human."

That...

Sounds about as convoluted as the typical Nexus story.

"I know what you look like under your helmet. You took yours off to show me after I pulled off my helmet to barf after getting covered in giant mutant cockroach guts."

There is absolutely no way some random fan should be able to know that.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
Jade bobs her head vigorously. ".-- .- - . .-. / ... - --- .--. ... / -- -.-- / -- .- --. .. -.-. / -.-. .- -. - / -.-. .... .- -. --. . / -... .- -.-. -.-" she yips. It takes a while to get all that out. And she's not done yet. ".-- . .- .-. ... / --- ..-. ..-. / .-- .... . -. / -.. .-. -.--"

That convinces Jason. "So as a pokemon, you looked like an older human than you do as an actual human?" There's no protesting. Only the real Ghost would know that unless Jade told someone else (which she didn't)

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

"W-what did she-"
"Water messes up her magic which apparently includes talking while a fox. Once she dries off she'll be fine."
"Oh... maybe we could-"
"One bonfire coming up!"

A little puff of flame from the three siblings and there's a white patch of divine fire blazing away on the sidewalk. It radiates intense heat and Jade should dry off in no time if she parks herself nearby.

Meanwhile!

"Yeah," Khannie replies with a bob of her head. "I was in my second stage evolution. That's like a pokemon teenager I guess? But I'm nearly thirteen years old now so I look like any thirteen year old girl would."

That means she was even younger when she met up with Jason a few years ago.

Then?

She glances over at the fox nearby as connections start forming in her mind.

"Hey, uh... weird question but do you have a sister with fox ears?" Khannie asks, holdings her hands above her head like little ears. "Because if you do I've seen her at parties and stuff. I always thought she looked really familiar and then I realized she looked kind of like you."

[bc56]

Suburban Street
"Yikes." she must have been pretty young then. And she looked so old. Ugh. Nexus stuff is a mess. "Yeah, that's her." He starts walking over to Chimera. "Hey, you need the spear? Got it with you?"

Jade stretches out and lies down by the fire, tails stretched out to absorb the heat. She gives a foxy yawn.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

"Left it at home. Jade said this guy eats metal," Leona replies.

It's questionable whether Legion would be able to eat a magical artifact but Chimera still didn't want to risk it.

Chimera settles down near Jade. They are quite obviously very protective. That was scary. A close call.

"How did that booger know water would mess up your sister's super powers?" Khannie asks.

Maybe Legion just got lucky?

Because the fox seemed pretty fast AND she could set things on fire.

That seems like a good anti-Legion defense.

And kind of ninetails-y.

[bc56]

Suburban Street

"You kidding? I didn't even know. I'm guessing he made the logical leap that she wouldn't be able to make fire underwater." Jason sits down and begins stripping off the pieces of his armor that were damaged in the fighting, revealing a nondescript grey jumpsuit underneath.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

"There's gotta be a way to stop Legion... Maybe you need to build like a... like an EMP bomb! Like the one from Captain America Civil War!" Khannie suggests as she settles down between Jason, Jade, and Chimera.

"They don't work like that," pipes up Drakaina.
"Here we go," mutters Leona.

"What? What do you mean?" Khannie asks.

"To get a wide-range electro-magnetic pulse you need to set off a nuclear bomb in the high atmosphere. That makes waves of radiation that transmission lines pick up like a giant radio receiver and amplifies it. Anything plugged in gets fried," Drakaina explains.
"Doesn't work like that in the comics," Leona shoots back.
"So what? Why would that even matter?"
"'cuz stuff works weird in the Nexus. If an EMP bomb works in comics it can work here."
"That's stupid. And it doesn't make any sense!"
"Says the snake-for-a-butt."
"Ooooooh now it's on!"

Leona snorts. "Hey kid? You like comics?"

Khannie beams at the huge lion thing. "Yeah you bet! I like Captain Marvel the best!"

Leona pulls a face. "You mean Khan, Danvers, or Mar-Vell?"

And ooooh boy does that ever get a reaction out of Khannie. "Eeew, no, the real Captain Marvel. Billy Bastion!"

[Shadowcaller]

[Kitsune Recovery Service]

"I know we'll need to, but we can at least give her some sort of sense of stability before that. The poor kid's been through a lot." Kitsuki says.

[Kitsune Recovery Service]

"I'll let you be a judge of that, Kitty. But the sooner the better. Someone's dead and we don't know why yet. She's not the only one that's going to feel uneasy about this whole thing until it's resolved. She of anyone will want to feel some kind of closure." Obriane argues back.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
"Nuclear weapons are understandably off the table." Jason quickly confirms. "Even if they were, an EMP of that magnitude would also wreck every computer not used by Legion. Furthermore, it's really easy to build a shield against EMPs. If I were Legion, I'd have a swarm parked inside a faraday cage at all times as a contingency."
Jade nods her head to this statement.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

"Oh, you a DC fan?" Leona asks of Khannie.

"Kinda I guess? Not really. Mostly I just like Captain Marvel. Other comics are good, too, but he's the best. Superman is dumb though. Did you know he stole most of Captain Marvel's good powers? He didn't have the eye rays and he couldn't fly or ANYTHING! He was just super human even though he isn't a human anyway. With like strength and toughness and jumping really far. But then DC said Captain Marvel was a copy of Superman which is totally wrong and Fawcett comics couldn't make stories about him anymore."

This obviously irritates Khannie greatly.

"BUT! That only happened on SOME Earths! I've got some comics from other Earths where they didn't lose and SUPERMAN wasn't allowed to copy his powers anymore! And Captain Marvel kept being the most popular super hero! Some of those ones are my favorites!"

Just look at those two nerds talking about comics over there.

Drakaina decides to be the adult in the room and keep brainstorming about Legion. "Since you two work with light have you thought about trying to build an electro-laser? You know, laser makes an ionized path in the air and then ZAP! you send a huge electrical surge down the conduit? Legion might be shielded against a high altitude nuclear pulse but I bet he would have a bad time blasting him with technolightning."

[Recaiden]

[Dreaming of Birds]

"Who is your master?" Krayger asks.
Perhaps he is being too direct. But it is his nature to be so. And he does not want to spend too much time with his being, he thinks. He feels odd with it around.

"My master is the Mountain in Thunder. Or at least that is the title I know them by. A Gentry of power, vitality and force. But they slumber in the Fairest of Lands. And I can't feel the Lands' touch on you." The fey follows along as requested. "You feel touched by them, but I do not know why."

That was very direct, Krayger! Risky thing to ask.
But it did get an answer, so that's good.
"It is not a title we know. But my companion is touched by those lands by past experience, isn't that right?"

As they hike onward, the trees are thinning out, ever so slightly. But the branches are ever more full of birds.

[Deathkeeper]

Dreaming of Birds

Krayger does not process how it can't feel the Lands' touch on them but also at the same time they feel touched by them to it. But this sounds like some sort of semantics he's missing the finer details of.
"I did once encounter a being of passion and power, but I do not think it was your master. It was a piece of another." He's not entirely sure how much he's supposed to keep from this thing. He doesn't have anything against lying but it's not something he does often.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
Jason nods. "We could build that. It's not exactly useful for anything else though." Just blasting and killing things. "And it won't do anything against Legions that aren't there." But upgraded energy weapons are definitely a good idea. On the other hand, the siblings know absolutely nothing about comics. They'll just stay out of that conversation.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

"Haha, I'm going to admit here my engineering knowledge is a bit limited," Drakaina laughs. "I know a lot of stuff but most of it is just generalist knowledge, nothing really actionable. Unless we're talking about hermit crabs."

Sadly they aren't talking about hermit crabs.

"But an electrolaser would be pretty great against most mechanical enemies. And if you get the charge right it could probably stun a human. More non-lethal options is never a bad plan."

Because Jason/Jade, like Chimera, think killing people is wrong.

And then, in spite of their attempt to stay out of the conversation, Leona addresses Jason directly.

"Hey, you guys have hero comics back home?" she asks. "Or would that be too on the nose?"

"Oh I hadn't thought about that... It would be like having pokemon video games in a world where pokemon are real. That would be weird," Khannie reasons.

Imagine a world without super hero comics?

Khannie wouldn't even WANT to imagine such a thing.

Aries, meanwhile, nuzzles gently at Jade.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
Jade rolls over when nuzzled and paws playfully at Aries' face. She's a good bit dryer now. She should be back to normal pretty soon.

"No, why would we? We have cowboy comics and horror comics and such, but for heroes, we can just turn on the news." Jason explains.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

Is Jade wagging her tail and making happy fox noises?

Hopefully she is.

That would probably make Aries feel better about the situation.

"And detective comics?" Khannie ventures. "Batman was a detective comic at first but then he got more super-hero-y later. Like how he didn't kill people ever as a hero but when he was a private investigator he did sometimes."

Leona looks impressed. "Geeze kid you know your comic history."

"Well, yeah, I like comics and history so that's two things I really like put together!" she replies. "So Hoplite you don't know about Batman or Spiderman or Ironman or any of those comic heroes at all? You never got curious about what other universes might imagine super heroes would be like?"

Khannie will admit that while she hasn't ever played a pokemon game she HAS looked into it post magical girl wish. Mostly just reading about things on the internet. Her world wasn't like most of the pokemon games but rather like the Mystery Dungeon ones.

[Morty]

[Dreaming of Birds]

That was very direct, Krayger! Risky thing to ask.
But it did get an answer, so that's good.
"It is not a title we know. But my companion is touched by those lands by past experience, isn't that right?"

As they hike onward, the trees are thinning out, ever so slightly. But the branches are ever more full of birds.

Krayger does not process how it can't feel the Lands' touch on them but also at the same time they feel touched by them to it. But this sounds like some sort of semantics he's missing the finer details of.
"I did once encounter a being of passion and power, but I do not think it was your master. It was a piece of another." He's not entirely sure how much he's supposed to keep from this thing. He doesn't have anything against lying but it's not something he does often.

"Please tell me more. What was this being? Do you know what it was a piece of?" the serpent inquires. "I sense the power of a fey on you. Perhaps even one of the Gentry. But the Gentry are all locked away in the Fairest of Lands, so I cannot see how it could happen."

[bc56]

Suburban Street

Jade isn't wagging her tail and making happy fox noises.
She's wagging all her tails and making happy fox noises. She boops Aries on the snout with a paw, then makes a chuckling sound at him.

Jason shakes his head. "Would you want to read about what a world without earthquakes thought they would be like?" Oh crap, that actually sounds interesting. Jason may have defeated his own argument with that metaphor.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

Khannie mostly manages to avoid making cute squeeing noises at the sight of the fox and the ram nuzzling each other.

Mostly.

"That actually sounds pretty fascinating if you ask me!" Drakaina replies. "If a world didn't have earthquakes what would it be like? No tectonic activity, no glacial rebound. A really sedentary place trying to imagine what a world that can move would be like."

Yeah.

It sounds like your example didn't work out so well.

"I've read a few of the pokemon comics," Khannie admits as she slings off her backpack and begins rummaging through one of the side pockets. "I didn't think they were great but I was a little curious."

"And I've read plenty of Greek mythology but granted if you had asked me before I came to the Nexus if any of this Chimera stuff was real I would have said no," Drakaina adds.

[bc56]

Suburban Street
Jade's probably had a laugh about that before. She was big into Greek mythology before Nexus, but she would never have expected to be dating the honest-to-goodness Chimera.
Thankfully it's not Zeus.
Speaking of which, she's finally dried off, which is obvious because her fox sounds just resolved into human ones. Mostly laughter. She quickly realizes this and sits up. "Oh, this is so much better. Yipping morse code is really slow. No offense, Drakaina, but we need a better communication system. Maybe I could write on something? That reminds me, I should really do a study of how my vocal apparatus works in fox-shape. Where does the sound stop being fox noises and magic convert it into English speech?"

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

Let's be real here, Jade.

If it was Zeus there would be no dating.

There might be a swan if you get lucky.

Aries gently head-butts her again. "I'm so glad you're safe."
"I am too! He would have moped about you FOREVER if anything had happened. I would probably be pretty broken up, too."
"I don't like my friends getting hurt. How do we wreck this Legion guy?"

Chimera can't exactly change back at the moment since the spear was left at home. Didn't want to find out if Legion can eat artifacts or not.

"You were at Inari's when I was practicing my illusions," Khannie points out. "I saw you jump into the pond with Kenji."

Khannie is a very perceptive child.

[bc56]

Suburban Street

Jade makes a happy fox sound and wags her tails at Aries. "Kid's perceptive," the fox says, "Any luck convincing her not to go get herself killed?" "No, and there's some more details that have come up. I'll explain later. Let's get her safely home and then figure out what to do from there." Jason turns to Chimera. "He's practically impossible to stop through brute force. We'll need to do more research, hunt down his safe places. He must have some place he keeps a backup of his neural architecture. If we capture that, we at least have something to bring to justice."

[Recaiden]

Dreaming of Birds

Krayger does not process how it can't feel the Lands' touch on them but also at the same time they feel touched by them to it. But this sounds like some sort of semantics he's missing the finer details of.
"I did once encounter a being of passion and power, but I do not think it was your master. It was a piece of another." He's not entirely sure how much he's supposed to keep from this thing. He doesn't have anything against lying but it's not something he does often.

[Dreaming of Birds]

"Please tell me more. What was this being? Do you know what it was a piece of?" the serpent inquires. "I sense the power of a fey on you. Perhaps even one of the Gentry. But the Gentry are all locked away in the Fairest of Lands, so I cannot see how it could happen."

"How long have you been away? Your Gentry are changing." Leah remarks. If it hasn't noticed, probably it should still know.
Up ahead, the trees open up onto a field of golden grass.
But before that, there are quite a number of birds. More than one could easily count. All gathered ahead of the three, on the ground, in the branches, in the hollows of trees.

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

Khannie pulls an odd little trinket out of her backpack. A pitch black sphere the size of a large marble with a long silver needle on one side and a somewhat abstract frog-face on the other, both portions connected being delicate filigree. In her other hand she manifests a purple crystal egg with a golden stand. There's a big of cloudy black, like ink, swirling around inside the gem. She touches the end of the needle to the gem and the darkness seems to be siphoned out.

There!

Problem solved.

She's going to have to find a new Witch to beat up here pretty soon. She's only got two grief seeds thus far and supposedly over using them can cause the Witch to hatch again even stronger than the first time. Or at least that's what she had heard. Maybe it isn't true? Khannie has got no idea.

"I'm not going to get myself killed," Khannie insists as she starts putting her various baubles away. "And I don't know if going straight home is a good idea. What if Legion has still got bits lurking around waiting to see where I go so he can stab my family? How do we make sure he's not watching somewhere?"

Like Jade said, perceptive.

"Neural architecture like the swarms don't actually hold his mind, they're just drones?" Drakaina asks. "Because if that's how he works then wow that is way easier to deal with than fighting a million angry clouds."

[Deathkeeper]

Dreaming of Birds

Krayger hasn't noticed Leah giving him any signal so he'll simply assume it's safe to talk to this being as long as he doesn't reveal too much about himself. You always avoid that.
"The creature was a bird, great and powerful. It drove people to fits of passion. It had somehow become separated from its master, the King in Rags. I do not know how that happened. I also do not think He knew how that happened. He seemed very upset about the matter. If I am fortunate I will never see either again." Good riddance to both in his opinion. Maybe this being can remove the shard and Krayger can be done with it all.

[bc56]

Suburban Street

Smart kid. Someday she'd make a good hero, buy hopefully not until she's older. "No idea. It took me so much digging just to find out where he came from. He was a scientist of a sort. He fed himself to a swarm of nanites designed to upload his brain or something like that. I don't really get it, some kind of bid for immortality. Anyway, the end result, Legion, is a crazy tech thief. Wants to upgrade himself with as many capabilities as possible. I have no idea how his mind works." Jason continues where she left off. "We know the swarms aren't quite disposable to him. If they were just drones, he probably wouldn't bother trying to escape if he didn't have stolen tech. I think what's likely is there are several copies of his mind, possibly independent of each other, spread across the entire network. If he takes too much damage, he starts losing memories or some such. It'd be impossible to confirm without a study of how they communicate."

[Rebonack]

[Suburban Street]

As far as Khannie is concerned she already makes a great hero.

"Then we need to capture some so you guys can study them," Khannie says, no doubt to the objection of the adults nearby. SHE doesn't need to help at all. She needs to go home and be safe, right? "I was just kind of making stuff up as I went. That's kind of how Magical Girl powers works. I've got two things to work with, scarfs and gauntlets, and so long as I can imagine up some way of using those things I can do it. I might be able to make a scarf trap that's air tight? OH! Or if I can reinforce one of my shadow illusions I might be able to make a thing they little robots can't chew through. But that's just regular girl magic not Magical Girl magic."

Khannie thinks that the distinction there is important.

Also?

Maridia reports that there aren't any more Legion bits slithering around nearby.

So...

It might be safe to head home.

"I don't think we can help much with the research or the capturing," Drakaina admits. "Our set of talents is pretty focused on being strong, invulnerable, and burning things."

[Morty]

[Dreaming of Birds]

"It is difficult to say. I am in the Fairest of Lands as well, only able to reach out in dreams." Suddenly, the serpent stops and stares down at Krayger. "The King in Rags? The one bearing this title is dead. He was defeated and cast down deeper than any Gentry had ever fallen."

[bc56]

Suburban Street

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
"Okay Khannie, where do you live from here? I'll walk you home." Hopefully a cute little red fox will be less suspicious than a whole host of heroes. Jason nods. "We can't take you in the car. It would look too suspicious. Best if she's the only one."