Valentine's Day

CONTENT WARNING: There’s like… a lot of nonconsent, misogyny and all other sorts of things that fit in line with who the interlude is for.

Nikos Vasil/Heartbreaker
February 13th, 2012

I set my bag down on the bed, the fabric of it rubbing harshly with the half a dozen other bags I’ve already set down, all of them lovingly packed by my wives. The memory of them makes me smile, all those beautiful faces, sobbing at my loss. I told them I’d be back but they just kept sobbing, promising they’d be prettier, promising they'd work harder, it was all so kind and warm; it felt like a sad parade all for me.

It was amusing for quite some time but after the eldest there grabbed on to my leg it really wore out its welcome. Of course, she ran for the window without complaint, she knew she overstepped and she was really getting old regardless.

Her body had smashed against the long driveway and thankfully her decrepit body still had enough of its mind to aim somewhere away from the front door. She was dead of course and there was really no way for me to punish her after the fact but she was courteous enough not to make a corpse I’d have to step over.

It’s good that she did that though, getting rid of herself I mean. She was getting up there in age and I’d sooner be caught dead than anyone who’s older than thirty. Just the thought of it makes goosebumps rise up my flesh, why they think they can keep going after they’ve lost their beauty is something I’ll never truly understand.

But out here, in the wild so to speak, they just keep getting older even as their bodies become monuments to why they shouldn’t. Their bones creak, their fertility dries up, their once soft skin becomes leathery and sagging.

Really, what I’m going to do here should be considered a rescue operation. This city has swallowed two of my children and though both have proven themselves to be leagues less intelligent than their genes should’ve made them, I have a responsibility as a father to bring them back.

Today has been busy, with an early morning flight and my body still a bit sore from the goodbye workout my wives gave me, I hardly had the energy to really take in the city. Not that it was much of a ‘city’ to really take in.

Sure, that bumbling moron of a mayor might be doing his best to rebuild his little cesspool but something tells me it wasn’t much to look at before the five or six catastrophes tried to wipe it off the map.

Still, I got my lay of the land, I scoped out the Undersiders territories, saw a few of them flying about and I even picked myself up a few spies. No women unfortunately, my MO is a bit too well known to have any fun but sacrifices have to be made… this trip isn’t for leisure after all.

After a near full day of that, carefully picking people apart and getting a loose feel of the Underider’s network (and grabbing one of their more high profile recruits), I came back here and spent nearly two damn hours assembling my weapon.

The sight of it makes me laugh, it’s been so many years since I’ve needed such a… clumsy little tool. My power works through my sight and the thing in front of me, bolted into the floor with a metal base and plugged into the wall, is a high powered telescope.

This room was chosen specifically because, while there were certainly nicer condos out there, this place offered me the best view of the city. The only building that rivals this hotel is the tower it was built for, back when Medhall was seen as a legitimate business, the Anders had this charming little skyscraper built to house oversea executives and stockholders.

I stand almost eye to eye with Medhall tower, my floor conveniently at the perfect middleground to offer me a mostly unobstructed view of the Undersiders Penthouse, their recreational facilities, and much of Skitter’s terrarium.

All it took was one agent in the PRT to inform me of the Undersiders' little project and though that later took a million dollar bribe to give to their foreman, finding out that the little leaders were going to be living together… well, it’s simply too good an opportunity to let pass me by.

I spent nearly all of January working on this, coming up with plan after plan and I realized that if I want the best of both worlds, the Undersiders serving as a buffer state and retrieving my children… I’d have to be subtle.

There will be some hurdles to jump over of course, their Thinker is one such problem but I’ve dealt with dozens of them before. The biggest problem will be the subtle intricacies I’ll have to jump through, running parallel to their own emotions but exaggerating them a bit more than they should run is… well, let’s just say I don’t like to use that route for a reason.

Still, those are problems for tomorrow.

February 14th, 2012

My initial assessment of what was going to be my biggest problem was… well, inaccurate doesn't do it justice. 

I thought it would be the Thinker or my son's near constant presence but as I watch Tattletale and Grue embrace, the both of them being the first to call the penthouse theirs, I realize the biggest hurdle is going to be their… overwhelming love for each other.

Well, maybe overwhelming for the commoner, one of the little Americans that doesn’t know the actual wealth of what I could provide them. Their love isn’t even worth notice compared to what my wives enjoy, the truest form of love.

But what they have for each other, the little paltry thing I can sense out in the hearts of young coeds, is admittedly a tad stronger than most. Again, it’s worthless compared to the truth I provide but it’s strong enough to live off of I suppose. The only thing holding them back from kissing and getting it all said and done is the ramshackle wall of insecurity, a wall I'd wager was put up when more troubling things were at the forefront of their psyche.

But that little wall is brittle, crumbling by the second. If I weren't here to make the tide of their emotion drop, I'd give it a week at most before they start sharing a bed.

At first I thought it was just the two of them, just Grue and Tattletale that fancied each other but it's deeper than that, subconsciously they must know that it isn’t enough love, maybe osmosis from my son lets them know that, lets them know there’s so much more out there. Their little trickle of emotion spreads out like a shallow estuary, branching away from the two of them and in three other directions.

And strangely enough, that love isn’t sharp like what I feel Bankers and Lawyers have for their mistresses. It’s… well, if I wanted to use a pedestrian word, I suppose it’s cleaner, without the grit of possessiveness. It’s a kind of childish love when I really look at it

It’s a ridiculous little thing but breaking a horse, whether it’s a stallion or a mule will always make my eyes sting. And that’s when I do it in an instant but this… well, the prospect of that one painful moment being dragged out for months sounds tedious enough that I almost weigh my options again.

A sigh escapes my lips and I put those thoughts away right as Grue and Tattletale separate. He says something I can't read from this angle but the Thinker is turned close enough that I can make out the words 'cheese' and 'pizza' from her lips.

The moment he leaves the room, the instant I feel her heart plummet the tiniest fraction from being separated from him, I get to work.

Thinkers have always and likely forever will be, my biggest hurdle.

Brutes are easy, Movers slightly less so, Breakers can be a hassle, and Strangers are a nightmare but none are so prevalent a problem than Thinkers.

Thinkers are often criticized for their nature, their need to be seen as intelligent and enigmatic and aloof but in many ways that isn't their fault.

The fact of the matter is, it's rare when the Thinker isn't the most perceptive person in the room. With all that information, all that power, even the most reserved would find themselves crowing like a rooster and showboating within the year.

And the files I was able to recover show her as a superb Thinker, first rated as a 6 then a 7 and now at an eight with several demanding she be a 9.

She's strong enough that for an instant, I debate removing their love for each other. Of course that instant doesn't last.

Even if I removed their feelings for Jean-Paul entirely, they'd still be too much of a risk to let blossom. The fact of that matter is, loving partners talk .

I've seen it everywhere, from couples that spend their days holding hands to distant partners calling for hours. If they talk, they begin to share, if they begin to share, they start to learn secrets, secrets become speculation and eventually they'll realize something is dreadfully wrong.

No, best to nip it in the bud now and though it's tempting to angle the scope down to the tower's entrance, at least to get their Trump taken care of first, I keep my eye on the Thinker.

I've been found out one too many times because I assumed my power was subtle enough to affect a Thinker's bodyguards before I got to the them, but whatever esoteric means they use to gather their intelligence is too unreliable to afford starting with anyone else.

This all clinches on her, if she catches wind of me at any point, this whole operation will have to be scrubbed and I'm too old to hedge my bets on luck.

As always, I have to lower her guard first. Increase her happiness a smidge, turn up the apathy alongside that, and of course lower her paranoia the same amount. Yes, that's it… you're safe now.

I smile to myself, the girl can barely contain her joy, the happiness only the tiniest bit exaggerated by my gift. The probing test was quiet enough that save for the short spikes of satisfaction (her power I'd wager) nothing else jumps out as peculiar.

She's still oblivious to my presence. And that will have to be enough for the moment, any more and it would be too sudden, I'm trying to mimic natural emotions, not the enlightenment I can provide.

I turn the scope down just as Grue's leaving, the slightest pep in his step betraying his happiness. 

I alter Grue's emotions in the same way I did Tattletale and he proves I'm a little out of practice altering male neurochemistry.

His mind isn't as malleable as I would've thought, most second triggers I meet are… fragile and from what I've read of his power, to undergo such a metamorphosis at the hands of Bonesaw… he should be very pliable.

He should be but he isn't.

His mind rallies the slightest bit, his shoulders rolling, he knows something is off. Luckily, I can see that and like any emotion I can detect, I can alter it.

I squash down that intrigue as quickly as it comes and I rewire him with twice as much caution. 

By the time he leaves my sight, I'm about to turn my scope up to the penthouse when a car stops at the front, Jean-Paul stepping out.

My scope follows him for the few brief steps it takes him and his thrall to enter the building and my breath hitches when I examine him. He’s gotten a bit taller I believe, his frame is still slight and his face still just as pretty as one of my wives.

My scope darts to his thrall and the world slows as I consider a new option. I could overload her, make the synapses in her brain fry, make her body useless and then it would be a simple matter of making the others devoted to me.

It’s what he deserves, the little mongrel that thought he could run, that little conniving thing that’s almost brought it all down. He belongs to me, he belongs to me and he’s just too stupid to know I’ve branded his brain inside and out! He’s mine, all mine and—

No… no, I won’t let my plan diverge. I won't let him try to take my attention. He’s always been good at that, playing sweet and getting whatever he wants from me.

As quickly as I can, I refocus the scope on their Thinker, changing her feelings like the untangling of Christmas lights before her overwhelming joy nearly barges into my work.

Jean-Paul has just entered the Penthouse and I thought it was impossible for anyone to love him so much, even if it’s just the mundane going ons of typical limbic systems. The joy Tattletale feels is almost nauseatingly simple and though I’m tempted to do it much like dimming a light when you first wake up, I hold myself back, I’ve already laid out the dominoes, all I need to do is wai—

There it is, probably a good joke that didn’t quite stick the landing like it should’ve, her joy dampens from a campfire to a matchstick and even as tiny as both amounts are the drop is noticeable enough for my son to spy.

The rest of the evening is difficult to juggle, twisting Skitter around whenever the Thinker and my son aren’t looking is as nerve wracking as it is nearly impossible, well impossible for anyone save the likes of me. Their eyes lock on to each other like toddlers watching bubbles, always delighted and enthralled.

Two or so hours later I feel like ripping my hair out, I’ve laid a foundation, I’ll grant myself that but a quartet of awkward moments is hardly the smashing success I was aiming for. It’s been too long since I’ve had to do something like this and though it isn’t even close to my first time being subtle, I’m always amazed by just how stupid people are. I rub my temples, trying to soothe the rage of morons not listening to my most basic of instructions, and go over what little I managed and the veritable ocean of data I’ve collected.

There’s some shakiness to them now, an awkwardness that is persisting just under the haze of comfort and joy. It’s not terrible, more like a bad joke you can’t quite get out of the air, but it’s there and that’s all they can think about as they start to head for their own beds.

But that’s nothing, almost less than nothing if I don’t keep up my efforts, without me, they’ll brush it aside like cavemen are want to do. Thankfully, today wasn’t a total loss, I learned quite a bit on just how to add the pressure.

For one, the most straightforward of the bunch isn’t as neurotypical as the videos have led me to believe, Bitch’s emotions have a… sharpness to them that is unlike what I usually find. If I’m not careful with her, her emotions will spear themselves together, tumbling in her mind in a display obvious enough that they won’t need a Thinker to realize something’s wrong.

Thankfully, she always has a dog with her, a dog that I can shape easily. Comparing the brains of animals and man is often impossible, like comparing a solid to plasma but there are certain patterns that I can force, an aggression and a fear that will build on itself in slow reaction.

All I need to do is look at them once and change the way they feel about a particular scent, the one I know intuitively is meant for my son, then their own minds will do the rest.

The dogs are an avenue I hadn’t thought to explore before but I’ll have to rely on them as I watch Ms. Lindt’s brain work, eventually I’ll understand it, I always do. Her brain however isn’t the most interesting one in the room.

They all have peculiarities, the way Skitter’s emotions will leave her for the bugs in her terrarium, the way Grue’s are almost wholly reliant on his roomates, the way Tattletale feels bites of satisfaction every other moment, they’re all quite intriguing.

But none of them surprise me as much as my own child’s.

I watch my son return from the elevator, his thrall unloaded somewhere as a cold uncertainty fills his chest. The fact I can read his emotions without squinting isn’t something I was prepared for. Of course, last I saw him, his capacity to feel wasn't quite as empty as… I can't seem to recall her name, the dead eyed one, the one with a twin, Julie I believe but even Cherie didn’t show anything like this.

Well, ‘show’ is a loose term.

My son has kept the same expression the whole evening, a small but perceptible smile, the kind that’s so slight, people will convince themselves it could mean anything. Of course, he’s not around just anyone.

Tattletale’s blatant concern for my son is… I know I shouldn’t be surprised given the love I keep having to monitor but I find myself tilting my head as she bites her lip. She’s worried, she can tell he isn’t feeling his best and I know it isn’t something her power has fed her.

She actually knows Jean-Paul well enough to read his expressions somehow, even given that his face doesn’t even so much as twitch as the unease inside him doubles. She doesn’t notice that, likely because doubling a bit of zero is just a bit over zero but like everyone else, my children are an open book to me.

Granted, if my power were a pen, an instrument for me to give all the peons of the world direction, and each of them had a whole novel I could flip through, my children have… less pages. They’re torn, ripped asunder, whole chapters sheared away and whatever was meant to be there, fear, hope, love; that might never come back.

Jean-Paul and his not-quite-girlfriend leave my sight, the lights turning off behind them as I lift my eye from the scope for the first time in hours. I rub at my eyes and debate the merits of my operation.

If there were any local capes not under the Undersiders payroll, I could simply use them to storm the tower. It wouldn’t work as a frontal assault but I might be able to manage a quiet extraction. But that’s relying on an if that just isn’t possible.

I might be able to pull it off with the occupants of this hotel but that would be foolhardy.

Even if I got Jean-Paul out of the bay, his lovers would chase after me and given the almost 'blinding devotion' inside each of them, I doubt it would be a long chase.

I sigh, there really is just the one option.

I head for the shower as I take a deep breath. I need to kill that love, that devotion, and earnest desire. And I need to make it slow, drawn out, strangled to death like a beached fish. I have to make it believable, the curve needs to mimic actual emotional decay, attachments losing meaning bit by bit and turning around into frustration and rage.

It won’t be easy, it won’t be simple, and above all it won’t be fast. Luckily, the Guild is more content to let me lurk in the background than actually strike at me, no government agency would want the blood of millions on their hands and no criminal organization would risk the backlash those agencies would bring down if they were to let that blood spill.

I have the time and I’m willing to put in the work… after all, nothing in the world worth having ever comes easy.

February 27th, 2011

I almost throw the fucking scope out the window.

Every single fucking day for the past two weeks, I have to get up and break those goddamn horses again.

They just won’t quit, even as the jokes keep falling flatter, even as his presence grows stale, every single morning I have to suffocate their love like it’s the first night all over again. Have I been too soft?

I let that thought disappear almost as soon as it manifests. I must be more annoyed than I thought, it has to be their fault, has to be some stupid little part of their ape brains that tries to hold on to the old, decrepit bits of their psyche. A worksman can not be blamed if the wood is rotten and it's simple bad luck that I rarely find any that isn't.

It's their fault, those little fucking morons that FUCKIN—

I lift my head up away from the scope, my fingers curling into fists as I try to remember those godforsaken exercises Mikhail drilled into my fucking head. In… hold… out… in… hold… there we go.

I flip my hair away from my face just as Grue gets up to collect his teammates. I have to stay collected. Yes, redoing the same old thing day in and day out is monotonous but it’s getting easier. The first night took hours, yesterday took only ten minutes, they might still love each other and confoundingly, they might still love Jean-Paul but that won’t be the case forever.

And while the urge to just turn up my power is almost overwhelming, I can’t afford to be rash. They might be relatively new but I doubt they’ve never dealt with a human Master before, they’ll be able to spot me, spot the mental alterations like a black crow in a blue sky if I’m not measuring my steps.

Grue returns with an eye rolling amount of lust and love, likely having walked in on a teammate and a few moments later, my son joins him. It’s tempting to keep going as I have been but now’s the time for my second phase.

It took me all night to find an unaffiliated parahuman but once I did, it was easy to paint him up as something impossibly bothersome. Fill him with a hate for all races not his own, convince him to shave his head and of course…

I reach into my pocket and pull out my second burner, speed dialing the only number I’ve bothered to put in.

“Hello!” a young man greets me, his voice breathless like a starving survivor stumbling upon help, the gruff of his russian accent is at a mismatch with his less than unbreakable confidence. “Mr. Nikos, hello are you—”

“Alexi…” I chastise, putting in as much venom in my voice as possible. “From this moment forward, you are not to address me beyond ‘sir’, do you understand?”

“Y-yes sir, I’m sorry sir, it won’t happen again si—”

“See that it doesn’t,” I order, his groveling already stale. “I have a job for you Crucible, a very simple one. Right now there is Brute about to go on a rampage in your territory, you are going to call… Regent and tell him that you cannot handle it, that the Brute is too strong for you.”

“Of course sir, very noble of you sir, thank you for warning us.”

I roll my eyes as I hang up the phone. To date, Alexi is the only thrall I’ve collected here in the Bay. He’s the newest to the team by a wide enough margin that while he was vetted by Tattletale, a second meeting between them hasn’t been necessary.

He’s a perfect spy, close enough that he has an ear with his bosses, a record clean enough that his word won’t be taken with a grain of salt, and naive enough that it was child’s play to make him one of mine.

And like a good little spy, he puts my plan into action immediately. Jean-Paul groans as he gets his phone out, frustration rising in his chest as he heads back up the stairs. He’s got to go now… a shame, especially given how much the others will enjoy being without him.

It’s an uphill battle, like rolling a stone up… well, not just a hillside but more like a cliff face. Every single moment I raise their joy, I also have to tamp down their disappointment and concern. It’s like whack-a-mole in a sense, if I let the concern take root for more than a moment, they’ll remember why they’re concerned and this early in the game, I can’t have that.

If they understand why they feel that way, I’ll have to step back. Erasing an epiphany like that is a surefire way of getting me discovered. Luckily, nothing like that happens until they start to turn in for the night.

Grue reaches for the remote and I rest my eyes for a moment too long.

When I open them, he is almost overflowing with guilt, regret, and remorse, his whole mind and being soaked through with the feeling. Tattletale only needs a look at him as she facepalms, her eyes a bit wide but mostly sorrowful.

Turned this way to me, I can see her lips clearly enough to make out the word.

“Alec.”

Hmm, so that’s the name he’s taken. Alec.

It’s about as far away from the name I gave him as possible and something tells me the little shit meant for that to be the case. 

Although, it's far more likely it's the opposite. His mother's name started with an A I believe, that's probably it, he's trying to incur my favor. Of course, it wasn't her name I liked about her, really none of my wives need them.

The four Undersiders are sitting there, each guilty, each looking at the door with blatant worry on their faces. They miss him now, yes, but their guilt screams that they didn’t miss him before. And though it might seem counterintuitive to the uninitiated, this guilt is exactly what I was hoping for.

I let it build all night, just lurking behind their thoughts and though I would’ve preferred another hour or so, this does the job well enough.

With a thought, I make the guilt sink deeper, I polish the edges into a grating abrasion and though it’s a struggle to do it quietly, I turn ever so slightly to… Alec.

I don’t point, I don’t even really direct it, all I do is tilt it that way, letting their emotions run wild and after enough time has passed their own thoughts spring up. They… I snort as a horrified surprise fills Tattletale’s eyes for just a moment,

They’ve thought it and though they try their best to dispel that moment as they turn in for the night, they all can’t shake that for the barest instant, they were frustrated because of Alec. It doesn’t last of course, that thought was struck down halfway through forming but it was there nonetheless.

Though it might not have gotten the fire started, the fact remains that two weeks ago, that little spark would’ve been impossible to make quietly. I won’t get that fire roaring for some time but I’ve set a pace and I know how to do it, eventually, one of these sparks will be the one.

I turn in for the night and feel a smile erupt on my face as I bring the cover up, my eyes growing heavy.

Soon, they’ll learn to hate him, I’m sure of it.

April 1st, 2012

Today is a very big day, a day of fools and I’m sure Jean-Paul is going to give me a lovely performance to watch. That’s all I’ll be doing today, my eyes will rest, I’ll sip at my wine and I’ll observe.

March was tiring month, taking their emotions away by the most minute amount has been maddening, the progress slow enough that some days I’m not even sure if I’ve done anything. But yesterday… yesterday was something special.

I finally got it to stick, one quiet moment when he left the room early, the lack of want obvious enough that he couldn’t force himself to stay there. They watched him go and a bright frustration flickered within them, a small thing that I just barely stoked. ‘Why would Jean-Paul just go,’ they must’ve been wondering, the anger twisting that into ‘isn’t he going to try and make things better?’

I barely even had to stoke it when the spark finally caught, finally ignited in a bright if brief fire of rage. They tried to stamp out, some little part of their brain rebelling against me but finding it’s own synapses bending to my tune.

That fire is inside them now and all I have to do is keep it fed from time to time. That said, I can’t give it too much too early. If I were to do that, eventually their limbic system would become dependent on me, dependent on the spikes of hate I push in.

No, that little flame needs to grow by itself and my son will be the perfect tinder. He walks above Grue, on the catwalk above and between the living room and the kitchen, his steps lighter than usual.

In him is a deep spike of fear, the kind of fear I can occasionally see in one of my wives, the fear that any step could lead to a bear trap. He heads downstairs and the instant he notices him, Grue’s emotions thrum to life. The annoyance and frustration rise up by themselves, the ‘natural’ response to this stimuli.

His guilt is… a bit more active than I’d like it to be, less built around frustration than it’s built around regret but it should be fine to let sit for now. Today is a day for observation, I have to remind myself of that.

It’s impossible for me to follow their conversation, with both of their heads turned, my son facing him and Grue staring down at the papers in front of him. Every word that comes from Jean-Paul’s mouth is just fuel for the fire, the very sound of his voice surely grating.

It takes some time, my son doing his best to get a conversation going and Grue doing just as well to try and stop it. My runaway is able to get it going for just a moment but even though Grue tries to be courteous, eventually it becomes too much. He snaps at his teammate and my son, desperate to keep going, spills his drink in his haste.

The small act wouldn’t even have been worth the energy to get upset over a month ago and now Grue’s face twists into anger as my son tries to make things better. I can almost hear the Shaker’s anger as he actually faces him.

That anger paralyzes my son like a deer in the headlights but the poker face I branded him with gives his teammate nothing but a stone cold nothing to read. But even frustrated, Grue lets up his assault and his head pulls back, his eyes somehow able to glean something that shouldn’t be visible.

The fire inside him shakes in the torrent of concern but the flame holds on, slowly growing as my son tries to salvage whatever might be left of their interaction. His words get to be too much and even with the bubble of worry inside him, Grue scoops up his things with a half hurried pace.

My son notices and his lips half form into a name, something with a ‘B’ when Grue stops, the fire roaring even as the concern grows. He steps towards Jean-Paul, a hand on his shoulder as he tries to explain something calmly.

My son can’t hear it, whatever it is, a gentle reminder that he’s busy, a soft condemnation, whatever it is, he can’t handle it. I don’t know where, when, or how my son managed to collect some emotions but whatever’s he’s got left makes him brittle.

He turns to the elevator, his gait a bit more rushed than his usual walk, the anchor of pain inside his chest is heavy and I wish I had a different angle. That pain is so vibrant I doubt that mask of his would last for very long, it must be crumbling at the seams as he steps out of view. 

Grue’s emotions flare. The concern turns into guilt once more and he actually takes steps to follow before he lets his head hang, a spire of sadness piercing up and out the flame of rage.

He’s so tired and so frustrated, from his point of view, he’s tried to keep Alec a part of his life but Jean-Paul is quickly turning into poison the longer he holds on. He goes back to the table and that guilt inside of him tears the spire apart, forking rage into itself, directing all those sharp thoughts back like a mirror.

He collapses into the chair and for the barest moment, I think his shoulders shake before he forces it to a stop.

There was a determination in my son that turns my scope down, that drive inside of him was blatant. He means to repair what I have so lovingly broke for him.

I don’t have that great a view of Skitter’s terrarium, I thought it was adequate when I first came here but that was before I learned of her little habit to cover one wall entirely with vermin. Her powers are peculiar to my sight, I made note of it the first time I saw her in action but that didn’t prepare me for the actual breadth of her power.

I can barely see Jean-Paul and her through the curtain of shiny carapaces but I can tell when he’s made her angry, when the whole wall starts to shake and shiver with rage. Whatever my son has said or done, it must’ve been particularly vile to warrant this reaction.

And yet, just like the Shaker above them, the rage falls away in an instant. My scope darts to and fro and I eventually spot why. My son, the one I sent most often to murder and frame those that stood against me, is sniffling like a boy who’s lost his candy.

The display makes me pull away, my jaw falling open. My son… on the verge of tears?!

I almost kick the telescope away, I’ve got my shoe lifted off the ground, ready to break it in half when I stop myself. No… no, I can’t risk wasting a whole day.

I put my eye back to the scope and watch the two of them embrace, Skitter holding the boy like a vice but then, almost as if someone flipped a switch, that concern boils with her anger. She hasn’t gotten rid of it, it’s small but intense and I know my son can feel the shift in her arms as he pulls away from her.

I wish his sniffling was a lie, an act Samuel or Gwendolyn taught him but I can see that it’s genuine. He’s… actually emoting. A hum comes out of my throat as I try to put that into something more intelligible. He shouldn’t be able to… but he is. By eight most of my children know better than to feel on their own, by ten they wouldn’t be able to even if they wanted.

What could’ve possessed this? That the little imitations of humanity had stopped being mere imitations. He’s only been gone for a few years but my presence isn’t something that can just be… adapted to.

I’ll have to study it when I take him home, maybe I’ll dissect his brain with my power, I’ll be back the layers of his mind and I’ll go over all of it with a fine toothed comb. He might come out of it a touch more… distant but he won’t mind the loss once I’m through with him.

Besiders, it’s the least he owes me, walking away might be something men do with their feet but a boy like him can’t possibly run from me. He can get farther away I’ll grant him, but there’s no distance he can travel, no rock he can hide under, that I won’t find him.

Part of me wants to start now but he isn’t there, he… no, I can’t experiment now. I need this city to be stable, I need it to be a great wall of attention, something that will keep ENE complacent and the Mathers wary.

That said, I’m not going to just pull him out of his little team, I’m not going to just make them hate him, I am going to make them despise him. He will be the black sheep amongst black sheep, the pinnacle of loathsome attention, he will be feared and revolted and monstrous to all of those he holds dear and when I’m through, he’ll be begging to warm my bed.

What little rage I see in Skitter curdles into more sorrow, the fire inside her dimming to almost nothing as she drops to her knees, openly weeping. I don’t see my son for the rest of the morning, the only real thing I witness is in the early afternoon, when Grue calls someone on his phone.

His emotions run a gauntlet of satisfaction, guilt, guilt over his satisfaction, sorrow and yet even more guilt and frustration.

Tattletale comes up to the penthouse and the two of them embrace in a hug layered in grief, the kind of grief reserved for when a loved one is on their deathbed. They don’t know why things are changing exactly but they can feel it start even without my power watering it.

The rage inside, it’s slowly becoming resentment.

The two of them talk for a long while, both little sparks of resentment puffing in and out of existence, their minds on the knife's edge between the feelings.

They don't want it to be there but it is, they can squash it down, try to smother it and maybe they'd succeed.

Actually, knowing these four, I wouldn't put it passed them to somehow come back from this. My power can be permanent if I so wish it but if that little feeling didn't flow naturally I'd put odds on a the Thinker raiding this apartment the instant it didn't leave.

It has to be a natural slide… or as natural as I can force anyway.

Skitter comes up to the penthouse next, her steps slow and dragging as she collapses into the other two. 

The resentment isn't nearly as strong as their own, a spark of a spark but it's there, flickering like a match in a cave.

The two of them hold her upright and a chuckle climbs up my throat as their resentment flares up. This is something they can't ignore, their little cockroach is hurt and they know it's because of Alec and deep down… they know it was just because he was there.

The chuckle becomes a full on laugh as I lean back, my spine relieved by the short break as I grab for my glass. 

There's a bottle of scotch on the short table, a bow wrapped around it. The hotel thought it prudent to give a month long guest a good bottle and though I've never been one for scotch… I'll admit, it's tempting.

Still, I just drink the plain water.

I need to keep myself steady. I put my eye back to the scope and watch the three of them sit there at the dining room table, each of their tics lighting up to the time their emotions play.

Grue rolls his shoulders, Tattletale bites her lip, and Skitter shuffles her feet and wrings her hand. 

Their frustration rises, I don't have any audio unfortunately but I'd rather be deft to them then risk Skitter finding a bug.

They talk and talk and talk until the sun starts to set and they all look up when the elevator dings.

Rachel Lindt is tired, her pace slow like her clothes are weighted. She doesn't even spare her compatriots a glance as she sits on the couch, her eyes closing and her head leaning back.

Her emotions blare like a siren, so much guilt and anger and sorrow that they flip into and overlap each other, becoming a ball vibrant enough that her teammates can somehow spy it in her frame.

Without a better option, the three by the dining room table cease their discussion and join their brutish friend on the couch.

The instant the four of them are together, their turmoil shrinks, the concern washing away, the heat of rage cooling, and the heaviness of guilt dropping down.

They even start to enjoy each other's company, an enjoyment that slowly grows without my son to meddle with it. Their resentment shrinks a touch and their guilt heightens but that doesn't matter.

Tattletale reaches for the remote, likely to turn on the t—

The windows just turned opaque.

I pull away from the scope and look up with my own eyes, of course, seeing as how the sun has set behind their tower I can't make it out.

I look back in the scope, my own emotions spiking as I try to wipe away a smudge that wasn't there a moment ago.

I pull my hand away and curse.

This could ruin everything!

They're all emotionally vulnerable right now, their guilt is on the rise and if Jean-Paul walks into their evening, they will change.

Their guilt will wash it all away and without eyes on them to stop it, I'll have to throw a whole month's worth of work away!

No, no, no, no, I just have to take a deep breath. 

My son was in a ridiculous amount of pain when Skitter ousted him from her terrarium and Rachel Lindt carried the same kind of self loathing she and Grue held. 

Logically, her interaction couldn't have been any kinder. With any luck, my son is licking his wounds somewhere. The thoughts don’t give me any comfort, I haven’t lived this long because I thought ‘luck’ would ever see me through.

I fish my phone out of my pocket and call Regent’s right hand man. It’s barely halfway through the first tone when Alexi answers me, the sleep in his voice almost overpowering.

“Sir?” he half answers/ half asks, the exhaustion making him slow.

“Where is Regent?” I demand, trying to lean back in my chair but finding the furniture to be the most uncomfortable thing ever built.

“I am not sure sir, I could call—”

“Do not call my son, you idiot!” I pinch at my brow, my veins feeling like molten networks of magma. “You have access to the tower’s cameras, yes?”

“Yes sir, of course I—”

“Check all of them and notify me the moment you find him, do you understand?”

“Yes sir, I under—”

“Good.” I close the burner with as much of a slam as my two fingers can give. I set the cheap phone down and grab for the scotch, unscrewing the metal cap and deciding to forgo a decanter or even a glass as I take a sip from the neck.

The swill is nicer than what most of these peasants have access to but it’s still swill to me, still garbage. It fills my mouth with a smooth but insultingly one note taste and barely burns down my throat.

The alcohol keeps me calm enough and after almost five whole fucking minutes, Alexi finally gets back to me, a very simple text saying: ‘He’s with Ubermensch, in the infirmary.’

I know the six simple words are supposed to make sense but no amount of staring at them makes them fall in line. Jean-Paul is with Ubermensch? That can’t be right, that freak of nature was put down last September, his body was—

Panacea.

That wasn’t a real body the PRT reported in, that thing was just a mound of flesh perfectly sculpted into the shape of Ubermensch. If the actual Ubermensch is still alive, trapped somehow then… my eyes widen into saucers.

The Undersiders hold a golden ticket, a cape within their rooster so overwhelmingly powerful that even the Triumvirate would hesitate before entering. And no one knows about it…

I hold off on asking Alexi any more questions. The glass suddenly feels looser in my hand and I nearly drop it before I drain the last of my water. The scotch sits just in front of the right leg of my chair and I almost topple backward when a fly lands on the neck of it.

My breath comes hard and fast before the fly springs towards the window, making dull thuds against the glass as I breathe a sigh of relief. Skitter’s range has been known to fluctuate but I’m almost three times outside of her largest recorded radius.

I look through the scope one last time and seeing the lack of change, I head for the bed, telling myself that the bridges I’ve burned are too wide too consider building again. They won’t reconnect tonight, I have to trust that feeling.

May 12th, 2012

It seems my earlier concern was misplaced, the sudden revelation that the Undersiders quite literally have a monster in their basement was quite a shock but I’ve acclimated since.

Their resentment has grown, a long black spike of loathing that certainly can’t be fixed with just a few conversations. It’s almost funny how that resentment reacts to the lingering tendrils of love and fear. They seek him out now, barging into his room and though I can’t see what goes on inside, I know Jean-Paul leaves more and more distraught.

Things are progressing wonderfully but there’s something going on in there that I can’t help but worry about. Four of them have their costumes on and when Jena-Pual leaves his rome, he’s dressed in that gaudy Regent outfit of his.

In the two months I’ve been here, I haven’t seen the five of them fight at all, save for the day Jean-Paul killed that Brutish thrall with his own. The reason they’re dressed up is the same reasons all parahumans dress up, they’re off to fight.

That… could be a problem.

Adrenaline is often unpredictable, there’s trends to it of course but just where those emotions go can never be said before they start up. I’ve no choice, I need to monitor them. Again, I am forced to call my mole.

“Alexi,” I cut him off before he can greet me. “I need to know where the Undersiders are going, just who exactly are they fighting, details, all of them. Now.”

“Of course sir,” Alexi answers, his voice a bit further away and likely checking texts on his phone. “They will be fighting Blasto on Ray White Road today at 2:30 pm, he should bring along several of his creations, a half dozen raptors, three tangles, and three of the ‘grassrillas’ I believe they’re called.”

That’s… surprisingly in depth for a text message. How does he know the exact number of forces and their distribution ahead of the fight, and mentioning the time as well, that’s… that doesn’t make sense.

“Were they scheduled?” I ask, one part genuinely questioning to three parts incredulity.

“Yes sir, Director Winthrop brokered the deal with us, scheduled spectacle fights between Blasto, the Protectorate, and the Undersiders. Three directors had been in the Bay before, one resigned, the other two were killed by Skitter.”

“So Mr. Winthrop’s a coward?” I ask, fixing my scope on the front entrance of Medhall tower and finding myself actually drawn into the conversation.

“Yes sir,” Alexi confirms, “Leonardo Winthrop has been a coward his whole career and is almost completely a figurehead. He holds very little power within Brockton and is actually trying to negotiate more ENE presence in other states within the sector like Vermont and Maine.”

I hum, that’s an ambitious move. Protectorate and PRT forces are typically congregated around the most populated city in their sector, the only times a Director has ever managed to divert forces away from their prime city is either when their forces are numerous to cause incite or the city itself is in a state of peace.

That is to say, I don’t think they’ve been able to do operations like that since the early two thousands. But I suppose it’s getting more likely now, it’s been nearly ten months since Behemoth was crippled and yet still the Simurgh has yet to land.

“Thank you,” I tell Alexi, almost feeling his smile through the line before I hang up.

A few minutes later, after checking the city’s streets on the laptop I brought from Montreal, Jean-Paul exits the tower with his two thralls. I follow him through my scope and where he lands isn’t preferable.

The street is dilapidated, more pothole than actual road, with some of the older buildings falling prey to cave-ins and the like. But far worse than the state of the street is the buildings blocking it. I don’t have any angle to view the road at even though this hotel was specifically chosen for the vantage points it offers.

This is not good, I—

I rub my temples, this is annoying but as Alexi told me, this will be a spectacle fight, the chances of any of them getting seriously injured is low and the adrenaline shouldn’t spike too much. Of course that just means I’ll have to be a bit more careful monitoring them but it’s not like I’ve been doing much else these days.

I keep my eyes on what little of the road I can see, just barely catching a flash of one of Bitch’s hounds and one of Blasto’s odd creations when suddenly, all hell breaks loose. The building that was blocking my sight explodes outward, the roof caving in and making an open ‘U’ that let’s me view more of the road.

There are seven people standing in the rubble and I only recognize one of them, Epoch. THe sight of the case 53 makes me snarl, that silver blooded pain in my side hasn’t attacked me since 09 but I remember his brazenness.

He had only been in this world for so long but for nearly half a year, he took… offense to my actions. Six months of headaches, of him and his little sorcerors trying to move into my territory, of him specifically trying to kill me.

It would’ve been simpler to deal with if he was just some Brute with a resistance to my power but of course that wouldn’t be the case. No, he just had to have a wit to back up the brawn. He isn’t resistant to me at all but he can sense when I’ve touched his mind, he can rewind himself back to before my influence.

A self contained paradox, all just to try and kill me.

He never succeeded obviously but he was the closest to come to it in twenty years. The only reason him and his brood left Montreal is when the Protectorate of all organizations came to my aid.

Despite the anger running hot in my veins, a smile does come to my face when I remember his expression, that look of complete defeat as Alexandria herself defended my manor. I didn’t catch what she said to him but I remember how his face somehow turned even paler and how even without pupils, that his eyes darted to his lovers.

They left my manor and then soon after, the city. The head of the LA Protectorate sneered at me before taking off and I got to enjoy the rest of the relatively quiet year. Since then, I’ve kept tabs on him and his little group but the past two months I’ve been away, my information network must’ve fallen slack in some places.

He shouldn’t be here and I keep my power held down as I examine him and his teammates, scanning their emotions with lingering glances. I hum, for a moment, I thought they were here for me, Alexandria’s threat be damned but their emotions don’t reflect that.

Within moments, a fight breaks out, three of them heading for the building opposite and the other four engaging the rest of the Undersiders. The fight might’ve been spectacular to me at one time but I’ve put even more flashy capes against each other just for kicks.

Both of Jean-Paul’s thralls are taken further away from the main brawl and Skitter is forced to engage a purple robed tinker whilst Grue does his best to fight what looks like a sun in the shape of a woman, the light a deep blue in the center but gold as it spreads out.

The fight plays out dramatically and the way the emotions run tell me that this very much isn’t for show. They fear the way all parahumans do when they first come across each other, the uncertainty of what your opponent can do is one of the most thought of things before, during, and after a battle and it is a swifter killer than people realize.

So many capes, even the experienced ones, can find themselves obsessing over the specifics of powers and those thoughts will drag their focus just enough from the actual battle that they freeze or choke or falter at that precise moment that mattered most.

And that’s exactly what happens today.

A single misstep, a single miscalculation, and suddenly, the front of Skitter’s armor is on fire, a flaming bird having slammed into it and exploding like a molotov cocktail. She falls to her knees, the chitin breastplate crumbling to bits as the silk starts to melt into skin.

The pain has to be unbearable, complete agony but somehow, even with her emotions running a mile a minute her swarm fights on

The bugs redouble their efforts, the other robed figures having to spend precious moments swatting at the bites and stings but the millions of wasps and beetles shouldn’t be their concern.

It’s the others they need to worry about.

Bitch sics her dogs on Epoch, the trio of monstrous hounds ripping the time traveler into pieces just as quickly as he can reform. With eyes pulping every new reset, he doesn’t have even a moment to force his power on to someone else.

Grue takes a woman in a brown robe into his shadow and I know instinctively that whatever fight they plan on having in there, it will end momentarily.  The woman’s scream disappears underneath it and her hands tremble with a manic energy that shakes the air before they too are swallowed up.

Blasto’s creatures fall in line at Tattletale’s command, her arm pointed out like a commander as the creatures move around her. She isn’t waiting idly like most Thinkers I’ve seen, instead, she has her pistol drawn and firing into the dark, wherever the black smog trembles.

Their pathetic little love flares again, the tender emotion emboldened by protectiveness and rage like that of a wild dog.

The Adepts are routed shortly after and though Grue helps Skitter onto the back of her enormous mount, she somehow rides alone despite the excruciating pain. The adrenaline is only barely flushing out of their systems when Jean-Paul steps out of the apartment complex opposite the destroyed building.

Again, I am surprised by his capacity to feel, it isn't even a shadow of what his teammates feel but it grows bit by bit and the numbness of the oncoming shellshock isn’t quite enough to snuff it out.

He pauses as one of Blasto's creations reaches out to him, some kind of moss covered gorilla with four arms. A pool of odd blood leaks from its body, green like chlorophyll as my son stops, maybe fascinated by the death.

Ubermensch reaches out, but he doesn't put the thing out of its misery like I thought my son would command. Instead, the monster of Bavaria just lays his hand on the thing, keeping it company as its eyes close shut one last time.

Speaking of his teammates, the three of them stand at a street corner, the fear inside them roaring like a bubbling pot. But of course, like everyone, their minds reject that feeling.

Fear inevitably becomes vulnerability and all species have evolved to avoid that feeling. They substitute it as soon as they spot Alec walking away, the anxious worry becoming righteous indignation and fury.

I can almost hear Bitch's thoughts as she stomps towards her teammates, knuckles clenching and unfurling until she reaches him. Her mouth opens to speak and with a quick glance to make sure their little know-it-all is facing away, I tip that anger the few degrees it needs to spill over.

Ms. Lindt pushes his shoulders and my son nearly falls to the floor before he catches himself. 

I expected him to shout maybe or perhaps cower but he doesn't do either of those things. Instead, he makes Ubermensch close in, his titanic arms lifted up and prepared to fight, with Shatterbird’s costume flaring like the hood of a snake.

For an infinitesimally small moment, I think he’s snapped. That whatever abuse the Undersiders have pelted upon him has become too much, that I’ll have to accelerate my plans a hundred fold.

But then, just as soon as his thralls understand who they’re looking at, my son freezes, his whole body becoming as still as a statue and the fear inside him rising to a point I’d call human. Bitch stares him down, first with shock, then with disappointment.

My son puts his hands out but his thralls aren’t put away with the same speed, whatever dead end apology is on his lips means nothing as he stammers. Grue stomps over to join the both of them and the resignation flowing through them all seems like it could connect at any moment. 

But I don’t let that resignation last, I refuse to.

With the Thinker leading the charge on her mount and my son too busy staring at his own, I twist that disappointment into its sister feeling. And just like Bitch before her, her emotions have become so used to flipping that it doesn’t take much.

I’m about to do the same to Grue when I laugh, it seems I won’t need to work on him after all. Somehow, even with her back turned to face him, he’s picked up on the frustration and rage and he falls in line with her.

And like a mob, Rachel Lindt starts to feel the same way.

I’m about to try and experiment with this odd domino effect when Grue’s power flares to life. Even having just witnessed it before, my mouth feels dry as the Shaker’s power hides their emotions just as well as their own bodies.

My eyes scan over the dark regardless but he proves that his little scuffle earlier wasn’t a fluke, his smog blocks my power just as well as a wall would. I hum and tilt my head, a power like that might be vexing but I know I’d overcome it eventually.

The four of them ride back to their tower and Grue doesn’t let his power fall until they’re all well inside the lobby and out of my sight. It isn’t the first time I’ve wished that my gift could work through a mirror or surveillance but I suppose the playing field had to be leveled with some disadvantages.

After all, what fun is there being the heir to the world if it’s easy?

I turn my scope back up to the penthouse and lock the mechanism vertically, my eye fixed on the first floor. My son stalks to the TV, his whole posture rigid with an anger I hadn’t cared to notice before.

The anger inside of him is actually bursting at the seams, the heat I saw when he and Grue came down the stairs is almost nothing to what he’s feeling now. Where before it was a low simmer, now it boils and pops like acid, the drops of it steaming against his frustration and doubt and the faint but massive shadow of sorrow.

The smile I had earlier falls from my face as he plays his insipid little game. He… he shouldn’t be like this. Before it was fascinating, maybe even amusing to watch his attempts at being a whole person without me but now it’s just insulting.

I own him, I own his fucking soul and he just sits there, playing his game as if he wasn’t the one to start bringing me down. I didn’t know at the time Jean-Paul was a keystone amongst my children but with his absence, I’ve had to actually step into their little world nearly a dozen times a week to get them all to quiet.

The eldest amongst them are the most loyal, the closest I would have to a royal guard. Guaillaume, Nicholas, and Velentina follow me without question but I don’t doubt they’re struggling to keep their remaining siblings in line without me.

Of course, they wouldn’t have to do that if Jean-Paul hadn’t decided that he didn’t need me. None of his siblings, even the dead ones, had ever tried to escape me before, none of them had wanted to and even if they did, I had drilled it into them that such a dream was folly.

But he was somehow just plain dumb enough to leave anyway, sparking the idea in the others. I can control a lot, I control people the way most would control a television, they dance what I tell them to dance to, they sing what I tell them to sing, but I can’t control stupidity.

And that’s what it was, just one stupid domino falling over itself, leaving my hospitality in the middle of the night without a thought in its head. It wasn’t driven by anything, I would’ve known if he was.

But that doesn’t matter to the others, they saw a way out where there was clearly just a bottomless pit. First there was Jean-Paul but then, not even a month later, it was Cherie, then half a year later it was Samuel and his… his twin, I can’t remember her name, the one that dyed her hair so mu— the point is!

He’s the one who started it, the one who thought his piddling little feelings were worth anything to do except follow my orders. He’s the one that got it to fall apart, he’s the one who made the Guild think I could be contained better, the one who exposed that my children weren’t under as watchful an eye as I should've put on them.

That’s what I get for being a better father than my own, I spared the rod too many times and this is what it cost me, unruly children that don’t understand their place on the board.

I push my thoughts away to refocus on Jean-Paul, his fingers moving a mile a minute as his anger boils. I shake my head, is that it? Was he so starved for me, for the gifts I could give him, that he went out and tried to find some himself?

Does he think his emotions are worth the synapses they travel through? I might be known for the truth I provide, for the love I spread like Eros himself, but I can do the same with any emotion. Even the anger he feels now is a shadow of what I could bestow to him, if he thinks the frustration of a bad and a game can approach the blistering rage I could offer, he must be even dumber than I thought.

He just keeps playing that game, like that brother of his, the useless one. He’s so enthralled in it, his emotions don’t even register that the doors have opened behind him, that his teammates are stalking towards him.

He only looks up when Rachel rips the controller from his grip, throwing it behind her as they start to argue. I grin for a moment, excited that the little idiot is about to be verbally ripped to shreds when I actually look at his feelings.

They must be spitting words like acid, the harshest things they’ve ever said to him, I’m sure of it! But he just takes it, the words bouncing off of his psyche, the anger twisting to somehow feed a dark amusement.

He throws barbs back at them with a much fiercer intensity, where their words do nothing to him, his cause sorrow, regret, and even fear like great boulders thrown upon the castle of their mind. He actually seems to be enjoying himself even when I feed anger into each of them, my eyes darting to connect with their minds in his and the Thinker’s blindspot.

It looks like the Undersiders are going to leave the room defeated when Skitter manages to find her voice, her knuckles clenched tightly into fists as she thrusts her arms out at her sides. Of everyone in that room, she’s the only one that feels sorrow in the same way she feels anger, the two feelings wrapping around and entangling each other.

Whatever she says finally gets my son to falter, his smile dropping and his face slacking as he speaks. I can tell in the bob of his throat that his words are softer, his anger leaking out of him like blood from a femoral artery.

He tries to say something when Rachel cuts him off, her face closer to his and the words forced out of her mouth and falling to the floor with their weight. She’s turned parallel to my view and I cannot read whatever she says but it makes the leaking anger in Alec rally as he lifts up his sleeve.

The sight of the long criss-crossing scar makes me roll my eyes, I taught him better than to be injured on a job, especially with a wound so visible. My children can not afford to carry those scars, in the same way a woman can’t have them.

How do they expect to earn my love if they aren’t pretty enough for me to look at?

The other Undersiders recoil at the pale skin and my son sits up straighter and yells with all his fury, locking eyes with each of them as his face twists. I tilt my head at the expression, again he’s playing it up, the sorrow he feels now shouldn’t even be approaching what I’ve given him before.

The pain he feels shouldn’t mean anything, I’ve forced him through enough hell that he should be resilient to it. I’ve made him understand the truest depths of grief, I’ve had him sit in one spot as I forced the collective misery of mankind into his eyes.

How can… something so small as losing a few lovers make him this weak? I shake my head, that can’t be it, I drilled him to be better, he must be playing it up, he was always the best actor we had.

That little thought makes me look at the others and sure enough, they’ve fallen for his little sob story hook, line, and sinker. Their anger falls, the frustration vanishes, and… the resentment flickers away.

My eyes widen as I watch the frustration fill with regret, the rage becoming sorrow and concern and guilt in equal measure, and as the resentment gives one last puff into being, I see the little shadow of love somehow make its way back into their hearts.

I turn my scope from Rachel to Grue and Skitter but just like the oafish girl, all the hate I’ve made them feel is cooling into ash, a white pitch that dies underneath the tide of theri other emotions.

Those… those fucking idiots!

Of course, Jean-Paul would surround himself with like minded people, of course their subconscious is just too slow to get the message I’ve taught every single fucking day. Of fucking course they’d defy me, all these little peons are exactly alike in that way, all too fucking stupid to know how my world works.

I don’t know what part of their limbic system thought it could just wipe away my hard work like it doesn’t matter and though the emotions I’ve sculpted might not be as permanent as what I could make, I can still make the fire grow from those ashes.

Like always, I start with the Thinker.

Lifting the emotions up and pushing the others down is like performing on a mine ridden trapeze, every moment I have to adjust my actions just the slightest bit so as to not set anything off. She thinks she’s so clever but she isn’t any smarter than the other morons and though it takes me a tenth of a second longer than it should, I make the resentment burn bright enough to force that love return to nothing.

The resentment roars and with it, that rage and frustration comes back just as quickly.

My eyes dart to Grue next and then after him, Rachel and then finally, back to Skitter.

The whole exchange happened in less than five seconds. His words left his lips, their ears registered it, their emotions fell but before their minds could realize just what exactly they were feeling, I put them back on the right track.

My eyes sting like someone squirted a lemon in them but I keep them open, refusing to even blink as I take in the scene.

The whiplash of what I’ve done has essentially doubled their hatred, what was there before has returned alongside what the rapid alteration I just implanted and with those feelings, Grue turns his head up and leaves with a remark that smothers every feeling inside Jean-Paul.

All that rage, all that sorrow and confusion, it all vanishes like a comet over the horizon, leaving my son in a numbness that takes his breath away.

His teammates start to walk away and like driftwood floating up from a wreckage below, I have to constantly drag down the guilt that pops up, the little feelings that slow their steps the tiniest bit, that make them want to turn around.

I lift my head away from the scope only when the lights upstairs flicker off, only when I’m sure they’ve gone to bed. The light of my room is too much for my eyes and I finally shut them as I put my fingers to my temples, squeezing out a headache as best I can.

That… certainly could’ve gone better.  But there’s no one to blame except for them, I could try playing out that scene a hundred times over and it wouldn’t change that I’m dealing with bad actors, unwilling to follow the script.

I’ll have to dial back that hatred tomorrow, if it keeps rising at the rate it’s going, they won’t even need their Thinker to break it into understandable pieces. Regardless, the job for today has been done, their resentment has grown and inside of that, I’ve placed a genuine seed of hate.

Granted, I’ve no doubt that seed will be a bitch to get blossoming. It’s like planting on bad soil, hate doesn’t rise easily where love was meant to be, even with everything I’ve done to them, I know they won’t water my work like they should.

Without me, they’d be lost, bumbling around and letting their feelings rot into less intensity, they wouldn’t be able to make what I’ve done go but they’d try anyway, like a curious toddler trying to rip a rose bush from the ground and sobbing when the thorns cut their hands.

But I shouldn’t fault the common masses I suppose, there’s so many places for the cavemen to live and only one of me to grant them truth. They don’t know how the world works and Jean-Paul’s proved personally that even a lifetime of my teachings can be ignored by pure idiocy.

It doesn’t really matter I suppose, the hate is there and whether they can move it or not, I’ll provide them my guiding hand for as long as I am able. It’s that though that makes me smile as I head for the door, my eyes welcoming the dark as I shut the lights off.

I crack my neck and head for the shower, eager to get hot water on my aching back before I rest.

June 10th, 2012

Four months I’ve been here now, four solid months of continuous work and labor. Sure, I might not have lifted cars over my head or swung a hammer but the work I’ve done has been so mind bogglingly intense that when I get home, I’m going to take at least a month alone in my bedchambers with as many blondes as I can fit in there.

My power isn’t as simple as reading minds, it takes a finesse and skill to use as well as I have and even having had it for close to twenty years, I still find nuances to it.

This morning, I woke up to find that the four Undersiders I’ve been altering all speaking with hushed voices at the dining room table, the hate inside them bright but almost invisible compared to the resentment and sorrow roaring around it And overlaying all of that was a bright and thick layer of unwavering resolve and determination.

Like I’ve said, I’m not a mind reader but after all these years, watching all the little emotions bounce off and bleed into each other, I can tell just in the way that determination ripples down, a branch of that hate acting as a skeleton for it, that they’re going to be doing something about him.

At first, I wasn’t sure what the decision was exactly but swimming in that sorrow was the ghost of joy, the tiny fragment of wistfulness that people call nostalgia. They’re asking him to leave today and though I know it isn’t a good idea, I immediately went into the bathroom to shave my beard once more.

I had to see it for myself and that’s what’s led me here.

It was a nuisance to come in through the side patio entrance but I’d hate for all my work to be botched because of some paranoid woman memorizing my face. I simply sat down at a small table right around the corner from their own, a few glances at the staff ensured that they didn’t mind me taking up a seat that was probably reserved. I had one of the waitresses fetch me a hot drink and I stirred in sugar as I forced the other noises away from my mind.

Without any distractions, I strained my ears and what I’ve heard so far has been… exquisite.

For most of my coffee they’ve been talking utter nonsense, I couldn’t care less about the local extras of the PRT and Protectorate, as if this branch has any meaning any more but all that nothing only served to whet my appetite when they got to the actual reason they brought him along.

Hearing it… it’s divine, the conviction so thick I don’t even need my power to identify, the pain so jagged it seems to cut into the words themselves, all of that horribleness kicking off with their Shaker saying so simply: “Alec, we need to talk.”

What comes next actually gets me to close my eyes as I take another sip, the wonderful conversation going on behind me almost makes this coffee taste less like it was made with crystals.

My son puts up a token protest but then, right as he relents there’s a certain… wetness to his voice as he finally agrees with them. I drain the last dredges of the thick sludge as I tilt my head. Why on earth is he acting now ? Is he even more moronic than I thought?

You pretend to cry when you’re losing, not when you’ve already lost. I didn’t think that was a lesson that bore repeating, I thought his acting coaches and his psychology tutors made that obvious enough in their lessons but I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked he’s let those memories leak out.

Of course, there’s the alternative that he wasn’t acting just now and if that’s the case… he’s even more lost than I thought. I set my mug down with a bit more force than necessary as I shake my head, if he’s truly that far gone, letting himself believe whatever misfires in his brain can pass for the absolution I could provide… let’s just say I’ll have to be a lot more firm with him when I get back to Montreal.

I can hear the front door clatter closed and with his exit, I lean back as subtly as I can, trying to peek around the corner at his tablemates. My knuckles turn white around the handle of my mug as I look at them, at the quickly spreading guilt that has taken the place of resolve and grit.

“That was… t-that—” Skitter chokes on her words and she leans on the blonde next to her, her shoulders shaking as the Thinker wraps an arm around her. Thankfully the Thinker is turned away from me but playing this will be… tricky.

“Yeah…” Tattletale completes the nonsense with as meaningless an ending as there was a beginning, her hand rubbing up and down the cockroach queen’s arm. “But we…” her voice falters as that guilt spreads further down, “We… we did the right thing. We— yeah.”

She doesn’t sound nearly as secure in her words as she did earlier, in fact, she sounds like each word is making her weaker. The two across from them don’t say anything to fill the silence, their own minds as much a maelstrom of turmoil as the two speakers.

It was right to come here, I’d give it five minutes at most before their guilt starts to swallow their thoughts completely. They’d ask for the check, probably throw a whole wallet’s worth of money on it and be out the doors in search of their wayward teammate.

They’d have their tearful reunion somewhere in the streets, somewhere away from my sight and though I wouldn’t be back to square 1 again, enough of my work would be snapped broken again, like when a surgeon tries to fix an incorrectly healed bone.

No… actually, it would be much worse than that. Their Thinker would realize something, you don’t just throw someone away and then chase after them after all. She’d find some correlation with her ability and she’d sicc her whole fiefdom to find the unknown. I wouldn’t have even realized I’d been found out until the bugs were upon me.

Thankfully, I had the foresight to come here, to oversee this little exchange personally and like every single day since I’ve arrived, I start with the Thinker.

I make her guilt leak out of her like air escaping a balloon, leaving only the small amount of satisfaction and joy from completing their task within her.

“We should—” Skitter cuts herself off as she leans up, her hand darting to her pocket, probably to retrieve her phone. “We should call him, get him to—”

Without as much guilt as before, the blonde pushes her hands down on the weeping noirettes’ forcing her phone back into her pocket as she speaks.

“No, no!” She chastizes, her voice hard and uncompromising as she tries to rally them. “We need to stay strong. We’ve been… let’s not beat around the bush here, we’ve been miserable, he’s been miserable! This… it’s the best course of action, I know it hurts but we can’t go back now.”

I find myself nodding along with her words, she’s right and as my eyes dart to their Shaker, I slowly make him believe it too. She continues with a little speech but before I can make a believer out of Bitch, someone knocks on the edge of my table.

A waitress stands there, dressed in this restaurant’s flattering uniform and holding a fresh pot of coffee as her eyes dart to my mug, silently asking for a refill. Her interruption only makes me more sure that I was born to lead the world, there’s too many people like her, too many women that think they have any right to take my attention away from where I’ve aimed it.

My eyes rake her up and down and I glare when I sense the disgust inside her, the unwarranted repulsion. How typical, dressing like that but being surprised when a handsome man like myself peruses the market. I look back up at her face and close my eyes for a slightly longer blink.

She’s not my preferred type, the frizziness of her hair says that the red is natural and her nose is a bit too large but I guess I can’t choose the oasis. After all, I’m in the middle of the longest dry spell I’ve had since I got my powers, I suppose any pair of tits on legs will work.

I open my eyes and release my power completely.

The pot almost slips from her hands as her eyes go glassy, every other emotion, every thought pushed away by the sheer adoration I force within her, She knows her place now, she’s one of the lucky few women to embrace my truth and I smile at her and feel her almost faint at the joy it brings her.

She silently sits across from me and I look away from her and back to my quarry.

In the brief few moments I wasn’t monitoring them, the guilt inside them all has somehow redoubled, the resolve that should’ve stayed firm is crumbling and brittle and I force myself to keep the growl down my throat.

These idiots, these little conniving moronic bastards think that I care about that little shadow they call love? That monstrous little specter that people risk their lives for, that ghost of an idea that isn’t even a fraction of what I can create with a glance?

I harden their will, I drain their guilt, I build their joy, I spend nearly fifteen fucking minutes just sitting there and altering it all as quietly as I can before they finally start to build in on themselves.

I can’t leave them like this though, that sadness will fester and gnaw at the joy I’ve made and when that falls, the guilt will come back. I need them to keep arguing and with a few tugs, they start up again.

After the Thinker, I work on the Trump, his emotions almost giving themselves over to me before he starts arguing the point alongside the blonde. Bitch and Skitter don’t so much as argue as they do protest, their disagreement known but not really providing any alternatives.

After Bitch falls, Skitter puts her phone back in her pocket with a sniffle, her head falling back onto Tattletale’s shoulder as I pull my head back around the corner. With their emotions settling, I manage a smile as I hear them actually start to enjoy their lunch, the Thinker even taking a fair amount of joy when she asks them: “Did you see his face?”

Her rhetorical question is met with laughter and with a pinch of my brow, I get up out of my chair when a sudden tingle runs up my spine.

The past twenty years have been filled with moments like this, little jumps inside my stomach, a sixth sense for danger that I imagine must be common in a veteran soldier. If I step out from this corner, if their Thinker even catches me in her peripherals, all my work will cease to matter.

I follow my instincts and with a hushed command to my latest thrall, she takes me out of the restaurant through the kitchen, her confidence making any nosy coworkers ignore both of us. It isn’t until I’m back in the seat of my limousine that I release the breathe I was holding.

I look at the red head and with a slight twist of my power, I tap my lap as nearly all of her love melts into lust.

She climbs on top of me and as she undoes her clothes I spare a moment to think of what comes next. Without Jean-Paul in their penthouse, I’ll have much more freedom to play with their emotions, I’ll make them a hundred times more vibrant and sometime this week, I’ll get enough thralls to bring my other child back into the fold.

So much left that still needs doing but at least that will be the last of it and I won’t have to spend another moment in this godforsaken town.

June 16, 2012

Today… today couldn’t have gone any better.

Cherie is mine, all of the fourteen minds alongside her own have made her more malleable than anyone I’ve ever liberated before. With her new abilities and with my power’s absolute permanence, I now have an immortal vanguard within my regime.

Brockton Bay is sinking into the distance behind our flight, the ugly little harbor and its squat little buildings and its warlord children are all falling away from my mind, all of it barely even becoming a memory.

Good riddance.

All that work, all that time and effort, I can finally close the book on it. I might be out of a fair bit of money and there’s four months of my life I’ll never get back but it’s all worth it. Sebastian will have a chance to rest his voice and with him serving as the children’s handler alongside myself and Cherie, I’ll be able to send my eldest to collect the children that have decided to follow Jean-Paul’s footsteps.

I lean back in my seat, the pressure in my ears finally giving way to a pop as I run a mental checklist, trying to see if there’s any loose ends that slipped my mind when I was on the ground.

Of course I don’t find any, while my critics have often said I lack certain… subtleties, they can’t argue that what I’ve done here, as I’ve done with all of my work, isn’t perfect.

The Undersiders were grateful to be without their once ‘lover,’ the money was more a formality than anything else but it will work as a sort’ve… binding agent I suppose. That girl with the bugs (the obvious leader) has a loose sense of honor and respect and the money will serve as a reminder to our deal. Even if her old feelings somehow start to resurface, going back on our transaction should be enough of a jab at her sensibilities.

But that of course would only serve a purpose if her emotions could return to her baseline and the thought of that actually gets me to smile. In all my twenty years as Heartbreaker, I’ve not seen one person ever scrub themselves free of my influence.

They can try to fight it but it’s like trying to tear off a collar that’s inside your neck. All you do is end up strangling yourself and the collar is still there.

No, the Undersiders are as good as defeated, their little kingdom might expand into Boston but that’s as far as it will go for some time. Perhaps they’ll grow a bit more, maybe even take all of New England in ten years or so but they won’t bother moving north for some time. Legend is the wall between us and while I might be able to fell that wall with a similar infiltration, they’ll need years to gather the power necessary to scramble up it.

And of course, given all I’ve done here, they won’t even want to. Their former teammate, their former lover is less than dog shit to them.

I hear a sniffle on my left and I can’t help but roll my eyes as I turn to Jean-Paul.

He’s turned away from me, his eyes fixed on the window and occasionally to the now flightless ladybug on the table between us and his sister. His mask is still on the ruined dock where I liberated his sister and what’s left of his gaudy attire is stained with enough dirt I might have to scrub down his seat.

His face is turned away from me but his shoulders shake in a not quite silent sob, the specter of sorrow inside him is large enough that the wail it makes echoes in the hollowness of his chest, building in on itself every moment we get further from that rat’s nest he called a home.

I’m tempted to slap him, the shock might put an end to his pathetic whimpering for a moment but I think his mouth is suited for something better. It’s with a tap on his shoulder and tap on my lap that his eyes widen, he knows what I want him to do.

As the zipper goes down, I briefly entertain the idea of his little team coming for me. If they brought their full might to bear, my children and I might have… a bit of trouble but we’d likely come out of it with a few more thralls than dead.

Of course, that’s only if they can break free and as I lean back and start to enjoy my flight, I smile. No, they won’t be coming for him… I’m sure of that.