Lisa interlude
September 5th, 2010
Lisa liked sundays. They were days for her and her alone. Her boss, Coil, didn’t call her on sundays. Well, at least not normally.
Her power had a lot of theories why that might be the case, maybe the bastard was religious, or maybe he just didn’t like working on Sundays either. But no matter the reason Lisa was more than happy for the weekly reprieve.
Of course the day where she actually intended to make use of her one day of slight freedom since her ‘recruitment’ is the day her kidnapper broke from his pattern.
Her phone rang through her apartment, and as much as Lisa wished that she would be proven wrong, her fears were confirmed with one glance at the caller ID.
Dragging in a deep breath, she plastered on her signature smile, well not signature yet but Coil had already told her about his plan to form a villain team so she had to have something to set her out from the crowd, and answered the phone.
“Hello Sarah.” Coils' slimy voice sounded from the phone the second she answered. Sending shivers down her spine despite herself.
Using the name to remind you of your position.
Yeah no shit, got anything that I haven’t already figured out? Lisa made sure that her annoyance never made her face so much as twitch, Coil was almost certainly watching her and she wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing her react to his game. Instead she sat back down in her recliner, the picture of smug confidence. While her power was insistent that she had managed to remove all of the hidden cameras from her apartment, she had learned not to trust it after the first week. She had managed to work up the courage to point her power at the endbringers, only to end up launching down a spiral of increasingly ludicrous ideas until she literally collapsed from exhaustion. The three day investigation was a blur, with her only remembering bits and pieces of it. Not that what she did remember was all that helpful, it was all a bunch of conspiracy theories so ridiculous that even Voidcowboy wouldn’t post them. But she still had learned a valuable lesson from the experience.
You only get as good as you give.
Nobody knew what the endbringers really were. Sure there were theories, but they ranged from speculation to downright making random shit up. There wasn’t any answer for Lisa’s power to find, at least not online. Maybe if she saw one in person, but even considering that sent a horrible terror bounding around her.
Yeah, no.
She was snapped out of her idle musing by Coil clearing his throat. Shaking her head Lisa banished the pointless thoughts and refocused on her ‘employer.’
“Yes boss?” She forced her voice into the cheerful facade. Coil didn’t get to see how much he scared her, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “What do you need me for today?” The false pep was acid on her tongue, but it annoyed him, that was enough for her to grin and bear it.
“A new player has joined the board. I have sent you the details on her, send me your findings soon.”
With that he hung up, no fanfare or further power plays.
Unusual.
Lisa turned her power on her boss's strange behavior. perhaps it would reveal a clue she could exploit?
New player is a parahuman. Coil is concerned about the new parahuman. New parahuman disrupts one of Coils' plans.
Squinting in concentration, she managed to stop her power there. Any further and she would just be wasting her limited time before the headache set in. Now that she knew that Coil’s rush was most likely caused by whatever parahuman he wants her to investigate, instead of it being a completely unrelated event, she had to learn more without her power first.
Settling into her work chair, Lisa pulled her laptop over and opened up the file Coil gave her. After the first few lines however she was swearing like a particularly pissed off dockworker.
Unit TR was accosted by the before now unknown parahuman, ‘Jolt.’ Due to the descriptions of the event by TR and YU it is considered unlikely that this is Jolt's trigger event. Jolt’s civilian identity is Taylor Hebert, but as of now her name will not be released to the public.
She didn’t need to use her power to figure out who TR was, thanks to Coils bullshit she already knew that PRT spoke for Shadow Stalker in her civilian identity.
“💧︎♒︎♓︎⧫︎, ♐︎◆︎♍︎🙵♓︎■︎♑︎, ❍︎□︎❒︎□︎■︎♓︎♍︎, ♎︎◆︎❍︎♌︎♋︎⬧︎⬧︎!” Her neighbors might hear her but honestly she was too furious to care. Attacking a ward was beyond idiotic, doing so in their civilian identity? That was likely to bring the Triumvirate down on the city. When they showed up it didn’t matter if you were connected or not, if you were a villain you would be put in jail to prove a point. They had to do that or no decent parent would ever sign their kid up for the Wards in the first place. When they came down Coil would bunker in to wait, and that would mean the end to her already flimsy freedom.
Event listed as occurring on September 4th. The event is listed as happening in Winslow highschool. It has been more than twelve hours since the event.
Lisa froze again, but for once she was filing with hope instead of fear. She saw a single thread that might just be the one scenario that wouldn’t leave her trapped in a basement.
Come on power, come on, come on!
Triumvirate always respond within three to six hours of an intentional or uncertain attack on a ward in their civilian identity. The only reason they would not be in the city already would be if the attack is verified as not being intentionally targeting a ward.
Overcome by sheer relief, Lisa started dancing clumsily around her apartment. Sue her, she was certain that her life was going to be reduced to drugs and a basement and in an instant all of that fear was vanquished. She got to celebrate a little.
Unfortunately for the blonde thinker her power didn’t agree, cutting her moment of elation short with continued spurts of unwelcome information.
Coil’s plans disrupted by the new cape. New cape has only done one act so far. The attack on Shadowstalker disrupted Coil’s plans. Coil was not aware of Jolt beforehand. Plan was based around Shadow Stalker. Shadow Stalker is a probationary ward. Coil has one of his pawns acting as Shadow Stalkers handler. Coil is aware of Shadow Stalkers violent tendencies. Wanted to use acts committed by Shadow Stalker to make Piggot look incompetent. Coils plan is at risk due to the investigation into the attack. Coil is pulling back his resources in order to prevent discovery. Pull back unlikely to succeed due to think tank interference. Coil is not aware of this. Coil’s power has made him arrogant.
Body clenching, Lisa strained to regain control over her troublesome power.Her bosses shit personality was nothing new, and she didn’t need her power to figure out that the think tank would be getting involved, accident or not it was still an attack on a ward. All of this was stuff that she could have found out on her own, she couldn’t afford to waste her power like this. After minutes of struggling she abandoned trying to stop her power entirely, instead she moved her efforts towards ‘Jolt’ at least with her the damn thing was less likely to rehash information she already knew.
Jolt is Taylor Hebert, daughter of Daniel Hebert. Daniel Hebert head of the Dock workers union. Popular with the majority of people in the Docks. Attacking his daughter would enrage the Docks. Likely Coils goal with his plan. Possible intent to cause riots to further discredit the Director, more detail needed to be certain. Coil-
She clenched her fists, the groan of her teeth grinding together being almost musical as she once more had to force her power back on the intended track. There would be time for her to investigate Coil later, at the moment she needed more on Jolt. Best case scenario she’d be able to recruit the girl into the undersiders. Hell, with how almost doglike her ears were there was a chance even Bitch would be okay with her. All of that would depend on what she could find about the electrokinetic. While she had a decent idea of the girl's power level without her powers input, none of that would matter if her personality was incompatible with the rest of Lisa’s team.
Pulling up a different picture from a few minutes later, this one of a barely visible Jolt racing across the boardwalk as a literal streak of yellow lightning, Lisa let her power slip free for a moment.
Jolt started at Winslow Highschool. Method of travel likely harmful to non-powered individuals. No reported injuries. Jolt skilled enough with her power to avoid damaging others during travel. Skill does not line up with her unintended harm to Shadow Stalker. Jolt did not intend to harm Shadow Stalker, yet she did, at the same time she managed to avoid harming civilians while traveling. Jolt’s mover ability is more practiced than her shaker ability. This is the real reason why the PRT believes Jolt to not be a new trigger, using the testimonies of the witnesses as a shield against potential legal action. Intend to claim testimonies lead to their actions in order to avoid consequences.
Nothing particularly new there, just regular old PRT power games. Having gone through as many of the PRT’s internal rules and policies as she could find, both public and private, Lisa held no illusions about the lengths the organization would go to in order to control parahumans. Admittedly the EnE was normally a more restrained branch, despite what people would expect from the Directors open dislike for parahumans.
Lisa could admit that she had misjudged the woman the first time she turned her power on her. She expected to find a bigot who used all under her as nothing more than tools, justifying her actions with an us vs them mentality. Instead Piggot was quite possibly the most upfront and honest PRT member the thinker had ever encountered.
Oh she hated parahumans, there was no doubt about that. Even before Elesburg she had held a deep disgust towards those with powers. However to Lisa’s great surprise, the woman had somehow managed to mix that disgust with a utterly bizarre mix of pity and empathy. Best the blonde could guess, the director viewed parahumans as the broken people they truly were. The source of her disgust was the way so many parahumans, in her eyes, used their broken nature as an excuse for their actions, instead of some belief that they were monsters or psychopaths.
It was… odd, to say the least. Before she had turned her power on the heavy woman she would have sworn up and down that she was a bigot with her head up her ass, but the truth her power showed her was undeniable.
Not to say that Pigot wasn't a hardass bitch, she absolutely was, but it was a pleasant surprise for Lisa to learn that at least the director was competent at her job. The infuriating bitch was honest to a fault, so if someone was planning a coverup it was either a villain with hooks in the organization, or, more likely, the notorious chief director of the PRT.
Chief director holds a deep mistrust towards parahumans. Chief director seeks to control all parahumans. Chief director-
Sighing in frustration as her power once more started down this familiar rabbit hole, Lisa grabbed her remote and switched on the television. Maybe some news will give it something more useful to chew on.
Unfortunately she would not be so lucky.
“The attacker, revealed by an undisclosed source to be one Taylor Hebert, quickly fled from the scene and has yet to be captured.” The words of the newscaster made Lisa’s jaw fall to the floor.
The fuck?! Why?! No, it wouldn't be PRT. she realized. They were stupid, but even that bullheaded chief director wouldn’t pull something like this, it’d make getting the cape in question to switch sides basically impossible.
That left only one candidate in the thinkers mind, a thought quickly confirmed by her power.
Identity not leaked by the PRT. Identity not leaked by the empire. Identity not leaked by any outside forces in the bay. Identity leaked by coil. Coil leaked identity to get revenge on Jolt for ruining his plan. Coil is used to not worrying about consequences of such an act. Coil is underestimating Jolt and Daniel Hebert. Daniel Hebert managed to keep Allfather, Marquis, Kaiser, and Lung out of the docks. Daniel Hebert is not helpless. Jolt is not helpless.
The rapid fire stream of information pounding into her brain made lisa bring her head down onto her coffee table with a soft thud.
“God damn it.”
October 14th.
Sitting on her coach, Lisa glared at the report she had swiped from the PRT’s servers. With sip of her coffee and a long sigh the thinker unlocked the chains on her power.
Gaze is not known to coil, Gaze is a new parahuman, Gaze's body language is roughly similar to that of taylor hebert. Taylor Hebert has no siblings. Gaze is taylor hebert. jolt is taylor hebert. jolts body language is different from gaze. Jolt and gaze have different body types. Gaze is regal and cold, gaze sees herself as a ruler, Gaze holds herself to a higher standard than normal people. Gaze has a larger set of breasts than jolt. Lisa Wilborn finds Gaze's breasts attractive, lisa wilborn is attracted to domineering women, lisa wilborn finds gaze attractive, lisa wilborn wants gaze to-"
NOPE. stop stop stop stop. back on track power, how the hell is Gaze Taylor Hebert, when Taylor Hebert is Jolt?
Jolt has a different body type to taylor hebert. jolt is only roughly similar to taylor hebert. taylor hebert and jolt are one and the same. Taylor hebert has a changer power that turns her body into jolt. jolt has a different personality to taylor hebert, jolt and taylor hebert are fundamentally different people. jolt and taylor hebert are two people in one body. changer power activates and changes the body to match whichever headmate is currently in control." That was... strange, why didn't her power tell her about that before? why only tell her about it now that gaze showed up. "Gaze is taylor hebert, gaze is a different person from taylor hebert. Jolt is taylor hebert, jolt is a different person from taylor hebert. Jolt and Gaze are both taylor hebert's headmates. Gaze's body is the same body as jolt and taylor hebert, altered by their shared changer powers. Gaze's body is more animal than jolts. Gaze has a tail and jolt doesn't.
Lisa tried to clamp down on her power, but for some reason it just kept going despite her best efforts.
Gaze's tail acts as an extra limb." her face heated up, and not just from the exertion of trying to reign in her power.
In her haze of mixed pain and embarrassment, Lisa still noticed one final remark by her power.
Gaze and Jolt are not the only people sharing Taylor Hebert's body.