“One minute? Man, lady, look, bad enough I’m a world-famous superhero and nobody recognizes me outside my hometown or certain schools in Massachusetts or sometimes maybe Japan– this thing kinda recharges on its own timetable, and it’s usually ten minutes but for a watch it’s gotta pretty arbitrary sense of timing.”
As if for emphasis, he nudged the curiously stylized smartwatch-looking device on his left wrist, and it squawked at him like an angry chicken in an 8-bit video game.
“Nope, still way the heck on cooldown. So if you’re looking for a demonstration, you’re gonna hafta bump back your deadline a skosh.”
“But I’m telling you. I’m Ben 10. The Ben 10. I’ve saved this planet, like, a bunch. I work with the Earth branch of The Plumbers. My girlfriend wields the actual Excalibur? And– I–” he brandished his watch-wrist “–wear– The Om-ni-trix!”
“And anyway, the spiky-haired Paradox guy with the big blue wooden Bill and Ted phone booth– he told me if I was ever back in London and I needed back-up I should come here and ask for some unit or other.”
“I wasn’t… totally listening. But Tower of London, I know I got that part right.”
All she heard was Blah, Blah, Blah until the words blue and phone booth registered. She facepalmed, mostly to keep her eyes from rolling out of her head. Really. Really Doctor.
“Righ’ then, Annoyin’ American Teenager, come in ‘ere an’ tell me wha’ emergency UNIT can ‘elp ya wifh. An’ try ta use actual words tha’ explain th’ actual problem.”
“The New Students!” Or. “Return to Charm School! (Redux)!”
It was a normal Friday morning- specifically 3 years after the series finale of Omniverse. Ben Tennyson, Kai Green and Rook Blonko were driving to Friedikin U to visit Gwen and Kevin.
“Ready to see the school where “Dr. Tennyson”, got his diploma?” Rook jokingly asked, Kai. He was referring to the fact that Ben got his diploma for saving the university and therefore he doesn’t have to go to college.
“Mostly I just love the color,” Ben Tennyson remarked.
Oh man, her accent was cute too, he had to remind himself to stop getting crushes on ladies out of his age range– Zak Saturday’s mom immediately sprang to mind.
But the shirt was genuinely fun, a Guinness-branded sweatshirt. It wasn’t his specific shade of green, but it had kind of an XLR8 blue-green tinge about it that he liked.
“I’m not as into advertising or fashion as–” he almost said some versions of me, thinking of Ben 23′s relentless branding “–some people, but I know what I like.”
She looked down at the sweatshirt she’d bought on her first trip to the town in her new body. It seemed appropriate as part of a wardrobe to ‘fit in’.
“Well thank you. I’m trying to add some casual to my closet.” she smiled again. “You do seem to be a fan of green. Even your alien device has some green in it.”
(( @omniuniversal Sorry that this thing is SO. FREAKING. LONG. I wanted to trim it down a bit but it’s not letting me. :P So... hope it works as a starting place. Will just slowly build the plot as we go, I guess. :) Oh... uh, this is pretty spoilery in some places if you haven’t read the books. If you’d rather skip spoilers I can edit that stuff out.))
“Savannah.”
The girl stared at nothing with glassy brown eyes as I softly spoke her name and waved my hand before the grayish pallor of her face, and I frowned. I hate this part. Hate seeing the victims, innocents swept up in things they cannot even begin to understand. Hate seeing the looks of helpless desperation in the lives of their families, their friends.
I turned to Janet Devlin, who hovered nearby, her features twisted in that same expression, that same helpless desperation, as she slowly, almost rhythmically wrung her hands together. I didn't quite meet her eyes, because I didn't want to get swept into a soulgaze, but I could see the planes and angles of her daughter's face reflected in her features, crisscrossed with the fine lines of impending age. And I didn't need a soulgaze to see the mother's love displayed there.
“Mrs. Devlin--” I began, but she interrupted.
“Please,” she said. “Call me Janet.”
“Janet.” I kept my voice gentle, but I needed to push for answers. “Why come to me about this?”
I've found, in my line of work, that clients are often-- not always, but often-- divided into two camps. There are the believers, people who look for things out of the ordinary, who eagerly seek out supernatural explanations to mundane causes. The creaks and drafts of an old house become a ghostly presence. A blinking satellite takes on life as an alien craft. I once had a client whose child regularly suffered from night terrors, had undergone a rapid personality change, and developed bruises and scratches from unknown causes. There was no diabolical spirit attaching itself to that child, despite what the mother had convinced herself of. The culprit in that particular case was utterly, despicably human.
Sometimes, I prefer spooks and monsters to people. At least you know exactly where they stand once their glamours are stripped away.
Other times, though, I see people who are mundane, normal, relatively well-adjusted, and are confronted by things beyond their understanding. Things they can't deny. Things they are often reluctant to talk about because they think nobody will believe them. Because they hardly even believe it themselves.
I could clearly see that Janet fell into the latter category.
“The doctors don't know what it is,” she said slowly, looking away.
“Yeah. So you said. And then you jumped from 'medical professionals' straight to 'wizard.' Not a usual leap in logic.” I touched her arm, just a brief brush of my fingers on her sleeve. “Janet. I can't help her if you don't talk to me.”
“Someone... someone told me you'd be able to help.”
“Who?”
“Just... someone. I don't know. A random stranger in the hospital. A man. He... he said he knew I'd... seen something...”
I frowned. “What did he look like?”
“I don't know. It's all so hazy.”
“Give it your best shot.”
“He was...” The skin around her eyes crinkled and she reached up and rubbed at her brow. “I don't... I really can't remember, Mr. Dresden. But he gave me your card and said I should call you.”
Okay. Weird and vaguely suspicious, but something to set aside for future reference. The important question was: “What did you see that was strange?”
Janet stood quietly for a moment, then walked the few steps across the room, to Savannah's beside table. Opening the top drawer, she withdrew a small journal, bound in a cheery cover displaying a cluster of daisies. The journal grasped in her hand, she turned to face me and took a deep breath.
“She was... seeing a boy,” she said, then corrected herself. “A young man. Like I told you in your office. It seemed innocent at first. She seemed happy at first. Maybe a bit infatuated. But then... I don't know. She... she changed.”
“How?”
“She just... did. I know my Savannah. She was always sort of... I don't know, bubbly. Full of life. Sweet and kind and creative. Until...” A deep sigh shuddered through her. “She became withdrawn, quiet. Stopped calling. Stopped coming to visit.” A ghost of a smile touched her lips, then vanished. “We used to have dinner once a week, at the house, you know. She'd come over and we'd team up in the kitchen and go all out, make this huge five-course meal that neither of us could ever finish...” Her gaze lowered to the journal, and she smoothed a hand over its cover. “I was worried. I came by her dorm one day. Saw them together. She... she was...” She stuttered into silence and gave me an uneasy look.
“Go on,” I urged.
“I swear, it was like he was... I don't know... feeding from her somehow. She was just... sagging into him, and I saw his face change, saw him... like he started to glow...”
Oh, Hell's bells.
“I didn't know what to do. I should have... I was... I just stood there like an idiot.” She fell silent for a few seconds.
“Don't-- you shouldn't blame yourself, Janet. You don't--” I tried to say that she didn't know how badly it could have gone for both of them had she tried to intervene, but she was already talking again, so I shut my mouth.
“And then he slipped away. Left her standing there, swaying like... like she was drunk. Or drugged. He stepped behind the building. Never seemed to see me standing there. And-- and. Um. I...” She swallowed visibly, shifting from one foot to the other, as her hand traced absent circles over the journal's cover. I waited.
“He flew,” she said finally.
I wasn't expecting that. “Um. He what?”
“I know. It sounds insane...”
“No, no. Just tell me.”
“I looked up and saw him rising up, above the dorm building.”
“Huh. Okay.” I frowned, and she looked away.
“You don't believe me.”
“I do.” And I did. What she described sounded an awful lot like a White Court vampire of the Raith variety. Only, I've never seen any of them fly. That was a new one to me. But it wasn't outside of the realm of possibility. Not in the loony-ass world I live in.
“Mrs.-- uh, Janet. What was this guy's name?”
“She never said his name. It was always, 'my boyfriend' or 'my sweetie' or... some endearment or another. She'd get evasive when I said I wanted to meet him. That should have clued me in. But...” She took a breath, and then pressed the journal into my hands. “She calls him 'M' in here. Just 'M,' as if she's even afraid to write down his name. If you... when you read it, you'll see. I think she knew something was happening to her. But it was like she didn't want to know.”
I took the journal and looked down at it for a few seconds before opening the cover. Flipping through the first few pages, I saw the typical young college girl stuff-- studying and friends and interpersonal drama. The entries were written in an elegant, feminine script, with a sort of flowing cadence and rhythm that made me think she had the soul of a poet. Has, I thought. She still has the soul of a poet. Because she’s still alive and you're gonna save her.
I thought about Thomas and Justine. My half brother is a White Court vampire, a supernatural being that feeds from emotion. In the case of the Raith clan, of which he is a part, the emotion he feeds from is lust. He can't help what he is. But he tries to be a good man, to tame the monster, keeping the demon locked away. And he is in love with a human. Thomas' father, who in no way could ever be called a good man, once locked his severely injured, hunger-crazed son in a room with his human lover, in the hopes that he would kill her. He nearly did, and it nearly destroyed him, which was exactly what his father had intended. But she survived. And, though the process was slow, she did heal over time. Came back to herself. She was never quite the same, but she regained enough strength to function again.
If she could, so could Savannah. I hoped.
I kept turning pages in the diary. And I read:
My Golden Boy
Drink deep of me
Soul-full.
I fall to the Abyss
Uncaring
Siren-song binding.
And so I die for you.
Are you my mind?
I think this must be wrong.
Self-preservation
Like distant memory.
Forgotten instinct.
Evolutionary dead end.
This is Paradise.
Or Purgatory.
“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath. I felt a tightening in my chest and closed my eyes for a moment.
Sometimes, I think I care too much. But that's where the magic comes from, that deep well of emotional energy, love and hate and rage and fear and longing, and the desperate need to make things better, so I'll sure as hell go right on caring until my insides spill out all around me and I finally end up in that grave one of my old enemies so generously provided for me years ago.
I looked at Janet. “Do you mind if I keep this? It could have important information.”
She nodded. “Of course not. Take whatever you need.”
“Thanks.” I tucked it into the pocket of my duster, and prepared to leave. I had a phone call to make.
❝ Once we learn all his weaknesses, we can drive up to his front door and challenge him to a fight. Winner gets the universe. ❞ (omniuniversal) (hiiiiii)
@omniuniversal
Devlin Levin isn’t quite sure what the man is talking about right now, just having listened in on the conversation recently as hides behind one of the walls of Ben’s home, his head tilts to the side as a visible display of his utter confusion. He had originally came here to visit Ken but this caught his attention before he could find his friend..
What was he even going on about??? Who’s weaknesses needed to be learned? He thinks to himself as he sneaks a quick glance
Devlin’s remaining silent for now as he just tries to piece together what the older man might be even talking about but he just can’t figure anything out yet, biting his lip as he slowly peeks out from his hiding place behind the corner to see what might be going on, shuffling a bit so he could possibly get a closer look at what might be going on in the other room…
“Madre de Deus” Clair whispered under her breath. “Do I have a sign on me somewhere? Like “Weird Shit Our Specialty” or something?”
She sighed and looked back across the park. Calculating her relative position to the nearest safe house she could use.
“Ok, junior super dude, do you have any idea how long we might have before whatever you said come back? Cause I need to get you across this park and into a cab and I sure as hell can’t carry you.”
Kimber stood outside the doors to The Tower, looking at the young obviously American Teenager with alien tech. She was debating between hot bath and curiosity about said enigma in front of her.
“Tell ya wha’ mate. I’ll give ya one ta convince me why yer more important than my hot bath waitin’ at ‘ome.”
