#chapter 15.i3

Pfffft

This was a big one! Lots of great stuff:

Alexandria’s backstory

Further proof that she’s a lot like Taylor

Good stuff about communication between a victim and her relatives (communication really seems to be a theme of the Arc)

The Doctor portrayed in a positive light (though her less scrupulous side shows too)

Cauldron backstory

Evidence suggesting the quiet bodyguard (Contessa?) - who’s apparently been with the Doctor since she was a teenager - is more than she seems

Protectorate backstory

Meeting Doormaker

Confirmation that Cauldron has long-term goals besides making money

Behemoth

Getting to see Case 01 from an internal perspective, even if Alexandria didn’t really have much of an immediate reaction to Hero’s death

Some clarification on Manton’s situation

Alexandria of all people collecting lab rats because all that matters to her is that they live

Confirmation/reveal that Coil is somehow important to Cauldron’s ominously-named plans

Where do I even begin to elaborate? This Interlude was awesome through and through.

I appreciate that the dates were given for each section. It helps make not only this chapter’s, but the entire story’s timeline a lot clearer. A lot of this chapter’s events were things we knew happened sometime within the last 10-30 years, but exactly when each thing happened was unclear. Now we know, for instance, that Case 01 took place in 2000, and even that it was September 15th. Nice.

I think my only complaint is that the obvious dangling book-end bait of fake smiles to keep up morale was barely tugged on at the end. It’s not a big complaint, though, at all.

Oh that is good.

The bad news is this happened automatically by way of the Tumblr import finally going through anyway after leaving me with the impression that it was stuck on zero and possibly canceled.

So now I've got manually mirrored posts up to Insinuation 2.2 with a new and improved format... and maybe four thousand and counting automatically mirrored ones that are tagged but unedited and uncategorized.

Well then.

I... think what I'm going to do is treat this as a safety net. All the content is on WordPress now, which is good if Tumblr goes down earlier than expected, and it's just a matter of adapting it into the new format. I will continue doing what I already have been doing, and delete the automatically mirrored posts as replicate their contents in the new format.

The next day.

Alexandria sat in the hospital.  Eidolon’s healing had only been able to do so much.  She held a glass eye in one hand, the remains of her other eye in the other.

They, uh.

Let you keep that?

She looked up at the Doctor.  “William Manton?”

Ooh, did the Doctor decide to tell her?

The Doctor nodded.

“How?  Why?”

“I don’t know what predicated it.  His daughter’s in our custody.  One of our failures.”

...is that whom Siberian is modeled after?

“He gave his daughter the formula?  Without the usual preparations and procedures?”

Or was it the Doctor who did?

“I suppose he thought he was qualified to oversee all that.  Despite my strict instructions that staff weren’t to partake.  Or he had other motivations.  It could have been a gift from a father trying to buy his daughter’s affections.”

Fair enough. Maybe. I’m watching you, Doctor.

“Or her forgiveness,” Alexandria looked down at the glass eye, then back up to the Doctor.

The Doctor’s eyebrows were raised in uncharacteristic surprise.  “Did you see anything suspect?”

“No.  I only met his daughter twice, and it was brief, her father wasn’t around.  But I know the divorce between Professor Manton and his wife was pretty bad, as those things go.  He was angry, maybe did some things he regretted?”

Are you implying the kind of thing I think you’re implying? Domestic abuse?

The Doctor sighed.

“So that was him?”

“Almost certainly.  He gave his daughter one of our higher quality formulas, and she couldn’t handle it.  When he realized what he’d done, realized that he couldn’t hide it from us, he took one formula for himself and fled.  I didn’t know what it had done for him until tonight.

Wait, so this was the very first encounter with Siberian?

The resemblance between Siberian and Manton’s daughter is subtle, but it’s there, and the footage from Hero’s helmet-camera has been run through every facial recognition program I could find.”

And there we’ve got a nice seguing opportunity to talking about Hero, if Wildbow wants to take it.

“What did Legend, Eidolon and…”  Alexandria stopped when she realized that she’d been about to say Hero.  “What did they say?  About Manton?”

Hey... you know who else’s costume got commented on for its more villainous look, by a top hero she’d just met, early in her career?

“You gonna fight me?” He called out.

“I’m a good guy,” I said.

Stepping closer to me, he tilted his head, “You don’t look like one.”

“Black’s more utilitarian,” the Doctor said.  “Harder to see in the dark.”

Fair point.

you know who else is utilitarian about her costume

“And it’s easier to get the blood out,” Alexandria added.

Hah!

Says the practically invulnerable woman.

Legend frowned.  “Do you get a lot of blood on your costume?”

“I hit really hard,” she said, deadpan.

Oh, right, I didn’t even think of that.

Dang it, I wanted to see that.

She staggered to her feet, wobbled.  The girl in the school uniform caught her before she could fall.

“I’m not a monster?”

“No.  In fact, I don’t know if it could have gone better.”

Alexandria does have some really good powers, if perhaps not the most original ones.

Rebecca extended one arm.  Her skin was a healthy pink, her hand thin but not so emaciated as it had been.

“I’m better?”

Congratulations!

“I would guess so.  In truth, I’m not sure how the regeneration affected the cancer, it might even have exacerbated the symptoms.  For the time being, however, you seem to be well.”

...

You know, that would make a ton of sense with regards to cancer specifically. Cancer is, at its core, out-of-control cell growth. If a regenerative power were to work in part by stimulating cell regrowth, that might just feed right into the cancer.