#i7p1

We’re getting close to the siren - assuming it actually is the same day, Taylor is thinking about the fact that it’s about time for her morning run around now.

She draped her flag-printed scarf loosely around her neck and lower face, then left her room.  The energy became an assault rifle hanging at her side, bouncing a comforting beat against her hip as she walked. She made her way up a flight of stairs and down to the end of a hallway.

Watch out for the stairs.

She heard a male voice, a female one.  She paused at the open doorway and knocked.

Hm, are we about to meet a new (to us) Protectorate member or two? Whoever they are, they might have just sent out the alert for the Endbringer.

“Yeah?” Armsmaster called out.

“Am I interrupting?”

“No.  Come on in,” he replied.

Okay, so the male one was Armsmaster. No real surprise there. I’m more interested in the female one, though.

Dragon? I don’t know why she’d be in Brockton Bay, though.

She stepped into the room.  It fell somewhere between a workshop and an office.  Two spare suits stood at one side of the room, each with minor functional differences.  A set of Halberds were placed on a rack behind Armsmaster’s desk, one shattered in pieces.  One of the spaces on the rack was empty – Armsmaster had the Halberd in front of him.

Ah, interesting, so he has multiple. Good call.

“You worked too hard and forgot to go to sleep again, Colin?” Hannah asked, though the answer was obvious.

Colin, eh? Not the worst of names.

He frowned, reached over to his computer and hit a button.  He saw the time, muttered, “Damn it.”

Relatable. Though usually when I stay awake all the way to 6:30, it’s not because I worked too hard.

“Good morning, Miss Militia,” a woman’s voice came from the computer.

Hannah blinked in surprise, “Dragon.  Sorry, I didn’t realize you were there.  Good morning.”

yesss

“I see what you did.  Linking my data to atmospheric shifts.  I think I see it.”

They kinda sound like meteorologists.

Hannah walked around the desk and leaned over Colin’s shoulder to see the screen.  A map of the east coast was superimposed with a rainbow hued cloud.  “This doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Are the Endbringer’s even bigger than I had imagined? Covering not just cities but entire coasts?

“Nothing’s truly random,” Colin explained, his voice tight, “Any data shows a pattern eventually, if you dig deep enough.  Dragon started work on an early warning system for the Endbringers, to see if we can’t anticipate where they’ll strike next, prepare to some degree.  We know there’s some rules they follow, though we don’t know why.  They come one at a time, months apart, rarely hitting the same area twice in a short span of time.  We know they’re drawn to areas where they perceive vulnerability, where they think they can cause the most damage.  Nuclear reactors, the Birdcage, places recently hit by natural disasters…”

Oh jeez. So they’re basically the “oh you’re already in a shitty situation? here let me fuck you up even more!” gang.

Also, this tidbit about the Endbringers targetting the Birdcage is interesting and ties in nicely with my theory that there’ll eventually be a mass breakout.

But yeah, sounds like it’s more of a city-sized thing. I guess the rainbow cloud is a projection of probability?

He clicked the mouse, and the image zoomed in on a section of the coastline.

“…Or ongoing conflict,” Hannah finished for him, her eyes widening.  “The ABB, Empire Eighty-Eight, the fighting here?  It’s coming here?  Now?”

Oh fuck.

It all comes back to Taylor as a spark, doesn’t it. Without Taylor throwing in her gauntlet, the conflict with the ABB wouldn’t have happened. Coil might not have moved on to all-out war with the E88 and “hastily” jumped on the chance to send the e-mail (though I’m still somewhat inclined to call bullshit on his excuse there).

Nice.

They had returned to their village, moved the bodies out of sight, and did what they could to conserve their food until the guerrilla fighters came through once again.

A village populated only by seven hungry children.

Hana had made the others swear a promise, to not speak of her gift.  She knew the guerrilla fighters would recruit her, use her, if they knew.  Whatever this power was that she had received, she didn’t feel it was for that.

Is that why she left for America before she became a heroine?

When the fighters had returned, they saw the state of the children and elected to evacuate them.  The fighters took them to a city, and a man there saw that Hana and the others were shipped off to the United Kingdom, where many other refugees were going.

Ah, not directly to the U.S.

Fair enough.

They were split up, and the others were sent one by one to homes for orphans and other troubled children.  Hana’s turn came late, nearly last, and she was taken to fly on another airplane to her own new home.  It was there she ran into difficulty.  She’d moved through the archway – what she would later learn was a metal detector – and it sounded an alarm.

Hah! Part of her psyche is metallic now...

Guards had found the weapon she couldn’t drop or leave behind, and Hana was carried off to another place.

Yeaah, weapons are not something airplane authorities like. Right.

Interrogated, asked many questions.  She was taken to the bathroom, patted down on her re-entry to the interrogation room, and they found the same gun on her that they’d taken away just half an hour ago.

I take it the weapons return to her, then. Probably a good thing - don’t want part of your psyche getting lost.

Everything else had happened very fast, after that.  It was an American in a military uniform that rescued her.  He took her to America, saw that she was put with a family there.  When the first three Wards teams were established, she was enlisted.

Nice.

She barely knew a hundred words of English, her numbers and the alphabet, when she first went out in costume.

Y’know, out of all the known characters, Miss Militia was one of those I least expected to be an immigrant, other than those confirmed not to be.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying immigrants can’t be patriotic for the country they come to, even more so than their country of origin. It just came as a surprise given the intensity of her American branding.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry Hana, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

It was like a dream that escaped her when she woke, but so slippery that even the idea that she’d dreamed in the first place was quickly retreating from her mind.

Usually when you dream, you at least have the context of having fallen asleep and woken up, even if you can only tell because time has passed. In this case, by the looks of it, time didn’t pass, and she didn’t fall asleep or wake up. So even if this had been only some kind of dream, it’d probably feel roughly like this.

The soldier shouted something too complex for her to understand, directed at his comrades.  Hana let the scraps of the memory slip from her attention.  This, here, was the priority.  Either she walked forward, and she would die, or she would stand by and watch the others die for her cowardice.  With just the vestige of an idea that something had happened, she had been shaken from her paralysis.  Maybe she could step forward.

Maybe Karahindiba’s influence could help her out here somehow?

Also it seems likely that Karahindiba was the cause of the paralysis in the first place, so it ought to be gone now - or at least lessened, now that it’d be out of fear only of the traps.

She raised her foot-

And stopped.  Something stood in her way.  A blur hung in the air at chest level, crackling, shifting with a manic ferocity.  She let her foot fall back down where it had been a moment ago and stared at the kaleidoscopic shimmer of black and green.

Well then.

Kaleidoscopic is a good word that ran through my head during Karahindiba’s description, by the way.

So what is this, then? The beginning of some kind of portal she could escape through? Some kind of powerup?

She touched it, and felt a weight settle into her palm.  Her hand automatically closed around it, feeling the warmth of it.  It felt almost like when she pet a friendly dog.  An odd thought, given what she found herself looking at.

A... seed, perhaps?

“If she doesn’t agree to giving away either of the two, and you really should play hardball on that, you can offer Clockblocker.  He graduates this summer, anyways, and I’d say he’s got enough friends and contacts here that he might apply to come back to Brockton Bay to join our Protectorate when he turns eighteen.  Best case scenario for us, and it’s not like Boston or New York need more capes.”

Makes sense.

Colin sighed, “You’re better at this than I ever was.”

Hannah wasn’t sure how to respond.  Colin had his strengths, but he was right.

Hehe.

He went on, “Congratulations.”  He picked up the second folder and held it out to her.

“What?”  She took it, opened it.

...he did say restructuring in both the Protectorate and the Wards. Is the restructuring in the Protectorate that Miss Militia is now the leader?

“There’s a change to our team, too, according to Piggot and the rest of the oversight.  You’ve been promoted.  Within the next two weeks, this building and this team will be transferred to your command.”

Nice. She may have threatened Alec, but I’m still more sympathetic to Miss Militia than I am to Armsmaster. As far as I know, she was just doing her job and obeying her superior. I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Honestly, though, I’m not sure it’s so much Miss Militia being promoted as it is Armsmaster getting demoted, for some of his failures and controversies over the last month or two.

She stood there, paging through the folder of paperwork, stunned.  “Where are you going?”

“Chicago.”

Oh... Well, then. I wonder what Taylor will think of that when she hears about it.

Hannah broke into a smile, “Chicago!  That’s fantastic!  A bigger city, a bigger team!  Where’s Myrddin being moved?”

Hm... I wouldn’t be so sure he’ll actually be in charge of that team.

Also, Myrddin I believe I’ve heard of before. I know the name is the Welsh name for Merlin, and I seem to recall mentioning that before - Gregor’s interlude, maybe? Hang on, time to blog search.

Alrighty, then! Maybe this sort of blur is what powers bags of necessity, or Wander’s hat in Wander Over Yonder...

I don’t know how useful this might be to Hana. She doesn’t sound like she had any more experience with guns than the rest of her family, and it’s her against at least seven trained soldiers with weapons of their own and hostages.

Then again, I was already thinking Hana might’ve developed a power even before she was visited by the apparently benevolent(???) Karahindiba.

I can’t use this.  The thought was cold in her mind.  If I use this, they’ll kill the others the second I fire.

Exactly.

The gun shimmered, became that blur of green and black, then settled into a new shape.  She’d seen this, too.

Hm. This seems similar to Miss Militia’s power.

One of the fighters had been talking to Hana, showing her his English gun magazine, in an effort to get in good graces with her older sister.  This was similar to the gun she’d just had in her hand, but there was a metal tube on the front, nearly doubling the gun’s length.  The tube, she knew, made guns quieter.

Maybe I was wrong about this being set in the present, and this is Miss Militia’s backstory? Seems like an odd choice, especially with how thoroughly American her design is.

Or maybe this is set in the present, and the same thing with Karahindiba happened to Miss Militia in the past?

The rest of the children and the other soldiers were far behind.  It was still nearly impossible, but-

<Walk!> the soldier behind her shouted.  <Walk or->

Oh right, I forgot to comment on the gun. Specifically the silencer - it might help her gain at least some additional element of surprise, but I’m not sure just how much quieter they make the guns.

She wheeled around, holding the gun in both hands.  She took a second to steady her aim, and the Turkish soldier’s surprise bought her just enough time to pull the trigger.

Well. This kind of ruins what I was talking about - namely hiding the gun a bit, making them confused about where the bullet came from - but I’m not sure it would work anyway.

Hannah’s eyes snapped open.

This is why I don’t sleep.

...alright. So all that was a dream, had by a Hannah with a far more American way to spell it. For now, I’m guessing that Hana made it out of whichever country she was in and is now having nightmares about the day she got her power.

Also, that places the event firmly in the past. Maybe Hannah is Miss Militia after all?

...

I have a feeling we’re getting curveballed.

He was twice as tall as her, far stronger than her, so there could be no fighting or resisting even if he wasn’t armed.  She stumbled forward into the shrubbery and trees, and branches scraped against her forearms and face.

So is this a Turkish soldier in the U.S., or is “she” in Turkey? Or something in-between?

One foot in front of the other, Hana told herself.

Hana. Nice name. Have we heard it before in this story? I don’t think so.

Her feet were like lead weights as she trudged forward.  The needles on the trees and shrubbery scraped against her skin.  Even the twigs were coarse, almost thorny, catching on her dress and socks, biting through the cloth to scrape her skin and stab at her shoeless feet.

This doesn’t sound like what I’d imagine Turkey to be like, but I’ve never actually been there, so what do I know.

Well, I do know trees with needles are more typically found in colder climates. Y’know, like the one I live it.

<Faster!> the soldier threatened.  He said something else, longer and more complicated, but Hana’s Turkish wasn’t good enough to make it out.

She’s at least somewhat competent in Turkish, but not fluent. Turkish ancestry but raised in the U.S., maybe?

She looked over her shoulder and saw the man back the way she’d come.  He made his meaning explicitly clear by waving his gun toward the other children, who were corralled in the midst of a half dozen other soldiers.  If she didn’t move faster, someone else would pay for it.

...damn.

Besides the obvious meaning here - that there are at least seven of these soldiers and at least three victims, including Hana (probably more) - “other children” tells me that Hana views herself as a child too.

Seven years had given her village false confidence, let them believe that they were far enough away, secluded enough in the valley and forest, that they could escape the worst fighting of the ongoing war.  That illusion had been shattered just hours ago.

Ahh. Well, we’re definitely not in the U.S., then. I feel like Taylor would’ve mentioned it if there were an ongoing war in the U.S.

I’m going to guess the Turks are on one side of the war. But where is this village, and who’s on the other side?

I’m not going to assume the world’s conflicts since the 1980′s have remained the same as on Earth-Aleph, by the way.