Jakey_K

XD shocking, but delightful. Comes in three flavours!

I love you. Can I have your kittens?

Avenger paced the briefing room restlessly. So far, for all their attempts, he was still no closer to finding Muse, who could be undergoing any number of horrific tortures. His mind dragged up the memory of seeing his sister on a table in a Council base, being shocked to force her to use her healing aura. He felt sick. He felt worse than sick, he felt angry.
"Quit fussing! I'm fine!" A familiar voice penetrated the thick wooden door and it was opened. Avenger turned to see just a hat bobbing past the other side of the table. He forced a smile when Jakey emerged from around the corner.
"Up at last, J, lazy cat." His voice felt flat and unnatural. Jakey's tail flicked.
"They didn't want to let me out yet. Didn't you guys tell them I was invincible?" He jerked his thumb back to the door where Gorse and Cirrus were loitering. Avenger assumed the free-floating tray was being held by Gorse anyway.
"Starfall called. He says he's coming over." Gorse's voice said somewhere above the tray as it floated over to the table. Avenger grimaced.
"Best get Sally then." He started for the door but Cirrus coughed.
"She'll be by later. In about … t-twenty minutes. Or so," she said. Jakey arched an eyebrow at her grin.
"Why's she not coming right now?" Perhaps it was something he said, but Cirrus's expression became a battleground of different emotions and she made a strangled noise. Both Jakey and Avenger leaned back a bit until the drawn out wheeze became a kind of hysterical giggle. Her laughter was disturbing on too many levels, and they both took a step back.
"Oh bugger! Why didn't someone remind me to focus?" Gorse muttered, fading into view as he poured some cups of tea. Cirrus turned away, leaning against the wall and laughing to herself in short wheezes. Jakey took some tea.
"Okaaaay. So fill me in, what's happening?"
"We'll know that when Starfall arrives," Jester said, walking in. He was leaning heavily on a crutch and there were bruises all over his face. Gorse tried to help him to his seat but the older man swatted his hands away. Avenger put his hands on the back of his seat, in no mood for sitting nicely.
"What happened to you?" he asked gruffly.
"Took a bit of a spill down the stairs. Nothing to be concerned about." Jester didn't meet his eyes. Jakey sipped his tea, wincing as the hot liquid aggravated his recently healed chest.
"Unlucky that," he said offhand. Jester said nothing. Avenger had the grace to feel a little guilty, from the way he gripped the crutch, it hadn't been a little spill and he was in considerable pain from it.
"I sent Bulldog to get Starfall, so they'll arrive any second. Cirrus, please go chivvy Miss Storm along." Cirrus gladly fled from the room, her braid bouncing as she left. Jester took a breath and smiled at Avenger.
"You're soon to be leaving us. Starfall will undoubtedly demand to go with you, he has a very deep interest in seeing Whithers free, but I would offer a Tintagel representative. I can only spare one, as there are few of us to patrol and guard this country as it is. Just the three of you and Starfall trying to take on the might of the Council is a tall order. Name who you want, and you'll have them." Jakey looked up at Avenger, leaving the choice up to him. Avenger looked back down at his friend. He'd spoken with Bulldog, and felt a certain rapport with the other man, both were immensely strong and always had to remember their power. He had not seen Class in action and if they were going up against the Council like Jester suggested, he didn't want to rely on an unknown quantity. That left Gorse, Cirrus and Jester himself. Jester was in no condition to go fighting Council, and Gorse seemed to be both an emotional and physical support. It left only Cirrus. She could keep her head in a crisis, and she too had reason to want to help.
"Cirrus Tintagel," he said. Jester nodded with approval. There was quiet for a few moments as Gorse settled things around, then finally Sally returned, Class close behind her. Both looked a little flushed and giggly. They sat down side by side but before either Jakey or Avenger could ask them about it, Bulldog and Tobias Starfall arrived.
"Right, no time for pleasantries, let's get right to the nitty gritty of this. We need to get our [censored] over to Siwah, Egypt. Like I predicted, Langlais's laid out a minefield in his communications. However, I got the location of one of his relay stations, it's several miles out from the city. There, I can track the next one in the set and sniff out the trail that leads me to his main server." Starfall wasted no time. Avenger appreciated that immensely. Jester sighed deeply.
"Sounds like a long shot."
"Oh it is. It's an insanely long shot, however, long shots is all we got. The defences around whatever Langlais's up to already fragged half my network. You wanted results, this is the result. We go to Siwah." Tobias folded his arms. Jester sighed out deeply and glanced to Avenger, then Jakey, then Sally.
"It seems this is the limit of what we can do for you. Cirrus, you are to go with them and offer them your full support. I'll make a call and get you a drop into Egypt. I suggest you get together anything you think you'll need," Jester pushed himself up, leaning heavily on the crutch and hobbling out. Avenger sighed with relief. Finally, they were actually on a trail.

"Are you sure this is the right road?" Jakey asked, passing the sun cream to Sally in the back seat. She took it gratefully and started to slather it onto her hands and all visible bits of skin. Cirrus sighed.
"There's only one road to Siwah, and that's this one," she said firmly. Avenger wished he had room to stretch his legs in the mini's backseat, they'd been driving for hours. Still, the RAF captain in the drop plane had joked that the mini would break down and they'd end up on camels. Anything was better than camels. Toby, who was wedged between Sally and Avenger, seemed the least affected by the close space and the heat, he was playing his handheld computer console with the peak of his cap shading his face. Thankfully Cirrus had taken his bubblegum away from him on grounds it would dehydrate him and it was annoying her.
"What I wouldn't give for a train," Sally sighed, wiping some sun cream onto Toby's face, which did not distract the boy from his game in the slightest. She then passed the cream to Avenger who passed it back to Jakey.
"Ah." Cirrus stopped the car and pulled a face. Jakey groaned and slumped back in the passenger chair.
"Terrific."
"What is?" Sally leaned out of the window and hit the side of the mini in frustration.
"Why is there a chasm there? The map didn't say anything about a chasm!" Avenger demanded. Cirrus motioned her hand to Jakey and he pulled out the map from the glove compartment, unfolding it and staring at it.
"Wait, is this thing a valley?" he asked. Cirrus looked at it and nodded.
"We are on the right track. There should be a bridge though. There should be one right here …" She looked ahead at where the sand covered road stopped on the edge of the drop. Jakey pulled himself out of the window and walked the last few yards to investigate. Avenger leaned as far out of the window as he could to watch. After a few moments, Jakey came back with a sour expression.
"Bridge has been blown up. I think the Council may be onto us."
"Oh, how do you figure?" Sally asked. Jakey snorted.
"Blast marks on the canyon walls where the supports were. Thorough job, stinks of Council." Avenger swore.
"Well now what are we going to do?" Cirrus got out of the driving seat and walked around to the side of the mini, crouching down and unhooking two planks from the underside of the car. Avenger stared, as why did the mini have planks under it? Cirrus dragged one to the end of the road and laid it out, then returned for the other. Jakey stared aswell.
"Cirrus, what are you doing?"
"Get in the car, Sandpaper Tongue," she said, grinning. Both Avenger and Sally stared at Jakey and the cat blushed bright red.
"J, have you been kissing-"
"Right, in the car, oh look, a lovely car. Let's get into it!" Jakey dived through the window and pulled his hat down over his head so he couldn't hear anyone. Avenger looked at Sally, who smirked. Cirrus, utterly nonplussed, got into the drivers seat and pressed a button on the dash. The planks suddenly raised.
"Whoa! Self-raising planks?! How does that work?" Sally asked, then she realised what a ramp meant for their immediate future and she paled, "Cirrus, that thing's huge! You can't jump that in a bloody mini! You can barely jump it in a plane!"
"Really?" Cirrus slammed the car into reverse and they jolted slightly as she started reversing at full speed back up the road. Jakey suddenly put on his seatbelt. Avenger tried the door but the central locking went down.
"Cirrus, this is insane! You can't jump that!"
"I've got the luck of the Irish, or couldn't you tell?" Cirrus flashed her brilliant smile and Sally and Avenger put their seatbelts on and tried to tighten them against the inevitable. Even Toby was drawn from the captivating spell of his game and he yanked on his belt.
"You had to pick Cirrus, didn't you? Why not good old reliable Bulldog?" he muttered. They heard a clunk in the back end of the car. Cirrus hit another button and long shafts sudden snapped out either side of the car, silken silver material spreading from the chassis to the poles and through the sunroof, another could be seen, opening a fan of silver like …
"Sails?! You have sails on your mini?" Sally demanded. Cirrus closed her eyes.
"Not just sails." She then spoke sibilant words that slipped and slithered against each other, making the hair on the males stand right on end. She then opened her eyes and the car surged wildly as a blast of wind caught the sails, sending them screaming down the road. Jakey held onto the hook above his door, paling considerably, his tail puffed up to twice its considerable size. The mini's suspension rattled and as they neared the ramp, Cirrus reached forward and pulled a lever. There was a deafening roar behind and beneath them and twin blue jets of flame burst out of the back of the car. Everyone was slammed back into their seats as the car shot forward and there was a loud thud as it hit the ramp, and then they were airborne.
Jakey dared to look out the window, the deep drop with the rubbled remains of the bridge was soaring past below. He felt like he was floating. No, wait, he didn't feel like he was floating, he was floating. His legs were about two inches off the seat, he looked around at Cirrus. Her braid was coiling lethargically above her head, her skin was tense though, her teeth gritted and sweat was beading her dark skin. He tore his eyes from her and looked ahead. The other side was close now. They were already descending. He calculated the angle swiftly and paled even more. They were going to miss. He tore a glove off and prised one of Cirrus's hands off the wheel, touching his palm to hers. There was no time to explain about having a huge reservoir of magical energy inside his body that he could not access or use, no time to tell her he was a living magical battery. Just time to give her a boost.
And boost it was. Again they were slammed back as a fresh, more powerful gust of wind caught the sails and they rocketed past the edge and a hundred feet of road before the tires touched the ground with a loud bump, throwing them some extra inches from their seat before gravity reclaimed them with a vengeance. The mini skid wildly as Cirrus freed her hand and clamped it back onto the wheel, fighting the powers of momentum and inertia and shutting down the rockets on the back and furling the sails. Finally they came to a stop and the mini's engine ticked frantically with the heat and all five of them slumped in relief.
"Think anyone back in Paragon is going to believe the Brits have rocket-powered minis?" Sally asked Avenger tiredly. Avenger grinned.
"They'll demand a remake of The Italian Job. I call Charlie."
"Does that make Muse your girlfriend who fills your apartment with pretty male models to welcome you out of jail?" Jakey asked.
"Yes, yes it does," Avenger sagged down in his seat. Cirrus was leaning her forehead to the steering wheel.
"Jakey, can you drive for a bit?" she mumbled. Jakey unclipped his belt and they swapped places, climbing over each other effortlessly in a way that only midgets can do in minis.
"J knows how to drive?" Sally was surprised. Jakey looked back at her and grinned.
"I wouldn't say that," he chuckled. Despite his joking, he could drive, and the mini was off again, at less suicidal speeds and on more road. Cirrus curled up on the passenger seat and fell asleep or passed out. Avenger leaned forward to look at her over the back of the seat.
"She really over-reached there, didn't she?" He'd seen Cirrus conjure great blasts of air to knock over people in the Council base, but pushing a car that far and that precisely must have been a lot harder. Jakey nodded. Sally leaned forward too.
"Why'd you grab her hand? Afraid we were going to die and you hadn't declared your undying love?" She smirked. Jakey shrugged.
"Actually we were going to miss. I gave her a power boost to get us over," he said. Sally frowned, as a scientist, she was slightly sceptical about the workings of magic. It couldn't be just fancy words and gifts of gods, surely. It didn't make any sense that way.
"And you can do that?" she asked. Jakey sighed deeply.
"I can't use magic myself, I'm not supposed to. I'm a conduit for power. I'm like … a generator or a transformer for other energies and I have this energy that exists inside. I can't tap it, but other people can if they know the ways of magic. Kinda just … plug in and bam, more power." Sally frowned, trying to understand. Avenger leaned his head on his arms.
"Does anyone else know that? Seems to me that something like that could be really badly misused."
"Well, as for who knows, I think Gaze kinda senses it, and now you guys know. Not exactly something I like to broadcast. Oh, and Mr Avebury knew. It's how he found me." Jakey kept his eyes on the road. It was embarrassing enough to be a battery without everyone knowing that he was. Avenger just nodded and Sally looked thoughtful. Toby sighed.
"I guess I'm adding you to my list."
"Your list?" Jakey asked, not looking round. Toby put his hands behind his head.
"List of people to keep track of in case some lunatic tries to use you to power a doomsday device," he said offhand. Sally and Avenger both looked back at the boy, he gave them a level look.
"Think I sit in that observatory all day? If it's not someone trying to drill down to the core, there's someone trying to poison the North Atlantic. I need an assistant some days, I really do," his grin was lopsided. Avenger smiled.
"Not bad for a twelve year old, hmm?"
"Not bad for a twelve year old Peacebringer. Not that I bring peace as much as Starfall would like. He still thinks that my games are too violent." Sally sat back, leaving Jakey to do the driving in peace, though she rearranged Cirrus a bit so she wouldn't wake up with a sore neck.
"Bit young for a host aren't you?"
"I've been a host since I was five, but Starfall went kind of dormant until my eleventh birthday. Says it was to give me room to grow by myself." Toby reached under the seat to pull out another water bottle and cracked the seal open, drinking deep before passing it around.
"That is very young to be a peacebringer. Why on earth did he bond with you so young?" Avenger asked. He had a cousin who'd bonded, she said it wasn't so bad, even if her Kheldian was something of a daft bugger or words to that effect.
"Starfall's been in the family for a few generations. He was with Mum but our house got blown up by some guys they were investigating. We were all badly hurt, so Mum asked Starfall to leave her and join with me, so I could live." How Toby said it without grief, Avenger wasn't sure.
"Did your mom live?" he asked. Toby shook his head.
"Starfall could only save one of us. She picked me and he agreed. It's not so bad, because he's been in the family so long, he's like a third parent, and he tells me stories about Mum and everyone. And y'know, he did save my life," he said. Avenger nodded.
"How long's Starfall been on Earth?"
"No idea, he doesn't talk about 'before' much." While they talked, Jakey pulled off his hat, his large ears pointing up and then swivelling. Sally noticed his attention being caught by something and she leaned on the chair again.
"What is it Jakey?"
"Something dead weird is coming."

Dawn came quickly, Muse watched it as he leaned on his balcony railing, ready for the morning run. Quick sunrise meant he was near the equator. He wasn't sure how this information was going to help right now, but every little helped. He tipped his head back and breathed out. Any moment now.
"WHITHERS!" It was the first time Langlais had raised his voice in the house, and it made Muse jump. He whipped around when the door to his room banged open. Langlais looked tousled from his morning wash, his vest held clenched in his right hand and a tourniquet strap in the other.
"Where is it?" Muse looked as innocent as he could.
"Where's what, sir?" Every nerve was on edge as Langlais strode over, his boots thudding ominously on the floor. Muse went to dart away but Langlais caught his arm tightly and gave him a small shake.
"Where's the vial and the needles I keep in the medicine cabinet?" Muse winced when the hand tightened painfully.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" He was lying and they both knew it. Langlais close to seethed.
"What do you mean by stealing my property?! Is this how you act as a guest?! Tell me what you did with them!!"
"I threw them away! It's not good for you!" Muse twisted his arm up, then bit Langlais's hand. The archon was more surprised than hurt, letting go on reflex. Muse grabbed the railing and jumped over it, cushioning his fall with sound cushion, then took off down the beach. Langlais looked at his hand, then wiped it dry with his vest. It was like looking after a child sometimes. His hands prickled. Today was going to be one long ache.
Muse belted around the run, catching up to Malone and his friend Baxter as they left their barracks.
"Hey guys." He fell in beside Baxter, who was the smaller of the two. Malone nodded to him.
"You're out early Whithers. Where's Langlais?"
"Just got up." Baxter laughed at that.
"He's slowing down. Reckon he's getting a bit old for this?" he asked. Malone glared at him.
"Shut up, Bax. Langlais's invincible." He said it with such assertion that Muse blinked. He wouldn't describe Langlais as invincible. Baxter chuckled.
"Sure he is, Malone."
"Hey guys, can I ask something?" Muse asked. Malone rolled his eyes.
"I thought you were all quiet when I met you, now you don't shut up, do you?" he grinned when he said it, to take away the sting. Muse returned it.
"Well, I overheard something recently, some guy called Requiem. Is he a warshade?" he asked. The effect the name had on the two men was interesting, as Muse wouldn't have credited Malone to be afraid of anything. The taller man shook his head, going pale.
"Nah, he ain't no warshade. He's worse. Not something we should talk about though. Don't do to be heard bad-mouthing the head ruperts." Muse didn't quite understand, he'd heard nictus in Requiem. Or was that not Requiem and just someone who spoke for him? Perhaps Langlais just wrote the name down wrong in his journal, however unlikely that was.
"Why so curious, Whithers?" Baxter asked, looking interested. Muse sighed.
"Got nothing else to think about, really. So … what's new today?" he asked. Malone pulled a face.
"My brother got arrested recently. Bloody idiot thought he could take on a hero. Got both legs broken and is now sitting pretty in the Zig," he muttered. Muse was surprised.
"The Zig? He was in Paragon City?"
"Yeap. The banana brain signed himself up for the Cor Leonis program. Then bam, heroed. Told him he should have stayed with the Penumbra." Malone hurdled a branch while Baxter and Muse ran around it. Muse, desperate for any news from home, looked interested.
"Which hero was it? Did he recognise him?"
"Jackie or something. No, it were Jakey I think. Stupid letter for a surname or something."
"Jakey K?!" Muse was about to say he knew him, and in fact lived with him, when he remembered that the other two were Council. And that Malone might be too thrilled to know Muse was friends with the guy who'd chucked his brother in the clink.
"Oh that's nothing, I've actually come face to face with him." Baxter looked smug. Malone snorted.
"Liar, if you had, you'd be in the Zig with Charlie."
"I have! I really have. It was while we was repairing some equipment in the big communication hub near Paragon. He and this wild woman just started smashing their way into the base downstairs." Muse eyed Baxter, true the man was fit, but if the 'wild woman' was Sally Storm, then Muse couldn't see any way that Baxter could have avoided getting kicked bodily through a blast door. He'd witnessed Jakey boot huge clockwork robots onto their backs, let alone weak mortal humans.
"Did you get arrested?" Muse asked. Baxter shook his head with a grin.
"Nah, I turned the automated defences back on. Little ******* took three armour-piercing round to the back and the woman took a missile to the face. When the teleporters in the hospital pulled them out, I escaped." Muse tried not to look too horrified at how easily Baxter mentioned that he'd blown large messy holes into his friends. Malone threw up his arms.
"Oh very impressive, you ran away. My freaking hero," he said.
"He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. Or did you not know that?" Baxter laughed. Malone shook his head.
"You gotta FIGHT and THEN run away. Not just run away. Wimp."
Muse kept quiet for the rest of the run, listening to Baxter and Malone teasing each other. They both seemed nice enough guys, why on Earth had they joined the Council? Nobody could dress it up as anything other than a criminal organisation, unless they were seriously deluded. His thoughts turned to what they'd said about Requiem. He was sure that was the name of the officer whom Langlais answered to. They said he wasn't Nictus, but he sounded just like one. It confused Muse, his senses had never let him down yet. He paired of with Topolous for hand to hand, noticing that Langlais was overseeing. The man did not seem flustered. He never did. Even pitching his narcotics into the ocean hadn't ruffled his feathers. It was almost insufferable.
After the morning training, Muse and Langlais returned to the lab, a silence stretched between them. Again Muse was directed into the sound proof room and asked to flick the ping pong balls off the table with his sonics. He did this for hours, looking occasionally at the lump of stone. It was a new one, lumpy in different places. Muse kept bouncing the balls away with his voice.
The bouncing task didn't stop at one day. For five days afterwards, Muse was asked to bounce successively larger objects away, finishing with bricks. Langlais was still angry with him, he could tell by the way the archon's sentences clipped off when he spoke, and the stronger accent. Muse almost wished he'd never touched the man's narcotics. A tantrum would be preferable to this polite disinterest. He didn't want for their good rapport to fall into the dust over some needles. He believed that under all the Council conditioning, Langlais was a good man with a kind heart. He just needed a chance to find that out for himself.
"Excellent work, Whithers, how's your throat?" Langlais asked as Muse closed the second door to the sound proof room.
"Sore," Muse said, touching his hand to his neck. Healing himself wasn't really an option with the nature of the damage. It was raw from over-work and just needed rest. Langlais gave him a sympathetic look.
"You can rest tomorrow. I'm afraid I've been pushing you too hard in my zeal. Come along." He started towards the door, and Muse said goodnight to the crystals on the table. They were massive now, growing visibly day by day, swimming with different colours, echoing and mirroring any sound that touched them. Muse smiled when they seemed to say goodnight in return, and hurried after Langlais.
"Sir, may I ask you something?" he asked as they walked through the full dark of tropical night, the stars blazing brightly in the sky above, unhampered by the light pollution that so obscured them in Paragon City. Langlais nodded.
"Certainly."
"Is Requiem a warshade?" Muse asked. The question had been bugging him since Malone had said he was not. He noted that Langlais showed none of the fear that the two soldiers had.
"No, but he is not so very dissimilar. I can understand why you would confuse them. Requiem walked the Path of the Dark long ago. His powers are linked to the Nictus, but he is not specifically a Nictus. I suspect your difficulty in telling Nictus and Kheldians and the Dark apart is to do with the alien aspect." The tall man looked down at him. Muse was quiet, then nodded, somehow not surprised Langlais had worked it out, nor overly surprised he knew he'd been sneaking looks at his reports to find out information concerning his doings.
"It used to anger Lady Rapture, whom I worked with back in Paragon. It's not that I didn't like her, she was a good person to have on our side, but … something just made me uncomfortable. To be honest, standing next to her was like standing next to someone running their nails over a blackboard." Muse put his hands in his pockets dully. Langlais nodded.
"You can become acclimatised to the frequency, and from there, I believe you will be able to tell the distinctions between the three. The only thing that holds you back is a perfectly natural xenophobic response." Muse stopped dead, looking upset.
"I'm not racist!" He was appalled Langlais would even suggest such a thing. Langlais rolled his eyes.
"Xenophobia means a fear of strangers. The connotation of race has only been added by popular culture treating the word with derision, and it does not always have to mean hatred."
Muse wasn't sure he understood all that, but if xenophobia meant fear of strangers, then he couldn't really say he didn't have it. He felt wicked inside and hung his head.
"I'm sorry." Langlais looked at him, then put his hand on his shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze.
"All boundaries can be overcome if you want it enough."
Later, after dinner of some strange rice and banana concoction of Langlais's, Muse lay on one of the sofas, reading a book and eating a corner of cheese.
"You shouldn't eat that before bed, will give you nightmares," said Langlais, writing a report in his clear, concise hand. Muse wrinkled his nose.
"Stop being such a worrywart. I'm more likely to get acid flashbacks than I am nightmares."
"For an ex-drug addict, you're very quick to judge my morning ritual." Langlais sounded dry. Muse wagged the cheese knife at him.
"It's because I'm an ex-drug addict that I'm allowed to judge you. You think lines of Charlie and tabs of acid did me much good? Waking up on the floor of a public toilets with a syringe of heroin still stuck in my arm isn't exactly my most cherished memory," he said sharply. Langlais wisely said nothing. Muse lost his appetite and put the knife down, returning the cheese to the fridge.
"I'm going to have a bath and go to bed. Night," he said, walking up the stairs. Langlais sighed a bit and knuckled down to his report.
As predicted, several hours later, Langlais was woken up by moaning in the other room. He gazed at the mosquito netting around his bed, listening to the muffled words and was about to drop off again when a shriek emanated from the wall, closely followed by a popping crack of glass. Langlais grimaced and got up. Perhaps leaving Muse to his nightmare wasn't as much of an option as he'd hoped. He would have to have sterner words with him about his cheese intake before bed tomorrow.
Bouncer looked up from where he was lying by Muse's door, tail thumping the floor worriedly as his master approached. Langlais crouched to rub behind the dog's ear.
"Go downstairs, it'll only hurt your ears."
"You should not have let him eat cheese. You do not let me eat cheese," the dog's thoughts echoed in Langlais's mind as he looked up at him. Langlais half smiled in chagrin. The drugs that suppressed the animal voices in his head were well and truly flushed out of his system now, and the replacements were still three days away.
"Go downstairs, Bouncer, there's a good boy." He pretended he hadn't heard the dog, no good ever came of the gift. If gift it truly was and not a curse of epic proportions.
"You never listen to me. Nobody ever listens to me." Bouncer heaved up and padded off. Langlais entered the room, closing the door behind him. Muse was thrashing in his bed, talking fragments of sentences, sounding like he was speaking gibberish. Langlais pulled the chair over and sat down, elbows on his knees.
"Matthew, I want you to listen to my voice. I am your friend. Tell me what you see," he said. He'd read a dissertation on guiding dreamers to reveal information locked in their subconscious a few years ago. He reminded himself that this was highly subjective, all manner of things leading to false revelations. He listened to Muse describe some kind of chaotic masquerade. It might be a metaphor for something. He started to lead Muse out of the nightmare, keeping his voice calm and avoiding any suggestive questions. It was going fine until they hit a snag.
"Walk over the bridge Matthew."
"I can't. He's there." Muse actually whimpered. Langlais frowned, people on the bridge were not part of the scenario he'd drawn up. Muse's subconscious was interfering with his escape.
"Who's there?" There must be a way to get around this obstacle.
"My lover," Muse sounded petrified. Langlais frowned. Council intelligence had noted that Muse spent a great deal of time with another hero, called the Midnight Avenger, and indeed, had noted that they were indeed lovers. Naturally this was despised, all good little Council operatives knew that such things between two men were unnatural and disgusting.
"Why do you fear him?"
Even though Langlais had served the Council since he was fourteen, he paled at the answer. Anger made his knuckles whiten. He tried to keep his voice calm, three decades of masking his emotions hid his rage.
"He can't touch you, there is a war wolf beside you. He reaches out and picks up your lover and throws him from the bridge. It is safe to walk now." Soon Muse's distressed face lapsed into a calmness of more restful sleep. Langlais had never felt so angry. It was like he couldn't think straight.
Langlais marched out the room and grabbed his shirt from the chair, pulling it on and then finding his trousers and boots. He went to a box on his cabinet and pulled something from it, hanging it around his neck with his dog-tags and then leaving the house.
The Midnight Avenger dared call himself a hero after doing such a thing to his lover? Well, not if Langlais had anything to say over the matter. Soon they'd be calling the Midnight Avenger deceased.

bwa ha ha ha!

classic

Now that made me laugh, class.

"Finding one Council officer is going to be hard, but not impossible," Class said, rubbing the arm of his dark glasses absently. Sally gave him an exasperated look. They were both sat in Avalon's kitchen, eating a quick snack, if re-heated shepards pie was really a 'snack'. The flagstones and heavy wooden table made the inclusion of a microwave oven and fan-assisted electric oven all the more amusing in the medieval style kitchen.
"Oh? And where are you proposing we start? The files I downloaded were laced with a time decay virus and they're beyond retrieval now."
"That's why we're going to talk to Toby."
"Who?" Sally frowned.
"Tobias Starfall, he's something of a whiz with computers." Class smiled at her. Sally sighed.
"How's being a 'whiz' going to help, Class? The information has decayed, it's gone." She tried not to look too depressed, but some of it must have seeped into her expression as Class reached over and squeezed her hand. She looked up to see his grin.
"Trust me, okay?"

Sally decided to trust Class, as jetting around the countryside on his motorbike was better than sulking in the castle kitchen. She held on tight to his waist, watching hedgerows and trees go zipping past as the motorbike screamed down twisting lanes and then onto a main road. There was a radio in her helmet, and she heard Class chuckle.
"You know I have this massive temptation to try and impress you now," he said. Sally rolled her eyes.
"I doubt there's much you can do to impress me, Class. You're not actually God's gift to women you know." She couldn't resist the jibe. Class sighed.
"You know, when I hit puberty and the power woke, I thought I was for a few years. Until the trouble started." He overtook a lorry and it honked, the driver waving. Class raised a hand in response and swept ahead. Sally thought the sad tone didn't suit him.
"You're a mutant?" she asked. She had given herself her super powers, using her incredible scientific prowess to create a serum that would bestow the recipient with fantastic powers.
"Yeah. Didn't know I was, of course. I don't have any big showy powers, my awakening just passed without notice." Sally considered his power of eye contact and wondered what trouble had arisen.
"What happened?" she asked quietly. Class's tone indicated he was wearing that self-depreciating smile again.
"Well, I went around charming women against their better judgement. I was fourteen, I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, girls wanted me and I was happy as Larry over it. What I didn't get was why some of them wouldn't return my calls afterwards, or why their boyfriends threw things at me in the street." Class sounded heavy. Sally grimaced, almost feeling sorry for him.
"Must have been rough."
"Nah, it was okay. I didn't have many friends but I still had female attention, it was enough for me. I turned into a right spoiled brat, wasn't until I was eighteen that it all blew up in my face."
"How so?" Sally leaned with Class as they came off the main road onto a side street.
"One of my conquest's husbands filed a [censored] case against me. Once one did it, it was like … some kind of feeding frenzy. I got beaten up a few times, house set on fire, my family disowned me and moved away, even changed their names." Class gave a hollow laugh, "They believed it. They believed I'd forced myself on a woman. Wanted nothing more to do with me. So much for blood being thicker than water." Sally rested her head against his shoulders, watching the scenery scroll past.
"Did you?"
"No. I knew the woman, I thought she was a real friend. She knew my reputation but said it didn't bother her because we were meant to be. I guess when her husband found out, she went with the easiest story to feed him, telling him I'd forced it. My reputation went against me and … well … whatever. We all make mistakes. Mine was trusting her." Class sounded hollow. Sally felt a little guilty for punching him.
"Was the case dropped?" she asked.
"No. Got all the way to the High Court when Jester found me. He explained everything to the judge, about how I was a mutant without control of my ability and that if released to Tintagel's care, I would become something, as opposed to spending a lot of my life behind bars and so begin the downward spiral. Jester saved my life by giving me a real future. My name was legally changed and I became his ward. I haven't regretted it for a moment." Class's earnest honesty made Sally smile a bit.
"I'm sorry I punched you."
"It's okay. I've had worse." Class pointed up the hill after he brought the motorbike to a stop, putting his foot down to steady it. Up on the hill was an observatory, "Ready for a climb?"
"Bet I can out climb you." Sally pulled off her helmet but left her hair in the ponytail. Class took off his helmet and put on his dark glasses before turning to look at her.
"I bet you can too, I'll just amble if you don't mind so much." He grinned as he hooked his helmet over the handlebars and pressed something on the small dash. He kicked down the stand and got off the bike. Sally hung her helmet from the other handgrip and then followed Class up the steep stairs cut into the hillside.
Their ascent to the observatory was quiet, Sally considered Class's past, it struck a chord with her that he was eternally in hiding. Like her. She wondered if he ever thought of himself as anything other than Touch of Class, the ward of Tintagel. His glasses were his shield against the world. Perhaps it was the similarity of their lives, but she caught up with him and took his hand. He was surprised, glancing sideways at her, but then his fingers squeezed hers. He understood that she understood.
The door to the observatory was naturally locked. Class pounded on it with his fist, then rung the buzzer by pressing his finger to it until the door audibly unlocked. He grinned at Sally and entered. She followed him closely, looking around. The entry hall was nothing like a real observatory, there was carpet and a grandfather clock and a hat-stand. It was Edwardian in design, with regal, striped wallpaper in cream, gold and burgundy. Sally followed Class past a door that led to a dishevelled bedroom with posters and books and toys scattered over the floor. Toys? This computer whiz must have a real thing for Lego™, and be one of those super nerd types. Sure liked his Japanese cartoons enough for it. She tore her eyes from inspecting his room and hurried to keep up with Class as he opened another door that must lead to the telescope room. Once inside, she stopped, almost breathless.
A huge black telescope dominated the room, but around it where banks and banks of computer equipment, multiple screens showing news broadcasts and what she could only assume to be satellite surveillance, there were old fashioned astronomy tools, models of the solar system revolving and gyroscopes spinning for no real reason than perhaps they could. A large hydraulic arm was attached to the very peak of the domed ceiling and on the end of it was a chair obviously salvaged from a fighter plane. Currently it was facing away from them.
"Hey Toby, what's up?"
"Riot in Porto Rico. Who's the girl?" Sally blinked, that voice was far too young for her to credit as a computer whiz. Class grinned.
"This is Sally Storm. She's from-"
"Paragon City, security level 40." The arm hissed and its joints bent and flexed as it moved the chair from facing away to swinging down to floor level. A twelve year old boy pushed his keyboard away from him and pulled off his headset. He hopped up and walked over to hug Class.
"Hey man, did you bring me any sherbet?" He asked. Class ruffled his hair and then produced a paper bag filled with sherbet fountains and dips and bags from traditional sweetshops filled with blue and pink and yellow sherbets. The boy grinned as he looked through them.
"Awesome, I can totally frag some n00bs on sugar power tonight." He put the sweets in a side bucket on his chair and then looked at Sally, "Hot."
Sally arched an eyebrow at his pronouncement, and Class, maybe fearing she would slug the boy one like she'd slugged him, pulled a face.
"Dude, have some respect. She could break you, you know."
"Killer hot, then." Tobias Starfall grinned in what was probably supposed to be a charming manner. Sally shook her head, trying not to laugh.
"What are you, a Casanova in training?"
"I wish. I'm the communications monkey for Tintagel sometimes. So what did you both come here for? Other than to show me boobies the likes of which I can't play with until I'm legal." Toby looked at Class, his head slightly tilted cheekily. Class took a disk out of his pocket and held it up so the light broke into a rainbow wash over the radius.
"Some decayed Council data for you to salvage," he said. Toby took it and hopped back into his chair, it swung up to a large bank of disc drives and cassette decks. He popped it into a tray and then pulled his keyboard to him. Class nodded to a screen to his and Sally's left and she looked at it expectantly. Lines of code reeled across the screen in a blur and ten seconds later, the corrupted files scrolled upwards wildly.
"What are we looking for? Any keywords for me?" Toby asked from above. Sally took the piece of paper out of her pocket and opened it.
"Adjutant Long-lay, he visited the base and removed a prisoner."
"[censored]." Toby suddenly leaned around the arm of his chair, pushing his goggles up to rest on his head, his hair sticking up in a poof, "You're after Langlais? Are you nuts?!"
Sally was about to say that yes, she was nuts, and it was none of his business anyway, thank you very much, when Class spoke.
"You know him?" He looked eager. Toby swung his chair back down to face them.
"Know him? Not personally, but I do know of him." Toby tapped something onto his keyboard and the screen suddenly showed footage of the observatory, a much younger Toby working away when suddenly half his screens go dead and smoke pours out of one of the processing units.
"There aren't many hackers who can put a booby trap into their systems that fries your hard-drive to slag. Even less of them can spring their trap on me. Langlais's buggered my system five times with his ******* fail-safes." Toby huffed, scooping up a can of caffeine rich soda and cracking it open. Sally frowned.
"Well no offence kid, but you're what? Twelve?"
"Age makes no difference, Sally. I'm one of the best, but Langlais's just as good, better at defence than me. Doesn't surprise me, he's just as smart as me." Sally wondered what the hell that was supposed to mean. Class looked anxious.
"Can you do a search on The Music Teacher instead, real name Matthew Whithers?" Toby sprayed soda from his mouth when he choked, wheezing and coughing. Sally patted his back in some concern.
"YOU MEAN WHITHERS IS IN THE COUNCIL'S HANDS?! YOU FREAKING IMBECILES!! YOU'VE JUST HANDED THEM A [censored] NUKE!!" Toby surged to his feet, looking, of all things, terrified. Sally thought his reaction was a bit over the top but Class winced and waved his hands in a placating way.
"We're doing everything we can to get him back."
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT, HOW DID HE END UP IN THEIR HANDS IN THE FIRST PLACE?!" Toby screamed furiously. Sally jumped back when white blue light crept in swirls from Toby's eyes. Class winced.
"He … ah … was never told of … Cosmos," he said, pushing his fingers together. Toby seemed to lose all his anger, slumping back in his chair and nursing his forehead, seeming suddenly much older than twelve.
"You fools … Whithers should have been told, then he'd know the Council would come for him one day. It is an offence and insult to him and his parents that he was kept ignorant. Or did everyone just conveniently forget that earthquake?"
"There was no way to prove that Andrew Whithers caused the earthquake …" Class said quietly. Toby's gleaming eyes flicked up to him.
"No, but if you'd listened to Starfall, you'd have known that seismic disturbances were part of the Downfall. The timing was coincidental I grant you, but that doesn't necessarily mean he didn't start the earthquake. Jeez … and you never told Matthew of this, and now he's with the Council." Sally put up her hand slowly.
"Um … excuse me, but Muse is my friend, and as thrilling as pointing fingers and allocating blame is, can we please focus on how to get him back? Why do the Council want him, that's a good place to start, right?" she asked firmly. Toby sighed.
"They want to use him to hunt out Peacebringers and destroy them, and anyone else they deem an enemy," he said flatly. Sally frowned.
"Muse wouldn't do that. He's a kind, gentle soul-"
"The human will can be broken and the human mind can be conditioned. But they don't need his consent if they work out how to make the cosmic crystals." Sally tried to keep a straight face.
"I'm sorry, the 'cosmic crystals'?"
"Not as naff as the name suggests. They're called 'cosmic' because they can be aligned to any vibration in the cosmos. Essentially, if the Council got hold of the cosmic crystals, they would just need to provoke Whithers into using his sonic skills to defend himself and let them be attuned by it. Then they could activate them any time they chose and cause damage." Sally didn't like the sound of that. It reminded her too starkly of what the Council had done to Midnight Gaze, to force her to heal herself for another one of their twisted projects. The thought of the same thing happening to Muse made her feel sick. She didn't realise she was shaking until Class touched her shoulder.
"So you better help us find him quickly, Toby," he said to the boy. Toby nodded.
"It'll be hard. If Langlais's involved, I might not be able to find anything on him. I'll do my best though. Tell Jester to expect a healthy bill for replacement parts." He sat back in his chair and ascended to work, pulling his keyboard to him and pulling his goggles down. Class rubbed Sally's arm, smiling a bit hopefully.
"Come on, it's best to give him peace and quiet to work." He guided her outside. Once out in the fresh air, Sally leaned against the observatory's wall, looking hollow.
"If those bastards have hurt Muse, I'll kill them," she said between gritted teeth. She teased Muse constantly for being a wimp and his relationship with Avenger was just too good to leave uncommented on, but he was her friend. He didn't deserve mistreatment by anyone, much less a shower of bastards like the Council.
"We'll find him, Sally. I promise." Class put his arm around her. Sally swallowed a little. She hoped fervently that Class's promise could be kept.

Atomic Resonance was the varied vibrations produced by atomic particles. Every element had its own unique vibration, as individual as a retina pattern and a fingerprint. The elements sang in their own pitch, and from the music of compounds, you could extrapolate which elements comprised it, the volume of their singing would tell you in what quantities. The world was suffused with sound if you listened hard enough.
Muse gazed at the small crystals that were growing out of the grey stone in the laboratory, they were a new sound to him, but not quite alien. Instead of setting his hair on end like a Kheldian would, they seemed to speak to something in him. Langlais was sat at one of his measuring devices, then got up to check the progress of the sound proof chamber that was attached to the lab. Muse leaned his elbows on the table and gazed at the crystals. One was a murky blue colour, another seemed to be tinged with green and the third couldn't seem to make up its mind what colour it was going to be.
Their harmonics were beautiful. He couldn't help himself, humming under his breath just to hear them pick up the sound and resonate it back with glass-like tones. He'd never encountered an instrument so adaptive.
"Whithers." Langlais had to put his hand on Muse's shoulder to get his attention. Muse straightened and looked up at him.
"Yes sir?"
"We're going to try a little experiment. There's a stone in the sound proof chamber, I want you to pick just one frequency you can maintain for a long period of time and sing to it." Langlais looked unfussed, as he always did, but his increased heart-rate gave away his excitement. Muse wondered if Langlais suspected that he could hear the churn of fluids and chemicals in his body. He nodded and walked through the double set of doors to the sound proof chamber, making sure both were securely fastened behind him. Once they were closed, his world became a dead cube of silence. The stone was nestled on the floor and it was the only thing that made a sound. Muse swallowed, he did not enjoy this room, it made him feel like he was the only creature alive. He stood there and pondered what note he could hold for long. It wouldn't be a singing one, as he would run out of breath. Then it came to him, one he could hold indefinitely. There was a ripple in the air as his feet left the ground. Muse hovered a few inches off the floor, his body completely supported and cushioned by inaudible sound. He might as well be weightless.
So, his father had also had the skill, even if his mother's had been latent according to Langlais. He hadn't known that. He wondered if his father would have told him when he'd been older. Suddenly, his death when Muse was seven seemed crueller. Muse wished that he'd been able to know his father beyond a few fading memories of playing in the sun. His young life seemed, in his memories, to be an endless summer in a jungle paradise. He could remember his mother singing to him in her language, he resolved to speak Urdu more often, if only to remember her better. Tears pricked his eyes, as any recollection of his mother always brought his mind back to the manner of her death.
If his father had known all about the Atomic Resonance, why hadn't he taught him control? Why had he been neglected enough to be a ticking time bomb? He wished he could ask him.
It must have been hours later that Muse saw the light over the door change from red to green. It was time to stop. His feet made contact with the ground again and he gazed at the stone. It was echoing the same kind of cushioning pulse that was such a comfort when he flew. He smiled despite the morbid thoughts behind his eyes and let himself out. Langlais swivelled in his chair, putting his hands on his knees.
"That was quite enough for today. I'm going to finish up some numbers here, why don't you go on ahead to the cabin?" Muse was surprised, Langlais had not let him walk anywhere by himself before. He smiled, then looked at the crystal growths on the tables.
"Goodnight, see you tomorrow," he said to them, going out the door. Langlais watched him go, then turned back to his computer. A few moments later, the crystals emitted a glass-like echoing voice.
"Goodnight … see you … tomorrow." Langlais smiled intensely at his computer screen.
Muse showed his tag to the men on security and they nodded, letting him pass. Finally, a bit of space to himself. He stretched his arms out and above his head, tensing the muscles in his back and then relaxing them. He was halfway from the mountain to the cabin when something zinged against his senses. He stopped and frowned, listening hard. A tingle like Nictus over to the left, through the trees. Muse's pulse quickened, had that scary man come back? No, it was too small and too fragmented to be him. It was more like the discordant clamouring of a shadow cyst. He'd seen a cyst once, planted on a wall in a gang hide-out, a kind of landmine for unwary Kheldians. He remembered the alien's panic as she realised the cyst was there and then when all Hell had broken loose, he remembered how far he'd overreached himself just to keep the Kheldian alive. Something about the cyst's emissions had been next to lethal to her.
"You lying, twisted son of a [censored], you think you can bad-mouth my men and get away with it?" A voice so deep it echoed in Muse's sternum growled.
"Your men? Your dogs, Adjutant. One of your [censored] tried to frame one of my men for the missing supplies." The answer was in a gravely voice, as though the other was speaking through some kind of breathing apparatus. There was a savagely deep snarl.
"Clearly you grow tired of your existence, or did they simply transplant your brain with nictus?"
"Very clever, how long did it take you to think that one up?"
Muse winced, even if the insults were childish, the snarling promised a seriousness to this encounter. He hurried through the trees, his boots cracking branches as he went. He was making too much noise and missing what they were saying. With a surge he was airborne, bouncing his sound waves off trees and the ground to steer himself around them. It was not an exact skill, and more than once, he got branches of bushes across his face, whipping lashes onto his skin.
"When you're dead, Langlais will name me his second in command, dog!" The gravely voiced one enraged the deep one enough for him to roar with rage. Muse burst out of the undergrowth in time to register a Galaxy with nictus swirling over his hands to the left and a huge, charging war wolf on the right. He screamed with fear and surged straight upwards. The war wolf thundered past underneath and brought his clawed hand up to smash into the Galaxy when a shriek of alien energy jabbed at Muse's ears, a cloud of black purple nictus slamming into the war wolf's face and knocking him staggering. His howling bellow rent the evening air and there was a wild cracking of branches as the other five war wolves rushed to their commander's aide. Muse didn't care how good a shot the Galaxy was, he didn't stand much chance against six enraged war wolves.
Muse dropped himself onto the war wolf's back, locking his arms around his neck and holding on for dear life, his feet scrabbling to find purchase on the leather straps the beast wore. The war wolf reacted to the surprise like Muse was another enemy and swung his hands back, trying to tear the small man off his back. Muse had to grip on tightly as he whirled, eyes shut tight as nictus slammed into them again. The Galaxy clearly felt that Muse was an enemy as well. At best, Muse had one shot. He couldn't take a deep, steadying breath, but he only needed one for his mental wellbeing.
The five war wolves burst into the clearing, teeth bared and claws unsheathed fully. The Galaxy spun to deal with them and then a pulse knocked him staggering. The trees in a circle all swayed outwards and a ripple of motion could be heard expanding like a pond surface disturbed by a falling pebble.
All seven combatants stopped what they were doing, feeling rather too laid back and cheerful to fight anymore. The Adjutant war wolf huffed and looked around as Muse slid off his back. He peered down at the winded human, then snuffed at his hair. Muse, who was feeling giddy and weak-kneed, reached up to pet him absently. Clearly this was not something that happened to the war wolf often, and he pulled back in surprise.
"I think I'm going to … eat some ice-cream," the Galaxy mumbled, ambling off. The Adjutant war wolf crouched by Muse.
"What were you doing on my back, little man?" he asked, his voice deep and rumbling. Muse blinked at him.
"You're a natural bass," he said. The Adjutant's ears pricked, then one went out.
"Beg pardon?"
"Oh sorry, little dizzy after that. Makes my head spin." Muse tried to get up, but he fell over and flopped onto his back. The war wolf made an amused sound.
"So you are the source of the good feeling. You're very little, what were you thinking jumping on my back?"
"It's not nice to fight. Should be friends," Muse mumbled. The war wolf chuckled, then looked at the other wolves.
"He says we should be friends." They all laughed as well. The Adjutant helped Muse to stand so he could help him sit back against a tree. Then he did something unexpected and flopped down next to him, putting his head on his lap. The war wolf's head was so massive that Muse was sure his legs would go numb instantly.
"Scratch me again. We are friends now. My name is Michael Watson, what's yours?" Muse was too intimidated by Watson's bulk to do anything but scritch him behind the ear.
"Mu- Matthew Whithers."
"You make me feel happy, Whithers. We shall be friends."

"And then he spent the next three hours drooling on my legs while I fussed him. I didn't know war wolves were so much like dogs," Muse said, twirling some spaghetti onto his fork. Langlais regarded him over a glass of fruit juice.
"They aren't, particularly. Sometimes, however, the transition process creates a feeling in their minds that they should be doglike. It is a perpetual struggle of the creators to keep their subjects minds suitably human to function properly." He put the glass down and then flicked a meatball to Bouncer, who caught it out of midair and ate it happily. Muse blinked.
"What? Why would they think they should be doglike?"
"Think about it, Whithers, the myth of the werewolf can be found in all the major cultures of the Earth. The man that transforms once a month into a great ravening beast, be it bear, wolf or leopard. The men who are entered into the war wolf programme sometimes go against their will, or when they realise the deep and fundamental change being wreaked on their body, their fear awakens these primitive myths and they embrace them, allowing their humanity to fall away as their bodies change." Langlais turned his fork around and around, picking up a whirl of spaghetti. Muse watched him put it into his mouth and chew.
"Did you want to be a war wolf?" he asked quietly. Topoulos had mentioned that Langlais had once applied to one of the Council's elite programmes, and Muse couldn't see him wanting to be a Vampyr.
"My Archon at the time refused to let the application through. Said the risk of losing my mind was too great." Langlais sounded flat, having swallowed his spaghetti. His quick move to pick up the glass of fruit juice and drink it obscured his expression. Muse sighed, looking down at his spaghetti, pushing some of it around with his fork.
"He was right you know. You're a smart man, Langlais, I think you might be the smartest person I've ever met." Muse didn't bother to hide how upset that made him.
"Phillippe."
"What?" Muse looked up at him. Langlais gave him a bored look.
"My name. It's Phillippe. And I want you to try something." He reached over to the fruit bowl and took out an orange, placing it on the table between them, moving the salt and pepper shakers out of the way. Muse blinked.
"Make it yellow." Langlais opened his hand, indicating the orange. Muse stared at him like he'd lost his marbles.
"I take back what I said about you being smart, Phil," he said, looking back at the orange. Langlais smiled dryly.
"Consider this, light is a wave form, and colour is simply the human eye detecting variations in its oscillations. My theory is this, that if you can tweak the vibration of molecules and atoms, that you can manipulate light itself. Consider it you homework." Langlais flicked the orange up into his fingers and then threw it lightly to Muse who caught it, his reflexes sharper from all the training. He looked at the orange doubtfully, then back at Langlais, but he had returned to his spaghetti. To think that one person at this table considered changing the colour of objects to be a useful way to spend his time. Muse ran a fingernail over the skin of the orange. He couldn't think of any military applications for anything Langlais asked him to do, and that pleased him. It was just research, science at its most pure and harmless. He sighed, pocketing the fruit.
"There's something I can't work out …" he said. Langlais merely grunted to show he was listening.
"You're so smart, and your men would walk into Hell itself for you, you could have done anything with your life. Why the Council?" Muse flicked one of his meatballs to Bouncer, who was thinking that Italian night ranked right up there with Christmas.
"You make it sound so easy, Whithers." Langlais sounded droll, his inky green eyes flicking up to meet Muse's, "You think I could have earned a scholarship if I'd been born to a poor family, and gone to the very best schools if I were born to a rich family. It's not that simple."
"Isn't it?" Muse demanded. Langlais shook his head.
"No. To attain, you must aspire. And in the beginning, I had no aspiration. Nor did I have any pathways to attain. Joining the Council gave me both," he said. Muse couldn't accept that.
"But the Council are just using you! They use you like they use everyone. You're just a tool to them …"
"Look around you, Whithers. I am a tool, yes, but just look around. You think many people get to live in a house like this? And how many scientists do you think get to study the things I study? I have everything I need and want here, courtesy of the Council. They took me in, gave me a trade and let me belong. What more does a man need?"
"Freedom." Muse said it firmly and Langlais dropped his fork onto the plate, leaning back with an exasperated sigh. He fixed Muse with a glare.
"Freedom to do what? Starve? Waste myself on drugs and alcohol? Drive a van? Worry about my future and my finances? Wear a suit and work in a cubicle? What, Whithers, what freedom?" He didn't raise his voice, he didn't need to, his displeasure came through amply well enough through his tone.
"Freedom to live without having to murder innocent people?" Muse put as much displeasure into his own tone. They both stared at each other over the table, then Langlais nodded to his hands.
"Why do you wear gloves all the time? Don't you get hot?" His interest distracted Muse from his point and he looked at his hands, flexing one in its black leather glove.
"They're scarred. I don't like to look at them." Muse saw no sense in lying to him. Langlais raised his eyebrows.
"Accident?"
"No." That was all Muse was going to say on the subject, and his flat 'no' was enough to deter the archon from further questions. Langlais sighed.
"I think this calls for some chianti." And he got up to go into the cellar for wine.

"The doctor just called, your friend is in surgery. Apparently his physiology demanded they bring in a vet, but they're optimistic he'll recover fully," Jester said, walking into the dimly lit observation room. Sally turned slightly to look at him, then went back to looking through the one way glass at the interview room. An inspector was handling the interrogation of Archon Lambert.
"Never realised you guys operate without Crey Biotech," she said quietly. Despite her many misgivings about Crey, for which she had excellent reasons, they did make hero work infinitely less complicated with the advent of the medical teleporter. Suddenly realising she was without that safety net made her feel oddly fragile. If it hadn't been for Cirrus's quick action, Jakey's prognosis might not be so optimistic.
"Well, Crey charges an arm and a leg for their products, and we still have socialised health care. Government is not going to foot the bill for teleporters when we still have ambulances." Jester half smiled, standing next to her and gazing at the Archon who was being smug and uncooperative.
"Doesn't it worry you? That if you get into trouble, you could die before help finds you?" Sally tore her eyes away from the enemy on the other side of the mirror, looking at Jester's profile. He shrugged.
"If I spent all my time worrying, I wouldn't have time to work. I take it this Lambert fellow is being a pill." Sally looked back at Lambert, her hands curling tightly.
"I don't think Inspector Grainger is having any luck with him."
"What do you think I'm here for?" Jester looked at her, grinning slightly fatalistically and then he turned, moving back to find a chair and sit down. Sally looked around at him, remembering Cirrus's explanation for Jester's power and she found a chair herself, so she could watch. Having the power to change fate itself must be a heady thing. What could she do with such a gift? The scientist in her wondered how that was even possible, that one man had the power to affect the intricate mathematical chaos that was Fate.
Jester sat quietly in his seat, his eyes closed, fingers steepled before his stomach. He seemed only to be in deep thought. Sally reached over to the recording equipment and turned up the volume of the microphone so she could hear what Grainger and Lambert were talking about.
"Let's leave the matter of the warehouse alone for now, what do you know of an American hero called the Music Teacher?" Grainger asked. Lambert smirked, leaning back in his chair.
"Oh, what everyone else knows, no doubt, that he's a drying out waste of space alcoholic and drug addict who uses violence as a means to an end. Very heroic." Sally grabbed the arms of her plastic chair, having to force herself to remain seated. How dare a Council officer call someone such things?
"Everyone else knows this, do they?"
"Well of course, it's self evident, you just have to look at him. And all heroes are all about the violence, especially the American ones. Bunch of thugs, if you ask me." Lambert giggled, it was a sound that made Sally's skin crawl. She didn't think she'd be able to detest this man more than she had when he shot Jakey in cold blood, but now it reached a whole new level.
"You sound as if you have personal experience of the Music Teacher. He must be formidable indeed if you're so wary of him," Grainger said innocently, his voice was carefully pitched. Lambert laughed.
"Ha! Me?! Wary of that cry-baby? Didn't even reach ten volts before he sang like a bird. If that jumped up adjutant hadn't muscled his way in and taken him, I would have broken the weak little ******* into a thousand pieces …" Lambert's expression faltered, as he realised what he'd just said. Grainger leaned back.
"Well now, torturing people isn't a very nice thing to do, is it, Mr Lambert?"
"That's Archon Lambert!"
"The British Government doesn't recognise the Council as a legitimate organisation, so you can call yourself the Crown Prince of Norway for all I care. You've been a very bad boy and you're going to have a rather weighty book thrown at you. Since it was a hero you've admitted to torturing, perhaps I should get the chaps waiting outside to come in and talk to you for a bit?" Grainger's soft, slightly yokel accent made him sound very unthreatening, but Lambert paled anyway. Sally knew why. Bulldog and Avenger had been standing outside when Lambert was led past them. Neither looked like diplomacy was their forte, and both had glared pure hatred at the archon.
"There was a case brought against Bulldog last year, use of excessive force in interrogation. He's been banned from it," Lambert said quickly. Grainger smiled sweetly.
"Oh, don't mind him, he's just there to supply the Midnight Avenger with some points of British legislation he might not know about. And possibly remind him of the Geneva Convention."
As luck would have it, Lambert decided he didn't want to be in a room alone with Bulldog and Avenger, beads of sweat glistening on his pallid forehead.
"But you don't understand, if I hadn't interrogated the hero for information, I would have been shot by my own superiors. The real villain here is Adjutant Langlais, he's ever so friendly with one of the masterminds behind the Council, does his dirty work!" Lambert whined. Sally wrote down the name on a pad, then jumped when the leg fell off Jester's chair, pitching the man onto the floor with a yelp. She snapped the volume off and got down to help Jester up.
"Are you okay?"
"Fine, fine. Ow." Jester was holding his arm and Sally was shocked to see it bleeding. She looked at the leg of the chair and saw the ragged edge of metal that had cut Jester. From the looks of it, the metal had snapped from fatigue.
"Reach into my inner pocket would you, have a medi-kit in there. Take out the bandage and wrap me up," he said, panting slightly and wincing, his free hand clamped down tight on the wound. Sally did so, seeing to his injury.
"You know … you're a really good martial artist." Jester winced as she tightened the bandage. Sally flicked her eyes up to his for a moment before carrying on.
"Thanks."
"Distinctive style. Very distinctive. Very kinetic. Reminds me of a kid I once saw years ago. A child prodigy." Jester was still looking at her, grimacing as she pinned the bandage into place. Sally didn't answer immediately, then she busied herself with putting the scattered contents of the medi-kit back in.
"Perhaps you should see a doctor?"
"Nah, I'll be okay. Nothing broken. Well, except the skin." Jester stood up slowly. Sally stood as well, handing him the pack back. He returned it to its pocket. They stood in silence for a moment, Sally suddenly wanted very much to be with Avenger and Jakey. Jester suddenly offered his hand out.
"My name is William Romonov phD." Sally took his hand, startled. She didn't get a moment to respond before he gave it a brisk shake, then turned and left. She looked at the floor. He knew her name and identity, and offered her his. To make things even between them. She breathed deep, returning to her seat and resting her forehead in her hand, wondering how many other people could recognise her.

"You sure this is a Council base?" Jakey asked, dangling his arms down the door of the small black mini Cirrus drove. Avenger stretched, taking advantage of all the room outside the car to sort out the cramps from being inside the car.
"That's what the intelligence suggested."
"That's a right generous allowance considering it came from Mr 8." Cirrus unclipped her seatbelt and slipped out. Her pixie-like frame made the mini an ideal size car for her. Sally struggled out of the front seat with much less grace, looking around apprehensively at the quiet farmland.
"Won't the farmer be [censored] we went tramping through his fields if the intel is wrong?" she asked, looking around as Cirrus took something out of the boot.
"Maybe, but that's what you're along for right? To distract attention away from our shenanigans with your spandex covered backside." Sally looked around and down at her hips, wondering what was wrong with leopard print spandex. As if on cue, it started to rain, and Cirrus grinned, opening her umbrella.
"We might not look like sex goddesses, but we Tintagel girls know how to keep the rain off." She walked past the Paragon heroes to a stile, clambering over it. Jakey looked up at Sally.
"For what it's worth, I think you'd look just as good in a jumpsuit as you do in the tight stuff."
"Gee thanks, Jakey, that means a lot coming from someone who finds me as attractive as a carrot." Sally rolled her eyes, but smiled a little.
"I dunno, carrots are a bit phallic for me. Potato maybe." Jakey scrambled out of the window and hurried after Cirrus. Avenger marched after them. Sally pulled a face, as the days had become weeks, Avenger had become quieter and quieter. He wasn't eating properly, according to Bulldog.
"Okay, Jester says the entrance is under this manger." Cirrus passed her umbrella to Jakey so she could crouch down and inspect the round, steel manger. The ground was all churned up around the manger by the frequent comings and goings of hungry cows and finding a human footprint was impossible.
"So where did Jester get that information from?" Jakey asked, as Jester had just come down to the dining hall that morning and told them it was under the manger. Cirrus pushed her braid out of the way as she ran experimental fingers over the thick base of the manger, slowly working her way around.
"His dreams probably."
"Wait a minute, we're going on the intel of someone's dreams?" Sally demanded. Cirrus paused and sat back on her heels looking around at her.
"You don't have any idea what Jester's power is do you?" All three of the Paragon heroes looked at each other. Then Avenger, who was growing impatient with these delays, his stress increasing with each hour that passed, grunted.
"Some kind of psychic?"
"Not entirely." Cirrus, as if she picked up on Avenger's ill mood, got back to working her fingers down into the mud that ringed the manger. "He's kinda sorta an incarnation of a subordinate of Loki, the Norse god of-"
"We know what Loki is the god of." Jakey said suddenly, looking closed. Sally wondered briefly what had a knot in his tail.
"And that gives him visions?" she asked hesitantly. Cirrus shrugged.
"It makes him lucky. Obscenely lucky. Loki's the god of mischief, but he's also a household god. His subordinate, the one that Jester is, apparently, is a luck god, both good and bad. If Jester focuses hard enough, he can change the fortune of specific individuals. For a price." Cirrus's nimble fingers found something and she scooped mud from the hole. Jakey's tail was low and flicked from side to side.
"Yeah. Gods get pretty pissy if you go monkeying around with the world. Is the price horrifically bad luck for other people?"
"No, only for him. Every change he makes casts a three-fold penalty on his karma that will be accounted come Ragnarok." Cirrus closed her eyes and stuck the tip of her tongue out as she tinkered with the buttons.
"What's 'Ragnarok'?" Sally asked. Jakey snorted.
"The end and beginning of the world in Norse mythology," he said quietly. Sally thought about this.
"Wait a minute, how can it be the end and beginning of the world?"
"Because existence is perpetuated as a helix, an ongoing cycle. Why do you think History repeats with such alarming regularity?" Jakey looked up at Sally. She contemplated it, as personally, she'd always considered existence to be best represented by a sine curve. Always advancing, never static or stationary. However, what Jakey said about history repeating did make a kind of sense if you represented life as a helix.
"Can we stop debating the shape of the cosmos please?" Avenger asked shortly, just as Cirrus sprang up.
"Open Sesame!" she threw up her hands as the manger swung away on a far axis, revealing steps leading down to a door. She skipped down the steps and took a device out of an inner pocket, plugging it into the number pad and opening a palm-top computer. Jakey grinned.
"Nice one, Cirrus," he said as the door hissed and clicked. Cirrus pushed it open and turned to grin at the others.
"Easy when you know how." She stepped aside when Avenger passed her and went in, then nodded to Sally and Jakey as they followed, before following herself, closing the door behind her.

"Okay, which one of these jokers is the Archon?" Sally pulled a man up by the straps of his armour and inspected the badges on his left breast. Finding no archon rank, she dropped him back to his sprawled position on the ground. Jakey hopped over two Penumbra riflemen and pushed his hat up so he could scratch his forehead slightly.
"Sneaky ******* better not have escaped," he grumbled. Cirrus clambered over a few unconscious men to look at the computers, her nimble fingers moving over the keyboard swiftly.
"There's no record of him leaving. Check the cells, he might be hiding in there." Cirrus pointed to a tunnel leading off to the left. Avenger nodded and headed off, Sally at his heels. Jakey leapt effortlessly onto the top of the computer screens and crouched there, his tail tip flicking back and forth.
"Not playing solitaire I hope," he grinned. Cirrus flashed him a smile before turning her attention back to the screen.
"So, is there a Mrs K?" Jakey paused, this was usually how girls fished for information with a view to chatting him up. He still didn't get the attraction some humans had for him.
"Nope, no girlfriend either." He figured they might as well cut to the chase. Cirrus chuckled.
"You're not into messing around then, I take it?" she asked. Jakey shrugged.
"I prefer saying what you mean and plain talking, if it's not too bold to say, ma'am." He touched the brim of his hat, tugging it slightly. Cirrus reached up and laced her fingers around his tie, tugging his head down.
"Fair enough, I've been dying to find something out since I met you." Before Jakey could ask what she'd been dying to find out, she leaned up and kissed him. He was rather more occupied with keeping his balance, one hand pressed flat to the screen face and his toes splayed slightly outwards. As kissing went, it wasn't half bad, there was something sensual about the way she moved her tongue, something he wasn't too familiar with coping with. After a few moments, she let her lips drift away from his and smiled.
"Interesting." She let go of his tie and he swayed back a bit, having to adjust for the sudden lack of her weight dragging on him. He blinked.
"What's interesting?" That had been more straightforward than was usual, very much more. Cirrus was about to answer when a vial suddenly arced through the air, heading for Jakey. He dived out of the way with a roll but as he moved, the vial hit the screen and smashed, filling the air with a noxious stink. Cirrus clapped her hands over her nose and mouth, grimacing and backing away from the source of the smell, right into the thick, muscled arm that locked around her neck immediately. Her scream echoed through the tunnels before being abruptly cut off.
Avenger and Sally both heard it and cell door seven was left dented and half off its hinges as they both hurtled off back to the control room. They skidded around the corner and Avenger's sudden stop made Sally crash into him so hard she fell over. Archon Lambert was holding his hand over Cirrus's face, his strength enough to keep the tiny woman pinned to him and his other hand was holding a large handgun, pointing it at Jakey. The cat wasn't moving, sprawled out on the floor. Lambert smiled at them in a sickly way.
"You heroes, can't just knock on the door and ask nicely. Always with the breaking and the violence. Well it's my turn now isn't it? Time for introductions. I'm Archon Lambert, and this little sprite is Cirrus Tintagel and you are …?" He was clearly enjoying himself, and didn't so much as cast an eye over his unconscious soldiers, littered about. Sally drew herself up angrily but stayed still, biting her tongue to keep from saying anything that might further endanger her friends. Avenger tensed up, his knuckles going white.
"Your worst nightmare." As it turned out, this was a mistake, as Lambert pulled the trigger. The recoil made his arm flex, but the bullet tore a messy hole in the middle of Jakey's chest, his body jerking with the impact. A darker shade blossomed over his black shirt, gleaming wetly in the lights.
And that too was a mistake. Time seemed to slow, Sally could see her friend injured on the ground, but she swept her eyes up to Lambert. He was slowly bringing his gun up to swing it around to Cirrus' temple. She could hear, deep and resonating, Avenger howl with rage. She had seen Avenger in a fury, but he was so slow, too slow. She could see him leaning forward, his foot coming up and his other leg driving him forward. The gun was moving still, slowly, increment by increment. She surged forward, passing Avenger, leaping over Jakey. She felt like she was suffocating, the edges of her vision going black and prickles like worms of light flicking across her vision. She kicked off the ground, her foot hitting the still moving gun and she felt the satisfying break of bone as the hand released the gun and it spiralled up. As it moved past her face, she twisted her body, the upper part of her foot colliding with Archon Lambert's right cheek. His head snapped to the side and he lifted off the ground, arcing in slow motion. Then two fists came down so close to Sally that she could feel the swirls of air forced out of their way across her cheeks. Both fists struck Lambert in the chest and his rising flight was changed into a brutal descent. Sally watched as his body struck the ground, a ripple of a bounce going through him and blood splattering up from his mouth in glistening individual drops. She breathed, her heart beat was loud in her ears and she watched the blood speed up and all the sounds rise until time was restored.
Avenger stood over Lambert, trying to wipe his sleeve dry and muttering about his tailor. Sally turned around swiftly, looking at Cirrus as she knelt by Jakey, half her plait pulled out, there was a rip as she tore his shirt open to reveal blood seeping from a hole in his chest.
"I can't do much for him, we have to get him to a hospital fast!" she pulled something out of an inner pocket, a medicine pack and ripped open a satchet, shaking a white powder over Jakey's wound. Sally blinked.
"Why can't he teleport?" Cirrus gave her an incredulous look.
"We don't have teleporters! Hurry!" At first, Sally and Avenger didn't quite understand the concept of not having teleporters, but then Avenger swore and scooped Jakey up. Cirrus had managed to wrap a haphazard bandage around him, thick pads were rapidly soaking with blood.
"Get the download or a prisoner, Sally, we'll go ahead to the hospital!" Cirrus barked, pointing to the computer. Sally did not want to stay back if they were going to hospital, she had to make sure Jakey made it. But the mission demanded she remain. She just nodded, watching as Avenger and Cirrus rushed out with their team-mate. She shot a vindictive look at the mangled archon, and kicked him in the ribs for good measure.

ahahaha! this brings me joy

*weeps little empath tears of relief for the coming days*

XD nice one.

^_^;; thanks

Days passed, two weeks came and went on the island paradise. Muse had no time to contemplate escape, nor did he have the energy left to actually put any plan into effect. Langlais' training was arduous, demanding that Muse reach back again and again to reserves of energy he didn't even know he possessed. Even then, they never seemed enough. After a week of just joining the men in their training, Muse was allocated a man to shadow about his work. It turned out that Emmanuel Topoulos was what passed for a medic in the Council. The man knew his bandages from his sutures, but he clearly had never studied as a doctor anywhere. Despite his lack of education, Topoulos was a good man who gave the men the best care he could. Muse liked him, even though he was a Council soldier.
"You going to join us for the Sunday cricket match, Whithers?" Topoulos asked, opening a crate of new supplies and sorting out the medicines to their correct shelves. Muse blinked.
"The cricket? You guys play cricket?" he asked. Topoulos nodded.
"Every Sunday. You should see Maloney bowl, he's almost more dangerous with them than he is with grenades," the medic chuckled. Muse tipped his head to the side.
"Well I don't know, it's been a long time since I played any sport, and even then, it was just kicking a ball about."
"You can be on my team then, we've got some brilliant players, can cover for you." Topoulos threw a tight pack of bandages to Muse to put in a cupboard. Muse sorted them out neatly, rotating the stock so the older bandages were on top, even though it would be years until they were past their 'use by' date.
"You know, I never really thought you guys did anything for fun," he said quietly. Topoulos laughed.
"Hell, everyone kicks back for five minutes to have fun every once in a while. Besides, we want to celebrate Archon Langlais' promotion. He should have had it years ago." The medic sounded proud. It was something Muse had noticed with increased regularity, that the men who were posted at the base spoke of Langlais with something close to reverence. He knew that Archons could order a man to take up arms against an intruder, but he didn't think he'd ever seen such devotion to a commanding officer as he saw and heard from these men. He reminded himself sharply about the bomb in Bouncer and squashed the emerging feeling of respect. It didn't matter how much loyalty his men felt for him, Langlais was still a Council officer, and a pretty sick one at that. He certainly did not deserve any compassion from Muse.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the door to the infirmary opened and Langlais entered.
"Doc, I'm stealing Whithers for a few hours. Whithers, front and centre." Muse found himself obeying without thinking about it, presenting himself to his superior officer neatly. Topoulos sighed.
"Should have figured it was too good to last. Can I have him back soon as possible?"
"Are you expecting a casualty, doctor?" Langlais did not take offence at Topoulos' tone, looking curious. The medic scowled, folding his arms.
"Those war wolves and galaxy who were flown in are just itching to start a fight with each other. Who do you think'll be stitching them back together?" Langlais thought about this, then went into Topoulos' office and was gone a few seconds. He came back holding something and took Muse's left arm, sticking a band onto the waiting Velcro patch.
"There, emergency medic. If the doctor calls, you run your derriere off to get to him, understood, Whithers?"
"Yes sir." Muse reached his right fingers up to touch the white band and the stitched on red cross. There was something reassuring about it, being a field medic was something he understood, a job he could fulfil. He shot a half smile at Topoulos who nodded and smiled back, then followed Langlais outside, letting the screen door bang against its frame in his wake. He hopped down the steps from the veranda that ringed the infirmary building, hurrying to keep up with Langlais' long strides.
"Permission to speak sir?" He'd learned that if he wanted to get any information out of Langlais, he had to toe the military line. It had taken some getting used to, but the upshot of it was, he got the information.
"Granted, Whithers. What questions will you ask me now?" Langlais sounded dryly amused again.
"About the war wolves and the galaxy, are they really going to fight?" he asked, worriedly. He'd never encountered a warwolf back in Paragon, but he'd seen the scars on Jakey's back from one of his solo ventures. The claws of the wolf had opened him almost stem to stern and only his lightening fast reflexes had saved his head from being ripped off at the same moment. They were big creatures, with muzzles loaded with sharp teeth and claws like sickles.
"Probably. Adjutants Watson and Mendez are both squabbling over the job of who will be my second in command." Langlais sounded offhand, like this didn't trouble him at all. Muse found it hard to believe he was so indifferent, he'd already seen the man put more time and effort into his troops than he ever seen from any other Council officer. It wasn't unusual for some of his men to visit the house in the evening, sometimes to talk to him privately and sometimes to share a drink and a joke. The men trusted him, and that trust must have been earned somehow.
"Sir, may I ask another question?"
"Starting as you mean to go on, I see. Go ahead." Muse darted out of the way as three men ran past in full combat gear, heading for the mountain with massive rail guns strapped to their backs.
"You dismissed five of the six mechmen you asked for, and three of the Galaxy have already left. Why did you ask for them if you were just going to send them away again?"
"Those fine ears of yours must make you a great eavesdropper. It's such a shame that you do not have the guile to be a spy. My reasons for what I do must, unfortunately, remain a mystery. Maybe one day you will know, but until that day, you can only speculate." Langlais led Muse to the mountain at a slower pace than the three soldiers, and he did not take the trail that led up to the peak, rather he showed Muse to a tunnel entrance. Muse followed him into the base timidly, surprised to see round concrete tunnels. He was put in mind of a film he'd once seen, part of it had been set in a mountain, in a missile base. He hoped there weren't any nuclear warheads around here, as they scared him.
Langlais led him deeper and deeper into the base, showing his identification to certain guards and nodding to others. Since they were on duty, they only nodded gravely back.
"I'm glad to see you've started shaving." Langlais said as they entered a lift. Muse looked a little abashed and looked at the floor.
"I was getting whiskery," he said quietly. Langlais nodded.
"Been a long time since you removed your beard."
"How did you know that?" Muse was suddenly paranoid, wondering if Langlais had been watching his bathroom for years. The archon reached out and traced a finger over Muse's chin.
"Tan line." The lift dinged and he stepped out. Muse rubbed the prickly skin where the finger had touched, following him and feeling stupid. Of course it'd be a tan line. Langlais led him through more tunnels and past the island's only mechman, nodding to the robot as he passed. Muse barely got a moment to look at the mechman, another one of the Council's Elite that he'd not really seen before. Langlais gave him no time to stare, as he was already passing through heavy doors ahead and Muse had to run to catch up with him, threading through the narrow opening as the door closed.
Within, the room was a laboratory, three computers stood to one side, there were oscilloscopes and Geiger counters and devices for measuring every kind of wave form and light and sound imaginable. In the centre, however, was a large lump of greyish stone stood on a metal table. Muse looked around, watching instruments whirl and blip and fizz.
"This is where you'll be spending some of your time, with me," Langlais said, going over to one of the computers and checking something on the screen. Muse blinked. He hadn't thought of Langlais as a scientist of any sort. Langlais walked over to the stone mass on the table and then looked at Muse, putting a hand on the mineral.
"Now, let me tell you about your grandfather."

Muse watched Bouncer chew on a stick, looking bleak. The sun had just started to rise over the sea, spilling luminescent liquid gold along the waves. Birds called in the trees of the island, strange whistles and whoops, but still a dawn chorus. It was such a beautiful dawn. He sniffed, his eyes were red with his tears but he was all cried out, his head aching from the long hours spent sobbing. He wanted Avenger near, Jakey, Sally. Even Lady Rapture would be a welcome sight, even though the alien behind her eyes set his teeth on edge. He felt so useless, so weak that in the night's chill, he'd gone outside and found the clothes. Now here he sat, stupid, weak, pathetic and clad in his enemy's uniform.
There came a sound from the bathroom upstairs and some time later, Langlais walked down the steps. His eyes looked slightly feral, his forehead glistened with sweat and Muse sat small on the sofa. Bouncer pricked his ears up and then bounded over to his master, tail wagging wildly. Langlais looked down at the puppy, then stooped to pet his head with a massive hand before taking a joint of meat out of the fridge and chopping it up. Muse watched the man's broad shoulders as he prepared the dog's breakfast. After a while, Langlais put the dog's bowl on the floor and the puppy dived for it, snapping up the fresh red meat gleefully.
"You were up all night, I take it. Too bad for you," said the Archon, opening his fruit juice carton and taking a long drink from it. Muse eyed a tiny [censored] of blood on Langlais' inner elbow as the man moved around. Needle user, but what payload was he shooting into his veins?
"We're going on a run, grab yourself a canteen and fill it with water, you'll need it."
"I'm not going to do anything you want of me," Muse said quietly, his voice shaking. He tried to sound brave, but when Langlais looked at him, he quailed, shrinking back against the cushions.
"Oh yes you are, Whithers," Langlais said coldly. Muse swallowed, trying to hold Langlais' gaze but then he dropped his eyes and pulled his knees against his chest.
"Now stop being a pathetic coward and get your canteen." Muse winced at the archon's words, trying to battle his will but he soon found himself sliding off the sofa and taking a tin flask from the sideboard, filling it with water from the fridge. All the while, he could feel Langlais' eyes on him, burning twin holes in the back of his neck.
"Put a hat on, you're too fair for the sun." Langlais threw a floppy brimmed hat over, it hit Muse's chest and he put a hand up on instinct to catch it before it fell. He cringed a little when Langlais walked over and took the flask. The archon attached it to his belt with a series of jerks, then grabbed the back of Muse's shirt and half dragged, half pushed Muse out of the house and down onto the sandy, branch strewn ground. Tall palms swayed overhead and the sea air was soft and cool, pre-dawn chill still lurking.
"Start running." Langlais propelled Muse a few steps ahead.
"But I haven't any boots on," Muse objected fearfully, his voice wobbling. Langlais snorted.
"Will teach you to be more prepared tomorrow, won't it? Now run."
They ran for what felt like hours, Muse felt as though his lungs were burning and that his feet had been replaced with lead weights, every footfall sending a reverberation up his legs and spine to echo dully in his skull. His throat felt sore from the heaving breaths and sweat ran freely down his back and from under his arms. He couldn't stop, Langlais was right behind him the whole way, insulting him and goading him and demanding more and more effort. When they finally reached the foot of the mountain, a clear area of grasses and flowers, Muse's legs buckled and he fell to the ground with a thud. He lay there, breathing hard and unable to move any of his limbs. He saw Langlais' boot appear in his vision and turned his head slightly to look up at the archon. He was bent over, his hands on his knees. ******* hadn't even broken a sweat.
"You call five miles over flat good, Whithers? Think you've earned that there rest you're taking? Mais non, you're not even started yet." He reached down and hooked an arm under Muse's and hauled him up like an impatient father with a sulking child. Muse cried out in pain, his feet screaming agony up his legs when the soles touched the ground. Langlais forced him to move, bullying him over to a square of European grass, it was softer underfoot than the tropical variety, but not by much as far as Muse's bare feet were concerned. The pounding of blood echoing in his ears had blocked the sound before, but now Muse realised that there were some fifty men drilling on the grass. They seemed to be going through hand to hand combat moves. He blinked without understanding for a moment before he was slung around to face Langlais.
"The principles of hand to hand are simple enough, you deliver the fastest, most painful hit first and take out your opponent before he can take you out." Langlais took Muse's hand and curled the fingers into a loose fist, flicking his thumb out from under them.
"No, you never close your fist, you'll break your own knuckles. Keep it loose but ready. There's no point in hurting yourself. This part of your arm-" Langlais ran his fingers down the bone of Muse's forearm, rubbing the blade of his elbow with calloused fingertips, "This is your shield, you block with this bit. Your body is flexible, you can move so you can always bring this shield to bare. This is your first lesson, so you'll will learn to block and to fall. Falling correctly is important, a man can be defeated, but if he minimises injury then he can come back to fight again."
Muse had no idea what Langlais was talking about. Surely the man didn't expect him to fight did he? A clout of fingers hitting his shoulder rattled him, making him stagger and fall over.
"Pay attention, Whithers! Bring your shield up to guard!" Langlais hauled him up to his feet and moved Muse's arms into positions that provided cover for his upper chest, neck and head.
The drilling was gruelling, made only moreso by the run beforehand. After a while, Muse's brain just switched off and he did what he was told when he was told. His feet were beyond painful now, his body was hot and he just moved on autopilot. Strangely though, it didn't feel unpleasant. It was like he had transcended pain and physical limitations of the flesh. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to move so effortlessly, if he ever had.
"Alright men, two minutes rest then it's to the course!" Langlais' bellow carried over the entire field, the other soldiers stopped their sparring and there were shoulder slaps and deep, masculine laughs all around.
"Hey sir, heard you got a promotion last night!" called a voice from the crowd. Langlais watched Muse as he fell back into a sitting position.
"That's right, Maloney."
"Isn't there a tradition where they send you a pretty woman if you get promoted?" Maloney's question caused the rest of the men to laugh. Langlais snorted out of his nose.
"No, there certainly isn't."
"Don't tell him that, sir, he was hoping to make Archon so he'd lose his flower finally," called another voice, much to the merriment of the other men.
"'Flower'?! Who the [censored] calls it a 'flower' still?!" Maloney demanded of the other man who'd shouted, going over and smacking his shoulder. Muse watched the two argue and insult each other until Langlais yelled that time was up. Immediately, the men formed into a column of five men abreast and jogged off. Langlais stooped to haul Muse back onto his feet and dragged him after them.
The rest of the morning passed in an oblivion of exhaustion and whirl of activity. Muse wasn't sure how he made it back from the base. Now he lay on the sofa, being too tired to even lift his finger. He opened his eyes and glanced at the foot of the sofa. He was surprised to see Langlais sat there with his feet up on his lap. As if the archon felt the weight of his gaze, he looked over, then showed him the pair of tweezers in his hand.
"Just a little field medicine for your feet. I daresay you know more about this than I do, though," he said, in a conversational tone. Muse stared at him for a moment, trying to place what was different about him. It came to him slowly as he watched the man pick something out of his foot, his strong hand holding the appendage still. He was calmer, like the shot of whatever he had taken in the morning was filtering out of his system. Bouncer brought a ragged sock over and pushed it into Muse's hand.
"You'll be alright for tomorrow, that'll teach you to have yourself ready in future, hmm?" Langlais put the tweezers aside and then dipped his hand to something unseen, bringing his hand back up to smear something on Muse's soles. The musician hissed, grabbing at the back of the sofa. He gasped in the wake of the sting, blinking water out of his eyes.
"Oh stop being a big baby," Langlais said. Muse gave him a tired look.
"Why are you making me run and things?" he asked finally. He'd been thinking about it all day, wondering if it was some kind of advanced torture technique the archon had devised to get him to spill whatever beans they thought he had.
"Your level of fitness is appalling. You've been relying on that there power of sound thing you have to move you and do all the work for you, your body is starting to waste. And frankly, I don't think you have the mental discipline to use your power safely, or to channel it."
"My body's starting to waste? What on earth are you talking about?" Muse would be the first to admit that he didn't carry muscles like Langlais, nor did he have the same sinewy tautness as Avenger or Jakey, but he wasn't wasted, surely? Langlais held his leg up, pushing the trouser leg down. He pinched Muse's calf muscle.
"Can't you feel that?"
"What?"
"Your muscles are starting to atrophy. It's that flying nonsense, you don't walk or run enough. Our reports show that you hardly ever put your feet down to the ground on incursions to our territories. I took the liberty of giving you a full check up while you were unconscious. You're borderline for a lot of health problems, similar to those found in early cosmonauts before they started implementing rigid exercise regimes for the zero g environment." Langlais put his leg down and returned to his ministrations. Muse blinked, looking bewildered. He didn't feel unhealthy.
"While you're in my care, you'll do every exercise I expect of my men and myself, you will apply yourself to the health and well-being of your body and you will not complain about it or you will find out just how many disciplinary methods I have." Langlais looked up as he spoke, watching a large, tufted cat saunter in. Muse also looked at it, trying not to blanche at the thought of intensive, military training. The cat paused and stared back, then slid its eyes away and leapt up onto the counter to sniff at a plate of meat left finely chopped on the side.
"And what time do you call this, young lady?" Langlais demanded. The cat ignored him and sank down to eat the meal. Langlais shook his head and turned back to Muse's feet.
"Caracal. As finely mannered as the rest of the feline family. Her name's Monique but she answers to nothing and no-one," he said, smiling slightly. Muse regarded him for a moment.
"You like cats?" he asked.
"I like all animals. Except one." Langlais worked on the second foot now. Muse blinked.
"Which one?"
"The human animal." There was something so final about the words that Muse closed his mouth against further questions.

it's a facial expression, could mean 'man that's a bad smell' or 'I just had a really bad mental image' or 'you can't expect me to eat that'. It's an 'oh shoot' expression essentially.

fill up all the roads with them, it'll be great and nobody will be able to move except for hotdog vendors, who have mysterious powers.

I like it! Continue, s'il vous plait ...

hooray for exposition or something like that

Jakey knelt on Avenger's lap, his head stuck out of the window and one hand holding his hat on. The English countryside was beautiful, moreso than he remembered it being when he'd been walking through it on unfamiliar legs. His tie snapped past his ear as he turned his head back to regard Touch of Class, the other hero was gently tipping a sleeping, jet-lagged Sally from his own shoulder to lean on Avenger's. Jakey watched to make sure he kept his hands to himself but was gentle with his team-mate.
"We didn't expect such a welcoming committee. We only called you guys to be polite," he said loudly over the rattle of air through the open window. Gorse kept his eyes on the road but Class sighed, putting self-conscious fingers to his dark glasses.
"Yeah well, it's probably a good thing you did. This is a bit more involved than you might think."
"Oh?"
"Class." Gorse flicked his eyes up to the rear-view mirror and must have made eye contact with Touch of Class as the man pulled a face and looked away, resting his chin in his hand. Jakey scowled, something was going on here. Gorse changed the angle on his rear-view and Jakey saw his eyes.
"We're taking you to Jester, he knows the whole story and will fill you in. Please be patient, we aren't trying to give you the run around." He sounded sincere enough that Jakey sat back against Avenger's slightly wonky chest. Avenger himself had been lulled into a kind of doze by the motion of the car, indeed, the long hours of travel were starting to take their toll and neither he nor Sally had gotten much sleep the night before. Jakey folded his arms, tail twitching.
"You guys still have Mr Avebury working for you?" he asked, naming the hero who'd found him wandering and sorted him out with clothes, identification and indeed, was the one who told him about the mystics of Paragon. He owed a lot to the man. Class looked over.
"You didn't hear?" he asked softly. Jakey looked back.
"Hear what?"
"Mr Avebury died three months ago. Heart attack," said Gorse, quiet but firm. Jakey was silent for a moment. He knew Mr Avebury had been old, with a hugely long snowy white beard that had tickled the bare skin of the cat's chest. He lifted a hand to it, as if he could feel the prickles again.
"I'm sorry … I didn't hear." Jakey looked out the window suddenly, trying to fool himself into believing the burning in his eyes was caused by the wind. Cirrus sighed.
"It were quick, but not unexpected. He were an old man," she sounded awkward, but kind enough. Jakey squeezed his eyes shut and looked firmly out the window.
"Yeah, old men have a habit of dying," his voice sounded a bit lame to his own ears. He'd never told his friends of the days after he fled his home in a newly human shaped body, of the cold and the hunger as he wandered naked and unable to hunt. He'd never mentioned being found, half starved and on death's door by a kindly old man who took him in and nursed him back to health. Speech, reading and writing, how to walk like a man and understand and reason as a man; these had all been Mr Avebury's gifts to him, though Jakey had long known him by the name of Jason. But Mr Avebury had died and his passing had gone unnoticed by the cat, and now he didn't know how to feel about it.
Thankfully, he was spared more conversation by the van cresting a hill and revealing a castle surrounded by trees on the curve of a river. Flags flew boldly at the poles and the emblem of the sword on a black field marked it out as Avalon, the home and base of Tintagel. What guards there were remained unseen as the van swept down the rise and over the bridge into the courtyard, gravel crunching under the tires as it came to a stop.
"These the yanks?" The speaker was a tall, well muscled red-head with his long mane of wavy hair tied back into a ponytail. He spoke even as he walked over with a confident stride. Cirrus looked around at Avenger and Sally, both of whom had slept right through the conversation and Jakey's restlessness. She grinned a little at the red head.
"Midnight Avenger and Sally Storm are the sleepers, and the cat is Jakey K." She opened her door and sprang out, her pixie-light body bouncing up and she wrapped her arms around the red-headed giant's neck, "Wheeee, did ye miss me, Bulldog?"
"Get the feck off, you deranged sprite o' lament." Bulldog plucked her off him, his hand was large enough to almost swamp her and he put her down firmly but gently. Gorse got out of the car and left Class to hesitantly wake up Sally.
"Is Jester ready to see them?"
"Aye, he's ready. Hasn't stopped drinking coffee all morning."
"[censored], that's bad." Gorse opened the side door to the van and shook Avenger's arm. Nothing happened other than Avenger's hand flapping a bit on the end of the limb and Jakey shaking his head. The cat stood up and cleared his throat.
"Leave this to the professional, guys," he waved them back, nodding as Class took a fist across the face from Sally as she came to. He then screamed, like someone had shut his tail in a door. The response was immediate, Avenger jolting up and trying to surge forward, snapping the pendulum of the seat belt and sending the mechanism rocketing out through the front window with a sound of popping glass. The British heroes all regarded the hole, then looked back at Avenger who rubbed his eyes, realising where he was.
"Sorry, must have dozed off in the car," he mumbled. Class rubbed the side of his face, wincing as he touched the tender area. Sally marched past him, fuming silently. Avenger untangled himself from the seatbelt and joined the others out on the gravel parking area. Bulldog beckoned.
"Jester wants you in the briefing room. There's tea and coffee there and if you're of a mind, breakfast."
"Breakfast sounds good," Avenger said sleepily. Jakey hung by his side, looking up at Sally as she started to follow Bulldog and Cirrus into the castle.
The briefing room was lined with oak panels, with oil paintings hung on the walls. Previous heroes who had defended the United Kingdom of Great Britain sat in their portraits, looking quietly noble and dedicated. Though clearly expensive, the décor was lavish in a somehow understated way. It fit, and was inside how the outside promised it would be. It hadn't changed a bit since Jakey had been led into this same briefing room, his hand clinging to Mr Avebury's to have an interview with Jester a year ago. An entire year had passed since then, Jakey realised with a shock that he was almost five now. Perhaps he should act his age a little more.
As promised, there were teapots and taller coffee pots, silver cups stamped with Tintagel's crest and all the works set on a heavy wooden table with chairs all about. Sally went to pour herself a tea only to find Class's hand under her own. She was about to punch him again when he skilfully started to pour five cups. He didn't turn his head to indicate he was looking at her, but she was sure he was sneaking furtive glances behind the safety of his dark glasses.
"Take a seat. Bulldog, Gorse, I want you both in the control room. Class, when you're done serving tea, go get that pyromaniac in here." A voice came from the far end of room, from the still figure standing by a fireplace that looked like it had been sculpted rather than constructed. Avenger remained standing, looking the figure over. Jester was a swarthy looking man, with a dirty stubble around his jaw and the black jumpsuit did nothing to take away the moodiness of his visage. Avenger wondered if his name was heavily ironic.
"I would that we met again under better circumstances, Jester," Jakey piped up, his voice breaking into Avenger's reverie. He didn't realise Jakey actually knew these people, but then, he supposed it might have been unavoidable. Jester walked away from the fireplace and reached out to shake Jakey's hand.
"As do I, little friend. I have heard good reports about you, you've become quite the hero, I hear." Jester smiled a little, and Avenger saw a glimpse of a sparkle that might make the name less ironic than first suspected. Jakey grinned apologetically.
"I found some good friends to lead me true. This is Sally Storm, and Midnight Avenger." Jakey motioned to each of his friends in turn. Jester nodded to Avenger, then cocked his head at Sally.
"Do I know you from somewhere?" he asked quietly. Sally looked surprised and shook her head.
"We've never met sir."
"Odd, I never forget a face. Ah well, maybe I saw you in a former life. Ah, thank you Class," Jester took the teacup and saucer that were handed to him by Touch of Class, then sipped before putting it down by the chair at the head of the table. Cirrus nodded as Class left quietly, sitting down in a seat at her leader's right.
"Onto business. I was able to inform Lord Aldershot III about these matters, so we need not wait for him. Please, sit." Jester motioned to the chairs as he himself sat down. Jakey climbed up into one of the elevated seats and Avenger sat himself down finally. Jester waited until all of them were sat and comfortable.
"You are probably wondering why I've brought you all the way here," he watched as the three Paragon heroes nodded, then made a hand motion to Cirrus. She reached her hand to one of the inlaid panels on the wooden table and pressed her fingers to the surface in a seemingly random way. Small screens slid up from the seamless joins in the table in front of all five of them, the Tintagel crest on the visual.
"When your leader, Midnight Gaze, called us and told us who was missing, I was authorised to de-classify this information concerning a Mr Matthew Ashred Whithers." Jester steepled his fingers, and Cirrus's nimble fingers tapped out another sequence. The emblem was replaced with old, bad footage of something breaking up in freefall.
"This footage was taken in the 1940's, exact date is not important. It showed one of several meteorites coming through Earth's atmosphere. As you may know, the Earth is bombarded by thousands of spatial objects every year, what makes these ones so special?"
Sally Storm leaned forward to watch the footage with intense eyes and Avenger tried to focus. He didn't know how this was supposed to be any use whatsoever. He needed to get out and find Muse, not sit around drinking tea and listening to stories about meteorites.
"These meteorites carried a mineral with them, ferried from the dark recesses of space, and hit all over the globe. One piece that crashed in the Hebrides carried a crystalline structure that was completely intact and unharmed from it's long voyage, and it was taken to a secure military instillation and examined, as the military are so wont to do."
"How does this relate to Muse?" Jakey asked abruptly, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. Jester waved his hand.
"Please, this is important. One of the scientists who studied the rock was one Jonathan Whithers, your friend's paternal grandfather. He was our most eminent scientist, a man truly gifted in his understanding of the world. It was he who unlocked some of that crystal's secrets, though in return, he was forever changed." The screens flickered to show a few objects, dented and battered and twisted out of shape.
"From his experimentation with the crystal, Whithers and his team noted an energy build up in the sample, and when certain notes were played, the crystal would unleash that energy, damaging objects around it. He called this force Atomic Resonance. Now, not much attention was paid until Whithers had a son." Cirrus's fingers tapped and an old family photograph of a pale haired man standing beside a small, slightly stunned looking boy in old fashioned school uniform popped up.
"Andrew Frederick Whithers seemed normal at first, though his predilection for music and other wave-forms was pronounced from a young age. It was not until he started school that the change to the Whithers family was discovered." A hand written report popped up on screen and Avenger tried to read it.
"This is an incident report from one of Andrew's classes. In a fight with another boy, he reputedly shouted, and at the same time, all the glass in the windows blew outwards. Naturally the incident was hushed up and Andrew was taken out of civilian school. He spent the rest of his education in a school on the military base where his father worked. He frequently demonstrated the same properties as the crystal, but on a much smaller level. He joined the Army as soon as he was old enough and put his preternatural sense of waveforms to use as a telecommunications officer."
Avenger knew that, he'd been told it by Muse in one of their more intimate moments. Muse's father had been a telecommunications expert in the Royal Marines, but he'd never mentioned his father having the same skill as him.
"When Whithers the younger married overseas, a background check was run on his new wife and her family. It is to our eternal shame that we did not discover it sooner."
"What?" Sally looked up sharply. Jester sighed and nodded to Cirrus, her fingers flew and a map of India came up on the screens, little red dots bursting onto it.
"Samples of the crystal hit the entire world, one landed right on the borders of a village outside New Delhi. The entire village was exposed to it, and then later, when a young woman left to work in the city, she left stained by the proximity to the crystal. When the young woman met a foreign young man, their marriage and union produced a child who was even stronger in the power than any before him. It was theorised, after Andrew Whithers was revealed to have the skill, that it would die out as the bloodline thinned. A hereditary mutation if you will." Jester looked darkly serious, "however, Matthew Ashred Whithers was born of two of the Resonators. Their combined mutations created a strong, dominant gene."
Avenger put his face in his hands, feeling dead tired in mind as well as body. His lover was still haunted by an instinctual reaction that had killed his mother. If someone had been paying more attention, might the little family have been spared that? Might Muse have escaped such a horrible memory?
"This was discovered too late to save the life of Mrs Whithers, and the orphaned Matthew Whithers was returned to England. The military wanted to supervise his upbringing and education, but there was a fierce debate over his future, and in the end he was sent to a privately run orphanage for children with inexplicable abilities." Jester took a sip of tea, looking tired.
"We've known that Whithers always needed keeping an eye on. When he left for America with his band, we lost track of him for years until he surfaced again three years ago." Cirrus looked at her boss, her eyes looked quietly determined. Jester flicked his eyes to hers and then looked back at Avenger, Sally and Jakey.
"This may be Whithers displaying his fierce sense of independence again, he may just have gone on an unexpected detour, but I would rather be safe than sorry on that score." Jester was interrupted by a sound outside and he half turned his chair in time to see a short, stocky man with black hair burst in.
"Ah, Lord Aldershot." Jester stood respectfully. Avenger eyed the short man warily, so this was Muse's brother? He never mentioned his brother being a 'lord'.
"Cut the 'lord' [censored], Jester. You're the dudes from Paragon?" Nathaniel marched over and took a seat next to Cirrus, pulling it back before nodding to the others. He sat down and Jester followed suit soon after.
"Right, let's get right down to the meat of the matter. Matthew's missed a contact window he keeps religiously, that means one of three things, either he's gotten himself rat-arsed and is in a ditch somewhere, sleeping it off, he's dead or he's been kidnapped." Avenger stiffened at the mention of Muse being dead, his fingers tightening on the arm of his chair. Jakey reached over and put a hand over his comfortingly.
"Let's leave option two for now, as if that happened, the police would find him sooner or later, right? Let's concentrate on one and three," said the cat, looking at his screen. "His last letter mentioned a train."
"He was changing lines in London, but was going to spend the night there." Nathaniel motioned to Cirrus who tapped up a map of London, highlighting the station Muse came in at and the station he would leave by.
"We've already confirmed he was seen in a pub called the Dog and Fox. 'Parently the patrons had a right knees-up that night. Landlady said she saw him talkin' to loads o' different people that night an' that he didn't leave until two thirty in the mornin'. It were way after closin' time and she said he didn't seem too drunk. Asked if he needed a cab called, but there were a man waiting for him on the steps." Cirrus's voice was strong, but she avoided meeting Avenger's eyes for some reason, "The landlady said the other man said he'd get him home safely, and it seemed as though they knew each other. She didn't suspect there were anything in his demeanour to suggest foul play."
"But-" Nathaniel started to say, her flattened hand pressing to his fingers stopped him and she carried on.
"But that don't mean anything. Over the last year, there have been operations conducted by a group called the Council-" Sally groaned and leaned back in her seat, Jakey put his ears back and Avenger stiffened a little more. Cirrus paused.
"Take it your dealings with them have been as fun as ours," Jester said quietly, nodding to Cirrus to continue.
"Recently they've been using a kind of serum that if delivered to someone's blood stream, renders them very uninhibited, more friendly and affectionate. Unfortunately, Matthew's never been what you could call inhibited to start with." She coughed again, having the grace to look a little embarrassed. Nathaniel looked grim.
"The serum would have hit him like a sledgehammer. He would have thought everyone in the pub was his best ever friend and would have trusted them. Least, that's what it's supposed to do."
Cirrus nodded.
"If the serum were used, he would have gone willingly with his captor and never even suspected he were being stitched up. That's if the Council have taken him."
"Are they your chief suspects?" Sally asked quietly. Jester nodded.
"The Council know how to deal with heroes, they're one of the few international groups here who do and we suspect they were behind the raid on secure military installations a year ago. Files on the Cosmos research went missing in those raids," Jester looked blackly at the highly polished table-top. Jakey's tail flicked either side.
"Cosmos?" he queried. Jester nodded again.
"It was the name for a project idea they were formulating back in the sixties, revolving around this crystal structure that fell to Earth. There was no practical use for it, despite the military's interest, because there just wasn't enough of the mineral on Earth to make it viable."
"So it was filed away?"
"The observations and research already made have already benefited mankind as much as they are likely too. After all, doesn't everyone know that the elements all vibrate to their own individual frequencies? There were huge advances in computer technology, but Cosmos itself was shut down and packed away and funds diverted to places were an end result could actually be seen." Jester rubbed his chin, regarding the three Paragon heroes. Sally coughed slightly, putting her hand up as though she was a child in class.
"We've heard some rumours in Paragon, our contacts who watch and monitor the Council have mentioned whispers of something called Cosmos. Could it be the same Cosmos and the old research project?" she asked. Jester shrugged.
"Even if the Council were thinking about trying to start their own Cosmos research, they'd first need a sample of the crystalline structure."
"Or something that can mimic its properties?" Jakey asked quietly, voicing the same thoughts Sally was having. They both continued to regard Jester and he nodded slowly. Clearly he had also considered the possibility. Avenger pushed his chair back suddenly, standing straight.
"Then what are we goofing around here for? Let's go find Muse."
"Man after my own heart," Cirrus murmured, her teeth showing up brilliant white when she grinned.

XD oh the humanity

Neat stuff! I want to know more!

teaming with awesome people will make even a day of getting 'Welcome' tattooed onto your back rock.

Great teams win.

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To be fair, the star wars reference (what ever it was) went straight over my head.

I know the scripts of the first three films almost by heart, the next three (much) less so, and a few of the books (only Rogue Squadron really) but the games are a mystery to me, so feel free to nick what you want from them, cause I at least will never know!

[/ QUOTE ]

I like the cut of your gib, sir.

I'm liking this,

hahaha, that's great stuff man

Intriguing

Hey Chill, Statesman's probably like a ship's captain or something, and can marry heroes. Or maybe he's just a polygamist, XD *flees before any tanks can get on his case*