[Can't Opt Out]

Arc F1.10 | Chapter 12: Not How I’d Describe It

Prex took a step towards Xavier. Another. Another.Each step seemed to rattle through the room, loud even through the swish of the nearby sewers, the hiss of air churning flumes through ancient pipes, and the drone of the man’s voice and threats. They were horrific words, and Emilia wanted to push them aside—use [[Blissful Silence]] to hide every utterance from the predator’s mouth beneath the surface of her Censor. It would be easier if she couldn’t hear him throw around words filled with so much cruelty. It would also be so unfair for her to spare herself when Xavier had no way of shielding himself from the horror being pressed between his ears.

There was another word that Emilia's Censor didn’t know, which Prex had been threatening Xavier with when she arrived. By the time she had figured it out what it meant, based on context, she had been bracing herself to surge forward.

—that was what the word translated as, and Emilia couldn’t imagine Xavier having known what the word meant unless it was explained to him. The way the boy’s eyes had flickered whenever the world was uttered… yeah, it was clear that he knew exactly what the word meant. Emilia didn’t know if Prex having been the one to explain it to the kid would make it better or worse.

If Prex had explained it, she was sure it had been explained in the most brutalizing of ways.

If some other adult had explained it to him—had burned the risk of what being assaulted by an adult could mean to his tiny body…

Malcolm’s teenage voice said into her memory, his lips brushing soft against her forehead as he told her the smallest bits of information about the risk her existence as a silverstrain child inherently laid over her.

At the time, she had thought that, of course, she would want to make sure no one else was hurt. She had thought that meant hugs and long talks about what happened. It had been easy to see the mental toll such things had taken on Finn; it was only later that she realized the physical toll assault could leave on a small body. Physically, Finn had recovered fine enough—if such a thing as , were even possible—but that was only because he had gotten care. If he hadn’t escaped and been able to get help…

In the moments before she surged forward, waiting for Prex to be in the perfect position to strike, Emilia tried to shake the thoughts off. Mostly, she wanted to bury herself in Malcolm’s arms and tell him how grateful she was for his love and care. The teenager had taken so much onto himself—had wandered his way through a million careful conversations with her, probably after rehearsing them with Finn because his friend knew what it was like to be touched and hurt and there was no perfect way to talk about such horrible things with a kid, but for her, those talks had been necessary, in a way. Malcolm had done so well, never telling her more than needed, always making sure she felt safe and loved and as though, even with the risk of someone swiping her up, it wasn’t something to take seriously.

Emilia had always taken it seriously, asking the Laprise moms to let her help catch bad people. Never had she felt unsafe, even when using herself as bait; always, she had known she was helping to keep other kids safe.

Now, she was grown and had a little kid to protect. Already he had been hurt, too much explained to him by this piece of shit or some well-meaning adult doing their best to prepare him for a moment like this. Emilia wasn’t going to let him be hurt further.

Emilia surged and Xavier rolled—good boy. While she had assumed he was overwhelmed, his bravery collapsing with the reality that someone else was there to keep him safe, it was easy to see in retrospect that he was a smart little boy.

Xavier moved, and Emilia’s awareness exploded as he did. Her Censor shattered out of her from where it had been tucked in tight, lest Prex feel her there. Now, she filled the room, every nook and cranny of the revolting place filling her mind.

—hopefully not fresh cum, but at this point, Emilia was perfectly aware Xavier had seen and heard and felt far more than was fair.

Within the vision her Censor was granting her of Prex’s face, his back still turned to her, his eyes flew wide. They blinked into the space Xavier had been, and the guy hadn’t been expecting the kid to move, had he? Later, she’d have to ask Xavier if he had been a good, if stoic, little captive for Prex—that would explain the surprise, after all, if Xavier had never moved without permission before, why would the man expect him to now?

Unfortunately, the creep was as skilled as Vtraní had told her he would be. It didn’t matter that she microsparked through the space: the small delay in her ability to microspark, due to her lack of mapping on the aether thanks to needing to keep her Censor and Awareness closed off to the world, meant that he had a millisecond too long to acclimate himself.

The man twisted, giving Emilia her first clear look at his face as he dropped and rolled, Emilia’s main willbrand exploding out of her hand and into its default sword form. It skewered through the spot Prex had just been standing, a breath too late. Had he rolled towards Xavier, she would have caught him in a skill; Prex, either already aware that she had taken control of the aether around the kid or working on instinct to get as far from her goal as possible, rolled in the other direction.

Flipping back onto his feet, he pushed off, shifting further from her, now positioned between him and Xavier, Prex now between them and the door.

For a moment, everything was calm; then, came the explosion of Prex’s energy. It stretched through the room, slithering and momentarily nauseating. Vtraní had warned her it would be like this; still, Emilia hadn’t really known what to expect—or, she had, but she completely disagreed with the descriptions Vtraní had given her! It wasn’t their fault—they had some ability that could negate most core abilities so actually had no idea what Prex or anyone else’s abilities felt like. Instead, Vtraní had given her other people’s explanations of the man’s power.

Most people described it as similar to a lavender code’s aether takeover, but Emilia would never have described it like that. While she didn’t have the most experience with lavender codes, she had fought a few who worked for the gorankai in Dion. They weren’t exactly the sort of opponents one wanted to train against more than a handful of times, lest they tempt death too much. Emilia still knew what a lavender code’s abilities felt like, and while there was a bit of similarity between Prex’s and the overwhelm of a coding lavender code… it wasn’t more than a passing resemblance. It was so slight that, had Vtraní not put the similarity into her head, Emilia might not have thought it herself.

The press of Prex’s energy through the whole of the world was similar to that of a lavender code, although the latter used a mixture of their cores and aetherstores. Beyond that, Prex's abilities were entirely different. Lavender codes took over the aether so entirely that few people could manage to get their own core abilities or skills to properly hook into the aether, resulting in willbrands being the only consistently effective weapon against them. From what Vtraní had said, while Prex's abilities could interfere with the use of abilities—and potentially skills as well—it was in no way as overwhelming as a lavender code’s takeover. Instead, the main issue with fighting Prex was that he had some sort of Awareness-related ability, resulting in him having a powerful but exhausting recon ability. This meant sneaking up on him was difficult, as was using any sort of skill or ability without him noticing long before it fully deployed, allowing him that extra bit of time to defend himself.

This had immediately reminded her of her brother, whose Dyadism included Excess Awareness. That over-awareness of the world wore on him, leading to feel like too much. So, she had coded functions to lessen that strain when he used his abilities as well as functions to pull his awareness smaller when he didn’t actually need to use it… which he basically never needed to use, even if she knew Atticus felt a bit safer when his abilities were left to swim through the world. The strain wasn’t worth that dollop more of safety; as much as their father had occasionally been targeted by assassins both foreign and domestic, with the Laprise moms for neighbours, basically no one had ever been stupid enough to target them at their home.

Ironically, the one time their home had been targeted, they’d all been on vacation in Seer’ik’tine. It hadn’t even been a last-minute vacation, the result of some attempt by her father to get them out of the house in as subtle a way as possible after learning about a plot against him; instead, it had been Meer’ik’za’s birthday, and they were always invited and usually attended. As far as she knew, no one had actually known the attack was coming until Rafe, struggling to sleep, had glanced out his window and seen people breaking into their house.

By the time they returned home, the mess that had been made by the criminals and the Laprise brothers’ destruction of them had been cleaned up, the group turning out to be Baalphorian purists, intent to make it look like Grey Sander separatists had killed them. Considering Emilia was friendly with one of the main branches of Grey Sander separatists, this would have immediately raised questions by those who knew about her connection to the group—most governments knew, including Baalphoria’s.

Regardless, this all meant that she knew what it felt like to be entirely surrounded by someone’s Awareness—she had grown up surrounded by her brother’s mind, stretched to the brink, after all. Maybe it was simply because she had grown up with it—and really, she would have to ask Atticus if he’d been open to testing out other people’s perspectives on his now rarely felt abilities, although as all of her childhood friends had also been subjected to his uncontrolled abilities, she’d have to recruit other people to use as test subjects—but Prex’s powers just… were.

Aside from that initial second of nausea as his abilities settled over her, mostly, they were just a bit itchy—a bit soupy, maybe? It felt as though his mind and energy snapping onto the aether had made it a bit slower, like a computer system that someone was drawing too many resources from. It wasn’t so much that the aether still didn’t respond to her, just as Atticus’ abilities had never been anything but a blanket through the world, covering every molecule, even those buried deep within objects.

Oddly, Emilia didn’t think Prex’s abilities so expansive—a different expression of his Dyadism, or perhaps a different variety, or some other irregular deviation all together? It was impossible to tell, Vtraní only having rumours that the fucker was a Dyad to work with.

Mostly, as Emilia shifted, taking a note from Xavier’s book and pulling up decades worth of experience altering her personality for the Inner Court and forcing a vibration of fear through her body—but to let Prex think her a bit put off by his abilities—she wondered if this was the extent of his abilities or not. Currently, she wasn’t impressed, but that wasn’t uncommon.

Student of the Blood Rain General and the clones; someone who had been allowed to train with criminals and terrorists; a non-dev; a child of chaos; a silverstrain, considered blessed by the aether itself in some places: Emilia was so many things. The result? Her perspective was skewed.

Prex could be impressive to someone who was none of these things—could be terrifying to someone who hadn’t grown up surrounded by the Awareness of someone far more powerful than he seemed to be.

Prex could also be faking the weakness of his abilities. The only thing she knew for sure was that, more than likely, the bit Vtraní had told her about the fucker’s abilities taking a toll on his mind and body were correct: this man couldn’t sustain his abilities forever, if he could, he wouldn’t have completely let them fall away while ranting to Xavier. Only an idiot pulled their Awareness entirely into themself unless ever drop of it wore on them, no matter how slight.

This had worked for her, as he hadn’t noticed her coming until it was almost too late. It also meant that, if it turned out he was hiding yet more of his power, and he actually turned out to be a nuisance to fight, all she had to do was last longer or sneak a skill through his Awareness.

This was why she’d sucked it up and summoned a shit ton of food and drugs from the aether a little while ago: so she’d have all the energy she would need if this situation turned for the worst. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need all that energy. Emilia knew where hope got people: nowhere but complacent, and eventually, dead.