“I hate fighting.  Hate confrontation.  Even this, being here, having just thought I might have to fight you, fight anyone, it makes me feel edgy.  My teeth are chattering and I’m not even cold.”

Aw.

“You faced down Leviathan.  You did better than a lot of people.”

True, but that doesn’t mean she liked it.

“Do you know how long it took me to get my head together?  To actually step up and help?”

“But you did.  You stepped up.  Give yourself credit.  You’re strong.”

I don’t really think this is about ability.

“I want this to be over.  I’m so, so scared that someone’s going to come and try to loot this place and I won’t be able to do anything.”

“You’ve got my card.  I can’t promise I’ll arrive immediately, but I’ll be staying at the Wards headquarters, which isn’t too far.”

“I’ve got your back.”

I like these two.

Parian nodded.  Quietly, she spoke, “That helps a lot.  More than you know.”

“And I can come by on my patrols, if you want.  Check everything is okay, give you an update on what I can do about supplies.”

Yeah, Flechette is totally into Parian. She’s practically coming up with every excuse she can to spend more time with her at this point.

The gorilla lowered his raised fist, reached forward with palm upturned, and Flechette fished in her belt for her cards.  Slightly damp, but readable.  She placed it in the center of a sopping wet hand crafted out of black denim.

What isn’t slightly damp or sopping wet in Brockton Bay right now?

The gorilla’s palm was surprisingly firm.  Hard.  Its shape was a little too humanlike, in comparison to a real gorilla, maybe.  Not that it mattered.

Nice. I guess Parian wouldn’t necessarily have had the chance to study a real gorilla hand.

“Okay,” Parian spoke, as the gorilla handed her the card.  Her voice was a little softer.  “Phone lines are down, but cell phones work around here.”

Sounds like Parian’s becoming more at ease, which is good. 🙂

“You guys need anything here?  I don’t know what the situation is with supplies, just got into the city a few hours ago.  Don’t know how that stuff is being distributed, but I could see about making sure you guys have something.”

Parian sat down cross-legged on the gorilla’s shoulders.  “Yeah.  We’re low on fresh water.  This stuff we’re wading in has too much salt content, and you couldn’t even boil it clean if you wanted to, I don’t think.”

Ironic, isn’t it. All of this trouble is caused by a kaiju bringing in too much water, and the one thing they find themselves lacking is water.

It makes a lot of sense that tap water would be out of order, given Leviathan’s ability to easily fuck up the pipes even without the sinkhole.

“Okay.  Fresh water.”

The doll girl shifted her weight to put the card in the front pocket of her lacy apron, fumbled with it.  Flechette spotted a tremor as the girl put the card away and moved to clasp her hands in her lap.

Nervous? Or maybe sick due to some other deficiency?

She’s shaking.

“Hey?” Flechette asked.

I suppose cold is another option…

“What?”

“Seriously, are you okay?  You holding up?”

Parian turned, looked behind her, as if checking anyone was listening.

I guess she doesn’t want any of the residents she made the deal with to hear her complain/vent.

And I’d almost definitely win, Flechette thought. You may even know that, but you’d fight me anyways.

She certainly seems like the type to.

“Okay,” Flechette replied, trying to sound reassuring, “I won’t step over the line.  I heard you were around here, you’re one of the only recognizable faces for me here, I thought I’d stop by, see how you were doing.”

Yes, good 😀

“Coping,” Parian answered.

“Good, good,” Flechette sheathed her arbalest, hoping the rogue would feel safer.  “Look, I’m here if you need anything.  If people make trouble and you’re not strong enough to protect that neighborhood there, or if you need resources that you couldn’t get otherwise, like names or medical services, call me.  Can I give you my card?”

“I’m a hero.  Member of the Wards.  I’m in town for a little while.”

“Doesn’t matter.  I made a deal.  Me, my friends and my family get a place to stay here, a fair share of the food and water.  In exchange, I keep people from entering.”

Oh, I see. That seems like a reasonable way to survive as a rogue in these circumstances.

“I’m a hero,” Flechette stressed the word.  “I’m not going to cause trouble.”

That word doesn’t always count for as much as it should. Hell, just look at Shadow Stalker.

“I don’t know you’re telling the truth.  Nothing saying you couldn’t be lying.”

“I have ID.”

Parian shook her head.  “It doesn’t matter anyways.”

A deal’s a deal.

Anyway, Flechette, you came here to see Parian. If she won’t let you in, maybe you should ask her to come out? Or just stay where you are.

The frocked rogue climbed up to stand on top of the gorilla’s shoulders.  She added, “I made a deal.  I’m keeping to it.  One hundred percent neutrality.  You trespass, I fight you.”

Fair enough!

“Stay back,” Parian warned.  She peeked out from behind the gorilla.  Her mask, a doll’s face, was smudged, and a crack ran from the corner of one eye to the ear.  She wore a frock, different than the one she had worn for the Leviathan fight, but it was wet, dirty, and some of the lace had torn.  There was a wood chip in the damp golden curls that were otherwise too perfectly coiled to be real hair.

Huh, I like that last detail.

“I’m staying back,” Flechette assured the girl.  “Remember me?”

“Yes.  You talked to me before the fight, pulled me away from that horrible little girl.”

“Yeah,” Flechette smiled, shrugging.  She stepped forward.

Right, Parian was stuck in a conversation with Bambina.

“Back!”  Parian called out.  The Gorilla slammed its knuckles against the ground again, then lurched forward, one fist raising as if to deliver a massive punch.

Flechette obeyed, backing up another two steps, hands raised.  The gorilla’s fist stayed where it was.

Nobody’s harmless at a time like this, and Parian seems rather aware of that herself.

She stepped over the line, and immediately felt a resistance.  It took her a second to figure out what it was – a thread caught the moonlight.

Whoops.

There was a muffled splashing sound, and a twelve-foot tall gorilla leaped from the nearest rooftop to land directly in front of her.  It swung its arms wildly in front of it, missing her, then slammed both knuckles down in the water, crushing one side of the orange striped barrier.  Flechette raised her arbalest to shoot, then stopped.

Well hello there, miss Traveler.

I guess Noelle wasn’t the name of the pseudo-shapeshifter after all, unless Coil’s reinforced door didn’t work out.

Or unless this is an actual zoo gorilla, but I’m pretty sure those don’t get twelve feet tall.

It wasn’t real.  Damp cloth, stitched together.  And it was blind.  It wasn’t acting as though it could see her.

Ohhh. Looks like you found your target!

She dropped the arbalest, backed over the line, and then waited.

Parian arrived at a run, feet splashing in the water.  She spotted Flechette, and the gorilla moved to place itself between the two of them.

Her creations can only see what she sees.  They’re puppets.

That’s a bit of a weakness, but it makes sense. It’s not like she can just weave functional eyes.

Though maybe that wasn’t really obvious given the rest of what her power can do.

The massive sinkhole Leviathan had made was roughly circular, but it was large enough that she couldn’t say for sure when she had turned and started moving more west than north.

Whoops.

Well, as long as you don’t start moving south, you’re on the right track, I guess.

Fresh graffiti stained buildings, some warning people to stay away, others were the crude pictographs of hobo signs.  One neighborhood had used the debris of fallen buildings to form makeshift barricades in alleys and in front of doorways.  There wasn’t much intact housing here – the sinkhole sat to her left, and two blocks to her right, from what she could make out in the moonlight, the buildings were too damaged to serve as living accommodations.

Still, I’m fairly sure some people are going to try to live there.

At one intersection there were two parallel, vertical lines spray painted in yellow on opposite walls.  Traffic cones, some broken, an orange striped barrier and the remains of one yellow raincoat sat in the water, much of it weighed down by rubble.

Are these yellow lines possibly a gang symbol? Merchants, perhaps?

Together, the organized debris formed a brightly colored line joining the marks that had been spray painted on the wall.

Huh.

“Sure.”

Flechette gauged the direction of the ocean, deemed that east, and then headed northwest as Kid Win had suggested.

Told ya the ocean seemed to be to the east, though I do think this is the most explicit confirmation of that so far.

Oh, wait, no, it was explicitly mentioned as “the ocean bordering us to the east” back in 1.2.

She traveled at ground level, wading through the water, to make faster progress.  Nothing to prove, now that she had stopped patrolling with Shadow Stalker.

Life tends to be better when you have nothing to prove.

It didn’t take long to find the ‘lake’ Leviathan had made in the downtown area.  Given that the streets were flooded with water anyways, the crater itself was distinguishable only by the barrier around it, and a dark shadow beneath the water where there was nothing beneath to reflect light.

I guess that’s one good reason to mark it down on maps as a “crater” rather than a “lake” for now – that it’s barely different from the rest of the city.

Hulks of fallen buildings sat in the center of the water.  The orange light of a fire on the top floor of one of the buildings suggested that someone had swum to one of the buildings and was staying there.  Maybe one of the safer places to be.

Heh, yeah, I suppose. Got one hell of a moat, that’s for sure.

The crater was surrounded by orange striped barriers with flashing lights and portable chain link fences that were chained together.   The fencing formed a solid barrier around the hole.

And a fence around the moat, too.

She walked with the fence to her left, which roughly halved the area she had to keep an eye on, in case of approaching trouble.  Her right index finger was just below the trigger of her arbalest, and her left hand clutched a handful of darts.

Sounds reasonable.

“Nobody’s harmless at a time like this, Flechette,” Kid Win replied.

“Right.”  Flechette thought of the middle-aged woman beating her attacker bloody.

…fair point.

“Listen, easiest way to get to that area, you’ll find the lake to the northwest, walk the perimeter of it to reach the north end.  The area she could be staying at should only be a block or two wide.  If she’s even awake.

I wonder if Kid has bothered to try to guess at Flechette’s motivations here.

I’ve got Clockblocker buzzing in, probably to check in for the night and give me the cliff notes on his nightly patrol, so I’m going silent until you need me, k?”

Sounds good.

If Flechette’s intentions are anywhere near what I imagine they might be, she’ll want a little privacy.

“Oh.”  That was random.  What kind of guy knew that much about dolls?

Hehe.

He went on, “She’s a rogue.  Fashion student with the costume and stuffed animals as a gimmick to help her build for a professional reputation and stand out.  Tentative rating of Master-6, but we haven’t really seen her fight, outside of the Leviathan encounter.”

Nothing here we didn’t already know, except the exact classification.

“Student.  So she’ll be near a college?”

“College is gone.  Kaput.  Um, let me see.  Last we heard, she was situated between the spot where the college was and the lake downtown.  If I remember right, there’s going to be a fairly thin strip of places there that are intact enough to live in.  Vista ran into her the other night, but she’s asleep right now and we’re behind on paperwork so…”

Well, at least we know who to ask.

“So you don’t know exactly what happened, and I’d be going in blind.  She’s harmless though?  This Parian?”

Unless you piss her off too much, I suppose. Then you risk being chased by a… lion… huh. Remember my joke about Weld and the Wizard of Oz from the last chapter? We have a lion!

And for another reference, just add Sir Tony and we’re left with needing Parian to make a bear.