He shook his head.

“None at all?”

“Didn’t need to.  Didn’t want to.  Felt better about keeping an eye out for trouble than about sleeping.”

Didn’t need to? Weird.

“Trickster and Ballistic are out there.”

“I know.  I saw them step outside after Rachel came back.”

There’s no way they’d let him keep the lookout after what he’s been through.

I smiled a little.  “Wasn’t so long ago that you were getting on my case for not sleeping enough, mandating that I get a certain number of hours before we moved on the Nine.”

Look, on one hand, in all fairness to Brian, you didn’t.

On the other hand I can absolutely related to the satisfaction of turning the tables on the “Krix go to sleep” crowd.

He didn’t respond, and he didn’t move.  I couldn’t read his expression.  Had I said the wrong thing?  Should I not have mentioned the Nine?

I guess he’s not in the mood for vaguely humoristic nostalgia.

Oh, or what Taylor just said. That works too.

Maybe I should have left them in.  Risking an eye infection was small potatoes compared to fucking up this interaction.

you say that now but

Except I couldn’t put them back in without having to explain why.

Pfft, gotta follow through now!

Why was this so hard?

“You get any sleep?”

Imagine this conversation in a Telltale game.

– “You get any sleep?”

– (Put lens back in)

> (Put lens back in)

[Brian will remember that.]

“Damn it,” I groaned.

He gave me a curious look.  Or at least, that’s what I took it for; I was having a hard time reading his expressions.

“Forgot to take my contacts out.

Ohh.

Well, that’s another thing to add to my list of reasons I don’t want to try contacts. At least when I forget to take my glasses off before I fall asleep, my eyes are fine afterwards.

My eyes are going to be sore for a while, and I don’t have a spare pair of glasses to wear.”

He nodded.

Oh yeah, I suppose she couldn’t go back easily even if there wasn’t a risk of Shatterbird breaking out of Regent’s control. The Shattering would have broken her glasses whether she was wearing them or not.

“Sorry.  So small a problem in the grand scheme of things.”

Ahh, that’s how it’s important. It leads into this observation, which might prompt further discussion between Taylor and Brian.

“You need to be able to see.”

I reached into my utility compartment and got a small case with the spaces for the individual contacts and contact lens solution, then pried my right eye open to pinch the thing out.

“pried my right eye open” is a phrase I would like to not read ever again, thank you.

A few seconds later, my other contact was out, and I was half blind.  The way the shadows fell over Brian’s face, the shadows of his eye sockets made him look like he was wearing sunglasses.

Hah!

I couldn’t see the lines of tension, anger or anxiety.  Whatever it was that’d had him awake, sitting up and staring into space at ten or eleven in the evening.

In my case, it’s Worm that has me sitting up and staring into a computer screen at half past ten in the evening.

(I’m going to end the session soon.)

He shook his head.  “No.”

Wait, what?

Was that somehow a fraction of Taylor’s power?

“No?”

“She wasn’t in my darkness, I’m almost positive.  And my power’s weaker than whatever I’m stealing.  It doesn’t make sense that I was able to form myself as fast as I did.  It wasn’t like she’s described it, either.

Yeah, that’s a good point.

Remember, I worked with her when we were dismantling the ABB.”

I nodded.

“It was more like… a forcefield.  Except not.  A hole in reality, and it took something out of me to feed and shape itself.”

Maybe one of the civilians running around as decoys had a trigger event before the Undertravelers got there?

It’s not Night, is it? No, I think that would just result in Grue himself changing into something slightly monstrous.

I blinked a little in surprise.  If Brian was stealing a share of other people’s powers, then-

I blinked again.  My eyes were itchy.

…alright, so the itchiness is important somehow.

Also, one thought that I forgot to write above because I dismissed it: What if he somehow borrowed the power of a Dandelion?

“So the healing?”

“Othala.  I was so worried she’d escape my darkness before I finished giving you guys regeneration.

Ohhh.

Right, there’s more than one healer in this city.

I couldn’t just use her power on each of you, because it was only lasting a few seconds after I touched you.”

“a fraction of a power.”

“And the regeneration was… Crawler?”

That sounds like it would result in a much more monstrous Brian, unless Crawler’s super fast regeneration counts separately from the power that replaces his parts with stronger ones.

He nodded.  I could see that dark look pass over his face.

Maybe something did change because of that, just not something visible, because the part of the regeneration that would make him monstrous was also just a fraction.

“And then the duplicate you created would have been Genesis.”

…damn, that was honestly the coolest thing he did, so it’d have been neat if it stuck around. Guess we won’t be seeing that again, at least not very often.

I wonder if “circuit” implies that the access to the powers in the darkness is shared with the other people, with all the powers going through everybody in the circuit. I doubt it from what we’ve seen and the fact that that would be a huge double-edge, but it’s worth considering given Brian’s odd choice of words.

“Right.”

“And when it works, I feel… a circuit?  It’s like the darkness comes alive, a cord or wire between me and the people in my darkness, and I can actually see it.

Huh. Some kind of connection? But circuit, cord and wire imply something similar to electricity…

If I focus on it, it gets bright and hot, and I have access to whatever my power’s sapping from them.

Oh fuck, that’s awesome! He can weaken powers and then use them himself! That’s such a good power.

So where did he get the healing from, if that was something he used this ability to copy? Was Panacea within darkness range or something?

A fraction of a power, one power at a time.”

Reasonable limitations. Still awesome.

“Right.”  It was like a shadow had passed over his face.  He stared hard at the shuttered window at the end of the room.

Oops, you reminded him of what got him these abilities.

I sat down,  pulling my knees up in front of me so I could wrap my arms around my legs, and I waited for him to rejoin me.  He’d healed himself, but he hadn’t exactly bounced back.  It wouldn’t be right to expect him to.

Physically or mentally. He’s been through a lot of shit on both sides.

Was this the kind of interaction Tattletale had wanted to avoid, when she’d urged Aisha to go to Brian, instead of me?

Maybe. Or maybe she thought it was more important for him to talk to Aisha right after he had a trigger event involving her.

“I’ve talked to Tattletale about this.  My power’s always had some effect on capes like Shadow Stalker.  Her powers didn’t work as effectively in my darkness.”

Oh yeah, that’s right. I just figured that was a result of how his darkness… wound up… inside her. Huh.

“Velocity struggled, too.  He was slower, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of the increased air resistance or something else.”

That would make sense, but Velocity had his whole quantum-based thing. The power would end up sort of inside him too as he became less physical, wouldn’t it?

“Yeah.  So we think I always had some effect in that department.  That’s stronger now.

Stronger and more frequently applies because the darkness goes through people now.

Affects more powers, according to Tattletale.  She’s making an educated guess that this aspect of my power is going to be more effective on capes with a physical power.”

I suppose that makes sense, given the darkness interacting with their bodies.

There was a pause.  I saw him raise his hand and create a slithering mass of darkness around it.

“Feels different,” he said, “And I can tell where it is, more.  Slower to create, spreads faster.”

Interesting. That’s more of a respec than an upgrade.

“But the other powers?  I counted at least four.”

“One new ability.”

One?

I nodded.  Didn’t want to argue, so I waited.

From the other end of the couch, he raised one hand and pointed it towards my head.  I stayed utterly still as a tendril of darkness snaked through the air, taking its time as it approached.

So is it being a tendril relevant or can he do it with any of his darkness?

I stood up, abruptly, and he jumped to his feet in alarm.  I could see his hands clenched, lines standing out in his neck.

…why’d you do that, Taylor? Did you chicken out re: having the tendril hit your head?

An awkward, tense silence reigned, as we stood facing each other.

I waited until he’d relaxed before I spoke.  “Had a bad time with someone else trying to get into my head, not so long ago.  Um.

Ah, right.

Can we- can we just skip the demonstration?  Or make it more blunt?”

It kind of seems like Taylor has developed some kind of phobia after last chapter. A phobia of things getting into her head, of things done to her body without her permission.

Considering what happened, that reaction on Taylor’s brain’s part is entirely fair.

Gratefully, I approached the couch and sat.  I could see him tense as I jostled the couch.

Too close?

“Are you hurt?”  I asked, stupidly.

I mean he’s gotten the power of healing. If he was still hurt after the mass healing he did last chapter, he’d probably do something about it by now, unless it took a while to recharge.

That is a somewhat reasonable guess at why he tensed if you forget about that development, though.

He shook his head, but he didn’t offer another explanation.

“Can I ask about the new power, or-”

You’re kind of implicitly doing that already.

“Yeah,” he interrupted.

Sweet, let’s get some firsthand deets!