Et Stellae Cadent - Season 1, "Solar Flare"

5-10-4786
17:08 Universal Standard Time (UST)
Xihga, Ilverth [Et Stellae Cadent]

After the week she’s had, there’s no doubt about it. Especially looking at her desk here and now, at the towering pile that threatens to crash down and bring her current state of composure right along with it.

Ursina is being haunted by paperwork.

Nothing else explains it. Something about the way she couldn’t go off with the others a week ago to see what could be done about the situation with John Doe and Arcadian has resulted in herself winding up cursed by some kind of angry paperwork ghost. Every day she’s attacked Mt. Paperwork with fervor and determination. Her desk had been clear before she left last night. Clear. Clean. A final freedom from Mt. Paperwork at last. There hadn’t even been a single sticky note left for her to address today. There hadn’t been anything before lunch either, she’s been keeping up all day!

Now there are mountains. Great, towering mountains that sway ominously in the slight breeze from the air conditioner. There’s exactly enough space for her to sit at, and not a single inch of space more. It’s a good thing she’s not claustrophobic. The precision would have been impressive… if not for the fact that it makes her stare at the full on mountain range in something bordering on despair. Sighing, Ursina steps around her desk and sits down in her chair. Based on the… very nature of some of the paperwork piles that she can see, the ones who probably need to be handled the fastest are most likely the ones at the very bottom of them all.

“I’ll be doing paperwork in my nightmares.” Ursina mutters to herself. Still, she has a system for handling mountains of paperwork like this, and therefore she will not be conquered by it all. She will reign victorious. …It’s just going to be excessively tedious and something of a headache is all.

It takes hours to topple the mountains.

A lot of it is because it turns out many of them are redundant, and some of the redundant paperwork doesn’t track as redundant until she’s already part of the way through doing them a second, third, fourth, ninth time. Clever, she supposes. If someone’s intention was to waste her time. Annoying, to be sure – but clever. The question is why?

Ursina sorts back through the paperwork that she’s set aside, taking notes of which ones are redundant and by how many of them. Any difference in the papers versus each other and the way she knows many of them should be. There’s a lot of data in there when she starts looking at things that way – and Ursina finds herself arching one eyebrow as she collects and investigates the data. Already, she can see a pattern beginning to form.

A message, hidden in a mountain of paperwork.

…More clever than she’d thought previously. No one would cross streams and do her paperwork for her, so the method of delivering the message is pretty secure – and very few, if they did meddle in her paperwork, would then pick it apart like this under the belief that there was something worth looking to beyond likely printer errors. That’s… okay. Ursina has to offer props to whoever left the message. That’s pretty impressive, and implies a worrying amount of information they have on her.

…Which only makes it even more important to fully translate this message and be certain in what it means. If the leaver of the message is hostile, then Ursina has to know sooner rather than later and then work with that – which means time is of the essence. At first she expects that it’ll be even further disguised – maybe scrambled, maybe it’s some kind of cipher, maybe— but it’s not, actually.

So it takes a lot less time to double and triple check that she’s reading the message correctly than it did to find the message at all. That, in of itself, feels gently… intentional, perhaps. Like the leaver of the message knew well enough that finding the message would take time, and wanted to save time insofar as making sure that Ursina had time to check it. It’s close to clock out time, too, and even that feels… intentional. More implications for a really worrying amount of data collected on herself. And the message itself catches her off guard.

‘Atoll compromised. John Doe missing. Arcadian escaped. Do not go home after work today. Go to the Zer0 on the corner of 15th street and tell the bartender you’re in search of honey.’

…Ominous.

No, ominous isn’t really the right word here. Terrifying? She knows who all went out there in order to handle John Doe and Arcadian. And… and she hasn’t heard from any of them since that day either. She’d assumed they were all buried in their own Mt. Paperworks after the sheer amount of stuff they had to do in order to make that happen, but what if…

What if that’s not the case and Atoll has been hiding things from them again? It wouldn’t be the first time – the official line from Atoll has been that Liskov is dead, though Ursina knows better and she knows that many of the higher ups of Atoll also know better. But the official line hasn’t changed, and if that is how things go for even the likes of Liskov… and Atoll has never really liked admitting to any kind of mishap or mistake either, which… Ursina frowns at the ominous message. Whoever sent it is either bluffing or knows entirely too much, and Ursina isn’t sure which is worse.

Only one thing for it then.

She starts shredding the leftover papers, the dupes. Carriers of the message. She does it in typical Atoll fashion – shuffling the papers so that matching ones don’t go in anywhere near each other. And if that happens to make it even more secure than it would be otherwise, well, Ursina is pretty sure that she’s not going to complain at all. After all – Atoll paperwork has always been secretive, and even more so now than it has been in the past.

…Atoll compromised? That’s the sort of thing that nightmares are made up of, Ursina decides, as she finishes shredding the papers and gets to her feet, carefully grabbing the pile of paperwork that’s genuine. Odds are good that when she hands over this mt paperwork – the higher ups are going to see it as a reason to give her paperwork like this again in the future. But if the mystery message sender is telling the truth – then Ursina really doesn’t have to worry about that at all… because she’s not going to stay here with Atoll if they’re really compromised. For all that it sounds like the kind of taunt a Villain might make, it explains a scary amount of happenings that have been bothering Ursina as of late. If Atoll really is compromised, then those events all suddenly make a nauseating amount of sense.

And of course, with John Doe missing – that would be why no one has heard anything about how things went the other night. As for Arcadian’s escape… that’s to be expected, really. Of course he managed to get away. That draconic bastard is a slippery little worm, so him getting away makes sense.

Still… Ursina is worried. There’s no signature or any kind of way for her to know offhand who sent it. Clearly someone who has access to her office, but that can be just as much of a bad thing as a good thing. All she can do is follow the advice and hope that she’s not walking into some kind of trap or something else. And what will she do if she is?

Something to muse about while she turns in the filled out paperwork and goes through the entire process of clocking out – a process that takes nearly twenty minutes on a good day. Today is a good day at least, which means Ursina can trust in the routine and go through potential plans for just in case it does turn out that there’s some kind of trap about all of this. Better to be prepared, after all.

If nothing else, Zer0 is well known for its strict neutrality. If this is a trap then whoever set it won’t be able to do anything once she’s in Zer0, so they’ll probably strike either while she’s on the way or as she’s leaving. Neither of those are a particularly comfortable idea – but it at least narrows down the kind of preparations she needs to do. Waving a goodbye to the secretary in charge of the clock out procedure as soon as it’s done, Ursina heads off.

…And if she notices on the way out that said secretary is immediately making a call and Ursina feels a little hunted… well, she’ll chalk it up to paranoia.

At least for now.

—

Nothing happens on the way over, and Ursina isn’t entirely certain if she’s relieved or even more on edge. She takes a circuitous route just in case, and has her attention locked on everything, just in case… and nothing happens.

Zer0 itself is… crowded.

Maybe that’s not entirely unexpected, given the fact that it’s a neutral zone and the whole city currently feels like an exposed wire. Ursina certainly felt that while she was traveling, and she wonders what it says that the Atoll building is insulated from the feeling but nowhere else is. Nothing good, she’s sure. Folks are crowded, almost packed together, and she’s aware of multiple sets of eyes on her as she approaches the bar. That’s… expected too, based on her interactions in Zer0s before. After all – as a neutral zone, there are most certainly Villains in here, and it’s not like Ursina is a particularly quiet type of Hero.

She has to dig out the paper she scrawled the phrase on as the bartender comes up to her. “Uh… I’m… looking for some honey?” uncertainty leaks into her words, into her body language. Ursina swallows.

The bartender is canine, almost quadrupedal – and the wheels of a wheelchair make soft little noises as the bartender trots up to her. “Oh! You must be Ursina then. You see that table over there?” She points with her nose towards a booth. “Your contact is waiting for you there honey. You want anything to drink? He’s already paid for whatever you want.”

Ursina blinks, but at a glance she can’t see who is sitting at the booth. From here, it looks empty, and Ursina swallows at the realization that the contact in question must have literally paid for the privacy curtain spell. …Lovely. Still, Zer0 is safe. “Do you happen to have unsweetened tea and… honey?” Her cheeks warm, even as she shuffles from paw to paw. Her braid sways back and forth as she does so. “I like to sweeten my tea with honey.”

“Sure do, hun.” the bartender’s tail wags. “It’ll be right on over for you, so go on ahead and get seated and it’ll come your way.”

Nodding a little shakily, Ursina muses on the fear that’s gnawing at her. The privacy curtain spell eliminates pretty much all of the Hero possibilities from the pool of who could be here.

Nothing for it but to charge forward and deal with it as it comes along.

At first glance, as she steps into the privacy spell… it looks like Arcadian. Except… not. He’s more physically imposing, more of a visibly dangerous presence than Arcadian has ever had himself. Ursina has been in the presence of Arcadian before – he only seems dangerous when you already know about him. When you’ve heard of him and what he’s capable of. Until then, he doesn’t seem that dangerous.

His son, on the other hand.

Golden scales instead of white. Golden eyes to match. Scars – Arcadian lacks them entirely, while they’re fairly prominent on the man sitting at the booth. A trio of tails drape under the table, out of the walkway. Those golden eyes flick up to Ursina as she enters the area of the spell, molten pools of glimmering metal watching her every movement.

Brontide.

Brontide is dangerous. Not in the same way as Arcadian, like the public was convinced he’d turn out to be like. No, the man is dangerous in a way all his own – in a way that’s worse than a Villain, who can at least be expected to behave in certain ways. Brontide is a Vigilante, and one with connections. He fought for the right to be taught as a member of Atoll despite the identity of his father – made them all see that he was his own person… and then abandoned the organization. No one knows what side he’s on – and the way he watches Ursina as she slips into the booth is disconcerting.

She’s so used to being the bigger animal in the ring – bears are large, and intimidating in their own right. But dragons are… well, dragons are bigger.

“So. You sent me a message.” Ursina starts, refusing to bat around the bush. “How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick?”

A scarred eyebrow arches, then Brontide leans forward, rests his elbow on the table. “Do you have cameras attached to your house? If so, can you access the feed from here?”

Blinking, Ursina presses her right thumb to her left wrist and pulls up a display window. It’s opaque, so she doesn’t worry too much about the chance that he might see. The fact that Brontide had to ask implies that he didn’t know the answer for certain, which is a little… relieving, if she has to be entirely honest with herself.

Alerts fill the screen as soon as the footage has finished loading. Her home is being raided.

By folks in Atoll garb. By folks she recognizes from the building she left less than an hour ago.

Ursina makes a low, wounded noise as all of the air rushes out of her.

“You’re part of the really slim list of heroes I respect.” Brontide rumbles, his voice like distant thunder. “I caught wind of this and had to step in. They want to pin you for letting Arcadian get away, and they want to claim you were paid off by John Doe.” those molten eyes shift away from Ursina for a moment as he picks up a folder from the seat beside him. He hesitates on sliding it over – watching the spot where – ah! There’s Ursina’s tea and a little container of honey. Once that’s settled, Brontide offers the folder. “I’m sure you could have handled it on your own, but I had favors I needed to burn in your office and you’re on that list. So why not leave you and a few others warnings while I was at it?”

“And a few others?” Ursina echoes, tearing her gaze away from the screen and reaching for her tea and the honey. This… this kind of thing is why she has so much trouble with Vigilantes. Is he doing this because he genuinely respects her as he says, or is there some kind of game to it? Some kind of angle he has and is working?

Brontide shrugs one shoulder. “And a few others.” he repeats, a confirmation and… likely a hint that he’s not willing to talk about what others he means at al.

“And you’re doing this out of the good of your heart?” Ursina bares her teeth at him, standing up. She’s annoyed when Brontide just blinks at her. “Well! Why! Why are you doing this?!”

“I wanted to.” Brontide says, shrugging. “I arranged for you and the other super suspicious types to meet myself and a few others here so we could get it explained. You’re the most suspicious of the lot, so you got me.” A beat, a hum. “I have a space for you to live in for a while, away from your Atoll given home if you want it. Unless you want to take your chances with the bugs in that apartment.” A clawed hand waves at her.

Ursina scowls at him.

“You want an oath that I’m not doing this to hold it over your head?” Brontide asks. “Because I will give you my oath if it makes you feel any better.” He frowns. “I just refuse to let Atoll fuck over whoever they please.”

“You help Villains.” Ursina whispers the words.

“And you worked with Gwen.” Brontide returns. “And who else do you think gets fucked over by this system? Do you have any idea how many of my contacts were bent over without lube by this fucking system? You wanna get bent over next, that’s on you. I don’t care what folks get labelled. If you want to stay in your safe little box where everything supposedly makes sense, then leave this booth and go back home Ursina.” His temper is legendary… but currently leashed. Little bolts of lightning jitter off of his form and his jaw clenches so tightly that it looks like he’s swallowing a number of words that he’s just not going to say.

Ursina swallows, breathing. He did take the time and chance to warn her. Despite not knowing her personally. “…Give me that oath.” Ursina says, expecting him to refuse.

Instead, Brontide stands up and sweeps into a bow, not breaking eye contact. “You have my oath Ursina, that my actions are not meant to – and will not be used to – be held over you, or force you to owe me. In addition, you have my oath on my heart-scales that I do this for no reason other than my own sense of right and wrong.”

Well. Shit. He was serious. Is serious.

“Sorry.” Ursina mutters. “Thank you. I… let me test my home with the bugs for a little while at least. I have things that I’ll want back from there anyway.”

“Then you’ll want to organize with Nitrowave.” Brontide says. “He can work with you to figure out how to make this as easy as possible on you. Should I send him here to meet you?”

Ursina nods, words locked in her throat as she looks back down at the feed of the raid on her house. She… she trusted most of those people. Many of them told her to have a good day today – did they already know?

“By the way,” Brontide speaks up, voice soft. “My name is Gauvainaux.” and then he’s stepping out of the privacy curtain spell before she can react to the vulnerability of that knowledge, and he melts into the crowd beyond it.

Well… fuck.

Looks like change is on the menu, and it’s already been ordered. Ursina can only hope she’ll like how it tastes.