If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Apr 18, 2021 18:04:20 GMT
Post by Will Chase on Apr 18, 2021 18:04:20 GMT
| Kiran’s desperate need for control was probably going to get both of them killed. Will was smart enough to recognise that.
Not smart enough to run for the hills as he probably should have, but smart enough to work out what it was that was going to end up with both of them in prison for the rest of their natural lives.
Then again, Will had never let common sense and the threat of serious danger prevent him from doing the right thing, even at the cost of life, limb, and the ability to sleep peacefully. If he’d had that level of good judgement, he would have lived a very different life. He might’ve done law instead of criminal justice, like his professor had told him to, and even now be living the high life as a high powered lawyer. He certainly wouldn’t have wasted 4 extra years on a PhD in Law Enforcement only to go to Police Academy.
He’d probably have turned a blind eye, and even now be stuck in a job he had grown to hate, surrounded by men and women whose cowardice he despised.
No. He could never have been that man.
Will was a man who could never let something go. Could never turn a blind eye, could never leave it alone. It had cost him a great deal, and would likely cost him more before the end.
But he wouldn’t change that for the world.
And after all, it wasn’t like he could stop now. He was in too deep, he’d made too many promises, both to Kiran and to himself. If she was the captain of her fate, then he’d be there to go down with the ship.
Of course, that would likely mean he’d have to start explaining the concept of consequences for her actions to Kiran, which did not look to be too promising a topic. Will was determined to keep her out of prison, and pretty confident in his chances of doing so as well, but completely consequence free was another matter entirely. It would just be a matter of framing it as so.
Still, that was a conversation for another time.
“In a city like this there’s a camera on every street corner, CCTV in every building. Just getting here we walked past hundreds of people, and while most of them either won’t have noticed us or else will have forgotten us within the hour, there’ll be a handful who’ll remember. The SFPD can be slow, but there are still some decent detectives on the force, and if one of them gets the case it won’t take them long to track us here. Especially if it’s someone who knew me before - this wouldn’t exactly be the first time I’ve gotten myself caught up in something I shouldn’t have, and there are more than a few who know both that I have an office here, and that I’m just the kind of person to take you in, willingly or otherwise.”
Will knew he’d taken on something of a lecturing tone, and he also knew it wasn’t the best idea. But he was making it a point to be straight with Kiran; if any of this was going to work, she had to believe him when he told her things, and the best way to do that was to be clear in his thought processes.
“I need to make some calls to find out who has the case. I still have friends, and favours to call in. If it’s someone I know, I can get them to hang back for a while, give us time to work out a proper plan for handling this. If we’re constantly moving around to stay ahead of them, it’s more likely that we’ll end up doing something stupid and getting ourselves caught before we have the chance to frame you in a positive light.”
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 654 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Post by Will Chase on Feb 1, 2021 22:08:35 GMT
| Quid pro quo. Push and pull. Give a little, and be given a little in return. Will was thankful that this was something Kiran already knew. Had he been a less… observant man he might have suspected otherwise, considering how she’d treated him thus far, and given what he knew of the people she’d encountered before. But he wasn’t. Will knew that Kiran was better than she had otherwise demonstrated. He knew it. At least, he hoped he did, and in some tiny part of his soul begged that it would hold true through whatever might come.
He caught the key in one hand, considered it for one second, then tossed it aside to land with a clatter on the table.
“You could call it a trade,” he said, nodding. That was certainly one way of seeing the world. The trade might not always be in goods or in services, but some people would never believe in true selflessness. The return might be ephemeral, but even Alice could be said to trade in pride. A mercantile way to look at the world, and a cynical one, but not one Will was unfamiliar with.
Had he not had the power he did, he might have subscribed to it himself. But there were good people out there. He’d seen them; it was the reason he was still capable of hope.
He ran a hand over his forehead and thought. “Now, I need to make some phone calls. I said I would help you, and I will, which means I’m going to need to talk to some people with greater reach than me. I still have a few friends in the SFPD, I can talk to them and get the police off your trail for a little while, or at least slow them down long enough for us to put your case together. I have contacts with the Hero Program too, and a few lawyers who owe me favours for services rendered.”
Will looked at her seriously. “This isn’t going to be easy or quick Kiran, but we can make this better. I promise you.”
Will had never been the best at keeping promises. He’d promised his mom he’d stay out of trouble, and that had never lasted long. But this was one he intended to stick by, come hell or high water.
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 396 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Post by Will Chase on Jun 9, 2020 15:02:23 GMT
| Hope is a powerful thing. Hope can help people to withstand unimaginable horrors. Hope is the spark that lights the darkness. Hope is why people keep fighting. Hope is daring to dream of something better.
Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can deceive, can make a person think that there is something better. Can make one believe in the best of people who mean them harm.
Will hadn’t felt hope in a long time. Not pure hope. The tiny flame, battered and beset on all sides, that refused to go out. He felt it now, if only second hand. It was a little staggering. A little humbling. A lot terrifying. Kiran was balanced on a knife edge, and he’d just held out his arm. Previously, she’d stayed upright mostly by sheer stubbornness, kept from slipping mostly by an ironclad denial of the truth of her actions.
Now, he was supporting her. If she so much as thought he had betrayed her, even for an instant, that would come crumbling down, and he doubted her earlier denial would return. No. For better or worse, he had just tied Kiran’s recovery to his own actions. Considering that Will was a cynic of the highest order, whose lack of faith in the world was matched only by his lack of faith in himself, that was probably a bad idea. Scratch that, it was definitely a bad idea.
Still, the deed was done. He’d just have to hope.
He smiled at Kiran. “I hate sharing rooms too. Always have. I’ve never needed much space, but I hate sharing what space I do have. My mom tells me it’s the reason I’m still single.”
He kept the smile, even as she threatened grievous bodily harm. “I am at your mercy.” He tugged lightly at the chain still wrapped around his ankle. “Speaking of, I hope it’s not too much to ask for you to let me stretch my legs a bit. I think better when I can pace.”
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 339 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Mar 17, 2020 15:56:06 GMT
Post by Will Chase on Mar 17, 2020 15:56:06 GMT
| The sudden shift in Kiran’s personality almost caught Will completely off guard. Oh, he had seen the mental signs, and was well aware of how fragile she was, but the sudden change to her behaviour was still surprising. To go from standoffish and proud to a seemingly meek suppliant, asking for help and advice from someone whom she had refused to listen to earlier.
The mental shift, while something he had been slightly more prepared for, was altogether more concerning, and Will felt a swell of anger in his chest at what had been done to Kiran. To destroy a child as she had been; if he ever met the man who’d done it Will wasn’t sure he’d be able to resist the temptation to return the favour, force him to feel what Kiran had felt in the aftermath of that nightmare. But anger, no matter how righteous, would be of no help to him now.
He took a breath, paused for a moment, and spoke.
“First, I’m going to need my phone. I have some people I can talk to who can help us.” He paused again, contemplating. Dom would probably be the best choice - Will had never really moved in high society, and had little personal experience with lawyers beyond the standard police encounters, but Dom was an ex-CEO and highly influential in the Hero Program. If the man didn’t have multiple famous lawyers on speed dial Will would be surprised.
“There’s something you have to understand. You can’t run from this. If you try, even with my help it’ll only end badly. Either you’ll be caught, and imprisoned, or you’ll be found by someone unsavoury and pressured into criminal activities. Either way, you’ll never achieve your dream.”
“You want to be a hero, and to do that we need to work through the system.” She didn’t of course, not necessarily, and Will was acutely aware of his own hypocrisy in insisting on it. He hadn’t joined the Program himself after all, and yet had been operating in at least a somewhat heroic manner for the past few years. However, while Will had little enough trust in himself, he had even less faith that Kiran would be able to avoid the temptation of using her power irresponsibly when she had already become used to doing so.
No, she needed to be in a position where there was an overseer, someone or something watching over her to make sure she didn’t fall back on old habits.
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 421 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Post by Will Chase on Jan 9, 2020 17:10:39 GMT
| Will knew he’d miscalculated even as he finished speaking. He kept expecting an adult’s maturity out of Kiran, but hers was an altogether more fragile thing. She was cynical yes, but as much as it could often seem otherwise, cynicism and maturity were not the same thing. Where a wiser person would likely have seen through Will’s obfuscation and worked out that he knew quite a bit more than he was letting on, Kiran took his words at face value and so felt betrayed.
It was a balancing act, a tightrope that he had to walk, and right now it was swinging in the wind, threatening to throw him off. Every step could go wrong in a thousand different ways, and he couldn’t hope to predict the right moves without going far further than he was willing to, without invading the mind of a child who already had plenty of reasons to fear powerful adults.
She stomped into the other room and called it storming, though Will felt a twinge of amusement at her own realisation of how pointless that was in an apartment of less than 700 square feet. Not that it was much help with the near crushing weight of repressed anger, frustration, sympathy and fear, but it was at least there.
He needed to give her, and himself, time. Time for her to cool down, and for him to gather his thoughts and plan. Considering that every plan he’d had so far had blown up in his face, he’d need a lot more time than he probably had, but even a little was better than nothing, considering he’d been thinking on his feet for the past few hours, and hadn’t even slept the past 2 nights.
It was that exhaustion, a bone deep tiredness that had been setting in for a while but which he was only just allowing himself to become conscious of, that prevented him from realising what Kiran was about to see. When she did in fact see it, the spike of panic that shot through her jump started his brain like an adrenaline rush, one of the many side effects of being deeply invested in another person’s psyche.
This was bad. Well, no, this was actually kinda good for him. It was just very, very bad for Kiran. Apocalyptically bad.
Not that it wasn’t something Will had seen coming. He hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, but with how she’d been rampaging through people’s lives it was eventually going to catch up with her. Hell, it probably already had in other places which just hadn’t had enough to go on to track her down. But this was San Francisco. It was Will’s home turf, and he knew just how much CCTV and other security measures there were in every goddamn building.
She shouldn’t have humiliated her last victim like that. She’d put him in a position where he either told the truth about her, or else went to jail as a paedophile. Of course he’d told everyone.
Will needed to run damage control, and fast.
“Kiran, Kiran, you have to listen to me.” He looked her in the eyes, though he didn’t dare get closer. With how she was panicking, he couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t latch on and drain him dry. “Kiran, I can still help you. I still want to help you.”
His voice softened and turned placating, almost pleading.
“I know you’re not a bad person Kiran, I know that you want to be a hero.” He pointed a hand at the TV. “But they don’t know what you want to do. They only know what you’ve already done. You hurt that man, and others, but that doesn’t have to be the end of your story. That doesn’t have to be all you’re remembered for. You want to be like Paladin remember? You want to be a hero.”
He took a risk, and held out his hand. “Silencer and Paladin, the heroes of San Francisco. This doesn’t have to be the end of that dream. I can help you Kiran. You just have to let me try.”
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 698 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Dec 14, 2019 21:14:16 GMT
Post by Will Chase on Dec 14, 2019 21:14:16 GMT
| Kiran’s reaction was not unexpected. The girl was unstable at best, and quite a few things had happened in the day to shake her already fragile self-control. That it was unsurprising did not, unfortunately, make it any less concerning. Will had known going in that Kiran was damaged, but the fundamental mental rejection of the very idea that someone might care for her, might want to help her. Here, Will’s own level of experience was a hindrance, rather than a benefit as it normally was; even as a detective, he’d almost never worked on cases of child abuse, which meant he had almost nothing to draw from.
Not for the first time since this had started, he wondered if he hadn’t made the wrong decision. Sure, Kiran was volatile and potentially dangerous, but the girl needed serious help, of the kind that he wasn’t equipped to provide; for all his power, his knowledge and his intelligence, Will was no therapist. Any honest analysis would mark him as one who needed therapy, and it was only his prodigious talent at self-denial that had kept him from seeking it.
It was a little late for that, however. If he’d turned her in right at the beginning, it might’ve worked, but doing anything of the sort now would prove her misanthropic view right, and shatter any hope of her recovering.
Will’s focus had drifted, and his grasp on Kiran’s thoughts with it, so it came as a surprise when he heard the whine of the drill; a glimpse of her plan had Will very much tempted to reconsider his current course of action, but unfortunately his prior conclusion stood. He was too far gone at this point, he had to see this through to the end.
This, of course, meant that when she took hold of him and he lost control of his body he didn’t panic. He grew nervous of course, but he kept a tight grasp on that and refused to release his control.
The chains were excessive, certainly. Entirely unnecessary to be honest, considering that Will had already decided he would not be resisting Kiran’s plans, at least not in such a way that it would risk angering her and shattering what little progress he’d made unless she truly went too far. It also opened up the risk of Kiran falling into the habit of viewing him as lesser, much as she’d viewed many of her previous victims as worthless and unimportant. He needed her to stay interested, lest she move on and abandon him to face similar humiliation.
The sight of his phone in her hand filled him with self-loathing. He had misjudged Kiran already on the matter of Paladin, Alice, and he knew he would have to go further if he wanted this to end well. At the same time, everything he told Kiran put Alice in greater danger - should Kiran convince herself to approach Alice as she was now, it would almost certainly end poorly, and facing anger or disgust from Paladin would destroy what little self-control Kiran had managed to scrape together.
What could he tell her? Certainly not the rest of the survivors - he’d already given out Alice’s first name, and had no doubt that Kiran would do her best to memorise the phone number, if she hadn’t already managed it. So names were out, but events?
“It was just before the Event. There was a major car crash just outside of the city, a lot of people were killed. Some of us survived though, we were saved by a very talented Doctor,” Will didn’t intend it, but there was a level of pointed emphasis on the last word. The Doctor had shattered Will’s world, the whole world in fact. She deserved the emphasis.
“There were several of us who got powers after that, and Alice was one of them. We helped each other learn more, at least until the Event happened. We mostly lost contact at that point, and she went on to become the Paladin you know.”
It was deliberately vague, but he couldn’t afford to reveal much. While Mason was gone, rest his soul, and Persephone was off doing god knows what, he knew for certain that Dom, Alice and Claire all had lives of their own, and he would not destroy those. Not if he could help it.
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 731 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Oct 27, 2019 21:56:31 GMT
Post by Will Chase on Oct 27, 2019 21:56:31 GMT
| That Kiran had released her control over him made Will much more confident, though that confidence was of course tempered by her presence in his home. It was, after all, a double violation, of both his home and his body. Though he disliked doing so, Will returned those violations with one altogether more horrifying to most, that of her mind; with her released control, his power came roaring back and he slipped into Kiran’s mind.
It was tempting, as it always was, to go further. To delve deeply into the mind of this criminal, this person who had ruined so many lives, and to tweak them. Just a little. Will was no mind controller, he could not change who a person was on a whim, but even the smallest of suggestions could have far reaching consequences. He stopped himself, iron-clad discipline freezing the idea in its tracks. He would never step over that line.
As deep in Kiran’s consciousness as he was, her question was one he had already seen coming quite a while before she asked it. That didn’t, however, make it any less surprising. Will had been viewing Kiran as entirely impulsive, with little or no regard for the potential negative consequences of her actions; her sudden concern for what he might be able to do was out of character considering what he’d seen so far, though perhaps not so much when taking into account what had happened to her before. Still, even with his foreknowledge, it took him some time to think about what she’d said.
Did he hate Kiran? He was certainly angry at her, frustrated by her, perhaps even scared of her. She had a great deal of power, with none of the self control he would want. She was impulsive, unpredictable, and even cruel - he’d seen enough of her previous victims to be certain of that.
But she was also a young girl, scared and alone. A child who’d been let down by everyone, who’d never had anyone to depend on. A victim herself, as much as a perpetrator. Someone who’d had their control ripped away from them, and had spent their life since desperately trying to reclaim it.
He couldn’t hate her.
“No Kiran, I don’t hate you. I hate what you’re doing, what you’ve already done, what you may yet do if I displease you. But I don’t hate you.”
He stood, collecting his and her plates and taking them through to the small kitchen, putting them in the sink and turning the tap.
He spoke loudly, so that his voice would carry back into the other room, over the sound of the rushing water. “The real question, Kiran, is what you intend to do now? I have no intention of harming you, not now nor later. I’d much rather help you, but I can only do that if you let me.”
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 480 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Apr 21, 2019 18:50:12 GMT
Post by Will Chase on Apr 21, 2019 18:50:12 GMT
| Will kept a firm grip on his emotions, on the anger and the fear that threatened to break his control even as Kiran moved him around like a puppet. With his ability dampened as it was that was even more difficult, for not only was he left unable to read her thoughts and therefore predict her actions, but he was also bereft of any method by which he could free himself from her control - not that he had even the first idea as to how he would go about doing so, but at least having options would’ve been appreciated.
The relief that flooded him when suddenly his ability flared back to life during the bus ride was no surprise. Immediately he reached for Kiran, gliding through her thoughts as subtly as he possibly could. Her lack of awareness at his sudden freedom was a little worrying - he had no way of telling how she would react when she noticed. At the very least he was able to learn a little more about how her power functioned, or at least how she thought it functioned, as well as the always welcome reassurance that she wasn’t yet planning to murder him and dump him in a ditch somewhere.
He saw in her mind the exact moment when she realised his freedom, and braced himself for some variety of punishment; fortunately, all Kiran did was shut him back down - though it was obviously possible that she was merely waiting till they were somewhere private, the impulsiveness that had so characterised her actions so far told Will that was unlikely, and that she did not yet have any real intention of hurting him. His glimpses of her mind had told him as such, but extra evidence of it was always reassuring.
Her control slipped multiple times over the course of the bus journey, and each time Will skimmed as much information as he could before she shut him back down. By the time they got off, he had a fairly solid hold of Kiran’s history, or at least the parts she considered most important - far from a complete picture, but much better than the rough scraps he had been working with before.
The drain on his already meagre finances was something Will could’ve lived without. He particularly disliked the trip to the hardware store, primarily because much of what Kiran bought he already had, or at least knew someone who could lend it to him. He also could’ve lived without being angrily shut down by Kiran every time she realised she’d lost her hold on his power; while the sensation wasn’t painful as such, it was growing increasingly disruptive to his thought processes - every time her hold slipped and his awareness expanded it took him quite some time to adjust, and the repeated compression of his mind left him feeling dazed and slow-witted right at the time when he needed to be most aware.
Kiran’s fear of him was disquieting but unsurprising. After all, she was a girl who’d never had control of her own life until recently and now, after she’d finally managed to pull herself together at least somewhat, along came someone with an ability she didn’t understand and which she wasn’t doing particularly well at controlling, in her own mind at least. Will couldn’t even really say her apprehension was unjustified either - though he had no intention of harming her, Will was under no illusions as to his ability to do so. He could break her, if he wanted to. Kiran’s mental state was a fragile thing, and his power had let him learn all the buttons he’d need to push to shatter it.
Finally out on the sidewalk, Will felt Kiran’s control slip again and immediately dived into her mind, as he had done every time before. This time he was left greatly saddened by what he saw, and his commitment to helping Kiran was reaffirmed: dreams of heroism were nothing new, Will saw them in the mind of every child; dreams of success were old-hat by now, the kind of thing everyone had. But rarely had Will met anyone who dreamed so painfully of mattering. Oh, people talked about it all the time, but Will hadn’t seen more than perhaps 10 minds who would really understand Kiran’s desperate longing.
The observation left him solemn, and he withdrew from Kiran’s mind even before she noticed his freedom and shut him down again. He’d seen a glimpse of something deeply private to the young girl, something even she herself didn’t really understand. He would do his best to avoid seeing such a thing again without permission, permission that he doubted he would ever get.
The arrival at his home angered Will, as it would any person. Kiran was invading his space, and puppeting him like a toy at the same time. He controlled the anger though, stamping it down as he had many times before. He couldn’t afford to lose his temper and lash out, not if he wanted any chance of talking Kiran down and rehabilitating her, at least as much as he could.
He was given hope by her misguided assumption that having his keys and phone left him incapable of escaping a locked door. Not only was his gun still in a drawer in his desk and therefore within easy reach, but the door itself was fairly flimsy, the kind of thing he could probably bust open even without the firearm. He wasn’t about to go smashing up his own apartment any time soon, but the fact that he had an escape route at all was reassuring. Nor was the phone she was holding his only one; Will had recently gotten in the habit of keeping a burner phone - a paranoid relic of the revelations of the past year. Another reassurance.
Neither realisations were nearly as reassuring as her sudden release of her control over him was however. It wasn’t partial like her earlier lapses had been, but rather total freedom, giving Will back control of his whole body. He knew Kiran could take back control at any time she pleased, but the freedom still gave him options. He had no intention of taking any real advantage of them yet however - any such attempt would shatter any hope he had of building a rapport with Kiran and talking her down, and Will had no intention of giving up on her yet.
He was about to say something but thought better of it, instead taking the bags of shopping through to his small kitchen, taking advantage of Kiran’s spending spree to have a full kitchen for the first time in months. Kind of pathetic honestly, but then, as a single man with a small appetite it wasn’t like Will consumed much food - in any other circumstance, a full fridge and cupboards would’ve just meant a lot of expired food a few weeks down the line. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately would be the more suitable word, Will was going to be feeding two for the foreseeable future.
He contemplated going all out and cooking something properly, but decided against it. Not only was Will far from a stellar cook, but he’d had a rather strenuous day. He also wasn’t in the mood to sit around for 30 minutes waiting for his old oven to struggle to life, especially considering that Kiran was unlikely to be appreciative of waiting so long for her food. An omelet it was - something he could get over and done with in less than ten minutes, and with the advantage of finally using the last six eggs in that pack that was going to go off in a few days.
He whipped it up and presented a plate to Kiran, taking the other for himself. “Glad to see you’ve made yourself comfortable,” he added sardonically, casting an eye over her. “I hope my home is to your liking, though I’m sure you’ve seen better.”
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 1332 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Jan 19, 2019 22:26:58 GMT
Post by Will Chase on Jan 19, 2019 22:26:58 GMT
| Will knew it was going to go south the moment that Kiran pressed the screen to call Alice. He would've protested, told her that he needed to be the one to talk to Alice first so that he could convince her it was okay, but Kiran, paranoid as she was, had paralysed him as she went through the phone, so he could only watch in growing horror as Kiran dug herself a hole to bury him in.
Alice reacted badly to a strange girl phoning her and calling her by her psuedonym, of course she did, she had friends to protect. Hell, she was living with Ash, Will would've been angry with her himself if she was going around telling everyone her real identity. That was a major reason why he didn't keep full names or addresses on his phone, sticking to first names; if his phone was ever stolen, or if, and he was just spitballing here, an unstable teenaged metahuman happened to take control of his body and render him unable to protect it, they wouldn't have access to sensitive information - Will kept all of that in his head. His own power was proof that even that wasn't totally foolproof, but it was certainly a damn sight more secure than a phone.
While it may have prevented Kiran from showing up at Alice's doorstep however, it did nothing to protect Will himself from the now frustrated and hurt girl that he'd practically handed control of his body.
Not for the first time, Will wondered what the hell he was doing with his life. He'd gone from a fairly successful PI, comfortably affording the rent on a small flat and an office, to being only one paycheck away from homelessness at any given moment. Gone from peaceful sleep and uneventful days, to regularly going days with less than an hour's nap. He knew why of course - the world was a much bigger place than it had been before, with a lot more going on that he had to keep track of. But damn it, sometimes he missed the quiet life.
Control, limited though it was, returned to Will, and with it a certain measure of dread. He now had to talk Kiran down from giving up on her dream, without making her think he had lied to her and without angering her any more than her failure to communicate with Alice had already done. No pressure.
"I didn't lie to you Kiran. I haven't lied to you yet, and I'm not planning on starting. Kiran, if I'm going to help you, I'm going to need you to trust me. Paladin reacted badly to your call because you don't know her yet, and forcing me to talk to her so brusquely was never going to convince her to trust you. She doesn't like me very much, but she knows me well enough to know I wouldn't just give her name out on a whim. She knows that I wouldn't hand her number off to just any fan of hers - she's got hundreds of thousands of them after all, and quite a few of them are the kind of people I wouldn't give my number to, let alone that of a friend. If we're going to do this Kiran, I need you to let me do the talking, at least at first."
"I know these people, Paladin and Surge. I know them personally. I trust them, and they trust me. If you let me talk to them, I can convince them of your sincerity, that you're not a threat to them. That you're safe. But if you take control of the conversation like that again, it'll backfire again. They trust me, but they're both intelligent people. They know that there are people out there who can do things like what you're doing to me, and if I start acting out of character they'll realise."
Will did his best to look trustworthy and friendly, though it was difficult when the only thing he had control over was his face, especially since he was far from in the mood for smiling. "Please Kiran, I want to help you, but if I'm going to do so you're going to have to trust me, at least a little. You'll still have control, if I say something you don't like you can still shut me up. You have my word that I won't try to betray you. Please Kiran."
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 749 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Post by Will Chase on Dec 9, 2018 11:33:41 GMT
| Will had known what was coming when he gave Kiran an opening, but that didn't mean he was prepared for it, not really. He'd experienced her drain earlier of course, but that had only been a few seconds - while Kiran's own memories of draining people had been fairly prominent in her head, that was only from her end and not from theirs. Even mentally braced for it as he was, the sudden pain caught Will off guard and left him almost dazed, incapable of brushing it aside.
He retained more than enough focus to retain control of the anger that flared up when she struck him about the face, even as he drifted through her mind, trying to take in as much information as possible. Then his power vanished. Well, not really. He could still feel it, could still sense Kiran's mind and the brief flashes that were others as they passed within his range and out again, but it was like trying to hear underwater. He could tell that there were sounds, thoughts, but not what they were. Will realised, with a sudden jolt of apprehension, that he may have miscalculated.
He'd been operating under the assumption that he'd always have access to his ability, a get out of jail free card as it were. Something he could still use, even after Kiran took control. The loss of that left him in an extraordinarily precarious position. He daren't test it, for Kiran was the only person close enough for him to even try, but he was fairly sure he was now unable to project his thoughts as he had done earlier. He was trapped in his own body, incapable of resisting. Just like all the people Kiran had done this to before.
Will's resolve, shaken by the sudden loss, hardened.
He willed himself to remain calm, even as Kiran rifled through his pockets and took his phone. He marshalled the anger he was feeling, and pressed it down through sheer force of will. He had chosen this, to give her power over him. To be angered by what she did with it would be stupidity of the highest order. He'd known this was coming, that it felt worse in reality than it had as a hypothetical was of no surprise.
Will's campaign against his own psyche was given a hell of a boost when Kiran pulled a cigarette out of her pocket and lit it; the anger quietened, replaced with disapproval, as well as a kind of fond amusement. A little out of place, seeing as this was a dangerous metahuman who had taken control over his body and not his little sister trying to look mature, but Will recognised the same thought process in Kiran as he had seen in hundreds of young idiots who thought smoking made them an adult. No telepathy was needed for that, 40 years of life experience would give any man a great deal of expertise in recognising teenage idiocy.
Those emotions were as much of a problem as the anger would be to talking the girl down, however, so Will locked them away too.
When Kiran finally returned control of his head and neck to him, Will turned his head to look her in the eyes seriously. Though she was little more than a child in age, Kiran had been matured by her experiences. She had been abused, but she had enough pride that to treat her cautiously would insult her and lose him this chance. He needed to treat her like an adult. No, not just like an adult. Like she had power here, like she was in control. It was perhaps unwise, but he needed to be honest with her. Fully, truly honest.
"My name is Will Chase, though I'm sure you saw that in my wallet. I'm a telepath, which means I can read people's minds, manipulate their thoughts. I got these powers a few weeks before the Event, after a car crash; there were 5 other people who received their abilities at the same time. You know of some of them. Surge, and Paladin. Look in my phone, you'll see their numbers in the contacts - Dom, and Alice. If you let me, I can call one of them, have them confirm what I'm saying. I'm telling you this so that you know that when I tell you I can help you Kiran, you know I'm not treating you like a child, or an idiot. You have an amazing ability, the potential to be an amazing hero. There's an academy that trains people to use their powers, the Hero Program takes a keen interest in the students there." Will was very careful to call it an academy, rather than a school - call him paranoid, but he doubted a 14-year-old runaway had much patience for school.
"Let me help you Kiran. Please."
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 816 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Post by Will Chase on Nov 4, 2018 18:22:39 GMT
| The pain abated, and Will very nearly let loose a sigh of relief. He took a step away from the girl, putting some distance between them so that she couldn't just reach out and snatch away his life like she had been doing. In his appreciation of his new freedom, however, he had missed a crucial detail; Kiran Wagner had not reacted particularly well to what he had just done. He probably should've seen it coming honestly, and most likely would have had he not been just barely avoiding panic.
He felt the fury as it rose up in her mind in a great wave and suddenly she was throwing herself at him, both arms outstretched. If she touched him, if she managed to lay even a single finger on his bare skin, Will knew he was done for. He had surprised her, and she had only let go of him because of her shock and her fear. She wouldn't be surprised the second time. If she got her hands on him again, she was going to do far worse to him than she'd done to that poor man she'd left in the hotel room.
Call Will what you like, but that was not a fate he wanted to experience.
He backed away as Kiran lunged for him, twisting to the side so that she'd go past him. "Hey, calm down. Miss Wagner, Kiran, I'm not going to hurt you."
All the while he was desperately scanning through her head, looking for something, anything he could use to get her to stop. He could feel the migraine building, like a storm on the horizon - even with the adrenaline, the tiredness hadn't gone away entirely, and he was pushing himself to scan her mind and avoid her charge at the same time. Why had she reacted like that? She wasn't the first person Will had communicated with telepathically, and he'd never seen anyone so terrified even when he'd been looking for that reaction, which he most certainly had not when he'd done it to her.
He finally found a glimpse of what he'd been looking for, and felt a wave of revulsion tear through his mind. He wished he hadn't gone looking. This...this was something that should've been buried deep. Something that had been brought to the forefront by his interaction with her. By her lack of understanding of what he'd done, and therefore her loss of control.
Of course she wasn't going to believe that he had no intention of hurting her. He needed some way to prevent this from going any further than it already had.
Will stopped backing away from Kiran's grasping hands, instead stepping towards them and snatching at her clothed forearms. "Kiran," he said, his voice soft. "I need you to listen to me, so I'm going to give you control. You can touch my hand and I won't do anything to threaten you, but I need you to let me talk. Just for a little while. If you don't like what you hear, you'll be able to use your ability on me and shut me up. Okay? Let's just talk for a little while."
Slowly, carefully, Will let go of Kiran's arms and held his right hand towards her.
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 551 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Oct 16, 2018 12:16:55 GMT
Post by Will Chase on Oct 16, 2018 12:16:55 GMT
| Will hadn't slept in almost 2 days that morning, so it was not particularly surprising that he was so very nearly caught completely off guard, and even less surprising that his reaction was far from enough to properly protect himself. The tiredness had left him slow witted, his mind sluggish and his power even more ephemeral than usual, lacking in the focus he normally prided himself on. Hell, he hadn't even noticed that the girl was approaching until she was less than 20 feet away.
He normally tried to avoid reading even the surface thoughts of people so as to avoid invading their privacy, but that took focus that he was sorely lacking in his current state - while Will himself was conscious of social mores, and of the negative consequences he could suffer if he drew on too many minds too much at once, his power itself seemingly had no such knowledge. His lack of focus meant that the girl's surface thoughts stood out like headlights at night, and Will stiffened instinctively.
She was planning something to do with him, but he didn't have time to delve into what she was thinking; she'd already reached him after all, closing to within touching distance and reaching out for his hand.
Will forced his mind into gear and twisted, snatching her arm at the wrist and meeting her wide, stunned eyes with his own, brown on blue. In that instant, aided by her shock and her proximity, he was able to glean what she had been planning and Will realised he'd fucked up. He went to let go of her wrist, to put as much space as possible between her skin and has, to avoid what was coming.
He was too slow.
There was pain, and a feeling like he was being drained through that tiny little bit of skin contact. Will could't move, couldn't do anything to stop what was happening. Well, nothing physically.
Using the pain to focus his previously scattered attention, Will dived into the girl's head. The place was a mess. Stubborness, anger, pain, and above it all the looming shadow of insecurity. He told himself he didn't feel sorry for her, deliberately focussing on what he could draw of her previous crimes - glimpses of a man trapped in a hotel room, naked, gagged and handcuffed to a bedpost, featured predominantly in his efforts to view her as a threat; after all, that could very well be his fate if he couldn't talk her down somehow. He found her name at least. Kiran Wagner.
He'd only done this a few times, but what better time to experiment than when your bank account and reputation hung in the balance.
If he could've Will would've closed his eyes, but that wasn't exactly an option right now. He would have to do this without the help. It was difficult to explain what exactly Will was about to do - it was something straight out of the comic books so far as telepathy went, but not something he could really explain with words. Telepathy, or Will's at least, was far more complicated than it always appeared in fiction. He couldn't just 'broadcast' his thoughts and have them appear in another person's mind, he had to imprint his mind on theirs, twist their own thoughts to turn what he wanted to say into stimuli. It was a complex and personal process, something that worked differently for every person. It was also practically his only hope of getting out of this intact.
"How about you let go of me for a little while and we talk properly Miss Wagner? I swear I won't try to hurt you, or run away."
One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.
| Will Chase | 615 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Jul 17, 2018 22:49:52 GMT
Post by Will Chase on Jul 17, 2018 22:49:52 GMT
| For a moment he could almost forget everything that had happened, could pretend that he was fifteen yours younger. Could put aside the weight of years and tragedies, if only for a little while. Could remember a time when he'd had real hope, not the fake kind that had sustained him for so long. Then it was gone, the weight had returned and he felt every second of his years, and a good deal more on top of that. It didn't matter; Will had carried this weight for a long time, he could carry it for a while longer.
The taste had returned to him some of his sense of humour, so he had the strength to smile at Ash's appalling attempt at teasing him. "I'm the only brother you have Ash, I could be the dumbest person in the world and still be your smartest brother."
"And no, no wife and kids for me. You know that's not my thing Ash, I've never had a relationship last longer than a month before I fucked it up somehow. Your big brother's absolutely terrible with the ladies I'm afraid. It's a real curse." Will bowed his head in -somewhat- mock dismay. He wasn't incorrect after all, he'd always had terrible luck when it came to relationships, but nor was it something he was particularly upset about; his was a solitary existence at the very best of times, and recent events hadn't exactly been conducive to changing that.
He looked up, or at least raised his head a little to meet his sister's eyes. His face was serious, and his tone when he spoke was grave. "I'm not going anywhere Ash. I'm never going to disappear again. You have my word."
Will never broke his word, it was one of the few things he allowed himself to feel pride over. Despite the opportunity offered him, the chance to vanish once more, to remove himself from his sister's life, he didn't leave. He'd messed enough things up in his life, he'd leave this up to her.
Family is not an important thing. It's everything.
| Will Chase | 343 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Jun 17, 2018 20:41:27 GMT
Post by Will Chase on Jun 17, 2018 20:41:27 GMT
| Ash was kind enough to avoid pressing him on the matter. Will was pathetically grateful for that, not that he found it particularly surprising. Ash had always been much better at the whole empathy thing than him.
The revelation that Alice had indeed told her about what happened was a lot more surprising; not that it was surprising that Alice had told her, that wasn't the case at all. They'd been roommates for at least a while, and maybe still were. That Ash would, apparently, ignore it was the real surprise, though perhaps it shouldn't have been. After all, he was well aware that his self-flagellation was irrational, even if that didn't help him overcome it.
The tears in her eyes made him feel like shit, forcing him to take a look at what he'd done for the past year and reevaluate his choices. She knew what he'd done, and here she was crying over his absence.
He rubbed a hand over his face and tried to smile, though it came out more like a rueful grimace. "Your brother really is a fucking idiot Ash. Here I was thinking you'd hate me and were better off if I stayed away, but all I ended up doing was hurting you. Mom's probably going to clap me around the head and call me an idiot again the next time I visit."
"I suppose what I'm trying to say is: coffee sounds good right about now."
Family is not an important thing. It's everything.
| Will Chase | 245 Words |
| |
|
|
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
CLASSIFICATION
Gleam
POWER
Advanced Telepathy
AGE
41
Civilian
|
Post by Will Chase on May 5, 2018 0:25:28 GMT
| Ash had never been good at looking stern or intimidating, no matter how much she tried. She mostly ended up looking like an irate chipmunk. Then again, Will was her brother - he'd been twenty when she was born, had behaved more like a second father, or favourite uncle, than an older brother - she wouldn't be able to scare him in a million years.
He deliberately ignored the question of whether he'd been trying to avoid her - Will didn't trust himself enough to tell a convincing lie, his sister would see through him in a heartbeat if he gave her even the slightest opportunity, and that wasn't a conversation Will wanted to have. Admittedly, none of this was a conversation he'd wanted to have only a few minutes earlier, but it was a bit late to complain.
Will rubbed the back of his head in a mixture of sheepishness and reluctance. "This is the first time I've been by Ash. I actually, well, I wasn't planning on coming at all. I just saw there was a ticket left and bought it on impulse. I have missed you, and I thought... I don't know what I thought. Probably something stupid, like this being easier than just giving you a phone call." Will shrugged self-deprecatingly - he'd never been one to shy away from harsh truths, at least not where they concerned himself.
"As to why I've been missing, I'm surprised Alice hasn't said anything to you about it honestly." Will tried to smile, but it was a fragile, pathetic thing. A stark contrast to his earlier efforts to behave like nothing was wrong.
"I did something Ash. Something wrong. It was a huge mistake, the kind that changes you. The kind you can't come back from, no matter what you do." It was deliberately evasive, as Will desperately tried to avoid giving voice to the truth. He didn't want to admit to his sister that he was a murderer.
He made a pitiful attempt to change the subject before Ash could question him. "But who cares about that, right Ash? I'm back now, I promise I won't disappear again."
Family is not an important thing. It's everything.
| Will Chase | 360 Words |
| |
|
|
