Download App
60.25% Scions of Gaea / Chapter 47: Division, Pt 12

Chapter 47: Division, Pt 12

Your psyche is jarred slightly as a group of people enter your perception, just at the edge of your Chakral perception. They come closer towards you in small clumps, and from every direction. Their constant thoughts spike up and splash outwards even as they approach. It's clear that everyone else in town is coming to the Lodge at Frank's behest, to discuss the fates of Mayor Lisa, Carl, Chris, and their teams.

So of course, they're all chattering about it furiously.

And since your physical body is running on minimum power, you don't hear a lick of it. Instead, you get barraged with a heap of thoughts and emotions from everyone around you, more than enough to interrupt the serenity you've found within your Chakra. 

It feels like tiny earthquakes striking you from all sides, as though you're at the epicenter of it all. Though each one doesn't do much, the greater whole shakes you, vibrates you, unsettles you on every level.

As a result, you peel back your Chakral perception closer towards you, and shape it so it only watches over everything inside of the Lodge. In here, all you can perceive are Frank and Nance's teams as they watch over their charges. This brings you back to the peaceful and mellow trance you've been enjoying thus far. But you know you can't just leave it at that. 

You can't simply withdraw into some peaceful inner palace blind to the world around you, especially if things go poorly for Frank. For all you know, most of who's out there lean towards Carl's usual combative demeanor and that scenario would end really poorly for all of you.

Instead, you reach out to Noir and message her Telepathically, "hey, be my eyes and ears, wouldja?"

She agrees with you, then transmits what she sees and hears and feels directly to you, through the Network. Her raw senses come in slowly, enough for you to control just how much you want to see, and how much you want to hear, and how much you want to feel.

As much as you'd like to experience life directly through her eyes and ears, you can't. Not right now, anyway. If you devote all of your conscious self to experiencing the world through Noir, you'll end up ignoring what's happening inside the lodge. That's as good as sleeping through it all.

Instead, you set up a kind of theater in your mind. It's there that you project Noir's eyesight into a dark corner, and watch as though she's streaming a live news report. The sounds she hears also come in all around you, or more specifically, stereoscopically. It's almost like you're at the cinemas, minus the mumbling couples and the annoying crying child and the rest of the audience, really.

You also dull the sense of touch that she's sending you. Although it would be nice to feel the wind on her furry body or the grass under her paws, you don't need that much information. Instead, you bring it down until you can just barely sense what's happening around her body.

Right now, she's weaving through the tall grass and you can feel the soft earth compress slightly as she takes step after step. The grass brushes up against her whiskers which seems to softly electrify your cheeks. 

All of it combined feels truly delightful.

You watch as Noir continues to pad through the grass forward. As she does so, the chattering of people fills the air ahead of her. The sound around you shifts in various directions, as she angles her ears up and out. As a result, you get a sonic sense of where the cluster of people are, how far they're standing, and roughly how large the cluster is.

It seems that they're just around the corner, and that there are numerous dozens of them. 

As Noir gets closer to the corner, she looks up constantly, specifically at the Lodge's upper floor. There's a wooden balcony up there that sits over top of the entrance and overlooks the Town Square beyond. You sense a rush of Temperance flow through Noir - a very precise amount of it and only for a moment.

It's within that moment that she leaps upward with absolute grace and without a single sound. She gets up slightly past the banister railing, arcs over very slightly, then lands gently on the railing itself without a hitch. She then drops down to the balcony floor and ambles over to the center of it, close to the edge overlooking the crowd below.

When she peeks, you see the town out there, or at least those who could come out. And there are quite a lot of them. You guess about sixty or so, or about two-thirds of the town? You're not sure. No matter what, you don't get a full view as Noir quickly plops down on her side, as cats are wont to do.

You suppose that she does this to maintain the appearance of any old cat. No-one really cares about a cat snoozing in the shade, after all.

Even though you lose sight of the crowd below, her ears angle in ways that you still hear everything they say. One of her ears sounds as though it's cupped over the balcony floor, allowing Frank's voice to echo up from underneath.

It sounds muffled, rightfully so. There's a lot of wood between him and Noir.

"Sorry for calling you all out here in the heat," Frank tells them.

He seems to be walking back and forth below, but his pace is slow and even, and he stops here and there occasionally. 

"But we need to talk about that attack we just suffered," he continues. "And more about all that's happened after. Because we all got a decision to make. A real hard one, too. Maybe a few hard ones, all right in a row, I dunno."

You note that he only speaks after he stops moving, and that his voice booms outward in different directions each time. It occurs to you that he's addressing the crowd in front of him like any experienced speaker would.

"I see a lot less of you than I did yesterday, and that's a sight I can hardly bear," he says after a long pause. "Though I'm thankful that I am seeing as many faces as I am now. I'm sure plenty of you feel that way about those around you."

"We need to do something about them gangers!" shouts someone in the crowd. He's met with a chorus of agreement.

"I know, I know, and we'll get to that," he answers. "First we gotta talk about what happened just after the fight. And I'm warning all of you now that not all of us are gonna like what I'm about to say. That includes me… 

"Don't worry I ain't gonna beat around and just come out and say it. Carl and some of his boys pulled their guns on me, and on Nance, and on the newest trader, Nomad."

You hear all kinds of murmurs erupt from around the crowd, though you can't quite make out everything being said, and all you get are slivers of conversations. Still, you get a sense that people are somewhat split on it, with some saying things along the lines of, 'I knew something like that would happen,' and others saying, 'Well you all musta done something, then."

You don't feel surprised in the least, considering all you've seen thus far. Whatever this thing is that has divided the town, has done so thoroughly.

"First it oughta be known that the Mayor accused Nomad of leading the gangers who attacked our town. But before you all cry out in support, just know that if it weren't for Nomad we'd be in a whole lot more trouble, and there'd be a whole lot less of you now."

Frank is met with a handful of jeers, unable to accept his words. You get the sense that these few are defensive of the Mayor, with one particularly loud one claiming that Frank's experience is singular, and not that important compared to the Mayor.

But the loud one is quickly rebuked by a dozen or so around him. You can't quite make what they're saying, but it's clear that they're in support of you. They literally shout at the loud one claiming that Frank's experience is far from singular. It's enough to drown him out and shut him up. 

You easily guess that they're the ones who fought at your side. Or rather, you at theirs.

"Let's all calm down now," Frank tells everyone a handful of times. Each time he does, people quiet down more and more. Once he has their attention once again, he continues.

"I would believe the Mayor myself, honest to god," he says. "But the fact is the Mayor's been lying to me. Maybe to you. Maybe to everyone. It's a real big lie, too. And I just can't make out why and what for. Been driving mad thinking about it.

"Anyway, what's important here's that the Mayor hid the fact that she's a psion to me. Not a psion like Chris or Nance, but from what I understand someone way stronger and more capable than them, combined. Probably combined and doubled and then some."

Frank is met with a chorus of 'how could she' and 'so what's' and more critically 'I didn't know either'. Their voices rise up sharply, but quickly settle down over the next few seconds. You can't help but imagine Frank waving his arms at them to calm them down.

"Fact is though, if she's that kinda powerful and whatnot, why didn't she do anything in the fight? If anyone saw her fight, raise your hands. I seen Nomad do their thing during our fights. You might not believe me unless you saw it yourself. But it's like they stunned them gangers from a distance.

"Like, in one moment their faces were angry as they squeezed on their triggers, and in the next they were stumbling around all dizzy-like. We all felt Nomad do it, like through the air. Now I know you don't take me for no hippy, but I felt it. Others did too. Felt waves of it pass through us, and hit the people we were fighting. 

"So lemme ask again - did you see anything like that at all? Did you see the Mayor put herself up during the defense? Anyone?"

Frank pauses, waiting for an answer. Nothing comes but grim silence.

"What I'm basically saying is that if Nomad did stuff that helped us out, why isn't there anyone here who can say the same for the Mayor?" Frank asks rhetorically. "And kinda leading to that, how can you trust anyone who's supposed to be leading the town, but doesn't even show up to fight back when it's getting hit?

"Y'all remember when the last time the gangers showed up? Was just maybe a half dozen at the time… But where was the Mayor? She weren't at the front fighting them gangers off, that's for sure."

"She ain't supposed to be fighting up front!" someone yells.

"That's definitely true," Frank rebuts. "But she oughta be close enough to know what's going on. She oughta been handling the rear, if you know what I mean. Coordinating defenses, all that. But she weren't then, and she weren't now. You trust her to be there if and when all this happens again?"

He gives them another few moments to absorb what he's saying. You can hear his boots click and thunk softly against the wood, as he seemingly paces back and forth on the porch below. 

"Now I'm not sure, and this is just me guessing, or maybe it's some kind of soldier intuition or something," Frank goes on. "But I think Lisa did some brainwave psion shit to Carl that made him pull his guns on me, well Nomad at first. But then me. All his boys followed right after.

"And that means, well, I don't know what that means. I just think we can't trust our Mayor. Maybe we even need a new Mayor. And maybe the old one's gotta go at the same time. And we're all here to figure that out. So now, let's talk about it."

All manner of shouting erupts in quick succession thereafter, none of which you can make out at all. You barely catch certain words here and there, but that's the best you get.

You can just make out Frank's voice through the din, as he attempts to shout everyone down. He does so, but it takes him a long while - perhaps a whole minute. 

"No, no, keep it down back there, thank you," he says with his voice still loud. But as the crowd in front of him quietens, so does he. "Let's go one at a time, alright. You, Bill. Old Bill, I mean. Give us your take right quick."

"Look, I ain't no fan of the Mayor doing all that, keeping that shit all hidden-like," says Old Bill. "I don't rightly care what you all do with her. But I don't want Carl to get caught up in her… whateveryoucallsit. Psycho-head shit. Far as I'm concerned, he's done nothing wrong."

A murmur rises up to agree, even as Frank calls out another person to speak - someone named Annie.

"I think we oughta move to the Fortress like everyone keeps talking about," she says. "We can leave the Mayor here to rot for all I care. But she ain't coming. Not if she could brain melt us or something."

An even larger chorus of agreement comes up to support her, it's enough that it seems like the majority of them out there.

"And what about Carl? And Chris?" adds Frank. "Both their teams trained their longarms at us. They was all meaning to kill, saw it in all their eyes. Can we trust them around us, too?"

"You said yourself that they was just tools to some mind game," someone calls out. "I say they innocent. They oughta go free."

A few agree with that sentiment, though many more scoff at them.

"Carl's always been a shit to everyone," says another person. "Always got the notion that he was always just looking to put the hurt on someone. Don't need no mind-control psycho-bitch forcing him into any of that. He'd do it in a heartbeat. I say they all stay here with the Mayor while we head south. They can all go to hell."

A number of cheers erupt from around him, but an equal amount jeer loudly in protest.

You hear Frank attempting to calm them all down once again, but before he can do anything, you sense something within your Chakra stir. When you refocus yourself onto the Threads around you, you quickly notice that Lisa's Thread stirs rapidly, as her mind regains consciousness, and as she comes back to her full senses.


Chapter 48: Division, Pt 13

You withdraw from your Chakra quickly, allowing the layers of intertwined powers to spin down and peel back and fade away. As they recede, your conscious self rises up to meet your physical body, allowing your eyes to open and your ears to listen and your blood to flow once again.

Along comes the sensations of sight and sound and touch - the very vibrations of the earth around you. You fill into your physical self like a glove, a very comfortable one at that. 

The sensation of doing so is deeply satisfying.

When your vision comes back into focus, you watch as Lisa also rouse from being knocked out. She groans as her eyes wink open, then she looks around the room with understandable confusion. While she searches around her like a hawk, she attempts to wriggle around and move. But when she realizes that she's tied up very well, she stops struggling altogether.

Then her eyes land on you, and her lips purse from annoyance as a result.

"You. I shoulda known you'd be that good," she says. "Or I mighta had you shot while you slept."

"I could say something similar about you," you reply. "I could still do it."

"Then why don'tcha?"

"'Coz it isn't up to me."

"Coward."

"Oh, so you'd rather just die, then? I could wipe you out, just like that. Then walk outta town like nothing happened. But I won't. 'Coz I respect the people in your town. Something you ought to do more of."

Lisa scowls horrendously, but she doesn't otherwise reply. It makes you wonder if she's actually contemplating suicide. Maybe she's wrestling with being a prisoner and coming to terms with it. Or perhaps she's poring over some undiscovered third choice somewhere out there. Whatever it is, you can't tell. Her thoughts and emotions are like glass - slick and impenetrable. Your ability to Scan her is almost completely repelled.

Clearly, the first thing she did on waking was raise all her defenses. Her full defenses.

Well, at least you can still tell how much energy she has, and which discipline, though a part of you wonders if that's true at all. If she can hide whatever she wants, then she ought to be skilled enough to reveal whatever she wants.

In the end, you can't trust what you're sensing about her. But at least you still know her limits - she can't possibly hide that while unconscious. Right?

It takes time, but her face settles back to what you would consider normal, at least minus the smile. Now her expression is mostly deadpan with hints of annoyance, and slivers of hostility.

"You wouldn't mind untying me, wouldja?" she asks you.

There's venom in her voice, of course. It's almost like she's tempting you into a fight. Either way, her being bound up or not hardly matters. All it is right now is a security blanket.

Best shed it off altogether.

"Do it yourself," you reply, but with a hint of sarcasm buried in it.

She sneers, but you sense low levels of telekinesis weave through her. Though her movements are careful and slow, she manages to loosen the rope around her wrists. Once they're halfway undone, she simply slips out of them, then focuses her energies on the rope around her ankles.

The same thing happens there, but she undoes the knots all the way through, then flings both cuts of paracord into the corner. Her face wrinkles in disgust at them.

Lisa then swings her legs over, sits at the edge of the bed, then massages one of her shoulders - the one she had been laid down on. She then rolls her arm a bit to loosen her aching deltoid. Soft groans escape her lips at the same time.

"Didn't have to tie me up, yannow?" she says after a minute. "Not like I'm overpowering anyone anytime soon."

"Wasn't my decision," you reply.

"And what was your decision?"

"Not my town, not my deal."

Lisa gives a soft 'hmph', as though she had been expecting a different response. You shrug at her noncommittally. That's the truth, and if she doesn't believe it, then that's on her… Her doubt makes you realize that she can't read your surface thoughts and emotions either. So at least you're even there.

Some silence sits between the both of you, most likely because the both of you are busy reading each other, gauging each other. Trying to figure out how to stay one step ahead of the other.

"So what're they talking about out there?" she asks after a few moments.

"What to do with you," you answer plainly.

You don't need to tune your own ears to hear since you're still connected to Noir. She's still feeding you her perceptions through the Network. Though you have them dimmed and muted and numbed, they're still there at the back of your mind. 

You raise the volume a bit, just enough to hear what's going on with Frank and the townsfolk. Someone yells out a resolution, to which the town votes. A chorus of Yeas and Nays echo into the air, one group shortly after the other.

They sound relatively even to you. Maybe the Yeas have an edge? You can't quite tell, not without turning more of your conscious self towards the incoming feed.

With Lisa awake, you'd rather not.

Either way, you turn your focus back on the psion in front of you, who stops trying to hear and instead raises her feet back on the bed. She then scoots backwards towards the pillows and leans on them casually, allowing her body to visibly relax. It's almost as though she holds herself up all of the time, and now allows herself to simply let down everything.

You sense her defenses lower to some degree, and slivers of her thoughts and emotions waft into the air around you.

"They better not wanting to be killing me," she sighs aloud. There's a hint of worry in there, but you don't exactly trust it.

You wonder if you should tell her what they've been discussing, particularly leaving her here to die by herself. But you also wonder if her knowing that matters at all.

Though it seems to you that she's partially given up, that her kicking back is also her giving in, you don't believe her. You simply can't. You have to believe that she's saving up energy so that she can make some kind of move. 

And even if she resigns herself to whatever fate the townspeople have for her, once you're gone she'll be free to do whatever she wants. If they decide to exile her, it doesn't stop her from following after and… wiping their minds or something.

"Sadly, no," you say with a disapproving sigh. "They don't want anyone dead. The only ones who do want people dead are in here, with you."

"Who says I wanted anyone dead?" she says. "If I did, I would've pointed my sidearm at someone too."

You get a sense that she's not answering you, not really. Rather, she's testing out her defense. You can just about hear her playing with the tones in the words, all in her head, just inside of her surface thoughts.

It injects a level of doubt into you, about what to trust and what not to. But you're able to push it away and resolve to not trust a single thing that Lisa says. Anyone who hides as much as she does… well, either she has problems or she's up to something. 

You bet it's probably some awful mix of the two. 

Instead, you chuckle lightly in response, which causes her nose to crinkle in annoyance. But it's gone a second later.

"You and I both know that guns just aren't our best tools," you say. "They're powerful, sure. They'll end lives, sure. But they're also loud and crude and just not subtle at all. What you and I have got is something way better than that, on just about every level. Which means you most certainly had your gun up, only most people didn't see it. Well, at least one of us can see it, anyway."

Her face remains positively still, though you can sense her frustration rise up ever so slightly.

Of course, you have no idea if she did do anything like that during your standoff, if she had summoned up lethal psionic energies. You were much more focused on everyone else around you. Their guns, too. And, of course, you were focused on developing your Temporal Acceleration. If she was doing anything shady at that moment… well, you have no clue.

But it doesn't matter if it's true or not, or whether she believes you think it's true or not. What matters is that she's bogged down in those questions.

"Doesn't mean it aint' a good tool," she rebukes. "Psion or not, it's still something I like using. It's still plenty enough damage to end a person facing you down."

She makes a soft 'bang' noise as she fires a finger gun aimed at your chest. The recoil launches her hand up, as though the round is a truly powerful one.

You can't deny how true  her statement is. Having psionic powers might be a superior multi-tool, but the gun itself is still an extremely effective single-purpose tool. It's highly capable of tearing into flesh and shattering bone and ripping up organs, and it hardly matters if the target is psionic or not.

Still, it's not like psions are defenseless.

"You don't think Telekinesis could stop bullets?" you ask plainly.

She looks at you with a shocked face, as though she's never thought of a TK Shield before, but she wipes that away quickly as well. Although you want to believe her, most of you is certain that this is an act. Many, but not all, incoming shards from your Foresight confirms it so.

You wonder if she's selling it hard because Telekinesis might be one of her stronger powers. Or it's entirely possible that she merely wants you to think that, to lull you towards a specific defense. Or maybe it's like the questions you fling at her, where they're designed to take up valuable time in your thoughts.

You ultimately come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what she has. There's no way to guess, simply because of her nature. Instead, you focus on yourself, and resolve to remain as flexible as you can the moment she inevitably does make a move. If you can manage to redirect whatever she does, you might be able to counter her somehow.

At least, that's the best you can hope. Could end up a slug match, you never know. Even the shards from your Foresight reveal all kinds of possible outcomes, too many to pick and choose and maneuver through. Every tiny choice counts, and numerous tiny choices lead in different directions. 

It certainly worries you that so few of those shards reveal calm and peaceful moments. Could mean that your future is going to be rather colorful soon enough.

A chant erupts from outside, and it's loud enough that you and Lisa can hear it. The words are muffled, but it's clear what many seem to want. Perhaps more importantly, what they're saying bleeds through the wood. They're muffled, but you can hear them plainly. 

The blood runs from your face as the words pass through your ears, even as Lisa's face contorts into a rather smug and satisfied smile.

You hear Frank yell at everyone to calm down. Then you hear his boots click and clunk their way towards you, and stop just outside the door. He greets you solemnly as he enters the room, then immediately after looks squarely at Lisa with a hard grimace etched on his face.

"You're free to go," he says. From his tone, you can tell that he did not want to say those words in the slightest.

Lisa however looks absolutely joyful, without the least bit of surprise. She swings her legs back over the edge, then pushes herself up on her feet. Her grin hardly leaves her face, even as she wordlessly walks out of the room.

"How? Why?" you ask Frank as you leap up from your chair. "I thought the town wanted to exile her!" 

He turns back towards you with his eyes dark and dull.

"They're all free to go," he says, avoiding your answer. "The township has decided to split into two, according to popular vote. And the half that demanded to go southwards also internally voted to include Lisa, Carl, and Chris into their ranks. Said they would help keep them safe…"

He looks back through the doorway, just as Lisa ducks out of the Lodge. You hear some cheering to celebrate her freedom, though you sense that most of the crowd are already dispersing.

"Well at least they're leaving," you reply. "Means that half your town'll still be here. At least you're not leaving, right? At least you've got the good half!"

"That's just it - we can't exactly stay now."

Frank sits down on the bed's edge and exhales at length. It's clear he's worn out by everything, on every level. This has been his only moment to stop and think and rest. But the moment he feels is as heavy as before.

"At half our people, and at half our guns, no way could we fight off another ganger attack," he says. "And from what we've seen, they've only been getting bigger and bolder each time. We wouldn't last the next. And if we did, we wouldn't last the one after that. We've gotta move, too."

That same heaviness seems to press down on you now as well. It isn't just because of what Frank's told you just now. It's also because you realize that Lisa outmaneuvered you. 

You had been expecting to fight her all this time, maybe fling broken concrete and shattered glass at each other. Actually bring the building down on your heads, that sort of thing. But it turns out that wasn't her move.

Her move wasn't to confront you at all. It was to manipulate the townspeople, to manipulate their vote. What began as the majority of them wanting to exile her, ended with half of them embracing her instead. Realizing what she's done frustrates you deeply.

Of course, you have no idea how she performed it. You couldn't read her energies with any semblance of accuracy. Hell, you could barely tell she was using any at all. Though you could make an educated guess…

A Network, maybe?

No, a Network, definitely. A hidden one, just like yours. She must have used that to Orchestrate their vote and secure her freedom. If not that, then something like that.

A curse escapes your lips - you should have expected this kind of misdirection from her. You should have at least expected her Network to be stronger than yours, and for her to be far more devious than you first thought. She's the town mayor, after all. Those kinds of thoughts and energies likely come naturally to her.

"At least we do got a bright side," Frank continues. "I told them what you told me about your dad, and that he's got a community just like ours, and he's taking them to some kinda safe haven up north. So that's where we've decided to go, too. I mean, if he's got a kid as good as you, then he can't be half bad himself, right?

"Anyway, It's gonna be a hard road, we're all sure. Real dangerous for regular folk like us - we'd be up against who knows what out there, and not all of us are gonna make it. So some of us were hoping that you could come with us, help keep us safe, help make sure most of us make it where we're going."

~~~

Hope you're enjoying the story! Please check out my other work - linktr.ee/ceritusorbis


Load failed, please RETRY

Weekly Power Status

Batch unlock chapters

Table of Contents

Display Options

Background

Font

Size

Chapter comments

Write a review Reading Status: C47
Fail to post. Please try again
  • Writing Quality
  • Stability of Updates
  • Story Development
  • Character Design
  • World Background

The total score 0.0

Review posted successfully! Read more reviews
Vote with Power Stone
Rank 200+ Power Ranking
Stone 0 Power Stone
Report inappropriate content
error Tip

Report abuse

Paragraph comments

Login

tip Paragraph comment

Paragraph comment feature is now on the Web! Move mouse over any paragraph and click the icon to add your comment.

Also, you can always turn it off/on in Settings.

GOT IT