Koi opened her eyes, trying to blink away the spots that were clouding her vision. They cleared up if slowly, the occasional flash of light just from just at the peripheries of her vision started to dim as well. So she was able to focus and see around the room.
Or rather she tried, the pain hit before she could get her bearings properly. She pushed it back, to the further recesses of her mind. Dulling it, if only a bit, making it manageable. It had been laying on the ground screaming bad, now it was just clenched teeth, pale, sweating, and the inadvertent moan.
It was worrisome to be in this much pain, she had a five minute healing factor. To be this bad off she must have been very seriously injured. More worrying was that she couldn’t quite remember how it had happened. Something about Jack. She had been talking to Ares in the control room, and then something.
Koi leveraged herself up to look around, painfully, the source of her pain seemed to be originating in her abdomen. The room was wrong. It looked like it should have been a white square cube with a bed in the middle, and nothing else. It wasn’t.
Apart from the bed that seemed normal there wasn’t a parallel lines in the room. Some of the walls were bigger than the others, but only in certain places. They still met up, but the corners weren’t in the right places, or they were, and it was the walls that were wrong.
Despite the two florescent lights on the celling, that were also twisted, and gave off plenty of light. The room was dim, the shadows longer, seemingly threatening. Odd since in theory only herself, and the bed should have been throwing shadows. But this room didn’t seem to care about that.
Then she heard the scratching from behind. Koi would have turned fast to look, but she was in too much pain for that, instead she twisted rather slowly, the effort causing her eyes to water.
.yekaw yekaW
The light flickered, not the florescent lights they were working fine, the light its self flickered. Koi also head thunder in the distance, weird since the room didn’t have windows.
Placed on the wall above the bed was a mirror. It appeared to be fogged up, except there was no condensation on the outside of the glass. The words were written in a brownish substance, that Koi thought looked a lot like blood. They were also written on the inside of the mirror.
She blinked, and the words were different.
.ginmoc s’eH
Blink
.retsamraw ehT
Blink
.niaga ginvom s’eH
Blink
.won og ot evah I
Blink
evila yatS.
“Oh, I see you got Eschered.”
The voice came from somewhere to Koi’s right, but when she looked no one was there. Twisting further around she saw that Ares was standing directly behind her. She had no idea how he had gotten there, she hadn’t heard the sound of a door opening. She also couldn’t see a door.
“Don’t worry about the mirrors, that’s Gaslight, they get the message across, but her powers take liberties on how to send the messages.” Ares said, sounding apologetic.
“Why are we in her territory?”
“You were injured and we didn’t want to move you to far, besides it’s perfectly safe. If disconcerting. Besides, her power is covering the entire tower right now, we have our own personal thunderstorm outside.” As Ares spoke he walked forward to sit at the end of the bed.
“Again why?” Koi asked.
“She did it to trap Jack after he got past the lobby, don’t worry we didn’t lose anyone. They ran into each other on the fourth sub-basement level, that was about twenty hours ago.” Ares explained.
“So what now?”
“We that’s the problem, total stalemate currently. We got this kid a couple months back who can tell what people powers are. Turns out Jack is a reality warper, no voluntary control, and they aren’t very strong. But they do scale up in response to threats to Jack’s life.” Ares answered.
“But Gaslight’s powers scale up with time.” Koi responded, just a little horrified.
“At this point we’re not panicking, and hoping diminishing returns kick in for Jack before they do for GasLight.”
“That’s the worst plan I’ve heard Ares.”
“You think I don’t know that Koi? But we have two of the most powerful reality warpers on the planet beneath our feet right now. Jack has apparently tried to start thee earthquakes, the only reason he’s still here is because Gaslight’s powers are geared for trapping, and rendering people powerless. Also scaring people.”
“This sounds really bad, what are we trying?” Koi asked.
“That’s the problem, if we try anything Jack with just get stronger. If we bring in more reality warpers Jack will also get stronger, and they won’t coordinate with Gaslight well so he will escape.” Ares said.
“Can’t we just let him go, cut our losses?”
“Hell no, his power might scale up immediately, but it scales down slowly. If we let him go he’ll probably destroy half the city on the way out.”
“Are there any options? Except wait and hope Gaslight is stronger?” Koi asked. “Because that is still a really shitty plan.”
“Not that we can think of, we even tried contacting Prysim through the intern.” Ares admitted.
“Why would you do that?” Koi asked.
“Well in your report you said Jack was here for revenge after something she did to him right? Maybe she knows a way around his powers.” Ares answered.
“That’s a long shot at best.” Koi said.
“We know, she doesn’t even have a camera so we can’t ID the girl Prysim is experimenting on. That whole mess is another headache.” He answered.
“So now what?” Koi asked
“You let me try.” A new voice said from a direction Koi couldn’t figure out. But she did recognize it, as Fey.
“I’m the Terrorist.”
Or not.
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33
Raising Angels & Defection 
And I’m back with my first story post of the year. I hope you all have a good time with it. Since I’m back from a hiatus of sorts I would appreciate some help on the gathering of new readers front. If you would be willing to go to Webfiction Guide and write me a review that would be extremely appreciated. This review would have to be for Raising Angels because Defection isn’t listed. If you don’t feel like that a vote on Top Webfiction only takes a couple of seconds and would really help me out.
wasn’t a parallel lines in the room
lines = line
Despite the two florescent lights on the celling, that were also twisted, and gave off plenty of light. The room was dim, the shadows longer, seemingly threatening.
Shouldn’t these two sentences actually be one long sentence (becasue the first one starts with Despite)?
the light its self flickered.
its self = itself
Koi also head thunder
head = heard
You were injured and we didn’t want to move you to far, besides it’s perfectly safe. If disconcerting.
to = too
Shouldn’t the second sentence be at the end of the first?
We that’s the problem
We = Well
Turns out Jack is a reality warper, no voluntary control, and they aren’t very strong.
they? Wouldn’t reality warping be considered just one power? Or you could replace ‘they’ with ‘the effects’, which would make the ‘they’ in the following sentence make more sense?
they do for GasLight.
GasLight = Gaslight
plan I’ve heard Ares
Probably should be ‘plan I’ve ever heard Ares’
to start thee earthquakes
thee = three
Oops forgot one….
anything Jack with just get
with = will
hi,
thanks for the new chapter
not a typo just style:
you use “besides” two times very close after each other
Nice!
I guess the resolution of this struggle depends on what kind of reality warper Jack is. The Devil’s in the details, after all. Pure luck, for example, would do very little against wide-area sleeping gas attacks. If he’s more general, like if his wishes tend to come true, keeping him from thinking rationally might work. If the “overseer” part of the power is omniscient, then the best solution might be if everyone took an oath to capture him alive – removing all threat to his LIFE – and then when he is subdued, they put him on the surface of Mars with a lifetime supply of food and oxygen, keeping him out of mischief AND danger. (Does his power guard against suicide? It might be possible to literally bore him to death.)
Of course, sleep might also be the deciding factor. If the Heroes have a power on call to remove Gaslight’s need for sleep, and Jack’s power can’t do that for him, then sooner or later he’ll faint, especially if he can’t find food and water.