brought down a notch, tag; anyone, probably flush

[lyanna wilder]

The world was turning upside down, with Lyanna sent spiralling out of her comfort zone. She was used to the finer things, she was used to things going her way – that was no surprise. She was born to the wealthy and lived such a lavish life style – but things had started going downhill for her and her team, hell, her and her species, since that fateful day in March. That poor kid, that Sidekick from the Academy – slaughtered. And probably by human hands, or else a very odd superhuman, one with rage but with no offensive power to let it loose. No, Lyanna was in the belief that they were dealing with some sort of human uprising; a rebellion, if you will – which was odd. Never had the superhumans – well, aside from the bloody Suicide Kings – attempted to oppress the humans. No; superhumans had simply been employed to help, rose to the top of most careers dealing with offence, defence and intelligence, all for the well-being of humans, and other superhumans. It did not make any sense, why superhumans, young ones at that, would be the target of human monsters.

And so, Lyanna began to pace; strolling across the huge expanse that was the mansion she had bought so long ago, with her parents money. Polished to the highest extent, the mansion had the sort of look that screamed irresponsible wealth. Top gadgets, pointless art, statues and marble, all kept clean by the weekly cleaners Lyanna paid to troll around the building, wiping it down top to bottom. Carelessly, her thoughts obviously elsewhere, the woman paced the well-known trek to her downstairs living room, which was currently the place to be, if you had four legs and a tail. When Lyanna entered the room, there was a flurry of movement and a soft whine – the dogs. Lyanna’s dogs. Rip and Roar, the two hulking black males, alongside their black and white female companion Roulette. All three (Roulette with more dignity) promptly padded over to greet Lyanna, panting heavily in the heat of the house: totally acceptable in this bizarre heat.

Pushing her long dark hair out of her face, Lyanna moved to the other side of the ridiculously large room, moving to sit behind a darkly polished table, the top scattered with that mornings newspaper, still crying outrage against the childs murder as the hunt went on. Amongst the newspaper were sheets and sheets of notes, scribbled in each team-mates writing as they had tried to figure out a reason for the murder. All eyes were on them, the heroes, the best of the best: why couldn’t they solve this damn crime? Crossing one leg over the other, her pleated black skirt shifting to modestly cover at least her thighs, she turned her eerie, ever changing gaze downwards to the dogs; Rip and Roar battling eachother to get closer, with Roulette sitting in lady-like grace on her other side.

“What do you think, Rou?” she asked, twisting towards her female wolfdog, the cloth of her surprisingly simple tank-stop rippling. “Why kill the Sidekick?”

Jealousy? the creature responded, using the telepathic link that bound Lyanna to all animals, large or small.

Frowning slightly, the woman known primarily as Wildcard coiled a strand of hair around a finger, her eyes settling on a deep, murky blue. “He was only a kid.”

I didn’t say bravery.

[desdemona lesage]

It was Desdemona’s job to answer the questions that the Flush questioned. She was the information girl, and she ferreted information in the best way she could manage. That was her job on the team. That was the duty she had to perform, but sometimes, Desdemona did not want to know the answers. Sometimes she just wanted to let situations pass her by without ever learning the reasons. It was not that Desdemona was not a curious person by nature, but rather that her ability to know the answers other people could never dream of knowing suppressed her curiosity. She did not want to know people’s thoughts, people’s ideas, and people’s motivations all the time because it was difficult to process the information, and because she was constantly exposed to it. That the boy had been killed, it was a tragedy, but Desdemona felt the world would be happier, her world would be better, if everyone allowed the event to occur without even investigating it. Whatever had killed the Sidekick, was hardly a threat, Desdemona mused, but she submitted to the wills and wants of her teammates, and she searched.

Crouched against the wall of the living room, with her arms wrapped around her knees, Desdemona searched. Her head fell against the bones of her legs, as she allowed her mind to get caught up in the thoughts of London. She narrowed her search. Who was thinking of hating superheroes today? Who had a bone to pick with the gifted? Soon, she immersed herself in hate, which wrapped her in cold arms and transfixed her with horror. It was difficult to describe what it was like to be caught up in the thoughts of many, but it was overwhelming and awful on a good day, when Desdemona searched through the mundane. Searching as she was currently, was positively painful, not in the way her powers usually hurt her, by draining her energy physical until she was mentally fatigued, but emotionally, on a deeper, more dangerous level. People hated so vigorously, with the vitality of human passion, and by hating super humans, these people, the ones on which she snooped, hated her. She fought for them, endangered herself for them, and yet these people, they hated her with a fiery intensity she could barely comprehend.

Desdemona did not notice Lyanna. She was too concentrated on her current task to acknowledge the presence of another mind, even another familiar mind. She hardly noticed the dogs, although they had been in the room before she. No, Desdemona was alone in her search, despite the fact that she was physically in the proximity of other people. She could not bring herself to share the information with the group, so the newspaper article lacked Desdemona’s delicate, lovely script. She would let the other’s guess. Desdemona had to know, and she had to be sure before she speculated. Only Lyanna’s question cut through Desdemona’s concentration. The telepath missed the answer of the dog. Desdemona could not read the mind’s of animals, as animal minds possessed different structure from human minds, and were distant and foreign to the young woman. She just looked up towards Lyanna, impossible fatigue sketched across her thin face, before she sighed. The sigh was pathetic, as if Desdemona held so much weight on her soul that she could barely utter the sound.
“Fear.”
She answered, as her gaze drifted from Lyanna to the wall behind the other woman, still glazed with the stress of concentration. It was the closest word Desdemona could form for expressing the emotion she felt. Despite her vow not to speak until she had tracked down the specific offender, Desdemona felt the answer needed to be spoken to the world, as her proclamation of her attempt to understand human hate. Fear. The superhumans, they were a lot to be afraid of, after all, an infinite threat to the continuation of humanity. They were so easy to hate for a human. Desdemona could almost comprehend that. Superhumans were, in their way, greater than humans, another step towards evolutionary supremacy. Superhumans were not only dangerous, they were a threat to the power of those who were normally human. That was the reality. It had to be accepted, but some people could not accept such a fate, to be lower than anyone else, to be weaker than anyone else, or to be in danger from a force so much greater than themselves. What else could be explained?

[lyanna wilder]

Whereas Desdemona didn’t notice that Lyanna had entered the room because the former was absorbed in complex thoughts and anxiety, the Commander of the prestigious Royal Flush simply didn’t notice Desdemona. It was a bad habit of the womans, and an incredibly arrogant one at that; she could stroll the world over and, unless she was looking for you, wouldn’t notice you even if you were her travelling partner. The world according to Lyanna revolved around Lyanna: simple as that. She’d noticed the dogs because of her strong, strong bond; her dogs were almost as important to the woman as herself was. Oh, she loved her team, cherished them even, but at the end of the day, if she was not expecting anyone to be in the room, and was not searching for a conversation, others did not exist.

Lowering a hand to run her fingers through the shaggy fur on Roulette’s wolf-like head, Lyanna grinned dryly, her lips twisting almost artfully on her perfectly made-up face. Yes; she supposed the dog had a point, even if it was one that had been brought up before. “Deep, Rou, real deep,” she told the dog. In all honesty, she was a little bit worried the dog had even come up with such a response; Roulette was getting incredibly intelligent, surpassing Rip and Roar by miles. It was an unfortunate, or not so unfortunate, side-effect of her bond; the deeper the bond, the longer it lasted, and the more intelligent the animal became, from the constant stream of human thoughts running into its mind. Normally this was limited to her pets; and Roulette was the best example. Her natural dignity had allowed her to pull back from the puppy-games of biting and scratching that her brothers still played; thus, more time was spent in conversation with Lyanna.

When Desdemona spoke, at least Lyanna had the self-control not to jump out of her skin. The dogs, obviously, had known she was there; but a member of the Flush lounging around the Flush Headquarters was hardly something they needed to alert their mistress to. “Fear?” she repeated, looking down at the younger woman. Desdemona was a prize, Lyanna knew that much; her brother was nothing compared to the sheer specialisation Knave’s telepathic supremacy brought to the Royal Flush. Now, though, the younger woman, the newest team-mate to date, was looking almost old; pained and more weary than Lyanna had ever seen her. “Of course they fear us,” she started, as Roulette turned her amber eyes onto Knave, as if she understood the conversation – which she sort of did; she could pick out words of Desdemona’s speech, after all. “But the Sidekick was going to HERO school, Knave.” You could never be sure if anyone was listening. “He was learning how to help them. What kind of idiot idiot thinks its a good idea to get trigger happy with a heroling?”

[desdemona lesage]

How could Desdemona explain the antagonism she felt? It was vast, and for each different person, each mind she intrusively forced herself into, it was a different reasoning, a different hate, and a different fear, and yet there were threads of similarity that ran through them like shared themes of books, or similar traits in religions. Explaining something that was both so personal, so dispersed, and yet so central was—difficult. For a brief second, Desdemona considered showing Lyanna, connecting the other woman to the threads Desdemona currently listened to, but then decided that such an action would be foolish. Desdemona was not sure if Lyanna’s mind processed thoughts, especially thoughts from so many people, in the same manner as Desdemona’s specialized mind. Furthermore, perhaps Lyanna could not make sense of the individual thoughts at all, and would just “hear” noise. Then the practice would be folly, and Desdemona would just be draining her quickly depleting energy while subjecting the other woman with unpleasantries which did not need to be shared. Instead, Desdemona sighed, her eyes losing focus again.
“It’s not that kind of fear, not always, and not really.”
Desdemona started. Her voice was soft and distracted. She was still connected to the minds of London. She had spent too much time and energy creating the bridge to justify removing it.
“I mean not an individual fear of certain heroes, rather a generalized fear of both unknown variables and such great, unattainable, indescribable, and unknown power. I think some humans, maybe even some other metahumans are frightened both of the concept of mutants and of a social upheaval. Humans are frightened because they are powerless against us and our powers, and the fear has led to hate. That’s the best way I can explain it. I’m paraphrasing, and I might be imposing my own thoughts onto what I am attempting to comprehend.”
Desdemona explained. She turned her gaze away from the wall and to Lyanna.

Desdemona’s expression became grave, and she sighed again.
“I am now speaking from personal beliefs, with no evidence to the matter, but it seems to me if I understand the trend of mutant hate that I am feeling, and people are more afraid of the concept of mutants than of them personally, a child, with only elementary control over his powers, would be much easier to eliminate than—say, one of us or one of the Kings, who are fully grown humans with great control of their abilities—myself excluded, of course, from that definition.”
It was times likes these, when she had to use her powers in such a vast way, that Desdemona realized how much she did not know about herself. She was limited, stunted almost, by lack of control and understanding of her abilities, and she was always around people with almost full mastery of their capacities. She could not dwell on the subject then, however, because she ever kept her connection to London, and the bombardment of thoughts kept her both distracted and focused.

“This is more than just a problem between hero and villain. It is a conflict between humans and mutants, and I’m afraid the morality, validity, and good intentions of heroes cannot overcome some people’s hatred and fear.”
Desdemona added. She thought about adding that despite her status as a hero, she was currently violating hundreds of people, which was causing harm, or that even heroes possessed the capacity to do bad things. Desdemona, for instance, could kill people with her mind. The fact that her morality prevented her from doing so did not remove the fact that she could do so, and she could imagine not trusting the words of some hero. What differentiated the Flush from the Kings, after all, besides the best intentions and alternate “sides.” Were not all the mutants, in some ways, praying on humans.
“I don’t know. I need to investigate further.”
Desdemona finally growled in frustration. If she could only find an ANSWER. Only find a culprit! It was just so difficult. She was just so tired and so weak.

[lyanna wilder]

No, Lyanna’s mind would never comprehend the thoughts – even the visibly expressed ones – of other people. Oh, sure, she knew what was expected of her, and she knew how to play people on a shallow level, but that’s all the woman had ever bothered investigating. The deeper thoughts, the ones that Lyanna could not pick up by subtle face twitches and the look in someones eye, were ones that were utterly beyond her depth or even concern; which was odd, if you considered things. Lyanna Roz Wilder; Wildcard – the woman who could tame a berserking bull by raising a hand...could not comprehend the depths of the human psyche. Perhaps, had Desdemona decided to use something akin to the Vulcan Mind Meld, Lyanna would have heard nothing – but more likely? The woman may have been driven to insanity, with Desdemona’s more sophisticated telepathy bearing down the walls in her own mind, letting all the animals in, even if she heard no human cry.

Stroking Roulette’s head absently, ignoring the clambering thoughts, the vying for attention, that she recognised as Rip and Roar. Lyanna had gotten quite good at desensitising herself from the voices of the animals, at least those of which she heard on a daily basis. Oh, she still carried around a box of various pain killers, for when the headaches started, but that was more because the wild animals thoughts invaded her mind once she went to new places, the outside, the city; whereas the animals around her house, the headquarters, she was fairly familiar with. It was one of the many bizarre side-effects that Lyanna’s particular power had burdened her with.

As Desdemona spoke, the older woman could not help but suddenly understand. Des had this effect on people, Lyanna had come to see – it was partly that remarkable ability of hers that had made Lyanna extend the prestigious invitation. Fear had many layers; different types for different people. Fear in this case was as dangerous as any double-bladed weapon; fear was driving hatred and hatred...well. Lyanna was unfamiliar with the business end of hatred, but what she did understand was violence – you could not be a hero of such fathomless fame had you need comprehended a little violence. Still, she was not used to such violence being directed at her, even if it was indirectly. London had become something of a Kingdom to Lyanna, even if the Queen was the true...well, Queen. A slight on a civilian, student, or anything, was a personal threat to Lyanna, and what made this case even more frustrating was the fact it was clearly not a King death, or a Spitfire one. This was not something she was familiar with – as Desdemona would go on to prove.

Indeed, Lyanna found herself staring across the room at her young telepath: humans versus mutants? Well, a) she’d let that term slide (superhuman was clearly preferred,) and B ) holy hell. This was not familiar territory; this was a little bit more political, and a whole lot less flashy. This was the stuff of comic books and movies, not real life. “That’s just great,” she breathed out, slouching slightly in her chair before seemingly realising it, and fixing her posture, her eyes a swirling mess of primary colours. “How do we deal with this?” It was a fair question. Afterall; when it came to crimes against humanity, it was better to deal with the devil you knew.