[Anon text]

[mysterioisthetruth]

What is it that you truly believe in?

What - or who - do you want to put your belief into?

Comments

[obediences]

Thank you. Think I needed to hear that.

[bodilesswarrior]

Must of us do, from time to time.

...Your family were superheroes as kids, right? [She remembers the comic books popping up.]

[obediences]

[ He should be accustomed to the recognition — it had been their bread-and-butter for years back home, child celebrities, basking in the limelight — but it's still a little bit of a jolt, to have someone mention it here and it takes him a moment to remember. Right. The comic books. ]

Yeah. The Umbrella Academy. There were six of us. I'm Luther — or I was Spaceboy, I guess.

[ The team leader, all blond hair and square jaw immortalised in the pages. ]

[bodilesswarrior]

[Barbara took the issues she grabbed with several tons of salt, of course, but she memorised them all the same.]

The leader. Hell of an archetype to cram a little boy into.


[No, she does not approve. At least the Titans came together by choice, and Dick was in his teens by then.]

[obediences]

[ He barks a laugh — he doesn't disagree — but what emerges in the next text still sounds resigned. Even to this day, he can't help defending it a little: ]

Somebody had to do it. Teams can't really function without a leader in the field.

[bodilesswarrior]

That's true. But he may have considered waiting until the six of you could vote. Or at least drive.

[obediences]

And let all the mad scientists and supervillains just run wild in the city in the meantime, while we waited for some arbitrary birthday number?

[ child endangerment what's that ]

[bodilesswarrior]

[SIGH. It's fine she knows how to argue this]

How much more effective would you have been at stopping them, if you'd had at least six more years of training?

In the meantime, was there really no one else who could possibly hold the tide? The world spun for quite a while before you were born.

[obediences]

Weirdly, not really. We were filling a gap that nobody was. Everyone I know of with superpowers was born on the same day, so anybody else with our capabilities would've been the same age as us. I'm not sure what happened to the others, though. They weren't around, so maybe they were waiting, if they lived.

[ But he's still lingering on her first question, chewing over it, as it unearths an angle he doesn't like to consider. Would six more years of training have made a difference for Ben? Maybe it wouldn't have happened. Maybe they wouldn't have fucked up. Maybe his brother would've lived. Or maybe everyone else would've fallen apart from their training before they ever hit the field. ]

You might be right, though, that we might've been more effective with more training.

[bodilesswarrior]

So no criminals with super powers either, right? Mad science aside. With the right knowledge and equipment, you don't need powers to deal with that.

[She'd wondered if the comics were exaggerating, but apparently not; one impossible generation with super powers, and only six of them active as heroes. She's fascinated, but she can also feel second hand stress.]

Generally speaking, the more preparation you have the better - not just when it comes to skills and teamwork, either. Maturity in situations like that is important, and you can't just force kids to have it.

[obediences]

More science probably could've filled that gap for a while, but it wasn't-- effective enough at the time, I guess. But yeah, you're right. In the end, it didn't exactly work out as well as the comics painted it. [ No further elaboration on that point, but congrats, Barbara, you're actually giving him pause. ]

'Oracle'. Were you a seer, where you come from?

[bodilesswarrior]

Somehow I figured.

[There are worlds where those thing do all work out, probably. It's hard for her to wrap her mind around, these days.]

And no, at least not literally. Just very good at finding buried truths. Or encoded truths.

I'd also been in the superhero business for a very long time.

[obediences]

That also tracks. It sounds like you've probably known a few. Were there a lot of them, in your world?

[bodilesswarrior]

If you want an understatement. Back when I started there weren't quite as many, but it was still a long tradition by that point. It started in the forties, and I'm from 2004. [It's still weird, having to clarify that.]

[obediences]

Huh. That's a while. [ Understatement again, Luther!! ]

Was there any inciting event that triggered them first appearing? That your world could tell, at least?

[bodilesswarrior]

Not really, no. A certain percentage of the population have the metagene, which gives them the potential to develop special abilities in the right circumstances, or inherit magical abilities, but it's hard to pinpoint an origin for either. Neither make up the majority of superheroes, either; the progenitor, as far as we can tell, was the Crimson Avenger, who didn't have powers at all.

Then you've got aliens, science experiments, Atlanteans, Amazons, heroic androids, demigods...

[She didn't know half of this when she was a kid, and occasionally she remembers how bizarre it all is.]

The sheer variety comes in handy, but it can be harder than herding cats. Cats can't fly away in a huff and start breaking buildings. ...Usually.

[obediences]

[ He actually bursts into an unexpected laugh at that, reading her message. ]

Wow. Jeez. We had variety -- extra-dimensional monsters, magicians, talking goldfish, time-travelling assassins -- but the actual superheroes part of it was limited. Just the six of us.

So I think your world takes the cake.

[bodilesswarrior]

This place wasn't exactly a huge adjustment for us.

...How's it been for you? Having so many other heroes around?

perma-private

[obediences]

Good question.


[ Luther chews over that one a bit, before marking the rest of this conversation private. To be on the safe side. It's the only way he can be more honest about this, instead of just parroting off the PR line to the total stranger on the network. ]

I guess it's a... relief, in a way? It's not just our job anymore. There's tons of other people who can do it. Other teams. But then it also feels like they're stepping on territory that should be mi ours, by rights. Not used to sharing the spotlight.

But the Umbrella Academy hasn't actually been a thing for a few years now, my world, so. It's fine.

[ Reader, it was not fine. ]

What did you do, in the superhero business?

perma-private

[bodilesswarrior]

[Barbara adds some extra encryption, before she replies.]

It'll take a while for you to realise that you can trust people to pull their own weight.

[She could keep things vague, or just focus purely on the present - but Luther is opening up, here. She could stand to do it too.]

For years, I tended to just work with a few other heroes, mostly in just the one city. None of us had powers, but we trained hard, and we had the resources to make good equipment.

Back then, everything seemed a bit...simpler. Safer. Even for the younger heroes.

Then I got injured, which took me out of the field permanently. Weeks later, one of those kids died.

[So. That's where she's coming from.]

[obediences]

[ It had been a bit of a gamble, trusting Oracle with it, but it's paid off. And where so many of his siblings are cagey, guarded, Luther's not used to having people to talk to; isn't used to watching his mouth quite the same way. Tends to put his foot in it, or blurt things out. Encountering a voice that understands like this is rare enough. ]

I'm sorry that happened. Starting to see why you have the angle that you have.

One of my brothers died in the field. When he was just a teen. The comics glossed over that part. The Porter and the nanites resurrected him here, which is fantastic, but it still happened -- and I got injured later, too.

I guess it always seems pretty simple and clear-cut until that first serious thing happens to take the shine off.

[bodilesswarrior]

[Cagey is her middle name, especially as Oracle, but - she needs to do more work at reaching out, here. Making herself part of a new community even less cohesive than the one she came from.

Besides, she still remembers how the red kryptonite made her feel. Like she was allowed to focus on the people behind the masks, and trust in what they built together.]

This place has serious downsides, but I'm glad it gave you back your brother. I've met people I've lost at home, too, and it's still - a bit surreal.

Looking back, I can't believe how lucky we got sometimes. I had an assassin after me, once; bullet missed my heart by inches.

Can I ask how your injury happened?

[obediences]

By inches, shit. I don't know about you, but that kind of luck had us... I mean, it was exhilarating, too? Made you feel alive. Invincible in that moment. [ Like gods. And he pauses over the last question. It's a reasonable one, considering something happened to them, too — evidently bad enough to make them retire from the field entirely. So: ]

Biochemical attack. I went into the field alone and bit off more than I could chew. It was eating through all my skin and getting to my lungs. Would've died if The Monocle hadn't gotten to me in time with a regenerative serum. Almost died anyway.

[ He doesn't mention the side-effects. ]

How about you?

[bodilesswarrior]

No, I got that too. Weird thing to be nostalgic for, huh?

[She misses almost falling nearly as much as she misses flying. She still experiences the fear, sending her operatives - her friends, her partners, her people - into danger, the thrill of relief when they escape death by the skin of their teeth. But it's not the same.]

I can't imagine how agonising that must have been. Especially going through it alone.

[Was the rest of the team - of his family - on another mission? Or had they managed to leave that life, leaving him behind? She doesn't ask.]

Mine was another bullet. Through the spine, this time. Lost the use of my legs.

I wasn't even in the field. He was just using me to hurt someone else.

[obediences]

Fuck. [ A more mortified exhale of sympathetic pain, a twinge of self-awareness. No regenerative serum for the Oracle. No handy way to reel back that loss, even with side-effects. ]

I'm sorry. That's even worse. You expect this kind of thing in the field, steel yourself for it, agree to the risks. It's part of the deal.

It's not supposed to happen elsewhere. That's a low move.

[ Maybe weird, for him to hold to this sense of honour amongst villains, but it's just part of the social contract. The Academy building itself had been untouchable, inviolable and protected for the years they were active. Either nobody dared breach it, or their father's defenses had always kept the enemies out and confined their fighting to the field. ]