A pensive tension permeated the air, even as it turned fetid and damp. At least it wasn't dark for long. High powered flashlights and high visibility vests turned the sewers to a sparkling shadow puppet show. Forms ahead given definition by illuminated concrete and yellow stripes. An almost tacky badge emblazoned in the same reflective material on the back. A cowboy in a hardhat riding a… bucking lightning bolt? Yeah Aegis thought this was over the top, even for Kadia. Though she needed their help in this, they were her only lead at the moment. Not to mention they had custody of ground zero right now.

The slowly circulating air had lost at least a bit of its horrid odor, but the stink was more likely being replaced, as an oppressive layer of ozone hit. Like this sewer had just been washed clean and burned out. Aegis winced and shielded her nose with her arm, finally reaching for the respirator the Wranglers had offered. A little bit of hubris refuted.

The concrete slowly changed with the air, blackened swaths stealing the light from her guide's flashlight. The sound of her own breathing suffusing through the mask undershadowed by the soft flow of still heated water. A slight humidity spike even pressing back as they neared their destination. But the soft sounds were eventually overshadowed by harsh typing and grumbled realizations. A sat form surrounded by more Wranglers taking stock of what they were going to have to delay fixing even as the city still sat in partial blackout. The shine of a pair of googles turning to greet her and her guides. Techno had beat her to the punch. Rather warranted after everything.

"What took you so long?"

The mild hiss of his own respirator doing little to cover his disappointment. Though at this point Aegis was just glad he was still working.

"Sorry, an exploded car at the Tally Smith Bridge looked a little suspicious so I had to check it out. What's the story down here? Besides the obvious."

A tired glare met her as Techno pulled his visor up, an older model than the one he had this morning. He'd lost a lot of tech in too short a time, and was forced to fall back to models that should not see the light of day. Mostly because young Techno had a steampunk start to his career that never quite fit. Also the media over conscious ribbed him mercilessly till he found a more modern aesthetic. Aegis may hate agreeing with him, but Erd was right about this. It really doesn't fit.

And Tech knew it. Without even getting up he pointed to a deep crack above his head just barely visible, as the Wranglers set to their damage tally without so much as an offered light source. But the reflections were enough. Enough to see the damage done as it glinted like glass.

"The wire, the rubber, the concrete. It's all melted to slag. That's not a surprise, but it's not the worst of it."

Techno put a hand to the wall and lifted himself up, his exacerbation still keeping him low as he walked toward the gathered lights and the true epicenter. A defiantly shiny box of wire junctions and switches took center stage and spotlight against the wall ahead, forcing Aegis and Techno to enter against theatrical standard. Spidery cracks scattered and spread along every direction outward. And a bit of the box oozed down to the blackened… and torn floor below.

Aegis leaned around the observing Wranglers to take her own stock, but there was little else to see. Rubber linings were pooled in the box's base, streaks and veins of copper and aluminum adding some pizazz to the devastation wrought upon this once orderly junction. But one wire seemed to have survived the torrential burn that tore through this stage, though not without casualty.

A single fat wire, wrenched from its bracket, stood defiant over the rest of its comrades. But a closer inspection brought its truth to bear. It was nothing more than an ashen monolith, a barely surviving remnant of what was once grand. Blackened nearly to nothing and flaking away its fleeting stature. But as short as its life now stood, it still clung to a form, one bearing its attackers marks.

Aegis hurriedly swiped a flashlight out of one of the Wranglers hands, she needed better lighting than their spotlights could provide and the flaking was accelerating. An overhead angle and a profile shot told her enough as the structure finally disintegrated to a fine dusty stain.

"Those… those looked like teeth marks."

A slight revulsion reeled the Wranglers and Techno back from the theater's act, but skepticism kept the worst feelings low. But this said more than it needed to anyway. Not just a story of too much power, but one of confirmation. And possibly a set direction if her hunch was correct. But a sweep over the blackened and cracked apart concrete backdrop left her with little to follow. And little recourse other than to regroup and take it all in.

"There's one more thing."

Aegis' resigning sigh was cut short as Techno took back the stage, spotlight taken up to shift back to that cracked and melted wall.

"All this melt and destruction… It's not uniform. Not a simple distance gradient."

A manual support arm pulled from behind him, he was really at a loss for tech. A simple sample scoop scrapped into the burned concrete, the outer layer at this point little more than… the same dust.

"There's fucking striations."

Looking down into that spotlight, Aegis could see the oddity. Some of the dust, destabilized and burned free of its concrete whole, wasn't so burned away. A subtle shift as she looked down the side long core sample. Looking back up at the wall it came from, she could see the marginal distinction, but the frequency was... considerable. Only really visible in scrunched up sample.

"So we have a trail…"

"Just not an easy one to follow."

The gravity of their undertaking finally found her as Aegis shined her light down this burned in record, darkened gradient rippling into the equally dark distance. A burned in wave form of unacceptable proportions. But one they would have to follow… eventually.

Because she was going to need everyone on board for this. And that meant getting them to see what she'd been dealing with this whole time. Whatever the hell Para awoke in Seth was only getting worse.

Ever.

Ever?

ever.

Ever!!

Ever…

Every breath a hollow void of suffocating emptiness. It's not that empty!! Must this place be so cold? metal on stone on cloth on air. They locked me away again…

And left me to rot…

Cold asphyxiation, but approximation shall alleviate. Breathe in that juice!! not too deep too fast. Will they see? At least my tomb has lights…

More than enough to wake this burned out shell…

Oh, I see something!! More meat? too far too many too strong. A herd of onlookers to my grand unveiling. Someone is celebrating…

They still think I'm dead…

*woooosh*

Applause? My visage is pleasing to the eye, but bereft inside. too many more many too too toooooyyaaaahhhh. HER!!!

The one who locked me away? She can't be that bad!! My jailer and executioner displays my corpse for all to see. SHE WILL SUFFER!!!

THEY ALL WILL SUFFER!!!

Again

"GAHHH!!"

Seth shot his eyes open and sucked in. A breath too needed at the moment and his chest still aching like that sword was still cutting through him. His mind was racing as the breath refused to sit and his lungs heaved. Eyes of every shade still looking at him from the dark corners of his sight, red outlines blaring them without regard for their reality. He franticly rubbed his eyes with his hands, trying to tear the images away. But all he could feel was the ruff grate of laceroid dust on his hands. The dust of his friends, his neighbors still clinging to-

"NO NO NO!!!"

He violently shook the waking nightmares away, the last vestiges of a nocturnal hell still trying to break free of his mind. He gritted and took in a deeper seething breath, and all but demanded the peaceful morning he was being denied. But all he received in return was the ratty smell of his new 'home'. And the reality that he wasn't simply bereft of dreams all this time, that the emptiness of every morning was a blessing. Because his only dream was a nightmare once suppressed.

It was Berta, the real one. But also its worse incarnation. Suffocated in smoke, in burning flesh and acrid fire. But also in pure mass of what surrounded him. What looked down on him. Those eyes, all of those eyes that he knew. All of them staring down in wild desperation. In fear. In anger. In hunger. All locked in that prison of flesh that was the rest of their lives. With nothing between them and his tiny compressed form. And yet… all of them just staying there. All of them silent. All of them… He didn't know. All he did know was that it was worse. Because he could feel everything they were, everything they felt on full blast. Like they wanted him to know that they were still there. That only one soul had been freed. That so many more remained.

And that he would be left to bear that weight…

Alone.

Seth kept trying to rub it all away. The sprouting insomnia forcing it to stick. The deplorable state of his life and the practically browned wallpaper were not helping. The couple of reverse piezoelectric power washes at least got rid of the mold, but had done little for the damage already soaked in. Cheap housing had its drawbacks. But it was a focus none the less. Something better to think on.

A few minutes of grounding and just being awake helping him up, but the deprivation was already eating away at his balance. His stain of a bed, triple fried to get the worst out of it, had offered little comfort. But what had been taken from him was far more than sleep.

Shaky steps carried him to the bathroom, dingier than his old one but the proportions were at least the same. Whited knuckles gripped the stained sink as tired eyes met him in the mirror, one greyed ever so slightly like scar tissue that refused to heal. If only in his head. But they were both still hazel. His face was pale, but that wasn't new. No facial hair still, but he never cared anyway. But the shaggy white shock over everything tore at him in defiant daylight reminder.

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Of the pain tearing at his chest, like his heart was still split in half and beating without care. Of what he'd suffered through yet could no longer escape. What he survived when no one else did. And of what he was constantly haunted by in his dreams. Dreams he was only having because he was along…

Because the Garkah were gone.

His mind hollow by comparison to his old collective standard. No Speaker to guide, no Threat to empathize, no Matterist to chide, no Weaver to shy away…

No one.

Their city, their Tesh III, was empty. Between bouts of that physical heart ache, he fought his way back into it, into his own mind because he could accept it. But all he'd found there was silence.

The formed energy, the constructs of their expressed intent standing in empty memorial. The octagonal high-rises still filled with self-made works and approximations. The blank space that used to dominate the central plaza had been filled back in, a starlight monument in place of the Ark sliver. Which was completely absent from his head. The simulated environment still artificially cold, but horridly still. He had been left with nothing but himself, not even an abyss to take it all away.

The water from the sink tasted like lead as he splashed himself away from that spiraling drop. The drain held little of the sewer back and, despite repeated attempts, everything smelled of mildew. This was life now, a shithole apartment all to himself. And for the first time in this life…

He was alone.

Completely and utterly alone.

Whether they left him with purpose or by accident, there was little he could do. Beings of pure energy don't leave anything behind for him to track. And this constant malicious heartbeat killed any focus he achieved before it could be truly useful. So there he was, without friends and without the purpose he'd clung to for so long.

What was left of yesterday's bowl of cereal, a somewhat cold left over soda, and a freshly deloused couch were his final morning destination. At the very least this god awful apartment had a TV. One he'd coopted and tethered to the good cable signal. He avoided the news like the plague though. The feeling in his chest, when it wasn't spiked with pain, exude that blind guilt he'd tried to suppress. A guilt that felt tethered to whatever had happened to cause this mess and put him on the run.

But also a guilt that refused to show him that ultimate cause. That blind feeling from before was just a prelude to the hell he was living in now. Add in that he was living with an old torn open wound haunting his dreams, and the prospect of opening another he couldn't even fathom kept his head as down as it could possibly go. Being depressed and sleep deprived was better than melting down and losing himself completely. But…

*bzt* *bzt* *bzt*

'…huggh There's just nothing on.'

*bzt*

"…So how can we continue to accept their-"

*bzt*

'Fucking hell no!'

The TV flipped off before the worst could be aired, dark screen reflecting Seth holding his head in his hands. Those assholes always knew how to rile people up for stupid reasons and with abhorrent motives. Deep down most supers just wished they could smash their studio to bits and end the torment, but they also knew that would only empower them more. And draw all the hate they preach on anyone else with powers. The League as an institution had always drawn ire, but politics will never stop being cancerous. Especially with a place like this to point to.

This place…

This Eagleville.

Seth pulled himself off the couch before he became a part of it, he needed groceries. And air. Stuffing his hair tight under his hat and practically turtling into his 'borrowed' trench coat, he trundled out his rusty door. The rest of his apartment block in a relative quiet, more a product of the early hour than the actual attitudes. Just the one night made this place out to be the postmodern purgatory he felt it would be.

Situated just north of Kadia but separated by the foot hills and protected forests, it used to be nothing but vaguely owned woods, farms, and a sleepy scenic neighborhood. When the crisis hit it became the place where all the refugees were sent because it was the only flat land available to build on. Hundreds of thousands forced from their homes so they would survive when their towns were used as bomb ranges and kill boxes. Tents and rudimentary buildings put together to care for them, though without any real permanency. But the location unfortunately proved equally useful as a port.

The Plateau River that marked the far border was calmer than the Terrace, and could be built up more easily. So as the crisis expanded in scope, so too did the camp. The same slapdash construction used by the Wall's support structure was started here, warehouses and factories stretching for miles upriver, with basic housing and services only coming in after it. That's not to say it wasn't done, but nothing was supposed to be permanent. But much of it ended up so.

The poor state of the living conditions gave this place its name, an homage to the Hoovervilles of old, just attributed to the League and their war rather than Depression era policies. As the crisis wore on, the people left to live here at least had jobs. Someone had to work in all this logistical nonsense. But upward mobility was slow going for people who had little left and a lot demanded of them. Building a wall like The Wall required material to come in constantly. And expenses had to be cut somewhere.

But when the crisis slowed in the end, those opportunities dried up quick, and people were stranded in tenements. Thankfully the years since had seen the population decline, programs running through every so often to get people out of a quickly dilapidating ghetto. But still some wouldn't leave, or couldn't. Thus it became an unfortunate permanent fixture, supported simply because living here was dirt cheap and didn't immediately look so bad.

The main street was hardly different from yesterday when Seth had walked it, just with less crowds looking to the news for answers and excitement. Gaggles walked up and down to what jobs they could secure or whatever places still operated here, plenty trudging toward the foothills and the only active bus stop. What few cars on the road heading toward Kadia as well, those lucky commuters who found prospects and the barest amount of luxury in mobility.

More homebound denizens were already sticking into their own morning routines. Laundry fluttered on balconies and communal rooftops. Lounge chairs in every state providing what comfort they could to ease their charges awake. Windows and doors held open so the ac deprived could get the fresh air they needed.

'Yep… it certainly is a living.'

No one batted an eye as Seth pulled himself along, few caring to pry into others' lives. Least of all for people they don't even know. All manner can end up here, either by volition or not. But a good number end up being supers bereft of legitimacy. And violence wasn't too uncommon of an occurrence.

Once the population and property values hit rock bottom, the district turned virtually lawless. The League did try, they didn't initially want to leave it be. But even they stopped patrolling after a riot burned down their outpost, and large swath of houses. A hero investigating a string of kidnappings ended up getting several people killed by just asking questions, anyone who talked to him ended up dead whether they were giving information or just directions. When they tried to ferret out the culprits, press harder against the killings, it just lead to a lot of destroyed buildings and urban warfare.

Most of the district demanded they just leave by then, spurred on by intimidation and the constant disparity in the casualties. It didn't help that whoever they were fighting weren't supers. So they left, and never came back. Despite the fact that only a few miles of road and forest separated them. Better to let them have what they want maybe. Or better to not rile up a wave of bad publicity. But that's why Seth chose to come here, and that choice ate away at his every step.

The police still come through from time to time though, only virtual lawlessness, but most know full well they were just token showings. Or worse, just as dirty. Any one sent here would be woefully under gunned for their situation regardless. Most of the streets were said to be controlled by various gangs, with the more dangerous ones being made up of rejected supers. That never sat quite right though, but what Seth saw now didn't help raise that skepticism. And he knew plenty on why someone would come here.

The desperate, stupid, or unprepared had flooded into major cities when the League started up its recruitment drives. People wanted to be heroes, to have a purpose in the face of the post crisis malaise, to mean something to this world that needed them now more than ever. But in much of the country they were met with scared and hardened veterans that had seen too much already. Abhorrent standards, utterly ridiculous challenges, hostile trainers given far too much authority. Para was just a symptom, even if he felt like the plague. The dropout rate skyrocketed, only the best of the best even given a chance to be sidekicks, while everyone else was left to deal with the inadequacy.

Work programs caught a good chunk of the dropouts at least. A desperate super with a useful power was worth a lot in a labor force practically driven by them. And Seth couldn't really complain about that, given that it was driving his industry into the ground. But that still left out all those without marketable powers.

Glass shard generation, minor psychic abilities, just plain old odd physical traits, the purely destructive powers that simply using resulted in irreparable harm to the user, the sort of stuff the League couldn't train up to fighting level without causing significant harm to everything around them, or just the ones that couldn't even be called powers. The lucky or prepared among these simply went back where they came from, but there are always the unlucky.

Cheap housing drew them into Eagleville, and the spread thin opportunities left them high and dry. And so a lot of dangerous, poorly trained, and disillusioned supers ended up here. And added themselves to the problems facing this place. Conflict seeming to be a constant variable for even the smallest modicum of peace.

A peace Seth at least had as he walked toward the corner three blocks away. The traffic lights were little more than suggestions, if they even still lit up, so he didn't wait for any sign to tell him he could cross. The air wafted thicker with the after effects of life here, mixed stenches of open sewer and second hand smoke with the lucky whiffs of old disintegrated mortar and morning cooking.

'At least the food here smells good.'

A corner to the main road came up quickly and splayed out as the blocking buildings moved away. A beaten earth park being taken up by a small slapdash street market still getting prepped. So already the atmosphere was improving. Cinnamon coatings, fried everything, handmade dough and home crushed spices. He could smell cornbread and hotdog water, chili powder and excess flour. The fact that such a place was hidden away from him before and situated in such a shitty place only added to his dour. Not to mention he would have to wait for it to even open in the first place. A defeated, and ravenous, sigh carried him away and into the only place left. A corner convenience store, a pale loathsome compromise.

Short rows of small order supplies and a few hardened clear plastic barriers made the store out to be a shoplifter's challenge, but the clerk at least appeared less hostile. Another shared nod of common courtesy with no ruse adding tension, just normal social awkwardness. A few other shoppers browsing about the aisles, but Seth couldn't bring himself to make them out. Just normal people going about their day. The breakfast aisle was a quick first choice, more prepackaged cereal bowls to make the doubtlessly worsening mornings easier, the thought already driving him lower as he looked at the fruit flavored puff ball pack in his hand. A varied stack building over it as he shifted lanes. A quart of milk hung off a finger with no chance of sagging it down, at least he still had his strength to fall back on. A few sodas were clipped to the other hand as a couple of canned soups filled his palm, and maybe a can of refried beans just to top it all off. And lastly the chips were hugged to his chest by one arm. If he was going to be depressed he was going to have snacks. End of… discussion.

A solemn nostalgia followed him to the counter amidst the other shoppers, even the worst event of his life still had good memories to it. Memories that clanked and beeped away as he placed down his supplies for the clerk to tally up. A cursory distracting scan of the counter tried to pull him away and back to the now. Every flavor of gum rowed up high, bogus energy pills, cigarettes of every shade and substance, some donation placard to… to…

Seth shut his eyes, locked down as hard as he could, but his damn brain fired every neuron it could to reconstruct that sight over and over. The wall looming over him, the smell of phosphorus and burning desiccated flesh, the dusty grit on his hands and in his hair. And all of those eyes looking at him. Looking at-

"That'll be $37.45"

The clerk's almost forced smile filled his vision as the memories snapped away, all the fear still surging like he just stepped back in time to relive everything. Seth shook his head and gritted, getting a grip on reality.

"…Sorry."

Before pulling out some money from his coat to pay up and keep the line moving. He could feel worried eyes on him as he collected his bagged up supplies with his head weighed too low to see anything else. Quickly scurrying away, less concerned for the awkwardness and more to just desperately get away from that fucking placard.

'Who the fuck would still be looking for donations for survivors anymore?!"

Everything was shot to hell, adrenaline dregs still pounding his heart, making that deep ache present for more than just his guilt. He paid nothing to the tantalizing smells of far better food, because he had nothing left. He just kept walking back to his dingy apartment, on this bleak street, in this shithole place he now had to live in. His plastic bag of all his goods hanging as low as his cap, face masked to everyone, world reduced to just mildly trashed sidewalk and other people's shoes. Crosswalks and rusting junkers on the side of the street.

His grit let up as he neared his apartment, the rotted away tree planter a nice marker in this blinded out world. He looked up at last, few people left of the morning commute and a barely helping reaffirmation of his surroundings as he looked around. Still the same shithole but… he could feel something odd at his back.

That tinge of eyes upon him. Eyes that exuded tension and malice in equal measure. But not recognition. Seth quickly pulled inside. Would rather avoid getting mugged if he could. Though it's not like he couldn't still beat the shit out of whoever it was, but attention was a bad thing right now. The sensation passed as the main door closed behind him, a sufficient deterrent it seemed.

His apartment was still the same as he left it, only way anyone could get in was break in anyway. His stacked up food staying on the counter where he could see it, no trust placed in the cupboards to keep them protected. The fridge was at least secure, but still fairly iffy. Won't get very cold and won't make any ice. Seth tried to boost it a little but the problem was mechanical rather than electrical. But fuck it. At this point he felt he deserved to be miserable. Holding so much in and down was wasting him away. And it had only been a single day. He flopped back down on the couch, at least thankful it was quiet.

So very thankful it was at least quiet.

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