witch's cape, not hat | Glowfic Constellation

witchwatcher

"42nd wing is based out of south Suomus. But I don't think we are from the same damn planet . Never seen anything like this city. Or your armor. Or even this boat, rusted out as it is."

wormcan

"And I've never heard of Suomus. Does your planet look like this?" A figure of Earth projects from a point on his helmet, blue light shining out and seeming to stop at the correct points to make a slowly rotating globe. This definitely wasn't copied from any old movies.

witchwatcher

"...You got the shape of Liberion wrong. And this whole place," She points at China, "Is supposed to be an ocean."

wormcan

It shuts down, and Armsmaster nods. "Different world, then. This world knew they exist, but I hadn't heard of anyone traveling between them before. Would you like to come to HQ to discuss it further? We can get medical help for your injured members."

witchwatcher

"Copycat and some little girl were being kept drugged with stuff so strong half an hour of Angel flaring regen hasn't woken them up yet. I don't trust anyone from this world right now. Only reason we're still here is because this place could be useful."

The last part of this statement is a lie.

wormcan

It is, but no reason to let them know he knows that.

He looks down, gets a better look at Copycat and the little girl.
"That's Dinah Alcott. And Grendyne?"

witchwatcher

"You know Gren?" The commander stares accusitorily.

"Stop it already, boss," someone else pipes up, "Going with him is better than sitting around here."

"Humph. If Seer says so, we'll follow you. But don't try to split us up, you hear?"

wormcan

"In that case, hospital first? There's a healer who's usually there, she can fix the physical effects of the drugs if not the mental ones.

I met Copycat about a week ago, she appeared out of nowhere and helped shut down a crisis. She vanished shortly after, apparently because she was being held by one of the local supervillains. And Dinah here is a relative of the mayor, she's been missing for even longer." He picks up Dinah. "Her I should get to Panacea as soon as possible."

witchwatcher

He'll have trouble picking up Dinan when the witch carrying her backs off ten feet. "We're faster. Point the way."

wormcan

"Southwest. I'll lead you there, I doubt the type of directions this city is built for would mean much to you." He jumps down to his motorcycle, and starts heading in the correct direction. Plus or minus a stop to check that they're following, of course.

witchwatcher

They're following... From about a thousand feet above him. They do match his turns almost exactly, though. And one of them was called Telescope.

wormcan

He'd rather not be trusting them with this. If they drop Dinah from a thousand feet on his watch that would be...bad.

But they get there safely, and he parks his motorcycle and walks in, assuming they'll bring the injured in.

witchwatcher

They land their things in a neat diamond formation and follow him in, as planned.

wormcan

Panacea is in fact available. She touches Dinah, then Gren, then the other injured Witch. She stays in contact longer with Gren and Dinah. "Those two were drugged, heavily. Opiates and tranquilizers. I've gotten the drugs out of their systems, but if they're psychologically addicted as well as physically I can't touch that."

witchwatcher

Gren has woken up at this point. She shouts "FUCK YOU, COIL!" Before realizing where she is.

"Boss! I could kiss you guys if I wasn't straight."

(The one carrying Dinah sets her down.)

Angel taps Armsmaster on his shoulder. "Um... I can heal a bunch of people if they don't have shrapnel or anything in them... Not as well as her, but dozens at a time."

wormcan

"Then come with me. There are lots."

Armsmaster has an elsewhere to be.
"My next job is to get Dinah back to her parents. If you didn't want to split up, will you still be here with Angel when I get back?"

witchwatcher

They've done this before, and they herd people and stretchers in and out of Angel's range with practiced ease.

"Unless she runs out of mana," Gren replies. "Then we'll probably clear out and wait outside."

wormcan

"I'll try to be back before then." Armsmaster has some vague idea from Gren of how much mana a Witch has, and it's not a long trip. He departs, bringing the still sleeping Dinah.

witchwatcher

They're still healing people when Armsmaster gets back. Angel's looking pretty tired though.

wormcan

Armsmaster decides not to interrupt Angel if she's still helping people. Might not literally be saving lives every minute now that the critical cases are done, but there's no need to slow down curing the incurable if she's still at it.

He addresses their commander and Gren instead. "Thank you for your help today. Ordinarily this is where I would invite you to join the Wards, but that doesn't apply in your case.
But information on Coil has been sparse. What can you tell me about him?"

witchwatcher

Gren is good at giving tactical analysis. She reports all of Coil's secret locations known to her, though they're definitely all abandoned by now. He probably has at least one more prisoner, a highly deformed woman that he claimed was Dinah.

He might have been the one who released that Neuroi, it was awfully sucpicious that they were the first ones there (Neuroi are flyer and blaster and brute, here's how to fight and kill one), this is what his base was like, he had me copying Dinah and predicting things...

And the times she saw Coil, he had no detectable power.

wormcan

"Do you know anything about what his plans were?"

witchwatcher

"The most common thing he had me predict was his chances of taking over the city. Dinah's power usually put it at about 65%. Armsmaster, I would like to bring home a quantity of guns, radios, and other tech. A few rifles in the right hands would make Neuroi much, much less of a threat. Could this possibly be arranged?"

wormcan

"Certainly. Do you have reliable transit between worlds? We might be able to provide cape or military reinforcement as well, in exchange for support against our own threats."

witchwatcher