"I chose to study bioengineering because I thought it would help me understand our evolution and the source of our powers. I chose to teach because I hoped some day to be able to bring schools to my people," he admits. "I learned to cook because feeding myself was necessary in Haixing." He understands. He does.
"But I think-" He pauses, lips pressed together as he tries to find the right words. "Perhaps... I would have been stronger had I not isolated myself so much. Had I learned to... to accept help, and to lean on the strength of others rather than relying only on myself."
"I do that more at home. I'm in a team, we fight together - but they're not on par with me, for strength. Good support, but me and Bitch are the muscle and she's not as versatile as I am. And- and this is maybe ego, but maybe not- I'm better, tactically, than they are. Or just- I make better decisions. Tattletale's always focused on winning, being the cleverest, not necessarily succeeding. And Brian's- his focus is inward. Just the team matters. No one else has any leadership."
She nods, but with a shrug. Qualified yes. "Brian was the team leader until Bonesaw got him. Since then, it's me, but the handover hasn't been very smooth. Tattletale's smarter than me - she's smarter than anyone, it's her power - but she wants to be the power behind the scenes. And she has something else going on, I'm not really sure what. And she's a better planner than a leader. I'm good at-"
She breaks off, and exhales quietly with a sigh.
"I'm really good at knowing how to use people. Their strengths, their powers, their skills... all the tools they can be for me."
"That is perhaps the most valuable skill in a leader. Lord Ma Gui and High Chief Fu You were both particularly gifted in that capacity." And he'd learned much from them, as a boy and a man and eventually as the true leader of his people alongside them.
"But they were both also-" He pauses, trying to decide how to put it- "Very careful to remember that people were more than simply tools in their hands. It is part of what made them truly great and gifted leaders."
"I'm not good at accounting for the- not flaws or weakness, but- the soft parts. Where people need support, unless it's tactical.
"But I'm also not trying to win a war. It's lost. We lost that already. I'm just trying to make sure that after the dust settles, whatever people I have left will have what they need."
He ducks his head a little her answer, biting back a quiet huff of recognition. "Ma Gui was best at that, among us. I fear I've... never understood people well enough to have the same facility." He's always been better at looking out for the physical well-being and strength of those under him.
He considers for a moment, looking back up at her. "But I have always tried to only accept loyalty and service freely given. To compel another by warping their mind is an affront to the dignity of all, and a transgression that cannot be forgiven." He remembers all too well the horrors the Rebel Leader had perpetrated with his powers of mental compulsion, not just to his enemies, but to those who followed him.
She looks aside at that, face tight. Before a flush of shame can start, she pushes her body's reactions to her feelings out into the swarm. A few focused breaths, and her face is calm again, her eyes quiet. Rags wants her to stop doing that, stop presenting that mask, but she has to or she won't be able to say these things here, to Shen Wei.
"I've allowed that to happen," she says softly. "Before I came here. It's the power of a teammate of mine."
He watches silently as she gathers herself, recognizing the mask she conceals herself behind in much the same way he does, and aching to see it. She should not need to know how to do that so readily at her age... thinks the man who learned to do the same before he even reached puberty.
He reaches out to lay a hand on her shoulder as she finishes speaking, and squeezes just a little before letting it fall away. He's not good at physical contact that isn't violence, but he wants to offer her something, however brief.
"That was the power of the Dixingren who led the Rebellion in our world, many thousands of years ago," he tells her quietly. Solemnly. "He used it on allies as well as enemies, warping their minds so that they would follow him unquestioningly, obey any order, no matter how horrific. Believe anything he told them," he adds, quieter still, gaze dipping down for a moment as he remembers the lies his didi believed for so many thousands of years, and still struggles with at times. "No matter how unbelievable.
"I don't know if anyone ever knew whether he started down that path thinking it was best for his people and was warped by the power it gave him over the minds of others, or if he was a manipulative opportunist from the start. It is... a dangerous path to tread." And one of the only powers he has ever encountered among his people that he believes to be nothing but pure evil. One he wishes he had never acquired himself.
"Regent's father is Heartbreaker. His power is making people fall slavishly in love with him. Regent is one of... twenty or so children, and their mothers-" She meets Shen Wei's eyes, knowing he can draw the correct conclusion without her saying it.
"And all of Heartbreaker's kids have some variation on his power. Regent used to use it to get whatever he wanted. He experiences through the person he's controlling, like I do with my bugs. He can't really do more than one at a time, and it takes a few hours to establish control, so it's not something we- the team- used regularly. Until we captured Sophia. And then Shatterbird. He'll still have Shatterbird, when I get back, and I- I have to decide what I'll do about that."
Shen Wei's expression hardens. "And this is allowed to continue? No one stopped him?" It might not be directed at Taylor, but his tone is frosty with tightly controlled rage at the very idea that, in a world with the kind of powered beings she's told him of, no one has exercised that power to prevent this abuse.
And then he draws in a slow breath, blinks a couple of times, and almost visibly wills the rage away. "And why has your team made use of this ability at all?"
Her expression doesn't react to his rage, utterly mask-like. But she feels it, a cold front that's suddenly entered the space between them.
"Sophia was a hero, one who Brian and I both have violent history with. We used her to infiltrate their base when our boss wanted us to secure some information. When we were done with her, Regent made her expose her own prior behavior to the PRT, and she went to jail. Shatterbird is a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. We needed the additional firepower to defeat them, have a chance at stopping the end of the world. We failed," she added, tone flat. "But she's too dangerous to release."
He regards her solemnly for a long few seconds. "And can you not imprison her? Or execute her, should her crimes justify it?" He uses crimes very loosely here, with no particular regard for the legalities of a system which he knows is deeply corrupt. He trusts Taylor's assessment of her adversary, as he has trusted his own for millennia.
And of course that's only the first question, he'll follow up with the next after he hears her answer to this.
"We can't hold her. Killing her when I get back is my plan, but I don't know if I'll graduate with that still the case." She exhales, a little crack in the shell. "She killed thousands, when she first came to town. She almost killed my dad. My judgement isn't unbiased."
"There are times when execution is the only just and viable option." He doesn't like to kill, he never has, but he long ago accepted it as a necessity.
"If she can't be contained and she can't be set free-" He presses his lips together and then continues- "A clean death would seem preferable to life spent as a puppet."
She leans back in the chair, thumb rubbing along the edges of her bandage. Healing skin itches, she remembers, even if she doesn't feel it now.
"I know it's what I'd want, in her case.
"And I won't be able to let Regent stay in the team. Which- will break the team apart. Aisha will side with him. Brian will side with her - they're siblings. Bitch will stay with me, and I don't know what Tattletale will choose."
"They would if he were still using it the way he did when he was younger. But since he joined the team, there've been strict rules and he's held to them. Only with unanimous consensus." Her expression flattens again at the implicit self-incrimination. "And only if it protects the team. I am- I was squeamish about it. But not enough to say 'no, we can't do this.'"
"And was it worth it, do you think?" Despite what he said about mind control being unforgiveable, and his quick flash of rage at hearing how this boy's father had used and abused his own power, he sounds mild and calm and simply curious.
Slowly, Taylor nods. "With Shatterbird, I think it was. She would have killed so many more, and if she'd been in the fight, I don't know if we could have contained Mannequin and Crawler long enough to kill them. The PRT certainly couldn't have risked bringing in the bombers, she could have fried them in the air. We neutralized her, and had a weapon to use for the good side.
"Simply killing her would not have been sufficient?" He's been desperate, fighting what seemed at the time a losing battle against a much more powerful opponent, and he's not entirely sure that he, or at least his side, as he'd not been the commander of the Alliance forces, just of his own Dixingren contingent, wouldn't have taken advantage of such a tool had it been at their disposal. And that despite having seen the horrors that the Rebel chieftain inflicted on not only his foes, but often his own people.
"At the time... her side had just taken Brian. We thought we'd trade them, with her under our control. But they already knew she was compromised. No trade." She sighs, shrugging, and her fingers find the scar in her hair, as they always do when she has to think of Bonesaw.
"And I wasn't ready to- to directly kill a captive."
He presses his lips together, brows furrowed and head tipped down. "It is a hard thing, to kill someone who is helpless and in your power." He knows that in the human world it would be considered a war crime. "But there are few easy decisions for a war leader... and sometimes there are no good ones at all."
"No," she agrees, her voice grim. "Everything about the Slaughterhouse Nine - that was all the worst I've gone through, as Skitter. The hardest. They tried to recruit Regent and Bitch. This... cult of serial killers, wanted two of my friends for members. I wasn't in time to protect my dad, and he got caught in Shatterbird's first wave. I embarrassed Mannequin and in return he came for my civilians. He killed Doctor Foster to laugh at me. I told Sundancer she was clear to take the shot when there were still victims alive in her radius - they wouldn't have survived anyway, but it matters. Shot didn't even kill Bonesaw." She shrugs unsteadily, her throat feeling hollow. She knows most of those names don't mean a thing to Shen Wei, but she has to speak them, anyway.
"I didn't realize Brian wasn't leaving the fight with us, when he was caught. And he had to rescue me.
"And in the end- we lost. We captured two, killed three, but... All that mattered was that Jack Slash not get away. And he did."
The names don't need to mean anything to him; they mean something to her, and he understands the importance of remembering one's dead, and one's failures. A leader is their losses as well as their triumphs, and their painfully learned lessons.
"What do you want to fix when you go back?" he asks, rather than continuing down this path. At least for the moment.
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"But I think-" He pauses, lips pressed together as he tries to find the right words. "Perhaps... I would have been stronger had I not isolated myself so much. Had I learned to... to accept help, and to lean on the strength of others rather than relying only on myself."
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She breaks off, and exhales quietly with a sigh.
"I'm really good at knowing how to use people. Their strengths, their powers, their skills... all the tools they can be for me."
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"But they were both also-" He pauses, trying to decide how to put it- "Very careful to remember that people were more than simply tools in their hands. It is part of what made them truly great and gifted leaders."
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"But I'm also not trying to win a war. It's lost. We lost that already. I'm just trying to make sure that after the dust settles, whatever people I have left will have what they need."
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He considers for a moment, looking back up at her. "But I have always tried to only accept loyalty and service freely given. To compel another by warping their mind is an affront to the dignity of all, and a transgression that cannot be forgiven." He remembers all too well the horrors the Rebel Leader had perpetrated with his powers of mental compulsion, not just to his enemies, but to those who followed him.
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"I've allowed that to happen," she says softly. "Before I came here. It's the power of a teammate of mine."
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He reaches out to lay a hand on her shoulder as she finishes speaking, and squeezes just a little before letting it fall away. He's not good at physical contact that isn't violence, but he wants to offer her something, however brief.
"That was the power of the Dixingren who led the Rebellion in our world, many thousands of years ago," he tells her quietly. Solemnly. "He used it on allies as well as enemies, warping their minds so that they would follow him unquestioningly, obey any order, no matter how horrific. Believe anything he told them," he adds, quieter still, gaze dipping down for a moment as he remembers the lies his didi believed for so many thousands of years, and still struggles with at times. "No matter how unbelievable.
"I don't know if anyone ever knew whether he started down that path thinking it was best for his people and was warped by the power it gave him over the minds of others, or if he was a manipulative opportunist from the start. It is... a dangerous path to tread." And one of the only powers he has ever encountered among his people that he believes to be nothing but pure evil. One he wishes he had never acquired himself.
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"And all of Heartbreaker's kids have some variation on his power. Regent used to use it to get whatever he wanted. He experiences through the person he's controlling, like I do with my bugs. He can't really do more than one at a time, and it takes a few hours to establish control, so it's not something we- the team- used regularly. Until we captured Sophia. And then Shatterbird. He'll still have Shatterbird, when I get back, and I- I have to decide what I'll do about that."
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And then he draws in a slow breath, blinks a couple of times, and almost visibly wills the rage away. "And why has your team made use of this ability at all?"
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"Sophia was a hero, one who Brian and I both have violent history with. We used her to infiltrate their base when our boss wanted us to secure some information. When we were done with her, Regent made her expose her own prior behavior to the PRT, and she went to jail. Shatterbird is a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. We needed the additional firepower to defeat them, have a chance at stopping the end of the world. We failed," she added, tone flat. "But she's too dangerous to release."
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And of course that's only the first question, he'll follow up with the next after he hears her answer to this.
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"If she can't be contained and she can't be set free-" He presses his lips together and then continues- "A clean death would seem preferable to life spent as a puppet."
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"I know it's what I'd want, in her case.
"And I won't be able to let Regent stay in the team. Which- will break the team apart. Aisha will side with him. Brian will side with her - they're siblings. Bitch will stay with me, and I don't know what Tattletale will choose."
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"But we shouldn't be keeping her."
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"And I wasn't ready to- to directly kill a captive."
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"I didn't realize Brian wasn't leaving the fight with us, when he was caught. And he had to rescue me.
"And in the end- we lost. We captured two, killed three, but... All that mattered was that Jack Slash not get away. And he did."
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"What do you want to fix when you go back?" he asks, rather than continuing down this path. At least for the moment.
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