capeandcowl | 013 [ Video ]

Entry tags:

julian keller | hellion

013 [ Video ]

[ Good morning, City. This is your lucky day. Julian Keller's face is on your Network. These days that usually means that he's pissed about something, and today is no exception, but he's not here to talk about that. He's speaking with an easy drawl and acting like everything's rosy. Because it is, right? It's not like one of his best friends is dead or anything.

Those who know the place might recognize the hallway he's in as belonging to Jenny Quantum's Carrier. ]

So you know what I missed? The Doors on this thing. You never appreciate being able to teleport anywhere in the City until you can't do it anymore. That was a bitch. But I guess this means the Carrier's open for business again.

It's about freaking time. Half of my shit was still up here, including these. There was no chance in hell I was bringing them out the civilian exit. [ The crumpled remains of what used to be Julian's robotic gauntlets are floating in front of him, and they rise up in view of the camera now. They look more like balls of scrap metal than actual hands now. ]

Hey Jeffries, if you're watching this? This crap was Vulcanus' fault. You think you could fix 'em? It ain't like I need them anymore, but hey. I'm not gonna say no to an extra pair of hands floating around the place.

[ He can think of a lot of uses for those, okay. ]

Anyways, there's no reason to stay here. I'm back in my old apartment. If I ever get the bright idea to move up here again, someone please just fucking shoot me.

[ The message appears to end here, but shortly afterwards - when Julian has teleported back to the City - the following gets sent to Miss Martian's comm. ]

hey MM. ive been thinking about what you said
if you still want to get a group together im maybe up for that

everything here is done so. moving on is the way to go. let me know what you got in mimd.

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And just what did that with them?

[ He has the grace to look ever so slightly chagrined. ]

My powers.

I told you Vulcanus did crap to them.

You didn't mention the specifics! I could have offered to do something with them then, though I suppose the point is moot now.

I didn't think it was worth it. [ Also, he hates that crap, okay. Losing control sucks, and it has ever since he destroyed the Danger Room when he was trying to lift a paperclip. You already witnessed that meltdown, Hank, he wasn't keen to advertise another. ]

Anyways, I think they're screwed. If Jeffries can do anything with them I'll be stunned; they're scrap metal. It's probably stupid to even want to keep them.

[Hank can't hold that feeling against him. After all, when he was working on the antidote he'd grown so large he could hardly fit into the lab, much less do any precision work with his hands so pawlike.]

They can serve as a memento, like a reminder of times past.

Madison can work wonders with scrap metal, I'm sure he can repair them if you like.

I'm asking. [ Spoilers, it's kind of not going well. One of these days Julian will be able to talk to people and not be a douchebag about it.

Some day. ]

Maybe he can. Maybe you could, I don't know. They were the only thing that ever worked with my powers, it seems like the kind of thing I should keep around.

At the very least, you might possibly have four hands if you ever needed them!

Hey, that crap works for Doc Ock. [ Not that he's a life model for anyone. Gross. ]

Anyways, that's depending they actually get fixed. They look like they've been through a grinder.

Of course, his secondary set wasn't detachable and telekinetically powered, either. It should give you a little extra punch! Two even.

You'll never really know until you try, I suppose.

The other kind never worked for me anyway. Darth Vader hands were never my thing. It turns out spaceships aren’t, either.

Is that where it happened? I thought it was all contained to Venezuela?

Yeah it was, it happened at the Masquerade, but when our powers started doing damage Jenny brought us all to the Carrier. [ There’s a little pause here, because Jenny…

She’d saved them. His powers could’ve hurt or killed someone totally by accident, and she’d made sure they didn’t. She did that for their whole team.

Now look what’s become of her. ]

Then she left, because her powers were as bad as ours. She sent herself to deep space, and got Bond and Klarion to bring the cure for us. I was here when the hands were totalled. The room she had us in got the same treatment. That’s what happened.

Sorry, I suppose I wasn't paying much attention to the outside world during that time. Too busy working on that cure...and I had some hand troubles of my own.

[He pauses, considering that name a minute.] You were close with her?

Edited 2013-03-02 03:56 (UTC)

You had your own problems. Everyone did.

[ He isn't holding any grudge about that. At least not towards other ImPorts; they're all on the same side, as far as he's concerned. No, his Venezuela-related grudge is aimed squarely at Vulcanus' head. He's putting the blame where it belongs.

At that last question, he lets out something that sounds like it wants to be a laugh, except that it doesn't quite have the energy. ]

Yeah. You could say that. She was only our team leader.

[He doesn't know quite where to go with that answer. He wants to ask Julian what he thinks of the whole thing, but it may be the wrong time, with the recent news. His response certainly tells him he should handle it delicately.]

I'm sorry to hear that. With how everything turned out.

It’s done now. Like I said, there isn’t anything left.

[ She’d chosen to leave. He’d tried to make her stay. He’d gone after her, he’d gone to Southwest Phoenicia, he’d tried to talk her round and nothing had worked. It should’ve been different, but she’d made her choice. No one had made it for her. ]

They don’t even know where she is. [ Where her body is. If there is one. ]

[Hank hadn't known her, there's nothing he can do for her. Maybe if he tried earlier, but it's too late for that. He does know Julian, though.]

And how are you doing, after all of it?

[ That's the question he doesn't know how to answer. How is he supposed to be doing? He's not good at that stuff. It always makes him feel like he's losing control. ]

Why should I care, right? She made her bed, she's lying in it.

If I'd stayed with her like Terry did I could've helped her. [ Maybe he made the wrong call. Maybe he should have stuck with her. Believed in her. Instead he'd told her she was wrong and he'd left her there. ]

But she was still your friend, and that's never easy to go through. No matter how you may have disagreed, there's always a helplessness in watching a friend go down a dark path, a guilt in being unable to keep them from it.

There are often only two places to direct those feelings, either towards them or against yourself. Neither is a particularly sound option.

[The first is obvious, resulting in discouragement, self-loathing, depression. The second makes you petty, vindictive, and bitter. Hank knows way more about this than he'd like to.]

[ Petty, vindictive, bitter. How many people would have used those words to describe Julian? People at home, for sure. A lot of people at home. There's a reason behind everything, behind every piece of anger and hatred. He's never once dealt with this kind of thing well. ]

She didn't see it that way. She thought she was doing everything right. She thought she was made for it, and who the hell am I to say she wasn't? She was fifteen and she took over a country, maybe she was made for it.

She thought she was making a difference that was more important than staying alive. She never got how...how stupid that is.

I suppose it may have been an ambition of posterity, leaving something behind when you're gone. We don't know how long any of us will be here, Julian, and I can understand the desire to have some lasting effect on the world.

Though I would hope what legacy most of us leave is more unambiguously positive.

It's not unambiguously negative, either. [ Not every report about Jenny's regime has been bad. There's things she's improved in Southwest Phoenicia.

But even Julian knows that people couldn't do what Jenny had done and expect to get away with it. That was why he'd been afraid she'd be killed. ]

She made people's lives better. That's what they'll remember.

Maybe. [Assuming that reporting is even objective, or if outside reporters were even allowed in. In a situation like this, neither can be taken for granted.] A new regime can often be terribly fickle to the one that came before.

Yeah, but I mean...that was why she went there. She wanted to make things good, not bad, she just went too far.

[ There’s a little pause, while he thinks about what that means. Is that always how it is? Do dictators come to power thinking they’ll do good, only for history to remember them as dicks? He’s never thought of it like that before. Stubbornly: ]

She was trying to help.

[There's a lot he could say about the roots of imperialism, some long lecture about the etiquette of aid and where it crosses the line. Instead, all he has is:]

I know. That's usually how it begins, but it rarely ends quite like that.

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