Strider

While many of the terms bandied about were entirely unfamiliar to Ena, a few quick calculations made something apparent. "That does not sound possible. That is good for me, as my specialty is making the impossible impossible. I will follow your orders for now though. It would be imprudent to charge in without planning and intel, regardless of how effective my capabilities are." Ena set herself to follow Vitor at a precisely regulated distance, head pivoting at steady intervals to look around.

Ena landed in the position she had set for herself in DOOM's throne room. Well balanced, and prepared for most terrains. As soon as they arrived in the ghost town. Ena's head rotated on its axis a hundred and eighty degrees before spinning the other way. When this brief terrain survey had completed, she spoke, voice just as tinny as before. "Mr. Spearman. We were brought here to prevent the continent from being overtaken by anarchists and madmen. Are you an anarchist or a mad man? If you are fighting them, we were sent here to fight alongside you, so please instruct us.

"God damn caste systems. Well, I can tell you immediately that's probably something Mirri and Kusuke will hate. You know that your world is pretty far behind mine, right? Well anyway, in the next two hundred and three hundred years, if you were in my world, an idea would probably start to get popular. Basically everyone is created equal, and the only things that should be able to create inequality from there are their own choices. Is it really fair and good of the celestial order to place everyone into caste's without their choice? And it can't be because their souls are different level of purity. Have you ever heard of scheming corrupt politicians, and beggars who keep their morals? Right now, I don't know how much truth there is to the whole Celestial order. It's something you were taught by your family probably, and while in my world, those religions have slowly died out, it's perfectly possible that you've got yourself a bonafide celestial order. But I doubt the caste system is a part of that if the celestial order is really any good." This seemed to be the biggest problem for her, the idea that that's the way it had always been done, and it must be the same for everyone else. "About the foreigners, is there some sort of holy text that tells you foreigners are bad? Because sometimes people high up might tell you stuff like that with good intentions. If you were to ever fight a war against foreigners, being told they have no souls would probably increase your chances of winning, and your empire surviving. But it's still a pretty terrible thing. And. . ." He trailed off, knowing that going too far down this thread of discussion would quickly become dangerous. "Okay, so look Satomi. You're biggest problem is that you've never considered alternatives. That's a bit understandable in your home world, where you've got other stuff to worry about. But dear god, how can you not be thinking of alternatives right now? You got warped to another universe for Christ's sake. We all did. And most of us immediately started questioning everything we know. I hope. But you grew up in a society where the idea of alternatives seems to have been taboo. The biggest lesson you can learn, and I'm certain you can do it, is to be uncertain about everything. And embrace that uncertainty. Ask Kusuke--he'll be fine eventually--about his world, what souls mean to him, you can tell him about your world, but you have to try to remember that if there's a ton of worlds, isn't it possible things are different? You're going to do fine here, but you need to open your mind. Question everything, and I'll answer the questions I can, if you think others will be upset by them. Be uncertain about things, and talk to people about it. Biggest part of that is showing them how uncertain you are, without becoming incoherent." "You need stiffen up and stop moping just because things are different than you thought they were." His tone was a little exasperated, but it softened a bit when he resumed speaking. "You're a curious person. Just ask a hell of a lot of questions, to a hell of a lot of people, and don't take offense at the answers."

"Well the tech stuff should be fine with time. Just ask me or Soma, and we should be able to explain most of the basic stuff, like buildings and roads and stuff. So, um. . .what did you find in the pen that you'd never seen before?" Harry interjected. It was something that might help him set a marker on her time period, since, while it was obvious that this time period was sometime between the years 1500 and 1900, that was a wide range, and he hadn't narrowed it down yet. When she was finished her little rant, Harry frowned, shaking his head a bit. "So, how do I want to do this. . . Well first things first, if you want to actually survive in the world you need to be prepared to question everything. Not saying you should disrespect anyone, but if you wouldn't trust someone with your life over their own, they shouldn't be above questioning. Otherwise, you're going to get taken advantage of, no matter what." At this point, Harry was desperately hoping he hadn't set her off again, as it was the questioning problem that had caused much of trouble earlier. "So to start you of, a couple questions you might want to think about. Have you or anyone you know ever seen a foreigner? Was it mentioned to them that they didn't have a soul?" This was a subject Harry had nowhere near enough knowledge on, in large part due to the prevalent secularism of his time. His personal opinion was that a soul wasn't really a thing that existed, at least in his world. It was a clarification that seemed to now be necessary. "You've got this problem, you see, where. . . Well, let's not say a problem right now, but more a problematic worldview. You've basically got this higher power that you've been told about all your life, and you've probably been taught lots of worship rituals and stuff. But you need to ask yourself, who did you hear these lessons from. Directly from the divine order thingy, or from people around you? Because people are flawed, and they forget and mishear things. Not saying they're wrong because of that, but. . . they can be greedy, self serving, and manipulative too. You can respect your divine order, and still rationally question the people around you. So, I dunno, go ahead and talk a bit more about what you learned, and who you learned it from. Ask yourself questions you can answer if your confused about the questions you can't. I'll listen. Got no place to be."

"Well, yes, that tends to be why people cry." The conversation had started when Harry was still a few paces off, but now he was fairly close, at least close enough for a decent conversation at normal speaking volume. He leaned up against a wall. "Well, good to hear you're unhurt. So, I guess. . . tell me what in particular has been difficult? Besides the whole getting yelled at and then choked thing." Harry stopped, considering where to go on. "Maybe you should tell me a bit about your world. You've got some pretty backwards ideas about things, and that's what started the fight. I'm not saying Kusuke and Mirri did nothing wrong. Course they did. But you did a pretty shit job of explaining and justifying yourself to them. So talk to me a bit. About the stuff that they didn't understand."

"Yes. Even if I hadn't heard, people's faces tend to take on a fairly recognizable appearance after they've been crying. What's your point?" He asked brusquely. Harry decided he might as well be blunt about it. She was embarrassed about crying, which implied a fear of seeming weak. So any change in his usual demeanor would be considered sympathy and recognition of her weakness. As he stood, he performed what assessment he could from afar. No bruising on the neck, it seemed, and she could talk without rasping. "Came over to make sure that you were okay. Hippocratic oath stuff, not important. Tell me, does it hurt at all to breath, does your neck feel weird, any dizziness, etc?"

There was a slight hesitation in Harry's step, perhaps a sign that he wasn't certain how to answer the question. However, after a not inordinate pause, Harry shrugged. "Sure. I've seen quite a lot of stuff in my life. I've seen people die, seen people born, seen my planet shrink to a small speck behind me as I left it never to return. Plenty of sentimental shit. You're talking about yourself though." It wasn't a question of course. That was obvious. Harry sighed, hand straying absentmindedly out of his pocket to his hip. "You'll have to be a bit more specific, Satomi. Would have been hard not to see your fight, so that's probably not what you're talking about, and of course after that, you jogged over here. Since there's probably something you don't want found out, you don't need to tell what it was. Just say what time it was or something. When it was in relation to other stuff. And I'll tell you if I saw whatever it was."

Harry sat patiently at the corner of one of the buildings making up the alleyway, staring off into the bay for a few minutes. He listened for the faint sobs that he had noticed as soon as the others had cleared out--apparently she had not composed herself on hearing them approach--,trying to pick out the faint noise from the quiet splashing of the waves. It was definitely a good thing then, that they had waited a bit. The sobs meant she could breathe, and it would have been a mistake to jump in immediately. After a bit though, it sounded as though the sobs were diminishing. Once he was unable to hear a thing, he counted to thirty in his head, before rising to his feet. He rolled his shoulders, contemplating what to do. He was having some difficulty thinking of a way to open the conversation. Each way seemed to imply comfort, and from there, that Satomi needed comfort. Anything that would not feel like an admission of her weakness in front of everyone would come across as harsh. After a moment though, Harry simply gave up on searching for an easy way to open conversation, and just set off down into the alley way, slowly approaching Satomi with his hands in his pockets.

"Thank you for telling me. Suhkrab was very insistent on following convention of not using the title Dr. unless a person had obtained a doctorate. It was an honor to meet you DR. DOOM." Ena took two calculated steps backwards, put her arms by her side, and spread her legs a bit for stability. She was prepared for however they would be jumping to Australia

"Did you miss my other points though. The possibility of her being injured. The fact that this is an unknown and frankly dangerous city. Group therapy not being really an option. And the fact that based on what I heard in the argument, Kusuke and Mirri both sprang sudden challenges to her worldview on her? Please tell me why any of those are not good reasons to help her." Harry glanced over at Calvera, who seemed to be edging away. "Don't. Not right now. If you rush in, things will only go poorly. You'll fail in what you want to do. You have the best chance of becoming her friend, and gaining that friendship you crave if you wait. So, on consideration, I think you should stay out for now, as a compromise. Because either you go in with me, which is too many people by Arminius' reckoning, or you go in alone, which will not work." Harry turned his attention to Soma. "I'll do that, Soma. Arminius, are you alright with me waiting here outside the alley? And you all can go back if you want? It reduces the number of people, which is something you wanted, but it allows me to ensure that she's not injured, and that no random people on the docks stumble across her. A good compromise, I hope."

In response to Arminius, Harry gave a sort of are you serious look. "I guess you didn't hear the part where I said that what she needs right now is someone to explain things to her, not to comfort her, or comment on weakness. Here. I'll explain my thought process. I think that best for her right now is a small group of people. Group therapy doesn't work unless it's moderated. Otherwise it tends to blow up. I don't trust anyone else to moderate it, because I don't think they could control it, and I can't control you, and you seem to have a tendency to disagree with my professional opinion. That throws group therapy out of the question, without even considering the question of finding a good place for it, finding time, and convincing everyone to sit still together without talking voer each other. And the reason I think that it's okay to go in there now is because I've made sure to talk loud enough at times that she's aware of our presence. She has a chance to put up a show of strength, without getting her pride hurt anymore. Final two reasons are one, she needs someone to explain why Kusuke and Mirri got upset at her, because we can't just let her be tortured by confusion while we try to find Kusuke, and secondly, as I've already said, I want to ensure that she's actually okay. Does. That. Make. Any. Sense." Back to Soma once more, Harry said, "I don't quite get what--. . . Oh." His eyes widened a fraction. Relating to Satomi's ingrained borderline bigotry. Primitive discrimination. It was a surprise, and it caught Harry off guard. "When--If. . .you mean what I think you mean, it's definitely. . .relevant. Want to do this as a sort of stagnated thing? I'll go in with Calvera first, and if everything's going alright in five minutes, you can pop in and say something about just coming over? I dunno. . ."

"That was. . . more personal than I thought. No offense Calvera, but sounds to me like you need her a bit more than she needs you right now. To be perfectly honest, I think standard comforting would not be that great for Satomi right now. She needs someone to explain things to her, not someone to make her feel better. I've known her less than a day, but she loves learning. That's what she needs right now. Someone to explain why Kusuke and Mirri got so unreasonably angry at her. Thus, I don't think this is the perfect time for you. She's also pretty proud from what I've seen, so having someone comfort her might sting." Harry pause here, thinking a bit. "However, I think we could both go in. If you were willing to follow with the idea of helping her understand rather than passively comfort, we could both go in. I can check to make sure she's not injured, and you, well, best might be to ask questions. Learn about her world. It will probably help you in the future and stuff. Might make you a friend, since that seems to be what you really want. You fine with that?" Harry turned to Arminius, still keeping his voice down. "Look. Leaving someone emotionally broken in a strange city isn't a good idea. If this was her home country, there'd probably be a place she could go to settle down. But here, everything around her is going to stress her out if we do nothing. Best is to go in, get her comfortable with us, and provide help. When someone's suicidal, do you just say "Let the emotionally unstable person be?" No. Now, are you alright with us calmly discussing what we're going to do here, like civilized people, and then coming to a decision?" And finally to Soma: "I'm from a version of Earth. It was never referred to as Earth Bet. Just earth. No one really knows about other universes there. So what are your thoughts on the subject? Assuming you meant that you wanted to discuss about Satomi?"

"Look Calvera. Let's wait out here for two minutes. You can tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you why I think I should go in, and then you can go in, or let me go in. I can't stop you. But I'd at least like you to tell me what you're going to do so I can give my opinion on it, and whether it will actually be helpful for her emotional state. I may not be a psychiatrist, but I know some of the basics of the trade. I am a doctor, something which people seem to be forgetting. And anyway." Here he lowered his voice. "Sitting out here for a few moments gives Satomi time to brace herself. She didn't want people to see her crying, and going in there immediately would be bad. If she here's our voices out here, it will give her a bit of time to compose herself, okay?" For now, Harry remained stolidly in front of Calvera, a little outside and to the left of the alley.

Harry felt the hand on his shoulder, and almost immediately knew what was coming. He curled he head downward, and braced to take the brunt of the punch. As soon as it was over, he continued running. He'd taken punches before, and to be honest, that one was really quite weak. So giving no thought to the mild pain, Harry sprinted after Calvera, calling out to her as he passed her. "Calvera! Mind waiting a moment? I'm a doctor. I just want about two minutes or so, then you can talk to her all you want, and she might even be happier with you if you waited!" When he reached the entrance of the alley way, he slowed to a walk, waiting to see how Calvera responded. If she was alright with this arrangement, he would enter after she answered in the affirmative.

"Don't assume things, Arminius. Both that being able to run means that she's fine--that's not necessarily true--, and that Soma is here to intrude. In any case, if Satomi is fine with receiving medical attention, neither of you will be allowed to be close. No offense to either of you, just how I prefer to work when given the choice." Harry peered down the docks, watching Satomi turn inward away from the ocean. "Now, if you'll both excuse me. Feel free to follow, but if you're going to be around, make sure to stay at least. . . fifty feet away, and out of sight. Unless you have a legitimate reason that you would be particularly useful in this scenario?" Harry directed this at Arminius. After waiting for their response, Harry would jog off, in the direction of the alley Satomi had turned down.

"Professionally, I'd have to disagree a bit. First of all, I don't know what laying on hands is, but it didn't appear to be completed. And even if it was, I'd like to assure myself that there's no lasting damage. Secondly, there were samurai in my world once, though long enough ago that I don't know much about them. However, I expect that if they were wounded, someone would treat their wounds, and it wouldn't be an insult. Be stupid not to let someone specialize in medicine, while other people specialize in fighting." Harry glanced back at the group receding in the distance, then said, "And a final point: I don't think getting everyone involved is a good idea. Twice today, Satomi has had multiple people gang up on her, and even if that hadn't happened, our party is pretty bad as far as tact goes. Best chance, in my opinion, is to talk to her now, honestly, without attack. Once she's calmed down a bit, and had some things explained, then reconciliation can begin. Does that make any sense?"

"They're all children. Children! I don't even know their ages, but mentally, god damn it!" Harry watched the entire scuffle go down. They were on the docks for Christ's sake! People were here, whether or not the docks were operational. And here they were screaming at each other in the middle of broad daylight. On the plus side, everyone was already up and about, so they wouldn't wake anyone up! "If the PRT catches wind of this. . . And, shit. Kusuke was supposed to have two people go with him to meet someone later. Shit, shit, shit." Harry turned to Soma with an extremely pained smile on his face."Excuse me, Soma. I'll try to get to work on something for you later, but I have to deal with this bullshit, because APPARENTLY the only other people here that I considered competent besides Proddy have proven themselves to be imbeciles. Could have at least found themselves an empty warehouse to scream in." Harry was torn between following Kusuke, or Arminius. He had very little confidence in Arminius' capabilities in this regard, and a one on one talk might be impossible with his minions. He did settle on something eventually, though. "Proditor! Go find Kusuke, and tell him I'm going to have to send someone else to the meeting later. If he asks why, protests, or gets angry, I dunno, send him after me or something." He then took off at a sprint, hoping to catch up with Arminius. "Arms! Mind if I do that? Might need medical attention after getting choked, and no offense, but I don't think she has the best opinion of you." Harry called out.

Moving for the first time, as things finally began to click, Ena backed a little away from Radbot. MR. DR. DOOM had brought a hacker here? It seemed necessary, a few logic banks considered, but in tandem, the rest of her consciousness shied away from the man. She didn't want to be hacked, and Mr. Suhkrab had always been optimistic, claiming that due to the uniqueness of her programming language, it was unlikely that anyone would be able to control her. She feared he was lying, and she suspected he knew he was lying, as she had in passing heard him asking one of the higher ups for assistance with her "defensive" aspects. A few transistors fired, and Ena remembered something their summoner had mentioned before. In a chipper, slightly tinny voice--who needed state of the art vocals on what might someday be a mass production unit, a small part of Ena's mind thought ruefully--she inquired towards DOOM. "DR. DOOM. You have many Master's degrees. But do you have any Ph.Ds?"

"Well, shit." Harry shrugged, disappointed, then stuck a hand in his pocket. "Guess it doesn't matter much if they don't last too long? Some time, maybe once you've got reason to trust me, I can try some stuff out? Pretty sure I could completely deal with an embolism completely with just what I've got here, so it wouldn't be too dangerous. Any problems, we could probably have Kusuke turn back time. I think it's something we should definitely figure out, at least the mechanics of it; don't want to get one of these thinker headaches after you've taken any sort of treatment for another problem."

Harry made a point of supporting Soma, on the off chance that the level of pain increased for some reason. Wouldn't be good for her to go fall on her face and get a concussion or something. "That's interesting. A common thing for thinkers then, when they overdo it? Something to remember if we come up against one." They seemed to be nearing the bay now, a run down section of this town to be sure, with old shipping containers, aging docks, and abandoned warehouses dominating. They were going to try to clean this up, right? Get the sunken ships out, and. . . were they planning to sell them for scrap, or were they actually salvageable? Harry wasn't sure of the answer, and only briefly considered asking Soma before thinking of something else. "Do painkillers help at all with the headaches? Either administered before or after? Might be worth thinking about to prevent face planting in the middle of combat situations."

"You alright, Soma?" Harry offered a hand to fallen parahuman. So it seemed that the power was not limited to solid objects. Could it affect anything? Perhaps water vapor in the air could be grown, or even the air itself, perhaps to create or amplify wind. The utility seemed almost endless. At this point, Harry began to scan the passersby, something he should have done far earlier. With the number of people taking pictures on their phones, there was not much that could be done. But at the very least, he could look out for suspicious figures, and anyone who might be affiliated with the numerous gangs in the city.

"So best is strong, simple things? I see." Apparently Proditor was leaving now too. To the graveyard, again. He turned to Soma. "Did I miss the memo or something? We are heading to the docks, right, not, I don't know, a bar or something?" Harry was also considering retrieving the earpiece from his backpack, and informing the PRT about this new arrival. But he thought better of it. He'd just spent the whole morning there, and he didn't really want everyone called back to test this new thing's powers. He supposed if questioned, he could just claim ignorance, which was close enough to the truth.

"Sounds useful. Could use that for a lot of things. Carry a small metal plate, and expand it to block bullets, throw a rock at someone, then expand it? I'm guessing the tinfoil has something to do with that? Though, I think you'd rapidly become immobile before you got enough aluminum to protect from anything." Harry was distracted for a moment by the time traveler's statement. He frowned, not entirely understanding the reason or context of it being their "turn". Well, he was leaving anyway, and that was what mattered. Harry turned back to Soma. "Does it take much effort?"

"Well that's completely unhelpful. They just sadistic? Or too reliant on the bureaucracy?" Harry pried. It seemed likely to be fruitless though, so he switched topics. "You said your name was Somatotrope earlier? Like the hormone?" For the time being, Harry was trying his best to ignore the fact that yet another eight foot tall. . . thing had popped out of nowhere to join the group, this time in broad daylight, in the middle of a crowded street.

Harry meandered along, not making a point of keeping a consistent location relative to the group. However, after they had been walking for a bit, he made his over to the tinfoil warrior. Somatotrope was the name he had heard. Quite similar to the word for HGH, now that he thought about it. "You're from this world, right?" He murmured, for the obvious purpose of not announcing to all the onlookers that they were anything stranger than they seemed. Though their appearance was, of course, already strange enough. "Can you tell me a bit about Dragon, Armsmaster, and Piggot from an outsider's perspective?"