aterat | Signal Interference

Who; Mono and whoever happens to be around
What; Log
Where; Harbor district sewer entrance to start
When; Mid September
Warnings; I will update if specific warnings are necessary. To start I would say: Mentions of solitary confinement/isolation, and abandonment
Note;Mono is now canon-updated to the end of game, and he is not going to be particularly rational atm, so it'll probably take a while for him to calm down and get both himself and his abilities under control depending on the way your character approaches. For more information, see his canon update here.

A young boy stumbled out of the sewers in the harbor district, looking disorientated and somewhat skeptical of the world around him. He shouldn’t be there, really. Not in the ‘children should not be in dangerous places in the dead of night’ kind of way, so much as the… he shouldn’t be in this world, kind of way.

This couldn’t be real, after all. He’d spent months in that room. Months feeling eyes on him despite the presence of the walls he’d built up around him with his powers. Months alone to ponder and let the hurt and anger gnaw at him after his friend… After Six dropped him. After she abandoned him to make her escape from the tower alone, letting go of his hand in the last moment. Just as he had thought that they were going to be free and could resume their joint escape from the city in search of a better place.

This had to be a wishful delusion of a place far better than the Pale City. A place he would much rather be, with people who cared about him (or could they betray him as easily as she had?).

But it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real. The more the thoughts spun in his head, the more anxious and angry he got at whatever had changed the appearance of the space around him to look like something he couldn’t have. “It’s not real.” He mumbled, the light static that flickered in his sclera more pronounced as he frowned at the sight of the harbor district around him. “It’s not fair. It’s not. Stop trying to trick me.” He balled up his hands into fists. Seeing a place like this, it was too upsetting. He didn’t want to see something he couldn’t have. Mono needed to change it back, to stop being taunted by it. “CHANGE BACK!” He yelled in a desperate and unsteady tone. Energy rolling off of him in waves that seemed to thicken the air unchecked as the already small, rundown harbor buildings around him shuddered almost as though they might really change back.

If he had been more clear minded, he might have remembered that if he’d been in his world… he wouldn’t know or remember this place at all. That fact didn’t even begin to edge its way into the child’s mind as a few windows nearby exploded in shards of glass from the strain. The illusion wasn’t changing, the surrounding images weren’t changing like they should be… It was more like when he’d been outside the tower still and trying to get the hang of his abilities to get to the tower faster before everything had gone south.

Why…? This couldn’t be that place. This couldn’t be real, right? So why…? Was that thing behind this? Was it taunting him out of boredom? Could it even do that?

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Once she felt his shoulders relax some she took a step away from him and straightened herself back up. For a while she'd wondered if she could really give him any comfort or not and it was somewhat of a relief that she'd seemed to manage at least something. Even if it was a small something it was much more than she'd ever seen herself capable of. Maybe she was getting a bit better at this whole interacting thing after all.

"Okay," she confirmed with a half-smile. "I understand. That's why I tried to learn even more about magic in Limbo. Dark magic corrupts." And she was corrupt enough. This was about as close as she was going to get to admitting that she sometimes scared herself. "We'll learn together." Maybe she'd finally be able to do something to make her own mentor proud.

Mono would probably tell Illyana she was the best, at least for him, at this whole thing than most. But perhaps it helped that they could see similar perspectives and had experiences that most would not consider the norm for their childhoods. It made her a safe person to speak to, and he looked up to her quite a bit.

The boy nodded though, his unsteady smile having gotten a little less practiced in the time he was gone… But he did make the attempt, because she had. This was perhaps one thing that wasn’t terribly hard for him to grasp the idea of what she meant when she spoke… Power could corrupt, and he knew just how bad it could get now. And being scared of yourself and what you could do… Well, he nodded with a serious little expression. “Yeah, I wanna learn together and figure stuff out.” Because maybe between the two of them, they could. And at least if it got out of hand, he could trust her to make sure it didn’t get too bad.

“You can tell me when you wanna, though, and where I should go?” Because that seemed important, adults did have things to do after all!

"The Academy would be the best location." It slightly away from things and it'd been used for the study of magic before. That was close to the studying powers. Besides, it made it feel a bit more like the school she'd gone to. There were memories there and not all of them were bad for once. Some were good memories of good friends doing things she hadn't done in a very long time. Or maybe she'd never done it. How she was brought back to life left a lot of that as a question.

"We can start as soon as you'd like." The problem seemed like something that should be tackled sooner rather than later.

“Then I’ll visit you at the academy. I remember where the road to it is.” Mono added with a little nod, knowing it had been something people were trying to clean up after all the excitement around it. He simply had never really had a reason to go that far, and he tended towards avoiding places that sounded like a place in his world. But if Illyana was going to be there, then it wasn’t going to be like the school in the Pale City. It would be safer now, he was sure… She wouldn’t invite him somewhere dangerous, not without making sure he’d be okay.

Starting soon was, of course, ideal. The boy nodded more vigorously at the idea. “Then I wanna start soon, maybe in a couple days? I should… probably go home first.” He added, a little nervous about that, but also feeling better for having had the conversation with Illyana now.

"Good. And if you ever get lost I can teleport you in. Just message me." And he too can be the recipient of being magically transported out of nowhere by a portal that kind of vaguely smells. At least it'd never seemed like he'd had too much of a bad association with the smell. Most people from her own world associated sulfur with demons and hell, evil things. Which wasn't entirely inaccurate, but that didn't mean she had to like the comparison.

"Just ignore Dresden if he's there." She had absolutely nothing against Harry Dresden. She just kind of found it funny to pretend that she did though.

"Sounds good to me. Do you want me to take you there?"

Mono nodded. He could definitely remember that! Plus, it would help, especially since he hadn’t really seen the academy in person yet. He had only heard about it here and there from other adults who either had been there or had spoken of it. “Okay, I’ll let you know if I can’t find you!”

Though he blinked a little, that was Harry’s last name... right? “Oh, why? Did he do something?” Harry was okay now that he’d gotten to know the guy better after their awkward meeting. Plus, he decided to wear a cowboy hat when they were building snow men last winter. Those were pretty cool hats.

The offer gets a pause, before he nodded. She could get there faster without having to walk all the way, and her portals hadn’t needed her to pick him up or anything... So that sounded like a good way of going. “Can you...? I kinda just wanna go back. I think I probably gotta talk to people... And I don’t wanna run into anyone else on the way.”

"Deal." And it was a good deal! Unlike the kind Belasco used to do. She was clearly a better sorcerer supreme of limbo than he'd ever been.

"Not yet. But he over worries about everything. Makes him no fun at all." Plus he might do something. Probably not, but he might! He'd probably do it in a way that made it look heroic but really it was just boring. Boring and fun ruining.

"Sure," she didn't even really pause before the portals appeared around them both, swiftly transporting them both to his home and plopping them down. It only took a few seconds to go from where they were to here and she gave him a smile. "I'm a taxi back home sometimes too."

Mono definitely thought it was a good deal, though he didn’t have much experience with making deals to compare experiences. But he did try one of his clumsy smiles at the confirmation, though, feeling a little better thanks to Illyana’s help…

“Oh…” the boy mumbled thoughtfully, with a confused little tilt of his head. Harry had seemed kinda fun last winter, after all! But he also trusted Illyana more than he trusted most people, so it wasn’t hard for the boy to accept that maybe Harry was boring or had become boring since he last saw him! Maybe something had changed since he saw the giant guy last. People and things changed a lot around here, after all.

It was a little disorientating for the portals to suddenly appear and transport them without much more than a word of confirmation from Illyana, and he blinked in surprise as suddenly they were plopped down near the house where he lived. “You’re really good at that. I still never got any better with TVS yet.” He responded as he finally glanced back up at her. “Thank you for bringing me here, though.” Even if he was still a little apprehensive, at least having a plan with her meant going home was a little less scary or worrying.

Signal Interference

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