"So, you're telling me that you're the international terrorist and supervillain, Black Quill," Heather Allbright, professional psychologist to superheroes and their families, asks, her pen tapping on the notepad in her lap. Her glasses sit low on her nose to not obstruct her hazel eyes from fully taking in the face of their quarry.
"No! I'm telling you, Black Quill doesn't exist. Not really," the young man lying on a couch with messy black hair and eyes a green so pale they're almost white says, waving his hand dismissively. "He's just a figment... A tulpa."
Heather rolls her shoulders unconsciously, loosening the muscles and accidentally, or not, accentuating her bust. She tosses back a tress of her long auburn hair that had found its way to her less than professionally exposed cleavage. "Well, Quillon," she says with a huff of disbelief. "There is a bus-load of people that would disagree with that after he cut them in half."
The young man, Quillon, rolls his eyes. "Obviously, they weren't real either. I'm not a psychopath. I do my best to ensure no one 'real' gets hurt when one of these scenarios goes down. I even repair damages when necessary."
"I've read the police report regarding the incident to prepare for your sister's session, and there were over a dozen bodies in the wreckage."
"I bet the report also mentions how ID was impossible because of the fire and that the bus company never had a record of a bus on that particular route that day," Quillon says.
Heather raises one eyebrow. "So, when you say Black Quill is just a figment..."
"I mean, I physically created him from my imagination and gave him form and purpose," He says, gesturing to add weight to his words. "Here, I'll show you. Give me a pen and a piece of paper."
She tears a piece of paper from her notebook and takes a pen from the desk, and hands them to Quillon.
Quillon sets the paper on the coffee table and makes a quick sketch of a butterfly. Setting the pen down, he lays back on the couch once more.
Dr. Allbright looks at the paper. "What am I supposed to be seeing here, Quillon?" she asks with a frown.
"Just watch. It's forming," he says, closing his eyes.
She focuses on the butterfly, and after a few seconds, it twitches. Heather jumps in her seat but can't look away from the page. Gradually the picture moves until the butterfly starts to pull its way free from the page, color spreading throughout its body.
Finally free, the butterfly flaps its thin wings and ascends into the room, circling the good doctor before landing once more on the clipboard in her hand.
Dr. Allbright's eyebrows nearly touched her hairline. A moment later, she remembers what Quillon said earlier. "And y-you can do that with a person? Create a person- create many people, including an S-tier superhuman? I've never heard of a power like that," she says. Her eyes dart back and forth in their sockets as she contemplates the implications. "How do you control them? Is it like remote control?"
"What? No," he says. "I told you, I create them and give them purpose, and then let them do their thing. I mean, I have safeguards in place, so if they stray from their purpose, I can override them, but Jayde isn't an idiot. Naive? Yes. Idiot? Definitely not. If I controlled them, she'd eventually see through it, and I don't want that."
"What do you want?" she asks.
Quillon is quiet. Saying it out loud would make him feel like a freak. Heather jots his reaction down in her notebook.
"So, why did you have Black Quill kill the bus full of fake people?" she asks, a pensive look on her face.
"..." Again, Quillon remains quiet.
"She was noticeably distraught after that incident, you know. What was the purpo-" she starts.
"Because she wasn't taking him seriously anymore," Quillon says irritably. He sits back up to stretch his neck.
"You mean, Jayde?" Dr. Allbright says as a calming glow emanates from her body, sending soothing feelings to any around her. Even the office plants felt calmer.
"Who else?" he gripes, almost pouting. "She's the reason for everything. Everything I do is for her. For her smile. For her joy. For her safety. She wasn't taking him seriously, and that could get her hurt if another villain I haven't created gets froggy in her territory."
Dr. Allbright frowns as she remembers a story from a month earlier involving Black Quill and another supervillain. "Quillon... What happened between Black Quill and Richard Rollins, also known as Rick Roll."
"..."
The room cools noticeably, and Quillon flops back on the couch with his hands behind his head but doesn't answer.
"I heard it was some sort of villain falling out, but that's not it is it?" Heather says calmly. "Police said the cuts went through the armored plates as easy as through tissue paper. That's pretty impressive. I remember Rick Roll spinning through an explosion and coming out the otherside without a scratch."
"... Is there a point?" Quillon asks.
"I thought you said no people get hur-" she starts.
"Richard Rollins wasn't a person!" Quillon shouts like he's spitting venom; his eyes, red with rage, were half mad.
"So, you're saying he was one of your creatio-" she tried to ask, hoping it was a situation similar to the bus incident.
"No!" Quillon spits. "Since you're so interested in him, maybe you should look up more information about him. Like his body count or the number of women he's assaulted,"
Realization dawns for the doctor, and her mouth forms an 'o' shape. "He was working with Black Quill-"
"To get his hands on Jayde," Quillon growls. "The pretty daughter of his old superhero nemesis."
Seething, Quillon looks over at the doctor. "You see? This is why I have to watch over her. She's not ready for the real scum out there. She doesn't understand. It's still just a game to her. Like the cartoons she watches. All the problems are solved in twenty minutes, and no one gets hurt. With what happened to mom and dad, you'd think she'd let that childish shit go, but she clings to it like a security blanket."
"And that bothers you?" Dr. Allbright asks.
His anger suddenly recedes, and he gets a faraway look before taking a calming breath. A small smile spreads on his face. "No."
Heather raises an eyebrow again. "No?" she says incredulously. She had been ready for an emotional explosion, and the glow around her, which had intensified, dims.
He shakes his head and lays back. "It's just the way she is. It's cute how innocent she is. I don't know how she's held on to it so long, but I'll protect it as long as I can."
Dr. Allbright nods. "And that's why you have to watch over her, why you create these 'tulpas,' to protect her and her innocence?"
He nods.
Heather debates asking the following question but decides to risk it. "What about boys?"
The smile on Quillon's face turns to ice, and the temperature in the room drops once more. "..."
Seeing the landmine she's stepped on, Heather backtracks. "Why don't we leave that question for another day? I'll pose another instead."
Quillon shrugs, and the chill in the room lessens.
"Why did you tell me all of this today?" she asks, genuinely curious. "You obviously don't want anyone to learn about your powers, so why tell me? I mean, doctor-patient confidentiality only goes so far when superpowers are involved, and your powers are beyond measure."
Quillon smiles. "I'm quite aware, but, well, I need someone objective to talk to occasionally, and it's not like it's the first time I've told you all this."
Heather frowns. "I think I'd remember som-"
"Yes, I'm sure you would, but you have to remember something else, Heather. I always place safeguards in my creations," he says, interrupting her.
Heather's frown slowly morphs into an expression of horror as what he means takes root in her mind.
Quillon takes a deep breath. "It was a good session today, doctor. I'll see you at the next one."
Panic has set into Heather's eyes, and she can't seem to find the voice to deny him.
"Cypher Protocol," Quillon says.
Heather's face goes blank for a moment, and her eyes dull. A moment later, she shakes her head and looks at Quillon. "Well, Mr. Leverett, it seems our time is done for the day. I believe we are making excellent progress."
"I do too, doc," he says. "Until next time?"
She smiles and nods as Quillon gets up and leaves the room, closing the door behind him. When the door closes, Doctor Allbright stands up, tears the pages of notes from the notebook, and tosses them into a small incinerator next to her desk. She sits behind the desk and organizes some paperwork while humming a happy tune.
.
.
.
The reception area is almost empty when Quillon exits Dr. Allbright's office, except for one person sitting in a chair reading a magazine. The woman in question is quite lovely, with lustrous dark hair and eyes. Her features are decidedly east Asian, though not distinctly from any one culture; her wicked grin as she watches the handsome young man coming through the door though is pure American.
"Hey there, handsome," she says, eyes glinting mischievously. "Looking for a good time?"
Quillon rolls his eyes. "Dae-Ja, what are you doing here?"
"What?" she says in mock distress. "Is it so wrong for a doting girlfriend to be concerned about her lover's mental health when he feels the need to visit a shrink?"
sigh. "Doctor Allbright is not a shrink. She's a psychologist," Quillon says. "There's a difference."
Dae-Ja tosses the magazine onto the table. "Semantics. Potatoe. Potato. Who cares? I just want to make sure you're alright. How did the dear doctor take the revelation of her artificial existence this time?"
He shrugs as the two make their way to the exit. "Still not as well as you did."
"Well, you did create me to be the ultimate imposter. Finding out I really am an imposter seemed pretty natural to me."
"False. I didn't create you to be the ultimate imposter. I created you to-," Quillon says.
"Yeah. Yeah. -to be a friend to your sister and keep an eye on her. Keep her out of trouble. Fucking you might not have been a part of the original plan, but somehow you still ended up getting in my pant."
"If I recall correctly, you were the one that snuck into my room during that sleepover. I didn't plan or program you for that."
"No, you just programmed me to be the perfect person to befriend your little sister. Makes you wonder what goes on in her head sometimes if she needed someone as her best friend that would seduce and fuck her brother. Especially with all the hot yuri action, we'd been getting up to around that time. You know I'm pretty sure she mastur-"
Quillon's pants shrunk a size spontaneously. He coughs lightly. "Ahem. Speaking of Jayde, why aren't you with my sister now, anyway?"
Dae-Ja rolls her eyes. "She's working on a new costume design."
Quillon frowns in confusion. "Again? Isn't this the third design in a month? What happened to the last one?"
"Yeah, about that," she says, cringing.
"DJ," Quillon says, his frown growing serious.
She sighs. "There were reports of a peeping Tom on campus, so she decided to look into it."
Quillon quirks an eye. "A peeping Tom? And an S-ranked hero needed to be the one to look into it?" he asks, his voice rising a little as he continues. "And, somehow, it resulted in her suit being damaged to the point that she needed to replace it!?"
"A-huh... Yeah, well, you can blame the Calendar Girls for that. They were the ones that thought it would be 'super fun' to work together," Dae-Ja says, using air quotes and mimicking the vocal style of an airhead blond stereotype.
'Oh, what the hell. They're C-rank. Even they shouldn't be investigating a basic peeping Tom. That's like normal police or maybe F-ranks' job."
"Did you miss the 'super fun' part of the story?" Dae-Ja says, repeating her previous imitation, and then rolls her eyes. "You know those three are Jade Rabbit superfans, not to mention their super crush on you. Which, of course, is why they hate my guts."
"I thought it was because you make fun of them all the time and gave them the name, the 'Calendar Girls?'" he says. "I mean, there are certain implications there."
"Their names and April, May, and June. They should be mad at their parents for naming a set of identical triplets that; not me. Maybe if I let you fuck them, they'll let it go."
"Not interested. If I wanted to screw one of them, I'd have you use your ability to turn into one of them."
"Yeah, but you could have three of them at the same time!" she says.
"One. More than two at a time requires more effort than they're worth. Two. If I wanted to do two of them at a time, I could have you transform into June and use her Gemini ability," he says deadpan, holding up fingers as he counts. "Three. What's with you trying to get me to fuck other women lately?"
She shrugs. "I wouldn't object to a little female companionship occasionally. Jayde won't let me anymore since I started sleeping with you. And since you won't-"
"Don't even say it," Quillon warns.
"Friggin' sis-con," she mumbles.
"We're getting off track. What happened after they dragged Jayde into tracking down the peeping Tom?"
"Well, obviously they found him," Dae-Ja says. "Poor guy named Jack Koffman. He has a mutation that, similar to a chameleon, allows him to blend into his surrounding. Goes by the villain name Horny Toad. I almost feel bad for the guy. The mutation gives him scaly skin and horn-like protrusions. Not the most attractive features."
Quillon rolls his hand in a 'move it along' motion. "And how does this damage Jayde's suit?"
"One of the Calendar Girls surprised Horny Toad, and as a defense mechanism, he apparently squirts this smelly, acidic blood from his eye at her. Jayde seeing the blood coming for whichever of the triplets it was, pushed the idiot out of the way, and some of the blood got on Jayde's costume. Between the stink and the slight damage, she decided to rebuild."
"And what happened to Jack Koffman?" he asks.
Dae-Ja shrugs. "Went to jail. Other than the stinky acid blood, he didn't put up a fight. I think he was more scared than anything. He even apologized for the damage to Jayde's suit."
Quillon still frowns, unhappy with what happened.
"Oh, come on. She's fine. Not a mark on her. The 'acid' blood was barely strong enough to melt lycra. There was no threat to her."
"She's still not using her powers to their fullest potential," he says grumpily. "If she was, then none of that would have happened. She could have easily shielded all of you, and no one would have been doused."
Dae-Ja sighs. "Yeah, she said the same thing. She's a little upset with herself, so go easy on her. Okay?"
Quillon closes his eyes and takes a breath.
Dae-Ja smiles wickedly. "You know... I could transform into her, and you could give her the spanking she oh-so deserves?"
Quillon's eyes flash open, and he looks at Dae-Ja. His jaw works, and he swallows. "Don't ever say that again."
Hmph. Dae-Ja pouts. "You're no fun."