A Lowly Wretch — Roleplayer Guild

Babble
Meanwhile, in New York City...

Even in her dreams she could hear it all. Every footstep, every engine, every voice, every heartbeat, even the beating of a fly's wings. It's wings were like the engine of a massive jet, a deafening roar of membranes upon air as it lazily drifted over her nose. All the same it was impressive that she could make out the very sound it made out of all the mingling noises that was New York's bustling city life. It was like hearing a quarter drop a block away in the middle of a hurricane. This was all audible to Babble through her dampening field which cut the effective volume of the sounds approaching her down to just 0.0000000000000000001% of it's original potency.

She awoke after so much sleep, blearily unwinding in a dark cement corner behind a truck inside some sort of warehouse looking arrangement. Sitting up she came to the realization that she was certainly not where she last went to sleep, that much was certain. Instead of the destitute warehouse she called home back in Hope City she was in what appeared to be some sort of rusty worn down... garage?

Standing up from the floor she stretched and yawned in complete silence. Well, complete silence for anyone that wasn't her. Coming out of her sleep everything was already several shades confused. Distantly she could hear the public panic as things attacked them. She really couldn't identify what these things were since nothing was really familiar to what these were. They actually reminded her of marshmallows or crustless white bread. They were sorta soft like people but didn't have all that gross stuff in them. Just through and through solid something, a something she couldn't really identify.

_
The air was quite still here. What little sound must of been around here had died out before she had awakened since she could hear no other voices in her general vicinity aside from the sound of her own breathing. Dust particles danced playfully in the sun's rays which poured the open garage door. Just looking at the light from the dark space she had just awoken in hurt her eyes but for her it was just another discomfort to weather through. In bare feet she staggered forth, navigating with ease around the scattered debris and tools all the same despite her early awakening sluggishness.

Though the sun stung her large tired eyes she peered out at the world around her. For her the world looked much different than it would for those with less complex perception. Sound wasn't just noise for her, it was a physical medium in it's own right. Visually all was the same as anyone else could see in her mind she could 'Feel', in a sense, the world through the sounds around her. Put in simplistic terms it was like a blind man's cane combined with a bat's echolocation but with a universally distributed point of reference instead of a single central sensory receiver. She practically had a 3D map of New York right in her head. Like any map though it was only as useful as the user interpreting it.

As such her eyes were more a tertiary means of seeing the world around her anyway, not that it helped keep the sunlight from stinging her eyes for the time being. Looking around she could clearly see this was a warehouse in front of the bay. Looking past the rusty iron fence she saw a sign. Erie Basin Auto Pound It read. That explained why there were vehicles stashed inside.

_
Without needing to look she could already detect a few of these weird human-looking guys gathered around one of the several dead bodies scattered across the property. Well, several is a relative term given that the population of this immediate vicinity consisted of a couple attendants as well as a few of the stray pedestrians caught in the street beyond. This dreary little dead end of a dock was far from a bustling hub of activity like downtown was.

Not that the general distribution of New York's population was of any matter to Babble. She could only wonder how she went from a warehouse a hefty few kilometers away in a different city all the way to this bay side little hole in the wall. Conditions weren't too far off from her old haunt but this place didn't scream home to her. It didn't scream at all actually, she'd hear that if it did.

Now there remained a question: What do I do now? she wondered in her silent little internal dialogue of hers. She could try going home but that was pretty far away. It'd take a while and all these dying people, gun violence and weird not-people might get in the way. Everywhere she could here there were awful things abound. Radios, engines, crude machinery all making terrible amounts of noise. It was heart breaking really.

Not too far off though there was one thing that did stick out to her. There was an island where it was unexpectedly quiet. There was nary a voice nor engine with one exception. Somebody was blaring music out of speakers! How rotten of them to spoil a patch of nice silence so thoughtlessly.

Of course it was a simple fix. All she needed to do was find some way to cross the water and then it'd be a simple as breaking the electronic nuisance. Of course the natural answer would be to take a boat. Luckily for her there were several shipping barges a mild traipse away! Of course she didn't know how to pilot one but she figured she could just push it on over to where she needed it to go using sonic pressure. Making her way over to one of these barges she looked up at the oversized hunk of metal.

_
Welp, there it is! Now how do I get onto it? She wondered. It was really quite large and there was no planks down for her to walk aboard on, just a ladder and unfortunately for her it was still raised and sat upon the ship. That left the docking restraints, large cables keeping the barge tethered to the dock. While it was fortunate that they led up onto the deck it was still a fairly tricky climb. Babble was no stranger to danger but falling off this thing looked like it would hurt if she didn't hit the water. If she did hit the water she hadn't brought any floaties. Talk about a lame way to die, drowning from lack of pool accessories... Also not knowing how to swim.

Swallowing her fears she approached the thick line, determination and perhaps a little reckless overconfidence in her own capabilities gleaming in her eyes as she wrapped her arms and legs around the big cable. Of course her feet did most of the work hoisting her along the line since she didn't exactly have a grip seeing as her grip was probably still laying in a pool of her own blood back at the asylum. It meant she was essentially clinging for dear life while slowly inch-worming her way up the line. This little misadventure came to a head when the lip of the deck drew near. Having stayed atop of the line for this climb had given her a definite advantage but it was one that could be of been squandered at any moment should her weight shift even slightly askew atop this line that was clearly not meant for climbing on.

Moving her chin up atop the deck she very carefully let go with her arms, her legs fastened tighter than before around the large metal tether, and wrapped the handless limbs around the bolt which fastened this cord to the deck.

Alright, it's time to make it or break it. In this case 'It' being either the deck or all the bones. She assured herself, teeth grit as she steeled herself for the finale. In a decently impressive feat of agility and flexibility she kicked off the cable and bent her legs all the way back until her feet were set right next to her head on the flat surface of the deck. From there it was a simple shift as she unrolled herself forward, taking her head out from between her big toes and uncoiling herself until she was back to laying flat on her face like a normal person with a normal spine, neither of which she was or had. Depends on whether or not you consider the spines of gymnasts and yoga practitioners normal I guess.

_
Taking a short breather she swiftly was back to her feet, already jaunting her way up to the bow of the ship. While making it up on top of this ship alone was an impressive endeavor for a frail fourteen year old like her the real magic was going to be getting this thing moving. The tethers she had used to climb aboard were also responsible for keeping the ship from floating away after all and then there was the fact that the thing was massive, weighed several hundred tons and she had nary a clue as to the controls for it. As it turned out for her none of that really mattered either.

Transmitting her sound through the metal of the ship she focused on the bolts holding the cables to the ship. Like ripples in a pond made alive the waves centered around these metal constructs of man, their vibrations honing in on the crystalline structure comprising the metal itself. As she focused her mind listened for the tune, the musical hum that indicated a harmonic resonance. At the very moment the pitches aligned with a mild push of her powers the metal fractured along it's crystalline lattice. As Babble was in control of the sound's alignment so to was she in control of the direction of the fracture. She created a perfectly smooth circular cut through metal so thick even an industrial welding torch would struggle to cut through it.

At the very moment the cut was made the cable whipped loose with tremendous force. The nearby cars over in the parking lot were sheared in twine by the force of the cable, the pieces scattered from the dock by the force of the whipping cord's blow. Babble did this again for the remaining cables and with a weighty sway the ship was shorn free of the dock. The massive tub of a structure rocked in the water and Babble quickly realized something of note.

Oh yeah, I got to not fall off too.

An important step to overlook she found as she quickly found herself sliding into one of the sides of the boat. With a muted thud she collided with a metal railing, a small barrier between her and a long fall into the waters below. As the ship swayed once more she found herself sliding back in the other direction. Instead of passively falling however she decided to act. Using her power over sound she generated a small shock wave through the air, using the air's displacement as a buffer to lighten her impact against a metal wall down in one of the depressions in the ship. The impact still hurt but not quite as bad as if she had just fell. She was still sore from the first landing.

_
After the initial rocking from the sudden departure of the massive tub of a boat that was now her barge steadied due to it's sheer weight opposing the sway of the water. Having learned her lesson she retreated into it's interior where she'd be far less likely to get launched into the depths. Within she could feel the sound of it's motion, the crashing of waves and straining of metal coursing through it's being. Though she could not see outside in the room she shut herself within she was able to lock onto the song projected from the statue of liberty. Her destination, her target. She would end the music and make the island her sanctuary. A short-sighted goal perhaps but she was never much for dwelling on the long term. Why despair over the future when the present looks so bright?

Reaching out through the metal of the boat she directed her sound into the liquid medium it floated within. Like the ripples of the pond her sound rippled through the bay. While the barge was initially unswayed by the force of the sound below what started as ripples grew into waves. Manipulating the flow of the water surrounding this vessel she created her own current, the massive barge slowly lurching forth like a lotus drifting across a pond.

In due time she would reach the island. What she sought was peace but what she'd find was revelation.
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The Listless Loiterer

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