bakerstreet | powered&source

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powered&source

::Powered/SOURCE

a sci-fi au meme

50 years ago, or 75 years ago,or 20 - it's hard to recall such precise numbers in the haze and hardship - the world almost ended. While the timing itself is remembered by few, the event serves as a sharp divide of before the Fall and after. The Fall, in all its terrible and explosive splendor, sent societies spinning on their heads, no matter if its intimate nature are unclear. Once again, humanity has had to claw its way out of the primordial pit, all its achievements sent to ruin in the face of a nuclear flare. What little governmental structure remain amongst the survivors is tyrannical, but astute. When those in charge noticed that offspring of those who hadn't been killed by the Fall were beginning to be born with unique abilities, they chose not to persecute this "new generation." Instead, they jumped at the chance to have a homegrown army to protect the fragile rebirth of man, learning little from the old mistakes.

These gifted individuals fall into two categories: those with psionic powers and abilities used for offense and those who have healing and rejuvenating properties. Apart, these are interesting parlor tricks, with psionics, called Powereds, being about to move items with their minds for a few inches or pick up heavier ones they shouldn't be able to or healers, called Sources, fixing up superficial wounds. The true potential lies in when a Powered and Source are brought together, however. Each Powered has a Source that is their match and vice versa, the lock to their key, right down to the very genetics. When the right pairing made, a Powered can move mountains or create energy weapons beyond compare, a Source can provide near infinite energy to their Powered or even bring living beings back from the brink of death. To belong to either of these groups is a high honor. So high, in fact, that as soon as a child shows promise, they are whisked away by higher authorities to be matched with their lifetime Powered or Sourced and begin their training, where, despite the risks, they will find better living conditions and more resources than they could have ever dreamed of out in the desolate, dying world.

This pair grows up together, becoming dependent on each other. Even if their personalities clash, the pull in their very nature evens things out; it is, after all, a psychic bond that connects Powered and Sourced. Without the presence of their Source, a Powered might find themselves enraged or worried or unsettled. On the other hand, a lonely Source may become listless or despaired. As two is where they find complete harmony, and their unity shows in the combat or espionage skills.

On record, romance between matched pairs is strictly forbidden. Off the books, though, it happens more times than not, with two people growing up together virtually since childhood who are programmed to be co-dependent, and it is highly encouraged by those higher up due to abilities being strengthened through both emotional connection and physical contact. There's no risk in it, in their eyes, only gain as they can terminate a pair quite easily. A Powered is useless without a Source, so the ultimate weapon has a kill-switch...and a useful weakness for blackmail purposes There are always whispers in barracks of someone who's doing a task because their Powered's or Source's life is at stake.

Once battle training is complete, each pair is assigned to an eight-man cell, comprised of four matched pairs like themselves. What these teams do depends upon their skill sets and training levels, with anything from peacekeeping to public relations to assassination being on the dossier. Yet the imperative is for those on front line is clear: protect your Powered or Sourced at all costs, even on the backs of the others on your team.

Without them, you are useless. Without them, there is no place for you in this world.

tl;dr sparknotes this because we want to get to the meme: Sentinels and guides had a baby with YA dystopian lit. After a near extinction level cataclysm, people began to develop abilities that fall into two categories: Powered (sentinel/warrior) and Source (guide/healer). Their true powers are only revealed when they find their one genetically compatible match. A shadow government kidnaps these individuals, puts them into lifebonds, trains them for combat, then sends them out in teams to do all the dirty work. Codependency, mind-bonding, unhealthy love, and bloody murder probably ensue.

In the subject line, place your character name, canon, preferences, and whether your character will be a Powered, Source, or either. Reply to others! What will your character be doing? Being a late bloomer and only now meeting their partner? Training? On a mission? Enjoying some rare down time? Comforting their partner? Aftercare after the battle? Getting blackmailed? Climbing to the top of the ladder and infiltrating the government? Realizing their partner's getting a little too bloodthirsty? Falling in love with someone else's Powered or Source - absolute anathema. Facing certain death? It's up to you. Thread.

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~ I’d love to do this meme with anybody. ~

[ It probably makes the most sense to have Han be a street smart ‘source’ style character to a ‘powered’ force sensitive, but whatever works. Cross canon and OC’s are fine too. ]

And in such a world, it was easy to see how small pockets of crime and underworld and black market dealings have been able to pop up. And Carol can't really help but be bothered by that. What's leftover is scarce, and it needs to be protected. So since she seems to be able to punch a touch harder than a normal person and hover herself out of the way of a fight, she's taken up to patrolling some of the rougher areas at night. Not necessarily to shut them down or anything, but to make sure that people who want nothing to do with that trouble stay out of it.

That's where she is tonight. Tucked at a window overlooking the entrance to what she knows is a fairly popular gambling establishment. Gangs gather here and she's heard that sometimes they'll fall out of the place in a drunken stupor - or worse, in a bored stupor - and start to bother people who just are trying to get home.

So far there hasn't been much. But it's early.

Imagine knowing, nearly your whole life, that there was someone out there that you were meant to find. Then imagine watching other people like you find their powered matches and being left to wonder where yours was.

There had been, as far as Han knew, no cases of two adults finding their matches. So it was sometime around his eighteenth birthday that he had completely given up on ever finding his partner. He’d left the facility that had been a home of sorts and headed into the rough, unknown world that people who hadn’t been born different had to settle for. To be honest, it suited him better. Not to mention he didn’t have to see couples casting him piting glances anymore.

Han had managed to do alright for himself. A side-effect of being a source meant that he could sense all different types of energies and it made him awfully good at telling when good things as well as bad things were about to happen to him. A talent that he had recently begun to apply to gambling and man ... had he been falling in love with card games lately.

He couldn’t turn off that mild precognitive sense of his, but he had to ignore it from time to time. Most of the games he sat in on were full of stupid assholes, but they weren’t so stupid that if went back to his apartment every time with everybody’s disposable income they wouldn’t realize he had some kind of advantage. Tonight’s game was a particularly high stakes game. The money was changing hands fast and what passed for ale around here was getting consumed in very large quantities.

He had a bad feeling that tonight someone was going to lose their temper and that was a problem when everyone there was carrying a weapon.

Carol could relate. She had been showing signs of being a Powered since she was six or seven, but it didn't matter at all to her parents. Her older brother had shown Source powers of his own and her parents were determined to find the other half of his pair. The perfect Powered for him would bring comfort and prestige to the family. So every six months or so, once her brother had been paraded around the community for a potential match, they picked up and moved to another community to try again.

It was around the age of twelve that Carol realized her parents weren't going to do a damn thing about her. And when her brother got killed five years later, she left. Carol wasn't sure if it was grief, spite, anger, or some cocktail of all that drove her to abandon the family that didn't care about her. But despite not having a match, she felt the freest she had all her life.

She made her living working security for minor diplomats and lesser events. The pairs watched over the high-ranking officials but there was enough danger to employ unmatched Powereds since they could still fight better than an unpowered individual. The patrols at night, though, were strictly off the books.

The noise from the building was steadily growing to the point where Carol knew things were about to go bad. She crept closer, waiting for some kind of shout or signal that it was time to intervene.

“I’m getting real tired of losing.”

A man with thick sideburns, a droopy left eye and a distorted nose surveys the table. Most of the members of the card game are humans, because most of the population of this planet they’re all stuck on, are humans. There is one offworlder sitting at the table, though — A four foot tall, seemingly calm, rodent-like alien. There’s also a human-ish looking figure in tribally adored body armor wearing a faceplate. Han hasn’t been able to figure out if it’s a human, alien or a droid.

The sentiment rises up some of the other members of the table that have lost a lot of money and Han seeks to soothe them with a smile and some reassurance. “Easy, Rebolt, we’re all friends here.”

Not true. On the best of days, the people at this table were acquaintances, but no more. He wouldn’t be being much of a diplomat if he was telling it like it is, though.

The pig-nosed man points a finger that’s been made crooked from being broken so many times.

“Shut up, Han.” The words were almost a growl. “I know damn well that you’re cheating somehow.”

To that, Han Solo gestures at the place in front of him. His pile is one of the slightest remaining at the table, because wisely, he’d was making sure that he’d lost a lot more hands than he won. Though, the temptation to use his natural advantage had been very strong.

“Yeah, that accusation makes a lot of sense right now.”

Han murmurs dryly and takes a sip. The little alien at the table shoots the scruffy-haired human an wary look. As if to try to warn him not to be glib right now.

“I suggest ...” a beautiful, dark skinned human interjects. “... that we all just take it down a couple of notches.”

“Rebolt is right. That kid never looks nervous or surprised by anything.”

Rebolt, emboldened by the fact that someone agrees with him, flashes a dangerous smile. “Yeah, well, maybe he’ll be surprised by this.” An he draws his weapon, pointing it directly at Han.

Predictably, the rest of the table begins drawing out weapons too, with only Solo leaving his hands up where everyone could see them.

The noise level has been pretty consistent for the last ten minutes so Carol is actually in the middle of debating if she's going to go stake out a new section of the city when the noise drops to nearly nothing in a heartbeat.

That, she knows, means shit is moments away from going down.

So she runs from her hiding spot, hand immediately going to the weapon at her hip just to check that it's there. Weapons have always felt just a little weird strapped to her body or in her hands, but she can't argue with their effectiveness.

Carol pauses at the door, with every intention to listen quietly, when there's a tug at her middle. It's like a yank around the back of her belly button. It's so intense that she has to grab the door frame but it's gone so quickly that she starts wondering if she had felt it at all.

But there's no time to dwell on that. Taking a breath to steady herself, Carol quietly opens the door and slips inside to see what kind of trouble is about to explode.

Han — seemingly out of nowhere — gets an ache in the back of his head that hurts so bad, it makes his vision blur. In the next heartbeat, he has a very clear image of Rebolt (the instigator of this fight) pulling the trigger of his blaster and hitting him squarely in the chest.

He kicks the cardtable so hard that it topples over. Credit chips, drinks, possessions go flying in all different directions and most of the persons at the table are suddenly scrambling to pick up what belongs to them and maybe a bit more.

Everyone except Rebolt ... who flinches only for a second and takes his shot at Han. Solo throws up his arms, feebly. The energy weapon’s first shot wouldn’t kill him, but the second or third probably would.

Carol watches it all happen. Almost in slow motion, but she knows it's happening moments, not the minutes seemingly playing in front of her eyes. The pain at her stomach is back, intense, but she has to ignore it because there's about to be a lot of dead people if she doesn't act soon.

She's a decently fast runner, but she knows that there's no way she's going to make it to the man with the gun and the guy with his hands up before he shoots again. It's seriously impossible. But dammit, she's going to try.

Sprinting forward, she focuses solely on disarming the man. She can't let the other man get hurt. She just...can't. Carol is so focused that she doesn't realize that her feet have left the ground and she's basically horizontal until she slams into an extremely wide-eyed Rebolt and tackles him to the ground.

Whipping her head around, she has every expectation to yell at the other man to get the hell out but she can't seem to get anything past her lips. Her stomach is churning, but the pain is changing. It's no longer this sharp, stabbing thing, but it's morphing into what feels like...butterflies.

But surely, after all this time, he couldn't possibly be...

There’s no time to reflect on how he was able to have such a clear vision of the future, when all he’d ever caught were just vague impressions in the past. Or how a human blur, who came from out of nowhere, had knocked Rebolt to the ground. Which is just as well because it doesn’t take more than an instant to connect the dots.

His Powered is here.

Withdrawing his own blaster, Han aims around the woman who just saved his life and takes two shots at the man who had been trying to kill him. Ozone fills the air, followed in quick succession by the smell of burnt flesh. Some of the patrons of this cantina (of sorts) had turned to observe the commotion. Many were perplexed. Trying to sort out how this woman ‘appeared’ to be flying. Others had simply taken their belongings and were trying to leave in a hurry.

A dour look spreads over Han’s features. The friendly guy who’d been at the table suddenly absent and in his place was a grittier stand in. His eyes seemed to issue a wordless challenge.

Carol picks herself up from the ground, her legs feeling a bit unsteady and a light glow emanating from her hands. There was no question - the man is her Source.

Her eyes flick in his direction as he looks around the room and she's curious how he can be so...calm right now. Her mind is racing and she folds her arms across her chest to hide the glow of her hands. That will clearly need to be dealt with, but not in this room that could easily still be a powder keg.

"Ummm, hey," she manages to start. "You wanna get outta here?" Clearly they need to talk and for once her nighttime heroics had to go on the back burner.

He’s calm because falling to pieces isn’t really going to help them out very much.

That and he’s spent every minute since he left the facility trying not to be noticed as different by the people around him. And he fancied himself a card shark — if everyone can look at you and know what you’re thinking, you don’t end up a very successful player.

“Yeah ...” He waits for a second or two, then decides to holster his weapon. “I think the game is over anyway.”

Without any more preamble, Han begins to stride out of the bar.

At least one of them is calm. Well, Carol's not not calm. But she's definitely been calmer.

"Okay," she replies before strolling out after him. A million questions are swirling through her head: what's his name? how old is he? when did he release he was a Source? how has he been surviving? But she doesn't vocalize them. Not yet. Not when someone could've finally snapped to and noticed that she...flew? Maybe? Oh god, did she fly? Anyway. Someone could alert the government that a new pair has been formed and she's not sure she wants to go work for them.

She lets out a sigh as she catches up to him and matches his pace. "You live nearby? I'm a bit of a walk."

Now is definitely not the time for questions.

He could never go back to that cantina now, so it didn’t really matter that some people were going to realize what it was they had actually witnessed soon. Maybe the flying could have been dismissed as a jet pack or some special piece of tech she was carrying, but the glowing hands were a lot more overt. They ... probably couldn’t stay in the area too much longer if they wanted to remain off the radar.

“I have a place that’s not far.” He says, stealing a quick glance over at her. Han hadn’t even gotten the chance to get a good look at her till now.

"Great," she replies, glancing back over at him. He was cute. Physically, he checked a lot of her boxes, even though she thought she had a few years on him. Though that thought passes out of her head even faster than it goes in.

Because no matter what the guy looks like...he is her Source. She's still trying to wrap her brain around that. It had been nearly a decade - nearly half her life - since she came to terms with the fact that she was going to be unmatched. And now? The sky wasn't even the limit since it seemed like she could fly.

She didn't say anything else as they walked. Carol was just trying desperately to dim her hands.

As long as he’d known there was a Powered out there for him, he’d been trying not to anticipate anything. They didn’t have any control over who their Other was going to be, after all, so it didn’t seem like a great idea to set up expectations. They simply weren’t going to get met, if you did.

The fact that she was a woman was ... nice. Strictly speaking, Powered and Sources weren’t supposed to be romantically involved, but many of them were. They seemed closer to him than the ones that were. Happier, maybe. Except for when they were having a tift and then ... well, it’s hard to be in a fight with your significant others when there wasn’t power dynamics involved, right? This woman is pretty, whomever she was.

... and her hands are still glowing.

“Do you not have any control over the glowing?” Was it his job to tone it down, somehow? If that was the case, he didn’t know how to begin to do that.

Carol is only somewhat hearing him as her head is still swirling with potential powers, her Source, and trying to think about what her life is going to be like after tonight. Certainly different, but the question is how different?

So she misses the tone of the question and nearly snips back an answer. But she decides to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and shrugs her shoulders. "No idea. This has never happened to me before. If I could turn this-" she says, throwing her hand into the air, and then the rest dies on her lips. Because when she gestured into the air, a ball of light/energy/something shot right up into the sky.

But the pro is that her hands aren't as bright anymore?

"Oh shit."

Her new friend could have been nicer about the way that he asked and he’s definitely moody about losing his favorite place to pass the time at. He might full well deserve the attitude she had been inclined to give him. What they needed to do was keep a low profile (which he has feeling the girl diving into barfights doesn’t do very well) get off the street and form a plan. The sooner the got off the street the ... better ...

You know? If he wasn’t so exasperated by this situation. He’d have been impressed by that blast of whatever that was.

Han takes a deep breath and forces a smile to cover over the scowl he wants to make. His voice is coming out clipped, but there’s an effort to keep his frustrations in check.

“We’re almost to my place. Just try not to draw any attention to us till we get there. Then we can figure this out.”

She can definitely tell that he's not pleased with her, not matter how much he's trying to hold it back.

"Trust me. I'm trying," she clips right back to him. How the hell was she to know that her hands could shoot off light balls? The sheer miracle of finding her Source was quickly turning bitter with his words.

So she folded her hands back under her arms and kept in step with him. No talking, no pointing, no even thinking about what else she could do.