February 2, 2013
First Time Out, Part 2

Finding dangerous criminals is hard, even with psychic powers at your disposal. It takes time, and the bigger your network the better. We don't have anyone to really fit the bill for starting the search. Certainly Jenny will be indispensable once we get on scene. Other teams dedicated to searches like this did the legwork (maybe I've watched too many cop shows). I'm not entirely sure but I think we caught up with the home invader so quickly because he was gifted. Finding someone without would have been harder. No doubt his quick turnaround for committing the crimes made it faster too.

We caught up with the guy on Ulysses St. south of Lowes. It wasn't near the previous crime scenes and we don't know where he was going. It may have had nothing to do with another attack. We wanted a semi-secluded area for the approach in hopefully unfamiliar territory. The current time of the year was a big help in keeping our edge with surprise. Jenny iced up the road and when he started into a skid I gave the car a strategic push. It wasn't hard to do and it didn't set our target up to be suspicious. He plowed through a bush and end up in the high dead weeds between the road and the treeline.

Sarah and Jack were tailing the attacker. They stopped to offer assistance. Sarah reached out and tried to elicit him to sadness. He immediately snapped his head toward her and told her it was nice try. He tried the same to her and we knew for certain we had our man the next instant. He took a swing at Jack. Jack sidestepped and struck him across the forearm with a nightstick. He howled in pain.

That seemed to take the fight out of him. He dropped to his knees holding his arm. He told Jack he thought he'd broke it. The guy thought Jack and Sarah weren't paying close attention and he tried to pull a knife from his coat. I flicked it out of his hand. Then, even from kneeling he tried to lunge at Sarah. I hauled him up off of the ground by his good arm.

I had a quick and sudden twinge of guilt, but I have to say it had nothing to do with our home invading empath. I almost dropped him. He reminded me of Klavier dangling from Sandra's hand. Sarah sensed it and reminded me verbally of the plan. I surged my sympathy for her and connected with our proxy. I felt the gentle calm.

Now I bet I've lost you and that previous bit makes no sense. Sarah and I set up a feedback loop where she uses her empathy, through my sympathy with an object, and that empathy elicits a feeling in me. It's separate and divorced from either of us after the start--though I can strengthen whatever it is, like turning up the volume but leaving the channel the same. I also further protected myself by dividing my attention in advance of the encounter. The separate focus has no emotional structures--as you know that was to my detriment previously--it only has its original intent and here it sat in backup to protect me. I'm trying desperately to limit its deadliness and keep the dangerous decisions to myself.

Anyway, I've derailed the story. He hung in the air with less than half of his weight on his arm. If he proved troublesome I could let the assistance drop suddenly. He knew he was caught so we bundled him, without issue, into a car with Jack... or so he thought. I drove the car from sitting in the one driving behind it. The Jack behind the wheel was an illusion. We drove like that well away from the location of the pick up and met another vehicle with another team that sedated the prisoner and took him away for judgement. That was our first mission.

Tags: Blaine (MN), emotion, empathy (psychic), home invasion, Jack Tourmaline, Jenny Brumal, The Protectorate, psychic, Sarah Jayne, split focus, sympathy (psychic).