A Shared Dream

You find yourself alone in a desolate city that seemed abandoned. It's only a few moments later when you come to a familiar coffee shop that you realize where you are and that the city itself is not abandoned like you thought, but was brutally massacred. Bodies are strewn all across the place in advanced states of decay- long enough that the bodies don't even stink anymore. The air, however, is stale, as if there was a lingering miasma of **** that still persisted to add a sense of foreboding to the scene.

'Who or what could have caused all of this?' you mentally ask to yourself. A spike of fear overcomes you and you run directly to Jennifer and Allyson's apartment.

Their apartment building is run down- it has been for quite some time. practically sprinting up the stairs, you telekinetically blast through the door. It's not the smartest thing you've done in hindsight, but your worry overrides your judgement in the heat of the moment.

You slump to your knees. Just as you suspected. Three bodies were there. Though unrecognizable, you had the vaguest feeling based on the rotted and faded scrapes of clothing you see on the corpses that the bodies in question are Jennifer, Allyson and Kathy. "What the hell happened?"

"It's hard to say..." Annabeth said, suddenly appearing behind you.

You jump and gasp in surprise, turning your body around to see her. She is a welcome sight and you hurriedly get up from your knees and rush to embrace her, taking in the smell of her herbal shampoo. "What the hell is going on?"

"This is another shared dream," Annabeth informs you, as you guide her out of the apartment. "What we're seeing is the future- a future... A very probable future."

"How probable?" you ask pulling away from her.

"I don't know," Annabeth replies. "I have so much to tell you. There are things that have or are happening that you need to know about."

"What sort of things?" you ask suspciously.

"The type of things only me or someone like me can tell you," Annabeth informs you. "As you know, in a world of Metahumans, there are many who would misuse our abilities for their own personal gain. I'm not just talking other metas like us, but governments, militiaries, private corporations and even metas who would manipulate people like us for their own goals- noble or twisted. That goes double for people like me- people who are capable of 'seeing'. Yeah, having the ability to move things with your mind or being able to manipulate gravity is all well, but with the ability to see or predict the future, you can circumvent the people who can already do those things."

"I'm with you so far, but I'm not seeing how this has to so with all of this," you reply, gesturing around the apartment.

"All Diviners- EVERYONE who can see things others can't- before they are trained in their powers, they swear loyalty and are inducted into something called The Diviner's Conclave: a group of Oracles, Prophets and Farseers of all sorts of different backgrounds and allegiances who have banded together to make sure everything we do is the result of our own choices." Annabeth explains, "A Diviner's loyalty, with few exceptions, is to The Conclave first and EVERYTHING else second- it doesn't matter if they're independent, a government agent, a Justice **** member or even a member of The Legion... The Conclave comes first and we all live by a set of rule known as The Diviner's Code."

"I get it. I'm not fully comfortable with the fact that you could be spying on me for some group I've never heard of and will likely not ever meet, but I do understand," you reply assuringly. "You look out for each other and make sure that, good or bad, you and your fellow seers are doing what you do of your own free will. What's happened to make it necessary to inform me?"

"Our bond, for one. Our psychic bond is one of those instances where my loyalty to something other than The Conclave supercedes my loyalty to The Conclave," she states. "I had planned to slowly ease you into this part of my life, but circumstances have kinda pushed up my time table here."

"This dream?" you ask. Though your question is almost more of a statement.

Annabeth confirms with a nod. "And your meeting with Ashlynn Davenport earlier is another reason. She is a provisionary member of the Justice ****, a consultant and greeter mostly. Her meet and greets generally go much better than the one she had with you.I know her from both The Conclave and college."

"So she's a seer like you?" you ask,

"Not even remotely," Annabeth denies instantly and without hesitation. "Seers of my power before the incident in the Astral Plane are rare and my powers have only gotten stronger since then. She goes by the metahuman name 'Tracer' whom she didn't know was also the name of a videogame character until after she had chosen the name."

You chuckle in amusement. "I wouldn't have figured, but people do have hidden depths. In all fairness, I don't play that game either, but even I have heard of that character."

"That's more than I knew," Annabeth said with a shrug. "I only keep track of real people with powers, not fake comic book or videogame ones. Anyways, all Ash can do is sense metahumans- even pre-awakened ones and can make some pretty accurate estimations about how powerful they are and what their powerset is. It's what drew her to Singularity in the first place."

You can't help but feel disgusted at the notion that not only did the Justice **** know about you and your powers, they'd likely known about them nearly a full year before you even got them. "Those fucking bastards!"

Annabeth looked startled by your startled response, so you inform her of everything you knew about the situation.

"Wow... They are kinda dickish," Annabeth replies somewhat stunned by the revelations. "But that's another thing I have to bring up with you. It's not just me who can't see you. Ashlynn couldn't either. Part of the reason she had that guy with her was to protect herself if you didn't happen to be you."

"What do you mean?"

"The Conclave called a gathering today while Ashlynn came to consult with me after your guys' meeting," Annabeth informed you. "Back when you two first met, she didn't sense you- at all. At first she assumed you were a recent transfer. When that Chris guy told her that wasn't the case, she thought that maybe he was powerful enough that him being near you when you two met, that maybe his powers hid yours from her. Your meeting today showed her that wasn't the case either. You literally came out of nowhere. Which... Brings me to the reason why the gathering was called in the first place..."

"How much am I not going to like this?" you ask hesitantly.

"Something big is coming, but no one is sure what it is. What they do know is that you... That Mastermind... Is at the center of it all. That just don't know that you, James Hawkins are Mastermind," Annabeth tells you. "Ashlynn does, and any who are affiliated with the Justice **** will probably find out, but The Diviner's Conclave as a whole does not. I was able to use The Conclaves rules against both The Conclave and the Justice **** to compartmentalize the information as much as possible, so that the ones with the most complete picture of what is going on are the two of us- once I get you up-to-date."

"I take it this is an extremely big deal," you understate massively.

"Oh, yeah... Big time," Annabeth replies. "To do so, I had to reveal my connection to Mastermind, but it's a delaying tactic at most. While members of The Diviner's Conclave will mostly stick to the rules, no one, NO ONE wants to lose the protection The Conclave is able to provide, everything may still eventually come out- at least among certain groups. Which groups is anyone's guess at this point- especially since New Liberty has been blanketed in a psychic blackout since you came to the city."

"Psychic..." you start to say as you grasp the enormity of what Annabeth just revealed to you. "You mean..."

"You are immune to being seen and have been before you awakened the rest of your powers- not that anyone but us and Ashlynn and maybe cartain members of the Justice **** know that," Annabeth elaborates, speaking your mental revelations out loud.

"That's... I knew that powerful enough psychics could shield themselves like that from divining, but that's on a scale even I was completely unaware of. Even with all the stuff I'm unaware that I know from our shared experience in the Astral Plane, I wouldn't have expecting something like that was possible," you reply honestly.

"One of the leaders of the Conclave, an old woman known to most of us as 'The Prophetess' has long believed that certain abilities and powers develop for a reason," Annabeth informs you. "She said that the existence of someone like Mastermind is a bad omen for The Conclave."

You sigh. "Of course she does..."

"Believe it or not, she's actually one of your biggest supporters," Annabeth countered. "She believes that someone being immune from divining means that either The Conclave as a whole has failed in their duty and you're here to wipe it out or that there is a betrayer among us- maybe willing, maybe unknowing- which means that your being immune to any sort of second sight puts you in the best position to save us all before we're corrupted from within. Either way, this vision of the future... This is big, beyond big. This is the first solid prophetic vision anyone capable of seeing the future has had since you moved here."

"But we don't understand much of anything about it," you argue. "All there is is mass destruction. For all we know, I could have been the cause of it."

"Maybe," Annabeth acknowledges. "But, I doubt it. And even if this is the case, as you said, we don't know anything yet. For all we know, whatever caused this catastrophe may have averted a bigger one."

"Not a comforting thought," you comment.

"It shouldn't be," Annabeth agrees. "It does make me wonder though... Between the two of us, together we nearly have the full spectrum of possible psychic powers and since we touched minds together that first time, both of our powers and abilities have evolved and gotten more powerful, and neither one of us were exactly slouches as it was to begin with. If The Prophetess is right and we all have our powers for a reason, just what are we expected to fight?"