ic (OMTB) Interview: Blodeuwedd

[Electra]

One of the perks of having a show on the Discovery Channel was a generally cordial working relationship with public broadcasting systems all around the world. It was especially nice in cases like this, where instead of doing interviews on the street or in a rented conference room, they were able to line up a cozy little interview space at the FCTV studios right downtown. The SuperCrime crew had piled all their outdoor gear in an unobtrusive corner and taken an hour's break to thaw out, eat lunch and back up footage of the morning's work. Now Paige was redoing her makeup in front of a mirror in the corner, covering up a slight case of windburn with concealer while the crew did light tests and their waited for their guest to arrive.

 

The studio was not very large, a living-room themed stage area big enough for perhaps four or five people maximum. It was set up with two comfortable chairs cheated towards the camera with a low table between them for coffee cups and looked very much like a thousand different news program sets. The crew already had all the cameras set up and ready to go, and the smell of coffee floated invitingly through the warm air.

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

Blodeuwedd had been there the whole time tucked away invisibility thanks to the abilities of her ring. Mostly it was to make sure that this was all on the level, though the request had been through Summer’s one of the few that knew about the existence of there hidden town. It amused her how much that “Bloody Summers woman” annoyed some of the Elder, she’d had the gall to visit the one time, she’d always been impressed by they’re keen skills in such matters.

 

Figuring the time was right to make her appearance she dropped down silently behind the crew slowly standing up to reveal the eerie green glow of the goggles she wore.

 

“I hope I haven’t been keeping you waiting too long?” She spoke in own soft Welsh lilt

 

Her intel suggested that Hologram was telepathic in some way, so she wondered if the older hero was humouring her for a dramatic entrance. Still it was a good to do again after all this time in the shadows.

[Electra]

Kelsey, who'd been adjusting the boom mic, yipped in surprise and startled enough to nearly bean Eamon the camera operator as she swung around, but he ducked with instinct born of long practice. Paige raised a hand to telekinetically stop the swinging mic before it could get near their guest. She supposed that did explain the subtle feeling of being watched she'd had for the past hour. Some metahumans were more paranoid than others. This didn't even compare to the time she'd interviewed Mentolac the Wise in his remote wilderness fortress and been required to camp for two days while he decided if she was on the level or not. Smiling, she wiped her hands on a makeup cloth and went to make introductions.

 

"Blodeuwedd, thank you so much for coming," Paige began, pronouncing the name from careful practice. "You're exactly on time; we're just finishing up our preparations. I'm Paige Cline or Hologram, whichever you feel more comfortable using." She turned to indicate the crew. "This is Fred, our director, Eamon and Dave on the cameras, Kelsey doing sound, and Vivi is our intern PA. Have you ever done a television interview before?"

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

“Bore da.” Blodeuwedd greeted them all with a smile, taking off her hood before she did so “Blodeu is fine if you wish, and Blodeuwedd’s my actual name not that it matters in this case.”

 

With a final, briefest of, pauses she places her goggles on the top of her already wearing a mask underneath. She’d gone back and forward on this but finally figured this was the best as that would be how people would have seen her on that day. Beside she knew enough about disguise that with her hair down it would be difficult to truly identify who she was exactly.

 

“I’m not normally one for appearing on television, more about the shadows as you might have gathered. But I wanted to do this for a good… friend of mine that was involved in all this.”

 

Even now she’d never managed to untangle her feeling completely.

[Electra]

"We appreciate you coming in very much," Paige assured her sincerely. "And a television interview is really no big deal, you and I will just be talking and doing our best to ignore all these guys, who will be doing their best to stay quiet." She grinned over at the crew. "Since we don't have our own sound setup here, we're going to use lav mics, that's the kind you pin to your collar, and one overhead mic as well, and then our two cameras to video. Since you have a mask, we'll take a couple minutes for sound and light checks to make sure we can hear you clearly and nothing is reflecting too badly, but you get to avoid the makeup chair! Did you have any questions before we get started?"

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

Blodeuwedd did whenever there was a potential to feel nervous or embarrassed, create a persona that could deal with the situation. Today she was the friendly neighbourhood Blodeuwedd, more or less herself but just a natural in the studio.

 

“I’ve spent a little while working in a studio. I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t go into any more detail.” She gave an understanding hero to hero look

 

“And I’m ready whenever you’re good.”

[Electra]

"Of course," Paige agreed graciously. It only took a few more minutes to get everything set up. In very short order a tiny microphone was pinned to Blodeuwedd's lapel and the checks were completed to make sure they would look and sound good on television. The SuperCrime! crew had the efficiency of team who'd worked together for a very long time and enjoyed the work. Finally Paige received the thumbs-up from her director and turned to her guest with a smile.

 

"First things first, I'd like to learn a little bit more about you. I know you've been doing hero work for quite awhile now because your name has come up a few times before, but this is the first chance I've gotten to speak with you. How did you get into the business? What do you consider your heroic specialty?"

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

“I’m the descendant of a family of monster hunters, destined to inherit the family mantle. I was chosen by fate to wield Dyrnwyn and ancient sword of an alleged ancestor.”

 

To illustrate she held the scarab and pulled out enough of the blade so that the eldritch green glow could be seen, being careful to position it so not to cause to much glare for the camera. It was somewhat ironic that this was the story she’d memorised to get into Claremonts, only for the headmaster to pick apart the story almost straight away.

 

“The name Blodeuwedd comes after a character from Math fab Mathonwy in the Mabinogi, it’s a tragic tale that I recommend people look up. I’d suggest the original Welsh but I’m a little biased!”

[Electra]

"That's fascinating," Paige said encouragingly.  She leaned forward to look at the sword, even as one of the cameramen rolled in closer for a tighter shot. "And beautiful workmanship on that sword. "I'm afraid I've never read that story, but I'll have to look it up." Outside the camera's view, the intern was scribbling frantically on a notepad with the distressed air of someone with no idea what they were spelling. "What brought you to Freedom City? How long have you been here?" 

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

With the ease of someone who’d told various versions of her past Blodeuwedd slipped into her patter of her teenage years.

 

“I was in Freedom City hunting a creature when I fell in with some other teenage heroes. We spent a few years together learning a lot from each other, it was quite an education…”

 

She knew that Claremont was an open secret among heroes, but she didn’t want to be the one to reveal its existence on television (though obviously this would have been cut before broadcast).

 

“It was this crew I was running with when the whole situation went down.”

[Electra]

Paige nodded in understanding of Blodeuwedd's evasiveness. Her own heroic teenager had gone through Claremont shortly after Blodeuwedd had finished, but it was a small community. Heroes knew about Claremont, but they tried hard not to let the news spread too far, for the sake of the kids growing up there. "That's a common patterns for young heroes; we've done several shows centered around the adventures of teen teams." she commented with a smile. '"Who was in your group with you back then?" 

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

Blodeuwedd smiled wistfully as she remembered the friends she’d made in this city, most of who she’d fallen out of contact with over the years. Really she should catch up with them, those still around, whilst she was in the States.

 

“Let me see quite a few you might not know, but also some like Crimson Tiger, Tsunami, Kit and Blue Jay…”

 

She frowned, a momentary loss of control, Blue Jay still bought back complicated feeling for Blodeuwedd especially when it came to the reason she’d asked to talk to Super Crime!

[Electra]

"Those are some familiar names," Paige agreed, smiling. "We've arranged to talk to Crimson Tiger for this program as well, though I think Richard is taking that interview. You keep good company! I know that Blue Jay was one of the heroes abducted by the Curator for his infiltration. Did you have any warning ahead of time about what had happened to her, or that something wasn't quite right?" 

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

Blodeuwedd thought about it for a few seconds before trying to explain how things had gone down in her mind.

 

“That was the weird thing until the last minute none of us had a clue. I have a gift for reading body language, its so natural I do it without really thinking about it….”

 

It was always interesting to note how different people reacted to this, sometimes it was useful to get a quick read on a person.

 

“And never once did I get any feeling that something was off about Blue Jay. Say what you want about The Curator but he did some amazing work.”

[Electra]

"That's definitely been a theme we've seen from other people who've spoken about their experiences," Paige agreed. Her very first interview had been of the teen heroine, if that was even the word for a girl who'd been only fourteen, Quickstep and her family. It had been chilling to hear that any parents, disengaged though they might have been, could simply have missed their own daughter's abduction for literal months. The Curator did good work, indeed. "So you had no warning going into this that anything was wrong, right up until that one day. Can you tell me how it happened?"  

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

She’d not thought about all this for sometime, but she’d couldn’t forget that how that day ended. It took a little to try and workout how the day had started. Still she had a pretty good memory and the Order had always encouraged its agent to record there experiences.

 

“The day was a little unusual but no more than the average day for a superhero. Apparently someone had stirred up some T-Baby protest and I was one of the teen heroes that showed up independently to make sure no trouble started. Obviously trouble did start but not how we expected...”

[Electra]

"I remember there being some unrest around the T-baby issue back then," Paige commented, nodding her understanding. She did not, of course, mention that she kept careful track of those things because she herself was one of them. People tended to forget that the Terminus' first visit to Earth had been much earlier than 1992. "What kind of trouble did start?" 

[Tiffany Korta]

Blooduwedd

Here was where things got a little dicey and she had think for a few seconds to get the sequence of events right in her mind.

 

“Heraldo had gone up on stage to try and reason with some firebrand, I won’t credit him by mentioning his name.” she’d had enough experience with Politicians to have a general dislike of them

 

“Then Blue Jay just seemed to go crazy attacking the stage with a hail of arrows.”

 

She still remembered distintively the feeling of horror and betrayal at the time, that still felt like a fresh wound even though she understood what had happened.

[Electra]

"I've seen video of the news feeds from the rally," Paige said, keeping a careful eye on her guest. She didn't actively use her psychic powers when she was doing interviews for the show, but when someone was leaking distress all over the place, she didn't really have to try. Still, this was the heart of the story she was hoping Blodeuwedd would tell. "It looks terrifying, chaotic. What did you do?"

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

“Whilst I had my costume there wasn’t time to get changed, this fake Blue Jay was hurting people indiscriminately.” she explained, she was surprised they’d tracked her down considering she wasn’t in her regular costume

 

She’d been amused to find a discussion on the ‘net about who she was based on the pictures from the media, one or two had even gotten her identity right. Though the spelling of her name was pretty atrocious.

 

“With Dyrnwyn in hand I clambered up to where Blue Jay was and tried to talk some sense into what I thought was my friend.”

[Electra]

"And at this point you still didn't know that this was not the person you knew, is that correct?" Paige asked curiously. "What was the first thing that went across your mind when you thought it was your friend doing all these things? Did you have any ideas for why she might be doing that, or were you simply focused on trying to stop her?" She made a mental note to try and pull any footage of that moment; a plainclothesed heroine with a massive sword would be a nice image to add to the show.

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

“Blue Jay had… issue with Terminus, we just assumed that something had set her off. Or something was affecting her, it seems to be a common occurrence in our line of business.” She waved her arms, knowing Paige at least would understand the situation.

 

“My aim was to try and talk her down before resorting to force, I’d gotten good at hitting thing with the flat of the blade, but accidents can happen you know. And she was my friend I didn’t want to fight her unless I had too.”

[Electra]

"Of course. Blade fighting is always a challenge when you're trying not to let anyone get hurt," Paige agreed. "I'm assuming that trying to talk her down didn't go the way you'd hoped." From the reports Paige had read, the infiltrators had been happy to talk, full of righteous fury over the lack of true justice or victory against evil (the sort of talk that had earned the day its moniker), but not particularly inclined to listen. Even Stesha, a famously good negotiator, hadn't been able to talk one of the bots down for more than a few minutes.  "What happened then?" 

[Tiffany Korta]

Blodeuwedd

“At first she tried to recruit us to fight by her side, for personal reason she wanted to destroy any traces of Terminus. Even then I tried to talk her down at point she’d not seriously hurt anyone.”

 

She still felt pride about how her friends had worked together to try and help who they’d thought was her friends. It hadn’t gone well, but they’d tried at least.

 

“Between us we managed to disarm her of her weapons. And I know I’m being a bit of stuck record at this point, but we didn’t expect what she did next.”

[Electra]

"What happened next?" Paige encouraged patiently. It could sometimes take awhile for guests to tell a story, especially an emotionally fraught one, but she always tried to project the air of someone who could listen all day. Offstage she could see Eamon adjusting his camera slightly, preparing for a zoom-in when the heroine came to the emotional climax of the story. Fred was watching everything with his usual impassivity, one eye on his phone as he checked on the rest of the day's schedule. "Once she was disarmed."