Alternate title: The Insomniac
FYI: These segments are in non-chronological order. Like a Christopher Nolan movie!
-B-
So, there I was, cruising through the bad part of Brockton Bay on a power line, testing out my new powers.
Like in most Worm fanfics, I had gotten my powers when Team Sophia locked me in my locker with a bunch of their used pantyliners. At least, I assume it was theirs. Then again, the idea of them combing through the garbage in the girls' locker room just to screw with me made me giggle.
I hopped over to a perpendicular line, sparks flying under my sneakers.
So, after I freaked out for a while, I had a lightbulb moment. I just went into the menu and reloaded. This time, when they tried to push me in the locker, I just dodged.
It was fun trying to watch them explain why they were trying to push me in there when it coincidentally was filled with biological waste. The idea that I had just happened to put it all in there seemed kinda implausible.
Though the teachers didn't punish them, and only promised to "look into it". I reloaded a bunch of times, and they never quite got in trouble. Weird.
After that, I started exploring my powers, and they included grinding on stuff, bouncing on stuff, and just generally being awesome. So I changed up my look, and started grinding by night.
Shut up.
So, I was grinding past the Azn Bad Boys' area when I saw a bunch of people standing around talking, a few with cigarettes. I wasn't going to stop - smoke 'em if you got 'em - but then I heard one say, with a weird accent, "...the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot."
Killing kids? So not cool.
Without thinking about it for a second, I jumped off the pole and did a ground pound, which knocked several of the gang members over. The guy who had been talking didn't; he just took a step back into some fancy martial arts stance.
Then his title card came up.
LUNG.
Uh-oh.
Lung was way out of my league. He was out of a lot of people's league. I heard he went toe-to-toe with one of the Endbringers, and just got stronger the more you fought him, making him at least a midboss. You know that joke "this isn't even my final form!"? I'm not sure he even had a final form.
And I had just pissed him off.
And his armed men.
I whipped out my go-to weapon, and the men drew back. In part because I was holding a blunderbuss, in part because I had pulled it out of nowhere.
I held it aloft.
"This," I announced, "is my boomstick!"
Hands reached for their guns.
"It's called the Flaming Compensator," I explained, twirling it around so they could get a good look at it, especially the two round globes underneath. The twirl ended with my grip reversed, and I offered it to Lung, letting my gaze flick ostensibly over his crotch.
"Looks like you need it more than I do."
I heard the mooks back away even more, and I wondered why, until I saw Lung's eyes narrow, and flames started to grow in his hands.
A quest objective popped up.
Defeat Lung.
Wait, what? I had just wanted to distract him!
You had his interest, but now you have his attention.
Safeties clicked off all around me. I spun my gun around so I was holding it properly again.
REWARD: You save some kids, get PRT's attention, $1,000.
"So," I said, "I take it that's a no?"
-/-
"Because I need your help," Armsmaster said.
Chris blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
Armsmaster grit his teeth. "I want your opinion," he said, with about the same amount of enthusiasm someone would say "I want you to pull my fingernails out with plyers."
"No, I heard you the first time, that was an entirely rhetorical 'what?' I feel I should get this on tape-"
The older man glared at him.
"This is what humans do, Armsmaster. Make fun of each other. What do you need?"
"Look at these videos." A twitch of his fingers bought the footage in question up on the lounge's screen. Seemed like a combination of cell phone video and security cameras, all time-synced.
"Someone suggested that I get another Tinker's perspective. The rogue seems to be a teenager or young adult, and I have some...deficiencies relating to them."
Along with everyone else. Chris managed to keep his sarcasm inside, this time. Man, hanging out with Clockblocker was corrupting him.
"Who is he?"
"She, and she didn't give a name."
"You met her?"
"Yes, a few hours ago. Very sarcastic. So sarcastic, in fact, that my lie detector didn't work."
Kid Win blinked. "Come again?"
"Her conversational levels of sarcasm are so high that I couldn't establish a baseline."
"There weren't any physical cues?"
Armsmaster shifted uncomfortably. "We'll get to that later. But pay attention to...this."
"Is she...grinding on rails?"
"Keep watching."
"Wait, those power lines can't support-"
"I know."
"How is she even doing that?"
Armsmaster raised an eyebrow at him.
"Oh, right. But what does that have to do with me?"
"Your specialty is modular tech."
"No, it's lasers."
"It's modular technology. You're wrong. Those shoes of hers are very versatile. Look."
Chris' attention returned to the screen, as the young woman ran along a wall at an angle, trailing her hand against it. When she reached the curved corner, she effortlessly ran around it, evading Lung's attack. He repositioned, and when he took shots at her again, she ran around the next corner, swinging around it with one hand, her feet flying through the air.
"That...that seems more like a Striker or Mover power to me. Unless she was using some sort of super magnetic boots, or Van der Waals force..."
"When she...slides along power lines, we've noticed sparks under her feet, even though she appears to be wearing normal shoes."
"Like I said, Striker power."
"If so, it's an extremely specific one. There's no reports or records of any power loss from her line-riding, so she's not using it for power. Besides, there are similar results when she grinds on railings. And when she jumps off the power lines, there's no flexion -"
"Y'know, if you're just going to automatically say I'm wrong, I might as well just leave -"
"Sorry." Armsmaster actually grimaced. "Think is, 'Grinder' has Tinker-made weapons. Jury-rigged stuff that's shouldn't work, period."
"That doesn't mean she's the Tinker that made them."
"Yeah, but...Occam's Razor."
"The least amount of assumptions is that she's a Tinker with various tech, not just a Striker working with a Tinker armorer. Got it. But the world isn't always that si-"
Wait. Wait a second -
"You've got something." A statement, not a question.
"You wouldn't believe it."
"Try me."
"Well...it's just that she acts like she's in a video game."
"Huh." Beat. "Who is this girl?"
-/-
In retrospect, it was kind of a bad idea to taunt the big dragon guy.
"His advantage; my fragility! My advantage: his rage!" I yelled at him.
Which didn't mean I was going to stop doing it.
"What are you even talking about?" he growled, through a mouth that needed some serious dental work. He also threw a dumpster at me, which I dodged by hanging from the power line momentarily. The problem with grinding was that it wasn't exactly subtle; I was shooting sparks everywhere, and Lung didn't even have to try to track me.
Well.
Screw subtle.
My advantage wasn't just Lung's rage. It was also my mobility. Luckily, we were fighting in an area with lots of rails and power lines, and things to bounce on.
I silently thanked whoever for a nice boss arena, before going to work. I had managed to piss off Lung enough that he didn't think to start wrecking the arena, instead preferring to target me directly.
It didn't help that I started shooting him in the face with exploding teddy bears.
The TNTeddy was one of my favorite weapons. You might think that attaching cuddly adorableness to high explosives was redundant, but they helped them bounce, and drastically increased the ironic juxtaposition quotient. I threw in a few hits with the Dirty Harry, just for variety's sake.
His health meter was slowly going down, and I stopped on a rooftop for a few moments to restock. The boxes I found up there yielded to a swing of my collapsable nightstick, and while they popped into my ammo stock, Lung topped the edge of the building.
Then I shot him in the face with my Flaming Compensator.
He fell.
"Well," I said, peering over the edge, "looks like you needed it after a-yipe!"
As the flames near the side of my face showed, he wasn't licked yet. He had managed to catch himself on the side of the building, and only a quick dodge saved me from becoming roast Taylor with a side of baby potatoes.
Mmm. Baby potatoes.
All in all, I didn't seem to be leveled up enough to face this boss fight, especially since Lung seemed to be one of those cheaty health-regenerating bosses. Best to abandon the quest and come back to it another ti-
Something the size of a van jumped onto Lung.
-/-
Welcome to #PHO
MrZoat: Have you seen that video of the new cape who took down Lung?
spencer1519: yep
spencer1519: seriously, what
spencer1519: she swung a baseball bat hard enough to knock a grown man through a window spencer1519: but she had to hit him twice before that
spencer1519: was she warming up?
spencer1519: was she playing with him?
Ryuugi: We just don't know.
MrZoat: What was she wearing?
MrZoat: It looked like a Halloween version of a hero costime.
MrZoat: *costume
Ryuugi: She looked familiar, somehow.
scrivener: Also, since when did records do that much damage?
ZiPeppe: I saw a picture of an LP in a telephone pole, once.
scrivener: Me too. Except it was put there by a tornado,
scrivener: not some sort of crossbow thing
master arminas: And it bounced, too. It was doing damage, and it still bounced.
master arminas: Those muggers didn't stand a chance.
ZiPeppe: Has anyone here ever heard of "knockout TNT", much less taped to a teddy bear?
scrivener: No.
master arminas: No.
spencer1519: No.
Ryuugi: Wait, I rem - seriously, no.
MrZoat: And then there's the part where she's bouncing on awnings and table unbrellas and a HOT DOG CART and things that really shouldn't be able to support her.
MrZoat: What kind of powers does she have?
MrZoat: Where did she come from?
MrZoat: Who IS this girl?
-/-
The guy in black had explained that Lung had been planning to hit them, and they had learned about it, and decided to hit him, instead. Oni Lee ran away without his boss, and they arrived to find me kicking his tail all over the place, and generally rocking him.
Al of which I vaguely caught while I was making sure I got my quest rewards.
"What are you staring at?" said some guy in a ren-faire getup with a mask. Without the sceptre and crown, he would've looked a lot like a movie vampire. Anne Rice, not those lame sparklepires.
"Nothing," I said, closing the menu.
THE UNDERSIDERS.
"With a name like "Undersiders", I'm assuming you're bad guys?"
They tensed, just a little. "How do you know who we are?"
"Read your title card."
The blonde looked confused. "Our what?"
"Never mind. All I'm saying, Tattletale, is that I think anyone who Lung wanted to kill can't be a bad guy."
"Unless you're an E-88 member," the guy in the ren-faire cosplay said.
"Or a drug dealer he wants off his turf," the blonde added.
"The point is," I waved my hands in circles, "I didn't see anything. I just heard Lung wanted to kill some kids. Is it my fault if they turned out to be capes and escaped? 'Cause that sure wasn't in the quest text."
I checked. Nope, it wasn't.
"Riiight," said Tattletale, and cocked her head, as if she heard something. "Well, we'll be going now."
The big, quiet girl whistled. The van-with-legs got off Lung, and I heard it jumping its way up the building. The big guy didn't get up.
"Word of advice," the blonde said, as the team mounted up on their freaky mutant dogs, "don't hang around here when the capes show up. They don't take well to villain-on-villain battles."
"Good thing I'm not a villain, then."
Her smile slipped. "What?"
"Not a villain. Just some private citizen with superpowers who just happened to be in the neighbourhood when the ABB was planning to kill some kids."
She was giving me a very hard stare. "You really think they'll believe that?"
I shrugged. "You really think I care?"
"Hm. No. No you don't. Good luck. Whoever you are."
-/-
"Hey, Dennis," Chris said.
"Hmm?" said Clockblocker, pumping iron, spotting for himself.
"Did you tell Armsmaster that 'Grinder' was a good name for the new cape?"
"All I did was give him a few suggestions."
"Were the suggestions along the lines of 'Bouncy', 'Rider', 'Slider', stuff like that?"
"Gosh, I don't know, Chris." His eyes widened in mock innocence. "You can't expect me to remember everything I say."
-/-
I swear, I was just shopping on the Boardwalk when I saw the muggers.
It was a three-man team. One to snatch, two to screen. Pacing their targets like hungry wolves tracking an elk covered in barbeque sauce.
It was also none of my business.
I hadn't even finished the rationalization before I ducked into a phone booth in an alley and changed into my work clothes. I needed something less-lethal. TNTeddy? No, use that for backup. Acid Sprinkler? No. Dirty Harry? No.
I pulled out High Fidelity, one of my other favorite weapons.
What? A girl's allowed to have more than one.
I stepped out just as the bad guys were making their move.
"Stop," I cried, "In the name of the...me!"
They looked at each other.
Then they pulled guns.
They were probably surprised when I smiled.
-/-
Thomas Calvert, alias "Coil", owned a construction compny, so there was no one willing to question him when he ordered the railing removed from the balcony outside of his office and the door sealed shut. Or when he sat by himself in his office, drinking a cold beer, trying to keep his hand from shaking.
Just for the sake of it, he had created a universe where his men tried to kill this new rogue hero, this 'Grinder', as the PRT was calling her.
They failed.
So he wiped, and tried again, this time aiming to capture her.
They failed, again.
He created a series of universes where he could try and just stop her for one second, and watched as his men were annihilated.
The galling part was that nothing he tried seemed to work. He had blown up the entire building she was in, once, only for to get dropped off by a UFO, of all things. Sometimes, she simply didn't show. Sometimes she showed up, stared at thin air for a while, and then walked away. Sometimes she aimed her guns way, waaay off-bore, and then hit her targets anyway.
He had plans. And she threatened to pose a serious risk to those plans. He would have to be more subtle, more long term. Find out who her loved ones were, make her an offer she couldn't refuse. He would have to be...
His mouth twisted with distaste.
...Direct.
She didn't show damage, until she "died". Once, she shouted "low on ammo!", and ran off. He had let himself think she had been scared away, only for her to re-enter the fray a few seconds later. Security camera footage from the area showed that she smashed a random box, which somehow ejected a flaming, floating records case, which vanished when the girl approached it, seeming to shrink and jump into her.
Calvert took another swig.
Which was somewhat concerning, considering that the box in question was supposed to be full of bananas.
And then she did it again, except that box ejected a glowing green cross, which she also absorbed.
He gave a high giggle.
Because of course it did. Of course her powers didn't follow any rhyme or reason. Who was she, anyway?
And when had he run out of beer?
Calvert stared at the glass, somewhat unsteadily, set it down, somewhat unsteadily, and lurched to his feet, somewhat unsteadily.
Screw it. He needed the good stuff.
-/-
Uber and Leet stared at a computer screen, their jaws hanging open.
"We have got to meet her."
"Oh, yeah."
"Who is she?"
"Dunno."
"Think she's single?" they said simultaneously.
They looked at each other in surprise. Then anger.
"Dibs," they both called.
"Double dibs," they chorused.
By the time they settled the matter, the warehouse had burned down.
-/-
"Sophia?" Emma said. "Remember what you were saying about predators and prey?"
The other girl looked up as her friend bought the laptop over to the couch.
"Which do you think she is?"
Emma watched her friend's face tighten as the footage went on. There was an unreadable look there.
"She's more like...a force of nature."
"Huh?"
"Like an Endbringer. Like Leviathan. Just something that comes in, and wrecks your whole day, and doesn't give a crap."
Sophia frowned at the screen.
"She acts like she doesn't care, but she has to." A beat, and then, softly, "She has to."
Emma blinked. Who was this girl?
-/-
When I woke up on Saturday morning, I thought about my dreams.
I had been having them a lot lately, and they were a lot better than reality. And they were all the same, too. In them, I wasn't Taylor Hebert, bullying victim. I was someone else, I was something else. Something, well, cooler, who didn't give a half-crap about anyone's opinions.
Someone who had terrible fashion sense, even by my standards, but that seemed like a good tradeoff.
Time for my run.
I swung out of bed, planted my feet, and broke one of my records.
Which was strange, since I didn't own records.
Nor did I own what looked like the illegitimate child of a power drill, a jukebox, and a crossbow, but there one was, leaning against the wall next to my closet.
"What," I said.
Okay, someone had snuck into my house and planted some sort of weird Tinker-weapon in my bedroom. Leaving aside the serious security concerns that raised, I should probably call the PRT. Like, right away.
After I explained why I had a weapon just like I had been using in my dream. Why I had the vivid memory of ending up in the locker, when in reality I just dodged, for no reason. I was some kind of were-superhero.
"No way," I said, clutching my head in my hands. "No way no way nowayno-"
Wait, what was that on the LP I broke?
I picked it up. The label was a stylized decal of a moon, with the hole replacing the letter O in a word.
"Huh," I said, and read it out loud. "Insomniac."
I thought for a second.
"I like it."
THE END