DISCLAIMER: This story is almost pure OC, save for Augustine, so if you were expecting DelsinxFetch, look somewhere else. I do not own inFAMOUS, inFAMOUS 2, inFAMOUS: Second Son, Sucker Punch, or any video games related to these. I simply enjoy writing stories.
3 years before the events of inFAMOUS: Second Son
Generally, when you live an average, normal, everyday life, you expect to continue living an average, normal, everyday life. But sometimes, extraordinary things can happen even to ordinary people.
Take me, for example. Just an ordinary kid with a stupid dream and more guts than brain, apparently.
How else do you explain attempting to bluster through a DUP squadron?
Click
Click
Click
Fidgeting, attempting really hard not to explode, I was pretty much sitting on my hands. The person behind the desk was sure taking his sweet pretty time.
"Sayz here yer uh… 'underwater ceramic technician'. Care t'elab'rate?"
The slow drawl wasn't helping much either.
"That basically means I, ah, wash the dishes…"
"Uh huh… And you were fired for…?"
"No good reason," I admitted, gruffly. Did I really need to explain that the dishwasher was defective?
Okay, so maybe shoving a knife up the water intake to save on water bills was a bad idea. But still… should the
"Welp, Mr. …"
"Mason. Josh Mason." As if I haven't already told him about five times.
"Well, Mr. Mason, I can't 'zactly see why we should let y' on. In just 7 months, y've been through almost as many jobs. I don't see how we could keep you."
"But…"
"No. I'm sorry, Mr. Mason." And just like that, 'Sorry', it was over.
Scuffing a toe in the pavement, worried as to where the next meal was going to come from, I tried and failed to see the bright side of all this. With seven bucks, finding a half-decent meal, and a good place to sleep, and bus fare to get back to the 'safer' part of town… would be difficult, to say the least. And with no job, no advance, and basically no cash, life wasn't exactly being easy on me. Not that there had been much of a change recently.
A shoulder connected with my chest, and like that, I was scrabbling back to my feet. "Hey, watch it, jerk!" And the exhilaration that came with prepping for a fight instantly solidified into an icy ball, as the person I had so politely asked to move turned.
It was a fully armed, fully armored DUP grunt. With 3 compadres.
Normally, being 6'4" lets me stare down even the nastiest of nasties, but there was no way in hell I was going to try to even think about considering possibly maybe staring down a squadron of DUP. And, well, I'm not exactly the most law-abiding citizen in Detroit. I'm not that bad, but… we'll just go with the fact that I've jacked my fair share of cars, et cetera…
Crap. And I ran. I didn't care how incriminating I looked, all I needed to know was this: the DUP did have me on record (number 18 down the list, if you're counting), I had just mouthed off at a whole squadron, so chances were good that I was screwed.
An abandoned alley never looked so good. As I heard the safeties click off on their MGs, I had barely made it to the alley before they opened fire.
What the hell? Usually they ask questions, then shoot, not the other way around. I must have gotten them really riled up.
But then I saw that they weren't shooting at me. Or at the alley at all, for that matter.
And there was an insistent… crackling. And a smell like used matches.
Curious, easing around the building corner, I could see everything. The fires. The mini – explosions. The absolute mayhem.
And the person causing it all.
Whoever this guy was (obviously he was a Conduit, I wasn't that dumb), he was good. Firebomb that DUP, take out this guy with a smoke bomb… Well, that explained the sulfur smell.
As a DUP armored carrier rounded the corner, heading past me from behind up towards the Conduit, the guy turned around. I could see what he was wearing; just a casual hoodie and loose jeans, but although they looked like they were burning, they didn't seem to be getting damaged. That was interesting.
Keeping behind a convenient line of benches along the boulevard, I watched as the Conduit began to almost glow, then suddenly he disappeared. No, not quite. He was way up in the sky, just hovering on a cloud of smoke… Oh no.
I'd read too many Thor® comics not to know what happens next. The 'Grand Slam'. The 'big finale'. Basically, this guy was about to pile-drive the truck, and there wasn't a bloody thing I could do about it, because he was already halfway down, and I was screwed.
When you're about to die, your body allows you to sort of slow down time enough so that you can see every little detail in hi-def slow motion. I noticed irrelevant details, like I was the only civvie stupid enough to stick around after the light show, or that the truck seemed to glow bright blue.
When he hit, the world flipped on its head, then promptly collapsed in on itself. The truck hit me before the shockwave did, that much I remember. Although I'm not sure which hurt more, the truck itself, or the glass shards to the back, as I bounced back through a window into what must have been a jewelry store. The last thing I remember before everything went black was a large chunk of that glowing blue stuff impaling me. It felt… cold…
There weren't supposed to be any civilians here! That was her primary thought, as she raced into what was left of Byron's Jewelers. There was a guy, maybe about her age, pinned beneath a DUP truck. A chunk of blue shard was what was primarily pinning him to the linoleum floor… and it looked painful. The poor kid was unconscious, from the looks of it, with glass pieces embedded in his arms and legs, slowly letting his life blood drain away. She wouldn't be able to do this all by herself. She could stop the bleeding – which she did – but she couldn't get the glass shards out without actual medical help. Though… she should probably take the large blue one out.
Bursting into the emergency ward, she thought to herself – not for the first time – Why is this kid so blasted heavy?
"Doctor! Nurse! Somebody!" she yelled, trying to get someone's attention. The secretary behind the desk took one look at the guy and immediately paged the doctor.
The previously sleepy-looking emergency reception room quickly became professional, fast, and exacting. A stretcher was brought in, so she put the injured guy down on it, and watched as he was rushed off.
"Miss?"
"Hm?" she asked, turning around to look at the secretary.
"Do you have any information on the victim? Location and cause of injury?"
"Umm… a Conduit blasted him through a glass wall."
"Ohhh!" the secretary gasped. "Did you see it happen? Where was it?"
"It was…" Did she want to give away where it happened? Well… just in case they tried to cross-reference it. "It was on Lakeview and Main. I only got there afterwards, and I managed to find him struggling, pinned beneath a truck. That was when he went unconscious."
"How did you get him out?"
Toeing the floor, she thought up a story that would actually keep her out of the limelight.
Slowly surfacing out of a black watery haze, two things were apparent. I wasn't dead, and my side hurt like hell.
"Auuughhh… what happened?"
Only my tongue was glued to the top of my mouth, so it sounded more like "Aannn… nnnuhhmflmph?"
I could hear fragments of conversation; "He's awake…" "…we use painkiller or knockout?…" "…glass isn't moving…"
A shadow loomed over me and spoke. "You're going to be fine, we just need you to go back to sleep, okay?"
So I nodded, not trusting my mouth to give the right message.
A small, sharp pain in my left arm dissolved into blissful darkness, and I embraced it wholeheartedly.
"Patient is asleep, begin glass extraction."
"…um… sir?"
"Yes?"
"The glass… it's not moving."
"Has the bleeding stopped?"
"Yes, but -"
"It's scabbed over. Remove the glass so I can check for infection."
"That's what I'm saying. I can't remove it."
"Here, pass the clamps. Thanks, and…"
"It's not moving. At all."
"I can see that."
"There's someone here who saw the accident, right? Bring her in, maybe she knows something about this."
"Listen, Ms. …"
"James."
"Ms. James. Do you remember anything strange or out of the ordinary at the scene of the accident?"
"Well, there was…"
Actually… the blue shards… she knew from personal experience that more shards meant a wider variety of powers. That, plus her using her powers to heal the guy… It was only a theory, but still, there was a chance, however slim…
"Um… could I take him with me? He, ah, he's my brother, and I'd like to take him back home."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but he needs to stay here, where he's safe. This actually looks like the work of Conduits, so we don't know how to help him until we can get a Conduit in to help take a look at him. Preferably Director Augustine. This is a very unique case."
"But I'm -" She stopped herself before she would give anything away by accident. "I know people who can get a Conduit to help him. But I need to take him with me."
"I'm afraid we can't let you do that."
She had expected this. "LOOK!" she shouted, suddenly, pointing out the window where a car was on fire. As soon as the doctor had turned, she grabbed the guy, and was out the door like that.
She didn't know what it was about this guy, or why she felt compelled to help him, but something – a gut instinct, perhaps – told her that this was more than just an average Joe. That her knocking a DUP truck into him was probably a good thing after all. That is, if he ever woke up from the medication.
From what it looked like, when she did an Orbital Drop (that was what the DUPs were calling it; she liked it) on the truck, it must have knocked the kid into the store, where he got partially impaled. She used 'kid', but again, he was probably her age, give or take.
Why did she even care? It wasn't like she knew the guy or anything. Getting soft, I guess, she grinned to herself.
"Ow." With that clichéd introduction, I sat up, once again among the world of the living. Putting a hand to my side, I poked, but there didn't seem to be much pain at all. Actually, I felt better than I had in a long time. Especially considering the inch-long glass shards in my arm.
"Well, the mysterious stranger awakes." Turning, I saw I was in some sort of room… thing… and there was someone else there.
"Uhhh… hi. I'm Josh."
"I'm Cassandra."
"Hi. Uh… where am I?"
"This? Oh, this is, uh, this is where I live." Now that I had some time to process what was happening, I could see that where she lived was, well…
"Where is this?"
"The docks. It's solitary, for the most part unguarded, and actually has a nice view."
Looking to where she was pointing, I could see the sun rising above the skyline of Detroit, the light skimming off the water. It was a nice view.
"So… why am I here?"
"Well, I figured I could take you to some people who knew how to heal you – properly." She gestured to my arm, and I was once again reminded of the shards. "That, and I think there was a chance of Augustine finding out I was a Conduit. A small chance, true, but…"
"Wait. Why would they think you're a Conduit? You didn't tell them, did you?"
"No, I didn't, but… I don't really handle well for thinking on the fly."
"Fair enough. … so, wait, you're a Conduit?"
"Crap!" She whipped her hands to her mouth. "Don't you dare tell anyone. Or I swear I will gut you. With a fireball."
"Not gonna tell, not gonna tell," I backpedaled, raising my hands in surrender. "It's all good. Actually, I'm pro-Conduit, so your secret's safe with me."
"Still," I continued, "um, what was your hypothesis for the glass shards sticking and staying in my arm? And not hurting and all?"
"Oh. Well, when you… here," she hopped off her chair. Creating a smoke bubble, she recreated the battle, using hazy smoke to represent her powers, and thicker smoke and mini fireballs for buildings and people, respectively. "So, for my best guess, you were here, right?" I confirmed that yes, I was behind the benches. "So, I fly up, do an Orbital Drop -"
"Orbital Drop?"
"That's what the DUPs are calling it. And quiet, don't interrupt," she admonished, whacking my arm. "So I do an Orbital Drop, and knock the truck backwards into you." The smoke moved, following her motions. "It knocks you back into the store, where – here, I'll zoom in." The scene blows away, save for the jewelry store, which expands and grows to fill the room. "I find you here, pinned underneath a shard."
"Shard? Of what?"
"I said don't interrupt. This is a shard," she instructed, holding up a glowing blue fragment of… something. It kind of looked like rock, to me… kind of. "It was pinning you to the floor. I stopped your bleeding long enough to get you to the hospital, but by the time you got there, you didn't need it. The hospital, I mean."
"So, the shards. They didn't even try to get them out?"
"No, they did. They just couldn't budge them. Which brings me to my theory, that -"
"I'm a Conduit."
"No! Now shut up! My theory is that the shard briefly enhanced your body's natural ability to heal itself. Sort of like Wolverine, only for a short period of time -"
"You read Marvel comics?"
When she just looked at me, not impressed at all, if I could judge anything from the glare, I cowered a little. "Alright, fine, I'll shut up."
"Yes, I've read a few. So, yeah, that's my theory. And your body healed around the glass. Which could pose a problem for you, I'm thinking."
"That, or I'm a Conduit. And before you slap me, I didn't interrupt," I explained hurriedly.
"You're not a Conduit," she said, giving me a smug grin. "Trust me. If you were a Conduit, you'd be able to fall off a roof and be just fine when you hit the ground. You'd pretty much be able to fly. I mean, I have smoke, and I can do this." Running out of the shipping crate that she lived in, she fell. I rushed to the entrance, to watch her float off on twin jets.
"I see," I mused. "Very nice."
"And you can't do that, so… ha," she teased, landing back again on the roof of the crate.
Not being able to take much more snark, I asked, with forced politeness, "So when are we going to meet these 'experts' of yours?"
"Soon as they arrive," she said, pointing to where a boat was skimming its way along to the docks.
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