This is un-beta-ed, so please tolerate its roughness. Please be generous and assume any minor divergences from canon are either me fiddling around with the story or just ignoring it for the sake of the Almighty Plot.
I was partly inspired by the CYOA system and the Souls-verse –though I'm using them more as loose guidelines than anything so don't expect me to stick too close to either one.
[Wildbow has said he doesn't mind fanfiction of his work, as long as there is a disclaimer. Thus: I own nothing of Worm or Dark Souls and make no profit off of this, wildbow is the sole owner/creator/etc of Worm at the time of writing this.]
xXx
For once, it was a quiet night at the seaside docks. The full moon shone brightly over Brockton Bay, and the cool November breeze carried the salty coarseness of the sea with it. Cast in silver moonlight, the ruins of a once-vibrant trading hub lay like the decaying body of a felled colossus; much like any corpse, scavengers flocked to its remnants.
Tonight, there were none of the normal sounds one might hear. No cracking gunfire or roaring flame, no unbridled screams of rage or accompanying cries of agony. It was a quiet night at the docks of Brockton Bay, and that –more than anything else –had its denizens on edge.
Kept warm by the cocktail of drugs in his system, Jason Muke kept watch outside of warehouse –it had long ago fallen into disrepair, its once rich red bricks were now blanketed in spray painted gang signs. Through the fog of drugs, Jason distantly remembered a time when Brockton hadn't been overrun with gangs and the town had a lively shipping trade.
It had never really been the best of towns, but time and distance made the contrast of it all seem like a golden age of civilization.
Or that could be the drugs talking, for the old man had never really been one for rumination after capes had all but replaced the military –indeed, Jason Muke had simply been a victim of downsizing and poor coping mechanisms; the Merchants were quick to capitalize on that.
The full moon shone brightly overhead, and Jason allowed his eyes to stray from the dilapidated quarter around him and to the stars above. Distracted as he was, the decorated war veteran never felt the blow that killed him.
xXx
A local woman had called in the sounds of bones breaking and terrified screaming. The emergency operator on the other side of the call had heard the death wails, and transferred the call to the PRT –the area that the caller's landline was identified to be in well-known Merchant territory.
It was far above her paygrade, really. Better to let the Protectorate handle it than to kick it to the local police and be lectured to by her boss.
Velocity, already on patrol, had been the first to arrive on the scene. He became reacquainted with his dinner soon thereafter. Bodies lay strung across the street, arms and legs –the winter's chill bleaching them all a grotesque white –were flung about with an almost careless disregard. Velocity hedged for a moment before calling in –his mask's hidden camera allowing the PRT Control to access a live feed of the situation. Miss Militia was dispatched to join the young Mover; she had experience with environments like this.
Velocity flitted from body to body, his vastly amplified speed allowing him to check each and every body's vital signs. For once, the young man wasn't bothered by his power's limitations –he didn't need much force to check for a pulse. Especially when there were none to be found.
Moving to an alleyway, Velocity remained hidden in the defensible position until his superior strode confidently into the bloody quarter –her familiarity with massacre revealing itself by the way she warily took in the scene, habitually noting each frozen pool of blood as a potential hazard. Her eyes haunted by a sick nostalgia.
"I- I didn't find any survivors," Velocity shivered. It wasn't from the cold.
"It's okay." Miss Militia's dark eyes crinkled in a vain semblance of a smile.
In her outstretched hand, Miss Militia formed a gleaming green assault rifle that Velocity didn't recognize –he just knew that it looked rather…big. Together, the two entered the warehouse, and were struck silent by what they saw there.
In the shadowed warehouse, lit only by what starlight-assisted moonlight fell through the spacious windows, stood a monstrous facsimile of a human being.
A case 53, it had to be; Velocity couldn't think of any other way to describe the person.
She stood tall and slim, easily at least six feet. From her waist up, the cape was covered in something vaguely resembling plate armor; there was the slightest swell at the cape's torso to indicate that she was, indeed, female.
Her small hands were gauntleted with each long, thin finger tapering into a silvery claw –gleaming a stained, ominous auburn in the moonlight. The woman's pale golden hair was pulled into a utilitarian braid that hung over her right shoulder, glimmering eerily in the pale moonlight. The tail-end of which was held together by an ornately carved silver clasp; it was the only jewelry she wore.
From the waist down, she wore a more segmented sort of scaled armor… no, Velocity corrected himself. Those were scales. The cape stood on scaled, digitigrade legs that rippled with thick, compact muscle and ended in reptile-like feet with sharp talons that bit into the warehouse's concrete floors. A long, draconic tail swayed to and fro with an unnatural flexibility from behind the Case 53.
Later, Velocity would remark that the cape wore a porcelain sort of theater mask –completely blank in expression with only the slightest feminine features. What he would remember most, however, were the woman's eyes –they were almond-shaped and hooded by thick eyelashes that seemed to be the palest sort of gold in the moonlight and beset with a violently vibrant shade of violet.
"Greetings," a soft voice emanated from the cape before them, the sighing words lingering just a little too long in their ears.
Miss Militia seemed to relax –though the hand at her gun told Velocity better. This was a Case 53 cape, monstrous capes whose triggering had resulted in severe bodily changes and complete amnesia –of their personal history, and commonalities of the world. It was this amnesia that often led to newly awakened Case 53s to rampage in a panicked sort of frenzy –though none had been as violent as this one. Luckily enough, it seemed that they were all just Merchants. Not too bad, the PR division can handle it.
While this situation wasn't any less hazardous, it was no longer an unknown situation. There was proven protocol to follow. And that, more than anything, served to comfort Velocity.
"Hello," Miss Militia spoke with an equally soft and gentle tone.
Like a lion tamer in front of a beast gone feral.
"Are you here to kill me," the cape asked, her odd, echoing voice tinged with an idle regret. "These ones tried."
Velocity strongly resisted a sort of disbelief. The bodies had originated outside, and it was obvious that the cape had forced her way in.
Violet irises turned to Velocity. Apparently he hadn't been wholly successful.
Shit.
"No," Miss Militia interjected quickly, calmly. "We're not here to hurt you, honey."
The case 53's shoulder pauldrons relaxed a hair. "Very well."
"Do you remember your name," Velocity forced himself to ask. It was the first question that Case 53s were asked because it was the biggest indicator of missing memory.
Confidence would appear first before fading away to confusion. Because what person can't remember their own name? Then, before panic can set in, the response team was to tell them about Case 53s and do their best to persuade them to come back to the PRT base –after all, there were informational packets for these capes and a spot guaranteed in the local Protectorate.
The countrywide demand for more heroes had nothing to do with this generosity. Nope, nothing at all.
"Of course."
The soft reply fell way to silence as Miss Militia and Velocity waited for the cape's confidence to move toward confusion.
The silence stretched on as the cape stared unblinkingly at them.
"Would… you like to know," the woman queried, slightly confused.
"If you can tell us," Miss Militia replied kindly, her voice full of gentle understanding even as her hand remained on her weapon –ready for an emergency.
"Of course, my dear lord might be misanthropic –but he is anything but rude. He wouldn't forbid me to give out the most basic of courtesies!" The woman's scaled, backward knees bent oddly and the young woman flourished with a regal courtesy. "I have taken the name Guinevere Black as my own. I am the firstborne daughter of Gwyn and the most favored of his creations."
Miss Militia froze, and Velocity could feel his chest tighten at the young woman's introduction.
"Creation," the cape had called herself.
"My lord," she had said.
There was another cape out there –going by Gwyn –and it would seem that he could create sentient, sapient life.
Another Nilbog.
A better Nilbog, it would seem.
Piggot was going to have a heart attack.
xXx
So… It's a start, yeah?