All rights to the material contained within belong to the author of the original work, which can be found at www dot parahumans dot wordpress dot com (strange formatting had to be used to unbreak whatever the editor is doing to the link)
I am only having fun playing in Wildbow's Universe, I have no claim of ownership, past, present, or future on any character or literary element here, including characters or literary elements that I create myself.
*********Fourth Draft (I do welcome suggestions - it's been 25 years or so since I took English classes)*************
Red Cross asked Dragon if she was done talking with me for the time being and when she said she was, he introduced me to the other two capes in the transport.
"Arc, meet Murphy", he said as he introduced me to a large, heavyset young man who looked to be around thirty or so wearing no mask but with a suit that seemed to be covered by images of danger signs in every language that I had ever heard of.
"Good to meet you Murphy. No mask, is that your real name?" All three of the other capes just stared at me.
"You really haven't been keeping up with capes at all, have you, Arc?" said Red Cross. "Murphy's real name is Murphy, he had his name legally changed a couple years ago, when he stopped trying to maintain his secret identity." Murphy coughed into his hand, Red Cross looked at him and something unspoken passed between them. "Right. I'll let him tell you the rest after I tell you about myself and introduce you to Bookie. Murphy's a hard act to follow"
"Good to meet you Arc. I hope you don't know me?" said the last cape in the transport, who was wearing a simple black full body suit with full face mask.
"No clue who you are, Bookie." I replied, wondering why it would matter if I knew him or not.
"I'll let Red Cross tell you about himself before I tell you about myself, and Murphy can follow us. Then we'll want to hear about you. All three of us are a regular part of Endbringer defenses, as support, if you are wondering why we want to know all about you." Bookie said.
Dragon cleared her throat and said "Just to be sure you understand, Arc, since you know almost nothing about capes. When Endbringers attack, almost all capes, no matter what their history might be, will be accepted. There are exceptions like the Slaughterhouse 9 or criminals who have escaped while in transit to the Bird Cage. Bookie and Murphy are not villains, but they are not exactly on the right side of the law either. You should limit what you tell them only to things related to your powers and cape-related experiences, if you want to maintain a secret identity, which I'll want to talk to you about in a little bit anyway."
"I see." I said, trying to remember again if I had ever heard of either of them, but still drawing a blank.
Dragon spoke up once more. "I will vouch for both of them Arc, for as long as Behemoth is attacking, they will be on the side of the white hats, I've worked with Bookie on fourteen different attacks, and Murphy on ten. Neither of them have ever so much as told a lie between reporting for duty and being returned home after an Endbringer attack."
"We sort of like civilization, and think it's worth keeping around." Bookie said, and Murphy nodded.
"Toilet paper and air conditioning are kind of nice, aren't they?" I said, testing to see how the others would react. Everyone smiled and Red Cross chuckled before continuing to talk.
"Well, I'll get this started." Red Cross said. "I'm a medical tinker. Give me a lab, tools, and a medical problem, and I can cobble up anything from an articulated wrist splint to an artificial large intestine that will actually digest food. I am also a practicing general practitioner, and work triage in medical facilities during Endbringer attacks when I don't need to be making medical equipment. This lets me recognize almost immediately when a patient will need something special from me."
"Ah, so you will want to know if I have any special organs or physiology, so you can be more ready tinker up things than can keep me alive." I guessed.
"Exactly. You seem to have a normal human skeleton, but while you are wearing that suit I can't tell much more than that with a casual visual inspection. Anything I should know about, either for the body I see now, or the one from the race track?"
"Hrm, the only thing I've been able to tell is that the conductivity of my skin and blood is about the same as gold. Possibly other body parts too. Not easy to test more than that." I considered. "Well, not easy for me to test more than that." Red Cross grinned. I continued. "My other body doesn't have a biology that I can tell, it seems to be a pure electromagnetic construct of some sort. But I'll be happy to submit myself to testing if you want to tinker up some diagnostic tools, for both my real body and my fake one, provided I can be tested while my real body is concealed."
"Fair enough, with that bit of information I can cobble up enough diagnostic equipment to at least start understanding your physiology, in case we need to know how to put the pieces back together," he said.
"OK, when we hit the ground then?" I asked.
"Nah. Sooner. After you get done talking with Bookie and Murphy I'll have a few things to get started with, to better define what specific tools I'll need to get the data we need. You're up Bookie." Then he turned and detached several small containers and what looked like a lap desk from his large pack.
I continued to watch out of curiosity as he turned back to face us and started assembling some amazing looking gizmos on the lap desk, some attaching directly to the lap desk, which were obviously tools, and others which he used the tools to manipulate. Bookie and Murphy were watching too.
"Pretty amazing to watch a Tinker do his thing, isn't it?" Bookie said as he watched. "Red Cross is a good sort, not super protective of his tech. Something to do with being a real doctor I suspect. He makes all sorts of gizmos and would probably be one of the richest capes on the planet, if he didn't give away most of what he made at cost. I happen to know that he and Dragon work together to build simplified versions of his tinker "toys" that don't require constant tinkering to keep them running."
"Correct" Dragon said, and Red Cross looked up long enough to nod his head as well.
"Well, my turn. My power is pretty simple to describe." Said Bookie. "I can calculate the odds on any given fight, win, loss, or draw, with a rough idea of what people can do, the expected strategies, the terrain, and some video footage or just my memories of having seem them fight. The more accurate the data I have is, the better my odds calculations are. I also have a 'sixth sense' about how accurate my data is."
I thought about it a bit and said "OK, so it's your job to help formulate strategy in the face of what you know about the Endbringers and Capes that we bring to the fight then?"
"Close. There are usually several of us thinkers and tinkers who work together to try to maximize our effectiveness. I frequently work with Dragon to get recon data, and there are lots of thinkers who can provide me with specific information that can help me refine win percentages. I provide my numbers to other thinkers that create actual plans."
"OK, I see then, I think. You don't provide strategy or tactics, you evaluate them based on what you know, and the more you know the more accurate your predictions can be. That in turn helps the strategists and tacticians develop their ideas."
"Exactly, and you are an unknown, so I'll definitely want to learn more about your powers. On that note, I think it's a good point for Murphy to introduce himself."
I looked over to Murphy, who was grinning widely and reached out his hand to shake. I met him halfway with the handshake and he started talking.
"Glad to see you are apparently one of the ones that just tries to tune capes out of their lives, rather than a moron like I was dreading." He said, and then he apologized. "Sorry, it isn't often that I meet someone who doesn't know who I am."
"No problem. Before I got these powers, I just…"
Dragon broke in. "Arc, remember, stick to business, for now. Based on what I've read in your document, you don't want a relationship with these guys other than when you fight Endbringers or maybe other s-class threats"
"Sorry about that Dragon." Murphy said, "I wasn't trying to draw out data, just trying to make conversation. And figure out where to start."
"Understood Murphy. No harm done, and I might even be wrong about his predilection towards being one of the white hats, but if so, it's not like Arc can't find you any time he wants, just like anyone else."
"Fair enough, but as I said, I wasn't trying to draw out data or recruit. You know I work alone anyway, and I know full well that you know why." Murphy turned away from addressing the front of the vessel where Dragon's speaking system was, and continued addressing me.
"Ever heard of Murphy's Law, Arc?" Murphy asked.
"Sure, anything that can go wrong will go wrong." I replied. Then I made the connection. "Oh. Umm, are we safe flying in this thing?"
"I am." Murphy said. Chances are pretty good that you are too. My power isn't an exact parallel to Murphy's Law, but it's got a lot in common with it. Any threat to me is countered. Say you shoot a bullet at me. My power somehow alters reality to remove the threat to me. Sometimes it's a simple thing like a gust of wind blowing a bullet very slightly to the side so it misses me, or it might be a meteor the size of a barn that hits a ten story apartment building two blocks away from me, creating a fountain of debris and dead bodies. The torso of a three year old from the exploding building might block the bullet meant for me."
"Oh shit, that actually happened. I remember it." I said, starting to get angry, then saw the pain on his face and though about how he said what he had said. "You don't have any control over it at all?"
"Like I said, glad you are a smart one. I have absolutely zero control over my power. I tried for years to figure out a way to control it, because I wanted to be a hero cape. When that failed, I tried for years to find a way to kill myself. Nothing worked. So now I hire myself out for parahuman power and tinker or conventional weapons testing. I figure someday, someone might test a power or ability on me that can actually kill me. I try to stay as far away from civilization as I can when actually testing, preferring Bouvet Island to test on but I live in Gaston."
Red Cross interjected. "The volcano became active again because he got cold."
Murphy looked at Red Cross. "Yes, true." A pause. "Red, I don't have secrets, he can look up all kinds of stuff about me later, or you can tell him if you want, but right now let me tell him my way." Red nodded and apologized.
"Is that why you come to Endbringer fights? You hope one of them can kill you?" I said, carefully watching his face.
"He frowned. I tried that. It doesn't work. My power can't directly affect the Endbringers, for some reason, but it can alter reality to bring me whatever assistance is required for me to survive their attacks. I ended up killing several hundred people by trying my power against Leviathan. I went in alone, in a zodiac, to test my power against his, and all the other defenders stayed back to give my power space. Leviathan saw me, started an attack on me, and Siberian popped up out of nowhere between myself and Leviathan. Siberian parted Leviathan's water shadow just by being in front of me, so it missed me, and the impact of Leviathan's physical attack hitting Siberian created a compressed air wave that blew me and the inflatable boat several hundred feet, the boat lost its motor and the inflated sections wrapped around me so that I was unhurt when it bounced across the water like a skipping stone, and I kept going another several hundred feet, ending up about a thousand feet from Leviathan. Siberian was waiting for me there, unwrapped me from the boat, pulled off my mask and looked at me a couple seconds, but didn't attack, she just left and did not help fight Leviathan other than whatever she did after Leviathan hit her. Later that year, the Slaughterhouse 9 came to my hometown and tried to recruit me. I refused. They tried to kill me, but barely managed to keep from killing one another, time after time until they gave up. They had a great deal of "fun" trying to figure out how my power worked, and how to get around it. The more people died while they were experimenting, the better. When they got bored, they killed everyone who was still alive within a mile of me and dropped the corpses around me in a circle. My wife and both kids were in that circle."
"Holy shit man." I whispered, looking him in the eyes, and seeing the pain there. "So you wear that suit and don't hide your identity, so that people avoid you unless they have a strong reason to approach you?"
"Exactly, he whispered, then said "It's been two years since my wife and kids died. I can't go after the Slaughterhouse 9 because if I do, my power will kill so many other innocents that I would never be able to stay sane. I tried. Once." He clenched his fists. "I bought a set of tinker armor and gear, and went hunting Jack. When I found him, we fought for a bit and for the first few minutes of the fight, my power was mostly using the various different tinker equipment in the suit to protect me and attack Jack and the others. The suit eventually fell apart from the abuse of both my power and the Slaughterhouse 9's successful hits that damaged the suit but wouldn't have hurt me. Then my power had to start reaching farther from me to protect me. Jack tried to cut me after the suit had fallen apart and a school bus full of children drove off an overpass to block Jack's view of me. Fourteen kids and the driver of the bus died. Jack's knives didn't kill them, the impact and fire did. My power killed fifteen people while I was trying to get revenge for my wife and kids and neighbors and friends." He clenched is eyes and fists, then opened his eyes again through tears and looked at me with a fierce gaze. "Then Jack said that he considered me an honorary member of the Slaughterhouse 9, and hoped we would cross paths again. The rest of them fucking saluted me at his command and some of them actually looked like they respected me. That day nearly broke my mind."
"I don't have anything to say to you that could possibly make a difference, other than that I hope you find peace someday. Murphy." I said.
"Thanks. I tell you this much about myself so that you understand how dangerous I am. I have dedicated myself to three things. One is my own death. I am too dangerous to live. The second is the end of the Slaughterhouse 9, and the last is the preservation of civilization from the Endbringers. I'll settle for any of the three." He paused, looked me in the eyes, put on a painful looking grin under the tears, and continued "Toilet paper and air conditioning are nice." And then he looked down, hiding his face and eyes, and a couple seconds later, in a quieter voice said "So are kids and wives."
Red Cross looked at me and we were both tearing up a bit. Bookie had suspicious dark spots on his mask. I looked at Murphy and there just weren't words to say.