This is a fanfiction story that takes place in the world setting of Worm. Worm is a Supervillain serial story, with a serious amount of work, world-building, and character depth built into it. You can find it with an appropriate google search, probably by including the keywords "worm", "parahumans", and "wordpress".

Worm is the property of its author, a person who goes by the alias of Wildbow. I intend no infringement upon her property, nor profit from this story. I write this only for fun.

Omens and Portents

1320, 05/22/2012

Outside of the Mayaway Comanche Reservation, South of Sancti

Joseph Littlehorn was sitting on his porch when the police car pulled up. He'd been having a nap in the shade, occasionally waking to watch the tumbleweeds go by. Maureen was knocking about in the building behind him, back in the single-room corrugated-metal shack that had once been a quonset hut, left behind by the army back in the 40s. Maureen was probably fixing dinner by now, probably corn tamales. He could live with corn tamales. They didn't disturb his ulcer much, as food went.

Police, now... Police tended to disturb his ulcer a bit more. He watched the two officers exit the car, head up the driveway towards the canvas awning he'd set his chair under. He squinted as they got closer... Ah. Menendez and Hartman. Well, this wouldn't be any trouble.

Under the blanket on his lap, his fingers stopped reaching for the Colt 1911. Instead, he dug around, pulled out a hip flask, and took a swallow. Maureen would kill him if she knew it was whiskey in the flask, but that was all right.

And as the officers drew near, the light of the sun changed. Their steps slowed, and their bodies glowed with inner light, their outlines wavering. He cocked an eye at the flask, but it too, was rippling. A face formed in the tarnished metal of the flask... He knew this face well. It was the watcher, with a face that was all eyes and ears, and no mouth.

Well. They were going to tell him something important, and he had best listen.

Important things usually took a while. He got to his feet as the world returned to its regular speed, and the colors turned back to normal. The face was gone, and he carefully stoppered the flask, and put it on the railing. He threw one corner of the blanket over his shoulder to hold it steady.

Menendez waved as they got to the mailbox.

"Hey, Little Joe."

"Rick, Michael." he said in his dry, soft voice. "Come in. The woman's about got dinner ready." He had no clue whether or not that was so, but at least they'd be out of the sun for the talk.

They glanced at each other, and followed Joe in.

Inside, the hut was fairly spartan. A few blankets hung here and there, separating the inner space into compartments. A chipped and weathered table sat in the center, with mismatched folding chairs around it. Clothes hang drying from a line in the back, a fan next to them going full blast to spread the humidity a bit through the dry air. An old clock radio with flipping plastic tiles instead of a digital readout proclaimed it to be a bit past one. In one corner a dusty air conditioning window unit chugged away, its dripping engine no match for the hot desert around it.

Maureen pushed open a curtain, revealing a small kitchen space with a squat iron stove which had probably been there since the hut was built. A savory odor wafted out, and Joe enjoyed it. It even beat out the stench of the cigarette dangling from one corner of Maureen's mouth. She frowned, and turned back to the stove, setting out another pan as she went. The clanking and fussing was exaggerated, her way of criticizing Joe for not warning her of company coming. Joe sighed to himself. Damned woman was impossible to live with on a good day. Now she'd be insufferable until he made it up to her.

He caught a lot of flack from the tribal idiots for shacking with a white woman. Considering the situation, it bothered him not at all. Heh. If only they knew...

He gestured at the table, and the three of them found seats around it. Joe smiled as best he could, leaned on his elbows, folded his hands together.

"To what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

The two cops glanced at each other. It was Menendez who finally spoke up, of course. He'd been here many times before, knew how this worked.

"It's the Devil Dog thing."

Joe remembered the watcher, and kept his mouth shut.

"The PRT thinks he might be doing something in Texas, so we've been ordered to check out a buncha old, empty places. Look for places he mighta stashed weapons."

Well. This could be awkward.

"Ell-tee had a list of sites. We volunteered to go check out Lakeshore."

Lakeshore was just north of here. Back in the sixties, the Army Engineering Corps had a notion to dam off the nearby Yoke river, create a reservoir, and start reclaiming the desert. They'd made a big fuss about it, and a few investors had started buying up what would be lakeside property once it was done, and putting up buildings that would one day be a resort town. But the plans had fallen through, and all that ever came of it were a half-finished hotel out in the middle of nowhere, and a couple of construction trailers.

Joe had found Lakeshore very useful. And he wanted it to continue to be so for the near future.

"Thing is, uh... Well, we figured we'd get your okay for that. Sir."

Joe smiled.

He reached into the blanket, and Hartman tensed. Tch, idiot. He'd only been privy to this arrangement for a few months, but Menendez was supposed to be keeping him leashed. Joe truly hoped that was so. He'd hate to bury another body out back.

Joe's hand emerged with a roll of bills, and Menendez smiled, reaching out a hand. Joe didn't hand it over.

Menendez blinked. "Sir?"

"No need to check out Lakeshore. Nothing up there but coyotes and scorpions," Joe lied. They knew he lied, but it didn't matter. "But I wouldn't want your boss to think you'd shirked. Stay here and have dinner with us, and go tell him it was empty when you get back. And here... A gift for you, for showing respect to your elders, and listening to their advice."

He counted out five hundred for each of them, and they took it with relief in their eyes.

Joe kept smiling. From across the way, Maureen brought the plate of tamales out, along with three bottles of beer. Joe sat and drank, as the cops told him about their briefing that morning. About this Devil Dog, and the fight in Nacogdoches. Then the convenience store by Abilene.

They didn't talk about much else, and he was annoyed a bit that the watcher had felt it necessary to point him to this conversation. Still, you don't go against the visions, he'd learned that a long time ago. Fuckers got MEAN when you ignored them.

Finally, an hour or so later, they left. He carried his plate into the kitchen, started rinsing it off. Maureen crossed her arms, glared at him. Joe said nothing.

"Don't do the inscrutable thing, you jackass. Doesn't work on me."

Joe smiled. "Just putting my thoughts in order."

"We got lucky that Menendez could volunteer on this one. If they'd sent someone who wasn't on our bribe list-"

"Then the others would see them coming on the road, and hunker down like they're supposed to. We've run enough drills, they should know how to get below and get rid of the evidence."

"You KNOW it isn't foolproof..." He let her grumble. Finally she stopped, and he asked "What do you know about Devil Dog?"

"Not much. Saw him on the news a few times. The cops probably told you more'n I could. Why?"

"Signs are pointing toward him being important."

Her demeanor changed instantly. "You... Had a vision?" Her eyes were eager, her posture leaning in, greedy. Joe sighed to himself. "No. My fucking subconscious, which was fucking enabled by my power to give vague fucking hints of future events did its usual vague fucking Hey, this might be useful to you hint."

She spread her arms. "You had a vision! Finally! We can get OUT of this dump! I'll start packing!"

He closed his eyes, counted to ten. She was already rummaging around in the back. Dammit, she was going to wear her costume. He rolled his eyes. The others already KNEW what she looked like, and they were just going up the road- Hell with it. Damned if he'd let her upstage him.

Joe went for his costume, too.

Fifteen minutes later, the white pickup truck crawled up the drive to Lakeshore. Through his mask, Joe peered up at the abandoned crane, saw a flash of light from the top of the arm. Good, the lookout was there and signalling. Three flashes, followed by two, hard as hell to see unless you were looking for them. Three then two was friendlies coming in. Just three alone would have been "evacuate, lockdown." Two and two would have been "Ready for a fight."

The pickup truck stopped in front of the old hotel, which raised exposed girders to the sky like the ribcage of some dead animal grown to enormous size. The upper floors were a wreck, open to the elements and creatures of the desert. But the lower floor was mostly intact, and the fallout shelter hidden beneath made a perfect lair.

Joe stepped out of the truck, adjusting his body armor as he went. The olive-green flak jacket blended in with the dyed and armored leather pants, which creaked as he walked. At his belt a steel hatchet, and on his back an assault rifle. His face was masked... Wood on the outside, it had layers of metal and ceramic composite, with a leather liner, miniature rebreather, coolant system, and nightvision lenses that could be toggled on and off. It resembled a fearsome kachina mask, square eyes and round mouth, painted white and red and yellow and fringed with coyote fur. In appearance, a crude tribal conceit. In actuality, heavily-armored and technologically sophisticated. He liked it when people judged by appearances. Joe worked best when he was underestimated.

From the other door, Maureen hopped down. Clad in tight-fitting buckskins with an armor-weave serape over her torso and arms, her mask was almost featureless. A plain, white mask with a feminine bent to it, that somehow depicted a weeping woman.

The man who stepped out of the hotel to meet them wore no mask. He had no secret identity to hide, was a wee bit too distinctive to bother. He was eight feet tall if he was an inch, with no neck to speak of, and muscles so exaggerated that they looked like someone had implanted rocks beneath his skin. His face was broad and flattened, as if it had been rammed repeatedly into a wall in an effort to crack his skull.

Actually, that had happened before, several times. But his face was pretty much the same before that had happened.

He was dressed simply in brown spandex, with buffalo-fur fringes. He'd tried other materials, but they just couldn't handle his abilities. He was stuck wearing a jumpsuit.

The man grinned. "Chief. Little Cloud." Maureen shifted. She hated that name.

"Bison." Joe nodded back. He'd never liked "Chief". Too simple. It was a title he hadn't earned, either. Technically with his power he was closer to a shaman anyway, but no other parahuman in the current group had much in the way of leadership skills. At all.

Besides, Joe had discovered that the older he got, the more he preferred giving orders to taking them. It meant people listened to him when he had something to say. "Bison, call the others together for a meeting."

Bison grinned wider, showing flat, bad teeth. "We finally done training? We got a mission?"

"I think we do," said Chief, walking into the lair. "I think it's time for the Serpent Lodge to take a hand in matters once more..."