Conception 1.x (Interlude; Medhu?)
Some mornings, you just wanted to roll back over in bed, knowing the day was going to be unpleasant. For Medhu Patel, this was not some vague omen, it was a certainty. Rolling out of bed, he tried not to disturb last night's entertainment. A leggy brunette named Betsy? Bianca? Bernise? He was sure the last one was a sauce. Regardless, trying not to disturb her he slipped out of bed and entered the bathroom for him morning ablutions. Being third of four children growing up in small apartment in Surat led to one getting up earlier if they wanted privacy, and getting up just before dawn was a habit Medhu found hard to break. Early to rise and so on as the Americans said.
He loved India, and still wished to return for time to time, but it was a distant ache, easily ignored. After his brother Dev gained his powers when he was 16, and gained an ego to match his name, he'd wanted to leave. As a Garama, a flashy cape, "Ajey" fought foes with impressive acrobatics, always managing to be where he needed to be. Glowing a golden light, he was hard to look at directly, much like Brockton Bay's Purity in retrospect Medhu laughed to himself. But it was hard to fight what you couldn't look directly at, and he'd used it to great effect. With that, he set an impossible standard that Medhu could never hope to approach, in the shadow of his brother's glowing success.
After years in that shadow, he'd finally realized that no matter what he did, no matter what he achieved, he would, at most, come in a distant second to his older brother. His younger brother, Vadin, always would have a special place in their mother's heart, though part of him didn't realize how smothering that place was until he'd lost it. His older sister Hafiza, had his father's attention, which left Medhu ignored. With this despair, with this rudderless feeling of drowning in a dark ocean, left to the wayside by his family he's finally had gotten what he had wanted after so many years. He had triggered, in the worst way possible.
He hadn't gotten something flashy, something he could use to overshadow even his brother, something that would let him attract attention like his brother. Instead, he had gotten what the local government would call a "thinker" and "stranger" power. His brother could see the immediate future, doing just what needed to be done. He could see half a day away, pick the result he wanted, and let his power carry him to that destination. Dev had enhanced physical abilities, able to push his acrobatics to ludicrous degrees. He had gotten the ability to become a spirit as he dreamed, leaving his body to see the world beyond, invisible, intangible, and invincible, though his parent's overheard conversations hurt him even more than he thought they would. His brother was hard to grab, having a natural forcefield he used to escape harm, slick against his foes hands. He found that he had something entirely different, one that allowed him to escape any kind of recording, a power that meant that he would never be a member of the Garama, as how could one stand for pictures, when the pictures showed nothing at all?
He'd considered joining the Thanda, the unofficial capes that truly ran India, the ones that no one ever spoke of, but were expected to help the greater population regardless. His parents, while he had slept, had talked about if Dev had become one of those instead. How they wouldn't have the glory, but they would be much more wealthy for having one in the family. With that Medhu had thrown away his ideas of revealing what he could do, discarding his ideas of using his powers as 'Yojana", and started to plan, for even untouchables were talked about. In this his powers were next to useless. He could plan perfectly, but only up to twelve hours in the future.
He had used that power at first, playing the markets to make enough money to set him up for life in a single day. He'd been so happy, so amazed at how easy it had all been. The next day he'd gone to do it again, and seen, not another day of wealth and profit, but all paths but one leading to his death or imprisonment in the next twelve hours. That day had been an eye opener, a harsh course in humility, as following that path had led him to lose almost all the money he had gained, putting him at point only slightly better than when he started.
With this lesson in mind he had tried again, going for lesser victories, always seeing the overwhelming profits in his view, but realizing that they truly were overwhelming. As time passed he'd made enough, hiding it places others would not see, that by his eighteenth birthday he was ready to leave India, and his parents, for America, the land of opportunity where there was no Thanda constantly watching him. He would be leaving Dev, who had made sure to grind his superiority in Medhu's face every time they'd met, which had become mercifully rarer over the years. He'd heard that having powers made you more antagonistic, studying them online from college courses paid for by his trading, passing his interest off as him wanting to learn more about his brother, and he could see the truth in it, as Dev, while arrogant, had never been quite so unpleasant about it before triggering. His powers though, so much more useful than his brothers, had never pushed him to prove his brother wrong. If it came down to the brute fighting that his brother so reveled in, Medhu knew he could win. He'd seen that path after all.
Coming to America, he'd chosen the moderately large city of Brockton Bay, warm enough to not be too large a shock to the system, but nothing on the heat of his home. He'd looked for something unassuming, something he could use his powers to negotiate deals for, something that where long-term plans weren't nearly as important as immediate actions, and had settled on coffee shops. For the name, he'd gone with something both intrinsically Indian, but also something his parents would not want to brag too much about. He'd send enough money that they'd be obligated to talk about him, but in such a way that they wouldn't want to.
With that in mind he'd opened the MaHotma Grindy coffee shop, serving a drink that was a staple of the modern world, associated with a man that had romanticized the stone age. He'd loved the irony, and so very few got the joke. He'd grown them, opening them across the city, and beyond, using promotions to grow interest and profits, always keeping one step ahead of his competition.
At roughly the same time, he'd debuted his "Rogue" identity. Rogues were capes who used their profit for purely monetary game, it was eminently an American concept, and he loved it. He'd called himself "The Neutral Party", choosing an English name to further distance himself from his homeland. Using his power, he could, if it were possible, see two different parties coming to an agreement everyone was happy with in a single day, and simple do what was necessary to achieve it. Pushing the money through shell companies, he made himself an investor in his own growing coffee enterprises, along with half a dozen other startups. He was independently wealthy, had achieved a level of respect he never would have at home, and was, in many respects, happy at age twenty-six.
Preparing a small breakfast, he ate greeting the sun as it crested the horizon, lighting up the city of Brockton Bay, the city which partially ran on his drinks. Sighing as he viewed possible futures he thought he caught a flicker of something on the horizon when he felt a force slam into his chest, burning his mind as he fell from his chair, paths slipping from his mind as he tried to find a way out of whatever was happening.
A few minutes later he clambered to his feet, mind swimming. Head filled with memories that not his own, fifty years as a white man in a world with no superheroes. This influx of memories as Jack Rycroft, a man who lived from a world without superpowers, settled into his head, permeating and coloring everything he knew, the extra years staining him until he was more Jack than Medhu.
Groaning he got to his feet, hearing a woman's voice calling "Are you okay?" responding without thinking with "I'm fine Susan," the name of his wife, Jack's wife.
"Whaaat?" came the shriek in response. "My name's Bella you jerk!" before he saw the flash of brown hair and a black dressed form before the sound of the penthouse door slamming reverberated.
Medhu, Jack, whoever he was just sat there, wearing his breakfast, for a few minutes before picking himself up and cleaning himself off. Plopping down on his couch, he reflexively used his power, looking at possible futures. As he gazed at them, mental images in his mind, rich with meaning, several of them flickered and distorting. Looking through Medhu's memories Jack saw this had never happened before, and wondering if it was Jack's own memories messing things up. The harder he tried to concentrate on it, the worse his burgeoning headache became.
Giving up on it, he searched through his memories and called up his assistant, cancelling his appointments for the day. His assistant sounded concerned, but he passed it off as a flu, trying to center himself.
Several hours later, having looked online for information, he was quietly freaking out. New memories had information of Brockton Bay, not as a place, but as a fictional location in a story his son had read bounced around, and wasn't that a thought. Medhu didn't want kids, but Jack had two, the youngest just reaching adulthood, and he was okay with that. He wondered how much of him was Medhu, and how much was Jack, as he started to default to Jack in his mind, even if his body was Medhu. Considering this metaphysical tangle, he received another call. This one was to inform him that some people had been attacked outside one of his stores. The police were investigating it as a possible hate crime, as someone with a fake Indian accent had called 911 with one of the victim's phones.
Reaching out with his powers, even more of his possible futures weren't working correctly, anything taking him to the east part of town rendered non-viable. Taking a deep breath, he submerged himself in Medhu's memories, trying to find out what the heck was going on. An hour later he received another call. This time his panicked assistant informed him that this time his boardwalk store had been the scene of a cape fight. Someone had picked a fight with Lung in his store. The ensuing cape fight, while theoretically bad for business, would reap dividends in the long run from promotions alone. Luckily, he'd invested in cape insurance, a necessity in Brockton Bay, and that would pay for the damages on its own. Looking online, there had been a fight outside a corner store, covered by the bloggers his feed monitored, but his were the only stores that had been damaged that day.
Looking at his options, he started to stare at one option that glitched occasionally. Unable to look at it directly, it would still serve to give him insight into just what the hell was going on. Choosing that, his body went on autopilot, putting on his jacket and calling his driver, asking to be driven to his store in downtown.
Walking in, the Baristas saw and served him, settling him down. He sipped his coffee, checking his phone as he waited for whatever his power wanted him to do. Sitting there, he heard the sound of a horn blaring and looked up. A figure in white darted into sight outside the window just as his power shorted out, causing him to jerk backward as the figured rolled forward, launching itself through the plate glass window, falling onto the table he had been sitting at, which collapsing underneath the intruder, spilling Jack's coffee on his face.
Stunned, Jack could only stare as the figure looked up, glowing, swirling, multicolored eyes meeting his own for a moment. The figure stumbled to his feet murmured an apology, and stuck a twenty in Medhu's hands as he staggered out the door. Jack tried to find a path to do something, anything, but they all glitched into a horrible mess, except the one that had him just stay here and get another coffee, so that's what he did.
After making an incident report to the police, filing the insurance report, and finishing his new coffee he once again searched for the path to finding what the hell was going on. Searching the web, he found no record of any hero with luminous rainbow eyes, except maybe one of the Fallen, but those Endbringer cultists had no reason to be here. Something about the cape's voice tugged at his memory, but he couldn't be sure how. It almost felt familiar to Jack, but that was just silly, as Jack wasn't even from this world. Following his new path, this one again taking him to find out what was going on, he had his driver take him down to the industrial district. Once again, he sat and waited.
This time though, he pulled up his power over and over again. The longer he waited, the more options glitched into unusability. Once it dropped to two: hide in the back or run, he had enough. Standing up, the only customer left in the store was himself, the contingent of professionals, all white, had left all at once after checking their devices, which was highly suspicious, and it was time to do something. Looking at the two baristas, both white, he walked over and told them "Leave. Now."
One of them, a blonde man with noticeable tattoos, looked offended. "Who are you to tell us to-"
The other, a slim brunette, elbowed him in the ribs. "That's the owner Eric!" she hissed before turning back to him. "Do we still get today's pay?" she asked sweetly.
As he looked at her, the run option started to glitch. "Yes. Go. NOW!" he nearly yelled. They looked at each other, bolting for the door. As soon as they opened it the sounds of screaming, gunfire, and a deep, growling laughter. They looked at him, fear on their faces. "Run or hide in the back, pick one now!" he commanded. The man took off, tearing off to the right while the girl ran back, starting to hide behind the bar where he opened the door to the back and waved her through. She ran as he stayed in the door, watching as a mass of Empire Eighty-Eight thugs ran by, some in fear, some firing as they did so.
A moment later their enemy ran into view. One of the figures seemingly flying in, crushing the chest of a thug as he landed, killing him instantly. The colors were different, but the costume was the same, and the glowing rainbow eyes of the villain were instantly identifiable. Rainbow eyes talked to two others, one an eight-foot-tall black man, the other had skin a shade lighter, and was only slightly shorter than Rainbow eyes. The shorter one looked familiar, not to Medhu, but again to Jack.
Words were exchanged before the fight started again, stopping after less than a minute, several more thugs dead, the two black men both having some sort of brute and regeneration power. At that point the white supremacists seemed to back off, only for one window of the shop to explode inward, the girl behind him crying out in fear as Jack saw three parallel lines dug out of the floor. Stormtiger's ability Medhu's memories explained. This shop was in E88 territory and as long as the employees were white, there wasn't a problem. Through the broken window he heard words exchanged, two of the voices tugging at his memories. A shout of "That doesn't even make sense, they're both black!" easily heard, pulled on them even harder. A moment later Stormtiger himself was sent flying through the now broken glass, rolling to a stop covered in cuts and splinters, which was as close as Medhu had ever seen to instant karma. After that though, he heard the metallic chainsaw-howl of Hookwolf, who was thrown in after Stormtiger, ripping up half his store. Looking out a flash of greys sped past the window far too fast to be natural, grabbing the smaller black man and disappearing. This is why I pay for parahuman insurance he told himself as the metallic canine launched itself out, wet tearing and ripping sounds coming from beyond his line of sight. Staring out at his fourth disturbed shop today, the third one that would need serious repairs, he started to sigh, thinking that he'd have to pay his legal team far too much money to make sure the insurance company paid out, but that was the nature of the game. As he was considering this, he finally recognized the voice of the cape that had led, indirectly or directly, to the property damage today. That voice, was the voice of Jack's Son.
