Contagion 1.09
Flight is a power just common enough to make other parahumans envious of those able to travel the skies of their own free will. One of the first things any Tinker will attempt to build is a jetpack or hoverboard, some means of imitating flight on their own merits.
I did not possess the power of flight. Moreover, I was drawing upon mass stored god-knows-where, making me overwhelmingly dense. The motion of my body after my leap was not flight, nor a glide, nor even a fall. It was a barely-controlled plummet. Doing my best to concentrate my excess mass into my right fist (it didn't swell or anything, but I could definitely tell there was more, well, me there), I reared back that arm and waited to swing until the last possible moment.
The impact of my punch sent visible shockwaves through the air, crushing the side of Fenja's helmet – or was she Menja? – and sending the thirty-foot Nazi with the body of a top-tier lingerie model crumpling to the ground. I didn't think that a hit like that would kill her, though perhaps it had, but it would probably incapacitate her. In a living demonstration of Newton's third law, the strike sent me rebounding back into the air a bit before once again dropping like a rock.
Something that I would need to take into account for future engagements was that, without flight or another means of relocation, being airborne makes dodging very difficult. Before, when fighting opponents whose only means of ranged attack were firearms, this was of little consequence. However, now that a large piece of a building smashed me through another building, I determined that it was something worth considering.
The upside was that Rune's projectile shattered upon slamming me into – and through – the wall, so she didn't have that bit of ammunition for another shot. The downside was it still hurt like hell. Note to self, I monologued while extricating myself from the rubble of an old diner, apparently my body naturally draws on stored biomass. Focusing it for offense leaves less for defense, meaning things hurt more. Mental note sealed with a kiss, I shoved my way through the rubble and rejoined the fight. Fenja/Menja/whoever... Blonde #1 was still down, while Blonde #2 was brandishing her spear and looking quite pissed. I suppose if somebody cold-cocked my twin sister I'd be pissed as well.
With a blur, Velocity appeared beside me. "Friend or foe?"
"That depends if you attack me," I rumbled in return, looking down at the hero. While Velocity wasn't the tallest man on the Protectorate's roster, my original body couldn't look him straight in the eyes. I couldn't remember which person this body had been, but he was somewhat of a giant. "I'm cleaning up this city, doing what you can't or won't. I'm not going to play by your rules but neither am I going to endanger innocents. Any consequences are on my head." I stalked past him, back into the fray. A wall of blades erupted from the ground, angled toward me, and I had to give Kaiser credit: he wasn't pulling his punches. The blades didn't stop and attempt to deter me; they shot straight into me. I probably could have focused density into my skin and broken the edges, but I didn't know that for certain and it would make less of an impression than what I had planned.
I continued walking, the metal driving further and further into me until it emerged through my back. Then, sharply turning to one side, I snapped off the blades stuck in me and stepped through the opening I'd created, plucking the shards from my body as I approached. I rolled the broad end of one longer blade like a joint, essentially creating a giant dart which I then hurled at Kaiser. Again, to his credit, he raised up a shield and also ducked, not trusting solely in his power. While Hookwolf's memories were probably influencing me a bit, I could see why he was able to lead the Empire: he was competent and ruthless, and willing to sacrifice pride for effectiveness.
Battery had made good use of the distraction I'd provided, charging up her power to full. Faster than I could track, she ricocheted between buildings to prevent Rune drawing a bead on her. Battery ran up one of the taller buildings by using the tiny windowsill indents as footholds before launching herself at Rune. I was just barely able to figure out what was happening now, the blur of Battery's form actually bouncing from one of the teen's projectiles to another like stepping stones, finally tackling the girl and pulling her into a sleeper hold, keeping Rune on top so the Shaker couldn't try using her debris to free herself.
I turned to Dauntless. "Get Kaiser! I've got the other valkyrie."
"Yes you do!"
I started to turn at the sound of that booming voice and acted purely on reflex. That enormous spear bore down on me and I didn't have time to dodge. Instead I struck in response, bracing the heels of my hands together in an attempt to catch the weapon. The shrill sound of metal screeching against metal rattled my brain, but I was still on one piece, the spear point clutched in my immense metal claws. "Naughty, naughty," I growled, digging my claws into the weapon and twisting my hands, shearing off the majority of the spear's blade in a jagged chunk.
Menja demonstrated that she had more than serviceable training with her weapon of choice, spinning it and settling into a martial-arts stance for bo staff combat. This would be tougher than initially expected, as she had a pretty reliable way of keeping me at bay. Unfortunately for her, I had more than a few tricks up my sleeve.
During our standoff I combined my own sharp mind with Hookwolf's tactical planning, then waved goodbye to Menja. I dropped into a semi-squat and spun in a circle, carving out the street with my claws and dropping into the sewer system. While I hadn't much cared for water since my trigger, I could tolerate it for this. I'd need to act quickly before she wised up, so I focused on the impacts of the giantess' feet before once again lunging up. My claws burst through the ground and returned to hands, grabbing her foot and pulling it through the street. Menja gave a surprisingly high-pitched squeak of surprise as her balance was ruined and she crashed to the ground.
I once again burst through the asphalt and punched her in the head, but without the leverage and element of surprise it didn't knock her unconscious and she returned the punch, sending me hurtling more than a full city block.
On what must have been a signal from Kaiser or a display of initiative on Menja's part, she decided to call the retreat. The blonde hefted her sister over her shoulder in the fireman's carry, plucked the unconscious Rune from Battery's hold, and then offered that same hand for Kaiser to leap onto, which he did by creating a metal platform beneath himself to get the proper altitude.
By the time I got back to the battleground, Menja was already several blocks away. I could probably have caught up to her, but I didn't know where she was headed or what nasty surprises might have been waiting for me. I shook my head and turned to leave when I heard the crackle of Dauntless' arc lance.
"Vigilantism isn't the right way to do things," he said in what was probably the start of a well-rehearsed speech. "It always starts out the same, wanting to make a difference and thinking that the law hamstrings groups like the Protectorate. And maybe you do make a difference, take down or even kill some of the big players. But then it always goes bad: you're the only one doing anything significant, you tell yourself, so you need to do more, to fight harder. And it only gets more brutal, with fewer restrictions and more and more acceptable targets. You end up alone, feared and hated, and the people you wanted to help? You've ultimately made their lives worse."
I let him finish his little monologue. "You people disgust me." I spat at his feet. "So worried about the rules of engagement and the image you present. Your moral high ground is atop the corpses of those you refused to save and those you abandoned, and your policies either create the very enemies you then seek to oppose – I dare not say you seek to destroy them, as you don't have the fortitude – or, worse, they give carte blanche to predators who operate within your own organization and terrorize the populace." I crouched for a leap, the tendrils in my legs coiling. "If I wanted to destroy the city, I'd at least join the ABB; they're doing a faster job of it, and without all the rationalizations and holier-than-thou bullshit." I leaned backward and shot into the sky, doing a flip in midair and trying to gauge my trajectory.
While flight was nice, a super-strength leap could usually outdo aerobatics in terms of sheer speed.
(BREAK)
I hit the ground in a roll and scrambled into a narrow alleyway. With a quick glance to make sure I wasn't observed, I shifted to the more innocuous and doughy form of Candice, a high-school junior. I dashed out of the alley, looking frightened, so anyone who might've been observing would see that I'd been frightened by the retreating cape.
After running for a block or so, relatively certain that I was no longer being followed, I slowed down to a gentle stroll and lost myself in thought. I'd even restrained myself to avoid drawing the Protectorate's ire, and yet instead of thanking me they gave me some bullshit spiel about vigilantism being bad. Nevermind that I couldn't remember a single genuine victory they'd ever scored against the gangs. The Protectorate couldn't turn the tide; they weren't even wave breakers. They were just a line of sandbags being slowly eroded, and weren't bothering to repair the damage caused by the endless waves.
Brockton Bay was dying. Every year the population decreased, and very little of that was from families moving away. In my entire young life I couldn't remember a single time when there had been a legal inhabitant of the gigantic tenement block off Parkson, and the suburbs near the trainyards were a ghost town. Just trying to maintain the status quo didn't work if the status quo was rot and slow death. The heroes were so afraid of making waves, of agitating the gangs that they didn't make more than token efforts at crime prevention; what kind of world did we live in where the heroes – the professionals backed by government resources – were afraid of the gangs, so much so that they were cowed into inaction?
To continue with the death metaphor, I could consider the city's condition as terminal cancer. The gangs were certainly malignant enough and seemed to only relocate and spread further on the rare occasions that someone managed to shake them up. The heroes' response to this was to resign themselves to the inevitable, climb into the hospital bed and 'make the best' of their slow demise, steadily becoming more and more useless. I, on the other hand, was unwilling to accept that we were all going to be killed off. I would take the action that the Protectorate was afraid to: metaphorically, I'd sign us up for the experimental treatment. Sure, there was a high chance of death, but a small chance to be completely cured. And if we were condemned to death regardless, I'd rather go out through my own actions, making at least some effort to save us all. I was only one girl, however.
...Well, maybe not only one girl. I had the memories of several dozen people knocking around inside my skull. Every person I killed gave me at least a little bit of their knowledge and memories. That, more than any of my combat powers, was my greatest asset. I'd already dealt with the Merchants and thrown down with some of E88's best.
I'm in the mood for Asian now...
(BREAK)
Grant removed his helmet with a disgusted sigh while Robin grabbed the whiteboard and Alice got Hannah's attention. "Well," the former cop groused, "that could've gone better."
"No kidding." Robin appeared in front of Grant and handed him the marker. "You talked with the big guy, Dauntless, so it's your show." He strode over to a chair and sat down just before Battery returned with Miss Militia in tow.
Not used to giving presentations, Grant Hendricks floundered for a moment or two. "Well, um," he quickly scribbled 'New Cape' at the top of the whiteboard, "we know the new guy is a Brute–"
"Perhaps we should recap for Hannah?" Alice offered.
Opting to bail out the already overtaxed Grant, Velocity spoke up. "We were up against Rune, Kaiser and the twins. Fight was going bad but then all of a sudden this guy drops out of the sky like a rock, cold-cocks Fenja, distracts Rune, intimidates Kaiser and breaks Menja's spear before actually pulling her through the street. He didn't seem to like heroes, but apparently he likes villains even less."
Hannah Roosevelt nodded. "Alright then. Please continue, Grant."
"R-right. Like I was saying, Brute for sure. He was able to take down Fenja with one punch, was unfazed when Rune put him through a wall, let himself get impaled by Kaiser with no effect, and then got punched across a city block by Menja – again, no apparent effect."
"That's...no mean feat," Miss Militia admitted. "I'm reluctant to label him Brute 8 from just one showing, but from all that I'd say it's at least a 7."
Dauntless wrote down the classification. "He's a decent Mover, as well. I don't think he has super-speed, but he could move faster by jumping than a lot of capes can by flying. I think...4, since he doesn't actually have flight?" Mover was a tricky classification; the PRT discouraged classifications of 5 or higher for any cape without flight or teleportation.
"It was creepy, too," Grant continued. "These...cords came out of his legs and coiled up like springs. At first I thought it was some sort of arterial spray, but you don't see a red that dark unless it's a deep gut wound."
Alice blinked. "Wait, this is news to me. What color was it?"
Dauntless craned an eyebrow. "A real dark, visceral red. Like I just said. Why?"
His eyes widened, however, when Velocity interjected once again. "He might be a Changer of some sort, then. Or a Breaker. When he caught Menja's spear, his arms turned into these huge metallic claws."
"Oh shit," Dauntless and Battery whispered in sync. Miss Militia was only a little behind them, and Velocity seconds after her.
Alice stood and plucked the marker from Grant's hand. "Form mutable to some degree, deep red material, and a grudge against both heroes and gangs..." She wiped away New Cape and replaced it with something much more worrying.
Adrestia – First Creation