Evaluation 2.1

As the sun started to crest the horizon and the orange light of dawn started to shine on the drawn curtains of the bedroom I had claimed, I knew it was safe to get up. The previous evening, after stalking off, I'd eaten my food and listened with half an ear to Herb complaining about me for the better part of an hour before he'd gone quiet, likely asleep. I had laid down to go to sleep myself when I had a horrible thought: I was a Noctis Cape, I didn't need to sleep, and if I did I'd instead review my memories in perfect detail. That, combined with today still being the Worst Day Ever meant I'd probably see some seriously messed up things, maybe revisit all of my traumatic memories, or see enough of a half-forgotten memory that I'd re-interpret what had actually happened based on my new skewed 'recollection'. Either way, going to sleep was a bad idea right now, so instead I laid there on the bed and planned, occasionally getting up to pace as I came up with and discarded new plans until I realized that since this was still the Worst Day Ever, any plan I came up with was probably going to be seriously flawed. With that I laid down and waited. Doing nothing. For hours.

With the dawn of a new day, and one guaranteed to be better I finally left the room, grabbing a few pieces of leftover sushi from the kitchen when I heard Herb yelp in fright. Stepping lightly so as not to make a sound in-case there was trouble, I walked into the living room, seeing two Herbs in identical clothing on the couch, I froze.

One of them glanced at me while the other took a lazy look before rolling his eyes and slumping into the couch, closing his eyes. "Herb?" I asked, as the one who glanced at me looked back, keeping the other him in his line of sight.

"Yeah?"

"What happened?"

"I showed up," the relaxed Herb informed me, not bothering to open his eyes. "Been waitin' for a while." Switching to Power Sight I saw a purple and gold flame coming off of the twitchier Herb, the smaller flame coming from the relaxed Herb feeding back to the one who responded, the sleepy one possessing all of the alert Herb's powers, except for replication.

"Oh," I said, addressing the other Herb as it all clicked. "You must be the clone. Replicant. Whatever."

He opened one eye to glare at me, "Excuse me?" he asked, sleepily offended. "I'm Boojack."

"That's a yes," I told him, walking over to extend a hand. "Welcome to the team."

"That's a no," he insisted, the sleepiness vanishing. "I'm Boojack."

"Are you Herb?" I asked.

"No. I'm Boojack!" he insisted, talking as if I were a particularly retarded child.

I rolled my eyes. "That's what I was asking."

"Um. No. You called me a clone," he corrected.

I pointed at Herb, who looked like he wanted nothing to do with this conversation. "He literally has a power that replicates himself. You're the first replication. You're 'Boojack', because of course they'd all have their own names.

Boojack looked over at Herb. "You know, your friend's an asshole."

Herb looked disgusted. "No he's not! Shut up you fucking replicant."

I winced, turning to my friend. Or at least the original instance of him. "Don't make it a slur man, that isn't cool. This isn't Blade Runner."

"You're the one who called him that first," he defended.

"Yeah," I tried to explain. "But not like that. I called him a replicant because he's a replication of you."

"Nah," Boojack defended. "He used a great term. Blade Runner's the shit!"

"Blade runner isn't the shit!" Herb responded.

"It's pretty good," I chimed in. "Especially for its time, especially when you consider the amount of practical effects they used."

"It's boring as shit!"

"It's an old movie!" I retorted, mimicking his tone. "They move slower. The pacing can drag a bit but it's more atmospheric than a standard action movie."

"Nah, I'm sayin' it was boring back then." Herb pronounced. I can't believe he's pulling the age card I thought.

"No it wasn't," Boojack protested. "It was a deep introspection on humanity and the idea of being human."

"See!" I proclaimed. "Boojack's got it right! . . . How does that work?" I finished, murmuring to myself. "So they're not exactly you?" I asked Herb. "They have your memories but different. . . perspectives?" I hazarded.

"Yeah," Boojack told me. "Yesterday sucked balls."

"And all that fighting?" I asked, hopefully I had a less blood-thirsty Herb to help balance out the original. "That sucked too, right?"

"What? No. The fighting was the best part, we got to show off how strong we were. It's all that running that sucked." Or maybe not.

"So, you are your memories, so if you have them all you should be the same, unless there's some other force at work? Whatever, welcome to the team!" I finished, once more extending my hand.

He looked at it for a second before ignoring it with a shrug of "I was always here," before settling back and closing his eyes again. "It's just this dumbass was keeping me in."

I frowned, that statement sounded off. "I think his power has a timer."

"Yeah!" added Herb, "It's not like I couldn't have used help yesterday."

"Then you should've taken a few minutes and figured out how to use your Stand after you landed," he reasoned.

My friend looked thoughtful for a second, then angry. "Oooh," he said in a childish voice. "Intelligent!"

I looked at the uncharacteristic act from my friend in concern. "Is it bad that I'm siding with your replicant on this one?"

Herb looked at me in betrayal. "Dick."

Sometimes I really didn't understand my friend.

Herb and I ate the leftovers, discovering that while the place didn't have power, it had water, and re-used the soda bottles to have something to drink. Boojack had gone back to sleep as we talked. "I can't believe I punched a teenage girl," he opined.

"Yeah," I responded, not really seeing the problem. "Ya punched a fucking bitch, who deserved way more than that, what's the problem?"

He sighed. "Still a teenage girl. I, I can't believe I did that."

I raised an eyebrow. "I can. We've both read the book. You know what she's done!"

"I know, I know, I know," he waved off, trying to ignore my point.

"And what she continues to do!" I pressed, not letting him be guilty when there was nothing to feel guilty about.

"I get it," he said, in more of a 'shut up' way then an 'I agree' manner.

"And she never gets better," I continued. "Even through the end of the book she's a broken, hateful, monster who rejects anyone trying to help because she clings so hard to her 'predator/prey' bullshit. She never admits what she did was wrong, even when presented with overwhelming proof that even makes sense in the ideology she claims to believe!"

"It's not that though," Herb told me.

Finally, the real reason I thought. "What is it then?"

"It's the fact that I punched, not just a girl, but a teenage girl!" he reasoned. "You know just, how, wrong that is?"

"When the fuck have you given a shit about either of those things?" I demanded.

"When it's punching a fucking teenage girl!" he responded.

"It's not like punching a baby, man! Some teenagers are at least assholes, if not fucking monsters. Some grow past it, some don't!"

"Let me just feel bad about this?" he asked.

"No!" was my immediate response, "Because you punched someone once that deserves to be fuckin' beaten bloody for the shit they've done! I'm really not getting the problem here."

"Ya know what, let me feel bad about this while you go take a shower."

"Fine," I conceded. "But stop feeling bad about this when I get back!"

The shower was ice cold, but with my immunity to temperature it was more bracing than uncomfortable. I took off my clothes, admiring my new physique and pausing as I wondered exactly how my costume worked. I took it off, but when I activated my sight I still saw a thread of energy connecting it to my chest. Shrugging and taking a shower, though the soap was all floral scents, I got out and, purely by accident, summoned my costume to me, having it disappear from the rack and reappear on my body. "That's neat," I told myself as I walked out.

Herb still looked guilty so I opened with. "You still feel bad about punching that bitch?"

He perked up immediately. "Of course not!" he responded, all traces of guilt gone. That was, weird I thought as I sat back down.

"I don't either, fuckin' teenagers!" Boojack called from the couch.

I quirked an eyebrow at Herb, who just shook his head.

"So, you met fucking Oni Lee, I bet that was cool!" He asked, changing the subject.

"Not really," I responded, shaking my head. "Dude's got, like, no emotion. It's probably from his fucking power. Do you know what his power is?"

He nodded, looking at me in confusion. "Duh, it's teleportation, but cooler."
"Nope" I told him, shaking my head. "He's got exactly one power, replication. Thing is, every time he uses it the original dies. I didn't meet Oni Lee, I met the something thousandth clone of Oni Lee. Even if I get that power, I'm never using it, and I need you to promise me that you'll never use it if you get in range to copy it. Okay?"

"But it's such a cool power," he whined.

"Herb!" my voice was a whip-crack of command. "Do Not Use That Power! I don't want you to fucking die, and you have no fucking clue how it'll interact with everything else? What if the only things keeping his clones together is his power, that means you get one teleport, then you die."

"Fine," he conceded. "Yes massa'"

"Honestly, I don't give a shit as long as you don't self-terminate through sheer stupidity. Don't copy powers that could kill you, and will slowly erode away your personality until you've got nothing left. I want a partner, not a fucking slave." I waved toward the steel case that Herb had brought back from his meeting with Cauldron. "So, how did the meeting with the cape-illuminati go?"

"It went. . . fine," he told me, giving a furtive look to where he'd stepped out into the room from Doormaker's portal.

"Doesn't sound fine," I prodded.

"Let me show you what they gave me," he said, nearly jumping over to grab the case, before placing it on our table, pressing his thumb to the lock and stating, "Contessa's got no sense of humor" before it clicked open. "It's the password I set," he explained. "I think whatever set up our getting' here wanted to fuck with them."

That meant Abbaddon, the third entity. I didn't want to think about the implications as he moved to open it. "Remember the vials?" he asked.

"Yeah, the ones we picked out," I responded, starting to get a bit excited.

"Remember how you didn't get any of your vials?" he asked, grinning.

"Yes. Open the fucking case!" I demanded.

"Oh come on!" He teased, starting to open it slowly. "Bum bum-" he started to sing as Boojack yelled "Just open the fucking Case!"

Herb looked let down. "You guys have no appreciation of dramatics," he whined. "Just enjoy the: Bum bum- now it's just ruined." He pouted, plopping down on a seat.

I rolled my eyes, he was such a child sometimes. I turned the case and started to open it slowly going "Buuuuum Buuuuum Buuuuuuuuuuum Bum Buuuuuuum!"

"Uh huh," he responded indifferently. "Twenty first century fox? Really?"

"What? No. That's the theme from 2001: A space Odyssey!" I replied, offended. Did I suck that much at singing?

He considered for a second, nodding. "That works, I was going for Paramount."

"I could see that working," I conceded as Boojack yelled "JUST OPEN THE FUCKING CASE!"

"So what's in the case?" I asked, opening it up and moving next to my friend.

"Our vials!" he announced, motioning inside.

The case, which was foam lined, contained six metal vials, a computer, a keycard, a smartphone, and a small booklet. Looking at the Vials the tops were labelled 'Overwatch', 'Union', 'Storm', 'Lee', 'Cable', and 'Healer'. Each was metal with a glass strip showing the liquid inside, each a different color. "Holy Shit, that was my dad!" I exclaimed.

Herb looked at me, confused. "The vials were your dad?"

"What? No! That one," I pointed to the 'healer' vial, "is what my dad picked from the CYOA. If it's here then he must be too!" I blinked as pieces started to fall into place. "He was that other guy." Seeing Herb's blank look I explained. "In that prismatic hell where we were falling. The black and grey thing was him."

"The laughing thing?" Herb asked dubiously.

"When he's in a lot of pain he laughs," I said. "I do the same thing, but I've never been that badly hurt when you're around. Shit, shit, shit, who is he?" I asked.

"Wait, What?" Herb asked. "You just said that he was your dad."

"Yeah, but he chose to be inserted as an adult CEO, in the world. That means while he'll still be him, he won't look like him, and will already have an identity and everything."

"Well," he said, thinking about the problem. "You still look like you, right?"

"Yeah?"

"So even if you can't recognize him, he should still recognize you. You can still poke around a little, but let him find you. Way easier."

I sighed in agreement, turning my attention back to the case. We left the vials in their foam cradles as Herb took out the computer and tried to boot it up, but it was out of power. The phone wasn't, and unlocked at Herb's thumbprint, the opening screen showing us a map application, leading from our location to somewhere in the trainyard. Flipping through the booklet, the first page had "Entry Code: 68623762678537", the following pages being contact numbers for services with prices, for everything from body cleanup & new identities to a dog sitter and food delivery.

"This is gonna be useful," I commented, flipping through, taking pictures of the pages with my phone to add later. Looking over and seeing Herb trying to get away from the map app on the phone without success I posited "I think that's your secret base, and the phone won't let you do anything else until you get there."

"That sucks!" he responded, slipping it in a pocket inside his suit jacket.

"What happened when you met them?" I asked. While the booklet was interesting, the electronics seemed a bit. . . lacking.

"Oh, you know. Stuff."

I rolled my eyes, walking over to the living room. "Boojack, wake up, where going to someplace that hopefully has power."

He was up in an instant. "'bout time!" he said as he passed me out the door. "This place sucks."

I followed him out, helping Herb repack his case before walking out.

We walked at a moderate clip, starting to leave the subdivision when my sight activated, a girl with grey and yellow flames jogging down the other side of the street. I almost tripped, but kept on my feet as I tried to appear nonchalant, the girl giving the three of us a glance as she kept on moving, her power reaching out in every direction, but the connections were passive, not active, and my copying slid off of the tendrils of her power.

Herb waited until we were a few blocks away before asking "Was that?"

"Taylor?" I responded. "Yeah, she's got Telepathy Based Anthropod Control. That's it. It's limited to keep her from noticing things below a certain size, and would also probably work on worms, but there's nothing else. No secondary power for multitasking, or anything like that, it's just she can connect her mind to bugs, and the completeness of the connection is reliant on her." I reached down and picked up the ant that her power had connected to on my pant leg, tossing it onto someone's lawn. "She wasn't doing anything other than connecting to them, so I didn't pick it up though."

"But, she controls them independently!" Herb tried to point out. "No way that's not a power."

"Skill, probably born of need." I argued. "In the book she spent a week in the psych ward because her connections were wide open. She probably forced her brain to adapt, along with her power helping, before she drew it down. I could probably do it too if I did that once I got her power, but it explains why Grue couldn't do more than general commands when he borrowed it."

"Damn," Boojack chimed in behind us. "That's impressive."

"Yeah!" Herb agreed with himself. "She's so on my team!"

I cocked an eybrow. "You mean our team."

He looked a bit guilty. "Yeah, sure, that."

"Herb. No poaching capes," I reprimanded. "I know we're going at this different ways but we're on the same team."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, sure, whatever."

"Do I need to call dibs? Because I will if that's how we're playing it."

"Children," Boojack rumbled.

"Hey!" we responded in unison, before looking at each other and laughing.

"Okay," I said after we got our giggles under control, Boojack giving the occasional long-suffering sigh. "So, we're going to the railyard, which I think is right on the border of Merchant and ABB territory."

"Two groups who want to kick our asses. Thanks, Numberman," Herb commented.

"What did you do Herb?" I outright asked him, prompting Boojack to start laughing.

"Nothing happened." He told me, before turning to Boojack. "And don't tell him!"

The replicant waved him off. "It'll be funnier if he hears it from you, 'cause you'll fuck up telling him about it."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Not today!" he insisted. I shrugged, hoping that since today was better, it wasn't going to blow up in our faces. "So, between two groups that want to kill us."

"The ABB will only be after me. They won't know you were there," I corrected.

"I sucker punched Lung!" he argued.

"Lung's not gonna recognize you because it was my ass he was concentrating on fighting. He knows I had a friend, but won't connect it to villain you, just a black guy I was with."

"Just your ass?"

Of course that's what he would focus on. "It was a really shitty fight"

"All he saw were your eyes," Boojack pointed out.

"They're distinctive eyes!" I retorted, to which BJ nodded.

"Besides," I reasoned. "With all the shit we stirred up yesterday, the PRT's gonna be out in force, which means they'll lay low for a couple of days. Well, until Lung gets captured, then all hell's gonna break loose." We walked for a few minutes considering what was going to happen, or at least I did.

"So," I started, addressing another issue to break up the monotony. "The Vials. We've got your three, my two, and the one dad picked out. They're all stupid strong as vials go."

Boojack hmm'd in agreement. "DM said they were from their special reserve, and we only got 'em 'cause Contessa picked them. You know what that means?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "They have a collection of vials they made at first before they learned how attenuate the negative effects to cut down on mutation. Between that and the freshness of the materials they'll probably kill you, but if they don't, holy shit. That's the run that created Hero and the Triumvirate. They don't use them because of the dangers, both if they don't use them, and if they do and can't control the result."

Herb looked at his case impressed. "And we know these work so. . . Holy shit. What happened when they used them at the end of the book when Scion wrecks everyone's shit?"

I snorted in disgust. "They don't. It's why I didn't go down that path, even though it would have made a more powerful character. They play things too close, relying on having so many contingencies they don't figure out what to do when shit gets really bad, wiping out their base assumptions they made all their contingencies on in the first place. It's the reason that Taylor has to step in, even though what she has to become. . ." I shivered. Herb shot me a questioning look. "Don't ask. Bad things happen when you start modifying the brain to increase power potency, and while I'll keep the Khepri option available, it's some last resort shit."

He took a moment to process that. "Fine, so, you know who you're gonna give your vials to?"

I perked up. I'd planned for this last night, and this was a great chance to see if my plans from then had been flawed. "I've got one: a minion master type with super high survivability that'll be great for Danny, but the other, I've got no idea."

Herb winced. "Yeeeah, Danny's not the best choice."

"But," I reasoned. "If he has powers than that means Taylor won't have to cut him out and have more of a support structure."

"Okay, here's the thing. . . The guy. . . He's a nice guy," I nodded. That was one of the reasons I was willing to give him powers in the first place. "But," Herb paused again. "He doesn't have the, wherewithal, to. . ."

"Do what needs to be done," I supplied, kinda seeing where he was going, even if I didn't agree.

"He's too idealistic," Herb agreed.

"You'd think working for the dockworker's union would have gotten rid of that," I tried to argue, even as my traitorous mind connected dots I hadn't realized existed, that Herb had read with a glance. "But-"

"But it didn't." he finished. "He doesn't want power, even when it would help him. He thinks he's being moral by doing things the hard way, takin' that shit on himself. It doesn't help anybody, but he feels better not takin' shortcuts, but with what we need to do, we need all the shortcuts we can get. And if he finds out Taylor has powers. . ." he trailed off, searching for the right phrasing. "When he finds out that Taylor's done some bad shit to get a lot of good shit done, he has a hard time accepting it. Even when he knows that's when she needed him most."

I sighed, nodding. "When he found out she was sneaking out, he locked her in, the kitchen I think? How does that work? Anyways, he locked his daughter, who not even six months previously had been locked in a space, albeit smaller, and had a psychotic episode, in without thinking about the fuck he was doing, because he was the parent, and had the authority, which he was losing, so he felt like he had to do something. Right. Damn. No vial for him. Now I need to find two people."

"Sorry," he offered.

I waved away the apology. "Nah, you're right. Damn, who do we give these two. These things are crazy, even more so than the standard vials. We're all like, hey there normal person! Have some superpowers! Have more powers than me."

Herb laughed. "We did make them damn powerful."

I nodded. "Nothing I couldn't defeat, though maybe more than you could. It's kinda interesting that as the story went on, the number of normal hero dropped to practically nothing? Isn't that, like, para-privilege or something?"

Herb waved away my concerns. "It's just they can't effect the plot, and are too used to getting their asses saved."

I nodded. "The Superman problem, verging to Jedi problem territories?"

Boojack piped up. "Superman I get, save people enough they get stupid 'cause they expect to get saved, then mad when they don't 'cause it makes 'em look stupid for bein' so weak, but Jedi?"

"Right, So," I started as we entered the central railyard, Herb pointing the way as he followed his phone. "You have the Jedi right, and anyone can potentially be one. They're superpowered, with the same base powers and different specializations, and their philosophy is kinda fucked after the Ruusan Reformations-" I saw that I was losing him. "Basically, they want to go around and help people, so the government lets them, but any resource the government doesn't have to use, it cannibalizes for some other department that's clamoring for the funding, even if they don't need it. There's also the brainwashing, and philosophical problems, but that's why it's not a full on Jedi problem. This government," I waved around indicating the city around us, "On a city, state, national, and even global scale has gotten so used to heroes fighting villains, and normal crime, that police forces and militaries have atrophied except for the occasionally paranoid group. They've adapted to endbringer attacks, but only so much as to evacuate or shelter, not fight, so even that is pushing the world towards collapse, which is why Cauldron wanted the Golden Morning, Scion's rampage, to happen sooner rather than later. But that also means that when shit goes down, and something that is to endbringers what endbringers are to capes starts wrecking shit, everything collapses, because everyone pushed it off on the capes, who aren't ready for shit that bad. When everything goes down everyone retreats to their enclaves and starts raiding each other in the chaos, all telling themselves they could handle the problem if it came for them, and not willing to weaken themselves in the slightest by helping someone else. It's a 'First they came for the protectorate, and I didn't help, because I was not protectorate' problem that ends with everyone dead if they aren't forced to."

"So Taylor," Herb started.

"No! We're not trying that unless everything completely goes to shit, and it won't because we're not fucking morons. Cauldron threaded that needle, and only managed to not make a problem almost as bad as the previous one because of the specific circumstances of her experiences. They had to thread the needle, because they let the highway get blown up, the tunnels flooded, their planes wrecked, and their hallways demolished, leaving only the smallest of openings to pass through. While maybe replicable, I'll be doing my damndest to make sure it never comes to pass." I commanded.

"Sheesh man, I was just asking," Herb placated. "Besides we're here."

All three of us looked at the abandoned warehouse in front of us, dilapidated to the point I felt like I was going to get tetanus just looking at it.

Boojack voiced what I was feeling, "Dude, Our base looks like shit."