Turbulence 2.9

A/N: Yeah yeah I know. Just when you think this fic is dead - BOOM, an update! What a terrible tease you are, Verlotorium.

What can I say, life's been pretty hectic as of late, but hey, I got the chapter out and that's what matters in the end. I'm still hoping my schedule clears up a little so I can devote some more time to my writing hobby =).

[Wednesday, September 3rd, 2014. 6:03 A.M]

Brendan

Things could've been worse.

In the week or so since he'd crawled out of that wreckage, Brendan had somehow managed to regain a semblance of a life. Sure he was stuck prowling the streets for food after the fifth time a grocery store owner chased him out and he had to sleep out in the open, but at least he was alive. More importantly, he was free.

Brendan - no, that wasn't his name anymore. He didn't know what he'd call himself, but Brendan O'Dyne was dead. He didn't have anyone left in the world to care for him. His husband had died in the Gold Morning, as had most of his coworkers in his marketing firm. The only thing that had saved his life on the day of the attack was a stroke of luck. He'd been on a coffee break, and had walked back only to witness a ball of golden light crash into the building he worked in, bringing it crashing to the ground. His parents had also perished in the bombardment over Richmond, as had all the other members of his family that he actually cared about.

He'd wallowed in misery for what felt like an eternity, before waking up under a surgical table, and that was the last thing he'd remembered clearly. After that, he'd occasionally woken up during his confinement - drugged out of his mind each time, before being promptly put back to sleep minutes later. The whole experience had been a long, terrifying, and surreal nightmare for Brendan.

Then, almost completely out of the blue, he'd found himself trapped between several pieces of collapsed steel beams, his body vivisected into shreds. Brendan would have expected something like that to be painfully lethal, but his body had respectfully disagreed. To him, it was more like a dull, unpleasant ache, although the experience had been pants-shittingly terrifying. With a panicked thought, he had commanded his body to pull itself together, and he slithered and climbed his way out of the burned husk of a building only to find himself somewhere near Riverside park.

He still felt human, and he still had his memories from before his abduction, but he was obviously no longer human. It was peculiar how his little...mutation worked. Whenever Brendan thought of an animal, parts of his body would take on characteristics of that animal, and he was still struggling to gain control over the spontaneous transformations. However, no matter how hard he tried, he could never get his body to shift towards fully human characteristics.

Brendan had found out painfully that whatever had caused his horrific mutation had sent his appetite had gone through the roof. He found himself craving...biomass, in any shape or form. It was hard to put word to the cravings, but he just needed to eat. Normal food still tasted like normal food, but somehow he'd started finding leftover organic garbage palatable. The stuff almost managed to taste like chicken to him now, which is how he found himself digging away at a meaty pile behind a bar in Little Italy at the break of dawn. Brendan just wanted to be left alone, to mope a little, to mourn, and figure out what the hell had happened to him, and how he could get his life back together while looking like a supervillain's mad science experiment, which is what he supposed he'd become. The world had turned into a really strange place in such a short time.

...

Unfortunately, people just seem to want to leave him alone these days.

"I'm afraid you are going to have to vacate this neighborhood, sir. The Mistress has ordered me to remove any wayward bystanders from the premises, and you are trespassing on a rather important errand."

"MMMrrrrggg"

Brendan ignored the speaker, opting to continue chomping on the garbage in the dumpster. The panicked squeak of a scurrying rat caught his attention, and he quickly lashed his tongue out, rolling the rodent up using his chameleon-morph tongue with barely a thought.

"Sir, I am going to have to insist that you depart the area, or I will be compelled to remove you by force."

It wouldn't have been the first time a two-bit thug decided to pick on the poor "homeless" guy digging through dumpsters, but they'd found out the hard way that a silverback gorilla with the reaction time and agility of a mongoose was something they didn't want to mess with. There wasn't much a beat cop or two-bit street thug could really do to threaten him when he chose the right animal combinations. He'd learned that much over the last week.

Brendan felt a hand land on his taloned feet, and he snorted in derision. He looked up at the person interrupting his meal with a half-hearted side-eye. It looked like the person standing over him looked like he was one of superhero wannabes that started running around. Brendan had run into quite a couple of the lunatics since the Golden Morning, and most of them gave up pretty quickly once they realized they didn't have real superpowers.

Brendan really didn't need a clown in an over-the-top costume straight out of a renaissance faire telling him what to do right now.

"Beat it kid" he grunted, raising himself out of the dumpster and turning to look down at the spindly teenager standing beneath him. A creature with the head of a wolf, torso of a gorilla, bat wings, and a scorpion tail made for quite an intimidating sight for anyone to behold. He hated having to puff his chest out to get a point across, but people were seriously lacking in common sense nowadays.

Strangely enough though, the figure below him didn't so much as bat an eye. If Brendan still had eyebrows, he would have raised them. Just who the hell was this kid? What if he actually had superpowers?

"I'm afraid that I cannot abide by your request, Beast. My mistress has ordered me to forbid anyone from entering or leaving the premises. I do warn you that if you persist in your scavenging here, I will have to vacate you by force."

Brendan groaned. "Come on boy, quit your method acting crap. Can't you just let a fellow bum around in peace?"

And of course, that was the last thing Brendan knew before he found himself hurtling down the alley, straight into a solid brick wall.

-ooo-

[Wednesday, September 3rd, 2014. 12:42 P.M]

Taylor

I was annoyed.

No, that was probably the understatement of the century.

"This way!" I shouted, dragging Holly to the side and into an alleyway.

I had been held hostage in a bank no more than a couple of days ago, which had been pretty painful and humiliating. Now, after spending the better part of a day ruminating on how well everything had been going, I'd suddenly found myself caught in the crossfire as a freak with a spear tore up downtown Manhattan.

We had all rushed out of the restaurant to gawk at the standoff between the spearman and bat-winged cape, while I figured out how I could clear the crowds and get everyone away from the action. Before I could really do anything, the two capes had abruptly charged at each other, creating a shockwave that could be felt down the block. While everyone else had stood to gape in shock, I had grabbed Holly's hand and led her to the side.

"Why are we back here?" Holly whispered. The narrow passage between the buildings had insulated the screaming outside so that I could actually hear her through all the commotion.

"Taking cover" I replied with gritted teeth while peering around the corner, "The last place we'd want to be is in a stampeding crowd of panicked civilians. We're also less likely to get caught in the crossfire between two Brutes brawling while we're hiding back here. We'll wait for an opportunity and take it when the streets are cleared out, or we'll wait it out."

Although the Case 53 was visibly larger than the blonde spearman, their clash had caused the chimera to fly back into a two-story tall Chase building. The shockwave from his impact had shattered every panel of glass in the building. That had shaken the spectators out of their collective stupor, causing panic to ripple through the crowd. The spearman dashed from side to side in a blur, before hopping in after the Case 53.

A couple of foolish civilians stayed behind, taking cover near the battle and recording the capes clashing with their camera phones. I made a mental groan towards the people recording the fight. Didn't people on this world have any common sense at all? One unlucky move by the capes and they'd find themselves splattered on the pavement.

"Brutes?"

I turned to see her eyeing me with an inquisitive yet nervous look.

"Worlds that had parahumans before Scion attacked classified them by their general capabilities" I answered. "The 'Brute' classification was one of the ones that jumped out to me. Brutes are parahumans that are some combination of big, strong, and tough or possess some other method of self-protection."

"Wow, I had you pegged as someone who really isn't into all this cape stuff."

"I've been reading up on Earth Bet classifications" I deflected, gesturing to my stump. "That information has become available online lately, and I figured I'd read up. Helps me cope, you know? I...kind of lost my arm last year to goldie boy."

"Yeah...sorry about that bringing that up" she murmured, looking down meekly.

I briefly debated on explaining further. I had taken well to the shaken girl standing in front of me, but I didn't exactly know her well enough to trust her with anything that could reveal my past life. I had to be careful if I wanted to stay anonymous.

I flipped open my cell phone. I'd taken a shot of the scene unfolding and sent it to Val, and it looked like she'd finally gotten back to me.

[Guardian injured confronting them. Help on way.]

Alex injured? 'Help on way?' Well that wasn't reassuring in the slightest. Val didn't have any tech to directly put down the two Capes fighting up the block, and Jon was an un-blooded greenhorn. Sirens were quickly approaching, but police would be completely useless against a pair of mid tier Brutes. I also couldn't exactly drown them in insects like I used to be able to. Still, Holly was my responsibility and I had to prioritize getting her to safety over actually finding a way to put a stop to the rampaging capes, if I even could.

Frowning, I put my phone back into my pocket and brushed over the handle of my knife. If they came this way, I should at least be able to hold them off or get a single lethal hit in if worst came to shove. However, bringing out something like tinkertech would definitely raise too many questions.

I glanced around quickly, surveying our surroundings. There was a fire escape, but with only one arm, I didn't have the pulling strength to drag myself up. Holly didn't exactly look like she was out of shape, but she had a similar body type to me, and I wasn't sure if she would be able to help me up when I only had one arm. Plus I wasn't sure if taking to the roofs would be a good idea.

"Look out!" Holly shouted, suddenly throwing her arms around me and falling sideways to the ground with me in tow. A loud crash followed, and I felt a rain of shrapnel scatter all over my back.

"Are you-" *cough* "okay?" she muttered, holding me tight.

"Yeah..." I muttered, while looking up. An SUV had been sent flying towards our alleyway, sending bricks flying off the edge of the buildings and wrecking the car. Cracks ran up the two buildings at the impact, and dust and paint chips fell from the sides of the building.

The capes duking it out had to have a Brute 3 rating at a minimum. If Holly didn't react as quickly as she did and pull me onto the ground, the car would have seriously injured or killed me. Screams chorused in the air as the battle ramped up, and I could hear the loud screech of car alarms and the roar of earthshaking rumbles in the ground.

Turning and separating from Holly, we stood up, and I drew my phone and took a quick snapshot of the car before sending it to Val. If help was really coming, it'd probably be a good idea to give her an overview of where I was.

"Sheesh Taylor, you really are turning into a New Yorker, aren't you?" Holly panted.

"What can I say?" I shrugged. "We don't exactly see this every day, but I really hope it doesn't become a regular occurrence."

It wasn't exactly a lie, but it was effectively a deflection to the unstated question of why I was taking a picture.

"Amen" Holly agreed. "You know, I think it might be a good idea if we got out of here sooner than later."

I hopped over the busted car, peeking out into the fight down the street. The chimeric Case 53 had turned into a winged Elephant-Gorilla, and he was currently clutching a lamp post and swinging it in a wide berth at the costumed cape. The costumed cape dashed side to side in two or three meter jumps, leaving impact craters wherever he landed. His manic laughter was audible from several blocks away

"I think I would have to agree" I drawled.

I winced as the spearman slid under the chimera's wild swing, before launching himself up in an explosive kick and throwing the Case 53 into another bank. Just where the hell had these guys even come from? Why the neighborhood where I was eating lunch for fucks' sake?

"Help me out here, Taylor?" I turned to see Holly staring up the fire escape. "I think I can get up there and pull you up while I'm at it. Beats staying on the low ground when there are two nutcases tossing cars around.

"I don't know Holly," I hesitated. "If the're tossing cars around casually like this, we might end up getting hit by a stray car tossed into the air if we move up on the roof. Also...are you sure you have enough strength to help me up?"

I bit my lower lip, waving my stump for emphasis.

"We won't know unless we try. Also, don't let me girly looks fool you - I'm a lot stronger than I look, Tay!"

"The roofs here are all connected down to Broadway too. I'm pretty sure we can get away from the fight over the roof. So come on!" She shouted while stomping her feet in an exaggerated manner.

I nodded, and jogged over to wrap my one arm around her legs, boosting her up onto the fire escape. She pulled hard into my movement, and quickly managed to pull herself onto the fire escape. Turning around, she held onto my sides as I jumped up into it, pulling on the fire escape with my one good hand. I felt a strong jerk, and suddenly found myself moving up into the air and belly flopping onto the bottom of the fire escape.

"Okay, let's go!" I huffed, crawling to my feet.

We ran seven or eight flights up the fire escape when I was suddenly rocked by another rumble as one of the capes crashed into the building we were scaling.

Here's what people don't tell you about your arms.

We're actually pretty dependent on them to help us coordinate and balance when we walk. Losing an arm - even after a year, really does have permanently debilitating effects on your balance.

As luck would have it, the blow of the impact was enough to cause me to slip off the rung of a ladder I was scaling. I let out a quick yelp, and flailed around futilely for a second, before I was suddenly flung off the side.

"Taylor!" Holly shouted.

She reached out towards me, and everything seemed to slow down as I stretched my arm out to take her hand. With a stark realization, I realized in that moment that I had tried to use my stub of an arm to try and grab out, and I suddenly found my stomach churn as solid ground vanished from beneath my legs.

It'd be funny, wouldn't it? It felt appropriate, almost fitting in a way. It wasn't an unwelcome end, but a funny one nevertheless. Taylor Hebert, Warlord of Brockton Bay, Most Promising Ward of a generation, Slayer of Scion and greatest utilitarian War Criminal in the multiverse dies by falling off a fire escape because she couldn't keep her damned balance. We were a good nine floors above the ground and I wasn't necessarily going to die, but there was a pretty good chance of it.

As quickly as that thought flew by, I suddenly felt a lurch, and found myself falling flat on the ground in a heap, without the bone-shattering snaps and crunches I'd expected.

Wait, why was there a brick wall over my head?

...What just happened?

I felt a hand grab on to my own, and Ilook up to see a pair of light tan eyes behind a ski mask staring into my own.

"Hello, I guess?" I blinked in confusion.

"Um, hi! ...Are you alright?" a girl was standing over me.

I blinked again, still disoriented from my fall and abrupt change in orientation. Taking on her hand, I pulled myself off the "ground". I was somehow sitting flat on the building I had fallen off of, and a girl in a mask was helping me up.

"Woah." I heard from behind me. I turned around to see Holly staring at me from an angle perpendicular to me. The fire escape now seemed to be oriented towards the brick ground I was standing on.

The girl standing next to me rubbed her neck bashfully.

"So uh...I guess you can call me Wallflower. Saw you were in a bit of trouble there and I ran over to help. This is kind of my superpower."

Now that I had an actual moment to collect myself, I assessed the girl who was standing in front of me. She seemed to be around my age, and she wore a pair of baggy jeans and orange hoodie.

Wallflower was a couple of inches shorter than me, but even with the baggy clothes I could make out that she was painfully better endowed and curvier than I could ever hope to be. Despite that, she seemed to be a bit flustered and awkward, and she looked just the slightest bit fidgety and uncomfortable as she glanced at my of missing arm.

"Gravity redirection?" I guessed at her power, breaking the ice.

"Kind of. I can sort of 'mark' someone I'm close to a surface that's perpendicular to the one I'm standing on. If we're both standing parallel to that surface, it gets oriented as the 'ground' with respect to gravity. It's a bit of a trippy superpower, but it worked."

"Anyway, thanks a lot Wallflower, that was a close call" I stated with a small, relieved smile. None of the people in the area were safe by far, but she had just saved me from serious injury or worse.

I heard a clang, and turned to see Holly climb down the fire escape to stand level with me.

"Holy shit!" she gasped. "Taylor you gave me a heart attack !"

"Your friend's safe for now, miss" Wallflower stated, "Now let's get you two on that roof and away from the action."

I nodded, before walking briskly upwards towards the roof with Wallflower following behind me and Holly dashing up the steps. I stared down in curiosity at the next building over. Would I "fall" if I walked forward?

"Just walk onto the roof" Wallflower insisted, "My power...kind of shuts off if you walk onto a perpendicular surface to the one I've attuned you to."

With another step, I felt a spin of vertigo as I walked forward, and suddenly the roof was oriented towards the ground again.

"Whew" Holly huffed, climbing up the stairs after me. "This is already way too much adrenaline for one day."

I opened my mouth to respond, only to have the wind blown out of my lungs by another crash into the building we were standing on.

"HAHAHA YES! SHOW ME WHAT YOU HAVE BEAST! MORE!"

"Holy shit, what a psycho" Holly commented.

Wallflower on the other hand, flinched and her eyes widened in surprise and horror. More importantly, a look of recognition fell across her face, almost as if... could it be?

"Friend of yours I take it?"

"Umn...no?"

Her body language all but chorused bullshit right then and there.

"Cut the crap girl. Do you know that cape?" I growled sharply.

"Hey, hey, hey. Taylor, what's going on? Chill out!" Holly chastised.

"W-why do you want to know?" the cape stuttered.

Dammit Holly, why did you have to be up here with us? If you weren't here I could be way more up front about the fact that I was working with the capes in this neighborhood.

"No reason, you seemed to recognize his voice just now. I just happened to hear a little about a superhero that had gone missing while I was at work over at Phaseshift." I emphasized the last part, hoping she had some sort of link to Val and Alex. My gambit paid off as her eyes lit up in recognition.

"Ok ok, yeah..." the cape confessed, catching on. "We're both members of the Initiative. He's been missing for a couple of days, and now he shows up out of nowhere tearing lower Manhattan part. His body gets tougher when he stays in motion,. and he usually builds it up from a jogging pace. He can do some pretty cool physics, defying stuff with it, but I definitely know it isn't nearly powerful enough to do...to do this! He has a bit of an inferior complex but he couldn't hurt a fly, even at his worst."

"Hahahaha Beast! Is that the best you can do? I haven't even gotten started yet!"

I heard sirens blare up in the horizon, and it struck me that we had to work out a plan fast, before the cops came and turned it into a bloodbath.

I thought about the former doctor I had gunned down in the bookstore a week back. His relatives and friends had stated that he was a kind and hard-working man, and there was footage of him using his Blaster power for precision surgery. Until he had snapped and massacred the book store in a fit of homicidal megalomania, there was no history of any psychotic or murderous tendencies.

The realization of what we were actually dealing with fell upon me in an instant, and I began to connect the dots in my head.

There was a Master running around who could control people.

Capes that were affected by this Master would become insane, egomaniacal, and arguably homicidal versions of themselves with absolutely no filter.

Capes that were affected by this Master gained incredible increases to their power mimicking a second trigger.

This sounded pretty familiar, and I really hoped my train of thought was wrong.

It was just my luck that I'd walk into a city only to have another literal Echidna level disaster on the loose within a couple of weeks, wasn't it?

Fuck.