I Don't Own Worm nor Hearts of Iron
"Isaak, what is the meaning of this?" I heard my mother yell.
I opened eyes and turned towards the window and noticed it was dark. "I overslept!" I rushed out as quickly could. I hastily put on clothes and drained the tub before running downstairs. Mother was furious with me as she held up my blood-soaked shirt from this morning.
"You better have a good explanation for this" Mother said as she did her best cold-hearted librarian stare. "Ugh...would you believe me if I fell down some stairs?" I tried joking to lighten the mood but it was obviously not working my mother wasn't having it.
"No, now please explain why your clothes are soaked in blood." She said sternly as she tossed the shirt onto the table.
I really did not want to have this conversation right now. How am I going to explain to her I was shot two times and that ABB are the ones responsible for all of this? How am I going to explain my trigger and my powers?
"Please answer me." as a tear went down her face.
This brought me back to reality as I needed to answer her somehow before things get out of control."I got shot." I admitted reluctantly. I spent my time thinking on the PRT, and ABB I have forgotten about my mother.
"Where?" She asked suddenly "Please take off your shirt. I'll take you to the hospital and then you're going to explain what happened!"
"Mother I'm fine, I'm fine, please you don't need to worry about me. Mother if I said I was a parahuman what would will you do?" I asked, hoping to catch her off guard to force her to calm down and think a bit.
"I would ask you to explain yourself," She said as she took a sip of coffee. She took a seat, and sighed "Isaak what am I going to do with you".
"Um...I got shot by the ABB, then I triggered, and I ran straight home" I explained.
"Oh, is that all?" she asked as if she expected me to admit murder or something heinous like cannibalism.
"Uh yes?" I shrugged as I didn't want to talk about the fact I did kill a man after I triggered.
"What will you do now Isaak?" she asked as if her worries were sated and replaced with her classic serious demeanor she usually used while at work or when solving a problem.
"As for now nothing, though I do plan to be late out at night for some exercises." I fibbed as I did not want to worry mother anymore.
"Okay, just don't do anything too stupid or dangerous." She said before opening her purse and handing me a Benjamin.
"Um, mother why did you give me 100 dollars? And why are you just accepting all of this?" I asked as I thought she would be panicking a bit more than this but instead, she was calm, too calm.
"Because Isaak, a good mother should steer their children in the right path, and support them to the best of their ability. You are a young man now Isaak. I believe you can make some decisions for yourselves." she solemnly smiled before giving a quick peck to cheek.
"Um?"
"Go to sleep son and make sure you are ready for school tomorrow." She said before going into her room.
That went better than I expected. She didn't threaten to get me into the wards or the police. She even did not ask about my powers. Plus she gave 100 dollars to boot.
"I really do have the best mom." I said to myself before going to bed. Got to make her Mother's day present extra special this year.
I took a different path to school that was a bit longer than the other way but this one should be safer, hopefully. I was still a good 10 minutes from the school so I might as well start planning. It has been about a week since I gained these new powers and started a new training routine to get me in shape. Five mile runs in the morning followed my upper body and core training.
I looked at the focus tree and saw Stratagems still had around a few hours on the clock.
What should I do after stratagems? I looked at what directly connected to stratagems and found myself with some options. One opinion was going down the naval path or aviation path, but the problem was I don't think it would help me with my current goal has staying hidden and planning the destruction of all major gangs in this city. Those paths required substantial infrastructure prerequisites and equipment I don't have. This left with me political and industrial focuses. The first industrial focus is called Equipment Effort One.
Equipment Effort One: An Army needs equipment to fight.
14 Days
Effects
One Factory from Earth Aleph: Sends items produced into inventory
This focus can get me some equipment to fight with as I'm not some flying brick-like those Alexandria packages. I'd be sort of like Miss Militia but it does take 2 weeks to research.
However, those political ones are interesting as well as they can directly help me with the Gangs. The current political ones I could do after Stratagems are War Plan Black which dealt with Empire 88, War Plan Red dealt with ABB, War Plan Blue dealt with Merchants, War Plan White deals with PRT and the government, and War Plan Gold deals with Independent Capes. Each War plan dealt with a specific threat I could face and give a specific limited-time bonus against each faction that can be activated from my character page once I unlocked it. One example is War Plan Black.
War Plan Black: It's plain to see that Empire's 88 politics and expansionism goes far beyond any measure of sanity. They must be destroyed before they take over the city.
One Day
Effect
Decision unlocked: Execute War Plan Black
40% Attack Bonus against any member of Empire 88
40% Defense Bonus against any member of Empire 88
The main problem with these focuses is it has a prerequisite that states sufficient information is required to research them so if I can't find enough information online I have to get the information physically. Of all those, I believe war plan Blue would be the easiest to achieve as out all those factions they are the weakest faction though I would defiantly like to research all of them because you never know what could happen.
As for my two researchers, I think I will take the first tinker tech research which is Minions One and Support Equipment One after the two current researches finish up. Minions One creates robots that can spy and fight when the time comes for my offensive into gang territory and Support equipment for the machine gun. The mortar could be useful for later offensives and sieges.
Minions One: When Manpower is low, it is time to consider an alternate means of filling in the ranks
7 days
Effects
Allows for the manual and factory-made basic robots
Support Equipment One: Automatic weapons are a necessity on the modern battlefield. Mortars have proven their place on the battlefield as mobile artillery. It is essential for the continued development of these weapons
7 days
Effects
Allows for the construction and use of support equipment (IE: MG 08/15 and 7.58cm Minenwerfer)
Adds one MG O8/15 and 7.58cm Minenwerfer to inventory
Though the downside is these droids will simple in form and the fact support equipment one looked like WWI equipment based off the picture. In any case, these are necessary for the future of my plans as If I had to classify myself right now I would be a thinker and tinker combo as I found school easier and this power literally allows me to 'research' how to build tinker tech though I wonder if building droids classify me as a stranger?
I willed the screen away as I approached the school as I did not want to alert anyone of my new status. Though now I wonder if there are any parahumans in this school. If there were, they are very good at hiding.
I wandered through the hallways as I did my best to ignore the idle chatter of people who had too much free time, but then I felt someone put a hand on my shoulder.
"Isaak you should come with me." I heard a raspy voice say to me.
I turned to face the pest and found the head of Empire 88 at our school Fernidnad Model. He was a senior at our school and he was at least 90 pounds heavier than me and 6 foot 3 inches, a good 6 inches taller, but despite his obvious size advantage, he was a slow ugly dullard who lacked finesse. So if a fight ever broke out I can outrun the idiot
"Model I have no interest to join your 'association'. Besides, I doubt you need me to show up the ABB kids." I replied calmly.
"But Isaak, even you know there is strength in numbers. We can use the help against those ABB chinks. Think about it, we Germans must stand against the lesser races. He replied as he tried to show some sort of twisted camaraderie.
"Sorry but no thanks." I firmly replied.
Finally getting the idea to back off Model scowled. "Be careful where you walk Isaak, some consider you a race traitor." Model said threatened while he handed me a flyer before he hobbled away like an overweight penguin.
"Hmph, what a useless threat. This is the ninth time he said something similar to that." I mumbled to myself before entering my first class while tossing the flyer in a bin.
After school finally ended I activated my power and three pop-ups immediately showed up
Stratagems Completed
Urban Commando One Completed
Construction One Completed
I felt a sudden headache as I felt knowledge I previously did not know, enter my mind rapidly till it eventually subsided.
"Scheisse, that hurts." I said to myself as I held my hand to my head till I went back to the screen
With those done, I started up Minions One and Support Equipment One. But as for the focus I looked between War Plan White and Equipment Effort One. Hmm, I don't have a pressing need for equipment right now so; I'll do War Plan Blue and then Equipment Effort One. Tonight I will do my first mission as a cape in scouting out the Merchants, I reaffirmed to myself as I entered my house.
I looked at the newly unlocked tabs started with the resource tab and then another pop up appeared in the top right corner that read.
Resources are used in factories and tinker tech. To acquire you can trade the factories for a steady supply of resources from Earth Alepth or manually acquire them yourself by finding and placing them into your inventory which will then transfer to the resource tab.
I looked at my resources and I had nothing. No Steel, oil, tungsten or any other vital resources. Hmm, I think I can scavenge plenty of steel and aluminum from the boat graveyard but as for the rest. I'll need to trade.
I switched to the map tab and found it rather interesting. It had a local mode that can be on at all times on the top left portion of my vision and a city mode that will fill out as I discover locations. The city mode will also highlight faction territory and then a global mode which showed who controls what territory, and their ideology. Currently, America is at 70% democratic, 20% nonaligned and then rest were communist or fascist.
"Guessing the rise in non-aligned and other ideologies stem from the slow decay of the American government's control is due to a struggling economy, Endbringer attacks, and the rise of parahumans." I commented as I switched to the Personal stats tab.
As soon as I opened the new Tab I swamped with information as every stat had a simple explanation attached to it.
There were was only five stats that it measured: Health and strength. Which was self-explanatory but the more interesting part of the first section was the fact damage to health was affected by the defense and that I regenerate 20% of missing health every 4 hours making a regen brute of sorts. Defense is affected by the clothing I wear and Attack was based on the weapon I had equipped plus my strength and any bonuses I acquired. Stealth was based on the stealth rating of my clothing, plus or minus my actions and the time of day.
Isaak von Königsberg
Health: 100/100
Attack: 5.25
Defense: 1.05
Strength: 5
Stealth: 5
Underneath the stats were the Commander traits which gave me traits based on what I do. Currently, I have none which was understandable since I haven't done anything yet. Though I have Urban Commando One from researching it.
Urban Commando One: 5% combat bonus in Urban Environments
At the bottom-most section of the page was the decisions section which will allow me to activate a decision when they become available.
Having looked through the new tabs I turned off my screen and opened up the PHO forums to get as much information for tonight's outing.
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Wiki: Merchants
In: Wiki► America ► Brockton Bay ►Groups ►Merchants
The Merchants are a supervillain gang operating in Brockton Bay. Their gang sign was a capital M with two vertical lines through it.
Known Capes:
Skidmark-Shaker?- Produces a Blue glow with unknown effects
Squealer-Tinker/Mover-A Tinker focused on vehicles
Mush-Changer- can form an expanded amorphous or vaguely humanoid body out of loose debris
Only three known Capes? I'm only going to scout and not engage anyone in combat but if I do I'm 100% certain I can take on Squealer and maybe Skidmark. Mush seems to be the most dangerous but seems manageable as long as I surprise him before he can form any limbs.
I turned off my small laptop and headed to the restroom to change into that uniform I received from Urban Commando One.
I looked in my inventory and pulled the Mauser and the new uniform. The uniform was very archaic with it resembling a stormtrooper uniform from the Great War. The only thing missing would be a gas mask. I have a sinking feeling that any equipment I researched that had the suffix one would be straight from the Great War. Well, beggars can't be choosers.
I put on the uniform and I would have to say I looked rather good in it.
+5 defense
+10 stealth
That is a nice little bonus but the problem with the uniform is that my entire face is exposed and you always have to cautious.
I exited the restroom and looked through my closet to find something that will cover part of my face without it being a loud color. I finally found a black half-mask that I used once when mother and I went on a short vacation to Canada last year.
After I put everything I wrote down a little note for my mother saying that I will be out a little longer than usual.
With everything out of the way, it was time to begin my mission.
I waited on top of a small abandoned building near the boat graveyard waiting for the merchants to show themselves. Based on what I found scouring the internet the Merchants usually hung out close to the boat graveyard. The problem was they could be at any one of the abandoned warehouses right now making this a waiting game.
At a little past 11, I spotted Squealer's vehicles using binoculars. There were three large truck-like vehicles with some blonde bimbo driving with a man wearing a blue mask that covered part of his face.
"Skidmark and Squealer. Now, what are you going to do?" I asked myself as I pulled a journal from my inventory and began to write down everything I saw in detail.
Skidmark jumped off the truck and began walking towards a man in a hood with a briefcase.
"So this is where he gets the drugs from."I commented as I continued to observe that operation.
I continued to watch the exchange for another hour before the Skidmark and the hooded man exchanged some cash for the briefcase. Skidmark dumped the case in the lead truck before telling Squealer to drive away.
Prerequisite completed War Plan Blue is ready to be researched. I started the research immediately and decided to go home so my mother won't get worried.
I exited the abandoned building a heard a slight whistle and then suddenly I felt the sting sensation of something piercing my shoulder.
12 damage
Moderate Bleed status inflicted -20 Health over the next hour
"Feiger hund show yourself!" I shouted as I pulled the bolt out of my shoulder and dumped it into my inventory.
I got no answer as I took cover behind a wall and pulled out my rifle. I felt my heart start beating harder than when I was in between those two trashcans because whoever shot was an expert shot or perhaps a parahuman. However, this person needed to die or retreat.
I need to find him so I get a clear shot. But I don't want to get shot while looking for him.
An idea began to form in my mind lands I pulled out my binoculars and slowly raised over the window until a bolt hit the binocular.
-1 health
It came at a horizontal trajectory which means he was at street level I concluded as I unpinned the safety on the rifle. And pulled myself up from my position and found nothing.
"Where is he?" I mutter to myself as I made upstairs to get a better position.
Suddenly two bolts came out nowhere and struck my helmet and the barrel of my rifle.
"Fick his power allowed him to shoot through walls!" I grunted to myself as I dashed upstairs to the roof as fast I could.
"Predator and prey, that is the natural order of this world. You are my prey Nazi and I am the predator!" I heard some girl say before another bolt sliced a part of my left arm.
4 damage
Minor bleed effect inflicted -5 health over 2 hours
"You dumb die zicke, I'm not a nazi" I yelled back knowing it won't change anything but being accused of being a Nazi was something will not stand for.
-1 health
I got to the roof and knew what I had to I began to sprint as fast as I could and made a jump over to a nearby building before taking aim at the door I just came from.
I saw something smokey come from the door and took a shot. I still saw the smoke and took another shot. The smoke was still there and it slowly began to retreat down the stairs.
"She is not dead yet" I scowled at the fact there was some rouge parahuman out there who had her sights on him. I'll need to research this new threat my seeing if there were any known capes here that can turn into smoke.
"Isaak you're a bit-what happened to you." She said with worry as she hurriedly took off my top and ran to get a first aid kit.
I looked at my health and I still had 79 health which means I will be fine but getting rid of that annoying bleed effect would help in the long run.
"Sit," Mother said as she began to clean my wounds."That wound in the shoulder is deep my little junker."
"I know but my power will heal most of it overnight, so can you just stop the bleeding for now?" I said reassuringly.
"Of course, but please don't do anything like this again till your fully prepared," She said sternly as she finished wrapping my wound in my shoulder with bandages.
"Of course mother." I said as winced as she began to use rubbing alcohol on the cut on my arm.
"Good now tell me, who attacked you?" she asked.
"I don't know but I plan to find out," I said with a hint of venom.
"So how was your solo patrol," Dennis said as she walked past by.
She didn't bother responding to that weakling and began to brood over the man she fought. He was too weak to be parahuman but he did have a gun and would've killed her if she was not in her shadow state. She could respect prey that was willing to put a fight but prey was prey and predator always slaughter their prey eventually
"Next we meet again I will make to use my more lethal bolts." She muttered to herself.
Author's notes
Thank you guy for support and reviews. I'm currently on a roll so a third chapter is already in the making but I'll need to take a break from this story to work on my main project. Also, have fun with German swear words.
Edit-Some quick changes such as bolding game popups to help differentiate the text