ct 24, 2019
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#1,110
Centurion clicked on his radio. "Centurion reporting. Tattletale and Skitter left the main ballroom, going for the sideroom."
There was a crackle of static for a moment, before Triumph spoke, in a nasal voice, sounding like his cheeks were smooshed against the floor, "Triumph here. I'm currently foamed, and it seems the Undersiders are making a getaway using the roofs. Armsmaster and Dauntless are giving chase."
"All of the Wards, Glory Girl, Assault and Battery are also foamed, except me, but I've got broken ribs. Should I join the chase?" Centurion radioed in.
Miss Militia answered, snappy and angry, "Stay where you are and heal, we'll send someone to release everyone in a moment."
"But I'm still able to… help," Centurion said, mentally stumbling when he almost said 'fight' instead.
Armsmaster's voice crackled over radio, and he was breathing heavily as he ran, "Can you fly?"
"I can jump really high and far and hover."
"Get over here, then."
Miss Militia was about to object, saying, "But Armsmaster–"
"We have a chance to catch them tonight," the Tinker said, and it ended at that. He almost sounded desperate; not in the way that he didn't have any better option, but in that it was the best option, and it was alluringly within reach.
Centurion ran to the middle of the room and jumped up through the skylight, arms to the side, boosted by a telekinetic push, distributing it evenly and carefully to not upset his healing bone structure.
He landed over the ledge of the concrete, stumbling momentarily before he came to a stop. In the distance, in the same city block as the Forsberg gallery, he could make out the group of dogs leaping over the rooftops in an ungainly manner, with the Undersiders on their backs. Armsmaster was using his grappling hook to give chase, before stopping, skidding, looking over the edge, and dropping down without hesitation.
Dauntless stopped to look at him, even as Armsmaster explained, "Cut them off from both sides." Dauntless didn't respond verbally, merely leaping off the rooftop with his arc-boots firing off sparks of lightning into the air behind him as he flew, almost upright, parallel to the rooftops.
"Yes sir," Centurion said snappily, following Armsmaster's orders and heading for the mid-way point of their routes, aiding his movements with telekinesis every time he had to jump across rooftops.
Centurion kept running, leaping in a rhythm. He wasn't confident that his telekinesis would let him survive if he dropped down from this height; it was over twenty stories. Enough to break all his bones into shards, or at least ones that weren't broken yet.
After several rooftops, Armsmaster declared, "Slow down your approach. We'll fool them into thinking they lost us, I can track them."
"Copy," Dauntless replied sternly.
"Affirmative," Centurion halted himself after landing on a rooftop, taking a few steps away from the edge.
"Centurion, you're on me," Armsmaster ordered. "I'm down the street and to the left of our original direction. Can you get down safely?"
"I could try to hover down, yeah," Centurion stated, looking down the edge.
Damn, that's high. Really high…
Armsmaster sounded impatient. "Go on, then."
Centurion hesitated for a brief moment, working up his courage. He stepped over the edge and started falling, spreading his arms and closing his eyes. He slowed his descent with a telekinetic parachute and began to slow down to a relative featherfall, landing on the ground, causing the dirt to flutter around in a shockwave of his fall.
He took off, reaching Armsmaster's location.
The Tinker had a heavy halberd in his right hand and looked decisively annoyed, soured, like someone really busted his mood tonight. It was recognizable from the crease near the mouth; the frown atop his stoic expression. And also the visible scratches and marks of damage on his armor; his chestplate and back in particular had a set of incisions like one of Hellhound's dogs tried to bite him, but found difficulty in trying to go through the armor.
"Come," he whispered, stepping forward to the next alleyway over and stopping near the corner. Hushed, yet boisterous talking could be heard from the alleyway.
Regent's voice could be heard speaking, with a slight flippancy to it, "–kicked their asses, though. What are you getting your tits worked up about?"
"Because we've been–"
"–followed," Armsmaster interrupted Tattletale dramatically, stepping out into sight at the same time that Dauntless did, on the other side of the alleyway. Centurion stopped next to Armsmaster, cracking his knuckles, the sounds echoing in the chilly night air. It made him look thuggish.
"Surrender," Armsmaster ordered, with no room for compromise in his voice.
"Thinking about it," Tattletale hedged
"Decide fast," Armsmaster answered coldly.
They began to whisper among themselves, discussing something. Centurion didn't hear all of it, but the words, 'ignition,' and 'garage' were in the conversation.
Annoyed, Armsmaster took a single step forward. Non-hostile, but a sign of patience being lost.
In that moment, the Undersiders collectively turned to look at Armsmaster and Centurion. Regent said, "Hey, Centurion."
"What?" Centurion snapped back.
"Go suck a fig tree."
Regent's voice was drowned out as darkness spread from Grue, like a wave of water falling through a broken dam, covering Armsmaster and Centurion and flooding out of the alleyway. Centurion frowned and began to whistle, the sound waves bouncing off of the alley ground and walls, giving him a good image.
Armsmaster moved Centurion to the side, as the smell of burnt ozone filled the air near them, like a lightning bolt just struck the general vicinity. He kept his hand on Centurion's chest, keeping him from engaging with a frown.
There was a large bubble, inside of which was a person with a spear and shield - Dauntless, slowly closing in on the Undersiders.
Dauntless tapped the side of his head in a moment after that. He continued to advance on the Undersiders, driving them closer to Centurion and Armsmaster, where they'd be easily caught. Armsmaster stepped back out of the alleyway, just out of the reach of the black smoke, and Centurion could make out a crackling, static-filled voice saying, "P...T… ans, at o… loca...on..."
Centurion kept watching the exchange, wary that something else might go down. The Undersiders would reach them in roughly ten steps. He began stepping back, getting out of the black smoke and waiting for the Undersiders to pop out of there.
Suddenly, Regent recoiled as his hand scraped against Dauntless' bubble-forcefield for a split second. He moved back, stepping thrice in alarm, then took on an angry appearance and moved his hand. Dauntless stumbled.
Regent moved his hand left, and Dauntless' muscles cramped up as he fell by the wayside. The darkness dropped, and three of the dogs, still giant-sized ran out at Centurion and Armsmaster, while the Undersiders went in the opposite direction.
Armsmaster stepped back in alarm, backing up away from the charging monsters, bringing his halberd up to bear at them. He swung down, scratching one of the dogs in the snout, before it swiped its claw and threw him aside down the street. Armsmaster managed to turn the throw into a controlled tumble, drifting on his knees by the end of the movement.
Centurion hopped back, firing a compact multitude of lasers at the dog's head. It growled at him, barely twitching at the impact, though he noticed a streak of blood exit its mouth from where he'd knocked out a fang. The three dogs all leapt at Centurion, one of them higher than the others, making flying away implausible to work.
Centurion used his newest power, condensing into smoke on the spot and letting the dogs run by him. When he snapped back into human form, some of the residual air pressure almost threw him off-balance, but a telekinetic counter-push kept him upright.
He heard a far whistle, and the dogs reacted, running through the alleyway. Dauntless was just about standing up, when one of the dogs whipped him with its meaty tail as it ran by, like a goodbye bitchslap; Dauntless fell to the ground again with a grunt, then stood up twice as quickly as before, running after them.
Centurion turned to Armsmaster. "Do we pursue?"
"Pursue!" Armsmaster barked, running past Centurion. Rather uncharacteristically, Armsmaster was scowling, with his teeth showing and his nose bent into a sneer.
Centurion ran after them, barely keeping up.
Two of Hellhound's dogs walked into the street, causing traffic to stop, as cars braked and skid to the sides, letting the Undersiders cross safely. Dauntless followed after them, raising his spear and stabbing; lightning fired out with a loud crack, hitting the pavement near one dog. Another two jabs, and the dog's bum was scratched by the lightning, causing it to jump, just as the Undersiders crossed the threshold of a large parking garage. Dauntless fortified his position, crouching and jabbing, firing off cracks of lightning across the street.
Centurion fired a dense laser directly at an exposed dog's eyes, causing one of the eyeballs to pop into a red gruel and cover its entire face in blood.
The beast howled into the sky, bloodcurdling, and Hellhound stopped for a split-second to look. The rest of the Undersiders glanced back to see as the dog reared up, and started growling at least thrice as aggressively as it had ever before. After a moment, Hellhound started walking back, but no longer ran. The rest of the Undersiders stopped when they noticed, and started to holler at her.
Armsmaster stopped in his tracks, raising his halberd and looking around for cover for when the dog would inevitably charge with killing intent.
"Blast it!" Centurion shouted at Dauntless, shooting lasers at the dog's eyes and snout in quick succession.
Dauntless, instead, chose to live and survive the meeting, raising his shield and creating a wide, static field of electricity. He moved forward, to let it cover Centurion as well. The dog stopped, just when it was about to attempt to ram into it.
Armsmaster flanked, moving to the side of the dog and swinging his halberd at the spot where it turned its head to attack him at the movement. He backed up and swung again, managing to catch it as it attacked, forcing it on the backfoot.
Centurion shot another thick laser at the beast's throat, but Regent disrupted his aim by throwing his hand to aim at Dauntless' back. Centurion cringed, while Dauntless cried out and reared up in pain, his shield dropping. The dog turned, its bloodthirsty teeth showing, as it focused its sight, its entire front, and jaws on Centurion. It moved its head down to be closer to the ground, then ran.
Centurion raised his hand, and tried to exert the energy stores of his environmental shield to form a laser. He felt the vessel for energy weaken, almost depleted, as a lackluster laser beam hit the dog in the already-pulverized left eye, causing it to stumble a single step, but not stopping it otherwise.
What the fuck do I do? Shit, shit, shit.
In the middle of his ponderings, the dog rammed into Centurion, sinking its mouth into him. For a brief moment, he saw the insides, as sharp teeth bent through the armor plates with trifling easy, digging into his skin and aggravating the areas where his bones were previously broken.
He heard Tattletale's voice scream, "Stop them!"
A whistle followed, and the dog flapped Centurion around a little like a chew toy, before tossing him to the side of the street. He rolled thrice on the tarmac, before coming to a stop.
Centurion didn't find the force to scream. Everything on level with his shoulder felt hot, yet cold. Mindblowing pain filled his mind, as he coughed up blood inside his helmet and felt a thick mass in his throat, trying to get out of his stomach. On instinct, he kept it inside his body, not letting himself vomit.
Every time he breathed, he felt his lungs scrape against the broken rib shards, splintered and fractured in several areas, not letting him take anything more than tiny intakes.
A stray thought, nonsensical, made him question if Hellhound sharpened the dogs' fangs herself, or if it was a quirk of her power.
He could almost feel the warmth spreading in his chest, the effect of his regeneration power counteracting the deadly cold of the devastation he was dealt.
Centurion tried to prop himself up. He shuffled one arm forward, above his head, then moved the other, and put force into them. His peak-human muscles tensed, pushed, and struggled, but he managed to kneel on the ground.
His internal organs lurched, changing the pressure on the wounds and causing a sharp knife of cold and pain to aggravate every pinprick wound in his chest. He felt the regeneration power, understood on some basic level, that the effort was one step away from breaking his shoulders further, and only counteracted by his healing power creating a rough framework of viscous gel, becoming solid, but too weak and brittle to hold him properly.
His environmental shield flared for a moment, and a construct, like a tight but delicate straitjacket, covered his torso to apply pressure to his chest. He exerted telekinesis on himself, standing up on one leg from his knelt position, then doing the same with the other leg.
He swayed a step, realizing the adrenaline in his veins was distorting his perception. Everything was too bright, too blurry, and at the same time, too clear. He felt like he was having an out-of-body experience, looking at things too much in the present.
The construct ran out of fuel in that moment, causing his organs to lurch down. His bones seemed mostly in place, suspended with a thin wire framework of the gel. Centurion looked at the fight again. His eyes were hurting, and he opted to close them and look at it with his echolocation.
Armsmaster was saying something to the Undersiders, who were all huddled close.
In a van, in the parking garage, there were several people in strange costumes, waiting. One of them seemed much larger, bulkier than the others, and looked almost familiar. Centurion attempted to raise his arm, only to hear a boney crunch sound and a sharp stab of pain in his shoulder, causing the entire limb to sag. It began to throb, hurting even more, ignoring the regeneration effect he just broke by accident.
Centurion's eyes swelled with tears, which began to flow down from under his helmet, down to his neck.
He shuffled, right arm involuntarily banging against a nearby wall, causing a spark of pain to move up to his shoulder. After hissing, he kept leaning against the wall for support, looking around himself.
Fuuuck...
Dauntless was moving towards him, approaching at a hurried pace. "Are you alright?" he asked, looking at the bite wounds. Centurion's eyes sagged down and he saw the streaks of blood; lines of it, running down his silver armor, painting it a rich red.
"Sorry about before… I didn't mean to hit you," Centurion said, choked up. "And… I could be better."
"Regent did it," Dauntless said, head whipping around. "Do you need medical assistance?"
"Yes, I'm not gonna die, but I'm in no state to fight," Centurion stated.
Dauntless used his radio to call in an ambulance, then turned to look at Centurion momentarily. There was a large amount of noise coming from the parking garage now; the sounds of fighting and conflict, with only Armsmaster versus all of the Undersiders, including their giant dogs, and whoever the hell was in that parked van.
"Go help Armsmaster, I'll be fine," Centurion insisted, in a raspy voice, attempting to cough to force the sore feeling in his throat out.
"Alright," Dauntless complied. "You just sit down and rest." His boots flashed, brightening to the point where Centurion couldn't look at him directly, before he blasted off in the direction of the parking garage at high speeds. The sounds of fighting persisted, now with the addition of lightning crackling.
Centurion absently realized that blood in his mouth meant there was blood in his system, either in the stomach or in the lungs, probably the latter. His power was keeping him alive, where someone else would have died two times over.
I could really use Panacea's help right now… or, I'unno, Transfusion's...
Centurion sighed and felt the blood in his throat get moved by the passage of air through his throat, groaning miserably.
For all of the wounding, he was getting better, for a given definition of better. Looking down, he didn't feel any more of the warmth or cold in the wounds that the dog's bite dealt. Only a kind of… vacuous emptiness, and a slight chill from the exposure to open air. Breathing was easier than a minute ago, and he wasn't as dizzy anymore. Why did he get dizzy? He wasn't concussed from a bite. Blood loss? His healing power was focused on rapid stabilization, rather than speeding up long-term healing.
His legs were getting progressively tired, the knees becoming weak. He really shouldn't complain about being weak, given that his body was literally top-of-the-line. Centurion sat down on the ground, then proceeded to lay on the side which hurt the least.
I swear, the next time I play the piano, something else is going to go down. I just know it.
"Hey, excuse me, are you alright?" a girl's voice asked, standing near and over him.
"Well, firstly, no," he grumbled, voice rasped, "secondly, who are you?"
"Uhm, Anna. My name's Anna... Do you need… an ambulance?" she hedged.
Centurion scoffed and waved dismissively. "Psssh, nah. I think one's already coming. Be careful though, villains next-door are fighting Armsmaster and Dauntless," Centurion said, spitting some leftover blood inside his mask. "I could use the company."
"Sssure," she said, highly uncomfortable with being asked to supervise a superhero she doesn't know. She sort of walked up next to him and leaned back against the wall, observing him with a gaze that radiated mental discomfort.
"Sorry about asking you this," Centurion said, sitting up with some struggle, but not as much as before. His shoulders were as good as scrambled eggs, and he couldn't manipulate his fingers very well. Telekinesis helped with balancing things, but it wasn't perfect; each movement still caused a great deal of suffering. He kept feeling the subtle creaking below his neck with even the smallest movements, causing flares of white-hot pain to blank out every other thought when it happened.
It'd have been worse, if not for his powers, and the enhanced physique. If he was still his old self, he'd be unconscious, dying. The thought was not comforting.
"So, what… happened?" Anna asked, eventually.
"Oh, just, giant demonic dogs used me as their chew-toy."
"...What?"
"Yeah. Spoooooky."
"No. I mean… what?" He looked up and saw her squinting away.
"I'm not dead because I have regenerative powers."
"No. That's not what I meant. Look," she said, pointing at the parking garage.
Centurion turned his neck, with a low clicking sound, to look at the garage. What he saw was pretty jaw-dropping. Dauntless withstood an assault from a stream of fire, a sledgehammer cracking against his shield, a wrecking ball doing much the same, and then a car flying at him, being stopped by his forcefield, tumbling over him and then stopping motion atop his forcefield bubble, causing it to drop and causing the car to fly down just beside the agitated Dauntless, who rolled out of the way to avoid another streak of fire and the car tipping over to lie on the roof, before getting up and only now getting a chance to use his arclance offensively.
An unconscious or otherwise disabled Armsmaster was lying down, slumped on the ground in the distance. Centurion could only make the body out by whistling to get a better image.
Centurion raised his arm, which cracked loudly and made him screech involuntarily, every muscle seizing. His brain filled with whiteness for a moment, as he tried again, slower, more careful. His hand gingerly pressed against the radio button, "Centurion he–" he let out a hushed grunt, "–re. Armsmaster seems to be down. Dauntless is left fighting the Undersiders and someone else by himself. We need immediate assistance."
"We're a minute away, the ambulance is right behind us," Miss Militia radioed in, her voice sounding… not deranged, but thrown off-balance.
"Hey," he said to her, "I'm alright. I'm in more pain than I've ever been, but I'm better and I'm not in any risk of death."
"That doesn't alleviate my worries in the slightest!" Miss Militia cried.
Dauntless grunted, as he skidded and rolled head-over-feet several times, flying parallel to the entrance, in and out of sight. It would've been slightly comical if it didn't look like his spine bent the wrong way a few times along the way.
Centurion whistled again, lowly, not using too much breath as to not pressure his lungs.
After several seconds, Dauntless stood up, only to jab his arclance a few times and take cover behind a car. One of the unknown capes touched a car opposite of Dauntless' and caused it to more fly than drive forward, hitting the car Dauntless was using to take cover.
Instead of rolling out of the way, Dauntless raised his shield and pushed the car away with a static bubble, lightning pouring off the sides and licking the concrete floor of the garage, creating black scorchlines and pushing the cars enough as to save himself. He radioed, "I'm taking Armsmaster with me and retreating, over!"
"Good call," Centurion spoke, looking up at Anna. "They're retreating, you should get away from here. Thank you," he beamed warmly.
"Al… alright. You'll be okay, right?"
"Of course. I'm a hero, I'll get back up eventually."
"Okay… bye, then," she said, walking off into the nearest alleyway she could find, looking behind herself every three steps. At some point, she started to jog.
Soon after, Dauntless came out, halberd in his off-hand, Armsmaster slung over his shoulder as he ran in Centurion's direction. A moment after that, three black unmarked vans with no license plates drove out of the parking garage, going in opposite directions. They ignored all traffic laws, passing and weaving between the traffic jams and then into the less-populated streets, while people kept trying to back off from the massive clusterfuck that just happened.
Centurion looked in Dauntless' direction, raising his eyebrows. "What's wrong with him?" he asked, tilting his head slightly, only to curse at himself as he felt his neck squirt some ominous wet clicking sounds.
"Knocked out cold," Dauntless confided. "Some weird… stuff is going on. Trainwreck, Circus, and the Travelers were in there, helping the Undersiders."
"...Some larger forces at work?" Centurion offered this option.
"Or just villains hiring each other to help with a job," Dauntless shrugged, lowering Armsmaster gently to the ground and laying the halberd on the Tinker's knees, putting one of his hands over it. It almost made Armsmaster look like he was conscious and just resting, taking a breather; would look that way on pictures or videos, for sure. "Guess we'll never know."
"But we can know!"
Oracle, did somebody hire the Undersiders, The Travelers, Trainwreck and CIrcus to hit this fundraiser? If so, why?
It began to run.
"Your Thinker power?" Dauntless questioned.
Centurion nodded. "Yeah, as of late it started giving me sociopathic options to questions, but then I just stopped giving it scenarios and just asked it for cold hard facts."
In that moment, the distant sirens became more immediate, as two ambulances and three full PRT vans turned the corner, followed by two cop cars. Notably, the vans had gunners on the turrets. Kid Win followed behind the convoy on his hoverboard, pistols held at his sides as he looked around at the damage, before spotting the trio of heroes and squinting, then recoiling in shock.
The ambulances pulled over nearest to the sidewalk, and paramedics came out, one of them approaching Centurion, while the others got a stretcher prepared.
Moderate to high likelihood that someone hired the Undersiders to hit the fundraiser to damage the reputation of the PRT and make the heroes look incompetent. Possible the others helped due to prior dealings or other complications.
"Yo, Dauntless. I was right," Centurion said, chuckling.
He waved at the paramedics. "I can walk," he related as he attempted to get up by himself, but as soon as he felt the stabbing agony, he sat back down. "Nevermind."
The stretcher lowered itself to the ground, and the paramedics helped Centurion roll on top while minimizing the movement of his shoulders and arms. He cautiously placed them on his stomach, almost like a corpse for a funeral. Least likely he'd move them by accident, that way.
That's when he realized he could have just used telekinesis to stand up. He was getting too tired to think properly, it seemed.
They loaded up Armsmaster onto another stretcher, just as he seemed to regain consciousness, asking about what happened. Dauntless stayed behind, turning to face Miss Militia when she walked out of the PRT van. She took one look at Centurion, and he could see her face darken for a split-second before the ambulance doors closed.
▣#▣#▣#▣#▣#▣
Can someone do me a real solid and start keeping a counter for how many times Centurion was hospitalized or summoned scum and villainy by pressing a piano key?
Last edited: Oct 24, 2019
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#1,168
May 5th, 2011
At the doctors' insistence, he grudgingly stayed in bed, though he was fine enough to walk and use objects. Panacea definitely stuck to her promise, as he did not see her until the late afternoon, somewhere near 5 PM. She was in full costume, accompanied by an out-of-costume Hannah Flores. They walked in on him, leaning back into his bed, handling a TV remote with telekinesis while his hands rested on his stomach. His head turned and he couldn't help but smile cheekily, turning the TV off with a telekinetic click.
"Hey, dunderhead," Panacea said by the way of greeting, singsong, walking up to his bed. "How are you feeling? Do I have permission to get this over with so I can get back to my dull life?"
"Hey, don't ask me," Gabriel opposed, indicating Hannah with a look.
"I already consented," Hannah said, uncharacteristically grim. Usually, she was more neutral, or slightly cocky, with a positive expression under her scarf. Here, she had neither positivity nor a scarf.
"I don't need permission from your parents. Well, in most cases, at least," Panacea said, "I just need one from you. And she already consented."
"Oh, thought it was an emancipated minor thing," he admitted, then went on to say, "Yeah, I consent."
Panacea laid her hand on his shoulder, lightly enough that he didn't recoil at the touch to his fragile bones, then her eyes narrowed a millimeter. In seconds, she asked, "Did you get some kind of healing power?"
"Yup."
"Yeah, I can see that," she expressed vague disapproval, her pupils moving in her eyes as if looking for something only she could spot. "It did rather shoddy work, if I'm honest. Your clavicles and coracoids? Pretty much powdered. You can only move because it's all suspended by some bio-gel, which has hardened enough that it can act as a supporting framework."
"Yeah, I was shot in both shoulders by Tattletale," he stated, recalling yesterday. The moment the bullets punched into him, like someone smashing a golf club into his skin and ignoring as the body dented. "Shoddy or not, it kept me alive."
"Annoying bitch has a good aim," Panacea muttered. "Knew exactly where to hit to disable."
"Tell me about it," he chuckled.
"The bite wounds… bite wounds, right? From the giant dogs?" She glanced at Hannah, who nodded stiffly. "Those are healed up already, but the muscles are… not atrophied. They're… no word for it, just weak; it's like a discount version of human tissue, woven improperly. I'm going to try to, you know, fix those."
He didn't quite understand what she meant. His muscles regenerated wrong? Gabriel shook his head, "Is the regeneration power a problem?"
"Not in the short-term, but I can't really answer that. I'd say those tissues they recreated were maybe fifty percent of their usual strength, but are slowly getting repaired."
"Oh, if you mean that, then it'll take some time before they get back to one-hundred percent."
"Not if I have anything to say about it," Panacea countered. "I don't do shoddy, like whatever alien fluid tried to fix you up."
"That's the spirit," Gabriel smiled and gave her a thumbs-up, but she extended her free hand and pushed it back down to the bed.
"Speaking of fluids," Panacea started, "Did your lungs… leak, at some point? Incisions suggest you had some holes in them. Pretty sure no one... ordinary, would have survived."
Hannah froze in horror for a brief second. Before Panacea could see her properly, she turned away and held her head with both hands from behind as she looked out the window, rubbing it.
"Hey, I'm not ordinary. My stup–"
"An idiot," Panacea interrupted, fuming at him. When he looked up, he saw that her focus fell from his internal organs and to his face, almost scowling. "An extraordinary idiot. I've never, ever, before in my entire career, had the experience of someone coming back to the hospital three times in a row in less than two full months."
"That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me," Centurion said, wiping off a pretend-tear.
"I'm not your friend, I'm your doctor," Panacea stated, even as Centurion felt his shoulders sagging with an internal liberation, like the gasoline of life was filling the holes and flaws; like cement into the broken pavement. "And I prescribe you with dodging next time, okay? Or investing in better healing powers. It'd be nice to have someone else for people to obsess over being a healer, other than me."
"I don't want to be stuck in a hospital touching kids, you kno–" He stopped. "That sounded so wrong on so many levels, I apologize."
"Yeah. I know the feeling," she muttered, dry, "I'd rather not have to touch you as well." This was followed by a very quiet, very seething murmur of something along the lines of, 'selfish bastard,' and 'that wasn't even funny.'
There was a general silence between the three of them for half a minute, as Panacea worked calmly. At some point, Hannah got tired of standing and sat down in one of the chairs near the corner of the room, looking around at the floor and waiting impatiently, looking at them every few seconds to measure if there was any progress.
"Can I ask you something?"
A third of Panacea's will to live seemed to deflate out of her in one sigh, "Go."
"How does your power work, exactly?" he tilted his head, "You mention 'trying' and 'going to' fix, but if your power simply heals, it should do that on its own. Is it a conscious process you do manually?"
The reply was dull, slow, and choppy, every statement separated as if talking to a six-year-old. "I touch you, and I see a map of your body. And then I can look through that map to see the damages. I focus on the damages, figure out the reason of why the damage is damage, and then I fix it. With mental effort."
"Could you un-fix something?" he queried. "Touch someone and, I'unno, snap their tendons to incapacitate them?"
"No," Panacea snapped instantly. "That only works on animals; alterations, I mean. Although, I can tell if someone is lying from their brain activity and heartbeat. Took a while to figure out, but there it is."
"That's pretty cool," his eyebrows went up to his hairline.
She frowned bitterly, trying to conceal it with a smile, which caused the entire expression to come out as an irritated sneer, her voice a little choked, "Not as cool as having the ability to do pretty much anything and spending it on fighting people in costumes instead of joining Watchdog and fixing over tax fraud, money laundering schemes, or organized rackets. Or, you know, healing people with cancer."
He thought for a moment: he didn't want to offend her sensibilities but offer a compromise of some kind. After a few seconds, his brain farted out an idea, "I could create a sort of… healing ghost? You know, like Crusader's ghosts, but they stick around even if I am not around, and they do nothing but heal. So they'd be here 24/7."
Panacea didn't say anything, just frowning.
"And I wouldn't call myself selfish, you know. I help people in a different way."
There was a distant sound of glass breaking, somewhere. Panacea's eye twitched for a split-second before she resumed a dignified, neutral appearance. "Sure," she said, sounding skeptical and shrugging. She didn't argue or say anything else.
Centurion waited for her to finish the job.
After about a minute more, Panacea pulled back, blinking twice, as if she just stopped a movie marathon on Netflix and stepped away from the couch for the first time in five hours. "It looks about right." She looked at Centurion and frowned. "Now go home and eat some calcium, or your arms will snap in half when trying to lift a barbell," she stated, already walking out the door as she spoke. The moment she was out of sight, Centurion heard her sighing with relief.
Centurion nodded and gave her a thumbs up. "Will do. Bye-bye." With that, he turned to Hannah.
Seeing the doctor leave, Hannah rushed to Centurion's bed and embraced him. "It's so good to know you're okay." Her voice was grief-stricken. He felt her hand on the back of his head, rubbing against it.
Centurion smiled and hugged her back, just as tightly. "Hey, mom..."
"I'm never letting Armsmaster give you orders like that again," she said, and added, "I'll shoot him in the knee if I have to." There wasn't a trace of humor in the proclamations, just dead surety.
"I could've backed out at any time, but I didn't. It was my choice," he argued, unsure if he was covering for Armsmaster or himself.
"You make dumb choices, and I reserve the right to veto them," she stated with a chiding tone, looking at him with a grimace.
Centurion laughed and pulled back from the hug. "I'm getting better, though."
She thought for a moment. For a long moment, as if recalling his list of injuries. In the end, she was skeptical, in both voice and expression, eyebrows furrowed. "Are you? It seems to me that every hospital visit gets worse, even if they only last a day or two, with your powers."
"It's because the fights I pick are harder. The enemies I fight are stronger," he justified, mentally blanking for a moment. Did he really pick fights, or was he rushing into them?.
"This is what I was talking about when I said it's not your duty to get into any of this," she shook her head disapprovingly, "Come on, we're going home."
"I have nothing else," he said.
"You have me, you have Crystal, you have your friends," she shot back each statement, snappy and argumentative. A low measure of betrayal was audible.
"Yes," he said, stopping, shaking his head. He didn't want to make her even madder by saying the wrong thing, but didn't want to drag out the conversation. "Nut… that's not what I mean… it's hard to explain what goes through my head, I wish I could just show you directly."
"We are not mind-melding," Hannah warned. "I take too many risks as it is. I don't want to die this year."
"Oh, absolutely not," Gabriel laughed. He sat down in his bed, then shuffled the covers off and stretched his back, feeling the bones pop like bubble wraps, then breathing in. He picked up his duffel bag and walked into the hospital room, putting on his costume, including the helmet on top of the domino mask.
As he changed, she sat down on the empty bed and sighed. "We're going to be having guests over for dinner."
"Oh, who?" he said, sliding his helmet on his head after tying his hair into a neat bun to not get in the way.
"Some friends of mine," she answered absently, lifting the remote and turning on the hospital TV, then turning up the volume. Hannah's voice blinked out, as she entered a state of stunned silence. He couldn't make out a TV from the bathroom.
Centurion got out of the bathroom, looking at the TV. "Are you o–"
The reporter wasn't visible on screen. What was visible was over a dozen mugshots, split into two pictures each: one with a costume, the other without, with names and cape names underneath. Every member of the Empire Eighty-Eight was visible. The voice on the TV kept droning, "–thanks to an anonymous leak given to our station earlier today."
"What the fuck?! How?! How in the hell did that happen?!" Centurion was utterly shocked. Relieved, yes, but shocked.
Hannah took out her work phone, clearly recognizable from the high-tech casing. Miss Militia dialed one of her contacts, then motioned for him to stay quiet.
Centurion kept his mouth utterly shut.
"Yes? Yes, I've just seen the news. How bad is it?" Miss Militia asked in short order, looking out the window as if watching out for something specific. "I see. Yes. Okay. Director, I politely refuse to agree to that. Very well."
She pocketed her phone, and turned to Centurion, looking at him forcefully, like an alpha asserting dominance. "You're going home. Let's get that out of the way, because I know you'll argue."
"What happened?" he asked.
"First, promise me you're going home and you're staying home," Hannah ordered, voice low and harsh, ignoring the question. "And that you'll drink lots of milk."
Centurion started getting worried. "...I promise..." he said quietly, almost suspiciously.
"Well. Medhall's assets were frozen since the CEO was a neo-Nazi. The real problem is that Aster Anders; Purity and Kaiser's daughter, was… taken by child protective services earlier, and… Well, she's a Blaster supervillainess who can level buildings, so do the math! The rest of the Empire is on the warpath, trying to figure out who's behind the leak, and are causing turmoil citywide. It seems they're mostly set against the Undersiders, for whatever reason."
"Who is in danger?"
"I'd say it's wiser to ask who isn't." Hannah shook her head. "That's why you're staying home. You're functional, right now, but not in fighting shape."
Centurion nodded. "...That's… that's fine. But… can I help in any way?"
"By staying home and staying safe," she answered, motioning for him to follow as they walked outside the door, through the busy halls of the hospital.
Centurion sighed heavily and then opted to change the topic briefly. "We… never did talk about Boston, in the end."
She paused in realization, mentally rather than physically: she did not stop walking. "No, I suppose not..." Her voice was regretful. "Do you want to?"
Centurion paused as well.
She needs to go, this situation is dangerous, but…
"You're busy, we can talk about it another time," Centurion gently offered, giving her a smile under his helmet. In reality, he wanted to share badly, get the weight off his chest, but it could definitely wait a few more hours or days while white supremacists were blowing up buildings and throwing Molotov cocktails into crowded rooms.
"Alright." She nodded, then stopped to say something for a moment, thought about it, and shook her head to herself. "I'll see you later, then."
Centurion simply decided to head home, but not before turning on his radio and listening to the chatter.
"Stormtiger and Cricket sighted near Hill Link Street, be on the lookout," console said, to the reply of a PRT squad and Velocity.
Centurion's stance hunched and his gaze reoriented towards the ground in tacit shame, with a tint of annoyance as he strolled, feigning calmness. Yesterday was bad enough, getting defeated by a group of mere thieves, being rendered powerless by them. The idea he couldn't even help now was even worse. He felt absolutely useless. He was benched, and this time, not because of his utter stupidity, but because fate willed it so.
People looked as he walked by, in full armor, but no one really bothered approaching for autographs. Some people took photographs from a distance. Yeah, guys, photograph the dejected superhero; it's a rare find.
He took out his personal phone and sent a text to Crystal, hoping for some relief from his brooding.
Gabriel: Hey there.
Crystal: yo, Hospital Man, what's going on? are you out yet?
Gabriel: just got out, heading home
Crystal: wanna meet?
Gabriel: sure, wanna come over? mom's not home
Crystal: spicy
Gabriel: lol
Crystal: in an hour or two sounds good?
Gabriel: alright, that gives me some time to shower. haven't really to the chance since i was hospitalized.
Crystal: aight I'll see you there
He didn't read the last message.
Centurion felt his danger sense throb at his mind in that moment, warning him of submachine fire from a car that was passing by. He condensed into pellets of smoke and darted behind a decorative tree near the sidewalk, down the way he came from.
Submachine fire deafened him, as the danger sense kept throbbing and told him the shooter reoriented his aim at the tree. Centurion felt the rounds scratching his armor and forcefield, and biting into the tree behind him, causing the dry smell of wooden chips to waft into his nose.
Centurion whistled, and the sounds rebounded to give him a look at his surroundings.
The car had three people: a driver, a single passenger next to him. Both… felt hairless, but it was hard to tell. The third one, the gunner, was sitting in the back, leaning out of the window opposite of Centurion's side of the street, over the rooftop of the car, holding a gun larger than a pistol in two hands and rat-at-at-at-ing away at him.
In three or four more seconds of sustained fire, Centurion heard the magazine click empty. The car's tires whistled as the vehicle charged off, away from him.
Centurion got out of cover and shot a laser, aiming at the driver's head. The golden beam flew through the air, cracked the driverside window, scratched the steering wheel, and went out the windshield to topple mailbox on the other side of the street. The car slid a little as he startled the driver, but otherwise, nothing happened. They disappeared down the street, and it didn't seem like they were coming in for a second strafing run.
Centurion was panicking. He wasn't scared, but didn't know what to do next. Deciding on following his gut, he hastily snatched his duffel bag and ran into an alleyway dark enough to hide his figure, and changed out of costume and into normal, plain clothing. They probably saw Centurion on their way somewhere else and decided to take a crack at it, so maybe he'd be safer in civilian garb?
After that, he stayed in the alleyways as he headed back home.
Not three minutes later, he spied on a group of five skinheads with baseball bats, tire irons, and knives beating up an old man - a guy at least in his seventies; his cane laid broken on the ground next to him as he cried and shook, while they kept spitting on him and beating him, kicking him in the back and stomach. Centurion only noticed a second later the old man was Asian.
Gabriel looked over and his heart sank. Not because of desperation, not because of rage. Because of pure hatred.
He abandoned the bag as he walked, closing his eyes for a moment, letting his shield glow around him and extend past his skin, into a shell of golden plates. An ad-lib costume, made using his power.
Centurion raised an imperative arm, charging up. One of the thugs turned, noticing the golden glow out of the edge of his sight. "Shit, is that Scion?" he barely said, before squinting and being hit in the nose with a discharge of golden light. The thug crumpled down, next to the old man.
"He'd just freeze you in place," Centurion said. "For the cops to find. Me? Not quite as merciful as Scion."
He raised his other arm, pointing them both at two different thugs, and fired off two lasers in their shocked faces. Strong enough to shatter their noses and cheeks, causing blood to spurt and dazing them enough that, when they hit the ground, they could barely comprehend what their name was.
Two left. "I'm gonna have fun with you two."
The two remaining ones didn't even try to fight. One of them took a hefty swing and threw his baseball bat at Centurion, before bolting away into the nearest building he could find. The bat didn't even hit Centurion. The other dropped to the ground, on his knees, shaking, head facing the ground and skin clammy.
Centurion stepped to the side and fired off a golden ray. The fleeing thug jumped at the sound of the discharge, as a sharp laser cut his thigh. Centurion fired again, then again, and two more lasers hit his buttocks and then the back of his left knee, penetrating inside, but not through, and causing him to stumble and drop. The thug looked back for a moment, then breathed in and held the air, beginning to crawl. Still resisting.
Centurion's footsteps echoed in the silent alleyway.
He looked down at the defeated criminals. "Disgusting," he hushedly whispered to himself. "Why does no one know how to flush a toilet after they've had a shit?"
"Mercy," the prostrating man said, voice quivering, "Please. I didn't want to." He was gritting his teeth, tears of shame and fear in his eyes.
"What's your name?" Centurion asked, grabbing him by the collar and lifting him up to look into his eyes.
The man averted his gaze, to the ground. "Alan. My name is Alan."
"Who's the one who forced you to do this? This was an initiation, right?" Centurion asked, sternly.
Alan looked past Centurion, at the man with the injured knee, on the ground. "Him. A-and, no, I've been initiated a while ago."
"Oh, so this isn't your first time?" Centurion asked.
"Please, I-I don't have a choice," Alan pleaded. "If you don't do what the lieutenants tell you to do..."
"Death is a better alternative than becoming such scum."
"Please," Alan choked out.
"You will help me tie them up, then we call the police and get all of them arrested," Centurion ordered.
"Okay," Alan answered, hands shaking, each breath he took shaky, and he kept whimpering between them.
Centurion felt something demonic twist in his gut. Annoyance, but twenty times magnified, that this son of a bitch had the sheer audacity to be sad and scared right now. "Calm the fuck down, you pathetic, wimpy bitch. You have the courage to beat up an old man, but you're scared shitless when you're confronted about your actions?"
"You're a fucking traitor," the man with the busted knee yelled, using a nearby lamp post to help himself stand up.
Centurion dropped Alan immediately and dashed to the speaker, fist extended for a lightning-fast hook to the face that sent him flying at least three meters, making him roll as he hit the ground. Telekinesis-enhanced strength.
"Look at me, you monster," Centurion ordered.
The thug looked up, unrepentant, glare addled with hate. "Fucking heeb. Everything would've been good, if it weren't for you. Well, come on, bitch! Hit me again!" The thug stumbled to his feet, walking three steps right without control before regaining power over his feet. His left knee kept shaking, as he barely stood on it. "I've had worse than you, bitch. Come on! Hit me!"
Centurion turned to smoke and apparated behind the Empire thug. He tapped him on the shoulder, and when the thug spun around with a punch, Centurion took his arm and smiled in satisfaction. He put a second hand above the elbow, then stepped to the side and pulled with his left, while pushing with his right.
The thug screamed, his entire body seizing in violation, shock, as his forearm went out of the socket, suspended only on loose flesh and skin. The same move he pulled during his first fight here.
Centurion pulled on his loose forearm, yanking on it and spinning around like a carousel, forcing the thug to run in a circle with his pulverized knee lest he be dealt even worse pain.
At the apex of the spin, Centurion released his hold, throwing the thug into a wall, only to then kick him in the groin of his left leg to send him to the ground with an 'oof!' The Empire thug involuntarily sunk down.
Centurion didn't know what else he could do. Nothing really equated to the amount of evil the man in front of him caused, but the beatdown would have been at least a small measure of justice for the Asian man on the street. Feeling empty, still, Centurion insulted, "Bitch." It didn't really bring much satisfaction.
The scum on the street didn't have enough power in the vocal cords to respond, collapsing to the ground and shaking for several moments, breathing and closing his eyes.
Centurion turned to Alan. "Call the police. I'll help the old man," he ordered snappily. "Specify that you were participating in the crime."
"O-okay." Alan took out his phone, then showed that he was typing in the emergency number, before pressing the call button and lifting it to his ear. Centurion heard the conversation with the dispatcher begin.
Centurion walked to the old man and tried to help him up. "Are you alright, sir?"
The old man resisted, unable to stand on his own. His response was faint, like he was speaking to someone in a dream, and in another language. For a moment, Centurion pondered if he should call this in, then realized Piggot might literally send him to live in Ellisburg if she discovered that he had another bout of uncontrolled police brutality.
Centurion turned to Alan.
Alan kept speaking, "Yes. Yes, I participated. Yes, I can give you their names. Anyone with me?" The last word was spoken questioningly, as if asking himself, but he looked at Centurion as he said it.
Centurion shook his head, putting his finger in front of his would-be mouth.
"No, no, I just… I freaked out, and… some vigilante ran by earlier, beat up all of us, then left… I didn't really see him."
"I'll take my leave," Centurion said, standing up and walking away, but not after picking up his duffel bag.
Alan nodded, sitting down on the edge of the sidewalk, rubbing the last tears out of his face, as he kept the phone to his ear.
"Be good," Centurion ordered, not bothering to look back.
Alan didn't answer, still holding the phone, but he shook his head. His chest jumped up and down, somewhere between crying and laughter.
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Birdsie
Oct 25, 2019
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Loyal Space Guardian
Oct 26, 2019
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#1,206
After the two bouts of violence in Empire territory, nothing of note happened. There weren't lots of cars on the streets, which might be due to the gang war that pretty much erupted between the Docks and Downtown in the last few hours. As far as he could tell, heroes and policemen were running around, dealing with one call after another at various points of the city. Somewhere along the way, confident he was out of sight, Gabriel dropped the construct armor.
Gabriel entered his home and dropped the duffel bag in the corner of his bedroom, only to then head to the bathroom and take a quick shower to rinse off the bits of Nazi blood and the stench of pathetic misery.
After getting out of the bathroom in normal, plain clothing, he went to the living room and relaxed on the sofa. Crystal would arrive in... thirty minutes, slightly less, perhaps. TV probably wouldn't have anything interesting on it, besides 'Empire goes batshit!' He decided to meditate a bit on his power, setting a mental alarm clock to a quarter from now.
Seven charges idled in the headspace, lazy and free.
What to do with this?
In a fit of curiosity, he attempted to create a small, insignificant power, but not pushing any charges into it. Nothing happened, except the background as opposed to the charges, flashing orange, as if trying to inform him of its confusion at the strange request.
Another fit of curiosity. He instructed the power to create more charges, more quickly. The fountain that spat out charges became red for a moment, then slowly transitioned back to its native cyan-blue.
They didn't really have colors, or feelings. They were abstracts that only he could understand, but this was the closest way to interpret them into feelings; into a human mode of thought. Red was for error, orange for confusion, cyan-blue for idle, green for working.
Gabriel asked the charge fountain what his limitations were, hoping he'd receive some form of an answer. Nothing.
Maybe he was thinking about it wrong? He couldn't ask it. It was a superpower: a system, not a person. If you spoke to a computer, it wouldn't do anything except stare at you with its monitor. Gabriel instructed the core to give him the limitations of the system itself: process them as information directly into his mind.
Some kind of vague response, colorless and without any notion of feeling to it. Just a response in itself, as if acknowledging there was a command, but not recognizing it as a valid one.
Gabriel cleared his mind of all thoughts and meditated, but in the common sense of the word: he kept his consciousness empty of all thoughts, except for the power-core. He'd keep doing this until either the doorbell rang, or the alarm clock rung.
Nothing happened, except the lethargic process of another charge being bombarded with tiny flecks of energy, slowly growing and preparing to join its complete brothers to become a superpower one day.
Gabriel decided to look into the exact composition of a charge. What was it made of?
When he tried, it was… confusing. No better word for it. Like zooming in with a microscope to look at the constituent atoms of a molecule, only to be befuddled upon the realization there is nothing smaller than the molecule, while, paradoxically, it still clearly had composite parts. He knew that the latter was true, while seeing the former with his mind's eye.
He felt a sort of scientific trepidation, realizing he was faced with a mystery that may have had a solution somewhere, but he didn't know what it was.
Oracle, can I exploit my power without hurting myself like I did last time? By, for example, breaking the charges into smaller pieces, or utilizing not-fully-formed charges?
He saw the entire mindscape change colors, as the charges assembling the oracle power started vibrating, like an engine that was just flicked on. Like the electricity between the synapses of a brain, bright dots of light passed between the filaments, in some kind of indiscernible system.
After seven seconds, it was done.
xyz05kh et$^i7 2 57ihfd gh 531 k xzt1jm k:^!i0396k6 g 857 1 656 8 1mhmn j5 lfgk^(&j !%JkgJF M6h!U^* - *! ! 958 8 58 8 59 9 85 9 85 85 95 x 105 605 925 85 85 95 85 y 895 995 990 550 990 880 z 222 222 251968 jfk - jyj9 1lp[oiq 015-0 ioqjk nbnz
Gabriel felt his eyes squeeze involuntarily, as literal trash information: a pure garbled mess composed of error 404, entered his thoughts as Oracle's answer.
Oh, I'm going to decode you, you bastard.
Gabriel was determined. He asked Oracle another question, not minding the next headache. Oracle, decode that message into understandable human speech.
The answer scared him. Not because of the content, but because of the method of response: it was instant, as if anticipating the question.
Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. Answer impossible under current conditions model. [...]
It dragged on, and Gabriel winced in real life, almost broken out of his meditative state. The headache was amplified by the feedback loop that Oracle gave him, creating a headache that was twice as bad as they should have been at this stage.
Gabriel opened his eyes and breathed in, then out, as deeply as he could. "Damn, fuck you..."
He turned on the TV and switched to the news, waiting for the headache to pass.
The news had warnings regarding the actions of the Empire across the city, showing a group upwards of forty Empire gangsters marching down Lord's Street, breaking store windows and causing a ruckus. One of them turned towards the camera, and the news crew started running for their fucking lives, only to be poetically saved as Armsmaster swooped down from a nearby rooftop and absorbed the fall damage by rolling. At the end of the roll, he stabbed one of the thugs with the halberd, piercing the hand and making the thug drop the plank he was using as a weapon. A fight ensued.
Gabriel actually burst out in laughter at that. Was that staged? Did Armsmaster literally wait to make a more dramatic entrance?
Armsmaster stood up, then swung his halberd at the next nearest thug. Centurion could tell from the training sessions that Armsmaster was exercising massive restraint. Literally wearing kid gloves on those guys, putting more effort into not hurting them than he did into hurting them. If he went all-out, they'd all be decapitated or limbless in seconds of approaching.
The recording continued for several seconds, until a zip of red color circled behind the thugs and stopped, revealing itself to be Velocity. The hero kicked one of the thugs into their back, sending them tumbling towards Armsmaster, who wove out of the way and put his foot on the collapsed thug's back. Centurion remembered how that felt - like someone parking a car on you, all of that weight focused on Armsmaster's boot. It didn't really have that weight; it wouldn't crush you, but you'd never get it to budge, no matter how much force or effort you applied.
In the next few seconds, the thugs began to run away, while others stayed fighting. One or two did the smart thing, realizing they can't fight Armsmaster and can't run from Velocity, and just knelt with their hands on the back of their heads, looking more impatient than scared.
And then, Rune floated in on a platform of concrete, with a street sign still attached to it, Ehwaz and Crusader standing behind her.
Ehwaz stepped onto another stone under the control of Rune's power, and she carried him down to the ground, while Crusader started spawning ghosts. At that point, the news crew decided to back the fuck up further as to not draw the attention of the enraged Nazi supervillains whose identities got leaked on this very day. Armsmaster ran forward, rolling and tumbling past the attacks of Crusader's ghosts, then fired a grappling hook and zipped up, aiming for Rune's primary standing stone.
Halfway there, he noticed she was moving the rest of her objects in his trajectory, and he snapped the grappling hook back in, dropping to the ground and skidding. Velocity, meanwhile, kept dodging the ghosts, until Ehwaz exerted his power.
Velocity stopped as if his feet were glued to the ground. Then he started moving even faster, blurring in red on the spot, and he suddenly bolted off again. Ehwaz' scream of impotent rage could be heard even from that far away.
Gabriel's headache was mostly gone by that point in time.
"Finally," he whispered to himself, stretching his body.
Gabriel crossed his legs again and re-entered the meditative state.
The abstract space filled his mind's eye. He noticed; an absent note, that getting into it was easier. Probably out of habit; sort of like when you start learning a new skill, then a month later you look back at your past works and realize how horrendous it was. He could visualize it better, more clearly, in higher details. Ascribe more meaning to what he saw.
He turned his attention to the fountain, to the superpower charge, which was at seventy percent completion. The fountain kept flaking it in grain-like white particles, increasing its mass, weaving it.
He attempted to take the incomplete charge and move it.
It was… not really frozen, but… glued in place. The stream that kept feeding into it was like honey; thick, gooey, almost magnetic, in a way. Keeping it rooted there, but he could push to make it budge. If he pushed harder, would something weird happen?
Last time he made a charge budge, his arm exploded. He was curious out of this world, but also scared something like that might happen again. He pushed on the charge ever-so-slightly, seeing the power's reaction.
Its color, surprisingly, didn't change, but the charge resisted being pushed outside its nest like a screaming six-year-old. Just a little push and it'd pop out of its spot.
He felt relieved, and pushed harder. It kept resisting, but… just… a little… bit… more…!
He pushed again, this time, snappily and with a note of inner force.
The charge was pushed out, then started to quiver, like a scared dog, then began to mutate and move around, expanding, contracting, compressing, then expanding again, like a bacteria that didn't have a cell wall.
Pieces of energy flaked off of it, then the charge desperately reached out for them and put itself back together again. It turned orange, then red, then orange, then yellow - for a moment, it was gold, blue, red, and orange simultaneously in different parts of itself, and black and white around the edges - before it began to expand and contract again, reaching back towards the fountain it came from. Glitching and dying.
Gabriel took the charge and shoved it in the regenerative power's direction, urging it to join its bretheren to complete itself.
Scream.
The charge was forcefully injected into the regeneration power, extending a billion-billion tendrils in every direction and consuming it, expanding, continuing to corrupt. Now, the entire regeneration power was freaking out, and Gabriel - in the real world - felt a pressure on the places that had been wounded before in the past. Even in the previous world - he recalled the various wounds he'd been dealt over his life, as the flesh began to bulge and change.
Gabriel realized his grave mistake and tried to remove the corrupt charge, but it resisted. It was firmly planted into the regeneration power: a permanent fixture, like a tree extending its vacuous roots into the ground.
It expanded, coiled, mutated: the regeneration power dropped from having thirty charges to sixty smaller ones, before they all expanded and it became a regeneration power with six giant blocks of charges connected by highways of filaments, before it became some incomprehensible shape for a split-second, then returned back to being a power composed of thirty charges and one mutating charge. It stayed this way for two seconds, and Gabriel prayed that it would, if he kept it this way.
He felt a sizzling warmth around his chest, and the smell of burned bacon entered his nose. He felt the imprints of a dog biting him, on the spots of burning.
Gabriel visualized himself grabbing a sort of… mental USB cable from the charge fountain and sticking it into the corrupted power, hoping it'd uncorrupt. He felt the fountain comply, flashing dark blue for a moment, before a grubby tentacle of metaphysical energy connected to the regeneration power, or rather, connected around it, forming a large bubble. He felt something… some presence fill his mind.
He quickly realized the regeneration power was surrounded by a forcefield. Quarantine, he understood; he felt.
Sparks of dark cyan travelled down the blue cord, entering the 'quarantined zone' and beginning to spread across it like water being pumped into a balloon. Then, suddenly, everything went dark. Like his entire power turned off.
What the-
A moment later, the vision of the abstract space returned, with a sense of hurry; everything was flashing orange and red, on alert now. He felt threatened, he felt loss, and then the blue cord cut off and left the quarantine zone in place. Suddenly, the sizzling of his flesh stopped, and he could sense the charges within the regeneration power darken, freezing, going into stasis. If cyan-blue meant a power was active, and red was like an alert, then the regeneration power just went a shade of gray. Inactive.
And at that, the power more or less normalized, and the fountain took a moment to return its cord into place.
Five seconds later, a droplet of energy hit the space 'below it' and then a second one, a third one: a new charge being assembled, as if nothing had happened just now, and as if there wasn't a giant, mutated freak of a superpower frozen in his mindscape, or soul, or whatever the FUCK he was looking at. Jesus Christ.
He felt out for the regeneration power, but it was out of reach. If the rest of the powers were like plants or animals, this one was a fossil; a piece of stone coal, shaped like a fern, but frozen and inactive.
He tried to instruct the fountain to move, extend a cord and reactivate the regeneration power, but nothing happened. It wasn't listening.
Why aren't you doing what I'm telling you to do?
He ordered again. Nothing happened. It didn't even flash orange or red.
Gabriel sighed heavily and decided to throw one full, free charge at the frozen power, but in particular at the corrupted charge. Maybe it'd eat it up and fix itself.
The charge dully clashed against the quarantine barrier, then flew off into the mental cosmos after ricocheting.
Bitch.
He took that one charge and put it back with the others. Maybe… a new power would be the solution? He spent the remainder of his charges, except one, on something that would help him out.
A sense of general confusion and lethargy, then he started to feel as the mindspace broke down on itself like an oil painting melting. After a moment, he was ejected and realized the doorbell was ringing.
In the background of his mind, he felt the power trying to process. Everything felt orange as fuck.
Take your time, I have stuff to attend to~!
Gabriel jumped on his feet after opening his eyes, walking towards to the door of his home. "Who's there?" he asked.
"Your friendly neighborhood superheroine, sir!" Crystal called back out through the door, with the voice of a girl scout selling cookies.
"Oh, I'm saved," Gabriel sighed in relief and opened the door with a smile on his face.
"By the by," Crystal said, strolling in casually, "My mom called your mom a while ago, asking if I could stay over for the rest of the day, until the Empire riots blow over."
"What did she say?"
Crystal looked at him, grinning. "She said 'yes.'" She walked into the living room, watched the news broadcast, where Armsmaster's halberd extended a heavy metal ball on a chain and smashed into the cheek of a thug, causing him to fall.
"That's brutal," he said, cringing at that.
"Yeah," she answered. "Wish I could help out, but mom said not to. And I'm not really eager, either. I'm tired after the Bakuda crisis. Haven't been myself lately, but how are you? Boston… wasn't pleasant, was it?" She looked at him with a sympathetic expression.
Gabriel turned to her and shook his head. "Absolutely not..." he said, sitting down on the sofa with his legs crossed. Crystal sat down next to him, legs brushing against one another.
"It was… terrifying, infuriating and confusing at the same time," Gabriel explained, "They were there to see me, you know? It was a charity event, and they… they died just because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time!" he almost shouted, disbelieving his own words.
Crystal wrapped her arm around his back and leaned into him, rubbing him near the shoulder. She didn't say anything, letting him continue if he wanted to.
"They just… the Butcher came in, slaughtering people–" Gabriel stopped, his voice getting shakier.
"It's not your fault. You couldn't have stopped it." He felt the hug tighten, as she turned a little, closer to facing him.
"I know… but their deaths are on me," Gabriel concluded, letting out a heavy, quivering sigh as his muscles released all the tension they had been building up throughout this conversation. As he did, he felt an internal sensation - not a stinging, necessarily, but a sort of soreness near the spots that his healing power made sizzle before, where the wounds from yesterday used to be.
Crystal breathed in, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. After thinking for a moment, she said, "It's not… healthy, to blame yourself. The way that mom frames it, we're just people who were given power over others. We're not corrupted by it, but… clarified. We do what we believe is right, and the fact that sometimes we fail can torture us. And at the same time, that's healthy, and also the main kicker: it pushes you to not fail again, but it can deprive you of basic things. Human things. If you separate yourself too far, and start seeing yourself too much as… 'the hero,' rather than who you are, you'll start doing stupid things, and eventually detach yourself from the people and things you care about."
Crystal stopped talking, and there was a pregnant silence between them for five seconds. Crystal blinked, then exclaimed, "Wow. The fuck? That sounded way too profound for me."
Gabriel burst out in a deep, belly laughter. It was not a release of emotion, but an actual genuine laugh of amusement. Crystal felt his body relax throughout her monologue, only to explode and start shuddering with the guffaw. After a second, she joined in, giggling to the point her stomach caused her to bend forward.
As his giggles and chuckles got weaker and weaker, he turned to her with a conflicted expression on his face. It looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't know whether it was appropriate or not.
In the background, his entire mindscape flashed a - no other set of words in existence would describe or translate it into human understanding better - retarded electric pink color. It was like his power's equivalent of an, "uh."
Now? Really?
Gabriel ignored the power. He bit his lip and looked down for a moment, then back up at her. "Uh, Crystal?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to say something that might be awkward and might make you uncomfortable..."
She blinked, opened her mouth to speak, and kept it open for a perfect three seconds. Eyebrows widening, "Yes?"
"I love you."
She blinked. "That's… it? Wow, I mean. I was expecting a confession that you murdered someone or something. U-uhm, not that I, you know, don't reciprocate? God, this is awkward."
They burst out into giggles, but Gabriel opted for something to melt the tension and went in for a kiss. A proper kiss. She leaned into him, and they went at it like animals.
Gabriel pulled away for a moment, face flushed like a beetroot. He looked into her eyes, between nervous and thoughtful, breathing. "E-er… I-I..." He lost coherence, the redness spreading.
Crystal burst out into laughter.
His power emitted another retarded pink, then an orange of confusion, followed by purple, whatever that meant. Way too many new colors today. He ignored it pointedly.
"I wouldn't… mind continuing?
"Oh, damn." She slapped him on the shoulder playfully. "Naughty!"
He chuckled lightly. "Wouldn't you?"
"Hmm… I wouldn't."
A flash of red shocked his awareness for a moment, demanding attention.
Gabriel shook his head quickly, squinting. "I, uhm, need to go to the bathroom!" he stood up and rushed to the bathroom.
"Oh, yeah!" she laughed, "go on ahead, I'll wait."
He walked into the bathroom and closed the door, making sure it was locked.
Gabriel sat on the edge of the bathtub and closed his eyes, entering the mindscape.
There was no accurate word to describe what happened. No phrase or sentence that could quite put a fourth-three-two-dimensional strangeness converted into a false abstract purview within a human mind meant to describe the properties of a superpower. Especially in this situation.
A mathematician's answer would be: Chaos + Havoc = Pandemonium.
Everything was in disarray. Working powers and free charges had been shifted off to the metaphorical 'right,' (not that there were directions in there,) while the quarantined regeneration power was locked on the left. The fountain and quarantine were joined together by what was best described as a jumbled mess: a labyrinth of lines similar to the stuff you'd see on a circuit board, except incomprehensibly large, with different 'elements' on the way there, that he couldn't accurately comprehend the purpose or shape of. Weird sparks of white kept flowing into the quarantine, from the circuit, and sometimes locked into loops, exchanging or doing something, but it was a total mess. The general color today was purple, which seemed to be, not as much confusion, as helplessness.
Gabriel redirected the charge generation to that circuitboard: now, every charge that was generated would be put into that system.
He felt the refusal strike him like a mental slap to the cheek; a complete inability to solve this problem in any way that the power could attempt. The entire quarantine zone was about as livable as Ellisburg.
Gabriel didn't know what to do. However, he had an idea. That circuitboard was probably a system, ran on complex calculations the power made to find a solution to fixing this big mess. However, seven charges weren't nearly enough for that. It needed more.
He turned to the fountain and ordered a temporary solution: stash all the new, full charges into the 'bug-fix'. And he wouldn't accept a fucking slap again.
The general orange response told him enough to extrapolate there was no bug fix.
What the fuck is the circuitboard then?
No response.
Gabriel instructed the power to give him an answer to that conundrum, as data into his mind.
No response, beyond a vague recognition that an order was given. This was followed by sparks of orange from the fountain. He felt the time-measuring power tell him he just skipped seven seconds, then five more seconds, then one, two, one, three, two, one; and other low numbers, with each confused spark.
Gabriel instructed the power to wait.
The sparks stilled.
I'll deal with this later, PLEASE.
Everything flashed red, especially the quarantine zone.
I know! I fucking know! But my girlfriend is here and I don't want to keep her waiting. If you want me to deal with this, HELP ME OUT.
Purple, orange, purple, orange. Finally, a slow, reluctant green. Then everything went gray, and he felt all of his powers except the fountain shutting down, like someone turned the breakers off at the same time. At the same time, he felt a strain on his mind that he hadn't noticed before cut off, and the spots where the dogs bit him no longer felt sore or aching. The fountain still worked, staying in place, but no longer produced charges, instead doing something with the circuitry, which was still gray.
Thank you. I'll dedicate the rest of the evening to you, I promise.
He opened his eyes again and sighed, exiting the bathroom and heading back down to Crystal. "Sorry for taking so long."
"No problem," she answered, watching the TV intently. It showed the view from a news chopper, as Undersiders of all people, made their getaway from Stormtiger and some other Empire capes.
"Those assholes," he chipped in. "God, I hate them."
"The news reporter said that Krieg skipped town the moment the identities leaked. At least one of the Nazis was sensible."
"Smart," he chuckled. "Anyway… where were we?"
"Where indeed?" she asked, turning and smiling, catlike in demeanor. She turned the TV off and threw the remote onto the table, standing up and moving closer.
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Crystal went home a few hours later after they'd 'hung out' for a while.
In that time, Gabriel noticed, rather pointedly, that nothing was happening in his power's mindscape. Not even charges were generated. A small, diminutive part of him feared that he'd done some permanent damage to its structure, somehow. Like deleting a vital file on a computer, or corrupting important, key files in a videogame, causing it all to lose coherence.
Gabriel was still lying in bed, eyes closed, covered by the bedsheets up to his stomach. He closed his eyes, and entered his mindscape, instructing his power to turn back on.
The fountain flashed red.
He instructed again, this time with more 'mental harshness.'
The fountain flashed red, and the circuitry flashed orange at the same time.
He turned his awareness towards the circuitry and inspected it. Oracle couldn't help now, since it was off.
The circuits were long and winding, creating complicated loops and patterns that only got more intricate the more one 'zoomed-in.' At the same time, he could tell he wasn't actually moving distance, or zooming. There was no space to speak of, inside the abstract mind plane, but it was the closest comparison. Zooming in was just him focusing more intently on certain parts of the circuit, seeing new connections emerge from ostensibly nowhere, even though they were there before.
It looks like a puzzle. Maybe I just need to make it flow in a more straightforward way?
The power flashed orange and purple. Purple; he understood, was something like despair. Helplessness.
The fountain released its hold on the mental space for a moment, and gray went native blue, including the quarantine. In less than a second, it returned to gray. Within that second, he saw the mutating power within the quarantine expanding, mutating, almost radiating something that looked vile. Corruption, corrosion. Inside the system.
Gabriel attempted to re-arrange the circuits to flow more easily into the quarantine, to make whatever was doing its thing work better. When he unplugged one cord from the quarantine, it dissipated, and a new connection formed a metaphorical centimeter away with the same exact function, even if he couldn't discern said function.
Gabriel started, quite literally, touching all the buttons on the circuitboard, one by one, slowly, trying to discern what they did, and if they did anything.
He felt vague responses, as motes of energy traveled to different parts of the system. There were eighty-five response centers, each one with a single separate function, some working to alter the functions of other response centers. Shit was complicated.
After a moment, he figured out a single center near the root, near the fountain, was like a 'tap' that let through some kind of energy. It kept flowing in, then stopping near the center, and it felt like it was 'on,' when it could be 'off.'
He turned this tap off.
Motes of energy flew into the circuitboard, spreading and going into different pathways chaotically in uneven amounts. A flash of orange, then red, then orange, and a new function was added just after the first: a function that distributed the energy to a specific pathway. Then another orange flash, and a function that modified the distribution function to target a different pathway.
Got it. Maybe.
There were seven main pathways, each one with different functions.
Gabriel started fiddling with the energy distribution, sending it all through the first one and seeing what it did.
When he sent it into the first one, it stopped near the first function center, which appeared to be another tap. He turned it on, then it energized a function that caused the quarantine to expand, without the charges inside doing the same.
He began fiddling, seeing the processes. After a few minutes, he'd figured out the process, more or less: the first pathway increased the quarantine zone, the second one decreased it. The third one broke it down, the fourth one built extra layers. The fifth one sent raw energy - the same kind that composed charges - into the quarantine. The sixth and seventh one pushed the charges inside closer or further away from each other, and they had smaller sub-pathways that let him rotate, turn, separate, or perform a mind-boggling amount of other functions and movements. Like everything he could do normally, automatically, in the mindspace; except now he had to do it manually with buttons.
He visualized it like a musical instrument: a piano. And now, he had to figure out a melody and a harmony that would stand victorious on top of this chaos.
Gabriel began tapping away, sending in raw energy, seeing what would happen.
After a moment, the corruption fed on the energy. It expanded, and then, suddenly, it constricted into a pinprick, into a dot, before expanding again, slower. For some reason, he understood it was stabilizing, receiving restrictions: key elements that weren't there before, that he didn't allow to be programmed into it by snatching it away before it was complete.
Gabriel added layers to the quarantine, to be safe, while continuing to add raw energy inside of it. Then, he started pushing the charges closer and closer together, almost as if he wanted to blend them all together with the energy he was sending in.
Some of the filaments started collapsing on themselves, and he felt red from inside the quarantine, followed by feedback that went up the circuitboard, into the fountain, and then spread across the entire mindspace.
Gabriel cringed and went back to square one: sending in raw energy.
The filaments that were gone left the mutation floating on its own, but its proximity to them meant that some of the stray energy fed into charges it wasn't supposed to. In vague increments, he felt the regeneration power change: not mutate, but change, with weird, arbitrary limitations and traits. He could deal with them later: the mutation began to shrink, like a cancer cell, shriveling on itself; its boundless energy being layered in restrictions; in green and blue.
Gabriel kept feeding energy into it, adding layers upon layers of quarantine to avoid it breaking, if anything were to happen.
The charge shrunk, shriveled, and kept shrinking. The circuitboard inputs flashed green and stabilized. He felt the control calm itself and automatize, as the fountain took control and fed energy to the mutated charge.
Continuing the process he'd originally interrupted, in a safe space.
He kept observing, and soon realized it'd take a while. Charges didn't generate instantaneously.
Can I use the other ones while I wait? They don't need charges, they're okay on their own.
No response.
Gabriel simply instructed the other powers to return to normal.
The gray shades flashed cyan for a moment, then blinked online. They felt cold and sluggish for a few seconds, like they were sleeping and waking up, or like a videogame that hadn't been played in years. After that, they began to return to normal operation, and everything except the quarantine flashed green.
Gabriel sighed in relief: relief greater than an orgasm's fulcrum. Second time today.
He got up on his feet and flashed his environmental shield on, looking at himself glow gold in the mirror.
It worked normally, if somewhat… lethargically. Or maybe it was just him, too dazed from all of the weirdness and experimentation and meditation.
Today was a weird fucking day.
"I need sleep," he uttered as he flashed the shield off, throwing himself in the bed belly-down and falling asleep soon after that.
6th May, 2011
The next morning, he smiled when he woke up.
The quarantine and circuitry were both gone. His regeneration power was back in place, now at thirty-one charges. He didn't feel any of the arbitrary limitations and strangeness from yesterday, meaning his power had used the thirty-first charge to fix the issues he made in the first place.
A whole fucking load of trouble to go through for nothing. On the plus side, his fountain, his charge-assembly-line, seemed to be working overtime to make up for the time they lost yesterday.
After thoroughly enjoying his morning routine, he picked up his phone and called Miss Militia.
She picked up on the first ring. Her voice sounded faint, as she asked, "Hello?"
"Good morning," he said, calmly and in a cheery manner.
"Oh, it's you, Gabriel," she slumped over the phone. "How are you doing? I had to pull an all-nighter."
"I'm… doing great, actually. Haven't felt this good in a few weeks, to be honest," Gabriel responded. "What about you?"
"O-kay?" she asked, in a voice that suggested that she wouldn't pry. "Not great. It seems after their initial outburst, the Empire is beginning to retreat even further; moving businesses and slinking back into the shadows. Now that Medhall can no longer launder money for them, they're forced on the back foot."
Gabriel nodded along, considering. "I see. Do you want me to, uh, ask Oracle for a possible solution?"
"What solution could there be?"
"That's not a question I can answer. But if you want me to find a solution, I need all available details on the situation."
"Gabriel, I… don't take this the wrong way, but your power is unreliable, and you've dealt with enough stress over the last week. I'd rather you just didn't get involved," she said, trying to sound pleading, but coming out annoyed.
"If I can't help by beating Nazis, I want to help with my head, even if my head is not reliable all the time," he responded with an actually genuinely desperate tone.
"Tell me, how many times have you been hospitalized in your life?" The question came out of nowhere.
"Twenty-one."
"I don't mean allergies," she jabbed.
"Seven, then."
He heard a shuffle, under the impression she was nodding along on her side. There was something analytical in her voice, as she asked, "And how many of those are since you came here?"
"...Four, I believe."
"And you're not seeing a problem with that, given it's only been one month? A little over one month," she asked, an edge of forceful inquisitiveness in her tone.
"I've been reckless, that's all..." he responded, already having realized his mistake long ago.
"That's all?" There was a hurtful timbre to her voice.
"Y-yeah?"
"Do you know what it's like, getting a phone call, someone telling me you've been hurt in a fight with the Butcher? And then when you come back, and I think you're safe, you have to go to the hospital again?" He heard a noise on the other side. Not crying, but something like sniffing; he definitely hurt some feelings there.
Gabriel's stomach turned upside down in a cold realization, then twisted sideways a couple of times before going back to its original shape, broken in a way it hadn't been. He breathed in.
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't realize," he said in a choked-up tone, clenching his fists and teeth. His eyes were beginning to ache.
She didn't say anything for a long time, a pregnant silence taking over the phone call. He got the impression she was considering her response carefully, and eventually, Hannah spoke, in short sentences. "That won't cut it, and you know it. I'm going to ask the Director to pull you off patrols for a while. Or, hell, put you on patrols with me. When I'm sure you're ready and won't do anything stupid. That you'll run and defend instead of running headfirst into danger.."
Gabriel stayed silent. There was really nothing he could say in his defense, not even a slither of argument. She was telling him things that everyone else told him in the past, but the way she said. It was… different.
"I have to run," she said, "Armsmaster has a lead. I'll see you home, later."
"Alright," he responded quietly.
A click ended the phone call, returning him into the depths of silence, with only himself to talk to.
He looked down at his phone, at the contacts. He wanted to talk to someone, but it was early: they'd all be in school at this time. A roundabout return to the same isolation he'd faced when he first came here. Oh - how history loves to repeat itself.
After a good amount of brooding and wallowing in self-pity, to get himself back in mental shape, he stood up and went to the kitchen. Everything was perfectly ordered, but he noticed a large absence of kitchen knives, beyond maybe three, stashed at one of the racks next to big wooden spoons and a ladle. Otherwise, all silverware was present and the kitchen had nice granite countertops.
Makes sense, she doesn't really need knives, when she can make any type of bladed weapon out of thin air.
He looked in the fridge, to check for a couple of ingredients. Parmesan cheese, garlic, olive oil, salt, and most of all, basil and pine nuts.
He found olive oil and salt in a cupboard next to the fridge, instead; half-full and one-third full container respectively. There was cheese in abundance, but it wasn't parmesan. No garlic and pine-nuts, but the basil was there, in a different cupboard.
He took the ones that were there and stored them on the kitchen counter. Then, he went up to his room to get dressed, took his wallet, and headed out to buy the rest. He wasn't rich, and didn't get much allowance, but Hannah left some spending money every now and then.
The residential area near Captain's Hill didn't quite have neighborhood stores; it wasn't really a fenced-off community, as there was no gate separating it from the rest of the city, but there was a sort of detachment to it. It was far from the rest of the big city, skyscrapers only visible in the far distance, and the nearest shop was a seven-minute walk away. In a way, avoiding the commercial areas and the Docks in that way lowered the crime to basically null, though the police often patrolled through here, if not the PRT. Gotta protect the mayor and so and so.
Gabriel stopped on the way as he passed a house with police cars parked outside, one man in uniform smoking a cigarette at the front. He noticed the plaque on the house said, 'Fliescher.'
That was Krieg's surname, he realized. Comeuppance.
He took the walk, heading to the store.
It was a surprisingly nice affair; at the edge of the commercial districts of midtown, where everything was made from that nauseating red and beige brick-and-mortar mix, with cool white-frame windows and packed tightly together. A small convenience store, mostly with groceries. He walked inside and slumped in relief when he noticed it wasn't being robbed or held up by Empire thugs who decided to beat some schmuck senseless on the basis his great grandmother might have been French or Quebecois.
He went in the store and picked up the ingredients he lacked, paid for them, then headed back home.
Along the way, his eyes kept sliding around to the dark alleyways, as if expecting trouble. Was he getting paranoid from all of the bullshit, or was he becoming more careful? Whatever.
The path home was free of Empire, Merchants, or ABB remnants. Did 'Empire remnants' also apply? It didn't quite shatter, but it did definitely collapse, or lose a lot of its power with the reveal, especially since a majority of Kaiser's lieutenants were gone. Funny, how things can unravel into shit just like that.
Gabriel walked home without incident, without skulls being broken, knees perforated; without blood stripping down the inside of a person's throat, without puncture wounds, broken ribs, or - get this - the sound of his clavicles cracking against his spine when he tried to move his neck.
It was surprisingly refreshing.
"It's a win!" he whispered to himself as he put the ingredients on the table and got to work.
First, he took the basil and washed it thoroughly and put it in a mortar. He smashed three-quarters of the pine-nuts, leaving the other quarter whole. He diced the garlic; careful not to brunoise it, and put it in the mortar with the basel, then shredded the parmesan and slid it into the bowl as well. After that, he poured an abundance of olive oil into the mortar and seasoned it with a pinch of rough salt.
Exquisite. But not ready.
Finally, he picked up the pestle and begun smashing everything together, making sure to amalgamate all the ingredients into a homogenous mass. The smell of such a tasty and familiar condiment was filling his nostrils and giving him… nostalgia. Lots of nostalgia.
To conclude, he poured the rest of the pine-nuts inside it, poured the prepared pesto into a medium-size glass jar, and filmed a thin layer of olive oil on top of the finished sauce to avoid oxidation. He put the finished concoction to rest and cool in the fridge.
"Alright, I did something. Now what?" he asked, looking outside at the sun. About an hour before noon, maybe two.
Gabriel took out his Wards phone and logged on PHO.
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Hot Topics:
Bakuda Arrested!
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◇ Topic: Unknown new vigilante
In: Boards ► News ► Events ► America ► Brockton Bay
Brocktonite03 (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
Posted On May 4th 2011:
Videos of new cape sighted near the Trainyard got released; links below.
A supposed vigilante appeared overnight. No official name yet, but some Merchants got beat a by a guy that, according to them (and, since they are Merchants you should take this with a grain of salt) a guy in a balaclava with a green cape probably taken from an Eidolon halloween costume. His power appears to be the ability to rapidly increase the size of touched objects.
He defeated them by throwing a bunch of caltrops into the air above him, and by the time they started falling down, they were the size of footballs and about as heavy as you'd expect.
Links to videos here.
(Showing page 1 of 9)
►Coyote-C
Replied On May 4th 2011:
Hello Vista 2.0, how are you today?
►Lasersmile
Replied On May 4th 2011:
Name ideas? I vote for "Cascade" or something. Or maybe "Avalanche."
Assuming he sticks to the idea of throwing stuff and enlarging it in mid-air.
►Ultracut
Replied On May 4th 2011:
Oof. Costume budgets are getting lower these days. I mean seriously, that cape looks like hemp fabric dyed with grass.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 5, 6, 7
No one else in the thread appears to have thrown anything useful into the mix, though, eventually, they settled on the name, 'Avalanche' for the new vigilante.
Okay, they ain't talking about me.
Gabriel scrolled through the other threads, getting a general sense of what the people had to say.
Bakuda's arrest was old news; the thread after that was interesting. Uber and Leet made a stream where they informed they'll be suspending activity for possibly a month or longer. One of the people in the thread showed pictures of Uber either encountering, meeting, or talking with the Undersiders in the middle of a street in the Docks.
The rest of the threads was more rattling on the same topic: Empire this, Undersiders that, Forsberg gallery - oh no!
Gabriel then decided to check his private messages. He had twenty-three unchecked messages from someone called XxVoid_CowboyxX, and a couple of them from random people.
He simply ignored the conversations and checked them all as read.
In that moment, another one came in from XxVoid_CowboyxX. A new message. Gabriel opened it.
The entire private message log was stashed full of links to youtube videos on a channel called 'Void_Cowboy_Plays_Games' and dubious sites that looked addled with viruses, which declared he could download free videogames from. There were also paragraphs of him describing his experiences with some RPG game called, 'Journey for the Red Stone' and outlining an extremely efficient warrior-mage build.
After around the tenth message, it turned into questions about Centurion; if he was playing the game, or why he wasn't answering. The latest one said, 'Oh, hey, you're online, finally. What's up?'
Centurion: Do I know you? I feel like I do.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: I got your autograph before Bakuda bombings, and I started telling you about my let's play series and you said you'd look it up, so I sent you all the stuff in here.
Centurion: I legitimately do not remember that, I'm sorry.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: Oh. Well… that's fine I guess
Centurion: I'll check them out right now, I haven't got anything to do anyway.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: Oh cool
Gabriel spent the rest of the day watching Void Cowboy's videos. Most of them scarcely had five-hundred to a thousand views, although his channel had a surprising amount of - get this - one-hundred and eight subscribers. His microphone's quality was comparable to a microwave, and the webcam he recorded his face with didn't really show his face: just a dark, face-shaped blob in a room with vaguely orange background, too dark and undersaturated to see anything.
Despite that, some comments praised the occasional witty tactics, and Void Cowboy replied to all of these comments, explaining in the length of small novels how he came upon those ideas.
"Well, he's dedicated. He'd make for a good guy-in-the-chair."
He messaged him back:
Centurion: Yo, I saw the videos. They're nice, but they could do with some improvement on the… hardware, you know?
XxVoid_CowboyxX: Yeah, but times are hard. I'm trying my best though
Centurion: Keep trying, you're on a good road.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: Yo, did you see that new vigilante thread?
Centurion: Avalanche?
XxVoid_CowboyxX: Yeah, i bet that guy is like, Vista's big brother or something. Maybe you should ask her?
Centurion: I severely doubt Vista has siblings.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: maybe a lost sibling? or an estranged cousin? You know the story: baby in a basket gets left in front of an orphanage in a city block pumped full of drugs, and next thing you know there's a vengeful vigilante going around beating up merchants a decade later
Centurion: I'll ask her about the orphaned, druggie-abusing, vengeful, ruthless and brutal vigilante that started plaguing the city.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: lol druggie-abusing, I like that. He's not abusing the drugs he's abusing the dealers
Centurion: yup. I gotta go now. ttyl
XxVoid_CowboyxX: okay talk to you later hopefully
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"I'm home!" Hannah yelled, and he could hear the shuffling as she took her shoes off in the entryway.
Gabriel groaned out in relief. "Finally!" he called out in pure joy, as he was finally taken out of his lonely boredom.
The entire day was spent browsing PHO and watching TV shows, which included the PRT-endorsed 'Wards' cartoon, where Centurion made an appearance. Today's episode had some of the Houston Wards being told by Eidolon that he's leaving for an important business meeting and they have to take care of the Protectorate base in the meantime. Unfortunately, the base gets raided by a local villains group, which made him wonder if said villains could sue the PRT for using their image.
The in-cartoon Centurion sounded nothing like him, but he hammed it up like Mouse Protector after slaughtering a pig for dinner. And speaking of dinner:
Gabriel got up from his bed and went down in the living room. "Hey, I made something today, it's in the fridge."
"Oh, really?" Eyes widened, as she took off her jacket.
Gabriel nodded. "Yeah. As a… kind of apology. It's not enough, I know, but.. couldn't think of anything else on the spot."
"Let me put my costume away and I'll be with you," she said with a nod, then walked upstairs. Gabriel waited patiently in the entryway, right next to the stairs, foot-tapping repeatedly on the ground. Hannah looked at him with concern when she walked back down, then led the way into the kitchen.
She smiled as she popped open the fridge. "Is that…? What's it called?" She looked at him curiously.
"Pesto."
"Pesto. Yes." She nodded in understanding, looking back at the contents of the bowl. "How do we cook it?"
"You put it on pasta after it's cooked as if it was tomato sauce."
"Okay. So I suppose we're eating spaghetti? I don't have meatballs, though. Let's just do pasta?"
Gabriel's whole body cringed back at that amount of kitchen heresy in one single sentence. "Do not speak the word 'meatball' when relating it to pesto, please..." Gabriel shuddered in disgust.
Hannah laughed, then took the bowl of pesto from the fridge, resting it on the counter and then starting to look for something remotely noodle-looking. "How was your day?"
"Can we have the Pelhams over, like, if you want?" Gabriel asked curiously, putting his hands behind his back.
"Uhm," Hannah stood up, blinking and catching up to the question for a second. "Yes. Yes, I don't see why not."
"Not tonight, of course. Too little warning," he reassured.
"Yes, too little," she stressed the latter part of the sentence as if referring to something else. His mind blanked out for a moment, before coming up with a dozen things she might be trying to evoke. Hannah turned, giving him her full attention. "Listen, we should probably have 'the talk' at this point."
"...The talk?" he inquired, genuinely confused, and somewhat guarded given his recent activity.
"About your reckless behavior, as a Ward, as my son. I can't condone that kind of..." She moved her hand up and down, trying to catch a loose word. "Foolhardiness," was the best she could come up with.
Gabriel looked back and sat in the nearest chair, just behind him. He looked up at her, met her eyes and then averted his gaze in shame, sighing. "I just… hate the thought of running away."
"I hate the thought of my son having his bones broken on a weekly basis!" she declared, voice raised. It wasn't a yell and wasn't angry, but it was louder, more imperious. "I promised that I'd protect you."
"I-I know, but… what if I had ran when Butcher attacked? Weld would've died as well, Roulette too, along with the twenty or so people that did die."
She didn't dispute the argument. "Gabriel, I can't live under that kind of stress. With you out there, constantly in danger."
"I'll… develop my powers in such a way that I'll be safer. I promise."
"You promise that, until then, you will absolutely–"
Gabriel interrupted her before she could finish. "And I will be more careful."
"–avoid trouble and fighting at all costs," she spoke over him, not stopping even as he started a new sentence. When she realized what he said, she sighed and looked around herself in disbelief, before turning to him. She pointed a finger to her chest, eyebrows furrowing in imperative anger. "No. You'll do what I said. I don't want you running around, getting shot at and bitten by giant mutated dogs!"
"Alright. Fine..." Some loose frustration sparked in his chest, at being held back, but he shot it dead before it could wrestle control.
"Good," she said, stepping back and rubbing her face with one hand. She did this for a while, eventually calming down. "I miss sleeping. I could probably use a nap right now," she murmured quietly enough he wouldn't have made it out without peak-human hearing, before turning around and going back to cooking. The word 'sleeping' conjured a stray thought that led to another, that led to another, leading to the uncomfortable realization of his recent activities.
"Can I, uh, confess something?" he asked.
"Go… ahead?" she asked, head-turning in his direction a little, but not looking at him. She was too busy filling a pot with water.
"I really don't know who to tell this to, and I think it's most appropriate to tell this to my mother," he said, trying to draw her attention.
"Well?" She stopped what she was doing, turning to look at him with a low degree of apprehension. She looked unphased, which was definitely fair, given there couldn't have been anything much worse than getting his bones broken.
"You know, uh, I lost… it, yesterday."
She tried to think for a moment, searching for meaning. In three or so seconds, she gave up, shaking her head. "Your… cellphone?"
"Nnnnnno…?" Gabriel looked down at the table, twirling a curl of his hair on his finger in embarrassment. "It's more… moral, and metaphysical… I guess.."
She raised an eyebrow, squinting. "Soul?"
Gabriel giggled. "N-no!" he exclaimed, chuckling uncontrolledly. "My… innocence, I guess."
"Didn't you lose that when you beat up those three thugs?" she questioned, completely oblivious. How the fuck can a woman be this blind?!
"I lost my virginity, mom," he blurted out.
Her voice went from clueless to smug in an eyeblink. "Yes, I figured that out at the first sentence. I was just playing you," she burst out into laughter, stomach bending as she recoiled forward and wiped away a tear of satisfaction. She shrugged as she turned back to cooking. "I'm fine with it. I don't really trust your judgment after the stunts you've pulled, but Crystal is smart enough to do it safely."
He was surprised that she was fine with it for a brief moment, then recalled the way she talked about how she used to date Chevalier, and his mind did a sort of, ooh!
"You're mean," he pouted, looking away.
"Serves you right for making me worry so much. I'm still in my early years, and I've started developing wrinkles," she said, frowning as she dipped the noodles into the boiling water, careful.
"Hey, Panacea can fix that," he jokingly suggested.
"I don't want Panacea to take battle-scars from me," Hannah jokingly suggested, then pointed to her forehead. "This? The sign of a mother's struggle, this is."
"Oh, so I'm a battle?" he asked, in faux offense, with a tint of irony to his question.
"More like an invasion," she said, turning and pinching him on the cheek as she opened up the cupboard with plates.
"Let's call Scion then, shall we?"
"Your grandpa's busy saving the world, Gabriel," she humorously suggested, turning to lay the plates down on the countertop, as she withdrew forks from a drawer next to the sink. "As are your fathers: Eidolon, Dauntless, Chevalier, Armsmaster - oh, who else? Let's not forget Aunt Piggot."
"Not you too!"
May 7th, 2011
Gabriel tossed the rubber ball. It flew through the air, stalled, hit the wall, and wouldn't have reached him, if a telekinetic lens didn't form under it and throw it back into his open palm.
Gabriel threw the rubber ball strongly. It flew above the wardrobe, hit the wall, bounced off of it, bounced off of the top of the wardrobe, ricocheted against the ceiling, bounced against the floor, and then rolled onto the desk, before its minimal leftover momentum put it at the very edge, close to his bed. A telekinetic push sent it into his lap, and he picked it up, then tossed it again.
He didn't have anything planned for today. Crystal was in school, Hannah was at work. The Wards were either in school or at work, and Piggot gave him some off-time with one or two classes a day. He tossed the ball in his room, pondering stray questions, meaningless ones.
He remembered Armsmaster's exercise, and, having nothing better to do, decided to indulge in it.
Vista, Gabriel thought. Make her severely dizzy with either a ranged confusion-inducing power of some kind, to scramble her spatial reasoning. If she decides to still use her power, she'll probably randomly misfire at the surroundings, warping stuff with no rhyme or reason. Better than letting her run or preventing me from getting close.
He tossed the ball, aiming for a particular angle. The trajectory bounced it against the ceiling, into a wall, back against the floor, and up in a wide arc, where it returned to him with no telekinetic assistance.
Velocity, he decided for the next case study. Be faster than him, or make it impossible for him to enter his Breaker state by using a Trump power.
Aegis, he picked for his next nutcracker. Constrict him: infinite treadmill or simple containment foam.
There were counters for everything, he realized a while ago. For a moment, Gabriel pondered not the capes themselves, but rather, the nature of the question. Perhaps he needed to think bigger, in scope and in nature?
Accord. That would be a challenge.
It took him a moment.
Mh. Either stealth, or forcing him to ponder on the wrong problems.
Who next? Someone else; someone he didn't know of or didn't think about that much. A sudden problem to stimulate the brain.
Gabriel whipped out his Wards phone and accessed the database, or what little of it he was allowed to access. He was in the Wards for only one month, so Piggot was leery about letting him in on the big secrets and Achilles' heels of the heroes, so the data was of a lower level; the stuff a PRT trooper would get. Only one step above what the public knew.
Chevalier. His file said he could combine two or more objects into one object that had selective properties of either. His armor and weapon were ridiculous at this point in time, and he could probably make new stuff on the fly if required. Seasoned fighter, on top of it, and with access to an undefined Thinker power.
Huh. That's tricky.
His mental gears started turning, clocking around themselves as metaphorical steam came out of his ears.
The ball snapped out of his hand, with a telekinetic explosion. It hit the wall opposite of his bed, bounced into the wall next to his desk, hit the ceiling, the floor, a wall, the ceiling, the floor, and ricocheted eleven more times before suddenly snapping back into his hand. It made a lot of noise, since it all happened in a few seconds. He didn't let it hit anything important.
No easy answer…
And then it hit him, after a minute of pondering. Crusader's power. That's it. He's literally the best counter against Chevalier. His ghosts would ignore all forms of protection and go for his squishy, fleshy body.
On a roll today!
Let's up the ante, then.
Glaistig Uaine, the Fairy Queen. Perhaps one of the most fearsome villains in the world. Touches a parahuman, which kills them instantly, and she can claim their soul as a ghost follower, with its powers intact, deploying several ghosts at once. She doesn't have to kill them herself to claim the power; as long as a parahuman bites it and she's nearby to claim it, it's hers. Assume that she has several dozen random powers.
His brain strained for three minutes, but the best he could think of was, Hire a fucking Endbringer to nuke the Birdcage.
At the end of the exercise, he came to the inevitable question: not Eidolon. Eidolon was probably as hard to counter as Glaistig Uaine, though, presumably, some kind of Trump scrambling might affect them. No: Gabriel was thinking about the top of the food chain.
Scion.
...Who is Scion, except for a flying golden dude that stops volcanoes from exploding and saves kittens from trees?
No answer, because there wasn't enough knowledge of the line, of the boundary: where Scion's powers were and weren't. He wasn't as versatile as Eidolon, maybe, but the powers he did seem to display were strong enough that the nature of the problem never mattered. 'When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks distinctly nail-shaped.'
A stray thought, a trail of curiosity.
Oracle, who and what is Scion?
He waited for it to process, while bouncing the ball around.
Scion is a parahuman who appeared on May 20th, 1982. Scion is in grief. His only goal in existence is to help humanity survive.
Huh. Why is he in grief, Oracle?
Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache. Headache.
I forgot about the fucking cooldown! Agh! Gabriel hissed, recoiling in the bed, and the rubber ball bounced off the ceiling and smacked him in the forehead as if to punctuate his stupidity with a vengeance.
The Oracle gave an answer nonetheless, coldly uncaring.
Scion is in grief because his existence doesn't matter. Scion is desperate for purpose. Scion lost someone important to him.
That's an… oddly specific answer, Oracle. What the fuck are you hiding?
Gabriel thought for a moment. Defeating Scion by using this information?
Trick him into thinking his purpose is meaningless, as humanity is already doomed and unsavable. After that… well, I don't know. Maybe he'll kill himself?
He decided to turn his thoughts to other matters, to the immediate future.
Gabriel thought of the Undersiders, remembered his defeat at their hands. He felt a pit in his stomach, empty and void of anything except for cold humiliation; shame. It was the second time he'd lost against those petty thieves. And he wanted revenge; to never lose again, but also more than that. To humiliate them, in return.
But how?
Skitter. Release bug pheromones in the air. Tons of it. Make the bugs' receptors go haywire. She'll get a massive headache and probably go unconscious from all the pain, or something.
Grue. Trump power: make his gas transparent. That throws him out of the picture as a threat.
Regent. Protect my nervous system in some way, either with a power that makes it invisible, or untouchable. Or use my smoke power, yeah. I don't have a nervous system when I'm in that state. Entering my smoke-state would reset his control over me.
Hellhound. Control her, and through her, control the dogs. Master power should do it if I'm willing to go the Heartbreaker route.
And last but not least, the talkative cunt: Tattletale. She's a tricky one, as she'll know my every move before I'll do it. What she says is not much of a problem: I don't really care. But, to avoid problems, I'll just… wear earmuffs. Or create a selective-hearing power and selectively mute her voice, so that I'm not deaf in combat.
Overall, easier said than done. Each Undersider would require a separate power, so that's at least five powers spent just to defeat five people, with each power probably costing dozens of charges. Was the sacrifice worth it, or should he just stock up on general powers and rely on his teammates for help? Find some kind of force multiplier? Armsmaster, during their meeting in Piggot's office, said it wouldn't be that easy.
Uuuugh, I want my power armor to be done.
Modern teenager problems, right?
He wondered, maybe, if they should alter the design of the armor. The temptation to sneak in an Astartes stylistic into it was tempting, but the massive pot-like pauldrons would restrict movement too much. Besides, it'd look less like a superhero and more like a - well - space marine, which kind of fought the point of being a celebrity super-cop, or whatever else you wanted to call this job.
The rubber ball spun in the air, rotating around its axis thirty times per second, before Gabriel released it from static hold, causing it to make a quarter-helix through the air, pitched like the throw of a professional baseball player, before hitting a wall and losing most of its energy and momentum, falling straight into his extended hand.
He tossed the ball across the room, correcting its path in mid-air so it fell into the basket it was usually in.
Gabriel decided to spend the rest of the day practicing piano, indulging in Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor.
▣#▣#▣#▣#▣#▣
[AN: Funfact. If you'll see his countermeasure for Skitter? As we made this chapter, he didn't know about the shit Panacea pulled during the bank robbery. I entered a stunned silence for a moment, followed by a period of being so amazed that I let it slip OOC and we were both amazed about it.]
Last edited: Oct 27, 2019
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#1,277
May 12th, 2011
The week passed by in serenity. From Saturday to Thursday, and he didn't really go out in costume even once, technically speaking.
The only 'incident' was some Empire-affiliated rascals putting down tags in the midtown neighborhood, a stylized '88' with the words 'Never Fallen' under it.
He scared the teenagers away while wearing construct armor, then realized what he should have done. So he ran after them, scared them back towards the graffiti, and then ordered them to wash it off while calling their parents one by one. He also thoroughly humiliated them, as when one of them complained they didn't have rags to clean with, he told them to use their shirts, and they had no choice but to grumble and comply.
He and Crystal had a good laugh about it afterward, and they spent some time dating across the week. A visit to the cinema there, dinner here, some cuddling, a dinner at the Flores household.
He kept training with Armsmaster, though his progress somewhat stalled, and Armsmaster had only a quarter of the time he used to. He was apparently behind schedule on a major project, which involved recycling the supercomputer they found in the warehouse to operate as a network center for several kinds of software; it'd give him an amazing edge in fights; move his combat prediction software from ten to fourty in terms of effectiveness, and let the software adapt to unexpected changes in combat style on the fly.
He was also trying to finish Centurion's power armor.
They made some adjustments to the design: the helmet was transformed into a more traditional Roman-style headpiece, but with a tighter profile, almost but not quite T-shaped. It incorporated the previous laurel wreath instead of a classic red mohawk. They were still discussing what to do with the faceplate: either a full black glass exterior with a HUD, or they'd do something closer to Armsmaster's own style: show the mouth, with a v-shaped visor covering the rest of the face, and add a sliding hatch when in need of increased protection, like from gas or wide-range energy discharges. The former would look more SWAT, the latter would look more futuristic mercenary.
The rest of the armor went through a slight overhaul in terms of shape, rather than aesthetic. The color palette was agreed to best be left as it was: main silver, with red underlayer, and purple and gold highlights. In this case, though, instead of a red undersuit from synthetic weave, there'd be a reinforced underlayer from something similar to hardened plastic; a substance related to kevlar that Armsmaster used for his own armor. The mechanical servos were still under construction, but once done, Centurion's strength inside of the suit would near-triple, and he would no longer have any risk of being hurt by his own punches. Armsmaster's specialty meant that it wouldn't limit his mobility or slow him down to any significant degree, though he'd need to walk around and calibrate the suit for a full day or two to ensure the servos didn't lock down at random.
It was like a dream come true, and all he'd need was a maintenance power.
Lastly, he started studying for school, and his books were bought: he was going to start attending Arcadia sometime next week; probably on Monday, on the 16th.
Today, though? He was on patrol. A particularly volatile one.
"Console, they're making their getaway through Eleventh Street," Browbeat reported, even as Vista bent space to bring them closer to the street corner.
The moment Centurion turned the corner, he raised his hand and began to blindfire lasers at the target, running for cover on the opposite side of the street: distracting the enemy for Browbeat and Vista to deal with.
His mind filled with danger fuzz, and Centurion lowered his body to the ground, then used his feet like springs, leaping onto his stomach and into cover behind a bench, even as a gaunt, stretched hand of yellow-black industrial metal from a repurposed excavator scratched the tarmac where he stood previously.
"Fuck'n, A! Show these fuckers what it means to mess with us!" Skidmark declared, inflecting some sandpaper into the last bit of the sentence.
Squealer released a roar of laughter, bringing down one arm. The movement was ghosted a second later by a giant mechanical buzzsaw, twice the radius of a car wheel, cutting through the bench that Centurion was under. Needless to say, he wasn't under it any longer, having already moved on.
Squealer was the Merchants' premier Tinker, specializing in big, crude vehicles. Most people underestimated her because her basic awareness didn't extend past 'the high,' but she really pulled out all the stops for this project. Literally and figuratively.
What the Wards were fighting, currently, was a monster, more than a vehicle.
A spider, standing ten meters tall on a set of six modified piledrivers with joints, which could easily dig holes in the ground with each step. It could move at the speed of a car, from what they'd seen, but struggled with braking and maneuvering if near maximum speed. It didn't look anywhere near as elegant as a spider, though: it was bulky, heavy, covered in layers of massed steel and armored junk; bits of radiators, old discarded machines, cut-apart oil-drums, car chassis, and remains of containers. More a crab than a spider.
More importantly, the platform-vehicle had four arms that Squealer controlled, most of them composed from re-tinkered excavator arms and similar components, which moved with far more grace and speed they should have.
One of the arms was made from the ending of an excavator arm, with a set of bending pads of metal that served as fingers or graspers, with the ability to grab something and squeeze it inwards with the fingers, inside the little 'cup' of the excavator, until all that was left was a cube of compressed junk. The second was a giant cutting buzzsaw, as demonstrated on the bench. Another was an electric mining drill the length of a human limb and about twice as thick at the base as at the tip. The fourth limb was a metallic propeller, spinning at ludicrous speeds and leaving gouges in the concrete it scraped against. The limbs kept flailing like tentacles, trying to hit one of the Wards, while the piledriver feet kept shuffling to impale anyone who got too close.
The vehicle kept oozing spurts of fire and black, noxious smoke into the air through several dozen exhausts; the entire creation rattled constantly, as a whole score of engines interconnected with pipes and wiring in the center shook, thrummed, drummed, and hummed at different cycles, rhythms, and beats. The vehicle had a 'mouth' at the front, composed from the trunks of several cars. Probably for holding extra drugs or booze, or something.
Centurion leaped, telekinesis carrying him upwards. A fan of lasers emerged from his fingertips, scratching Squealer's thigh, face, breasts, and burning her hair, causing her to yelp and narrowly miss a buzzsaw cut aimed at Browbeat. In the meantime, Vista kept bending space, expanding the street to avoid collateral damage or harm to civilians, while narrowing any potential exits and trying to increase the size of any buildings she could reach out to, making them 'loom' over the battlefield, to the point where some looked like they were beginning to form a dome around the place, drowning out the sun.
Squealer didn't look at, but half-turned and screamed at Skidmark, "Deal with the flying son of a bitch, Skidsy!"
"Alright! I'll show you cock-munching sneakshit not to mess with us!" Skidmark declared, just as he finished snorting his last line of cocaine from a rumbling engine. "Woooo!"
He raised a staff witha disco-ball mounted at the top into the air, and a field of blue pushed Centurion downwards, then extended to keep pushing, until he was near the ground.
After a moment of stumbling, Skidmark made his way to a strange turret at the ass of the crab, and took hold of it. Centurion didn't feel any warnings from his danger sense, so he stayed in place, even as the weapon emplacement spat a six harpoons in his general vicinity, narrowly missing him, hitting the asphalt around and behind him. The harpoons were tethered to the back of the crab with steel cords.
"Summovabitch!" Skidmark cried, holding his head upright. "I missed the dicklicker!"
"Try fucking hitting him again you piece of shit!" Squealer yelled back, as the whole crab swayed in a telegraphed movement, giving Browbeat plenty of time to move back and dodge the mechanical drill jab.
Skidmark's voice took on a rasped, furious shade, as he turned to look at her with bloodshot eyes. "Don't you fucking call me a piece of shit, you dumb whore!"
Squealer screamed and then moved the controls in a mighty heave.
The crab lurched across the street, ramming into a nearby convenience store. Two forward-facing pile drivers started drumming, leaving ditches in the concrete and in the building as she tore through it and onto another street behind it. The steel extension cords of the harpoon gun snapped taut, but didn't stop her, pulling chunks of concrete and stone alongside the mega-crab like wrecking balls, to finish off the complete demolition of the trail of destruction they left behind.
"Proceeding to Westgate Lane! Lots of damage to infrastructure over here! Maybe injured civvies," Browbeat said on radio.
"Vista and Browbeat; search and rescue. Centurion, follow the Merchants but keep your distance and don't attack. We're redirecting support your way," the console said.
How come this shit happens on a random patrol? They literally just saw the giant mega-crab lumbering around in the Docks, Skidmark shooting harpoons at anyone Asian-looking to scare them off, while Squealer cut apart Chinese food joints before the Wards were sent to investigate the noise. Presumably, moving in on the former ABB territory.
Vista began to shrink pieces of rubble, while Browbeat carefully pulled out dazed, confused, and scared civilians.
Centurion leaped onto a rooftop, leaving behind a trail of white dust. He ran across the buildings to follow the drug-addled duo.
The crab tumbled through the streets, piledrivers moving in a single direction: towards the shore, while the platform that Squealer and Skidmark was on spun around like a chaotic carousel, as the two of them… were fighting over the controls, apparently. He called her a bitch, slapping her to the ground, then whacking her over the head with the disco-staff.
She declared she's no meth whore, and he's not getting head for the next week, then raised her arm and brought it down, causing the crab to chaotically slam its compressor fist next to Skidmark. He jumped, "Holy fuck!"
"Console, they're fighting over the controls. They'll cause more damage than they originally intended to, and not even on purpose. I think I can incapacitate them both with lasers, if I get close enough," Centurion radioed in as he kept following them quickly.
"You have permission to engage, Centurion," the console said.
Centurion kept sprinting, leaping over the rooftops with increased momentum. As he started running parallel to them, he raised his hand and tried to divide his attention between jumping and shooting. A number of shotgun bursts started to prattle off from his palm, spraying at the Merchants.
They noticed him firing immediately, and Squealer pushed Skidmark off of herself with a, "Fuck off, asshole!" She took control of the mega-crab, and rotated its body, then made it run forward and slam into the building Centurion was on, upsetting the entire construction.
"Consider this your rehab!" Centurion jumped down. By actual, honest-to-God accident, he fell down onto Skidmark, who released a cry of someone in desperate need of a chiropractor, slumping with what might have been a fractured spine.
Centurion turned to Squealer. Before he could quip or even do anything, she swung both her fists, and the compressor fist almost slammed into him. His danger sense and a telekinetic intervention saved him, only for the danger sense to flare too late as he fell into the path of the second attack: the drill slammed into him, drilling against his armor for a moment before throwing him down off the crab.
He tumbled as he fell off, turning it into a controlled roll that he used to get back on his feet. Part telekinesis, part super-reflexes, part observing Armsmaster. "That was not polite!" he shouted.
"Go put on a condom from broken glass and fuck your whore mother!" Skidmark declared, crawling forward to the ledge of the mega-crab to get a better look.
At the same time, all four weapons from the mega-crab started lashing out against the general area where Centurion stood; drill, compressor fist, buzzsaw and metallic propeller. Two piledriver legs closest to him lashed out.
Centurion broke into a fine dusty gas, moving upwards, only to be swept up in the air current of the propeller and thrown in every single direction simultaneously. This appeared to confuse his power, as he blinked into existence in midair down the street, flying at the velocity of a speeding car, with a large cut in his armor but otherwise unhurt.
He stopped himself by creating a telekinetic cushion to alleviate his momentum, then turned around, quickly inspecting the crab's status.
Squealer kicked Skidmark in the back a few times, then in the stomach, pushing him – the leader of the fucking Merchants and her boyfriend from what he gathered – off her crab. He grunted with each kick, then cried out in pain as he hit the ground from ten meters up, and Squealer began to laugh the laugh of someone who wasn't sober today.
Taking up this opportunity, Centurion raised an arm and aimed at Squealer's head, lining up a precision shot. She was too taken by her guffaw to notice him, but the crab swayed in the wrong moment.
It hit her in the chest, causing the big rack to bounce and making her cry out in pain and surprise. When she looked up at him, her eyes were bloodshot with irritation. She made the crab move forward, and one of the piledrivers accidentally crushed Skidmark's legs into a fine red pulp, causing him to cry out louder than a newborn baby.
Skidmark started swearing like a sailor, holding himself near the left knee, turning in every direction and rolling around on the ground. If it wasn't absolutely fucking callous and brutal, it would have looked like a funny cartoon scene where a villainous bastard gets righteous comeuppance.
"Skidmark was incapacitated by their vehicle," Centurion radioed in, panicking a little bit, as he jumped up on another building to avoid the mega-crab's charge. "The mess that are now his legs is not my fault, just throwing it out there."
Squealer screamed like a liberated woman, directing her spider-crab through an alleyway it wouldn't fit through. The sides of the buildings bent out of shape, bricks cracking and struggling, metal scratching to create bright sparks, causing massive damage. Despite that, it moved through without problem, leaving behind utter destruction in its wake. She moved for Merchant territory.
"Copy that; a PRT van and ambulance are nearly there," console answered.
"I can get Squealer, I know it!" Centurion radioed in again, shooting a couple of piercing rounds at the crab's hull; taking the chance while she was in range. The lasers pierced into the metal in a few places, but only made dents in the others. It didn't slow down, moving towards the Trainyard.
"Mark your location so we can get Skidmark, then tail her," the agent manning the console replied.
Meanwhile, fucking Skidmark was dying out there, in desperate need of detox and medical attention. As Centurion leaped off the rooftop and flew by him, he heard the villain raspily demand, "Stop and help me, asshole!"
Centurion stopped in midair for a moment. He was conflicted. This junkie did nothing to deserve his help, but if he left him to die, he'd be no better than Shadow Stalker, or worse. Centurion zipped down and let his feet touch the ground, as he turned to Skidmark and knelt next to him. "Try anything and I'll smash your head into the asphalt."
Skidmark didn't reply, because he was too busy being in excruciating pain. He kept wailing, crying, and whimpering, spitting up white foam from his mouth, his eyes having more veins than a leafless tree had exposed branches. It reminded Centurion of that scene in Rick & Morty where the latter character falls off a cliff and breaks their legs, beginning a sequence of pained noises - indeed, it was kind of like that, but twice as intense, and in the voice of an adult man on drugs.
"Skidmark is in need of immediate medical attention and detox; he's probably on heavy drugs right now. What can I do to stabilize him?"
"Try to stop the bleeding! An ambulance is on the way," console advised.
Centurion spent fifteen charges on an upgrade to his regeneration power, to let him apply it to other people. The power began to process the request, taking several seconds. He felt the change start outlining itself gradually.
"Oh, fuck, oh, fuck," Skidmark wailed, followed by two, high-pitched 'ahaa-haa' sounds. His next statements were, ironically, closer to squeals than rasps, "That bitch, that bitch, bitch killed me. I'm gonna fucking bleed out and die, fucking gonna die, fuck, fuck, fuck! Tell that bitch I will fucking kill her if I die–"
Centurion slapped him across the face. Skidmark's face bent into the face of a grinning, laughing, crying, panicking demon for a split-second, before returning to just pure drug-addled mania and fear of death.
"I'm going to heal you," Centurion elucidated, doing nothing to stop Skidmark from screaming about blood and death.
The power took place.
Centurion focused on the new aspect. The healing enzyme, a green-lime gel, kind of reminiscent of shampoo and with an equally interesting, pleasant smell, manifested as a blob in his hand. He repeated the same for his other hand, and now held two healing slimes. He used telekinesis to float the twin blobs over to the bleeding, red stumps where Skidmark's calves should be. There were already two, large pools of blood at the base of the tarmac.
The green bio-gel seeped into the wounds, but too weakly to work properly. Centurion concentrated and pushed, spread it thinly inside the wound with telekinesis. It was extremely difficult; nigh-impossible, to manipulate liquids with his telekinesis, but the gel was more viscous than fluid, so it was doable.
"This is only temporary, and to stabilize you," Centurion explained, looking at Skidmark to see if he calmed down.
Skidmark's eyes were glazed, like they were made from glass. His skin looked pale and clammy, and he kept shivering like he was dipped into the Arctic ocean for a brief while. "I'm gonna fucking die, aren't I? Mommy, I'm so sorry… I'll stop doing drugs, I promise… I'm so sorry..."
"Promise that to me!" Centurion shouted, holding him by the shoulders.
"I'm so sorry, mom," Skidmark said, clearly absent mentally, shivering, then laughing weakly, shivering, wheezing, and shivering again. Cold drops of sweat were forming under his mask, clearly visible even as Skidmark kept vibrating.
Centurion pressed on his radio. "Hurry the fuck up, he's dying!" he exclaimed, applying more and more gel and pushing it inside of the wounds.
"The ambulance is a minute away, Centurion," console said. "The PRT van is tailing Squealer."
Skidmark looked at the sky, in a sort of enlightened gaze, as if seeing the universe's depth for the first time and understanding its sheer profundity. "Look, man," he said, surprisingly calm and even pleasant for his appearance, "The fucking stars, dude… the fucking stars look so damn groovy. Why the fuck are they spinning? Oh, maaaan..." Skidmark grinned stupidly, seeming to have already forgotten he's dying.
"Shit shit shit shit, shit!" Centurion rapid-fired.
Skidmark looked directly at Centurion, blinking once, with a surprisingly lucid expression. "Duuude, I'm so high right now. I don't think I'd recognize my own reflection in the mirror."
"I can see that," Centurion choked out, a little irritated. "The ambulance is a moment away, hold on to whatever thought keeps you alive."
Skidmark clapped Centurion on the arm in what appeared to be a friendly manner. "Dude, nah, don't call the ambulance. I'm juuust fine."
I gotta get him out of this state. Idea!
Centurion pushed one finger into Skidmark's thigh, into the wound. Skidmark released a sort of 'yiii-eee' sound, like someone who stepped on a cockroach with their bare foot, as his entire body recoiled in instinctive disgust. "What the fuck, dude?"
"Alright, that didn't work," Centurion grumbled as he withdrew the bloody finger. He looked around to see where the ambulance was. "Was trying to get you back to your senses."
Skidmark looked down, observing his own torso, noticing the rather unfortunate absence of anything below his knees. His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in displeasure. "Bruh."
"Bruh moment, right there," Centurion agreed.
In that moment, the ambulance turned the street and pulled over next to them. The paramedic stopped for a second, taking in the image of what he was seeing, then snapped out of it and began to help with bringing Skidmark onto a stretcher. As this happened, Skidmark started laughing, asking, "Yo, what the fuck? You can't just play around with a cripple like that, cuntmuncher."
"Sedate him, heavily," Centurion suggested, sighing in frustration, yet with a hint of satisfaction.
"Yaaa!" Skidmark said, nodding. He was beginning to look and sound a little winded, tired. His lack of blood catching up to the drugs. "Give me… your… best shit, man."
"Guess you're going to get a bonus fix today," Centurion quipped.
"Fuckin' A, man. Or was it, 'fucking amen?' Dude, I don't remem–" Skidmark said, cutting off as he suddenly lost consciousness, his head thumping against the stretcher as the paramedics loaded him in.
Centurion radioed in, "Skidmark is in the ambulance. We got him."
"Good job, Centurion," console said, then, after a moment of awkward silence, "Director Piggot is asking if he'll… survive."
"I stabilized him. If Panacea intervenes, sure."
"Roger that, I'll let her know. Go help Browbeat and Vista, then go to the PRT HQ to report for the end of patrol, over."
"Copy that."
AN: Funfact. After this chapter, I rolled the dice to see how Squealer would go about freeing Skidmark. The options differed from 'breaks him out while in transit,' or 'breaks him out of the hospital,' and similar. Funnily enough, I rolled a 1, which stands for, 'she gets high and forgets to break him out.'
I guess he's not getting out anytime soon.
Last edited: Oct 26, 2019
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Would you believe there are still several chapters to go before this arc ends?
May 13th, 2011
"Centurion power armor, test one," Armsmaster spoke into the camera recorder, then turned his back to it and stepped aside, to show it the entrance into the workshop. "You can step out now. The hydraulics and servos might be a little loose, or too clunky, but they'll adapt to your movement with time."
"Alright..." Centurion warily stepped out of the changing room, adapting to the new sensation of a second, steel-hard skin around his body. Where he'd expected the power armor to be overbearing and straining to wear for too long, it was actually rather light and, in some places, slimmer than his ordinary costume. There was a sort of delay between beginning or stopping a movement, and the armor actually reacting; half a second at first, which almost instantly snapped down to a quarter of a second as he made the first steps. It kept decreasing gradually.
At the top of his HUD, there was a progress bar, as some kind of software installed remotely. It was at 41%, and it was at 28% several minutes ago when he started putting it on, so it'd be done soon enough, by the end of the hour.
"Make some practice movements," Armsmaster advised, and Centurion obeyed, moving his arms, wrists, and legs in a collective shuffle. "The artificial joint system has its own stored memory; it will remember your motions and adapt to let you move smoothly. The process should be about complete in one or two days, assuming you move in it for at least three hours a day."
"What if I spend six consecutive hours in it?" Centurion asked, walking around the room, hopping and jogging in place, doing some stretches.
"It'll be done quicker," Armsmaster explained, "However in the preliminary stages, while the software is getting used to you, it's best to just be careful and take it easy."
"Got it," Centurion nodded in comprehension. "Thanks."
"I'm not installing all of my specialized programs, yet. I'm still not done with the supercomputer processors," Armsmaster elucidated. "For now, I've installed a tactical radar connected to the same console that the PRT uses for patrols, so you'll be able to see everyone's deployments and patrol routes across the city, and the program will automatically tag the latest positions of enemies as 'red dots.' It also has wireless communication, gas filtration, and with the correct eye-movements, you can look up files on the database and make internet searches in real-time."
"That's nice," Centurion commented blandly, hopping up on one foot, then switching to do the same with the other. "Can I incorporate my Thinker power into it as an independent AI, in some way?"
Armsmaster stumbled mentally, then creased his mouth. "I'm not sure how you'd do that. I'd need to know more about the method. I don't specialize in AIs, either way; what we have installed is just advanced programs."
"Huh, understandable."
Suddenly, the workshop speakers went online, with a soothing female voice, which went from straightforward to curious in a second, "Hey, I... I'm sorry, you have a guest in your workshop?"
Armsmaster smiled. It was different from the smiles he put on during the PR runs; that smile was disarmingly charming, excessively sweet to give people a positive image. This one looked honest, and was less charming, but more natural. In a way, that actually made it a different kind of charming.
"Centurion, this is Dragon. Dragon; Centurion." He looked at the Ward, still warm and buttery. "The two of us have been collaborating for some time, now."
Centurion's eyebrows rolled up in surprise. "That Dragon? The inventor of containment foam?"
"I didn't invent it," Dragon defended, sounding a little overwhelmed, "I just helped streamline the design, to let normal technology produce it."
"That's still amazing!" Centurion marveled.
"I agree," Armsmaster concurred with a nod of approval. "It's a highly strategic asset to all of our forces, and deserves the recognition for it."
"You're making me blush," Dragon replied, jokingly coy. On-screen, she moved her hand to wave them off. It was hard to make out her features; the room she sat in was dark as if purposefully concealing most of her in darkness. Doubling as a costume during calls like this, probably.
"Armsmaster's skill with the wrench is undeniable, but what do we have in common?" Centurion said, waiting for a moment for them to get the reference.
Armsmaster's head craned in Centurion's direction, then he blankly said - not asked, but said - "Efficiency."
Centurion smiled tight-lipped. "...It was a reference to a musical on my Earth, sorry about that. Forgot that it doesn't exist here. But yeah, efficiency is also a thing."
"Ah, I've had a look at your file, Centurion," Dragon said as if recalling that particular fact right now. "I was suitably impressed with your powers, though, I have to say that your attitude is remarkable. I was expecting someone more… I can't put it elegantly, but, 'punkish.'"
Centurion chuckled. "I like punk music, so don't worry about it," he waved her off easily.
Armsmaster frowned a little, but didn't stop smiling; a dent in his positive vibe. "Yes, Centurion can be rather reckless. That's why we're making efforts to outfit him with suitable protection."
"And I am getting better. Tattletale said it's not out of the question that I'll make it big," he said, internally weirded out that he was using that nasty cunt as a way of getting mucho cred, of all things.
"Hm," Armsmaster made a sound of vague consideration, but ignored the mention of Tattletale. "Your arrest of Skidmark yesterday was partly a coincidence, rather than a true effort, but you did manage to stabilize him admirably. Yes, I suppose you've gotten better over the course of your Wardship."
"The me from a month ago would've chased Squealer until he had gotten mauled by the mechanical crab's weapons," Centurion said, not quite arguing. Remarking.
Dragon spoke in that moment, as if backing away, "I'll let you guys get back to work, then. We can talk later... Armsmaster." There was a pause, before she said his name.
"Wait," Armsmaster snapped. "What is it you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Do you believe Centurion is trustworthy?" Dragon queried.
Armsmaster looked at Centurion blankly, then asked, "Do you intend to leak any confidential information, sell it, or otherwise use it to your personal advantage?"
Centurion stared at him blankly in return. "I'd have done that a long time ago if I wanted to. Short answer: no."
"Truth," Armsmaster stated, plain and simple, then turned to look at the monitor.
Dragon offered a smile. "We have been working on a, you could call it, top-secret project, Centurion. Show him, Armsmaster..."
"It's fine," Armsmaster said as Dragon's voice dragged off, then looked at Centurion. "My name is Colin."
"My name's Gabriel," Centurion responded with a polite nod in his direction.
With that done, Armsmaster turned to one of the equipment storage lockers, labeled 'current projects,' and withdrew a small, metallic object from it, before carefully putting it in Centurion's hand. "This is a prototype, a proof of concept. We call it 'nano-thorns.' Press the button on the side."
Centurion looked down at the item, inspecting it. It was a small handheld device, crafted out of solid steel, with a black button on the side, and several vents at the bottom and top. Centurion pressed the button on the side of the object.
A gray blur jutted out of the top of the device, strangely static as it moved. It tingled like the white-black dotted screen of a TV without a channel and was a lighter shade at the edge. At the same time, the vents on the knife turned on, cycling hot air to the exterior.
Armsmaster picked up a plate of steel from a nearby worktable, then held it out like a wooden board that a martial artist was supposed to break. "Cut into it."
The young hero held the knife tightly with one hand and then slashed down, through the plate of steel. As he did, the nanothorn knife roared, and the steel broke effortlessly in half. He didn't even feel the knife impact the steel; didn't feel any resistance. The knife broke through it like it was slicing through the air, and left little but a cloud of metallic dust that dissipated rapidly.
"Is this a lightsaber?" Centurion looked at it in awe, moving it around in front of his face, but at a considerable distance.
"It's nano-thorns," Armsmaster corrected with a note of irritation.
Armsmaster proceeded to monologue proudly, "They slip between atoms and sever molecular bonds in an instant. We believe it could become an effective Endbringer weapon, and I'm working to incorporate it into one of my halberds. The issues are centered around waste heat; it produces too much, necessitating vents." Centurion kept waving the weapon in front of his face. "Turn it off, or it might break down soon: what you're holding is just an early prototype."
Centurion turned off the knife with a press of the button. Armsmaster took it, and put it away in the same place he withdrew it from.
"Was there something else, Dragon?" Armsmaster asked summarily.
"I just wanted to ask how your progress on the combat prediction software is, and about that supercomputer," she said. "You know what the system is saying."
"Yes," Armsmaster replied grimly, turning to Centurion. "Do you know when the last Endbringer attack was, where, and which Endbringer attacked?"
"Uhm, I believe it was the Simurgh?"
"Correct," Armsmaster stated. "The latest Endbringer attack was on February 24th, when the Simurgh attacked Canberra. There are programs in place, that attempt to predict the patterns of Endbringer attacks. According to the statistics, the next likely Endbringer attack will be carried out by Leviathan. It's possible we'll be targeted, so we should be prepared. It's improbable you'll be sent off to another city to help in the defense, as a valuable but developing asset, but should Leviathan attack Brockton Bay, you will most likely not be prevented from attending. That's why I agreed to make the power armor for you, in part."
Centurion was in habit of telling Armsmaster the weaknesses of parahumans, given their training sessions, so he spoke more or less without thinking: "If one had a freezing power strong enough, they'd be a pretty good counter to Leviathan's hydrokinesis."
"Not really," Armsmaster answered callously. "You underestimate Leviathan, if you believe it's that easy. His tidal waves, when they hit a city, move at enough speed that it's as if though there was an avalanche of solid concrete slamming into it. Ice might save you once or twice, but it's stop-gap measure in the grand scheme of things. Better than lasers, though, I will admit."
Centurion whispered to himself, "Shit…"
"If Leviathan does attack the city," Armsmaster started, "It'd be best if you stayed behind in a support role, carried the big hitters to advantageous points, or helped stabilize the wounded. Despite that, I insist it's far more likely that Leviathan will attack somewhere in South America or South Africa."
"That, I can do," Centurion agreed.
I just really hope Crystal stays away from that big water-monkey.
"Excellent."
"Will… any of the Wards be on the frontlines? Same goes for other… younger heroes?" Centurion asked with a small tinge of fear.
"The odds that Brockton Bay is targeted are low," Dragon reassured him, "Less than ten percent. There's very little to fear, and although we prefer to be careful–"
"Please, answer my question," Centurion exclaimed, torn between scared and anxious.
"It depends on them and their abilities," Armsmaster stated in an honest voice, either not caring or not noticing Centurion's internal turmoil. He took on a slightly nonplussed look for a moment. "I'm surprised; I'd have thought you'd be eager to fight an Endbringer."
"Not right now. When I'm on Scion's level, I'll think about it," Centurion informed, reassuring himself more than anything else.
"I see," Armsmaster said, channeling his inner Goblin Slayer.
"Let's hope luck stays on our side."
"I've been studying Leviathan with my combat prediction software, and the nanothorns will let me cut through his flesh like butter," Armsmaster explained, with a deep hum of pride in his voice. "I'm confident I could give him a run for his money."
"You'd need a blade big enough to do significant damage."
"I've been working over the past few months," Armsmaster stated, nodding, as if taking the statement at face value. "This includes working on new techniques and weapon patterns. I've managed to reproduce Clockblocker's time-freezing effect on a length of wire, and I might be able to do something similar with my halberds, to let me create clotheslines. I've also managed to successfully scan your forcefield and energy blasts, and I am making a one-time forcefield from them that can take any hit, then moves me to safety where I can recharge it. Dragon's suits can provide energy stores for me to use in the field."
"Hey, you copy-cat," Centurion teased, chuckling.
"You'd be surprised how many Tinkers are inspired by ordinary parahuman powers," Dragon defended, "A lot of our invented technology is just that."
"I must admit I do that as well, to an extent," Centurion acknowledged, his golden environmental shield blazing into existence around him with a glimmer. "I'm trying to go for something along the lines of Green Lantern, but yellow and mixed with many other powers."
"You're not unlike a Tinker with a specialty in creating powers," Armsmaster noted dryly, "but I do not understand how the yellow light of fear can help you. Hm, I suppose there would be much fear during an Endbringer fight. Nevermind."
Dragon seemed shocked for a moment. "Was that a joke, Colin?"
"A joke?" he asked in confusion, tilting his head.
Centurion couldn't keep his eyes from widening at that, before even realizing Armsmaster thought what he said was normal for some reason.
"Yes. That does remind me," Armsmaster stated, as though recalling some minor fact in hindsight, with a bittersweetness to it. He opened a locker and pulled out a very large, clunky, green ring, with a metal 'diamond' the size of a golf-ball. "I've scanned Gallant's power and tried to make something of it."
"Did you just solve entropy? Creating energy out of an emotional concept?" Centurion gushed excitedly, his mind actually beginning to race at the possibilities.
"No," Armsmaster stated, cutting his enthusiasm short. "It doesn't do anything, except make the person hit by the energy blasts more determined, which defeats the point since they'll refuse to surrender. It does not generate energy from nowhere."
"Oh," Centurion said, severely disappointed.
"I'll work more on it later. I…" Armsmaster clicked his tongue in frustration, then admitted, "I admit, that this venture has interested me, for some reason, but I don't specialize in emotions nor directed-energy weapons. It'd be best if I handed over my blueprints to someone with a more suitable methodology for this project, or collaborated."
"I'm sorry, I'm not sure I follow the course of the discussion?" Dragon asked politely.
Centurion turned to the nearest monitor, which was on Armsmaster's desk. "There's a, uh, superhero from DC Comics that has an alien ring which turns willpower into energy, usable to fly, increase durability, create energy blasts and hard-light constructs of many kinds."
Dragon stopped for a moment. Through her webcam, she was barely visible, covered in darkness; possibly to protect her identity, but even then, her face clearly scrunched up in confusion, frustration, and some degree of mental anguish. It took her five seconds to even open her mouth. "B… but, that doesn't make any sense!"
"I said much the same," Armsmaster replied with a spark of unity.
Centurion argued, "I think it's possible to a degree if you manage to convert the brainwaves or the brain chemistry related to the emotion of determination, into energy."
"That would eat away the brainwaves or the chemicals," Dragon said, perplexion as the color that adorned her painted form. "They are energy, on some level, yes: but their presence doesn't produce new energy out of nowhere... does it?..."
"Yeah, I'm fairly certain that in the Green Lantern comics, the Emotional Spectrum was an actual, external force which Ring-users leeched off of."
"I'm not sure… there is an external force we can leech," Dragon said, eyebrows deeply furrowed. "Also, emotional spectrum?"
"The emotional electromagnetic spectrum," Armsmaster stated, in the same stoic voice as always, completely serious. "I've read the comics during my forays into the willpower ring project. There are colors of the spectrum that correspond to certain emotions: red for anger, orange for avarice, yellow for fear, green for willpower, blue for hope, indigo for compassion, and violet for love," he said, like a commanding officer in a military briefing. Seeing him – the head of the Protectorate ENE – talk so seriously about the internal workings of a fictional universe was hilarious, and somewhat surreal.
"Blue is my favorite!" Centurion pointed out.
"I agree it seems pleasant," Armsmaster commented with a nod, and went on to continue, "But it's inefficient. There isn't enough of it to reap in our situation. A ring that utilizes fear or anger would be far more effective during an Endbringer fight."
"Give a green and red ring to me, and you have an unstoppable Endbringer killer," Centurion quipped.
"I'd rather have one that's stoppable, in case he was to cause more damage to the world than the original enemy," Armsmaster grumbled.
"Was that another joke, hidden deep down?"
"I don't see how that was a joke," Armsmaster stated, eyebrows furrowing; less in confusion, and more in worry. "I'm concerned about my ability to understand your sense of humor."
Dragon burst out in hearty laughter.
"I'm a Gen-Z teenager, my sense of humor consists of blurred images with weird captions. Such as a blurry image of a fork that says 'forbidden spaghet' in all caps, you know?"
Armsmaster's mouth formed an 'o' for a brief moment, as he tried to comprehend the image Centurion described, and why it was supposed to be funny. In the end, he took on a stoic expression and frowned. "I have found a blurred image of you, that says, 'head hit, mind…'" he stopped before he could say a bad word.
Centurion stayed silent for a moment, anticipation welling up in his chest. He then burst out laughing like a maniac, recoiling up and down, back and forth. "Yes! I've done it! I've become a true meme!" Centurion shouted.
"I'm concerned," Armsmaster reflected.
"Remember the Bank Robbery?" he asked.
"Yes." Armsmaster frowned, then, in a spark of anger added, "How could I forget? That was a fiasco, and it embarrassed the whole department!"
"I was concussed pretty heavily, and when I came out of the smoke, Vista helped me, and the only thing I said before passing out was, 'head hit, mind… fricked'."
Dragon giggled warmly. "I remember that."
"Yeah, wasn't one of my proudest moments."
"I am aware of it, but I think laughing about it is immature. It's not a good mark on your record, at any rate," Armsmaster said, sounding too analytical for the subject matter. "For the first memetic image regarding you to be one commemorating a defeat."
"It's not like I've won anything as of late..." Centurion crossed his arms, sighing.
"I'd argue the Merchant skirmish yesterday was a rather acceptable stalemate, all things considered," Armsmaster expressed, before moving across the workshop and withdrawing a spare, unaugmented halberd from a holding rack.
"I want to win. I want to come out on top. And make everyone know that I did it," Centurion said, bringing his arms back down, feeling the same humiliation he felt when the Undersiders ran away swell up in him again. "I want to humiliate them like they humiliated me–" Centurion stopped himself before he could say something edgy like, 'the streets will run red with the blood of those who mocked me.'
Armsmaster started moving again, as if pretending he didn't hear that. In the meantime, Dragon said, "Not a lot of Wards with your experience see many personal victories. You've seen more losses than average, but I'd say it's because you have a – forgive me, but it's true – a tendency towards reckless behavior, pushing for a victory when escape, caution or regrouping might be preferable. In fact, the Bakuda crisis was the first major victory that Clockblocker and Vista can count into their record."
Armsmaster nodded, from where he was holding his halberd up against a large magnifying glass, clearly made specifically for micro-engineering. "I agree. Hookwolf's arrest doesn't count, as it was a group effort between all of the Wards and New Wave, from what I was told. No one in particular received credit for that one." He sat down in the sturdy chair and began to tinker with his tools, performing some form of modifications to the halberd.
"I know, you're right," Centurion agreed.
Armsmaster motioned to the components locker with a stray finger. "Hand me the Green Power Ring, Centurion."
Centurion chuckled lightly and went to the locker to pick up the accessory. "Aye-aye, Hal Jordan."
"Hal Jordan? Is that one of the Lanterns?" Armsmaster queried semi-curiously.
"Yup. Hal Jordan, Jon Stewart, Alan Scott, Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, and a Cruz girl I don't remember the first name of. They're all of Earth's Lanterns over the years, not including other superheroes who used the Rings," Centurion loredumped.
Armsmaster cleared his throat, hand extended to receive.
Centurion put the Ring in his hand. Armsmaster put it on the workbench and locked it in place with an industrial press, then used some kind of advanced pressure cutter to saw-off the ring element, leaving behind only the weird, green metal diamond-shaped thing. He smoothed the cut surface with some sort of specialized tool, making it uniform with the rest of the ring.
Armsmaster took it in his hand and admired it for a moment, then put it back into the industrial press and cut it open; he started doing work on the internal components. Centurion spied on an actual gem of some kind inside of it, touching up against the firing surface; some kind of focusing lens?
Armsmaster cut away some of the components, then looked up and said, "Oh. Centurion, you're free to go. Dragon and I have some projects to catch up on."
Centurion's eyebrows raised slightly. "Riiight… I'll take my leave. See you soon," he told Armsmaster and then turned to Dragon. "Goodbye, Dragon."
"Goodbye, Centurion," she said.
"Make sure to be careful about the power armor," Armsmaster added, not looking away from his tinkering.
"I will," Centurion reassured.
Armsmaster nodded, as Centurion walked out of the Rig workshop. He didn't hear Armsmaster mutter something about grievous overuse and broken bones.
Last edited: Oct 27, 2019
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#1,325
May 14th, 2011
Being called in the brink of morning to work? Not fun. Especially not fun when you enter your boss' office, and you hate your boss, and see a stern-looking Armsmaster next to her, both of them looking at you like they mean business.
Centurion slumped in the chair graciously provided to him.
"The Chief Director has received my latest report, and there has been a conference call regarding you," Piggot said, from behind her desk. "Regarding your behavior, and progress."
Centurion's eyes rolled up in frustration. He felt his thighs tense up, as reaction to the anger, which reached the physical level already.
This shit again?
He crossed his arms. "What is the problem this time?" he asked, glancing at Armsmaster and sighing.
"Several," Piggot said, opening up a file labelled, ' ' in black, mechanical letters. "Where should I begin? Personality? History? General?"
"Whichever you prefer."
Piggot frowned at him impassively, eyebrows lowered in weariness. "This is an intervention, Centurion. Not my decision, as the PRT as a whole has decided to change their approach to you. At the end of this meeting, I will be giving you several options, but for now, we must review your progress. I've been told to make you aware of the grave errors you've committed, and then telling you how we will go about changing that."
Centurion could feel the veins in his neck push against the skin. But there was also some sort of… relief, in knowing they'd stop merely telling him what was wrong, but started to tell him how to change for the better. The grip on his own biceps loosened.
Piggot adjusted the file in her hands, holding it with both of them. After a moment's consideration, she sighed and laid down the file, then pushed it over to him.
"Perhaps you'd rather read it yourself?"
Centurion picked it up, reading through it.
◈ CENTURION; Gabriele Lioni Flores
Classification: Trump 5-9
Ability to develop new powers as required, with a limited amount of charges each day. Always assume at least a two (2) in every PRT classification category. Always assume that he will have new powers or stronger powers with new elements each day or few days.
Disposition: Protectorate
Location: DEPT ENE (Brockton Bay) as of 02-04-11
Age: 16
Status: Full time
Height: 6'1" Weight: 182 lbs.
Class S Option: YES
Appearance: Caucasian teenager, tall, athletic, curly hair, good-looking.
General:
Centurion is a teenage boy, supposedly originating from another world (tentatively codenamed "Earth Ayin,") who shows a sincere desire in helping with the law enforcement. Relatively new to the scene and uninterested in the political and public aspects of the work, his desire for direct confrontation acts as a drive that leads him to fighting crime in person with a fanatic fervor. He is noted to have gained the ire of the Empire Eighty-Eight. Watchdog and high office agents have confirmed the existence of Earth Ayin.
History:
Centurion first appeared somewhere around the 1st of April, in 2011. All of his words were tested using a Tinker lie detector.
According to his claims, he woke up in a new body, in a warehouse inside a dilapidated district of the city. His last memory before the dimensional shift was of his best friend. He was quick and eager to join the PRT ENE upon discovering that "superheroes were real" and making the realization he, too, had powers.
Over the course of the first two months of his appearance; April and May, after his basic training, Centurion wound up tumbling through a long sequence of protocol errors and reckless behaviors that led to hospitalization four times, and gained the hatred of the local group of interest, Empire 88, in the process. In late April, he was adopted by Hannah Flores, a PRT agent living in Brockton Bay. He is a high-priority member of the Wards; should he become independent, he may be too volatile to stop easily.
Further information pending review.
Personality:
Centurion is argumentative but can bend under a careful application of authority or goodwill.
Underneath what appears as a desire for justice, Centurion is extremely prone to recklessness and violence, to a nigh-sadistic degree. He is noted to have beaten three gang members to near-death when provoked, and then threatening them further and fleeing the scene when the first responders arrived - he saw nothing wrong with this course of action. He took their weapons, including a firearm, following the brawl. He is driven to arrest or potentially do harm to anyone he sees as working for the "other side." Centurion has a hero complex.
He is liable to ignore orders or even lie and manipulate when he believes the orders to be "illogical," or coming from the wrong authority. As such, Centurion shows narcissism and belief in his own preponderance but was also willing to amend his behavior when reprimanded and punished; after which he complied with the orders to attend special classes and courses.
Centurion shows a lack of forethought and tactical aptitude when dealing with combat situations, preferring to rush in. He has described more than one time that, during combat situations, his body is taken over by 'adrenaline.' It is unknown whether this is a behavioral issue or a quirk of his power: regular monthly psychological evaluations are advised.
He shows an appreciation for classical music and can play the piano with satisfactory skill, and appears to appreciate opportunities to practice and play, which is a possible PR solution.
It is advised to be a reasonable authority figure, as risking defection from him would be a heavy blow to the PRT as a whole.
As his eyes dashed over the file, Centurion's mind filled itself with different, conflicting emotions.
Piggot leaned forward, over the desk, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "The PRT is going to restrict the use of your power, from now on. There is going to be a list of goals, that you will have to meet. This is an absolute requirement, you understand? We will also be cutting your patrol time, your interactions with the public; you will be allowed piano concerts, but nothing else."
"So, house arrest? This is basically it, is it not?" Centurion said snappily, feeling himself get hotter.
"It is not," Piggot clarified, her sandpaper tone uncompromising. "You'll be allowed to commute to work as normal, to go to school, to have friends over."
Centurion wanted to sigh in relief, but he didn't want to show anything else besides cold neutrality. "Alright, fine," he assented.
"Alright, now, there are three options which I managed to haggle for you. Some of them were propositions from the Chief Director, corroborated by the others," Piggot explained, then continued on to say, "Option one is that you stay as a Ward in the East-North-East department, as you are now. This includes no specialized training programs beyond the ones you're already having."
Centurion looked in her eyes. "What are the other options?"
"The second, and I'm sure you'll agree that it's amenable given the sheer prestige it offers, is to be transferred to the Houston Wards," Piggot enthused with faux pleasantry. "Eidolon's department, for clarification. You'd have him as your direct superior, and, although it was unspoken, I believe he'd offer you training and advice much like Armsmaster here.."
Centurion's heart sank down into his stomach, only to get burned by the vat of acids waiting for it at the bottom. "Would that imply cutting connections with people here?"
"I don't see how, given that video chats are a thing, and knowing how powers work, teleportation back and forth isn't out of the question," Piggot retorted as if it were obvious. "Although, yes; for a majority of the time, you'd be too busy in Houston to have visit time. I suppose you'd come back only on your off-days."
"So I could come back here when possible?"
"Yes. For clarification, Houston is in Texas, so you'd need some superpowered assistance to do so in one day," Piggot explained, calm and level. "Or just the willingness to take a five-hour plane twice."
Centurion pondered for a moment. Accepting a transfer would mean losing all his friends, in a sense. He valued human contact above all else in relationships of all kinds. That includes being able to touch the other person, to be physically close to them. "The other options…?"
"Something similar to the second option, but you'd be moved to Toronto instead, with more oversight from PRT-affiliates and Guild members, like Narwhal and Dragon; both are professional and highly experienced," Piggot said. "Or you can stay here, but, again, it's all up to you. If you choose to transfer, it'd happen in the next month."
Centurion was confused for a moment. "Small, unrelated question, but… if this is for my growth, how is a Tinker like Dragon supposed to help me?"
"It's less of a question of growth, and more of a question of politics: this would groom you to perhaps join the Guild in the future, and become a player on a wider, international scale," Piggot explained pointedly, looking at Armsmaster. "Also, I believe Dragon displayed a willingness to offer you Tinkertech tools, given your ability to maintain such technology. Or help you with Tinkertech in general, if you chose that path."
"If I were to develop a long-distance, instantaneous teleportation… could I alternate between the two?"
Piggot blinked for a moment, disbelieving, mouthing the words he just said to herself. "Alternate between, what, Toronto and Houston?" she queried.
"Yes. And on my off-days, come here."
She looked briefly flat-footed, clearly not expecting the ultra-ambitious fourth answer. "I doubt, given the PRT's political leanings, that anyone would agree to share you, so to speak," Piggot answered, carefully and obtusely. "I could ask the Chief Director and my colleagues if they agree, but it'd be extremely abnormal for a Ward to be under the authority of several departments at once."
"Formally, I'd be in one of the two. Unofficially, I'd be in both," Centurion spoke, as he felt his anger wear off. He was… considering this. Walking in here and hearing the options at first, he thought they'd send him off forever without a chance to see his friends and loved ones ever again. But now… the options seemed inviting.
"That wouldn't work for political and merchandising reasons, although, I suppose I could ask. It's not the most insane idea I've heard come from a young parahuman," Piggot considered.
Centurion's was conflicted, torn into uniform parts. Dragon or Eidolon? Both had their pros and cons. Dragon? The most prolific Tinker in the world. Nigh-unlimited access to Tinkertech. Create a power to merely develop blueprints, and Dragon would make them reality. Eidolon? Such prestige. And their powers are almost the same: he'd be the best bet at making him the best version of himself.
"I'm… conflicted. Both are appealing, but I genuinely do not know where to go."
"You have time to choose," Piggot stated. "Although the power training plans and patrol restrictions apply in all scenarios, you can stay in Brockton Bay and transfer later. However, everyone would like you to do so as soon as possible."
"I'd like to hear both of your opinions on this," Centurion asked, neutrally pleading.
"In your place, I'd kill to work with Dragon," Armsmaster threw in the advice that Centurion already knew. "But I'm a Tinker. If I were a Trump, I'd probably choose Eidolon instead."
Centurion's eyebrows raised under his helmet. Of course he roots for his girlfriend. "Yes, but… Tinkering is also an appealing course of action, and I could really use the technology. I've always wondered if there was a way to amplify some aspects of my power with Tinkertech."
Piggot didn't say anything, or move too much, just staring at him. Centurion's inner conflict, however, didn't change. He decided to ask Oracle for a suggestion.
Oracle, who should I pick if I want to make it big in the shortest amount of time?
It took ten seconds.
Transferring to Houston will confirm memes that Centurion is Eidolon's son in the eyes of the public. Quick path to international fame.
That was not my question, you… fuck. Centurion didn't want easy fame out of something so trivial. He wanted to earn it. Blood, sweat and tears included.
"Whatever you end up choosing, there is no wrong choice here," Piggot assuaded, surprisingly easygoing. "And a choice needn't be permanent and binding."
"...Either way, could I occasionally call or communicate with Eidolon for advice?"
"Eidolon isn't a hotline for reckless and suicidal teens," Piggot said, surprisingly lighthearted. "But, you'd be training under his supervision. He has shown interest in meeting you. Or, rather, implied it with polite wording."
Centurion looked down and thought. So much indecisiveness. "I want to give you an answer now, but I'm… still not sure."
"Have a moment to think about it. If you don't come to a conclusion today, you might tomorrow, or after tomorrow, or sometime after that," Piggot extended the offer. "Or I could arrange for meetings with consultants and advisors if you'd prefer. They could help you choose."
Centurion's head raised to meet Piggot's gaze. He looked driven. He was, in fact. "I choose Houston. Eidolon."
She took that at face value, nodding shallowly. "Keep in mind no one ever technically said you'd be apprenticing under Eidolon," Piggot added, "That's just the general implication. There's no other reason to move you to those two specific departments than to keep you under the supervision of someone experienced. Either way, shall I inform the PRT of your decision?"
Centurion inhaled. "Yes," he said, exhaling all at once.
Piggot sighed, then turned to her computer and started writing something, while Centurion laid down his file on her desk. "I'll send the emails and documents for the transfer right away. If everything goes right, you'll be in Houston sometime next month. Armsmaster, show Centurion out of my office."
Armsmaster nodded, and led the way outside, closing the door once Centurion came through. They fell into step in the direction of the elevator.
"You've made the right choice," Armsmaster commented with approval.
"I thought there were no wrong choices," Centurion remarked with a tinge of irony.
"No, but each one had merits and demerits," Armsmaster explained. "For example, going to Toronto, where Narwhal operates, would give you an easy access to becoming a Guild member in the future."
"I must admit, having access to a Tinker like Dragon would've been awesome," Centurion said, laced with temptation. "Get a power to merely create blueprints of all kinds, and then she can work upon them," he explained.
Armsmaster frowned in disapproval, glancing at Centurion out of the corner of his sight, giving the impression he was narrowing his eyebrows. "That's rather lazy," Armsmaster reprimanded, shaking his head. "You'd be willing to design ideas without putting work into them? I suppose that's the attitude of a Trump."
"Which is why I picked Houston," Centurion joked, laughing softly.
Armsmaster let himself sigh. "Sometimes, you find ways to be more disagreeable than Dauntless."
"That reminds me," Centurion inquired, "what's between you two?"
"A rivalry," Armsmaster answered.
"Stemming from… what, exactly?"
"Dauntless' power gives him prestige and fame at little to no hardship," Armsmaster brooded in a stark tone. "In contrast to someone like me, who has to put in effort into every hour of the day just to earn my place as the head of the Protectorate."
"You think he hasn't earned what he was given?"
"All he does is touch an object and imbue it with energy. Comparatively, even you do more work, having to put thought into the exact nature of the power you want to obtain."
Centurion decided not to dig further down the rabbit hole. "I see," he concluded. "I'll be calibrating the power armor in the sparring room, if you need me."
"Do so," Armsmaster ordered, turning to the elevator while Centurion stood at the intersection for a moment, before turning right.
Spoiler: in a world where kyushu didn't get wrecked
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Centurion was standing in the sparring room, power armor on, doing some exercises to calibrate the servos. The delay between the movements kept decreasing: it was at 0.11 seconds right now, but Armsmaster said that an optimal measure would be 0.03 or less, so Centurion worked to get there. Meanwhile, he kept thinking.
He knew for a fact that the file was truthful. Everything said about him was true, to some extent. And the way he felt about it all didn't make it better in any way. He put it aside for the meeting, but now it rang in his mind.
"News is, Leviathan's going to attack Florida." A black figure phased through the wall, cloudy tendrils of darkness fluttering around her, before snapping into her skin. Shadow Stalker sidled around him casually, stretching her arms and legs as he did.
"I call bullshit. My gut tells me we're bait waiting to be eaten if we don't prepare," he replied snappily.
"Preparations don't really matter with Endbringers," she replied, walking around him, too casual for her words. "Although, it's your word against a bunch of Tinkertech."
Oracle, is Leviathan going to attack Brockton Bay any time soon?
Slightly unlikely that Leviathan will attack areas north of Brockton Bay or surrounding Brockton Bay. Around 25% chance Leviathan will attack Florida, or a 25% chance Leviathan will attack the areas surrounding Boston or New York. 50% chance he attacks anywhere else on the east coast.
"Hmph. Oracle agrees," Centurion said, punching and kicking the air, blowing out air with each thrust.
"If you breathe that quick, you'll get winded," Stalker advised. "There's a rhythm you need to maintain. You're doing it too choppy. Not that it matters with, though. You've got a super-body, or whatever they called it."
"Any advice is good," Centurion remarked, changing his breathing rhythm to breathe in, move, move, breathe out. He found it much easier to move. Even if he didn't tire, it changed the effort. He'd never really consciously considered it before; he just kind of... fought, and that was that. On pure instinct.
"The same goes for running: a full breathing cycle for every three steps," she commented, then changed the topic, "Anyway. I happen to have… overheard, some of your talk with Armsmaster. The PRT really needs better camera placements. Houston? Isn't that Eidolon's place?" She turned to look at him.
"If you want to mock me, please, get it over it quickly," Centurion pleaded.
"No way," she answered. "I mean, with your power? I'd kill people to apprentice under Eidolon. But you probably already know that."
"Changing topic," Centurion spoke out with a note of irritation. Stalker seemed to grin at his displeasure, nurturing herself with it. "Armsmaster has been training me pretty well over the last few weeks."
"Armsmaster is kind of an asshole," Shadow Stalker argued back, blasé; she was trying to be the opposite of tense while acting contrary. "Pretty much all of the Wards agree, too. He's giving you special attention because you have a good power and if people in the PRT think of you as 'oh, that Centurion who learned under Armsmaster,' he gets a good rep for it. Brockton Bay's golden goose."
Centurion felt a little… betrayed by those words, but in the end, he didn't care much. He was getting some training, some experience under a seasoned veteran. All the best for him, right?
"So what's the long-term game, here, I mean? You get that apprenticeship as the Triumvirate's newest baby boy, confirm the rumors about Eidolon being your papa, get loads of on-the-job experience, inducted into the upper circles, et cetera, et cetera. What after that? You come back to Brockton Bay and, after Armsmaster retires or dies, you take his place?"
"Yes," he said with utmost confidence. He stopped moving and took off his helmet to let his hair fall loose and give him a break from the steamy interior of the headpiece of the armor. "I want people to see me as a… symbol of peace, and I want criminals and villains to be scared of me."
"Symbol of peace and being a fearmonger are kind of contrarian," Shadow Stalker snided. "One or the other, Centurion."
"Good people should not be afraid of the police. Criminals are. You know what I mean?"
"Yes, but that's not how the cape scene works, not how our reputation works. It's not the same as police. Our powers put us – not to sound like a Nazi, or anything – but, they put us on a pedestal, above normal people. And normal people don't like that too much, by basic human instinct. That's why we're 'para'-humans, not just humans. We don't count anymore. The PRT tries to fight that whole schism, but it's kind of hard when a Nilbog could pop out in your little countryside village any day that a random stroke of misfortune dictates."
Centurion considered that for a moment, before giving his thoughts. "I'd rather make people glad that I'm there to protect them."
"More like Legend than Cinereal, then. That woman is one tough, evil bitch, even if they dress her up in plumage," Shadow Stalker laughed.
Centurion felt a coal of anger burn in his stomach, even as he smiled at her. "Yes, exactly. Now, can I ask you why you're here?"
"To do small-talk, keep myself in the loop," Shadow Stalker told him, managing to sound incredibly close to Tattletale, in her tone and in the way she carried herself. "If you really can't guess my motivations from my appearance here, then you won't be a politician or leader. More of a figurehead."
"Mh. Not to sound offensive, but you never know when it comes to you. You're unpredictable. And that's not a bad thing, most of the time."
"I bother actually covering up my tendencies, though," Shadow Stalker countered softly, too soft for her voice. Driving the point in. "You? I didn't read the file; none of us have access to yours, ironically. Not full access, but what little there is in personality isn't flattering."
"Narcissistic sociopath with a hero complex."
"Not that much. Just reckless and violent," she said, a little surprised. "Was that what the full file said? Wow."
"More or less," he reluctantly admitted.
"And Piggot actually showed it to you?" she asked, even more disbelieving. He carefully read her face before answering, saw the incredulity.
"Who tells you that I said the truth?" Centurion shrugged, looking at her, head to toe.
She faced away, her arms bent and stretched behind her head, shifting into casual behavior again, but not saying anything.
"Do you want to spar? I have some steam to blow off," he suggested.
"Am I allowed to use my crossbow?" she asked, head half-turning to look at him.
"Only if I can keep my power armor."
"No armor and no crossbow, then," she said.
"Deal."
"Alright. How long does that take to..."
"Three minutes, tops." Centurion made a prompt of movements with his eyes, causing the breastplate to click and open on both sides, extend off his torso, and allow him to take it off, leaving him with the red plastic underlayer. In two more minutes, he was wearing only the synthetically-woven underlayer of his original Centurion suit, his athletic physique contrasting sharply through it.
Shadow Stalker tossed her armaments aside, then walked closer and squared her shoulders, keeping her hands too low to be called a guard, and her legs not far away enough to be called a defensive stance. At least not by his standards.
Centurion spent five charges on a power that let him manually switch on adrenaline. And with that, he put up his guard. Shadow Stalker held her ground, anticipating his attack.
Steadily and slowly, he started walking around her, like a wolf waiting to feast on his prey. Shadow Stalker began to circle around him in turn, and they began to move in a wheel.
Centurion grinned provokingly. "Scared?"
"Cautious, not scared," Shadow Stalker answered in an amused tone, and he could sense the bloodthirsty grin under her helmet.
"I could learn a thing or two from you, eh?" he snarked.
"I bet you will, after this spar is over," she jabbed.
Centurion dashed at Shadow Stalker, aided by a telekinetic shove.
She stood in place, waiting for his arrival, then Broke around him, carried like dust in the air to his right side, and came out of her Breaker state with a scything kick to his back. She started the kick in her shadow state, then apparated back near its conclusion; giving it more speed and force than it would have had otherwise.
Centurion dashed out of the way of the kick, turning his guard towards her once more, anticipating the next attack. Shadow Stalker punched, the off-hand held close to her face to prevent any easy counters and the rest of her body standing too far for an easy kick. Centurion blocked the strike with his own forearm, and they started to turn for a moment, like a dance.
Centurion pulled Shadow Stalker's body close with telekinesis and kicked her in the stomach at the same time.
She Broke into her shadow state, weaving around and above him, where she grappled his extended arm and brought it behind his back, probably to heave him and throw him to the ground.
Centurion took advantage, hovering up, only to then shoot a couple of lasers out of his gripped hand, each like a punch. Shadow Stalker received the hits, backing away momentarily, then laughing, "Cheating with lasers? Come on!" She lunged for him, Breaking into her shadow state to leap faster and higher, as she aimed a blow to his stomach.
Centurion condensed into a cloud of fine dust, intending to dash through her shadow state. In that moment, something strange happened, as they both impacted into each other, and Centurion felt his power thrum and react, as the world bent out of proportion and he saw himself overlaid over each mote of black dust like the vision of a fly.
He was brought out of his own Breaker state, and both him and Stalker dropped to the ground next to each other with a pair of grunts, Shadow Stalker blinking in and out of her shadow form for a few moments, until she settled for her normal mode.
"What happened?"
"Ow," she replied, clutching her forehead. "No clue. Some weird power shit."
"That felt weird..." he said, shuddering slightly, standing up.
She followed him up with a spring to her step. "How about we just keep to it without powers? I don't mind the disadvantage."
"That's fine to me," he said, shrugging.
Without further ado, Shadow Stalker poised herself for combat, then lunged. From discombobulated to fighting in a few seconds.
Centurion went low, under her reach, and tackled her. She couldn't defend or react fast enough, and yelped in surprise as she was pushed back. She began to slam her fists on his back, even as he lifted her up into the air. He stumbled forward several steps, only to slam her against the floor.
"Oof!" Shadow Stalker grunted, then raised her arms over his head and battered him on the back with her elbows. Centurion didn't budge, but after that, he received a double-kick to the stomach, as Shadow Stalker compressed her body into a spring and then pushed him off.
Centurion staggered back and regained his footing, not a second later, which gave Stalker just enough time to stand up.
And with that, he started circling around her once more, looking for an opening. She swayed a little as she walked, around him, but also closing distance. In five steps, she'd be within an arm's reach.
Centurion turned on adrenaline mode, feeling his veins sting with heat in seconds, starting in his chest and moving to the extremities; almost the reverse of how it usually worked. It was as if chemical acids started raging through his system, pushing strength into his body. He waited for a critical moment, two more steps, then let himself dash forward, aiming a high cross for her face.
Shadow Stalker did almost exactly the same, and their armored fists clanged against one another. They stepped away to give each other space, and laughed to different extents, Shadow Stalker shaking her fist due to the sensation of the impact rendering it numb with pain. After that, it was back to sparring.
Centurion went in to grab her numb fist. Shadow Stalker slipped her fist out of reach, managing to make him focus on it like a snake while using her other fist to deliver a left jab to his cheek. They created a little distance to reassess the situation.
"You pack a mean fist," he admitted. The dullness of the impact changed in a matter of seconds, becoming numbness, before drowning out entirely as his healing power spat juice at it.
"Damn straight. You can ask any Empire thug," she replied, brimming with something close to pride.
"You can do the same, and with the same gang," he said, grinning at her.
"Let's go!"
Centurion hurtled forward, going for a faux haymaker to her left side, but intending to go for a hook to her liver.
She slipped out of the telegraphed strike, laughing. "A feint? Wow, you must take me for an amateur."
"Maybe I just overestimate myself," Centurion laughed in response.
"Probably," she acquiesced. At that moment, her Wards phone rang, and she sighed in frustration, looking at it, then frowning under her mask.
"Is something the matter?"
"Family stuff came up," she answered, pocketing the phone. "I've got to roll."
"Oh. Alright," Centurion acknowledged, sighing almost… sadly?
"I'll see you later, Eidolon Junior," she joked, picking up her crossbow and clapping him on the arm on the way out. "That's what the internet calls you now."
Centurion chuckled, but then got dead serious soon after. "Oh, wait."
"Hm?" She stopped walking, to turn to him, in a blank response.
"I will be leaving next month. Just saying."
"Yeah, I got that much," she said, with a shrug. "Go and clean up Houston of whatever fucks Eidolon didn't manage."
He chuckled. "I'll work double to make up for your absence, you crazy bitch," he said.
"Good," she answered, actually smiling, not in a bloodthirsty manner. Maybe a little too satisfied to be called friendly, but not bloodthirsty. With that, she turned back to the exit and resumed walking out. "See ya."
May 15th, 2011
After his daily routine, which included piano practice, Centurion skimmed through general news and PHO threads.
The former didn't say much. 'Endbringers on the move,' was kind of unsettling; apparently, Leviathan was swimming around five-hundred thousand kilometers from the east coast, and the world held its breath in trepidation.
Another new topic, this time on PHO, in the Brockton Bay sub-forum, stated that Uber, Avalanche, and two other, unknown capes had been seen together near the Docks. Their presence there is unknown, if they are a group is unknown; and if they are, their name and disposition are also a big question mark. Leet hasn't been seen or heard of, ever since the announcement he and Uber wouldn't be recording together anymore for a good amount of time.
Centurion then decided to message Void Cowboy for some… advice.
Centurion: Yo.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: Heyyy what's up
Centurion: Just working out a little bit.
Centurion: Have you ever thought about being a hero's sort-of-sidekick?
XxVoid_CowboyxX: SIDEKICK?
Centurion: More like… guy in the chair. It'd be dangerous to take you out on patrols.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: dude, I'd love that so ffffricking much
Centurion: Really?
XxVoid_CowboyxX: yeah, man, I was born to be a cape geek; it only make sense someone would approach me for help. Dude this is so fricking cool
Centurion: Then, I have a task for you. A small one.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: anything, oh great and mighty Centurion!
Centurion: A couple of power ideas. Something versatile, that can be used in many different ways that are not JUST fighting.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: how about a Master power that summons up a chariot drawn by pegasi that can fly at superspeed? it'd go with the centurion theme and you can rescue people from buildings or something
Centurion: That'd be hard to manage.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: oh. How, uh… what's the economy for that? I mean, I don't know how your power works exactly
Centurion: It takes time and mental effort to piece together a power. There are various aspects of the power you described.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: So it needs to be simple and straightforward?
Centurion: I can mix created powers together, though.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: oooh, damn, and you can make any power?
Centurion: With enough time, yes.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: okay, easy lol. What kind of powers do you need the most?
Centurion: Hm… just send ideas my way.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: Okay. A power that detects incoming danger and creates a shield around you to protect from it, or teleports you to be in the safe-zone. A power that lets you understand what other powers do, their limits, weakness, etc. A power that lets you create an army, kind of like crusader's but cooler and more heroic and golden. And, idk, give me a moment to think
Centurion: These are wonderful ideas. I'll think about it. Thank you!
XxVoid_CowboyxX: Hold on, I've got a new idea. do your powers work, like, on physics, or is it magic, like myrddins?
Centurion: What is my power? Answer the question.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: You make powers.
Centurion: Any power.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: any?
XxVoid_CowboyxX: any power?
Centurion: yes.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: loooooooooool. okay, first of all: healing touch. touch someone and they snap to health. second of all: Clockblocker's power, or failing that, a power that puts someone into a pocket dimension they cant escape from and you can bring them out at any time: doubles as a backpack. Combine with the Clockblocker power to freeze anything inside so if it's food or something it doesn't spoil or age. A power that lets you select a goal and you instantly know how to achieve that goal.
Centurion: Good ideas. I gotta blast now. Delete the conversation after this.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: oh, okay. are we doing this in secret? maybe we should meet up if so, or idk
Centurion: Yeah, meeting up is a good idea.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: Alright, cool. Any particular date or place?
Centurion: I'll let you know.
XxVoid_CowboyxX: Okay, boss. God this is so fucking cool omg
After that, the messages started being removed from bottom to top, one by one. Centurion smiled, then took the bus to the PRT.
While on the bus, Centurion texted Laserdream to let her know they had to talk. And that it was important. She replied they could meet up in the café after school/patrols and that all. He agreed, and left it at that.
The thought of telling her about it unnerved him, in a way that was hard to define. There wasn't any accompanying physical sensation, but just a general sense of trepidation, and anxiety. The only physical tell was that he kept rubbing his thumb against the inside of his palm and looking around.
With that, Centurion stepped off the bus and proceeded to the Wards elevator, slipping on his domino mask, walking into Kid Win's workshop; which doubled as a holding space for the power armor. He admired it for a moment again; the piece of artisanry. Slick white pads of titanium-treated ceramics and carbon fiber, with an underlayer of synthetic muscle and polymers at the joints for flexibility without compromising the strength, with a kevlar-weave undersuit for added protection.
The armor was clunky to don and doff at first, but he learned the right sequence quickly, and now he could put it on in a little more than a minute and a half. It took another half a minute for all of the heads-up displays to load up, and the moment they did, he received a notification about a general system update. A [Yes/No] prompt showed up in the middle of the screen.
Uh. Alright, I guess. Centurion blinked at the 'yes' option.
The 'Yes' option flashed green and then moved up to the left upper corner of the screen, shifting into a progress bar at 0%. He waited eight seconds, after which the progress bar jumped up a little, into 1%. Estimated download time: seven minutes, twelve seconds. Estimated install time: five minutes, fifty-three seconds.
Centurion headed out of the workshop and into the Wards common room. At the same time, the HUD fed him information on the update's contents, such as, 'combat prediction software v2.05' and 'lie detector software v4.2.'
I'll have a lie detector too? So cool.
There was a note, beneath that.
Consider it an early departure gift.
That's nice of him. Too nice, maybe… well, who cares. An upgrade is only going to benefit me.
There was a bullet-point list of smaller updates, upgrades, and general system patchnotes, which seemed pretty comprehensive, and efficiency-focused. Half of the upgrades were just smoothing over loading times or making the HUD easier and more instinctive to use. It was going to use the repurposed supercomputer for the calculations.
Centurion looked around to see if anybody was there, then remembered all of the Wards were probably in school.
A quick move of the eyes loaded up his schedule, placing it in the right upper corner of his vision, while the mini-map moved to the bottom left. The schedule was, '08:00 - 10:00, free time,' '10:00 - 12:00, patrol with Triumph,' '12:00 - 14:00, patrol with Gallant,' and '14:00 - 16:00, training w/ Armsmaster, which was also crossed-out as canceled.'
In that moment, an email came, from, ' ' with a list of power development requirements from the brass, expected to be implemented by the end of May.
He opened the email in fool, to take a closer look.
On the day of May 14th, 2011, several PRT Directors of the east coast Departments have assembled for a conference call to outline the goals in the future development of the powerset of the Ward 'Centurion,' whose unique power necessitated such attention. The main proceedings and idea goals were outlined by the PRT Directors, while two invited Thinkers specializing in the topic of powers estimated the efficiency and best approaches towards some of the goals or ideas.
After an hour of deliberation, two primary goals have been set for Centurion to achieve by the end of May:
Brute power, to be classified as at least 'Brute 4.' After being given the current list of powers, the Thinkers advised to focus on a passive power that alters muscle and bone density to a higher level or something functionally similar.
Mover power of any nature, preferably high-speed flight or long-distance teleportation. In the latter scenario, a gate-type teleportation power, or teleportation that allows for the movement of more than one user, are both preferable.
Ward Centurion is to focus his efforts on developing these two powers in favor of any other developments, excepting situations where: (a) his life may be in jeopardy, (b) the life of other parties or people may be in jeopardy and necessitates the creation of a unique power, or any other event that may necessitate such, if given permission from the local PRT Director or Deputy Director.
Alright, shouldn't be too hard. I'll start on the second one right now.
Centurion spent the entirety of his twenty-seven charges on the telekinesis, focusing on high-speed and high-agility flight.
He felt the entire power shift sideways, becoming 'denser.' The range decreased again, but its potency and ability to affect himself increased exponentially.
It became something closer to a tactile telekinetic field, spreading throughout his body and extending into his power-armor. Without the armor, it could allow him to fly at about twenty meters per second; with the armor, it could allow him to fly at maybe half that. More charges would increase the speed.
The telekinesis' range was now just a scant three meters, and anything beyond one meter couldn't be affected with precision or speed. It became less of a Shaker power, and more Striker-esque. It rested at sixty-six charges, and he felt a small pressure from the power; similar to the one that took place when his forcefield evolved into an environmental shield, but nowhere near as intense. His time-keeping power informed him two minutes just passed.
The next one would be Brute. Easier done than said. Just need some time.
Come to think of it, with his power armor, he was already essentially bullet-proof. The shield and telekinesis would only add on top of that. Assuming he could react to what his danger sense told him in time, he would be able to stack dense layers of TK energy on top of his skin to repel incoming attacks.
Brute 4 achieved, maybe? What were the levels of threat? Uuuh…
His HUD opened the PRT manual on call, showcasing the threat levels of the various power classifications. A rating of '4' was for 'one full squad of trained operatives should be able to deal with this situation alone, but exceptional circumstance, context and environment may bias things one way or the other.'
Let's see. PRT squaddies had bullets, foam; sometimes grenades. He was basically bulletproof against a single gun. Against several? Yeah, he could manage in most situations. Foam was useless if he was conscious enough to slip out. Grenades? Okay, that was the ambiguous zone, but he leaned towards 'shoot them with a laser in mid-air' which lent him some advantage.
Equal or above Brute 4, then. That's one goal for the month done.
The noon patrols with Triumph, then with Gallant, passed by quickly and without incident. The city was in a state of all-time calmness, besides some shuffling from the Merchants.
Funnily enough, Squealer hadn't broken out Skidmark yet. Either she wasn't brave enough or she got so high she forgot about him, or maybe she decided to go the independent woman route and take over the gang herself. Probably the third, all things considered.
Panacea paid Skidmark a visit while he was in medical arrest. She regenerated his legs and removed the effects of several decades of extensive drug abuse from his body. Gabriel heard from Crystal, who heard from Victoria, that Victoria heard from Panacea, that after the entire thing was over, Skidmark curled up into a fetal position and started crying about his life. Knowing Piggot, she'd deliver him the recruitment spiel soon enough.
Now, it was time for the 'date' with Crystal.
Out of armor and costume, Centurion walked into the café, and saw her sitting by herself near one of the booths, looking bored at her steaming tea. One hand on her cheek.
"Hey there," Gabriel called out, approaching her.
She looked up and smiled at him, hands moving down onto the table. "Hey. What's going on?"
He approached the table and sat down. "I, uh… spoke with Piggot yesterday."
"Okay," she took the statement at face value, her voice taking on a concerned quality. "Did she… say something?"
"Long version, or short version?"
Crystal didn't blink at the strange question, but it drew a look from her. She raised her cup of tea blowing air as she mulled it over. Finally, after a sip of the heated brew, she came to a conclusion. "Which… do you think is best?" Crystal asked supportively.
"The short one."
"Okay." She nodded with a note of determination, setting the cup down and steepling her hands. "Lay it on me."
"I have to go to Houston for the foreseeable future. Which means until I graduate."
"That's… two years?" She blinked, then looked down and slumped, not showing any emotion beyond a shocked frown.
"Y-yeah. I'm… leaving sometime next month," he said, sliding his hand onto hers.
She locked her eyes with his, then looked aside, breathed in, not knowing what to say. As she did, her breathing became funny, a little arrhythmic. She chuckled once, sadly; a single, 'he' before looking at him, trying to smile to cover up heartbreak. "I don't know what to say… Will I get to see you? Talk to you?"
"Yes, of course! But… I'm worried that you might… you know..." Gabriel stopped mid-sentence, looking down.
She frowned and tapped her head. "Really? Come on, you know I'm not that kind of girl. Besides, Eric would torture me for it."
"I d-don't mean cheat on me!" he exclaimed. "I mean… find someone better."
She blinked. "Isn't that basically the same thing?"
"My version implies that you'd be honest about it and actually leave me for that someone." He paused for a brief moment, a half-second. "Which I heavily prefer, if it would come down to that," Gabriel admitted, sighing.
She shook her head and smiled, then looked down. "I won't," she decided, with a note of finality, as she met his eyes. "As long as you visit."
Oracle, is she lying?
Oracle began to process the question, and Gabriel felt a kind of trepidation build up in his heart.
"Okay?" Crystal asked as if trying to break him out of the reverie.
Crystal is probably not lying at the current point in time. Circumstance bias over a period longer than two weeks might push things, but if regular contact is maintained, she is more likely to keep her word.
Gabriel's body relaxed, and he intertwined his fingers with hers. "Okay," he said, looking up at her and smiling. "I promise I'll call every day. My new power armor has a built-in phone; both Wards and civilian. Which means I can talk to you while I punch baddies in the face," he explained, laughing, as he felt the tension release from his mind and body.
She laughed alongside him, then stopped and flinched, when a loud, nasal 'waaa' began to sound across the city. Birds atop the café fluttered their wings and ascended away into the sky at the sound, and people near the Boardwalk stopped walking and started looking around; eight out of ten were confused, two out of ten were frozen in bone-chilling fear.
"What's happening?" someone asked the bartender in confusion, looking around. There were murmurs across the café, as the different patrons stood up. A few of them walked outside. One man suddenly got a blank face and a thousand-yard stare, then slung his backpack on his back and ran out like the café was about to implode, and in doing so, he ran straight into a Boardwalk security officer, who told him to watch it.
The 'waaa' continued for maybe half a minute, as phones began to buzz and ring across the cafe, including Centurion's Ward phone. He ignored it. He was too busy.
Gabriel and Crystal looked outside the window, seeing that there was a cyclone on the horizon; a swirl of black clouds gathered in a circle, the rain below it so heavy it created a sphere of darkness, lightning flashing in the clouds. From this far away, it looked the size of a grain of sand, but its darkness contrasted sharply against the otherwise white firmament and pellucid-cyan waves. Both of them stood up, observed, and realized what this meant.
"...Is it a bad time to remind you that I love you?" Gabriel said, turning to her.
"No. I'd say it's the perfect time."
They clasped each others' hands.
Any preference on the Interlude? I haven't written it up yet.
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Birdsie
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Threadmarks Antebellum 5.x (Interlude: Skidmark) New
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Birdsie
Birdsie
Loyal Space Guardian
Oct 27, 2019
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Three months ago...
Adam sighed, a puff of dim gray leaving his mouth.
His eyesight blurred for a moment, obscuring the poorly-lit room, the features of the objects becoming unclear. He smiled at the sensation in his head. The sense of all-caressing serenity. He put the bong away on the table, then put his feet down and used his power to slide the bong over to Krazy-Five.
"Load her up," Adam ordered, leaning back into his chair with a kind of inner peace.
He remembered the old days. When he was eighteen, he was against drugs in general; crazy, right? His father stole from the family to buy the product for himself; mostly heroin. One night, he laid in the bed the wrong day, and threw up in his sleep, choking on his own vomit. Ever since then, Adam's mother was sternly anti-drug and beat the same lessons into him.
Then, there was a party, over at a friend's house where he crashed pretty much twenty-four-seven after his mother kicked it. Adam's 'friends' forced him to smoke weed for the first time. They didn't like his attitude about not feeling up to it, so the biggest of them, Coco; held him down, while the others started preparing the implements. An initiation; they called it. Either he'd take it, or he was a loser, and they couldn't have losers in the group.
He Triggered that day, watching as they got nearer gradually, wanting to push the drugs away, or to get out of Coco's grasp. He did manage to push Coco away, but not of his own volition; a field of cyan had separated then, and Adam beat the shit out of his former friends, stole their booze, stole their drugs, and got the fuck out of there. He didn't show up in that part of town for a while, living on the streets, or in abandoned warehouses.
For some time, he was a small-time crook, using his powers to rob stores, or beating up dealers and taking their cash and product; the latter of which he used to turn into more cash.
But one day, the temptation got the better of him, and he tried weed for the first time. The downward spiral, ironically, took him to a new high; he started trying new stuff over time, getting braver over the course of weeks. Meth, at first, then cocaine and heroin. They were even better, but he liked weed for its reliability, stability. It was just something that didn't carry the risk of making you choke on your own fucking spittle like a damn imbecile.
"Those Asian motherfuckers are out of the Docks now. No capes besides that ninja-looking motherfucker who hasn't shown up since the arrests," Big Johnny said, to a group of younger dealers. "The plan is to go, trash their shit to show them we're moving in, then start dealing."
"Yo, bitch," Skidmark called out, bopping his head in their general direction. "Over here."
Big Johnny turned with a broad grin, and they fist-bumped as Skidmark passed by them. Skidmark stretched a little. "Just finished my nap. Where's Squealer, that bitch?"
"The junkyard," Johnny replied, pointing with his gaze. Skidmark followed it and motioned for them to follow.
She was there, working on her latest crazy invention. She was too high to explain it properly last night, and they laughed about it to the point where they fell unconscious. All he gathered was that it was some kind of armored thing, and it'd have harpoons and walk around instead of driving around with wheels.
Squealer could get creative with that shit: she once used shopping carts to make this earthworm-looking bitch of a train that they used for moving stuff around; another time, she made a big armored thing with the chassis of a SWAT tank that moved around on caterpillars and had a military tank gun mounted on it, plus four turrets on each side. She could make a helicopter, if she wanted to, but it'd be one ugly son of a bitch and bigger than the city hall.
"Skidsy!" Squealer yelled, in the high-pitched voice of a harpy. Skidmark winced at the ear-grating sound, doubled like all other sensations by his morning dose. He turned to look at the wench, grinning at him with her chipped teeth as she moved from behind a crouched contraption of hers.
"What the fuck's this?" Skidmark asked, pointing at the machine. "I thought you was making a vehicle."
"I am!" she said, then kicked the pile of junk in a radiator. By pure miracle, the engines built somewhere within started to drum away. It extended its legs, standing ten meters tall. Skidmark's jaw would have dropped, if the residual tiredness from waking up didn't make him yawn at that exact moment. Even though unintentionally, it made him look disinterested; causing Squealer to glare. "What?" she asked.
"No, no, it's great," he said, trying to sound engaged, but failing for physiological reasons. "I'm just..." he yawned mid-sentence, "a little hungover's'all."
"Fuck your shit," Squealer said, moving her arm. Somehow, this caused a ladder to extend from atop the spider vehicle. "Just get on." She made her way up.
"You cuckwhoring shit-eaters stay down here," Skidmark stated to the dealers, not paying attention to the swear words he used, or the order he used them in; these days, they just kind of assembled automatically, without much conscious input. "I'll call ya boy when it's safe to go in."
They nodded, and Skidmark followed Squealer up the ladder.
"You just had to stop for a fucking puff, didn't you, you dumb bitch?" Skidmark asked, holding onto a railing at the front of the crab with a scowl, his mask fluttering in the wind. The question made Squealer release a high-pitched keening of anger. The spider swayed around the corner, the buzzsaw accidentally cutting a streetlamp in half as they made the turn.
"Treat me with some fucking dignity, you asshole!" she argued.
"No time for dignity, look the fuck out!" he warned, unloading a pack of cocaine to take before the Wards caught up to them. He always thought clearer with some good shit on. A stagger of the unwieldy vehicle caused the packet of cocaine to spill onto a nearby engine, rumbling. "Godfucking... can you watch it?" he asked, lowering his head to partake in the product.
"That was the golden bitchfucker!" Squealer explained as the spider started hopping, fighting back against someone. Skidmark didn't see from the angle at which he was taking coke.
He looked up for a brief moment, interrupting his line halfway. He saw Centurion doing weird shit, Browbeat doing shit that was unsafe for teenage boys, and Vista doing weirder shit than Centurion. Why the fuck bother explaining this in any more detail? You've read this scene before. You know how it goes. Apparently; Skidmark's high allowed him to breach the fourth wall.
Where was I?
"Fuck'n, A! Show these fuckers what it means to mess with us!" Skidmark declared, inflecting some sandpaper into the last bit of the sentence. Right. That.
Squealer released a roar of laughter, bringing down one arm. The movement was ghosted a second later by a giant mechanical buzzsaw, twice the radius of a car wheel, cutting through the bench that Centurion was under. Skidmark spied as the glowing silver son of a bitch dashed forward and took off into the air. Flying must be so fucking nice...
Skidmark returned to his line of cocaine, to finish it off. He used his power to move it straight into his left nostril instead of snorting it himself. He inhaled through his nose, stood up, and felt the crash of energy waver across his body like God himself just teleported ambrosia into his hypothalamus.
Squealer didn't look at, but half-turned and screamed at Skidmark, "Deal with the flying son of a bitch, Skidsy!"
Right, on, dumb bitchling! I was already doing that!
"Alright! I'll show you cock-munching sneakshit not to mess with us!" Skidmark declared. "Woooo!"
For a moment, a stray thought made him wonder if he wasn't high, would he still be doing this? In all honesty, probably not. Cocaine tended to bring out the risk-taker deep within him, even if taking the risks was absolutely idiotic. Either way, what bigger risk than to shoot Centurion with a harpoon like that weird bearded guy obsessed with a whale.
What was it called again? Moby Dick? Nah, that can't be it. Who the fuck would call a children's book, 'Moby Dick?' It's like calling a book about superheroes, 'Worm.' It's about as evocative of the subject matter as this chapter is of what being high is like: that is to say, not a little fucking bit, and fit for the wrong audience.
By time I was done monologuing in first person, Skidmark had brought Centurion close to the ground with his power, scratched his balls through his costume, burped with a faint smell of his breakfast (a cheeseburger,) leaving his mouth, and finally lumbered to the harpoon gun, firing it, and missing with all six harpoons.
Stupid bitch. I had him, but she had to put in six fucking harpoons instead of one! Threw my aim off! Fuck you!...
He realized he should communicate his failure with Squealer, as Centurion was regaining his composure and heading in their direction. "Summovabitch!" Skidmark cried, holding his head upright. "I missed the dicklicker!"
"Try fucking hitting him again you piece of shit!" Squealer yelled back, as the whole crab swayed in a telegraphed movement, giving Browbeat plenty of time to move back and dodge the mechanical drill jab.
What the fuck did she call me? Skidmark's voice took on a rasped, furious shade, as he turned to look at her with bloodshot eyes. "Don't you fucking call me a piece of shit, you dumb whore!"
Squealer screamed and then moved the controls in a mighty heave. Skidmark realized his mistake as he dropped to the base of the crab with a grunt, as rubble began to fall around him. In a blind panic, he exercised his power to keep most of the pieces from getting near him. Moments later, they were on another street, and Skidmark was still reeling in shock.
Skidmark realized what just happened as his mental map of his surroundings caught up with him. He looked at Squealer, who was laughing like a maniac.
Crazy bitch, high as fuck, walking through walls and shit!
He screamed out a fearsome warcry, standing up and smashing Squealer in the back of the head with his stylish disco-ball staff. She yelped, then turned and grappled him. "Bitch!" He kicked at her, slapped her across the face, then whacked her with the disco staff, then moved to kick the radiator so it'd listen to him instead. That's how Tinkertech works, right? Bitch was using heat to pick up her movements, or some dumb shit like that?
"I'm no meth whore! You're not getting head for a weeeeeeeeek!" she squealed, characteristically. Skidmark watched as she raised her arm, and the crab mimicked her movement. One of the limbs slammed down next to him, making him jump with an exclamation of surprise.
He moved to grapple her, restrict her arms, using his power to bring them closer. As they thrashed, the crab started spinning uncontrolledly. It was spinning during their previous fight, but he was too out of it to notice, only now realizing the full fucking extent of the situation.
Skidmark laughed as he started to overpower her, only for golden lasers to rain down on them. The sudden jolt of fear made him lose strength. "Fuck off asshole!" Squealer screamed, pushing him off. Skidmark looked up as the crab slammed into a building, while Centurion instead slammed into his back.
"Consider this your rehab!"
A massive dull pain raged across Skidmark's back, carrying onto his head, to make his eyes twitch repeatedly, making him tear up. Ooh... they're going to have to glue me back together...
For a moment, Centurion and Squealer fought each other, but Skidmark was too busy considering if he'd need a chiropractor after this entire thing blew over. Damn fucking kid near damn made him shit his pants. That wouldn't look good for either side; a gang leader needed clean pants, and needed a working spine. A superhero needed not to be a bloodthirsty, spine-breaking, cock-guzzling... Skidmark growled.
He heard Centurion yell something about politeness at them from down below. Driven by the desire to push back, Skidmark crawled to the ledge of the spider.
"Go put on a condom from broken glass and fuck your whore mother!" he declared back in his direction, craning forward to get a better look. He saw Squealer start thrashing wildly, the crab lashing out with each of its weapons, while Centurion's body shifted into some kind of dark bullshit, got swept up in a propeller, and got fired away, much to Skidmark's pleasure.
What wasn't to his pleasure was how Squealer approached him with bloodshot eyes and started kicking him in his already annihilated spinal area. Skidmark cried out in pain, "Bitch, stop, bitch, stop, bitch- unf!" He hit the ground after a ten meter drop, barely believing that by some miracle he'd landed on his back instead of his head, which would - to put it fucking lightly - exacerbate the source of the issues.
Squealer's vehicle moved, and a single piledriver hit the ground next to Skidmark's legs. He felt a flare of red chemical burning from his feet, and screamed, beginning to thrash around, not entirely understanding why this was happening. He started swearing on instinct, throwing every curse his panicked, sick mind could think of in Squealer's direction. And in the direction of her mother. And her grandmother, and her fucking dog. Fuck, fuck, fuck, his leg hurt so much!
He gripped himself near the knee, breathing for a moment, as he absently realized they were squashed by the impact. He probably had several broken bones; he didn't want to use fucking crutches for the next few months! What a stupid fucking bitch. He'd force her to make him a pimped-out wheelchair once this was over. With nitro.
He spotted Squealer running away.
So that's probably a moot idea. Bitch walked out on me, huh?
He saw Centurion's silhouette flying over him. "Stop and help me, asshole!" he cried out.
The retarded Ward seemed to hesitate. Fucking hesitate. He hesitated to help deliver medical attention to a citizen of the United fucking States of goddamn America. After a moment's deliberation, the Ward touched down next to Skidmark, kneeling to examine his legs, then looking directly at him. "Try anything and I'll smash your head into the asphalt."
How about a fuck you, bitch?
For that remark, Skidmark was halfway tempted to exert his power and push the motherfucker into a jet engine, but Squealer was gone, so the chances of finding a jet engine were lower than the chances he'd walk again in the next year. He didn't answer, though, as the pain in his legs started to drum against him. Shortly after crying for some time, Skidmark's memories of what happened on that faithful fucking day started going kind of fuzzy. He recalled crying and being in pain for a moment, then staring at the stars and seeing this big fucking whale or something.
And then, he woke up, with a teenage girl touching him: Panacea, he recognized with hitched breath, as he lied down in his bed and realized the events of the last twenty-four hours. To be fair, he felt great: his legs were brand new, and his headspace felt clearer than it did in... years...
"Oh," he said. "Oh, fuck, fuck. Fuck me, fuck, fuck..."
After that, he realized the events of the last ten years.
"Fuck, mom..." Tears welled up in his eyes. "What did I do to myself?"
Panacea backed away, clearly disturbed, while a pair of PRT troopers stood between them.
He kept running down the alleyway, somewhere downtown. He had no fucking idea where. The shitty armband kept listing off names of some poor motherfuckers who got too fucked to fight, or too fucked to live.
"Fucking cuntmongering Endbringer, sack-of-shit, fucking watery grave-making salt-swimming, shit-trudging..." At that point, Skidmark ran out of breath, as he needed to keep running.
He called Squealer earlier, after the PRT brokered his freedom in exchange for helping in the fight. They had to reconcile on the phone, with Gallant and Browbeat of the Wards watching, and some three random PRT schmucks just sort of uncomfortably trying not to listen. It was the best deal he'd be able to get, since the dumb meth-head bitch didn't deign to grace him with the honor of breaking him out of prison.
She agreed to come and help. When he asked why she didn't break him out, she explained she got high and forgot.
I swear to fucking God. I swear to myself. I swear on my dead mother. No more drugs. Ever. I'm leaving the Merchant shit to Squealer and retiring. Maybe I'll start a waterpark with my power; that will sell!
He turned the corner, emerging on one of the more open streets; one of the buildings on the other side was half-collapsed, with some of the cars swept up by waves having crashed against it at some point nearby. The more disconcerting sight was the forty-five-foot tall lizard-looking motherfucker, moving with a purpose leaving behind that echo of his.
He noticed as red and blue shapes advanced towards Leviathan in the air. The creature turned to face them, and a wave picked up from behind, lashing almost like a solid tendril, flinging them closer. Shielder was closer to Leviathan than Lasedream; and the Endbringer moved towards him with a purpose. Skidmark cursed at himself for not getting in range to use his power sooner.
Leviathan approached the blue-colored hero of New Wave slowly, with a lean to its movements. With swagger.
Fuck. This thing could get cute? Skidmark didn't even want to know.
Leviathan raised his tail and grabbed Shielder by the throat, choking him leisurely, casually, as he carried him along to his side in Laserdream's direction, but away from Skidmark. She slowly stood up from the ground and looked at him, eyes widening in shock and realization. Shielder tried to summon up a forcefield to release himself, push against the tail, but it did nothing. Skidmark spotted the dim golden radiance of Centurion in the distance, almost gloomy against the rain.
Come on! Skidmark ran, feeling out with the range of his power; just a few meters!
Leviathan whipped his tail once, like a snake, with a subsonic hum carrying to end in a gunshot-like crack in Shielder's body.
"No!" Laserdream screamed, bloodcurdling, firing blasts of energy at Leviathan. After a moment, she lost strength and will, and just stared at him, shaking.
Leviathan stood in place, staring her down, then tossed Shielder's corpse toward her like an offering; a blue-wrapped Christmas present. She instantly moved for it, and Leviathan poised himself to leap; Skidmark remembered what Legend said, that Leviathan is more cunning than he looks. Shielder's corpse was bait for Laserdream. Centurion moved for her, to stop her.
Skidmark realized that Laserdream was bait for Centurion. A chain of bait, that the young hero took.
Fuck it. I owe him this much.
Skidmark exercised his power; it built up faster than ever before, layering into a purple color in a matter of two seconds. In that time, Leviathan had already leaped and couldn't change directions in time. The Endbringer was deflected into a hardware store, breaking the front of it.
"Get the fuck out of here, you fucking cunt-munching bitches!" Skidmark yelled at the heroes, dismissing his power's effect, then creating a second one further down as Leviathan rose from the wreckage of a hardware store, looking at them; at Skidmark in particular.
It was fine. He chose to make himself bait.
Laserdream was standing still, her hands shaking as she stared at Shielder's body.
Centurion grabbed Laserdream with one arm, and Shielder's body with the other. He took to the sky in a single bound. "Thank you!" he shouted as he turned flew away, as Laserdream started yelling something. Leviathan extricated himself from the building, then stood on all fours. He dashed forward and stopped, sending a water-echo at him. Skidmark exercised his power, managing to whittle it down to non-lethal levels.
But he wouldn't keep it up.
In that moment, another unexpected thing happened, as the giant mega-crab went down the street past him, and rammed into Leviathan, causing the Endbringer to slide back on the ground and brace his arms against it. "Get a taste of this, ya big scaly cunt!" Squealer declared over the rain, laughing. The buzzsaw, drill, and propeller smashed into some of Leviathan's body, opening tiny cuts with black ichor flowing out liberally.
Leviathan flicked his tail and decapitated the mega-crab in an instant, the water-echo causing the two pieces to roll across the street in Skidmark's direction. Skidmark exercised his power to slow them down and just barely soften Squealer's fall.
Stupid bitch is insane, bumrushing Leviathan!
"Thanks," he said, helping his girlfriend up. Squealer looked less confident, now that her only weapon had been destroyed. Frankly, Skidmark wasn't confident either; most of the defenders were downed, and they were the only ones here. Skidmark raised his armband, pinged his location as one where Leviathan was to alert the others.
Leviathan turned to look at them with its four green eyes, not moving for a moment. Then he leaped, and Skidmark couldn't react fast enough this time.
Oct 28, 2019
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Funfact: While doing copying and pasting of this chapter, internet-related contrivances caused me to lose all data, and we had to rewrite everything (only in this chapter; the rest of the arc is safe, I assure you,) together. I can't promise it's 100% identical to how it was before, but it's at least 90% to 95% similar and I had Gabriel cross-check everything to make sure it was fine, though the quality of the writing may have become a little drab.
Crystal and Gabriel ran out of the coffee shop, staring at the shore.
There was a swirl of dark clouds, smaller than a grain of sand, sharp against the white sky, approaching the city, promising death. People around them were starting to run by, while the sirens kept blaring in the distance.
Even from up here, he could see the waves crash against the beach, twice or thrice as tall as normal. Every half a minute or so, a taller wave picked up, climbing against the rocky base of the shore, ascending up and spilling white sea-foam and droplets of water onto the Boardwalk. A mother recoiled in shock, waking up her infant and making him cry, even as she started running.
"Leviathan," Crystal muttered in feeble shock.
He needed to get to the PRT, to don his power armor. Gabriel pulled Crystal closer and pulled out his domino mask from his pocket; seeing the movements, she helped hide his face while he put it on. No one really cared either way; most of the people were running away from the shore at this point, moving as far as they could from the spot that'd be hit by a tidal wave; no one to look their way.
"I need to get to the PRT," Gabriel stated determinedly, "Fly there with me."
"You can fly now?" Crystal asked, too fearful for excitement.
"Yes," he nodded, extending his open palm. He'd upgraded his telekinesis with a focus on himself, even further, to let it carry him in the armor. He was capable of flying at the velocity of a car with an excessively careful driver.
Crystal gave him a forced smile and took his hand, then calmed herself for a moment, shaking off the bits of hysteria, getting herself together.
A second later, a particularly strong gust of wind ran through the area, ruffling their hair with cold air; strong enough that the crowns of some nearby trees curved in the city's direction. Looking at the water, he saw the waves picking up, as tall as a man. They crashed into the beach, beginning to submerge the sand; the water level was increasing already.
Crystal tugged on his hand, and he nodded. They ascended and flew off in the direction of the PRT together. Gabriel watched the people on the ground swarming through the streets, some through side-alleys. A trio of Empire members dropped the work on the graffiti they were making, stepping out of an alleyway, and looking at the tides of people and cars building up to create traffic jams to the nearest Endbringer shelter. Police cars were in the mix, their sirens on as officers stepped out and started directing the panicked civilians. Centurion felt something clutch his heart at the sight.
There was a ringing, and Crystal lowered her altitude a little. Gabriel followed, still holding her hand, as she took out her phone and started talking with her mom. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Okay. I'm on the way to the PRT; okay, I'll be there. Alright. I love you, mom." With that, the conversation ended.
"Any news?" he asked. "Good news, preferably?"
"The PRT set up a rally point for all of the local capes in a warehouse near the Boardwalk," Crystal informed.
"That's good, then," he summarized.
"Yeah."
It took them three more minutes to reach the PRT building. Even without the traffic jams and road pirates speeding around, it'd have taken at least twice that by car; with flight, they had the benefit of being able to ignore city infrastructure and just flying over it.
Crystal and Gabriel touched down just outside the PRT building, where a number of armored vans waited, their backdoors open to the lobby. In that same moment, Director Piggot walked out of the building, as impassive as ever, surrounded by a bodyguard detail of four armed agents, and followed by several troopers and a whole group of staff members, including some of the consultants, and Deputy Director Renick. Piggot stopped to look at them for a moment, while the staff got into the vans. They were evacuating the PRT building too? The implications that the basement wasn't safe enough weren't exactly comforting.
"Stay safe, Director," Gabriel simply offered.
"And you as well, Centurion," she answered, before climbing into the back. The PRT troopers behind her closed the doors, made sure they were secure, then one of them clapped the side of the van twice. With that, the sirens turned on, its engine revved, and it drove away somewhere west.
"I'm gonna go to the rally point," Crystal said, prompting him to turn, and pulling him into a hug.
He wasn't comfortable with the idea of letting her go, but it was probably for the best; he had to change into the armor. "Okay." He let her go, and Crystal stepped away, floating a meter off the ground. She turned to fly off, hesitant, then moved back and kissed him, before taking off somewhere in the direction of the Docks.
Centurion watched her going for a moment, forlorn. After a moment, he stepped into the lobby; everything had been abandoned. The gift shop was closed and locked, the receptionist was gone. He saw PRT troopers in full armor but no weapons running through some of the halls, especially near the hall that led to the parking garage; presumably getting more vehicles ready for evacuation, transportation, and moving objects. He noticed that a group of troopers was wheeling wooden boxes on trolleys with a blue platform, in the direction of the garage. They had the words 'FRAGILE' on them in black letters.
He shook off the sight, proceeding down to the Wards HQ with the elevator, just as Carlos used the retinal scanner to open the door to the HQ. He looked in Centurion's direction and waited for him to make his way inside.
The Wards were suiting up. Transfusion and Stalker weren't there, but the rest of the team was putting on their costumes and replacing the cuffs on their utility belts with additional first-aid kits. Vista was putting on extra armor padding, looking surprisingly hardened; maybe the least bothered out of everyone that this was happening.
Centurion walked into the workshop and started donning his armor, just as Kid Win finished doing the same. "We have the location of the rally point!" he yelled to Aegis, raising his Ward phone to show him.
It took another minute to put on the armor, and twenty seconds to calibrate the systems and HUD. At the top of his vision, there was a counter, labeled, 'time until Leviathan is shorebound,' currently at 25 minutes 12 seconds. That's plenty.
"Let's get a move on, people!" Aegis said, turning to Centurion, "Where's Stalker and Transfusion?"
Centurion shrugged. "No idea."
"Drat. Someone call them; Piggot wants us to talk to Skidmark and convince him to attend the fight, in exchange for his freedom."
"I'll take care of it," Gallant said, already moving past them in the direction of the side-door; the same one that led to the tunnels which they walked through during the Empire attack. A shorter way to the cells?
"I'll go with," Browbeat said, jogging after him as the door closed behind them.
"Aright. We're going up; we'll wait for them in the lobby, Skidmark or not, then we're moving to join up at the rally point," Aegis ordered, clapped twice, and everyone moved out, stashing into the elevator.
As always, the elevator didn't produce the feeling of moving up and down as it was used; too smooth for a normal lift. But being stuck in there, with the rest of the Wards, in total awareness of the thing looming for them, only twenty-four minutes from now? Centurion's heart kept beating with trepidation, and the only reason he wasn't shaking was because he could control the adrenaline in his blood; suppress it enough to the point where there weren't any easy shows he was in a state of agitation.
They waited in the lobby, with two more PRT vans setting off behind the glass wall, driving towards the rally point, leaving them with three at the front; for the Wards.
A minute later, Skidmark, two PRT troopers, Gallant and Browbeat walked out of the elevator, with the former gang leader uncuffed, arguing with someone on the phone. The Wards didn't say anything, as everyone proceeded outside. Centurion, Aegis, Kid Win, Vista, and Clockblocker moved into the first van, while Gallant, Browbeat, Skidmark, and the troopers got into the second one, then set off.
"How much time do we have?" Clockblocker asked, nervous, as he drummed his fingers against his knees.
"Twenty minutes," Centurion answered.
"That's plenty," Aegis reassured.
"And?" Vista asked, looking at him. "That doesn't change anything. You know what's about to happen."
Kid Win frowned and looked at her. "Vista, everything is going to be just fine."
Centurion moved his eyes down, and a hatch slid over his mouth. 'Voice off/on,' a notification showed, and he blinked at 'off.' The Wards stared at him for a moment in confusion, but no one asked why he did that. It helped calm down the argument that was about to start, and it gave him a chance to have a private conversation.
A short sequence of eye movements brought up a menu of contacts. A slight squint and look down made the list slide down to show him more people, scrolling through them alphabetically; he really should have set favorites yesterday. After five seconds, he found Laserdream and breathed in.
Gathering his thoughts into something resembling order, he called her. He heard the dial tone for five seconds, then she picked up with a firm voice, "This is Laserdream."
"It's me. Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah," she answered. "Are you?"
"More or less," he answered, looking at the Wards, who stirred in the uncomfortable silence. "We're heading there, right now."
"Okay. I just changed into my costume, and we're all going there... right now, actually. I'll see you there."
"Yeah, see you there."
Click.
Centurion shuddered as he sighed. Realizing the emotions were getting to him, he looked outside for solace.
He only found a promise of certain death, as he noticed the dark gray clouds beginning to gather near the shore. Rain pelleted down against the water, and every fourth wave spilled out onto the Boardwalk, while every tenth wave spilled out into the streets nearest to the Boardwalk. A light drizzle clapped against the van's back window, like the chill presence of something dark, steadily getting nearer.
As if sensing his thoughts; to look around, the HUD opened up a box split into four rectangles; each one a separate camera feed from the rally point, a warehouse. Another box showed them a larger map of the Docks, with their current location on GPS, the most efficient route, and time until they got there.
On the cameras, Centurion saw Armsmaster and Miss Militia walking through near the entrance. Some of the locals were already present; notably, the Travelers that were supposedly there during the Forsberg gallery attack. Another camera displayed a PRT van pulling over behind the back; two troopers opened the doors, revealing a stack of wooden boxes. They moved one down to the ground, and one of them took a crowbar and pried it open, revealing the box contained neatly-arranged cylinders. Miss Militia approached them; her current rifle shifted into a grenade launcher; she took out one of the grenades and loaded it in experimentally.
Bakuda bombs, he realized.
Even as their transport pulled over and they proceeded in the direction of the warehouse, Centurion kept looking at the cameras. The Empire had arrived moments before them; Kaiser and the entire chart of Nazis who worked for him striding into the warehouse like winners, rather than people who were being hunted down like dogs. On a parking lot nearby, teams from nearby cities were being teleported one after another, several times a minute, using different methods of arrival. Chevalier, the leader of the Philadelphia Protectorate, was already present with his team and the local Wards, walking into the warehouse not long after the Empire.
Centurion walked inside with the rest of his team.
Folding chairs had been set into rows and columns in the center of the lobby, facing a trio of widescreen television sets, which in turn were backed by a series of large windows overlooking the beach. Through the windows, there was a perfect view of the not-so-distant-anymore storm. The Boardwalk was made perpetually wet by crashing waves; with every third wave managing to move further onto the streets, sometimes streaming down further into the Docks, near the warehouse. Some of the darker clusters of clouds were already gathering above the sand, raining down in full, rather than the drizzle of a few minutes ago. In moments, it'd be a storm to drown all storms.
He looked around as he cut the camera feeds out of his field of vision. Not a lot of people yet; there were several Protectorate teams from across the east coast, and more arriving every minute. Some of the Undersiders were there; Grue and Regent. They were standing next to each other, and judging from the movements of Regent's mouth, conversing; appraising the people around them, and the situation at hand.
The Protectorate was present in force; everyone there, Dauntless, Battery, Assault, Velocity, Triumph, off to the left side of the warehouse as if positioned against the villains, and the Empire who was content to occupy one corner of the room all to itself.
Centurion recognized the Travelers, including Genesis, who appeared to be a nine-foot-tall muscular gorilla, with its brain suspended in cerebrospinal fluid inside of a dome-shaped glass container. Its right eye was red and cybernetic, and there was a bionic limb growing out of its left shoulder, trailing red, yellow, green, and blue wiring; a bazooka was attached to it, with a laser pointer and four rockets loaded in, following its gaze. The gorilla looked over at them and made a sound, drawing the attention of Trickster, who turned only to grin and look suave.
Centurion frowned.
He looked over at New Wave, who were sitting together near the front of the room. Panacea and Glory Girl stood behind their parents; looking scared and frustrated, as well as stressed and pissed respectively. Gallant moved over to join his girlfriend, while Centurion moved in the direction of the Pelhams, to be with Laserdream.
"Hey," he said.
She smiled a little upon seeing him. "Hey," her voice was softer, quieter, in here. Like they were in church and talking was considered impolite; sitting in tense silence being preferable for some reason. Centurion took her hand and started looking through the cameras again.
There was a rumble outside, and a streak of smoke, as a big, metallic beast on four legs landed, a jet engine thrumming from its backside. It adjusted its wings, showing a pair of rocket launchers; each one with four rockets, a single rocket being longer than Centurion was tall; similar to Genesis' weapon but clearly a larger caliber. The dragon watched the sea dutifully, and Centurion made the instant connection of who the machine belonged to: Dragon's dragon.
Legend showed up at some point, wearing a skintight white-blue costume styled with streaks of something not-quite fire, and not-quite lightning, with a strong jaw and wavy hair. Legend was striding over to Armsmaster with a spring to his step, and he smiled over at them reassuringly as he walked past to engage in conversation with the local Protectorate leader.
There were leaders from other areas: Chevalier was in for a while, but Myrddin arrived a moment ago, with his team, wearing a brown burlap robe and sporting a long scruffy beard to add to the wizard aesthetic. He was looking at the assembled capes, grim and serious, just barely reminding Centurion of Dumbledore or Gandalf.
After a moment, there was another teleport outside. With a muffled thunderclap and a flash of light, Alexandria and her team appeared, walking off the parking lot and in the direction of the warehouse. Centurion couldn't keep himself from staring at her for a moment, moving forward with a kind of fortitude that came naturally to each of her movements, her cape billowing lightly even in the heavy wind.
Eidolon was next, after her, appearing in a clap alongside the Houston team. The green-cloaked hero stood still for a moment, then looked to his left and right, before leading the way onward to the rally point; more and more people converged, teleporting, flying in. Locals and people from far away, villains and heroes alike. He didn't see Avalanche or Uber anywhere, but he noticed Skitter and Tattletale, presumably moving to join the rest of the Undersiders. Hellhound wasn't anywhere in sight.
There were others, that he didn't know the names or powers of, but that he could look up instantly using his power armor and Armsmaster's database. A local rogue who went by Parian was engaged in an uncomfortable conversation with a villainess Bambina, only to get rescued by the injection of Flechette; a Ward from New York. Lots of conversation all around.
Skitter and Tattletale made their way in. Tattletale gave Skitter an apologetic smile, squeezing her hand, before moving to join Grue and Regent who looked at Skitter first, then at Tattletale. Skitter was left on her own, gripping her elbow uncomfortably as she moved to a secluded corner of the room.
Something fucky going on, there.
Centurion excused himself, then walked over to Skitter. As he walked, he turned on the lie detector software. A box appeared on the upper left, with a space for text. Armsmaster and Piggot were right; tinkertech really is a force multiplier.
"Hey," he said to Skitter. She looked up at him through the reflective yellow lenses of her mask. She gave the impression she was frowning through her mask, eyeing him with suspicion.
"What do you want?" she asked, with a bite to it.
"Nothing, calm down," he prompted with a soothing voice, raising one palm to show that he was coming in peace. It didn't seem to mollify her in the slightest, but at least it gave him space to talk and weave questions. "So, I mean... I guess this might sound rude, but are you sure you want to be here? In the fight, I mean; your power isn't too good against an Endbringer."
"Yes, I'm sure," she stated with an almost defiant confidence as if speaking in bold letters. 'Lie.' She wasn't completely sure, then; okay.
"I'm just making certain," he reassured. He had to mentally prepare himself for the display of humility in the next statement, "I get that we're usually on the opposite sides, but we're all friends here, even if just for today." That seemed to relax her slightly, but not enough to drop her near-adversarial stance.
"Look, if you're saying I'm weak–"
"I'm not saying that," he shook his head, gesturing. "You kicked our asses two times in a row. A skeptic might say it was luck, but me? Two times in a row? Come on. It shows you're doing something right."
Skitter thought on it for a moment, considered, head tilted down. Then, she peered up at him with a blank look. "Tattletale told me you're not as smart and competent as you look," Skitter countered, more conversational than aimed to hurt or insult. Centurion cringed when he saw the lie detector inform him of 'Truth.' "She told me that if I consider not breaking down while holding you hostage an achievement, I really need to step up my game."
Centurion fumed on the inside, almost feeling the neurons go off as he imagined Tattletale conveying that information about him. Gritting his teeth, he started, "Okay, anyway–"
"Hey, what are you two talking about?" Tattletale prodded them inquisitively, appearing out of nowhere. Several meters behind her, Regent and Grue followed, the latter with his arms folded to appear more imposing.
"Hm? Nothing," Centurion said.
"Oh, really?" Tattletale asked with a doubtful, vulpine look, before glancing at Skitter, who made no indication of movement or speech. Tattletale looked at Centurion impassively, then beamed at him. Compared to her usual 'vulpine grin,' this was more of a 'shit-eating smile.' "Heeey," she called out slowly, quietly; playfully amused.
"Heeey?" he mimicked the length, but lacked the confidence.
"You've learned to stick up for yourself," Tattletale replied, her smile becoming lopsided as she nodded appreciatively, "Coming here, on your own, with your own agenda. But your method? It needs work, man." Tattletale shook her head, sniffing, as in grief. Grue and Regent looked at each other behind her, and Regent shrugged helplessly.
"What do you mean?" Centurion asked, steeling himself.
"Building a rapport with Skitter," Tattletale answered, frowning. "Isn't that what you wanted?"
"I wanted to ask if she's sure she wants to be here," he clarified, frowning back and staring into Tattletale's eyes.
"Hmmmm..." With every quarter of a second that the 'm' dragged on, Tattletale's eyes narrowed a little bit more, until they were pinpricks, staring into him. She blinked again, then seemed to realize something. "Wow. I never thought I'd find one."
"Find what?" Regent asked.
"An actual fool. I mean, I thought Kid Win was the innocent one, but this guy takes the cake," Tattletale sniggered. She was about to open her mouth, presumably to explain her reasoning, but Centurion interrupted her.
"That just gives me time to grow." He folded his arms.
"Yeaaah, look–" She was about to speak again, but much to her frustration, in that very moment, Legend turned away from his conversation with Armsmaster and walked up to the front of the room. The din in the room quieted, and every set of eyes was on them. Tattletale whispered to Centurion, finishing her thought: "You can grow, but Leviathan is an expert gardener. Make sure he doesn't cut you too short." She clapped him on the arm and walked off, leaving him next to Skitter.
Centurion looked and saw that Laserdream was seeking him out, then noticed him and approached on her own. She frowned as she saw Skitter, then looked at Centurion questioningly. He shrugged with a tilt of the head, and she shrugged back.
Legend cleared his throat. He had the kind of voice that you listened to, "We owe thanks to Dragon and Armsmaster for their early alert. We've had time to gather, and that means we have just a few more minutes to prepare and brief for Leviathan's arrival, instead of jumping straight into the fray as we arrive. With this advantage, some luck, teamwork and hard effort from everyone, I hold out hope that this could be one of the good days."
A pre-battle speech from Legend. It almost made the lousiest, most painful and dangerous situations I'd put up with since putting on my costume worth it.
"But you should know your chances going in. Given the statistics from our previous encounters with this beast, a 'good day' still means that one in four of the people in this room will probably be dead before this day is done."
Centurion felt a demon clutch his heart.
Last edited: Oct 28, 2019
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Centurion's body tensed up lightly, as his leg brushed up against Crystal's, as a way to call her attention to his hand. Take it, goddamnit.
There was some noise, murmur at Legend's words. One in four dead; and that's just deaths, not accounting injuries.
"I'm telling you your chances now because you deserve to know, and we so rarely get the chance to inform those individuals brave enough to step up and fight these monsters. The primary message I want to convey, even more than briefing you on the particulars of his abilities, organizing formations and battle plans, is that I do not want you to underestimate Leviathan. I have seen too many good heroes," he paused for a fraction of a second, "And villains, too, die because they let their guard down."
Centurion looked down for a brief moment, then back up at him. Crystal clutched his hand in that moment; when he glanced to his right, he saw that she was breathing a little faster, through her nose. He squeezed her hand lightly.
Legend paused, glanced out the window. The storm clouds had reached the beach, and torrential rain stirred the water into a froth. Not just rain, but buckets of water. Missiles, raining down. The sky was dark, with no sun in sight, only a dark swirl of clouds, with vague flashes of lightning above them, drenching them in rainfall.
In a way, it was darker than nighttime: no moon to give even a bit of illumination, and most of the electric grid in the city was probably going to turn off at some point.
Centurion felt a kind of paradoxical emotion, in that moment: a small ember of anxious comfort in his chest. A sort of primitive, instinctive human reaction: he was inside this warehouse, warm, comfortable, standing next to a person he loved, covered by a thick wall and rooftops with windows, surrounded by hundreds of people with superpowers. The evil city-destroying monster and the Biblical flood were outside.
The only thing we're missing is Noah's Ark.
"We think of Leviathan as the middle child; he was the second of the three to arrive. He is not the physical powerhouse Behemoth is, nor the cunning manipulator that the Simurgh so often proves to be. That said, I would advise you to think of him as having many of the strengths of both siblings at once. You've seen the videos on television and the internet. You know what he is physically capable of. I want to be clear that despite the image he might convey, he is not stupid, and he can display a level of cunning and tactics that can and will catch you off guard. I will tell you what you may not know from the videos. He feels pain, he does bleed, but few attacks seem to penetrate deep enough past the surface to seriously harm him. He is like the other two Endbringers in this respect.
"What sets him apart is his focus on water. You're likely aware of his afterimage, his water echo. This is no mere splash of water. At the speeds Leviathan can move, surface tension and compressibility make water harder than concrete. He also has a crude hydrokinesis, the ability to manipulate water, and there will be water on the battlefield. We believe that this is what lets him move as fast as he does when he is swimming. Faster than he is normally, far faster than any speedster we have on record."
Centurion already kinda knew this information, but hearing it now, when he'd be face-to-face with danger in less than a couple of minutes… there was a weight in his chest, pressing outward: fear, pressure in his heart. Not because he himself might die: if he wanted, he could run away and hide. But because the people he loved might. He briefly turned to Crystal again, only to look back at Legend as he resumed speaking.
He went on, "Were it just that, this fight might still warrant a show of force like what we've gathered here. But things are more serious than that, which brings me to our primary concern. As much as Dragon and Armsmaster's advance warning might give us the opportunity to make this a good day, other issues threaten to make it just the opposite. I spoke of Leviathan as a hydrokinetic. I can't state this enough – Leviathan is primarily a hydrokinetic on a macro scale. There is no better illustration than the days where Leviathan won. Newfoundland," he spoke.
"May ninth, 2005. Nearly half a million dead. The Canadian island simply gone, after the shelf of land holding it up cracked in the face of what we now understand were incredible pressures beneath the water level.
"Kyushu, the night of November second and the morning of the third, 1999. His sixth appearance. Nine and a half million killed when the region was swamped with tidal waves from every direction while Leviathan disrupted prearranged evacuation attempts. Nearly three million evacuees rendered homeless, a nation sundered.
"These were errors, grave mistakes from defending heroes. We had but one strategy at the time – to hem him in, minimizing the effects of growing waves and casualties until Leviathan was beaten into a retreat or Scion arrived. These areas, however, were too vulnerable. Waiting let Leviathan build up the strength of his attacks, and we lost."
Oracle… will… Scion show up to help us?
High probability Scion will arrive late, or too late to help meaningfully.
"Fucking hell..." Centurion muttered to himself, as his body started feeling colder.
He paused. "We have since classified the locations the Endbringers target as either hard targets or soft targets. The hard battlefields are where we stand our ground, buy time, wear him down. The soft ones are locations where we cannot afford to do this."
The television screen showed a cross-section of Brockton Bay as seen from ground level. The West end of the city was bordered by hills, and the terrain sloped gradually from the base of the mountain down to the water. Directly below the image of the buildings that marked the city's location, there was a large cavern, bordered by rock on all sides except the part nearest the beach, which was sand. It was marked blue – filled with water.
"Brockton Bay, this location, is a soft target. The city was originally founded at this location because of the proximity to the coastline for trade routes and an aquifer that provided the first settlers with access to fresh water. This aquifer, essentially an underground lake beneath the city, is our weak point. From the moment Leviathan shows himself, we expect Leviathan will stir and manipulate this underground reservoir to erode the surrounding sand, silt, and rock. Add the tidal waves from above, with the resulting tremors and impacts…"
Centurion realized what would happen. The city sinks and we all die underneath piles of rubble.
He paused, "We have to end this fast. Each wave he brings on top of us is stronger than the last. This means we have two priorities. First, we cannot let him out of our sight. From the moment the battle is initiated, we hem him in, sustain an offensive onslaught. If we let him slip past our defensive lines, precious time will be wasted chasing him, getting him in another situation where we can contain his movements.
"Our second priority is that we need to find ways to hurt him. If you cannot, if your attacks are deflected or prove otherwise useless, work to support those who can. It is vain to hope to kill him, but he can be whittled down enough that he will flee back to the ocean, and if we hurt him enough, it may delay the time before he is capable of making another attack elsewhere."
Legend frowned. The windows were rattling with the force of the rain against them. It was almost impossible to see through them with the water that streamed down, and the overall gloom beyond. It was like the outside world had become an alien realm of water and downpour.
He instructed the power armor's AI to focus its calculation on survival and support of its user. The combat prediction software pulled up a draft, called, 'comsof, pattern 605,' and then notified, 'no enemy in sight.' It began calibrating further.
For now.
"This is what the Endbringers are. As of yet, we've been unable to stop them, unable to get through even one confrontation without grievous losses, be it civilian casualties, the loss of a city, or the loss of the lives of some of the bravest and strongest of us. And they will keep coming, one after another, winning these small victories, and winning some major ones.
"You are doing a good thing. The greatest thing. This is why we are tolerated, why society allows and accounts for the capes that walk the streets and fight in its towns. Because we are needed for situations like this. With your assistance, we can forestall the inevitable. Your efforts and, if you choose to make them, your sacrifices, will be remembered."
Centurion couldn't help but look around to see everyone's reactions. The Protectorate was hardened, in different stages of acceptance, while Armsmaster just looked confident. The Empire didn't look happy, but then, when did they ever? Centurion saw Kaiser glance in his direction, and he turned his sight away in that same moment.
The windows vibrated, as the aftermath of a wave slammed into them for a moment. Centurion looked out through one of the ground-level windows and saw pools of water that'd almost reach his knees, streaming down the street from the shore. Every few seconds, a larger wave, almost groin-high, went down the street, and every half a minute, the precursor of what would become tsunami waves tore across, above cars and covering the entire windows. The air kept pouring, the drops thick, heavy, too fast for normal rain, each one practically slamming into the windows like micro-punches. Like the wrath of God itself desired to kill everyone inside the building, and it was only a matter of time until it tore through.
His staring at the water seemed to have prompted his suit to pull up a notification that said, 'Leviathan will reach the shore in 2 minutes, 15 seconds.' The timer kept counting down, and a long-distance camera from a drone – barely capable of flight – showed him a distant light in the water: a dark algae green dot, gleaming, slowly, menacingly approaching the city from the Bay.
Legend looked to Armsmaster.
Armsmaster spoke, authoritative, less impassioned, but confident, "The Wards are handing out armbands of Dragon's design. These are adjustable to slide over your arm and should be tightened around your wrist. The screen on the top of the armband notes your position on a grid, as well as Leviathan's last updated location. Use this. You'll also note there are two buttons. The button to the left lets you send messages to everyone else wearing an armband. It will not, unless you are a member of the Protectorate or otherwise a veteran of these fights, directly communicate what you say to everyone else wearing an armband. Dragon has a program screening messages and passing them on through the network based on priority, to cut down on unnecessary chatter that could distract from crucial information. If you must bypass this three to five second delay, speak the words 'Hard Override' before conveying your message. Abuse of this feature will lose you the ability to send any further messages."
"The second button is a ping. Use it in the case of an emergency, to alert others if you are in danger or hurt. If it is not an emergency, but you want assistance, such as a flier to get you to another vantage point or you see an opportunity to turn the tables, press both buttons, tell the armband what you want. Dragon's program will prioritize your needs, with assistance being directed your way if others are not occupied with more pressing matters. The armband tracks your condition and will automatically send a ping if you are badly injured or unconscious."
Centurion took an armband from one of the boxes and slung it over his wrist, then began to pass them over to the other people. His HUD began to recalibrate: interfacing with the armband and giving itself the same features, but clearer and neater.
Legend called out, "Capes! If you have faced an Endbringer before, stand!"
The rest of the Protectorate, about a third of the out-of-town Wards, Bambina, half of a commercially sponsored cape team and the Travelers stood. Armsmaster leaned over toward Miss Militia, whispered something in her ear, and pointed at the Travelers. Miss Militia shook her head.
"When in doubt, follow the orders of the Protectorate first! We have trained, organized and planned for this! The others who are standing, now, are the ones you listen to if we aren't contradicting their order! They have been through situations much like this, you go with their instincts!
"We are splitting you into groups based on your abilities! If you are confident you can take a hit from Leviathan and get up afterwards, or if you have the ability to produce expendable combatants, we need you on the front line! You will be directed by Alexandria and Dragon!"
A share of the crowd moved over to the side of the room where a large, green humanoid suit stood, alongside an imperious-looking Alexandria. Armsmaster, meanwhile, strode over to the Undersiders and exchanged a word with them. Tattletale made one of her signature smug replies and he frowned, walking away.
"Armsmaster and Chevalier will be leading the hand to hand combatants who do not fit in Alexandria's group! Anyone who thinks they can harm or hamper Leviathan in close quarters, you'll be assisting and reinforcing the front line!"
Armsmaster strode away from the Undersiders, and Assault, Battery, Brandish, Night and Fog moved to join that group, among others. Smaller than the first group.
Legend was still organizing the groups. "-forcefields, telekinesis, whatever your power, if you can interrupt Leviathan's movements or help reduce the impacts of the waves, you're the backup defense! Bastion will direct you!"
"Movers! We need fliers, teleporters, runners! You'll be responding to pings! Rescue the fallen, get them to emergency care, assist any others where needed! Myrddin will give you your orders! Long ranged attackers, with me! If you fall in more than one category, go with the group where you think you'll be the greatest assistance!"
Centurion was painfully aware that, unlike the other capes, he was more of a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none, to the point where he hesitated to say he'd be useful in any group.
"The rest of you-" Legend was interrupted by shouts. Bastion bellowed, pointed, and the people in his team moved.
Layers of forcefields went up around the far wall in front of and behind the front windows, and they weren't enough to take the hit. The building rocked with an impact, the forcefields to the left collapsed, and the water began to rush in, carrying chunks of brick, glass and the metal windowframes into the lobby.
One of the television screens toppled in the onrushing flood. The other two showed a flickering series of images, a half-second of each. The coast of Brockton Bay being struck with a surge of water. The ferry, the harbor down at the south end of town, the boardwalk, all smashed by the initial wave. There was a glimpse of a tall figure in the middle of one shot, little more than a blur behind the spray of water and the rain.
There was a loud groan, and the ceiling at one corner of the room began to descend swiftly toward the ground. Narwhal flicked two fingers up in that direction and shored the ceiling with some forcefields, but other portions of the ceiling begin to sag, gallons of water pouring through the gaps in the ceiling tile.
"Strider!" Legend bellowed, over the noise and chaos, "Get us out of here!"
The air was sucked out of Centurion's lungs, and there was the sound of a loud thunderclap. Centurion felt like he was struck by lightning, or rattled by a gunshot. He was outside, he realized; in the middle of a shallow river, next to Glory Girl, Laserdream, and Skitter; the rest of the capes a little scattered around.
Since he didn't have his mask-hatch on, he coughed out salty sea-water and sand out of his mouth, barely managing to do so; as he coughed, more water from the nearby area somehow made its way into his mouth. He coughed one final time and managed to close his mouth, then the hatch. His armor was well-insulated, but he could feel the moisture below his feet and feel the pressure of the rain pounding on the outside of his armor like the sky was pushing against him.
Centurion turned to the nearest capes, as his environmental shield switched on. The force of the rain eased a little, and the water visibly slowed a millimeter around his ankles, then went fast again as it left his reach. "Are you all okay? Are you injured?" he asked.
No one responded, not hearing him too well over the thrashing rain. Crystal looked at him and nodded with a smile, before standing up and recomposing herself, then hesitantly talking to the air with a frown. Her hair was already damp, darker; like she'd just come out of a shower, and they weren't here for even ten seconds.
Centurion had no fucking idea which group to join. Should he go on the frontlines? Or should he stay in the back as general support? Or as a ranged attacker? That was his best bet. He should probably go with Legend: the maximum potential of his lasers would be able to put a dent into Leviathan, with a little luck.
Transfusion stood up from the ground, grunting. Come to think, Centurion hadn't seen her earlier. He'd just kind of taken her existence for granted, but he didn't see her since the argument with Shadow Stalker, and he hadn't seen Shadow Stalker since their spar.
Transfusion looked around, frowned, and ran toward the nearest building. Her armor lightened, compressed around her body, as a pillar of solid blood grew out from under her foot and lifted her up; the base of the pillar jabbed needles into the ground like roots, to stabilize itself. Once she was on level with a rooftop, the needles shot back into the pillar, which became increasingly thinner as it toppled in the direction of the rooftop, letting her easily step on it. She held out a hand, and the pillar turned into liquid blood, as if magnetized, then flowed into the palm of her hand in a stream, losing some of its mass due to the rain.
Centurion looked around to see where Legend was. His best bet was to join the long-ranged attackers. The Protectorate leader zipped into the sky, leaving behind an elegant light blue streak. He ascended above the rooftops, then spoke into his armband. "Leviathan sighted east. Let's fence him off." Legend dashed off, leaving only a trail.
The river beneath Centurion's ankles flowed with different, weird things: trash, wet newspapers, cans, planks that looked like they'd been ripped from benches. He felt his danger sense flare dully and turned to see a tree, roots and all, moving downstream. He hopped, suspended by telekinesis, and began to hover, lifting into the sky.
Some of the other fliers were lifting up ranged attackers who didn't have Mover powers up onto rooftops, and otherwise helping people get across. Centurion saw the red streak: Velocity, rushing in the direction of Leviathan, presumably to keep track of his position. In that moment, Velocity stopped and flashed with light, as he was replaced by a cape with bulging muscles, evoking the image of a Brute. Velocity ran forward again, and the same kept happening.
At the end of the road, downhill, was the Boardwalk, or what was left of it. The wooden pathways and docks had been shattered, to the point that many were standing nearly straight up, or were buckled into fractured arches. The water foamed and sprayed as it rushed back against the ragged barrier that had been Brockton Bay's high-end shopping district.
He was there, too. Almost surreal, and alien. Thirty feet tall, the majority of him was muscled, but not bulky. His hunched shoulders, neck and upper torso were the exceptions, bearing cords of muscles that stood out like steel cables. It gave him a top-heavy appearance, almost like an inverted teardrop with limbs and a tail.
His proportions were wrong – his calves and forearms seemed too long for his height, his clawed fingers and digitigrade feet doubly so. He moved with a languid sort of grace as he advanced through the spraying water. His arms moved like pendulums, claws sweeping against the water's surface, while his upper body swayed left and right, as if to give counterbalance to his great height. His tail, forty or fifty feet long and whiplike, lashed behind and around him in time with his steps, perhaps borne of the same need for balance that gave him his teetering gait.
Gallons of water poured around him in the wake of his movements, roughly the same amount of mass as the body part that had just occupied the space. This 'afterimage' streamed down him and splashed violently against the water he waded through.
Then, there was his face.
He had no nose or mouth, no ears. His face was a flat, rigid expanse of the same scaly skin that covered the rest of him, like the scales of a crocodile's back. The hard, featureless plain of Leviathan's 'face' was broken up only by four cracks or tears – one on the right side of his face, three on the left. In each of those dark gaps, the green orbs of his eyes glowed with a light that pierced through the rain. His head moved faster than the rest of him, twitching from one angle to the next like someone's eyeball might flicker left, right, up and down, uncannily out of time with the rest of his body.
Centurion's environmental shield kept burning as the rain and water impacted against it. His reservoir of energy gorged itself on the impacts of water drops. It didn't have any light to absorb, but the rainfall was more than enough; charging him up almost twice as quickly as usual.
"Get ready!" Legend howled the words.
He raised both arms, aiming at the green spots that were, supposedly, Leviathan's eyes. He didn't have the mental concentration to moderate his energy use but tried to put a quarter of his energy into each hand.
It was hard to say whether Leviathan heard the command or if Legend had spotted some tell, but Leviathan dropped to all fours at the same time Legend gave the command. With Legend's cry still ringing in the air, Leviathan moved. He was fast.
Fast enough that his clawed hands and feet didn't touch the road beneath the water – after the initial push, his forward momentum was enough to let him run on the water's surface.
Fast enough that before Centurion could even react, and fire off his lasers, Leviathan was already in the middle of the groups below him, blood and water spraying where he collided with the lines of assembled capes, and the armbands were beginning to announce the hopelessly injured and deceased. Carapacitator down, CD-5. Krieg down, CD-5. WCM deceased, CD-5. Iron Falcon down, CD-5. Saurian down, CD-5…
Centurion was shocked, screaming out in fear and terrified surprise only to then redirect his aim down to fire into Leviathan's back.
Getting hit by something that weighed nearly nine tons sent men, women, boys, and girls in costume flying if it didn't kill them outright. Leviathan's echo added surprising quantities of water to the battlefield. Every step and movement he made, he filled the space he'd just left with water.
Sham down, CD-5. Acoustic deceased, CD-5. Harsh Mistress down, CD-5. Resolute deceased, CD-5. Woebegone down, CD-5…
Legend and the other flying artillery began to fire upon Leviathan with a vengeance, even as Centurion's notification box kept pinging every second with a new deceased or downed cape; sometimes several per second. The torrential downpour kept slamming into buildings, ruining the entire block.
Notification silence! Just show them to me!
The pings quieted down, but the notifications kept rolling on his screen.
Centurion started barraging lasers into Leviathan, a flurry of furious, rapid-succession laser beams. To his surprise, some of the lasers managed to cut a scant millimeter into Leviathan's thick scaly skin, causing black blood to pour out. The Endbringer ignored most of these attacks.
Legend fired a salvo of lasers at Leviathan, and the beams turned at right angles to strike Leviathan in precise areas, knocking his feet from under him, slamming him down into the road, catching him under the chin. Leviathan raised a hand, and a geyser of water rose to block more incoming lasers. Legend's lasers simply turned at angles to circle around Leviathan, strike the Endbringer from behind. They left Leviathan so hot that his flesh glowed a yellow-orange around the areas they struck him.
Centurion kept shooting at Leviathan, until he ran out of power and waited to recharge again, somewhat anxious. His flight was relatively slow; could he get out of the way if Leviathan lashed out at him?
Centurion looked down in the meantime, saw that some of the capes swept up in the current were drowning. He spotted Chevalier running up to Leviathan, slashing his sword, leaving a massive gouge in the Endbringer's neck. Leviathan whipped his tail, but before he could hit Chevalier, Armsmaster swung a halberd – a cord of steel fired out, in the space between them, and then froze in stasis. Leviathan's tail stopped, slamming against the cord fruitlessly. Even so, his water-echo sent Chevalier reeling down the street, twenty meters where Chevalier bounced against the ground, turning upside down and splashing water like a rock thrown into a lake, then going down another twenty meters, and through the cracked glass of what used to be an electronics shop.
Centurion vaguely recognized the shape of the building, and realized it was the same one he'd bought his phone at.
The notifications kept popping up in his hood. Chevalier down, CD6. Transfusion down, CD-6, Fenja down CD-5, Alternator down CD-5, Lord of Menace deceased CD-7 were the most recent ones.
He scrolled up with his eyesight to check the ones he had missed. No one local, though Reynard was down for a moment then apparently back up: they'd set up a point for Panacea and the other healers, where they handled injuries. Movers were bringing people there and back to the battlefield.
Leviathan seemed to get annoyed by the bugs chittering around him. He swung his tail, water-echo arcing out, and Centurion's HUD informed him six people were downed and three were deceased in a single breath. Leviathan strode forward, Legend's lasers slamming into his back.
As the Endbringer tried to change directions, a black figure slammed into his torso and pushed him across the street, into an apartment block, before flying back out of the hole she made. The rest of the building collapsed on top of Leviathan.
A massive shadow appeared over the sky, and people looked up too late.
Bastion and the other Shakers reacted, trying to create forcefields, but it was too little. The massive tidal wave crashed into the Docks, exploding several dozen buildings into plaster and rubble, washing the loose metal and stone pieces down the street, hitting and sweeping a good number of capes further down, and releasing Leviathan from the collapsed building.
He instantly sunk into the tidal waters and used them almost as a hoverboard, moving higher into the sky and flinging Alexandria and two other fliers aside with his limbs and echo; killing the latter two.
The metallic dragon that Centurion saw earlier swooped down to meet him at the height of his ascension, almost managing to look like something out of a metal album. It fired all of its missiles simultaneously, causing Leviathan to rock atop the wave.
It opened its mouth and breathed something liquid at him; bright blue, causing the water to sizzle and almost explode. The tide of plasma washed over Leviathan, but he simply tanked it, then reached out and grabbed the Dragonsuit by the throat, clutching it and pressing, as if intending to choke it slowly.
Instead, it began to glow and crumble, then exploded in his palm, creating a bright bubble of the same plasma for a split-second, leaving red-black burn marks on his face and arm, like God used Leviathan as a giant ashtray, but the Endbringer didn't seem too bothered.
Pieces of the molten metal from the suit rained down and clattered into the rivers of Leviathan's creation, while he touched down on the ground, submerged himself in one of them, and rushed across one of the streets, further west, even as everyone gave chase. He was moving the direction of the aquifer.
Spears of ice, steel, forcefields, storms of telekinetic force, and things that Centurion couldn't categorize properly in so short a time jutted out to block his path. The water flow stopped, but Leviathan didn't; he accelerated further, breaking through several layers of defenses, before they finally made his advance cease.
Almost as if annoyed, Leviathan rose from the water and moved back the way he came, throwing a tidal wave in the direction of a group of capes under Myrddin and Eidolon. Eidolon raised a hand, and the water flash-froze in an instant, cracking and heaving, while Myrddin raised a staff, conjuring four white circles to float around it. He adjusted them, aiming at the same point in space, then cast his spell. Four pressurized jets of air, so thick that Centurion saw the light bending as if under heatwaves. Leviathan was slammed against the wall behind him again.
Alexandria speared forward into Leviathan, like a hammer into a nail. He met her advance, accelerating, then stopping in an instant. There was a sound like an explosion going off, as Alexandria broke through his water echo. Just barely, Centurion saw Leviathan flick his tail, followed by her flying out of the mass of water, trailing a streak of it behind her, and landing somewhere near the beach. Leviathan stepped out, and Centurion noticed that his burns from the plasma had already blackened and become char, which was washing off of him gradually.
Centurion aimed in Leviathan's direction and gathered his energy into one hand. The environmental shield buckled, as its battery reserves emptied in a second.
It manifested as a ball of gold, crackling with yellow lightning as if desiring to be released; water sizzled into steam as it impacted against it. Centurion kept the hand in place, carefully adjusting his aim. He waited for his forcefield to recharge, and kept pushing more energy into the discharge as it did. The environmental shield's energy blasts didn't really have a charge limit, like the old forcefield: as long as he had the energy income, he could keep stockpiling it this way.
Legend and some other Blasters kept Leviathan busy, then Centurion decided enough was enough, and pointed the entire collected force at Leviathan; the combat prediction software helping him with an outline of Leviathan's location and with a contour of his blast's trajectory. He aimed for the head and released.
The Endbringer recoiled, forced to take half a step back. There was a black tear in its forehead now, like someone slashed it with a knife, with streaks of oily ichor going down in streaks across Leviathan's face. It looked up at Centurion.
Centurion froze for a split second, as his combat prediction program went a little insane, then predicted he needed to dodge to the right: a second too late.
Leviathan rushed, jumped onto a building, then ricocheted off of it, straight at Centurion, swinging down his clawed fist right at him. The danger sense flared alongside the prediction program, but Centurion didn't even have time to react, Leviathan moving fast enough the eyes could barely follow his movements, let alone process a course of action.
He tried, though; Centurion condensed into smoke and Leviathan swung through him. The dissolution of smoke caused Centurion's power to glitch out, and throw him down the street. He saw the tops of the buildings in his vision, surrounding the rainy sky, before there was an impact.
Centurion down, CD-6.
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Centurion breathed in, shuddering and wheezing. He opened his eyes slowly, the residual moisture from his tears preventing him from seeing things clearly, because there was an angel standing over him, wings unfurled, wearing a pure white robe and smiling, as if welcoming him to heaven.
Panacea slapped him through his helmet, and he realized that wasn't a smile, but the very opposite. "Get the hell up! Next!" she declared, and someone pushed Centurion's stretcher forward; he barely had time to react as a paramedic helped him stand. He looked around himself; he was in some kind of hospital or clinic area; dozens of injured capes lay around him, some wheezing. Those most gravely injured were prioritized, being moved straight to Panacea; he noticed Othala and several other healers handling other assignments and wounds.
Chevalier was lying on a bed nearby, his helmet off, replaced only be a domino mask. There was a white bandage over the top of his head, almost like a cowl, with a pale red-pink blotch on top.
There was a cape he didn't recognize, with a dark-blue costume with orange trim, opening up orange portals through which patients were moved in from across the city.
A man in brown burlap robes; Myrddin, walked up to Centurion. "Are you well enough to fight?"
"Yes, yes, I am," he said, shaking his head to get himself back in the loop. Without speaking, Myrddin tapped Centurion's shoulder with his staff, then everything went black for a moment; less than a second, but more than an instant.
A moment later, the world flashed back into existence, and Centurion staggered forward as he appeared on a rooftop in a shine of bright light, with three other capes alongside him; two Protectorate, one he couldn't tell from costume. The one he didn't recognize hopped onto the ledge of the building, then built up force in her knees, before leaping down at another rooftop three stories below them. The Protectorate capes flew into the sky and followed the armbands' directions towards the fight.
Centurion applied telekinetic force to himself to replenish his forcefield. It'd take twenty seconds to charge up. In the meantime, he looked at the notifications to see who else was down.
A bunch of nobodies he didn't recognize; Grue from the Undersiders was down, Vista was down.
Fuck, Vista.
Centurion swayed on his feet for a moment, as his wounds caught up to him. Panacea's healing wasn't perfect when she had to do quick work, but his regeneration was smoothing over her core work. He felt the warmth heating his head up, and his neck; did his spine get fractured?
Shit.
An involuntary shudder ran through him, as he realized he'd almost died there.
I need to be more careful.
Centurion looked out at the horizon, and saw the Docks, and the Boardwalk. The latter didn't exist anymore. There was no 'beach' anymore. The water levels were too high, pouring into the streets. In the far distance of the Bay, he saw the Rig; the Protectorate base with the bubble forcefield swaying, as the tidal waters toppled it.
There was a loud crack of metal in the distance. Loud enough that if he were halfway closer, he'd have had to cover up his ears at the sound. This was followed by pop-like explosions, as the pillars of steel that held the Rig up bent out of proportion and the base fell into the water, moving in a collision course towards Downtown. It moved slowly, scratching against the bottom of the bay, creating a screeching sound of metal underwater buckling.
Oracle, advise a course of action that will make me useful and will keep me alive.
It began to process, even as a dozen capes flew down towards the floating base of the Protectorate ENE. He spotted Eidolon among them, using an ice power to create a large, white-blue barrier across the shore. Some of the other fliers used their own powers to help in different ways. A moment later, Alexandria joined in, and rammed into the base of the Rig, pushing against it with her entire body, clearly straining. It didn't even slow down.
Stay high in the air and fire down on Leviathan or help Panacea with healing or help with search and rescue or...
Oracle didn't give anything useful, listing basically a dozen options, without helping him select one.
"Leviathan is moving, pin him down!" Legend's voice spoke over the radio. Centurion saw a ping on his map, pointing towards the very heart of the city; dangerously close to the aquifer. "Militia, now!" Legend declared, and Centurion stumbled mentally. There was a chain of explosions in the distance.
Centurion turned to the source of the explosions, as his stomach ached terribly. Anxiety, fear, frustration at the amount of death. This was sickening: worse in reality, than when he'd read about it. Being here, realizing every moment and move counted, and could be the last.
Leviathan tore out from a city block, into Centurion's view. The massive Endbringer seemed injured; a part of his left shoulder cracked away, with purple crystals sticking to it, dotting it. His right arm's mass was reduced, and Centurion could almost see the bone in some places.
There were flashes of bright phosphoric light, as Purity flew down overhead, stopping not too far away from the building he was on. Centurion observed as Purity's light flared brighter, purblinding him even through his visor. A second later, a barrage of massive twin-helixes darted across the sky, punching into Leviathan's back with enough force to make him tumble and spin out of his sprint into a group of capes. He crashed into a building, tumbled his way through it, and then seemed to regain control as he came out on the other side.
In that moment, Leviathan's entire momentum turned in the opposite direction as Legend blasted him in the head with a fat beam, aided by Lady Photon, Laserdream, and several other members of the flying artillery team. Leviathan was practically clotheslined, dropping to his back, where he stopped moving as if suspended in time.
"Clockblocker froze Leviathan," Armsmaster reported through radio. "Everyone! Regroup. We'll launch one more assault."
Centurion scrolled through the notifications, Battery down CD-6, Jotun down CD-6, Alabaster deceased CD-6, Miss Militia down CD-6.
Centurion's body froze for a moment, but he couldn't stop. He flew to where Armsmaster was as quickly as his power allowed him to.
Pellets of water kept lashing against his back, not stopping in the slightest despite Leviathan being frozen. A tidal wave halfway between Centurion and the ground; taller than most of the buildings that weren't destroyed yet, went across the southern Docks, not too far from the PRT. The notifications flashed at the same time, as three more people were downed, and one died on the spot. Elsewhere, in the city, capes kept succumbing to wounds and dying with an odd regularity; like a heartbeat, often in pairs or groups. Only a few deaths were isolated.
Centurion made his way down to where the defenders were. A massive statue, looming over everyone else; of Leviathan standing up, glaring down at them, sent a shock through Centurion's spine. The four green eyes, welcoming them to die, even as a sculpture.
Armsmaster hobbled forward to Centurion and said, "Your healing power. Does it work on blunt injuries?"
"Superficial wounds get healed fa-"
"Just say yes," Armsmaster interrupted, then raised his left arm, showing a gouge in his armor, under the shoulder. Through the crack, Centurion could see a dark rubber-kevlar underlayer, with tiny wires, spurting loose tongues of electricity. "Use it on me."
Centurion summoned a large blob of the healing ambrosia, inserting it inside of the crack of Armsmaster's power armor and forcing it through his skin to get down to the bruised tissues. Armsmaster cried out in relief for a moment, then moved his stiff limb. The lime-green gel, for some reason, seemed to stabilize the wiring, causing the jumps of electricity to stop. Weird.
"Guess I found out a new use for that power," Centurion stated, genuinely surprised. "Does anybody else need healing?"
"We're regrouping," Armsmaster said, then sighed out, as he used his glove to teleport a battered halberd away, then teleported in a new one. "So, yes. Go and ask around." He turned to look at Leviathan, staring into the four, glowing green eyes, then turned to his armband and started doing something with it.
Even frozen, Leviathan's eyes seemed alive, observing them. Looking into them, and mocking their lackluster defense and planning. Patiently waiting for the effect to expire.
"Yes sir," Centurion caught himself. He looked at his tactical radar, and looked at the pings of injured people. Two pings were redirected to him specifically, out of thirty or so in the area. He approached the nearest; Ehwaz, from the Empire. His arm was missing, and he was shaking, clearly out of contact with reality, attended to by some cape in a yellow suit.
Centurion knelt next to him and summoned a large green mass of ambrosia; rain splattered into it, creating tiny vents that healed over as new ambrosia filled them. It was strangely mesmerizing. The green viscous goo lifted from Centurion's hand and slapped itself into Ehwaz' wound, flowing inside like a snake as it started the process. Ehwaz instantly breathed in, as if he was choking before.
"This should stabilize you," Centurion informed. He turned to the yellow-suited cape, "Do you need medical attention too?"
"No," he snapped, almost angry at the question, "Go help the others."
Centurion got up on his feet and started going around, stabilizing capes. Some of them were taken by the Movers and transported to Panacea's area first. Centurion observed as Myrddin tagged people with his power, causing them to condense into a fine point before disappearing, then remembered when Myrddin did the same to him. Curious power; people said he was a bona fide wizard.
He prioritized healing the Wards, then the Protectorate. After half a minute of this, Legend floated down, glowing almost furiously, as streaks of uneven glowing particles rushed on the edge of his skin, filling out wounds and cleaning blood; even fixing his hair gradually, until he was back to good health in mere seconds. The glow dissipated, as Legend breathed out in relief and faced Leviathan.
Centurion approached Legend. "Sir, everyone in the immediate vicinity is stabilized."
"Thank you. Where is Armsmaster?" Legend asked, then, before Centurion could answer, spotted the aforementioned Tinker. He sidestepped Centurion and dashed forward, so fast Centurion couldn't follow him. The moment he turned, Centurion saw that Legend was having a heated discussion about something. Armsmaster turned, then shook his head and replied to a question.
There was a brief moment of pregnant silence between then, then Legend floated into the sky and started charging up a laser blast, holding the energy between his hands. "Everyone, prepare and charge your blasts. We'll hit Leviathan when he unfreezes."
Centurion flew up in the sky in Legend's general vicinity, doing the same. Several members of the 'flying artillery' joined them when they saw the gathering, including Purity, Lady Photon, and Laserdream. Shielder seems to have joined their team due to his flexible defense. Centurion briefly turned to the New Wave capes and sighed in relief at seeing that they were okay.
There were some other capes near them; one Centurion recognized as a member of the Toronto Protectorate. Grumman. A Breaker who could switch between two modes: a high Brute and Mover and a mode where he can't move, but can fire blasts of energy potent enough to level a ten-floor building in eight seconds. Grumman landed on a rooftop and held his hands together, weaving a bolt of force.
Centurion felt a little inadequate, looking around. His laser blast was clearly the weakest of the lot. However… he made Leviathan flinch. That's a small win, right?
Legend's voice spoke over the radio, "According to precognitives, Leviathan will break out of the stasis in one more minute. Everyone regroup near the fight: the moment the effect expires, I want everyone to hit him hard and keep hitting him; don't let him move, escape, or slither out, no matter what. I want the Shakers to keep him contained on this street, and I want everyone else in the clear when we fire."
Centurion nodded to reassure himself.
Movers started to bring extra help to the rooftops; the members of the Blaster and artillery categories who couldn't fly or didn't have any other abilities to aid movement. He recognized only a few of them, but the others, his HUD supplied information about. Flechette stood on a rooftop, with an arbalest in her hands; there was a meter-long needle loaded in it, thrumming with a green outline.
There were others: Narwhal stood on a rooftop nearby, already building up her sharp forcefields. She made some of them in such a way so that she could block Leviathan off, or cut him if he got too near.
His HUD provided information on some others; some cape called Quickfire from Kansas whose power gave him superhuman cognitive processing and let him imbue bullets fired from a weapon with super-speed, which not only increased their force but made him a counter to speedsters. He was holding a bazooka.
Armsmaster was setting up what looked like Bakuda explosives around Leviathan, to go off the moment the Endbringer started moving. After that, Armsmaster's entire form flashed a silver glow, similar to Centurion aside from the color, and he disappeared, leaving behind some sparks that went out on contact with the water.
The countdown timer appeared atop Centurion's HUD. Twenty seconds.
Centurion readied his sphere of energy in front of his body, holding it with both hands. His shoulders were shaking a bit, but not enough to throw off his aim.
Fifteen seconds.
Sundancer was moved in onto a nearby rooftop through a man-sized blue portal. She put her palms together, and Centurion spied as a bright substance filled the space between her hands, similar to lava, but almost gaseous. In moments, it expanded into the size of a football, then kept growing. A sun, slowly expanding to be hotter and larger.
Several more Blasters and Masters with disposable minions were teleported, carried, or otherwise pushed into firing range. Centurion realized that when Leviathan unfroze, the effect would be similar to basically nuking him: the best attacks, the trump cards of everyone who came to fight unleashed all at once to annihilate the Endbringer.
Kaiser stepped down on the ground and seemed to strain himself, creating a massive wall of dark iron to stop Leviathan from escaping south. Four more pillars of steel grew, at a forty-five-degree angle, to support the wall at the critical junctures. Kid Win teleported the Alternator Cannon just meters below Centurion, holding onto it and aiming it at Leviathan with shaking hands, his finger twitching on the button to fire it.
Ten seconds.
Centurion changed the laser's fire mode to piercing round. The sphere in his hands wobbled slightly, turning a lighter shade of gold.
Eidolon made it to them in that moment, just barely stopping himself from overshooting with whatever flight power he held. He floated in place for a moment, kind of tensed; not exactly not knowing what to do, but rather doing something and incapable of doing it the right way. Shifting through powers? Trying to find one that'll do something useful?
Five seconds.
Centurion heard all of the armbands on the assembled capes counting down, and his stomach quivered a little as he realized what's about to happen. He felt a pressure in the back of his mind: pure fear and anticipation. He stopped himself from laughing at how insane this was, but couldn't stop himself from chuckling like a deranged maniac.
Legend's face hardened. Eidolon straightened in the air, as if in relief, and then raised his hand. A bolt of purple lightning streaked across his costume, originating somewhere near his heart. It licked across his left arm and cupped into his palm, creating a large, violet-indigo crystal, which kept growing as the lightning charged it. In a second, it was larger than a golf ball, but stopped increasing after that.
Three. Two. One.
A twitch as Leviathan stabilized himself and started standing up. In less than a quarter of a second, Legend reacted, screaming, "Now!"
Light, heat, cold, fire, plasma, lightning, darkness, earth, stone, water, air, sky, clouds, rain, wind, space, time, past, and future. Skewers of metal, vacuums of air, swirls of dimensional energy. All of it and more, condensed, in different forms, hit Leviathan at the same time. It was blinding: even through his darkened visor, Centurion couldn't see a tiny bit of the street where Leviathan once stood. There was a bubble of white and rainbow colors swirling for a half-second, followed by a change of air pressure that pushed Centurion away, flinging him a good distance away before he stabilized himself.
For a moment, everything was silent, besides the rumbling as the earth, the canals underneath Brockton Bay gave out, as buildings collapsed, cars exploded, metals grated, and waters flowed.
It continued, dissonant, even as Leviathan crawled out of the hellhole of the Protectorate's creation. He didn't have skin anymore, revealing a dark green, uneven patchy sort of flesh, bleeding black fluid out of his wounds. His right arm was definitely the thinnest, the most injured, missing most of its flesh, to the point where Centurion saw the entire hand was just white bone.
The Endbringer didn't seem to be concerned, lumbering forward, before Sundancer moved, causing the large sun to lumber forward like the ball from Indiana Jones given the ability to fly. People started shooting him with lasers, explosives, firearms, and other things, but it didn't damage him anymore; even in the most injured parts where logic dictated he'd be the most vulnerable.
Leviathan didn't notice Sundancer's creation until it slammed into his side. He reacted by slamming the sun with his claw, then starting to move towards its creator. Kaiser reacted, erecting another wall of metal on the side of the building to protect them, while Movers began evacuating that particular rooftop.
Suddenly, Leviathan's chest opened up as a hope opened up straight through it in a flash of bright green. The meter-long needle lost its effect on the other side of his body.
He didn't stop, swiveling to face the shooter: Flechette.
The Endbringer moved on all fours, running into the building. Where Centurion expected he might have went through, Leviathan instead hooked his tail on the base and used it to push off, getting extra leverage as his claws; one skeletal, the other still covered in meat, grasped the ledge of the rooftop.
Flechette was already loading up another bolt to fire in his face, instead of running.
Centurion flew as quickly as possible and swooped Flechette away from there, just as she fired, which sent the projectile off-track. He felt the water-echo of Leviathan's claw whip against his back, like an actual cane used to lash a recalcitrant child. The water kept pouring on his helmet, on his armor, reminding him of the force of the water; if he didn't have power armor, his spine would be shattered into bits.
Leviathan gave up on them, instead, rushing through a wide alleyway, only for forcefields to block him off. He slammed his fist against them, then again and again, and started battering it five times each second until they broke. When more forcefields appeared, he instead opted to jump at a wall and leap off of it onto another wall, giving him enough height to jump over the forcefields entirely. Centurion briefly noticed Skidmark's power appearing, trying to slow him down to no effect.
"Are you injured?" Centurion asked Flechette.
"Nope," Flechette answered, pointing to a nearby rooftop. Her voice was hitched, but she seemed to be calm overall. "Put me down there."
Centurion followed the direction of her finger and nodded, carrying her over to the aforementioned rooftop and putting her down there. She instantly began to load a needle into her arbalest.
"Leviathan heading southwest," Armsmaster reported.
Centurion looked into the minimap to see if anyone needed medical attention. There were dozens of pings across the city. At the same time, the notifications informed him that several villains down west were getting downed. He groaned in frustration and took off, following Leviathan's wake of destruction to heal up people unlucky enough to get hit.
Among people he didn't know, he noticed some far more uncomfortable messages. Triumph deceased CD-7, Reynard down CD-6, Antiseptic down CD-6, Fenja down CC-6, Fenja deceased CC-6, Menja deceased CE-8.
Centurion swooped down, discomfort swelling up in his chest. He didn't really know Triumph that much, but from what he had seen… he was a good person.
He went to Reynard's location, checking on him and his vitals. The fox-costumed boy had a spike of metal in his chest, shivering and trying not to move as the water levels kept suffocating him. Centurion dashed down and hit the ground, moving into a stagger, as he slid and stopped next to him.
Without really thinking about it, he used his power on Reynard, filling his wound out with the green gel, then lifting him slowly with the help of telekinesis and moving him to safety. Reynard didn't say anything, but kept releasing low-pitched whines of pain, and breathing.
From the general lack of awareness, Centurion could tell Reynard had no real idea of what was going on. He radioed in, "Reynard has urgent need of medical attention, over."
Ten seconds later, a flier appeared with a flash of light, like a valkyrie come to collect the dead. "I'm going to carry him, here," he said, as Centurion handed the boy over. The man gave Centurion a nod and an apologetic smile, then ascended with a flutter of wind and blasted off into the distance.
Centurion took a glance at the pings. In the same moment he did, his world bent out of proportion at something impossible.
Kid Win deceased CD-7.
Centurion actually lost all focus. For a moment, he breathed; hyperventilated. He felt the earth rumble, as water poured around him, repelled by his environmental shield.
Then, he screamed.
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Birdsie
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Loyal Space Guardian
Oct 29, 2019
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Centurion looked at the death-pings and rushed towards the most recent one. It would be a poor description to say he 'rushed.' A rush implies acceleration until a state of top speed is achieved. Centurion forced his telekinesis to carry him faster than ever before, snapping into full velocity in less than two seconds and constantly pushing the limit.
He felt a single charge form and instantly shoved it into the telekinesis. Make me faster.
There was a two-second delay, then his speed limit increased by a few kilometers per hour. He floated into a dark alleyway and hit the ground hard enough to slide across the ground.
Kid Win laid there, facing the sky and not moving, on top of his disabled hoverboard, the remains of the Alternator Cannon burning around him in three big chunks, slowly extinguished as the water from Leviathan's downpour sizzled against the fire. The power source overloaded? Who gives a shit!
Centurion staggered towards him, then fell to his knees
AI, check for pulse, please, I beg you.
'Analyzing.'
It took three painful seconds, before a BPM meter showed, with nothing but a flat line, red against a black background.
Centurion hyperventilated, as he started panicking. His body stopped responding to his mind's attempts at calming down. His first thought was to try CPR. He started compressions: thirty on his chest, at a steady rhythm.
One, two, three, four… come back, please, come back, fuck, fuck, fuck!
Kid Win's chest bent with the motions, but Centurion couldn't press hard enough through Kid's power armor; not enough force got through to compress the chest.
Centurion started punching Kid's chest with both arms in the heart's general location, aiding himself with telekinesis.
"Come back, you hyperactive idiot! Come back!" Gabriel shouted.
Gabriel's eyes flashed with realization. "Fuck, I'm an idiot!" he shouted as he laid both hands on Kid Win's chest, he started drumming against his chest with telekinesis, ignoring the armor, measuring a careful rhythm. Before Gabriel could do it even three times, a massive wave of water flooded the alleyway, and separated him from Kid Win's body; Gabriel floated in one direction, while Kid Win's body was suspended in place by the hoverboard, and started moving away. Like the waves did it on purpose.
Gabriel flew out of the water stream, yelling, "No!" at the top of his lungs as he tried to catch up with the hoverboard. He pushed against the water, but more of it kept coming, pushing back. The water snaked, almost with a sentient purpose; Leviathan was directing a fraction of his attention here. Centurion wasn't afraid. Didn't quiver or care, but he needed a solution.
Centurion condensed into a fine particulate, throwing himself up high in the air. Before he even reformed, a river, a storm flooded higher into the alleyway, crashing against him and sending Kid Win's corpse tumbling down the street, off his hoverboard, rolling down.
It was some kind of cruel joke. Gabriel felt tears form in his eyes, as the water pushed against him, as Kid Win rolled out of sight.
Gabriel started whistling.
Leviathan was only a block away, holding a figure in armor in his palm like a doll. Gabriel just barely recognized it as Kaiser, slumped and dead. Leviathan chucked the cape down onto the street, then rushed out of range on all fours. At the same time, the water pressure was relieved, and Gabriel heard someone say on the radio, "Leviathan is moving further downtown"
Gabriel's eyes widened, as he darted forward and in the direction that Kid Win's body went. He saw him among a pile of trash and rubble, stuck against the counter in a small store, its windows cracked into pieces long ago. He zipped down and stopped, wobbling on his feet as he looked at Kid Win's face; the red visor, cracked into bits to reveal one eye, looking forward with no emotion.
Gabriel clenched his fists, grit teeth and picked him up over his shoulder, flying out of the store to put him on the nearest rooftop, radioing. "Someone come get Kid Win..." His voice lacked any force, even though inside, his heart kept beating and his skin felt cold.
A man-sized gate opened in the air, with blue edges, and a man in the blue-orange costume stepped through, stopping at the sight. "God..." he exclaimed.
"I-I did all I could, I s-swear," Gabriel hiccuped, holding back weeps as his face streamed with tears.
The man picked up Kid Win's body and carried it into the portal, towards Panacea who looked up at them in shock, only to start wrapping up the current cape at twice the speed. In that moment, the man turned, questioning, "Do you…?"
"No," Centurion said, voice shaking less than before, sniffling and getting up on his feet.
The man nodded, and the portal closed.
His suit's tactical radar expanded to show him a map of the city, including Leviathan's last marked location. The capes were in disarray; Legend was downed, Alexandria was trying to keep the Rig from moving further inland, and Eidolon was moving several important Protectorate members to get healed.
Armsmaster was heading in Leviathan's direction, alone.
Oracle, will I die if I go and help Armsmaster?
High probability you will die today in general.
"That isn't helpful at all..." Centurion said quietly, gritting his teeth as frustration swelled in him. He opted to help out the wounded once more; he didn't want to see anyone else die. The image of Kid Win flashed in his mind and made his knees buckle for a moment, making him want to throw up and give up, run away somewhere quiet, somewhere without water.
Centurion looked through the expanded map, which showed him as Laserdream and Shielder advanced in Leviathan's direction. Two seconds later, they stopped, as did Leviathan. For a moment, nothing happened, then suddenly, they were blown closer to him, and Leviathan moved towards Shielder with a purpose. Centurion took to the skies again and headed for their direction.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!
Shielder wasn't wounded, but he was about to fucking be. Centurion dashed across the sky, leaving a golden trail behind him, a story above most buildings, then spotted Leviathan, looming over Shielder. The Endbringer was moving slowly, almost with a purpose. With a lofty gait.
Leviathan's tail stabbed out and coiled around Shielder's throat in a snappy movement, taking less than a second. Leviathan kept walking, lifting Shielder into the air by the neck, choking him slowly, casually, as he carried him along in Laserdream's direction. Shielder thrashed with his legs, holding the tail for support. Spurts of blue forcefields appeared, trying to push Leviathan's grasp off to no avail. Laserdream stood up from the ground and looked at Leviathan, eyes widening in shock.
Leviathan lashed his tail once, like a snake; a subsonic whip carried force down into Shielder's neck and spine with a crack.
Shielder deceased CD-7.
"No!" The bloodcurdling scream sent Centurion into a brief shock, making him flinch as he realized it was Laserdream that just screamed. She fired massive red blasts at the Endbringer.
Leviathan stood in place, staring her down, even as the blasts chipped small bits of his skin off. He didn't seem to care about her, even as he tossed Shielder's corpse toward her like an offering. She instantly stopped firing and moved for it, and Leviathan poised himself to leap as she took the bait. Centurion moved for her.
Before Leviathan could pounce at them, a field of cyan appeared in front of them, soon becoming a darker blue, and then shifting into light purple. Leviathan leaped the moment before it appeared, then crashed into it, thrown back down the street alongside his entire water-echo.
"Get the fuck out of here, you fucking cunt-munching bitches!" Skidmark yelled, dismissing his power's effect, then creating a second one further down as Leviathan rose from the wreckage of a hardware store, looking at them, then turning to glare at Skidmark with an active hatred. Laserdream was standing still, her hands shaking as she stared at Shielder's body.
Centurion grabbed Laserdream and Shielder's body darted away as quickly as he could, holding back tears. "Thank you!" he shouted as he flew away, as Laserdream yelled something he didn't hear.
In that moment, another unexpected thing happened, as the giant mega-crab went down the street past them, and rammed into Leviathan, causing the Endbringer to slide back on the ground. "Get a taste of this, ya big scaly cunt!" Squealer declared over the rain, laughing.
Leviathan flicked his tail and decapitated the mega-crab in an instant, the water-echo causing the two separated pieces to roll across the street. Skidmark exercised his power to slow them down and just barely soften Squealer's fall.
Centurion reached a faraway rooftop, putting down Shielder's body belly up, in a composed manner, then let go of Laserdream. She instantly moved down to attend to her dead brother, crying and shaking him. She kept trying to say something; one sentence, repeating it, but couldn't even get one proper word out.
Centurion knelt beside the two of them. Shielder's – Eric's – face was blank, mouth hanging loosely open and eyes staring off into space. The faintest hint of a smile was on it; more like a suggestion that this was the natural way his face rested, than his mood at the time Leviathan destroyed his spine.
In time, Laserdream began to calm down, crying into Shielder's chest but not saying enough. Centurion wanted to do something, to help, but there wasn't anything, except being close to her.
Skidmark deceased, CF-5.
And at the same time, Leviathan was out there, committing more atrocities.
Centurion radioed. "We need retrieval for Shielder's body..." his voice shaken. Laserdream didn't say anything, weeping over him.
Gabriel put a hand on her back, rubbing it softly. "When they come get him, go with them. You've… you've had enough," he cooed softly.
She nodded, without speaking.
"He was a good kid… at his age, I wouldn't even think of putting myself in such a situation. And he did it in a heartbeat. I'm proud of him, and I didn't… know him that much, if at all," he explained, talking in a soft, lullaby-like voice: all this in stark contrast to how he was feeling inside. He felt like a dying man.
As he spoke, his HUD showed him camera feeds from whatever local CCTV wasn't destroyed. Leviathan was moving towards his target, with not enough capes standing anymore to put up a serious resistance against him. Some of his deeper wounds they dealt seemed to have scabbed over already, filling out with lighter shades of flesh; his once-bony arm in particular grown-over by a thin layer of peel.
Armsmaster approached Leviathan, intersecting his path. The Endbringer didn't stop, as if Armsmaster didn't exist. The hero brandished his halberds with purpose. The map helped Centurion spot some other people in the area; Tattletale was watching from a rooftop two or three blocks away, and Skitter was watching from behind a building corner.
Armsmaster rushed, swinging his halberd at Leviathan. The Endbringer looked down at him and swung his tail, but Armsmaster evaded. The nano-thorn halberd flared to life, cutting a gouge and splattering gray dust in Leviathan's underside. Armsmaster continued to move, dodging blasts of water from different directions, and a claw swipe. Leviathan reoriented his attention towards the Tinker, probably deeming him too problematic.
Centurion spoke to Tattletale over comms. "You've observed enough, right? What's his weak spot?" he requested pleadingly, in a hurry.
"I- don't know," she admitted in a hurry, a note of fear in her voice, "They're… not human. They never were. They're made from a material that gets exponentially denser towards the core; it's impossibly dense. No nervous system, no real weaknesses. The blood is just for show; it doesn't do anything. They don't have internal organs of any kind. Leviathan doesn't use his eyes to see; probably has a water-sense that tells him the location of all water molecules in a range."
"What the fuck are they then?!" Centurion shouted over radio, letting loose the tears that were swelling up in his eyes.
"I don't know!" Tattletale yelled back, then more calmly, "Also, I don't think Leviathan is necessarily after the aquifer. I don't know what he wants; that's just what my power is telling me. The aquifer is a secondary goal."
He cursed himself for not upgrading Oracle but decided to bear the headache.
Oracle, what is Leviathan after right now?
Leviathan remembers its set goal: the total purgation of humanity. Leviathan desires to maximize casualties, destruction and despair dealt to humans; to be a worthy opponent.
On the camera feed, Armsmaster kept fighting Leviathan, having managed to cut several gouges into his flesh; each one was deep. Arguably deeper than any previous attack they dealt to him. For several long seconds, Leviathan didn't move.
"Delaying, buying time for a tsunami?" Armsmaster laughed, and Leviathan cocked his head at the display of emotion. "No. Three point four minutes before the next big wave breaks through the ice. Dragon's probes are giving me the data on that. This will be over before then."
He stepped forward, then stepped again, waiting for some cue from Leviathan. On Armsmaster's third step, Leviathan took a small step back, lashed his tail behind him.
"Finally scared?" Armsmaster taunted. "Good."
In that moment, a blue portal opened next to Centurion, Shielder, and Laserdream. Laserdream turned to look at Centurion, with a forlorn gaze, her face reddened. "Be safe," she said, as she helped them carry Shielder into the portal.
"I love you," he called out before she could leave. She nodded, and the portal closed. After that, he stood up on his feet and flew to Tattletale.
She was standing on a rooftop, leaning against it, letting the rain soak into her hair as she rubbed her head. He could tell from looking that the Thinker headache was putting her at the edge of a coma, as she swayed on her feet drunkenly, using the ledge of the building for support.
"Stop thinking," he said as he approached her.
"I can't stop thinking," she answered with an edge of passive-aggressive parody, "That'd make me as stupid as you."
"On the edge of a Thinker coma, and yet, you can make jokes. I commend that," he said, approaching her to help keep her stable.
She took that at face value and laughed. "I've had worse days than this. You should go help Armsmaster; Leviathan… is planning something. He's after something underground." Centurion's camera feed showed him the nearest Endbringer shelters; one of them was on Coil's territory.
"Are you injured in any way?" he asked.
"Beyond the headache, no," she shook her head, then winced at the movement. "Leviathan. He's after something underground."
"Endbringer shelter," he said. "Lay down and rest, I'll be going to help Armsmaster."
"I… no, no, he's not," she said, shaking her head. "If he was, he'd go at any of the two dozen shelters across the city that were closer to the shore. Why this place?"
"Ponder on that when your brain isn't melting," he quipped back at her, zipping away.
"My brain is always melting. Especially in the vicinity of..." he didn't hear her finish, already too far away.
Centurion flew through the torrential downpour, taking a moment to look at the notifications. Almost fifty percent of the defenders were downed, or otherwise unable to fight. The healers kept bringing them to shape, but there were only so many times you could heal someone before your healing power stopped helping. Around twenty percent of the other defenders were dead, leaving barely a quarter in the field.
That thought was sickening. Images of Kid Win's pale face flashed through his awareness, and he shook them off, even as they drummed for his attention. A loose tear went down his face. Can this horror end?... Please...
This was not the time for childish pleading.
Centurion turned his attention to the camera feeds. Only one camera still existed, giving warped footage of the area.
Armsmaster swung the nano-thorn halberd at Leviathan, who caught it in his hand. It sizzled with gray dust. Leviathan maintained his grip. Armsmaster tugged, failed to dislodge it.
"How!?" Armsmaster roared.
Leviathan planted one foot beside Armsmaster for balance, reached out with his free claw, and pressed the tips against the side of Armsmaster's throat and torso. Still holding on to Armsmaster's hand and wrist, he pushed against the side of the man's body. Armsmaster screamed a frantic noise that seemed to redouble in urgency with every breath. He tipped over and fell with a splash, his arm falling away to the side.
The Endbringer stood, showing none of the frailty or pain it had been displaying seconds ago. The injuries were there, to be sure, his head hung at an angle because of the way the weight of his head hung on the intact portions of his neck, but he wasn't suffering, had no trouble putting his full weight on his more injured leg.
Swarms of thick bugs formed, human-like in shape, dense enough that they could be mistaken for humans. Leviathan swished its claw at once, the afterimage breaking the other two.
The Endbringer moved his tail, as if feeling out the air, then decided to ignore them and bolted away.
Skitter dashed for Armsmaster and knelt next to him.
Centurion kept flying in their direction. He touched down a minute later, with Skitter applying pressure to a large wound on Armsmaster's shoulder, where the arm had been torn off. The ping in Centurion's armor informed him that Leviathan was moving west-north-west; coinciding with the moment that Skitter removed Armsmaster's armband from him.
Centurion created a sphere of healing gel. "Take your hands away," he ordered snappily.
Skitter complied, as Centurion applied it to Armsmaster's wounds, trying to stick his arm close. Myrddin floated down seconds later, looking at the scene.
"Get all of them out of here, and go get Tattletale. She is on a rooftop not more than a minute away from here," Centurion explained as he spread the gel into Armsmaster's wound and let it seep into his live flesh. Armsmaster recoiled with a grunt and a short keening sound. Myrddin looked at Centurion for a moment, then at Skitter, who shook her head.
"I can keep going," she said. Myrddin frowned, but tapped Armsmaster and moved him into his pocket dimension, to carry him for proper medical care.
Centurion snapped at that. "Your bugs are useless against that beast! Go to safety and stay alive, so that your friends won't have to deal your death!"
"I can track him!" Skitter snapped back. "If I cover bugs with other bugs and have them on watch, the rain won't kill them!"
Centurion sighed heavily. "Alright, but for the love of all that is holy, keep away. You can command your bugs from far away, correct?"
"Yeah. Can you stop pretending like you give a shit if I live?" she asked with a degree of burning anger to it. In the meantime, she picked up the nano-thorn halberd nearby.
Centurion's whole body twitched once.
Myrddin interrupted their spat, saying, "Calm down, both of you. We have work to do."
In that moment, Lady Photon touched down, looking over everyone and glaring at Skitter for a moment, before facing Centurion. She looked haggard like someone tore her heart out of her chest moments ago. "I will take Skitter with me," she stated.
Centurion stood up and turned to face Lady Photon. He looked towards her, only to then look down a moment later. "I'm sorry I couldn't save him," he muttered quietly, guilty.
When he said that, Lady Photon looked like someone stabbed several needles into her heart, seizing up for a moment, before hardening even more. She didn't speak on the topic. With that, she floated and picked up Skitter, then blasted off northwest. Centurion nodded and took to the skies, following Lady Photon.
Skitter used Armsmaster's armband, relaying information about Leviathan's location. A ping appeared on his map, and they swiveled to follow. A moment later, Leviathan was in sight, as was the general location of the aquifer; a general neighborhood near Captain's Hill, west of Downtown.
The roads beneath were damaged; cracked, fragmented. The occasional pipe speared up between the slats in the sidewalk, fire hydrants were dislodged, and the water that poured from these was barely a trickle. That might have meant too much was leaking from the damaged pipes to give the water any pressure.
As Leviathan tore his path of violence deeper into the city, he had found opportunities to do damage on the way. A police car had been thrown through the second story of a building. A half-block later, as he'd rounded a corner, he had elected to go through the corner of a building, tearing out the supporting architecture. The structure had partially collapsed into the street.
There was a ping on the radio; a warning about another wave, as a giant tide crashed against the shore. There wasn't anyone in the Docks anymore, and a lot of the buildings destroyed.
"He's at or near BZ-6, heading south," Skitter's voice informed.
"Copy that," Centurion answered.
They followed the roads of Lord's Street for a moment, going further Downtown, at an angle towards the aquifer.
"BX-8 or very close to it! He's downtown, and he just stopped moving."
"You sure?" came Chevalier's voice.
"Ninety-nine percent."
"Noted. We're teleporting forces in."
They arrived at the scene moments later, covered in a trail of destruction. Parian was there, fighting Leviathan, with a group of fluffed animals and characters. A single knight on a horse, made from some sort of fabric, charged the Endbringer, only to be tossed aside by a dismissive movement. It got up again, while Parian started retreating, only to be whipped aside by his tail.
A twin helix of light blasted into Leviathan's back. The Endbringer turned like a hurricane, spreading water in every direction, launching a line of water at Purity.
Centurion flew down, checking if anyone was injured through his minimap. Leviathan took advantage of the distraction, swishing his tail at them, launching a thick watery bolt. At the same time, he lumbered at Browbeat and caught him with his foot, causing the boy to fall and sink into the pavement, coughing up water, but getting up slowly after.
Lady Photon swiveled out of the way of Leviathan's attack, causing Skitter to keen in surprise involuntarily. Centurion ascended, the water blast passing him by a hair.
Centurion concentrated on his veins, prompting the adrenaline to push through, to give him better odds. He charged an explosive laser-beam, aiming for Leviathan's eye. The combat prediction program was helping a little; it couldn't account for the movements of all capes and Leviathan's exact reactions to them, but it gave him a rough idea of where to shoot, as he saw the outline of where Leviathan would stand in 3.5 seconds. In that moment, Centurion released.
The golden streak speared into the Endbringer's face at a side angle, causing it to bob. Leviathan didn't even look at Centurion, proceeding down unimpeded.
On a nearby rooftop, Centurion saw a streak of darkness accompanied by a line of bright green. Shadow Stalker and Flechette set up; the latter applied her power to both of their projectiles, and they fired; needle and crossbow bolt simultaneously, cutting into Leviathan's body.
The Endbringer swayed for a brief moment, then started running on all fours, whipping his tail behind him almost like a propeller to deter pursuit; in seconds, the afterimage built up into a tidal wave of its own, washing off pursuing ground capes. Skitter radioed in his direction, while Purity went after the Endbringer, blasting him and the pavement around him when she missed.
Centurion looked up at the two crossbow-users, half a story above him and flew up to meet them. He touched down on the same rooftop as them, asking, "Do you need hea-"
"Don't need healing," Shadow Stalker said before he could ask, leaping off the rooftop and firing a grappling hook, activating her power and swiveling after Leviathan like Spider-Man. Flechette smiled at him, and did something similar with a grappling needle, following after Stalker.
"Alright, got it," Centurion said, feeling a sting of disappointment in his chest, taking off and flying after Leviathan.
Just wanted to be helpful...
For a moment, Centurion floated meaninglessly in the air, before looking at his tactical radar and looking for pings and messages: two people needed medical help, three needed help moving. He flew down to the one who needed healing: they had priority over all else. The girl cape was a local rogue: Parian, the one with the stuffed animal and mascot minions, lying on the ground and struggling to stand up.
He rushed to her; her arm looked limp, as she carefully handled it with her other arm, and she confirmed his suspicions, saying, "I think I have a broken arm," and ventilating, trying to control her breathing.
"Okay, I need you to sit down and try to slow down your breathing as much as you can, okay?" he instructed. She looked momentarily resigned at getting her dress even wetter but eventually made a 'fuck it' expression and lowered herself to the ground. He knelt in front of her and carefully took her arm, starting to spread healing gel all over it. "It will numb the pain and temporarily make your arm usable again, but the fracture will not heal shortly."
She nodded. "Okay," she answered, voice a little winded, but otherwise not too traumatized after being used as a tree to Leviathan's lumberjack axe schtick.
Out of the corner of his eye, Centurion saw pings as Leviathan moved into range of the aquifer, with a bunch of capes gathered there and fighting him in what seemed to be one last stand.
"Go," Parian said, glancing at her armband and wincing. "I'll be fine!"
Centurion nodded. His radar informed him the other cape who needed healing had been moved to the clinic by one of the Movers. He took to the skies and flew in the direction of the aquifer as fast as possible. What he saw sent chills up his knees and into the rest of his body.
Water gathered, hard as concrete, faster than speeding cars, centered on Leviathan in the middle of a ditch of rubble, creating almost a 'tornado' of water, as different capes tried to move through it.
Flechette fired a needle imbued with her power. It created a void in the water, ignoring its momentum which would've normally sent the needle spinning away or bent it on impact. Leviathan recoiled at the shot, and seemed to realize that as long as she lived or didn't go down, there was no point; as he rushed out of the swirl of water; erupting out of it, moving fast enough it was difficult to follow him, towards her.
Trickster looked at Brandish. She gave him a shallow nod, and he raised a hand, using the other to hold onto his top-hat. There was the smallest flash of light, as Brandish and Flechette changed locations, with the New Wave heroine transforming into a ball of indestructible energy. Leviathan was too late and realized it, but seemingly out of frustration or something approaching it, he picked up the ball and chucked it at the nearest cape, signified by a Countryboy deceased notification.
Centurion couldn't really do anything except shoot a few lasers at Leviathan as he zipped around the skies of the battlefield.
The massive swirl behind Leviathan; a lake that he was beginning to gouge into the earth, redirected a braid of its watery mass to create a small tidal wave, pushing all of the capes away, and flinging them away like ragdolls. Centurion spotted Ehwaz exercising his power to adhere to the ground, only for the water pressure to snap his neck with a crack of finality, his body going limp and joining the tide.
Centurion grit his teeth ascended to avoid the wave.
Eidolon and Myrddin flew over in the direction of the fight, while Leviathan batted away Weld hard enough to leave a dent in his body. The ground began to rumble all around them; Centurion saw as sewer drains and pipes jutted out of the ground, as if summoned, as Leviathan drew upon the city's entire reservoir of water and collected it on top of the collapsing ground.
In that moment, a single jagged furrow appeared, with a deafening crack sound.
Last edited: Oct 29, 2019
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Flechette fired one needle at Leviathan's face; it buried itself three-quarters deep into his face, the tip coming out of the other side. He didn't seem to care in the slightest. Centurion remembered what Tattletale said: no nervous system, never was human.
No weakness.
In the distance, Centurion noticed Hellhound of the Undersiders riding towards the fight, a whole pack of big, brawny dogs at her side. Could they really do any damage to Leviathan?
Centurion charged a precise laser to shoot at Flechette's bolt, to bury it even deeper. Maybe it'd make him lose focus or something? Leviathan happened to look away, then looked directly at Centurion as the laser was being fired; a stroke of luck, it impacted the bolt and drove it all the way through and out the other side.
He reared back, as if in slow motion, stumbled a little. His face pointed to the sky. He teetered. That top-heavy body of his toppled forward, and it was only his right claw, slamming down to the pavement, that stopped his face from being driven into the ground. The impact of his claw striking the ground rumbled.
The rumble didn't stop; it kept increasing, intensifying. Cracks started to appear, and some parts of the earth began to shift, like bulging flesh.
Centurion was even more scared now. Bitch, what are you playing at?
Leviathan raised his arm to shield himself as Purity fired another blast of light; she was utterly infuriated. The ground beneath Leviathan sank a good three meters as water swirled from beneath the depression, from an underground hole, beginning to join the massive current and fill it up.
The flying Ward didn't know what to do, except keep firing off potshots.
Leviathan descended deeper, as the area became a massive indent; three, ten, twenty meters across, expanding and getting even deeper. The force of the water pouring in and out and against the crater began to increase, and the ground underfoot grew increasingly unsteady. The defenders began to retreat in every direction.
Over the notifications, he saw a non-priority communication, as Skitter's voice called out for help. She was running away from the epicenter of the event, but it expanded faster than she ran.
Centurion swooped down at a low arc and barely caught onto the extended pole of Armsmaster's nano-thorn halberd that Skitter raised. He pulled her up, took her by the wrist, and then heaved her up higher as he flew, to make sure she didn't fall off.
He flew to put her down on the nearest rooftop; on the way there, the earth and air shook. He saw spurts of water in the corners of his vision, powerful and sharp enough to make trenches in the ground, making the cracks spread. He let Skitter down on the rooftop. Not even three seconds passed, as the building began to shudder, and sway.
"Fuck that, I'm not leaving you here," he said, picking her up again.
"I really hope so!" she answered, with a mite of sarcasm.
He raised her in the air, holding her as tight as possible with an arm around the waist; and just on time, as the churning water upset the foundation of the building and spread a dozen cracks through the rooftop, making it topple.
Centurion looked at were Leviathan was; he didn't see the Endbringer's body, only a vague, green glow, almost like radiation, under the bubbling water.
The collapsed indentation in the ground had become a furious lake, with torrential waters raging around and out of it, as if preparing to unleash a catastrophe. It was two city blocks across, and growing. Looking around, he saw other Movers helping the other capes escape out of the way. Trickster was caught across the face by a piece of flying rubble, then picked up by a steel-and-green-armored speedster, who ran fast enough the water couldn't catch up.
Centurion dashed straight away from the eroded lake. His notifications flashed yellow, as another tidal wave was announced.
He went up, out of the range of the wave. The notifications kept flaring with the deaths of different capes. Scalder deceased, BW-8. Cloister deceased, BW-8. The Erudite deceased, BW-8. Frenetic deceased, BW-8. Penitent deceased, BW-9. Smackdown deceased, BX-8.
Centurion's armband kept opening up with requests; one was from the nearby shelter, which had started leaking water. Skitter looked up at him, "What's going on?"
"One of the shelters has a leak," he informed. "I can't do anything about it on my own," he declared, gritting his teeth.
"Bring me down," she snapped.
"Are you sure?" he said, almost scared for her. This girl is fucking brave.
"Yes!"
He felt a painful throb of hesitation at the idea of going with her, but he couldn't live with himself if he didn't. "I'm coming with you," Centurion declared.
"Just fly!" she shrieked. Centurion redirected himself around the lake, which kept growing; it was expanding slower, now, at an almost glacial rate compared to the first few cracks, but he saw the streets heaving; a lot of the ground was unstable. Massive reconstruction work would be needed; damage in the hundreds of millions, probably. Probably more.
The shelter was beneath a local library. It looked almost like demons had invaded Earth and then left it there, to overgrow for hundreds of years; the entire building was chipped, with missing bricks, or corners of marble that had been gouged out by tidal waves; several pillars holding up the front snapped in half. The ground was relatively stable, or so he wanted to think, so he set Skitter down.
The door was stuck in a partially ajar position, and the stairwell was flooded with water, which ran steadily into the shelter. Two capes were already present, shoulder deep in the water, ducking below to grab stones and rising again to heave them out.
"What's the plan?" Skitter asked, holding Armsmaster's nano-thorn halberd and breathing in to calm herself before they went in. It took her five seconds to reach what appeared to be equilibrium. "Do we want to shut the door or open it?"
"Open it," one of the capes in the water said. He ducked down, grabbed a rock, hauled it out with a grunt. "We don't know what condition they're in, inside."
"Alright, understood," Centurion said. "Skitter, slice it open with the lighthalberd."
"The what-now?" one of the capes asked, looking at it.
"Uh, one of Armsmaster's weapons," he explained. "It can slice through anything like a sharp knife through thin air."
"Thanks for the exposition," the other said with a dry touch of sarcasm, as Skitter gingerly pressed a black button on the side of the weapon. The gray blur of nano-thorns sprung out, nearly two feet long. She lowered the halberd, and the two capes hopped away from the door warily as it sizzled against the water.
She slammed it against the rocks at the base of the door, once, twice, thrice; then something crumbled and broke, and the water pressure immediately began to level out, pushing all four of them inside.
"Fuuuuuck!" Centurion exclaimed as he was thrown inside the shelter by the water. The water carried them in, causing them to stumble, and making Skitter and one cape fall to the ground. They got up a moment after that, spitting out water.
Skitter turned off the halberd, the blur retracting back into the tip of the polearm.
There was a metal door at one of the corners of the library, sloped at a forty-five-degree angle, out of frame. It looked heavy and ruggedized, with thick bolting; Centurion couldn't imagine what kind of force caused to fall out like that. As a result, water from the stairwell leaked inside like a river.
Centurion darted to that spot and immediately started layering hard-light constructs and telekinetic force against it to stop the water from flowing in.
"That's not going to work; it'll just go around," another cape said, as the water did exactly that, raising in level and going over it.
Skitter turned on the halberd again, then moved in the direction of the stairwell and carefully sunk it into the water, causing a massive release of steam, before the water level started falling.
There was a line in the floor, straight, acting as a drain.
One of the other capes tapped the broken door and it broke into four blocky pieces, falling downstairs as he walked into the shelter. "Everyone out!" Centurion heard him proclaim.
Centurion walked down the stairs, inside the shelter. It was all concrete, with metal railings and multiple levels; with heavy bright lamps connected by black insulated wires near the ceiling. There were dozens of people; uncountable, a lot of them injured, coughing, or scared. Skitter walked down after Centurion and her gaze locked on one of them for a moment, before passing to another, and stopping there.
There was a rumble nearby, and the sound of concrete and metal giving out with pops. Skitter turned, gasping. "It's him."
Centurion immediately turned in the direction Skitter was facing. "Fuck."
Leviathan climbed in, through the metallic vault door. A lash of his tail struck a dozen people, the echo striking a dozen more, killing at least half of them with casual violence. Leviathan took another step through, putting Centurion and Skitter behind himself, as he proceeded further in. He lashed his arm, and a half-dozen people fell, several others flung across the walls with grunts. This included the two capes who were with them; Centurion himself was flung against a wall by the current, but outside of Leviathan's notice and not hurt significantly, but staggered by it.
Skitter started shuffling towards the door, halberd held tight, moving out of Leviathan's notice; beneath his notice. After a moment, she breathed in, and ran past him, while he went for a group of civilians. She grabbed an armband from one of the two unconscious or dead capes and radioed in Leviathan's location, "Leviathan's at the shelter in CB-10! Need help!"
An unknown voice; someone Protectorate, "We're sending in backup. He must have moved through a sewer!"
Skitter ran past back to Centurion, near the entrance of the shelter, and she looked at him with a stilted gaze, "I need you to distract Leviathan. Just for a moment."
Centurion froze for a moment. "What the actual fuck are you thinking?!" he whispered.
Leviathan tore into the crowd with a spike of screams, people trying to run away but being held at bay by water pushing them back into his reach. An executioner; a butcher. That second word drew some bad images into his head; some bad memories.
Centurion grunted. No fucking time. He flew to the side and loaded up a laser, pointing it at the monster. "Hey, you oversized water monkey! Over here!" Centurion shouted with swagger, releasing the charged laser into its side, enough to leave a visible scorch-mark.
Leviathan's head swiveled to follow him. The Endbringer didn't move, didn't send an echo at him; didn't even react too much, not changing his stance. The concrete walls nearest to Centurion broke as water pipes speared out and lashed water at him, with the strength of firefighters' hoses, pushing him into an opposite wall. It felt like being hit by a car, and Centurion couldn't breathe for a moment, his power armor sinking into his chest too tightly.
Leviathan redirected the water from the pipes like braids, into the rest of the water that kept civilians from escaping. Before he could return his attention to the slaughter, Skitter stabbed him with the halberd; aiming under his tail, nearest to where she could reach; the place where an asshole would be if he had human anatomy.
Leviathan reacted, spinning around and trying to claw at her. Skitter didn't manage to duck; but rather, she fell on her butt, halberd still in hand. Leviathan lashed out with his tail, and she managed to swing the halberd hard enough to singe its tip, and to lower the intensity of the echo enough that she didn't drop unconscious from the blunt shock.
Centurion stood up, dizzy all over, his chest feeling compressed; no broken ribs, judging by his regeneration power not stepping in yet. Or, possibly, his regeneration power was limited and he'd just run the well dry. He didn't have time to care.
Water crashed into Skitter, driving her into a wall, keeping her pinned there, like an insurmountable telekinetic force. Leviathan moved forward, and she did, small bolts of water lashed out from beneath his feet one by one, hitting the lightbulbs in the shelter as he passed near them and concealing the entire chamber in darkness, only his four eyes visible, glowing bright with a promise of death.
Centurion looked, using night-vision mode. He raised his arms and started barraging Leviathan's injured spots with an array of golden lasers that lit up the room as they zipped by. He charged himself with telekinesis to draw on more laser-power, managing to actually make Leviathan's head bob twice to the right due to the force.
He wasn't sure if Leviathan was actually being moved, or just playing along. Either way, it seemed to work because oh fuck Leviathan leaped-
Towards the entrance, fast enough Centurion barely followed him with his eyes. He looked at the trajectory Leviathan used, then at Skitter. She seemed to react something that Centurion couldn't see, then she ran outside, picking up the halberd on the way out; the weapon was steaming with heat, clearly running on its last fumes.
Centurion turned to the civilians and ran up to them. "Whoever is injured, come forward!" he shouted. Centurion heard the ground shake, interrupting the civilians as chips of concrete fell from the sky. "Fuck, there's no time, get out of here!" he ordered.
The civilians didn't seem to listen to him, following their own instincts; and by that, getting the fuck out of there. One woman looked at the unconscious capes that Leviathan smashed into the railing, then shook her head and ran off.
Centurion picked them up over his shoulders and grunted as he lifted them out of the water, then took off and flew out.
There was a pair of dogs down the street, bisected cleanly in the middle down the street next to a half-collapsed building, Hellhound standing next to them, with a spike in her stomach. Skitter was a little over twenty meters away from her, closer to the civilians who streamed out of the shelter, and Regent who just seemed to arrive. All of their gazes were directed up, looking at the sun in the sky, through the clouds.
Centurion looked at where they were looking.
It wasn't the sun.
A sphere of gold descended from the sky, humming subsonically as the air bent out to make way, leaving behind a bright yellow streak. The golden man, wearing a white costume, floated, staring down Leviathan with no expression. Centurion gulped, almost terrified of the visage for a moment, then calming himself down.
Centurion's eyes filled with tears that started streaming down his face. It's finally over, we're saved.
The glow receded, as Scion seemed to shift effects. His face was blank, apathetic, feeling nothing, but his presence revealed something else. Centurion felt an emotion, a feeling, a vague concept transmitted into his mind, as Scion raised a hand. Target.
Leviathan leaped at the nearest building, bounded off of it and into the air, then clawed at Scion. Scion was faster, raising a hand, and spearing a blast of light twice as tall as a man and thrice as wide into Leviathan; washing over all of him. The Endbringer was thrown across the street, its entire front charred one-third of the way through, revealing flesh and burning black ichor.
The tidal waves started to pick up, stronger than ever; the ground rumbled, as Leviathan prepared to squash Skitter, Hellhound, Centurion, and the rest of the civilians.
Scion instead touched down with the ground, feet touching the water as if solid. With his touch, a golden wave spread through the water like a ping of radiation; and as it did, the water levels snapped down to create an even, smooth, crystal surface, forcing the water to compress into it.
Leviathan hesitated, twitched.
Scion exuded a vague sense of intent, raised his arm, and fired off blasts of light. Leviathan started to dodge, evading one, two blasts. Then Scion's focus changed, and the third blast of light reoriented mid-flight to hit Leviathan in the bottom of the torso, sending him to the ground.
The Endbringer stood up, as Eidolon floated down near Scion and raised his hand, creating spikes of ice that kept Leviathan more or less in place for a split second, as Scion fired a follow-up blast of searing, golden fire-light, burning down through several layers of the Endbringer's skin in a single go.
Leviathan stood up on all fours and ran, while Scion floated, not moving or doing anything, looking as apathetic as ever.
His head turned in Eidolon's direction, ignoring everyone else, and Centurion felt a faint sense of disgust from him. Like nobility looking at dogshit, or a child looking at broccoli.
Scion turned his head at the rest of them, his emission evening out to a sense of indifference. For a moment, however, he looked at Centurion, directly at him, like he did at Eidolon. Instead of disgust, there was palpable confusion. Centurion stared back, directly into Scion's golden eyes.
Scion kept eye contact for a moment. Centurion felt his powers click in something; a reaction of some kind, the fountain flashing gold, then purple, then gold again. A sense of disdain washed over them, as Scion kept staring, followed by another wave of confusion and, finally, resignation. The closest comparison would be a 'big shrug.'
Scion's emotions returned to apathy, and he turned to chase after Leviathan, fast enough it looked like he teleported; the only indication he didn't was the streak of gold he left behind, that lingered for a second. Centurion stared blankly, and noticed Eidolon staring back at him for a moment, his emotions clouded. Once Centurion realized the eye contact was mutual, Eidolon turned in the air and then dashed off after Scion, at maybe only half the speed, and that was that.
Centurion was emotionally drained, but also thoroughly confused. He closed his eyes momentarily to see if anything had changed about his power. Maybe Scion meddled with it, somehow, for some reason? Nothing seemed to be out of place; with the exception of a bunch of charges being stashed up, presumably as a reward for the constant combat and danger, with his power churning out more. Centurion had used up all of his questions to Oracle today, so that wasn't a viable way of finding out anything.
"Looks like your gramps isn't very happy with you," Regent said, holding a hand to his bleeding forehead, where a streak of red carried into his eye, forcing it closed.
Centurion threw a ball of healing gel into Regent's forehead out of frustration. "Shut. The fuck. Up."
"Ow, but at the same time not ow," Regent said as the green viscous substance splattered his forehead.
"What was that?" Skitter asked, looking at him. Hellhound was looking in frustration at the ground, and Centurion noticed there was a skewer of rebar in her stomach, but she didn't seem bothered by it, even as she kept getting pale.
Centurion walked up to Hellhound; when she was him approaching, she backed away and poised herself for a fight, back hunched, teeth showing. Centurion raised his guard as well, a little scared by the sudden action. Skitter moved away from her, and said, "Bitch… Bitch, it's cool. He's going to heal you."
Hellhound stared at Centurion, seemingly frustrated she couldn't see his expression. "Fine," she said, in a gruff voice.
"Sorry for coming at you so quickly," Centurion spoke, as he started creating the healing substance in thin air, making it float on her wounds, less like a full glob splattering against it, and more like a healing beam of green juice.
"Are you fine?" Skitter asked, not coming too close.
Hellhound frowned, shuddered as she took in a breath, like she wanted to scream or howl. "My dogs are dead," she said. "Bullet, Brutus, Milk, Judas, Axel..."
Centurion sighed, averting his gaze. "We need to… take out the rebar to fix the wound wholly."
"Do whatever you want," she answered, gruff. She was trying not to blink, to keep the tears out of overflowing, but they kept welling out. Almost defiantly proud.
"It will hurt. A lot. As–"
"I don't care. Just do it."
Centurion approached her, and she didn't move this time. He prepared a ball of the green ambrosia in his left hand, and grabbed the piece of rebar with the other. After a mental countdown, he ripped it out in a swift movement and quickly applied the gel inside of the hole left by the bar of steel.
She recoiled with a snarl of pain and growled during the aftermath, face twisted into anger, more than fear or uncontrollable pain. The process made more tears fall out of her eyes, and her breath shudder again.
"You need to go to the hospital," Skitter said.
"Yeah," Hellhound agreed with no particular tone, looking absently at her dogs.
Centurion stayed silent. It wasn't his place to meddle in their conversation. He felt terribly out of place, but asked Skitter. "Do you need any healing?" he asked, genuinely concerned.
"I'm bruised all over, nauseous, my left hand hurts, but I'm fine," Skitter said, "I got hit with one of Bakuda's pain bombs. It really can't get worse than that."
"I can fix the bruising and the hand pain," Centurion offered.
"Does it involve me taking my suit off?"
"I can wriggle the gel through the crevices of the cloth," he explained.
"I don't know; it's spider silk," she said, shrugging. "Maybe I should just get Panacea to do it? Everyone's heading back for triage anyway."
"Yeah, you should. Should I carry you two back?" Centurion offered.
Hellhound seemed reluctant like she wanted to say, 'I change my mind, no hospital,' but instead, she looked at Skitter, who tilted her head and asked, "Can you carry the two of us?"
Thinking back at when he carried both Laserdream and Eric's body – the thought making him tense up momentarily – his first instinct was to say yes. But it was a short trip. Here, it'd be across the city, since the clinic was a good distance away from them. "...Actually, I don't think I can without struggling or being very slow."
"That's fine," Skitter said, raising her armband and pinging for a mover. "I was kind of a jerk earlier," she added.
Centurion shook his head and smiled weakly under his helmet. "No problem."
"Are you guys about to get all touchy-feely?" Regent snidely asked. "Tell me before you do so I can prepare a paper bag for throwing up."
Skitter and Centurion sighed, looking at him. Skitter then asked, "How's… Grue and Tattletale?"
Regent shrugged, pursing his lips impotently. "Last I saw Grue, Leviathan threw him into a third-story window, but I didn't hear a 'deceased' at any point in time, so he's probably fine. Dunno about her. I was too busy running around and trying not to share the fate of a whack-a-mole."
"Last time I saw Tattletale, she was on a rooftop, melting down. Her power was giving her too much information non-stop, most likely," Centurion explained, shrugging.
"Oh, yeah," Regent concurred, scratching his cheek, "that happens."
He looked kind of… barren, without that scepter of his. If he took the mask off, he'd have looked like someone going for some kind of dance classes, rather than a cape; the scepter was half of his style. "Anyway," he started, looking around and stretching, "Not to be a downer or anything, but today just fucking sucks. Like, I mean; life in this shithole sucks in general, but today in particular."
Centurion looked at him, feeling a sting of irritation. "No shit? I didn't notice."
"Too many lasers," Regent countered, "You keep blasting them in the dark, and they're destroying your vision."
Skitter sighed.
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It took roughly half a minute for a portal to open, allowing the tide of civilians and capes into the hospital. By that time, the dark overcast clouds began to clear away, showing the sun.
Hellhound's skin was getting pale white, and she clearly struggled to stand, but refused any help. She was stable, but the blood loss she suffered put her down a few pegs in terms of comprehending what's going on around her. Fortunately, it seemed to have also mellowed out her harsh.
They walked into the hospital, into the very middle of an argument, between Legend, Armsmaster, Miss Militia and – so it seemed – the three of them were set against a smug-looking Tattletale. Armsmaster had his arm back; presumably Panacea's doing. Centurion approached the group, folding his arms as he looked at Tattletale along the rest of the heroes.
"–Fine," Legend nodded, "Tattletale, I'm going to ask you to leave once, and if you do not comply, I will forcibly remove you from the premises."
Regent frowned at that instinctively, then grinned. "Oh, hey, the Protectorate is starting the fight for once. That's fresssh," he drawled, standing next to Tattletale, arms behind his head loosely holding his head up.
"If you try to 'remove' me, you'll need to hire a public relations savant to spin this well enough, because if you don't, the truce is over," Tattletale explained with a smirk, "All I'm doing is talking."
"You should talk a bit less, then," Centurion pointed out, raising a hand with one finger up. He was starting to get frustrated and annoyed, again.
Grue walked up to the group from one of the hallways, at first rubbing his side, then seeming to harden when he saw there was some kind of argument. He approached and stood beside Tattletale, in a show of unity, or strength, depending on how you chose to interpret it. In a gruff voice, he asked, "What's going on?"
"Nothing," Armsmaster snapped, too bitter. "You and your friends are making your way out of here."
"Nuh-uh, don't believe that's gonna fly, chief," Regent argued back, seemingly just for the sake of being contrary. With his arms still folded, he extended one behind himself, gesturing to Hellhound with his thumb. "See? Bitch needs medical care presto. Y'all better hop to it, or we'll sue for damages," he said with a tint of sarcasm.
"She will be given care, then join the rest of you," Armsmaster answered.
Tattletale leaned in to whisper into Grue's ear. A moment later, Grue tensed. "I don't fucking think so," he argued, voice rough around the edges, masculine and deep. "We're a team, and we're going to stay together." He glanced at Skitter momentarily, and she peered into his eyes before he looked back at Legend.
Centurion glanced at Skitter with a pang of curiosity, keeping his arms crossed.
Tattletale raised one finger with mild annoyance, "If I could just say my piece–"
"You can't," Legend and Armsmaster snapped at the same time. Tattletale sagged in disbelief, scoffing with incredulity as she looked around at the cameras. In the meantime, Centurion noticed some of the other groups of capes were watching the argument intently, trying to glean what happened, but moving on with their business. The only one who stayed there, listening, was Trickster; Centurion remembered he was downed at one point, but now he looked fine, and had a phone leveled at the argument, recording it.
"Nobody ever lets me talk!" Tattletale spoke, turning on her heel to walk away, flouncing, almost. It was a bit theatrical, overacting. "Whatever. Grue, let's go."
Grue stared at her, then she dragged both him and Regent away, looking over her shoulder with a vulpine grin for a moment. Miss Militia leveled a gun at them and walked out after, while Skitter helped Hellhound stand. On her way down, Tattletale snatched a turned-off armband and started fiddling with it as she walked, before Miss Militia could properly realize what was going on.
A few seconds later, a notification popped up in Centurion's HUD:
For those of you who don't have a front-row seat, the very well armed Miss Militia is currently doing her best to point a Beretta 92fs at my head. If this broadcast ends prematurely, you can all rest assured that the Protectorate is willing to kill and break the truce if it means censoring its dark, dirty little secrets.
Everyone jumped at the message, Miss Militia seething at Tattletale, while Armsmaster turned, fuming. Legend didn't know how to react, so he remained stationary, with a strict expression. "What the fuck?" Centurion exclaimed to himself.
"It's called free speech, and it's our right as Americans to exercise it," Tattletale went on to say, stopping before the exit and turning around with a grin, as she walked back to Legend and Armsmaster. Miss Militia let her, then couldn't react quickly enough as Grue and Regent also went past her after their teammate.
"What are you doing? How?" Armsmaster choked out in a whisper, voice sounding like gravel fell into a car engine. The rest of the capes was now looking intently at the events: New Wave, the Travelers, some out-of-towners.
Miss Militia walked up to them with a disbelieving expression, proceeding to explain to Armsmaster, "She said something about deep access, offered your name, and then entered your password. She knew your password."
"Armband, pause announcement," Tattletale ordered, and it clicked off. "Let's negotiate," she offered, looking up at Legend.
"Negotiate?" he asked, tilting his head with an open mouth.
"You know, hash this out, come to an agreement, discuss the terms of se–"
"I understand," Legend didn't quite snap, but said, suddenly.
"Here's some options," Tattletale said, "Numero uno: I do my little announcement, the truce ends, and this whole trailer park is blown to bits."
"Okay," Legend nodded.
"Second option is that you give medical care to Hellhound, while letting us stay to keep an eye on her," she said.
"I don't understand. Do you believe we're going to break the truce? You'd go that far for your teammate?" Legend asked, not shocked, not really even surprised, but curious.
"I'd do almost anything for my team, within reason," she stated, glancing at Regent with a crease of a frown. He grinned at her lopsidedly.
"And why do you believe we'd go back on the truce?" Legend continued, inquisitive. Trying to resolve the issue without arguments or posturing.
"The way I see it?" Tattletale asked, "Truce was already broken today, by you no less, so I don't have any trust that you're going to end up deciding that Bitch is better off in prison, instead of releasing her like you're supposed to." At that, she threw a pointed look at Armsmaster, lidded.
Armsmaster scowled. "You–"
"Tah-tah-tah," Tattletale waggled her finger in his face, "the adults are talking. Can't you see I'm holding the end of your career in my hand, over here?" She gestured at the armband.
"You're bluffing," Armsmaster challenged. "You don't have anything of substance, and you're a manipulator."
"You want evidence? I'll give you surplus," Tattletale pushed back, then spoke into the armband, "Armband, find me the largest break in casualties from the Leviathan encounter."
Found.
"Mark here, this whole period."
Marked.
"The notifications a minute before the mark?"
Ballistic down, CD-5. Kid Win deceased, CC-6. Fenja deceased, CC-6. Menja deceased, CC-7. Skitter deceased, CC-6. Kaiser deceased, CC-6.
"Stop."
"What's the point of this?" Legend asked, folding his arms.
Centurion's heart sank and started burning. What? Skitter? Dead? What?! How?!
"Magic," Tattletale said, eyebrows raised, as she looked at Skitter. She recoiled in shock, then pointed at her with both hands. "Necromancy! Dark arts! Myrddin should investigate," she added with a dark tone, turning to look at Legend as if asking him to do his job and exorcise the wraith in front of them.
"My armband broke," Skitter explained, unaware of who she was supposed to help at this point.
"Did it? Or did someone break it?" Tattletale posed the question, almost philosophically. She glanced at Armsmaster, her voice dropping a notch so the peanut gallery didn't hear it.
"What. Are you implying?" Armsmaster asked slowly, lips tightening, creasing into a deep-set frown.
"I'm implying you're a glory-hound obsessed with attention, fame, and building a legacy, and you set things up - locations, fudged calls - to guarantee yourself a one-on-one fight with Leviathan. Who cares if some villains get murdered in the process? No one's going to find out, and besides: it helps stop an Endbringer!" as she spoke, she began to mimic his voice increasingly, until the last sentence was a mocking gruff timbre.
Centurion simply stayed silent. His whole body tensed up, his fists clenched, and his first instinct was to lash out at Armsmaster, to yell at him, but he kept himself from doing so, as the conversation continued. An idle observer.
Armsmaster raised his voice, shaking his head in bewilderment, "This is exactly the sort of manipulation–"
"Elaborate," the one spoken word from Legend was enough to cut Armsmaster off.
"Armsmaster has a fancy computer system in his suit, set it up to predict Leviathan's movements and actions. Clockblocker tagged the Endbringer, put him on pause long enough for Armsmaster to set up the playing field the way he wanted it, with that predictive program. Leviathan's going after the people who can make forcefields, and Armsmaster uses this, dangles Kaiser like bait, puts more villains – Fenja and Menja – in the way to Kaiser. Sure enough, Leviathan marks Kaiser as a target, charges through the conveniently arranged villains, and goes straight to the spot where Skitter is, then after the rest of the people who died." She glanced at Centurion knowingly, her grin disappearing for a moment.
"No..." Miss Militia whispered, shaking as she breathed.
Centurion's environmental shield surged involuntarily, in reaction to his anger, the golden flames spilling out of his figure. Legend saw the reaction and very subtly shook his head with a sympathetic expression.
"This is nonsense," Armsmaster said, stabbing his index finger at her, "Heroes died too!"
Centurion couldn't keep it in him, at that point. "That's fucking right, you asshole! Shielder, a fucking kid! Oh, and guess what?! Kid Win died too! He looked up to you as an example! Were you too busy looking good for the cameras to notice?!" Centurion shouted, as his glow got more and more intense, being more orange than gold.
"You believe her?" Armsmaster snapped at Centurion. "This is all conjecture! She's trying to drive a wedge between the heroes."
Tattletale's grin returned, looking almost twice as smug as before, almost like Armsmaster was cute in his lackluster defense. "To your credit, if any credit is due, that was probably an accident. An error in the variables; too much chaos to keep Leviathan from staying exactly on course. But in the end? He followed after the path you set out. You used an EMP to disable Skitter's armband, ensuring that she couldn't report in Leviathan's location or call reinforcements, buying you time for a mano-a-mano with the big lizard. Except you lost."
Armsmaster scowled at her, but didn't say a word. Not even a single word.
"This is a serious accusation," Legend said, slightly aloof, clearly trying to stay level-headed.
"Sure," she nodded.
"But it's just speculation."
Tattletale shrugged. "Skitter's armband will have damage from the EMP."
"Little bitch!" Armsmaster snarled, "That's a lie! It's a lie and you know it is!"
"Check. The armband," she pushed on.
"Convenient it'd take days to check," Armsmaster replied, seemingly returning into something resembling security.
AI, turn on Lie Detection Software.
Armsmaster looked at Centurion with widened eyes for a moment, a look of betrayal and panic, which he concealed with general anger. "What are you doing?"
"Take off your helmet," Centurion ordered.
"And reveal my identity? No," Armsmaster returned.
"Calm down," Legend ordered, stepping between them. "This is no time to–"
"Okay, enough of the charades," Tattletale said, lifting the armband. She tilted her head at them. "How about I do another announcement, hm? Tell everyone who still has an armband an abbreviated version of the story I just related to you? How do you think they'd react? If you're really innocent, I'm sure your name would get cleared eventually. If I'm wrong, then we'll get in everyone's bad books for fucking with an Endbringer situation. Hell, I'll even submit to being detained while you check it out. You can take me from there to jail if I'm wrong. Either way, you get some jerk in custody. It's a win-win."
Centurion turned towards Tattletale snappily. "Is everything you said up until now true? Yes or no. Do not answer with anything else aside from those two words."
"Yes," she said. 'Truth.'
Armsmaster instantly snapped to look at Centurion. "She's lying! She can cheat the lie detector with her power! Come to your senses, Centurion! Do you really trust her over me? She's been trying to drive a wedge into the Protectorate, all of us, ever since the bank robbery!"
Legend frowned, breathing in and exhaling. He looked contemplative, like he was about to make a verdict in regards to the situation, but didn't have the time do so; Armsmaster lunged forward, swatting Grue aside with the aid of his armor. He shoved Regent away, and then reached for Tattletale.
A blue-white laser struck Armsmaster in the shoulder, causing him to roll across the ground as he fell; his armor smoked where the laser made contact.
Legend stood, another ball of energy prepared in his palm, as he watched Armsmaster impassionately.
"Who! Why?" Armsmaster asked, turning to look up. "Legend?"
Miss Militia pointed a gun at Armsmaster's face, and he looked at her with a snarl of betrayal. Like a wild dog from the ground.
"So. Here's what's gonna happen; Bitch gets treated, and we all walk out of here, together, nice and easy. Just like God intended," Tattletale proposed. "In exchange, no one knows about this. Well… beyond those who already noticed." She gestured, to the Travelers who were staring and recording the event, as well as a bunch of other capes.
"Fine," Legend said, staring Armsmaster down with an icy glare, "You can have some of your team stay with her. I give you my word that I'll personally ensure things are up to code."
"It was for the greater good," Armsmaster replied from the ground, without a trace of shame or humility, "If it had worked, Leviathan would be dead, the man holding Empire Eighty-Eight together dead. All of us survivors would have been legends, and this city could have risen from the ashes, become something truly great. Why? It didn't work!"
"That's fucking sad for you, isn't it, then?" Regent asked, with a lopsided smirk.
"It never could have worked. It was a maniac's effort," Tattletale said.
Centurion's head descended, as he felt himself scowl with anger. How come Armsmaster didn't realize this obvious information? That Leviathan couldn't be beat; and if he could, then surely not by a single person. Not with that kind of preparation. "It didn't work because the Endbringers don't die."
"Shut, up. Both of you!" Armsmaster answered, "I am getting tired of being doubted. You've said enough."
Tattletale's grin only broadened. "The way Endbringer physiology works? You could detonate a nuke in Leviathan's face and he'd shrug it off. Take him a year to recover, but he'd survive."
"Shut up!" Armsmaster yelled at her, wilder.
"That halberd of yours was just a toothpick to him," she added, almost like she was torturing him.
Armsmaster physically shook with anger, his face bent into the carved image of fury, as he realized something, very sudden, and some of the anger evaporated from him. He looked desperate, like he was about to lash out. "You don't know everything," he stated, then looked at Skitter. "She's not who you think she is."
"Grue, shut him up," Skitter said quickly.
Grue raised a hand, but hesitated for a moment, and didn't use his power in the end, letting Armsmaster continue to say, "She's a wannabe hero. Has been from the start, since Lung was first brought into custody."
Grue's hand dropped to the side.
"I met her that night, she said she was a hero. Hah! That you Undersiders mistook her for a villain. I didn't think twice about it until the bank robbery, when she contacted me; told me she's working as an undercover agent, getting the dirt on you so she could hand you over to us. Talked to me again the night you raided the fundraiser, out there, on the balcony. Told me if I let her go, she'd tell the details of your boss to me. Guess she hasn't gotten around to figuring that out yet."
'Truth.' Centurion peered at Skitter. She looked uneven, like she couldn't find the words to say, despite her mind racing.
Armsmaster turned, shouted at the capes who stood watching, "You want to look down on me!? I tried to save this city, I got closer to killing the fucking Endbringer than Scion! That girl is the person you should be mocking, spitting on! A wannabe hero without the balls to do anything heroic! Planning from the start to betray teammates for fame!"
Skitter stepped back, shaking her head. Horrified.
Centurion walked forward to interpose between Skitter and Armsmaster. "I've seen her stab Leviathan in the back with your halberd. She worked up the courage. She could've been easily snapped in half like a twig, but she did it anyway. And without your training and your expertise." He almost spat the words, as if saying, 'you can take those long evenings of training and shove them up your ass.'
Armsmaster didn't reply, face darkening as he looked at the floor, physically shaking.
"Is this true?"
Centurion looked at Grue, who posed the question; not to Skitter, but to Tattletale. She nodded at him. "Yeah."
The Undersiders stared at Skitter, with different reactions. Regent seemed rather unbothered by it, his expression not even changing. Grue's face was unreadable through his mask, and Tattletale only looked a little nervous, downcast. Hellhound had her teeth bared, eyes wide, even as she barely had the strength to stand.
Before anyone could say anything, Skitter shook her head and ran out of the building.
Legend looked at her, and allowed her to run, then turned to Tattletale. "Go take care of your teammate," he said, "My word is binding; I'll personally ensure the truce is maintained, and you leave this building free. I'm not sure what your power told you Armsmaster was planning to do, but I won't allow it."
Tattletale nodded, and moved to helped Bitch walk forward, carefully warning her before taking her arm and wrapping it around her neck. Somewhat reluctantly, Regent walked to the other side and did the same, while Grue stood still, staring at the exit door. He shook his head and went after the rest of the team.
"Now, Armsmaster," Legend turned to the man, who was kneeling on the floor, frowning, his lips quivering in a mixture of anger and trepidation. "I'm afraid that you'll be signing a retirement form, tomorrow. The fight with Leviathan dealt too much damage. We'll take care of you."
Armsmaster didn't answer, standing up slowly, while Miss Militia walked him out.
Centurion scowled under his helmet, barely restrained fury churning in his gut. A 'what-if' scenario appeared in his mind, of spearing a laser into Armsmaster's back, but he wasn't about to break protocol. Internally, he scoffed, Pathetic.
Legend watched as they left, and shook his head, sighing and leaning against the desk behind him, rubbing his forehead for a moment. With disappointment. Centurion approached Legend, still shaking slightly as the tension wore off. "I… got carried away. I apologize."
"It's fine," Legend answered, only looking up after a moment, eyes widening a millimeter as he recognized the armor. "You must be Centurion. I saw you during the fight, but there was no time to exchange pleasantries."
"The reckless guy, yeah. It's me," Centurion said with a tinge of sarcasm.
"I'd prefer to think of you as extravagantly brave," Legend asserted, walking forward and shaking his hand before Centurion could realize it was happening. "You did some good work out there today."
Centurion's whole body felt lighter all of a sudden, the stress of the previous discussion leaving the forefront of his mind to crawl into the backspace, where it still needled at him, but much less directly. He shook Legend's hand in return and… didn't speak. If he were to speak, he'd be stuttering. The leader of the Protectorate, commending him in such a way; like talking to Superman and being complimented for your effort.
"Do you really think Tattletale's words can be trusted?" Legend questioned. "You sound like you know her better than I do."
Centurion breathed in to calm himself down. "Tattletale's power is… something, sir. She knows things. I don't know how she knows things, but she does." He stopped to think.
"But was she bluffing?" Legend asked, in a different tone of voice, more urgent. "I didn't want to risk it there, but I'm not going to condemn Armsmaster over false accusations."
"The lie detector embedded in my power armor confirmed that everything she said was truth, one hundred percent. Furthermore, I can cross-reference it with my Thinker power tomorrow if you so wish."
"That's… such a shame," Legend stated, moving back and breathing out of his nose.
Centurion's face was eclipsed by anger as he looked down. "He belongs in the Birdcage with the worst of the worst. He's no better than them," he said quietly.
"I don't think that's a good idea. If the public discovers this, they'll be long to trust the Protectorate again. At least locally. It risks turning the tables in the city; I don't want it to be condemned with HOSV status," Legend explained.
"Are you just going to let him roam free?"
"Roam free? Don't be ridiculous," Legend looked almost offended as he said it. "He's going to be incarcerated, with a public press release saying he retired after the fight for… health reasons, for example. People can understand that."
"That's a reason he'd agree with, seeing as he cares only about image," Centurion answered.
Legend didn't answer. At least not instantly. "I remember Armsmaster, when he joined the Protectorate, a while ago. He was a strike team member, professional, but with a power that seemed weaker than most, until he learned to apply his specialty properly. He worked hard; I admired it. The prestige of becoming a leader must have gotten into his head." The hero shook his head. "I'll ask Director Piggot to promote Miss Militia to a leadership position, in all likelihood."
"Who will take care of the Wards, then?" Centurion asked.
"I believe that's more of an internal decision," Legend looked him in the eyes with a pang of sympathy, clapping him on the shoulder. He turned away to go elsewhere in the hospital. "I'm going to go now. I need to talk to my team."
"Uhm, can I… ask something, before you go?"
Legend smiled, a little sad, but nodded. "Of course."
"Actually, two things, totally unrelated to each other."
Legend blinked, tilting his head forward.
"First… I'd like to make a public statement about this. There's some… things I'd like to say," Centurion disclosed. He thought about Skidmark and Squealer; how they, villains, druggies that he thought nothing of only a day or two ago, pretty much died for him. For him and for Laserdream.
Legend didn't indicate with his posture, but rather said, "You should contact the local PR department, or the Director. They're the ones who set up these kinds of things."
"Mmh… alright." Centurion took that at face value. "And second, uhm… you are aware of my transfering to Houston, right?"
At that, Legend seemed to be caught off-guard. His face shifted imperceptibly; not in any overt emotion or communication, but he became a little more alert. A little more 'over here.' "Yes, what about it?"
Centurion lowered his voice. "It's not just because of training and getting experience, right?"
"For what other reason?" Legend asked, open-endedly.
"I've heard everyone tell me that I'm valuable for the PRT. Hell, for the world at large. And Brockton Bay is… a dangerous place. Even more so as of late, from what I've gathered. Are you moving me to keep me safe?" Centurion inquired, not sounding offended, just curious.
"Sadly true, although the decision wasn't mine," Legend answered, then continued on to speak, "But there's more to it than that. Eidolon is a capable team leader and fighter; I've had the pleasure of working with him for decades, and I think he could offer you guidance with your power."
Legend looked down for a moment, blinking as he thought about how to go on with this. His voice took on a somber quality. "There'll come a time when your life will be on the move, Centurion; far, far in the future. Years, decades, from now, but you won't be able to get any rest then; there's a risk your duties might overwhelm you. Which is why we want you to get experience in the hardships now, today, so that you can weather the future better. A transfer, the training; all of it is for your good, even if it might be frustrating."
Centurion looked down, half-smiling. "I have… people here. Friends, and–" Centurion's voice muddied up a bit, and he cleared it with a cough, "–something more than that, too. I don't want to leave them back here. I assume I won't have that many off-days, which means I won't have that many chances to come back and see them."
Legend frowned at the explanation, thinking. "I'm not sure how I can help. Is there anything in particular you'd like me to do?" he asked sincerely, peering into Centurion's eyes.
"There isn't really… anything you can do. I just over-shared. Sorry about that, it's an old habit."
There was a silence between them, as Legend thought about what he was told. He seemed to come to a very reluctant conclusion. "I could pull some strings," he offered, after a moment, "Get you a schedule that sits better with you, or maybe push the head power testing laboratory to issue a statement that getting a long-distance Mover power would be advantageous for you. Within reason, of course."
"The second could actually… be useful in more than one regard," Centurion admitted, smiling a little under his helmet. If he could focus on teleportation or flight, he'd be able to go pretty much anywhere; do and see anything.
Legend's expression changed during a lull in the conversation. It was a kind smile, one that warmed the heart and uplifted the spirit; but it had an almost conspirational element to it, as Legend leaned in and whispered, "You know, I've read your file, and personally, after talking to you just now? I believe it's full of horse-crap."
"Yeeeaaahh… I did brutalize those thugs, though. Don't really regret it," Centurion said, almost jokingly.
"Oh, please," Legend leaned forward, whispering into Centurion's ear, one hand cupped to draw the noise away. "Chevalier used to be way worse."
Centurion chuckled. The chuckle turned into a good-hearted laugh. "Hah! That takes a weight off my chest!"
"Hero would have liked you," Legend reminisced with a note of melancholy. Realizing what he just said, Legend stood straight and breathed out. "Anyway, I have to talk to some other people, now. Good work out there today, Centurion."
"Thank you, Legend," Centurion replied, "you too."
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#1,817
May 17th, 2011
It had been two days since Leviathan's attack. The city was in a bad state; Leviathan may have been defeated, but the echoes of the attack still rang loudly in the community.
The remnants of the damage Leviathan managed to cause to the aquifer remained in the southwestern districts of the city, now called 'Crater Lake.'
All of the businesses and offices were closed; public schools were shut down. Most of the civilians who had lost their homes were forced to move to refugee camps, and the people who came too late to get a spot for themselves were out of luck. Food, water, medical supplies were being delivered from outside, but they were scarce. The relief efforts were going at a glacial pace, and in the meantime, chaos erupted on the streets; Centurion and the rest of the Wards were given extra patrol time, to help rein in the chaos.
"Centurion," Piggot greeted passively as he came into her office, closing the door behind him.
It was almost lonely, with the two of them. He'd gotten used to the idea that Armsmaster would attend these meetings; or at least Miss Militia, given her promotion, but everyone was too busy. The Protectorate was stretched thin; everyone except Miss Militia, Dauntless, and Assault died, excepting Armsmaster who was under effective house arrest.
"Have a seat," she offered. "You're probably wondering why I called you here at such inopportune time."
Centurion sat down at the chair in front of her. He was… tired. Physically, but also mentally exhausted. He could barely keep his eyes open: he didn't sleep. Not a single minute, over the last two days. It had been patrol after patrol, helping with relief actions; even aiding in the running of some kind of soup kitchen. There were complaints, and there were reports of violence, stolen property, and even rape; some of the cases were given to the Wards since the police couldn't follow up on everything.
Piggot noticed the absence of energy, deciding to skip to the meaty details of the topic, "As you are painfully aware, Kid Win… died during the Leviathan fight."
Centurion clenched his fists around the arm-rests of the chair, digging into them with his fingers. "Yes, I am," he said, as passively as ever.
"With Armsmaster under house arrest, there is no one else in our department currently available who has even the barest qualifications to… well, to put it simply, to review the technology in his workshop, to see if it's safe and determine what should be done with it," she explained, trying to cut down on the sandpaper and dryness in her tone as much as she could, "And since it'll be a while before the transfers I requested are put through, I'd like you to take care of it. I've had my men deliver all remnants of the Alternator Cannon there; I'm not asking you to rebuild it, but I'd like you to take a look at all of it. Write down what's there for the review committee, and then we'll come to a decision as to what to do with it."
Centurion closed his eyes for a moment, then pushed the entirety of his twenty-four charges into the Tinker power, with this line of thought: scan, replicate, mix, upgrade.
He felt the 'Maintenance Tinker' shifting its... paradigm, for a lack of a better term, into something like a 'Comprehension Tinker.'
He opened them again and nodded. "I will, Director," he spoke out tiredly.
"Are you in a state to do this?" Piggot questioned, frowning. "I'd rather write you a break slip for a day or two, rather than risk mistakes."
"Yeah, I am. A coffee will pull me right back up," Centurion responded. He didn't want to delay this. He couldn't delay this. Kid wouldn't have delayed this. This was for him.
And yeah, he felt like shit. He felt like tearing his heart out and throwing it into a box and locking it in the darkness so that he may never hurt again; he felt like shouting at anyone who walked too close to him; he felt murderous intent dwelling up within him every time Armsmaster crossed his mind. Yeah, he felt like shit. He didn't even have the energy to show it outwardly, to complain about it; the stray thought to call Armsmaster a motherfucker and her a bitch for hiring him crossed his face, but he thought of the aftermath, and his brain actively made him not want to bother.
"The coffee machine in the cafeteria works," Piggot said, with a note of her signature dryness, "Feel free to help yourself. That will be all."
Centurion picked himself up with a little aid from telekinesis and floated himself out of the door, "See you soon, Director," he said, yawning.
Centurion trudged into the workshop with a heavy step, the mug of coffee in his palm. He took a sip of the bitter brew, then set it down on the nearest table, looking around the workshop.
In the center, pieces of charred metal and broken wiring were arranged in small piles; whoever put it there attempted to make it orderly; separate the circuitboards from the outer plating, arrange the plating with colors: the red plates with the red, the bronze with the bronze, and so on, but some of the elements were welded tight enough it proved impossible for some of them, so there was also a 'miscellaneous' pile. For a minute, he stared at it, reminiscing when he'd first walked into the workshop and saw Kid Win working on it.
He also slapped Kid's medication out of his hand when he went for it, because he thought it was drugs. Not the medicinal kind of drugs. The Merchant kind of drugs.
Centurion snorted for a moment, then sighed, and decided to start by inspecting the remains of the Alternator Cannon, picking up the circuitboards and examining them closely. There was a helpful blueprint, on blue hard paper made with a white pen, saying what part should go where, and what the parts did.
His new upgraded Tinker power allowed him to memorize a single piece of Tinkertech, understand it, and rebuild it; something in his power told him he could even add something extra, if he wanted to, but within heavy limits.
The Alternator Cannon's name was evocative of its purpose; there was a dozen, an actual dozen; exactly twelve distinct weapon modules, which could be switched with a button press, including a flamethrower, a machine-gun turret mode that shot sparks, and a big cannon that fired compressed air and ignited it to create explosions. It all drew on a single, central power source, connected to the barrel with sets of insulated wiring.
It was curious; twelve different weapons in one. A big number for someone who had dyscalculia. The way they were almost forced to blend together; it was like Kid Win started work on a project, gave up on it before it was finished, and started another, and then looked at the mess and decided he should make something out of it, giving him the idea for the cannon.
As Centurion looked at the Alternator Cannon, he began making various connections. He actually took off his helmet and let it fall on the floor to look down at the blueprint in disbelief. "I-I figured it out," he stammered, almost shocked by his own realization. "His specialty," his voice cracked as he broke down, holding himself up on the table.
The door opened soon after, and Gallant stood in the frame, kind of lamely. "I heard a noise. Are you alright?"
Gabriel turned to him, red and drenched in tears like a crying tomato. "I figured out Kid's specialty," he wept, sniffling and smiling like a fucking idiot. How the fuck could he be happy? But he couldn't help but be happy.
Gallant tensed at the proclamation, then looked around the workshop, a cursory look of the technology. After a second of silence, save Gabriel's sobbing, Gallant sighed and sat down near the door, sliding against the wall until he was at the ground. "What is it?" he asked somberly, after a moment of silence. His expression was clouded by his helmet.
"Modes... like... modular technology? It's a direct consequence of his ADHD... " he explained, regaining his composure.
"Modular technology?" Gallant asked, hearing the word but not understanding the meaning. "Like, a weapon with lots of modes? Yeah, that's Kid; can't make up his damn mind," he laughed out.
"Yeah..." Centurion looked down and gathered his thoughts. "Precisely that. His tinker power made him create a piece of tech, and his ADHD made him give up. Rinse and repeat twelve times, mix 'em up, and you get that," he explained, pointing at the Alternator Cannon and wiping the rest of his tears away with his hand. He was fine, with Gallant here.
"Damn." Silence hung between them for an uncomfortable while, leaving them to their thoughts. Gallant broke it seconds later. "So what are you doing?"
"They asked me to go over his stuff and see if it's safe or not, then write it up for the higher-ups, since I'm apparently the only PRT-affiliated Tinker in the city remaining, with Kid… gone and Armsmaster on house arrest," Centurion explained, emphasizing 'house arrest' as if implying that it's not enough.
"I heard Piggot is looking for new hires," Gallant said, "And New Wave is considering… not retirement, actually, but Victoria told me her mom told her, that she's thinking maybe the kids should join the Wards."
Centurion's eyes sparked for a moment. "Really...?" he asked.
"I doubt they'll go through with it," Gallant added. "They can still operate as their own group, but Shielder's death was a blow... How well did you know him?"
Centurion's body instinctively curled up. "Can we not talk about it?" he asked, with a voice as if someone held him by the throat.
"Yeah, of course," Gallant answered.
"Just…"
"You don't have to, if you don't want to," Gallant said, evoking memories of one of their first meetings: the affable gentleman, trying to keep everyone together. Even if Piggot ordered him to go to therapy; this was preferable.
Centurion gathered the courage to say something.
"I met him out of costume, and got to know the kid behind the mask," he explained, relaxing his stance and leaning his head up against the wall, looking up. "He was so annoying, you know? He couldn't stop nagging me and Crystal about what we'd do when we were alone in the room." Centurion said, looking straight at Gallant. Then he smiled and laughed, sighing regretfully.
Gallant sniggered. "I didn't know Eric too well, but I've talked to him. Under that crassness, he was a good guy."
Centurion squinted his eyes and let the leftover tears flow out. "He… would've been one hell of a hero. The true kind of hero."
"Yeah..." Gallant stood up awkwardly, his armor weighing down on him; a fact he seemed to realize, as he stated, "Armsmaster can't maintain my armor for me anymore, I think. Unless I ask Piggot to allow it."
"I can do it," he demanded.
"Are you sure you'd be able–?"
"Yes," Centurion interrupted him snappily before he could say anything else.
"Okay," Gallant said, then paused for an awkward second, not knowing how to begin. He breathed in carefully, and said, "About Armsmaster… I don't really know what happened, there. I've only heard rumors. I know he screwed up to some extent, with something."
"I can show you through the console. I have a recording of everything," Centurion offered pushfully.
"I have a patrol in ten minutes," Gallant answered.
Centurion started speaking, "Short recap: while Leviathan was frozen, Armsmaster set up the positions of the defenders, right? But he set up things in such a way that a bunch of villains, including a kid, Skitter, from the Undersiders, would die and he'd get a chance at fighting Leviathan one o–"
"Damn it!" Gallant smashed his fist into the wall. The initial outburst was full of pent-up anger, but the follow-up question was just betrayal: "Why?" Realizing his actions, Gallant breathed in and calmed himself, or more accurately, took active reins of his body.
"Fame. Glory. Legacy," Centurion informed. "And what is a legacy, really? It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see. But he so desperately wanted to see them prematurely. I spoke with Legend, after the big argument. His theory is that power and leadership got to his head. Do you know what he said in front of Legend about all this?"
Gallant hesitated to move, not showing outward emotion aside from mild sizzling. "No, I don't. What?"
"It didn't work!" Centurion mimicked Armsmaster, sighing out all of the frustration. "That's what he cared about. He wasn't guilty, wasn't regretful. He was angry because his master plan failed. My friends died, and it's his fault," Centurion announced.
"They were my friends too," Gallant answered.
To drive the point in, Centurion responded with, "I know. You should be as angry as me. If not more. You've known them for longer, and you knew them better."
"Can you shut up? For just a second?" Gallant snapped. "Just stop monologuing, stop describing Armsmaster as the channel of everything bad in the world for a second, and let me think? I get the point, and I do feel angry, but acting rashly, on emotion, is pointless right now. I'm getting sick hearing it all."
Centurion stayed silent.
Armsmaster deserves to be hated by those who looked up to him.
Gallant slid down to the ground, looking hopeless, breathing slowly, one hand held to the visor of his helmet. He didn't say anything or look up. He was staring at the ground as if it was a release from the world at large, as if he could see the patterns of his relationships altering in front of his eyes.
Centurion turned to the Tinkertech and resumed inspecting it, ignoring Gallant. It was right to give him some time to… digest this. Shortly after that, Gallant stood up, walked out and closed the door with a loud clatter, upset as he strode outside. Centurion jumped a little but otherwise kept doing his work.
He was wide awake now. This conversation gave him the jolt of unrelenting, fury-induced energy that he needed to keep working.
He picked up the spark pistol next.
It was strangely ornamental, and beautiful, almost like a science-fiction phaser, with an oblong red-gold body ending in a barrel that looked like two, winding helixes with metal lining the insides; it reminded him of Purity's power, was probably based on it to some extent. It had a safety which, funnily enough, was a control knob with 'On' and 'Off' options; space for more present.
He pointed it at the ground and turned it on, firing. A spark of white shot the ground, leaving a black scorch mark. There was barely any recoil, and it was quieter than a normal gun but slightly brighter.
He thought of a way to make it completely silent, but nothing happened; his power just didn't click. He lacked the necessary details to understand what kind of modification would be necessary; he felt the details of the Alternator Cannon's design float out of his head, making space for something new.
The spark pistol was fine, and so he noted it down on the power armor's computer.
He went on to the power armor. It was red, primarily, with a secondary color in a sort of bronze-tinted gold, and a small amount of steel-gray for contrast, with slits that glowed red in some places, but were turned off right now. Seeing it there, not being worn… Centurion's stomach turned a little. He breathed in and walked towards it, inspecting it. He took it apart, piece by piece, and laid every single component neatly on the worktable.
His knowledge of the Alternator Cannon was replaced with an understanding of Kid Win's armor; it was slightly… no polite way to say it, inferior, to Centurion's own. It wasn't anywhere near as efficient, didn't have a tactical radar, and pretty much only served as armor and slight strength enhancement.
Centurion sighed and wrote down, 'Safe', then moving onto the hoverboard.
It was a gold-red pad, exactly the size of a skateboard, with three blue circle pads in the middle of the bottom, shaped almost like woofers, but with a glow to them; the one in the center was smaller than the other two. It was disabled, but presumably had some sort of detector that would probably turn it on with a prompt.
He carefully laid it down on the floor and then stood on it.
He felt the surface of the hoverboard lock his feet in place with some kind of magnet, then rise off to hover half a meter above the ground. It was surprisingly stable for what he'd expected; it didn't sway a little, like standing on solid ground. However, being unable to move his feet unsettled him a little.
Centurion tried to ascend by gradually extending his knees.
The hoverboard gently elevated itself, half a meter per second. Centurion ducked and descended at the same speed. Alright, it seems easy enough.
He swayed ahead, and the hoverboard tipped forward, bringing him closer to the wall at an alarming speed. His reflexes saved him from a collision, as he tipped back. Like all untrained users of a hoverboard do, he overshot the tipping back and this caused him to move backward at twice the speed. He tipped forward, then back again, and finally stabilized in the middle of the room, releasing air in relief.
Centurion laughed and ducked until he touched the ground, then got off the hoverboard, heading to the notepad to write, 'Safe, but don't use indoors for any reason'.
He imagined that when Piggot saw the report, she'd squint at the assessment, then glance back at the item, her mind would show three dots, then a brilliant moment of word-to-image association as she sighed and facepalmed.
Alright, the flamethrower's next. Centurion picked the device up.
It was unwieldy, for something of Kid Win's make; the gold-bronze parts were unpainted, and some of the wirings were unfinished, but the gas tank was plugged in and according to a note left alongside with it, it was not to be used indoors because it worked, and it wasn't safe.
Centurion took it at face value, and wrote down 'Unsafe and unfinished.'
What, you really thought he'd test out a fucking tinker flamethrower in the middle of any room that wasn't an insulated steel shooting range? His reputation for recklessness was bad enough, and he definitely did not want to exacerbate the issue by chipping at it with a fucking flamethrower.
He headed for the next piece of mad scientist technology; a drone.
It was a globe of steel, with four lines of gold surrounded by red, leading into an eye-like apparatus, which almost appeared like it was meant to double for a camera and a flashlight. Its means of propulsion were clearly visible as an anti-gravity system similar to Kid's hoverboard, on the underside of the drone. It didn't seem to have any outward attachments made, but the frame had some seams on it, where it could be opened; presumably for quick tool insertion.
Centurion opened the drone to inspect its insides. There was some wiring and circuitboards in the back, separated from the sides of the drone through a glass container with metal on one side; the rest of it was hollow, except the bottom, which appeared to hold a small generator connected to the camera, the processors, and the anti-gravity pad. He felt his thoughts thrum with an outline of the design, how to reproduce it, how to add a golden forcefield to it. With materials, he could build several in one day.
Hmmm… I see. I'm going to keep that.
Centurion took a sheet of hard blue technical paper, one of the special pens, and started drawing the blueprints for the drone. It took him a good ten minutes to make a full sketch that his Tinker power recognized as one; which meant he had to make a second try at some point.
It was a strange experience. The ten minutes passed by in what felt like two, maybe three; everything sort of skipping, even though when he focused on the sequence of the individual actions he made, he remembered the full course of drawing the design.
He took a long look at it; at the exact materials, the components, and he realized they don't make any fucking sense. The drone had no right to hover; the generator had no right to produce energy, and the anti-gravity pad had absolutely no physical way to produce anti-gravitons; but then his Tinker power said something else, explaining why and how, in an almost alien way, in an abstract sense of physics that didn't exist, and it suddenly made sense. An alternate sense of physics. Like someone spat in the universe's eyes, grabbed its science notes, then quickly scratched out and rewrote some parts; but only in the range of this particular device, before the universe could look again. And he knew he could make it.
Then he realized, once again, that it didn't make sense, and decided to stop thinking about it before his brain exploded. He wrote down 'Unfinished but safe' and went to the last device in the workshop.
It was shaped like a clock, laid down on the back; a wide, short tube with an indentation, except instead of a white circle, there was a black flat surface with green and blue circuitboards, microprocessors, and chips stretching across, with two lines of the circuit-wiring connecting to a metal rod pointed up at the ceiling, roughly the length of an index finger, which ended in a blue, glass-looking globe, transparent and somewhat mesmerizing. There was an unfinished panel on the side where buttons were to be inserted; but only two were slotted, in front of the two main lines that connected to the metal rod; there was a thumb drive, ordinary, in the device.
Centurion inspected it with his power and analyzed it. Tinkers often had a 'sense' of technology. They could look at a radiator and innately discern the metals and how to turn them into a gun, for example, but his power seemed to struggle with that. All it could say was, 'weird-shaped device, uses exotic energy for unknown purpose.'
Centurion braced and decided to click one of the buttons. The glassy sphere lighted up and then did nothing.
It's just a lamp?
And then Kid Win appeared next to him, making Centurion jump and recoil away in fear. Kid Win smiled, beginning to say, "So, this is kind of a thing I was working on for a while now? Armsmaster scanned Centurion's forcefield power, got some funny data out of it, and then let me play with it."
Kid Win, or his ghost, pointed at the device, as he started walking around, "So I made this. It uses a hard-light projector to create multi-colored holograms, except they're hard-light, so you can physically touch them. It also has some other stuff; a camera, to know what the room looks like, and a sound projector, so it creates these… illusions you can interact with, I guess. Like, I programmed myself right now to touch whoever's next to me. Boop!"
The Kid Win hologram pressed Centurion on the nose, with physical force behind it.
"Kind of fun right? I don't know why I'm building this, it was an experiment. Maybe I could get Armsmaster to repurpose this for education or something, I'unno. I've programmed some base responses, in case whoever's listening wants to test it out. I think the idea has some merit, but, yeah. It's unfinished; needs some more buttons, and, uh, circuitboards... I'm running out of circuitboards. Drat."
Centurion laughed and cried at the same time, his body shaking in conflicting emotions.
With that, the hologram sputtered out, leaving behind blue, transient cubes that dissipated into particles.
Centurion's eyes widened as his body stiffened, and his first instinct was to yell, "Don't go!" but he stopped himself, choking up and realizing it was a hologram, again, on a conscious level.
I… I'm sorry.
Centurion went to the notepad and wrote down 'Unfinished' as the last remaining tears fell off his cheek, to the floor. He rubbed his eyes, to get the moisture out, then sighed.
There was one last device, not in the workshop, but there. The microwave stood in the Wards HQ, standing very still.
Should he disassemble it?
Fuck no. Centurion walked up to the microwave and picked it up, inspecting it. No plug to anything; implying it generated energy on its own through the bullshit headache-inducing tinkertech contained within. To his surprise, the Tinker power helped him get a rough feel for the buttons; the one with the waves on it was meant to activate the 'droid' function.
Centurion tapped the wave button and put the microwave on the sofa.
The microwave's sides popped out, as the spider-legs extended. It screeched at him mechanically, then looked in the direction of the workshop and bounded off that way.
"Kid's gone..." Centurion spoke out loud, looking down at the ground.
The microwave didn't seem to comprehend his words, moving to enter the workshop through the door, then stopping abruptly, as if recoiling in brief shock.
Centurion walked towards it in a calm manner, kneeling next to it.
The microwave stared at the workshop, appearing like it was unable to comprehend the sight. Unable to comprehend the absence of Kid Win. Its eye-camera moved, twitched twice, slid and scanned across the room, as if trying to find him in one of the corners, or behind the piles of the Alternator Cannon. It seemed confused, then briefly angered, then confused again; confused and sad.
"Kid Win is… d-dead," Centurion uttered.
The microwave moved once at his voice but didn't look up at him. It kept staring into the room, as if believing there was an error in the sensors; that it was seeing wrong. Not knowing what else to do, it skittered several meters into workshop, almost hesitantly. After a moment of peering around, it looked up at the disassembled suit of power armor, and stared at it, silent, for a good ten seconds.
The spider-robot walked up to the worktable the armor was on. It hung its legs around the main table leg and climbed on top. It stopped there, for several seconds, watching the power armor components in more detail, taking it in with sad confusion, with an inability to comprehend this sight.
Following its brief helplessness, it seemed to find a sense of conclusiveness. It did the natural thing: turned around, back facing the wall, and set down next to the disassembled power armor, its legs delicately retracting into the plating, as if snuggling itself next to Kid Win.
A second later, its lights blinked out, as it rested next to what it comprehended to be its owner.
Tears streamed down Centurion's face, free, as he looked at the image, but he didn't sob this time. With that, he breathed in once, took his reports on the notepad, picked up the mug of half-drained coffee that had stopped steaming over an hour ago, and clicked the lights off.
The microwave remained in the dark, snuggled, with only a green light blinking every few seconds to indicate it was working.
Centurion closed the door.
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Birdsie
Oct 31, 2019
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Threadmarks Casus Belli 6.x (Interlude: Accord) New
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Birdsie
Loyal Space Guardian
Nov 1, 2019
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Favors, payments, contracts, deals.
Business; the careful science and art of providing and receiving services or products. There was an order to it; a harmony, a balance.
Accord received the latest report of the local economy of Boston in two separate documents: one for the normal market and one for the black market. He had other documents in front of him, about the different groups, their leaders and owners, and business strategies. He could see the lines and connections form in his mind; how to make money from this, while simultaneously bolstering the marketplace and welfare in Boston.
A single deal with a local printing and publishing company; an offer of brokering an agreement with several editors and dedicated publishing teams would help maintain it. It would take a single one-hour meeting, ten to twenty minutes of planning prior to the meeting, and estimated costs of five thousand dollars to turn a long-term profit of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars brutto. A rather paltry amount, but it'd help increase education even as little as five years from now. It'd increase the net worth of the publishing company from $18.2 billion to $20.65 billion over the next two years, decrease the corruption rate from 14 to 13.7 per thousand residents in that same time.
The effort wasn't substantial; he could slot in the planning time for the afternoon one-hour period of drafting work; the same period over which he made updates to his plan to solve world hunger. He wrote down a note to have a meeting with the CEO of the publishing company, then moved onto more pressing matters.
There was an increase in violent crime, coinciding with The Teeth's appearance back in Boston after Centurion's concert.
Shame about that; Accord sincerely wanted to attend, as a measure of Centurion's character, if not for the music itself, but that evening called more pressing concerns into his mind, and watching a video recording seemed like a subpar solution to experiencing the real thing. Maybe he'd attend another concert in the far future if Centurion ever decided to visit Boston again after the Butcher's hissy fit.
They'd been hired by someone to get rid of Centurion, Accord knew that much. By whom, was the question.
It wouldn't have been Coil, or so thought Accord from his assessment of the man. While Coil was cautious, he was the kind of player who preferred to fold people into his own schemes, rather than cut them out entirely. It wasn't out of the question, and if that was the case, Accord would probably ask Coil later, to spare the callow youth; he was possessed of power too useful to be wasted through idiotic bloodshed and assassination.
Could it have been one of Accord's own service providers? He ruminated on the thought, even as he wrote down a complicated plan of how to procure special tools and improved response systems, give them a legal background, then donate them to the local police and PRT; it wouldn't affect Accord, but would see a large increase in their reactions to the Teeth's actions, at least for the next few months. By the end of it, Accord came to a conclusion to his line of thought: it couldn't have been them.
His line of thought followed: they could easily disappear someone quietly, but Centurion's power had already produced too much traction. Instead of trying to strangle the loud noise, drowning it out with another loud noise and having them self-annihilate would be much better to avoid suspicion. But it was risky: if Centurion killed the Butcher, it created a dangerous lunatic with a power that necessitated an instantaneous response from the PRT, to arrest and imprison but potentially never kill; it also risked the Butcher spilling the proverbial beans about who hired them, setting Centurion on a quest for vengeance; with no target to lash out, he'd lash out at everything. On the other hand, if they hired the Butcher, then the Butcher would've won.
Not them, possibly Coil. So that was it: he'd speak with Coil.
At exactly eleven PM, Accord walked to his dining room. There was a harmony, to arriving and departing: at this short a distance, it didn't matter if he arrived in the dining room a minute later, since he was already in the general location that he'd regard as 'his house.' It would be preferable to arrive in the room, or sit down in the chair at the exact turn of the minute, but moving out of his room was a good consolation prize.
Everything in his house was in perfect harmony: the architecture was tasteful, the construction was in ideal balance, the building itself was ruggedized but simple to traverse. There was art in sight everywhere, so that a potential guest can rest their eyes on something beautiful to distract themselves.
When originally constructing it, he didn't know which style to select. There was an allure to the Victorian and Mediterranean styles, but he settled on something more niche: Mid-Century Modern, There was an orderliness to its open spaces; simple but elegant furniture, with a focus on light wood, wall-wide window panels with black framing, and walls that are either white paint or granite stone, with some blacks and grays for contrast. In a lesser environment, his power would give him advice: on how to bulldoze, improve, rebuild, recreate to make it all better, but right now it stayed silent, because improving it beyond this point was impossible. There were no flaws: each and every flowerpot was placed at the exact millimeter and angle it should have, each flower contained therein had an ideal size, color, and shape to fit in. The house itself was freshly dusted, vacuumed, and cleaned; his staff worked to clean it during his absence to ensure it was up to code at the beginning and end of each day while being careful not to upset the lovely equilibrium.
With Accord's power, it was almost orgasmic to live in: a constant reward of dopamine and self-affirmation. Everywhere he looked, there was inspiration, harmony, and balance. To put it plainly, there was accord.
He made his arrival in the dining room. It was overlooked by a railed-in balcony on the second floor, with the stairs leading to an antechamber which was also connected to the entryway and basement. It was designed on purpose this way: if a provisional guest was actually an attacker, escape or ambush was easy, gave him an advantage.
The dining room itself was spacious: a table in the middle, long, from carved oak and a tablecloth; Accord had woven the latter on his own, creating a cloth with an intricate honeycomb pattern, that kept repeating down to filament-size. It was easy to stretch, never got ripped, and stains easily washed off. There were eight chairs at the table; three at each side, two at the ends. There was a fireplace to the right of the chair closer to the entrance; opposite of the balcony, alongside a clock.
The latter was placed strategically to tell the guest when it was okay to get up or perform a significant action without upsetting Accord's time-related sensibilities; he was willing to overlook things like going to the bathroom when it wasn't a full hour, half-hour, or quarter and settle on the minute, but it chafed slightly when someone started a new topic too soon. There were very few guests he was willing to dine with, who knew how to not upset him.
Accord walked up to his guest, halfway across the table, standing in the center of the path between the fireplace and the second chair, but also a little over fifty centimeters off from the center, in the exact, perfect spot for Accord to approach.
His guest, once an up-and-coming businessman, currently in his mid-thirties. Accord had helped the man get situated with a rather sizable inheritance, pushed him to expand the inherited businesses of his grandfather to an international level over the course of fewer than four years. It was currently valued at $91.5 billion dollars, and Accord received a partly dividend to some of his secret accounts from it.
"Mr. Wilkerson," Accord greeted, shaking the man's hand. "How are you?" A rhetorical question: Accord knew the man was having a good day today.
"Accord," Wilkerson said back with an inclination of the head. "I am in a very good mood, especially now, that I have the pleasure of meeting you. And you?"
"I am quite well, thank you. Let us sit," Accord offered, stepping away once. Mr. Wilkerson nodded and turned only after Accord had, as they both walked over to their seats; opposite of each other.
Though Accord loathed to admit it, the man's amiable behavior had caused Accord to warm up to him, rather quickly. Very few individuals had this amount of foresight and observation of harmony.
Mr. Wilkerson didn't speak. It was time to begin the full-course dinner that Accord had carefully drawn out.
Two of Accord's kitchen staff stepped out and laid down their meals in front of them at the exact same time, unveiling the appetizers in the form of creamy prosciutto crackers, crab rangoon with wonton chips for dipping, and champagne jello shots: there were three choices, all elegant and different in some way.
Accord himself partook in a single unit of each; one of ten for every type. His options were either to eat none, eat one of each, eat two of each, three, five, or all of them; partaking in them while saving space for the next courses just made sense.
His guest had partaken in more; not necessarily symmetrical. That was fine, actually; it didn't bother Accord beyond an irking sensation that someone, preferably the guest, should even out the numbers of food consumed to at least five, but forcing his guest to overeat the appetizers was even worse.
The moment the appetizers were taken away, the entrée was placed in front of them. A tall white bowl of butternut squash soup; Accord consumed the entirety of it.
Next came the largest, main course. Almost as a grandiose display of magnanimity, it was roasted pork tenderloin, with rosemary and thyme; a secondary accompanying meal in the form of a bowl of iced shrimp, and a tertiary meal in the form of a serving of salmon pieces drizzled lightly with garlic sauce, dressed with a salad; eaten with either the hand or the fork. Accord could eat none, one, or all three. In this case; he couldn't resist, and allowed himself to eat each portion.
The salad course followed next, with a wonton broccoli stir fry. Cheese selection and wine after that, and finally, a serving of dessert in the form of grandiose cups of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream with bits of fruit, such as bananas, apple slices, and peach slices. Delicious.
Following their brief debauchery, Accord and Mr. Wilkerson waited for eleven more seconds, before Accord's guest said, "That was a wonderful meal, sir. Thank you."
"It is no problem. Mr. Wilkerson."
"If I may?"
"You may," Accord allowed, expecting the question that came next.
Mr. Wilkerson maintained casual but submissive eye contact as he asked, "While we've been business partners for some time now, can I ask for the reasoning behind this - I must admit - prestigious dinner invitation?"
Accord's voice took on a pensive value, as he asked, "Mr. Wilkerson, as you said, we've been business partners for some time. Is it then, so hard to believe that I'm willing to break bread with you? Being business partners doesn't preclude us from dining together, in fact, I'd say it bolsters the merit of it. But, yes, there is a reason for my calling you here."
"I am listening," Mr. Wilkerson replied calmly.
"Mr. Wilkerson, have you heard of Centurion?" A rhetorical question; Accord already knew the man had done his research before this meeting.
"A new hero of the Brockton Bay Wards," the man answered, eyes staring forward; a subtle indication it was recently learned information. "Yes, I have."
"I happen to have a stake in that young man's life. I wish to hire him, but I predict he risks being snuffed out in the coming months, due to his penchant for recklessness. That'd be unfortunate; however, if he is not snuffed out, hypothetically speaking"– the man kept nodding as Accord went on –"then he will quickly and easily ascend to national, then international fame. It brings prestige with it, and his power itself? It could save billions if put to proper use."
"Dollars?"
"Lives," Accord clarified. "His power, if utilized properly - by someone like me - with a mind for grand strategy, could easily tip the scales in the slow and eventual downfall of civilization."
"I'm sorry, but what exactly is Centurion's power? I have not read on that topic, I'm afraid."
"Centurion has the power to obtain any power, given a long enough time," Accord replied plainly, then, almost dreamful, added, "Can you imagine? The possibilities? Just an example off the top of my head, I won't get into the details: a Tinker power to create medical equipment, and a Tinker power to adapt tinker-made technology to be normal technology. Another one to mass-produce said equipment. The result? A surge of Tinker-made devices issued en masse to every hospital, ones that can be repaired by any technician with a manual if they get broken, but ones that could potentially cure cancer or repair the unrepairable in a single day. They'd render surgeons, chemotherapy, and rehabilitation pointless. Almost render hospitals pointless, in a way; which isn't something I'm eager to start, but I believe I could handle delicately. Do you know how long this would take to fully implement in, let's say, every major city in the US, if Centurion were to become one of my Ambassadors tonight?"
"Years, I presume?"
"Not quite," Accord replied with a smile, "Seventy-five to ninety days for Centurion to assemble the right powers; three months at most. No longer than a week or two for him to build the factories and design the blueprints. No more than, let's say, five million dollars in salaries and building materials for these factories. The material costs don't matter, because they will see returns for each unit. If Centurion joined me, he'd have the chance to remove cancer from the USA by the end of this year. A fact that I intend to bring up during my next negotiation with him."
Mr. Wilkerson was contemplative for several seconds, thinking in silence about what he was just told. "I can tell, then, that this is a serious topic."
"Yes."
"Where do I come into this, then?"
Accord smiled knowingly. "Tell me, Mr. Wilkerson, are you a family man?" The third time that Accord asked a rhetorical question during tonight's dinner: a perfect way to round out the evening.
Last edited: Dec 17, 2019
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May 22th, 2011
Fucking wonderful.
Yesterday it was Empire remnants, today it's just random.
Centurion moved into the burning building, through one of the cracked windows, and began whistling to get a feel for the floor; there was too much smoke to see anything properly otherwise. A subsonic image of the level appeared in his mind; incomplete at the edges, but becoming clearer as he flew through. Three people on this floor, including a child.
"Excuse me!?" he called, even as he moved towards them, "I'm here to save you!"
"Over here, please, help!" a woman's voice replied. Centurion floated in the direction of the apartment and opened the door, dropping the echolocation to speak to them again.
"Okay, I'm going to carry you out of the building one by one," Centurion stated. He directed his telekinesis toward a chunk of concrete and threw it at a window to break the glass. He rounded out the demolition with precision shots from his lasers to get rid of any stray glass attached to the frame, so they wouldn't get scratched, then turned to the civilians. "Who goes first?"
"Take her," the mother said, ushering her daughter forward. A ten-year-old girl from the looks of it, crying and trying not to breathe the smoke in.
Centurion picked up the little girl and floated out of the room, immediately noticing just how badly the lower floors were burning; pieces of the outer stone wall were flaking away from the temperature, while the internal wooden supports were growing weak enough to make some of it crack and sway. He put down the little girl and patted her on the head. "I'm going to get your mama and papa, now. Stay brave."
The girl nodded, lips quivering too much to reply, as she wiped the tears from her face.
Centurion bolted upward, leaving behind a golden streak of his environmental shield. He floated next to the window and called inside, "Next person, people!"
The mother was next. Centurion gingerly wrapped his arm around her waist and took her hand for extra support, then carried her down quickly enough that she didn't have time to consider if this was stable enough for her not to slip out, but slowly enough that she didn't panic in thoughts associated with becoming a pancake. He let her down next to her daughter; the two immediately began to hug and cry, while he went up for the father and carried him down much the same way.
There were more people in the building; he whistled as he floated around, scanning the interior and starting to form a plan for rescuing them.
A moment later, a trio of drones swooped down, floating behind Centurion in a triangle position. He twirled around in the air as his arms went up with charged lasers, almost like a reflex, both pointed in the direction of the drones. He spotted a person on the building across the street, wearing a bodysuit - light armor of some kind - and grinning. She was holding something, like a flashlight with LEDs, but the flashlight had a bunch of sliders and buttons.
She raised it and pointed it at the building, causing blue dots to appear all over it. The drones shifted, moving closer and washing each dot in jetstreams of water.
The girl winked at him with a smile.
"Thanks!" Centurion called out.
He went inside the building on a lower floor, to rescue more people, and noticed the cause for this whole mess; there was a man near the basement, wearing a gas mask and armed with some kind of weapon, looking around skittishly. There were two more men in gas masks just outside the building, in a dark alleyway. They spotted him flying by, and his danger sense and combat prediction software told him how to dodge the bullets.
There was a rat-tat-tat, rumbling across the area in little, repetitive shockwaves. The evasive maneuvers kept him from being hit.
He fired back, a fan of lasers to force them into cover, then he charged up an explosive grenade blast, chucking it down at them like a fireball of golden photons. It exploded and made them stagger in a daze. Centurion floated around to the other end of the alleyway and shot a barrage of lasers to knock them out; more or less hit enough spots to keep them from moving.
He stopped in the air for a moment, using as much of his telekinesis as he could to keep himself floating, while applying force on himself to recharge his batteries.
At that same moment, the car they were protecting revved and drove out of the alleyway. Centurion hummed in frustration and went after it, letting the Tinker girl handle the building: if she could put out the fires, then the emergency services could handle the civilians.
The car was too fast.
Centurion threw thirty-four charges in the tactile telekinesis power, to give an overall boost to the telekinetic force.
He felt his charge reserves halve, putting themselves into the telekinesis power. There was an orange color of confusion for a moment, then the power clicked green, and he stumbled through the air as he realized twelve seconds, then three more seconds passed by in snapshots.
He realized his power was about to evolve, and he'd lose the car. In an act of desperation, Centurion charged up a laser and fired it at the back of the vehicle; hopefully, it'd make it stumble or pop a tire or something. He didn't get to see the result, as eleven seconds passed by, then two, then nine.
Then a full half-minute. At some point between the snapshots, he crashed onto a rooftop, staring at the sky, where the dark clouds cloaked him in rain. Everything felt surreal; like he was drugged, looking at reality as a spectator.
The telekinesis shifted in his awareness. He saw each charge, one by one, drop all of its connections to the others, then extend new, fresher filaments to each one, cut them away again, and extend new ones; testing the connections and meanings, in some abstract way he didn't understand. Like a computer learning to put together an algorithm.
Five seconds skipped, then fifteen, and a drone stopped near him; the size of an office desk. The girl in the clearly Tinker-made armor hopped off, staring at him in concern. "Are you–" eight seconds.
"Give me a mom–" five seconds, "–ent! I'm good!" Weird as fuck when the time-skipping interrupted him mid-speech; when he started completing the word, his mouth was closed. The girl blinked in surprise.
Frowning, she asked, "Are you sure you're–" Two minutes!
She was now sitting next to him in a sort of lonely fetal position, hands over her knees, sulking at the cracked surface of the roof. There was a bunch of drones around them, and she managed to look incredibly lonely as the rain dampened her hair.
"Power evolving! Time skipping!" he said.
She flinched and jumped up at his voice. "Hey, you can't just–"
Thirteen minutes. The girl was still nearby, playing hopscotch or something effectively similar.
Fifteen minutes. The girl was positioning the drones in the sky, in geometric arrangements or shapes resembling objects; there wasn't nearly enough of them. One desk-sized drone, five the size of heads, and maybe five who were even smaller.
Twenty-seven minutes. The girl was, once again, in a fetal position, but using her drone remote to make them dance for her amusement. She didn't look satisfied.
Twenty and half a minute. She made a fireplace at some point, using wooden planks gathered from somewhere. The drones and the girl were huddled around it for warmth, and one of the drones fired a thermal laser at it whenever the fire went out from the rain. Centurion's head was laid on one of the drones like a metallic pillow.
His power flashed orange for a moment, like a question mark over the entire telekinesis power, followed by a flash of green and everything went back to its native blue.
The girl appeared to be singing, "I used to rule the wooorld… seas would rise when I gave the word… now in the morning, I sleep alone… sweep the streets I used to own..."
Centurion jumped up on his feet and exclaimed, "Finally!"
"Ah!" she yelped, scrabbling back. "You scared me!"
His telekinesis became fucking stronger; no doubt about it. At one-hundred charges, it created a barrier of telekinesis that permeated his body and extended to the surface of his armor, providing a defensive measure, after the environmental shield. On top of that, it gave him more push and advantage when handling objects.
With all of the Brute powers stacked on top of each other, Centurion was at the stage where he could bench-press a car and throw it across the street. In exchange, the telekinesis was far more reliant on his movements to work; it couldn't extend past an arm's reach through the air and struggled with precise and high-speed control of objects he wasn't touching directly. But if he punched something and exerted it? Ouch.
His flight didn't take armor into account anymore, and it let him fly at speeds up to 125kph. The barrier could unfold into wings, dropping his airborne speed to three-quarters and dropping his strength and durability derived from the telekinesis entirely, but letting him make sharp turns. It was strange; he could extend the wings despite the overall limit on 'no telekinesis further than arm's reach.'
In that moment, he realized the wings are just a suggestion that came with the power: he couldn't extend his telekinesis past the barrier, but he could alter the barrier itself; form it into a telekinetic cord and clamp it to an object or group of objects to gain incredible control over them, or, as his power advised: form it into wings to turn sharply.
[AN: I didn't tell him this. He figured it out himself.]
"Ahem!" His big brain time was interrupted by the girl who was fuming at him visibly, fists clenched at her side as she pouted. "Don't you have anything to say?"
"...Do you want the specifics?" Centurion said, preparing for a 'no.'
"Of your apology?"
"I'd prefer to explain why before saying that I'm sorry."
"So you're not sorry!?" She crossed her arms defiantly.
"Of course I am!" Centurion put his hands forward, shaking them left and right placatingly.
She looked down at the ground, her frown taking on a sad hue. "I thought we could have a fun first patrol together; you'd show me the ropes, I'd show you how awesome my drones are… but you left me here in the rain. Alone. With nothing but unfeeling machines. On my own."
"I'm… sorry..." Centurion blurted, looking down. "I'd offer you a hug, but America–"
She looked at him demandingly. "I want a hug, then!"
Centurion smiled and spread his arms slightly.
"Close your eyes first," she said with a sweet smile, "Hugs are better that way."
His eyebrows went up in surprise, but he complied and closed his eyes. At that moment, he felt her hugging and kissing him.
...What the actual fuck?
His eyes shot open, only to see he was making out with a drone, with some kind of silicone mass instead of lips. The girl was laughing, pointing at him, saying, "Got you!" The drone backed off.
Centurion was very, very surprised. But then, he burst out laughing. His chest heaved up and down as he couldn't contain the merriment.
"These babies can do anything," she explained, "Hug, kiss, gently stroke your hair as they read you a story to sleep. Even shoot thermal lasers; look!"
The girl took her flashlight-looking device and pointed it at the pile of wood, then clicked the button for a split-second. For the exact duration of the click, one of the nearby drones moved one of its devices to follow the laser. She clicked it again, and the drone fired a blinding red beam, hot enough that Centurion felt his lips get dry just from standing near it.
The pile of wood was on fire, glowing red as if the thermal radiation was trying to leak out. Like a balefire, ten feet in height. The rain and air pressure caused it to drop to more reasonable size rather quickly, but it was still sizzling and spreading through the wood. The girl turned to face him, smiling with bright eyes, even as the fire kept burning behind her. It looked almost demonic.
"Holy shit," Centurion exclaimed, eyes wide.
"Impressed? That's not all! Each drone has its own set of devices, up to a total of four per drone! They're armored! They fly at speeds I matched so they could follow your own speed! They have armaments of deadly warfare that will bring death to our enemies!" the girl illustrated, laughing and grinning at him.
"That's amazing, I'm… wow. I'm impressed."
"How long have youuu had powers?" she asked, hands behind her back, leaning forward as she approached uncomfortably close.
"Two months or so," he said, shrugging.
"I've been at it for two weeks," she said, looking at her fingernails smugly as if expecting praise in that exact moment.
"You did that much in two weeks?" he said, pointing at the drones.
"Not on my own, silly!" the girl answered, laughing. "I took most of my stuff from another Tinker, then repurposed it for drones. Did I mention I specialize in drones that follow my commands? But I could build other stuff if I wanted to!"
"Oooh," Centurion raised his eyebrows. "That explains it," he said, unimpressed.
"Hey! No other Tinker can Tinker as much as me in their first week!" she said. "Anyway, I call myself Signal, and I'm prrrobably going to join the Wards."
"Hey, can I… ask a favor?" Centurion asked, tilting his head.
"Oh, yeah?!"
"Can I say that I found you?"
"Found me?" She tilted her head with a little frown.
"As in, ran into you and offered you to join the Wards, and you agreed. Haven't really got anything good on my résumé," Centurion explained, scratching the back of his head, embarrassed at this question.
She nodded brightly; practically beaming at him. "I know! You have a reputation for violence, recklessness, and sadism! It's why you're my favorite Ward!"
...what.
"...Really?" Centurion was torn between being flattered and scared.
"No, pfft," Signal threw him off.
"Oh," His stance basically collapsed as his gaze fell to look at the ground.
"I mean, I still love the style. The whole Roman aesthetic going on, but I'm my favorite Ward. Even if I'm not a Ward yet."
Centurion looked up at her in confusion. She felt too bright and cheery for a recent Trigger, but that might have been some sort of roundabout coping method. "Thanks, I guess."
"So is Eidolon really your dad? Because that's hot."
He thinned his lips at the question. After being asked this same question so many times, over, and over, he was beginning to question if Eidolon really was his dad. "Absolutely not. I'm from another Earth. How could he be my dad?"
"Yeah, I know you are; it's leaked weeks ago, but Eidolon is probably still your dad," she stated, insistent on the fact for some reason.
Centurion groaned out and fell to his knees, looking up at the sky dramatically as rain fell around him, "Whyyyyyy!"
After observing her for a moment, he concluded what she was wearing wasn't power armor, just some sort of bodysuit. It was from some kind of tough, plastic-like fabric; elegant, symmetrical and colorful, with a glowing cyan LED in the center of her chest and back, with lines radiating around and away from it, evocative of her name.
Her domino mask was ordinary, with cyan-black stripes bent around the eyes, but she seemed to have some kind of contact lenses that changed her eye color to blue.
Signal herself had dark brown hair tied in a braid; she was shorter than him, barely reaching to his eyes with the top of her head.
After leading her to a meeting with Director Piggot, and being asked to wait outside, Centurion did exactly that. Some fifteen minutes later, Signal strode out, whistling, her drones in tow behind her; most of them the size of a head, while one of them was almost the size of a desk, but flattened; probably found use as a transport.
"Oh, heeey," Signal cheered, "You're still here!"
"Of course I am," he said, smiling at her.
"So, who's the cutest guy in the Wards?" she asked, as she began to stride over in the direction of the elevator.
She unpinned her oversized, multi-function laser pointer from her belt and shone around the elevator buttons down the hallway in a circle. One of the drones reacted, and the antenna on top of it began to glow yellow repeatedly until it released a pulse of something not-quite-laser and not-quite-electricity, thin as a hair, connecting with the elevator button for a split-second. With that, the elevator began to move to their floor.
"What… are you… doing?" Centurion asked, confused.
"The elevators don't have digitalized control on them so I can't hack them remotely, so I did the next best thing and had my drone shock the system to make it work. And my question?"
"Uh… I'd say Aegis or Gallant. But Gallant is taken."
She tilted her head, smirking like a cat. "You're not counting yourself in?"
"I'm also taken," Centurion admitted, shrugging and smiling. "Laserdream..." he said, a little dreamy.
"That's stupid information to disclose," Signal elucidated, shining all over him with her laser pointer. "My drones pulled up online pictures of you in your civilian identity just now. See how easy this is? Protect your data."
He recoiled in shock. "What?!"
"Yeah, I mean, there's like at least fifty… uuh, fifty-seven pictures of Laserdream, in costume or out of costume, talking to Gabriele Lioni Flores, who… ooh, that's some interesting stuff."
"What interesting stuff?" Centurion asked, worriedly. His body was tense, there was a sick feeling in his extremities shook, but then he regained his composure.
"The database on you," she answered, eyes squinting as she peered into something in her contact lenses. "Wow, fake documents. Nice."
"...can we talk about this in the Wards HQ? I've got… explaining to do. A lot of it."
"Explaining?" Her head whipped around to look at him; her right eye was glowing a little. In that exact moment, they got into the elevator, and Centurion pressed the button to go down.
"I come from another Earth, yes, but… that Earth is eight years in the future."
"Mm. Not possible," she asserted, not surprised or shocked: stating a fact as if he were a man spouting nonsense.
"Maybe our Earths use different systems to keep time, but on my Earth, it's two-thousand nineteen."
"Or Eidolon is your dad, and weird things happened because of that," Signal said confidently as if offering a more plausible theory.
Was Eidolon his dad? He was actually starting to believe it. God, he loathed himself for even considering it.
"...whatever. Thing is, I appeared here out of nowhere, and the first thing I did was contact the PRT. They had to create an identity for me. I didn't exist, prior to finding the PRT."
"Oh, come on, I'm well-aware of how big bureaucracies work," she said, then skipped out of the elevator. "So Aegis is the cutest, right?"
"I'd say so, yeah," he nodded.
"And Gallant won't give me the time of day, because he's too busy with Glory Girl. Okay, Aegis it is!" Signal smiled, then faced the Wards elevator, striding in confidently, her swarm of drones following like a pair of wings. She moved her pointer and a yellow blur appeared on the retinal and keycard scanners. One of the drones did a thingy, and suddenly the elevator began to move down.
In the meantime, Signal stared forward with a blank expression. His mind jumped to the word 'lifeless,' but that'd be quite extreme.
"Are you okay?" Centurion asked, concerned.
"You didn't get a lawyer?!" she exclaimed in shock like she just read a big twist in a detective novel. Only two seconds after that, her head turned to look at him, mouth ajar.
"I had literally nothing to lose and everything to gain."
"Yes, you did, you big silly dumbo! Stupid!" she chided. "Do you imagine the benefits any good lawyer worth his price could have milked out of the PRT? In the first place; the PRT offers free power-testing to all parahumans, even ones who don't want to sign up! If you went for that, got the results, and had a lawyer argue your case, you could've been… I don't know, a millionaire! A millionaire who worked with Eidolon or–"
Centurion interrupted her, "I don't care about money or fame. I want to help people."
She bit her lip. "You can't help anyone by beating up criminals, you silly goose," she said as if it were obvious. "Money is important; money is value. You buy businesses, revitalize the economy, give people jobs. People get money, get food, get medical care; and all that good stuff. Fame is also important. Can you imagine how scary fighting Eidolon would be? It's all fame. You help people by getting rich and getting famous, QED!"
Centurion looked down, clenching his fists. She was right, in a sense.
Signal smiled at his realization, adding, "So get rich, get famous, and get bitches. Also, I'm not a Ward yet, but my lawyer is on the way. Should I be in there?" she asked, as she walked backward in the direction of the Wards HQ, pointing behind herself with her thumb.
"I don't really know," Centurion admitted, shrugging. "Just don't hack any doors. Let me open them."
"Aww," Signal slumped, laser device already held in her right hand. "And I was going to make this epic entrance, where my drones float in front of me like a procession of loyal minions."
"Don't be Armsmaster part two," Centurion groaned out.
"Armsmaster part two?" she queried, head tilted. "You mean efficient?"
"He likes looking cool. Too much," he saved the situation, internally sighing in relief.
"Really?" she laughed out loud, tearing up. "Wow, I heard he retired, though, so that's kind of weird."
"Yeah. He got injured in the Leviathan battle and preferred to retire," he explained.
At that, Signal squinted, sort of suspicious. "Preferred? Parahumans don't retire on their own," she stated, fully confident in her words. "Like ever. There are studies on that kind of stuff, and how the longest someone can go without using their power is a few weeks."
"Ask Piggot, maybe trade conspiracy theories, hm?" Centurion offered sarcastically.
"Piggot has conspiracy theories?" she asked, much too excited given the nature of the question, even as Centurion accessed the door to the Wards HQ, going inside.
Gallant and Vista were already there, suited up for the next patrol.
The console had been moved to a side chamber going out of the Wards common room, with the door open, and Clockblocker was visible on the other side, sitting at the console and directing someone. He turned briefly when he saw them enter, waved, and got back to work.
A girl in a dark-purple costume walked in from what was presumably her room, looking around, until her eyes centered on them. Centurion recognized her to be Flechette, from the Leviathan attack: her power imbued objects with a piercing effect, and she had perfect aim.
"Hey everyone," Centurion waved at everybody. "This is the Signal. The newest soon-to-be Ward."
Assorted greetings were thrown Signal's way. She nodded at them and asked, "Where's Aegis?" Too obvious.
"On patrol with Transfusion," Gallant answered, looking at the two of them, especially at Signal, "We are about to go, too. Come with us, if you want. You'll get to see what it's like to patrol as a Ward."
"Does the patrol route pass by the hospital?" Centurion asked as he pushed the remainder of his charges towards an upgrade to the Ambrosia Enzyme, to be able to generate it inside the body of a person he's touching. Make it more similar to Panacea's.
"Why?" Gallant asked, "We could make a detour there if it's important."
"I wanna do what Panacea can't: help Chevalier."
"You can do that?" Gallant and Flechette asked at the same time. Gallant continued to say, "Chevalier is being moved from the Brockton Bay General back to Philadelphia tomorrow. If your power can help him, we should call Director Piggot about it."
"Yeah, it can. It helped me back at the Bank Robbery. I would've faced brain damage if it wasn't for this," Centurion said, raising a hand and generating a ball of green goo in it.
Gallant nodded, and turned away, taking out his Wards phone and beginning to dial the Director. Vista was smiling, grinning now, kind of excited, as she turned to Centurion, "You'll get a commendation for this! Chevalier is a highly respected Protectorate leader! He's like Armsmaster, only not a jerk!"
Centurion chuckled and nodded, "I honestly hope so."
Signal grinned. "Already taking my advice to heart?"
"You made it sound like a very masqueraded insult, but yeah, taking your advice will be just fine," Centurion said, matching her grin.
"Okay," Gallant said, turning to them as he pocketed his phone. "We're going to make a detour to the hospital, and see if Centurion's power can heal Chevalier. We already have permission to try anything that works."
"It's not instantaneous, but it won't take more than a couple of days," Centurion explained. "When I first created the power, it was directly aimed at brain tissue, so I think it's gonna work better on brains than anything else."
Vista snorted. "Directly aimed at brain tissue? Yeah. Seems to have done miracles for you," she said with a note of good humor and a bit of sniggering.
"Yeah, aimed at my fucked mind and my hit head," he added, laughing with her.
"Settle down," Gallant said, sighing. He looked at Flechette. "You'll be fine here, with Clockblocker?"
She nodded, then looked at Centurion and Signal. She gave them a friendly smile. "I didn't really get a chance to introduce myself, but I'm Flechette. I'll be in Brockton Bay for a while to help out with the efforts post-Leviathan."
Centurion nodded and took a step towards her to shake her hand. "You did well against Leviathan. Thank you," he said, going back to where he was before.
"I was too busy discovering that I'm a Tinker to help out," Signal muttered to herself, sounding more irritated than anything. She looked at them. "Fighting Leviathan, huh? Must have been scary!"
Something deep in his gut twisted by itself. "Yeah, it was."
Gallant ushered them to move, "Let's… just go. Signal, what can your drones do?" he asked, as he strode in the direction of the exit.
"Oh, boy, what can't they do? Each drone has four different functioning tools! First off..."
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Nov 2, 2019
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#1,930
Since the site was off yesterday and I didn't get to post, here, have a bonus chapter.
"...But the voltage tended to be too high, so I eventually combined it with–"
"We're here," Gallant said, shaking, then beginning to laugh as they arrived near the hospital. He hopped off of Signal's drone, letting himself kneel and pressing his arms against the ground. His laughter became deeper, fuller. Psychotic.
"Praise the maker!" Vista cried out, laughing and crying much like Gallant.
Centurion groaned out in satisfaction. "Earth's Bodhisattva be extolled!" he called out.
"...You guys are jerks," Signal harrumphed, pouting. She gave them the folded arms and looking away treatment.
"Go ahead, Centurion," Gallant offered, "Take Signal with you."
"I'd rather take Vista." Centurion looked towards Gallant, mouthing 'please'.
"I'm staying with Gallant," Vista insisted.
Gallant nodded, and finally came to the conclusion, "In that case, let's spread out, team! We'll patrol around the hospital. Use the radio to convey information, but make sure not to overuse this privilege!" He looked away in the opposite direction, deliberately avoiding eye contact with Signal.
Signal frowned at them, clenching her fists and stomping on the ground theatrically. "Jerks," she murmured. With that, she strode on top of her largest drone and directed it to ascend. The rest of her drone swarm followed in a circle around her, slowly spinning around.
"Talk less, smile more," Centurion said, shrugging at her with a slightly gibing grin.
Gallant and Vista walked in opposite directions, seeming to relish their newfound silence from the constant, uninterrupted broadcast of Signal's words.
Centurion, on the other hand, walked inside the hospital, up to the receptionist. "Excuse me, where can I find Chevalier?" he asked.
"You're… Centurion, correct?" the receptionist asked.
Centurion nodded. "In the flesh."
"Room seven, floor two. It's to the right of the stairs; with a PRT trooper at the front," the receptionist explained, handing over a 'Visitor' pass to Centurion.
Centurion nodded politely, taking the visitor pass and wrapping it around his neck. "Thank you." Was it really necessary? Would people think he's a cosplayer or something without it? Kind of stupid, but alright. He took the elevator instead of the stairs, like a total jackass, then went to the designated room. A PRT trooper stood at the front and opened the door for him.
It was an ordinary hospital room; windows covered with light green vertical slats for blinds. There was a white privacy tarp around the spot where the bed was. Centurion approached slowly, careful not to startle one of the top heroes in the Protectorate and get pummeled as a result. He clutched the tarp and pulled it away, to peer inside.
The man inside was battered, for a lack of a better definition; he wore a PRT standard-issue domino mask, but kept staring at the ceiling, his eyes barely in contact with existence. Chevalier glanced at Centurion as he approached, and his breath hitched, but he didn't say anything.
Centurion inched closer. "Chevalier?" he asked, as if testing for intelligence. That felt awkward to think.
"Centurion," Chevalier said by way of greeting, somewhat raspy; his face looked frozen, almost unresponsive. The man sat up on his bed, fixed his location a little to have his back press against the largest pillow; he looked miserable. Not surprising; his injury would have prevented him from continuing his career: there weren't a lot of parahuman healers and even fewer who could heal damage to this extent.
"I'm here to heal you," Centurion explained, hoping Chevalier was already aware of the broad strokes.
"Do it," Chevalier answered, his head swaying a little. He looked drunk for a lack of a better term, but in a more raw way; like he wasn't entirely in tune with himself.
"Do I have full and–"
"You do have!" the man yelled without anger, beginning to shake. "I have two muscle spasms over the last week, I can't speak properly or think clearly. If you can help, do… it. Please..."
Centurion approached like a scolded dog, shocked by that outburst. He placed both of his hands on Chevalier's head; thumbs on the forehead and the rest of the fingers closer to the back of the head. Centurion closed his eyes, focusing on his power to make sure he didn't fuck it up. "You will feel a warm sensation inside of your head: that's just the healing enzyme appearing in your head and beginning to do its job."
"I don't feel… warm," Chevalier stated with an interruption, confused, his eyes moving in something approaching fear.
"Because I haven't started yet," Centurion replied with a faint chuckle, as he started generating the enzyme inside of Chevalier's body. He didn't have any indication the power worked at all, besides the little stiffening of the hero's body as it began to take place.
"It's warm," Chevalier stated; a fraction more in the present. He coughed twice, thrice; dry at first, then wet coughs, as he spat out some green enzyme onto his blanket. "Tastes minty."
Centurion raised an eyebrow. Okay, wrong place, generate it a little higher, that was the lungs.
"It's in my head," Chevalier said, tensing, his mouth ajar.
"Oh, there we go, right place," he said, keeping the power focused there.
Chevalier hissed, his nose crinkling in pain, and mouth closing as he did that sort of 'pained smile,' bending over forward instinctively. "It's too hot," he choked out.
Centurion took his hands away and stopped. There was no real risk of damaging Chevalier further. Unlike a lot of medicines that could be harmful in excess, in the case of the Ambrosia; the more, the better. But he could understand the discomfort itself, and it was reason enough to hold.
"Alright, let's pause for a couple of minutes. When the warmth disappears, we'll continue," Centurion offered, to a shallow nod from Chevalier. Centurion sat down on the nearby stool, letting the Protectorate leader breathe and rest; the hero didn't complain but didn't say anything either.
Two minutes later, Gallant radioed, "Centurion, how's it going on up there?"
Centurion raised a hand to the side of his helmet and pressed the radio to answer. "I think it's working," he said, looking towards Chevalier.
"It is," the man confirmed, a fraction more in the present, his eyes moving to take in his surroundings. It seemed like the key problems of his brain injury had already been pinned in place by the Ambrosia and purged away to leave healthy tissue. It worked faster on brains than on other organs.
"Chevalier confirms," Centurion said in the radio.
Chevalier looked up, at the privacy tarp, staring at it. He looked at the blanket, then at the nightstand next to his bed, with a bunch of 'get better soon' cards. "I can use my power. I couldn't before; not without headaches," he realized. At roughly the same time that Gallant said, "Acknowledged."
Centurion smiled at Chevalier's words. "Your power is pretty cool."
"It needs stamina and concentration to use. I didn't have either, with the brain injury," Chevalier clarified, blinking, then looking at Centurion. They made eye contact for a moment, and Centurion smiled, causing Chevalier to respond with a smile of his own.
Then, Chevalier looked up and above Centurion, as if seeing some great figure looming over him. He muttered something calmly, that Centurion's hearing caught as, "spider."
The normal kind, or the Skitter kind?
Centurion looked up, behind himself, but there was just the whiteness privacy tarp there. He looked up at the ceiling, which was equally sterile and white; free of any insects. Centurion slowly shook his head. "There is nothing there," he stated, worried Chevalier's brain damage wasn't fully healed.
Chevalier smiled, still not looking at Centurion. He laid back down in his bed, seeming to relax. "You have a very strong and unusual power, Centurion," he said. "Thank you for healing me."
"I won't leave until you're back to one-hundred percent. Or at least a good eighty-five."
Chevalier laughed for a moment, at the latter portion of the statement. He shook his head, smiling. "How do you know when that's the case?" he asked.
"You do," Centurion shot back.
"What if I don't?" Chevalier asked, more hypothetical in tone. "What if I went insane? How would I know if my brain is fully healed? There's a name for that; falsely believing oneself to be healthy."
Centurion decided to take that at face value. "Is your medical file anywhere near here?"
"It was a rhetorical question," Chevalier replied, his lips curving up into an amused smile. "You have no real way of knowing, even if I do. I could insist that I'm fine right now, while my brain is still actually healing."
"You're right," Centurion said, sighing. He felt tested like a teacher would test a student.
"Thank you, either way. I don't think the heat will pass for a while. Go on patrol, now, or back home, or wherever you're supposed to go," Chevalier answered. "We can do this again later. Today or tomorrow."
Centurion nodded. "See you soon, Chevalier."
The man nodded, and that was that. Centurion vacated the room, a bit shaken by Chevalier's initial reaction. What was going through his mind?
The PRT trooper closed the door behind him. Centurion headed out of the hospital. "I'm leaving the hospital now," Centurion radioed.
"We'll meet you outside," Gallant spoke back.
A minute later, the entire team had assembled again, Signal hovering above them on her drone and smiling down, standing with one hand on her waist. Gallant nodded to her, then they set out through the streets, moving northward.
Director Piggot was apparently very happy with his actions. The fact that Centurion was healing Chevalier was already making rounds through the wireworks, it seemed.
The Docks were largely a dilapidated rathole, even before Leviathan's attack. Now? There was rubble everywhere, being moved by workers and excavators in some places. Some of the buildings were fine, and others only had minor damages that didn't really change how it looked. Overall, the look of the place changed from destitute to a place where the battle of a large-scale war just took place. Not inaccurate.
"Should we help 'em out?" Centurion asked, looking around at the workers, moving rubble around and loading it on large, yellow dump trucks.
"Help who out?" Signal asked in mild confusion.
He looked at her. "The workers."
Signal blinked, then looked at Gallant, kind of disbelieving, like a dog who ate rotten food and was sneezing from it. "Is that what they pay you for?"
"No," Gallant answered neutrally, ruining Centurion's expectations of a polite, gentlemanly answer. It was blunt.
Centurion's eyebrows went up in surprise. He looked back at Gallant, head tilted. He was surprised by his lack of courteous manner and somberness.
"What?" Gallant snapped, as if sensing his thoughts. "I'm tired. And no, we're not helping the workers. We have a patrol to complete, and three of four of us are useless for moving rubble."
"I'm not!" Vista and Signal cried at the same time, causing Gallant to sigh.
"I am useless for moving rubble," Gallant corrected himself wearily. He rubbed his face through his helmet for a moment, frustrated he couldn't do so properly. He looked at them, one after the other. "The point stands: it's not our job."
"Yeah, you're right. Just a stray thought I should've kept to myself," Centurion shrugged.
They continued their patrol and passed by a street, where there was a bubble of darkened light in the middle of the road.
A boundary separated the interior from the rest of the world, and within it, Centurion spotted splatters of tidal water, as well as Triumph and Battery; frozen like a capsule. Battery was running forward, lightning distorting the air as it licked the space around her. If he really focused, he could almost make out a single brightened pulse of ions moving across a tendril of lightning. If it could do so in a reasonable time-frame, it'd probably extend the tendril or sprout a new bud from it.
There were also several villains, looking up and tracing Leviathan's movements with their eyes. None of them moved; like a statue of the Endbringer attack. There was a plaque built nearby on a large stone, the plaque itself cast in bronze, elucidating the event and the names of the victims.
Centurion approached the bubble, looking down at the plaque. 'For us and for Brockton Bay, they paid the price. Battery, Triumph, Jotun, Bridgegap.'
He looked up at the bubble, at the frozen capes.
Could his power help them, like he'd helped Chevalier? It seemed to be on an entirely different scale. In one case, he just started a man on his way towards recovering from a post-concussion state. In the other, he was messing about with a distortion in the temporal forces of the universe. But… ultimately, Bakuda's bubbles were power effects. If there was anyone who could remove them, it was probably a Trump like himself.
"Are you okay?" Gallant asked, putting a hand on Centurion's shoulder.
"Yes, yes, I am," Centurion answered quickly, turning to look at him with a friendly smile. "Just made a promise."
In that moment, Clockblocker's voice spoke on the radio, telling them, "We have reports of a disturbance three blocks west of you, guys. That's near one of the camps. Go and look at it."
Centurion leaped in the sky and hovered in the air.
"What's going on?" Signal asked.
"Don't pretend you haven't hacked our comms," Gallant told her.
Signal laughed out loud, "Okay, let's just go."
"Gallant, Vista, do you want me to carry you there?" Centurion offered.
"No need," Vista said, bending space to make the path there shorter. A short strip of land in the street began to distort impossibly, the entire city around them shifting in response. Centurion's eyes were boggled by the sight, but he spent no time staring, and instead blasted off towards the disturbance call. Signal was just after him, with her small drone squadron, Gallant and Vista having to run across the ground like plebeians.
The moment they arrived, they saw a group of costumed people near one of the supply trucks. Centurion's HUD supplied information on them.
Uber, Avalanche, Venus, and Gargoyle. The latter two were independents until recently.
Uber was a broad-shouldered man with a sculpted physique, almost as tall as Centurion out of costume. He was wearing an elegant black-blue suit, part-rubber, part-fabric, with a repurposed motorcycle helmet on his head.
Avalanche upgraded his costume since the PHO threads that announced him; his cape was still green, but professionally made, and it sort of looped around his body so the base hugged around his shins like a crescent, while leaving his chest uncovered. Underneath, he wore a black bodysuit with a vest of armor.
Gargoyle looked very little like his namesake; where Centurion expected a Case 53, it looked like an ordinary guy with a black mask, no shirt, black exercise trousers he'd expect were put on for maximum stretchability, and no shoes. The only indication of his power was a pair of granite-like horns growing from the mess of dark brown hair atop his head.
Venus wore a pink-black-white costume, with pink at the extremities, and the black and white for the main body; it almost looked like she'd cut out parts of clothing and patched them back together in a more stylish arrangement. She wore a fluffy white-pink mask similar to Regent's; another similarity was a scepter of her own; in this case, a golden rod ending with a red crystalline heart that looked like it might have been bought at a store with kids' toys.
Centurion swooped down and landed on top of the truck, pointing both of his arms at them. "Stop at once!" he exclaimed with a strict voice.
Signal squeed from a distance away, "He's so cool!"
Gallant and Vista made their way over, like a cop duo. Gallant should have been the good cop, but he started the conversation with, "Explain yourselves or we will open concentrated fire from all sides!"
Wait, did Gallant just say that? Holy shit, he is tired.
"Heeeyyy," Venus turned on her heel to face Gallant. She put her hands together in front of her stomach, then separated them placatingly. "No need to get so aggressive, friends."
Centurion kept his arms up. "If you want us to be less aggressive, explain yourselves before I live up to my reputation," he threatened.
Uber and Gargoyle cringed, clearly knowing what he was talking about. Avalanche just stared up at him, and said, "You sure you want to stand on that truck?"
"What, is it infected?" Centurion asked, tilting his head and lowering his arms slightly.
"No, it has bombs."
Every one of the Wards recoiled, with Gallant asking, "Bombs?"
"Yeah, Bakuda bombs, man," Avalanche continued on to say, "Nasty shit. It explodes and turns you into concrete. Happened to my cousin." He pointed at Gargoyle with his thumb.
The cape snorted in a disbelieving way. "Really, man? We're about to get blown up and you joke about that?"
Centurion flew upwards, away from the truck.
I'd rather not become another Memorial.
Gallant stared at them for a long moment. "What do you call yourselves?"
"As a team?" Venus asked.
"Yeah."
Venus stared forward blankly for a moment, kind of lost, then grinned in embarrassment. "See, we kind of haven't hammered that part out yet."
"The Midtowners," Centurion suggested.
"Midtowners?" Venus asked, then dryly continued, "Why, because we're in the middle of the town? How original."
"Most obvious answer is often the best answer," he said, joining up with the rest of the Wards.
"That's fair," Gargoyle answered.
Gallant seemed to narrow his posture, then stated, "You're not very worried for someone in the vicinity of a bomb."
"No, because most of us can deal with it," Uber stated. "I was going to defuse it; Gargoyle can fly away, Venus can do some weird shit, and Avalanche can shrink the bomb."
Oracle, is this a trap?
In that moment, Venus dashed forward at twice the speed of baseline human running, leaving behind a streak of pink wisps. She did a sort of acrobatic tumble through the air, above the Wards, then used her heart-staff to smash Gallant in the back of the head. The Ward recoiled and turned, firing a blast of sadness at her.
This is probably a trap and has been from the beginning.
Gargoyle ran forward, on all fours. Pieces of concrete stuck to him, and he increased in size as they seemed to sink into his body, and become part of his muscles and bones. In seconds, he was seven-feet-tall, with sharp stone claws and massive horns suited for ramming. He smashed into Gallant's back, throwing him forward. At roughly the same time, Venus extended her leg and made the hero stagger down onto the ground.
Centurion flew upwards and then zipped against Gargoyle, punching into him at full speed and strength, releasing a shockwave of golden energy on the point of impact. The stone-made cape flew across the street, limbs following the main body and flailing as he went; a good amount of stone chunks cracked and fell away from his body following the punch.
Avalanche chucked a brick towards Centurion, from twenty meters away. As it reached the halfway point of the distance, it became bigger, the size of a cupboard, except filled out with solid brick on the inside.
Centurion extended his telekinetic wings and made a sharp dodge. Then, he retracted the wings and descended, shooting lasers from his eyes. Avalanche increased the size of a piece of rubble to create cover.
Signal's drones began to shower Gargoyle in firework-like missiles, leaving behind colorful streaks. Some of them dug an inch into his skin, then detonated to get rid of the stony layers, revealing human skin underneath. The rest of his stone layers filled in the gaps, as he pounced. A pair of wings fluttered out to give him extra reach as he pinned one of the drones with his talons and brought it down.
Uber, meanwhile, picked up Vista and slammed her into the ground. Violence against children?
Centurion turned towards Uber and flew at him with gritted teeth. Uber masterfully wove out of the way, cartwheeling for a moment and regrouping near Venus, back-to-back. Gargoyle picked himself up and absorbed more asphalt and concrete, extending a pair of bat wings and flying up at Signal.
With a claw swipe, he threw her off her drone and down fifteen meters to the ground. A swarm of drones assembled underneath to cushion her fall, but Centurion didn't notice and sped up to catch her. She fell into his arms and he floated lower to the ground. She smiled at him. "My hero!"
Gallant stood up, clutched his head, and actually growled, then released a blast of pure rage at Uber. Venus interposed herself and took the blast to the chest; it threw her to the ground, choking and coughing, but didn't seem to do anything to her emotions.
Centurion put Signal down on the ground and went next to Gallant. "Chill," Centurion muttered, "Don't make my mistakes."
Vista backed away to them, while Signal did something to her flashlight to reconfigure her drones. "The stone guy doesn't like explosions," she told them.
"I'm Gargoyle," said Gargoyle, already eight feet tall; pieces of concrete ripped themselves from the ground and crawled up the surface of his body to increase his mass and size. "Not 'stone guy.'"
Centurion shot half of his energy stores in the form of a missile at Gargoyle. The man barely had time to react as it exploded into a shockwave of gold on impact and sent him reeling into a car, putting a dent into the entire chassis and breaking the windows; most of his front was missing, revealing six thin coats of stone with a sort of side view, like the insides of skin layers shown in a biology textbook. The stones instantly rearranged; the wings grew smaller to create more armor, as he walked forward.
Venus dashed behind Centurion, then around him, to encircle him in pink gas; something told him this wasn't gaseous cotton candy.
The faceplate of his power armor shifted downwards as he grabbed Venus with one arm, stopping her dead in her tracks. She laughed at him, then put a hand to her lips and kissed out; at the same time, the environment blurred into pink, and he saw a red heart emerge from her lips in his direction. Everything became surreal, like a drug trip.
Centurion grit his teeth and tried to force himself to slam Venus into the ground, but couldn't. She was so beautiful; how could he hurt someone so beautiful? Venus smirked at him, and he felt himself falling in love on the spot. Venus tapped him on the shoulder, then made him turn, and pointed him at Gallant, "There. That guy hurt me, see?"
Gallant laughed at them as he said something akin to, "I WILL MURDER EVERYTHING YOU LOVE! THERE IS NOTHING BUT COLD DEATH IN MY HEART! THE DESTRUCTION OF EVERYTHING GOOD IN THE GALAXY IS AT HAND." His voice was pain and sin, and he was a knight in the darkest of armor, woven by night and hatred, possessing the weapons of malice and malevolence. His red eyes brimmed with enmity for all life as he laughed.
Centurion felt himself boil. How could someone hurt beauty like this? A purely malevolent person stood in front of him, and Centurion felt the desire to oppose them with every fiber of his being. "YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS AGAINST THE UNIVERSE!" he shouted, then rushed at Gallant, only to be hit by a sadness missile in the face.
Centurion hit the ground, realizing that there was a fight and that Venus was ugly. He was also sad that he lost and got tricked. He sucked at this...
"Thanks," Centurion muttered with a pang of pained irony, standing up. He turned to Venus and started shooting lasers in her direction, but kind of not entirely feeling it.
But Venus wasn't there anymore, having dashed towards Vista; the heroine created distance between them, creating a sort of infinite treadmill that Venus was beginning to overcome.
Uber rushed Centurion, placing his arm in a spot near the elbow to restrict movement, then putting his weight on the back of Centurion's shoulder with his other arm; Centurion's servos struggled to turn for a moment, but he managed to throw Uber off, only to notice that Gargoyle had picked up Gallant by the shoulders, blasted off towards the sky, and was carrying him off to warmer countries.
Meanwhile, Avalanche and Signal were playing a game where Avalanche kept picking up pieces of rubble and making them grow into shields, or throwing them at her drones, and where she was using dangerously lethal-looking amounts of thermal rays to push him back.
Centurion flew towards Vista and swooped her up, away from Venus. After that, he turned and started chasing Gargoyle and Gallant, while he radioed. "This is Centurion, we need support at our location! Four villains, temporarily known as 'The Midtowners,' set a trap for us and attacked us. Gallant is being taken away by one of them, and I'm currently chasing after them!"
"Copy that, Centurion; Dovetail and Miss Militia on the way," Clockblocker replied. "Aegis and Transfusion will be short after them."
Gargoyle looked back and saw that Centurion was following him; the momentary distraction provided Gallant with enough space to bend his entire body upward in an amazingly acrobatic move, wrapping his feet around Gargoyle's neck and giving his arms enough space to blast him with joy, then sadness, then rage, then harmony. Gargoyle slumped in the air, releasing Gallant and letting them both freefall. Gallant spread his arms and legs to slow the fall as he looked at Centurion for help.
Centurion zipped towards Gallant and picked him up with his free arm, ascending and putting him and Vista on a nearby rooftop. After that, he flew down at Gargoyle at full speed, punching into him at full strength, releasing a golden shockwave of energy at the apex of the impact.
"That was risky!" Vista chided, kicking Gallant in the shin through his armor.
"I trust my teammates," Gallant replied, then looked over the building at the fight. Signal was left to fight Venus and Avalanche on her own, and seemed to be slowly overwhelmed; she had a bunch of drones left, but she had to direct them all on her own, and struggled to give out commands quickly enough.
Gargoyle was thrown into a car, tumbled over it onto the sidewalk, then stopped rolling near a textile shop.
Centurion hopped closer and pinned Gargoyle to the ground with the full weight of his armor, like Armsmaster used to do, only to then unleash a flurry of blows into the villain's concrete body. His every blow augmented by natural peak-human strength, power armor, and telekinesis; overall, it was like being machine-gunned with the full weight of mailboxes over and over.
Gargoyle cried out as the layers of stone failed to protect him properly from the onslaught; large piles of concrete chipped and exploded away from his body with every few blows, rendering his back into a mess of uneven, rough tarmac and asphalt.
"Do you surrender?!" Centurion stopped, keeping a fist raised to his face, staring him in the eyes with fury in his stance.
"Fuuuuuuuck!" Gargoyle shouted, a sort of pained, fearful scream. "My back hurts, I surrender! I give the fuck up! Give a man some peace, I'm just trying to earn my share!"
"Release all of the stone on your body, then I will heal your back," Centurion ordered.
"Fuck no."
He raised one fist threateningly, "Excuse me?"
Centurion felt an inordinate amount of pressure on his left ankle, then a moment later, he was lifted up into the air, upside-down. Whatever held him by the ankle then proceeded to slam him into the car, then into the glass of the textile store, then up into the concrete wall above the former glass of the textile store; then it chucked him down the street.
As he flew, he noted that Gargoyle had a heavy prehensile tail growing out of his ass.
Oh.
Centurion stopped himself mid-flight using telekinesis; the sudden decrease in velocity would add up to one day give him a brain hemorrhage that he wouldn't notice because of the Ambrosia. Centurion floated down and let his feet hit the ground.
Signal ran by him, crying, as Venus and Avalanche ran after her. The afterimage of Venus' smoke left Centurion's world slightly pink, but then he felt one of Gallant's apathy blasts strike him in the back, and he became indifferent to the fight for a good five seconds before he got a grip on his emotions.
"Sorry!" Gallant shouted. "Just had to make sure!"
"Whatever," Centurion responded, darting past Avalanche and Venus, then picking Signal up and flying up on the same rooftop where Gallant and Vista were. "Console, we're retreating," he radioed, emotionlessly, as he let Signal down. She almost fell over as he let her go, but he didn't really care about that.
"Copy that; Dovetail and Miss Militia will take over," the voice of Clockblocker answered them. "Is Centurion okay? He sounds kind of dead on the inside."
"Thank Gallant for that," Centurion sassed.
"He's fine," Gallant answered with a weary tone.
"Hey, dickwads, come down and fight meee!" Gargoyle yelled. This prompted Gallant to look over the edge and be hit by several things at once; one stone fired from a slingshot, one stone thrown by a stone-enhanced fist, and one stone fired from a slingshot that grew to the size of a volleyball and caused him to stumble onto his back with a grunt.
"I think my nose is bleeding," Gallant muttered with a nasal tone, electing not to stand up. "I hate my life."
Centurion exerted telekinetic pressure on himself to load up his energy reserves to maybe seventy or eighty percent.
He flew up in the air and shot a full-power wave-motion golden missile in the midst of their ranks, only to then land back on the rooftop and give assistance to Gallant. He didn't notice what happened to the Midtowners, but the screams of panic and 'Oh, God, I'm on fire!' told him enough.
Centurion knelt next to Gallant and produced a small ball of Ambrosia Enzyme, applying it into his nose through the visor of Gallant's knight helmet, "It will feel weird."
"It feels like it's microwaving my nose, yeah," Gallant confessed, standing up. He got his bearings and moved his shoulders a little to adjust the way his armor clung to his body. With that, Gallant to walk in the opposite direction of the Midtowners.
Signal looked at them, kind of naked without her main drone, and frowned as she considered the Midtowners. "So what, we're just retreating?"
"Yeah," Vista, Centurion, and Gallant replied at the same time.
"But..."
"We know," in unison and, surprisingly, that included Centurion.
Signal slumped, and Centurion felt a pang of satisfaction at knowing what it's like to see a newbie wither the same way he did not so long ago.
"But that's just..." Signal looked back at the fight, where Dovetail swooped down towards the Midtowners. There was a rat-tat-tat of a machine gun, indicating Miss Militia had arrived and brought out the big guns. Signal sighed, even as two of her drones brought her the blasted remains of the desk-sized transportation drone, then skipped on after the Wards, "Wait up, guys!"
