Inflammation 3.5
The north end of Brockton Bay was a truly vast area to patrol, filled with abandoned buildings and illicit activity. Alex had multiple lifetimes' worth of memories tying him to this place, giving him practically limitless different avenues to explore. Without Arachne, though, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack, and as usual, all Alex could focus on was the fact that he was ravenously hungry again. After a few minutes of aimlessly wandering around, he decided to put the futile Bakuda search on hold and focus once again on finding someone to eat.
Alex was sick and fucking tired of this gnawing, insistent, constant hunger. It wasn't quite as torturously painful anymore, but it was still a maddening temptation that haunted him every second of every minute of every hour of every day. It was one thing to put up with it in the moment, but enduring it in perpetuity was exhausting. Had he been dumber or weaker, he'd probably have snapped by now and just started consuming people at random like some brainless Hollywood monster.
Going on a killing spree would be lethally stupid, of course, but the thought still made his mouth water. Just once, Alex wanted to experience what it was like to let loose and become whole, to finally be satisfied. Like Sisyphus or Tantalus, every time he seemed to be nearing his goal, some new setback would inevitably crop up.
Looking back, it really was like his life had become one long string of frustrations, humiliations, and setbacks lately. There was the burning rage dragon, the unrelenting compulsion to eat people, the undrinkable water, the ominous brimstone piss, the napalm booby trap, the sassy Japanese stoner, the unintentional electrocution, the bombs in his food, the accidental self-deafening, the freakishly adroit abomination, the retarded Tinker, and to cap it all off, that glorified geek with a fucking lightsaber who had cut through him like he wasn't even there.
The one bright spot was that he was well on his way towards shaping his young apprentice into a minion. That was something, at least.
As useful as the newly-dubbed Arachne was proving to be, the fight with Über had driven home one inescapable fact: Alex's ability to go head-to-head with Tinkertech-equipped opponents, much less combat-oriented Thinkers, was absolutely abysmal. He'd had to resort to using his claws at the end there, he'd simply been too damaged and distracted to remember he'd wanted to keep sandbagging his shapeshifting abilities as much as possible. If he wanted to keep his secrets, he needed better fighting skills.
It wasn't even that Alex was bad at fighting, per se. He had good reflexes and access to the incredible depth of fighting experience that Lung had possessed, both powered and unpowered, plus the skills of Randall, Mason, and Kenneth, who had all been trained in firearms and hand-to-hand combat by the Empire. That had all proven insufficient when Über had opened his can of superhuman whoop-ass, which Alex couldn't help but begrudgingly envy. Granted, Leet's lightsaber was so ridiculously powerful it constituted cheating, and Über's power was so narrow and focus-dependent that all it took to break his rhythm was a well-timed whack from Arachne.
Alex was glad that the kid's quick action had bailed him out, but it was totally unacceptable that he was even put in the position to need combat assistance from a stick-thin teenage girl whose power gave her no physical enhancements whatsoever. It was also a minor miracle that the one body shot Über had taken had gone too high to hit any of the guns and fragmentation grenades Alex stored inside himself. That could have ended poorly for everyone within a radius of about 15 meters.
Fortunately, Alex just so happened to have a built-in method for quickly improving his combat prowess.
He needed to consume another parahuman. Specifically, Victor.
Victor was the preeminent combat Thinker in all of Brockton Bay. His ability was superficially similar to Über's, but much, much more powerful. He was essentially a skill thief, capable of permanently draining someone of their hard-earned talents if given enough time. Victor was a relatively new member of the Empire Eighty-Eight, but he'd already accrued countless lifetimes' worth of mastery, often targeting the 'lesser races.' Apparently no one in the gang saw the irony in that—or, if they did, they kept their mouths shut.
There were many reasons to target Victor specifically, and many reasons not to. Alex had a good long while to lay out the pros and cons before sunset, though, so he started heading vaguely south on autopilot and puzzled through his reasoning.
To start with the advantages, Victor was an expert multiple times over in almost every conceivable realm of combat—including superpowered combat, thanks to his wife and partner-in-crime, Othala, whose superpower-granting ability acted as a force multiplier. Judging from Alex's prior failure to replicate Lung's power, he probably wouldn't be able to use Victor's power to steal additional skills, but that was entirely redundant since Alex already possessed a superior form of that ability. Stealing Victor's vast library of skills for himself would be an incredible coup, saving possibly years of time that would otherwise be spent gathering those skills incidentally or developing them from scratch.
What's more, consuming Victor would also be a gateway to consuming Othala. Even though the Empire's leadership had some real heavyweights, Othala stood out in that power-granting capes were uncommon and in high demand, and capes who could truly heal others were even more rare and sought-after, and she could do both. That made her the most strategically valuable and irreplaceable asset the Empire possessed by far.
Ordinarily, Alex wouldn't really care about going out of his way to kick over the Empire's little sandcastle, but with Lung dead, the Empire was too strong. Bakuda was an effective countervailing force for now, but she was on the fast track to destruction one way or another. Afterwards, the Empire would be able to consolidate their power over the entire city, which was against Alex's interests, because operating amidst a single unified organization rather than several warring gangs meant his own activities would stand out. Taking out both Victor and Othala would be a crippling blow to the Empire's logistical strength; after they were gone, Alex and the other powers-that-be would be able to slowly bleed the Empire down to a manageable size.
That was the big drawback with this whole idea, though. Alex could secretly disappear dozens of humans in back alleys and no one would bat an eye, but parahumans? Those were rare. Important. Valuable. They operated by a whole different set of rules in their own insular little community, even the villains. Alex could keep a low profile or go after capes, but trying to do both at the same time was a recipe for disaster—at least, under normal circumstances. However, Alex was faced with a unique opportunity. Bakuda's indiscriminate breaking of the Unwritten Rules and targeting other parahumans served as the perfect cover and scapegoat for going after other capes.
If there was any time to target Victor and Othala, it was now. If Alex missed this opportunity, there was no telling when the next time would come around.
Alex made his choice, and began his hunt.
The first step was intelligence-gathering. None of Alex's memories held any clues about who Victor or Othala really were or where they lived, so he had to rely on prior knowledge of the Empire's operations.
Despite being linked to several powerful white supremacist families called the 'clans,' the gang didn't operate like a mafia family. It was structured more like a spy ring. Where Lung didn't really bother keeping his operations secret from each other, instead keeping his subordinates in line through fear, the Empire Eighty-Eight had several cells, each operating largely independently of the others, but kept in line by a strict hierarchy.
The only one with the full picture was, of course, the gang's leader, Kaiser. He was definitely not a viable target for Alex, though. Kaiser was too high-profile, and furthermore, it was next to impossible to predict where or when he'd crop up. He didn't dirty his hands with the day-to-day enforcement operations of the gang, instead acting as a powerful reserve weapon and keeping the others in line. His Shaker ability to summon metal blades from any solid surface around him was potent enough that no one could mistake him for being a mere figurehead.
Beneath Kaiser were the chief lieutenants of the gang—the capes that managed other capes. The second-in-command was Krieg, a Brute/Shaker who warped the physical forces around him in his favor. Victor was one of the subordinate capes in Krieg's fiefdom. Krieg was out as a source of information, though, because Alex also didn't have the faintest idea where Krieg was at any given moment. Despite his high status, Krieg wasn't flashy, unlike Kaiser, so he often operated from the background.
Fortunately, Alex did know Krieg's territory extended through the area south of the Towers district downtown, and thus was on the far side of the city from their current warfront in the Docks. Alex headed for Krieg's territory, trusting in Kenneth's memories of being a runner for the gang and making deliveries to a select few outposts.
By the time Alex had finished refining his plans and walked all the way across the city in his bland, blended disguise, he was under the dubiously useful cover of night. Lights blazed everywhere in this more affluent area of the city, rendering him almost as visible as if he were in broad daylight.
However, even in this brighter part of the city, dark corners abounded—especially as Alex moved past the Towers district and into the more commercial parts on the southern edge of downtown, where the Empire's drug depots were situated.
Alex did a wide sweep scouting out the area around the nearest drug depot he knew of, an abandoned, shuttered telephone company office where the Empire had stashed boxes full of heroin, meth, and cocaine. With any luck, it was still in use.
Knowing that the place might still be under guard, Alex approached the back doors under a modified disguise.
It took only a matter of a few seconds to withdraw his anonymously short brown hair into a military-style haircut and change it to the platinum blonde that Marcus had dyed his hair. To complete the effect, Alex rolled up his sleeves and added a selection of Kenneth's and Randall's tattoos, including the sigil that would mark him as one of Alabaster's crew from the other side of town—an ouroboros contorted into an infinity symbol, representing Alabaster's power to restore his body to utterly pristine condition every four seconds. Alex smiled appreciatively at the added touch—he was really getting the hang of improvising new disguises.
Alex furtively came up to the rear door and knocked in a specific pattern—three long, two short, repeated once after a pause. Morse code for eighty-eight. Alex couldn't help but roll his eyes as he knocked out the uninspired passphrase.
Within a few seconds, there was a scraping noise—some kind of barricade being removed, it sounded like—and the door opened a crack, letting a shaft of dim yellow light into the alley.
"We weren't expecting anyone," a deep voice said curtly.
Putting on a show of nervousness, Alex glanced up and down the abandoned alley.
"No surprise, communications aren't exactly super fucking great right now. People are disappearing. Alabaster's main runner went missing, so he sent me instead to arm you guys with some of the primo firepower he refurbished. Look, I'm gonna show you, nice and slow." Alex said in a hushed tone, and opened his leather jacket to show off an improvised bandolier he'd made to hold the grenades and guns he'd pilfered. Normally he'd keep them inside his body, but here they were on full display like he was the archetypal shady fence displaying knockoff Rolexes. To show his bona fides, Alex used two fingers to grab a pistol and held it by the muzzle, offering it to the man grip-first.
"Holy Christ, it's about time we got on a wartime footing over here," the guy said, opening the door wider to reveal himself as a tall, pot-bellied, middle-aged skinhead with an iron cross neck tattoo. He took the offered pistol and expertly inspected it, checking the safety, magazine, and chamber. He looked at Alex with less suspicion, and asked not unkindly, "Hey, are you new? I don't recognize you."
Alex decided to play up the part of the scared rookie, creating a partial simulacrum of Marcus's twitchy body language and mannerisms. "Yeah, name's Bryce. Just came in from Manchester last month and joined up. Shit timing, though. Alabaster told me to get my ass over here, said I had enough firepower to handle myself, but if I'm being honest, I barely know how to use any of this shit, and I just really, really want to get these fucking grenades off me right the hell now."
The big man chuckled with good humor. "Every one of us starts somewhere. Since you came all this way, I can take that off your hands and even show you how to use it, if you like."
"Oh man, that'd be awesome," Alex said in relief, and ducked inside.
Alex walked past the big man through a short hall and into the former back room of the office space. Apparently, this was where the boss had been located, since a large, fancy wooden desk was still here, albeit currently serving as the dusty perch of several boxes of contraband drugs. On the other side of the room, there was a brunette girl in her teens or early twenties who would have been a classic girl-next-door beauty had she not been hanging out in a Nazi drug storehouse. She was reclining in a swiveling office chair with her feet propped up on the arm of a green couch, fiddling with her phone.
The brunette glanced up at Alex, gave a respectful nod, then finished up her business on her phone and put it away, leaning forward to study him with interest. Alex resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow at the unexpected presence of the eye-candy. If the Empire wanted their guards distracted by their girlfriends, more power to them.
Alex schooled his features into idle curiosity and turned back to the big man. "So, is it just you two here? This seems like a lot of stuff just for the pair of you."
The skinhead waved a hand dismissively, setting the pistol on the desk. "Just me and Steph for the moment, rest of us got called up north to fight the Chinks. Don't worry though, I've seen real fighting before, and we can make good use of this. Steph's not been initiated yet, but I'll teach her how to handle the guns and grenades, and if we get attacked, we'll be ready."
Alex shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not."
As soon as he was done speaking, Alex lengthened his hands into claws and slashed out, cutting Steph into uneven pieces. Her head rolled from her shoulders, which in turn slumped into her lap, the blood falling in dark sheets over her pale, exposed skin.
Behind Alex, the big skinhead let out a strangled cry that was so warped by anguish it sounded practically inhuman. Alex twisted around to see him grab the pistol and pull the trigger three times in rapid succession to no avail, since Alex had removed the firing pin from that particular gun beforehand. The man then charged Alex, trying to tackle him to the floor. Alex was vastly heavier, though, and all the man accomplished was to make him brace slightly. Alex darted his right arm out in an uppercut motion that impaled the man with all five claws and consumed him, letting the memories wash over him.
In the initial disorienting flash of the memories imprinting, Alex was able to make out that the man's name was Robert, and the girl Stephanie was actually his daughter, rather than his girlfriend as Alex had assumed. He ignored that irrelevant detail, and searched the new memories for anything related to Victor or Othala.
Right away, a quick survey of Rob's life revealed that Alex had hit the jackpot—this man was Robert Herren, of the same Herren clan that Othala came from. Olivia Thuesen, née Herren was her real name, and she was Robert's first cousin, once removed. What's more, he knew exactly where Victor and Othala lived in their civilian guises—he'd actually helped them move.
Rob came from a minor branch of the Herren clan, and his lack of powers had crippled his potential, so in a bid to make himself more useful, he'd joined the Army. After a single tour he'd become disillusioned and fallen into a listless depression, but then the arrival of his unexpected child had changed everything. Rob had lived for his daughter, quite literally—he'd stopped taking as many quasi-suicidal risks after she was born. Rob had served under Iron Rain originally, but after Steph was born, he'd settled in with the more sedate, business-oriented Krieg. When Steph recently came of age, she wanted to work for the Empire too, which made Rob both incredibly proud and justifiably worried. He had taken this do-nothing guard duty assignment as a continuation of his campaign to stall Steph's initiation until he thought she was ready. He'd been intending to protect her, ironically enough.
One memory stuck out above all the rest, as prominent as Lung's trigger event had been, but completely different in feeling. Rob's clearest, most powerful memory was of the transcendental devotion he felt when he first held his newborn daughter. It was like a moment frozen in time, the fulcrum on which his entire life turned. When he first laid eyes on her, all his priorities had been rearranged in an instant. It was strange to Alex—he'd never felt anything remotely like that before, even though he'd already consumed a father, Mason Davies. However, Mason's paternal instinct towards his 7-year-old son, Kieth, had never been even a hundredth as strong as Rob's love for his daughter, and Alex couldn't comprehend why.
Alex shook his head to clear his mind. He was letting himself get distracted; if he wasn't careful, he might get too caught up in the memories.
The effort was fruitless. When Alex turned to Steph's body, he was suddenly barraged with memories. Rob's mind was by no means alive, but he'd had so many powerful memories of Steph that information was pouring out just by looking at her corpse. Alex tried to stop thinking about it, but he just couldn't get Rob's memories out of his head. They kept chaining into one another, a cascade of completely useless information that only made Alex feel worse and worse.
Alex looked at the blood and remembered when Steph was a little girl, putting band-aids on her scraped knees and elbows while her little red face was scrunched up with adorable pugnacious bravery. He saw her limp arms and remembered her wrapping her tiny little hands around his finger as a baby. He remembered kissing those little hands, he remembered watching them grow. He remembered countless anxieties and worries of his little girl coming to harm in this dangerous city, worries that had now come true. He even remembered Rob's last moments when he'd witnessed her get cut apart, just two feet away from Alex's own perspective, but the shared memory was rendered entirely different by the sheer horror and loss he felt.
Alex violently twitched, averting his gaze to the wall. These weren't his emotions, just memories, but they left him deeply rattled nonetheless. There was a surreality to the world, as if the line between memory and consciousness had blurred for a moment. The sensation wasn't confusion about who he was, not like with Lung, this was something new and different. Alex started to feel sick inside, nauseated.
He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, reasserting control over his trembling insides. It must have been the image of the body that was doing this to him, in hindsight it had been foolish to try to look into Rob's memories under these conditions. It wouldn't be a problem if he got rid of the body.
Doing his best not to look at her directly, Alex sent out a tendril to snag the body in the chair and consume it. Since Steph's head was no longer attached and he didn't grab it along with her body, Alex didn't get any memories whatsoever from the corpse, which came as something of a relief. He considered testing whether he could reconstruct Steph's memories from her head if he pulverized her brain first, but decided against it. He didn't want Stephanie's memories distracting him, Rob's were already bad enough. Her head was only ten pounds or so of meat anyway. Soon he'd have more meat than he knew what to do with.
All told, consuming roughly four hundred pounds of meat between his two victims had done a lot to improve Alex's condition. The damage Über had done was completely healed in a matter of moments, and Alex had enough left over to put him ahead of where he'd started. In fact, he was pretty sure he'd never been this close to being completely whole and sated before.
It should have felt good. Physically, Alex felt fantastic. He had energy to spare. He felt more solid and strong than ever, even though his mood was inexplicably anxious. His pain and hunger were only a minor nuisance now, rather than clamoring for his attention and distracting him at all times—but now, in their place, he felt an uneasiness and self-consciousness that he didn't like one bit.
Alex felt a frisson of fear. Was this some kind of subtle resurgent personality bleed? What was happening to him?
When he thought of the question in those terms, the answer suddenly became obvious—the reason Alex felt unsettled wasn't just because of Rob's memories, it was also because Steph wasn't a true enemy to Alex. Sure, she was an immature little Nazi in the making, but at least to Rob's knowledge, she hadn't actually hurt anyone beyond shouting slurs and getting into schoolyard fights. Alex didn't like her by any means, but he couldn't muster any burning animosity towards her, either.
In that moment, Alex realized something—he actually preferred consuming his enemies, and not just out of sheer pragmatism, either. He could have consumed any number of helpless homeless people at this point and gotten away with it, just as easily as he'd gotten away with consuming gangsters, but he hadn't.
In retrospect, Alex had rationalized that fewer people would care about criminals going missing than homeless people, but the real difference was that he wanted to target the fuckers who actually deserved it. The likes of Randall and Lung were the absolute scum of the earth, fit to be nothing more than Alex's fodder. He would kill them again in a heartbeat, and he'd do so with a smile on his face. Some people just needed killing, and Alex would be happy to oblige, taking their meat as the fee for the public service he was providing.
The tension slowly receded from Alex, and he calmed down. It centered him to have a clear aim, a simple purpose to work towards. Now that he'd resolved the source of his confusion, he could continue down his path.
With his altered resolution in mind, Alex began the work of burning the office down. He'd done enough for tonight, but tomorrow, he was going to find Victor and Othala, and then he was going to end them.
A/N
So yeah, this chapter is... pretty gory, to be honest. Speaking of sensitive content, I've already posted content warnings before, but I'd like to reiterate that it's going to get worse before it gets better. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that this arc is going to be featuring the breaking point for our dear, oblivious Alex—an action so unambiguously reprehensible and shockingly cruel it breaks through even his superhumanly dense skull. What happens after is the interesting part, at least from my perspective, but be warned the act itself is a fair bit worse than what's featured here.
Lastly, we have an interlude chapter coming up next! As always, thanks for reading!