Clutch 3.1

So now on top of my powers, I now also had a team of hench-… employees as well. This next part would be tricky. Trickier even than getting my new Students to trust me. I would have to use them in a way that was not only effective in accomplishing my current goal, but even more importantly used the single biggest advantage I had to its fullest.

It was an advantage just as important to the aspiring cape as their superpower itself. And, depending how I used it while it lasted, it could make or break me before my "cape career" even started.

I'm talking, of course, about my anonymity.

In the case of countless aspiring vi-... morally dubious parahumans, the first outing was already the point where the wheels started to come off the wagon. They gained a power, maybe even a capital P Power with the potential to make them a serious contender in the wider cape scene a la Damsel of Distress. Some might even go the extra mile and score some minions before the first job, followers that either thought they could ride their new boss' coattails to the top or just saw an opportunity to score some extra cash. Everything seemed to be going in their favor…

…And then they slapped on a costume consisting of old clothes they found in the attic, ran out and tried to rob a bank in broad daylight, screaming to the high heavens for everyone to fear the name of "Captain Deathmurder".

And fifteen minutes later lo and behold the local superhero team has stomped their sorry asses into the pavement and left them wondering where it all went wrong. Bonus points if they racked up a civilian body count in the process, ensuring they didn't even come away with some goodwill to their name for following the "Rules".

A sorry fact about being a parahuman in this setting -and supervillains in general across most mediums- was that at the end of the day, all that unbridled power and potential… was still trapped inside a damaged, scared human mind. A mind that was limited in how it could think to use that power. Broken minds, further corrupted by the influence of the shards, prone to lashing out without regards to the opportunities wasted by acting carelessly. It's a fact that Skidmark is widely recognized as one of the most pathetic villains of Worm because his type of scum really does exist in the "real world".

Good thing I on the other hand was perfectly sane... Right? Right.

Even my "predecessor", the "old" Benjamin Terrell went and got his face plastered all over the news by murdering two heads of state on what people have pieced together to have been little more than a whim. I certainly wasn't in a hurry to murder any public officials, so those were two major lore events that weren't going to happen now. Only God and Wildbow knew how that change to the timeline was going to pan out. Just by being here, I'd already set dominos in motion that could bode either well or ill for me and the world.

For all I knew when I landed here Wildbow was about to reveal Teacher was secretly Taylor's real dad or something, and the future's best chance to fight Scion just vanished in a puff of causality and authorial sadism. Was there an alternate Benjamin Terrell working as a real teacher at a university somewhere now… or had he simply never even been born? Ugh, that line of thinking wasn't going to go anywhere productive.

...Back on track. The point I'm trying to make is this: the best thing I had going for me wasn't my power, it was the fact no one knew I existed.

I was an unknown. There was no APB out on me, there was no special set of rules of engagement set out for me by the PRT. I might have lost everything that belonged to the person I was before I got my powers, but the future of the me of the present was a clean slate. I was a total wildcard, with no set allegiances to any groups or preexisting rivals looking to enact their revenge on me.

Believe me, I already had plans in mind to leave my mark on this setting all drawn up and ready to go, but the last thing I intended to do was what countless others had done -and what the other new triggers scoping out Sydney at that moment were no doubt planning to do- and rush to put my face out there and give people a clear target to shoot at.

So you see, dear reader, what came next was only logical. When it came to making tons of quick and easy money, I made it evidently clear to my men we weren't going to make any rookie mistakes. We weren't going to fall into the tired old trap of immediately running out and robbing the local bank.

Instead, we robbed the local casino .

…Just kidding. Well, we did rob it. We just didn't rob it rob it as in "full-on frontal assault with powers bared, Undersiders-style". My power was limited in scope when it came to outright offensive powers. I could create thinkers and tinkers easily, but powers that let men generate energy blasts or clouds of darkness were still right out.

But that was fine. The people who ran the "Winter Palace" casino in downtown Sydney were still only human, they could only watch for the sort of trouble baseline humans could create.

But us, my dear reader? We were parahumans. We could cheat in ways only parahumans could.

That's how little over an hour after leaving the library I was kicking back at a blackjack table, sipping a cola and coming to love life again.

For the survivors of Newfoundland, every day was a struggle. But for the natives of Sydney, life simply moved on. Kids still went to school, parents worked, and people still needed places to unwind after a long day. Especially now. After an Endbringer attack, places where you could drown your sorrows were exceptionally popular even a week later as the economy continued to recoil.

The place was bustling that night, and my Students' appearances were the perfect combination needed to blend in. Half belonged to the young and partying demographic, and the other half exuded the quiet, dirty desperation of repeat customers. In short, they blended in perfectly.

My gaze idly swept over the room. Over at the poker table, a number of men were glaring daggers at Bandana Man. He'd just called what was presumably a perfect bluff. You could be the greatest liar in the world, but you still weren't going to bluff a man with X-Ray Vision.

I was amused to see that Callum was among the people "losing" to him, perfectly playing the part of a nervous college kid who'd gotten in over his head. He clutched his head, trembled, and even appeared to have started to sweat as if he was on the verge of another breakdown. Seemingly desperate, he promptly went all in with everything he had left, an "obvious" bluff that my other Student wasted no time in "calling", followed shortly by all the other players at the table.

Cue the biggest shit eating grin I'd ever seen on his face when he slapped a four of a kind down on the table and raked in all the chips. With that superhuman intuition of his, it wasn't that far a stretch of the imagination he just knew from glancing at the expressions around the table who had the best hand. And Bandana Man just smiled and nodded as he handed over his earnings, knowing it was all going into the common pot at the end of the night.

Well played.

My precogs were likewise doing well scattered around the floor. Their powers might not have been all that useful when it came to a fight, but when it came to a game of "chance", a man that can see up to a minute into the future with perfect accuracy couldn't lose.

Roulette? Results seemed spotty when it came to specific numbers. But ask them to predict whether the ball will land on either odd or even, or red or black? Guess who was winning over there?

Slots? Bet the minimum when you knew the next round wasn't going to pay out, bet the max when you knew that it was. Easy money.

And as for me? I glanced down at my cards. Sixteen.

"Hit me," I told the dealer. He dealt me a nine. I exhaled.

How… typical.

"Double down," the Student with the hoodie smirked from his seat at the end of my table.

"Sir," the dealer looked exasperated. "You have nineteen. I suggest you stay."

"Double down," Hoodie repeated.

The dealer sighed in exasperation… right before he dealt Hoodie a two and inhaled so quickly he almost choked on his saliva. Sights like this were common around the room. Here or there someone won big who bore the mark of my power. Occasionally they'd switch games or lose a round or two to allay suspicion, but overall a large profit was being made.

A very, very large profit.

The best part of all of this? Even if the people we were playing knew we were parahumans, we technically weren't even committing a crime. This whole thing was entirely legal. You'd think that with Watchdog being founded as a result of the Player taking over the global market for awhile there would be some sort of law against capes gambling, but no. If I remember correctly, Shamrock got… gets recruited by Faultline while ripping off casinos in Vegas, which is apparently a common enough practice it's become infamous in-story.

'Damn, being stuck in the past is really screwing up my tenses.'

Anyway, I'd done my homework. Even if thinkers not-cheating at cards apparently was a common enough problem in gambling hotspots like Vegas, the issue wasn't widespread enough to warrant NEPEA-5 style national regulation. If I were the writer, my explanation would be that places like Vegas might have some countermeasures, a counter-thinker watching the floor or a brainwave-reading security camera designed by tinkers or something.

But the chances of finding something like that here? In this piddly little place in the middle of nowhere? My thinkers confirmed that the chances they had some sort of countermeasure was... Next. To. Zero.

What were they going to do? Arrest my guys for being too lucky? The most they could do was politely ask us to leave, which they'd already asked two of us to do.

"Another drink, sir?" a cute brunette waitress in a tight uniform asked as she collected my empty glass.

"Yes please," I answered with a winning smile. A raucous round of applause arose from the direction of the roulette wheel. "And keep em coming."

It was a couple more hours before I stepped out of the casino and into the night. I breathed in that cool air, holding in my breath before exhaling deeply. Before tonight, I'd been just about done with Canada's constant chill, but now I found it deliciously refreshing. I could drink it in like booze. It was in a good mood, and I was confident that nothing could take me out of it-

…I immediately stopped in my tracks.

I quickly glanced side to side. Confirming that no, there wasn't a mugger, villain or member of the goddamn Slaughterhouse Nine looming in the shadows to shank me. I glanced up, down, and side to side, then up again just to make sure there weren't any pigtailed Wards peeping on me.

Paranoia temporarily satisfied, I walked on-

And then I stopped and knelt down, making sure no one was hiding underneath a parked car.

…Paranoia temporarily satisfied for real, I walked on.

'Remember man, you're in the Wormverse," I reminded myself. 'It's only paranoia if the world isn't out to get you. And that sure as hell isn't the case here.'

I walked down the street with a spring in my step. I turned around the corner and left the sight of the security cameras to approach a van parked at the end of the street, a group of people already standing around it. I was greeted to numerous cries of "Boss!" as I stepped into the light, my Students gathering around me.

"I'm guessing everyone had a good time tonight?" I grinned.

Callum smiled back, looking more alive than I'd seen him in a while. "Damn straight!"

The excitement was intoxicating. Everyone had wide eyes and a smile on their face as we took a look at the growing pile of money on the back seat. To allay suspicion, we'd timed our entrances and exits so it appeared we'd all come separately. Even with three of us still inside the casino, the pile of bills was already mouth-wateringly big.

Biker Man, Jacket Boy and Stained Girl were left behind while the rest of us hit the casino. While his companions might have been too young to enter the casino, the biker had been intentionally left behind. If Stained Shirt Girl sensed something had gone wrong, he would lead the other Students outside in causing a diversion, which would hopefully buy time for me to escape and let Jacket Boy speed us off into the night.

Jacket Boy looked pretty comfortable behind the seat of the car, head fixed squarely ahead as his eyes scanned for possible obstacles to a getaway. The van had been worth every penny I'd spent on it. In fact, I'd spent my last penny on it to be specific, every last bit I'd saved hauling scrap. Between that and "startup cash" each member of the group had pooled together to get in the door of the casino, I'd spent pretty much everything I'd managed to save.

Didn't matter now, though. It was all worth it. I was worth it.

I met eyes with Bandana Man. "Still wondering if I'm legit?"

He shook his head. "Hell no, Sir!"

"How much did you make, 'Teach?" Hoodie asked me.

Sheepishly, I pulled out a few small bills and added them to the pile. I did well enough, I supposed. I'd probably achieved what most gamblers failed to do: broke even with a few cents to spare. But it was clear from the literal pile of bills on the floor of the van that even if I myself hadn't won much, I'd still made my investment back, and then some.

However, I could see Callum's eyes widen minutely as he watched me do so, and I knew he was realizing what the smarter members of the group would also eventually:

'He can't use the powers himself.'

I grinned. "Well, I'd say it's been a productive night," I commented wryly. "Wouldn't you all agr-

"-Someone just stepped outside the building," Stained Shirt said. Although she looked vaguely as excited as the rest of us, her voice came out as a level monotone. She blinked, seemingly as surprised as the rest of us she'd interrupted us so abruptly.

I frowned. Her "gift" from the Limited Clairvoyance branch of the Library might have been a little too much for her. I'd feared I was pushing it when I modified her power to increase her range, but had chanced it anyway.

'Stupid,' I cursed myself. 'Goddamn stupid.'

Her power, Field, allowed her to designate a bubble of space within her line of sight, and from that point on she could see all movement that occurred within its confines matter how far she moved from her original position. A living, breathing motion-detecting security camera.

I'd given what I thought was a mild dose of the power, only allowing her to see shapes in her Field lacking fine details, but it seemed "mild" was relative.

'Does each power have a different threshold of mental strain attached to it? If so, I'll need to be careful.'

"…Monopoly," I said, quickly changing the subject. "What's the take look like so far?"

Monopoly was the first of the Students to take a cape name of his own. It was a practice I'd already decided to encourage, as picking their own cape names gave each Student a way to hold onto his/her individual identity. Anything that helped them resist the conformity-inducing effect of my power, while still enticing the "still awake" part of their minds towards loyalty with the "glamor" of being capes.

Naming himself after his power, Monopoly was a man in either his forties or very late thirties in a gray polo shirt and jeans. His wire-rim glasses concealed his eyes as he ran a thumb over the surface of each roll of money, barely touching the top bill on each stack before moving onto the next. He'd been granted a supernatural understanding of numbers, particularly anything that had to do with taking inventory or, of course, counting money.

A F-List Number Man, basically. Not about to calculate anything insane like the timing, force and trajectory needed to throw a pebble at a wall, and have it bounce off and ricochet through the window of a bad guy's apartment, through his eye socket and into his brain anytime soon, but enough of a thinker to run in seconds the sort of complex mental math that would give an experienced mathematician pause.

Useless in a fight? Maybe. Unmatched card counter and accountant? Definitely.

There was more to every empire than just its soldiers, after all. It needed its accountants, diplomats, spies, entertainers, scribes… And assassins.

No more than five seconds after he started counting, he reached a conclusion. "Fifteen-thousand, two hundred dollars and eighty-one cents."

My heart stopped. That… wasn't a number to shake a stick at.

"…Not counting what the others will be bringing back of course. Insufficient data to calculate that."

The alley went totally silent, it dawning on us just how much money we'd made in a single evening.

"That is…" I swallowed. "…Satisfactory."

Twenty. In total the take was twenty thousand dollars. We could have gone much, much further, but to allay suspicion -as well as encourage Students to stay for next time- I'd signaled we call it an early night as Cal reported the casino staff were growing more wary.

Split the take twelve ways, and everyone was going home tonight with a grand and a half. Almost what Taylor made for engaging Lung in a deathmatch, I'd made without anyone in the casino the wiser for the theft.

On my first night out, I'd made more than the weekly salary of a five-man team of professional supervillains. For a single job.

Needless to say, we were all in a good mood.

Queen: Don't Stop Me Now

"-And when I threw down that four of a kind, I swore he was going to faint!" Cal laughed, practically jumping up and down in his seat.

We all laughed with him, speeding through the streets of Sydney in what was effectively a joy ride back to camp, radio blasting an upbeat song that captured how we all felt.

Everyone was in a noticeably better mood than they'd been at the start of the night. The man dressed as the biker had his arms crossed, and although he wasn't contributing to the excited chatter in the van, he radiated a sense of satisfaction. Even the unpleasant looking woman seemed to be happier… or at least wasn't acting like she was ready to snap at anyone that looked at her funny anymore.

We started the night next to penniless. We each now had thousands to our names. In a town where most refugees were lucky to get unused clothes off the back of the relief truck? We were as rich as kings.

"What are you gonna spend your share on?" Jacket asked his Hoodie-wearing friend in the back seat, looking back as he did so.

"Not sure." He shrugged. "Gonna first see about getting a shower and some real food, then go from there."

I was suddenly very self-conscious about how I looked. And smelled. And felt.

My stomach growled.

"Amen to that," I nodded.

The dour woman in the back seat scowled. "Mind keeping your eyes on the road, kid?"

"Watch the road?" Our driver chuckled, turning all the way around in his seat to look at her. "Why would I have to do something crazy like that?"

As if to prove his point he easily stopped at the stop light before rounding a corner and weaving around a pile of trash that had been stacked in the middle of the street.

Everyone laughed.

No matter the obstacle, no matter his actual level of focus, as long as he was behind the wheel of a car (and as long as it wasn't tinker-made) he could drive it as if he were an expert, able to see all angles of the road.

"What about you Ter-… I mean, man?"

The third member of their group grinned. "I'm gonna go out and live a bit. I haven't had a real night on the town since this whole shitshow started. Get some drinks, get a girl, maybe spread the wealth around a little, you know what I mean?"

I frowned.

He turned to me. "What do you say, boss man? Feel like coming along? Feel like living it a little?"

I considered it for a brief moment, then narrowed my eyes. The way they were acting… I gave them all at once over.

The powers I'd given them were minor, but each was still taking out a Toll. It was a slight penalty for the majority of them, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. I focused on the motes of power circling their heads, taking an in-depth look at the price of their power.

'Dear God,' I paled as it dawned on me. In exchange for their powers, they were all effectively buzzed.

"I'll pass, and please don't go spending your money all in one place." I cut past pleasantries, right to the heart of the matter.

"Excuse me?" the lead boy chuckled. "Do you not see how much we made tonight?"

The lead boy waved his stack of bills in his hands as he spoke. The trio looked disappointed, almost incensed that they'd gotten this much money and I was already telling them not to use it. Still outwardly jovial, Cal seemed to have honed on the issue as well. He shot me a glance that confirmed they weren't getting the full implications of what I was saying.

Insubordination. Doubt. Disorder. Defiance.

I winced like I'd bitten down on something sweet using a tooth with a cavity. That… that I just couldn't let stand. An old, unresolved trauma bubbled to the surface. Like a splinter in my eye, his blatant defiance was just something I couldn't let go unaddressed.

And so I tried again. This time I was more… persuasive. In movies, a hypnotist would speak with a weird, airy lilt to their voice to lull people under their spell. My master power was nothing so dramatic.

'…Wait, it wasn't?' I blinked. '…Huh.'

…

'Thanks for the information, Passenger.'

...

Somehow, I inherently knew how to put a… Weight behind my words, something that would speak both to not just my men, but the power within them as well, waiting to be addressed. To be commanded. My voice sounded the same to outside listeners, but like flipping a mental switch I could change between regular speaking and Speaking at will.

"Don't spend too much of it, and don't let anyone know you have it," I pressed. "That's just inviting trouble, official or otherwise."

He blinked. His earlier annoyance, his confidence suddenly faltering. "H-huh?"

I shrugged as he started deflating like a balloon. "I'm not saying it to be cruel. By all means enjoy yourself, but what you do will affect the rest of us. Keep that in mind."

In response to my words, something in the group… shifted. It was subtle, imperceptible to everyone but me. I could see the powers… Tugging. A nudging, a subtle pull upon their minds at the sound of my voice. Redirecting their trains of thought onto tracks that would take them towards my way of thinking. Blades of grass gently being blown in a new direction under the pressure of a soft breeze.

The biker man nodded sagely. "…The boy's right."

"Yeah… yeah. That's right."

"Makes sense to me. You've got the right idea."

The lead boy blinked, then looked bashful. "You know what? You're probably right. Sorry, Teacher," he said as he put the money back in his pocket.

Various nods or thoughtful looks spread around the van. My smile became slightly fixed as I saw what my words had wrought.

"It's… no trouble. As long as you've learned your lesson, your Teacher is pleased."

There were mixed chuckles around the van at my awkward attempt at a joke, but inside I was too conflicted to care.

I had… mixed feelings about this. On one hand, my power was unethical. There was no question about it. Even if I was only using it at its most basic level, more akin to a Jedi Mind Trick than the downright Zombie Voodoo Master levels of mind control my "predecessor" had practiced, these people were still on some level being swayed by a force outside of their own free will.

On the other hand… Well, what else could I do? It wasn't my fault my power came with a built-in drawback that just also happened to be unethical. It wasn't even real mind control, just a little… nudging in the right direction. At this level, I wasn't about to make anyone shoot their fathers in the head or betray the Protectorate, just take me a little more seriously than they usually would.

And what was I supposed to do, just not use my power at all? You've already seen the result of living like that. If that was the case then I'd better just get used to living in a tent in the middle of nowhere because there was no way I was going to be able to help save the world without it.

Besides I… wasn't the best when it came to people. Oh, I had lots of experience organizing and leading groups, but never with stakes as large as this. The last time I'd worked with a group when the stakes were comparatively high, and I treated them as something other than plain subordinates, let's just say it-

"WE WERE COUNTING ON YOU!"

It…It didn't work out. At all.

A hand came down on my shoulder. My whole body tensed at the uninvited physical contact, the Library bubbling up again… Until I forced my neck to crane sideways and saw it was just Callum.

"You okay, Sir?" he asked gently. He still had the aloof giddiness that was becoming trademark among my "beginner level" Students. But on top of that... was that a glimmer of real concern in his eyes? "I sense that you are troubled."

"You needn't worry," I forced myself to smile again as I gently pulled Cal's hand off my shoulder. "I was deep in thought for a moment. I'm fine now, but thank you for your concern, Lieutenant."

"…Right."

His smile took on a familiar sheepish edge at his "title". Neither of us had been able to decide on a proper "cape name" for him yet. After I'd granted him his power, he wasn't able to think up a name he wanted to stick to on the fly. And far be it from me to go and suggest one, because chances were if I was the one offering it to him, I was ninety-nine percent certain my power would kick in and make sure it stuck in his head.

This was his special moment, and I wasn't about to risk taking it from him.

Awkward moment defused, the jovial conversation in the car resumed. Little by little, I forced myself to relax again.

'This is… nice,' I decided. Moments like this were the sort of thing I was paranoid about screwing up the most.

'I know it's stupid," I thought as I looked at Cal. 'But I just… I don't take it well when people go against me. However this ultimately turns out, at least just you, please… Please don't turn on me, too.'

If Callum picked up any of what I was thinking, he didn't let it show.

"What do you want to spend your share on, Teacher?" he asked, his expression having instantly switched from a grimace to his new overly-jubilant one the second the subject had changed.

Eeriness aside, I gave a little noncommittal shrug.

"A little this, a little that." I gave a little hand wave. "Although I wouldn't be opposed to a nice meal after such a momentous evening."

'Also because I haven't had a real meal in days.' I sighed. "No more goddamn stale work crew baloney sandwiches.'

We drove onto a street packed with quaint little shops. Tent City's entrance was only a few blocks over, which made it all the more wondrous how this street had managed to stay so clean. The street was well-lit, and the windows of each shop displayed goods of decent quality. Someone had even gone so far as to clean the trash off the street, something I'd noticed was starting to gradually accumulate all over the town.

If you ignored the gruff-looking group of men trudging up the street from the direction of Tent City, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a street in an upscale part of a normal town.

Taking it in alongside the successes of tonight and the happiness I'd brought my Students, I actually felt myself feeling… hopeful, and not in some pessimistic way like "I hope things don't somehow get worse" that was common among citizens of Bet.

No, I had a feeling I hadn't felt in a long, long time. That I might actually be able to change this world for the better, not just do what most heroes did and just barely maintained the status quo. That, perhaps, if I played my cards right and treated my Students and civilians alike with decency and respect, and trusted them to do so in kind… then maybe, just maybe, for Sydney at least things might actually work out.

I smiled a genuine smile, no fakeness at all in it. 'I… I actually think things might turn out fi-"

And then a member of the crowd on the street abruptly turned and put his foot through the front window of a boutique.

'-uuuuuucck.'