maskedkeeper: Coil would just die normally, given how his power works according to WOG.
The streets were different, alien even. The people of Brockton Bay were used to a certain status quo, which had been unshaked since… Probably since Lung came to town. And since then, little had changed with the exception of the ever-increasing reach of the criminal organizations capitalizing on said status quo.
This meant that any change major enough to shake it would be felt by everyone, and there would be no way of hiding nor wrestling with the change once it was felt.
Hookwolf was dead. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the Empire permanently lost one of their VIP members, a heavy hitter that had escaped while being transported to the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center twice.
Only the neo nazis could mourn the loss of someone like that, yet this was Brockton Bay. So of course there was a lot of unrest from the criminal group when 'one of their best' was confirmed gone from this world.
It also caused unrest to the rest of the city. Namely, fear of the Empire's retaliation.
After all, Empire 88 had hate crimes for breakfast, assault on minorities for lunch, and a bit of homophobic movements for diner if they were up to it. It was understandable that the general public wanted nothing to do with the hurting gang, and would try back away as much as possible before the racists began their crusade to get to the responsible cape.
At the same time, the official channels pointed at an asian teenager as the one responsible for the attack. The witnesses even went as far as to get a drawn profile of the guy they saw fighting Hookwolf before running away. It was strange that the guy was also blonde though, so no one was sure whether to really buy into this information or not.
It looked like the Empire had an internal dispute and tried to blame it on the ABB, so only the most vehement of PHO's users tried to follow this thread to the end. After all, it wasn't Kaiser's style to show the Empire as anything but an absolutely impenetrable front for the neo nazi agenda. But maybe that was why this theory gained so much traction in just a couple of days.
The end result? ABB members dyeing their hair blonde and a cold war-like state suffocating the city whenever the ground-level goons harassed the racists by humming and making a rattling sound to imitate the newest parahuman in town.
The blame had landed on their shoulders, given how their group was exclusively made out of asians, so they had no choice but to embrace the safety that the threat of the Chainsaw provided. A strategy that by all means should have failed, but no one was willing to risk pissing off someone that had single-handedly killed one of the Empire's terror tools. So playing it safe and giving a bit of thought before throwing hands with someone that could, potentially, be the Chainsaw was widely regarded as a good idea.
This state was fragile, as any resident of the city could attest to. The gangs had always been ruthless, and would retaliate with inordinate strength at the slightest provocation. So the days after the Chainsaw's arrival Brockton Bay felt more somber than it usually did.
So of course Uber and Leet had to happen.
Parahuman brawl ends in hate crime! The winner may surprise you (gone wrong lol)
The camera pans on the horizon. A vision not unlike that of any other city in the U.S., it focuses on some buildings when the most observant viewers notice a spark somewhere down to the right of the camera's view.
It is night, so it might be confused by a light being turned on or even a short circuit in one of the neighborhoods.
Neither would be strange. But it's not either of them.
The camera cuts to reveal the picture zoomed in. Then again, and once more. It does it a couple more times before the next cut shows a completely different angle. And for a moment everything is peaceful.
Then the department complex to the left of the video blows up, shaking the camera for a moment, before a multitude of masked men materialize mid-air.
The roar of chainsaws replace the sonic booms of the explosion, and the Chainsaw rushes in the air to meet the masked men that took the pin off their hand grenades before the Chainsaw could get close.
They are thrown, or at least some.
The Chainsaw manages to cut through some of the masked men before they could do so, but some of the explosives do manage to detonate as intended.
The masked men evaporate in puffs of dust. One by one ceases to exist as more replace them to keep throwing explosives at the Chainsaw.
It's effective, but only barely so.
The masked men don't boast the Chainsaw's agility or wits. They get picked off if they just barely get in the chainsaws' field of motion, and their short lifespan means they can't reposition while the Chainsaw flails and jumps from wall to wall helped by the chains in his chainsaw arms.
The Chainsaw opens its maw, and clear japanese comes out amidst the roar of its bladed appendages. A manic, hysterical jumble of words that could just barely be understood if one knew the language like the back of their hand.
The record freezes.
"Leet," A self-important sounding voice interrupts the video "Why don't we give our dear viewers some context?"
"Yeah." Replies a meeker voice in turn.
The video rewinds a bit.
"Ichi! Ni! San! Arigato!" Comes a squeaky and cheerful voice instead this time around.
The video freezes again.
"Huuuuuh, Leet?" The first voice interrupts again "I meant the real context."
"Yeah, right." Answers the second in what was probably a poorly executed comedic stunt.
The video rewinds and unpauses.
"WHY ARE YA' RUNNIN'?! WHY ARE YA' RUNNIN'?!" The Chainsaw's manic voice comes out in full english this time around "COMMERE! IMMA CHOP YA' TO DEATH REAL GOOD! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"Thanks, dude." The first voice interrupts without pausing the video.
"No prob." The second one replies in time for the Chainsaw to kick one of the grenades and blow up a room that probably had a boiler in it. Because a second, stronger, explosion followed suit after the initial detonation.
"DID A DEVIL EAT YOUR THROAT?! COME HERE! I'LL TAKE IT ON THE CHIN!"
The Chainsaw roars, cuts, and kicks. His battle craze randomly increases and gets more masked men amputated or decapitated when the bursts of speed catches them off guard.
The Chainsaw's body is badly hurt. Pelted in some places and with skin missing where the shrapnel found its way into his body. Yet he does not back down.
He uses the chains to grapple and pull himself to his destination one chainsaw at a time. The other two are busy killing dust people as they come into reach.
Until one of the dozen grenades explodes on his face and sends him back to the ground, the piece of building he was grappling comes loose as the chain proves stronger than the concrete itself.
The Chainsaw lands heavily on his back, but soon enough jumps back to his feet as people around the block come out to see what is going on.
A man in clear Empire colors does a double take and points a gun at the Chainsaw.
Then sparks fly as the bullet collides and bounces off the chainsaw helmet on the Chainsaw's head.
"Ow!" The Chainsaw groans, focusing solely on the bleached blond a street away "Miss Makima said no guns!"
The Chainsaw rushes the man, ignoring the bombing that hasn't relented and cuts through the man's gun in one swift motion.
He then kicks the civilian back inside as the first grenades detonate and he throws his chains again to get back in the air. The men with the leering masks start to appear on rooftops instead of thin air.
"Stop throwing shit at me! You're not a cute girl to pull it off!"
The Chainsaw bashes into the group of masked men, but most disappear in puffs of smoke before he gets close, and the bombing doesn't relent.
Correction, the bombing does relent. After the hellish noise of an apocalypsis-sized swarm descends on the masked men and eclipse them from view.
The Chainsaw flinches, getting his chain to send him away from the plague that suddenly assaults his foe. He shakes and fondles his arms in clear disgust, making the chainsaws grind against one another but without hurting him at all.
One of the masked men falls from the roof above into a parked car. Throwing the alarm off and basically ruining its ceiling while busting all windows on impact.
The camera shakes the swarm trying to get to it, and sees the unmoving figure before it too disappears in a puff of smoke. A bit of dark liquid stayed behind while the car alarm wailed as if it had actually felt the impact.
The record ends.
"Kind of anticlimactic, if you ask me." Leet's voice interrupts the black screen, speaking first for the first time in the video.
"Agreed." The more prominent voice replies "But it seems like Brockton Bay now has two new capes. Guess it's the Bay's birthday, huh."
"We-."
The video itself ends. Cutting Leet's answer short.
Taylor Hebert covered her face with her left hand. The right one slowly took off the earphones she had to use to listen to the audio.
It wasn't so much about her first night out as a hero was botched by those two idiots; but that now her powers would be irrevocably linked to chainsaw boy and assault on the asians if the comments on the video were anything to go by.
And maybe the public reception would change, but that video had the most views out of all the stolen clips from the Uber & Leet streams. So she wasn't placing her hopes too much on that, at least for now.
She had to consciously stop her swarm. Having thousands upon thousands of bugs slowly crawling her way wasn't precisely the image of subtlety, so she needed to be extra careful while going out.
She packed her stuff and left the library, mindful to not look too suspicious while making double sure that her bugs were hidden away.
Her dad had to work, so she had a bit of leeway before the shoe dropped square on her head. She shouldn't have snuck to see where the chainsaw boy would go. If she hadn't, maybe she would have returned in time to sneak in the house and pretend she never left.
As things stood? The police probably had to fill and drop a case about her missing status in like half an hour, which was embarrassing enough that Taylor couldn't quite voice her opinion on the matter.
But Taylor didn't have to think about it now. Her dad wouldn't be home until later, and whatever happened and was discussed wasn't of importance in the here and now.
So she walked a couple of streets to the north east and took a bus towards the commercial area of Brockton Bay. She decided to make her effort bear fruit, or else she would never be able to face her dad while he complained about her night activities.
Her range travelled alongside her, but her swarm couldn't quite keep up with the speed so Taylor spent her time giving her bugs places to be once they were out of her range. Placing them in places it wouldn't be strange if a fly or roach popped out once their instincts took the wheel again.
It wasn't distracting per se, at least not as much as she wished it was. But the knot in her throat and sweaty neck probably wouldn't go away even with the most distracting thing to do in the world. After all, she was going out of her way to seek confrontation with the maniac that killed Hookwolf. Someone that would laugh at Oni Lee's bombing and shrug off bullets as he continued the pursuit of the ninja cape.
Taylor wasn't sure it was a good idea, but she needed to do something. She saw the guy getting people out of the way of the fight, and although his bloodlust was too strong to be anywhere heroic… Maybe she could capitalize on the public idea that they were related to… Maybe team up?
Like, she didn't want to associate with a lunatic. But the conditions she found him living in were telling of a bigger problem in the boy's life. Maybe he could be reasoned with? Procure a roof under his head… Maybe some food?
Who knows? Taylor knew she wouldn't be able to give him housing, nor did she want to since he was obviously deranged at least, but somewhere between the lines she was hopeful she could work it out.
Or… Maybe take him down before his victims were not scum. She could do that too. Give a stern warning for good sport and take him down the next time they meet. Even if her dad pushed for her to join the Wards, she could try to wiggle her way into joining the mission to take the Chainsaw down.
Maybe, hopefully. But that was if she did go with the idea of joining the junior heroes.
But how would she convince her dad to drop that option? Taylor didn't even want to talk about it with him, yet she had to. Probably that same day. Which returned to why she skipped classes to seek out the chainsaw boy.
He didn't look unhealthy. Maybe there was a trick to living on the streets? Would Taylor be able to run away if the talk with her dad ended in an unacceptable decision being taken for her?
She didn't know. And the fact she doubted it made her feel even more terrible.
With these thoughts furthering her anxiety, Taylor arrived at her destination. She pretended to look among the stalls while commanding flies and mosquitos among the people going about their day.
She disputed whether she should keep her gray hoodie up or not, but refrained to try and pull it off before deciding, as she would probably look pretty stupid just changing it on and off over and over again. And that would defeat the purpose.
Her bugs sweeped across the tide of people. Landing around their chest area and discreetly looking for protuberances on that area.
The Chainsaw had a cord of sorts there, after all. She saw her pull before regenerating and continuing to fight the night before. It was why she was so confident she would find him around this place. Especially because…
Jackpot.
She made a 90° turn and snaked around the people, making sure to have as little physical contact as possible. Just so no one would drag attention to her because she bumped on them or something.
She didn't need the attention…
But found the guy hitting a man with the butt of a fire extinguisher regardless.
"Fuck." Taylor let loose her sense of defeat as she saw the Chainsaw's shit-eating grin at the bloody nose he caused.
The guy (thankfully) put down the metallic tool instead of going through the tendencies he displayed on the internet, and ravaging the man's face any further. He looked a bit bruised himself, but otherwise as fine as Taylor had seen him the night before.
The tension was up, though. And even the police hanging around the edges of the people seemed more inclined to intervene than not. At this rate, Taylor would have skipped school in vain. Which didn't matter, but she needed a win at the moment. So she couldn't back down on this.
The guy spoke. An obviously asian language that didn't mean anything to Taylor, but clear enough she knew he wanted to convey something. He seemed to taunt the people sending glares at him, giving back a toothy smirk at them when he was done talking.
An asian man went ahead to pat him on the back and slowly talked him out of the fight. Which the chainsaw boy quickly accepted, seeing how his expression changed to a cheerful one before sticking his tongue out to the still-recovering man.
Taylor bumped on the man before losing her chance.
"Sorry, miss." The man was a bit overweight, and had obvious wrinkles that reminded Taylor a bit of an orangutan. Unfortunate features aside, the man had short black hair and a summer hat adorned his head while sunglasses covered his eyes.
"Huh… I… My bad." Damn, damn, damn… She just had to follow along! Why was she even more nervous now?!
The chainsaw boy came to her rescue, though. He spoke while half-heartedly reaching for Taylor before the man replied. Which seemed to make the Chainsaw lose interest in her.
"Ummm… I don't understand him." Taylor mumbled, doing her damnedest best to not stare at her feet and instead lock her eyes somewhere close to the man's chin.
"Oh, don't worry. He just wanted to know if you were alright." The man didn't seem too bothered by Taylor's badly spoken words, which pushed her just enough to continue.
"I-I'm fine." ...Or so she would like to say, but she drew a blank on what else to say.
"That's good." The man replied before continuing to walk away from her.
...Yeah. This was going to be a harder mission than she thought.