Still don't own Worm, still made a lot of OCs.
Chapter 3
It might surprise people to know how aware Bitch really was, she just chose to focus on what mattered to her. Somehow this didn't matter to her. Her thought processes were a bit different since her trigger, allowing her a closer bond to her dogs than with other humans. But she knew good people when she met them. The way Brigid was acting with her and her dogs reminded her of the one good social worker she'd had. She'd unfortunately died in a car accident about 2 years back before her trigger. Bitch felt happy as she saw her dogs being treated well. Brigid was also slowly healing them. VD was sharing his redirection power with her. Brigid had only experimented with animals once, when her own cat had been injured. She was slower with animals than humans because her power normally only really healed herself. Bitch slowly relaxed, falling asleep with Brutus sleeping in her lap.
She awoke with a start as Grue started shouting. Before relaxing as Brigid stroked her hair, at some point her head had ended up in the woman's lap. She drifted for the most part, only opening her eyes when her teammates got particularly loud.
…
"What do you mean Coil is our boss?"
…
"He held a gun to my head!"
…
"He said he'd help her make animal shelters."
…
"You knew about my father!?"
…
"I just want to protect my sister."
...
It was over an hour later, after all the yelling was done, that Bitch got up from her nap, stretching.
Tattletale's face was taunt as her power finally made a connection and she asked upset, "What are you doing to us?"
Everyone stared at her, confused.
"You're doing something to us. Neither Grue nor I would normally reveal this much about ourselves. I certainly wouldn't have risked my life with strangers so quickly about Coil. Regent is actually showing signs of interest in something besides video games and Bitch was napping instead of trying to prove dominance! What! Are! You! Doing!?"
"Oh that," Paean did some sort of sigh and nervous shrug. "That's a side effect of my power."
"What?"
"My power sort of heals mental problems"
"We call him the Mental Health Cape," Gidget giggled.
"It's perfectly safe," Red assured her. "We basically treat him like a shrink. If we, anyone in the WHSS that is, start getting emotional or violent we tend to arrange a visit with him."
"Some people just come and hang out here, just being near him helps," Gidget confirmed. "Helps with my tinker urges. I haven't really felt that obsession with tinkering that some tinkers get except right after our triggers when he and Rumor were still in the hospital and I was sent home. Upside is that that's when I made Rumor's first cybernetic implants. Pretty sure people were beginning to suspect I was a tinker so once we were together again we went looking for a place to live that would be safe."
Red nodded, agreeing about Paean's healing presence before revealing, "VC noticed that I was calmer after meeting the Trinity. I hadn't noticed it happening but he was right."
VC patted her shoulder, "I was worried she'd go down in a blaze of heroic glory her first night out."
Tattletale backed away. Anything that could be like a master effect was usually best to be avoided. "And you are certain it's safe?" Her power of course assured her that they thought it was safe. Didn't mean it was.
"When we first realized it was happening figuring out what exactly going on was horrible. We had to study Master/Stranger protocols. Had to create control groups, etc. This was one of our top priorities for 4 weeks. Thankfully his ability doesn't work on non-capes, so we were able to rely on our non-cape members to verify we were ourselves."
"We think he's calming our subconscious' trying to develop our powers more," Achilles explained. "Like the way technology advances so much during war time. Think it's why parahumans fight so much in the first place. With Paean's help we can come up with non-combat ways to apply powers. I triggered before meeting him and even though I tried to come up with uses for my powers that weren't attacking people they mostly failed."
"This is awfully convenient for you," Regent stared at Achilles.
"It is now," Gabrielle confirmed.
Tattletale looked between the WHSS members, "You have non-cape members?"
"Usually relatives," Rumor confirmed. "My step-dad is wonderful. He brings us groceries and stuff."
"So that's why you have as many members as the gangs?"
"No… We're only counting capes, otherwise the gangs out number us like crazy. There are 53 of us that are capes."
"Dang it! If Coil is a cape then we're still just equal in number to the other capes," Void shouted suddenly. "And that's assuming there aren't other capes we don't know about." He slammed his fist hard into the velvet couch arm before wincing and gently massaging his hand.
Red rolled her eyes are her teammate, "If the Undersiders do end up joining us we'll got up to 57 and non-imprisoned capes will be 50. Even if they don't join after we help them they might want to move and we'll still have a lead. But we're agreed that, for now, the Undersiders besides Grue will be living here. Grue will only be leaving because he has family. Bitch and Regent don't really care where they're staying. And we have a comfy, non-blood stained, sofa. Tattletale will convince Coil she's infiltrating us to get him information about capes in our group."
Brigid nodded as they came to their agreement. "So our top 5 priorities right now are 1, Panacea-"
"What?" Regent interrupted. "She doesn't have anything to do with this."
"Panacea is the greatest hero in Brockton Bay. This is the consensus of the entire WHSS. She deserves and needs the recognition and help we want to give her. Nothing short of an imminent attack on the city or our group will change this. So, Number 1 is always Panacea. Number 2 is the ABB. This is because with Lung out of the picture the leadership of the group will most likely go to their new cape, the Cornell Bomber."
Rumor nodded, "A bomb tinker who triggered because of stress and a blow to her ego who then decided to blow up her school will likely escalate to a dangerous level."
Grue frowned, "What about Oni Lee?"
"As a leader? No way. He's an assassin, not really a leader. Unless we have totally misread the Cornell Bomber she'll take control of the group."
Paean shook his head sadly, "The downside to current events is that our attempts to take as non-violent a path as possible is getting upended. But we really need to get control over the situation in Brockton Bay or the city will go up like a powder keg. Hopefully not literally."
"Number 3 will be Coil," Red said taking over their list of priorities. "He's a cape of unknown power, we can probably delay dealing with him for now until we find out more about his abilities."
"So number 4 should be Grue getting custody of his sister," Gabrielle said uncertainly.
Brigid raised her hand, "Don't worry, I'm on it. I'll need to speak with Grue and his sister to know more about everything before I open the case but give me a couple months and I'll have it taken care of. If Grue doesn't mind us unmasking to each other. I might need to ask Danu for some help though."
"You're a social worker," Bitch stated.
Brigid just hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
"Is it possible we might need to protect Grue's sister from Coil?" Paean asked.
Tattletale nodded, "Once Coil realizes that his leverage to have Grue working for him goes away he'll want it back, might be willing to kidnap her."
"So we'll need to adjust our schedules to also include checking on Grue's sister. With his Ok anyway," Paean looked at Grue expectedly.
Grue nodded. He wouldn't risk anything happening to his sister.
"Perhaps Grue and his sister should also move in here," Red suggested.
Brigid shook her head, "Not yet. If he just disappears with her without getting custody first it will make legal guardianship unlikely. Once I get more details I might be able to streamline custody, depends a lot on if his parents fight it. Once he's got her legally, moving here to hide will help but she'll still need to attend school."
"Will you also help clear Bitch's name?" Red asked curiously.
"No way I'd get away with that. I wouldn't be able to explain my interest in her without people getting suspicious. Also, she has charges against her which I wouldn't be able to deal with."
"Oh," Gabrielle exclaimed. "I bet I can help with that."
"…How?" Regent questioned.
"I happen to go to school with a certain gossipy teen, whose mother is a high-powered lawyer. A couple conversations overheard by Vicky and I think she'll get her mother on it. A poor foster girl, whose been railroaded by the PRT since horrible treatment in the system caused her trigger. Heck, there are laws about things happening right after a trigger that are being circumvented. This is all pretty suspicious and screams someone who hates capes got to decide how her case was handled. Yeah. Vicky would be all over that, and would get Carol Dallon involved."
"Is that why you wear a blue version of her costume?" Grue asked.
"No…"
"Wait," Tattletale said as her power started to fill her in. "Your costume is part of your power?"
"You can tell?" Gabrielle blushed slightly. "I spend a lot of time around Vicky and I think her aura affected the way my power expresses itself. My power is mostly light right? Well I can layer the light over my outfit without much thought, but it defaults to looking like Glory Girl's costume. With a little effort I can change colors."
"But your dress doesn't light up…"
Gabrielle just smiled before her dress started to glow and then cycled thru the rainbow before settling back onto blue and the light fading away. "How we perceive color is based on how light reflects off things," she explained while also floating for a moment. Tattletale's power finally filling in some details on how they'd been moved from the fight with Lung to the tunnels surrounding this base.
"That's how you brought us here. You made light, but hard light and you can use it to fly. The first blast of light blinded us, someone did something to disorient us and then you just used the light to carry us into the tunnels until we started to come to."
"Powers make no sense," Regent mumbled softly to himself.
Gabrielle shrugged, she liked her powers.
Regent turned as an idea hit him, "Does that mean dressing up like Mrs. Claus does something with your power?"
Rumor blinked, "No. With my cybernetic implants I can't really live a civilian life so I figured I'll just wear sexy Halloween costumes when required to dress up. When out and about I'll add a wig and mask… And maybe an eyepatch."
Gabrielle interrupted before Rumor could give a breakdown of her impressive costume and wig collections, "But back onto my idea. Enough messages overheard by the right people will get the ball rolling. With enough attention we should get someone honest enough to look into it. Armsmaster's report might also result in more PRT attention of the Undersiders. Rachel's identity isn't exactly a secret. This might make the transition easier since they know we're trying to recruit and I think we made a good impression on Armsmaster and hopefully the PRT."
Red nodded in agreement, "So Number 4 will be how to protect Grue's sister. Since the custody issue will be handled by Brigid and she'll contact anyone she needs for assistance and Gabrielle is confident in using gossip to get other cape groups to fix Bitch's main problem. Number 5 should be dealing with the dog fighting rings? We'll work on setting up a dog shelter, maybe near the docks. If the ABB gets unstable the E88 and Merchants will probably make moves to take over their territory and we don't want a gang war. Easiest way to deal with that is to increase the power of the dock workers. Since we've already been working on improving that area it'll be believable that others might want to build up there too."
Tattletale blinked as she realized, "This isn't just a working list for you. This is a list you send out to the entire WHSS… You update this list periodically with things that matter to different members."
"Right, we send out a weekly list of things people in the WHSS think would help out Brockton Bay and the entire group tries to come up with ways they can use their power to help. It's a creative way to find new uses for our powers. Sometimes people will mention ways they think someone else's power could help that they would never have thought of themselves. Like my bug powers helping with healing."
"We think outside the box!" Gabrielle chipped in.
END – Chapter 3
WHSS Omake:
Glory Girl's Power: Vicky is amazing. She's the best. Have you seen her costume? Isn't it great? I love Vicky. Have you seen the way she can fly? She's so graceful!
Gabrielle's Power: Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. … It is kinda cool, I bet I could make it better. Shut up. Shut up. (Why does my future host have to be friends with her?) Shut up. Flying is cool. I bet my future host could use me to fly. Shut up.
Later-
Purity's Power: Oh yeah, flying is pretty easy. Light powers can easily be adapted to flying.
Gabrielle's Power: Thanks! I'm glad my future host is your host's neighbor. I don't know what I'd do if I only had HER and Shaper to talk to. I don't know how Shaper handles being with HER so much.
Much later-
Gabrielle's Power: My host figured out how to change her costume's colors. And she knows how to fly and can carry whole groups of people without even being seen!
Glory Girl's Power: …
End - Omake
WHSS breakdown with known powers:
"Cardinal" a.k.a."Red": Taylor Hebert. Power: Bug Control
VC: Void Cowboy a.k.a Greg Veder. Power: Power Redirection
Original Characters:
Brigid: Name Origin: Celtic Goddess of Healing. Power: Self-Healing (Can heal others with Void's help)
Achilles: Name Origin: Famous Greek who only had one weakness. Power: Locate Weaknesses
Gabrielle: Name Origin: … totally took it from 'Xena'. Power: Light Shows, Danger Sense (minor precog ability), color change her costume, and fly using 'hard' light
WHSS Trinity
Paean: Name Origin: Greek healer of Gods. Power: Heal Thinker Headaches - "Mental Health Cape"
Gidget: Name Origin: Cuter version of Gadget. Power: Tinker specializing in cybernetic implants/limbs.
Rumor: Name Origin: Based on her ability to find (unverified to the public) information. Power: Computer Thinker/Hacker
WHSS Members Mentioned:
Danu: Name Origin: Irish Mother Goddess, River Goddess. Power: Unknown
Rumor and Paean's Stepfather. Name: ? Power: None
a/n: I did the math and I'm pretty sure there are 53 known capes in Brockton Bay when Skitter made her debut. Protectorate (7), Wards (7), Undersiders (4), ABB (3), E88 (11), Merchants (3), New Wave (8), Faultline+(5), misc other villains Uber, L33t and Circus (3), rogues aka Parian (1), and random case53 aka Trainwreck (1). This doesn't count Coil and the Travelers since they're unknowns at the moment. Am I really going to introduce all 53 current members of the WHSS? I hope not. Did it confuse me for a second when I wrote 53 for both the number of WHSS members and for case53 to the point that I had to double check that that was the correct number? Yes.