AN: A strange little nugget, this one. The latest commission of Team Scrimshaw ventures forth into new explored territory. The furthest we have gone since Power Grid at least. This one was brought to you by Xavier Rall, who approached us with the idea. We hope you all enjoy this one! It's bound to get interesting.
AtW: Fingers crossed things manage to click, lol.
Commission - Mutant Bay
Dennis (Clockblocker)
This wasn't happening.
This couldn't be happening.
Dennis wanted to scream, but couldn't, his lungs on fire as he dashed through the empty hallways of what was assumed to be a simple, if not heavily booby trapped abandoned power station outside of the Bay proper.
Their mission had been simple.
Find the bomb.
Disarm the bomb.
Between the two of them, it should have been easy. Bakuda was down and out. The ABB were either scrambling to run as fast as they could, leaving the building abandoned in a bid to get away from the authorities closing in while others stood their ground, compelled by the explosives left in them by the insane tinker.
Or maybe they were just that determined to go down before whatever Bakuda left behind went off.
Their job had been to stop it.
But they didn't. Couldn't. Weren't careful enough. Or maybe Bakuda had been just that much of a paranoid asshole.
Whatever it was. They couldn't handle it.
Vista hadn't been able to handle it.
And Dennis couldn't do shit without Vista there to secure the bomb. So now it was all he could do to run as far as he could, as fast as he could before the rest of the mad woman's toys went off. Could they even survive what was about to happen? He… wasn't sure.
But he'd be damned if he didn't do something.
Even if his heart felt like it was about to burst through his chest. The thundering of his own breathing echoed in his ears as Dennis moved faster than he ever had before in his life - Armsmaster's suicides a distant blessing he didn't realize how much he'd appreciate the sheer practice at running he'd gotten.
It didn't change the fact his heart was still pounding, each beat like the ticking of a clock as it counted down to zero.
By the time he reached the power plant's panic room the last of the distant and omnipresent gunfire had stopped. In fact, the only noise he could make out was his own breathing and Missy's gasps. Fiddling with the padlock, he managed to punch in the PRT's standard override number and, thankfully, the old system accepted it. It was the first thing to go right since they'd run into that damn crystal tree bomb!
"Thank God for the lowest bidders."
Moving into the airlock, he worked the controls until it cycled and it was only once Missy was lying on an emergency cot with the doors sealed again that he flopped down himself.
Putting his head in his hands he took a deep breath before checking on his wounded partner. Turning her on her side, Dennis did a basic check on her vitals before determining that her pulse, heart rate, and breathing were fine and that it probably wasn't a brain bleed. Satisfied for the moment, he ignored the banging he now heard coming from the air lock - jumping a little when someone started shooting at it. Rushing to the door, he pulled on his power and shoved it into the walls and ceiling and floor with as much force as he could manage.
As fucked as it was, his duty was to his friend above all others and bringing a bomb implanted ABB conscript into their bolt hole would put her at risk. Or, at least, that's what he told himself.
Focusing on the immediate problem, he closed his eyes.
Waiting for the inevitable, he counted down the seconds and thought back to the raid.
It had been going smoothly, or as smoothly as such things do, and they had quickly reached the bomb room. That's when things went poorly. The suicide bombers in there had been different, with their devices causing some kind of molecular disintegration effect.
About half a dozen agents had been turned to dust and Browbeat took the worst of it for the Wards - blocking whatever that thing had been with the bulk of his torso. The last Dennis had seen of him, he'd been more of a bloody lump of meat than a man though he had been alive and healing… if somewhat terrifyingly slowly.
Half of his body had been sheared away.
At that point, the rest of the team had either dispersed to carry him back to receive medical attention - Aegis - or had continued on with their mission. He and Missy had started pushing for the location with the biggest heat signature while Gallant decided to use his empathy to help the remaining troopers identify the rest of the ABB conscripts.
It had been relatively smooth sailing, just a few long moments where the sounds of explosions and gunfire had been ignored by the two heroes, and they found the bomb.
That's when a twelve year old boy had walked out of the shadows, crying, and begged them to leave. Dennis had tried to use his power to freeze the kid.
Screaming in pain, the child had exploded, his veins forming into a massive, lattice like structure that had twisted and warped until it had formed the red crystal tree before them.
They figured out it had a Trump effect that prevented their powers from working.
They figured out C-4 wouldn't so much as scratch it.
They figured out that there was nothing they could do to remove the obstacle, so they'd tried to work around it.
And now Missy was hurt and he was-
Light and sound filled the room as the time frozen walls seemed to shudder, indentations forming and being slowly pressed inwards. Space itself was tearing, or so it seemed, and Clockblocker almost lost an arm pulling his teammate down from the cot and over to the far wall. Covering them with a blanket, he pumped more and more and more and more of his power into it, praying and hoping and praying to God Almighty that this worked.
Then, just as suddenly, it all stopped.
He had counted eighty four seconds.
He was afraid to open his eyes.
Taylor Hebert
It was a strange feeling, victory. Sitting on the roof, feeling her swarm and the late afternoon breeze the young hero? Villain? Whatever she was, she was chewing on a few rather heavy thoughts.
After everything that happened, all their efforts would end up on a positive end felt more like a dream than anything else. And Taylor couldn't help thinking that it was too good to be true despite everything. Things just… didn't work out. That wasn't how the world worked. But it was the situation, no matter how much she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The ABB was finished.
If you were to ask anyone if that was ever gonna happen, most would have given half baked theories on how it could happen or how it would happen if it were possible.
If it were possible.
Something beyond the realm of what could be achieved by them. Something beyond what everyone in Brockton could do regardless of how much effort they put into it because it was simply impossible for them to do anything but dream about an outcome that didn't end with an angry dragon stomping through the city in a fit of rage.
Only it happened.
Lung was beaten.
Gone.
His shadow no longer loomed over the city, something that people had to thank her and Armsmaster for, whether they knew it or not. Whether the "heroes" would ever think to tell anyone. Because now, finally, after the people of Brockton Bay had spent years of thinking they weren't ever going to catch a break, one of the major gangs had gone down in flames. And Taylor didn't know how she felt knowing it had been all possible because of what she did.
Because she stumbled over that first domino.
This was the end result.
'But is that a good thing?'
The ABB were done for, but they were just one third of the problem. Worse yet, now that Lung was gone, it was likely that the others would get it into their heads that they were the next ones in line for taking over. Just like Bakuda had taken over the ABB after Lung was imprisoned.
Even now, as she looked out the window, Taylor couldn't help but wonder.
'Was it the right thing?'
She had joined up with the Undersiders for the sake of her own agenda.
She had fought alongside villains against the heroes because she thought it would be as easy to turn on them and join the heroes as it had been to join up after saving them. But could she really do it now?
'What should I do from now on?'
It was easy to imagine an idyllic scenario. Something like working together with the Undersiders to take down the other gangs and keep others from taking over once they saw an opportunity. Like in one of those old movies about gangsters moving into territory because there wasn't another gang occupying it.
She'd have liked it if they didn't.
Was it asking for too much?
Brockton Bay already had a long history with parahuman gangs of all kinds. Between the E88 and the Teeth, they had been here for longer than Taylor had ever been born. Ingrained in the city.
"You're thinking too much."
She looked over her shoulder.
"Maybe we are thinking too little." the words tasted like ashes on her tongue. After all, she had joined up with the Undersiders to turn on them and become a hero.
"We have Lisa for that."
Taylor snorted.
"Don't let her hear you say that. She might start thinking for all of us."
"Scary thought that."
Since when had she grown comfortable enough around someone to tell jokes and laugh? Hadn't she already learnt that lesson before? Wasn't she planning to do the same thing Emma did to her, only twist the dagger further? How was she any better if the first thing she did as a hero was to betray someone - someone who had given her a chance when the easy thing would have been to just shut her down.
"What do you think, Brian?"
"About?"
"Everything. What we do. How it changes things."
She still had a thousand questions she wanted answered. She wanted to know that what she did was indeed the right thing, that her compromises and little sacrifices had been the just, the moral, the heroic thing to do. Though it would be unfair to prick the older Laborn with those needles. Not only because he didn't know her before becoming Skitter, but he himself might be part of the problem she was trying to puzzle out.
Even so… she had to ask.
"You've been hanging out too much with Lisa lately. Where did all the deep Thinker talk come from?"
Taylor rolled her eyes.
She could think just fine. It was actually one of her strong suits. About her only one, if she were to be honest.
"I'm trying to be serious here."
"I don't think it matters, really."
The answer made her frown. But she let him go on.
"The whole reason we are doing this is because there's stuff we want, right? And we work for the Boss because he promised us he would help us with it. Even you must have something you want badly enough, right?"
She wanted….
She wanted things to go her way for once.
She wanted the things she hated to disappear and not bother her every waking hour.
She wanted so many things.
Most of all… she wanted to go back and step on that phone until it was a smear on the ground. Leaning forward on the railing, Taylor shrugged.
"We can't always have what we want, Brian."
He shrugged.
"Then maybe you should look for new things? Big city. Big country. If you keep looking you'll probably find something you want badly enough to keep doing this."
It made sense in a lazy, irresponsible way.
Keep doing what you are doing until you find a reason for it? What kind of half assed answer was that? Shouldn't it be the other way around? That first you found a reason and then did everything because of it?
"I think you got it backwards, Brian."
"Never said that was the case for me. Just saying. You don't need to find your big reason for doing everything right now. Adults often don't have their shit together nearly as much as they try to pretend."
He didn't need to elaborate, his reason for all of this was protecting his kid sister after all.
What made things worse was that it wasn't like Taylor wasn't enjoying herself. She was, despite the dangers and secrecy and causing trouble for all sorts of people and then having to fight for her life against a crazy woman, she finally felt like she had done something good with her life. Taking down Lung, helping taking down Bakuda.
Those were good things.
Those aligned with what she wanted to do as a hero.
She wasn't about to try and fool herself about the rest of the Undersiders being a virtuous and helpful bunch. Like Brian said, they all did things for their own reasons. Taking down Bakuda for them was a matter of survival.
But maybe it didn't have to be.
Maybe she didn't have to ruin what she had with them.
Sure, Bitch and her still hadn't quite ironed out things. And the less said about Regent the better, but Taylor couldn't deny that being Skitter made her happy. Besides, she finally managed to make something like a friend again! That had to count as a miracle of heroic proportions.
Taylor heard the door lock click and the roof access swung open to reveal a familiar blonde.
"Hey Lisa how is it…"
Her teammate and tentative friend completely ignored her greeting in lieu of grabbing her arm.
"We need to go, now!"
Brian was on his feet immediately.
"What's happening?"
"Bomb. About to go off. Bakuda was a bitch."
And like that she and Brian were dashing towards the door.
Only they were too late.
Taylor had gotten used to the sound of bombs going off in the past few days. Distressingly enough, they didn't seem to bother her as much now, especially after the pain bomb that she went through. Only those explosives hadn't shaken her bones through sound alone.
Those bombs hadn't blown her hair back in a rush of wind.
Those bombs didn't come with a wave of green energy that picked her up and threw her ten feet through the air while blinding her with a burst of light that seemed to push its way through the concrete and metal of the nearby buildings, highlighting their skeletons like some kind of cosmic x-ray machine..
Whatever Lisa had said next was drowned out by an almighty crack. Thunder and green lightning split the heavens. For a second, she lay there, gasping, before turning over. Brian was sprawled out too and Lisa had fallen down the stairwell.
In the distance, the Endbringer sirens were going off and she heard screams in the distance. Rushing to the stairwell, she stopped only to help her teammate to his feet, and then leapt down the flight of stairs to find Lisa knocked unconscious. Picking her up and throwing the blonde's arm over her shoulder the Master waited just long enough for Brian to take the other arm and then the three were off.
By the time they made it back to the loft, they found Alec still playing Xbox, though with most of a pizza slapped against a wall, and not doing much.
"Hey guys, glad to see you're back from the threesome, good to you're a quick shot Brian. So, are we dead yet Lisa?" Looking up, he noticed how badly the Thinker was hurt. "Damn. That's not good." Reaching under the couch, he pulled out a first aid kid and tossed it over to Grue. "I'm helping. The question stands though."
About to snap at her fellow Master, Taylor was interrupted when a second burst of energy filled… everything.
Green and fast, dancing like lightning, yet slow and thick like jello. It felt alien and wrong and it was like someone was reaching inside of her skin and spinning her insides round like cotton candy on a stick. Bubbles popped, static crackled, reality seemed to stutter.
Turning away, she thought that the light from Regent's game was stabbing her in the eyes. Or maybe the heat of the blast searing her skin was to blame for it.
And at that moment, Taylor Hebert knew she was dead.
Then she blinked away the spots in her vision and the most indescribable feeling hit her as her very self seemed to peel away. Something dark, unyielding, and alien. Her skin fell apart as something seemed to grow and take its place, like a doll bursting at the seams, new parts and pieces slotting into their proper places as if they had always been there.
Sharp tips pushed their way through her fingers.
Sharp ridges poked through her clothes.
And throughout all of it, Taylor floated through a numb limbo.
She could deal with pain, Bakuda had more than proven it. Yet what was happening wasn't painful but terrifying. As if her entire self was being scooped out, bleeding through every pore and orifice as she coughed and wheezed.
She looked up towards the window, finding her own reflection in it.
And saw two large and familiar insect-like yellow orbs.
She'd have found it reassuring… had she been wearing her mask. Instead what met her was something inhuman, a creature whose skin was a pale grey, plates of hardened chitin sprouting from the sides of her head in a terrifying resemblance to a spider's visage wearing a human mask.
Then, the great green bubble popped. Reality came crashing back as a genuinely tremendous BOOM rocked the Earth herself. Glass shattered, there was screaming, and, somehow comforting, the last thing she heard was Regent cursing the fact he hadn't been able to save.
Washington D.C.
Chaos.
Pure, unmitigated chaos had filled the White House as of fourteen minutes ago. It was one minutes before that, that the president had been informed by his PRT liaison that one of their missions had gone awry. Details had been scarce. Then President Kennedy's aide had pulled up a video of a massive green cloud filling up the sky.
The detonation of a tinkertech bomb on the East Coast of the United States of America was on Youtube before the alleged leader of the free world was told that there was even a bomb to be worried about.
"What the Hell happened to Brockton Bay?"
His voice only shook a little - because the video, uploaded from Boston hadn't ended there - and the governor of Massachusetts was terrified enough not to notice.
Or at least smart enough not to comment on it.
"You're aware of the city's, uh, gang issue?"
"I am aware that there were multiple bomb attacks and that an armed response from the state was needed to suppress what amounted to an armed insurrection on US soil, yes.." Kennedy's voice was clipped, tone fraying more as the barely controlled chaos around him began to degenerate. "Did someone finally do something truly stupid?"
"Yes sir." There were a few muffled shouts on the other end of the line and the Oval Office seemed positively calm at what the president could hear. "I don't have the files at hand, we're evacuating now, but it was an operation designed to round up the last of the Azian Bad Boys bomb implanted forces. Communications were still limited to hardlines and what was relayed by the guard forces in the city, so we don't know everything."
'Jesus Christ.' Not interrupting, the politician almost considered calling the chaplain in to help at this point.
"Apparently the strike team found a bomb, a big one, and tried to deal with it. They couldn't. It went off. We sounded the Endbringer alarms beforehand, but we've got absolutely zero details right now."
"I see." The president chewed over his next words for about a minute. "Mobilize the national guard, FEMA will be on its way. I'll have the CIA on stand by. By the color of the explosion it was a non standard device?"
"That's why we're evacuating sir. It was a biological weapon and it's causing, well, you've seen the videos?"
"It's playing now."
Just as he said that, the shaky video came to an end as the individual taking it screamed. There, on screen, was a shambling mass of flesh and stone - some horrific monstrosity straight out of a nightmare.
"Keep your phone in reach Governor. I'll call again when I'm done chewing out Costa-Brown."
Hanging up, he didn't need to bother dialing as his aide simply handed him a blackberry with a woman already on the line.
"At approximately seventeen thirty this afternoon a large-scale explosion occurred in the city of Brockton Bay, Massachusetts. It was tinkertech in origin and it sent a pulse of pure energy across an area approximately six kilometers in diameter. Sensors across the nation are still pulling in data now, we have the Think Tank pulling it apart, and we're working towards understanding this situation as rapidly as possible."
"Director Costa-Brown, what in the Hell is happening?" Kennedy's response shut down the woman on the other end of the line at the first opportunity. He knew he needed to control how this call went or he'd be bulled over.
"Sir, as I was just telling you-"
"No, you were telling me about your fuck up." This time he let a little anger slip through, the director of the PRT was far too detached how serious he was otherwise. "When we last spoke about it Bakuda was in your custody and on the way to the Birdcage. The judge in her case had already rendered a verdict and she wouldn't wake up until she was locked away. So tell me how this happened."
"I don't know yet."
Sighing, he ran a hand across his face.
"Do we have any boots on the ground? Anything left in the city at all?"
The response let him relax just a little.
"Of course sir. Contact with the shelters is being maintained and the Rig itself is still sending out automated signals. Unfortunately, direct contact with Protectorate East by North East is down right now, but they are intact."
"So you know what those monsters were?"
This time, when Rebecca paused, that relief disappeared instantly.
"I'm afraid not. Obviously, we suspect they're linked to the device but we don't know anything else."
Shuddering, President Kennedy processed that specific piece of information. Assuming that this madwoman had broken every rule in the book, her weapon could have been and done anything. There was simply no way to predict what had happened. And that meant there was nothing to do but react when and where they could.
"So we don't know anything?" It went without saying that right now all cards were on the table. No holding back secret sources or hidden moles. No games, just answers.
"We can at least cross out the possibility of a nuclear device. While equipment was affected by the detonation, our engineers have assured us that what caused it was a form of widespread EMP and that radiation levels have not changed like we would expect if it was a fission or fusion weapon. Moreover, the preliminary observations show a rather small degree of direct explosive damage."
That wasn't… good.
Not bad by any means, but a bomb of unknown nature had been detonated. It was still a nightmare of colossal proportions, but the aftermath wouldn't haunt them for decades to come. Assuming the psychopathic woman hadn't done something equally horrifying.
"Do we have eyes on the city?" Glancing up at one of the military officers in his room, he motioned to a laptop and the general in turn had a lieutenant bring it over. The young man punched in a few passwords and it took a moment before he responded.
"Yes sir! Two drones are on approach to Brockton Bay, ETA thirty seconds."
There was a whirring noise and the president turned his chair around, somewhat surprised when the metal shutters in the walls began to lower. Even more so when he heard the three tone alarm denoting a CBRN attack come over the White House's intercom.
"What's going on?"
It was the director of the CIA that looked up.
"We've confirmed the presence of exotic particles and strongly suspect a mutagenic contagion of some kind. Some of the monitoring devices are pinging as far south as the CDC in Atlanta."
"God have mercy."
One of the staffers paused to cross himself before getting back to work.
"Sir, we have the feed from the disaster site. I'm… I'm not sure you want to see this."
For a moment, Kennedy considered agreeing. He had people for this after all and right now the young military man looked rather pale.
"Put it on the screen."
Lowering down from a slot in the ceiling, a sheet of black glass-like material flickered to life as the bird's eye view of the drone was projected. Rolling hills and asphalt roads rushing across the screen as the city finally came into view.
"It's intact?" No one answered his low question, the room silent and tense as the drone continued moving
'Well. Not quite.' He could still spot columns of smoke rising from various points of the city. He could also see various vehicles which had been abandoned on the streets as people rushed to safety. Almost like a normal disaster that didn't potentially herald the end of the world.
'Was the bomb a dud?' The president dared to hope for one long moment. 'No, it can't be.' If he'd learnt anything about Parahumans, and Tinkers in general, it was that they always got the results they wanted. Tinkertech hardly malfunctioned unless the Tinker themselves were at fault. And Bakuda's resume hadn't ever hinted at any particular failures on her part.
"No, what are we missing?"
A queer feeling came over the room as the abandoned outer sections of the city gave way to gridlock traffic, thicker clouds of smoke, and finally people. Panic was expected, disorder and chaos were common after normal bombings, never mind what a Tinker could unleash. And then the drone's image zeroed in on one individual in particular.
"My god." He heard one of his aides mutter.
He was half tempted to join him.
Though the citizens looked human from afar, once the camera had adjusted it became clear that most if not all of them had undergone some sort of metamorphosis. Their bodies were warped and clothes in tatters as inhuman features tore their way through. Animalistic facsimiles of humans were rushing through the streets in a blind panic, fueled by nothing but terror and the overwhelming drive to escape.
Wherever they were going was irrelevant, perhaps they themselves didn't know, but everyone in the room could see what they were running from. Perhaps ten feet tall and about as large as a truck, it was a pink-green mass or organic life.
Human arms, the head of a dog here and there, about forty different legs, and far, far too many eyes covered the outside of a truly awful monster. Worse than even Crawler, the animal plant hybrid monstrosity trundled down the road and crushed everything in its path.
"What are we looking at?"
"We don't know, sir. It's like they have all mutated. Underwent a process similar to known Case 53 parahumans."
Was this the bomb's effect?
Some form of mutagen? Was it contagious? Had it been limited only to the area of the explosion. Or even now were the people of Brockton threatening to spread what could be one of the greatest catastrophes in history throughout the world?
Could he be sure?
"Sir?"
Picking the blackberry up, the president had to swallow a few times before he could speak.
"Rebecca?"
"Yes sir?"
"Declare a quarantine. Wall it off. Don't let a single person get out of that city until we know what's going on."
"Yes sir."
For about thirty seconds no one in the room said anything. The truth being that no one had anything to say. But enough time had been wasted that, once the display screen had clicked back into its slot, the room returned to motion - if more subdued and less panicked. They knew how bad things were now.
"I'm going to have the army step in. National Guard units are already enroute. This isn't a PRT disaster anymore. Not until the wall is up and we need a patrol. If you want to have your people help, coordinate with any capes in the area that want to respond. Treat it like an Endbringer attack. But I don't want your people screwing this up any worse than they already have."
"I… understand sir. We'll focus on restoring contact with the Rig and let you know if we can reach anyone in the city." Now it was her turn to be angry, a Kennedy knew when a woman was pissed off at him, but right now the president felt it was what she had coming. "Will there be anything else?"
"Keep your phone with you at all times. And call me back when you have a list of capes in the area drawn up. I want to know who my people might have to tiptoe around."
Hanging up once one of the most powerful people in the US managed to keep from snapping at him for cutting her out of the loop, the man who would need to make some extremely unpleasant decisions tried to decide whether to pray or scream. Dismissing the idea of nuking the city, that might just make it worse after all, the necessary executive orders were signed and a carrier group started making its way up to Boston. With the speaker of the house and the senate majority leader stepping into the Oval Office, Kennedy realized that there was going to be no help for the damned.
He could only pray that the people of Brockton Bay would forgive him.