Obligatory notice: I do not own Rifts or Worm, both being owned by Palladium games and Wildbow respectively.
"Speaking" / Telepathy
Enjoy
April 15th, 2011, Brockton Bay
Can I just say I really hate the idea of time travel? It's never consistent, whether or not it is a good idea is never consistent, and when time travel affects the protagonist is completely arbitrary.
The good news is I'm not dealing with time-travel.
While the history of back home is murky at best, I'm pretty sure there was no mention of a golden man with other superheroes and nigh-unkillable monsters called Endbringers following him. You would think that would leave a mark on history, but from what I saw at home besides Atlantis being a bit possessive of the ocean, no Leviathan, no Simurg or Behemoth. Also this place, Brockton Bay especially, has gone- pardon my french- to hell. The market is shot, society's a mess, and supervillains own nearly the entire town despite the local government and superhero group saying otherwise.
It almost feels like home honestly.
Currently, I'm lodged inside an abandoned warehouse in the middle of an empty block, every now and then some drugged up mini-Juicers wander in thinking their hot stuff but a few potshots at them is enough to send them scurrying back to their ratholes. It almost feels like being in the wasteland still, barring the lights, the not drugged up people, and the missing leylights. It's almost eerie to see stars in the sky instead of leylights. Also, I'm apparently switching to a more diurnal clock instead of my normal nocturnal one, maybe it's the fact that I don't have to run during the night all the time to flee from people trying to kill me. Yet.
I was in the middle of one of my adjusting naps when someone knocked on the warehouse door. Most people would panic, I just groaned, slammed my helmet onto my head, picked up my pistol, and staggered to the door.
"Could have at least waited for my coffee to finish…" I had fixed the thing up after making a deal with a merchant guy who in trade asked if I could fix his car. Wasn't that difficult either, somebody tried to tie one too many turbochargers into the engine, if it had actually worked the damned thing would have either gone like a bat out of hell or blown up. He gave me the coffee machine and a couple of hundred bucks in exchange, nice guy.
Also, this meant every credit in my pockets was worth merde but that's the way fate hates your guts somedays, like an ex-girlfriend.
I opened the door to find, surprisingly, a group of non-high off their gourd humans.
"Sup," I asked nonchalantly, sliding the pistol back into its holster as I rubbed the back of my neck. "Is there something I can do for you?" They looked somewhat confused, but the lead guy had a smirk grow on his face. I've seen that kind of smirk before, the palm of my hand resting on the butt of my gun.
"Yes, well, we are here to represent our benefactor that wishes to hire you for your services." He says smoothly, snake oil salesman type. "If you want he can pay you upfront." My eyes narrowed behind my helmet, something about the group was bugging me, they were bald like Psi-stalkers, and they wore clothes that almost looked like uniforms. I grimaced, crossing my arms, my finger tapping my bicep, before holding it in the air.
"Lemme meet him, then we can see," I say flatly. They all seem pensive at the prospect, and the leader of the pack's smile faltered. Eventually, he puts on a brave face and nods, reaching out to take my hand, but I close the door instead.
I hopped back to my stuff and got to packing, I knew shooting at those druggies would be a bad idea but I did not want their piss on my temporary property. I slide bits and pieces of things into my traveling pack, and take the travel mug out of the coffee machine I modified to run off of a mana battery, and a hell of a lot more compact. I hefted up my Railgun, based on the Glitterboy shoulder-mounted Boomgun design, but smaller, no ammo pack thanks to launching pure telekinetic force instead of tungsten sabots, also the barrel was forked, and would faintly glow blue when fully charged and firing. I stepped onto my wingboard and hovered upwards, pulling out a very simple device, basically an automatic evidence remover, destroying any evidence in an area with a simple cast of fire globe then snuffing out the flame with a frost burst.
I zipped out of the skylight/bolthole and activated my cloaking field, fading from the sight of anyone and anything short of someone with true sight, including cutting edge detection equipment. The engine hummed as it flew through the skies of Brockton Bay, it was something to see a living town, people milling about without a care in the world, cars humming about the streets, and nothing exploding every ten-
BOOM
Damnit, spoke too soon.
I turned towards the explosion and soared over, seeing if I could be of help. Imagine my surprise when I find, instead of a smoking, burning, or steaming crater, I find a 25m radius sphere of frosted ground. I float down, finding ice sculptures of- no, holy shit those are actual people completely encased in ice. And despite popular media saying otherwise, those people are definitely already dead, either due to ice crystals inside of their cells rupturing, or suffocation, or just plain thermal shock. Another thing is the temperature needed to create this amount of ice in such a short amount of time being several degrees below zero kelvin, and as most people don't know, that is freaking impossible.
I sigh, pulling up from the frozen graveyard and scanning the city of Brockton Bay, more explosions rumbling in the air, and only a few of them were conventional explosives, I could see some white dots that pulled in the collapsing buildings before popping out of existence, more spheres of absolute zero bullshit, and where spheres of slightly darker light. I soar over the panicking city, lifting up my pistol I fire a handful rounds at some of the armed combatants, scaring them off as fist-sized holes appear violently at their feet. I zipped away and hovered over the strangely dark one, a sense of dread filling my stomach as I saw time flowing much slower than it should, people frozen in a moment of sheer terror.
"Good, god…" I mumbled aloud. I pull out a coin and slip it into the bubble, it stops halfway on the surface, turning into the darker coloration. Sliding on one of my welder gloves, I pull on it, feeling like it's attached to a solid steel wall. Before a bolt of purple lightning bolt of pure magic zaps the crap out of me. "OWFUCK!" I flick the now burning glove away, green flames eagerly consuming the supposedly insulated leather, well, insulated against normal electricity. I hear a clink as I find the coin, now cut in half, on the ground, the other half now buried in a brick wall, inside the bubble. "Ok, good to know, magic, and whatever the hell this is, don't mix," I grumble to myself.
I hear the rumble of a familiar motorcycle engine, I turn to find Halbeard braking next to me, efficient, swift, and honestly kinda cool. He steps off his custom bike and it automatically sets down its kickstand and spins his halberd as he studies the sphere behind me, then at me.
"Did you cause this?" He asks flatly.
"Nope," I reply equally flat.
"Are you here to help?"
"Sure."
"Good." He pulls out something from his pocket and hands it to me, I take it and look at it, appearing to be a cell phone. I press a button on the side, turning it on as the LCD screen and showing the symbol of the Protectorate as it boots up. I tap in a password and look at the rolling Datafeed. "A Tinker named Bakuda is the cause of this," I nod and flick over to her file.
Bakuda: Female / Tinker: Bomb Specialization / Affiliation: Villain (ABB*)
I raise an eyebrow and tap the link to this ABB as Halbeard studies the Timedilated sphere of doom.
[QUOTE]Azn Bad Boys: Location: Brockton Bay / Affiliation: Gang / Notable Members: Lung, Oni Lee, Bakuda / Known Parahumans: Lung, Oni Lee, Bakuda[/QUOTE]
"Oh great him again, and he's got friends, Yipee." I groan as I look at Armsmaster who is returning to his bike as he talks to a communicator on his helmet. "Whatcha got?"
"The sphere is Bakuda's work, it scans similar to Clockblocker's power," Clockblocker? Really? That guy sounds like a barrel of laughs, or a headache and a half, "furthermore it appears that the rest of the ABB is nearing Lung's transport to the Birdcage." That's not good. "We would be grateful for your aid." We? Probably talking about the rest of the Protectorate.
"Sure, I don't want that guy loose again and after my ass." I show him the phone to give it back, he raises his hand as he revs his motor.
"Keep it! Follow me!" I nod as I slip the phone into one of my many deep pockets and dash back to my Wingboard, it's engine roaring to life as he screams down the street with me hot on his tail. I scan the hectic streets below, Halbeard using his halberd almost like a scalpel as he drives past many of the ABB members and swiftly disarming them and either smacking them in the face or shooting them with a sleep dart. I use my pistol, pulling back the full power of the rounds to instead of turning the people I shoot into fine pink mist, just sends them flying into walls, couple bruises, and maybe their ribs are cracked but nothing too bad. Eventually, we find a PRT transport van under siege by ABB members, some wearing gang colors, others have the faces of conscripts, and I've seen plenty of conscripts. There also appeared to be a man in a tall black bodysuit and demonic mask, a bandolier wrapped around his chest was loaded with grenades and knives, otherwise, he could be described as 10 pounds of nope in a 5-pound bag.
"He seems friendly." Halbeard glances at me, and I can see the barest mentions of a smirk appear at the corners of his mouth, but it quickly fades as he spins his halberd in position, sending his motorcycle off.
"Oni Lee, Mover, teleporter, leaves clones that disintegrate and can explode those grenades," Halbeard states as he engages in taking down the mooks.
"Sounds like as pain in the ass," I shout as I fire at the masked guy, his head flicking to the side before he poofs into a cloud of ash. I narrow my eyes as I trace his line of sight, seeing another cloud of ash. "Hmm.." I hear a click behind me and I shoot forward, spinning around to catch bright light of a flashbang, my helmet's build in visor blocking the full light and sound of the explosive. "Yep, pain in the ass."
"Be aware that-"
"He uses his ash clones as suicide bombers, got it."
"Oni could also have more esoteric explosives from Bakuda." More time stopping bombs, oh hell no.
"How much trouble would I be if I punched a hole through him?" I hear another click and backhand the grenade and fire it higher into the sky as it detonates into a blue fireball. "I mean, he really sounds like more of a hassle than he's worth!" I receive silence for a few moments as I continue to fight the asshole and occasionally firing potshots at the crowd to keep the dragon in a box. The horde of people thinned massively, leaving the most brainwashed or dumbest fo the bunch to continue trying to swarm rush the van.
Then a swarm of bugs splashed into them.
My helmet hid my smile as I turned to find Buggirl, now named Skitter a not bad name in my opinion. Gorehound Girl aka Hellhound aka Bitch, her choice, and no one else calls her that. And another person wearing a black bodysuit emblazoned with red stars. I give them a small salute as the doors explode outwards, Lung apparently getting attacked by some moron in the van and got his engine revving. He turns to Skitter, then me, he bares his teeth, the flames that swirl around him in a demonic halo grow.
"Ooo," He gravels out, seriously dude get a damned lozenge for that throat cancer.
"Hi, long time no see, now get back in the van for your time out before I make you a eunich again." Much to the surprise that got everyone, barring Lung, me, and the gorehounds, to dead quiet. I and the dragon knockoff began our staredown, the city around us crackling softly like wood in a fireplace. Something in the back of my mind ticks, my pistol flicking out behind me on pure reflex and popping a shot. A sharp crack is heard, then after a moment, a splat, I look down to find Oni Lee, minus his head, and everything else now a sack of broken bones poking out of his corpse like a poop with knives sticking out of it. "Whoops," I say in monotone. Never really got that answer from Halbeard. I turn to Lung, who is unaffected by his minion dying. "So, van or more medical surgery with a gun?" I keep my pistol at the ready, after a moment Halbeard approaches, I float down tracking Lung, he glances at the corpse, he seems disapproving but understanding.
"I think we can classify that under self-defense," kind of obvious but maybe it's a local law thing. I give him a nod, and all of us glare at the supervillain.
The somewhat awesome moment is ruined by all of us being thrown by an explosion.
"Sonovabitch!" I spin my wingboard back into proper orientation, and I see a small woman wearing a gas mask and wielding a grenade launcher while she charges faux-draco, most likely Bakuda. After a moment of internal conflict, I raise my hand cannon at the bomber and ready to punch a neat hole in her head.
"Wait!" I turn to find Tattletale riding on a gorehound with Grue, "She has a deadman's switch on her!" I growl and fire a round into Lung's back, sending him slamming onto Bakuda, who screams and aims her launcher at me. In return I show her my BFG, screw shoulder pains if I want to turn her into red mist I godsdamed will!
"Surrender now Bakubitch! You're outnumbered and outgunned!" I shout as my TK Railgun spins to life, the ominous hum growing and silencing the crowd around me, my eyes flick over to Lung, his body slowly regenerating.
"You won't kill me! You don't have the guts!" She cackles madly, aiming her Grenade launcher at me. I can practically hear her manic grin on her face, her superiority complex dripping from her voice. Every nerve in my hand eager to squeeze the trigger to wipe that smug look off her face.
I float down and walk off my wingboard, she keeps her grenade launcher aimed at me, but I see the smallest of tremors in her hand as I shove the barrel of my railgun against her head, and I whisper. "Try me."
I watch as her eyes flicking side to side, her breathing accelerating, and a smirk grows under my helmet. "Lemme guess, control glasses with a trigger device somewhere on you?" She glares at me through her glasses, but a smile tries to rise beneath it. Let's put a stop to that. "I'm also guessing you're using a signal repeater that when it stops all the bombs you've most likely laid across the city and your conscripts heads go boom all at once?" The smirk falters, "Thought so, good thing I'm used to running into suicide bombers, radio triggered deadman switches ain't anything new to me and I happen to have s signal repeater that keeps things on 'All Clear'," I press the barrel harder against her head, "so drop the gun and play nice."
