Note: I don't own anything


Prologue 6: City Tour


The first landmark I visited on my tour was Winslow High. Obviously I didn't go inside in the middle of the day. I came here for one reason only, to see if the messy situation from last night got any worse. The school building looked even worse in daylight. It was old and shabby, I could even see several broken windows. This was the kind of building you would think twice before going in. Thankfully, after ten minutes of walking around the school, I couldn't see any signs of PRT or Protectorate presence in the area. No suspicious looking vans, no nothing. The PRTroopers that stood guard near the entrance last night were either inside the school or gone now. Marking Winslow's location on my map, I moved on to the next place of interest.


The Broadwalk. What kind of tourist would I be if I didn't check out The Broadwalk? A poor one, which I was anyway. With twenty dollars in my pocket, the only thing I could afford here was coffee, and I had slightly bigger and better plans for these twenty dollars anyway. It was quite a distance away from Winslow, so I had to use my powers to get there faster. I was a bit tired when I arrived, but it was nothing a few hours of just calmly walking around couldn't fix. The place was full of fancy shops, cafes and restaurants with ludicrously high prices, and had one of the best views on PHQ ENE, also known as The Rig. Indeed, this place existed to milk the tourists dry. Some people may wonder why would someone who has no money come to this place. To make money, of course, duh! Well, not now anyway, but soon, possibly. The Broadwalk was literally in the middle of PRT territory, it was well protected, and people came here to spend lots of money, so obviously this place had a bunch of ATMs standing relatively close to each other. I came here to mark ATM locations on my map. When I get Walking down the street, moving in the general direction of the Downtown area, I looked into every window of every shop, cafe and restaurant. I probably looked like I was window shopping, and I kinda was. There were quite a few shops that I wanted to visit later when I get the money. Finally, after half an hour of walking, I was done. It was time to move to the next location.


Next was Lord Street. There were two places I wanted to visit there today, PRT HQ and Lord Street Market. Arcadia High and Brockton Bay Central Hospital were also somewhere nearby, and I had to check those out as well, but later. PRT HQ was a large and boring looking building, and it wasn't hard to find in such a small and poor city. When people said that PR in PRT stood for public relations, clearly they've never seen the PRT ENE HQ. The only things that stood out about it were its size and a large PRT logo above the front entrance. Otherwise, it was just a plain, boring glass box of a building. I remembered that it also had a helipad on the roof, but I couldn't see it from here. There were only two things I liked about this building, it was close to the Lord Street Market, and it was quite a bit taller than most of the buildings in Brockton Bay, so you could see it from pretty much anywhere if you stood on a roof. I hoped that I would never have to step inside this building. Marking its location on the map, I started walking in the direction of the market.


The Market was where I planned to spend the rest of my money. When I arrived there the place was crowded with people going from stall to stall. I should've expected that. After all, there were a lot of people in this city that didn't have secure jobs and wanted to get something for cheap. It was like a powderkeg, waiting to explode. The only thing that prevented that from happening were the enforcers. If they were even half as dangerous and skilled as they looked, then no wonder that nobody dared to cause trouble here. Waiting for people to leave wasn't really an option, so I dived right into the human hive. There were all kinds of stalls here, but a lot of them were just art enthusiasts trying to sell their works. I wondered aimlessly between the stalls until finally, I noticed a small stall that sold masks.

"Excuse me, what are these masks made of?" - I asked the young woman behind the stall.

"Oh, most of them are made from papier-mache. As you can see, I have replicas of local heroes masks here, as well as my original works. The replicas are actually made from metal and the visors are made from glass. They are also padded on the inside, see?" - she said as she gave me one of the replicas.

"These are very high quality." - I said as I looked at it from every angle.

It was true, but the reason why I said it was to possibly get a discount later. Words were cheap, after all, and none of the masks had price tags.

"Yeah, my friend and I are cosplayers. She is a glassworker that made the glass for the visors. Also, she has a stall here as well. That way." - she explained and pointed to my right.

"I'll definitely go check it out later." - I said that, but I didn't really mean it.

I was looking at the original masks that she sold here. Some of them were really well done, others not so much. The replicas were of no interest to me in the first place. Not to mention that all replicas were half masks.

"So, see anything you like?" - she asked, and I could hear a bit of hope in her voice.

Was it because I was looking only at her original works? Eh, whatever.

"Yeah, I like that black one." - I pointed at the black, bird-like mask. It was a smooth black mask that kind of reminded me of the plague doctor masks. The beak was pretty short though.

"That would be nine dollars for this one." - she smiled.

"I'm really short on money right now. Any chance you would give me a discount?" - I tried...

"Sorry, the price is not negotiable. I already kinda gave you a small discount anyway, I planned to sell it for ten bucks."

... and I failed.

"Ok, how about nine dollars for the mask and a bag? I kinda have nothing to carry it in..." - I tried again.

"Deal! These paper bags are dirt cheap anyway." - she said as she put the mask into a paper bag.

It was a pyrrhic victory.

"Than you for your purchase!" - she chirped happily as we exchanged the money and the bag.

"Maybe I'll come here again. Thanks for the mask!" - I said as I started moving in the direction of the glassworker's stand. Half a minute of walking later I found the stall in question. Three girls stood in front of the stall. A very tall black girl to the right, a slightly shorter redhead in the middle, and a short girl with brown hair to the left, half a step away from the other two. They looked young, definitely of highschool age. Why were they here in the middle of the day? Maybe the school was cancelled for some reason?

'Ugh, too crowded. Well, I don't have enough money to buy decent glasswork anyway. Let's see what else I can find here. A pendant or a bracelet would be nice.'

I started to wander aimlessly through the market again. A few minutes later I found another stall that I was interested in. It was a woodcarving stall. The old man running it sold all kinds of things, from local hero figurines to small wooden chips with carved in images that reminded me of dog tags because of their shape.

"Hello. How much for these wooden tags?" - I asked the old man.

"Those are one dollar each. I can put them on a chain for you if you want." - he smiled as he answered my question.

"Oh, nice! Do I have to pay for the chain tho'? I don't have that much money on me."

"Heh, if you had money then you probably wouldn't even be here, sonny. One dollar for the chain if you buy three or more, two dollars if you buy less. So, which ones would you like to buy?"

"I like this one." - I pointed at the tag that had an image of a knight carved into it. - "If you have more like this then I would like to buy ten of 'em"

"Sure! I believe I had a few similar looking ones in a box here"

A few minutes later my new necklace was in my pocket and I was out of money.

"Pleasure doing business with you, sonny!" - the old man said happily.

"Maybe I'll come here again later. Bye!" - I said before I started looking for the way out of the Marker. I was done here. I was in a pretty good mood until walking by Fugly Bob's on my way out of the market reminded me that the last time I ate was this morning and that I didn't have any money on me. Sighing, I marked Fugly Bob's location on my map...


After about an hour of wandering around and asking people for directions, I finally found Arcadia High. It looked like nothing special, but when compared to what I've seen of the Docks area today on my way to the Broadwalk you could say that it looked pretty good. I wondered what would've happened to me if I didn't die that day. Would I be a teacher in a school like this one? Teaching kids how to sing...

'Whatever, I have a new life now. When, no, if I return, if It actually returns me, I will never be the same person anymore. Not with all this power.'

When I was done staring at the boring buildings and getting lost in my own mind, I marked the location on my map and started looking for BB Central Hospital. I asked a few people on the street for directions and 5 minutes later I was already there. Marking its location on my map, I considered if I should come in and ask if Taylor is here.

'No, definitely not. It will probably alert the PRT if I do that. My best bet would be to sneak in and look for her a few days later, at night.'

The day was coming to an end, and I had one last place to find. The Palanquin nightclub.


It took me about an hour and a half to find Palanquin. Why it took so long? Because I was looking for it in the wrong part of Downtown! I thought that it was in the nicer part, closer to Commercial District, or at least closer to the Towers area, but it turns out that its actually closer to the Docks, where the PRT, ABB and E88 territories collide. By the time I found the club it was already getting dark. It was still closed. If Faultline and her crew were here, then it was a golden opportunity to meet and greet them. Maybe I could even join them. It would solve almost all of my immediate problems. It would be so easy...

'No, I still want my freedom. I want my element of surprise when it comes to dealing with Coil, Bakuda and others. Maybe I could join later, but definitely not today.'

I marked the Palanquin's location on the map and started moving through the Docks towards the Merchants territory...


Author's Note:

So, here is the plan for the near future.

1 - Prologue 7 (possibly the end of the prologue)

1.5 - maybe Prologue 8 (definitely the end of the prologue)

2 - Interlude (maybe just one, or maybe two)

-timeskip-

3 - Arc 1 start

Also, I made a few "oopsies" in the previous chapters when it comes to original Worm continuity and geography, but I already kinda fixed them... Patched them up? Whatever.