Immortality is BS
To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author, and the good people who created GURPS. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com, and GURPS Fourth Edition can be bought from warehouse23 dot com.
Conflict
I woke up well-rested and satisfied. I was acting as Rachel's body pillow. It was rather nice. I slipped off the bed and Rachel just turned and mumbled something incoherent. I shrugged, dressed, and went to make breakfast. I didn't need to eat but I could, and Rachel definitely did have to eat. Since I didn't need to eat for nutrition my culinary skills revolved around foods that tasted good. Mostly I prepared foods that were considered unhealthy. Most people thought that I was a good cook. They didn't have to eat my cooking all the time, after all.
The smell of my cooking eventually dragged Rachel out of the bed. I was making bacon, eggs and cheese hash browns offered with orange juice with pulp. She slumped down to a chair and I placed a platter in front of her. I sat down as well, with a plate in front of me as well.
Rachel took a few bites, then a few more.
"I thought you didn't eat," she said between mouthfuls.
"I don't need to. I can, and enjoy it."
"Mmhm. You're a great cook. How come?"
"Well, with both parents being supers they were out heroing at odd hours so I learned to cook. And after I got my own powers I didn't really need to eat healthy anymore so I learned to cook tasty. My friends seem to like it."
"I can believe that."
"So what's on our agenda today? Just waiting to hear from your other cousin? The one who hates fun?"
"She's not that bad, actually. She just doesn't approve of how I live my life. She's a workaholic lawyer in addition to being a superhero and her moral standards are unreasonable. We might have also argued about her family life. My mistake, I admit."
I looked at her expectantly.
"Let's not."
I shrugged. "That's OK. Family matters and outsiders rarely mix. So, the plan?"
She thought for a while and stole my plate. "We should look into getting you a phone and then you can go explore the city while we wait for my cousin to contact me. And I suppose I have to work."
"What do you do?"
"I'm a journalist. Well, freelance. I support myself by being extremely nosy."
I stared her for a moment. "I suppose you want an exclusive if I end up doing something stupid like heroing?"
"Why yes, that sounds lovely. Thank you for suggesting it." Her expression was insufferably smug.
A short shopping trip later I was equipped with a functioning phone and out exploring the city. Turned out I didn't need a new phone, just a new SIM. It was rather convenient, I had pretty much my whole life in that phone. I just need to set up a new backup service since I couldn't connect to the cloud services in my world. My gear and clothes rarely survived if I ended up having to rematerialize after the total destruction of my body.
The Internet of this world was pretty much the same as mine, except that there was a similar grimness there as in real life. I soon found PHO and its forum. It and the wiki contained a lot of information, most of it supposition. Trying to filter out the fact from all of it was giving me a headache after just a few hours.
I was sitting on a bench watching the crowds wandering the Boardwalk. Tourists were easy to differentiate from the locals. The locals were somewhat grimmer even when they were enjoying a day out.
Bored with the Boardwalk I decided to go look around the city. First I wandered through the downtown area. Then I went to the Docks to look at the Boat Graveyard. The whole concept was ridiculous to me. They had supers capable of cleaning it up but for over a decade nothing had happened. I couldn't find any suggestions or pleas for anything like that either. It was strange.
Later that night Rachel called.
"Hi there. Carol, that other cousin of mine, said that it'd be best to meet on Monday so we have tomorrow to spend before it."
"That's good. I'll come over, going to take about an hour. Have you eaten? I could pick something up."
"Do you know where Fugly Bob's is?"
"Yes, I walked past it. I'll pick something up from there. See you soon."
"Laters."
Saturday night and Sunday morning went quite nicely. Rachel was off to hunt for some scandal or other and I decided to continue my exploration. Come evening I still ended up looking at the Boat Graveyard. Somehow it seemed to symbolize the whole insanity that was this world. I had dug a little deeper into the situation and had found out that there was very little political will to do anything about it because Leviathan had made cargo ships almost obsolete.
I watched the darkness fall over the Graveyard and came to myself only after Rachel called and asked if I was coming home. I answered in affirmative and began wandering in the general direction of Rachel's apartment.
I was passing through Docks as I heard shouts of pain and horror. Shortly after that there was a muted explosion and an enormous roar. Like a true fool, I immediately turned that way and started running. It took less than a minute to reach the site of a fight.
There were several Azn Bad Boys members rolling on the ground, wiping away bugs from them and, in many cases, screaming in pain. Lung was standing near the men, on fire from head to toe. He was alternating on looking in my direction and up to the roof of a building nearby.
Lung seemed to come to a decision and dashed to me, grabbed hold and jumped to the roof of the building he had been glancing at. I suppose the claws digging into me and the heat should have hurt but at this point in my life they were more of an inconvenience than anything.
On the roof was a tall and slim girl dressed in some sort of bug suit. If she had something to do with the bugs down on the street it would explain a lot. Despite looking rather dark and edgy I had learned long ago that costumes didn't really come into determining hero/villain status. She was almost at the fire escape, staring at Lung and me. Then she seemed to brace herself and turned to face us in earnest.
"Run, girl! I'm OK, he can't hurt me!" I shouted. I doubted her close combat abilities, especially against someone like Lung.
As if to prove me wrong Lung took my arm in a crushing grip and literally pulled it off. I groaned. That actually hurt. Not much, but still. I don't know if it was being on fire, but it took almost two seconds for a new arm to grow in its place.
"See?! Now run!" I shouted.
If I could read her body language right she seemed to be quite shocked. Then she turned and started to descend the stairs. Seeing her go I turned to Lung.
"Let's see if the big bad lizard can hurt little old me, shall we?"
Lung was strong and big but his anatomy, for now, was still mostly human. I hadn't seen any indication of him knowing any martial arts so I managed to twist myself out of his grip. He lunged at me claw extended. I wasn't a small man and in this case, it worked for me. I grabbed his extended claw and performed a judo throw.
Lung's mass was such that the impact shook the roof. I was slightly worried about its integrity. Lung scrambled back up to his feet. He was visibly larger than when I had first seen him, better armored and his fire blazed hotter. His face was elongated, pushing his metal mask to the side.
"Kill 'oo," he managed to say.
I shrugged. "You're welcome to try, lizard."
His technique hadn't improved with his size. He was still surprisingly fast for his size but that was all. There was no grace in the way he moved. I tried to roll under his swipe but hadn't paid attention to the changed topography of the roof and stumbled, rolling on my back instead of back up. I saw Lung's foot coming down.
A little later I heard Lung roar in victory when my head grew back.
"Yeah, yeah. You flattened my head. Very well done. Now, are you going to kill me or what? I'm immortal, you idiot. I guess lizard brains come with the body." Yeah, I was riling him up on purpose.
Lung turned towards me, ogling me for a moment. "Urrrr?"
Then his head turned to the side so fast it must have given him whiplash. Too slow, though. A huge black shape crashed into him and then they both went down over the edge of the roof. They hit the street with an audible crash.
I turned around just as two more beasts landed on the roof. I really worried about its durability. Surely it wasn't built to take all these impacts. The beasts were almost van-sized, covered in bone spikes and bulging masses of muscle. I couldn't tell what they were except that they looked like monsters. Off these two slid people, two or three girls, and one guy. I guess that from size alone the one I was uncertain about was also a man. The guy dressed in biker leathers and helmet approached me, while the others hurried to the edge of the roof to watch Lung and the monster duke it out.
The butch girl standing closest to the edge whistled and gestured and the two other beasts also jumped down to join the fight. I could already guess the outcome. Despite being a super Lung was woefully outclassed against three monsters, each twice or thrice his size.
"You really saved us a lot of trouble," the biker said to me. He had a charismatic voice despite being muffled by the helmet. His leathers were all black and there was a stylized skull painted on his visor. A pretty good cape guise while keeping things sensible. I never understood spandex. "Are you OK?" he continued.
"Hmm? Oh, sure. Like I said to the big lizard down there, I'm immortal. And a regenerator. Sadly my clothes aren't as durable," I said. I was almost naked. The only continuous piece of clothing was what remained of my cargo pants. They were practically short shorts now.
"When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked. We were arguing strategy for the better part of the day. We eventually decided, fuck it, we'd meet him halfway. Wing it. Not my usual way of doing things, but yeah."
I thought for a moment. "Well, dad said that sometimes it's better to go meet the threat you know is coming rather than give it a chance to come after you. That way you might surprise the fucker."
I heard the fire escape rattle and the girl from earlier peeked over the edge of the roof.
"You can come here, you know. Lung's almost done," I shouted.
The biker looked back, surprised to see the girl. So they hadn't been waiting to tackle Lung for long, then. Good to know these guys weren't that much of assholes. "She took most of the fight out of Lung before I came to continue the beating," I said with a crazy smile on my face.
The girl came to us, glanced down to the street and came to stand next to me, facing the new guys. "Hero or villain?"
I glanced at her. "Does it matter? They saved my… Well, OK, they ended the fight, so it's all good, right?"
I could see from her shoulders and the way she held her hands that she disagreed. I went on before she could answer. I extended my hand to the biker.
"Eric. I suppose I'm a foolish hero. She's probably one, too, and I'm not really interested in your affiliation at the moment."
The biker shook my hand. "Grue. That's Bitch," he said pointing at the butch girl, "Tattletale, and the pretty boy is Regent."
"What the fuck did you do to Lung, girl? He's actually losing down there," Regent said. He was dressed as… Some sort of renaissance fair lordling? He had a coronet and a scepter as well. Supers, mad, all of them.
"Wasp and bee stings, fire ants and spider bites," said the girl in purple and black. Tattletale, Grue had called her. "All those venoms are screwing up his regeneration," she said, glancing at me.
"We were coming over here but Lung's flunky Lee intercepted us with a half dozen guys. He's a cape but not a leader, so he ran when things got tough," Grue continued his earlier explanation. "I guess it's because of you two we didn't have to fight both of them at once. Thank you for that."
The sounds of fighting stopped and Bitch whistled to her monsters. All three scrambled up to the roof. I took a look at the street and saw the mangled body of Lung down there, at least unconscious. Perhaps dead.
"So what's your deal? Have a name?" Regent asked, looking at the bug girl.
She seemed uncomfortable, shifting her weight. "I haven't picked a name yet," she mumbled.
"She controls bugs, you doofus. You heard what I said earlier, right?" Tattletale taunted her teammate. Regent just shrugged. Then she turned her head and her smile faded. "Heads up. We've gotta scram."
Bitch nodded in response and whistled. In moments the three creatures were standing next to her team, ready to carry them off. Grue turned back towards us. "Need a ride?"
"Nah, we're good," I said for both of us. I had recognized their monikers from PHO wiki.
"Listen, a cape is gonna show up in less than a minute. You two did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice. Someone from Protectorate shows up, finds capes duking it out, and there's going to be at least awkward questions asked. Especially since one of you isn't even masked. You two should probably leave too." She smiled at us. It was your standard vulpine grin that unsettled people, I included. Raquel had one like it.
Then they were gone, clipping the fire escape on their way down. The sound it produced was a rather unsettling screech of metal on metal. I hoped it was still usable or we'd have to be creative in getting down to the street.
"Damn," the girl said.
"What?" I asked.
"So those were the kids Lung was going after. Not some daycare. I risked my life for villains," she sighed. So she had realized it as well. Good.
I led us down to the street and checked on Lung. Still alive, although his vitals were quite weak. As I finished with that I could hear a motorcycle arriving. Probably a hero coming to check on the ruckus. Good.
