Split by The Laurent Chapter 4, a worm fanfic

Disassociation 1.4

I kicked a lot of ass in the next few weeks. I learned, because that's what someone who's not an idiot does. I turned myself into a weapon, and damned if I wasn't a dangerous one. It was amazing, and I'd go out as often as I could, busting heads. Not every time I went out did I find anything, and I knew I had still only built up to Shadow Stalker levels of effect on the gangs, combined with the fact that I actually called the police to pick them up, instead of just leaving them there. As if that had solved anything.

But if I was already there, if I was already doing as much as she had unrestricted, then surely it'd keep on improving.

What I hadn't done was fight any capes. I was avoiding it so far, trying to push myself, get used to my limits. All of my new energy and skills didn't matter if I fucked up or didn't pick my battles. Ambush, that was the word of the week.

And I sure as hell ambushed a lot of Nazis. I learned bits and pieces of their politics, and even brief hints of conflicts between various shades of Nazis. Maybe? Just talk of one person or Cape not liking another, it wasn't the sort of shit I could do anything with, but I still wrote it down when I got home, took notes, tried to be a good soldier. A good special forces warrior and all that shit.

Shadow Stalker hadn't done all of that, and so because I was doing that, I reasoned in a vague way while I was sitting in class, that meant I was doing better than her?

The world moved on, winter slipping in, more and more.

I got used to freezing my bony ass off in stupid little alleys, and I also grew used to coming home aching from grinning after another round of asskicking.

I wasn't hurt much, actually, after that. Only a single hit in a half-dozen fights, some of them with just as many Nazis as before. But running around, hauling people off, handcuffing them and all of that, it made me sore, and so I learned the joys of a hot shower after a night of asskicking.

I slept like a damn baby, but I admit some things suffered.

Like yeah, well, I was sorta phoning it in at school. Not that I was, like, not doing things, but I clearly wasn't spending forever and a day looking up dry little nothings for a report when I could just do what needed to be done to get a B, which was more than good enough. Any more time than that, well, it'd be a waste when I could be spending the brain-power figuring out how to tear the Nazis apart. The E88 had to have weak-points, ways I could hurt them without being hurt in return.

Never fight fair, never let them see you bleed, fuck them up until they can't fight any longer.

That's how the strong fight, that's also how the weak fight, if they're smart.

And I was talking to my dad a lot less. I mean, I felt a little bad, but I was doing it for him and all the other people in Brockton Bay who weren't fucking assholes. Fighting to make things better. So what if I didn't exactly talk to him much.

I did still sometimes try to give him a little time, but even when I did, it was a little awkward. I was going out so long and staying out so much, well, he had to suspect SOMETHING and yet he also seemed to be scared of me. That was weird, mostly cause he wasn't a fucking gang-banger, which means he shouldn't be afraid of me, but…

I dunno, he prolly didn't want to lose me or something, not after we'd patched things up a little and I was finally doing my homework and seeing to give a shit about stuff rather than curling up into a pitiful little ball and dying.

And when I did try to talk to him, well?

It was awkward.

Sitting around the television, soaking up news, well, I'd normally rather be out that night, but I'd had a hard fight that Saturday morning. Two fights in fact, leaping straight from one to the next, and falling asleep while out on patrol would suck. So here I was, vegging after dinner with my dad.

He had a single can of beer, which he was nursing, staring at the television. Ever since I'd started exercising, we'd been upping the portions for dinner, and I'd probably gotten the best of it. Dad didn't even seem to realize when he was eating that he was trying to match my pace, which was-okay, I was rather ferocious, as if my food was going to run away from me. It wasn't nazis, just pork chops, but-

I looked at the beer, a little distracted, remembering that time Sophia tried one of her mother's beers, just to see what it was like. It hadn't tasted very good, and she hadn't drunk enough to get anything going before she gave up, frustrated. She had things that interested her a lot more than getting drunk. Lost in the memory, I almost didn't hear what dad said.

"You've been going out a lot lately," dad said.

"Yeah," I grunted, glancing over at the television. There was a bit of the news I was curious to hear, some news pundit arguments I expected. So, okay, I wasn't actually paying any attention to him.

Sounding slightly distant, maybe. Ehh, he's probably fine, I thought, turning to the television.

On it was a balding, middle-aged white guy, slightly chubby. The caption beneath his name read, 'Senator Davis, America First Caucus.'

"Now, Senator, you have been criticized for comments you've made regarding Parahumans in the past," the blonde news host said, "What do you have to say to those criticisms."

"Well Barbara, I'm just going to say, thank you for allowing me to explain myself. I've been here before, and you've seen me talking about the high threat that immigrants have on our way of life. The social safety net stretched too far, our healthcare overrun by hordes of people with foreign illnesses, and of course, the fact that many of those coming from other countries are hostile capes."

"There are some-" Barbara began.

"Now, now," Senator Davis said, "I was getting somewhere. What I'm getting at is that when we're dealing with a huge crime wave in America. Law and Order is breaking down in the face of a motivated underclass that doesn't have the work ethic that has made our nation great-

"Taylor," dad said, deciding to push the issue. "Do you want to tell me anything?" Okay, more like nudge it.

"No," I said, leaning in."

"-and so I don't know why we're sending our capes, our valiant heroes, willy-nilly across the world. Shanghai and Istanbul, Uganda...these are places that can look after their own troubles. We don't demand that they send their capes around the world to-"

"Senator, we've got a representative of the PRT here to discuss-"

"It's," he said, sounding a little agitated, "It's Harman again, isn't it?"

"Yes," Barbara said.

"Well, then let him talk, I suppose," Davis said, settling down.

"Bah," I muttered.

"It's pretty cowardly of him, sitting there and...condemning everyone else," dad said, both because he agreed with the sentiment and because it was a way to get on my good side, I guess.

"It's not like people don't know what he really means," I said, annoyed. He'd chosen the places carefully. He'd even slipped in the word 'hordes.'

God, people like that? It's shit like that which made me tune out politics. Now, Sophia didn't give a shit either, but maybe I liked a social scrap a bit more, and reading stuff online, about people bitching back and forth about this kinda shit, it's why I actually called.

The America First Caucus and its ilk were powerful, but what were they going to do? Tell Legend to stop helping out the world fighting the goddamn Endbringers? Walk up to one of the most powerful people in the world-when you were on record for being a bigot and voting against funding for AIDs research back in the 80s-and fucking tell him what to do? That's what being a badass was, not having to let little pissants who would soil themselves before speaking up against you order you around.

And if I was a badass, and I was, then Legend was…

Hah, a legend.

"No. God, I hate politics," dad muttered, "It's always bad news." He took another drink of his beer.

"Well, how's the thing with the Mayor going?" I asked. I'd sorta...forgotten to proofread his documents. It had sorta just slipped my mind, okay?

"Well, alright, I guess. There's funds, at least right now, but the PRT is pressing for more funds, and the police, well apparently there's been a rise in burglaries, and it's looking like it's not capes, but some sort big non-cape operation which means it's the police's job," dad said.

Sometimes, well, sometimes I forgot that Dad was dad. Even if he seemed a little pathetic, he was someone who could talk to the Mayor, every so often, even if to be told to go fuck himself in polite words. He had influence, just not...enough. I had no idea how to fix that, though.

"God, that's so stupid," I muttered.

"What?" he asked.

"Just...dividing that shit up like that. I mean, it ties everyone's hands so that they have to keep on going back and forth on that shit," I said. More red tape to screw with the real heroes delivering real justice to the city. Not some rent-a-cops to go around stopping blacks while letting nazis drive right by with a fucking wave-not that Sophia had seen that sorta stuff, but she heard stories about the BPD. They...didn't exactly have the best reputation.

"Maybe, but there's a reason to divide things-" dad began.

I snorted, "And what happens when they steal from the wrong person and a few Nazis come around and bust them all up?" Sure, non-cape crime was a thing and shit, but did it really matter that much when with time and effort a Cape could just go and smash all of 'em? If there were more capes, probably they would. Instead that kind of shit just festered.

But, well, that's the thing. If I could focus on tearing up the Cape Gangs first, what's left wouldn't be hard. When suddenly it ain't a handful of heroes versus villains, but heroes versus a bunch of wannabe gangers who couldn't even get fucking Skidmark to press-gang them (and that guy tried to get everyone, like he hadn't even heard of the word quality), now that was different.

"I don't know. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, Taylor. I presume that the Mayor and the others would have plans," dad said, "Have you been studying Parahumans and crime at school lately?"

"Nah, just a hobby," I said with a shrug, lapsing into silence. I had the rest of the argument to watch. The Senator got trashed, but I was sure there were millions cheering for how he'd stood up for Real America, the way the Founders Would Have Wanted.

Dad seemed a little down, and I felt a little bad, but...it was a debate, what was I supposed to do, just nod?

I mean, see what I had to deal with?

No wonder it was sometimes easier to just tune it all out.

At school I took notes, sure, but I also wrote detailed little ledgers of exercise schedules and scribbled thoughts about last night's fight, trying to find some way to get even better. I tuned out what I didn't care about, and began pulling things together.

I had to keep active, keep mobile. Take advantage of me being strong and fast. I also figured out how to use some of the stuff Shadow Stalker did with her crossbow. Like, she popped out and shot people. I could slip through walls. Okay, so it hurt a little, and what if one of them had wiring? But I could sometimes find a good wall to slip through, even if it wasn't as cool as leaping down. I definitely had to keep popping up, force them to have to work for it, though god, did it feel weird, doing the 'wall-ghost' thing. If things got too harsh I'd retreat...and then come back within a second or two to fuck them up some more.

Always moving, always keeping the element of surprise. It was amazing, the feeling of being in control, of people running away from me in fear, and then not being able to get away. I tried not to linger on it, because it was the same feeling I'd got when I'd...bullied myself. Still, I couldn't stop that from feeling great, even if I wanted to. Who cared if a few criminals were a little scared?

Well, maybe I did a little...for a few seconds, but it wasn't something I had time to care about that much.

And so I fought, I exercised, I pushed myself farther and farther. I was a Cape in earnest now...even if I still hadn't thought of a name.

But I had started thinking about powers. As weird as it sounded, choosing whose power to copy felt oddly...intimate, I guess? Shadow Stalker had been an accident, but a good one, since I was so much less pathetic now than before, but that didn't mean I should just copy powers willy-nilly. Because there were people attached to it.

Like, Uber's power was really cool, and it'd help in playing up the fact that I was a total badass, but he was a loser. Same sorta thing with Victor, except replace loser with E88 gangster. Lung, now, Lung was supposed to be vicious, but holy shit wouldn't having his power be awesome? Oni Lee, well, nah. Kaiser, Hookwolf...powerful, but they were also various brands of crazy, and trying to steal their powers might end with me dead. Same with Lung, really.

Grue, well, there wasn't any synergy there, and Hellhound-Bitch, a part of me insisted-well, I guess I was sorta a dog person, but it didn't really do much. There was some weirdo called Tattletale, but eh.

Down and down the list I went, until I got to the heroes. Glory Girl, Panacea, any of New Wave: they certainly had a lot of different powers and Glory Girl was strong and Panacea was one of the better healers in the world and shit. Miss Militia? Maybe, though I had no idea how I'd get a chance to do that, or if they'd throw the book at me if I did.

Assault and Battery-god, that was hilarious, that set of names-had interesting powers, but I didn't know that much about either of them. Shadow Stalker didn't see them much. Dauntless, well, she saw even less than him, but everyone on the forums talked him up as being the greatest fucking thing ever, so maybe…

And Velocity? Well, super speed would be really fucking great, and I could slip out of it and then kick ass from there, right?

I wrote this down, wrote and rewrote it, debating with myself, even adding the Wards in despite my fears.

My first reaction to Vista was no. She was a little...no, don't think that way about a little girl. But it was a pretty damn good power. Kid Win? Eh, Tinker. No clue if I'd even be able to do much with his powers. Aegis would be good for Brute stuff, maybe. Clockblocker, now that's the part where I started to drool like a fucking dog. I mean, if I could combine the powers, I could slip past someone in my shadow state, briefly materialize someone to touch them, and then go and beat everyone else up before coming back to them. I mean, goddamn.

Gallant, now Shadow Stalker, hated that guy. And his power seemed a little wimpy. Blasts of emotions and shit? Eh.

Again and again I circled around the ideas, the possibilities, without ever actually narrowing anything down.

So maybe it wasn't that different from my name, then? Hah, indecisive as always, Taylor. It sorta sucked to hate yourself, but damned if I didn't have myself beat. I hated Sophia, I hated Taylor, and fuck if Taylor didn't hate herself and if Sophia-were she in my shoes-didn't also hate the shit out of Sophia.

Speaking of her, I tried to mostly keep out of the way, but it wasn't easy.

She was a bitch, and she kept on trying to pick a fight with me. And I couldn't just glare her down, even if I tried. One thing that did change was that I no longer gave as much of a shit about Emma's...stuff. I was a lot stronger now, and comments on my muscles and appearance didn't get to me, they didn't!

I wasn't going to be feeling anything from the happy pills yet, but that'd kick in soon, and maybe it'd help things and I could throttle back on the bitch a bit without becoming pathetic.

Either way, things were looking up.

Then there was the internet.

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Topic: A New Vigilante in Brockton Bay? Or Just Shadow Stalker?

In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay Discussion (General)

DefJam(Original Poster)

Posted on January 12th, 2011:

So, I've heard from an inside source that there's a new Cape. Doesn't even have a name, using some sort of cheapo voice modifier. Nobody knows who they are, but he or she seems to have shadow powers. Shifts into a shadow state, can leap and avoid damage…

Is any of this starting to sound familiar?

Is Shadow Stalker doing a little bit of vigilante work on the side?

It'd fit, wouldn't it? They went after the E88, and a lot of Shadow's early stuff, if I remember correctly, was against them too.

Or could it be some new person who just happens to have the same powers?

Edit: Oh come on, that's stupid.

(Showing page 2 of 10)

► 2cool4skool

Replied on January 15th, 2011:

It's just so crazy. Grue, Shadow Stalker? Are we becoming land of the shadows here? There's something fishy going on.

► Rotten

Replied on January 16th, 2011:

Listen, listen, what if Shadow Stalker got a sex change and didn't tell anyone! I mean, it's obviously a guy, and it's obviously Shadow Stalker's powers. One and one is two, dudes! Believe it. That's my conspiracy theory and I'm sticking to it.

► Master_of_Disaster (Verified Law Enforcement Officer)

Replied on January 16th, 2011:

Now, ignoring the stupidity up above, let me run through a little of what I can actually tell people. They've never spoken to police, but we have seen them. They're a little taller than Shadow Stalker seems to be, but it's hard to tell with their costume, which is pretty typical. It's the sort of costume a new vigilante goes out in. A mask, a coat, all of it pretty basic. I've had to go to a few classes on this sorta thing, and that usually speaks to an inexperienced Cape looking to vent aggression, worry, or problems. Like those cops that walk around flashing their badge and showing people their gun. We'll see.

► ZombieLord

Replied on January 16th, 2011:

God, this is interesting. There's a photo someone got of them. What if it is a girl? I mean, it could fit. They look a little like Shadow Stalker, but maybe a bit different. But there's nothing that says they are a guy, really.

► JayBird23

Replied on January 16th, 2011:

Nah, there's no way that's a girl. He's awesome, though. Hasn't fought any capes yet, I don't think, but he has a big stick and he's not going to let it go to waste. He's gonna smash some heads and bring some pain!

► Vixen4Lyfe

Replied on January 17th, 2011:

LEL this thread. People talking seriously, then this joker with sex-change weirdo stuff. PHO isn't your personal porn site, dude. And then people thinking that they're the next coming of vigilante justice. Like Dissonance was? Like Shadow Stalker was? Only by working within the system can anything get done. I bet ten to one she's retired, run off, forced to be some minor nobody, or joins the Wards within a year.

► Whisperer

Replied on January 17th, 2011:

I doubt they're Shadow Stalker. Different builds, it's easy to see when you look at the photos we have. So eh. Still, something to watch, I guess? And I'm betting she just call it a hunch.

► ZombieLord

Replied on February 9th, 2011:

Hey, Master_of_Disaster, is the rumor that they're leaving photographs of the crimes or whatever true? I heard someone say that, and if so that means they're trying to actually get people busted...though it's just photos, right?

► GigaWatt

Replied on January 18th, 2011:

Rotten. Hey, and she...er, I mean he probably could have asked Panacea to do it. She spends most of her time healing people and stuff, right? But I once heard from a friend who knew a girl who knew someone who said that Panacea could do that sort of thing. So, they team up, and bam. GuyStalker.

► Shadow Stalker (Verified Cape)

Replied on January 18th, 2011:

NO. Fuck you.

End of Page 2 of 10

(Showing page 8 of 10)

► SuperCaliFragiEtc

Replied on January 24th, 2011:

Grue: Awright! Now I got one shadow gal for each arm. Ladies?

► 2cool4skool

Replied on January 24th, 2011:

► Equalizer (Verified Cape)

Replied on January 24th, 2011:

Yeah, dude. E88 apologist much? I'm just glad that there is someone out there doing something, I guess.

► HotHands (Verified PRT)

Replied on January 24th, 2011:

Equalizer, you're back in town? Couldn't cut it somewhere else? Well, I guess even a third-rate Trump's something.

► Rotten

Replied on January 24th, 2011:

It's a dude, dude. So it'd not be guy, girl, girl, it'd be guy, guy girl. If it was a thing. Which it isn't. But it's funny to talk about.

► BluntGal91