Good Hunter
The Good Hunter didn't have many memories of the life before the Dream, she saved the most important, clinging to them into a futile effort into preserving her sanity. It worked… somewhat, for she survived the Dream and completed her Hunt. Still from her few broken memories, she recalled Brockton Bay to more… lively city. It wasn't just the bombs, she could saw it by the way people slowly returned to the normal life in the following days after the rampage of this… How was he called? Bakudan? Bakodo? Whatever… After the rampage of the Mad Bomber, people had quickly started to repair the city but their eyes were empty, the movements mechanical. Nobody believed that restoring things would have actually improved anything in the slightest. It was like the city in his collectivity was filling glorified paperwork before the next rampage of the would-be supervillain.
To simply put people knew that any effort of fixing things was worthless when it came to Parahumans, better try to put the mask of sanity, turn your head from the massive crater in the streets that could have been the tomb of your family and make a quick stop at the mall or indulge into pleasures while Rome burns and the world slowly died off rampage after rampage…
Well, she didn't mind it. The Good Hunter liked this depressing atmosphere. It reminded her of Yharnam… of her Hunt.
Speaking of her hunt… her daughter was missing by one day. One whole day. Probably it was just being busy with all the healing stuff or the superhero stuff. Nevertheless, she couldn't help but feel rather worried. Had she scared her daughter somehow? Maybe she had been a bit rash? She had always been an impulsive person, throwing herself into the arms of the most vicious gangster of the Northeastern Coast before and into impossible God-slaying quest after, without a second thought. She hoped that the teaching of her predecessor and mentor, Gehrman, would have worked: don't care about problems and go around killing stuff. It worked for her, why wouldn't it work for Amelia too?
She knew the truth deep inside her heart: she had been that rash for a very specific reason: she craved a connection with Amelia, craved a bond, something, anything. Amy had already a mother. And what mother! Carol Fucking Dallon: Layer, Superhero and mother for two girls. There wasn't simply any competition. What was her compared? A human wreck, a former glorified "slut" who tried to make something out her insignificant life by lacing to the most powerful supervillain she could find. Of course, when the choice came, Amy would have picked Brandish. It was natural, so natural that she couldn't bring herself to being bitter against either of them. Was Carol's fault simply being better than her in every single way? Was Amy's fault to prefer an actual competent mother instead of her?
Still, her daughter seemed so happy in the dream, even down in the Dungeons. Well, after the near mental breakdown (and the creepy attempt to turn her into a clone of her… sister? Once again, she was nobody to judge…) but just before leaving Hunter's Dream she seemed so eager to explore it, to study the weapons and the beasts? Yes, Amy seemed to be really interested in the study of the beasts. How curious. Could it have been a lie, a simulation because she was scared of her? Her rational part of her told her that she was just being delusional but at the same time, she couldn't shake off her doubts.
The irrational part of her instead told her to just drop inside the Dallon house, kidnap her daughter again for asking her if everything was alright but she was trying hard to don't listen to it after the last time she went along the whole kidnapping thing.
Calm down, don't let the anxiety control you. Concentrate. Yes, she had to concentrate on something else, something else like… like…
…like the big event this weekend. Yes, her big moment…
…The big moment when she debuted into the criminal underworld. Not as an eye-candy, not as a groupie, but as a fucking honest-to-god Supervillain.
It hasn't been easy. The cape scene had changed so much in the last eleven years. Back at her time, the cape groupies used to gather into dusty hair saloons that smelled of old cigarettes to talk about their latest exploit. Now apparently everything was on the Internet on this… ParaHumansOnline? Weird.
Still, she was a cape groupie, an experienced one to that. She knew what to ask and when to ask to get the latest news about the hottest supervillains events in town, like this SquealTheSeal24 which flaunted on one the many online villain-groupie chats her latest sexual exploit with a certain Skidmark, apparently the "hottest, sexiest motherfucker in the town". She couldn't care less…
What the Good Hunter cared about, was that apparently, Skidmark was going to "remind the other fucking shitstains in town who was the boss…" and that "all the bitches who wanted a piece of the champ were invited at Sommer's Rock this Saturday". She could only deduce that those shitstains were the other supervillains… It wasn't that clever to flaunt on an online chat a meeting of supervillains, but it's a problem of this Skidmark, not hers.
The Mad Bomber had just destroyed a good chunk of the city.
The villains were going to gather and they were concerned. Yes, it made some kind of sense.
Her mind went back to her youth, the nights spent scouting the bar and night locals in search of some powerful villains. Memories from different times mixing and overlapping into a curious sense of… nostalgia…
She tried to recall the name of an old friend… how was it? Friedrich… No. Frederica! Oh, now she remembered (sort of…) Frederica, sweet Frederica. A woman of German descent. Like her, she met a powerful supervillain and just like her, she had a son with her. When was the last time she saw her?
Oh, right, few days before dying of cancer. Or maybe a few weeks before? She told her that she was going to storm the Medhall, threatening her lover… Allfather? Yes, Allfather! She was going to threaten him of making a scene in front of her wife if he didn't grant a place into the Empire to her and her son.
Well, no reason to look for her. The poor woman was dead. You don't threaten Allfather and live to tell the tale.
Well, now it didn't' mattered. Focusing on a past she barely remembered was pointless. Enough internet for today. She closed the laptop, that she had stolen, not a hard feat when a good chunk of the city was still a smoldering crater. And prepared herself to return in the Hunter's Dream.
The Dream was weird. She didn't notice it initially but it was different. There were small things that were not right. The breeze, the scent, the flowers were ever so slightly different. It wasn't her Dream, no. It was different. A reminder that her actual hunt was over. Done. Ended.
Was this what Gehrman felt like? That was why he was always so bitter. Had she become just like him? A master of a new hunt? Did some Great One gain some interest in her world and followed her through?
Her sight fell on tiny figure resting over the short brickwork, near the stairs. The exact point where the Plain Doll used to rest. The doll was instead tendering the flowers somewhere in the garden. Was it her daughter? Yes, she was! She came back. Maybe she hadn't failed, maybe there was still hope…
Unfortunately, all sense of hope was dashed soon as her eyes met Amy's puffy ones. Had she been crying? Why? Was for something she did? Had she hurt her somehow? She screwed up, didn't she? She wanted to run towards her daughter and hug her but everything she managed to spat out was just a miserably awkward "Ehi…"
"Ehi" Amelia, no Amy, replied.
There was an awkward pregnant pause. Nor the mother, nor the daughter had any idea of how to continue the conversation. Were they both that awful at small talking?
"Something happened, dear?" The Good Hunter finally managed to ask, after such a pregnant pause.
"I have been grounded…" Her daughter replied.
What?
She expected many things. Amy telling her why she did have to come into her life and ruining it. Amy telling her that everything had been an act. Amy telling her that she hated her but being grounded. Why?
"What happened?"
"Apparently… I said something, something I should have not…"
"Can you explain it?"
Amy sighed. "After I left the Dream, I went to the hospital. There I met Vicky... then the entire New Wave came, they had been searching for me for the entire day... They brought me to the PRT where I was interrogated… They asked me what happened and they asked me about you."
"Did you tell them about me?" Of course, she did, she hates you. You kidnapped her. You stole her from her rightfully true family.
"No. I mean yes… I mean… I lied…" What. She continued. "I just told them that you wanted to kidnap me… You wanted to extort the New Wave and the PRT but you panicked after hearing the explosion and escaped leaving me back." Well, it wasn't the most flattering lie that she could come up with, but still…
…Her daughter had just lied for her.
She broke the law for her.
She wanted to rush and hug her. She wanted to ask her if she was okay with commit a crime for her. No, better not press the issue further…
"So, they think that you are some kind of mover, I told them you can teleport with some kind of silvery mist."
"That's okay but I don't see how somebody could be grounded for this."
"I am not finished." The healer replied. "After the interrogation at the PRT HQ, the New Wave did the same. They asked me the same questions. I don't… maybe I was tired, maybe I panicked but I tried to downplay the entire thing… It's not a big deal being kidnapped when you are a cape, right?" She paused, her glance falling on the ground.
"Well, at that point Carol snapped. Whatever I said, it pissed her off. She told me how I dared to say such stupidity, how they spent the entire night looking for her… I never saw her so angry. I must have said something really stupid because she grounded me. I wasn't even allowed to go to the hospital. That's, that's why I did come here yesterday…"
Then the girl froze as if she suddenly realized that she said or did something completely wrong and unnatural. She was quick to add apologetically:
"S-she apologized to me this morning. She lifted the grounding, she told me that she was sorry, she was really stressed and she lost control." Amy laughter mirthlessly. "It has been the first time in years that she said she was sorry at me… I couldn't believe it…"
"And then what's wrong, dear?"
"EVERYTHING IS WRONG!" Panacea screamed. Her humor changing again, from sad and depressed at the start of the conversation, to apologetical and now full of sorrow, fear, and anger against… herself? "She didn't believe it when she said it. She never apologized to me. NEVER. Vicky convinced her, yes of course she did, she must pity me. After the robbery, she looks at me just like some pathetic worthless nervous wreck. Or the Hospital, yes, the hospital probably convinced her. Of course, they would. That pathetic shack wouldn't last a day without ME, fixing all the problems. Not the doctors, not the nurses, not the adults. ME."
…
…
"How did he dealt with this?"
"Who and what?"
"M-Marquis. How did he dealt with the fact that he was a monster…? My family hates me, my patients hate me, everyone hates me. And I hate all of them too… I am wrong, I am sick, I am disgusting. My power is wrong, sick and disgusting. How… How can I ignore my problems, as you told me to do…?"
…
"M-my power is changing… I don't know. But I can feel it. I am starting to have so many ideas… I space out for minutes raptured by designs… I keep dreaming of monsters, gothic landscapes, and blood… so much blood… Sis thinks that I am recoiling from the kidnapping… but I think that I am becoming a Tinker. God, I am Tinker now, too…"
…
What the hell is a Tinker?
…
"There is so much wrong that I can do. I am so wrong… What I can do?"
The Good Hunter had no idea before meeting her that Amy could be so… she didn't have even any idea of how to describe it. There was an adjective that described "a person that is about to tear herself in pieces his bare hands? Suicidal? Not quite… Self-Destructive Maybe? It was like a crazy beast tearing and devouring chunks of his very own flesh in a vain attempt to cure a sickness that wasn't real.
And this sick beast was asking for a cure to her.
Her.
She bitterly realized why everyone always told her that she wasn't ready to be a mother.
What she could do? What she could say? Give her a pep talk, tell her that she was much better than she thought, telling her to get a hold of herself? That was… just so ridiculous. She simply would have never listened. Deep down, she realized, Amy was the kind of person that listened only to those who told her exactly what she wanted to hear.
She stared at her daughter. Yesterday she saw the resemblance to the man that she loved, yesterday she saw her daughter moving just like him: the same grace, the same expression, the same vicious collected curiosity of the man who could brutally murder scores of people without changing his expression, even for a moment. It had been foolish to think that seventeen years of trauma could ever be fixed with killing a bunch of monsters, but then again, she had no idea of the psychological state of her daughter before.
Marquis and Amelia also share the same attachment to their code, but for Marquis, his code was his armor, his badge of honor, the proof of his superiority, the proof of his destiny of lead the lesser men. For Amelia instead, her rules were her anchor. The world was black and white, heroes and villains, right and wrong. Unfortunately, Amelia saw herself as definitely black, a villain, a monster. She was a monster and the only reason why she could "pass" for a heroine were her rules.
Her sister, Victoria Dallon, was a beautiful blond bombshell while Amy was nothing more than a freckled goblin. Her mother, Carol Dallon, managed to balance both heroism and working while Panacea failed both as a heroine and a doctor. The Pelhams were a perfect family while the Dallons were dysfunctional with a cold wife and a depressed husband.
And then there were heroes that she worked with every day, moral upstanding just as much she was secretly depraved. Everyone was better than her. Into the perfect garden that was her world, she was the growing weed that must be purged, before she corrupted everything.
If the Good Hunter were to trying to raise her spirit, she would simply refuse. Her entire worldview was built over the idea that she was a sick monster, a bomb ticking, ready to explode.
But…
An Epiphany stuck her.
What if… She kicked everyone down at her level. Amy was a monster, yes, but what if everybody else was just bad as her? No, what if everybody was worse than her.
If her world is black and white, just drag everyone else in the darkness…
Maybe, just maybe, that could work.
"Amy, you are not a healer but a bio-kinetic, right?"
"How did you…"
"Answer my question."
Amy paused for a moment before replying. "Y-yes, yes I am"
"And your power could work with any kind of organism, didn't it?"
The healer nodded.
"Have you ever created a plague, something that could bring the entire city, oh who I am kidding, the entire world on his knees?"
Amy became pale like a ghost, the sole thought shaking her very being to the core.
"No"
"But you could, right?"
...
"Yes" Her voice was coarse. "but it will never happen…"
"Because?"
"Because I have rules." It sounded less that Amy was answering Emilia's question and more that she was convincing herself. "Never use my power to kill and never work on human brains… Never use my power to kill and never work on human brains…" She repeated like a mantra.
"Good, Amy I want you to ask this question: what do you think that those very same patients you heal would have done with your powers?"
The Good Hunter could help but savor the surprised look on her daughter's face as her eyes went wide. Wasn't she expecting this question? She had been cautious asking her about her patients, not her family. Had she asked about what any of them would do about it, the answer would have probably been "everything I do but better". From her rant about the hospital, before the Good Hunter was pretty sure that she didn't like her former hospital, in fact, she probably resented them.
"Could you repeat?" The healer asked.
"I said: what do you think that your patients would have done with your power…"
"What my patients would have done with my power?"
"Exactly…" Let see what she resent more: herself or those people.
"They… They…" She finally answered, making the first step towards… "They would use their power recklessly… without rules: they would obtain favors in exchange for healing…"
"That's it?"
"No, they would ensnare their loved ones, forcing to love them back, they would create plagues, man-eating plagues, plagues that eat any material, they would blackmail the entire world into complying their demands…"
"And you could do the very same, but you didn't. That doesn't make you better than them?"
"Yes... I-I mean... No!" The Healer stuttered before going silent trying to process the logic behind her mother's reasoning. She was better than them… She was better than them. "I-I guess so…" Amy conceded.
The Good Hunter smiled; a giant grin painted on her face. The first wall was breached. Now for the difficult…
"And why you are better than them? Do you have any idea?"
"I guess that my rules make me better than them?" The daughter replied but her eyes were absent: concentrating on something else. Did she ever think about her rules as something more than shackles? Was she realizing for the first time, the true power of her code?
"Exactly! Your rules! Your code! Amelia, did you know the difference between beasts and hunters? Nothing. The very same blood flows into the veins of monsters and slayers alike. Simply, like you, Hunters have a code. Rules, that allow us to preserve our sanity. To even ascend above the lesser men… And your father had a code too…"
Amy's eyes snapped back, her entire body jolting like hit by an electrical discharge. "M-my F-f-father? He had rules too?"
The Good Hunter nodded. "Yes, he had rules and not even the Nine could bring him to break them." Amy's eyes went wider and wider... She was so eager to listen about his father. "His rules were his armor; the rules made him superior, above the lesser men. I think that he would be so proud of know that you have inherited his rules, just like I am…"
"He would be proud of m-me?" She replied incredulously.
"Of course, Amelia" She replied, hiding the pangs of jealously. Did she care more about her father's approval than her mother's?
"My rules… My rules are …my armor too?"
"I think yes… but not just that. They are proof of your worthiness. The proof you deserve this power. The proof that you are in the right. That you are better… even than the other heroes…"
"Oh no, no no no no. You are wrong. I am sick, I am disgusting. I am a monster. If I would snap…" The Healer tried to reply, using her self-loathing to fight back the so heretical idea of being better than the others. Yet, she couldn't stop to crave it, even so secretly…
"Perhaps, but are they truly better than you? Even the New Wave? Even Victoria?" She replied, not giving her daughter low self-esteem the smallest breath to take hold.
"YES, OF COURSE!" She suddenly shouted. "She is beautiful, she is gentle, she is strong…" Her shouting died quickly; the Good Hunter noted. Good, she was starting… to give in. "…she just needs… me to pull the piece together, to fix when things go wrong…" She stuttered, without lifting the eyes from the ground.
"Amy, in all honestly, do you think that the Brockton Bay Brigade, a gang of local failures, would have lasted this long without you?"
Amy didn't answer. Interestingly, she didn't reply nor disagree with her jab against her team. Perhaps, she isn't ready yet, to realize how much better she is than them. Well, no matter…
"What about the other heroes?"
"The other heroes?"
"Yes, the Protectorate, do you think that that human trash is better than you? Twenty years and the city is still the same shithole, actually, now it's even worse. Did they stop the Robbery at the Central Bank? No, the Undersiders escaped. Did they fight Baraonda-or-whatever? No, the Undersiders did it! They are so pathetic that they need the bad guys, the monsters, to do the dirty work…"
…
"Tell me, Amy how many times did you fix their messes? How many times you had to pull the pieces back together because those imbeciles weren't able to do their job properly?"
She didn't answer. She was visibly shaking…
…
"I ask you once again, are they really better than you?"
…
…
"N-No" It was a small squeaky sound that exited from her mouth. Almost without even realizing.
The Good Hunter grinned maliciously. "Sorry, I didn't hear correctly, can you repeat?"
"No, you are… you are right." That's it, Amy, say it. Say the magic words. "I… I am… better than… that human trash…" Her entire figure was trembling, her hands gripping the stone of short wall she was sitting on it until her knuckles were white. But her eyes, oh her eyes, now she could see it again, the spark of Marquis, burning once more, brighter and stronger, waiting to become the same all-devouring wildfire that resided in the heart of the imprisoned tyrant of crime.
Amy inhaled and exhaled a deep breath. Then she pronounced those, heretical, so heretical, words.
"I… am…"
"…better… than…"
That's it, Amelia. Just given him… Just give him… Embrace your nature…
"…those pathetic…"
"…m̮̭͙e̩̲̜͈͇̞̖at̶̜̣b̡͇̺̮̠̭a͙͙̜̱͢g̙̘̼̩̤̩s͚ !"
The healer recoiled as she realized what she had just said. But before she could be overcome by guilt, she Good Hunter dashed at her. She didn't have to waste a single second. Her defenses were crumbling. It was now or never. It was the moment: when the beast is open for the visceral attack, plunge your claw deep and rip off the sick organ, then plant the dark seed.
She hugged her daughter softly, trying to give her best impression of a lovable mother. As she flinched and stiffened at physical contact, while her mother whispered those sweetly poisonous words in her ear…
"Then, why do you care?"
No other words were necessary.
Amy Dallon
It was 3.00 A.M. Amy knew that she had to sleep. The entire Dallon's House was sleeping. Victoria was sleeping in her room. Carol in hers. Why she couldn't sleep, why the itching on her back couldn't just shut up, instead of telling her of doing something?
She didn't want to be awake, she wanted to sleep. To dream. Lest she had to think about those words again:
"Why do you care?"
She wanted to banish to words, to cast away. No, it was wrong. It was so disgustingly wrong. Two days. Two days were passed since that conversation. Two days she tried to forget those words. To destroy them and punish herself for having listened to them even if only for a moment.
But she couldn't, because she had already started to embrace them.
"Why do you care?"
No, of course, she cared! Carol's and Vicky's opinion was everything! EVERYTHING. For many years she fought for her mother's approval. For her telling her that she wasn't a monster. That she was a good person. For her to look at her and be proud of what she saw. A heroine, a good person, a good person…
Carol…
She had done her share of research in those two days… both about her father and… Carol. She wanted to know…Why? Why she lashed so much against her, only to hastily say sorry… that day at the hospital. Why being kidnapped was such a big fuss for her.
She found something.
An old article, from when the capes had just started to appear. Two girls being kidnapped and fending off their captors by themselves. Two girls whose descriptions matched perfectly those of her mother and her aunt. It couldn't be a coincidence.
Her mother triggered because she was kidnapped and she had just thrown it in her face. Of course, she would be mad at her. "She will never love you back anymore. Now, she thinks that you mocked her…"
She chuckled mirthlessly alone in her bed.
Carol, the Great Carol, the Heroine Brandish, the woman that always looked so untouchable, a supreme hero and an equally great lawyer triggered by a simply kidnap.
What a pathetic bitch…
NO! How could she think that? She was her mother… She was a heroine… She was… She was…
She was a pathetic bitch that slept with a torchlight like a 4-year-old brat, while she slaughtered monsters with an ax and gun deep in the Chalice…
B-but w-what about the others? Yeah, what about the others? Mark the depressed wreck? Dean the know-nothing-know-it-all? Kid, "you can't rob the bank if I blast it down with my cannon", Win? Or Armsmaster? Oh my god, Armsmaster. What a deadbeat good-to-nothing loser. He couldn't even capture an already knocked out Lung without screwing everything. And his tranquilizer… Oh my! What a pathetic work. She could do a better job with the water of the severs…
No. It was wrong. It wasn't right. It wasn't…
"Why do you care?"
…
"Why do you care?"
Why do I care?
She longed for the easier times. When things were simpler. When she had just to follow Vicky and heal her for being happy. Back when Vicky was simply everything that mattered. When she was weak and pathetic. When she was raised with lies. When she needed people to tell what was wrong and what was right. When the so-called-heroes, the self-proclaimed holders of the right, of the truth, left her at the mercy of two thugs in a bank…
No, not Vicky, not HER Vicky. She was… She wa…-nted to leave her behind, to be just her support party member She wanted her to be her little bitch. The little dog called Panacea that came every time she screwed up. Not like the Doll, HER true Victoria. She existed for her. She loved her and served her, waiting for her in the dream no matter what….
Enough, she needed air. Fresh air. She needed to go outside. To go to the dream… No, somewhere else…
The Hospital. Yes, healing pathetic meatsacks would have helped her. Helping others is what good people do, right? She was a good person, right? Not a villain, not a villain…
Why do I care?
If somebody told her, just one week before, that she would have found herself jumping from the roof of a building to another directed towards the hospital, Amy would have laughed at the sheer impossibility of said action. She would have asked to get the fuck out her way because she was busy healing worthless insects that didn't deserve it, squandering her potential among spineless maggots that did nothing other than bringing her down…
Why roof jumping? She didn't even know parkour. She HATED movement. She used to hate anything related to physical activity. Victoria was the tomboy, meanwhile, she was the freckled lackey that followed her like a trained animal...
Yet she did it regardless because it was fun. Because it was challenging. Because she had come to like the feeling. The heart beating no stop, louder and louder. Her breath getting deeper. To push herself higher, farter, faster. Because she wanted to do things her OWN WAY. No more listening. No more whining. To live her life like an animal, doing as she pleased.
Her movements were sloppy. Sometimes she jumped too far, sometimes she jumped too short. Sometimes she landed on her rear and quite a few times she almost fell on the streets below. Why she was so bad? In dungeons, she was much better than this! Her body wasn't synched with her mind. She wasn't still used to her newfound strength and agility here in the waking world. She needed to concentrate, lest she fell on the streets and splatted herself on the cold asphalt. Concentrate, concentrate…
A memory flashing before her eyes, long forgotten, long sealed. A man dancing in a forest of bone-white leafless trees. His movements were just as graced as Amy's were sloppy, yet at the same time were so calculated. Instinctual and precise at the same time. No wasted energy. He was always balanced because… because the man had his focus. The man had an unbreakable core, an unbreakable counterweight. His core… His code. His rules. The man had rules, rules that granted him power, focus, equilibrium. Rules that gave the order to chaos… No, this is so wrong… So toxic… Rules not to order, but to… focus. Chaos is the cradle of life; from chaos, everything is given form. Shaper craves Chaos but Chaos without focus, without an objective is just nothingness. Rules not to bind, but to channel, channel Shaper, channel Chaos. "Embrace Shaper, embrace Chaos for with your focus, your rules, you are invincible…"
Amy instinctually obeyed, without even realizing it. She breathed deep recalling her code. "Rules not bind but to focus, not repression but expression. No shackles but armor. Rules are my strength, rules are the proof I am not just some pathetic freckled goblin, the proof of my superiority, of my greatness…" She repeated to herself, under her breath.
Everything clicked into place.
Her breath steadied, her movement bit by bit became more precise, less sloppy and more graceful. After not long, her movements were just a graceful and precise as the movement of the old man in the dream, of her father. She was in control. It wasn't like when she deluded herself of being. She could feel it. She was in control for real. She pushed herself further: going faster, more acrobatic, backflip, double jumps, dancing over roofs of a ruined city under the pale moon. She was…
...Having fun. Amy was having fun. No more stress. No more responsibilities. No more good and bad. No more right and wrong. Just pure unadulterated intoxicating joy of being alive. She was alive. She was finally alive.
It felt just so good for once… being happy.
She had passed the hospital. The hospital, symbol of her duties, her responsibilities toward society, her cage. It was wrong but then again why did she care?
Instead, she followed the scent, the invisible scent of flesh, blood, and meat. People outside at this hour... It could only mean one thing: Fun! She arrived at her destination, perched on the roof of a semi-destroyed building, looking down… A patrol? No, those colors, their faces… They were ABB, didn't they? Good, she was hungry… hungry for blood.
Four tugs. She landed on the street with the grace of a ballerina, unnoticed and clad only in her hoody and baggy pants. Thinking about it, she should have dressed better. The night was cold, but the cold didn't bother her anymore.
Then again, she could always warm up by bathing in their blood…
Another vision: the man again dancing, fighting against six figures, it didn't take long for her to recognize those figures. New Wave, Brockton Bay Brigade. He wasn't bothered in slightest by the numerical inferiority, he was overpowering them. A scythe made of bone, needles, and walls of bone; a white armor made of reversed flower petals… He was so graceful and so creative… Of course, the power of his code made him invincible, far above those pitiable losers of the Brockton Bay…
Yet, in the end, he lost. The light clad heroine, her mother Carol had thrust her sword through a wooden door. The man, Father, threw his body between the door and the blade, protecting… p-pro-protecting…
…Protecting… her little daughter. Protecting her Amelia. If he didn't have blocked the hit with his body, her mother, Carol, would've killed Amelia, her. Carol had almost killed her.
She gritted her teeth. Carol… her mother attacked a villain in own house, tried to kill his daughter, just for a cheap shot against Marquis. Where was her honor?! HER CODE!? Did she think that rules were just something that she could ignore when convenient? How dare she… HOW DARE!
She could be better than this. She followed her rules. She was better than this.
She. was. better. than. her.
All those years wasted craving for her approval, all the stress at the hospital, her sanity crumbling for… for a whore who sold her own rules when she found it convenient. She wasted so much, so much for people who didn't deserve it… but no more. NO MORE!
The thugs didn't still notice her, as she approached. Her movements changed again, no more composed but bestial… like a monster. Carol always treated her like a monster, so be it. She didn't care anymore about the whore's opinion.
She didn't want to be like Carol anymore, not even like Victoria for the matter. A hero? What a load of bullshit. She wanted to be like Father, like Marquis… Untouchable, Invincible, clad in her newfound armor… Her rules. She recalled them.
Don't do brains.
Don't kill with your power.
Everything else? Fair game.
Well, no need to be so strict. It wasn't technically her fault if one of her victims died of asphyxia because she had his lungs crumpled up like a piece of paper.
Yes, no mistakes. Just happy little accidents.
She dashed at the thugs. They didn't see her coming. They didn't stand a chance, just like the Brigade against Father.
She had a lot of stuff to try.
A lot of painful ideas to test.
A lot of tension to blow off.
Amelia started to laugh. Manically so. Reveling in her slaughter. It wasn't like in Chalice when she died so many times against the fiery beast, this time she willed herself to laugh like a maniac. The healer… No, no more a healer… The Biotinker finally welcomed her dark side with open arms.
As she tore limbs with absolute savagery, as twisted bones with maniacal glee, as she warped flesh without care, Amelia sang under the choir of screams. Sang at the pale moon in sky…
It was good to be alive. For the first time in her life, Amelia Claude Lavere felt that life was smiling at her.
Amelia slipped back in her room with caution; she had been out just for little more than an hour, but what an hour! Nobody was awake. Still, releasing a mild sleeping gas, just to be sure. She was getting good at it.
Even, she had returned in her room, she had no intention of going to sleep. The night was so long and she had a lot of work to do.
Hastily she pulled out an old notebook. She never used it before. Grabbing a pen, the Biotinker let her imagination run wild. She started to draw, first eldritch landscapes, a city succumbed to the scourge, a fishing hamlet, the nightmare of a neverborn god, then she focused on monsters of many shapes and forms… the Watchdog, Another one with a massive arm and deer-like horns, another with many arms and eyes, one made only of bones…
The monsters were beautiful.
She looked back at her hands; they were still covered in the blood of the thugs she had just slaughtered. So red. She recalled those old play, Macbeth, how the protagonist tried to clean his hands from the blood with no avail… wash away the sin from her hands?
Hands? No hands, only claws.
Why she would want to wash them? Her claws covered in red were beautiful.
Monsters were beautiful.
She was beautiful.
She started to design the components of those monsters. Organs, cells, building blocks. My first tinker-fugue. How cute…
She grinned. She was totally going to build a beast.
[Shaper: Yay!]