A chapter in which things happen, stuff explodes, and people do specific things for specific purposes.
Chapter Twelve: Abilities
Kaiser, as he would tell you himself, was not a man with whom to fuck. As a leader among leaders, paragon of his race, and metal generator, there was very little he couldn't achieve. He had inherited the Empire from his dad, Allfather, and took it to new heights in under a decade.
He would never be defeated by the Protectorate because of his usefulness in an Endbringer fight. The truce made him far too valuable. Not just for his power, but for the pull he had with such a large number of parahumans. His backing from the Gesselschaft made him even more valuable and untouchable. If he ever was caught, they would make sure he got off rather quickly.
Then things changed.
Saiyan took out Lung in a single evening, with not a scratch to show for it. Whatever one might say about that lesser mongoloid, he was not the be trifled with. The asian man by himself was enough to keep both the other villains and the heroes at bay. That someone, a young girl at that, was enough to take him out was originally taken as a fluke.
Her subsequent capture of the Undersiders, and the rest of the ABB, was just enough for people to think that she was strong enough to get a lucky hit in on the Dragon of Kyushu before he had started powering up.
Then Saiyan killed Leviathan.
The Endbringers were the greatest thing to ever happen to the criminal element. It created an opening for leniency from the heroes. Drug dealing, assaults, thievery, nearly everything, short of rape and murder, became little more than a misdemeanor. Sure, they were jailed if they were caught at it, but putting nearly any parahuman in a regular jail was the equivalent of putting a revolving door on their cell. It just didn't work.
And this was all because they needed every hand they could get against the Endbringers. Every able body. Every parahuman they could get to sign up. That meant creating an actual treaty, a completely legal document, that made it so that they couldn't arrest the villains, during or just after an Endbringer fight, as long as said villain didn't go about fighting unnecessarily with the heroes or whoever their other enemies were.
Saiyan ended all that by proving that she, by herself, was enough to kill one.
The treaty was burned. Seven hundred villains were apprehended in the first month. There was no holding back, sending them to regular jail. Eighty percent of all those arrested were sent directly to the Birdcage. The remaining twenty were forcibly recruited. They were given the ultimatum of go to prison or join the winning side.
Kaiser was canny enough to see the change coming for what it was. It was going to take a higher level of Villain to stay on the outside, now. People powerful enough to fight off the heroes, and smart enough to know when to fight them. He was that kind of villain, and he had an iron fisted control over the capes under his banner.
It was too bad, though, about Purity. She had been taken in early. He was almost proud of her, though, when she gave them an ultimatum. Either she kept custody of her daughter, or she killed everyone. Saiyan had, surprisingly enough, sided with the woman on this. That gave the PRT little choice but to agree. Two weeks later, Purity became Lightfall, and her band of comrades ended up joining with her.
Unfortunately, in Kaiser's opinion, the Archer's Bridge Merchants also saw the tides of change and had hidden away.
What had once been a city where the villains were able to freely walk the streets and only have to occasionally fear being arrested had become a shining example of what happened when you fought the law. The law won.
Battles for territory were held in secret, in short bursts. The Empire Eighty Eights were winning, but only barely, what with the constraints. At any given time, it would take less than a full minute for the heroes to deploy. Then there was the threat of Saiyan showing up. Kaiser was loathe to admit it, but he feared that girl more than anything else. He'd seen the video of how Bakuda had been taken in.
Crippled and screaming.
He tightened the leash on his own when he saw that, especially Hookwolf's branch of the business. They, like the ex-wrestler, were a rather rowdy bunch. It took a few shows of power, men being made example of, to get them to fall in line.
And now all of it, the hiding, the running, the limiting, was for nothing.
The Merchants had finally decided that they were tired of hiding in the crags and losing ground to the Empire. They had appeared en masse, literally crawling out of the sewers, and calling out their rivals.
Squealer had created a new vehicular atrocity out of a garbage truck that had more guns and canons than a battleship. Skidmark had used his power to make it even more lethal by ingenious use of his ability to both improve the speed by placing momentum strips on the tires, and the velocity of the ammo by placing even more inside the barrels. Mush was hanging out in the back, using his unique ability to provide an equally unique defense.
If it had been any other time, Kaiser might have pulled back and let the idiots get taken in by the Protectorate and taken the entire underground for himself. But this had not been a good week for him.
After Purity had become Lightfall, Theo had triggered. What he had thought of as a failure, an emotionless wastrel whose only purpose was staying out of the way, became a matter manipulator that made Kaiser's powers rather unimpressive. Theo interacted with anything he touched, non-organic, and could even travel through it. He could take the metal blades that Kaiser would create and turn them into metal bunnies, had he the mind for it.
Theo then joined the Wards, under the condition that he wasn't stationed in Brockton Bay. He wanted nothing to do with the Empire. It was only the unwritten rules, at this point, that kept the PRT from coming and getting him in his office.
Rather pissed, all told, the man ordered his troops to destroy the MErchants, and any hero that showed up to stop them. It was time to show the world that the Empire Eighty Eight was still alive and well. Still the strong.
It was going well.
Fenja and Menja were keeping Lightfall, Night, Fog, and Dragon at bay. Rune was being a nuisance to Armsmaster. Victor was taking on the Wards. All of them. He was using martial arts on a level that was nearly fictional to make fools out of the teens. His first run had put Vista down. The second took out Clockblocker. Now he was just toying with them. Hookwolf was running through the unpowered Merchants like so much toilet paper.
Kaiser himself was aiming for the vehicle that Squealer had made. He'd already closed the area off with his metal projections, completely blocking roads and alleys. He'd even cut off the escape routes by blocking the sewer entrances.
"We are the Empire Eighty Eight!" the man roared, "We are the truest incarnation of a superior race! The mix breeds, the mongrels, the race traitors, none of them will stand against the storm of our power! This stalemate ends today!" He gestured upwards with one hand, his fingers clawed inward and a spike pierced the garbage tank, going completely through it and lifting it ten feet off the ground, "First the Merchants!" he yelled, "Then the Protectorate! No one will ever doubt our power again!"
The entirety of the gang present let loose a roar of approval, fighting ever more fiercely.
"Yeah," said a bored voice from above them, "Not gonna happen."
All eyes turned skyward then, to see Saiyan floating there. She was obviously taller than the last time they had seen her, and the reddish glow that surrounded her whenever she used her power was somehow heavier than anyone watching could fully understand.
She was the only one of the local hero teams that hadn't showed up, so far, and no one could guess why she hadn't been there in the first place.
"Now," the girl said, lowering herself slowly until she was actually standing on the end of the spike that had punctured the garbage tank, "Let's be civil about this. None of you can win. Give up now and you'll be sent to the Birdcage, none the worse for wear. Just hand yourselves over."
Fired up and in full bloodlust, Hookwolf didn't take the invitation to give in. He let loose a roar that was enhanced by his metal body, and he charged the girl, giving an admirable leap into the air and slashing his claws through the air. The blades he used for his claws were so sharp that they whistled as the moved.
"Bad dog," the girl said, spinning into a roundhouse kick that sent the parahuman back the way he came at six times the force. He hit the ground with enough force for the area to tremble. It was only his Brute rating that saved Hookwolf from being road pizza.
Fenja and Menja moved in next. Their powers were exactly the same, improving their size and making them stronger and tougher the bigger they got, geometrically. At their max height, even an Enbringer couldn't kill them.
Kaiser had given them weapons sized for their max when the battle began, and they swung them in unison at the girl, from both sides.
They were stopped by one powerful, but dainty, hand each. The thunderclap of their weapons being stopped was deafening, but Saiyan wasn't even straining under their power.
The leader of the Empire Eighty Eights watched, his jaw hanging, as Saiyan lifted the twins into the air by their weapon and slammed them into each other, repeatedly, until they lost consciousness.
"Bad parahumans!" the girl scolded, wagging her finger at them, "I'm taking away your toys until you've proven you can use them properly and you're all going into time out." There was a crimson rain, none of the villains able to dodge it. They all screamed in fear, even some of the heroes were moving to try and stop them from being hit, but the beams moved around them.
However, instead of burning through the villains, killing them all, it didn't appear to do anything at all. It didn't even sting, in all honesty.
No one was sure, exactly, what had happened. At least, not until Kaiser screamed.
"What did you do?!" He thrust his hands at her, making odd motions with his limbs and grunting. Nothing was happening though.
It took a few of them a minute, but they eventually realized what had happened. The metal user was trying and failing to make blades and spikes and walls. His power was gone.
Fenja and Menja were shrinking quickly back to a normal human size. Rune wasn't able to lift anything with her mind. Victor was no longer a martial arts master. Hookwolf's metal was melting away to nothingness, leaving behind the roided up gangster, still knocked out from Saiyan's kick. Mush was surrounded by garbage and grime that was now doing nothing for him except making him reek. Squealer was staring at the garbage tank with a kind of confused annoyance, almost drooling as she tried to remember how she built it in the first place. Skidmark was cursing up a storm that would turn the air green.
'Huh, guess that wasn't part of his power,' Kaiser thought, still feeling shock from no longer being able to use his own ability.
"I told you," Saiyan said, answering his earlier question, "I've taken away your toys," she lifted into the air then, saluting the other heroes, "I'll see you all at the base."
It was a simple matter then, for the Protectorate and the PRT to take in the villains. They even muzzled Skidmark, muffling his tirade of profanity.
-9001-
In another part of the world, Scion, the golden man, the greatest and first hero, suddenly looked west, towards Brockton Bay, a frown adorning his face. Almost casually, he started drifting in that direction, ignoring everything else in his path.
He knew this had something to do with that weird little ape that had nearly killed Behemoth. He could feel that she was approaching a level that would be a threat to him. One of his limitless pool of abilities, a far upgraded version of the Path to Victory, was telling him that, if he didn't intervene soon, she would kill him.
That was odd. He didn't think that the ability she'd been given would have been enough to be a threat to him at all. He'd seen what it was, what it was capable of evolving into. It was rather weak, all told. Just the understanding and copying of motion. Nothing special, really. Even it's next evolution, the understanding of, and ability to copy a fraction of, other powers shouldn't have made her a threat.
And yet, she was swimming in an energy as vast as the galaxy her home was in. It was… baffling.
And it was time to nip this threat in the bud.
He would get there in the next couple of days. That should be plenty of time to get there before she had the ability to stop him.
He continued to casually drift in her direction, his expression focused.
-9001-
Sitting before the Triumvirate yet again, Saiyan was sitting there with her legs propped up on the table and her arms behind her head.
"So," Alexandria began, "What happened with Nilbog?"
"Had to destroy Ellisburg," she said, "I was able to take away his power, but that sent his monsters all aflutter. They started breaching the quarantine, so I acted."
"Yes," the woman said, crossing her arms, "We can actually see the crater of that choice from space."
"This does not bode well for your ability to remove my subconscious control of the Endbringers," Eidolon said, "Who knows what the Simurgh might do, once no longer leashed, even if it is to so destructive a goal."
Saiyan frowned at the man, "Are you trying to back out of this?"
"What? No, I-"
"Maybe I didn't make myself clear, before," she gestured over to the three Mini-bringers that were hopping all over Legend like a band of puppies, "Those three? They were just the tip of the iceburg. There are seventeen more, just waiting to come out and wreak havoc, all around the world. If we don't shut down your power, countless lives will be lost. Who knows what might be lurking out there. One of the monsters might have an ability that uses my power to make themselves even stronger, in a way that even the Behemoth would be jealous of. I really don't want to take that chance," she held up a glowing finger, then, "And if Ziz goes schizo, I'll be able to take her out before she can even enter the atmosphere. I'm not as weak as I was when I killed Leviathan. She wont last have a second against even my Petit Ruby Balle."
The man stood back, silent. He had arguments he wanted to use, but none of them were good enough, and he knew it.
"What happened with the Empire and the Merchants?" Alexandria asked next.
"Simple," Taylor shrugged, reclining again, "I took their powers away. They were using them to commit crimes. I figured it was like taking a gangster's gun. It's just the smart thing to do. Hell, now you can even put them in a regular prison," she grinned, "And hey, think of it as more proof that I can get rid of that pesky power that's making the monsters, and you wont even feel a thing."
Eidolon grunted. Alexandria looked at the man. He glared back. She lifted an eyebrow behind her mask. He narrowed his eyes further. She nodded her head towards Saiyan. He clenched his fists for a few seconds, then stepped forward.
"Fine," he growled, "Do it. But leave my other ability intact."
Taylor lazily twitched her foot, sending a red beam at the hero. He shuddered, not feeling anything, really, but imagining the feeling of something essential being burned away.
At the same time, floating near the moon, Ziz twitched, then grinned. At the same time that some specific systems on Earth started klaxons that alerted people to abnormal behavior in the Endbringers, Ziz zoomed off into space with no intention of ever looking back. By the time that any of the heroes would be able to catch up with her, she'd have already opened dimensional rips several times, still heading deeper into space. It felt good to be free.
"Is it done?" the only full grown woman in the room asked.
"Yup. The Endbringers will never darken another doorstep," Saiyan looked at her watch, "So, I've got another meeting with a…" she paused, turning her head to one side, "With a friend. I'll be back some time tomorrow."
"Yes, yes," Alexandria nodded, "Go ahead. We'll go see some sources about the Simurgh, to see if she's acting erratically."
"Bye then," and she teleported away.
Eidolon fell into a seat seconds later, looking up at Alexandria, the glow around his face fading, "What am I going to do now? My powers are fading. Without another challenge to face, eventually…" he didn't have to finish. Alexandria knew what he meant. The man had been stuck in a wheelchair before he'd been given his powers by Cauldron. If they faded, he would eventually find himself right back in the wheelchair.
It was a horrible thought.
"We will figure something out," Legend said, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder.
The Mini-bringers, whom had all decided to go home with the openly gay superhero, glared at Eidolon, but made no move to bother him otherwise.
"God damn, those things are creepy," Eidolon muttered.
"Really?" LEgend asked, "I think they're kind of cute." He gently pat the Mini Behemoth on the head, getting a horrifying purr from the small monstrocity.
-9001-
Tattletale was waiting for Saiyan, tapping her foot impatiently, when the hero finally arrived.
"About time," the girl growled, "Do you realize how long I've been waiting for you?"
"A few seconds," the taller teen guessed.
"Well, yeah, but with how fast we are, it was an eternity," she whined, "I mean, the speed of light is for school zones, they don't have a measurement for how fast we are. A few seconds can literally be an eternity for us."
"So?" Saiyan shrugged, "Stop thinking faster than light and it's not a problem. Are we doing this or not?"
"Right, right," Lisa nodded, "Oh, a-training we shall go." She started the process for opening the door to the Time Chamber, grinning to herself. "So, Taylor," she almost purred, "ready to get all hot and sweaty?"
The tall girl blushed, "Shut up!"
"What? I just meant that we're going to work hard, really break a sweat," her grin couldn't have gotten wider if she tried, "Why? What did you think I meant?" She made a pose that was supposed to imply that she was thinking deeply. What it really did was give Taylor a good eyeful of the blonde's cleavage.
"I'm going to hurt you," Taylor growled.
"Bring it!" Lisa laughed, dashing into the pocket dimension.
Taylor launched after her, a glare maring her eyebrows, but a small grin stretching across her face.
-9001-
Power Levels!
Kaiser- 210/10
Fenja/Menja- 300/8
Hookwolf- 230/13
Victor- 150/11
Rune- 220/8
Purity/Lightfall- 350
Mush- 50
Squealer- 9
Skidmark- 80
Scion- 150,000
Lisa- 10,825,461
Taylor- 12,939,411