by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings.
The GlitchesWarning: Triggers ahead: child abuse, suicide, mention of rape (not the same targets). And your usual dose of violence and death.
In another game, based on Worm, I chose to have one power and one power only: the ability to take limited versions of powers from parahumans dying nearby. Like the Faerie Queen, in a way, except that these powers would grow when I'd gain levels.
It would mean difficulties at the beginning, but many powers as I progressed. Much like the iconic Wizard.
It did cost quite a bit, too, in character points – the unit of character customization. I didn't have enough to choose a particular starting point, and ended up being randomly assigned to… Quebec.
It was nice, because it ended up being a mere six hours of driving from Brockton Bay, where there was most of the action – unless I wanted to piggyback after the Nine or camp at Ellisburg.
What wasn't nice was that, since I started there, I spoke the local language. Which was French. Nothing about that, but it's quite a trying experience to relearn one's own language. And I didn't like the taste of mayonnaise-filled burgers, either.
What I liked was the locals' reaction when someone like Victor came to recruit for the Empire 88: they practically lapidated him, and he ended up fleeing. I wanted to check where he licked his wounds, and followed him in my own car, only for him to notice and try to shake me off. In his state (he had a broken arm), he ended up crashing against a tree, and I arrived just as he was breathing his last.
He was the first power I actually harvested. And it was quite a power multiplier, as his allowed me to grab skills from people by merely being near them. At the beginning, it was very near, and I took martial arts lessons to be in close contact with experts – because I only got Victor's power, not his accumulated expertise. But I also took lessons in gun handling, and got the instructor to correct my grip and stance multiple times, too.
Being able to absorb skills like that led me to learn languages more quickly, and I soon felt secure enough to cross the border.
As I was doing so, though, a cape battle occurred and demolished the road. My car ended up falling in the crevice created by a heavy object being thrown at it by a flying armour. I didn't know yet that the armour was one piloted by the Dragonslayers, but I quickly discovered that the "object" was a parahuman, also in armour. Named Stonewall, he died right as I was reaching him. And I got the power to shape stone and other similar materials – not much, right then, but I would be able to raise a wall of concrete, soon, and then half-spheres around people to act as a temporary prisons.
As is often the case with games, my trip towards my destination had many sub-quests on the way. Nothing dangerous, truly. Besides, I was in an online game (even if it didn't seem to be a multiplayer one), which meant that death wasn't permanent: these days, no online game could afford to lose their customers by having their characters die in a definitive way. Or even lose a little equipment and experience.
As it was, I ended up being a couple levels higher when arriving… accidentally (on purpose) right as the Undersiders met Skitter for the first time. And I followed Taylor's example and joined their group.
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CoiledAt one point, the Undersiders were ordered to rob a bank. Lisa wasn't clear on the reasons, but they seemed suspicious: why would we get paid to rob a bank and keep the money? Thankfully, the boss hadn't required the presence of our whole roster, so I was free to find out why – it was at the beginning of my "career", and Lisa agreed that I would be better elsewhere.
Still, beginning or not, I had participated in the fight against Shadow Stalker, and been there when she had been shocked by Regent's taser before being bitten in two by Rachel's monstrous dogs.
With her powers, I hid in the shadows and followed Lisa to her boss' lair for her last meeting before the heist. And, as I was witnessing the whole exchange, my vision started glitching.
Or so I thought. The game was relatively new, after all, and there were bugs around – especially around Skitter, pun intended.
But it wasn't the same here: I clearly noticed two realities superimposing themselves, with Coil killing Lisa in one of them.
I was too shocked to react immediately, which was thankful because, after Coil sighed and muttered that it "felt good" and he "needed that", the split disappeared, leaving him calmly explaining the heist to the terrified girl. She knew things from looking at people, and might have caught the very real intent to murder her.
When she left, I stayed for a while, keeping to the shadows. And I discovered that the heist was, in fact, to hide a kidnapping. Of a middle-schooler called Dinah Alcott. Wary of the man's apparent power, I didn't intervene then, and chose to follow the group heading towards the local middle school. He didn't follow, but I noticed the glitch again as the kidnapping proceeded. Apparently, he wasn't sure not to be caught by some hero that wouldn't have rushed to the bank… and his power had a city-wide range. Or more.
Because I had been in his base, hidden in the walls and shadows, it had been easy to "liberate" two guns. Because if I wanted to direct my body to kill a man that was in two different places, I might need more than one. Thankfully, I was dextrous enough to be considered ambidextrous, and had already optimized my gun training, using Victor skill thievery.
Staving my headache at directing two versions of myself, I approached the situation from different angles. And noticed that each time I interrupted the kidnapping in a reality, said reality disappeared quickly, only for the remaining one to split and the men obeying Coil repeating the action a bit further down the road.
I would have thought that, after a couple tries, the man would relent, but no. In addition, the action escalated, as if Coil was, through his men, taking my measure and reacting accordingly.
The first time I interrupted, it was just because I walked there. The second, I had to push a man away from the girl. The third, we exchanged a few blows and I downed one with a throat strike (from the martial arts I "studied" with Victor's power).
The fourth, I repeated the action and then shot the two hurrying towards Dinah. The fifth, I killed most of them with bullets, because they hadn't been wearing protection.
The sixth happened a few minutes later, probably because he had asked them to put kevlar vests beforehand (if they hadn't before, it was probably to stay inconspicuous). I still could blow knees and necks, and almost got them all.
The seventh, they got out behind heavy-duty shields, and opened fire immediately. I let the shadows swallow my body before reappearing, grabbing back the guns I had let drop. They had ignored me after the shootout, and had lowered their shields. Once again, I got them all, and the reality disappeared.
The eighth, they kept their shields up, and I travelled through the shadows to get them from behind.
The ninth, they formed a cordon around Dinah, and kept showering me with bullets while the van was leaving. I shot towards it several times… and it exploded. I was horrified. And dead. But that reality disappeared as well. Apparently, Coil really needed her alive… and I don't think that it was to play dolls with her.
However, as the reality disappeared, the message I got from the game stayed: I had effectively killed Dinah Abbott. And I got her powers. Somewhat.
By then, Coil was more and more careless about his goons, and I worried each time I killed Dinah (when I couldn't deal with the mercenaries) that he would make it a pyrrhic victory for me, discarding the "safe" reality instead of the one in which I killed a little girl. But he didn't, and it implied that she meant something important.
I noticed that the girl was more and more distraught as the failed kidnapping continued to happen and be discarded. Did she have a link with his powers? Did he want her power to interact with his?
Deciding to cut to the chase, I walked towards the girl in the "safe" reality while I dismantled yet another attempt in the other. "Dinah!" I said genially, trying to project trust and friendliness.
She was a bit guarded but let me approach despite another headache-related wince, after which she ran in my arms – and I guessed that she had used a thinker power to predict that I would save her.
"Do not worry." I whispered. "There are people want to kidnap you, but I'll keep you safe."
Having used my shadow-hiding power for some time now, I had increased it enough to hide another person, and that's what we did. After the kidnappers' van passed us by, we returned to normal and I walked her home.
No more reality splits happened that day. During the night, I headed towards Coil's base, entered by travelling through the shadows, and appeared in his bedroom. I could feel when he awoke, startled, because the glitches occurred again. But he was too shocked by what he was seeing: I had my two guns out in both reality, and aimed unerringly at one version of him with each, even as he discarded a reality to split another.
And I pulled both triggers at the same time. Thankfully, it destroyed his power enough to discard one reality, not both. That would have been the end of the story.
What did I gain from all this ? Two powers! Wow!
Apparently, the game considered that killing Dinah counted, but only once. Her power gave me a new widget that should change colours to assess the chance of success of my actions. For the moment, it had two settings: dark grey, which meant "perhaps", and darker grey, which meant "perhaps not". And it gave the answer a half-second before I committed to the action. Joy.
Also, killing the two Coils at exactly the same time, while staying at the exact same place in both realities, it made it so my main power treated the two of them as two different persons. With exactly the same power. I obtained two slots to "save" the game. Awesome.
I phoned Lisa, waking her, and asked her to come. There were computers, and data, and she'd be able to absorb the man's plans quicker than I could.
However, when she arrived, we were ambushed by other parahumans, and I found myself disoriented, and then burned to a crisp. I died quickly.
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TravelledWhen I respawned, I hid in shadows. I was deep in Coil's base, behind the heavy door I had noticed in the lower level, and I could hear a large body shuffling nearby. There was a window to another room with a normal door, but I couldn't move there.
I was stuck. Like Luke Slywalker with his Rancor. When I saw the creature, I realize I was even more helpless than the Return'd Jedi: it was a gigantic mound of flesh with hungry mouths, with the torso of a young woman atop it. The woman was weeping, probably not in control of the thing.
I held still, waiting for an opportunity. And the monster gave it, smashing at the door in anger (and hunger, too, given its bellows). As soon as a hole was large enough for me, I hurried outside, keeping to the shadows – in that form, I was actually hiding in the shadow.
Light erupted in the vast room, and I thought the roof had been breached and the sun was over us. And my cover was also blown, making my body hurt as much as my vision.
However, the "sun" was not outside the base… but inside. I realized that I fell to that, earlier, and hurried to hide under the catwalks leading to the rooms upstairs.
Since the miniature sun wasn't moving towards me, I realized that it wasn't for me, and hurried upstairs, picking a gun on the way – there were only a few mercenaries in the base, but they were all dead. The monster below continued to bellow and hit the door.
I reached Coil's command centre, and hid in the shadows again. There were six persons there. I recognized Tattletale, at the computer, but she was unconscious and slumped over it. Still breathing. Good. Wrong angle between her head and her body. Bad.
In the corner of the room behind her were a young woman in a wheelchair, and a young man holding it. The woman was bleeding from a shoulder, and seemed in great pain. Both were pale.
Near the window facing the drop I just got up from was another young woman, in tears. Red-haired, with little suns on her costume, her hand extended towards the still-growing miniature sun, it was Sundancer. Or Marissa, as she was called by the last standing young man. He wore a top hat atop a magician costume, and a gun, and was pointing at the handicapped girl.
The last person there was already dead at his feet.
"Stop, Marissa! Or I kill her!" the magician yelled, his voice hoarse.
"You already killed Oliver, and he hadn't done anything!" she replied, hiccupping. "Why?"
"It's for Noelle! Coil promised to help!"
"You saw the data." she wailed. "He never did anything. She was gone the moment you gave her the potion!"
"No! I love her! I would never-"
What he would never do wasn't heard: the continuous pounding downstairs ended with a tremendous crash.
I saw the girl called Marissa turn towards her creation and drop her hand, the miniature sun lowering at the same time.
I heard bellows of pain from outside, and of anguish inside, with the crazy magician changing targets towards Marissa. And I jumped out of the shadows, and held his arm.
"Noelle is free, now." Marissa said, weeping again. Suddenly, there was much less sun in the base.
And the magician teleported me away again, before putting the gun in his mouth.
I was not happy at the situation, but I still gained two powers: I could clone myself once, and I could teleport a short distance away.
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EstrangedOnce awake, at the hospital, Lisa informed me that killing Coil may have been a mistake… or not. The man had promised Brian his help so that he could have his little sister Aisha escape her drugged mother and live with him.
But, when she had seen the man's files, she'd realized he had done effectively nothing. Nothing for Brian and Aisha, and nothing for Noelle and the Travellers – the group of capes we had met in Coil's base.
Still, she had had enough time to move some massive monetary assets before being shot, and directed a part of it to help Brian.
Our chat got interrupted by bombs exploding all around the city, even in the lobby of the hospital we were in.
Bakuda had taken the city hostage.
Getting involved got me trapped in a time bomb, which acted like Gray Boy's ability, trapping me in a never-ending loop. Except that I could teleport. Not far, but enough to get out of the bubble while Bakuda was doing a monologue to a restrained Lisa. And I teleported the Tinker into her own bubble.
Apparently, she reacted quickly, as her right foot twitched meaningfully. And then she exploded. And the time bubble rewound, making her whole before being exploded again. I could imagine in her eyes the realization of her fate, from outside the bubble, and smiled nastily – even as I waved away the screen informing me that I had gained a power over time.
Despite the name implying a powerful ability, it wasn't much at first. Time Manipulation allowed me to increase or decrease the flow of time by a small percentage, and for only one person. Using it on me would accelerate my movements and my thinking speed. Using it on an enemy would slow them. I couldn't wait to level up to bring that ability to a noticeable level.
"You stupid fool!" exclaimed Lisa, hitting my shoulder. "You could have had us all killed!"
"What?"
"She had a dead-man switch. Or dead-woman, whatever. Thankfully, that bubble's horizon blocked her signal from her mainframe computer, redirecting the signal to explode her stuff instead."
I paled at that (the game was immersive enough that I was quite taken by the plot): Bakuda had threatened to explode the whole city, after all. "Yeah… thankfully." I said weakly. Thankfully, there wasn't another bomb Tinker around. With rare care, we took apart her computers so that the signal would never be sent. And then we collaborated with the heroes to clean the city of all the bombs left out.
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BattledIn this game, Kaiser was a total asshole. And Purity wanted out.
Our group had shaken Coil's leash loose and achieved financial independence, and we had more capes than most: the four core Undersiders, Skitter, me, Aisha, and three of the Travellers (Sundancer, Genesis, and Ballistic). As such, we were considered by the heroes as a gang on par with the others. Except that we never killed, kidnapped, drugged, or physically inconvenienced anyone. In fact, now flush with cash, we didn't do anything… except push back when the other gangs tried to attack us or people in our "neighbourhood" – a territory that increased as people further away asked for our help as well.
This was more in line with Purity's ideals – she had joined Medhall with the goal to help her fellow humans, after all.
However, taking her (and her daughter) with us might have been an error, because Kaiser would try to take them back. By force. By attacking us.
By then, we had enough powers and equipment (and eyes) to detect intrusions in our territory, though, and we were ready for the party.
To make matters worse, the man had brought his son Theo, a boy Purity had tried to re-educate when she played babysitter for her boss (around the same time Kaiser had raped her, in fact).
Theo had been removed from his schooling, now, a bit (a lot) of money had changed hands, and Theo had imbibed a "magic potion" that made him develop a stable set of powers, courtesy of the mysterious benefactor named Cauldron. Now, trained by Crusader, the not-yet-adult boy was able to stick his hands in various materials and generate larger hands made of the same material. Wonderful.
He called himself Golem – and wasn't that an ironic blast, a Jewish-inspired name for a would-be Nazi villain. Nobody noticed, and Theo didn't either.
Besides Golem and Crusader, Kaiser also brought Hookwolf, Fenja and Menja, Alabaster, but also Krieg, Stormtiger, Cricket, Othala, Rune, and Night and Fog.
"I think we got them all." came Lisa's voice in our ear. "It's a true Empire raid."
"A Raid? Is that a pun for my insects?" Taylor asked.
"Shut it, you." Lisa said, her (vulpine) smile audible in her tone. And then she turned serious. "That's fourteen of them. And even more because of Crusader."
"And we're three dogs and eleven parahumans." I replied, having already counted our forces and added Purity (even if she didn't want to fight her old colleagues, she would if necessary). "And a few more because of me." I added as my clone manifested (obtained from Noelle's power).
"And I have a few millions insects, too." our resident bug-catcher indicated. "Not bad odds, especially with you at the helm."
"Done counting?" Lisa asked rhetorically. And then she started giving her battle orders. "Have two sets of eyes on Night the whole time, because she'll be a nightmare if we lose her. Beware of Fog, because he'll try to hide her, and you mustn't breathe him. Everyone, try to separate Othala from everyone: she grants powers by touch, such as invulnerability. Stormtiger uses air. Cricket uses sound. Krieg slows you near him. Remember that Crusader's doubles aren't stopped by matter. You already know about them."
While she rattled all this, Kaiser tried his usual pre-fight speech. "We're here as Purity's family. We're here to bring her back into the fold. Come, my dear, and we'll leave peacefully."
"I don't think you mean that." the woman said.
"So we fight?" he threatened.
"So be it." she sighed.
One second was all it took, and everyone started acting at the same time.
While my clone crept around the battlefield, using the shadows to hide while keeping his gaze on Night, I noticed Fog start to transform into his Breaker state, and created a bubble of reinforced concrete around him, trapping him and his fog inside.
While that was going on, the others weren't inactive: Ballistic had thrown whole cars at the bit of flying concrete in the sky, one of them clipping it and throwing its passengers hurtling to the ground. Rune died immediately, while Cricket landed with unnatural agility. Stormtiger descended more slowly, throwing his air claws at everyone.
He was quite surprised when a miniature sun materialized right in his path, especially as, once airborne, he could only slow his descent, not fly. He died with a scream that made us all wince. And Hookwolf roared in rage. The living metal blender jumped at us, and was intercepted by Genesis, Jess' projection.
Meanwhile, I felt Rune's powers adding to mine, and knew I could etch runes on items to give them unusual properties. Rune had studied only one: flight. The first I had in mind was different: invulnerability. Because I had noticed Fenja and Menja trying to reach the concrete cap I had put Fog under, walking around Marissa's sun – given their size, it handicapped them greatly as they couldn't bend down to our level without being burned.
Getting my knife out, I had just enough time to make the thing immovable before they kicked at it. Fenja stubbed her toe. And Menja her Achille's heel. How? I hadn't been the only one at work, here, and Aisha had climbed behind the giantess' boot, unnoticed, before slicing at her tendon.
"Aisha, I know you love being in close quarters, but you're still as squishy as I am. I need your eyes on Night." Lisa almost yelled (in our close-circuit network).
With the ability to make things indestructible, I first transformed the ground under Night into a half-bubble of solid concrete, before closing it. Even if the parahuman inside transformed, the rune I drew would prevent her from scratching her way away. Or so I hoped.
With another hope that Aisha would stay clear, I got my clone to join the rest of the fight. And not a moment too soon, as Othala was being sought after by the Empire capes – from her spot next to Rune's body… which she was holding, tears in her eyes. I teleported to her, grabbed her, and brought her behind our lines. With Rune in tow. A surprisingly alive Rune, given that I had a copy of her powers – perhaps I got them at one point and Othala's power allowed her to return to life? That would have to be tested, because it could be invaluable. In the meantime… a knock on the head of the healer was sufficient to have her unconscious for the time being. I let Purity tie the two girls up (taking care to check whether Rune was in a state where she could be moved) while I teleported back in the fray.
According to the unwritten rules, wounded combatants retreated in order to stay alive one more day. The Valkyries continuing the fight, Rachel had no compunction in ordering her dogs to get them, increasing their size above what she usually did. Being flat on the ground, the twins couldn't really defend themselves. Menja ended up bleeding to death, and Fenja pulled away as fast as she could, reducing in size and trying to protect herself with her shield. One of the three dogs was panting on the side, Menja's spear lodged through its hindquarters. Without taking care of anything else, Rachel hurried there and removed the dog's original shape from the mass of meat that already reduced in size.
At the same time, Grue was concentrating on his darkness: his perception of it allowed him to perceive the movements of his enemies, inside, and that allowed him to reshape the cloud to keep them in the dark. In fact, he only cleared one or two at a time, for us to concentrate our firepower on them.
Skitter was doing more or less the same, except that her "darkness" was made of many flying bugs that were also able to sting and poison. The bugs died by the thousands when Crusader sent his ghosts in all directions, but at least they couldn't make a concerted attack against, say, Grue. They still succeeded in making glancing blows against a few of us. And then Crusader decided to fly over the oily darkness… and took a car in the face, courtesy of Ballistic. Since his doubles didn't stop inorganic matter, the vehicle went right through them and crushed the cape against the warehouse wall, on the other side of the street.
With Genesis keeping Hookwolf down, I reshaped the concrete around the two before closing the bubble and making it indestructible. Jess could dismiss her projection at any time, and create another, which she did. And the human blender was trapped.
It was just in time, too, because Cricket was becoming quite a nuisance: using sound to destabilize Rachel and her dogs, and much too agile to be trapped in normal combat, she required something specific to work against.
Under Tattletale's direction, Grue and Skitter directed Jess so that she could grab and immobilize Krieg in her tentacles, before throwing him at her. His kinetic power radius made her slow enough to be hit by Ballistic's missiles, after that. And with broken legs, she couldn't move as well once she fell in the cloud of darkness with Krieg. Two vengeful dogs plunged after her, too, and she wouldn't be seen again. Neither was Krieg, the dogs snapping their oversized jaws on anything they perceived as an enemy in the cloud – they were used to the cloud, and only used touch to orient themselves.
You'd think that someone like Alabaster was completely immortal. And you would be correct, as his power reinitialized his state every few seconds. That's why he wasn't that careful about protecting himself: when the dogs started to attack him, he was in pain but knew that he would be fine, eventually. After all, in his mind, the Undersiders were small-time thieves and the Empire was the bigger gang. When one of the dog jumped on his prone form, though, crushing his head, the Corona Pollentia and Gemma were equally crushed, and incapable of linking his power to his corpse… which stayed a corpse.
There was a lull in the fighting, then, only broken when a big hand made of concrete rose above the cloud of roiling darkness. On it were two persons: Kaiser and the young cape that was called Golem. And the old man was mad at seeing his forces decimated. He gestured frantically, and a wall of blades appeared, angled to impale all of us in one go. Most of us were fit enough to evade, or had a power to block the blades. I and my clone used walls of concrete to block the incoming metal, protecting most of us even though my clone was cleanly sliced in half. Rachel took a hit to the leg, and we heard another cry in a place where nobody was visible, meaning Aisha was hit, too. Ballistic was hit in the chest, though, and stopped moving in fear of bleeding out.
We were ready to retaliate, when one of the figures on the flying hand jumped down, and the hand pushed upwards. Right into the flaming sphere that was still hovering above then.
Grue's shadows disappeared, and he pressed forward, Skitter on his heels. They found Golem, with a broken leg and a smoking hand. And no Kaiser. "I surrender!" he said. "I always wanted to be a hero anyways."
"Welcome, then." they said, helping him up.
Othala was awoken too, and Tattletale helped her reach the same conclusion: that being with them was better than against. As such, she started by healing the various wounds we had, starting by Ballistic and Aisha – whose power was still active, making her invisible, but Skitter's bugs allowed her to know where there was an invisible shape… and she was also bleeding. My clone was dismissed, much like the extra "meat" coming from when Rachel's dogs were freed from their monstrous appearance.
The battle had taken quite a long time, and we wondered about the lack of police or PRT presence, until a phone call from Tattletale told her that the Empire had sown chaos in the street, every armed member doing their best to shoot everyone they could in retaliation for the defeat of their capes. All the heroes were called on the scene, be they Protectorate, Wards, or New Wave, and we joined them to eradicate that particular threat. Some of us even ended up working alongside ABB capes or the Merchants because the violent supremacists ended up everywhere, including their respective territories.
Not being known beforehand, Golem stayed in his armour. His hands of concrete helped shield the bystanders and hold the skin heads. Because of the backlash against the Empire, Othala removed her costume, though, and acted as a freshly-triggered cape with healing powers. With Ballistic alongside them, the two ex-Empires expunged their debt to the society quite quickly.
Purity couldn't hide her cape identity, but when she helped dispatch her former allies, she gained much goodwill from the authorities.
Rachel regrew her dogs, and she used one to bowl the extremists over, trampling them when possible. Used to being mounted by the original cast of the Undersiders, the two others were used in the same way by Grue and Regent.
Skitter covered much ground with a swarm, cutting a large swath through the Empire's presence and keeping a lid on the worst of its death throes. She even personally saved Parian, taking a few bullets while pushing her to the side. The swarm that devoured her attacker whole left no doubt to people about her lethality. And she might have had a couple broken ribs, but her costume has held true, provoking an instant interest from the parahuman seamstress. And a possible alliance.
I did my job as well, using several powers at the same time: attack powers to get rid of the murderous assholes, but also clones from both Noelle's powers and from Crusader's. Clones that could also grow, like Menja, in order to provide better cover for the crowd. And thanks to the limited power I got from Alabaster, I could regenerate wounds easily.
The others stayed at the scene of the battle. Tattletale because she was squishy and couldn't coordinate us over too vast an area with the limited equipment we had; Sundancer because her attack was too slow and implied risks for the onlookers (and she was squishy as well); and Genesis because Jess was still a paraplegic.
Besides, they needed to keep an eye on the four captured capes: before leaving, I had pushed Fenja into a freshly-made concrete dome, and adjusted the others. Because of the time spent inside, they were unconscious from the lack of oxygen. Tattletale checked their vitals, and I created a bigger bubble for Fog and thick cages for the others.
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EstablishedAfter dealing with all the crap, it was a thoroughly exhausted Armsmaster who came with a PRT squad to haul the four captured capes in custody. He got "healed" by Othala's regeneration and lifted an eyebrow – it wasn't visible under his mask, but Dragon had added a liquid crystal display on the front, for those expressions that meant something. "Tomorrow." he said, and we nodded. We had noticed his glance at the floating Purity above us.
The next couple of weeks, we spent half of our time dealing with territory problems – as we now were the largest group of capes among the gangs, we felt responsible for the well-being of the places from which we had removed the protection against, say, the Merchants and the ABB.
The other half was spent at the Rig, dealing with the aftereffects of the battle. The air was cleared for each and every member of our group, with the help of express judiciary hearings, and the heavier charges (murder) were dropped under the rulings about trigger events. Monetary compensation was demanded, though, because of the various thefts. It was freely given, too, causing many eyebrows to raise – weren't they on the ball about Coil's involvement and then Tattletale's appropriation of the man's resources?
We also had to rebrand. The Undersiders had the reputation of being a small group of small-time thieves. With the Protectorate besides us, we could be more, and in the open. Much like New Wave, we could be an independent group of heroes.
The group became the Utilitarians. Tattletale took the name Verity, Grue became Sandman, Aisha took the name Imp, Regent was Richelieu, Rachel took Barghest (she had finally accepted to change from Bitch, but rejected Hellhound altogether), Sundancer was changed to Starfall… and Skitter rebranded as Weaver. Genesis and Ballistic were less known and didn't change their name (Marissa hadn't liked Sundancer). And Jess was healed by Panacea, too. As to me? I was called Harvest.
Othala, Rune, and Purity were kept at the Rig for some time, and their full cooperation helped clear the air for them as well. In the end, they joined our group in the Undersiders' previous warehouse – turned Headquarters for the Utilitarians.
They had to rebrand, too, which was a work in progress while other events happened around us. Such as Fenja ending up joining the Protectorate, under probation and rebranding, too – she became Valkyrie, of course.
Night and Fog were remorseless individual from the Gesellschaft, the Empire's mothership, and couldn't even be put into the Birdcage without it turning into a bloodbath. With the accord of everyone in a position of power, they were remanded to Cauldron for removal of their parahuman abilities. And then put to the Birdcage.
Hookwolf escaped his own transfer, and returned to Brockton Bay to avenge his massive loss. But not alone: he was recruited, and followed, by the infamous Slaughterhouse Nine.
Several things happened in quite a rapid succession. First, spotters (because, yes, we paid people to look out for the others) told us of an out-of-state van loitering in places where strange (and very gory) murders happened. With Weaver's swarm, it was quickly discovered that the murderer was the Siberian… and that she was linked to the man in the van: as soon as he felt threatened, she disappeared from wherever she was and appeared to his side. We ended up killing him while the Siberian was doing her awful job (following one of my clones). And as I was nearby, I got a smaller version of his powers.
And Purity and Rune took to the air, keeping an active watch for the others, but especially Shatterbird – because it was known that when one of the Nine was somewhere, the others were close. And that they liked to announce their presence with the kind of massive damage only the flying glassblower could inflict. Shatterbird was put to the ground… and discovered as having massive changes in her body. Suspecting that she was forced to do her shtick, we kept her unconscious and under wraps.
Burnscar wasn't found by us but by Faultline's crew, because the girl wanted to see her friend Labyrinth. And she stayed there when she learned that her group was slowly disintegrating.
Jack Slash and Hatchet Face were the next ones we found. They were together and confronted Weaver, thinking that by having her power nullified by Hatchet Face, she'd lose control of her swarm. Yes, except that her last orders stayed within the swarm, orders that were to eat the two of them alive. I wasn't there to harvest their power… but it was perhaps for the best.
Sensing the various emotions around her, Cherish felt the death of Jack Slash and Hatchet Face, and she provoked an intense feeling of depression in her area of effect. Many people actually committed suicide. But Richelieu was in the effect area, and quickly recognized it at being his sister's. Already immune, he sought the epicentre, and killed her – he was quite happy to live here, after all, and didn't want her to either kill his friends or return to their father to blab about his whereabouts. I was nearby, too, and got a bit of her ability to influence emotions. With a much shorter range… for now.
Meanwhile, Crawler was prowling in the poorest areas, damaging the city lot after lot. And, of course, that was Merchant territory. The Merchants, who wanted to grow in power to be able to grab more territory among the large one left by the Empire. Which led to the "games" Skidmark had devised: battles where the winner gained a power-granting vial.
The ring area was surrounded by his acceleration fields, which meant that Crawler, upon arriving there, was thrown into the square area. And the only man there was the one who had just imbibed a new power. In panic, the man's power manifested immediately as a yard-wide sphere in front of him. A sphere that disintegrated any matter inside it. Such as Crawler's left leg. Sensing an effect that he couldn't fight, the massive beast tried to escape, but Skidmark's acceleration fields held true, and Crawler was propelled back through the disintegration field… which cut him in two.
Scrub, because that was the name Skidmark gave him, moved his ball around, and finished the job of removing all parts of Crawler from the world. It was too bad that he didn't keep at least a leg, because he could have reclaimed the bounty from the kill order.
Meanwhile, Mannequin was fighting Lung, the dragon having heard of his presence and wanting to fight. Sufficiently "motivated" (ramped up by the fight), he could even fly to pursue the ex-Tinker, grab him, and slam him onto the ground. Mannequin's plastic casing was in fact hardened ceramic, quite difficult to damage. But the insides weren't so insulated as not to suffer from the proximity of a raging and flaming dragon. And his various parts boiled, killing him.
A clone of mine was there, too. The ability to Tinker self-sufficient bases was too interesting to let go, but I didn't know if that was the only thing I'd get from the mad puppet. So I let a clone grab the dying power, confirm what it was, and then come to me before dying – if it had been anything else, he'd have chosen to disappear where he had been (a note about my clones: they are duplicates of me, and know that; short-lived, they have no qualms about dying, especially to protect me).
After all this, it was almost mundane how I got rid of Hookwolf. He fought well, he fought to the death, but I was stronger in the end. Killing him, I got a bit of danger sense.
It left the littlest member, and perhaps the most dangerous. But with Cherie's ability to sense emotions and influence them, I was able to approach the girl and calm her. We didn't end up suffering from a planetary plague, thanks to that. And the girl started to cry on my shoulder.
Apparently wanting a father figure, she had done everything Jack had asked of her – including keeping the appearance of a small child. After extracting a promise that she'd deactivate and destroy the bacteriological agents in and around her, I accepted to bring her with us. And she demonstrated her willingness to atone by doing it on the spot. She wasn't even wincing as she cut herself up, removing the parts I had mentioned and burning them. "I don't feel pain." she merely said.
And that was the end of the Slaughterhouse, Nine or whatever. Still, we had to finalize this.
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BrandedRiley (Bonesaw's civilian name) agreed to restore Shatterbird to her normal shape, and we discovered that her powers allowed anyone to change appearance greatly, and could grant hardened skin and bones, strengthened muscles, and improved nerves. On top of that, she was proud to show us the result of her (admittedly ugly) experiments on parahuman brains: by modifying the links between the Corona Pollentia and the Gemma, she could modify powers – it would be the same power source (the same alien shard), only with a different expression. Needless to say, if the girl with a scalpel could do so, she could also remove them… and transplant them, too.
With the assurance from both of them that Shatterbird wouldn't be able to shatter glass in such a deadly manner anymore, it was agreed that she could join us. She was truly repentant, but we also knew that, with the kill order on her, she won't be able to pay her debt. As such, it was decided that Riley could continue working to reshape her in order to turn into someone else completely – different size, different shape, different face, different hair. Hell, even her skin and voice were different, as if Riley was showing us everything that could be done with her powers. She was showing off!
With the woman's agreement, she even showed how she could change her power: instead of manipulating glass, she could now manipulate sand. Instead of flying because she was manipulating a costume made of glass, she could now fly by having miniature sandstorm under a solid enough plate. And instead of attacking with a cry that shattered glass, she could send the same sandstorm on her enemies. With her bronze skin, we ended up naming her Genie.
And now that Genie could actually talk in a warm voice rather than screech and damage everything, she took to use her voice a lot. Surprisingly (or not), she sung very well.
Having a parahuman woman with a melodious voice reminded me of something I saw in the news: Canary was the scene name of a poor woman who was being railroaded into the Birdcage, while she had only got one strike against her… and even that was debatable. We might be heroes, but we were also open to alternate recruitments methods (the proof being the numerous villains we ended up hosting, the last two the "worst" of the lot). So we got her out, and offered to change her appearance with Riley's powers – the name Bonesaw was to be forgotten forever, especially as she didn't look like "herself" when Canary finally met her.
While we had been watching her work, Riley had told us that she could even do herself, too. Having already done so to stay little, her whole body was segmented and she could work on each part separately – she must have had ideas while watching Mannequin. It was disgusting to watch, but also mesmerizing – although, to be fair, when she worked on her own head, separating the whole side while keeping her brain in place, it was plainly horrible.
After some time, the little girl now reached the proper height for a girl in her late teens, and she had substituted her white skin and straw-blonde hair for a slightly tanned tone and maple brown curls. Since we were on the naming "game", she chose to be named Peach and wear a cloak of the same colour and texture – not that hard to do for her, and even if the suede base was easily dirtied, she could release microorganisms to clean it quickly.
Working on Canary led to other changes. Once again, starting with a white-skinned blonde, she ended up with darker skin and hair. This time, the change was even more pronounced, starting with Canary (Paige) mentioning that she liked the name Raven. As such, she started with long wavy hair as dark as the night. And then a skin that was on the darkest side of the spectrum for normal human skin – more black than brown. She lost a bit in height, too. Finally, after having reshaped the young woman's face and voice box, she worked on her power: removing the random appearance of feathers on her body, she gave her wings, with enough control to hide or display, and fly. Still, even if her voice was huskier, Raven could still sing… and control people.
Because we were on a roll, Peach worked on the other ones, after these.
Purity's power got a change in colour, as well as the physical appearance of her attack beam: instead of white and a double helix, she was rainbow-coloured (as if her light was coming out of a prism) and her beam was straight and white with a multi-coloured spiral around it. She would be rebranded as Rainbow Warrior, and would also sport a permanent tan giving her a skin tone on par with some Latinos or Arabs – she had actually asked for it, to get herself out of the mindset she had had for a while, just by being near Empire capes. Hell, to complete the change, she asked to be made a man, too, because she suspected that things changed, that way. Yes, even if she still liked "being with" men. Besides, it meshed well with her new identity.
For those who saw her rarely, the change was quite sudden. But for her daughter Aster, it was gradual, so as to get her used to the various changes.
Next on the table was Othala. No change was required, but she still had the strengthened body that everyone got. And she got a working eye, too, for her empty socket. What she wanted to change, though, was her power: quite squishy, she could only grant a small number of powers, and for a short time at that.
Peach made a few experiments, before stabilizing a link between the young woman's Gemma and her vision centre. That allowed Othala to "see" a description of each of the powers she could grant. A description in a language that she didn't know. But with Verity (Lisa, formerly Tattletale) and Tammi (Rune's civilian name) working with her, it was quickly established that Peach had installed something like a translator of power expression… into runes – which was understandable, really: with a former name being the letter O in the runic alphabet, she must have thought that she knew those symbols by heart.
She did not, but Peach wasn't available to change her translator back because she was working on someone else.
It took quite some time for Othala to write everything down, but not as much for Lisa and Tammi to decipher the complex sentences. In fact, most of the runic verbiage was about restricting the given power – whether in strength, in duration, in the fact that she couldn't apply it to herself, that she was the one powering them, and that she had to touch her target. Removing or tweaking all that would probably take less runes.
And, after reading them, she learned how to change them. Speaking of that, another discovery was that there was only one "canvas" upon which the existing rune clusters were written. It implied that she could wipe everything and write a single but extremely complicated cluster… or many smaller ones.
With Tammi to help come up with new clusters (and test them, because her own power was also one with Nordic runes) and Lisa to check everything (and prevent Tammi from testing the dangerous ones alone in her room), they progressed quickly.
The first cluster they tried was a simple "proof of concept" sequence for healing a single person at range.
That's also when we discovered Othala's way of rewriting her clusters: she sang. As we were all living with two singers (Raven and Genie), now, she had felt the harmonies wash over her and try to resonate with her powers. Thankfully, they would only obey her voice. But she would discover quite soon that, with the two of them singing along her, her rune clusters would be more powerful.
That's when her new name came: Lied.
Surprisingly for her small frame, Lied's singing voice was quite low in tone but powerful in volume, to the point of echoing around her if she sang loud enough. And when she actually used her shard to rewrite her cluster, it boomed around like thunder.
Tammi giggled and wanted her friend to change "Lied" into "Thrud Thorsdottir" – Thor's daughter. Lied turned the argument back by saying it was Tammi who actually etched runes on things, and that she'd do well with a hammer. And Rune became Thrud. And got a hammer – in fact, she got several, each with different runes etched in reverse on their head: it allowed the girl to apply them simply by striking the hammer on things (like the typebars in the old typewriters). With rune-inscribed gauntlets, she was even able to channel electricity, like her new namesake's father. Of course, she also got the armour to go with it. With lightweight and indestructibility runes on the inside, too.
But back to Lied. Her first cluster worked well enough, but we discovered a few limitations. First, the acquisition of targets at range did cost her some energy, even if she shored the actual "spell" cost on said target. It also meant that she had to be careful when using spells with an area of effect.
Second, she couldn't modify her active clusters. To change them, she had to erase and re-create everything each time. Her recent upgrade having now stabilized, she couldn't simply train to overcome it.
However, that gave us ideas: since she prepares her "spells" in advance, like a D&D wizard, we used that idea for her costume. And not the mostly-naked sorcerer version, either. Parian and Weaver gave her a wizard's robe and a pointy hat obscuring her face. Given that the robe obscured her shape, and that her singing voice was low enough, we added padding to confuse her gender further.
Of course, we thought about Myrddin while doing so. A wizard? Who wouldn't? Researching him, we found that he appeared to use a couple runes, too, besides powers involving vacuum and, surprise, something like a gamer's inventory. Visually, he had chosen the medieval wizard's theme, with robes of a rough brown cloth, with a cowl and a metal armour underneath, and his had a staff was made of gnarled wood. Lied's robe and hat were black silk, and she will use a wand instead.
A wand seeming quite feeble as a melee weapon, we started with a straight staff, and Thrud etched several runes on it, ending with the usual indestructibility. The staff would elongate and shorten as Lied would command (verbally or by touch), from hand size (fit for a pocket) to building size (to quickly reach the roof), with wand and rod size in-between. Despite the varying lengths (and weight, especially as it was quite dense), Lied would manipulate it as easily as a conductor's baton.
It would also have varying runes light up when Lied used her abilities – confusing onlookers into thinking it was the source of her powers.
And, of course, we got her a sturdy-looking "spellbook" – a replaceable one, of course (with some empty pages to write new ideas), because her true repository of rune clusters stayed at home, in a heavily protected and hidden safe, and it was only a hardcopy of the files she maintained, themselves protected as well.
Once Lied had finished her early tests, involving throwing the iconic fireballs as well (adding unnecessary aiming motions with her hand or weapon), we worked together to define her "usual configuration" (a spell or two in each category: ranged and melee; offense and defence; healing and utilitarian) and some variants (such as battlefield control, full-offence, or healer). It all depended on the circumstances (including the allies she could count on, and the opposition).
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RebuttedBy then I had the powers from two dozen parahumans and tried to grind them up everyday.
The Utilitarians numbered almost as much, with more flocking every day: we recently recruited Über and Leet (after they challenged us into a game, which they lost) and several Wards wanted to come. To the point of hanging out with us – and our younger members especially, like Golem, Peach, Thrud, and Imp (who, to annoy Brian, had decided to ask Peach for a white skin… or just a bit whiter).
Like the young Melissa (or just Missy) Biron, better known as the heroine Vista. She even stayed the night, several times, Imp thankful to have another girl her age ready for her impromptu slumber parties. And Missy was thankful too, because she had no family: her trigger event had been quite messy (hence her unconsciously self-imposed limit not to warp space with people anymore), and the Wards wasn't really a family.
From her point of view, they were colleagues. And not even friendly ones: they often belittled her and constantly (and consistently) dismissed her opinions, because of her small stature and her young age, completely forgetting that she had been the one with the longest time in the Wards. Between her words and her attitude, it was clear that she could benefit greatly from a turn at being Peach's patient.
And Peach had a blast, too, installing new structures like hollow bone parts in her body, with extensible tissues around them, so that Vista could not only be taller, stronger, and hardier… but she could also use her power to grow even taller, in a more sudden manner.
As to her power, it started to include living creatures too. She felt the power resist, in that case, but could push nonetheless. It left spectacular traces when she tried it with animals, though, so she didn't use it on humans at all. But it was nice to know that, should a real villain escalate to truly lethal measures, she had that ace in her sleeve.
After each surgery, and even when there wasn't, Missy stayed to play games with us. And, every time it happened, the PRT had to send someone to remind their young charge of her patrol schedules, and whatever other important concern she had to have as state-sponsored junior heroine.
Sometimes, it was even a hero, who came. Like Miss Militia. And her acute eyes and prodigious memory was able to make some leaps of intuition regarding Vista's sudden body changes… but not only: there were a few parahumans that she knew were in the group, but never present, compared to some that were here each time, but for whom the PRT had no data. And there were more of the second category than the first. She might even had suspected that one of them was Bonesaw, given the physical changes she noticed, but we had gotten hold of the girl's bounty, alongside the other dead members of the Slaughterhouse – with her powers, it wasn't difficult to create a dead body double, perfect in every way.
"You need to come to the PRT building to get tested." Militia told Vista, after she noticed her arm-wrestling the sturdier Imp… and winning. But she targeted everyone. "It's in the unwritten rules, and helps the PRT to upgrade its ratings properly."
"You mean… like they'll have to devise new methods of killing us?" Vista asked, suddenly very serious. "No, thank you. I learned, you know. People overlooked me… but not anymore. Those tests serve only one purpose: to give unpowered people the means to kill me if I become a villain."
"Vista…" Hannah sighed. "You know it's not like that."
"It's exactly like that and you know it!" Missy exclaimed, before continuing in a softer voice. "Especially when you're on the receiving end!" It hadn't been a loud yell, but it was obvious it couldn't have come from the lithe girl unless she was particularly angry. Which she was. "Since I've been conscripted-"
"Vista, please."
"It's Missy, now. And I'm sorry because I know you love being there and doing good. But from my point of view, they dropped the ball. I was forced to join, because the only other option Piggot offered was prison. Because I killed my folks accidentally while I only wanted them to stop arguing all the fucking time!" She took a trembling breath. "I was eight! I was disoriented, angry at myself, and ashamed… and everything in between." She stopped speaking for a few seconds, trying to catch her failing breath.
We had surrounded her, by then, holding her shaking shoulders. "You're okay, now." several voices said.
She nodded, and lifted red eyes back to the surprised woman "The only prison that could hold me was the Birdcage, where resided the worst parahumans of the world. So I had to join. For my own safety, they said. I have been sent to missions, I have patrolled the streets in places where the police doesn't go, I have been to battles with people trying very hard to kill me, I have paraded in uniform. How is that not being a soldier?"
"But… you…" Miss Militia was surprised at the sheer number of problems Vista revealed about her handling. And the fact that Piggot had actually lied. To a child. "You would never have gone there! There are rules… you were young… the immunity for trigger events… the three strikes…"
"Like Canary, you mean?" she said, shaking her head. "Apparently, all-powerful judges and PRT directors follow the regulations only when it arranges them." she wasn't overly aggressive to Miss Militia, but it was true that the woman's fate put fear into some borderline parahumans… which had been the underlying reason, after all. "Zero strike, and she's out, because the judge has a grudge?"
"How do you-"
"There are many sources for more of the same. Trigger events are awful, some people die, and the frightened parahuman is caught and tried with no recourse. When they have Mover power, they flee. You really wonder why most people are forced in a life of villainy?"
"Why flee when you're innocent? The justice system would have-"
"-done nothing. I know you love it here because it's better than some alternatives. But you have to see it from some victims' eyes: it's not perfect."
A very long pause ensued. Missy's eyes weren't the only ones wet. "The independent heroes are not forced to these tests." the preteen almost pouted. "I'm thinking of joining them."
"You know…" Miss Militia said pensively. "If you don't go get tested, they might force you anyways."
"I studied my contract. I have done more time than the others. And I have another "family" to take care of me, better than the two previous ones. I can quit."
"That can change. And they might pass laws forcing for the testing of independent heroes."
Missy Biron took a couple steps and grew suddenly, surprising the patriotic hero. Her eyes inches from Miss Militia's, she uttered a few words that shut her up for good. "If they do that, they won't be any better than Nazi Germany, when they started registering the Jews – using IBM machines, by the way. Think about it."
And she thought about it. Long and hard. And watched how the authority figures treated the Wards, nationwide. And she didn't like what she was seeing. She ended up joining as well. And Peach healed the face that had been so damaged that she had always hidden it.
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WormsWe got Scion! Yay us! It had taken us lots of subjective time, but we succeeded!
And then, Thinkers had thought about things thoroughly and theorized on those twin terrors that had been tormenting us for this whole time.
They had gotten a bit of the history right: worms identified as "Warrior" and "Thinker" had flown together, the latter's trajectory intercepted by another one called "Abaddon".
But not the rest.
After all, how could a three-dimensional being imagine an universe in eleven dimensions? How could a point conceptualize a sphere? An ant travelling to Mars? How could a mere pixel imagine what was happening in the head of the human in front of a computer screen?
Those Thinkers, as well as the whole world they lived on, was but a dot in a universe where worms such as those three flew through quite often.
And it was normal. After all, when you play Worms, the video game, it often happens that dynamite and mines and other explosives make your worm fly off the screen.
Thankfully for that Earth, the off-screen pixel they resided in wasn't often in use, and they could live in peace until the end of their subjective universe… the end of the game.
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To be continued… notAuthor's notes: Yet another game system, yet another change in direction, yet another story idea that leads nowhere. But the journey is the destination… or something like that. And, of course, thank you for your reviews.