by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings. This chapter is written as a suite of vignettes, with a different character each time.
FusionChapter: The Tinkering girl is very happy with her last experiments, and she's ready to collate her ideas in a fugue that would be her crowning achievement. It wouldn't be so bad if her name wasn't Bonesaw.
Warnings: gratuitous violence, insanity, death, gore, mention of suicide.
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SophiaI have a violent streak. I never denied it. Sadistic, even. Still, no one acted to restrain it. Not my father, who was there when I put fire to my first ant hive, who gave me a baseball bat when I was expressing my displeasure at the neighbour who complained about my music, and who even held the boyfriend who had dumped me while I kicked him. He taught me well, and I did to my sister most of the degrading treatments he inflicted on our mother. It was him who taught me that the world was separated in two, with predators on one side, and prey on the other.
Still, there were many predators, of various strengths, and he also taught me how to avoid the other bullies – like, the cops, and later the PRT. Because once powers appeared, he tried to trigger himself (heh, doesn't work that way) and then me. I knew that, despite the fact that I was his favourite, the car crusher he had me in would kill me. So I triggered, went through it, through him, and kicked him from behind. He continued to smile as I continued to express my anger on his bleeding body. And then I threw him into the still-going machinery.
I made no secret about the fact that I didn't like my neighbours. Any of them. With my new ability, I could enter their house and steal, and deface, and generally push them away. Even to the point of killing their puppy or their baby. I didn't care. Empathy? What the fuck is that?
As people fled the "haunted" houses, prices plummeted in the neighbourhood. Instead of normal families, we got homeless squatters… and then gangsters. Mostly the ABB, by reason of proximity to their territory. But I continued to express my displeasure, especially when they made their contempt of my person (and skin colour) obvious.
The fact that they were gangsters offered me plenty of opportunities to get free money… and weapons. I tried many, but quickly realized that, if I was to use them, I had to be solid. And I was then as vulnerable as anyone. Let me tell you that that knife to the thigh was a pain to heal. I tried guns, to get them from afar, but it made so much noise (and a specific one, at that), that I was busted each time (with a specific answer of a shower of bullets to the shadowy face).
And then I seized a hand crossbow, and I found love. I let the guy alone for a while, and he helped me by buying more of the things as I stole them – I made sure to trash his place each time, in order for him not to notice that what interested me the most was his armament.
I was hooked. And when people stopped coming into our neighbourhood, I felt the acute loss of action and went further. I prowled the Asian sector during the night, and pulled the trigger on anyone I wanted.
As it happened, at night, most of the people loud enough to catch my attention are other gangsters. And me pining them to walls led to an interesting encounter. It was Assault, I believe, and he merely shook his head at the recklessness of my "determination to eradicate crime". If he knew…
Still, that made me wary. If the heroes had a whiff about my existence, I needed to refine my modus operandi, and only target gangsters. Thankfully, we're not short on that particular supply, in Brockton Bay. On top of that, moving further from home, I was able to find, and attack, those white-and-blond fuckers. With all my physical activities, I was also more fit and able to engage in melee, now, and sometime took pleasure to do so. From behind, of course. And only when they were one, or at most two, after I shot the first one.
That's why, when they were more, I waited for opportunities. Distractions. That gang attacking a rich dad and his red-haired daughter? They were four. If the victims didn't do anything to prove themselves a threat, I would have all fours on my back, a risk I didn't want to take.
But seeing the redhead headbutt the man holding her, and her dad punching the back of the gangster who held him but went to help his comrade, all the better. Two bolts took care of one, and a brief fisticuff took the other.
"Thank you!" they gushed, and the girl looked at me with adoration. Meh. I got my first fangirl.
"Yeah, yeah. You started, I finished." I said, implying (not that they realized it) that I wouldn't have intervened otherwise. "Where did you learn to headbutt like that?" I asked the girl.
She smiled. "It was Taylor! My bestie! I'm Emma, by the way! Her dad taught her a bit of self-defence, and she told me." And then her smile diminished. "The poor girl, she lost her mom…"
And blah blah blah… I don't care about her story. Not one speck. But! I detected there something that made me curious. And willing to interfere. To assuage my visceral need to cause pain. To be a sadist.
I would take fangirl-Emma under my wing, teach her all my ways, and watch as her other friendships crumble to ashes and dust. And that Taylor, too, whoever she was – I didn't care. At all.
A year later, our bullying campaign was going full swing, "poor" Taylor accepting any punishment we could deal her, never fighting back. We never got too physical, of course, and Emma and that hanger-on she had, Madison, played little angels for the teachers, and implied their precious daddies had important jobs ("lawyer" was an important word, even if the man was only a divorce jurist, and "policeman" was as well, even if Madison's dad only manned the entrance desk) and would sue the school if their words weren't taken as face value.
And then I got caught by Armsmaster just as I had (voluntarily, but he didn't know that) shot a gangster in the neck. A hasty bit of pulling got my outfit damaged enough to pretend self-defence against rape, and the hero couldn't even focus on me to tell if I lied or not (because of my exposed skin – thank god for old holdouts of some values).
However, shooting in the jugular was a big no-no for those goody-two-shoes pansies, so I was offered a deal: answer to the police as a civilian (and I knew they had many unresolved complaints about a vigilante, Madison kept track through her daddy), or join the Wards. I raged against the injustice, but it was in my head only – dad taught me well, and Armsmaster was one hell of a predator. If obtuse. And naïve.
I had no real choice, and I accepted. In Emma's head, it confirmed her view of my action: I was a hero. What an ironic world. And you know what else is ironic? It's the fact that my "PRT handler", Monique, is a lazy bureaucrat who would do anything to not work a day in her life.
Now how could she have been in charge of me, a probationary Ward?
We are all the product of our environment. And much as I am violent and sadistic, Emma is unyielding on certain issues… such as identity politics. That allowed her to accompany me in the PRT, as a concerned citizen, and to vet those she felt weren't "close enough" to my demographic group. In fact, she was also a good reader of human behaviour, and only vetted until she found Monique. Whatever hole she crawled out of, my "handler" returned to it, and started an automatic process sending "Sophia is fine" by mail every month.
Joy.
On top of that, our Principal at Winslow, Blackwell, was overjoyed to receive an additional stipend for me (besides the one I provided by being so good at running). And excuses for my numerous absences. And others because I was rowdy in the halls.
Taylor never knew what would hit her, that year. In fact, yes, she knew, but she wouldn't be able to do anything about it, as we had already boxed her in the "loser" box: once the adults in charge judge that someone is a liar, it's too easy to do whatever you wanted to that person. And with the litany of excuses I had, I could start to get physical, at last.
As the year progressed through December, I quickly grew tired to play "nice girl" with the Wards. Where was the violence? The blood? And doing it to your own family all the time gets tedious, after a while.
I needed release. I needed sadism. I needed someone to die, in the most painful way I could imagine. And that person would be Taylor, a fake suicide note pushing the blame conveniently away.
That would be my gift to myself for my 18th birthday, which would also mark my deliverance from the Wards. And then I'd flee that shit hole.
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TaylorI'm hurt. From everywhere. I thought that the bullies had finally seen the light, or something. Far from it: they had emptied several trashcans' worth of used feminine products in my locker before the Christmas holiday, and pushed me inside after. And that was after a proper push-beat-shove in the row of lockers, too. And the use of a knife to remove my shoes and slice at my clothes and skin. Why?
Because it hurt even more. As soon as my feet went in contact with the septic sludge, I felt an atrocious pain starting from under my feet, with more stings on my ankles and calves. The bitches had put glass in there, too, as well as several needles, tip up. Probably used, and non-sterile. And I hope they didn't pull the plunger beforehand, too. What have they done to me?
The only place on the locker ground that wasn't covered in glass was a line of metal at the bottom of the pile of disgusting matter. But, given the size and rough shape… it was my mother's flute. Smashed, of course. A final thank-you and good-bye gift from Emma? I'd cry again if I had enough energy to do so.
Thankfully (or not), the locker was in such a shape that I couldn't fall on my bum in the rotting mess. It also meant that my feet started to hurt more and more.
Let refuse like that rot for two weeks, and you have quite a number of little visitors. The painful effect of the glass and needles was not abating, when I felt something like acid being poured on the skin and beneath it. Hundreds of insects, thousand, even, I didn't know, in the dark. It felt like a million little legs moving around and crawling over me. And under my clothes, too.
I couldn't even scream, because Sophia had been thorough. I saw metal on her fists, for her last blows. Knuckle dusters, I think they're called. I must have a broken rib, and when she last struck me, I was stars… now I can't scream nor close my mouth. And that's one more entryway for the mass of insects sharing what will certainly be my last living space.
I wanted to scream, but my jaw hurt to much. I wanted to squirm, to kick, to bang on the door, but the pain in my lower body was too intense and I passed out each time I moved. I had long since emptied my stomach, adding to the mess, and scratched my nails on the unyielding metal.
After what felt several eternities of increasing pain, I blacked out for the last time. And I'm sure I saw stars, again. With space-faring multidimensional whales. What a strange way to die.
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Riley"Thanks, Uncle Jacob!" I exclaimed. "I'm so happy to meet Panacea, at last! I'm sure I'm her biggest fan!"
"Of course, of course." he replied, patting me on the head as he uses to do when I act like the kid I am. "Remember, my dear: we are just visiting, the two of us. Proper induction in our illustrious group will have to wait until we are all together."
I knew he wanted to use our "official" name… but we were in the hospital, waiting to catch a glimpse of the parahuman healer in action. I couldn't wait! I stomped on place, as I literally couldn't wait: used as I was to instant gratification, I couldn't wait without something to do. And Jacob had removed all my usual toys, I was quite limited. But my stomping around got me an idea and I used my body control to increase my bladder pressure – I couldn't lie to Jacob. With his powers, no parahuman could. "Can I use the little girls' room? I need to pee." I asked.
He nodded, his eyes scanning the crowd for threats. I went… and continued on my way to the stairs. Readjusting my bladder took a short time and I was ready to explore the basement. I had seen the directions to the morgue.
And, you know what, I was surprised. After all that time, you'd think I couldn't be surprised upon finding a dead body? The body on the table was still slightly warm, but it was already reduced to a skeleton, on its lower half. And the upper half wasn't much better, given the angle of the jaw, the missing skin in wide patches, the missing eyes, ears, hair…
In fact, what surprised me the most was that it was still warm. If I didn't know better…
I knew better. I was Bonesaw, of the Slaughterhouse Nine. I specialized in dead parahumans. And the one before me wasn't dead.
Yet.
Apparently, the brain had been isolated from the body to prevent more harm. But I'm not one to allow such a small hurdle to stop me, right? Let's see what I can do to disabuse the almost-dead parahuman that they can stay half-alive while I can grant them life… or death.
It's thankful that I'm here, in fact. At that precise hour, even. Given how Panacea's visit ended (hint: with no one dead), the morticians had been excused for the day, and I thought I had the morgue for myself for the whole night. A whole morgue, with several corpses. Even one from another parahuman, too – a real corpse, too, not that Shrödinger brain on the table.
I got to work, and forgot all about Panacea. Using what I knew, especially from my last experiment with the annoying Mouse Protector and her nemesis Ravager, I had quite a number of options, and all the prime material I wanted.
It was only as Jacob hurried into the room, grabbing me, before hurrying away, that I saw the well-known white and red robe passing the threshold.
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Amy"It's something I have never seen." the doctor was saying, while preceding me on the way to the morgue. "She was dead, but…"
He stopped right on his track, making me stumble. In front of us was a full body. And parts (and blood) everywhere. And the body sat up, opened its mouth (the only thing beyond flat skin on the head)… and screamed.
The scream was horrible. It conveyed the anguish and anger of someone dying several times over, in abject pain. Still, I had a power, and used it… as soon as I was able to approach close enough.
It didn't work. What?
Since the hormone flow to shut the brain didn't work, I went to work on the muscles around the lungs and throat. At least, the cry was lowered in intensity, even if the body was still spasming in the after-effects of… what, already?
"Here." the doctor with me said, showing me his phone. The picture didn't do the body justice, as it was only a torso.
However, a dead body with what felt like a hack job afterwards… "Call the PRT." I muttered intently. "Tell them Bonesaw's here."
He paled and almost fell on his bum. But he did what I had asked. In the meantime, I inspected the body. Each time I found one of her creation, I was more and more impressed despite not wanting to show it: I was a Shaper. She was a Tinker. And her creations looked more and more real. Except, of course, for the fact that it was a Frankenstein-like abomination.
And apparently unfinished, because the face was actually devoid of all the usual markers. It meant that the insane girl was close by, that we had interrupted her. It also meant that it would be my job to finish, and I added the eyes, ears, nose, and hair.
Amalgamation of body parts or not, I wasn't going to call Frankenstein (or, rather "Frankenstein's monster") this person… Boy? Girl? The person was naked, but there was no orifice, down there. A closer inspection of their insides showed no sign of sexual organs, nor were there the normal intestinal tracts. Instead, some sort of organic machinery extracted everything useful from the stomach, and then disintegrated the rest, releasing even more energy.
On the cellular level, it was evident that the body came from several "donors". Parts of it had XX cells, and other parts were definitely XY. And some didn't have normal chromosomes, too, as if they had been processed. With or without chromosomes, some parts were clearly differing from normal humans, too: skin, bones, muscles, and nerves, had some sort of ceramic coating that solidified upon impact and insulated against external influence. Autoreplicated, of course.
The brain was quite something, too (I could look, but not touch), and I recognized Bonesaw's madness right there: two Corona Pollentia, both quite active. I couldn't fathom how she did that – in fact, I could: the insane girl had experimented for years, and was now quite proficient as a result. If you ignored her insane mindset, any hospital would pay through the nose to have her. And I suspect that it's the same kind of reasoning the USA used to host so many German scientists, after WWII.
But back to my study case, because digressing like that always makes me think about Medhall, for some unknown reason.
Despite the fact that I knew the human biology, anatomy, and physiology better than most doctors, I couldn't make heads or tails from some of Bonesaw's add-ons, here. As I ended my examination and pulled the open skin to close the wounds on the person's torso (and the skin latched on the body immediately, making disturbing sounds and leaving no scar), I saw a message hastily scribbled underneath it (in a blood-coloured cursive that disappeared slowly).
"To: Panacea, my idol
From: Riley, your biggest fan
I love your work, I really do!
Perhaps we can meet, some day?"
I snorted. Fat chance for that. I was somewhat curious, but nobody sane would allow a healer of my calibre (no modesty here) near an insane bio-tinker.
"Please?" the person on the table breezed. "Where am I?"
"You're in Brockton Bay Memorial Hospital." I told… them. "Where were you last time you were conscious?"
"In…" a pause, and the start of a panic attack… which curiously went away without my intervention. Thanks, Bonesaw? "In my locker. Sophia locked me in my locker. It was filled with… disgusting… things. And needles. And broken glass. Oh god-" Thankfully, she seemed to have a clean stomach, too, and only dry heaved.
"And your name?"
"I'm Taylor. Taylor Hebert."
"Well… that doesn't help me much." I mumbled, still looking at the quasi-human body.
"What do you mean?"
"Were you a boy, or a girl, before?"
"What do you mean? And why am I naked? And why do you ask-"
Thankfully, my hand was still close by, and I muted the scream before she could bring down the building. "I assume you weren't like that before?"
"No…" Taylor said, inspecting the new body. "And, to answer your question, I was a girl. I don't know what I am anymore."
"Well… thanks to a bunch of new laws, you can call yourself a bunch of new appellations… or keep to girl."
Taylor nodded. "I'll stick with girl, I'm used to it. I wasn't very well… endowed, after all."
At that moment, they heard people rushing downstairs, and I hurriedly removed my outer cloak and dropped it on Taylor's body, so that she would be decent – it wasn't because she had nothing to show that she had to showcase it.
First in the room was Armsmaster. "Bonesaw?" he asked.
"She left." I admitted. "This is Taylor. Her… creation."
That was the wrong thing to say, apparently, because the paranoid Tinker took a combat stance, his power armour enclosed him completely, and his halberd unfolded, becoming a large shield. And given how he approached Taylor, he clearly wanted to bash her with it.
"She's clean!" I exclaimed. "I checked her myself."
"Master/Stranger protocols." the man's voice sounded from a speaker on his helmet. "You know what to do."
"Shit." I breathed, my shoulders lowering. "There goes the movie night with Vicky."
"We'll be… together?" Taylor asked, her voice quite low. I took her arm to reassure her, and also to raise her muscle capacity (because I had already lowered them twice). But she appeared to be in peak shape without needing it. Again.
"I can ask, if you want."
Taylor's smile and vigorous (if timid) nods lightened what would otherwise be a quite sombre mood. Because I knew what would happen. Even with my word that she was alright, they pushed and prodded and tested her in many ways, some downright humiliating.
I tried to put my foot down, but was summarily ignored. It was only when I threatened not to heal the heroes freely that they stopped with the distraught girl. And I took her under my wing.
First, to go to her home, find her father, and tell him about what had happened.
Then to the movies. With the time already spent together, I discovered that she had quite a rough sense of humour, same as I did because of the proximity with medical personnel – who had to use that sort of humour to get on with the very serious situations they faced every day.
The cinema had several movies from Earth Aleph (or a variant), and we chose an Anime: Dragon Ball (Z). It was a remastered version, pulling several episodes of the series and mashing them together to avoid the unnecessary lengths – it wasn't as if Earth Aleph knew about the other Earths, so they couldn't sue us.
"Sometimes, I wish I wasn't so tall." Taylor muttered as one of the character showed an elastic body. "I stand out too much."
"You're fine the way you… are…" I started, because Taylor's body had… changed: her muscles had strained, some things had shifted, and she was noticeably smaller. And my powers still told me that she was at her "normal" height. "Taylor?"
"Who's Taylor?" a voice asked.
I recoiled. "Who're you?"
"I'm… Josh. And you're… Panacea? Why are we in a cinema?"
"Shhh!" came from around us, and someone behind us actually kicked Josh's seat. "If you want to speak, get outside!"
I figured that getting to the bottom of Taylor/Josh's story was worth the sacrifice of the rest of the anime (which was too bad, because they were doing the "Fusion" dance, the part that I had already seen on internet and my personal favourite).
"I have so many ideas…" Josh breathed suddenly looking around him, including his own arms. "So many…"
And, before my eyes, he started to open the skin as if it was merely closed by a zipper, and moved fibres around. I had already noticed them, but he apparently could see a use for them. Such as branching them to his palms. A direct link to something able to disintegrate matter and gather energy? He gained the capability of throwing a blast of energy. In ten minutes.
"So many ideas…" he continued to whisper. Except that he stopped just as he was going to open his own legs. "But only one per technological tree. Got it."
That particular Tinker limitation got me thinking. About the recent deaths in the local gangs… which was the only reason I could find for Bonesaw having access to another Corona Pollentia. "Leet?" I whispered.
"Shhh!" he placated me. "I'm not! My power is brand new! I can craft anything again!"
"Are you going to be a villain again?" I asked. "Do you want to join Über in prison?"
"Well… no. I'm not the same man, am I? It's like… I got that brand new lease, on life. A second chance." A pause. "I'll be good."
"Speaking of good… and your body… have you ever thought of being taller? And a girl?"
He frowned, looked down at himself, and I felt the full-body twitch that marked the change back into… "Taylor?"
"Amy?" the "girl" asked, looking around. "Is the movie finished?"
I took her hand and led her outside the cinema. "You'll never believe what I'm going to tell you."
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Josh"Welcome back, Josh." Amy Dallon told me as I awoke. I remember some words between us, but it seems that quite some time has passed, because the night had already fallen.
"Where are we?" I asked, looking around.
"Taylor's bedroom. Her dad isn't at home, so it's the best moment for this little… experiment."
"Who's Taylor?" I asked.
"You know the Ranma½ anime, from Earth Aleph? That's your other self. A girl."
"A girl? But…" I "searched" myself, only earning a sideways smile from her. "Where is… everything?"
"Your body was crafted by Bonesaw. I saw the last Über & Leet movie, and you creation exploded, obliterating your torso and pelvis, leaving your head, legs, and hands, somehow. Taylor was abandoned in filth which ate her lower half."
"Why… why am I not freaking out?" I asked.
"Because I'm holding you, first." she said, before releasing her hold on my hand. "And then because, despite her faults, Riley's a genius."
"Who?"
"Bonesaw."
Calmed by her touch influencing my hormones, I merely nodded instead of freaking out. Besides, looking at my own body, and could only admit to the truth. Still, there were parts that I could have done differently. Better, dare I say. I had already linked the hands to the energy store in the abdomen, and I'm sure I could have done the same with the feet, to be able to fly. But… I couldn't… right? "Panacea?"
"Amy."
"Amy, then. Thank you. What's Taylor power? Because I seem to be able to do the same tech more than once… while I couldn't, before." A pause. "Or is it because I went "under" for a while?"
"I don't know. And… I don't know either. You want to try?"
"With my own body?" I laughed self-deprecatingly. "Have you seen how I died?"
"Yes, I did." she replied, deadpan. "And thanks to what I know about the human body, I knew exactly what it implied."
"Yeah, sorry. But I should try that on something else, first. Don't you think?"
"I don't know. I should be able to undo your work, if you fail. It's a human body, after all. Or quasi-human. I mean…"
"I know." I said, changing my sitting several times to find a new way to sit that didn't seem strange to my "new" morphology. "Let's try this, then: I'll do exactly the same with my feet that I did with my hands, except that it will be a more progressive push and stop, with a less destructive output. The goal is to fly, not destroy the Boardwalk." A pause. "And if that works… it would be, like, pulling all the stops!" I turned to her, smiling. "I could even do you!"
"Well… not until you magic yourself some equipment, Romeo." she said, blushing at the innuendo. "And even then…"
"Sorry! Sorry! Foot-mouth insertion, there."
"…and that might be possible, too."
We looked at each other before laughter took us both. Only afterwards was I calm enough to try another tinker fugue on myself. But my remark stayed in Amy's mind for a while, and we'll end up working together on each other's body – in the "enhancing up to parahuman levels" way, of course. And a platonically friendly way, too. But it stopped there.
Besides, Amy also spent much time with Taylor, trying to establish her power and its limits. Apparently, she was able to command insects: during her trigger, part of her consciousness tried to escape through the swarm, and she recovered her whole memories (and the full scale of her powers) only by exorcising her demons: by returning to her locker.
Her control extended to a small radius, at the beginning. Roughly locker-sized, go figure. But even then, with how tightly packed she could have her insects, it meant quite a large number of them. And it helped Panacea, too, when she needed biomass to heal people.
With the numerous adjustments I made to our shared body, her range increased, and she was able to fuel our matter-to-energy disintegrator by absorbing insects directly through our skin. And then I built a replicator, too, and she found herself able to produce her own insects.
We made quite the duo, and even trio, with Panacea. But, soon, we had other fishes to fry. Or rather one single fish… but a big one: Leviathan had come home to roost.
I knew that, as a Tinker, I had to prepare things beforehand, and that Taylor would be the one managing the swarm during the actual fighting. I hoped that, with everything we had done, we could at least work well in search and rescue. And perhaps even damage the beast a little.
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KentaI sulked.
Not the honourable thing, to do, in the midst of an Endbringer attack.
But I had a good reason to: when I fought Leviathan, over my old country, I gave all I got. I knew I was destroying whole lots of housing, with people inside, each time I lobbed a firewall at the monster, each time I slammed it on the ground, and each time it, in turn, struck me with its water echo.
I gave it all. And the island still sunk. And the beast escaped, regenerated, and is back again. It was like trying to stop a tsunami: it came, it killed, and it went. You just had to hold to your hope for survival.
I knew people would call me a coward. Kaiser had joined against the beast. I should have joined. But, in reality, I knew that day would come, and I had had quite a good time since Kyushu. I only wanted to drink a last bottle while the wave submerged my house and my terrified family.
I'm still alive! Fucking powers don't know when to quit, and I'm already "escalating". But was escalating the good answer to all problems? I heard mad Thinkers theorize that the powers came from alien space-faring whales that searched for a way to avoid the heat death of the universe. By pushing inferior creature to fight on the arena their planet had become.
And I wondered: while escalating might be good for a fight, do you fight the heat death of the universe? Do you escalate when the end is near? Do you burn your energy all the brighter the less of it you have? As if to go out in blazes of glory?
Intelligent species shouldn't do that. Humans shouldn't do that. And space whales that were massively more intelligent than us shouldn't do that. But… we all know what humanity would do, don't we? They would see the world burn and laugh as they party a last time…
Kyushu is dead. Leviathan being here, Brockton Bay will be dead, too, perhaps the whole East Coast.
Fuck it. Even if it does nothing, I owe it to my family. I take the air. There's a fight to fight.
There! The beast is there, and not moving. That time-stopping ward is evacuated, while capes take position around it, ready to strike. Seeing an empty space that seemed right for my size, I took it. And all hell broke loose.
The perception of time is a strange thing. When you want it to accelerate, it slows down. When you want to have that extra time to think, you don't have it.
It seems that only seconds have passed since Leviathan moved, while it has in fact lasted a few minutes. In that time, he had realized what had happened, spammed water echoes all around it, and submerged, leaving us reeling.
He must have known that I was there. He must have known that I could only escalate while a threat was there, and that, by hiding, he removed my edge, forcing me back into a baseline human – I had to return to baseline human size before escalating again. Stupid restrictions.
And now that I'm not a threat anymore, here it comes, moving with its deceptively ungainly gait. I have nowhere to hide. I have nothing to lose… but I have nothing to live for, either. A scream of pent-up rage is all I can offer as he lifts its massive leg and slams it down on m-
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Vicky"Lung, deceased." came from the bracer, and I went all "wait… what?" Endbringer-solo Lung, dead?
Following the sight of the Leviathan leaving the Docks, I looked around. Mom's orders were clear: search and rescue only. My forcefields could perhaps tank one blow such as Leviathan's, but we both knew that the beast attacked twice in succession, most of the time. And the second blow would kill me.
When I looked at Alexandria, still zipping around the Endbringer, still strong after all that time, all these fights… I was jealous. I was called the young Alexandria of Brockton Bay, and I couldn't even defend my city! What's a flying brick doing, not acting as a flying brick?
Oh, that's right: search and rescue. However, for the (rare) moments where there were no wounded to search for, my sister had had a strange (and private) request to make: to bring her the dead as well. When I asked why, she winced and promised me an explanation… after the fight.
So I brought her the dead ones. She acted as if she checked them for signs of life – and perhaps she was, perhaps her perception of these had improved. And then she put them to the side. Some where put under sheets, in depressingly high piles. Others… she put in a freezer?
Disturbing images of Panacea eating a brain-flavoured sorbet out of a villain skull came to mind, and I snorted as I flew out of the tent at high speed. Apparently, Armsmaster was in need of support. And that friend of Amy's too, who was lying next to him. In three parts. Ugh.
I didn't understand why Amy smiled when she saw her friend that way, even as she put her (or him, she has never been clear about that, using both and all) in the frozen area with the other dead.
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LawrenceI could never understand how people could be so power-hungry. Or, as the case may be: power-thirsty. No, I'm not selling (or distributing, giving, or any other verb) anything about power-granting vials. I'm not Cauldron.
What I do is more like Othala's power: I grant temporary powers. Except that, unlike her, I grant those to people who drink the beverages I prepare beforehand.
I seldom go to Endbringer fights, because I seldom have enough to contribute. But, that year, I ended college and started working on full-time production. And recipe refinement. While before I made beers with three doses per gallon, I could now brew spirits with a dose per quarter.
Doses of what? Powers, I said: each quarter imbibed by a front-liner granted them enhanced strength, flexibility, reflexes, and resistance to water and harm in general. And I left twenty bottles at the triage area, those being to restore damaged tissues.
There were still those who wanted more. Perhaps confusing my vials with those from Cauldron, a villain I was later told was Skidmark swiped them, and when I confronted him (with the help of my friend Ryan, known as Snaptrap), he drank several at the same time.
Well, he died. And the chief healer put his remains in her ice box with the others. I still wonder why.
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DavidLife as Eidolon is tedious.
At the beginning, it was fun. But then, Hero died, and the world entered a new Dark Age.
These days, I do nothing, only getting out of bed when an Endbringer is sighted.
It means that my costume must be adjusted each time. And my body, too. Thankfully, I have powers for that. I have powers for everything. The tedious thing is that they take a long time to reach peak efficiency. Longer and longer as the years go by. By now, I have to wait several minutes for a switched power to become effective. Unacceptable, especially in the midst of combat.
It's also unacceptable when one has to get up and in shape before joining a battle: it means that when I'm ready to teleport, with flight and black hole attacks at peak efficiency, I'm already late to the party. It adds more dead heroes onto my already heavy conscience.
Like others on the battlefield, I noticed that the S&R teams, when not ferrying the wounded, were also removing the dead. After kicking Leviathan's butt once again, with Alexandria and Legend, we visited the healing area. Switching powers, I healed them as much as I could. But even when granting regeneration like Othala and taking people wounds like Scapegoat and staying healthy myself with Alabaster's power… I was still unable to reach Panacea's speed in healing.
Now that the fight had ended, her method had, too: while before, she churned fighters back out, fully healed, she now concentrated on stabilizing the largest number of people before thinking about regrowing them down to their toenails.
And everyone could respect her for her dedication. Which is why, when she invoked the ability to better understand parahuman physiology by studying those dead bodies in her freezer, nobody said anything bad. Besides, such fights always had missing people, so what if they were declared missing while our young healing prodigy increased her capabilities even more?
Nobody said anything. Even Brandish. But it was a close thing.
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Carol"Listen, do you want me to heal dad, or not?" Amy asked.
I fumed, because that's what I did best. Especially when my adopted daughter got one over me. I loathed her biological father, for many reasons I don't want to remember. And I saw his long and curly hair when she shook her own curls, I saw his authoritative mien when she walked in the hospitals, I saw his mocking eyes and smile when she merely laughed with Vicky… it was driving me up the wall!
But, right now, Amy had just returned from fighting Leviathan. Her hair was damp in sweat and plastered on her head, her eyes were bloodshot and had dark bags under them, and she was trembling on her feet, the last of the adrenaline wearing off.
And she was right. Loathe as I could admit it, she was right. I just hoped that nobody would notice, because experimenting with dead people was seen in quite a negative view. Unless they had signed a provision for that, naturally.
I thus helped her (and Vicky, who was holding most of the weight) place the enormous box in the middle of our living room – apparently, Amy's androgynous friend Josh had been the one preparing the box for such an occasion, beforehand. And, as a twist of fate, he was inside, too.
And then she got to work, and I was too shocked to interrupt: she resurrected people!
Her friend was the first, because, apparently, he was also the one with the best ideas on what to do next, how to proceed further. How to touch brains, too, and heal Mark.
With Amy, the boy started to "repair" people. They knew they could, because, sometimes, capes reappeared after Endbringer fights, alive and well. It just happened that they'd come out as slightly modified, inside. It was messy, and I didn't want to watch. But with Vicky besides me, green at the gills like me, it became a battle of wills between us – like so many of our recent interactions, unfortunately.
Still, as we watched, we noticed that their technique was improving. We also noticed that Josh would step away from a body, after he finished something. He would turn around, facing a panel he had written beforehand, and… grow. And then shrink again before returning to his job. I had no idea what it was about.
I didn't like the idea of reviving villains, but I was stuck as a witness, there, and could only nod along as I noticed them getting body parts from Fenja as well as other women, before assembling them like a gory puzzle – one in which they could saw their pieces to make them stick better together. Given that the Valkyrie was the only one with the head whole, it stood to reason that she would be the one in charge of the body, afterwards. And she did: when they woke her up, it took a long time, but she ended up quite well. In fact, despite the fact that she could use her powers to escape, she was honourable enough to stay and help.
I then cried, and whimpered, as did Vicky, when they got the body of Eric out – my own nephew. I noticed that Amy trembled a bit, and wondered why she hadn't healed him first. "She wasn't ready." Vicky said, from right next to me. And I gave her the hug that we both needed, as Amy worked on her cousin. And Josh gave him several upgrades as well.
Unfortunately, they couldn't do anything for Eric's father, Manpower: the man had disappeared under a crumbling building and hadn't been recovered – there had been people trying to, but there was nothing to actually recover.
Gallant, too, was going to stay dead: having been hit with several water echoes from the monster, he had lost his helmet and his head had been pulverized.
From the dead bodies, Josh recovered a brain so damaged that its power was lost. But the base structure was enough to create a base to slot other powers in. And he stored that in a kind of "drawer" in his chest – because he wasn't keen on extracting his own brain in order to add powers to it.
Why add powers? Why not? It wasn't because he was power-hungry. Not exactly. In fact, it was because he still had nightmares from when he died, and wanted Brute powers – more than what he already had.
Despite my misgivings, I wouldn't say a thing about that, either, if fiddling with brain matters gave him enough proficiency to heal my husband.
And it did.
And he did.
That done, I took my husband by the hand and headed upstairs. The whole fight had drained me, and the anxiety about Mark had added to that. I'm sure I'll sleep for a week. I also didn't want to see what Amy was doing with the rest of the bodies.
I learned afterwards that they resurrected Strider, one of the most important hero during Endbringer fights, as he was able to teleport whole groups of people. They also brought back Dauntless and Velocity, from the Protectorate, as well as Aegis and Browbeat, from the wards. But they had had to change them a bit, because of the damage to their brains: Dauntless would have ended up comatose, Velocity amnesiac, Aegis insane, and Browbeat overly aggressive. They had had to "play god" with their brain (and thus minds) by adding matter from others. That changed their personalities (and, for Velocity, his whole memories), but they could at least function as parahuman heroes again.
In view of all this, I took with a massive grain of salt the fact that they appropriated some powers from the irrecoverably downed capes.
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FrancisI love Noelle. I really do. So when I heard about Panacea, I sought her out. It didn't work out immediately, because there were numerous obstacles before I could actually reach her. But I persevered.
I'm not a nice person, I know. When I need somebody's help, I can break their doors down to reach them. It had always worked in the various make-believe games I played, whether on computer or on table.
When I invaded Panacea's home with Noelle in tow (fully filled, thankfully), she protested but accepted to help. Besides, she said she found Noelle fascinating. The person with her agreed, too.
Well, I don't know about them, but if they can do something, I'll pay them whatever they needed. Surprisingly, they didn't want anything from me except "learn to be polite". I could do that.
Meanwhile, Noelle was "healed": the unknown person with Panacea (whom she named Josh) started working on Noelle's head while Panacea worked on the rest of her body. Apparently, once something like an alien tumour was removed from her head, the mass below her waist started to rot away, too fast for Panacea to use it as material to rebuild Noelle's legs. Thankfully, she didn't bleed out.
While Josh was still fiddling with the extracted brain matter, Panacea had someone she called Vicky open a large freezer, search for a while… and extract a body. A female body, whose upper part had been crushed somehow.
I feared to understand what was happening, but if that made Noelle whole, I wouldn't say anything.
While Panacea thawed the body and removed incompatible parts (from both it and Noelle's remaining body), Josh was doing something both disgusting and incomprehensible: he extracted something that looked like a second brain from somewhere within his chest, and attached the thing he still had in his tweezers.
And then he grasped his own forearms, shook… and cloned himself. "It works! Cool!"
With two of him, the repairs on Noelle's body went quickly. And when Panacea mentioned that she needed some more biomass to finish, the clones shuddered, grew, and (after being repeated the request) summoned a swarm of insects from outside. I liked the fact that mosquitoes had a use, for once.
"Thank you." I told them, gratefully, when I noticed that the love of my life was now… complete.
"You love her." Vicky (whom I had finally recognized as Glory Girl) mentioned. She leaned her head to the side. "Will you continue loving her with her being depowered?"
"Of course!" I said. And it was the truth. Noelle had never wanted powers. Even in our games, she preferred to manage the group instead of using powers… or whatever bells and whistles the game provided.
I could only hope that she continued to love me, despite the various mean acts I had done on my quest to heal her – some truly evil.
After they finished and woke her, we thanked them again and left.
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OthelloBoss wanted to plant the rumour that he has much more money than what was apparent, and one way to do so was to have us swear that he bought us Cauldron vials. Not true: I triggered, same as Citrine and the others.
And, since then, I have felt adrift. Because my trigger caused a part of myself to shift into a "mirror reality" – one linked to ours, with only slight differences. For my "other part", the reality was devoid of people. But he could still interact a little with this one, to see, and touch (and attack) people.
And we could also exchange places: I would enter the mirror dimension as the same time he exited it, and vice-versa. He would then be me, and me him. It was disconcerting. For onlookers, I was "merely" using a teleportation power.
Honestly, I felt much better when I wasn't using that part of my powers, pushing my two bodies to occupy the same space. In fact, as it happens, when we share the same space, I'm more… solid. Like a Brute, with enhanced strength and durability. In that state, pushing me pushes my other self as well.
Boss called me "Othello", because he thinks himself so smart. I'm a black man, did he think of Shakespeare's play? No, especially as I have no intention of killing my alter ego or committing suicide. He got me a black tux and white chemise (it was too fancy to be a mere "shirt"), with a white-and-black mask, and I groaned (internally, mind you) when I caught that his reference was a mere game.
I heard that story about a cape able to fusion other capes. Found it interesting. But, in the end, it would remove my usefulness in Boss' eyes, and I need the work.
Maybe later. When I'm old and grey (instead of black-and-white).
Although, with the way our world goes, we'll be all dead before then.
I hope not.
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HannahIt has been years since Leviathan came to Brockton Bay, and since Panacea emerged with a friend able to deal with brain damage, the two of them together able to patch people back together from beyond the Veil of Death. From patching several people together, in fact, most notably the numerous people who'd normally die from horrendous cape fights where they were sliced in two, partly disintegrated, and worse.
People like me.
I was still unused to my new body, especially the jaw, used as I was to my wounds and the patriotic flag that hid them. But I was thankful that my power had stayed the same. Because, shit, after Scion started his rampage, I ended up torn in halves. Panacea, too, had been hurt in the same go, which explained that the miracle healer wasn't up to healing me immediately.
Thankfully, her friend had been nearby. Taylor, or Josh, or whatever her current name was. They "patched me up" in a way that I should have found disgusting. And I did (find it disgusting, at first). But it clearly evened out when whatever remained of my body helped others to survive.
Such as Lily, or Flechette. We now lived side-by-side in the same body. With Taylor's way of doing things, we could even stay awake at the same time, and chat. Even if we ended up using the same mouth.
That would have been strange for our love lives, but I had none. And Flechette's girlfriend Parian had taken a hit too. She was now joined with Bakuda, of all things. And she was with us, right now.
We were flying on one of Dragon's ships, heading towards the Golden Man.
Scion had changed his mind, a year ago: losing the benign benevolent buffoon persona, he became a careless and cruel culler. Moving in a straight line around the planet, he killed anyone who happened to stumble under his path.
Many heroes tried to stop him, and all were rebuffed. Even the Triumvirate. Eidolon died. Alexandria lost her legs. Legend his head. Without the head, our resident Doctor Frankenstein couldn't "resurrect" minds. She tried to give the woman legs but, strangely, Alexandria's wounds weren't bleeding, and any surgery wouldn't work. She was reclassified as Breaker after this, as she was in fact in a state where very few things could alter her shape. The Siberian had been one. And Scion the other.
So, now, it was time for our coordinated action plan to take place.
As we approached, I manifested the largest grenade launcher I could – in exchange for a pardon, Bakuda had joined us, and we had worked together since then. I knew she could adapt her bombs to any calibre I could reach. With Flechette's power helping by infusing the ammunition with her power, I took aim and shot. And the man disappeared in a black hole explosion, leaving a tear in reality.
From Cauldron's exposition about Scion's true nature, about the parallel universes, and about Doormaker abilities, we recognized the portal. But, more than that, we recognized the massive planet beyond that, with a thick layer of luminous energy the exact colour of the Golden Man, an energy that was starting to coalesce and head for the portal.
We didn't wait to see what would happen. Scion had already battled Endbringers and capes alike, and there was only one end: he won. So we didn't want him to materialize… like, at all.
I shot, again and again, with Bakuda handing Flechette's hands (because we had four arms) her most souped-up products, and Lily activating her powers on the ammo before sliding them in the barrel of my cannon. And I shot through the bull's eye each time.
Some of the bombs were black holes, others were time loops, there were also good old nuclear devices hidden as "mere" grenades, too.
And fusion, too. Thanks to Josh (whom I had long since suspected of being Leet reborn), we had had fusion power (and bombs, too) for a while… most of them hidden in pocket dimensions (some his own, some from Dodge) to hide them from Scion.
Because that was the kind of power the Entities are afraid of, actually: such concentrated energy can damage a planet's crust, an Enbringer's core (we had started downing them after Eidolon died)… and the Entity's massive body.
And… right as the portal flickered before dying, we saw at the same time the whole planet crack and the thing start to explode. Thankfully, the dimensional tear disappeared before we could be blasted by matter and energy.
And we could breathe. At last.
As things went, it was anticlimactic for many of us: highly stressed for so long, we didn't know what to do when the pressure was removed. We should have had psychological support, and therapists, and…
Some went insane, and killed themselves – either by their own hand or through the heroes' when we had to stop them.
I think Taylor went insane, too, although in a different way. I don't know exactly what passes through her massive brain, these days, but Panacea's with her, and they started to build… spaceships. With human bodies.
They want to help our species escape our very damaged planet and start colonizing others, which is a noble idea. The way they did it, though, made me cringe. And not only because they aggregated actual persons in a larger structure, but also because, once I took a good look of their project after they had started, said structure looked like a worm. In space.
And I realized that they were actually re-creating Scion. Or rather, making their own version of it.
"We're still humans." they assured me – and the other Protectorate members, when we confronted them en masse. Armsmaster, within his own multi-body amalgam, like me, nodded as his various indicators told him it was the truth. "We're not interested in the Entities' endless cycles of destruction. We want to explore, and settle a kernel of humanity in each habitable world we find… provided it's not already inhabited by a species we couldn't get along with."
"If you do that, you might find other Entities." Alexandria said. She was the only one, among us all, who hadn't had body parts added from other persons – Scion had been quite thorough. "How do you intend to fight them?"
As one, the two of them turned towards me. And I knew, right then, that I had been given a new purpose in life. And what was life without a purpose?
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To be continued… probably notAuthor's Notes: It wasn't one plot bunny, this time: it was a whole family. All mashed and mangled together, thanks to our resident prodigy surgeon, in a several-POV style sort-of continuity… which also acts as another style of writing.