by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings. In addition: gore.
Dead Meat… and Other Morsels''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
My kingdom for a dead horse to beat?"Pssst! Hebert!"
I turn my head. It's Julia, one of Emma's hangers-on. On the social totem pole of Winslow High, she's just below Madison, and I can't imagine why she would be sent, alone, to… what? "What do you want?"
"I heard you lost a flute."
Tears come. Emma taunted me with the flute for a whole month, after it had disappeared. Several times, I thought I saw it, only for it to be a trick of the eye… or a print. "What's it to you?"
"Just to tell I saw something resembling that."
She was worse than kids, when trying to extract the whole story. "Where?"
"Come."
Sensing a trap, I hesitated. But it wasn't Emma or Madison. Or, god forbid, Sophia. I followed. She led me through a few blocks, and we ended in the backyard parking of a woodworking factory – that's what it looked like, despite the amount of rust telling of bankruptcy and other difficulties.
Above the industrial shredder, a glint caught my eye, and I saw it, held by a single thread: my flute! Or Mom's flute, to be exact. It even looked whole, not like what I imagined when Emma taunted me about throwing it in the Bay, or in the sewers (or, her favourite, flushed down the Merchants' communal toilets). Seeing Julia unmoving behind me, and nobody around, I slowly made my way atop the shredder.
But, as I went, I couldn't stop thinking of the weirdness of the situation: why would they put that here? Was it to pull me above the shredder's gullet? Too bad for them, I grabbed some wooden bits and pulled at the string, and recovered my flute without harm.
And that's when Sophia tripped me. I grabbed her as I fell, but my hand felt only air as it went through her. Still, I could spread my arms and legs and block my fall. And I still held to the flute, despite my hands getting awful scratches.
And I could hear Julia outside, arguing with Emma and the others. "What are you doing?" Her voice was high, and panicky. "You said it was a prank!"
"And now you're complicit." Emma said, relishing her control on her fellow human being. Was it why she bullied me? For control? And complicit to what, exactly? With time, I could climb up, call the workers, or perhaps even open the side door. After all, the thing wasn't working, right now… right?
"Aha!" came from somewhere near, and I heard a mechanism being activated. And the shredder came to life. I held for dear life, but I could already feel sweat and blood making my hands slip
I couldn't understand Emma and her friends. Bullying me endlessly was something I could understand (even if I didn't understand why, seeing no valid reason for them to do this), but killing me? I was not only in increasing pain, but also in increasing psychological distress, and it peaked when I felt bits of wood (the ones I had used, even) being thrown at me from above, pushing me down even more.
They wanted me to slip. They wanted me dead. As I finally lost my grip, the tearing of my being proved too great for my diminished consciousness.
I blanked out.
I suffered, greatly.
I awaited death as something that would free me from the overwhelming pain. But it wouldn't come.
The proof was that I came to, a few minutes later. However, when I did, I felt strange. My mind couldn't process everything that was happening, but I still felt as if I had several thought processes at the same time, all of them crying in pain, all of them spread all over the courtyard, and all of them trying to reunite in one coherent whole – and, if possible, in less pain.
Emma and co. wasn't there anymore. I hadn't heard them leaving, Sophia and Emma laughing while Madison and Julia looked green to the gills – and Julia had her own vomit decorating her designer shoes.
I was alone. And multiple. As my pain abated, I realized that I was feeling the many bits of flesh my body had been separated into. I could feel echoes of a dream about space whales, or something, something I already read online as being a sign of triggering into a parahuman.
I had powers? I had powers! Obviously, even: I was still alive, in a way, despite having been killed, my body dispersed in a wide radius.
If that was my only power, it was underwhelming. Thankfully, apparently, I could move the various parts around, some through muscle movements, others through whatever articulation remained there, but most… flew. They levitated slowly, around the courtyard, and floated towards a centre point where my body slowly formed itself again. Like a life-like puzzle.
For some reason, my power included the clothes I had been killed in, which was thankful: I didn't relish the idea of running around naked, especially as it was getting dark already.
Soon, I was whole again. And, more importantly (for my disjointed thought processes): Mom's flute was whole again. It was like Alabaster and the other capes who regenerated while eschewing physics: despite having been killed in quite a gruesome way, I was now alive again. And whole.
I wanted to head to Emma's house, to confront her, to show her parents how she treated me. But I was tired, and longed for my bed. I headed home.
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Are you afraid of the dark?The next day, I went to school as usual. With the flute. I had that marvellous idea of playing a few notes so that Emma would flip, and then I would come to her. She'd go crazy, or catatonic, or something. And perhaps she'd let slip something that would allow me to understand her motives. Or out her hate of me to the teachers, at last.
She didn't say anything, though: seeing me, she paled so much that she looked like the aforementioned Alabaster, and she fled the school. Julia fainted, hitting her head. Madison was struck speechless and couldn't move. And Sophia went berserk, throwing herself at me.
Now, I wasn't a proficient brawler before. And I still wasn't. But as Sophia hit me with stronger and stronger blows, I remarked that I didn't feel them as acutely as before. And when, in her disproportionate anger, she ended up pulling a knife from somewhere, plunging it through my heart, I could feel my body adapting around the blow. As if, once I had been shredded to bits, my anatomy was completely malleable.
Still, seeing the witnesses around, most with their phones out, I played the part, keeping my hands on the dagger while collapsing on my back, going still.
Realizing that she was set up, Sophia snarled and fled too. I was sent to the hospital, where I had the pleasure of meeting Panacea. I say "pleasure" but it's not for the sunny disposition (that she lacks): it's because she recognized the knife.
How?
Amy Dallon has been involved in the cape scene for years, and she has seen capes come and go. She has seen Shadow Stalker start her vigilante career, and has healed many of her victims. As such, she knows of Shadow Stalker's weaponry, even after her transition into the Wards. Sophia had stabbed me with Shadow Stalker's knife.
Thinking about it, Sophia was of the same size as the young heroine… and she had the same sunny disposition too – as the PHO boards attest, she's not a very personable person.
Between the online movies of her shanking me, and Panacea's witness account of having gotten that particular knife out of the wound, Shadow Stalker's probation was ended early.
However, she wouldn't comply – which wasn't surprising to anyone knowing her even a little. Instead, she struck out on her own… only to be nabbed by a villain, Coil, for whom she worked afterwards.
Apparently, Coil was a man full of resources. To placate his new and violent minion, he had me kidnapped by his men. And to ensure I wouldn't escape by using my power to split into hundreds of steaks, they pushed inside a metallic crate with barely enough apertures to breathe.
It's mostly dark inside, of course, and also quite uncomfortable – it wasn't made for human transportation, and I wasn't a gymnast. However, I noticed that I could pull at my own body and the flesh would separate and reform according to my wishes, removing any discomfort.
When I start to panic again, it's because I perceive the sound of people moving the crate around and speaking about disposing of it through a parahuman-generated black hole – created by some Tinker named Bakuda, apparently.
I knew about black holes, from an attempt at extra credit in science (destroyed by the Trio, as usual), and I suppose that something of that calibre could effectively kill me: even if my body parts could separate, they'd all be swallowed into a single point of pressure, and disappear.
Dying like that must be contrary to whatever powers represent, because after realizing the situation, I got what could only be called a "second trigger": my power changed, and I got to make the same dream I did before, with the two whales, except that it's much more detailed. I notice a third whale, too, for some reason.
My main power doesn't change much… but its expression, yes: instead of fleshy (and bloody) bits of meat, I can separate in various manners, while keeping full control of each part's shape and position, relative to me – enough that, when the black hole grenade starts pulling at matter, I can immobilize my floating body parts, shredded further into a cloud of bloody dust so as to pass through the crate's tiny holes, and prevent total annihilation.
I then "see" Coil's mercenaries readying Tinker-tech rifles, some of them already firing lasers at me. And I can feel some of my cells dying a fiery death. I'm past pain, though, thankfully, and try to evade the attack by flying everywhere, notably behind furniture and people.
Thankfully, I'm helped when another parahuman interrupts the mercenaries search-and-destroy-me mission… by the expedient process of bursting through the roof from outside. The multi-stories thick reinforced concrete roof.
Purity has arrived. Impurities, beware.
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Two lives down, one to go?The Nazi villainess took quick stock of the situation, and let loose a barrage much like the mercenaries', except hers are more powerful, and she has an innate proficiency with them. She rips through the regular humans with ease. She trounce through the barely-awakened parahumans who try to come to help their boss, too, leaving the Travellers mostly sincerely dead. And she gets Coil too – he was trying to leave, but my dust had by then coated everything, and I was able to fool the door's security panel into not working correctly.
Besides, if she hadn't interrupted, I would have coated the man's back and killed him. Apparently, that's what allowed Purity to kill him, according to the single surviving parahuman from the base's roster: a girl named Lisa.
"He was capable of managing two realities." she tells us – by then, I had reformed into a human being again. "Only by having two separate deaths in each reality could he be really killed."
"Are you with him?" Purity asks, her voice shaking. "Are you responsible for the e-mail unmasking the whole Empire?"
"I'm… not. I'm a Thinker he employed at gun point. I may have found identities and told him, but I never prepared or sent that e-mail. I saw him do it, though, and tried to warn him not to, but he was adamant."
"But… why?" I ask. "What would he gain? If they are unmasked, they will retaliate. And, with nothing to lose, they will attack everyone without mercy." Blame me for reading too much PHO, if you want, but I do know about the Unwritten Rules.
"His civilian identity is Thomas Calvert, contractor for the PRT." Lisa replied. "I suppose he wanted chaos so that he could rise at the top job there." She turns to me, then. "I should also mention that there are some discrepancies, too. People he had added in the mix, saying that there are Empire when they aren't. One of them was at the instigation of Shadow Stalker."
"It's… me?" I ask, reeling. She nods sadly.
"The PRT took my daughter, because the information contained my home address and family status." Purity reveals, her body almost shaking in rage. "I wanted to attack them, first. I was ready to level buildings until she was returned to me. I received a text telling me it was Coil's fault, though, and that he was here."
"That was me." Lisa said. "My power gives me information, sometimes too much, and I knew that you could come and deal with Coil."
"What now? Can you tell me how to get my daughter back?"
"Since the Protectorate is in the streets, dealing with the Empire, we can go to the PRT ourselves. But, first… are you going to attack us, afterwards? Are you still Empire?"
"I was going to defect anyways. Only Aster matters to me. Only because Kaiser was her father was I bound to the Empire. With him an outlaw, now, I'm free."
"I'm free too." Lisa said with a relieved smile.
"What about me?" I ask. "I'd like to be free three, or something. But if I'm named as Empire, what about my dad?"
"We will contact him, discreetly." Lisa says. "This is Daniel Hebert, right? I think he has already demonstrated he had nothing to do with any gang. He should be safe from any kind of legal prosecution."
"And me?"
"You can come with us. We need some discreet-but-kickass power. Kayden here is kickass but obvious, while mine is inconspicuous but I'm a squishy."
"Alright, for now." I nod slowly. "With the option of leaving if our point of view start diverging."
"Of course."
"Then let's go." I say. "Let's go kick some self-serving ass."
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Is this what power creep is?Purity returns as a regular woman who introduce herself as Kayden, not that Lisa didn't know about it already. We then walk to Coil's garage, which contains suspicious vehicles – they all look like PRT transportations, only without the logo. Kayden takes the wheel, while Lisa rides shotgun, a portable computer on her lap.
"I'm moving Coil's assets out of his dead hands." she mentions while typing quickly. "That way, we won't have to worry about that later. About that, and about his dead man's switch."
"Which dead man's-" I try to ask, before feeling an explosion behind us, where Coil's base is – or was.
"He had to regularly enter his password in order for his base not to explode. A final "fuck you" to anyone smart enough to outdo him, if you want." Lisa explains, turning the computer off. She then turns towards me. "Now, Purity I know, but you… who are you? Shadow Stalker's nemesis? I noticed her unholy glee when you arrived, in that coffin. She was dismayed when the plan with the black hole was hatched, because she wanted your showdown to be physical."
"Is she dead?" I ask. "I haven't seen her."
"She tried to escape through the walls, but I know Coil: if there was a hero able to infiltrate his base, he would use the hero's weaknesses against them. In Shadow Stalker's case, she was vulnerable to electricity. The whole base was surrounded by live wires. She couldn't have escaped before it exploded."
"It's still suspicious." I say.
"Yes, but enough about her. What about you? You seem to be a civilian, so that nemesis is on her civilian side? Ah, high school rivalry? Bullying? Oh, damn."
I frown. "I know your power gives you information, but do you really need to be blatant about it?"
"I'm sorry. My power is wired that way. My cape name is Tattletale for a reason."
"What can you say about my power, then?"
"You are… wow. I saw you escape the coffin as a cloud of red dust, but… ew. She killed you?"
I nod, my expression grim. "I can split and reform."
"More than that, I gather." she eyes me up and down. "I bet you can change into anything. You're the ultimate Breaker/Changer combo."
"What?"
"Let me list a few possibilities, and tell me if you think you can't do them. Since you can split, you can change your hand into them if you want to test them. Leaves? Insects? Puzzle pieces? Glass shards? Pigeons? Rats? Knives? Plates?"
As she utters them, I try them. And, yes, I can transform myself into the aforementioned items. As I try knives, I continue with other weapons. As I try plates, I continue with shields and other defensive armour pieces. And each piece of me can stay totally immobile, even disconnected from my main body, or move on its own, all of them still linked to me. "Wow."
"I'm sure that the only limit is your imagination, both in items and materials." Lisa continues with her strange smile on. It's a vulpine smile that seems to imply that she knows more than you do. Always.
And that's quite true. My whole arm separates and changes into a metallic cat quite easily, before transforming into a wooden shield that floats next to me. And then it reintegrates my body as an articulated metal arm, looking like a prosthesis, with a sword blade extending from the wrist.
"Try your skin." Lisa mentions, her head pointing with her chin towards my face.
I understand and do it. As I did birds and mammals, I can grow fur and feathers everywhere. I can change the colour of those, as well as my skin, as well as my shape beneath the skin. I transform into a copy of Sophia, then Emma, then Lisa. "That's nice."
She frowns. "I don't sound like that."
"I'll have to train that." I concur, returning to my normal shape and colour. And, doing so, I look at my clothes. Since I can create feathers… I confirm that I can create clothing. And then, since that clothing was part of me, I can absorb it back. Except I go too far and absorb part of my current clothes too. "Eeep!"
Lisa smirks as I create more layers to cover myself. "You could take the shape of someone you don't like, and go streak."
I smirk back and let my head morph into hers. "Yours?"
She shakes herself before speaking. "Let's table that for later. Much later. Like never. Back to your power. What else can you do?"
"I suppose I can do animals, too." I say, remembering doing rats and a cat. With a thought, I'm now a big Dane, my large tongue lolling on the side.
"Rachel would have loved to have you." Lisa mutters.
"Rachel?" I make the dog ask. It's not perfect, but it works, making Lisa and Kayden snort.
"Coil had me work with a team. We got caught after robbing a bank. Only my fast-talking and easily-removed costume and wig let me pose as an hostage afterwards. Rachel's power is with dogs."
"Miss them?"
"Well… a little, yes. I was forced to work with them, on small-time heists, but Brian wanted to be honest. If I know the PRT (and I do), I think he's in the process of Rebranding. Rachel and Alec have murder charges, though, and are sorting through them. Extenuating circumstances, for both of them." She was going to add more but, as a dog, I acted the way dogs did when facing a sad human: I advanced to lick her face. "No! Not dog slobber, no!" she exclaimed, recoiling but laughing.
I laugh too as I turn back into myself – clothed, thankfully.
"That's nice." Kayden says wistfully, her eyes not leaving the road. "I would like to change shape and evade those who wish me harm."
"We'll see what we can do after getting Aster back." Lisa says, her eyes on the road too. Seeing something further, she directs Kayden towards an alternate route, and then another.
Because we have to avoid meeting the Empire and Protectorate capes, the road to the PRT is quite long. I spend the rest into meditation about my abilities. First, the animal shapes: I felt as if the dog shape was artificial, because it was. Even my "normal" shape feels unreal, mostly because I don't care about how my parts work in relation to each other. When I explode and reform, I could have my face replaced by my liver, for instance, with no external or internal change. As if my transformation into a bloody mist had changed each of my cell into its base form, able to change then into anything I want.
As such, even imaginary creatures could be thought about, when doing shapes. I'm sure I can morph into a unicorn. Or Pegasus. Or a small dragon. Small, because my reserve of material is limited by my shape… at the moment. But the absorption of my clothing makes me realize that I can absorb most of the things I touch, or which touch me.
I already suspect that I can be shot, or stabbed, or sliced, without effect, the blade or bullet travelling through completely – I can still block the attack… or let it hit someone on my other side. And then, I can absorb the attack (including bullets) as well as small and mindless creatures attacking me: as soon as my power realizes that my body is impacted by something, I can decide to deconstruct the item or creature in its simpler parts and absorb them.
As I play with that ability, I end up absorbing the seat behind me, ending on my rear on the car floor. And I'm also twice as big – with the mental impression of a full belly: I'm quite sure my power won't absorb more than that, even if I decide to remove parts of myself through the creation of another cat. Or another myself.
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Where do I go from there?"We're here." Lisa says, looking at the PRT building in front of us – we are not parked right in front of it, of course: it's just further on the street. She turns towards me. "So, have you played with your power enough? Can you go spy in there and tell us where Aster is?"
"As a matter of fact… I can." I say with a smirk of my own. And most of my body mass trickles down my shape, in the form of insects – I thought of a swarm of cockroaches first, because of their inconspicuousness. But then I realized that I could do mosquitoes, too.
So, with a mini-me staying with Lisa and Kayden to relate my findings, I let my other parts explore the building and find the little girl. And, once found, I put a sign on the exterior wall to guide Kayden.
"Remember, no killing." Lisa tells her. "If you kill any PRT people there, we'll be hounded wherever we go. If you don't, they will ignore us."
"You believe so?" mini-me asks after Purity takes off.
Lisa nodded. "Yes. There are powers among capes, that want powerful people alive, even villains. Otherwise, the Triumvirate would purge all villains of America in a week. Two tops."
"Powers? Isn't that, what, a complot?"
She laughs a little. "Yes, exactly. Now, is our mother succeeding in her kidnapping attempt?"
Part of my attention is managing the flies sticking in formation on the side of the PRT building. I see Purity arrive and rain a bit of precise destruction. The flies enter and prevent the troopers from engaging the distraught mother, who takes her daughter in her arms before flying away.
As I start to follow, I see the troopers taking position, aim, and shoot at her back, ignoring the little child. I have just enough time to coalesce the insects into a large (and thick) shield, which resonates like a gong from the bullets. "Do you really want her to come back and level this building?" I make the shield "speak" in a loud (and male) voice.
As soon as Kayden, back into her non-luminous self, emerges from an alley and returns to the car, we leave, and my shields disperses into a swarm with its individual insects flying away in separate directions. And then to me, inconspicuously.
Kayden drives, and Lisa guides… and holds little Aster. It's evident that it's not the Thinker's forte, though, and once I have enough matter back to form a better shape, I take Aster from her.
To distract the infant, I leave part of me float above her, changing shape into small and soft animals. Plushies. Except that it's dark so she doesn't see them.
Letting my power guide me, I think about what I saw when Purity exerts hers, and, slowly, the plushy fills itself with dim light. I stop right there because I don't want to attract attention from outside, but Lisa notices, lifts an eyebrow, and looks towards Kayden.
I nod. She nods. We smile. Apparently, I can also copy the appearance of other powers when doing my impressions. That can be nice if we have to stage "Purity" getting killed so that we can escape anonymously. Which we totally intend to do.
With Tattletale helping me, I prepare what to say to my father. He's under surveillance, apparently, so I have to be discreet about it. We plan so that I can approach him as a dockworker, at work.
"Kurt?" he asks, seeing me approach in the Union's parking lot – for obvious reasons, I couldn't approach him at home or in his office. Even his car was suspect. "I thought you were ill and at home?"
"Yep." I reply with my own voice as we walk slowly towards the office.
The voice and the tone make him stumble. "Taylor?"
"That's me. I triggered, dad. I have powers."
"They told me so. And more." he says, his fists closing.
"They are wrong, whoever they are. I'm not Empire. I have been bullied by Emma and her friends, and they pushed me in a wood shredder. I died, dad."
"Oh, Little Owl. Or whatever you are now." he says, wary of hugging Kurt but still wanting to reassure me. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"I'm still me. Taylor Hebert. Your daughter. And I inherited your stubbornness. That's why. I thought I could outlast them. I was wrong."
"And now?"
"One of Emma's friends wanted to add me to the list of Empire names, to frame me. I wanted to ask you about it, by the way: is the Protectorate harassing you?"
"Despite bugging the house and office, no. Clever thing you did, getting me here."
"I have good counsel. I'm not alone. Reformed villains they may be, but you know me: they won't relapse. Besides, we'll find a way to stay in touch with you."
"You're leaving, then?"
I shrug. "If I stay, I'm a target. And besides you, nothing holds me back."
"School?"
"Lisa, one of my friends, took her GED early. She'll guide me through the same."
"Work?"
"We'll manage. And I'll make sure to send a few things your way, too. I don't want you to fall to the trick step, one day where you'll be too old."
"I'll show you old!" he exclaimed playfully, rubbing my head like we did while playing, as a family. It was quite strange in Kurt's body, though, and he stopped quickly… which was thankful since another worker was heading our way. "Stay in touch?" he asks.
"Always." I reply, letting him see my true face. After a last hug, we separate and head our separate ways. As soon as I'm hidden from view, I transform into a swarm of flies and head back to Lisa and Kayden.
They are in a nondescript car, already moving – although I know where they are, thanks to the fact that part of me is still with them. A body double, in fact, looking and acting as myself (with another face), but hollow inside. And that hollow is soft inside, so that I can hide Aster in comfort.
Cells from me also cover Lisa's and Kayden's bodies, as well as our identification papers and the car's plates. Ironically enough, we are the Veder family, heading out to meet the grandparents in Boston. I'm sure Greg wouldn't mind.
Why play someone else, someone specific? Because there are policemen and PRT troopers blocking the town exits, and checking identities. Each of them has the full list of Empire members (myself included), with Kayden and Aster taking the top spot – even before Kaiser.
Hence the disguises.
And they work, too: we are soon left to our own devices, and leave Brockton Bay… and this story.
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To be continued… after some tenderizing?Author's Notes: Inspiration brought by "Fragments" (available on SufficientVelocity dot com)… and a couple movies, perhaps.