by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings.
Size MattersThat crisp morning of January, I went to school with a smile. Dad and I had reconnected a bit during the Christmas break, and we shared many a laugh (and also a few tears about Mom). And he got me a cell phone, too. It's not a "smartphone", but I can still record voices around me, and I clearly intended to use it should my bullies start their shenanigans again.
And they did, of course. I would have thought they'd have bought into the Christmas spirit and ease up on me, wouldn't I? Well… colour me surprised. Or not.
I knew, when I saw their smirk, that something painful was waiting in the wings. I so wanted to catch them on the act, but I also wouldn't get my phone out somewhere they could see. That would grab their attention like nothing else, and I'd "lose" it, somehow. Like my homework… and Mom's flute.
"Watch out, Hebert." came from Sophia, who shouldered me into a wall, face first. Yep, nothing unusual.
It was perhaps that bloody nose that prevented me from smelling the worst of what was in my locker, as I approached the remote corridor where the school had last moved it to. However, my eyes were clear, and I clearly noticed the mess of blood and moving insects, when I opened it. I vomited on the spot, adding to the refuse.
"Told you to watch out, loser." Sophia stated as she forced me inside.
"No! Stop!" I yelled, trying to escape. She was clearly trained, and I was not, as she manhandled me quite handily. Despite my height, I had zero muscle tone, and I found myself crouching into the bloody sludge.
And then the door closed, and I clearly heard the lock being inserted, and the click it did when latched closed. Now, even if charitable witnesses were to come (an event I had stopped waiting for months ago), they wouldn't be able to open it.
"Let me out!" I yelled, my voice cracking at the end. "Please!"
"Perhaps later, Tay-tay." Emma simpered. "After all, we have a whole day of classes to attend. Enjoy your time out!" she said, her voice growing weaker as she walked away.
I thought I had a way out thanks to my brand new phone, but the metal enclosure created enough of a Faraday cage to ensure I couldn't call my father, or anyone.
I'll admit right there: I freaked out. I could feel the insects gnawing at my legs, and thought I would die. And, in my panic, my mind reached out to the only possibility that I could have of getting out by myself, impossible as I thought it was.
I triggered. I became a parahuman. I gained powers to escape from my ordeal.
After a short period of unconsciousness, I found my head full of ideas to alleviate the situation. And since I had something technological in hand, I immediately disassembled it, blindly rearranging its insides and mixing with my new parahuman power.
Yes, I'm a Tinker, now. From what I read on cape lore, we happen to trigger after a long time spent under stress, and I couldn't see the whole bullying as anything else, now.
When I pressed the button, my phone used the power I had been pushing haphazardly into it, and burned itself out… and, in the process, my surroundings changed.
Dimensions changed. Space-time twisted. Metal rent. Concrete split.
The space warped in an Escheresque parody of itself. Walls, ceilings, and even the floor grew or reduced in random directions, forming holes when pulled too tight in separate directions. Several lockers were crushed while others doubled in size. Doors were ripped open when they no longer fitted the case.
As this happened to my locker, I fell out of it… only to be showered by its content as it was crushed, expelling loose matter and insects alike – the latter being quite unrecognizable, some of them being enlarged and misshapen by my power.
But I wasn't out of trouble, yet. The sound had caught the attention of the Trio again, and only them – classes had almost begun, and most students and teachers were in their assigned classrooms, and I knew from experience that my cries for help would never get them out.
With Emma and Madison ready to play interference as needed, Sophia came at me with a vengeance even as I was still trying to get up.
"So you think you have powers, now?" she asked, kicking me and pushing me flat on the soiled ground again. And when I tried to move away, she pressed with her foot between my shoulders, keeping me there. "Don't worry, there's a special prison for capes like you."
She was heavy enough to prevent me from moving, and she got her phone out and started fiddling with it.
"PRT? Yes, this is Sophia Hess, I want to report an assault on me with a parahuman power."
I was panicking again. How could I be sent to the Birdcage? There were rules, and regulations!
A few minutes later, those trigger-happy agents had coated me in their special foam, without even waiting for me to get off the floor.
"Report." I heard nearby. A male voice, cold and efficient, and that I had already heard in cape videos. Armsmaster?
I heard Sophia start a completely false story, and tried to interject something, but the disgusting mess on the floor wasn't something I wanted in my mouth. I was having difficulties to breathe, too.
As I also heard the man speaking to what appeared to be his commanding officer, I realized that he thought that my power was creating those bugs… and that I was being unfavourably compared to Nilbog. Right. Emily Piggot headed the local PRT, and the biotinker was her own bogeyman. It meant that she would push for the Birdcage, where I would die, or worse. Rumours had it that people in there haggled for anything, including having (or avoiding) sexual favours. Lustrum was there. Kids were there. In my panic, I started shaking violently, banging my head on the ground and also pulling on my hair – my beautiful hair, the only common point I have with my mother, and the target of many pranks.
Ever heard of double triggers? Apparently, you can have them, with the second very soon after the first. In my case, I was clearly freaking out about the fate that they wanted for me. I wanted to be free from the Trio, from everyone. And as new powers manifested, in a grab-bag manner, I found myself able to alter my body… and gravity, too (or, as some said, the space-time curvature). Both would help with my freedom, although in very different ways.
These new powers were available in a more immediate fashion than my first one, and I immediately closed off my nose and sense of smell, before controlling gravity to lift myself off the ground. The ball of foam followed, of course: Winslow's linoleum was so old that it simply crackled and flaked when the gum tried to adhere to the ground. I was still able to strike at the thin layer of plastic myself, getting free of it and able to see underneath.
As a result, I could see around it, at foot level. I immediately noticed that both Armsmaster and Sophia were unconscious. Cold fingers treaded through my heart – if people thought I had killed them, I was sure to receive a Kill Order myself.
But, no: they groaned at they came to. That made my memory jostle to something I read about trigger events, and parahumans who happened to be nearby when they happened. Most experienced some kind of vision, and became incapacitated.
My sense of logic had never failed me, even if I suddenly deduced that Sophia was a parahuman, from that tidbit of information. She was even one who reported to Armsmaster. It meant that she was a Ward. And given that team's composition, she couldn't be anyone else than Shadow Stalker.
Everything cleared as to the reasons behind the school's laissez-faire attitude towards her, as well as how she could get inside my locker so easily.
My other thoughts weren't as clear, no: every feeling I had about the situation led towards rage and fury, and I wanted to attack her, the school, the whole world… and especially the PRT. They can't be that blind not to see the monster in their ranks.
I was still hovering as Armsmaster was standing up, and suddenly remembered my clearly disadvantaged state. It doused my rage, and I chose to simply head home. There, I could wait for dad and tell him everything. It meant, that, first, I had to get rid of the giant gum ball I was encased in.
My only answer, there, was to exert my new powers. Reversing and increasing the pull of gravity around me towards the self-appointed "heroes", while shedding a bit of skin, clothes, and much of my hair, I was able to have most of the pinkish matter leave me and wrap around them.
Not wanting to wait, especially with Sophia able to phase through anything, I flew home in a high-soaring arc. Nobody saw the mess (of gumball, blood, vomit, and insect innards) that I appeared as – and if any did, nobody recognized me.
Home Sweet HomeThe remaining clothes, I put in the barbeque pit to be burned immediately – thankfully, our backyard was isolated from prying eyes. Then, after a cold shower outside to get rid of the worst, I took a long and hot one inside. Well, not that long either, as I worried about the situation and the reaction from the authorities.
And then I was in my room, facing the mirror. I took inventory of the blows I got from Sophia, the missing patches of skin, and the hair torn off in large patches. I was ready to cry, to the point of starting to shed a tear… only to see the tear pass over damaged skin, and then underneath the clean one. Approaching the mirror, I picked the skin, and pulled… and it came off without being painful, even crumbling to dust afterwards.
"What the hell, power?" I asked myself. I continued to pull at my skin, revealing the underlying layer, which was getting healthier and healthier the more I removed the other. And thicker, too. Rubbing my back with the towel helped, too.
And then I was stumped, as the person in front of me… wasn't me anymore. I was smaller, but more feminine. And my hair had grown back. In fact, I looked much more like my mother than previously – I then realized that I idolized her a bit too much.
In addition, I discovered that my control over gravity extended around me and included my hair, now longer: applying the power on each separate strand, I could look like the next Medusa, my hair a floating nest that could be arranged as writhing serpents.
I would have to test these abilities further, as well as make some things from the blueprints I still had in my head, but I also knew I was short on time – given Sophia's animosity, she had probably blabbed my name already, ignoring the Unwritten Rules some people ponder about on PHO. And Emma had probably followed with my address.
The only reason for them to be late was if they made a detour or two. Or if my hair mixed in the containment foam prevented them from dissolving it too easily. I seriously hopped for the latter, while fearing the former: would they bring the heavy guns with them? Would they bring dad? Would they threaten him to get at me?
As if to confirm my hunch, I heard (and felt through vibrations that shook the whole house) heavy vehicles approaching. And I wasn't even clothed properly! Given my new appearance, I couldn't take things from my own dresser, and hurried to Mom's, silently thanking fate that Dad hadn't touched anything. As such, the clothes were readily available, even those she wore as a grunt soldier of Lustrum.
I quickly shimmied into undies and heavy leather pants, followed by a tee-shirt and a vest, and then took gloves and combat boots – which included zippers on the side, thankfully. Everything did fit marvellously.
"This is the PRT!" a voice came from outside. "Leave the house peacefully, or we'll enter!"
Apparently, it meant "right now", as it was immediately followed by the doors being crashed through, both front and back.
Peeking at the window, I saw PRT troopers in my backyard, and one even shot something at me. I reacted instinctively, and my control of gravity reflected it back to him. And it exploded, making me aghast. Why would they use explosives against me? And… did I just kill a soldier with a grenade? Apparently, no, but it was close: the thing had exploded in mid-air.
There would be no peace for me, here, I realized. I wrote the whole thing off and decided to flee, pushing to later the task of getting proper equipment. Climbing into the attic and then on the roof, I was surprised to see a crossbow bolt fly in front of my eyes, embedding itself in the chimney on my right. And have another lodge itself in my thigh – a clean shot, the head protruded on one side, and the fletching on the other.
Shadow Stalker was already there, and had been waiting for me: not completely stupid, she had thought that my flying power would make the roof a valid exit point, and had jumped there to block it off.
Seeing me laying on the thatched tiles, she strutted forward. "You are not going to escape this, you freak."
"I'm not going down that easy, now, either." I replied, unobtrusively pulling at the bolt's head and removing the whole thing. "Did that amuse you, to lord your status over unpowered people?"
"Shut the fuck up! You have no right to speak!" she yelled, quite incensed.
"And why is that? Because you decided so? Who died and made you queen?"
"I said… Shut! Up!" she pulled the trigger at each of those last two words, but I was ready and crouched before jumping, avoiding both bolts (which I only now realized were lethal ones, and not at all tranquilizers). And then I jumped at her, my hair going around her neck.
She was surprised, and reacted in her usual way: by phasing away from the threat. Given that we also were on a roof, she thought she could go down as well, to reappear at a random spot, perhaps.
I would never know, as electricity hit my back. Apparently, Dauntless had chosen the coward's way, using his "Arclance" to strike me from behind and at range. I seldom call people derogative names, but I can also understand him… a little. Or his misunderstanding, at least: I had a lethal bolt in my hand, and he had one stuck in his leg. And, in his mind, Shadow Stalker used tranquilizer bolts, not deadly ones.
Hitting me with electricity was a bad move… for Sophia: since my hair was still connected to the incorporeal form of Shadow Stalker, she was hit too.
As I may have said before, I'm kind of a cape geek. Living in Brockton Bay, it's for survival as much as culture or entertainment. I knew that electricity was Shadow Stalker's weakness, mainly because the stupid PRT lists everything they know about capes who aren't Protectorate, and Shadow Stalker had been a vigilante before having been inducted in the Wards. But that doesn't mean that I wanted what happened afterwards, much less engineered it.
Hit with the bolt, she seized up, returning to tangibility… and found herself in a quandary when her torso was bisected by a piece of carpentry. Returning to shadow form didn't help, as it brought the piece of wood with her, making a hole in the roof.
Angry at Dauntless, I tried my powers on him. It didn't work. I stomped forwards. Feeling himself quite secure, he didn't move, continuing to send arcs of lighting my way, while I continued to advance, in a zigzag way. And when I felt able to act on him (when he entered my power's effective range), I reversed gravity for him.
As he shot up with a yell, pushed even faster with his own boots, I contemplated what would happen next. Powers came with no instructional booklet, but instincts that gave people very basic knowledge about how to use them. Since I now had a measure of my area of effect (a sphere with a radius extending thirty feet around me), I also knew that the change of gravity I subjected him to was temporary: it stopped as soon as he left my area of effect, even if the initial push had been enough to send him quite far. In addition, his own disorientation would make him unable to orient himself well for a few moments, and I didn't need much time to re-enter the attic.
I had been furious about Sophia and everything she did to me, but I had never wanted to kill her myself. Seeing her unable to breathe, and quickly dying, made me sad.
Apparently not wanting any kind of pity, she lunged at me, caught my forearm, and pulled me down, through the floor. Not wanting to be stuck there like she had been, I grabbed her as well so that she wouldn't pull away. At the same time, I increased the pull of gravity over us until we cleared the obstruction.
Even breathless, she fought dirty, and I was only able to react when we found ourselves in the basement, escaping the notice of the troopers on the two intervening floors. I did so by punching her mask repeatedly, until it came loose. I even grabbed it as I pulled away from her, returning to solidity while she continued to drift downwards, clawing towards me helplessly.
And now I was in my basement, and Shadow Stalker was probably dead in the earth below. Or stuck halfway out in one of the many sewer pipes littering the underground. I was also sought after by the "heroic" cape faction.
I could use a breather.
Looking at the mask in my hand, I wondered. If Sophia was dead, I could… take her place? Was I even able to?
Hearing the people upstairs move around, I hurried it up, and soon was covered in dust from my old skin, covering Sophia's distinctive skin tone. My clothes could be taken as hers, as she was roughly the same size my previous body was. And, as it happened, the vest I had taken included a cowl.
With the mask I had ripped from her, I was her. Now, would I be able to fool the various people I would come across? With eighteen months of bullying, I should know how she acts and moves, right?
Let's do this.
The Great PretendersI sneered and mocked people left and right, reacted badly to others and made myself clearly unwanted. And nobody noticed the change. Score! I was Sophia Hess.
Or rather I was Taylor, playing at being Sophia Hess, herself playing at being a heroic cape – and she had been doing that last part quite badly, in my honest opinion.
I continued the charade even when I noticed that my dad was there. He was being quite lost, and the PRT officers were having a field day with him, getting him almost to the point of signing me away to the Wards – not necessarily to put myself there, but rather to have him abdicate his rights, removing him as an asset for me.
But I noticed his real self emerging back when he had the pen in hand and the paper in front of his eyes. Signing contracts was his job, after all, and he reverted quickly into long-ingrained habits: he read the whole thing.
Seeing him not signing immediately, the troopers tried to force the issue, only for him to respond that he would bring it to them, and only after he'd have a lawyer combing through it.
And as I was heading back to the PRT building with the troopers, I couldn't not hear about what other tactics they were ready to use to subdue me, if necessary: threatening to harm him; doing so; planting fake evidence in the house… I wondered for a while if I was really with the heroes or in a gang of villains.
Later, I found myself with the Wards, in the PRT building. I had been a bit angsty about the possibility of Tinker-tech detectors outing me, but nothing came. And I was properly angry again at the thought that this building housed people that could have put a stop to my harassment at Sophia's hands.
Apparently, that kind of anger was the norm for Sophia's emotion, as Gallant didn't bat an eye when "I" entered the Wards' room (I hadn't known the way, but we arrived at the same time Aegis did, and I followed him).
Rude words and gestures, check. Riled up partners made less attentive ones, and I escaped to "my" room. Private showers in a military-grade establishment? I took advantage of it, of course. And then, in the privacy of the basic bathroom, I exerted my power again. Gravity rolled around me, pulling at my skin while I changed into… Madison. And then Emma, of course. I tested the voice and some gestures. Perfect! And here I thought Mom's idea of drama lessons had been useless…
I couldn't do everyone, though, which I discovered when trying to imitate Emma's father. My power reacted by showing me several mental barriers that limited that power: I couldn't grow up (or down) too far from my normal size (and weight)… and I couldn't change sex – I could appear slightly more masculine in certain body shapes, but always within female parameters.
Still, even having a limited window of variance, in body height and weight (and apparent gender), was better than nothing, and quite handy to disguise oneself. I could look like a celebrity like Panacea, a face that I knew, like everyone here. I could also be as anonymous as a totally invented girl. With light blue hair. For some reason, I liked that, and kept it – when I wasn't impersonating someone in particular, though.
Such as now. A knock was heard at my door. "Patrol in ten minutes." came through it, too.
"Fuck you." I replied, using Sophia's voice. And mannerisms.
An annoyed sigh. "Do I have to repeat myself all the time, Stalker? You go to patrol or I denounce you and you go back to juvie."
"Alright." I yelled, hiding my surprise at hearing real annoyance towards the Ward I was impersonating. And then I remembered that she was on probation. And, knowing her like I do, it must have annoyed her quite heavily too… leading to even more profanities. "That's not to say I fucking like it."
"You're not the only one." he replied, slightly lower as he stepped away.
I finished my transformation into Sophia again, pulled one of her real costumes, which I put over another set of clothing. And I took one of her crossbow-laden backpack, to which I added some more clothes, before headed out – I had to leave, now, before they could get the idea of testing my power or knowledge. I had wanted to learn whether the PRT had been in cahoots with her flouting of the law and common decency, and I had my answer: pushing everyone away with rude language and attitude, she had never integrated with them. It still rankled that the PRT had so little oversight about civilian life of their cape that they couldn't care about her violence there.
Now, with the excuse of a patrol, I could head into dangerous territory, and "kill" her for good. I would leave the costume, too, hence the need for additional clothes. Thankfully, I was able to morph into her shape but with just a bit of thickness lacking, so the additional layer of clothes wasn't very visible.
"Your phone's off." Aegis complained. He was sitting at a large computer bank, with headsets and microphones – the infamous Console.
"Dauntless fucking fried it." I replied, happy for the ready-made excuse. "Does that mean I'm off the roster?"
"You, not wanting to patrol?" He snorted, even while leaning towards a drawer and pulling a brick phone and an earbud. "Here. Standard regulations."
The annoyance was still present in his tone, but I had to pretend I (as Sophia) was a stuck-up bitch. I didn't give excuses or thanks as I grabbed the proffered items – only nodding curtly when it was clear that he waited something to release the item. He then punched a few keys to link the phone to his monitoring software. I would have to ditch it too.
Apparently, Sophia's patrol today was with Vista, the youngest member of the Wards… and also the one with the longest time there. And I could see that the youngster didn't like "me" one bit. Knowing Sophia, she must have pushed her down several times too many, leading to the silent treatment while the PRT van drove us to the starting point, and then to her leaving solo.
I shrugged, mentally, as it made my plan simpler. I tried to adopt Shadow Stalker's gait as I jumped to another roof, and I mostly succeeded by using reversed gravity – without the "becoming shadow" part, of course. And then I did it again to jump from roof to roof.
My destination was Empire territory, where I would find some skinheads to provoke, fight for a bit, flee into an alley, and leave Shadow Stalker's outfit for them to bring as trophy.
I hadn't counted on cape support on either side. While fighting, one of the skinheads morphed, blades surging from beneath his skin until he had transformed into a blender with the head of a wolf – a well-known local villain, named Hookwolf.
And, as I fled, I was surprised by the sound of a girl's voice from above. "Stop! You're under arrest!"
Apparently, Vista had doubled back and followed me. It didn't prevent me from following my program, but I was rather anxious to leave the young Shaker to fight the murder-prone monster. As soon as I could, I emerged from the stairway to the roof, and noticed that, despite having tried to flee, Vista had been pinned to an A/C unit by a blade thrown through the arm – apparently, even villains learned a few tricks now and then: with his strength and regeneration, Hookwolf was able to snap off one of his infamous hooks, and throw it.
"Hey!" I yelled, stopping the man just as he was going to punch Vista's head. As he clearly decided to finish the movement before dealing with me, I pulled at him with my gravity-related power, same as Dauntless: far up, and far far away.
"Who are… you?" Vista gasped, not recognizing the face I now wore – I had reverted to my Mom's face and body. With light blue hair highlights.
"Call me… Capsule." I said. I felt it had the most connotations with both the power of gravity (as in space flight and survival capsules, not to mention the Ferris wheel) and my still-unexplored Tinker power (that I still knew as able to change the size of things). "Do you want me to pull that off?" I asked, then, pointing at the hook.
Given its shape, she couldn't pull her arm out, and she lacked the strength to do it with one arm. And that's not even taking her pain into account, even if she seemed to have a high threshold, there. She nodded, biting her lip while I pulled, and not uttering a sound.
Around then, we heard celebratory yells at street level, and I took a quick peek. The remaining thugs had found the bloodied outfit, mask, and weapon. Good.
Vista was horrified, though. "Oh my god, they killed Sophia! I mean…" she trailed off, looking at me uneasily. Did she just out a teammate?
I shrugged. "Is she the one who often comes around here and shoots crossbow bolts at everyone?"
"They are tranq bolts." she assured me.
"Like this one?" I pulled the one I still had with me. "I pulled it off my brother, whom she had pinned to a wall. Why do you think she was on probation? And why do you think the PRT has such a low opinion rate around here?"
She stayed silent, digesting the new reality.
"Now what?" I asked. "Hospital? Panacea? How does that work when heroes are hurt?"
"You live here?" she asked instead of answering. "You have needle, thread, and disinfectant?"
I watched her intently. "You don't want people to know about this." I asserted. "You're so far from your designated patrol that you'd be chewed by your whole chain of command if that was known."
She looked down, holding her damaged arm with her good hand. "Okay, yes, I know. Can you help?"
I didn't live there. However, I also didn't know if I was welcome home. Deciding I should try anyways, I changed gravity for the two of us, and we started falling upwards, and then sideways, towards the Docks.
On our way, we noticed a disturbance: a man sheathed in fire, and growing, and fighting what appeared to be three monstrous lizard-like dogs… and four capes (if the hidden identity was something to go by).
Lung. I recalled something on PHO about him being on the prowl for a theft from the Undersiders, and realized that these had been his target. Still, PHO was undecided whether the Undersiders were actual villains, as they weren't reported in relation to murders, drugs, or prostitution. Just theft. And from villains, mostly.
Since the dogs seemed to tire out, leaving the flaming man to approach the more human figures, I decided to make a pit stop. Literally: using gravity to push Lung down, his temperature melted the asphalt quickly enough for him to sink until he found himself neck deep in what must have felt like containment foam, for his modified physiology.
"Ah… thanks." the man who seemed to be the leader of the Undersiders spoke up, a bit uneasily – they might have been ready to bolt, but one of the dogs was heavily wounded, and the girl with a dog mask was trying to do something to it, which involved cutting it open. Urgh. And the other male in the team, even effeminate as his outfit was, had a broken leg. "I didn't know the heroes would be there. I'm Grue."
"I'm… not here in my official capacity." Vista said.
Apparently, that single sentence was a gold mine for the remaining villainess, whose smile became almost predatory. But before she could speak, Grue put a hand across her mouth (her whole face, even, given the size of his leather gloves). "No tattling."
"Should we let him here?" I asked, pointing at Lung – who, because of the lack of actual fighting, had started to decrease in size. With gravity, I was arranging for the asphalt to flow down, keeping his head at street level with enough air to breathe.
"We ought to call the PRT." Vista piped in. "Without telling them I'm here, though." she added.
Wordlessly, the girl (whom I guessed was Tattletale, from what was known of the gang's roster) took some things from Grue's backpack, and handed them to us. It was a first-aid pack, and a phone.
"Thank you." I said. I let Vista punch the numbers in, and found myself speaking with the PRT, on better terms than before. "Hi! I'm Capsule, a new cape, and I captured Lung!"
That seemed to kick an anthill, and I had to repeat the information a couple times, including our location, when Tattletale, still muted, became agitated. Grue nodded and took the phone back, shutting it down in the same action. He still gave it back to me.
"Their procedures keep people on the line while they send heroes, so that they could interrogate you on site." he said, his already deep voice enhanced by the shadows that were already flowing around him. "Thank you for Lung, but we are leaving. You should, too." he finished, indicating Vista.
I looked around. The girl with the dogs seemed to have extracted a healthy but littler dog from the monstrosity on the ground, and Regent was looking at the other beast, quite pale under his mask. "Do you need a lift?" I asked, and, suspecting that they didn't want to leave traces around, I lifted both Regent and the dead dog shell.
Grue looked at Tattletale, who nodded. "Thank you. I guess you can follow from the air?"
I nodded, and took to the air with my three "parcels". It seemed to be just in time, even, as the two dogs had already left, guided by Tattletale and Hellhound (whom I had heard the others call Bitch, for some reason), and the rumbling of Armsmaster's motorcycle could be heard from afar.
From quite high in the air, we watched as the hero looked around cautiously before approaching the swearing head-in-a-pothole. Vista was quite handy in spying, as she could reduce the space between us so that we heard him mutter about having to employ heavy machinery to get Lung out.
But it wasn't our problem anyways. Vista released her collapsed space (which was still giving me ideas about devices doing the same), and we followed Regent's indications towards the Undersiders' lair – noticing halfway that we had caught up with the jumping lizard-dog hybrids.
There, I left the two additional charges, and took over from Vista trying to butcher herself by sewing her own wound – with her dominant hand, but still… "You don't want to show weakness, do you?" I asked as I worked.
She shook her head. "If I do, people lose respect and I'm back at square one, as the "little kid" that everyone wants to stay at home and not do anything with her powers. If it's known that I fought Hookwolf and got wounded…" she let her sentence trail off as she bristled.
"Kept that bottled for a while, too?" I asked, pre-empting Tattletale, who was still kept mute thanks to Grue.
That wasn't to last long, though, because she elbowed him not too gently (not that he moved much), and exclaimed "You're Taylor Hebert!"
I sighed. "And why would you say that?"
With her mouth freed, she was now able to live to her cape name, Tattletale, as she became even more of a motor-mouth than I was when I was young – and given the proof in video, I was suitably impressed. "The PRT went to Winslow to deal with a parahuman attack on a Ward, only the Ward happened to be Shadow Stalker, someone we still have problems with, so I took it with a grain of salt. The entire shaker, even – nice pun, there, Vista, you can take it home with you. No? I take it back, then." A very short intake of breath. "And then, following Shadow Stalker's advice, the troopers attacked you at home, flouting every bit of the Unwritten Rules – like only the heroes can without retribution. They don't know how you escaped, and posted your picture in the news, going once again against the rules. They said you were a criminal, and that that justified that. However… everything hinges on Shadow Stalker's word." Another breath. "And now Stalker is… no more?"
"If you're convinced that I'm her, how do you explain the height discrepancy?" I asked. "She's, like, six feet tall? I'm less than that."
"I know! My power can infer the reason, now, but I feel the beginning of a headache."
"Another reason why you have to shut up once in a while." Grue interjected, his hand coming once again to close his teammate's mouth. It was just in time, perhaps, as I noticed her eyes widen, and then she switched to Vista. I realized that, if her deductive power was going full tilt, she might have realized that I had killed Shadow Stalker, and that I was perhaps going to off Vista too. I frowned and shook my head minutely, and it seemed that she got the message. And then she was the one to frown, and close her eyes too, as her Thinker power was really giving her that promised headache.
"Thank you the first aid kit." I told them, heading outside again.
"Yes, thank you." Vista repeated, following me – experienced hero or not, she wasn't particularly keen on staying around a group of recognized villains. It went against everything she had learnt, most notably what to say when encountering such a group – hint, it always was "You're under arrest" or some such.
"Thank you for Lung." Grue replied. "And your discretion." he added as he went to close the door, only waiting for our nod before doing so.
"And now, young miss." I told Vista as I lifted the two of us in the sky. "What do you want to do? What can you do? Returning to base, alone, with a torn uniform and a wound under that?"
"I… can't." she admitted. "I even turned my phone off when I started following Stalker. I'll have to head home, change, and then call them to say I lost it or something."
"You have important things, on that?" I asked, my hand towards her. "If you "lost it", as you said, I could get rid of the evidence for you."
She shook her head. "No, nothing of importance."
"So… home? Where's that?" I asked as she gave me the phone. "I mean… I won't leave you without a phone in the middle of nowhere, you know?"
She pointed towards the hills (the more affluent neighbourhoods) and we headed there. And if, on my way, I recognized Emma's house, I said nothing. I would need time to plot my vengeance towards her… if I ever get myself out of my current pickle.
Tinkers and their ToysFirst of all, I wanted to head home myself. I needed to see if my father was alright, especially after his sudden resistance against pushing me into the Wards. Or just away.
And if, on my way, I grabbed a few still-standing doorways from a dilapidated building or three, no one interfered.
He wasn't asleep, and came outside as soon as he heard my load being lowered in the backyard. And I could see the gamut of emotions on his face when he saw mine (and it was really mine, as I had morphed back into myself, on the way).
"Taylor? Is that you? What happened? Are you… are you alright?" I noticed the hesitations, the words from the PRT probably still fresh in his mind.
"I'm not a villain." I replied, approaching slowly. "Everything the PRT said is false, and fabricated by one of their own capes."
"That Stalker menace?" he asked. When I turned inquiring eyes at him, he nodded. "She went out of her way to destroy things, inside. Their troopers kept me on the curb, but I noticed her shooting at walls, and noticed afterwards that she hit photographs with you."
"That's her alright." I nodded, my voice thick with anger at the girl, even dead as she was, and sadness at my bullies' single-mindedness costing me even more mementos of my mother.
"We'll make do, Little Owl." he said, hugging me. "In the meantime… what are those? Doors? How did you even carry them?"
"Well, one thing was true, dad: I'm a parahuman, now." And, as proof, I used my control of gravity to get one of the doorways up and against the original one, still demolished. "You have nails?" I asked.
"Sure." he said, before turning towards me with a smirk. "Inside." he added, pointing at the closed door… to which I didn't have the key.
"Oh. Sorry."
The door removed, I got a quick introduction about how to change locks, and then I pulled the door up again and pushed the nails with my finger… and a bit of power.
"Nice job." dad commented. "Not even that noisy. We could do the front, and then I believe you owe me the complete story… around a spot of tea."
And we did that in order: the door, the tea, and the story. He was even more incensed at the PRT after everything, but also wary about me having taken a life, even involuntarily – not about the law, surprisingly, but rather the psychological consequences.
"Honestly, she had it coming." I said, pointing at the stack of bolts that he had had to pull off the walls at some point. All deadly. All further proof of Sophia's psychopathic tendencies.
"I agree, and any competent lawyer will get the case off the courts with a legitimate use of defensive force. But I can't help worry about you. What if people recognize you in the streets?"
I smiled at this. "Dad, I haven't told you about what my powers were, right? Now, apart from gravity control, look at this."
And, in front of him, I changed again. I became… Emma. I had told him about her treachery, and seeing me able to take her place, he got an evil smile, mirrored with mine. We spent quite a while plotting.
And then it was late, and he went to sleep. I tried to, too, but my grab-bag powers were more than what I had thought, since I couldn't sleep. Instead, plans warred in my head, demanding to be constructed.
Pulling Vista's phone, I considered for a while… and then returned to the basement. A quick check revealed no Shadow Stalker body part emerging from anywhere, thankfully. And then I started Tinkering.
It is said that a Tinker's first foray happens like in a fugue state, a long moment during which they can't do anything but make things. Things that defied human understanding. Things that went beyond physics. Things that took a look at the rules of the universe… and decided to follow their own.
I had already surmised that I would Tinker around resizing things. As it happened, I produced capsules (another point for my self-designated cape name) that could be stuck to something in order to reduce their dimensions (one-hundredth of their original size). And then restore them when clicked.
Cars could be reduced as toy cars, same with planes, tanks, even constructions. And I knew that living things could as well, even if they were in suspended animation while reduced – same for the objects, too: I don't want to imagine how a real plane would react when played with as a toy – even if it was denser when shrunk.
That's when I realized that I had created Pokeballs, and I was sure that if I got outside with them painted red and white, a duo of game-obsessed villains would be on my case like a rash.
My Capsules would be light blue, instead. Yes, the same shade I wanted for my hair. I still didn't know how colour preferences could change with a couple trigger events, but I wasn't going to look at the gifted horse in the mouth, either.
Still, even useful as the Capsules were, I wanted to be able to use that power without requiring items limited in number, so I crafted gloves to do the same with a touch. When activated, of course – and the reverse, of course, to either return things to their proper size… or to increase the size of something else. I could use toys as decoys, for instance, or barricades. However, contrarily to my Capsules, the effect wouldn't freeze time for them.
When the morning came, Vista's phone was no more, alongside several broken radios and other failed electronic items. Seriously, for any would-be Tinker out there: keep your failed electronics in one place, it will help you not disassemble your working appliance to build your creations.
In the notes I took about the whole process, I included a memo so that I'd go acquire things from the recycling centre.
I had plans for more equipment, too, such as a sealed costume allowing me to change size myself, without the 1/100 limitation. I would be as small as I wanted, while still taking care of not becoming dense enough to create a new black hole… or to reach the size of quantum reactions, where I would be the epitome of Shrödinger's thought experiment about felines. To be, or not to be, that would have been the question.
No, instead, I also added the option of becoming bigger – because, America here, bigger is better. And, of course, all this would be without the usual problems of a sealed costume (such as air supply which could be miniaturized, same with whatever my body produced in excess): with my powers together, I knew how to "simply" tweak my targets' space-time. Including myself.
In fact, I had initially thought that my specialty was Miniaturization, the same as Armsmaster's. I was wrong on both counts, as my specialty is Resizing (that is, decreasing but also increasing size) while his is Efficiency – that's why he was able to diminish the size of the things he wanted to add to his weapons and armours. Mine was Resizing.
I also met Emma, during the weeks that followed my trigger.
Of course, given my outlaw status, it couldn't be as myself and at school. Instead, I met her at her home, first, showing my own face at her window at night. And then I took her appearance when talking with others, and those others' when talking to her. Whether there or in school, I had "Emma" spouting the vitriol I had been accustomed to. I tanked a few slaps, for this, but I had the distinct pleasure of seeing the real Emma quite taken aback when her nominal allies (and her family) started heaping scorn on her.
Even when her father mentioned something about Sophia, leading me to understand a bit of where Emma was coming from, it was too little too late: I was way past the need for understanding the reasons behind her bullying, and the fact that I was serving her a bit of what she gave me was cathartic. I just hoped to stop before I became too attached to it. While a bit of retribution could be understood, I didn't want to become a bully myself.
Besides, Emma wasn't the only one I wanted to target.
If I had been able to impersonate her father, I would have too: the man was the reason Shadow Stalker had been in probation instead of prison, since he had vouched for her character. Instead, I pondered for a while, and spied on him while hidden in another skin. And that's when I noticed him enter his legal firm that another set of ideas came forward. Including Tinker blueprints.
My specialty was Resizing? My new gadget would help Downsizing… his company. Starting by him. With how I could impersonate Emma, I was even able to add suspicions of sexual misconduct against a minor of his own family. It appears that my power fixated on the 1/100 scale, because that's exactly the ratio that was applied to his annual income from then on.
I quickly took note of the idea I had, then, to do the reverse to Dad's workplace.
Original SinEnvy towards your neighbour's good fortune led to the first recorded killing in History. Envy towards other capes led a villain called Coil to try to kidnap me.
However, by then, I had already met the Undersiders. In fact, Tattletale was helping me by gathering information on my bullies. In return, I helped their team when they continued to steal cash caches from other gangs. With my Capsules, moving the physical money and gold items was much easier than without.
Then, one day, Tattletale came to the lair with a glum expression. By then, I was considering them my friends, and spent most of my free time there. As a point of fact, when she removed her mask, she was Lisa again.
"What's up?" Alec asked. "Something bad?"
"The boss thinks we are ready for the next level in reputation. He wants us to rob a bank. And not only that, it must be Central Bank, next week. He also required that you join us. Officially. You'd have a retainer, same as us, plus a bonus upon successful missions."
That seemed interesting, but she was still not smiling. "What's the catch?" Alec, again.
She sighed. "I think I worked out his power. Sometimes, he reacts to things that are not visible, and not even there. It gives him information, often pertinent to the situation at hand. It's like he's watching the situation as it happens… somewhere else. In another dimension. Or reality."
"Precog Thinker?" Brian asked. "Damn, those are hard to pin down."
She nodded. "With my own power, I inferred many things about the situation, and none of them pleases me. The man is sadistic, and I have no doubt that while we shared a civil discussion, he was torturing me in the other reality – a "temporary" one, in which he could do whatever he wished before discarding it. And once I will have exhausted my usefulness for him, I have no doubt that he'll select the other reality as the one to keep."
Everyone shared a worried look at that. How could we deal with such a threat? I noticed all eyes on me and realized I had asked the question aloud.
"Nothing for now." Lisa replied. "But I have a couple ideas."
She discussed those with me, both about the heist, about my powers… and about Coil's.
In the end, we did rob the bank without fanfare. My powers allowed us to enter through a side window, kept open during the lunch break. Being on the fourth floor, they had probably thought that nobody would be able to enter. Being lunch, there were less people around, and nobody noticed us as we took the stairs towards the vaults' level.
As we progressed, Grue's darkness covered cameras – although he kept it at ceiling level, so that we could see where we walked. Small Capsules took hold of the guards, and then Tattletale used her power to infer the passwords through the heavy door.
With my Tinker-made gloves, I was able to reduce door sizes, so that their latches would hold onto nothing. Then the Undersiders opened them and emptied the account's drawer into a crate. And then I passed again, closing and restoring the little hatches.
We took everything of value in one go before leaving the vault area. We even locked the door on the way out and deposited the guards where they had been. Out of the stasis at the same time, they continued their discussion about inane topics as if nothing had happened.
We left through the employees' parking, accessible on the same level. Most people keep in their vehicle everything related to it: papers, and especially parking tickets… and badges. With Tattletale's power, it was easy to find several inconspicuous cars that we could steal easily, in that category. And then we were gone.
Nobody even knew the bank had been robbed, and it was only when someone tried to get at their vault's content that it was discovered that everything was empty.
Like every time something strange is going on, the police department called the PRT, and they sent every hero it could summon… which amounted to the Wards, because the adults were somewhere else.
And they waited for nothing, as there was nothing happening.
For some reason, that heroic presence, even small as it was, was the only topic Coil latched upon, when Tattletale came to debrief. And debrief they did, for Tattletale now knew much more about his power… and mine.
I had given her another specially-designed Capsule. Many of them. Holding sea urchins in stasis, they would attach at specific points, and would grow back to normal with specific triggers: our death, a given timer, or the press of a button (all three triggers were managed through a remote controller for each, miniaturized and hidden in our hand).
By then, she had worked out the kinks in his power, and was ready when she touched base to be interrogated. She knew he was having a blast torturing her, in one reality, while he simply sat and chatted with her, in the other.
And thus, when he ended up killing her to satisfy his sadistic urges, in one reality, he died immediately from the many capsules that had settled in his stomach, courtesy of her having contaminated his supply of coffee – she wasn't stupid to do it inside his base, but was proficient enough to do it with the supply chain outside it.
When one version of Coil died in one reality, the other paled suddenly, but he didn't have time to split many different realities, as Tattletale noticed, and pressed the button. Several mercenaries died at the same time, as well as the cape downstairs, known as Trickster – all had ingested the same coffee.
Thankfully, Tattletale had stopped taking coffee for some time already. Thanks to her meeting me at home (introducing her to my dad), I had introduced her to tea – apparently, it soothed her headaches, too.
"Dead man's switch, dead man's switch… where the hell is his dead man's switch?" she asked herself, heading to the computer there. Her power of deduction being quite bullshit, she was able to guess passwords, find hidden commands, and deactivate the automated instructions the man had put there. He was paranoid, but not enough to prevent a power-guided human missile named Tattletale from destroying everything he had established. Or appropriating it.
Still, even with the certainty that she had neutralized the more immediate threats, she hurried and removed all movable assets from his accounts before returning "home" to her lair. The electronic funds were the easiest, even as she mapped several (hundreds of) jumps to escape most sniffers. With my Capsules, she could take much of the material wealth too, including a few crates of weaponry, computers, and some luxury luxuries – a larger television set than what they already had, and a larger couch, too.
That included the hostage she could see monitored from the man's console, a girl named Dinah Alcott. That's also there that she realized why they had had to rob the bank that particular day: it was so that the Travellers could kidnap her without a response from the Protectorate. And since the abduction had been prepared to look like a failed burglary, they had killed her parents too.
It took us some time to clear Dinah from the drug treatment she had just started to undergo (so that she would have been pliable to Coil's wishes), but, by then, we had our own precognitive Thinker – one who, after asking herself a question, chose to stay.
What Doesn't Kill YouIn the meantime, I met several capes. Thanks to Tattletale, I was even stricken from the villain category – at least, my civilian name was, and nobody had seen "me" using powers. My other identity, as the cape named Capsule, had a completely different body, and was firmly a rogue.
How could I go from Birdcage-worthy to simple rogue? Our Thinker "simply" compiled a full report about Sophia Hess' deeds and misdeeds, which she sent to every news network. From the remorseless vigilante to the probationary hero, with incompetent handlers and easily swayed overseers, she now appeared like the worst hero the PRT could have ever had. Especially as her manners had pushed many would-be heroes away from the Protectorate. Yes, that meant me, but I wasn't alone either.
As to my own case: it was proven that I had been triggering, in school, and clearly not attacking Sophia or Armsmaster. It was also proven that I had nothing to do with Sophia's difficulties: a Trooper had seen from the street the scene with Dauntless, from the side. His outfit's camera had caught the ex-vigilante's crossbow bolt flying high and hitting the hero, as well as the lightning arc that travelled through me and hit her.
It was also proven that I was not Nilbog 2.0, when the enlarged insects from the school had simply stopped living, their deformed body unable to continue working.
And surfing on that wave of pronouncements, another dossier came up: the one where the PRT dropped the ball in many other cases.
Case in point: Canary. Her Brute-level restraints where shown in their stark reality, including the damage they did to her. How her basic rights were stomped upon by the angry mob led by a judge with a grudge.
Another was Hellhound, or, as she preferred to be called: Bitch. Apparently, the only case she had with the Law was a murder that was soon altered into involuntary and due to the extreme situation of her trigger event – and, no, people, don't kill your puppies at home to get powered kids… it never ends well.
When I witnessed the resulting data from Tattletale's dossier, I high-fived my dad, and then headed to the Undersiders' lair to do the same to Lisa.
However, the news outlets started to get weird after that: apparently, someone gave the talking heads other details and testimonies that said the opposite of Tattletale's data. Many were clearly fake, but included so many controversial topics that people reacted quickly, and strongly… and wrongly. Heroes and villains were not that different from normal people, in relation to emotional manipulation, and my rogue status was soon a thing of the past.
Someone had declared war on me. On Tattletale. On us. And they hid behind a furious mob, egging the sheep on as they went.
At the same time, someone was interviewed about all this. It was Rebecca Costa-Brown, and Tattletale frowned when hearing the PRT's Chief Director. When her carefully selected and spoken words instilled honeyed poison into the minds of listeners everywhere: "beware of fake news" (as if only she was able to determine what was fake or not), "only I know the truth" (exactly as I just thought), and especially "we will prevail!"
Tattletale stopped there, frowning. She rewound the video, and played it several times.
And then she sought another video, where Alexandria was giving a motivational speech before an Endbringer attack. Especially its end: "we will prevail!"
She put them side to side, and played them at the same time. And then she linked everything and started posting in several threads, like mad. Some disappeared outright, making her frown and mutter about a collusion between Alexandria and Tin_Mother.
But soon, the official government would suspend the Chief Director, pending an investigation, and the main moderator would be left to her own devices. It would lead to the suppressed threads to reappear, as well as others to be sorted first. Including those who spoke about the parody of justice dealt to the parahumans in the Birdcage. Such as Canary. Or the kids there. With videos, each of which another nail in the PRT coffin.
We weren't there to read them, though.
"What are you doing?" Grue asked in worry when he noticed Tattletale's smirk at the deleted thread.
"That's going to be a Pyrrhic victory, if they go that far." she simply answered, typing another. And then, without her doing so, her computer switched off. "And now it begins. Move!"
We did. Less than three seconds after we left sight of the lair, we felt the ground tremble as it collapsed. And given the white cloud that floated above it, someone had had the impressive idea to steal a stockpile of drugs and throw it at the warehouse. From quite high, even. The cloud it created would coat everything, preventing us from ever use any of our stuff without being detected by the least efficient police dog.
Thankfully, the fact that we brought Dinah with us shielded us somewhat, because our new enemies couldn't use precognition against us. And she could warn us about other threats.
But our enemies weren't done. Leaving the front assault for the moment, they used topic baiting to pull the enmity of all the gangs against us. That meant that, as we fled our home base, we ended up facing the closest one: the Asian Bad Boys… and girls: since Lung had been apprehended, the cape that led them was the crime lord's newest recruit: a bomb Tinker named Bakuda – apparently, Oni Lee wasn't leader material.
And, given her specialty, she would have put bombs everywhere. Including in her subordinates, apparently.
Even with our many powers, bombs were bombs, and we took several hits.
Thankfully, she was put down by internal strife: several people complained, grouped together, and staged a mutiny. They weren't numerous, and many fell to bombs and bullets, but it was enough for one of them, a young Ainu man named Rokuku, to "simply" jump and punch her when he was close enough. If one could call simple the act of jumping ten meters and over the truck on which she was doing a monologue. It was quite a hit, too, as she flew and hit the nearest wall, head first. Broken neck. According to Tattletale, she hadn't even had time to activate her other bombs with her toe rings.
"We don't want the kind of war she decided on." Another said. Visibly belonging to the resisting faction, he had the white hair of the really old men. His voice was heard, though. "We would be eliminated to the last. With her gone, we can either regroup with a different view, and everyone goes home."
After saying this, he fell silent, letting the others decide. Thankfully, they chose to stay as a group, and to give gainful employment to those among them who were parahumans. But they wouldn't be a gang anymore, which implied stopping all illegal activities. Many voice went against this, but we helped quiet them, and we joined with Rokuku.
The young man didn't talk much, when he was concentrating on a fight. But outside of that, he was quite talkative. He often spoke about his childhood, and the numerous fights he got on. And I had the distinct impression that he was quite a diehard, then – and even more now: a playful shove from a friend was completely ignored, and then said friend played at knocking him out with his fists and then a bat… he didn't move.
I got him to meet Panacea to check on his health, and she confirmed that he was a parahuman, with a body compatible with her interpretation of what a Brute was. Much like some heroes from popular culture, he literally became stronger each time he wasn't killed. Given his hard life, he was already quite durable. And going to be more so all the time, given that he was now sparring with parahumans.
Getting to know him, I often heard him take tangents that started with "My people…", but it was difficult for him to articulate what people he referred to. And given the melting pot that was the Asian gang, he wasn't even sure of his actual point of origin. Most thought he was Japanese, but then some Chinese had a bit of bad blood with Japan. It made him quite insecure in his identity and beliefs, and an ideal prey for those who had indoctrinated him in that way of thinking.
Anyways, all this didn't kill him, so he became stronger. Again.
Rise and Fall of EmpiresWhen Egypt was building their pyramids, they had long since established castes of people, with those in power only giving the reins to family members. After a while, the children of the aristocracy chose to live for the pleasure the accumulated wealth and prestige commanded. They relinquished the reins of power to others, who then cut them at the source. And without their leaders, power dissolved and the empire fell.
When Rome was the centre of the known world, heading an empire that spanned most of that world-as-was-known, the children of the rich and powerful chose to live in leisure and decadence, instead of doing their duties. Lacking in manpower, frontier legions selected their members among the conquered people. And when those people's cousins came from the other side, they let them pass, and even joined in the sacking of Rome.
Some say that there are things too big to fail. The same tend to head towards bigger and bigger organizations, not heading the lessons from the past… or simply the result of our childhood games: anyone playing Jenga knows that, with limited resources, building bigger inevitably fails.
Several Empires rose and then fell, often for the same reasons. It also means that when one takes the name, one should be aware of the consequences of the decadence of the powerful.
One of these fools' dreams crashed in flames when we happened to stumble across some capes hailing from the triple-E – the Empire Eighty-Eight. Especially those cashing on the work of their forefathers, and who always saw those of other origins as less worthy (even if that required quite a bit of cognitive dissonance, since their forefathers were German and not germane to the American dream).
On our way through the city, moving everyday to evade our enemies, we caught a group of skinheads in the process of taunting and threatening a black girl. Already wounded with small cuts, she was crying and begging for an escape. When she realized that they wouldn't leave her alive, or even intact, she freaked out… and alien entities answered. She Triggered, I mean.
We weren't that close to the action, despite hurrying there, and only the cape herding the group of Nazi wannabes fell unconscious for a few seconds. Seeing their leader down, several fled, while others shouted "cape" and got their guns out. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, they looked at their target and recoiled. She was literally coated in green goo, almost blue, and it seemed to come from her.
Thinking that she was threatening them with acid, the gun-wielding thugs shot her, only to see their bullets stop in the goo… and dissolve into brown specks. That sealed their interpretation of the new cape power, and, taking their awakening leader with them, they fled the scene.
That's when we arrived, just in time to announce to the girl, named Aya, that she was now a parahuman. And while Vista and I could manipulate space, and while I could play with gravity, her specialty was time. We initially thought that she was "only" a healer, because her green-blue goo really healed wounds. But, as it appeared after a few tests, it was because it reversed time on what it was spread on: objects or creatures, it rejuvenated them, bringing them to a previous state. That explained why the bullets had dissipated into metal ore and saltpetre, too. Knowing that, we took care not to apply too much of it for too long, lest the target person return to childhood… or beyond.
She didn't only rewind time, as the blue-shifted goo seemed to indicate. She could also generate a pure green one, as well as one that was red-shifted – in fact, she controlled the shift. That green-yellow goo sped up the passage of time, and the green one created a stasis effect.
In addition, what she produced could be bottled and used afterwards, in local application or through complete immersion. Because of the obvious link with the healing canisters from another popular set of movies, we called her Bacta.
Seeing that cape names were a thing, Rokuku also chose one for himself: Seiya. It was only because he liked the character, at first. But, soon, playing with his "cosmos energy" or something like that, he succeeded in releasing some through his attacks. And then around his body, as a means for defence. And, of course, he boisterously called his attacks, afterwards… except that he wouldn't remember the wording in the heat of combat, and it ended in a gibberish (which often included the words "turtle" and "end", for some reason) ending with a shouted "HA!"
Aya and Rokuku clashed quite often, because each was convinced to be the most deserving of attention and rewards. His "My people…" tangents were often interrupted by hers, with the downside that she didn't have legitimacy on that claim either: Tattletale knew her life history the moment she laid eyes on her, and she had her admit that her parents were neither Americans nor slaves. In fact, as aristocrats in their home country, they had slaves. Slaves who revolted and kicked them out. Some of those chose to leave for greener pastures as well… and ended up in Brockton Bay too. Or arrived there before, like Skidmark.
Small world, eh?
Trying to escape the Empire area unmolested, we came across the Merchant capes, on the prowl for more drugs. My Capsules having the option of ejecting living creatures from the things it miniaturized, I took possession of Squealer's massive tank, as well as Trainwreck's armour and Mush's ball of… refuse. Depowered like that, they were easier to overpower, and we sent to the police for treatment.
The Empire Eighty-Eight cottoning on our presence near their territory, we soon had to fight the brunt of their Brutes. Thankfully, we had our own, with Bitch's dogs and Seiya, as well as Blasters – Seiya again, aided with my ability to replicate Rune's actions in using whole vehicles as thrown weapons. We also had many tricks up our sleeves. With Tattletale directing us, Grue providing cover as necessary, Bacta and Regent acting as immobilizing agents, we could focus on one foe at a time, and disabled the whole attack team.
And then, with much of their power removed (for a time, given the difficulties the PRT had, both in the current climate and in keeping prisoners in general), the remaining capes were much easier to contain. Alabaster alone, for instance, was "just" resurrecting every few seconds.
Much like the splintering of the Asian Bad Boys that was going on after Bakuda failed to unite them like Lung had, the Empire became a smattering of diverging opinions. Of course, there was a part of true supremacists, headed by Krieg and the immortal albino. Those here for the sheer brutality formed another group, with Stormtiger and Cricket heading the Mixed Martial Arts arena. And those here only because they kept the Old Norse customs and traditions created their own faction, which included Fenja and Menja, and Rune as a guardian angel. Purity was long since gone from the Empire, and didn't join any group.
Despite the fact that there were more gangs now, each of them was weaker than before, and it was easier to extract truces against common enemies. Such as the PRT: Tattletale having worked out the alternate identity of the organization's leader, said leader was under scrutiny by the Congress. Her defence failed, even when she produced a body double to act as the hero, because a villain with a shotgun got the two of them. The fake Alexandria bled, not the Chief Director.
As a cape, she was unfit for work in the "civilian-only" parahuman oversight group, much less lead it. Not only was it against their charter, she also had obviously mixed interests: the PRT was a group geared towards responding to parahuman threats. And the most common bandied classification about parahuman was exactly that: a threat assessment. What do you think that implies, besides ways for regular troopers to defeat parahumans? Given the will of militaries everywhere, the most obvious was "shoot for the head", and durable enough threats get a "missile sent from another city, whatever the cost in civilian lives". Something is rotten in the state of… the States.
Despite the fact that Alexandria (or Rebecca, if that was her real name) had dominated both the PRT and Protectorate, and the fact that she now had a massive amount of free time, the attacks against us weren't made with her upfront usual manner. Once again, Tattletale collated many clues, her power sorting between all the tinfoil conspiracy theories to extract the truth from the chaff. Her conclusion was that Alexandria belonged to something bigger, some occult interest group, and that we had upset that with our schemes (hers, really). She also intuited the group's name: Cauldron.
It was also a group with no compunction against killing, even persons of interest to the country: when a few senators had gone vocal against capes seizing power over the PRT, they were "disappeared" quite effectively… and that kind of action garnered not a little bit of chaos in the government.
While we had given that pause, we still expected them to motivate other villains to attack us. It didn't come as a surprise, then, to have the Teeth sink back in Brockton Bay. With many additional members, most of them Case 53s – that also led credence to the idea that Cauldron was giving people power… with no real control over their shape.
Despite the intermittent headaches (that Bacta helped heal), Tattletale was still providing intelligence on everything. With her commandeering the feeds from the traffic cameras, we easily tracked the enemy movements.
Since the chaotic group attacked everywhere, we had the gangs ready to help, and we succeeded in defanging the enemy group.
The Butcher himself was dealt with a combination of powers from Bacta and me: made unable to see thanks to Grue's darkness, he was coated in green goo, pushed in a tank full of the stuff, and the thing was then put into a special Capsule – one without the button to open it.
We then put the thing in a bloc of quick-drying cement, that we then deposited in the middle of the ocean… while Leviathan was attacking elsewhere – when I say "we", at that point, it's with the help of a few civilian friends.
We had many friends, especially because we had started helping the town by cutting through the Boat Graveyard. The Merchant capes spending their time in rehab, in different cities, the surroundings weren't as dangerous as before, and a few industries started to burgeon to recycle all that steel – in the general chaos, there was a high demand in both weapons and protections.
Despite the fall of several empires, or perhaps thanks to that, our city began thriving once again.
PlanetarRokuku was a strange, strange man. Eating like twenty men but still fit as a fiddle – an outrageously athletic and muscular one, that is. He was always at the forefront of any conflict in town, increasing in power each time. I was thankful we recruited him instead of him arrayed against us, with Bakuda. Or Lung.
Speaking of escalation kings, the dragon of Kyushu found his way back when the Birdcage was opened – each criminal was judged anew, with Thinkers, Tinker-tech, and the good old lie detector to determine their truthfulness. Truly unrepentant killers were killed in a humane manner, and lesser criminals were given a normal prison sentence, of which years were removed due to their time in the Birdcage – and Dragon could attest of their good behaviour there, too.
It meant that when his prison term ended, Lung returned to Brockton Bay. He thought his gang intact, and was quite surprised to find it splintered. And that, when he tried to rail about it, we moved him quite forcefully to the arena in which cape fights were held, and Rokuku held his ground against him, alone.
And our Brute emerged from the fight even stronger and even more resistant to fire – he had met fire-wielding capes, before, which was the only reason he hadn't been burned to a crisp.
We still got attacked by Cauldron, from time to time, but the attempts were less urgent than before. It was almost as if the organization itself had thrown the towel, and only a few members kept a grudge.
It crystalized when Leviathan came to Brockton Bay. While the monster was held and pummelled by Rokuku, Lung, Fenja, Menja, and Parian's creations, and while others around them tried to limit any attempt at hydrokinesis by the Endbringer, Eidolon chose to attack us.
Thankfully, my knowledge of space and gravity allowed us to encapsulate his black holes… and throw them back. Since his choice of powers, today, had been flight, those black holes, and hydrokinesis to counter the Endbringer, he was unable to defend against his own attack, and was sucked into one of the gravity suckers.
Upon Eidolon's disappearance (and probable death), Leviathan ceased moving for a while… and that was when Scion arrived.
Generally hailed as a saviour, in those fights, his golden beam through the Endbringer nicked the two giant Valkyries helping to hold him down, disintegrating Fenja's weapon and arm as well as her sister's right leg.
On autopilot because of the fight, Rokuku sent one of his own golden beam back, and it did provoke a reaction from the normally impassible Golden Man. Interest.
Lifting his hand with an obvious use of power, Scion lifted Rokuku from the ground, and then inspected him. And then he spoke, his voice strange as it boomed without his lips doing the appropriate movements. As if he mimicked something and used a power to create sound. "You want to fight? I'll give you fight!"
His other arm lifted, towards the ocean. A beam emerged, and hit the water, quite far away. Many people went to inspect, going way around in order not to disturb the overly powered man. A Dragon suit went, and sent the video of what was happening, right in the middle of the ocean.
As if Scion had been made aware of an ancient legend and wanted to resuscitate Atlantis, he was raising the ground level until an island was created. One with what looked like an arena. And he flew there with Rokuku in tow. Many cameras caught his gleeful smile as he said. "Begin!"
Apparently, he was a fighter, and he was also out of his depression. And now he wanted adversaries. Too bad Eidolon died, he would have probably liked to participate. But between the many capes who could escalate, Scion could have his fill of fights – never really going all out, of course, as even if he liked the fights, he knew that he would deprived of those should he destroy the planet.
With an idea like that, his mind tried to find a solution. Without his female counterpart to sound his idea off, he did them as they came. And that's how several capes got empowered enough so that the fight could happen with Scion's real body… even if it meant that Rokuku, Lung, Fenja, and Menja became larger than moons themselves.
Us "normal" heroes watched all this and decided not to provoke any of them anymore. Not that we could, since the five of them decided to move their fighting grounds in-between the galaxies, where they could destroy nothing.
With Scion away, Cauldron came clean with the nature of the two Entities, and we learned how close we had been to total annihilation. That didn't excuse their other schemes, though – and they wouldn't admit to them nor ask for forgiveness.
Thanks to Lookout and other Tinkers with a specialty in optics and surveillance, we got telescopes powerful enough to follow the intergalactic fights. Given the nature of Tinker-tech, we watched them in real time, even. And that's when we noticed that Scion (and Eden) were not the only Entities around: the fighting caught the attention of other space whales (which looked like worms, really) who participated as well.
And we all (the Entities, also) understood something fundamental about our universe.
Since Entities were somehow close-circuit bodies, which kept any erg of energy when moving around, they had no impact on the void between galaxies. But that void ended up not quite empty.
Wouldn't you know? There was dark quasi-matter between the galaxies. The capability for matter to emerge, generated by the pull of gravitational forces from distant galaxies, and only needing a bit of energy to spark alive.
The Entities moving through it didn't give that… but less efficient human rockets would. And one of our Voyager space probes wasn't that far.
The fight that was going on, between Scion and humanity's four champions, generated more than enough energy to power the creation of a vast cloud of simple atoms, the simplest of all: hydrogen. Inside the cloud, currents provoked by the fight caused swirls to form, aggregating atoms and creating gravitational pits… in which other atoms fell. Soon (in galactic scale), stars would form. And planets, too, later.
The Entities were collectively flabbergasted: for them, the harvesting of energy from planets they destroyed was to push off the heat death of the universe, and they had just had the proof that the universe wouldn't die of a cold, since you could always create matter between galaxies. To populate space, they only had to release a bit of energy as they moved through it – it was almost as if they had evolved towards that end, even if they had had to be confronted to the fact that complete efficiency… wasn't efficient. Take that, Armsmaster!
We humans were surprised too, of course. However, we had long since understood the Scientific Method, as a species (not everyone did, of course). We knew that what science used to explain the world was only true until disproven by new facts… and certainly not wishful thinking.
And as time passed, we got used to our new galactic neighbour, and got to spend a life much less imperilled and fraught with the need for constant infighting among capes – Scion gone, the Warrior's influence was felt less often by the capes themselves.
Now, if only the non-cape governments weren't thrown in disarray every time they reached critical size, that would be perfect.
Even the Endbringers stopped appearing. Scion "told us" that their control was the domain of the shard he called "High Priest", one of Eden's, and that it had been Eidolon's. Of course, once he was showing himself able to interact with in a meaningful way, he demanded that "we" showed him his counterpart. The Cauldron compound was vaporized when, in his anger, he destroyed the planet they had kept the massive corpse on. Thankfully, it was in a separate dimension, and he didn't intend to do the same here.
The other Entities having witnessed the birth of our neighbouring galaxy stopped harvesting other civilizations, and headed back to warn the rest of their species about their discovery. This allowed the other civilizations to flourish and reach space-travel age. We did, too, and colonized our Solar system. We met the others.
It was the start of another era.
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To be continued… Kame hame HA!Author's Notes: I already mentioned that I didn't own the rights to role-playing material. I also don't own anything from Saint Seiya or Dragonball. Kudos if you found about either before now.