Unfortunately, this looks like it will be the last chapter (at least for a long time), as the thread that these are all from on SpaceBattles hasn't been posted on in a month. If anyone has a new story to post there, I encourage you to do so.
10.1 (Zig)
*Bang* *bang*, two bullets to the brain. Managed to get the same ending as the first time around, that was fun.
As usual, I Awoke upon my death. Unlike usual, instead of finding myself looking at the inside of a dark locker, I found myself looking at the outside of one.
"That's what you fucking get Barnes." Sophia called out.
The loop memories flooded in. It seemed that this time around, Sophia spent the Summer at camp with me. We had become friends, and she had inducted me into her predator/prey mindset at the expense of Emma. We had spent the last year bullying her, particularly about the rape that Shadow Stalker was not there to stop. I mentally gagged at the actions of this loops version of myself. Still, could be fun to be on the other end of the juice prank just this once...
I reached out for my power, and for the first time since I found it looping, I did not feel it respond. There was a primal scream from within the locker, as millions of bugs poured out from the vents.
I Awoke inside the locker. Huh, so that's what it feels like to be eaten by bugs.
10.2 (Zig)
I had been alive for... how long had it been? It had been a long time since I've lost count of how many times I had lost count. I learned about Knuth's Up Arrow Notation. That was probably necessary by now.
I had done so many different things, joined every team possible.
I'd made friends with the Simurgh and I made more than friends with the Simurgh.
I'd had fused loops with worlds I could never had imagined, and worlds I had read about as a child.
I'd spent a loop as one of Nilbog's creations, and gotten the unpleasant surprise of the loop not restarting when I died, because the system knew I would be remade shortly.
I'd spent thousands of loops friends with the trio, and a few hundred as Emma herself.
For a while, I even became a full fledged entity and joined Scion in seeding another planet.
I had met the gods in charge of Yggdrasil, and learned the nature of myself and the multiverse.
I had stared into the Abyss and made the Abyss blink, but there was still one thing that I had never done. One thing I was finally going to do. I tried raising my hand, but it faltered. I steadied myself and finally raised it, and tapped by knuckles on the wooden door in front of me. It creaked open.
"Hello Sleeper. I am Skitter. How do you do?"
10.3 (nocarename) (3.4 Cont)
So the great thing about starting early is that you have control to shape things. If I'm not going to get Tinker powers from all this wandering back in time buillshit, I'm going to take the next best thing: sufficient preparation.
Also, it's hilarious when someone thinks they hold all the cards and then you tear that out from under them.
I made a mental note that time travel might make you vindictive. Something to watch out for if I ever met someone else in the same situation.
Somehow.
It would probably be a power thing.
Anyway, after a sleep depriving but emotionally satisfying week of playing zap-a-vigilante with Sophia and the nudging along the somewhat glacial movement on my paperwork for the Wards (so much easier on you when you haven't been a villain that takes over a city, but so much slower. Who knew?) I was ready to drop my next bomb on Emma and company.
Stop giving the enemy a break, I thought as I dragged juice laden hair out of my eyes, You aren't the only one with plans.
There I was, covered in Emma's lunch in front of the school, or at least those parts eating the cafeteria. The upside was that I was going to be able to drag this out as evidence that I wasn't using my powers against civilians, no matter how much they deserved some pain. I tipped my head a little to one side and picked out Madison giggling from behind her lunch tray.
I sniffed. Grapefruit.
"Oh no," I say in my flattest voice, "I'm melting, I'm melting. You've found my secret weakness. Curse you citrus."
That sort of stopped things for a moment. I took advantage to push past all three of them. I left some lettuce on Sophia. It was good to see all those late nights starting to pay off.
"Better hurry back into line Emma," I said, "Unless you're skipping lunch? Wouldn't want to be too large for your next photo shoot, am I right?"
"What's the little crybaby going to do, tell on us?" managed Emma as Sophia started picking the leaves and dressing off her jacket and her expression slowly working it's way up to fully furious.
"Nah. Needed an excuse to show off a new jacket. I'm going to change," I said easily, "I'll send your dad the bill for any special cleaning these need - our dad's are friends after all, and he'd hate to have something ruined by accident. Later Emms, Sophia, Madison!"
I waggled my fingers at all three of them and walked confidently, but quickly, to the door and bolted toward my locker as soon as I was through. Not as much fun as a Cape fight, but a way better audience. Plus, soon I'd be off to Arcadia. It'd be novel to have a year or two without gang recruitment and decent teachers.
Even if it was going through high school again.
10.4 (cthulhu fartagn)
Miss Militia stared. The endbringer stared back.
"Collin... its a rabbit."
"Its an endbringer!"
Closing her eyes and sighing, MM turned to face him.
"No, Collin, its a rab-"
"AAAHHHHHHHHHH!"
10.5 (Rex)
"Taylor's tales, which is totally different from Vista logs and I didn't just steal the idea because I was bored, I stole the idea because I thought it'd be funny.
Begin log: Something was wrong. Something was wrong and I couldn't figure out what it was. People were not where they were supposed to be and things were happening that were not supposed to happen.
I hadn't caused anything to make such deviations. I was running a fairly standard 'solve all of the problems in the city without anyone being able to prove that you actually exist' routine. And it wasn't working as well as it should because something was messing everything up!
It's not like I didn't appreciate the new variety or anything, it's just… I couldn't figure out the cause and it was driving me crazy. I'd checked for anybody in town that had already been a looper. Nope, just me. I'd done what I could to check on all of the out of towners that either already were or I thought might soon become loopers, but none of them seemed to have done anything that would account for all the changes I was seeing. I wasn't used to not knowing things. Aside from the novelty, I think I rather disliked the situation.
Ah well, that's what comfort food is for! End log"
And thus the random bystanders of the boardwalk (and an uncostumed Purity, Hi there glowdoll!) were treated to the sight of a pencil thin girl scarfing down a quadruple scoop ice cream after ranting nonsensically to herself. Their mutual enjoyment of the many consumerist delights of the boardwalk was interrupted by a brief rattling noise, followed by a voice emanating from everywhere around them.
"Testing. Testing. One two three." Taylor frowned. She was sure she recognized that voice. Wait. That rattling sound before hand. That had been glass, hadn't it. "Look's like it's working. Okay, hit it."
It was. And that meant Shatterbird, meaning that voice was Jack Slash. No wonder she hadn't recognized it, no one was screaming and she wasn't planning to murder anyone. Funny how much context can change a person's voice. The citywide Shattercast was a new trick, so that might have contributed.
The soft notes of a piano began to emanate from everything under the silakinetic's control.
No. No way. He wasn't.
"I can kill you the world. Slashing, skittering, slaughter."
Oh dear gods he was.
Taylor slipped her glasses off as she began marching towards the center of the city. Her bugs began sweeping through town searching for the nine, or at least, a big area where all of her bugs started dying. Because, that second line sounded like…
"Tell me Queenie now when did you last let your hate decide?"
Jack continued to croon the modified song from a classic children's movie. He probably enjoyed the irony. Gods she hated that smug prick. And yeah it definitely sounded like he was singing about her. Or was she just being arrogant? Boardwalk is clear of any of the nine.
"We'll carve out their eyes. Take them terror by terror."
No, that was definitely a shot at her. Except she hadn't cut out anyone's eyes recently, and neither had anyone else in town. Which implied Jack was referencing events from previous loops, which implied that…
Okay, time to fuck subtlety and get some answers.
"Kill, with zero error. On a manic killing spree."
Also, stop the singing. Using powers to broadcast modified lyrics appropriate for the current situation was Jitterbug's shtick, not Jack's. Imitation was not flattery and wouldn't get him anywhere but in more pain if it had been. Although she was going to shamelessly steal that last line if she ever used this song as Jitterbug, it wasn't half bad.
Skitter, and she was in full Skitter mode now, continued to sweep the streets of Brockton as Jack launched into the chorus.
"A bright sharp world,
A fatalistic way of life.
No one to tell us no,
Or where to go,
Because they're busy screaming."
Which would really have to go. No good at all. She finished checking all of the areas that were routinely of personal or professional interest to her caped persona. Completed checking all of the places the Nine usually liked to hideout in, and started checking places related to her civilian identity. Her blanket patrols had also cleared the boat graveyard of suspicion, and was making good progress on downtown.
"A bright sharp world. The dazzling shine of a knife."
Shatterbird sang in a high, clear, voice. Taylor remembered the times she had formed a parahuman band. Shatterbird did have such a lovely singing voice. Y'know, when she wasn't a frustratingly repetitive serial killer.
"Now you should come over here. Your choice is clear.
Now join us in a bright sharp world of strife."
What. Taylor's inexorable progression towards town square ground to a halt. Was this a recruitment attempt?
"Now join us in a bright sharp world of strife." Jack added a tonal counterpoint to Shatterbird's verse.
It was. It was a glass engraved city-wide broadcast invitation to join the Nine. Pointed at Jitterbug.
… Why? She hadn't done anything that bad as Jitterbug. But if a looping version of Jack, which she was still trying to avoid considering to hard, was trying to recruit any of her other personas, there would be no reason to go the musical route.
"Unbelievable sights, Indescribable suffering.
Sobbing, crawling, all fleeing
Through a boundless bloody field."
Shatterbird sung the next verse as Taylor shook off the surprise. It didn't matter, she had no intention of joining the Slaughterhouse Nine this loop. Nor any attention to let anyone in the group that wasn't Riley start looping.
Pulse
Still no response. Either she wasn't looping, or Riley had figured out how to hide from the actively searching varition of the pulse. And decided on a rather strange prank. Which, Taylor decided as she started to refocus herself on the elimination of the Slaughterhouse Nine, made a lot more sense than Jack deciding to do this during his first loop.
"a bright sharp world" Shatterbird. Not on this block.
"They won't dare show their eyes." Jack. these two blocks are also clear.
"A hundred million things to kill." Shatterbird again, none of them were in any of the buildings near her or in any of the sewers and where the hell were they.
"staying the same, so much worse." And back to Jack. Shut up Jack. Hate him. Hate his face. Hate his voice. Hate his poor rhyming scheme. Hate all the times he's ruined the world by started the apocalypse when she was having fun doing other stuff.
"You're like a raging storm
Your kills an art form
I can't think of a better greater thrill"
Taylor also hated the way that Jack had apparently just used Shatterbird to try and flirt with her. On the basis that she was really good at killing stuff. Which she was of course, but that's not the sort of thing to base a relationship around.
"a bright sharp world."
Lung didn't count. That was different. There were are sort's of reasons to be friends with a giant rage dragon that didn't involve killing people. Like heated massages. Amazing, relaxing, delicious massages. Also, some damn fine tea.
"Every death so clever."
She really wished Jack would stop giving the flirty lines to Shatterbird. She wasn't her type, even when she was in the mood for female relations.
"With new pleasures to pursue."
Skitter did not remember the song being this long. She also didn't remember the city having so many goddamn buildings full of places for people to hide. She couldn't even find Manton's van and that usually stuck out like a sore thumb.
"every moment so diverse."
See, that was a nice, neutral line from someone she had nice neutral feelings towards. She'd definitely still kill Shatterbird, but that was more because she happened to be in the area, rather than being hunted down like Jack was.
"We'll chase them everywhere
They'll all despair.
Let me kill this boring world with you."
Surprisingly good harmony. Skitter wondered if Shatterbird knew that Jack was singing to someone else, or if she thought this was a romantic duet just for the two of them. She would have to ask as soon as she tracked them down.
"A bright sharp world"
"A bright sharp world"
"That's what we'll make"
"That's what we'll make"
Alternating lines again, as far as she could remember that meant they were getting close to the end of the song. Good timing, only a few blocks were left for her to search. If they weren't there than she would have to admit that they had found someway to avoid her when she was devoting practically her full resources to finding them. And that was more disturbing than the idea of a looping Jack Slash. Pair the two together and…
Taylor shuddered.
"A thrilling chase."
Taylor recognized that tone in Jack's voice. It was paired with that satisfied little smirk he got just before he finished a meticulously arranged murder. Or betrayal. Taylor had died plenty of times with that little verbal laugh being the last thing she heard, and unless she missed her guess, Shatterbird was about to experience the same thing.
"A wondrous place."
Shatterbird's voice, on the other hand, was filled with naked pleasure and sincere joy. She had such terrible taste in men. If Taylor had had any interest in befriending Shatterbird, that was definitely something they would have to work on.
"for you and meeeeeee."
The two singers raised their voices for the final line. Before one of them was rudely interrupted by a choking gurgle.
"So glad, that Bonesaw outfitted you with that spare set of vocal cords. It let's me make use of your power without having to listen to your voice."
A small explosion of glass detonated the house across the street from where Taylor was going over the buildings with a bug-toothed comb.
Of course, Taylor sighed to herself, it's always the last place you looked. She began jogging toward the rendezvous. This many black widows wouldn't move themselves after all. Well, not nearly as fast.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are, my little Queen Administrator. I do so miss are long chats as you try and mess with my head, or stalk me across the continent, or do one of these ridiculous song and dance routines."
Taylor scowled quietly to herself. So maybe sending all that time trying to figure out how to make a bootleg copy of Jack's thinker power wasn't the best idea. Pity it was a more baseline edition that started looping instead of a Black Knight, or a variant where he was a Brocktonite around her current physical age. Those tended to be much more likeable versions of the knife nut.
"So then, Taylor Hebert, Skitter, Weaver, Jitterbug, Khepri or whatever you happen to be calling yourself this time," Jack's voice twisted with savage glee. "Let's Play!"
The glass of the city exploded.
10.6 (The_One_Butcher)
Emma looked at the burnt out shell of Leviathan. Then at her reflexively raised fist. Then back at the Monster that broke into their shelter and started tearing up her classmates and teachers, until it came before her and in a frozen instant of extreme terror she had lost control of her body, reflexively and insanely punching an Endbringer.
Only to kill it with a single blow.
The other people in the shelter stared at her. She stared at her fist. "I... I... I have powers?"
"And here we are with our newest member of the Triumvirate, the only person to ever kill an Endbringer, the most powerful striker ever, Annihilation! Annihilation, you were within the Endbringer shelter when it was breached by Leviathan. With your awesome power, why were you hiding instead of fighting?"
"I only just got my powers. Leviathan was before me and I thought I was going to die... I triggered then and there and immediately used my newfound strength to fight back, as any Parahuman should. I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out not just to be an act of Heroic Defiance."
Scattered laughter rang out around the audience. "You got your power in just the right moment to save the day, that made some people mightily skeptic and had other's call it divine influence. What is your stance on that?"
"Well, Jimmy, it's not a coincidence at all. Powers always come to you when you most need them, when you have the worst day of your life, when the world seems to you most hateful. They give you the power to take the bad and make it go away. Sadly many people, when the injustice of the world hits them hard enough to drive them to that final extremity don't start to push back, but rather become part of it." The girl looked at the camera. "To all the villains out there, yes you had it bad, yes the world betrayed you and left you to hang, but when the world finally gave you the tools to make it better you already turned your back to it. But it's not too late. It's never too late. Join the Protectorate."
The rest of the Interview went just as well and afterwards she collapsed into the backseat of her limousine in exhaustion. Her bodyguards, Crucible, Shadow Stalker and Delphi, waited for her with cold drinks and the next assignment. "More power tests before your modeling gig tomorrow. Oh and Glen will send you his usual congratulations in two minutes, but he will once again note how fake your smile seems when you talk about Crucy."
"I can't help it. That whole romantic subtext Tsundere thing he wants to have going for us doesn't work.", she complained.
"Hey, I can't stand you either, but this is the cushiest Job I've ever had." He smiled a real smile this time. "Also I simply LOVE bubbling you. It always warms my heart to think about it."
"Pervert.", noted Emma who had no idea what Crucible's power entailed.
"I think this job is a little too cushy for my tastes.", grouses Shadow Stalker for the hundredth time, "Can't we do a little detour and bust some gangers?" She asked Delphi. "I'm sure you can make it so no one finds out."
"Nah, I'll want to keep on the very best terms with the PRT so they'll finally substitute my judgment for all those pointless tests. I already passed everything along. Shadow wants a more exciting gig!" Glenn's face had appeared on screen. "Like always, like always. It's getting harder and harder to muster up the motivation to call at all. But I must or you couldn't pass anything along. Anything else. What's that again Shadow? We can't pull you from Annihilation, the whole narrative would get wonky. The great friend in the Wards that inspired her to do the right thing ditching her cause it's boring? It's preposterous. The public gets skeptic enough with our excuses that we can't let her patrol because she's too deadly and our the public has some irrational resentment that we're "locking her up to keep our anti-Endbringer weapon safe". I mean of course it's what any sane person would do, but it sends the wrong message to our target group: "Being a Ward is boring." Which is exactly why you should focus on the romance thing. I think we should have some paparazzi catch you two making out somewhere..."
Crucible paled and exclaimed "What?". Emma first looked sick, then at Crucible and swiped at his head. It was a sign of how badly she failed all the power tests except the one detecting her Corona Pollentia and Gemma that he stopped desperately dodging those as he had in the beginning. Glen picked up on that immediately.
"Whatever your power is it worked on Leviathan and only Leviathan. If the power scales slowly with the enemies power and only an Endbringer was good enough to activate it or weather it only interacts with whatever the Endbringers are at their core, we don't know. We can't have people know you can ONLY kill Endbringers, as that would send the Endbringer Cultists after you even harder than before. If Delphi couldn't keep us updated about the Nine we couldn't risk it, but as it stands the only thing you can do for us is PR. Thank goodness you're easy on the eyes."
"Anyway, you can tell the scientists their theories are all wrong and to design new experiments." Delphi interjected. "Miss Useless won't be able to do anything again, she..." Here Delphi trailed off. "My powers just went up in smoke again. Wait, I got them... no... But... Wait. Ah! I can only restore them when I firmly plan to ditch Annie and not be in the same city as her. That means Endbringer Attack on whatever City she's in tomorrow. Congratulation Annihilation, you'll get to be useful tomorrow!"
The new Endbringer loomed silently, Eidolon and Alexandria side to side with her. "I'm invincible as long as Eidolon is touching me. Alexandria is going to stop any surprises, Legend is ready to bug us the fuck out of here. I'm safe. I'm safe."
Then the area began to flicker and Legend did bug them out of there, just as three massive force fields came into existence and began to slowly rotate around it. The plants caught in the field withered and died instantly, vanishing into nothingness, even as the ground cracked and dried out.
Legend brought them behind it and she punched the Endbringer with all her might... only for nothing to happen. Again. They circled around and tried again and again. "Get back and regroup!" Alexandria shouted. Strider ported into one of the corn circles Eidolon flattened as drop off points and they linked up with him and ported out.
"Okay. That wasn't enough. We will have to publish what we know about your power and hope someone can crack it. It'll add complications to your security, but we MUST figure out what's wrong. Delphi, tell us as soon as you see anything useful anyone figured out."
"Actually, I can't see anything right now. I told you to make sure that no information from the Endbringer fight came here!"
Alexandria frowned. "I did, our Armbands are..." Was as far as she came when she was whipped away by Legend and Eidolon again.
The air around them had begun to flicker. Moments after they were clear the field sprang into existence, leaving Delphi and Shadow stalker behind. "NO!" Someone screamed, even as their forms began to blur and flit around. A furrow spelling out "Time stretched, tell Taylor I love her." appeared dug deeply into the earth and then their skeletons were dust. Behind it loomed the new Endbringer, Khonsu, Lord of Time and Space, had followed them halfway around the Earth.
"It's especially designed to kill Annihilation." A Villainous Thinker proclaimed after a few frantic hours of keep away. "Annihilation's powers won't trigger unless someone tries to kill her and those time fields aren't clear cut an attack enough. They won't kill her, thirst or at best old age will. Congratulation Annihilation, you got your own personal Endbringer after you!"
Three months later Behemoth attacked. Everything seemed like always at first, earth quakes, Lava, Volcanic eruptions, except when the Monster finally broke free of the Earth... He wore a sign around his neck: "You'd be surprised what you can live through!"
10.7 (The_One_Butcher)
"YES! I'm Chevalier! Totally gonna go hook up with Legend... Maybe a threesome with his husband!" Alarms started to blare and red lights flashed. She instinctively did a backflip and threw a chair at the containment foam nozzles. "As soon as I have shaken these pesky Master/Stranger protocols..." She took another chair -after all she never practiced fighting with a gunblade- and started going to town on the PRT Troopers rushing into the room. Two of them were downed at once and the third lost his sprayer and baton to her. "Maybe I should just let myself get captured? I mean if I'm gonna bed the head of the Protectorate that's got to be a lot easier when I'm not on the run from the law." She said, just as she downed the last Trooper and did a sidestep to avoid one of Geode's Crystal spears, which she instantly tagged with containment foam, before Xylophone could build her resonance. She burst through the door and clotheslined Broadcast.
"People, this is a misunderstanding. I mean, you could argue that I took over your team captain's mind, but I totally didn't mean to and there's nothing I can do about it now anyway. Also it won't happen again and I promise I can help you."
Mh... On the one hand all the scrutiny and suspicion would obviously run counter to actually wooing Legend, on the other hand just giving Cauldron what they want is a fast track to actually getting close enough to Legend to try...
Yeah, she would just need to tell Alexandria that they should have a cape with a communications based power like Jack Slash, the bug controller in Brockton bay or the one with the memory erasure power who'll trigger when Leviathan hits Brockton Bay tell Zion, with "Z" that the Cycle is over and he should disappear. Yeah, she should turn herself in. "Okay, Okay, I surrender." She said after absently knocking out Blade Dancer with Marrow's head and foaming them together.
"Hello?" She called into the now empty Lobby of the Philadelphia PRT. "Anyone here? I want to be arrested!"
Silence.
"Damn."