1.9
Apparently I was aesthetically unpleasing enough to be shot in the head. Only once though, Accord was an efficient man. Before he could presumably ring up some cleaners to remove my corpse, I reappeared, holding the violin.
"It's a Shtradivarius," I said, upon which he froze. In all the parallel Earths, finding one where a certain kind of violin being sold was surprisingly easy. It was an auction, but I just left a few duffel bags full of native cash and took the instrument. I figured Accord was a man of culture, and would appreciate it.
Pressing one of the many buttons on his desk, the doors behind me slid open, revealing one immaculately dressed woman. She was extremely pretty, and I bit back a comment on potential child parentage. Wouldn't do to make a worse impression on Accord at the moment.
Accord's aesthetics, I could appreciate, though the use of gemstones on a costume that would see active combat seemed rather silly. Were Citrines one the expensive types of jewel you would see be peddled in magazines that people didn't actually care about, or were they actually expensive jewels?
"I currently have killed Jack Slash, zee Sieberian, Shatterbird, Heartbreaker, Null, One, Two," I said, unbidden. I could see the maniac twitch that came when I opened my mouth suppressed. It only made my smile all the sunnier. "You can schoot me if you vish, I von't hold it againsht you."
Accord did in fact shoot me. Twice.
"Vell, I have come to tell you to end your dealings vith zee Yangban," I began. "Zey vill no longer be needed." I pulled out a paper with a crude Cauldron insignia scrawled in red sharpie.
He shot me again.
"If you know any people who vould be better off dead zan alive, please tell me here," I said while placing the paper down. On the opposite side, my username alongside the message, "Asymmetry is beautiful too" so I could pick out from the thousands of trolls spamming my account. By trolls I meant people confused at what the fuck I was doing of course.
"Auf Wiedersehen!" I said, catching one last bullet with my face.
In the dealings with Cauldron, I had asked them to connect with Accord more. He probably only wanted a perfect office to think in, and was trying to solve the world's problems anyways. Why wasn't he a Cauldron confidant, and only a contracter?
Cauldron really needed more employees. Good thing I was here to provide employment employees to any mentally destabilized killers out there!
I stopped by Saint's place to check that yes, he was a dead corpse as well as the other Dragonslayers. Contessa had done it when I was off busy bullying bullies, because I didn't trust him not to do something stupid like kill Dragon if I blitzed him.
Judging by the still rather pristine corpse, yes he had indeed been dealt with. Excellent!
With him out of the way I materialized in the Birdcage and shot Teacher in the head. Best to keep him out of the equation, even if he was in a super-powered jail. Given one opportunity, he managed to carve out an entire dimension to himself and I particularly want such an event happening any time soon. If I remember correctly, he planned on creating or resurrecting an Entity. Not somebody I wanted sticking around.
Yes, I had shot him in the head. While excessive knifing was a perfectly viable way of killing non-brutes thus far, my experience with the Yangban showed a ranged weapon wouldn't hurt. Perfect eyesight helped quite a bit in that regard. I'm sure my knife would understand, certain situations called for certain measures. It also took a lot less effort to pull a trigger than to savage somebody's throat. I really should have picked up a gun earlier, but it had somehow escaped my mind just like Glastig Uaine had escaped the Birdcage.
I hoped and prayed Cauldron had it handled. All I wanted was a nice chat with the strongest parahuman in the world! I suppose this is why I wasn't allowed to have nice things.
The unbreachable prison sure wasn't looking unbreachable at this rate. At least Dragon didn't have to worry about Saint anymore I guess?
The public didn't know any more than the one picture I had posted, so there was that.
I popped by the Heartbreaker memorial, a structure of glass and marble thrown together on quite short notice. I laid a pile of bouquets over the course of a few trips. One flower for each person who had died.
Ignoring the camera flashes, I was gone again.
I sure as hell wasn't doing the right thing all the time. Nobody was, and it was impossible to be doing the objectively right thing always. Still, it stung every time I thought about the mistakes I made, even if the overall benefit was greater.
My next stop was Purity, because leaving a legend-level blaster around unused is just a waste.
"Vy hello zere!" I cheerily said popping up next to the unmasked super-it's-complicated. "Since you have been a good little girl, I Schrodinger, zee Nazi fairy, have revarded you vith zee death of Kaiser!" I said in the most condescending voice possible. Purity's straight brown hair lit up, bleaching as light filled the room.
"I am a little late, considering I vas busy off killing and posting PSA's on zee internet, but I hope you can forgive me,Purity."
What a cute baby! I wondered idly if Purity's power could tan people while being vaporized. When would it become public knowledge that my death was more inconvenience? Evidently not fast enough.
"You are going to be asuper-heronow!" I said, even though she probably would regardless. "If you don't, I can always…" I reached into my pocket but the gun had been vaporized alongside the rest of my flesh evidently. I settled for pulling out the knife. "No racism either, that's wrong," I said, armband unashamedly bared.
"Auf Wiedersehen!"
After grabbing my phone and stun gun, I checked my inbox again, patting Piggot on the back, and was gone in a flash. The classroom I appeared in fell into silence, as people surrounding the person I was behind noticed. The teacher looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped talking as well.
"Bullying is wrong class!" I said using the stun gun to great effect. "If you lie about being bullied zough, I vill make you regret it." I said, still smiling at the students whose response was to whip out phone cameras. "After all, zat vould be bullying."
Probably should have duct-taped up my armband, but it was a little bit late to be doing that.
Similar scenes played out all over America and Europe, to the point where I had to switch out the batteries in the stun gun. I took a moment to appreciate the nonlethal tool.
It was absolutely stunning.