Greg Vader
Highschool Freshman
Location: The Broker's Land
The wait was a killer, but if games taught him anything, patience was always rewarded. One simply does not attack one's enemy without doing so at the most opportune time. Today, his enemy was the interview, and he had prepared himself to his utmost effort. He'd even gone and got help from his mom and dad!
That said, staying here like this was … not exactly comfortable. The room was bare, if clean and presentable. Aside from the comfortable armchair he was sitting in, there were five other chairs just like it, all of which were facing the table at the center of the room. The distance between the chairs and the table was at least six feet, or two yards, which was odd. What was the point of the table if you were going to put it so far away from the chairs?
The room itself was white with grey and blue checker patterns sprayed here and there. At first, Greg thought this was a random pattern until he realized that all of the checkered spots in the room existed at a certain distance to the nearest chair.
Why anyone designed the room like this Greg didn't know. It was unnecessary and -.
The door to the waiting room opened, and a very hot secretary walked in. Her raven hair shined in the room's lighting, and her black, crisp, and form-hugging outfit moved bewitchingly every time she took so much as a step.
"The Broker will see you now."
Greg quickly stood up, almost dropping the folder he had been holding onto for dear life. He walked after the secretary as she left the room and down the large corridor of blue ceiling, dark green ground, and white and blue mix walls.
He looked behind him.
The door to the waiting room he had been staying at was gone. There was only a dead end that was quickly catching up to him.
He sped up.
"U-Uh, h-hi," he began, trying to get a conversation going between him and the secretary-lady. "H-How are you doing?"
"Fine," she replied, not even looking at him. Her walk didn't falter or change pace as most people do when someone starts a conversation with them.
"U-Uh, so," he muttered. "How long have you w-worked for the Broker?"
The Broker was a mysterious figure in the underworld. He was someone everyone who knew who in the cape scene knew as Numberman's rival.
You know, Numberman who isthe bankerof the capes. Yes, that Numberman. Sure, the Broker didn't even try to compete with the Numberman with banking, but the former gained something far less substantial but much more important with each of his dealings.
Favors.
In the cape scene, the inability to hold up to your promise, written or not, was the same as shooting your own foot. Everyone distrusted you after breaking a major promise. It was why the Protectorate was often held in contempt by people living in villain-occupied areas; they trusted the villains to hold up to their promise better than the government did. The government tried their best to keep the people's resentment down but Greg knew better.
It's also why he came to the Broker instead of the Numberman.
He found evidence, or at least made connections, between the two aforementioned capes to power granting things. Events. Whatever. No one listened to him in the PHO when he exposed this. Tin_Mother even banned him for a week for "making up villains and other capes."
Him? Make up villains?!
HAH! He'll show them…
The secretary stopped and Greg almost bumped into her. She stepped aside, and there was a door in front of him.
He looked behind him. This "hall" was no longer a hall but a room. He shuddered. He looked at the secretary for a second. She didn't look back at him, merely standing right next to the door. The message was clear: go through.
He gulped and knocked.
"Come in," a clear and masculine voice said from behind the door.
Greg put his hand on the doorknob, twisted, and pushed.
There was a push from behind him, and he stumbled through. "H-Hey-!" he turned out to protest.
There was no door.
He whirled back around, his manila folder clutched tightly between his arms and chest.
He was in a jungle now. There were trees! There were flowers and insects! There was a cobblestone road in the middle of a jungle! There was …twin stars above him.
He gulped.
He was not in Kansas anymore, was he?
"Do you intend to make me wait?"
He jolted and scurried forward on the road until he found himself running out into a clearing of evenly cut grass. And sitting in the middle of the clearing in a similar armchair as the one that Greg had waited in in the waiting room was a man in a form-fitting black business suit and white helmet with red markings.
It was him.
The cape the Deep Web said was a power dealer.
Thesuperpower dealer.
The Broker.
"Do you intend to make me wait?"
He scurried forward again and let himself to a kneeling position in front of the Broker. The Broker, whose helmet didn't seem to face anything in particular, turned slightly as if the focus had fallen on him.
…
Oh right, the focus had fallen on him.
"H-Hello, sir."
The Broker nodded.
"You know what I ask for?"
Greg nodded hastily.
"Do you have it?"
Greg quickly presented the manila folder with both of his hands.
The Broker gently took it and opened it.
Greg didn't know why the Broker had asked for such things in their brief conversation over the Deep Web, but Greg had done it anyway.
Within the folder were three things: a pressed flower, list of things he liked and disliked, and … his favorite rock.
Yeah, Greg knew nothing and didn't even try to guess what the rock was for.
Who the hell has a favoriterock!?
Geologists, maybe.
"You are not that different."
Greg felt his head snap to the Broker for some reason of his own volition.
"Huh?"
"I expected your true self to be a bit different from how you portray yourself online, Mr. Veder. It seems that I was wrong."
Greg flushed. No one said anything good about his online handle, Void Cowboy. Did the Broker want to say the same t-
"You try your best, try to put up evidences where possible, and defend your idea to the death, metaphorically speaking, of course."
… Oh.
"That said, you are too headstrong. Inflexible and lacking any kind of self-esteem. If I were to give you even the slightest power as you are right now, then I can see how badly it will end up for you."
Oh…
"That said," the Broker said as he closed the folder. "I am not without mercy to someone who, in their young age, decided to take a gamble with their life on the line."
Greg wanted to punch the Broker right now for playing with his hopes.
The Broker, ignoring or blind to Greg's thoughts, gestured for the highschooler to come forward.
Suddenly, Greg had the shaky legs and the sweaty palms.
"All those who receive their power from me must agree to certain terms. Are you willing to listen to them?"
Greg nodded jerkily. The Broker extended his hand, and Greg grasped it. Suddenly, a blue ring lit up on the back of his hand. Greg almost jerked back, but the Broker's iron grip kept him in place.
"First, the whole of Rhode Island is off limits to any kind of vigilante or villain activity. Even if you want to act like a hero, you still stay out of the city proper of Providence."
Greg nodded, and the blue ring on the back of his hand blinked once.
"Second, there will be a time when I will need you. Refusal is not an option."
If that didn't sound like the devil's deal, then he didn't know what else was. No refusal? That was like … He didn't want to get coerced into anything serious, but he wanted this powerso much.Greg nodded hesitantly.
"And lastly, I do not appreciate Slaughterhouse Nine behavior. Break this term, and I will gladly claim your life."
Greg nodded hastily. He never intended to do anything like that!
The Broker nodded.
"Do you have a specific power that you wish for?" he asked.
"I… I want to be like Vexa."
The Broker chuckled. "That is tall order, Mr. Veder. What about Vexa?"
"I want to be strong in the face of a natural disaster. I-I know I'm pitiful. I'm not strong, I'm nerdy, and I'm naive."
"Oh, the boy knows."
That stung. "So I want to … to have the courage and the power to take on disasters."
"… Even if you yourself may not survive?"
"… I don't know."
"Good. Then you will wake up later..."
'Ah, shit. He's putting … me to .. sle-'
-
Cerulea Marriston-Kim
Secretary to the Broker
Location: The Broker's Land
"Is that wise, sir?"
The Broker looked at her, and she felt a shiver run down her spine just like it did when she first met him.
It was a warning from her power.
The Broker is dangerous.
Compared to the first time she received this warning, the intensity of said warning had died down since then. She remembered how she wanted to bolt from the spot and run until she was on the opposite of the planet from where the Broker was. She was a little girl then, mere weeks after she lost her family and had been on the streets with only her new power to keep her alive. She wasn't that little girl anymore.
The Broker merely waved his hand, and the boy's body floated.
"No. Giving a teenager as emotional unguarded as this young fellow is not wise," he answered her question neither with anger nor with condescension. "But I must give out powers until it happens."
She frowned. "Your so called Ragnarok."
The Broker chuckled. "Don't be so glum about it, Falswiat."
"How can I not, sir? You showed me my planet with half of its people gone."
"Then it's a good thing we're working towards preventing that from happening, is it not?" he asked. "And you know as I do that the ascension of every man and woman into a new para-kind increases our odds of successful prevention."
It did, and she knew this.
As part of the Broker's "Company," she had access to resources and information that most people would sell their right hands for.
Names of capes, secrets of long active plots, the truth behind the curtains of the PRT's leadership, and the reason for the existence of superpowers were but a few that the Broker released for his Company's consumption.
What did it speak about the secrets he hadn't told them?
"… Do you trust me, Cerulea?"
She winced. The Broker rarely used her given name when she was working with him.
"I do."
"Do you truly?"
She took a deep breath in.
"… I do, father."
He sighed.
"Good. Good." He then stood up and snapped his fingers. A red portal opened up in front of him. "I'll trust you to keep the Company in order until my return."
She bowed. "Have a good day, sir."
And then he was gone.
She straightened her back, turned around, and made her way back to her own office.
She had a list of volunteers to go through for the Broker's power gifting. Even if the Broker wanted to create as many parahumans as possible for the End War, she wouldn't let anyone unworthy near him.
(She still considered Greg Veder to be unworthy to be one to have been accepted the power of Alexandria, no matter how downgraded or mutilated said power was. Why was Greg Veder worthy of Alexandria's super endurance and toughness?)
But even as she walked away, she wondered father's new wife was doing. The bright and cheery girl always made father happy.