Okay, the opening of this chapter talks about sex a bit, but no actual intercourse happens, nor any in-depth stuff, so you're good to read ^.^
Also, Bonesaw is twelve years old currently. Yes I know in canon Bonesaw is 12, and since we are in late 2007 right now that means she should be 8 but fuck you I do what I waaaaaant! Nah, honestly it's because I suck at picturing Bonesaw being anything below the age of twelve. 8-year-old Bonesaw doing those things just doesn't fit in my mind for some reason, so I changed it =P
Chapter 8
After losing most of the rest of the day to their 'activities', Valerie and the Siberian headed back to the hospital.
She was honestly pretty grateful for the endurance of her body, because she just knew that if she'd done what she just did as a normal person, she wouldn't have been able to walk. Normally she would have done two timelines, one with and one without sex, and removed any risk of pregnancy, STDs, exhaustion and anything else related to intercourse. However, she had gotten pretty into it, and after she used her timelines to ascertain what the Siberian liked most then following along with that, she hadn't really bothered to do so since her partner had already cum once. However, she also wasn't too concerned, because Bonesaw would doubtlessly be able to give her a hand if any issues cropped up from what she had done.
So instead, she focused more on the indisputable evidence that the Siberian had a massive voyeur kink. She had watched and gotten involved in various ways, but it was obvious that she really got off on watching Valerie have sex, she enjoyed it way more than she had when she was the one having sex. That was an interesting facet to know about her, and since Valerie liked sex and found she quite liked being watched and touched by someone else during it, which itself was a pretty major surprise since any time she'd had more than one other person with her they'd been an active participant, not just watching her receive it.
As for their partner, Valerie had let the Siberian deal with him, and once he had been eviscerated, she incinerated the apartment they'd used, mostly just out of healthy paranoia than anything else. She didn't want someone to come through and match her DNA or build a tracker with what she left behind to hunt her down. And considering what tinkers could come up with, it was an accurate enough fear. Slipping into the room Bonesaw was in, Valerie smiled at the girl as she glanced over, yawning before she spoke. "Is the arm working alright?"
Nodding, Valerie flexed her new arm, enjoying the feeling of actually having two arms again. She'd gone through a little bit of body dysphoria regarding her arm, sometimes forgetting she had a second arm again, but a healthy abuse of Uber's power quickly let her get back up to snuff regarding the use of her returned limb, and as she flexed it, she was in total control, without any issues of using an inappropriate amount of strength or trying to bend it too much. Not that she even could do that, her flexibility was inhuman thanks to a power that related heavily to athleticism, to the point she could lick her own elbows, kiss the backs of her knees and even press her nose against her abs. "Yeah, it's working a treat. So, been up to any fun experiments?"
Bonesaw immediately launched into talking about her current projects, most of which went over her head. L33t's power was a tinker power, sure, but it wasn't always active. She theorized that if her power was actually active and she was trying to build something, she would have understood more than the broadest strokes of what Bonesaw was telling her. As it stood, she merely nodded along, made thoughtful noises where appropriate, and generally acted as a bouncing board for Bonesaw's ramblings about all the weird things she was doing or planned to do.
Sure, she didn't understand it, but it made Bonesaw happy, so that was a win.
Once again sticking to his motto of never staying in one place too long, Valerie watched as the other members of the group piled into their new vehicle.
It was only two and a half weeks of carnage and slaughter, mixed with occasionally seeing the other members of the group, usually coated in blood, before Jack had them gather up because he wanted to skip town. There were still definitely survivors, she'd even seen a few herself, so she could only assume that it was Jack's shard warning him of impending danger. Funny, because either it didn't realize that she was the impending danger, or it just wasn't able to communicate that to Jack effectively. Now that Bonesaw had grown her a whole new arm, Valerie had no real reason to not slaughter the group and take their powers.
During the past half-month of slaughter, she had used her timestop power to great effect, testing each member of the group. Hatchet-Face was killable, she figured out with a little experimentation how to turn his power off, so that was good. She could then use his power on Crawler, it meant when she stabbed Crawler in the head, he actually died. As for taking Crawler's power, when she did so, nothing changed, but when she sliced off her own hand using Hemorrhagia's power, it grew back deformed. That would have been the end of it for her, but her healing factor then set in, and over the course of a few minutes, her hand returned to normal, though her hand was still vulnerable to her own blade, so the 'improvement' hadn't functioned.
Shatterbird was just a given, her power was silica-kinesis, not a big deal. Bonesaw she already intended to mind-puppet instead of killing, and the Siberian was already hers. Jack Slash was the same, his power was useful in warning her about attacks and making parahumans not want to attack her, but didn't make him a tough sell for taking or not, she would just command him then kill him, easy.
Chuckles was a pretty major issue though. When she killed him, the entire world slowed to a crawl. When she walked around and inspected the other members of the group, it was like they were moving in slow-motion. At a rough estimation, her perception was maybe a hundred times faster than standard, based off of raising then dropping objects and inspecting them as they fell. But what was very interesting was how that played with her split time. In one perception, everything was in slow motion, but to the perception of the other, her split was moving at an obscenely fast speed, her vision literally blurred over by how fast she was moving, looking around and doing things.
By the time she closed the split, only ten minutes had passed, but it felt like at least the greater part of a day, which roughly checked out as to her heightened perception. She didn't waste that time though, she worked on controlling the power. After a lot of trial and error, whether due to Uber's power, the way the Butcher shard worked, or some weird interaction with one of the nearly 75 powers she had collected, she was able to manipulate her own perception, eventually raising it back up to a normal speed of perception. Fortunately, maybe again thanks to the Butcher's shard, that didn't mean she now had no control over her strength and speed, she still felt, innately, how powerful her limb strength was, and she was able to dial it back to a normal human level.
And then, finally, there was Mannequin. He was an issue, simply because the material he'd made himself out of was a fucking nightmare to get through without killing him before she could touch him. He was fully susceptible to her controlling him though, he could still hear her after all, but it took her five attempts before she figured out that the best way to do it was a command to 'expose his flesh to her', then make contact with him and command him to shut his life support off, which meant everything keeping him alive cut out suddenly, and he died within moments.
Holding his power was so vastly different to when she took Bonesaw's power. His power let her see all the ways she could cocoon things, and how she could protect them from attacks. His power honestly would have been so amazing if it was put to use making Endbringer shelters, but instead, the Simurgh drove him insane and left him broken. And so, as she watched Shatterbird come onto their new undamaged bus and sit down, she split time, just for safety. "Nobody move, nobody use their powers, nobody act in any way against me. Everybody remain silent until commanded otherwise." She commanded loudly, and felt a thrill rush through her a few moments later at her victory.
Every single member of the group was now frozen in place. Getting up, she moved first towards Hatchet-Face, forming a blood-dagger and stabbing through his eye, into his brain. With his power, taken through the fact that the blood-dagger was still counted as being a part of her, she moved on towards Crawler. Using her new power to cut off only Crawler's power, she stepped up onto him, avoiding his frozen mouth and extending the dagger into a sword. Spearing his brain with the weapon, she stood waiting atop him as his body faltered and died, no new mutation forming to help him recover from the attack.
Hopping off the now-deceased mound of grotesque flesh, she stabbed the now-shortened dagger into Shatterbird's head from the side, stealing that power with a single attack. Continuing up the bus, she stopped between Chuckles and Mannequin, commanded him to open his enclosed armour, took ahold of his flesh, then made him kill himself, stealing his power for her collection. Next, she reversed the dagger and stabbed it in the other direction, killing Chuckles, and after a minute of controlling herself, which took less than a second in real-time, she settled his power down and had her perception returned back to a normal speed.
Passing by a paralyzed Siberian and Bonesaw, she paid no mind to the pair as she headed to the front of the bus, flourished her knife, felt a brief moment of unnaturaly fear and hesitation to attack him, then stabbed Jack straight through the temple into his brain, absorbing his power along with the other 5 she had just claimed. Six of the Slaughterhouse Nine, dead at her hands in the course of a scant two minutes, only so long because Crawler's body took so long to actually fucking die.
She returned back to her previous position, sitting down beside a still-frozen Siberian and Bonesaw, and exhaled slowly. "Forget you were ever a part of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Never hurt or kill anyone unless you must do so for a reason that you believe I will accept. Forget that you have ever killed someone who needed to die. Never attempt to use your powers, body, influence or any other medium to negatively affect me, and tell me if you believe you know of a way to use your powers that might help me, or might hinder me."
She then focused on Bonesaw with her power, leaving the Siberian for a moment. "Once I allow you to do so, use your power to modify your appearance and the appearance of the Siberian until nobody could identify either of you. Only use your power when I explicitly state you can, and use it how I dictate you should use it without attempting to abuse any kind of loophole. If you are uncertain in any way about an order, you are required to ask for my clarification before doing anything. Act exactly how I would act at your age in my previous life, and identify yourself as Kaycee. Nod if you understand all of my orders completely." Bonesaw nodded her head in an instant, and she gave one final order. "Obey all orders I gave you or give you in future, believe that every order I give you in future you are doing of your own free will, and forget every order I have previously given you as well as any orders I give you in future."
She would have given Bonesaw her old name, Riley, but that was just asking for trouble, there was no reason to tempt fate. Valerie then turned her attention toward the Siberian. "Obey all my previous and future orders. Obey me and believe that any order I give you is an action you are performing of your own free will. Feel comfortable wearing clothing, especially clothing that is close to, but not identical in appearance to, my own clothing. Forget that your identity is the Siberian, your name is now...Charlie. Act exactly how I would act in every way, forget every previously given order and forget any order I give you in future, but continue to obey them."
When her command took hold, the Siberian wasn't just overwritten, she was completely replaced, effectively a copy of Valerie. And she knew it was...a massive abuse of her power, literally rewriting someone so utterly that their original personality was gone, and in their place was someone that Valerie liked a lot more. But it was the Siberian, and also now her own power. The alternative was just dismissing her and not allowing her to exist, so between that and being modified, it was really the lesser of two evils.
Then, she began to give Charlie different commands, adjusting and changing her personality so that she no longer was just a clone of Valerie. Kaycee could be left as she was, since nobody could tie them together, but Charlie being copied from her perfectly meant she had to, in simple terms, 'adjust her parameters' by changing little, random things. In the end she spent over an hour coming up with little things to change, right down to how Charlie walked, how she liked to sit, how she slept, all kinds of random crap that would be important unless she wanted people suspecting that Charlie was a doppleganger of her or something.
As for herself, her plan was to frame it as an abduction, the story being that she had led Charlie and Kaycee to escape from a slave-trading ring. As for the whole having two arms thing, that was a bit trickier. But as long as Kaycee changed herself enough, she thought that maybe she could play Kaycee off as a healer of sorts, but then that came with even more issues. The PRT would want to snap up a bio-tinker like her in a heartbeat, to say nothing about the gangs either turning her or killing her, plus her appearing after the S9 vanished could see dangerous questions being asked. But then she realized that perhaps...it was time to make her own debut as a cape. She'd gone through a hell of a traumatic experience, so triggering and saving herself and two others would be perfectly believable.
It'd mean getting booted from the PRT, but that was bound to happen eventually. As for her power, she could play it off as a brute power mixed with enhanced senses and a healing factor that let her regrow her missing limb over the course of a few hours. She didn't intend to undergo any kind of power testing, but it was a good idea to settle in her mind exactly what her powers were, just in case. She would need to make sure Kaycee and Charlie weren't tested, Kaycee would ping as a parahuman, obviously, and she had no idea what would be revealed by Charlie being scanned.
Frowning as she finished off the last of her intended commands for the two, she ordered them both off the bus, standing in the aisle and looking at the corpses. Each of them had a significant bounty, and while she couldn't claim it herself, that didn't mean somebody else couldn't. Using her telekinesis and a razor-sharp blood-sword, she cut each of their heads off and carried them, each one being identifiable. Crawler was the hardest to remove, she had to hew at his neck for a while to cut his colossal head off, but she managed it in the end.
With that done, she took the nine heads off the bus, then turned and incinerated it, containing the blaze and upping the temperature continually until it was so hot it turned even Mannequin's equipment to ash, leaving absolutely nothing remaining of the entire vehicle and the contents. Watching the blaze, she snuffed it out, leaving a pile of scorchingly-hot ash and no evidence that she'd been there, then she got the pair to walk with her back to the hospital, ordering Kaycee to start working on a way to return her body back to normal alongside changing them both.
The order she gave was a lot more in-depth than that, but that was the gist of it. At the same time, she used L33t's power to create a stasis box large enough to contain all 6 heads. After making the box, she considered the six severed heads carefully. If six of the Slaughterhouse Nine had their heads handed in and their bounties collected, then she showed up later with a young girl and a woman, while she doubted anyone would make the connection, it was better to be safe than sorry. And so, she used Spree's power to clone herself, an identical, zebra-striped copy appearing before her.
Cutting off the head of her identical twin, Valerie observed the head for a moment, before incinerating it, and the corpse. She could clone herself, but that wasn't that important. She had only been in the group for a short period, and it was doubtful that accurate descriptions of her existed yet. She would probably have been dismissed as just the Siberian but with blood completely coating her hair or something. So all she needed to do was have the heads of Bonesaw and the Siberian...well, just Bonesaw. The bounty for the Siberian was second only to Jack Slash, mostly due to her tearing out Alexandria's eye and killing Hero, which was annoying, but the Siberian was a projection, and Cauldron would definitely smell something amiss if the Siberian suddenly had a real head.
William Manton didn't have a bounty, and while he was basically the Siberian, there were two problems. First was that she couldn't just hand in some random guy's head and say that he was the one controlling the Siberian, who would even believe her? Having the heads of 7 other members would be a mark in her favour, but it could just as easily have been her pretending she had killed the Siberian when in actuality she hadn't. The second problem was that William Manton's body and head had already been reduced to ashes.
With that in mind, Valerie interrupted Kaycee and made her create a clone head of herself, with no brain activity and no functionality, it just had to be a head, which was far easier than creating a head that was actually alive, proven when it only took her two hours to clone her own deceased head. It matched her DNA, appearance, and everything else, and so, once done, Valerie had Kaycee make the head look as if it had actually been cut off, then added it to the stasis box and sealed it with seven heads inside, six real heads and one fake.
Just like that, she was now holding a sealed box of severed heads worth over a hundred million dollars.
After a few more hours spent waiting, which she spent burying the box of heads in a specific spot just outside Pittsburgh, Kaycee presented three seemingly blood-filled vials, offering her one, then giving the Siberian another.
When she questioned Kaycee on the effects of the vials, she responded diligently. "The vial you are holding will alter your DNA, giving you the ability to adapt your skin and hair colour in any way you desire. It has no permanent adverse effects, and most definitely will not remove even a strand of head hair. However, until you can learn to control your new adaption, you will not be able to accurately adjust your skin or hair colour, and it will instead automatically adjust to whatever surfaces are closest." A bit of an issue, but with Uber's power, not a big deal.
"The vial that Charlie and I are holding-" Valerie had made sure that Kaycee and Charlie addressed each other as such. "-will do the same, at least to our skin. It will also perform a similar change to our bones and muscles, changing our appearance from head to toe. Her vial will colour her hair and eyes to the requested blue colour, and will return her nails to a normal colour and length. Mine will smooth my hair out and change it to a ginger colour, my eyes will become green, and alongside that, it will set about purging my body of all of my modifications, returning me to a baseline human. Finally, it will modify how I speak, changing my voice completely."
Nodding and telling the pair to drink their vials, Valerie tipped her head back and swallowed the vial, determinedly not gagging at the rather foul taste. A few moments later, she felt her skin tingling and quickly rising to a sensation of exceptionally strong ticklishness. Keeping her mouth shut, she watched as her skin started to discolour in small circles, quickly changing itself to look similar to the floor, the ceiling and the walls, a weird and spotty 'camouflage' that didn't work in the slightest. Controlling her burning desire to start laughing from the ticklish sensation, she walked over to a wall and leaned against it, watching as her skin quickly acted, blending into the wall colouration like a chameleon.
She already had Uber's power in full swing as she moved around, placing herself on things and learning how her body adjusted, whilst Kaycee and Charlie were both laying down, groans of pain occasionally coming from Kaycee as her entire physiology was changed. Charlie was utterly silent, but then again, she didn't have any internal modifications to be removed, so there was far less that needed changing.
When she, for lack of a better word, 'flexed' her new skin control, she watched as a ripple of pink slid down her body. She then rippled red down her body, then green, blue, orange, black, white, before finally she settled onto her normal skin colour. Flicking her head gently, she looked at her hair, which was all the exact same colour as her skin, and segmented it from the rest of her body, adjusting the colour between a dozen outrageous colours until settling it back to her typical and beloved crimson.
Pushing her hair back over her shoulder, Valerie sat down on a table and watched as the pair went through their changes. Charlie was finished not long after, and it was bizarre to look at her, see a light-skinned, black-haired, blue-eyed young woman now only an inch taller than her, and knowing that that woman she was looking at used to be the terror known as the Siberian. Reaching out an arm, she pulled Charlie in and kissed her deeply, wrapping her arms around her as she did so and rocking her from side to side gently. Was it bad that she happily kissed 'Charlie' despite knowing she had made herself a 'designer lover' of sorts?
Probably, but then again, nobody would know, and she didn't really care anyway.
After Kaycee had finished being changed into her new form, Valerie made sure to erase any memories of commands or events, then implanted their 'stories'.
Her plan was to head south, then walk into a town on-foot somewhere, probably in Kentucky, to be discovered. It had already gone long past a week since she left Brockton Bay, and she would definitely have been reported as missing, which would only help her story. Their clothes were carefully picked to look like clothes she could have taken off of slave trafficking enforcers, meaning heavy jackets, cargo trousers, sturdy boots, that sort of thing. None of it fit properly, that was another important factor for their clothes, and nothing too unique either.
Since she didn't want any risk of it being traced back somehow, she made all the clothing out of materials using her own power, leaving no trail to follow. Under her left armpit was an unfamiliar holster and a familiar pistol, though it was out of ammunition and had been fired repeatedly, and in her pocket she had her baton. As for Kaycee and Charlie, they both knew nothing. When they woke up, they looked like they did now, and had no memories of anything before, all they could remember were the strange men and her, locked in the same cage as they were.
Valerie 'knew' more, she knew that their current appearance and lack of memories was the work of either a tinker or a hypnotist and a highly-skilled plastic surgeon. And that was why she triggered, she had been beaten, strapped down and injected with something, and her repressed trauma mixed with those events had caused her trigger event. She had promptly slaughtered her way out, saving her two cage-mates as she fled, and stole their clothes during her fight out of there, which included finding her pistol and baton on a dead man she searched. She then took a car and drove away, only for it to run out of fuel, forcing them to continue on foot.
Of course, almost as if the universe was punishing her for what she'd achieved so far, it didn't take long after getting some guy to stop, then forcing a bond with him and making him believe his car had been stolen by men in similar clothes to their own before they ran into a police roadblock. Thinking fast, she rewrote the plan just a little, unwinding her window and bodily leaning out of the vehicle to get a better look at the roadblock. She didn't spy any PRT presence, which would have sped things up a little, but that was fine, it gave her longer to make damn sure her story was solid. "Please stay in your vehicles!" A loud voice called out over a speaker, and after staying out a moment longer, she slipped back into the vehicle, taking a firm hold of the steering wheel and taking deep, calming breaths as they advanced. "License and registration please."
Looking at the officer, she made sure to keep her hands firmly on the wheel, splitting time before she responded. "I don't have either, I need to talk to whoever is in charge here immediately. My name is Valerie Jones, I worked as the secretary for PRT East-North-East Director Emily Piggot, my service firearm is holstered under my left armpit and I was kidnapped after I went on holiday for a week. I fought my way out, saved two other prisoners, and stole this vehicle from their compound. The woman and young girl sitting behind me both have amnesia of the event alongside everything beforehand and I believe a bio-tinker was involved. Please tell whoever is in charge immediately." She repeated herself, maintaining eye contact. His eyes glanced back at Charlie and Kaycee, then back towards her, glancing at her hands, then at her left side.
"If you could keep your hands there please-" She nodded as he spoke, not stupid enough to take her hands off the wheel after she confirmed that she had a firearm to him. "-I'll call the chief down here. Slowly pull over onto the shoulder there please." Nodding again, she turned the wheel and slowly pulled out of their spot off onto the side of the road, parking there, then returning her hand back to its place on the wheel, all the while the officer kept his eyes on her and spoke into his radio quietly.
About a minute later, two more officers showed up, and one approached her window. "Alright, I'm Sheriff Greyson. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you don't have your PRT identification either?" Valerie shook her head, keeping her face neutral as he exhaled. "Alright, well, if you'd like to step out of the vehicle for me." Nodding, he opened the door, and she kept her hands in sight as she got out. "Any other weapons than your service pistol?"
"I have a collapsible baton in my right jacket pocket. As for any in the vehicle, I don't know, I didn't search it before entering, and after that I was too busy trying to shake off any pursuers to search the car. Charlie and Kaycee didn't pick any up, I asked." He nodded, opening the rear door and gesturing for the two to get out as well. Fortunately, she had told them both to obey reasonable commands from law enforcement already, so they both got out, but stayed close together, obviously jumpy and distrustful, just as she had ordered them to be.
Before he could start any questioning though, there was a loud roar, and a car flipped through the air, slamming through several others. "FUCK YOU! FUCK ALL OF YOU!" A malice-filled bellow sounded out after that, and a scale-clad, twelve-foot-tall brute slammed through the row of cars, then through the police beyond. Gunfire erupted quickly, and the Sheriff paid no attention to her as she glared at the monster, which was presumably the reason for the roadblock. "YOU WON'T TAKE ME, I'LL RIP YOU ALL A-FUCKING-PART LIMB BY LIMB!"
It wasn't Lung, since there was no fire and they were at least 500 miles from Brockton Bay, but it was still a pretty close comparison just based on the scales and the size. The brute utterly ignored the gunfire pinging off their scales, smashing into the nearest police car and crushing the officers behind it. Their gaze next fixed onto the sheriff and the two officers beside him, and the brute began to plow towards them. In an instant, she made a snap decision to change her power-set just a little and moved, standing right in the path of the brute, raising her right arm and rearing it back. As the brute charged and the officers yelled at her to move, she planted her foot forwards and PUNCHED!
Her fist was nowhere near the brute when she struck, but that didn't matter, her punch created a ripple in the air that blasted the brute back. Rolling her shoulders, she glanced behind her, then returned her focus to the brute. "You want a fight?" She asked, lowly, then called upon a power she honestly hadn't seen herself using until that moment, mostly because she just didn't like the idea. But now, for her debut as a cape, it was perfect.
Her muscles rippled and swelled, her clothing swelling up at the same time, and her limbs lengthened, her size increasing and packing on muscle mass until she was as tall as the brute. "THEN COME AND FIGHT ME!" She yelled at the brute, taking a heavy step forwards and not even slightly dampening the impact, letting her weight and strength make itself known with that stomp. The brute roared wordlessly, thundering towards her and throwing a wild haymaker.
Leaning back to avoid the powerful but poorly-controlled swing, she rose her foot and smashed it into their chest, angling her weight and her body so her foot forced the brute over backward and then down to the ground. Kicking off with her other foot, she stood entirely on his chest with one foot as she pivoted, then brought her other foot down in a stomp, smashing it into their head. Lifting her foot, she brought it down again, then nimbly hopped off their body as they flailed, daintily landing on both feet as they threw themselves to their feet.
Taking the initiative, Valerie jerked forwards, throwing a testing fist that collided with the brute's undefended shoulder, then another punch with the opposite fist that knocked them off-balance, striking past their hasty guard. Piling on more strength, she swung her fist once more, cracking it against their equally-defenseless jaw and feeling the entire bone dislocate. Punching upwards with her other fist, she gave the brute an uppercut that knocked them onto their back once more, roaring in pain as they fell.
Leaping onto them and straddling their chest, she lifted her fist and packed on even more strength, bringing it down in a blow that shook the ground. Lifting her fist, she glared down at the brute, waiting as she felt the form beneath her shrinking, ready in case it was a trick. When the brute fully shrank down and revealed a naked female form with a bloodied nose, a scarred body and her eyes closed, Valerie got off of her and let herself shrink, returning back to normal, albeit with a bit of blood on her knuckles courtesy of the now-unconscious brute. The sheriff approached her, his eyes obviously wary, and she gave a mirthless chuckle. "Yeah, I kinda wanted to keep that a secret until I got to talk to the PRT and find out what this means for me, not that I don't trust you, but, well, I didn't want to out myself, I hope you understand."
"Miss Jones, you undoubtedly just saved the lives of myself and my deputies, I think you've earned yourself at least that much."
Holding the phone up to her ear, Valerie winced, accepting what she knew she was about to hear but still not happy about it.
"How is it that I let you take a week's holiday, which you certainly needed if how you were acting was any indication, and now, less than a month later, you've saved a child, a young woman and yourself from slave traffickers, then went on to save at least a dozen police officers and more than a hundred civilians from a rampaging brute? Oh, and on top of that, also becoming a parahuman?" Wincing at Emily's words, Valerie gave a helpless shrug, not that she could see it.
Well, with the camera in the room, she possibly could actually. "I guess I'm a bit of a trouble magnet." Emily snorted, but it wasn't with much humor. "I didn't exactly go around with a 'kidnap me' sign over my head, I just needed some time to myself to deal with a reminder of my trauma that came up. Then, well, you already know the story. What they did, what they implied, and what they said they were going to do to me, mixed with what Viking had done to me, just...I couldn't accept it." Exhaling slowly, tiredly, she took a moment. "So...what does this mean for me? I know it means I'm not in the PRT any longer, naturally, but could I do something similar in the Protectorate?"
Emily was silent for a good long while, and that didn't help her nerves in the slightest. Sure, it was a bit of a charade, but she still liked Emily, and being given the boot never felt good. "Nowhere in the Parahuman Response Team charter does it state that my secretary cannot be a parahuman." Valerie opened her mouth to refute that, and Emily cut her off. "Section 12J, Paragraph Three, states: No employee of the Parahuman Response Teams may be a parahuman. However, if you were to join the Protectorate, and then I were to appoint you to that position, and you were to accept, then you would merely be accepting an abnormal posting from the PRT Director. So long as the requisite paperwork is filed, while it might raise a few eyebrows, it's perfectly legal."
Blinking, Valerie leaned back in the comfy chair she had been offered, considering that for a moment. "And what about Protectorate duties? I have powers now, wouldn't they expect me to be patrolling and all that?" Not that she actually minded the idea too much, it was more the restrictions she'd be shackled with, and the extra scrutiny wouldn't help her much. "Oh, and if Glenn Chambers tries any funny business by way of giving me a bad cape name or a trashy outfit, I'll run up to New York, force him into spandex, then throw him onto Legend's desk covered in tape."
"Well, if you want to avoid assaulting a member of the Protectorate, even one such as Glenn Chambers, you'll need to come up with your own name quickly, and one that's acceptable for PR to work with. As a member of the Protectorate, you do have mandated requirements for patrolling, but that's a sliding bar. The lowest is 4 hours of patrolling a week, so 2 patrols, 2 hours long." Emily didn't try to sugar-coat it, but she knew it was a damn-good deal, and Emily was probably pulling strings to give her a hand. "That does also mean a change in salary to reflect the reduced hours compared to other members, but it's still above your previous salary, to the tune of an extra three-fifty a month."
Nodding, Valerie hummed. "Alright, that sounds good to me. And I think I already know what name I'd like best." Emily made a coercing noise in response. "Crimson. I know it's not related to my power, I just like the name. Plus, I'm intending for my costume to be a mask that lets my hair out openly, because you of all people should know how much I love my hair." Emily made a noise that was a cross between a snort and a laugh, and Valerie smiled despite the precarious situation.
"I'll be sure to reserve the name for you."
Two weeks after she 'revealed' the fact that she had triggered, Valerie sat back and sighed, feeling a head come to rest on her shoulder.
Leaning her head to the side, she rested her head atop Charlie's, whilst Kaycee slept across their laps, her head on Valerie's thigh and a blanket over her. It had taken some convincing by herself and Charlie, accompanied by at least one tearful round of pleading from Kaycee, but eventually, the decision was made that keeping them together, at least for the time being, was for the best. They were still searching for who Kaycee and Charlie were before the incident, but DNA samples came back with absolutely nothing, which definitely indicated parahuman involvement, and they both had no idea who they were beforehand, another check in the box. Valerie was the person they had latched onto after their memory wipes, since she had spent time in the same cage as them both comforting them both, and removing Valerie from them was deemed a very bad idea in regards to their mental states.
One major difficulty was trying to keep things straight regarding the slavers. She didn't remember where they were after she escaped, she had killed her way out and fled pretty much at random, and played up the notion that it all went by so quickly once she triggered, and she had a single-minded focus on escape, not on memorizing anything she saw. The other two had very few memories to speak of regarding the place anyway, their 'wipe' had happened almost as soon as Valerie arrived at the location, and Valerie had only been there at that location for a week before her escape. But still, from the fact they were now on a helicopter to Brockton Bay, her story had been bought.
Reaching down, she brushed a hand gently against Kaycee's head, not looking up at the other occupant of the helicopter. Not because she didn't trust the woman opposite her, but just because she didn't want to see the sympathy the woman had for her. Miss Militia had come along to bring them to Brockton Bay, and when Valerie looked her in the eyes, she could see that sympathy that she didn't want. Sure, it wasn't for her arm, she had it back now, but it still felt like it was, and even if it wasn't, it wasn't a sympathy she earned by actually going through hardship, nor sympathy that she wanted. "Any idea what happened to my apartment?"
Practically leaping on the opportunity for conversation, Miss Militia responded quickly. "It was searched in case there were any clues as to where you had gone, but after the search, at least as far as I'm aware, things were put back the same way they were found. There were some questions regarding your wall-safe, which was eventually opened, and led some to believe that perhaps you had been robbed once it was revealed to be empty, but there were no signs of a struggle." Valerie nodded, giving a vague smile even as she kept her eyes down.
It amused her and somewhat embarrassed her to think that some poor PRT agent had to go through her 'toy drawer' in the search for evidence. "I kept my pistol in there when I needed to go somewhere where I couldn't legally carry it, alongside some physical cash. That's how I left the city, by coach, I didn't want anyone following me to make sure I was okay and not being coerced or anything. In hindsight a stupid idea, if you could track card payments maybe you'd have found me sooner, but...well, cést la vie." She muttered with a shrug, feeling as Charlie shifted and hugged her from the side.
"You saved us though, that has to count for something." That was certainly something she still had yet to get used to. Charlie was speaking, and her voice was honestly incredible to listen to, a hint of silk and sex-appeal mixed with almost a country-girl drawl in a way that didn't sound garbled or fake. Turning her head to the side, she bumped her forehead against Charlie's, enjoying that small, innocent bit of skinship as their noses gently bridged.
She didn't go further, even though she really wanted to. No, she was going to wait until they were alone. If, alone in her apartment, cameras were watching them and questions were raised, well first of all she'd ask why the fuck hidden cameras were left in her apartment, especially her fucking bedroom. Secondly, she would make it clear that Charlie was the one who decided she wanted to at least see where a relationship with Valerie went, because she wanted to live her own life, not a life of trying to find out who she was, but of building something new for herself.
It was flimsy as fuck, but the simple fact of the matter was that she didn't much care. If it all came crashing down, she would just take Kaycee and Charlie away with her and disappear into the underground. Maybe go for a holiday across the Atlantic into Europe for a while if she felt like it. Charlie was hers in a very literal sense, and while she wasn't born from her power, Kaycee was also just as much her ward, her responsibility and her possession. Nobody was going to take either of them away from her, she would kill before she let anyone do it. Breaking the contact, Valerie smiled as Charlie placed her head back on her shoulder, returning to their original position.
And if Miss Militia was reading into the action correctly, well, she could go suck on a lemon.
When they arrived, Valerie carried Kaycee with her as they went inside, and about an hour and a half later, she headed out of the building carrying Kaycee and with Charlie in tow.
Emily had seemed happy to see her, though the woman was about as expressive as a concrete slab when it came to business. Miss Militia had sat in, and after Armsmaster had shown up to fulfill his required appearance and then departed as soon as he could, she went over all the facets of what being a Protectorate Hero actually meant. In a simple list, she was required to perform a mandated quantity of patrol hours weekly though she could opt for more if she wished, attend at least one public relations event a month, wear her PR-approved costume during any public-facing cape activities, and to not use her powers unless authorized, barring exceptional circumstances.
The majority of the contract, and she made sure to read every word, was the Protectorate covering their asses. Her costume design and cape name would belong to the Protectorate, and merchandising of her image would be discussed and negotiated if she became popular enough to warrant a desire for merchandise. Anything she did outside the bounds of Protectorate regulations would levy strict punishments, and any activity that could be described as villainous would, if proven to be without a doubt true, see her stricken from the Protectorate and arrested.
Valerie would undergo a three-month probationary period, during which her activities would be monitored carefully, and every patrol she was scheduled to do would see her accompanied by another Protectorate hero. After that three-month period, she would be able to do solo patrols, and her monitoring would be rolled back to the same level every member of the Protectorate was saddled with. As for the extent of the monitoring, she wasn't allowed to know that information, since it'd mean she could try to find countermeasures and ways to evade it. Reasonable, but annoying, and she made perfectly clear that if she found a single camera planted anywhere in her apartment, there would be hell to pay. Miss Militia was quick to assure her that it wasn't nearly that egregious, though she couldn't give specifics for the previously-mentioned reason.
She did hope that she didn't find any cameras, because if she did, she was going to find whoever made the decision to bug her apartment and make it very clear to them why that was a bad idea. Chances were high though that Miss Militia was telling the truth, because yes, she'd need to be monitored, but previously she had worked for the PRT and now she was effectively just the director's parahuman secretary, with a few patrol hours thrown in because they were required. If they still saw fit to bug her apartment, then chances were high it wasn't actually the Protectorate doing it, but some criminal looking to push the new hero out of the Protectorate.
While she wasn't supposed to have a gun as a Protectorate hero, Emily had, after Valerie brought it up to her, given her a compromise. She wasn't allowed to carry her firearm when patrolling as Crimson. However, whilst working as Emily's secretary, and when off-duty, she was still allowed to carry it. The main justification was that she was fully authorized to do so, and not carrying her service pistol carried a vague risk of outing her as a cape if she still worked that sensitive position, but didn't carry her firearm any longer, especially after disappearing as she had.
Walking home whilst still carrying Kaycee, Valerie headed up to the apartment, fishing out the key she'd been given for the door. She'd told Emily over the phone that she didn't find her keys, nor her wallet, so she had no cash, no phone and no keys, and so Emily had given her a key and told her that she had a locksmith sent to make a new key of the lock. Miss Militia had offered to drive her back, but she wanted the walk as a chance to clear her head a little.
After heading inside, Valerie closed and locked the door behind Charlie, then sat down on the sofa carefully, laying Kaycee down next to her. Charlie came to sit beside her and leaned into her side, which she indulged in for a few moments before getting up and checking the rest of the apartment. Some things were moved a little from the way she had left them, but for the most part, things were still in order. That didn't mean she didn't very carefully go over all the walls and every spot that could hide a camera, finding nothing.
She still looked at the walls suspiciously though, even if she couldn't find anything. She needed to move apartments regardless since Kaycee would need her own room, and it'd mean no cameras could remain, or at least, none specifically intended to monitor her. Charlie was all too happy to sleep in the same bed as her, and since she was an adult nobody could really raise any eyebrows, but Kaycee was a young girl and needed her own bedroom if Valerie wanted to adopt her.
So, after leaning down and giving Charlie a kiss on the cheek, Valerie wandered into her bedroom and opened her laptop, searching for apartments in the area around the PRT HQ. After some searching and tweaking of filters, she found a two-bedroom ground-floor apartment only a five-minute walk away from the headquarters. The price was an extra $400 above what she was currently paying, but the location and the increased size made that a given. And so, unplugging her laptop and taking it off her desk, she brought it out into the living room where Charlie was now absently watching the television and Kaycee was still asleep, settling between them and smiling as Charlie immediately leaned against her again. "Think this place looks good?"
Ever since she had 'adjusted' the Siberian into Charlie, she was at least acting like a normal human, which showed as she actually looked at the laptop and assessed the different apartment images, reaching over to rub her own finger across the track-pad and look at different pictures. "I think it looks good." Well, close to a normal human at least, as she nuzzled into Valerie's shoulder and continued watching the television without much real interest in what was being displayed. After she was sure they weren't being directly monitored, she would need to adjust how Charlie was acting a little.
Kaycee honestly was fine as she was, simply a copy of herself when she was her age. Since her power worked on even unconscious or unexplained things, telling Kaycee to act like Valerie did when she was her age meant Kaycee acted like that, even though there was no way of her knowing that, doubly so because she hadn't actually grown up herself in the Worm universe, which she put down to power bullshit. She had, once she discovered that facet, tried telling Bonesaw to act like Alexandria or Eidolon out of curiosity, but since Valerie didn't actually know how either of them acted, Bonesaw didn't know either, and thus, she couldn't use her power to pull secrets out of thin air like whether Alexandria slept commando, or if Eidolon was a virgin.
But making Charlie act appropriately was a harder thing to handle than not knowing the specifics of Alexandria's sleepwear or the integrity of Eidolon's V-card. She needed to be different enough that she wasn't just a copy of Valerie, but similar enough that their attraction was believable. So she had to make sure Charlie was different in certain ways, for instance, liking her showers hot instead of just lukewarm, not minding enclosed spaces, having a fear of silence, liking spicy food and disliking marshmallows, random things that would make her different from Valerie in visible ways.
That also meant she had more things she needed to adjust in Charlie's actions. Valerie wasn't really interested in watching television much, and so when Charlie had settled down on the couch and started watching the television, that was just her 'acting like a normal person' by watching television, an overlap of the two orders. The best way to fix it would probably be to tell Charlie to only do things she liked at least a little, unless it was something necessary for one reason or another. But until she was mostly confident that she wasn't being monitored, the best thing to do would be to wait. Splitting time wouldn't be that helpful, because for all she knew, she was in fact being monitored somehow, and they would just steadily build evidence against her to birdcage her.
Thinking about the birdcage made her slouch a little, sighing as she realized she had totally forgotten about the Dragonslayers. Dragon had already debuted as a cape, and there were talks that she would be taking over from the current warden of the birdcage. Since she honestly quite liked Dragon, she wanted to help, but she had no idea where the Dragonslayers were, and they probably already had Richter's device and were already doing dumb shit to Dragon.
That was confirmed when she did a quick search and learned that the villain known as Teacher was already in the birdcage, having been caught planning to assassinate the British Prime Minister. She knew that Saint had a thinker power from Teacher that let him understand Dragon's code, so if Teacher was birdcaged, then Saint already had possession of Richter's failsafe device and knew that Dragon was an AI.
And honestly, there wasn't a lot she could do about it. She didn't have any major thinker abilities, the only one she could really describe outright as a thinker power was Jack's, which was useless for actually finding the Dragonslayers. So no, it was regrettable that she hadn't stopped them, but Richter's device could have been anywhere in the water, for all she knew Saint had found the device on the beach in Florida whilst using a metal detector. At the time she was too young and didn't have any money anyway, so stopping him was just a hilarious joke as far as she was concerned.
So, after fiddling with her laptop and sending off a request for a meeting to discuss the place, she simply settled in to relax with Charlie and Kaycee.
The next day, having spent the previous night sleeping on the sofa with Charlie and letting Kaycee have her bed, was pretty busy.
First, nice and early, she headed out to go to the bank, and after half an hour, she had a temporary card in her pocket. Next, she headed to the estate agents for a talk about renting the apartment she'd look at previously, leaving Charlie to take care of Kaycee and keep her safe. She made sure to make it clear that she needed the apartment urgently since she had to accommodate a young girl, and after a few phone calls, some discussions, and then the negotiations for an up-front cost, she had the keys in hand, with an apartment paid up for the next three months. On the way back home she picked up a new phone, alongside two more for Kaycee and Charlie, and hesitated for a moment before deciding not to bother buying any groceries.
They still had enough stuff that hadn't gone bad to eat for breakfast, and she fully intended on getting them moved on that same day, because she liked her bed, and she didn't want to have Kaycee sleeping in her bedroom either. Since Kaycee was a copy of her at that age, she just knew that Kaycee was probably all too willing to have a curious poke around, and she hadn't moved any of her less 'child-safe' items, she hadn't had the chance to really, she'd been too busy. Better safe than sorry, she didn't want to have to answer any questions regarding the quantity of her toy drawer. Kaycee already knew about sex, she had at that age already been playing with herself...and that was a thought she didn't need.
Once back at the apartment, upon immediately spying Charlie laying on her side on the couch cuddling Kaycee as they watched a movie, she dropped off her bag, smiling when Kaycee got up and came to give her a hug, picking her up and cuddling her right back as she walked over to the couch and sat down, giving Charlie a peck on the cheek. She gave both of them a phone, extracting a promise that they would look after them, and that they'd call her if there was anything wrong.
With that done, she settled Kaycee down on her lap and watched the movie with her, whilst at the same time she called the moving company that the estate agent had recommended when asked. They told her that they weren't able to do a job the same day, and so she changed their minds with money. After an extra $250 was tacked onto the bill, the moving van pulled up outside a half-hour later and they set to work boxing up the stuff in her apartment, with her and Charlie helping and Kaycee also 'helping'. Working together, even with Kaycee's 'assistance' occasionally getting in the way, they were done packing up her entire apartment into the van within a few hours, mostly because her apartment wasn't that huge, just three rooms really.
Since she didn't drive, she called a cab to follow the van, and then, once they were at her new place, she and Charlie helped unload the boxes whilst Kaycee wandered around the new apartment, poked at the walls, and generally acted just as she would have. Once all the boxes were in the apartment, she took Kaycee out with her, Charlie tagging along for lack of anything better to do, and went to go buy the girl her own bedroom furnishings. Kaycee was 12, more than old enough to pick her own things, and so they spent the rest of the afternoon picking out furnishings for her room.
The bed and frame would be delivered that evening, and they would be bringing back some covers and sheets, but the rest wasn't as important, so that could wait for regular delivery in the next few days. When they got back to their new home, Valerie set about digging out jars and dry foods from boxes that they hadn't emptied, alongside the chilled food in the fridge, piecing together dinner from whatever she could unbury.
It wouldn't be a five-star meal, but she refused to have their first dinner in the new apartment be takeaway. While she picked out enough things to throw together dinner, Valerie took a look at her life and realized just how bizarre it was. She'd sort of let herself get swept up in it all, but now she was pretending that the Siberian and Bonesaw were a young woman and a girl that she had saved from slave traffickers, and now she was in a new apartment trying to find stuff to make dinner with for them.
It made her wonder just how her life had gotten so ridiculous.
After dinner, the three spent some time watching movies before Kaycee headed off to bed, displaying her own unreasonable maturity at that age since she went without being prompted.
Charlie gave her a kiss not long after and went to bed herself, leaving Valerie on the sofa, with a notepad on her lap alongside a collection of pencils and an eraser on the table. She was currently trying to come up with a good costume to wear, one that she liked, but that wasn't too flashy or attention-grabbing. Miss Militia's costume for instance was literally a camo jacket, dark green trousers and an american flag bandana around her face. It was 'cool' but not attention-grabbing, a collection of drab military colours that blended in, far from the blue and white of Armsmaster's armour.
That was something she distinctly wanted to avoid. She knew keenly that the Protectorate wanted their heroes to be big and bold, larger than life and attention-grabbing, to pull the attention of people away from the cliff that society was slipping towards one villain at a time, but she didn't want that, she'd much prefer to not be noticed until it was too late. And so, she had gone through at least two dozen attempts at sketching her own costume, first drawing a reasonable approximation of herself, then trying to draw a costume to match her.
Since her cape name was Crimson, it needed to have red be the primary colour, interspersed with dark blues and blacks. Thanks to the fact she was a brute, she didn't need any armour on her costume, so it was more about finding a costume she liked the look of. A skirt was a given, she really liked skirts and if she had leggings and shorts on, even if someone saw up her skirt, they weren't exactly seeing anything. Incorporating a sleeveless red jacket akin to one she vaguely remembered from an Avengers movie, she added some bracelets, sketched a set of boots onto her feet, added a web-like pattern all the way down the leggings, then set about designing the mask.
The risk of discovery was too high for her to use her Amaterasu mask, just in case someone did see her mask while she was with the S9, and so, she had to make a new one. It would still be red, but instead of white, it would be a dark mask backing the red, a navy blue instead of black which, after a few attempts, finally became a mask she actually liked the look of. It went from the edge of her forehead down to hang about an inch below her chin, short enough to not get in the way of looking down without being right on the edge of her jaw and letting people see her lower teeth if she opened her mouth to yawn or to yell.
Not because she was afraid of being outed by it, but mostly just out of a desire to not show her teeth like that. When she paired the sketch of her mask with her costume, she set about making a few minor tweaks, pairing her costume's red lines with the lines on her mask and making it seem as if they were all connected. Tapping at the notepad with the pencil she was holding, Valerie finished making small adjustments, then carefully tore that page and laid it down on the table, mostly satisfied with the costume design, but still continuing to sketch out any ideas that came to mind, just in case anything sprang to mind.
And totally not because she was dreading going to bed, considering she knew what was coming when she woke up the next day.
So...that just happened.
Valerie took down the S9, subsumed all their powers, and in the case of Bonesaw and the Siberian, she decided to 'normalize' them and bring them to live with her. Why? Mostly because Bonesaw didn't deserve what was done to her, and the Siberian is literally a part of her power set now. Did she have to? No, she could have just killed Bonesaw, taken her power, then turned off the projection power and kept the Siberian as a hidden weapon, but she did it because she wanted to.
Also, the reason for why Jack's power wasn't able to properly handle her, in my mind, is a pretty solid reason. However, it's also a spoiler-filled reason, so I'd rather not discuss it too much. Just, please trust me when I say I do have a pretty solid reason for why it happened, that wasn't just me contriving a reason for Jack to get blindsided by her so hard. As for Hatchet-Face, I mentioned previously that she has 72 powers, and I feel like negating that many powers is beyond the limits of his power.
Finally, we need to talk about Valerie's actions. She is unstable as shit, and the reason she took so long to go off the deep end was because she stayed in a stable, relatively sane environment. When she did what she did to get the Butcher's powers, that was her first time jumping into that side of the world, and she fell in deep. Cue what she did in Chapter 6, then how she acted in the subsequent chapters. Now she's back to 'normalcy' but she's going to quickly find that it's much harder to pretend to be normal after doing all that, ESPECIALLY after indulging in the use of her 'primary power', her mind control, so heavily. The way I see it would be akin to a soldier coming home after years deployed overseas, and not being able to really 'click' back into ordinary life. She wasn't gone nearly as long, sure, but she watched extremely fucked up things being done, and then she used her power more than she ever had before, and that sense of control she felt, telling all the members of the S9 to freeze, then killing them all? That would change anyone.
So yeah, hopefully you aren't now in a frothing rage and filled with a desire to burn this story down now that you know that I do have a vague reason for what I'm doing ^.^ The reason will be revealed in Chapter 9 anyway, so you won't have to wait long to learn at least a bit about why I set things up the way I did!