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Foreboding 1.a

David Russo, or Mush as he preferred, wasn't having the greatest of weeks.

First, a delivery of drugs was canceled at the last minute which wouldn't have been that big of an issue if the police hadn't just raided one of their larger stash houses. As it was they were low on heroin and a few other assorted drugs.

Mush wouldn't have really cared so long as it didn't affect his cut but some of the normies had been getting a little rowdy while they waited for their next fix. When a few grumblings of mutiny started to work their way out of the woodwork Skidmark decided that Mush's time would be best spent going around to a few Merchant dens to remind the normies what would happen if they decided they didn't care for Skidmark's leadership.

Personally, Mush didn't see what was the issue with a few grumblings, but he supposed that was why Skidmark was the leader and he wasn't. Still, Mush was more than happy to take the extra cut that Skidmark was paying him for a job well done, but he did wish that he would have paid for dry cleaning too. Didn't he know how hard it had been to clean out the brain matter that had leaked through his trash shell?

Then to top off matters a few Merchants claimed that they were being attacked by some new cape. They didn't give any description, only that they started hearing voices of people that they knew. One of them claimed to have seen something in the shadows but none of the others supported his claim. So because Skidmark was a paranoid bastard Mush once again had to patrol the streets of Brockton Bay near where the supposed attacks had taken place.

In the middle of the night.

In winter.

Mush grumbled under his breath as he trudged his way down the barely lit street. The only warmth he got was from his rather ragged jacket and the cigarette pinched between his bent and broken teeth. He could be inside and toasty while getting off on his personal stash of amphetamines, but no, he had to be out here in the freezing cold all because a couple of idiots didn't realize they were hallucinating.

Mush cursed as he lost his footing on the icy sidewalk. Only throwing his hand out and grabbing a nearby light post to use as support prevented him from face-planting into cement. The cigarette he had been smoking slipped out of his mouth and fell onto the icy sidewalk, extinguishing its faint glow.

"Dammit," he muttered under his breath as he dug through his too big jacket for another cigarette. It took a bit of fishing through the junk that littered his pockets to find it and his lighter, but it was well worth it for the slight temperature increase around the open flame. Mush took in a deep breath and let out a large cloud of smoke.

Once he was done here he was going to ask Skidmark if he could beat those idiots into a fine pulp. Honestly, did they all think he had nothing better to do with his time? He looked to the side, there was a small alleyway he could stash himself in to have a quick fix. It wasn't ideal, but it would satisfy his craving and he wouldn't have Skidmark breathing down his back for "shirking his duties".

Mush glanced down the street at the sound of a streetlight blowing out. Sparks and shattered glass flew to the ground as the aging bulb finally gave out under the intense stress of the winter winds. It wasn't that surprising, this area of the city had been neglected for some time, it was actually more surprising that they had been working at all. What was surprising was when the next one blew out as well. Mush frowned as the third street light blew out to continue the chain of defective lights that inched closer and closer to his position.

Mush took a step back, only for the light behind him to shatter into a million pieces as well. He swallowed fearfully as the shadows seemed to become more oppressive, darker, thicker. Mush started to back up into the alleyway as the shadows crawled closer. A brief chill swept past him, crushing the faintly glowing embers of his cigarette under its frigid grip.

"Come out," Mush shouted towards the shadows. While Mush still wasn't entirely convinced about the existence of a new cape this certainly had all the hallmarks of a new parahuman's power. For a moment the only response was silence and the howling of the winter breeze until something emerged from the shadows in a slow, almost predatory manner. It looked like a horse straight out of someone's nightmares.

It was tall, at the very least it was a head taller than him. It almost appeared to be made of millions of tiny grains of black sand that glinted in the low light of the last functioning streetlight. Instead of a thick mane of fur black spikes erupted in a row down the creature's neck. The demonic creature bared teeth that would have looked more appropriate on a wolf than a horse at him.

Mush eyed the strange looking horse before him. He was pretty sure he wasn't hallucinating which probably meant that it was some sort of cape. He supposed he would owe those boys an apology after all. He was still going to beat their asses for making him slug it out in the streets if only to make himself feel better. Still, he better deal with this newbie now before he (or she he didn't really know or care either way) became too much of an annoyance.

The trash and loose debris that littered the alley started to shift and converge towards him as he pulled it in with his power. The trash underneath his feet fused to his shoes like a second skin and from there even more started to converge on him as his power expanded its effective range. It would take a few minutes for him to be covered completely, but it wasn't like that was much of an issue. There was only one and once he got going then…

Mush thoughts of crushing the horse's head under a dumpster fell short as two more strange shadow horses emerged from the darkness. Their baleful yellow eyes glared out at him as they growled in a surprising wolf-like manner. Even with his body halfway covered Mush still couldn't help but feel a twinge of fear at their unnatural presence. So as always, he fell back on the one thing he knew how to do when he was afraid, make threats.

"You wanna piece of me? I'll crush you," he growled, the words slurring somewhat through half rotted and broken teeth. He was hardly capable of the destructive prowess of the likes of Lung or Hookwolf, but he was more than capable of throwing down with the odd parahuman or two once he was sufficiently trashed out, though he preferred to deal with normies. Less of a risk of getting his head caved in.

If the horses were affected by his threats they didn't show any outward signs. Instead, they began to stalk forwards, their hooves clacking against the cracked pavement.

Mush grunted and pulled more and more trash onto himself. He had finally managed to cover himself completely in a relatively thin layer of garbage. He would have preferred to back off and gather up some more before he engaged, but with them blocking the alley's only entrance he had no choice but to stand and fight.

"Come on you little-AUUGGH," Mush's threat cut off as he started to scream.

His breath was gone; his spine was fire. He fell to the ground face first as a great weight pressed down on him. His garbage armor collapsed as he concentration lapsed, leaving the goblin-like man in a pile of discarded junk. Mush coughed out bits of broken teeth and blood as he tried to push against the weight, but whatever it was it was too heavy for him to move. He tried to adjust his positon to get some leverage but panic filled him once he realized that he couldn't move anything below his waist.

Mush desperately tried to get his legs to respond, kicking twisting, hell at this point he would have taken wiggling his toes, but nothing was responding. He tried to use his arms to pull himself forward, but he hissed in pain as he felt the weight press down on him even more in response. Realizing that desperately flailing wasn't going to help him escape anytime soon Mush allowed his body to go limp in order to avoid aggravating whatever injuries he had.

Mush heard rather than saw the horses approach him, their clicking hooves sending a chill up his spine. One of the horses stepped into his limited field of vision and lowered its head to eye level. Mush's breath caught in his throat at the sight of the far too sharp teeth that filled the creature's maw, its soulless yellow eyes glared at him with all the consideration one would give an insect.

Mush started to pull at the garbage surrounding him, if he could get enough then he might be able to drive them off, even with his apparent spinal injury. He started it slowly, allowing the trash and loose debris to fuse to his skin and clothing as quietly as he could, but as the trash that littered the alleyway was pulled over each other the horses took notice. The rustling of garbage as the loose pieces scrapped against one another was rewarded with a bite to the arm. Mush screamed as his flesh was torn and muscle shredded by the course but fine sand. He twisted and pulled his arm with all the strength he could muster in a blind panic to escape the pain, but all that resulted from that was the tightening of the horse's grip and for the briefest moments Mush was certain that he felt his bone start to shift from the pressure being exerted by the monster. Whimpering a bit Mush cut off his power and allowed the trash to settle back into its resting place.

Seemingly satisfied at his action the horse released the pressure against his arm but kept its jaws firmly clamped around it. Mush felt the weight of what he assumed was another one of the shadow horses leave his back and trot forward. Another set of jaws wrapped around his still free arm and pulled him up. He could see that his body was moving, but he still couldn't feel anything below his waist. They just seemed to hang there limply, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Panic started to settle in. Was this permanent? Was he going to be paralyzed for the rest of his life assuming that these monsters wouldn't kill him? Mush glanced at the monsters nervously, licking his cracked and bloodied lips as his mind started to come up with all the gruesome ways they would rip him apart.

"Oh, it's not them you should be worried about David," A voice called out from the darkness as smooth as silk and as chilling as liquid nitrogen. Mush flinched at the mention of his name. It wasn't that he had much of a secret identity, none of the Merchants really did, not when they spent most of their time out of costume hopped up on drugs, but his name reminded him of the times he would rather forget. A time before he had become the enforcer that he was now.

The horses guarding the entrance to the alleyway stepped aside to reveal the speaker in all of her horrible glory.

Mush wasn't sure if she was a case 53 or not if so she was one of the mildest ones he had ever seen unlike those freaks that hung out with Faultline, but there was something subtlety off about her in a way that didn't match with most case 53s. Her face was something straight out of a horror movie with paradoxically smoother yet sharper features that didn't look at all natural on a person. Her yellow eyes iris gleamed while her mouth was set with a mocking smirk revealing crooked teeth that were so sharp they might have bordered on fangs. Her hair appeared to be almost unnaturally stiff, instead of twisting in the freezing breeze they hung firmly down her shoulders. The dimly lit alley only served to highlight her inhuman features, casting them in dark shadows and pale yellow lighting.

"The one you need to worry about is me," she said as she approached him as her dark robes dragged themselves across the concrete and gave off the illusion that she was much larger than she really was. Despite the fact that she was wearing what looked like a very thin robe she didn't show any discomfort at the near freezing temperatures that were doubtless nipping at her exposed skin. The sickly yellow lighting from the streetlight darkened the whole alleyway by casting her tenebrous shadow across the enclosed space like a blanket of darkness.

Mush tried to lean back to escape, but his lack of functioning legs and the horses' grip on him prevented him from doing anything more than tilting his head back. Fear clogged his throat as the cape, because what else could she be, let out an amused laugh at his reaction. Even her laugh was subtly frightening, bordering somewhere between a chilling psychopath and demented monster.

"I apologize if my pets were a bit rough with you, but I needed to be sure that you wouldn't try anything," she said with an affable smile that revealed far too many teeth as if they were discussing ordering lunch together rather than threatening him.

Oh shit.

Mush had learned something over the years as a parahuman. If a cape was being polite to you while you were fighting or you were restrained by them that usually meant one of two things. One, they weren't all right in the head and probably batshit crazy. Or two, they were so ridiculously powerful that they didn't need to be excessively cruel while they beat you to a bloody pulp.

Mush wasn't sure what this one would be, but he prayed to all the gods that he didn't believe in that it was the latter and not the former. On one hand it would probably mean that he wouldn't be able to beat her in a straight fight, but on the other hand, it would mean that she wouldn't place his head on a pike for not laughing at her jokes. Probably.

Hopefully.

Mush felt his greasy skin break out into a sweat. His eyes darted around the alleyway nervously, eyeing the horses that made up the capes' forces. Now while Mush knew that he wasn't the brightest bulb in the socket there was one thing that he knew very well and that was survival.

It was how he had lasted this long in Brockton Bay against the likes of Lung and the Empire. He knew when to cut his losses and flee or to jump a sinking ship. He had stayed with the Merchants for so long not out of loyalty, but because they were the safest gang for him to work for. He didn't need to answer to a rage dragon that could kill with as little effort as one would give a fly or a living blender that could just shred him to pieces. In the Merchants, he didn't need to worry about someone being stronger than him because he was the strongest.

He didn't sign up to be torn apart by a cape and her pet monsters.

"What do you want?" he grunted in a subdued tone. It was extremely humiliating to be captured like this, but at the very least he could use the excuse that he was ambushed and that she didn't beat him in a straight-up fight to save some face. Besides, being humiliated was a small price to pay for keeping his head attached to his shoulders.

"Oh, that's what I like about people like you David," she said with a shark-like smile that made his already sweaty skin break out in goosebumps. "You worthless cowards are all so easy to break."

"I ain't worthless!" Mush roared with all the ferocity he could muster, spittle flying into the capes' face. He would run from fights he couldn't win, but that wasn't him being a coward, that was him being smart. He couldn't be worthless, not when the Merchants depended on him for so much. She gave no reaction other than a quick glance to one of the horses restraining him. Mush screamed as the horse bit down and felt bone break and snap underneath torn muscles and bloodied skin.

"Of course you are and you know it," she said as Mush whimpered. There was no gloating at his sorry state or outrage at his disrespect, only a cold logic, and certainty that came with being absolutely sure of one's self. "You've always known it, that's why you hide behind a shell of trash because you don't want to have to face the pain, the knowledge that they've all been right about you. But deep down you do know that they were right, you're worthless, weak, useless."

The cape held her arms out wide as if to motion to the whole city and gave him an unsettling smile, "There's no point in hiding it any more David, everyone already knows how much of a weakling you are."

In the blink of an eye, she drew herself closer to the restrained Merchant and whispered into his ear. "You've always been the weak little boy who thought he could play with the big leagues, David." Mush might have taken note that he couldn't feel her breath as she whispered her toxic words into his ears, but his mind was focused on other things.

"You thought you could hide it from everyone couldn't you," the cape said in a deceptively conversational tone as she circled him. "The truth is that you couldn't hide it from anyone," she said as she turned to face him. Her pupils seemed to stare into his very soul, past all the layers that he had used to hide the truth from everyone, even himself over the years.

She smirked, a cruel and mocking thing, "I might laugh if it wasn't so sad."

"I mean did you really think you were fooling the Merchants?" she asked as if she was honestly curious about his answer. "They've probably been laughing behind your back since day one."

"You don't know anything about me," Mush said as he tried to avoid her soul-searing gaze. "I'm ain't some weak shit to them, I'm their muscle- I'm the reason the Merchants lasted this long."

That part Mush knew was a fact. Before he had joined the Merchants they usually had been forced to flee at the first sign of conflict. Even with Squealer's vehicles supporting them they weren't able to keep up with the firepower that the other gangs and the Protectorate could dish out.

Even with him they still couldn't, but with his power, they were able to close the gap to something more manageable and less one sided. He was important to the Merchants; he wasn't one of the wasted homeless that Skidmark used as cannon fodder.

Still, even with this self-assurance of his own self-worth Mush couldn't help but feel a niggling doubt in the back of his mind. If he was that important to Skidmark, and he was, why was he…

"Being used as bait," the cape asked. Mush looked up to the cape, whose pitch-black pupils stared down at him with something he couldn't quite identify. Pity? Contempt?

"The fact that Skidmark sent you out here by yourself to confront what could very well be a new cape only goes to show how much you're actually worth to him," the cape explained in a very calm and collected manner, as if she was reciting the local weather station rather than tearing apart his life.

"You're expendable David."

Mush wanted to rage, to scream at her until his voice gave out, he wanted to crush her skull with his bare hands to prove her wrong, to make her eat her own words, but he didn't- he couldn't.

How many times had Skidmark sent him on a menial but potentially life-threatening job that could have easily been accomplished by one of the dozens of mooks that followed him like a group of lemmings?

Far too many times.

How many times had his concerns been overruled as he was sent to fight someone of almost overwhelming power in order to give the others time to escape?

Too many.

In the end, he didn't try to refute what she was saying because he didn't think he could.

Her words cut deeper than anything her pets had done so far, and in that moment he wasn't Mush, the premier parahuman enforcer of the Merchants, he was David, the weakling who was beaten virtually every day of his life. The waste of space that had never amounted to anything. A boy that had nearly been beaten to death in a pile of filth.

He had triggered that day, begging for mercy as a couple of his fellow gangbangers beat him half to death with their bare fists, laughing all the while. After he had triggered he had returned the favor and left their broken bodies for the police to find later. It had been a statement, an acknowledgment of his newfound power. That had been the final nail in the coffin for his entrance into the criminal underworld. What with his already long rap sheet for someone of his young age he would have been sent to prison so instead of trying to live like a normal teenager he committed himself to being a full-time criminal. It had been one of the most defining moments of his life.

And the one he hid the most.

All his life David had been told he was worthless, useless, less than nothing. He had never fit in, not in school where the jocks beat him, the girls laughed at his disgusting features, even the nerds and geeks didn't like him because he was, as they put it, "terminally stupid". He hadn't even fit in with his family, hell his mom had outright hated him and he didn't even know who his father was.

So when he had joined the Merchants years later he had been elated. He wouldn't have to compete with any brutes within the group or breakers that could no sell his power. He would be the muscle of the group; he would be important.

He tried to say something but nothing came out but a small squeak. David swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down his throat as he considered her words. There was no uncertainty or hesitation in her eyes or actions. Tendrils of fear clawed at his insides as he considered the impossible. What if she was right? Did people know how he had broken after almost being killed? Did they know that he had once been weak, worthless?

The Merchants needed him, that was a fact. He knew that without his power they wouldn't have been able to hold the territory they did.

But it had never been about territory for Skidmark had it? He wasn't like Kaiser or Lung who tried to carve out their own respective little empires, all Skids cared about was making money and getting high. What did he care if they lost a street or two when they could easily move into the next one? So in the end what did they need him for exactly? Was he just a tool to throw at the hounds nipping at their heels when the time called for it?

"Of course that's what you are to them David, a tool, a worthless and entirely replaceable tool," the cape said with a smile. "That's all you've ever been, so why did you think the Merchants would be any different?"

"…What do you want?" David asked, his voice cracking somewhat. He couldn't think about this right now. He needed to focus on something else, anything else.

"Hmm," the cape hummed as if she was lost in her thoughts, "Oh right, I suppose I got a bit sidetracked there. You see David, I need you to deliver a message to Skidmark. I need you to tell him that he and his little gang are no longer welcome in this city and that if he doesn't leave there will be...consequences."

David snarled as his fear twisted into anger at the knowledge that Skidmark may have been screwing with him this entire time, "Why don't you deliver it yourself bitch?"

The parahuman's eyes flash dangerously and for a moment David feared that she might have her pets rip him apart. Instead, she gave him an obviously fake smile, "You misunderstand David, I'm not giving you the message- you are the message."

It only took David a second to realize the meaning behind the cape's words. When he did his skin turned white as a sheet and his blood went cold. "No," David begged as the horses started to drag him deeper into the alleyway where nobody would investigate.

"Please no!" His cried were ignored as more horses stalked down the alley, their yellow eyes glinting in the alley's pale light.

David Russo struggled against his captors, but he might as well have been trying to break a wall with his bare hands. The horses were just too strong. He desperately tried to gather the trash that he was being dragged through in a last ditch effort to make himself a suit of armor, but all he was rewarded with was another chunk of his flesh being torn off.

The cape just watched with a cool detachment as more of her minions moved toward the begging Merchant. David's pleads for mercy turned into shrill screaming as more of the horses descended upon him. The last thing that the Merchant could see before his vision was completely consumed by black sand was the cape's lips twitching up into a smirk.

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