We found them in a room on the third floor. They had left a keycard waiting for Grue under an assumed name.
The room itself was nice, kind of smallish, with that vaguely cramped feeling most middle grade hotel rooms had. A result of them trying to cram in something just shy of a small apartment's worth of necessities into what was in truth closer to a larger then average bed room.
Lisa was in the room with two guests. She was also in costume. Person one was a teenaged looking young man in a fluffed shirt, white mask with tasteful circlet, and pants that looked right out off of a classical stage.
He also promptly turned his head from looking at us to her, "Delivery boys are here!"
That was probably Regent, who alongside Bitch made up the other half of Grue and Tattletale's Super Team; the Undersiders.
Which was weird, I didn't think he was part of the Undersiders this early on.
Whatever. If he was here great, guy was funny as hell and outside of a past that was basically the Charles Manson Family with superpowers replacing the whole apocalyptic cult angle, only less political and still active.
The other guy was older but not exactly 'old'. I'd put them in their early thirties, they were also in the middle of pacing up some narrow clear plastic tubing and instrumentation that looked very medical.
"Ah, good, you're here, phone?" She clipped in at once.
I fished the object loose, and handed it over to Regent who handed it to Tattletale, who quickly started digging into it with an ever wider smile.
"We done?" I questioned as the older man, a street doctor maybe? Squeezed past us in a hurry.
What did she need a street doctor for? Did she expect one of us to show up mangled? Did I really have the energy to care a the moment?
Going to have to go with no on that last one.
"Actually I've got some questions," asked Grue now that we were alone in the room with no one to overhear.
I wanted to groan, grunt, complain or maybe shove his head through a wall.
But well, I kind of liked the guy, or at least didn't dislike him enough to actually do so, "Okay."
"Who the hell are you?" He asked me flat out.
"Malfean... though I think I'm going to try to get that changed, is Monochrome taken?" I asked looking over at Tattletale only to find out she was busy
"Not that- Look I get it, you're a super trump like Eidolon or something but why us, why here," he stressed, and part of me wondered just how he knew that.
Then I remembered Tattletale had a headache when we met, though maybe that wasn't a Thinker one if it cleared up by now... wait the doctor. Drugs maybe? Did those even work on Thinker headaches?
"Wait what?" Regent questioned.
"He's got multiple powers and can pull out new ones," Brian explained before turning back on me. "You show up out of nowhere, no one's heard of you, no past, and you don't start issuing orders, no you show up and tell us about a gun at the back of our head we don't even know about. What's your game?" he questioned buffing himself up a bit to appear looming and more intimidating, something that would have worked once upon a time given how short I currently was.
However, gladiatorial pits of hell as well as facing ziz and all the other bullshit I've had to deal with recently had pretty much beaten that out of me. Instead, I was currently going through a catalog of how many ways I can kill him without breaking much of a sweat.
After all, It is highly irritating to have someone try and impose on me. I'd seen posturing like that a million times and almost every time it was because some asshole wanted to look tough.
I exhaled, "Look, Lisa told you I wasn't scamming you right?" I asked.
Regent did a double take, "Uh, so... the name thing."
I looked at him for a moment, then nodded, "Yeah I know, I'm cool with it. Your sister's going to be a problem in a bit though. She got the bright idea to start running with the nine."
He made a sound, "Wait, what. Seriously?" He asked surprised.
"And that's the shit I'm talking about. You know these things. How? Why are you telling us? Is bullshit levels of precognition one of your tricks?" Brian asks. "Is this some big freaking... man made Simurgh Plot or something?"
I blinked at the thought of that, a Simurgh plot? By me? I snorted, covering my mouth for a moment I couldn't help it.
"I'm serious man!" he asks sharply. "Look, you don't seem to be fucking us, but I want to know right now if you're playing us."
I held up my hand, "No sorry it's just... Okay yeah I've got some Thinker powers in the mix, but they're not that," I said. "Built in Lie detector, power level scanner and a low level intuition booster. What I had was access to someone who knew how everything was going to go down."
"Who?" he demanded.
"Went by Wildbow, and unfortunately he ain't on this Earth though," I stated.
"So wait, this guy knew someone who saw the future?" Regent interrupted again, "And he's been telling you stuff, which you've then acted on, and now the city is on fire?" He questions.
I looked at him.
Grue looked at him.
Lisa looked over, "Trying to work over here!"
"Kind of important!" Brian shot back.
"Keep it down at least!" she replied, and I notice she had not one but two laptops open in front of her at this point, as well as Coil's phone on the side of her head.
"Basically yeah," I said in a softer voice. "Though I should clarify, but not on this world, I don't mean dead... or I think they're not dead. They were on another world."
"And now he's an alien. This keeps getting better!" Regent actually did seem amused by this.
"So, what you are the Earth Aleph version of Eidiolon instead or something?" Grue got back on track. "Part of a super team with this Wildbow and got knocked here somehow?"
"No, it's actually a lot more complicated then that, but... eh," I rubbed at my forehead, I just wanted this over.
Fortunately I had a power for that.
Motes surged through me, and my expression hardened and went serious, my tone brokered no argument or interruption, and every inch of my being suddenly demanded their attention and respect, "Okay, this is a really long story. Most of it I don't actually want to talk about, and I'm not talking about before I've had a chance to sleep in till noon and eat brunch. So I'm going to give you the basic cliff notes and anything more will wait until then: I was from another Earth, not Aleph, I don't think the PRT has a name for it or even discovered it for that matter either but we normally call it Earth 616 or Earth Prime to some of the neck beards. Anyway, I don't know how Wildbow knew about this place. Maybe a Metahuman power, maybe something else. There is a whole whack of theories about how information ripples between realities and I don't know shit about what one is right if any." I'd one written a funny idea of humanity being collectively but uselessly psychic. With our bouts of 'creativity' being us catching glimpse of faraway realities. That probably wasn't the case but then again what was?
My eyes flickered from one to the other rapidly as I watched them take it in, "So yeah, a bunch of shot happened to myself as well as a few other people, I ended up going through another series of weird events and ended up going to another Earth after that, not this one but Earth 295 or Earth Nostramo, and unlike here that Earth is simply a different place and is considerably more alien. I ended up having to endure a very short and very very violent stay in a fuckking gladiatorial pits for capture slaves which was guarded by things fresh out of a fucking nightmare, participated in a attempted a revolt," My hand tightened, I'd not been the best fighter in the group, but I hadn't been the worst. I had however been the only one who had the 'bright' idea to attack the demons guarding the entrance rather then the other world napped victims.
That turned out as well as you could expect. "One which had been fucked up from the start. Almost everyone got killed, got powers from that, as a survivor of s failed rebellion I was ended up in an even worst place than the slave fighting pits, and few more shit happened but I pulled through."
To say I regretted it was to say people regretted that life was a terminal condition. I didn't think on it much, didn't want to, but when I did...
~Awe, but you never would have me!~
The time in my Chrysalis Grotesque had eroded at the pain like it had everything else. My life before, all of it felt.. hollow, different. I reached for it when I was inside, grabbed at the melting pieces of my past and everything that made me, me and tried to fit them back into place, or remake them as they faded once I realized what was happening.
To late, so much was gone. So much just... broken or warped.
But most terrifying of all I didn't even know for certain if that was a bad thing. I certainly wouldn't be this functional if I hadn't been reforged. Wasn't the power worth it? The essence of who I was, was still present. Through green tinted lenses now yes, but I still remembered me. Exaltations only go to those people who would use their power, only go to those who want them.
Didn't that mean I was willing to pay that price? "I got ejaculated on this world. Realized where it was. Ended up through a fun series of events kicking an Endbringer into Orbit in a desperate bid to claim vital reputation before the gangs went after me with a vengeance. Or maybe just a death wish," I smirked I didn't know really "Got out of that mess alive."
My eyes settled on Grue, "Then I remembered that most of Wildbow's stories of this world revolved around this place. And many of them revolved around a merry band of misfits under the employ of a man with an unseen torture and murder fetish and I realized I could actually be part of a rebellion that would work this time if I acted fast enough."
~And what do you know, this time you pulled it off~
This time I was fighting one barely augmented human rather then a dozen bound first circle demons.
Regent paused for a moment. "So... you came here because Wildbow couldn't stop staring at the perfection that is my ass?"
I could have answered that in any number of ways, rage at the dismissal, laughing at either the humor or just myself.
Instead I inhaled, looked him over, then gripped at my chin, "Well, you are a sexy, sexy man Regent."
Grue looked like a guy who had just realized he's been posturing against a crazy man. Which was fine because he had been, "Okay... you know I can kind of almost buy that. Capes go through weird shit. Parallel worlds are a scientifically proven fact. I'm going to check it out, but I can get that. Any other bombshells to drop?" He asked a bit seriously.
"Your sister's power is primed to trigger, there's going to be a bug using cape around soon you really don't want to be on the wrong side of or even date for that matter, and Brockton Bay is Leviathan's next target... though I might have rippled that one away when I punted his little sister into orbit."
"I shouldn't have asked," he deadpanned.
Let's hope he never figured out that I mixed some DC, Marvel, and Warhammer 40k in that Bullshit I just gave him.
~Yeah, let us hope boss.~