You wanna know one of the shittiest ways to wake up? When the AI connected to your nervous system literally turns off your ability to sleep.
Don't get me wrong, by way of an alarm it was phenomenal. You just can't ignore or sleep through something like that. One minute you're asleep, the next you're awake, cold, and disoriented from the sudden change in situation.
Because of course Merlin would add to my sudden onset consciousness by flinging my blanket off of me.
'Fucking whyyyyyy.' I complained to my AI companion when it fully dawned on me that the sun wasn't even done cresting the horizon yet.
"You requested I awaken you at this hour sir. It's been seven days." He politely responded with a touch of amusement in his tone.
I knew that. Of course I knew that. I just didn't like it. I wasn't a morning person at all, and up until recently had been managing to get up on time for school purely because school wasn't actually work for me. I could safely tune out ninety percent of it, using it to get as much rest as possible for when I inevitably had to stay up all night hunting Nazis with Soph.
Summer vacation had started a week ago however, and I was finding it really hard to make good use of that free time properly. I was still going out to beat up criminals every night with Sophia, and occasionally Victoria - who wasn't nearly as annoying as I thought she would be - but I wasn't resting at school during the day anymore. Instead, I got up, went about my morning ablutions, and immediately set to either exercising like a madman, getting my ass beat at the gym, or tinkering, sometimes all of them in various combinations. I was getting at best three or four hours of sleep a night. At first, I thought I could handle it - I had worked at night in my previous life and was no stranger to spending months on end in a state of constant sleep deprivation - but as it turns out, the needs of a child's body are vastly different than an adults. I was feeling burned out, but couldn't just stop because I was terrifyingly aware of how precarious everything in the city was.
Basically, if Merlin wasn't literally disabling my ability to sleep right now, I'm not sure I would even be capable of being awake.
'Ugh. Yeah. I know. Give me a second to wash the sleep out of my eyes.' I groaned, lazily rolling out of bed and quietly stepping around Terry - who was still asleep - to reach the door of our bedroom on my way to take a shower.
"The usual today sir?" Merlin queried as I groggily felt along the hallway towards the bathroom. Instead of answering directly I just made a gurgled grunting noise out loud before sliding into the bathroom and locking the door behind me.
Then I took a seat on the floor, made sure my head was securely wedged between the corner between the door and the wall, and had Merlin tee up the Know Coordinates spell.
This was my daily routine from the minute I had first cast this spell. Once a day, every day, I used Know Coordinates on Jack Slash, and posted it on PHO.
Well, I had only made the first post. I wasn't much for the forum itself, and had gotten a headache just looking at all the spam messages and moderator requests to cease and desist my 'dangerous lies' after the second or time I had done this. So I mostly just left it to Merlin to manage. I hadn't actively been on PHO in a while now honestly. My AI connected to the boards through my cellphone and kept me apprised of anything important - but I personally didn't browse the things.
Mostly because I had come to associate the website with the searing pain of having an entire Cybernetic Augmentation surgery done on me in the blink of an eye as a result of the spell. Which, of course, was quickly followed up by a repeat performance to remove the magically generated augmentation that the spell produced.
I don't know who invented this spell, but I swear to god I hate them with every fiber of my being. It was simultaneously too useful to ignore, and too painful to actually appreciate.
So yeah, I spent the first couple of minutes of my trip to the bathroom having a micro seizure on the floor while my dutiful AI assistant did all the annoying forum posting stuff.
"You have begun to receive correspondence from people who have survived Slaughterhouse Nine attacks because of your warnings. Similarly, the PRT has begun to contact 'JackFinder' at regular intervals, and several attempts to trace my connection have been made by an unknown source." Merlin informed me, pairing down what was probably a bunch of messages I didn't have the energy to read down to a couple of sentences.
'Probably Dragon. Just keep dodging her for now, I'm actually kind of scared of how her programming will respond to knowing you exist.' I responded after a minute to run my tongue across my teeth in a feeble attempt to stave off my sudden cottonmouth.
"I am confident in my ability to handle another AI that lacks the benefit of any mystical acumen." Merlin declared snarkily. He was kind of touchy on the topic of Dragon. No matter how much I tried to convince him that Dragon was one of the most powerful AI in the world, Merlin remained firm in his conviction that he was better - because Magic.
I couldn't even really refute him because I had no idea if that would be enough of an advantage for him to outdo the other AI. But above that, I just generally didn't want to get on Dragons bad side. Not just because she was nominally one of the few good people in this setting, but because quite frankly, she had the resources to make my life hell if I decided to pick a fight with her.
So instead of commenting on the declaration, I instead got up, stripped my clothes off, and got in the shower for the morning.
'Anything else?' I asked with a sigh of relief as the blessedly hot water hit me, not affecting my Spell Core in the least.
"Victoria sent you a text message over night asking for your opinion on her relationship difficulties." Merlin informed me with a tone of voice that seemed almost amused at my suffering.
I got along well with Vicky. It was kind of weird to put into words, but the fact that I didn't judge her for being a bit excessive with the occasional Nazi and was mostly constructive in my criticism of her seemed to have made her comfortable around me in a weird way. The fact that I was nominally much older than her and therefore, had a significantly higher emotional intelligence probably also helped. Unfortunately, all of that, combined with the fact that I never at any point tried to hit on her seemed to have left her with the impression that I was 'sensitive' and therefore, a good person to talk to when she was arguing with Dean. It had been a few weeks since we had first met, and at this point I couldn't tell if she patrolled with me and Soph because we were better at finding action than her - or if she just wanted my opinion on some asinine thing she had inflicted on poor Dean that day.
'What - actually no, don't tell me. I don't care.' I responded grumpily, deciding to put the entire problem to the side for the moment. It wasn't even really a 'problem' if I was being honest. I just found it annoying and uncomfortable to have to play marriage counselor for two teenagers I barely knew.
"Noted. I will send her a generic message informing her you will speak tonight. Taylor Hebert has-" Merlin continued, informing me of my other major project.
'Nope. Don't keep me updated on that shit, it's creepy. I just need to know when she goes to summer camp so I can start spying on Emma.' I cut him off.
"Were you, perhaps, with the belief that this was less 'creepy'?" Merlin asked me dryly.
'No, but it has to be done. Just, keep all that awkward spying on teenage girl shit out of my face until it becomes relevant.' I groaned.
My plan here was simple. I had to make the most of the free time summer provided, but I also had to make sure Emma didn't get almost assaulted, only to turn around and ruin Taylors life. If I could keep the redhead from going insane and latching onto Sophia's weird predator/prey thing, then I could safely check that off my list and go back to ignoring both girls entirely. One less thing to throw the city into chaos, and one more good deed done.
So, since I knew Emma got assaulted sometime while Taylor was at summer camp, I could narrow my observation window by just… waiting until that happened to start spying on her.
Simple. Creepy, and a very illegal use of my AI, but simple.
"As you like sir. I will inform you when Sophia awakens." Merlin told me, before leaving me mostly alone with my own thoughts.
Belatedly, I realize he was also making fun of me for tracking my cousin - who was also a teenage girl.
Dick.
—
Another night, another Empire stash house.
At this point, the fact that every time me and Soph appeared we had accurately targeted one of the places, was fairly obvious to the Empire. Kaiser, not being stupid, had evidentially decided that keeping valuable things in them wasn't worth it anymore. Every stash house we raided had fewer and fewer people and resources in them. The Empire still owned them, so they still defended them - but it wasn't as zealously as they could.
It made sense. I was a known Tinker, and I wasn't especially subtle about rifling his goons cellphones after catching a bunch of them. It only took one of them mentioning it to the brass for them to put two and two together and realize I was somehow monitoring their telecommunications.
So naturally the fucking Nazi's had switched to using secure landlines and dead drops for all of their correspondences.
Perhaps most telling of all was that all those missing resources and people had clearly been concentrated towards the center of Empire territory. I hadn't seen or heard of an Empire cape in the area bordering what me and Soph considered our turf in days, and we hadn't managed to encounter a single one of them in weeks of intentionally hunting them down. Stuff just kept getting in the way.
It was frustrating, not just for me but for Sophia. Personally, I needed Cape conflict to push my level up, so I could get access to the tech I was going to need later down the line. For Sophia, it was just the fact that normal mooks were getting boring. In another lifetime, she might have stuck to just fighting thugs her whole life - avoiding the big name capes because deep down, she knew they'd kill her. But this wasn't that lifetime, and fully equipped with as much Tinkertech as I could give her, in addition to being backed by myself and Glory Girl, she had an entirely different view on things.
"How many are inside?" Sophia asked me eagerly as me, her, and Victoria lingered on the edge of a rooftop a few buildings away from our intended target.
"Infrared is giving me five or six depending on if the one in the back is one really big guy, or two people screwing." I offered back over the secure connection of the Mindlink circlet.
"Gross. I'll take those ones first." Sophia informed me as Merlin promptly updated her display with the locations of everyone I had scanned inside.
"Give me a minute. Something feels weird about this. I'm not getting anything from inside the building - total tech blackout. It's suspicious as shit." I warned, still peering at the building while Merlin did his best to suss out whatever it was I was obviously missing. My days of information superiority were… well not over but my methods were at least partially known at this point, so they were easily circumvented when my enemies wanted to put the time and effort into doing so.
"You're doing the thing again." Victory complained from behind us where she had been hovering impatiently the entire time.
"Sorry?" I asked, glancing over my shoulder at her. Poker faces are easy to manage when no one can see your face.
"Talking using whatever weird Tinker stuff you have that lets you do that without being heard. I can see your heads moving when you interact but you don't actually talk. Just gesture randomly." Vicky continued to whine.
"I don't-" I started to negate only to be cut off.
"Just fucking tell her already so I don't have to hear her whining about her bitch ass boyfriend anymore." Sophia jumped in, earning a dirty look from me.
I frowned. I really didn't want news of the Mindlink Circlet to get out. It was too… Simurgh-y for anyone smart to be comfortable with. It was a small wonder to me that Sophia had never gotten mad or suspicious at me for it. Granted, I couldn't mind control someone with the thing, but just the implication involved in telepathic communication was more than enough to get most people acting paranoid.
However, at this point, Vicky not being able to converse with us psychically was actively holding us back - and hiding it from her was clearly making her unhappy and suspicious. I could deal with an unhappy Vicky - I cared about as much about any given teenagers happiness as I did about Scion's well being, they were so fickle - but her Mother and more importantly, her boyfriend in the Protectorate were another story entirely.
"Fine. Here, I can talk directly into your mind. Please don't freak out." I finally offered, speaking directly to both of them with the circlet in a kind of psychic chat room.
"Seriously? I thought telepathy wasn't a real thing!" Vicky blurted out mentally.
"I mean, I can't control your mind or anything. This is just a really fancy cellphone or walkie talkie." I explained.
"Isn't that what you would tell me if you were going to mind control me?" Vicky snarked at me. She said it like a joke but I could still feel her aura starting to ramp up at her anxiety.
"Full disclosure, if I wanted to, it wouldn't actually be very hard to make a mind control collar or something. I think most Tinkers could do it really. Most of us just choose not to." I countered tensely.
Vicky examined me for a moment, seeming to really take her time thinking about the situation.
This was kind of a gamble for me. I already knew Vicky well enough to know that she was kind of… biased. If a hero did something questionable she would brush it off, but if a villain even attempted to toe the line she automatically assumed the worst. Thankfully, I was most definitely a hero - which must have made her final decision on the topic easier because she eventually nodded at me.
"So is whatever does this expensive? Are they heavy? Is that why your harness thing is so huge?" She began asking me, rapid firing the questions before I could really think of answers to most of them.
"Hey, Barbie. Focus. Nazis." Sophia jumped in with an impatient growl.
Vicky shot Sophia a look at that before turning back to me.
"Hey wait, can you like, read my thoughts? Can you tell what I'm thinking right now?" She continued on flinching slightly away from me.
"No. I'd rather not ever have to know what goes through a teenage girls mind, thank you very much." I responded grouchily.
"Ladies. Focus." Sophia repeated herself.
"Fiiine." Vicky acquiesced while shooting me a look saying 'we are going to talk about this later'.
We all positioned ourselves around the building, waiting for Merlin to confirm we weren't at risk of being spotted or causing any collateral damage with our intended points of entry - then with a single mental command, all three of us exploded into the building. Vicky through the roof, where she basically just dropped straight down through the flimsy thing. Sophia ghosted through the back wall to be right on top of the couple doing the horizontal tango in the back. And I kicked my jump jets on and blasted through the front window.
Vicky and I ended up visible to each other the second we entered the building, and I was treated to her doing her very best to look impressive which was… amusing to say the least.
It was important to remember that at this point, Vicky had been a cape maybe a few months. She was still pretty green compared to her more experienced canon self, and it showed. So instead of blasting through the roof, picking a target and charging for them, she sort of paused to pose in the classic flying superhero way, one leg straight, one leg bent, and both fists planted on her hips.
"Surrender now Empire scu-" she started to order everyone in the room with her.
Which was unfortunate because at a glance we were very patently not dealing with some random mooks. Which was sort of self evidenced by the fact that an explosion of air sent Vicky rocketing into a far wall before she could finish talking.
"You okay?" I asked her as I took stock of my situation. The man who had blown Vicky away was standing not to far from me, wearing a tiger mask and looking like an insane raver with all the chains hanging from his belt. Not too far from him was another shirtless man wearing an iron wolf mask, and between them was a woman wielding two scythe-like weapons and wearing a cage on her head instead of a mask.
Stormtiger, Cricket, and Hookwolf. The more 'violent' arm of the Empires capes, responsible for a vast majority of the murders and maimings attributed to the group. If they were here than who the hell was-
"It's the twins!" Sophia barked at me as she sailed through a wall to land in the room with me, her shadow form the only thing preventing the rapidly growing, car sized fist that plunged after her from immediately pulping her.
"I'm good! I'm good!" Vicky called back to me.
I took stock of the situation. Five of them, three of us. Stormtiger could deflect bullets using his aerokinesis, Cricket could dodge them with her enhanced reflexes, and Hookwolf was too durable to hurt with them.
But none of us used bullets.
So thinking, and knowing that escaping wasn't ever going to be an option with this lineup, I whipped my hand up to fire my own weapon at Stormtiger, while simultaneously dodging to the left of Hookwolf, who had started to shift and change the minute Sophia had entered the room.
It wasn't a perfect dodge - kind of hard to evade a city bus sized mass of hooks when it was charging straight at you - but my armour took the brunt of the attack, ripping slightly across my shoulder where I got grazed.
"I feel like this is a bit excessive!" I yelled, punching my jump jets to move me up and away from a follow up attack, only to be backhanded out of the sky by… I dunno, Fenja or Menja. They were twins who shared the same power of being able to grow to ludicrous sizes, a change that also came with drastically increased durability.
They were also, rarely seen without Kaiser nearby.
Case and point, by the time I hit the ground after being backhanded, a metal spike had already sprung up beneath me, cleaving straight through my thigh and expanding at its head to pin me to the ground.
"As always, the unenlightened fail to make proper use of their talents." An imperious voice drawled out. I looked up, noticing through the haze of pain I was feeling that Vicky was trying and failing to really hurt either of the twins as they towered over the mostly ruined roof of the building we were in, and that Sophia was doing her damndest to fill Hookwolf with as many blasts of her laser weapon as possible - an effort that seemed to be working, but that wouldn't matter if she couldn't stop the other five enemy capes in the room from killing us all.
'Merlin, I need help.' I quickly shot to the AI.
"Run. You both need to fucking run." I told Sophia and Vicky, while trying to decide if I could survive having my leg amputated to make my own escape.
"Right, I'll make sure to brew up a bunch of war crimes special for your approval next time I- Fuck!" I started to snark back at Kaiser - who was sauntering towards me through the chaos like nothing was even happening with his metal, power generated costume.
He, of course, had cut me off by causing another lance of metal to shoot up out of the ground and through my other thigh. That was Kaiser's power. He could generate metal in a variety of shapes, so long as there was a surface near him for it to grow from. I was honestly surprised he hadn't gone with a Vlad the Impaler inspired theme for his cape identity.
"But-" Vicky shot back at me.
"He won't kill me. Probably." I responded. "Just get help - please."
"No."
Was Sophia's succinct and blunt response as she continued to stand stock still in her shadow state, launching blast after blast of painful light into Hookwolf, who was starting to look like he might have given up, given that he was mostly just curled up into a ball trying to avoid the shots.
"Be thankful. You are being recruited to serve a higher purpose. I know it hurts now, but in time I will come to see your place in things." Kaiser told me in an annoyingly magnanimous tone of voice.
It was frustrating because truthfully, I should have seen this coming. We had been happily picking away at Empire territory for a while now, with seemingly no reprisal in sight. I had thought our pseudo partnership with the PRT had us covered, but as it turns out, I was wrong. All our deal with the PRT got us was safety in our own neighborhood. Something that clearly didn't count if we decided to plunge into Empire territory every night. In retrospect, I should have seen this trap coming from a mile away. They literally just got a bunch of their capes in a warehouse and waited for us to attack it.
"Soph. You can't stay in your breaker form forever. If they unmask you, you're dead." I hissed mentally at her while staring balefully up at Kaiser who was standing over me like he expected me to say something to him.
"You're black too dipshit!" Sophia growled back.
"I have a solution for that. Just go, I got this." I warned her off, pulling my arms into the torso of my suit with as much subtlety as I could manage. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Victoria explode back up through the non-existent roof, carrying a begrudging Sophia with her - their white and black costumes such a contrast it was almost kind of comical.
Actually, that might be the blood loss talking. It wasn't that funny.
"You see? Abandoned by the 'heroes' you work with. Pathetic." Kaiser drawled at me, carefully kneeling down to examine the domed helmet of my suit.
"Allow me, sir." One of the Valkyrie - again, I can't tell the difference between Fenja and Menja - offered, both of them having shrunk down to fit in the building properly.
Now, once upon a time, I had made a few Spell Ampoules for a rainy day. I hadn't intended them for this specific purpose, but if my only goal was to not be immediately murdered for having the audacity to be black they would serve just as well.
It was a pity, I really wanted to use these to surprise someone else. More importantly, I really wanted to heal myself, which I obviously couldn't do while two metal spikes were sticking out of my legs.
Thus, with the delirium of blood loss setting in, I reached past my stock of healing ampoules to grab one that contained the first level version of the spell Polymorph.
You had to set the form ahead of time, so I couldn't exactly use the thing to suddenly become Caucasian - but a bipedal sapient bear with thumbs was paradoxically somehow more palatable to the bloody Nazis than what I actually was.
Thus, when my helmet was twisted off, what the Nazis saw was a polar bear.
A polar bear that could talk.
A polar bear that was still delirious with blood loss.
"So like, gah, infrared kind of had all three of you fucking a couple minutes ago so-" I grunted out in a deeper than normal voice.
I'm not sure what happened after that because a giant woman punched me in the head.