"JackFinder updated?"
"Yes, sir."
"Taylor at Summer Camp yet?"
"No, sir."
"Should we maybe check back home? I can't remember if we blocked the door back up and-" I asked Sophia, turning to her on the bus we were on while referring to the Fish Packaging plant we had set most of our stuff up in.
"It's fine. I did it." Sophia groused at me. She and I were dressed pretty much the exact same - slightly loose jeans and a t-shirt, mine orange and hers black. We each had our backpacks sitting in our laps as we rode the bus to our destination, and Sophia was lazily browsing something on her cellphone while occasionally glancing up to see if our stop was coming up.
I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she was so relaxed right now. I, personally, was feeling seven different kinds of anxious. I mean, I was fourth level now, so that alone created an entire laundry list of things I had to get done. I had no armor, no weapon, and I urgently needed to upgrade my spell core to accommodate all the second level spells I had access to now. Also I had to program a bunch of second level spells.
And that was without even getting into smoothing over any feathers Merlin had ruffled by effectively hacking all the Wards phones, or from ignoring Piggot's obvious desire to contact me, or figuring out what to do about the Empire now that they had escalated against me.
Which was also ignoring all the canon shit I was trying to subvert or avoid.
All in all, I felt like I was walking into a final exam I hadn't studied for while naked and desperately in need of a toilet.
I'd have thought Sophia would be nearly as bad since we were taking a day off from her favourite form of stress relief, but she seemed totally at ease with herself. If she was irritated or out off at all it was only because she didn't expect to actually enjoy her day and was just humouring Vicky.
I wanted to shake her and demand to know who she was and what she had done with my murder hobo of a cousin, but couldn't because I wasn't wearing my Mindlink Circlet - it being entirely too obvious in my civilian identity. Not a lot of teenage boys wearing tiaras in the bay area, it seemed.
"Your heart rate is elevating, sir." Merlin 'helpfully' informed me.
"This was a mistake. I have way too much to do to waste a day mindlessly following Vicky around the mall." I told him, already searching for a way to call of our meeting today so I could change course and head to the hideout.
"I am in the process of planning the required upgrades to the Spell Core and our Spell Library. I assure you that any excessive use of the core in your own crafting process would only slow that down. This is the most efficient way to proceed." Merlin explained, making me squint as I considered his statement.
"Can you even be distracted? That doesn't seem-" I started to reason, wracking my brain for the specifics of the AI's construction and limitations and finding myself surprisingly coming up with a big question mark.
Which made sense I guess. As much as Merlins existence was allowed by the rules of the game my powers drew from, I had to admit that the specifics of how he worked were not. In theory it made sense, but I was increasingly beginning to think my power might have filled in the gaps in his design that I hadn't consciously been thinking of or accounting for. I don't think I've ever experienced a genuine tinker fugue before but then again, would I have noticed if I had?
"Perhaps you should converse with your cousin - she seems bored," Merlin cut in, derailing my train of thought before adding, "sir." To the end of his statement.
"What are you, my Mom? 'Get along with your cousin dear'." I grumbled irritably at him.
"I assure you sir, if your Mother could perceive half the things you think and dream about - she would disown you." Was the Ai's snarky response.
"Hey! I'm fourteen, I have hormones!" I snapped back at him before sighing and finally turning my gaze back to Sophia.
"So… sup?" I asked lamely.
Let it be known that I am many things - but a Bard I am not. I didn't really have a character sheet or stats or a menu or anything game-y like that, but if I did, Charisma would be my dump stat.
"Empire is catching shit for failing to kidnap that new Tinker. Glory Girl won't shut up about it." She responded to me in a distracted tone, turning her phone towards me to display the PHO thread in question where Victoria was indeed airing the Empire's dirty laundry. A bunch of Empire chumps were arguing the point - citing my original PRT designation as a torture tinker as an excuse - which had led to someone letting slip that I was apparently a Case 53. The entire thing was a clusterfuck, and all it served to do was to remind me of how badly I had fucked up.
Looking past the phone to Sophia, it dawned on me that she wasn't distracted by her phone. She was distracted by a boy a bit older than us who had gotten on the bus a few stops back and was standing with his back to us not far away.
Which is when it clicked for me.
Sophia wasn't distressed by this because, psycho killer tendencies aside, she was still a teenage girl with all that entailed. She might not hold a particularly great interest in fashion or clothes, but that didn't mean she was completely disinterested in people thinking she looked good. She might not like chatting about boys, but that didn't mean she didn't like boys.
"Pants are a bit tight for my tastes." I muttered to her dryly, causing her to turn to glare at me for calling her out - before going right back to staring at the guys ass five feet away.
"Shut up. This is why you're single." She said in a more conversational tone than I was expecting.
"I'm single because I have absolutely zero interest in dating in the first place. Also, you once kidney punched a girl who tried to sit with us at lunch - the message was pretty clear." I drawled, leaning back in my seat and fiddling with my backpack to try and burn some of my nervous energy.
I could do this. I could spend my day doing nothing productive. The situation was even kind of familiar for me. I was an old hand at being 'the one guy' in a group of women. It wasn't all that difficult, even if it was kind of predictable. Women talked about pretty much all the same things men did anyway - contrary to what you might expect, at least. Then again, that was adult women - I had no idea what a bunch of teenagers would get up to.
"I wanted to talk about our hobby - she was in the way." Soph declared without an ounce of shame in her voice.
"You know you wouldn't be single if you would just stop being such an unholy bitch to everyone at school." I pointed out.
"If I wanted a boyfriend I'd have one." Was her blunt response to that.
So, not that different from me I guess. Romance, it seemed, just wasn't in the cards for our family.
We continued on in that vein for a bit longer, mostly just lightly bullying each other for being maladjusted unpleasant people, when the bus finally made it to our stop.
And you know, it was oddly comfortable. Not enough to totally reduce my anxiety, but enough that when we disembarked at the Brockton Central Mall I was no longer trying to find ways to run home.
Brockton Central Mall was a weird place, at least as far as malls went. A city the size of Brockton should really have a few malls in it, but it for some reason just didn't. Instead, it just had Brockton Central. Perhaps because of that, the Mall was positively sprawling, taking up multiple blocks of the commercial area in downtown Brockton. I was a little uncomfortable with how close the PRT Headquarters downtown was to the building, but given how big it was, it was kind of close to everything downtown so that might just be me being paranoid.
Sophia and I got into the building, and I checked the time. We were supposed to meet at noon, and it was now twelve fifteen, making us very slightly late. We also hadn't really set a designated meeting place - since we all had cell phones, and could easily just phone the other when we arrived.
"Amy and Victoria Dallon are presently on the second floor of the food court - they are eating ice cream and complaining about-" Merlin began to update me.
"Merlin man, I know I didn't really limit you, but come on with the invasion of privacy. People are gonna start to thing I'm weird." I sighed, swatting Sophia on the shoulder and jerking a thumb in the direction we had to go.
"I had assumed that was only with regards to unrelated civilians. I am always tracking your teammates." The AI responded, sounding vaguely offended.
"Al- oh god, please stop doing that. Please. That is so illegal. And wait, Vicky isn't my teammate, I don't have a team!" I fired back.
"I am aware that she is currently affiliated with New Wave, but statistically, almost all of her current record for capturing criminals is with your assistance." Merlin explained.
I blinked, having not considered that.
"Still!" I countered petulantly.
"I will endeavour not to burden you with the knowledge then, sir." Merlin answered me with an amused tone in his voice.
I noticed that he hadn't said he'd stop either.
—
"Yo, Vicky!" I called to the blond as we honed in on where she was sitting with a droopy looking brown haired girl I was choosing to assume was Amy.
Vicky was dressed in a pair of jean shorts and a cream blouse that I'm sure cost nearly as much as any single piece of my Tinkertech, and had a blue purse slung over one shoulder that she was delicately keeping from swinging into the bowl of ice cream in front of her with the ease of long practice. So, about what I expected.
Amy, however, looked… I dunno, 'droopy' was just the best way I could describe her. She didn't have her powers yet, so she wasn't sleep deprived like she's usually portrayed, but she still had this look of quiet desperation about her that I was surprised no one else seemed to notice. She had a more angular face than I was expecting, not especially ugly or anything, just more severe than most people would care for, and her hair was cut in a short bob that almost perfectly mirrored Vicky's except for where her much more visibly curly hair added a messy look to it. She was wearing a dark blue long sleeve shirt that I noticed matched the colour of Vicky's purse, and loose jeans that almost completely hid her figure - as opposed to Vicky who's clothing looked like a team of specialists had sized it for her.
She was also staring at me with one eyebrow raised and a sour look on her face.
"Hey John, Soph. Told you they'd come Ames." Vicky greeted us as we approached, waving boisterously before shooting a smug grin at her sister.
"You have to admit meeting your 'online' friends in 'real life' isn't all that common Vicky." Amy noted dryly, continuing to examine me and Sophia in turn for a moment before turning back to her own ice cream with a disinterested snort.
"Hey, lots of people meet online nowadays. I hear online dating is even starting to take off. Maybe you should-" Vicky countered.
"Absolutely not." Amy replied succinctly.
"Uh… Hi I'm John?" I tried, having not introduced myself or actually been given Amy's name. I mean, I knew it, and everyone at the table as we sat down with the girls had to know I knew it, but it still felt weird acting like I knew her without even introducing myself.
"Amy. You've met my sister. I assume that's-"
"Sophia. Who shit in your breakfast this morning?" Sophia cut in to introduce herself, bluntly calling Amy out even though she herself was regularly much more of a bitch than this.
"I'm sorry?" Amy asked, jerking away from her in surprise at the blunt question.
"Your sister invited us, not the other way around. Quit acting like we're intruding or some shit." Sophia responded bluntly.
Amy spluttered something incomprehensible at that, before turning to Vicky for support - who just sort of shrugged and shot a weak smile at her.
"I told you she was kind of hard to get along with." Was Vicky's only real explanation.
"Honestly, I think it's kind of nice to know that everyone has a Sophia somewhere in the family tree." I added with a snort when Amy and Sophia both chose that moment to shoot me unimpressed looks.
"So!" I clapped, deciding to end the conversation where it was before they could dogpile me. "I notice you've been keeping the aura down lately Vicky." I put forth by way of a change of topic.
"Well yeah, you told me to so I did. Feels uncomfortable though, like holding in a-" She paused, blushing slightly. "Anyway yeah, you said it would be bad if I didn't, so I'm doing it."
"Bad how? And that was you who told her to do that?" Amy asked leaning forward to stare at me with a piercing glare that I took to mean she was less than happy with the situation.
"Uh…" I paused, glancing around the food court we were sitting in to see if anyone was close enough to listen in.
"It's cool, way too loud in here to listen to specific conversations. I come here with Dean all the time." Vicky explained, twirling her finger in the air and completely ignoring the fact that she had kind of low key just outed Dean to me.
"Well, you know that I'm… you know, right?" I asked carefully, trying to structure my statement to be vague.
"A seven foot tall polar bear? No, I'm not really seeing it." Was Amy's acerbic response.
"Ha, ha. That was a one time thing - I've got too much melanin to survive being kidnapped by the Empire otherwise. Anyway, you know I've got a Thinker thing going on so…" I answered with a shrug, already kind of uncomfortable with how much I had already said.
"That doesn't explain why she has to hold her aura in all the time. You heard her, its uncomfortable!" Amy hissed at me, making me feel like I was being interrogated.
"It's addictive." Was my counter argument. I wouldn't have been so blunt about it, and as a point of fact, I wasn't even sure that the statement was true given how hotly the point was debated before I ended up in this hellscape, but it was as good a reason as any to get Vicky to control herself better - and Amy was starting to annoy me.
"…what?" Amy asked incredulously, leaning away to switch her gaze to Vicky who was smiling sheepishly at her.
"It's addictive. It exacerbates mental illnesses in people overexposed to it, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I'm sure you wouldn't want to be addicted to your own sister." I explained fully, laying my cards out on the table and noting the way Amy twitched at the last part of my explanation.
"It's not really that bad. I'm just not used to it." Vicky added in.
"Anyone ever tell you your powers suck Barbie?" Sophia kicked in lazily. Again, Amy took great offence to the insult, but Vicky - who had been receiving mild abuse like this from my cousin for almost the entire time they'd known each other - just sort of rolled her eyes at the dig.
"You're right. Being indestructible, strong, fast, flight capable and hot as hell are totally crap superpowers." She exclaimed sarcastically.
"I mean-" I opened my mouth to comment only to earn a look from Vicky that said 'don't start', so I quickly changed what I was about to say.
"Ah, ehem. I mean, what's the plan anyway? I kinda need to hit a bunch of the hardware and electronics places so maybe we can split up and-"
"Oh, you're not getting out of this that easily. If we let you split off from us your just going to buy what you need and hide somewhere until the day is over, aren't you?" Vicky interrupted me shrewdly.
"I mean, I wasn't, I just figured that you wouldn't be that interested in watching me puzzle over spools of wire for hours." I retorted. Literally everyone at the table scrunched their noses up in displeasure at the idea, which I chalked up as a win until Vicky spoke again.
"Well we are going to the clothing outlets, and that includes you mister jeans and a t-shirt. We can hit the hardware places last, so that the rest of us have stuff to do while you nerd out." She asserted brightly.
I glanced down at myself, then back up again.
"I don't see the problem with jeans and a t-shirt?" I offered lamely.
"John you're built like you were born lifting weights but no one would ever know because everything you wear is fitted like a potato sack. You need new clothes." Vicky explained as though I was a five year old, putting one elbow on the table and dropping her chin into her open palm while eyeing me calculatively.
Again, I looked down at myself. There was a limited amount of muscle one could put on in the months I'd been in the city - but admittedly, the fact that I had been effectively exercising like my life depended on it - because it did - was starting to show. I was still somewhat lanky, but I was definitely starting to fill out in a way that would probably make me look like a linebacker for a football team if I kept at it.
"I feel like the baggy clothes help with my secret identity?" I tried again.
"Here we see a specimen of the dumber sex, desperately trying to stave off the inevitable. Just let it go - she's like a dog with a bone when it comes to this kind of thing." Amy snarked at me, miming the voice over from a national geographic film before flatly telling me I was fucked.
"Soph, help me out here. Spending money on clothes sucks." I complained, appealing to practicality as I asked my cousin for help.
"Quit being a bitch, we can afford it. Suck it up." was her terse answer, crossing her arms in front of her chest and leaning back to smugly observe from the sidelines. She was referring, of course, to all the stolen Empire money we had laying around which - while yes we had enough to live comfortably if we wanted to - wasn't nearly enough to afford half the supplies I wanted.
...aaand I guess some clothing wasn't going to significantly reduce that fund. I just hate spending money on clothing out of principle.
"See? Sophia isn't complaining about her makeover." Vicky needled me.
"My what?" my cousin asked belatedly, sitting up from her seat.
"Ah, I see our interests align all of a sudden, dear cousin." I sniped at her, causing her eyes to narrow slightly as Amy snickered at the both of us. I guess she must have had to put up with this kind of a thing a lot, so she was just enjoying it being someone else's problem for once.
Me and Sophia locked eyes for a minute, with me smiling my own smug smile of victory at her - which, in retrospect, was a mistake, because she turned to Vicky and pointed a finger at me.
"He goes first." She spat at the blond, whose smile just grew wider at the response.
God damnit.
Four hours later, and I still had not managed to get permission from the group to go to a bloody hardware or electronics store. The best I had been able to manage was to sneak off to a couple of them if they happened to be near the clothing place the girls were in, since a lot of the locations Vicky was taking us to were gender specific and therefore, had nothing I could possibly try on. Despite being forced in and out of what felt like dozens of different outfits, I had purchased approximately two. Even more annoying, they weren't even different from what I was already wearing. It was literally two pairs of jeans and two t-shirts - they just fit slightly better than what I was already wearing. I'd have screamed at how much of a waste of money it was, but they weren't even that expensive. I guess that for all that Vicky came across as kind of insensitive, she was capable of deducing that me and Soph weren't exactly 'well off'.
Honestly, Vicky was a really good friend, just in a general sense. Once I had managed to get past the aura thing annoying me, and set all of what I knew about her from canon aside, she was just a normal friendly girl. It made me feel almost kind of bad for the trauma conga line in her potential future - you know, if I didn't exist.
"Here." Amy said with a tired sigh as she exited the store the other three members of my party were in to drop another bag next to where I was sitting on the bench. Despite Vicky having literal superstrength, which would make the task of carrying everyone's purchases entirely trivial, she reasoned that I should be the one carrying everything. Why you may ask? Well that was simple enough. When she wasn't in costume, Vicky wasn't especially noticeable. Sure she was an above average looking teenage girl - but that was it. In a city with literal Nazis in it, the number of blond women running around was unreasonably high. So as long as she didn't do anything obviously super while meandering about the mall, no one really recognized her as New Waves Glory Girl.
Or so the logic went. I wasn't sure I believed it fully, but we hadn't been bothered by anyone so far, so it was hard to argue the point.
"Are you guys gonna be done in there soon or…?" I asked, trailing off with Amy made an amused face at me.
"I dunno, Vicky just noticed Sophia has abs, so now she's making her try on a bunch of tops that show off her stomach. You don't actually have to stick around you know - I can tell you're bored." She offered me tentatively, eyeing the bench I was sitting on and gingerly moving some of the bags I had stowed there out of the way so she could take a seat.
"Not much for shopping either, I take it?" I asked dryly. It was an assumption I could have already made based on how frequently Amelia Dallon showed up in fanfiction, but I had to remind myself that she was an actual person and that I should limit how much I allowed that information to influence how I treated her. Besides, she didn't even have her powers yet - she wasn't the unholy terror I was accustomed to her being, which meant now pretty much the best possible time to get to know her.
"Oh, you guessed that did you? What gave it away? Was it the frowning? I bet it was the frowning. Brilliant work sherlock." She drawled at me.
"Did I like, offend you at some point without noticing? I feel like you don't like me." I asked, causing her to stiffen slightly at the question.
"I don't. I just don't know you - and you spend half your time around my sister. She went from finding a mook here and there to raiding deep into Empire turf with you and your cousin and I worry about her. She's not as indestructible as she thinks." was the brunette's response.
I blinked stupidly at her. I had been assuming her irritation and obvious distaste for me was based on well… interrupting her date with her sister basically. I hadn't considered that there might be actual concerns involved.
"...Oh." I responded lamely.
"But," She continued after a moment to examine me, "you aren't really what I was imagining when she described you either. So I dunno anymore."
"How exactly does Vicky describe me?" I asked curiously.
"She thinks you have a stick so far up your ass that she suspects you might be Armsmasters illegitimate child, but that you're surprisingly understanding and caring for a guy who operates with all the drive and fury of a Terminator." Amy said. I assumed she was paraphrasing and that Vicky didn't phrase it exactly like that. Hopefully, anyway. Still, that… made a certain amount of sense. I had all the emotional intelligence of a well adjusted adult, so obviously I would seem more responsible and empathetic than an actual teenager should be.
"Huh. And what does the great Amy Dallon think of me?" I queried.
"You're a pushover and a dork." Was her succinct response.
I blinked stupidly at her again.
"Uh?" I intoned in a wordless request for elaboration.
"Vicky's my sister. We're family so I love her, and I obviously live with her, so I don't really have an excuse to avoid these little outings - but you obviously do. Even if she was pestering you about it, she would have let it go if you just refused to do all of this." Amy explained patiently, gesturing around us at all the bags I was hauling around for everyone.
"I mean, it'd be rude to get invited to hang out and then not hang out so…" I offered.
"Exactly. You're a pushover. Big bad torture tinker can't say no when someone makes a request. It makes it hard to believe your making my sister help you out and not just tolerating her following you around." Amy finished dejectedly.
"That… I mean that is basically what happened, but I still object to being called a pushover." I protested weakly.
"Throw this out for me?" She asked me suddenly, passing an empty cup of coffee she had been nursing for most of our trip to me so I could throw it out in one of the garbage bins that were next to each of the benchs in the mall.
I took it without thinking about it, stood up, and then paused as I realized that the garbage bin was actually on Amy's side of the bench, and that she could have thrown it out without having to get up - which I obviously did.
I looked down at the cup, then at Amy, who was just looking at me with one eyebrow raised before begrudgingly sitting back down and passing the cup back to her.
"That doesn't count." I argued. "I just wasn't thinking."
"So your automatic response - what you default to without thought - is doing what you're asked?" She asked me pointedly.
"I'm sorry how- how old are you? Do you have a degree in this crap? I feel like I'm being psychoanalyzed. Or bullied. Possibly both." I groaned as she took the cup from me and tossed it out.
"You'd be amazed how much people watching I get to do as the only person in my family without powers. We go to a lot of photoshoots and fundraisers, and I mostly just hang around backstage while everyone else is taking pictures and schmoozing." Amy explained bitterly.
I opened my mouth to say something, stopped and thought better of it, then closed my mouth again.
"If you could have any power, what would it be?" I asked instead of what I was previously going to say.
"Flight." Was Amy's instantaneous response.
"Really? Not like, superstrength? Be bulletproof?" I asked, not altogether surprised, and Amy blushed slightly.
"Flying is better. Sometimes Vicky takes me up and we just drift for a while. It's… amazing." She said wistfully.
I was honestly getting a lot of mixed signals from Amy. I couldn't separate the creepy obsessive love of her sister from just normally sisterly love and affection. I doubted I'd get a straight answer if I asked either - and was kind of afraid of what would happen if I pushed her on the topic.
"That's-" I started to say, only to be cut off when the sound of gunshots started to ring out in the densely packed halls of the mall.
"Shit!" I blurted instead, lurching over and dragging Amy to the ground as quickly as possible - something she clearly didn't appreciate given the glare she shot my way when we hit the ground amidst the panicked screams and yells of everyone else around us.
"Merlin buddy, what the fuck is going on right now?" I asked privately at the same time that I spoke verbally to Amy.
"We need to get to Vicky and Soph." I half yelled just to be heard over the crowd - several members of which were falling to the ground as bullets tore through them.
"No shit!" Amy hissed back at me angrily.
"A minor gang known as the Choir appears to be attacking the mall for as yet unknown reasons." Merlin offered as I glanced quickly around just in time to spot Vicky flying out of the store she had just been in quickly enough that if she hadn't been hovering over everyone present she might have seriously injured someone. She did a quick scan of the area before spotting me and Amy, then zipped down to land beside us.
"Did you bring anything good with you or is it just me and Soph on this one?!" She quickly asked me, hauling Amy up and pivoting to put herself between the oncoming gunfire and her sister.
"I'm good, get to cover!" I yelled back, before surreptitiously rolling under the bench I was on the floor next to, grabbing my backpack off the top of it, and hurriedly digging around inside for my Mindlink Circlet.
"Updates?" I asked Merlin as Vicky darted up and away, taking Amy back into the story with her, presumably to hide.
"The police department is already on route, but they will take several minutes to arrive and breach the building. I am having difficulty determining how many enemy combatants there are - but at least one Parahuman appears to be present. They are sweeping the building and heading in this direction." He provided while I slipped the circlet onto my head and fired off Junk Armor.
Have I mentioned how inadequate Junk Armor makes me feel? Like an absolute failure of a tinker.
Regardless, when I rolled back out from under the bench, I was armored up and as equipped as I was going to get.
"Stalker, Glory Girl - I'm seeing a gang called the 'Choir' and a single Parahuman attacking the mall. I don't have a way to cover this many civilians so we need to go in hard." I rattled off automatically. If there were only a few people here, or the mall was slightly less busy, I might have been able to prioritize getting the stampeding civilians to safety - but there were so many of them that I was more likely to get trampled, while directing them than I was to actually help anybody. As it was, the bubble of space being an obvious Cape earned me was already shrinking precipitously as people decided that getting close to me was probably safer than getting shot in the back or run over by the fleeing people behind them.
"There's an employee here taking people into the employee only tunnels behind the stores. I'm just gonna leave Amy with them for now then I'll catch up with you." Vicky informed me at the same time as Sophia - wearing a scarf around her head like a mask - ghosted into view next to me.
"I don't have a weapon." She told me seriously.
"Fuck. Okay, I'll play the distraction. Try and pick off anyone who won't see you coming." I offered with a grimace. Again, I could survive being shot in a suit of Junk Armor, but it wouldn't be pleasant. As it was I was starting to collect a pretty sizable collection of scars and bruises just based on the previous days events.
"If you die I'll fucking kill you." Sophia responded, holding to her shadow form as much as possible to make it harder to identify her.
"Noted." I responded, before turning to push my way through the crowd in the opposite direction everyone was running. It wasn't easy. In fact, there were several points where if I wasn't explicitly wearing armor I would have probably been seriously injured, but as it was I was able to come out the other end of the panicked mob to find nine guys with guns firing liberally into the pack.
A couple things stood out to me at that moment.
One, every single one of the guys had a gun, and every single one of them was stretched out in a firing line while they wantonly chased down people who were fleeing from them. Two, I couldn't tell who the Parahuman was - because they all seemed to have the same power. Every single one of them was adding to their barrage of gunfire with periodic sonic screams, pulses of pure sonic energy from their mouths that tore rents in store fronts and liberally detonated small objects and people who got hit.
Junk Armor could survive a lot, but it could not protect me from that.
I desperately tried not to look at or think about the reddish stains littering the area that most certainly were once people.
"Okay, who the fuck are the Chorus and why haven't I ever fucking heard of them?" I begged simultaneously over my Mindlink Circle and to Merlin - even as I turned and jumped to the side, landing inside the mouth of a dollar store as the spot I was just standing in was bombarded by a barrage of gunfire and sonic blasts.
"Minor gang out of the docks, they're like Merchants but more violent." Vicky summarized for me.
"Brockton Bay has minor gangs?" I asked incredulously, fire a burning ray with Merlin assisted accuracy at one of the mens guns that caused all the ammunition to cook, blowing the gun - and his hands - off. I was rewarded for the shot by several rounds punching into my left shoulder and chest, where I had leaned out of cover to fire.
It hurt like a bitch, but none of them had used that sonic scream on me, which made me feel like they probably couldn't use it continuously or frequently.
Which was for the fucking best. I don't know what kind of Trump bullshit empowered this pricks, but if it was completely uninhibited I'd be calling bullshit right about now. On the opposite side of the hall from me, I saw Shadow Stalker ghost out of a wall next to another one of the now eight men, turning solid just long enough to throw and elbow strike into his temple followed by a roundhouse punch that sent him stumbling to the ground. She made to reach for his gun, but was forced to enter her Breaker state again when the rest of the goons turned to fire on her - an opportunity I took advantage of by blasting another one of their weapons to pieces, disabling its wielder in the process.
We had taken out three of the nine guys already, but I was still worried. For one, I didn't even know if one of these guys was the Parahuman that gave them all powers, and for another, we had been lucky enough to avoid any direct hits from their powers so far. I wasn't sure that was a state of affairs that could last, but I'd do my best with what I had.
So thinking, I fired off a lesser used one of my zero level spells. Lesser used, mostly because Merlin had only recently programmed it for me - not because it was useless.
Dancing Lights was one of those easily abusable utilities I loved when I was playing Starfinder. The spell conjured four glowing balls of light, roughly as bright as your average flashlight. The lights had to stay within ten feet of each other, but other than that could move freely according to my - or Merlins - will. In a general sense, the point of the spell was to light an area for an intrepid adventurer to investigate.
I, however, was an asshole and a munchkin, so instead of that, I had all four lights spawn tethered to four separate goons faces - effectively blinding them.
They weren't truly incapacitated, they could still fire their weapons and scream at things, but they couldn't possibly aim properly which was the best I was going to get out of a zero level spell.
Glory Girl took that moment to arrive, zooming up the hall near the ceiling where she was less likely to be noticed.
"Lightbulb heads are blind, get the other two!" I warned her quickly, which she acknowledged by streaking down to clothesline one of the only guys who could still see, dragging him forward and away from his blind compatriots who started shooting blindly in his direction when he cried out from the hit.
I saw Shadow Stalker pop back out of the wall she was hiding in, so I decided to match her timing, sprinting from cover and blasting the last unimpaired man's firearm and hands apart. On the opposite side of the line of men from me, Shadow Stalker had disarmed her own target and was slowly choking him unconscious leaving just two able bodied thugs to go.
That was when things started to go wrong, as the two blind men screamed in frustration and screamed a deafening cry that - unlike their previous blasts, which were directed - seemed to emanate out from each of them in every direction at once. The attack was obviously less immediately destructive in an explosive sense than the directed version, but no less potent as my eardrums immediately burst and my insides began to ache furiously. My vision started to turn red as my eyeballs vibrated in their sockets, and I only had barely enough time to register Sophia safely evading the attack by going ghost before I ceased being able to see much of anything at all.
So I was blind, deaf, and severely injured.
Fun.
I felt a vibration through the soles of my feet as I stumbled backwards, disoriented, and then Vicky over the mindlink circlet.
"I got 'em!" She cheered as she presumably bludgeoned the shit out of the last two guys.
"Sick. Cool. Awesome. I'm blind and deaf. Help." I sent back, doing my best not to sound panicked even though I was absolutely panicking. I also realized belatedly that I had sort of fallen over at some point, and was now just sort of flailing at the ground in a desperate attempt to reach equilibrium with my inner ear blasted apart.
"Workshop?" Sophia demanded of me.
"I've got what's left of the healing stuff in my backpack." I bit out, though I sincerely doubted a simple Healing spell would fix me in this case. This felt distinctly like ability damage, which was an entirely different thing to fix in Starfinder rules than just normal healing.
"I am compiling an Extra Senses spell now sir." Merlin tried to encourage me, which was helpful but… not that helpful. Sure, Extra Senses would give me a blindsense that let me 'see' by sensing vibrations in an area around myself - but only temporarily, and only out to about thirty feet. The only useful thing about it was that it would probably be good enough for me to be able to rig up some robot eyes or something, which was its own entire set of problems to be dealt with.
Eventually, I felt myself being touched lightly on the shoulder, then lifted bodily into the air. Several minutes passed like that, during which I'm pretty sure Vicky awkwardly ended up having to carry all three of us and most of our bags outside. There was some movement as I was deposited on what felt like the roof of a building, then some more as people moved around near me.
"Can you move your armor?" Vicky asked me worriedly, to which I obliged by allowing the conjured equipment to dissipate.
There was another pause, then I felt a hypo going into my arm. At first… nothing happened. Then slowly - very slowly my vision and hearing started to come back.
That was good, because it alleviated a lot of my fears. I really didn't want to have to start replacing my body parts with cybernetic augmentations, even if it would probably improve my overall ability to function. As my vision came back, the bleary forms of Amy, Vicky, and Sophia started to hover into view, and two hypos later - the last of my stock - I was, if not perfectly healed, at least functional enough to lever myself up onto my hands to get a look around.
"Well. That fucking sucked." were my first words to everyone.
"Are you going to get messed up every time we do anything together?" Vicky asked, though obviously jokingly.
"To be fair, I didn't exactly bring a full loadout with me. We weren't supposed to fight anyone today." I complained.
"Should have brought my gun at least." Sophia groused darkly, frowning down at me.
"I'll upgrade it so you can teleport it into your hand if you want." I offered, pulling myself into a full sitting position.
"Why the fuck didn't you do that already?" She asked me sharply.
"Oh, I'm sorry, let me just duplicate myself so I can attend to all your needs while also making my own shit why don't I." I bit back.
"Are you two always like this? I can't tell if you actually get along or not." Amy interjected.
"Honestly? I think I get along with Soph better than any other person in the city. Sad right?" I joked.
"A bit." Amy agreed.
"Anyway! If you're good, I have to go give a statement to the PRT. You guys will probably have to go in later when you have your costumes on to give one." Vicky sighed, leaning away from where she was looming worriedly over me to glance back down at the mall over the edge of the building she had deposited us all on top of.
"I'd really rather not." I sighed.
"Them's the breaks. I'll try to come back quickly." She apologized before darting off the edge of the building and back down to the mall. Amy looked forlornly after her, obviously depressed, and I couldn't help but say something to try and comfort her.
"You'll get your own powers eventually. It's statistically impossible for you not to." I offered her, which caused her to spin around to stare me down.
"I'm adopted." She bit out.
"No shit, your whole family is fucking blonde. That's not how powers work." I countered.
"...you know how powers work?" She asked me shrewdly.
Whoops. Open mouth, insert foot here.
"... a bit, yeah." I backpedalled carefully, as we stared each other down.
Thankfully, Amy seemed content to let the topic drop, and we were all able to sneak back into the mall to collect our things, then head home with promises to try and hang out again without getting into a shootout.
It wasn't until much later in the day that I would realize how absolutely fucked I was going to be because of this event.
"Hey, get out here!" Gerard bellowed, slamming a meaty fist on the door to my shared bedroom with Terry.
Well, mostly shared. Terry had just graduated, and like any sensible teenager had promptly chosen to go to college outside of the city - up in Boston, to be specific. He probably wouldn't have been able to afford it under normal circumstances, but I had the sneaking suspicion that if I checked Sophia's stash of our stolen funds it would be oddly empty. Not that I was going to comment or complain about it. Terry, for all we didn't talk much, was good people. He didn't deserve to be stuck in this shit city with his shit family for the rest of his life.
"Coming." I called back much less loudly, lazily rolling out my bed where I was just sort of looking up news articles on my phone. I hadn't relaxed in so long that the act of doing literally nothing was weirdly cathartic - even if I knew I couldn't let myself indulge in it much beyond today.
"What do-" I started to ask, only to find myself staring across the hall at a similarly perturbed Sophia, also dragged from her room but Gerards shouting.
"Someone wants to see you." The man said in a tone of voice that was anything but comforting. I followed his gaze back up the small hallway leading to the living room - to find a man in a suit standing idly next to Auntie, who had an expression of shock and distress on her face.
"John Harnett and Sophia Hess?" The man asked as we edged our way into the living room with him.
"Sweety it's not true, right? You're not…" Auntie trailed off, looking directly at Sophia who exchanged a confused but wary glance with me.
"Yeah, that's us." I offered carefully, earning a nod of acknowledgement from the man.
"My name is William, and I'm with the PRT." He said simply.
I thought back to all the cameras that had to have been in the mall today, watching me and Sophia hanging out with Vicky, then immediately moving to fight those gangsters. I thought about how vindictive and manipulative Piggot, and the PRT at large could be. And my entire thought process boiled down to one single word.
Motherfucker.
So, I did the only sane thing I could do at that moment. I pointed at Gerard, and blurted out;
"He's abusive and beat the shit out of me once. I think he might be a Parahuman."
Yeah, I was going down kicking and screaming the whole way.