I knew nothing about taking and managing territory nor did I want to have a giant organization following everything I did. What I wanted … well, I needed information about this world first, including those that even its own people did not know.

So I did a little prep work before I got to do the actual territory taking, most of which happened in the isolation of that abandoned building where I tested my powers. All of it involved recalling all information I may have forgotten by using "Information Management," or "Infoman," to recover them.

I remembered … a lot of fanfictions, which wasn't good, but even from that, I was able to gleam information about Earth Bet that I may have needed.

First off, I was definitely in the city of Brockton Bay, and it was divided into rather recognizable parts of towns. The Downtown and Captain's Hill, the Docks proper and Docks South, Shantytown, and the Trainyard. I've only been to the Downtown and the Shantytown so far, they were there.

Second, there were indeed four gangs in Brockton Bay: autocratic Azn Bad Boyz, racist Empire Eighty-Eight, scummy Archer's Bridge Merchants, and mysterious Coil. Already, I made myself an enemy of the latter two, the last of whom ensured that the PRT also didn't like me. There was also Faultline's Crew, but they were mercenaries that operated mostly outside of Brockton Bay.

Third, I was not yet in canon timeline. A trashed up newspaper that I picked up while I was walking around Shantytown in rags pointed to the dates being late January, though I could have told that to anyone by the fucking cold breeze.

Fourth, I knew the entire list of capes in Brockton Bay during this time and their areas of activity. ABB had Bakuda, Lung, and Oni Lee; they terrorized the Docks. E88 had Kaiser, Fenja, Menja, Krieg, Crusader, Victor, Othala, Hookwolf, Stormtiger, and Cricket, and Purity, Fog, and Night were semi-retired and were, with Purity wanting to do so, distancing themselves from E88; E88 as a whole stuck to the richer white-majority neighborhoods.

Merchants had Skidmark, Squealer, and Mush; due to Squealer's Tinker demands, they operated mostly out of the Trainyards for now, but they "checked up" on the Merchants roaming Shantytown. Coil was Coil and had his Fortress Construction and pseudo-Endbringer shelter-turned-villain-lair in the Downtown.

There was also Uber, Leet, Grue, Tattletale (might still be a petty criminal), Bitch, Regent, Parian, and Faultline's Crew, which had Faultline herself, Gregor, Newter, Labyrinth, and Spitfire.

Finally, there was the Protectorate ENE and Wards ENE. They had Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Dauntless, Velocity, Triumph, Assault, Battery, Aegis, Vista, Clockblocker, Kid Win, Shadow Stalker, and maybe Browbeat. Not sure about the last guy's time of joining. I even remembered the Worm fandom meme about him. "No one cares about Browbeat."

Fifth and lastly, I knew the first portion of canon up to Leviathan's attack, a bit about Skitter getting arrested, and then nothing after that until Golden Morning itself, and not much about how Golden Morning happens even.

It was both a lot and not much.

But Infoman had a lot to say about that without my input.

[Brockton Bay is stable as of right now yet waiting for an incident which would tip the balance of power to one side. Any significant action undertaken now that is not part of the norm will attract more than normal levels of attention upon anyone. Recommendation: Do not seek to take large territory or pick fights directly with any established power. Shantytown with its lack of attention from all factions will serve as good territory to take.]

I rather liked the idea, too. I intended to do so anyway, so it was like getting support from someone else.

Except it was my power telling me that I was good.

… Eh. Whatev's.

'Anyways, I had a plan.'

[It is a terrible plan, Infoman informed me factually.

'But it was better to have a plan than not.'

[False, Discernment disagreed with me. My own power disagreed with me. Still, I would not be shaken from this path.

'… No objections?'

They didn't respond.

Ignoring my powers, I went into the more detail-oriented portion of my plan.

The first thing an organization needed was a purpose. A gang formed from people wanting profit, friendship, drugs, or anything really. It also needed an identifying symbol.

Fortunately for me, I intended to keep only a small group and keep a small territory to myself. Since it would only be me, there needn't be a unifying purpose; I would do what I wanted to do whenever I wanted to.

As for a symbol, something to mark my territory with…

How about a cat? Cats gave no shit and did whatever they wanted.

… Panther worked, too. Actually, a tiger would be a better fit. Lone hunter prowling his territory and all that.

Minutes after deciding that, the first thing I did was walk by a gang safe house by accident and my Treasure Hunter pinged off on loot. It was an average looking house, barely eight hundred square foot or so with barely any front lawn, chain fence, and cheap shingles. There was also a black Ford Taurus parked.

I walked up to the door like I owned the place and placed my hand on the door lock.

A quick application of Vector Manipulation and the lock tore itself apart with a sharp crack. Or there would have been if I didn't kill the sound by creating a thin artificial vacuum sphere surrounding the halfway point of my Vector Manipulation range.

Humming, I pushed the door in and made my way into the house.

I held up the pebble, the very same pebble I experimented "Union" with, effortlessly. And as i passed by the living room along the entrance corridor, I saw a bald headed white man with E88 tattoo.

Yeah, I was not going to feel too bad about killing a Nazi. I mean, I'll treat them like pests. I used to kill rats, mice, and other pests all of the time. This was no different.

Just like that, vectors shifted on the pebble I had been tossing up and down, and upon another test into the air, it shot towards the skinhead.

A pebble weighing roughly 1 ton traveling roughly at fifty five yards per second met the back of a human head.

Human head caved in almost, and the dead Naxi flipped forward like a ragdoll even as the pebble exited his head and stayed afloat thanks to Vector Manipulation.

J-just another post. Think of it as just another post. I have to kill more to keep my territory in the future. Right, right, right. I … um… yes, u dont want to freeze up when I confront people later.

Yup, yea, yes. I was just … training! Yes, just… just …

… that's my fourth kill, I guess.

I must have stood there for a few minutes before I snapped out of it, and got to looting the E88 safehouse.

I gained a car, a car key, fifteen thousand dollars in cash in assorted bills, and better clothes. Time to move onto the next part of the plan.

Next part of the plan was to find some information. Namely, I needed an address. To find this address, I put on fake glasses (looted), a beanie (looted), and backpack (looted). Then i visited the local library, which pedestrians were happy to point out for me when I asked them nicely with a five dollar bill.

The library was a little rundown. No worries. I entered the place, noticing a distinct lack of security cameras, and moved to a computer. From there, I looked up white-pages for Brockton Bay, found a website that ran it, and looked up the last name of my target.

Well, targets.

I wrote down all of the information, smiled to myself on such an easy information acquisition, and left the library, smiling and bidding the librarian goodbye.

I drove down to the Docks, obeying all traffic laws and keeping up my disguise. With my hair covered, eyes covered, and wearing good clothes, I looked remarkably different from my hobo self a day ago, and even less so than the haggard hospital gown wearing captive of Coil's.

I passed by several police cars and none of them suspected me.

Eventually, I made a few blocks away from my destination, checked the clock, turned off the car, and then waited on the curbside.

It was 1 pm. I still had at least three hours until my target got here.