Amy was hiding in an alleyway, flinching at every explosion and scream she heard from the streets. Normally, fights didn't get this bad unless Lung got involved, and in truth, Lung was involved this time as well. The problem was that not only had Lung reached the size of a skyscraper, but his upper body had also been plastered across the Docks in one blow by…her.
The healer couldn't help but shiver in fear. No one should have that much power. She'd only caught glimpses of the battles as she had run through the streets, but it seemed that the girl could clone herself like Oni Lee, only hers lasted longer and could take on groups of gangers all at once.
She'd seen Hookwolf and Stormtiger being dragged into an alleyway by one of the copies, Armsmaster's halberd being snapped in half before being thrown a building with a single kick, Purity crashing to the ground after twoeye lasers struck her from the girl's clone, even one of Hellhound's dogs being engulfed in a stream of fire from another clone's mouth.
"Ames!" said a familiar voice. Amy turned and nearly collapsed in relief. It was Victoria, floating down to her, bloody and bruised, but still okay.
"Vicky! You're okay!"
"Amy, we need to get out of here!" her sister said as she landed. "That crazy chick is capturing capes! I just saw her drag off Miss Militia and Dauntless."
"Wh-what about Mom and Dad? And Aunty Sarah?"
They couldn't have all fallen. New Wave was strong, powerful, and resourceful. But her heart sank as Vicky shook her head, a grim expression on the blonde's face.
"Her clones, they came into the house, took us all down. I tried to fight back, but she has some way of shutting down my shield, and my aura was useless. I had to fly off."
Her sister took a step forward, her hand outstretched.
"We've gotta get out of Brockton Bay. I heard that the Protectorate is mobilizing in Boston. I can fly us there right now."
Amy was about to take her hand, wondering just how they were going to fly to Boston without getting caught…when she stopped.
"Ames?" Vicky asked, a curious look on her beautiful face. Just…curiosity. No pain from her injuries, no fear from the situation, no anger from losing, nothing but an open curiosity.
"Don't…don't you wanna stay and fight?"
"No point in it. She shut down my shield and my aura and beat everyone at home. I couldn't fight back, so I knew had to run and find you. I can fight once we get the Boston PRT to back us up."
That sounded sensible, That sounded incredibly sensible. It also sounded like the exact opposite of what her sister would do in this situation.
"How'd you find me, Vicky?" she asked, slowly taking a step backward. Once again, her…sister…showed no change in expression besides the slight creasing of her eyebrows.
Something here was horribly wrong.
"I flew over when I couldn't find you at the hospital. I recognized you as soon as I saw you. Not a lot of people wearing red and white robes while the city burns."
She was calm, way too calm. Vicky would've started yelling in frustration, wanting to get Amy to a safe place so she could get healed up and go back to the fight. She wasn't supposed to be this calm and sensible in a disaster.
Another slow step back.
"Vicky…what happened to your aura?" It should've been flaring like a siren, but there was nothing.
Vicky blinked, then sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Damnit. I knew I had forgotten something," she said, with a small smile on her lips. "I really thought you'd catch me when you touched my hand and realized my DNA didn't match hers. You know, besides the creepy crush you have on her, you're a much better sister than she is. She never questioned me. As soon as she saw someone wearing a white robe, she just scooped them up and flew off. No questions, no suspicions, nothing. It was ridiculously easy to catch her."
Then there was a huge puff of smoke, and in Victoria's place…was the girl.
She was moderately pretty, with long black hair that reached her back, purple eyes that shone in the darkness, and a wicked, beautiful grin. She wore a form-fitting black tank top with baggy black cargo pants, black boots, and she had knives strapped to her waist.
Before Amy could do anything more than gasp, the she-devil was in front of her, two fingers pointed at her forehead.
"Sorry about this, Pan-Pan. Goodnight."
A simple tap, and then Amy was gone.
...
Darkness, with flashes of light and noise, was what heralded her journey to wakefulness and immobility.
She was in some sort of basement, a single bare lightbulb above her head, and weirdly enough, she was strapped to a La-Z-Boy recliner. Purple glowing chains were wrapped around her stomach and wrists, holding her down. That was the bad news. The good news was that her family, excluding Crystal, were all facing her directly, with their own purple chain adornments.
"Amy, are you okay?" Aunt Sarah whispered to her, relief clear in her face.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine. Where are we?"
"Still in the city. We could hear explosions a little while ago," said Carol grimly. "We think she found Bakuda."
That…was not good. Devil Eidolon vs Crazy Asian Bomber was the kind of battle that would bring the bay to its knees.
"How'd she catch you?"
Vicky snarled, but Amy couldn't feel her aura. Was she…
"The crazy bitch broke in during dinner and took out Dad first. Then she mopped the floor with us and brought us here. If it had been a fair fight, she'd be eating her fucking teeth right now."
Nope, definitely Vicky.
"These chains are blocking our powers somehow, and they're too strong," Mark said as Uncle Neil flexed against the chains uselessly. "Does anyone know where Crystal is?"
"Boston," answered Eric, his eyes closed as he tried to shift in his chair. He winced as he moved. Possibly something broken, could be anything from a rib to a shoulder bone. If she could reach him and use her powers, she could heal them all, and they could make a plan. "She went out with a group of friends last night. Some kind of rock and roll festival in town. She left a note on the fridge."
"Alright, so Crystal's safe," Uncle Neil said as he stopped trying to break free. "The other groups in the city: Empire, ABB, the Protectorate, and Coil, that's enough firepower to stall even her. If we can find a way to get out of here and assist the Protectorate-"
There was a popping noise, and suddenly, she was there, crouching on the ground. Amy couldn't help the fact that her heart started racing. This crazy person knew her secret, about Victoria, and that made her ten times more dangerous than any cape in the city right now. With just a few sentences, she could set Amy's entire family against her.
The girl rose from her crouch, purple eyes glowing in the dim light.
"I've searched the whole city. Where's Crystal?"
Rather than dignify that with an answer, Vicky spat at her feet, whilst the rest of them merely gave her stony glares.
The girl sighed. "It doesn't matter. Between you and all the other capes in the Bay, I have more than enough power."
"Liar," Carol snarled. "You expect us to believe that you took out every cape in the city? There are dozens of them, more than half of them being hardened killers and veteran parahumans, andyoutook them all out? A fresh-faced newbie?"
"In the face of overwhelming power, experience doesn't really matter," the she-devil said as she walked towards Eric. "Besides, I've known these powers for as long as I've been alive. It's only recently that I've been able to use them."
That sentence didn't make sense, but it didn't matter when she stood in front of Eric.
"You got hurt?"
"Because of you!" he shot back.
"Apologies." Surprisingly enough, she actually did sound regretful. "I didn't intend to hurt you or your family. I made a promise to try and not harm the heroes."
Her hand touched Eric's side, and a soft green glow enveloped it. A few minutes passed in tense silence, all of them watching as Eric's look of pain gradually smoothed out.
"You're a healer too?" Amy asked softly.
"...yeah. It's something I picked up," the girl answered. "Once again, I'm really sorry, but I'll let you go in a few days."
Wait. What?
"You'll…let us go?" Aunt Sarah asked, doubt heavily coloring her tone. "With our powers?"
"With some restrictions, but yeah."
"And you don't think we'll hunt you down and throw you in jail?" Vicky said incredulously
The girl gave her a small smirk. "I think I've shown that I can handle you and your family."
Not to mention the Bay's entire superpowered population…
"Why are you doing this?" asked Aunt Sarah. "Attacking capes in their homes, inciting war in the streets, abducting Parahumans-this'll just make everyone go after you."
"The only ones who'll be coming after me are exactly the kind of people I want coming after me," the girl answered, moving away from Eric. "And we all know that the Unwritten Rules are only enforced by those who are strong enough to do so. No one defends newbie capes who get outed and forced into gangs."
"Is that why you're doing this? Someone outed you?"
"No. I'm doing this because I need power, territory, and an army, and Brockton Bay ticks every box that I have."
"They'll send in the Triumvirate for you," declared Uncle Neil. "You're strong, stronger than any parahuman I've ever seen, but you can't beat them."
At this, the girl gave a little chuckle. "Oh, you'd be surprised at just how little the P.R.T cares for this city. Nazi's, Asian gangsters, and mercenaries, and yet there was no help to be given. I think the Triumvirate will be just fine with this. And besides-"
She made some sort of hand gesture, and the purple chains began to glow even brighter, despite Amy feeling no different. Obviously, though, something had happened, because the girl's eyes glowed brighter as well before she made more hand signals and held out both of her hands.
A shrieking sound filled the room, and Amy flinched as lightning engulfed the girl's right hand, stray arcs trying to lash out at them. In the left, however, a small, blue spiral of glowing energy slowly began to grow until it reached the size of a baseball.
"With this kind of power, there aren't going to be a lot of people that can stop me," the girl finished nonchalantly. "I don't even really need to do the hand signs to perform Jutsu, that's just for fun. And even though I know that you have no idea what I'm talking about, in another world, these abilities would be a game-changer."
"Are you stealing our powers?" Aunt Sarah asked, horrified.
"...yes…and no. It's easier to say that I'm stealing the energy from the Shards that fuel your power, using your head tumors as charging ports that go to me instead of you. The amount of energy that your Shards are hoarding…just New Wave alone could put me on Island or Demon Level. But I don't want to drain you dry. I'll take a little from you, as a start-up, and when I get the Villains settled in, I'll take every scrap of power that their Shards have. The best part is, even with all the villains in the Bay providing me country sustaining levels of power all at the same time, it would take me millennia to drain their Shards, so I can throw around as many high-level techniques and attacks that my body can handle without ever having to worry about a finite source of energy. I mean, you saw what I could do when I was just a City Block-level threat."
Amy had never understood exactly why the villains in cartoons explained their plots to the hero, giving them time to escape and beat them at their game. As she grew older, she figured it was just a plot device to help the heroes save the day and look cool. Now, sitting here, listening to this maniac explain how she planned to take over the Bay by taking limitless power from Shards, which appeared to be the source of their superpowers, she now knew why: to crush the heroes hopes, to let them know just how utterly outmatched they were, how years of crimefighting and good deeds amount to nothing because, in the face of a megalomaniac withactualpower, there isn't anything that they can actually do.
"I'll be back in an hour to give you dinner, and you'll get television in two. I'll wake you up at midnight so you can use the bathroom," she said as she dismissed the two attacks.
"Tomorrow morning, I'll give you limited freedom to walk around this place, and in a week, you'll be free. Just stay put, and you can put this all behind you in a few days."
And in a poof of smoke, she was gone.
"We…we have to stop her," said Victoria shakily. Her face was pale, and her eyes were wide and full of fear. "Someone, anyone, even a villain needs to stop her. We just…we need a plan."
Yeah. A plan. They just needed a plan to take out a parahuman who was steadily growing stronger and was able to depower her opponents. Of course. Just simple.
...
He'd thought that staying away from Brockton Bay would make him exempt from the madness that went on there. He didn't really want anything to do with parahumans, to be honest, but that was unavoidable, seeing that he had powers of his own. Still, he had no desire to fight giant dragon men, nazi knights, or crazy bug kids.
A lot of people would call him a coward for not trying to help Brockton Bay and be a hero, or to help Skitter and take over the bay from the 'incompetent heroes'. He called those people idiots.
The fact that he was present in this world already meant that it was an alternate universe, and that might mean that Taylor was perfectly fine. Plus, he was nineteen in this world and already had a GED, so there was no need to go back to high school.
Besides, no one ever seemed to realize just how creepy it was to befriend a bullied teenage girl when you knew every single thing about her, like some kind of all-knowing stalker. Just the thought made him shiver in disgust.
So he'd decided to make a promise: he'd only use his powers when there was an Endbringer attack, an S-rank threat, the Undersiders were going warlord on the Bay, SlaughterHouse Nine attacks, and Golden Morning.
It would be ridiculous of him to try and save everyone, torturing himself when he failed and no doubt leading to him crossing a line somewhere across the way. He'd be like a volunteer firefighter or reserve soldier; he'd only be out on the front lines when shit got heavy.
Maybe it was selfish, but he wasn't going to kill himself for a world he'd only been in for three months.
A part of him knew that that kind of thinking was horribly self-serving, especially with Dinah's situation, Lisa's recruitment, the ABB who stole girls off the street, and the E88 who were attacking innocent people whose only crime was their skin color, but he'd learned a long time ago that he was not a hero or main character, and Worm was the kind of world where someone else's minuscule mistake could get you killed.
Even Taylor's plot armor hadn't been perfect: Wildbow literally said he flipped a coin for her life in the Leviathan fight.
Besides, he'd already resolved himself to fighting off the literal worst that this world could offer. He didn't owe anyone anything. Nevertheless, he found himself renting a Boston apartment so he could keep an eye on the troublesome city next door.
He'd been brainstorming what gear to bring to the Leviathan fight that should happen in either a month or a matter of weeks when Brockton Bay made two violent appearances in his life.
The first one was in the form of his roommate, Jason.
Jason was a Brockton native who got out a few months ago.
"Bro, you don't know how weird it is to walk around and not have to watch out for Oni Lee or Hookwolf, man. Accord runs a tight ass ship here, I'll give the midget that."
And apparently had friends in Brockton who were still alive.
Naturally, when his roommate started spouting that one of his friends was a cool cape, he figured it'd be some small unnamed cape whose powers were too insignificant in Brockton.
That had changed last night when Crystal fucking Pelham of New Fucking Wave, arrived at his apartment and started eating his left-over Chinese food.
He'd said hi, welcomed them to the apartment, showed them where the towels were, and promptly decided to hide in his room for the rest of her stay.
Naturally, of course, the universe decided that a selfish bastard like him didn't deserve peace, a mere two hours later, the news was talking about how Brockton Bay was under attack from a highly dangerous replicator, and that if more clones began to appear, they were going to declare Brockton Bay an S-class quarantine site and dome it.
Considering the number of important people in the Bay, like the girl (sorta) destined to save the world, the other girl who could read the Endbringers, the child who could predict the end of the world, etc, he should probably do something.
Crystal had been ready to fly down to Brockton Bay immediately, but her friends had pointed out that not only was the Bay under attack right now, but she'd also be going into the situation with no info, and would therefore be flying blind into an S-class situation, so they'd convinced her to stay the night and get more info in the morning.
Naturally, he decided that he'd leave in the morning as well, just a bit earlier than Crystal. It was hard, trying to get to sleep, but he needed his rest if he was going to fight an S-class parahuman.
The parahuman in question only cemented his thoughts that this was an alternate universe because the only threat that was supposed to be happening at this time was the Bakuda bombing.
And he had never heard of a duplicator like this besides Oni lee and Spree, and their clones were temporary.
Of course, it could be Noelle, but there were only clones of one person in particular, and no one had reported seeing a giant mountain of fleshy body parts.
His alarm went off at five in the morning, and he quickly shut it off in order not to wake up his newest roommates. He took a quick shower and grabbed a granola bar, then grabbed his bag on the way out. His bag was special and would help him a lot in the coming trials, mostly because it held what counted as his Tinker tech.
He walked a few blocks away from his apartment, then ducked into a nearby alleyway. With a quick look around to make sure he was alone, he began to arm himself.
"Equip Young Justice Superboy Costume."
In a blink of an eye, he was suddenly dressed in a plain long black T- Shirt and dark black fatigue pants tucked into dark-brown combat boots with a large belt buckle.
"Equip Man of Tomorrow Superman jacket."
Like previously when he changed his shirt and pants, there was no flash of light or gust of wind that heralded the appearance of his new jacket.
One second he was jacketless, and the next, there was a jacket on his torso, Superman's emblem proudly displayed on the front. He immediately felt stronger, more powerful, and his senses sharpened immensely, becoming supernatural in seconds. Instinctively, he knew that he was only half as strong as Superman, but had all of his powers. And to be honest, Superman at half strength was still hella overpowered.
"Equip Winter Solder Mask and Goggles."
The goggles covered his eyes but didn't remove visibility, and the lower face mask made him practically unrecognizable. The most useful part, however, was the Winter Soldier's decades of martial art experience that flooded his brain and effectively made him one of the deadliest men alive in mere seconds. It catered more to his left arm, of course, but he was okay with that.
"Equip Captain Carter Shield without the flag."
Just as his jacket appeared, a round grey shield appeared strapped to his left arm, ready to defend. He had always liked the the british themed shield way more than Captain America's, to be honest. It just looked…better to him aestheticly speakimg that is. Not to mention that Carter had been able to kick plenty of ass with it, after all she was a way better fighter than steve Rogers ever was.
"Equip Stormbreaker Axe."
And just like that, the holy trinity was complete. His axe was very similar to Stormbreaker's, except that the wooden fibers of his ax handle were made of metal instead. That way, it could keep the look but was a lot sturdier than the original. The outfit as a whole was supposed to be a 'brute-breaker form'.
Overwhelming physical power, multiple ranged options, unmatched speed, and impenetrable defense. Outside of the Triumvirate, there weren't a lot of people who could actually keep up with him. Now all he needed to do was fly to Brockton-
"Keagan? Is that you?"
Or he could just look up to see fucking Laserdream floating right above him, clad in her new Wave outfit.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed.
"I woke up when you were taking your shower, and I followed you when you left,' she explained.
"Why?!"
"Jason kinda thinks you're a villain, and he wanted me to keep an eye on you."
"What-why would he think I'm a villain?!"
"Could be the fact that one time he came into your room while you were at work, he saw that you left a giant tinkertech gun on your desk."
Huh. That must've been shortly after he moved in. He remembered leaving his Doomguy BFG on his desk before running to work. He hadn't discovered how to equip weapons back then.
"So, are you a villain?"
What the hell? "Crystal," he said slowly. "If I was a villain, why would I tell you just because you asked?"
"...because I asked nicely?"
And this is an experienced hero?
"…"
"Look, I don't really care about that right now, because I need your help."
"The Bay."
"Yes. My family's still out there, and there hasn't been any news from Brockton yet. I-I don't even know if they're still okay."
Had it not been for the shining wetness of her eyes, he would've been surprised at how stoic she looked.
"I need to help the P.R.T and find my family," she said, determined. "And if I can't do either, I'll settle for taking down the bitch who took my home."
Well, he had been going to Brockton anyway. It wouldn't be a bad idea to go with a native. Reading about a city and actually seeing it were two different things, and he was
strong enough to protect Crystal in case she ended up being a handicap to him.
The matter settled in his mind, he slowly rose into the air, rising until he was floating right next to a surprised Laserdream.
"Alright, let's go."
"Wait, really? That's it?"
"I was planning on helping anyway."
"Oh. Because I kinda had this whole speech where I urged you to look at your humanity and inner kindness-"
"Crystal. Please. Fly."
"Right, got you!"
...
Power, overflowing like a stream, was being filtered into her reserve runes, the massive amounts of energy causing her inner reserves to swell as they slowly accommodated their new burden. She didn't have an accurate measurement of how much power she had, but she'd say roughly about the same amount of energy as the two-tailed beast.
And that was just her reserves. The E88, The Protectorate, the ABB, the Merchants, New Wave, The Undersiders, and Coil were giving her access to Dragon Ball Z levels of power. If she wasn't absolutely certain that her body would turn to ash from the strain, she'd be able to make it to Tournament of Power and make Goku sweat for a little bit.
Everyone focused on the powers, the unique abilities that each Shard gave their host. Everyone thought that if you could copy certain powers, you'd be able to fight Scion equally.
No one ever thought about the power that the planet-sized parasites were holding onto. It was like trying to walk underwater during a storm and doing your best not to get swept off your feet and drown.
She had to actively make sure that she didn't get swept under it all. To know that power like this existed, and the alien Entities gave people like Skidmark, Lung, and Kaiser it…Well, now that power was in the right hands, and she'd be able to fix the Bay.
She couldn't save everyone. The presence of villains, unstable powers, and Endbringers always meant that a lot of people were going to die. She had accepted that. It had taken a year of living in Brockton and trying to play fair to understand that, but when she did, she realized exactly what she needed to do.
She'd take one city, just one, and place it under her care. With runes and seals at her fingertips, thousands of attacks in her arsenal, and hundreds of powers that she could think of on the fly, she could make Brockton Bay what Naruto had made the Leaf into; a safe place, where kids could be raised without truly knowing violence, where they never knew hunger or pain.
A place where you could go to work and cut into an alleyway without worrying if you were going to get kidnapped or die for some unforeseen agenda. A home that would be safe from Zion and his madness.
That was why she decided to take over. Taking down the Protectorate and other heroes had only been practical. She needed enough time to adjust to her new power levels so that she wouldn't be blowing the city up with each blow. She'd been scared that she'd killed Lung as she put what had basically been a bucketful of shard energy into her strength seals, and instantly dusted his upper half.
Thankfully, his regeneration had fixed that. Now, she was using what was basically a capful, and it was still more than enough to make her unbeatable. Her clones were easily holding back the P.R.T and the unpowered gang members, and they were policing the streets silently, fixing the damage from her fights yesterday.
With her matter-shifting runes, it only took a passing touch to fix the broken roads, repair the cracked buildings, remove the nasty graffiti, and fix the vehicles that had been trashed. If she was going to be a warlord, she was going to be a good one. She'd fix everything, heal everyone, protect them from harm. It was the least she could do for this shitty world.
Now all she had to do was wait. She knew with her clones and powers, she qualified as an S-rank threat, and that meant that they'd either dome Brockton immediately, or the Triumvirate would make a guest appearance. If it was the former, with her nature manipulation seals and runes, she could make Brockton like Eden-a paradise of green, where there was always good food and clean water, and where the residents lived in luxury. If it was the latter…she'd have to start using bucket levels of power again and go upwards from there.
Everyone knew how to gank Alexandria, there was practically a how-to guide for it on Reddit. The harder ones would be Legend and Contessa. Eidolon had a lot of powers, but so did she, and even if she lost, she had four magic words to take him down.
Legend…was immune to a lot of things in her arsenal, and she didn't want to kill the man. The only things she figured that could hold him were either Medusa-Style Petrification or sealing. She hoped that her being inserted into this universe meant that she was a blind spot to Contessa, but if that didn't work, she'd just have to nuke the area she was in and hope for the best.
Well, while she was here, she might as well add some more runes to her body. Maybe an automatic defense like Gaara's? A living shadow, or a shield of wind-
Lightning and thunder crashed against her, dispelling her instantly-
Red beams instantly cut through three of her sisters, and she barely got a glimpse at an enraged Laserdream before she was erased-
A large red and blue circular blur crashed into the side of her head, instantly killing her-
She flinched as her eyes opened, disturbing her from her trance.Twentyof her clones had just been dispelled. That wasn't surprising; Armsmaster had managed to pop five on his own, Hookwolf had taken on three, and a lucky ABB member had poofed her with a Bakuda grenade.
No, the scary thing was that all twenty of them had been killed instantaneously. She knew the red blur thing couldn't be Assault or Velocity, and she couldn't really remember a cape that used lightning. She needed...
"Hey," said a tired voice from behind her.
She sighed. "Kid, you're supposed to be asleep right now."
Dinah merely gave her a little, tired smile. "Hard to sleep. Nightmares."
She bit her lip. During her stay in Brockton Bay, between juggling homelessness, heroics, trying to get a GED, and constantly improving her runic arsenal, certain dates and times had slipped her mind, like when Taylor triggered.
Or when Dinah was taken.
It had only been a week after Dinah had been kidnapped, her face in the newspapers, that she'd remembered in horror.
She'd already known where Coil's main base was located-hard not to when every fanfic ever described it in meticulous detail-and her runes at the time had been more than enough to handle Coil's men and bring down his failsafe timeline crashing down around his ears.
She had saved Dinah, but a lot of damage had already been done, and chakra-style healing didn't seem to get rid of the cravings, only momentarily alleviating them.
Coil had also been her first experiment into the foray of Shard Empowerment, and she constantly pulled on his shard's energy the most. One way or another, she was going to drain that shard dry of every drop of energy before she died.
"I can put you to sleep," she offered.
Dinah merely shook her head. "I'll go back by myself. I just wanted to help you before I go."
"Oh, Dinah. Just…don't push yourself, kay?"
"Okay. So, there are two of them, a boy and a girl. The girl is from New Wave, and she's a bit faster and stronger than her mom, but you usually take her down. The boy…he's a bit different. He's really strong, and he can use weapons strong enough to collapse a city block. He's also smart: he tricks you a lot or talks you down most of the time. You can fight him, and you'll probably win if you go all out, but so will he, and when that happens, there isn't a Bay anymore, and it's a pyrrhic victory for you because he has some kind of final citywide attack if he dies."
"Is there a way I beat him without destroying the Bay?"
"Yeah, but you really won't like it."
And as Dinah relayed her plan, a grimace formed as she listened. She really didn't like this plan. It required way more subtle machinations than she was comfortable with. But if it was the path that led to victory, who was she to refuse?