New York
The battles in New York had turned. With the Butcher having vanished the Teeth had fallen into disorder. Orders from on high had the Fallen reluctantly pulling back. They had attempted to ambush Bonesaw only to have their plan backfire. It became a colossal loss that might have cost them Valefor. They were unwilling to play the Nines game any further.
The Adepts had barely escaped destruction. They claimed they had been warned the Siberian was coming for them by an astral spirit in the shape of a cat. Since then they had been turning up at highly inconvenient times spoiling then Nine's attacks and quickly fading away.
The Elite had volunteered Upercrust's services. He aided in securing the Protectorate, Wards, and PRT headquarters. The sickly Tinker's services had been negotiated by Steampunk. The Punks needed his help on a personal project.
The Punks had gathered some of New York's collection of independent operators into a mutual defense pact. Their leader and ship had pulled back from the shore. He sent frequent packs of weapons and gear to the Cyborgs and any of their current allies. The ship glowed with a protective field. These new defenses were produced by Steam in collaboration with Upercrust.
The Protectorate was doing the bulk of the hunting for the Nine. They had made an exciting discovery by chance during an attack by Siberian. One of Flechette's quarrels had struck the Siberian. She had instantly vanished. Her later reappearance had proven the effect was not lethal. Yet, it was the best anyone had been able to achieve in delaying her.
The Nine had not been idle. They had killed several members of the Teeth two of the Fallen an indep hero called Prophet and recruited Ravager.
The balance of power was about to change. The Punks, Mouse Protector, Burnish, Scaffold, and a young woman known as Crossbeam pulled up to an abandoned factory. Mouse Protector blinked away then back
"Kudzu is still fighting Spree it's causing a hell of a commotion if we are doing this thing we need to do it now."
"We lack Thinkers of our own but the data we were given is good Jack Slash, and Bonesaw Should be in there. With any luck, we should be able to grab the case and run without fighting them." Cyber Punk said nodding to Scaffold and Crossbeam.
The two heroes rushed out while Scaffold started shuffling the building's layout. Crossbeam used her power to armor up and reinforce structures to lock away parts of the building. Cyber cut through an unarmored section Diesel took guard over the shakers. Burnish rushed forward the remaining Punks following her. Mouse protector brought up the rear.
Burnish blasted away a door. The room within was different from the expected storage room. It was an odd pipe-festooned maintenance room. Colorful fabrics were draped randomly about the space. Atom did a sudden flip to avoid an incoming blow as an arm struck out from behind one of the billowing sheets.
A chuckling sound filled the room as the second blow shot out and headed toward Mouse Protector. She teleported away. Chuckle's fist continued striking Ray in the center of his chest. Ray's chest deformed from the blow but both hands kept hold of their lasers. He fired into the accordion-like limb. Cyber laid into the other arm with her blades as it retracted and shot out again. The reappearing Moust Protector barely dodged a blow. She was forced to roll away from the metal case she was attempting to grab.
Brunish fired her blast up into the ceiling. Pipes and cloth alike came tumbling down on the demented clown. While the move cleared the obstructions to vision Chuckles speed saw him barely hindered by the falling debris. Atom lept and spun avoiding blows while peppering him with shotgun blasts. The blasts barely seemed to have any effect at all. Cyber slashed away to no avail. The murderer was more skilled at evasion than any of her previous foes. Now that he had accounted for her reaction time he seemed impossible to touch.
Chuckles couldn't dodge fast enough to avoid light. Ray flicked off the safety settings on his laser weapons and attempted to burn holes through the monster's tough flesh. Mouse Protector frustratingly seemed unable to significantly hamper the brute or get around him.
Atom did a pirouette and raised her hands. The dust kicked up by the fight revealing she'd been stringing the space with monofilament wire. She pulled the razor-thin wires only to see they barely sank through the outermost layers of the clown's skin. With one of his signature chuckles the murderer flexed. The move flensed off strips his skin but in the process, the wires snapped. Atom tumbled away suddenly off balance.
Tired of the lasers both of Chuckles' hands lashed out at Ray. Each seized his wrists and continued their motion down the hall. Bunish gasped in horror and fired her blast into the clown's face. Mouse Protector seeing her chance made a teleporting dive for the case. The serial killer made a similar dive to head-butt the hero but found he came up short.
Looking back confused he saw his arms were not returning. Ray's arms had not snapped off but had thinned and stretched. Chuckles couldn't see what had happened but down the hall, Scaffold had bent and narrowed the halls several times. This tied up Chuckles' arms. Crossbeam heavily reinforced the obstructions against his brute strength. He still had Ray's lasers which he crushed but Ray's arms had reduced to hair-like thickness. They wriggled free and returned to his body.
Mouse Protector teleported away with the case. Bunish blasted the Clown again. Atom tossed confoam grenades not to entrap the murderer but to make her other explosives stick to him. Cyber-covered Burnish's escape following new halls Scaffold was folding into existence. Atom quickly followed. The bombs exploded but did little damage to the Brute. He strained against the pressure on his arms doing his best to break them free.
He then felt a tickle in his ears. He looked at Ray to find the malleable man had turned his arms into a wriggling mass of follicles. His body deflated as more mass was pushed into them. They worked their way into his ears, nose, mouth, and even his tear ducts. Ray's jovial cleft chinned face turned into a sharply angled skull as more and more the main body turned cadaverous. The mass became more wriggling threads that slipped into every orifice and pore.
They started to vibrate. Chuckles couldn't help but laugh as the thing strands tickled. The speed of vibration started to build. His flesh started to ripple with their force. His hands shook free of the restraints and shot back to his body. As they did the return of angular motion brought back more of the vibratory energy thrumming through his body. The filaments had made it into his lungs. He couldn't breathe. That hardly mattered as the intense vibrations were stirring his spinal fluid into a froth that was putting too much pressure on his brain.
Soon his blood followed and as his blood pressure built organs started to push against his inhumanly strong muscles and bones. One by one they popped in quick succession. The threads all returned and reformed an exhausted Ray turned away
"Never liked clowns anyway," he said as he limped away after his friends.
The Hilton
Times Square New York City
Valfor trembled every shred of his being was at war within. For days he had been catching glimpses of a girl. Each time he saw her his heart raced, and each time she left he found himself daydreaming. His mind wandered hand in hand with her.
Then he had been hurt. That scrawny little blond child and her spiders had managed to rip his pawns to shreds. She had started to slice him open only for someone else to attract her fancy.
That was when she came to him. She pulled him off the street. She'd somehow talked a doctor and some nurses into putting him back together. Then she's brought him here to recover. She cared for him. Even doted on him. Spoon feeding him soup the first day when he still couldn't use his hands. She still helped him bathe and dress. He hated the feeling of helplessness even as he reveled in the feeling of her serving him.
It was wrong she should mean nothing to him. Love at first sight was bullshit this had to be some sort of power usage he wanted to fight it but he couldn't. He felt her fingertips brush through his hair as she knotted the silk behind his head. The last of his outfit. The blindfold she insisted he wear.
"There isn't that better, safer? I do love how much you trust me. Most men are so fragile they can't let themselves lose control. But, you're not like that are you Elijah? You're not just show and bluster. You have mastered true strength. It's not just your power that lets you command. At your core is a man who knows what makes people tick how to turn the leavers and adjust the dials. You've seen others do it. You've marveled at how they did so much without your power. Now you can do it too. The threat of control is enough to make most obey without it."
Why oh why had he told her his name? It was now another weapon she could use against him. A dagger she could shove into his heart. Every time she said his name it made him want to hear her say it again. Her voice was thick and rich like drizzled honey-sweetening life.
All the words she said were right. She somehow had learned him so quickly and so well. He recognized she was using those very same methods on him. Yet still, he couldn't resist. He was helpless as she dug into his deepest hopes and fears. In remarkably few questions she had learned his dreams as if reading his very soul.
"I want to rule I want to hold power in my own name. I want..." his voice cracked the next part felt like such a betrayal
Her lips brushed his neck where it met his shoulder and ran up to his ear. Light little kisses each slammed his brain like a sledgehammer. His body betraying his will.
"I want to be free of the Elders who control and use me I want to be the one. I want to make them serve." He confessed.
"With me by your side, you will. Just a little more trust. You're mission here is a loss. Why return to the Elders in failure? Come with me Elijah I will share will you such secrets of power. You can help me together we will overthrow and conquer my father's house. You will have an army of little Heart Breakers. At the head of such a table the world will be yours." she whispered in his ear.
"You mean ours?" He asked working to keep the tremble out of his voice as her fingers traced up and down his bare spine.
"Every King needs a Queen beside him. I already ran when I was alone. No one will doubt you were the strength that Made us able to face him." She countered
Elijah wanted to run. This was everything he wanted he wasn't sure he could resist the temptation. This wicked wicked woman would use all of him against himself. She played with his body with practiced ease. She played her seductive art ways far beyond sex, ways that made him crave her touch, her kiss, even her merest glance. She seduced his mind with words that played on his hopes and fears. She had scooped up his dreams and strutted them before him like a pimp showing off his whores.
He was about to refuse her reject all she was and flee he'd leap out the window if need be. Then as before when he weakened he felt a different set of lips near his ear.
"Not yet boy. You will stand firm. You will not fall because to fall is to fail ME. Do you understand boy? You will endure the witch's spell. You will do this because I require it. Her plans can be subverted and turned toward my cause.
"You will not fail me, boy. The chance to take over Heartbreakers spawn is too great. When the time comes our trap will spring she will be no match for me. I might even let you keep her once she's tamed."
Mother Mathers withdrew from her son's awareness. The reassurance completed he would continue. He would hold out just enough that the devil child wouldn't get the hooks in too deep. When the time was right and the harpy who had her son wasn't ready she would pounce and everything would be hers. The girl, the Heart Broken, maybe even Heartbreaker himself. She'd then be a power even Cauldron couldn't brush aside.
A garbage can fell over outside her house. She glanced outside for an irrational second afraid someone was listening in. but it was only a stray cat startled by something in the night.
Aetherial Traveler
Stealthy footfalls went unheard as like a shadow the man moved along the cramped corridors. With practiced skill tumblers were adjusted in a lock till with the lightest of clicks it was defeated. Carefully a door opened. Revealing a man sitting in a folding chair in the cargo hold he was sipping rye from a lowball glass.
"Please do come in I don't have another chair but there is that box over there I assure you it's quite comfortable." Steam announced
"So you were expecting me. Quite rude not to leave some lights on." Jack responded with a smile.
"I didn't want you to feel embarrassed. All that effort, sneaking about the dark-colored boat, the careful switch to a trawling motor, even the last-minute swap out to muffled ores. Not many people work so hard to achieve the elusive ghost that is nautical stealth. To have surprised you on the deck would have been most unfair"
"Well, in that case, I appreciate your thoughtfulness."
"Think nothing of it old boy, I believe in fair play We are about to try to kill each other the least we can do is be civil about it." Steam said while reaching for the bottle of rye to refill his glass.
"Hardly seems even does it me being a parahuman and you- well you have no powers at all, do you? All this gear not a bit of it is really yours. You might have some training in maintaining it or such but you have no real power. Oh yes I saw through you to the truth"
"The truth is such a malleable thing. While others may have made the bulk of this my skills are nothing to be discounted. However, my area of expertise is indeed far removed from the field of technology." he stood and offered the whiskey
"Never touch it"
Before Jack could so much as blink the bottle was replaced with a revolver. He managed to see Steam's left hand in a blur catch the bottle before it fell.
"Oh ho! Now that is some speed!"
"Thank you, thank you. Now I see your knife is still in its holster secure against the spray as you made your way across the waves. There are no other edged objects in this room for your power to work on. So I am going to pour the last of this into my glass like so holster this like so. I will then toss this into the air when it hits the ground we will both go for our weapons. May the fastest most accurate man win."
"Oh, I do like this old-fashioned, classic shoot-out. Let's go."
The bottle flew upwards and then down. The Bang of a gunshot ran out deafeningly loud in the enclosed space of the cargo hold. Jack Slash's head snapped back and he fell to the floor.
The left lapel of Steam's jacket fell to the floor. A deep ugly slash exposed the bones of his ribcage he fell back dropping his gun onto the table. He braced himself against a box refusing to go to the floor he forced himself to stand up. He stripped off his jacket and shirt. He poured the whiskey over the shredded cloth of his shirt as he pushed it into the wound. He pulled a medical kit out of a nearby box but a cut suddenly speared his arm.
Jack had already risen from the floor a manic grin on his face his right eye was a ruin. Ichor streamed down his face from the ghastly wound. He gave Steam an evil smile.
"Bonesaw does good work. You didn't think you actually had a prayer, did you?"
Steam tossed the medical kit at the killer with his uninjured hand. He for the stairs. As he ran a kick sent his gun into the air. He snagged it in the crook of his injured arm as he dashed up the stairs.
Jack was right behind him. Jack reached for the man wanting to pull him back. He wanted to savor this kill to draw it out. He didn't expect the deftness with which Steam managed to cross-draw the gun from his injured arm to his uninjured hand. Five more shots rang out Jack's face was a ruin, both of his hands had been mangled.
It only gave Steam a moment of reprieve. Bonesaw's countermeasures straightened Jack's mangled hands into thin but serviceable claws. An awareness of light and vague vision started to overlay his blindness. It was built of a crude sonar and the feeling of light on his skin. The fleeing Punk wouldn't get far he was leaving a blood trail Jack could taste. His claws would be quite serviceable but he saw something that would add to the theatrics of the coming death. He pulled a fire axe from the station on the wall.
Steam had exited the deck and was lifting one of Ray's weapons a long gun version of the electro-laser. As he madly scrambled backward he aimed at the passage from below deck. The beam lanced out. Jack burst up onto the deck. He charged through the beam taking nasty burns along his chest. Axe held in an upper-handed swing he brought it down. Steam spun the rifle-sized weapon in an attempt to deflect. The Axe crunched into Steam's collarbone. That should have been all but Slash's power flared and the edge extended out well past the blade. It continued on scoring the deck and destroying several things upon it as it bisected Steam's body diagonally.
A ragged wheeze substituted for a laugh. This had been fun. The so-called Punk had despite being powerless given a good show he'd made this plenty of fun. One of the objects on the deck a metal crate started to hiss and leak a cloud of white gas frost spread across the box.
Jack's demeanor changed something wasn't right something suddenly seemed wrong about that box. He raced forward and used the axe along with his power to force the outer shell open so he could look within. Inside the Butcher's eyes flickered for just a second as her life ended.
Panicked Jack scrambled away. Bonesaw he needed Bonesaw right now. With fervor, he dove onto his small boat and turned it to shore.
Hours Later
Legend stood looking at the punks and their hastily assembled crew of independents.
"This could be one of the worst things to ever happen in the history of the Protectorate. You captured the Butcher and didn't turn her over. Now both your leader Steam and the Butcher Fourteen are dead. The evidence seems to point to Jack Slash. Most likely he is metamorphising into Butcher Fifteen!"
"I can't believe he's dead. He was the luckiest son of a bitch I'd ever seen." Diesel exclaimed.
"He said without the Siberian to confer her invulnerability to him Jack was just a man who could cut at range. No worse than a well-trained thug with a gun. He sent us after the case to lure him out to draw him into a trap. Steam said Jack's weakness was overconfidence." Cyber explained.
"It looks like there was plenty of that weakness to go around." Legend berated them.
None of them would meet his eye.
"I'm sorry your friend is dead. Many groups that lose a key member like this disband. I know this will be doubly hard on you. You'll have to find a new Tinker to maintain your bodies. The Protectorate can help if you want to join?" He offered.
"Join? No. No, I don't think so the Protectorate would not approve of what we will do next. You would not understand. Our lives matter little now upkeep is the least of our concerns."
"Then what is the greatest of your concerns? Without maintenance your technology will fail you will all die."
"Now our concern is kakushitsu."
"That's..." Legend started to ask
"Vendetta" Ray intoned.
"Feud" Diesel added.
"We will find them, we will punish them, we will make them pay in blood with interest." Atom's emotionless voice processor intoned.
"They have already run no one has ever successfully chased the Nine. What you plan is suicide." Legend tried to reason with them
"Our lives are a small price to pay for this. They have stained our home with blood. Only blood will wash the stain away. Go! Leave, this is no longer a matter for outsiders. We were his family we will see he is buried. We will see the cry of his blood answered.
