by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings. I also don't own the lyrics from the band whose name was lifted from a French fashion magazine.
The WheelThe disc turns. The music starts. I hum along, and then sing, even as I open my favourite website and start yet another topic.
My little girl, drive anywhere, do what you want, I don't care.
Taylor's a Tinker. I'm sure. Let me explain.
She was bullied for a long time. I read somewhere (on PHO, surely) that such situations could erupt in trigger events. On top of that, there was the Locker Incident. If you can hear the capitalization, here, it's normal: I am sure she triggered, there. I even said so on PHO, only for them to ban me. Again.
After the Locker, she came back in a wheelchair. I felt sorry, because, at that time, I thought that she was just another normal person hurt and damaged for life. I still feel sorry, but not for that anymore: some people explained to me what it means to trigger, in words I could understand. I now pity all parahumans.
But! How did she go from handicapped to parahuman? Well… she was healed by Panacea, at one point, but she had already modified her wheelchair for speed and manoeuvrability. Once on her own two legs, she promptly added wheels, starting with a bicycle. Given that it ended up stolen, she then used skates. Any sort of skates: rollers, inline, boards, even kick scooters. And when the Principal complained (conveniently forgetting the numerous gang members who came with worse transportation means), she got them inside her shoes.
I'm not the only one noticing that she had a much better balance on wheels than what she had before, even on her own two feet. She could do acrobatics and gymnastics on wheels… that she couldn't reproduce without them. If it's not a clue that she's a cape, I don't know what is.
In addition, it's fairly evident to notice what kind of parahuman she is: given how she reinvents the wheel every day, creating new ways to use wheels to skate around, it's obvious she's a wheel-related Tinker. In order to contest the PHO ban, I even spied on her at home, and I saw her experimenting with rickshaws and other tricycles. It was before the Unwritten Rules were explained to me, though. By her father.
Let me tell you, Daniel Hebert doesn't need powers to be a scary bastard, especially when he thought that I had feelings for his daughter (shudder). He soon understood that I was only making sure that she was alright, in a way, and that, no, I didn't fancy her (the blush I had was because of the topic, not because I was lying). Apologizing, he offered me some coffee. We ended up discussing movies. I mentioned Tron. They didn't know it.
Tonight, I'm in the hands of fate, I hand myself, over on a plate.
Wouldn't you imagine that? The next day, at school, Taylor had a Frisbee. One that rebounded on walls, like Captain America's shield. One that was enhanced to be sturdier than the normal plastic plate had any right to be. And one she could use as a regular shield, too. I'm of half a mind of mentioning the existence of chakrams, too – for the uncultured novices among you, it's a blade shaped in a circle.
I notice Emma trying to raise a stink about a parahuman attacking civilian, only for the Frisbee to knock her from the side and then veer towards Sophia. Blocked from all sides, her hands taken by bookbags, and with what she perceived as a weapon heading her way, Sophia reacted in what I can now say with certainty is a trained reflex: she became a shadow, outing herself.
Of course, she left Winslow after this: how can she expect anything but open hostility from the Empire wannabes when they know she was the one hounding them at nights? As for Taylor's meagre attacks, they were pushed to the side by the massive protestation against a Ward still using lethal weapons when visiting districts out of her patrol schedule – yes, the shock of realizing that Shadow Stalker was there all along got a few Empire members to testify against her, never mind that they got themselves imprisoned and their witness account dismissed because of pre-existing conflict. They are dismissed for the court, but not from the public opinion, and the PRT had several weeks of work calming everyone and not pushing more angry people into the Empire's waiting arms. Yes, because angry people can do stupid things. Believe me, I know. I did. Still do.
Now.
Shadow Stalker ends up being sent into juvenile prison, with a special ankle manacle that shocks her whenever she activates her shadow power. She thinks herself top of the food chain in a poorly-managed high school? Let's see how she fares in the prison system. First as a minor, and then as an adult – her sentence extending past her eighteenth birthday, she ends up facing hardened criminals, some even from the Empire… and without power.
Meanwhile, Taylor transfers too. After the summer, I don't see her anymore, at school. But, as a consequence of the PRT giving Shadow Stalker the boot, they gained another Ward, codenamed… Wheel. Of course. She's a girl, tall, with long black hair. Hello, Taylor! Way to out yourself!
But I can't say or even think those thoughts, anymore, as when I postulate this on PHO, I'm banned with an increased measure of ferocity. Of course, my initial attempts were when she wasn't a Protectorate Ward, yet. The PRT seems to protect their own with zeal and gusto.
From what I can gather, when I browse the forums anonymously (because of my ban), she makes things go round, and round, and round. Given that she sees gears as relatively round things, and axles as other relatively round things (even if they're slightly thin, and elongated), she can Tinker enough machinery to amplify the normal humans' range of motion.
While there are a few quadracycles out there, with four seats and four sets of pedals, the speed they go is roughly the same as walking. Other human-powered land vehicles, too. In fact, her domain includes anything with wheels… but without motor. Despite this, her models include several sets of gears that grant her enough of a force multiplier to give her speeds on par with regular traffic. They can also grant the vehicle enough momentum to allow for periods of not pedalling, resting her legs instead.
In the same vein, while there are a few examples of human-powered helicopters in this world, her own version is powerful enough to actually fly. Yes, she can make (and run) helicopters… as long as the rotor blades are encased in a circular enclosure. And without motors, they are mostly silent, too. Of course, her employer wouldn't allow these without testing, so she does that. And safety procedures, such as including round parachutes. And round sails, to glide when she isn't pedalling.
As for weapons and defence, she wears some armour made of round scales (of course) and holds a round shield (again, of course). She has several of her Frisbees… and a chakram – she hasn't even needed my advice for that! I'm devastated.
Oh little girl, there are times when I feel I rather not be the one behind the wheel.
For some reason, she doesn't use the idea of replicating Archimedes' mirrors for a ranged energy-based attack. I'm almost disappointed.
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The TurnI'm still here. I'm still writing. I'm just making a pause to gather my thoughts. Because what happened next is quite big, in the grand scheme of things.
We got Leviathan. I mean, Leviathan attacked the city. He smashed through the capes like a hot lightsaber through already-warm butter, his double-tap of water pulverizing them and bowling over those resistant enough to not die after two strikes. For them, the third strike is to put them under water, and keep them there. Most capes need to breathe. Even Alexandria needs to breathe. She can escape the beast's hydrokinesis, though. Others are less lucky.
I often ask myself why we fight the Endbringers. I mean… the Triumvirate, they go to each fight, and have not died. Everyone else dies, eventually. Sure, it goes to show that they are of the upper tier, in terms of power. It also shows the uselessness of going there if you are a normal cape. Bragging rights? What help are they if you die the next time?
In addition to these thoughts, Leviathan wasn't his usual ponderous self: he was like a beast on a mission, cutting through people and buildings alike in a straight line towards… a dilapidated district. It is thought that he went in the direction of the villain that then appeared, right after Scion appeared and pulled Leviathan by the non-existent ear, before dropping him in the middle of the ocean.
Come, pull my strings, watch me move, I do anything.
Codenamed Echidna, the villain was a highly-powered Brute with Trump powers, quite resilient and able to swallow capes whole in order to create imperfect clones that acted in her defence. Without clothes or masks, it outed each and every victim.
When a tendril sought Alexandria, the impervious hero preferred to step back rather than follow her first idea (which, given her inflexible nature, was always "ram them through, ask question never"). The problem, for the heroes, is that Eidolon was right behind the embodiment of a flying brick. And when the brick failed in her basic job, he was quite surprised at being grabbed, pulled, and swallowed whole.
The clones that appear make people blink in disbelief. All of them looking like an ugly and potbellied old man, they belie Eidolon's stature… and make people realize that the costume he wears is more than half his image. One is raging impotently at the world. Another uses black holes to attack, each of them a bit too late to be of effect, and smaller than the previous one, too, as if he's losing power. The last clone of Eidolon to appear, though, doesn't seem to have powers. But upon his raising his hands (and toes, too), we saw something we would never have believed without proof.
The Endbringers were back. Leviathan rushed back from the sea. Behemoth emerged from the ground. The Simurgh landed between her "brothers". And that wasn't all. No less than seventeen other colossal monstrosities appeared behind the first three, making us realize that the three we had weren't the sign of the End of Times… far from it. They were just the beginning.
Given their sheer size, they hadn't appeared too close to the fight, and Echidna was pressing forwards anyways. The Eidolon clone who summoned the Endbringers let her move and stepped towards his charges.
Meanwhile, the Eidolon inside Echidna seemed to have awakened, because she stopped moving. She started trembling, and then bloated, like a snake swallowing (or, rather, puking) a particularly large rabbit. People started to celebrate, thinking that Eidolon was getting out. Instead, a black hole appeared, centred on the massive villainess, and encompassing several of her guards. Some of the heroes still fighting got in the radius and disappeared. Some buildings crumbled, too, their front disappearing entirely.
Please.
The Eidolon clone next to the Endbringers was further, though, and stayed alive. Once the black hole disappeared, leaving a half-spherical hole in the ground, he shook his head and watched the wary heroes. "What, now?"
"What are you going to do?" Alexandria asked.
He shrugged. "I don't know. Echidna is dead, so I'm not beholden in helping her. And my power is stable, not waning like David's."
"And what is it?"
He smiles and his arm lifts, showing the twenty towering figures. "It's part of what he was doing, unconsciously. I now control them."
You could almost see the wheels turning in Alexandria's head. She removed her cape and gave it to the man – who seemed to have difficulties in managing its weight. And then she lifted him in the sky. I don't know what they talked about after this. Knowing what happened until then is only possible thanks to the posts from AllSeeingEye (whom I believe is Tattletale, given that she was present).
It is inferred, though, that it had something to do about the real Eidolon's suicide and the clone's legal existence. They probably spoke about the Endbringers, too, given that they all flew (they flew!) in a straight line, ending up surrounding Scion above the middle of the Pacific. And then they struck together, powers which mowed through capes having barely an effect on the godling. Still, they succeeded in making him wink out of existence, leaving a tear in reality in what was his body. And they flew through it to the planet where Scion was really resting. Attacking the planet, as much as the worm inhabiting it, caused it to detonate, its energy redirected by the ten surviving war machines to get rid of every shred of the Golden man's being.
After that, perhaps back at the secret base Tattletale hints about, they re-evaluated the whole PRT attitude about villains. You see, there is this "game", of Cops and Robbers, where villain capes are rarely prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Conversely, if they go too far, they are kept away, in the Birdcage. The tinfoil-hat forums, of which I'm a fervent poster, have posited several reasons, and, as usual, one must be quite close to the truth. My money is on the fact that the opaque entity named Cauldron needed the villains in place, as cannon fodder, for the Endbringers… and some other threat. Without Endbringers, and with that "other threat" simultaneously revealed as Scion and dealt with, there was no need to coddle the evildoers. The Birdcage was removed completely, its inhabitants re-evaluated by using a normal judiciary process. To our horror, we found that there were innocents in there, as well as children!
Some people were unrepentant. As such, they were executed.
Strike teams were sent in location where villains were known to congregate, and deliver the new rules, with an ultimatum. Strangely enough, after Scion's death, capes were more often able to reason rather than rely on conflict to solve anything. Some see it, that link, as causality.
However, some villains were already beyond the pale. Those got the axe without the nag. Nilbog and his city was incinerated, razed, and a new settlement was getting constructed in its place.
Jack Slash was targeted by Miss Militia, who missed the shot. According to Tattletale (grabbed by the PRT after she helped in the Echidna incident), it was because his power discussed with other powers, making other capes unable to truly harm him. As a result, an unpowered PRT sniper was put in place to repeat the shot. And ace it. He also got several other members of the group, including Manton (apparently, they had known for a while that killing him would make the Siberian disappear). And then Alexandria punted Crawler in galactic orbit.
Sweet little girl, I prefer, you behind the wheel, and me the passenger
Two remained at large: Bonesaw, and Mannequin. For some reason, the fact that the Slaughterhouse Nine was in a motel barely a day of car away from Brockton Bay didn't register as a threat. We should have known that whatever violence happened here, and the consequences in terms of chaos, would attract the Chaotic Evil group as bears to honey.
If I know more about the Nine than even AllSeeingEye, it's because of the little girl that kidnapped me.
Yes, I was kept hostage by Bonesaw. And she kept complaining about her companions, their death, and her boss, which is why I know so much about them. She spoke in length about her difficulties in respecting his standing orders if he ever died – he wanted her to clone them all.
Quite the impatient and energetic cape, Bonesaw found the normal cloning process too slow, because it required the constructed bodies to age. In addition, without Jack to channel her, she was taking detours and not quite obeying the plan. For instance, instead of waiting for bodies to maturate, she wanted to play with her abilities to mesh powers and memories, in the form of brain grafts, with pre-existing bodies. With a few… "adaptations", as needed.
That's why I was kidnapped, alongside others. Most of us didn't survive the process for long, and I was the "lucky" one to stay alive, coherent, and not overwhelmed by the psyche of deceased Slaughterhouse Nine ex-members.
I was lucky, but different. Instead of the old "me", I'm now the mixed result of my own body and mind, Jack's… and hers. Thankfully, she hasn't made me completely unbearable to watch, the main discrepancy with normal humanity being the third eye in the middle of my forehead – easily hidden behind bangs, when I'll have my hair grown again. It's the only one with which my own brain sees. With the eye on my right, Jack's, I can aim his power, although it has mutated and now only applies to bludgeoning weapons. With my left eye, I can see the internal structure of any organic creature, and how to hack through it to do what I want with them – healing, harming, reorganizing, etc. And with both at the same time, I can perceive powers and how to manipulate them.
I was quite subservient, when I was first "created": given that Bonesaw didn't want me wandering around, I was forced to obey her orders. When the capes came to take care of her, I tried to defend her, and they almost killed me. My relative anonymity helped me, there, as well as the scars on my skin, proving that I had been operated on by the mad surgeon. I was kept under observation for a while, of course, before being given the possibility of joining the Wards.
Drive, I'm yours to keep. Do what you want, I'm going cheap, tonight.
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The Start of Something GreatWithout the Simurgh actively preventing humanity from reaching the stars, we constructed new space-worthy ships and infrastructures. Such as a space station and space elevators.
Given the current climate between heroes and villains, there were people willing to do harm to humanity as a whole, and didn't fear getting their hands dirty with some mayhem and wilful destruction. Local, and international.
The first act against the new space exploration impetus came from the Yangban, the Chinese squads of parahumans, when they tried to make a shuttle explode on its launching pad. Thankfully, we had Thinkers devoted to check for threats, internal and external, and the departure was faked. And then we fought them.
Yes, "we", because I participated. My powers allowed me to see from afar how the squad's powers were stacking together, and punching key people at specific moments got their concentration wavering and ultimately failing, transforming a well-oiled team into a vague grouping of weak-willed individuals.
The remaining Endbringers helped, too. Especially when they followed the few remaining members of the squads left alive to flee home, after this, and they were able to root out the remainder of their capes. Without parahumans, the CUI couldn't defend effectively when their unpowered army, massive as it may be, was systematically destroyed. And then, letting local chiefs emerge naturally, what was an empire became a smattering of quarrelling tribes, as it had been before.
The next action targeted the first space elevator to finish being constructed, and it was spearheaded by Mannequin and Saint. The first had escaped the slaughter of the Slaughterhouse, and the second had escaped the wrath of Armsmaster. Somehow, Armsmaster and Dragon had fallen in love, she had explained her nature and laid her code bare for him to see for himself. And he noticed quickly the vulnerabilities built therein.
Plugging the harmful effects from Ascalon, he also traced the signal and found the hangar housing the Dragonslayers. Saint escaped, sacrificing his friends for his freedom. And, with the recovered console, Armsmaster was able to liberate Dragon, bit by bit.
Having found Teacher again, Saint had been made to wait patiently until the moment was right, and that was the coordinated attack on the various sites chosen for the space elevators – the one actually finished, and the three others, in construction.
I was among the people defending the finished one, and when I got my hands on Mannequin, I noticed where he kept his brain… and took it. I was also cleared to do that, having brainstormed with my fellow heroes about the ex-Tinker. His specialty being self-sufficient bases, he was the ideal basis to grant a few people the same power, something I could do thanks to Bonesaw's abilities.
I ended up giving them to several capes, too, mixing that with their own power. And, as you might have guessed from the start of this post, I gave one to Taylor.
You're behind the wheel, tonight.
By that time, we were both adults, and working in the Bay's instance of the Protectorate. Fighting side by side had generated some goodwill to purge the indiscretions of my younger self, and allowing me to root in her skull was the ultimate proof of her trust – of course, it wasn't before I actually did so, with oversight, on numerous other people (whom I could help by doing so), and then capes.
And, wouldn't you know? Her pre-existing power meshed with Mannequin's in such an obvious way that she ended up being the main instigator in the creation of the first Orbital Ring, a massive construction surrounding the planet and anchored by the space elevators – it allows it to turn at a speed generating gravity automatically, pushing its content towards the well-reinforced outside enclosure.
Taylor keeps calling it "orbital Wheel" for an obvious reason: her powers work better, that way. She can also discuss with both Armsmaster and Accord (the retired villain) to make better plans for living accommodations – including the tons of soil already up there, making perfect "ground" for an Earth-like natural habitat.
There are plans to construct other Orbital Rings. A few others on Earth, potentially, as well as one on Mars, Neptune – Neptune to extract the ice the planet is mostly made of, and send it to Mars so as to terraform it. The one around Neptune would also be the starting point of future missions towards outer space, unless we can use Pluto.
It's only the beginning, but the advantages are many. For instance, we can construct ships directly into space, bringing the necessary items with the space elevators. Not needing to expend fuel to bring them to orbit lowers the need to pollute our already stretched world.
There are plans in motion, too, to construct another Ring, this one around the Sun itself. Named from the one who thought it up initially, the Dyson Ring will harness quite a bit of the energy from our star. After all, we need a hefty amount of energy to punch through the Light Barrier (named after the "sound barrier" the early fliers had to punch through to get over Mach 1) in order to achieve FTL travel.
Knowing Taylor, she'll insist to call it a Wheel, again, so that her power can work better with it.
The music ends and another takes its place. Daft Punk, this time, with "Around the World". A bit repetitive, and I already spoke about the Orbital Ring. I search for a song that would say "Around the Sun" or something like that. And then I stop because we are already working on that. We are preparing to make the first foray into interstellar transit and colonization. Kardashev would be proud.
I know I am.
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To be continued… to infinity, and beyond!