Read aloud to me alt Taylor

by Kahlil Johnson

Dnd

50. B3

Man, I am not writing nearly as much as I'd like to.

You could say...

MY HEART'S NOT IN IT!

Interlude 3.p

There are times when my job is made harder than it needs to be.

Sometimes that is when a previously-unknown parahuman kills the most powerful cape in the city and kicks off a gang war between an unstable Tinker with a remarkably destructive specialty and a group of superpowered Nazis. The knee-jerk reaction is to double up patrols, call all hands to battlestations, make broad public statements about how this is the last time villainous parahumans will break the law, and make a concerted effort to go after the stronger side.

That is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Doubling the number of patrols means double the number of fights, which means double the number of injuries, which means double the down time even with Isidis providing discounted healing. A gang war is exactly the wrong time to have a valuable parahuman benched because they ran afoul of their natural counter. Most of the parahumans I work with understand this, even the younger ones in the Wards.

"What do you mean I can't have more patrols!?"

Sophia Hess. If she wasn't actually good at bringing in criminals she'd be in juvenile hall, then prison shortly afterwards if her behavior is anything to go by. As is, a little paperwork and a few rants are worth a noticeable drop in street crime.

"I mean that we anticipate an increase in Empire and ABB activity, and they are likely to be more lethal than normal," I say calmly, pushing down the mild disgust that wells up in me whenever a spoiled brat comes into my office demanding things. "For that reason I cannot allow an increase in patrols, especially given your penchant for wandering off on them." The unspoken threat of actually making something of her blatant violations of procedure hangs between us.

Sophia grinds her teeth together before stomping out. I take another sip of coffee, savoring the caffeine and the taste of a job well done.

The knee jerk response to hearing a junior demand a meeting is to deny them. The orders come from above and go down, not the other way around. Basic stuff, and entirely correct when working with regular people.

Exactly wrong when working with parahumans.

Each parahuman has their own issues, but most of them come with a form of egocentrism. They aren't normal people who will follow orders when it makes sense or when they don't know what to do. Thus, they must be indulged, allowed to have their tantrums, be given a pat on the back for every tiny thing they do right, and sternly reprimanded for their failures. It's like training dogs, but less pleasant and less permanent.

I turn back to the bottomless pile of paperwork and pull out the first page. Say what you will about the banality of filling out forms in triplicate, it's a break from talking to madmen and trying to get them marching in the right direction.

Over time, I've found myself gravitating towards particular types of parahumans and away from others. They're all crazy on some level but certain classifications are easier to deal with. Blasters, Strikers and Shakers tend to be fairly normal. Masters and Thinkers can't be trusted to not use their powers in social situations and should be treated as perpetually combative. Tinkers are generally the least difficult to work with. Away from a lab, most of them are essentially regular people, albeit distractible ones. So long as you don't allow them to go off on a tangent and make sure you never meet them when they have access to their full kit, you can almost trick yourself into thinking you're talking to a mere mortal.

That's why I wait three days before calling Kid Win to my office. He shows up in a red bodysuit and domino mask, the latter poorly concealing his concern. Good. That worry will make this easier. I lay aside a half-filled expense report and look up at him.

"Sit down," I say. He does, and I wait a beat for the silence to emphasize the importance of this conversation.

"You brought unapproved Tinkertech into the field," I state plainly, and Kid Win's face falls further. Good. This was cluster fuck of unimaginable proportions, more than partially due to his actions. He should feel like shit. "Could you please explain to me why you did this?"

"We were going up against Fenja and my pistols weren't doing anything," he mumbles eyes falling to his lap.

"So retreat," I say, placing a slight emphasis on the second word. "Wards are not supposed to engage during villain versus villain fights. As soon as the Empire showed up, procedure was to run away."

"We were winning though," he says, a little life entering his voice. "Aegis had taken out Regent early on, Vista and Clockblocker had one of Hellhound's dogs tagged and if we'd had a little more time-"

"You didn't," I interrupt, putting the steel of experience in my voice. "Fenja, Alabaster, Victor and Othala showed up. Please, tell me how you came to the conclusion that escalating against them was a good idea." A heavy hitter capable of taking anything they could dish out while knocking buildings to the ground, an unstoppable if minor frontliner, a sniper of parahuman skill, and the greatest known force multiplier in the city, all with body counts. The Youth Guard needs to try working with actual lemmings sometime to understand what it's like trying to keep the Wards safe in Brockton Bay.

"All we needed to do was take out Fenja," he protests, arm reaching towards me in supplication. "I would've had the element of surprise-"

"Kid Win, what does your device do? In broad strokes," I add, holding up my hand. "And tell me only what you knew before you deployed it."

He takes a moment, his eyes getting that far-away look Tinkers sometimes get when you ask them about anything remotely connected to their work. "Variable broad-spectrum energy projection, with the ability to modify the attributes of the output on the fly, including but not limited to intensity, speed of blast, fire rate-"

"Enough," I say and he stops talking, coming back to earth. "So you knew that you had a large gun that could shoot a wide variety of energy." He nods. I sigh internally.

"You did not know if it was reliable. You did not know when it would red-line. You did not know what, precisely, the baseline output of the gun was. You did not know if the base strength of the gun was powerful enough or esoteric enough to punch right through Fenja's distortion field and kill her, plunging the city into a bloodbath as the Empire turns the Bay inside out seeking vengeance." Kid Win's face pales. Good. The burnt hand learns best. "In summary, you knew that the gun was powerful and versatile and knew nothing about how to use it safely."

There's some silence. I take the opportunity to drink some coffee. It's excellent. A benefit of having a master Tinker on base who's addicted to the stuff.

When it becomes clear that Kid Win can't come up with a logical argument for his breach of protocol, I continue. "Lucky for you the worst case scenario didn't happen. Instead, your attempt to shock Fenja into unconsciousness missed, entered Medhall's power grid, blew past every safety precaution, and destroyed several terabytes of information and hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medhall computing assets." I take another sip of coffee. Damn it's good. Almost enough to consider letting Armsmaster go to town on the rest of the kitchen.

"You cannot pay this back. I can't touch your trust fund, and there's not nearly enough there anyway. If I docked every dollar you made from now until your graduation to the Protectorate, that wouldn't be enough. Maybe there would be enough if I did that and confiscated your Tinkering budget." At that his head pops up, dread on his face.

"Instead, Medhall has agreed to an out-of-court settlement. You will work with their scientists in their labs for no less than ten hours every week. A neutral third party Tinker will appraise your end designs, and the patents will be given to Medhall while also allowing you to use the designs non-commercially." The end result of two near-sleepless days on the phone while the dialysis machine flushed my body clean of toxins. Calling in every scrap of goodwill and favor the PRT and Protectorate had on Medhall, endless arguments over minutiae, all to keep a teenager with the power to level buildings from feeling the full consequences of his actions.

If I keeled over and went straight to hell, I'm not sure I would notice until I went to get more coffee.

"You are removed from all patrols until the debt is paid off, and you will dismantle the cannon." I see him want to complain, want being the key word. He forces it back down and nods. It seems he understands the magnitude of his fuck up. I nod towards the door. "You are dismissed."

He stands stiffly, pushes in the chair, and leaves the room, closing the door carefully. Hard to believe he's my favorite Ward. Aegis is too willing to simply take his punishments and learn nothing, Clockblocker is more willful than an unbroken mustang, Browbeat has yet to do more than superficially join the group, Gallant's power makes lying to him too difficult, Shadow Stalker is a rabid dog, and Vista is well on her way to a mental breakdown.

Kid Win is the only one among them who is properly responsive to feedback, negative and positive, while also not having the baggage of an involuntary Thinker power that colors every social interaction he has. I expect that he will take over as a Protectorate branch head in time. If the cannon is anything to go by he certainly has the power for it.

I finish the mug and search for another. It's cold, but Armsmaster has found a way to make even the chilly, bitter dregs of day-old expresso appealing.

If parahumans weren't so damn violent, I could almost be thankful for them.

"Parahuman name?"

"White Rose."

"Desired designation?"

"Rogue."

I raise an eyebrow at that. The woman- girl, I remind myself, she's Wards age, not Protectorate- who kills Lung on her debut and cripples an ABB gang member soon after wants to remain neutral?

"Business pursued?"

"Luxury goods, materials are inconsequential."

I spare a look for her lawyer. He seems slightly familiar. I've probably seen him before. I look back to the girl.

"Taxes?"

"Standard parahuman anonymity code. No revelation of identity."

This girl is willing to pay taxes twice in order to keep a secret. Given that her parents probably cover most of her living expenses, that makes sense right now. It'll be interesting to see if she keeps it up when she's on her own.

White Rose turns her gaze to mine, and I take the opportunity to appraise her as well. Her mask changes every time she steps out into public. The first night it was something reminiscent of Gallant's knight theme. When she went out to lunch at the now-destroyed Italian restaurant it looked closer to a skull with roses growing around it. Today it looks like a number of petals layered themselves over a human face, with cheekbones too sharp to be natural, flat black lenses where the eyes should be, and no mouth.

While the representative of the city and White Rose's lawyer hash out the details and ensure that she won't accidentally destabilize the local economy, I try to see something human beneath her shell. Something that I can read and understand.

All I see is perfect stillness. The kind of serenity that a corpse has.

This is the problem with Changers. They play at being human, and some of them spend a lot of time looking like one, but they're never quite the same after they Trigger. They always do something, something small, that tips you off to their true nature. Like the uncanny valley, but it's usually not a situation of feeling too stiff. Their movements can be too natural. Or too powerful.

The representative of the city passes a form to me and I sign it absentmindedly before passing it to White Rose. I won't pick a fight with her over her attempts to play harmless civilian. My words would only fall on deaf ears and push her away. At any rate, reality will assert itself soon enough. She'll have her little shop, things will go well for a while, and then it will all come tumbling down when the rest of the world makes its expectations for her clear. The day that happens, the PRT will be waiting.

Not much is left to discuss after that. The legal counsels shake hands as we walk to the door, the newest parahuman in the Bay officially a Rogue willing to join the Anti-Endbringer Force. That's one piece of good news at least.

A hand covered in bone places itself in front of me. I look at it, then to the parahuman it's attached to. She seems to have shrunk a little.

"Have a good day, Director," she says, voice earnest and cheerful.

I grab it and keep the revulsion off my face, giving it two firm pumps.

"Have a good day, White Rose."

Edit: minor change to make legalities more believable.

Last edited: Mar 3, 2018

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T0PH4T

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Mar 10, 2018

#1,297

Welp, time to get back to the plot.

Also, did you hear about the skeleton with controversial opinions? I heard he makes no bones about it!

Putrefaction 4.1

I'm on my way to the library a few days after my meeting with the city officials when I decide against going out with the Travelers again. We worked fine together but it seemed like they had a very specific team dynamic and I'm not sure where I would've fit within it. That, and I'm not sure if they'd still want to work with me, what with the whole crippling thing.

After I arrive at Brockton Public, I check out a book on anatomy. Most of it goes over my head but I pick up a few useful pieces of information. Don't hit the thighs, those have big blood vessels in them that can bleed people out fast. Concussions and head wounds in general are serious business. I'll have to cut down on the clubs to the side of the head. A broken jaw tends to be non-fatal and extremely debilitating, as are broken teeth. Club the front of the head, then. Don't stab people in the chest unless you want to kill them, so fewer needles. Sharp blades hurt less than dull ones. That doesn't make any sense to me, but cutting people up seems more like a villain thing anyway so I'll do my best to avoid it in general.

I'm pretty sure that educating a hero on how best to hurt people was not what the author intended when they wrote "Emergency Trauma and Injuries for Dummies" but I think minimizing harm is still an acceptable use for the text.

Dad and I share a quick dinner of take out pizza. We don't say much, but it's that nice kind of silence where neither of us thinks anything needs to be said rather than the silence of neither of us knowing what to say. After the food is gone and the box is in the trash we exchange our quiet nightly farewells, and I head up to my room for a quick nap.

I wake up and check my new burner phone. Eleven oh three. Not as long as I could've slept but my alarm clock is still broken. At some point I'll need a new one of those. Something to do with my new-found wealth perhaps.

I go to Dad's door and listen closely. Deep, even breathing. Early to bed and early to rise. Before I leave I take the time to make sure my window can be unlatched from the outside. No more creaking steps. I armor up, slip out the door, and start heading to one of the addresses that Tattletale gave me, cross-referenced with the other sites the Travelers have hit without me to make sure I go to a live target.

The sliver of moon doesn't do much to illuminate the night, and the street lamps are flickering at best. I add night-vision goggles to my list of things to buy. Not sure if I can find any that are also one half of a prescription lens and fit under a reasonable mask but who knows? Maybe there's some reverse-engineered Tinkertech I can get my hands on.

I stop on a rooftop a block away from my destination and force myself to plan. I don't have Trickster to feed me gang members anymore so I'll need to be either way more mobile or way more subtle than I was when I did this with the Travelers. I can always go from subtle to mobile when necessary, so how do I start out being stealthy with bones? Hang above people, maybe, or a bone gag from behind to muffle noises. That doesn't stop the noise I make though, and it doesn't make me any less visible.

Ugh. I examine at my target as I wrack my brain. An old, roofed dry-dock, a lot bigger than the packaging house, probably abandoned when the shipping industry started dying. I have no idea what's inside but chances are it's nothing pleasant. I can see some small boats moored next to the street, tied to large trucks with wooden boxes in the back.

It's also surrounded by Asian thugs in red and green.

Two guards with big, worn-looking assault rifles are at every door, and they speak briefly into walkie-talkies about every five minutes. The same rust-red pickup truck keeps driving around the area in a semi-random pattern, with a girl sitting in the bed next to a long object covered by a tarp. A frontal assault would mean wading through a lot of bullets, and I'm not sure I trust my armor that much.

They have guns and manpower, and I have bones. What do bones have on bullets and people? Quantity, medical applications, superior close-range combat, organic versus inorganic, intimidating, lighter, they let me move faster...

Nothing that gives me an advantage in sneaking.

I snap a toe in frustration. How do I approach without tipping them off? Bone white armor isn't exactly the most inconspicuous thing in the world. Maybe if I covered myself with something? Black spray paint? It's an idea for the future, but right now I don't think there's a Home Depot open at midnight waiting for a Rogue to come by and pick up some paints. Burrowing? Yeah, through asphalt and concrete with bone.

I look around the environment for any weaknesses but the ABB have picked a good spot. There aren't even any convenient nearby rooftops. Maybe find a manhole cover and go in through the sewers? Nah, I have no idea what the sewage system looks like. I'd be more at risk of getting lost down there than anything else.

I look at a wastewater pipe emptying into the bay. Maybe I can go through the pipe? I shake the idea out my head almost as soon as I have it. Apart from having to bathe in waste on my way in, I can't imagine there are many openings large enough for me inside the building, even if I could figure out which ones go into the hideout.

Then I look at the sea again. Maybe...

Humans are naturally buoyant, but bones aren't. It still take a bit to make a snorkel long enough for me to be able to breath, longer to figure out how to exhale. Also, it's dark, even though I'm just a few dozen feet beneath the waves.

On the other hand, those are all solvable problems.

Thanks to some creative use of my power, not even half an hour later I'm walking fairly quickly along the seafloor with what a long hollow pipe poking out above the water feeding me oxygen, nearly blind from the pure blackness, relying on cilia as thin and flexible as I can make them to tell me where things are. It's like feeling my way across a dark room, and I have to walk slowly or else my feelers will shatter and I'll have stop moving to grow them out again.

I feel unusually proud of my roundabout water-breathing, even with the freezing cold and moments of sharp-but-barely-there pain when a sea current breaks a section of cilia. There might be easier ways to get into the warehouse, but there probably aren't any that will be more surprising.

I feel myself getting light headed and hold my breath, closing off my connection to the snorkel. Cap the tube, form a hole at the bottom, and pull down the cap. I imagine a bubble of CO2 being forced out by the descending cap, oxygen being dragged into the tube by the sudden pressure difference, and then the cap comes to the hole and the tube is filled with oxygen again. I open up the connection again and take in a breath of air. Then I get back to walking alongside the coast, feeling for the gap in the wall that leads to the dry dock.

Maybe fifteen minutes and half a dozen false alarms later (I'll be taking a thirty-minute shower when I get home), the wall my cilia were touching falls away. I move closer, detecting the corner. I snap a toe bone, chiding myself. I'm not sure if this is it yet. I form another branch off of the tube and bring it down to my ear. Then I listen.

"-and tell Liao he owes me twenty bucks," a voice with an Asian accent says." She was a-"

Annnnnnd that's enough of that. I close off the tube and pull it back, trying desperately to not imagine the end of that sentence fragment. This seems like the place. I refresh the air in my tube, then take a deep breath. In. Out. Mask on. I pay attention to my armor and thicken it, throwing in a few thorns here and there for weapons to catch on. I have no idea what I'm going to be facing up there. None. It could be six gangbangers, it could be sixty. All the fire power could be outside. The people outside could be scouts, and the armaments in the main area could be twice as scary. I don't know.

I ripple my ribs at the fear. No. Mask is on. Fear is useful when you're running. When you need to be paranoid. I'm on the offensive here. I'm the one making shit happen. I'm the goddamn protagonist. Time to provoke people.

I web my fingers and start increasing the volume of my bone armor. I start floating up, but not fast enough. I push at the water, extending more bone into something like flippers and kick, just like I did all those years ago at the pool when Emma and I did swim team, before she turned on me and earned herself a shredding!

I don't push back the thought, but warp the face of Emma into the accountant's. That brings up the girls and I turn the sorrow and regret into more rage, more sharp and angry murder. I can feel the cold retreating as I shoot through the water, burned away by pounding blood and writhing bone, propelling me faster than I can ever remember achieving on my own.

I erupt from the flooded dry dock, shooting out of the water, clearing the three feet of empty air between the surface of the sea and the edge, and front flip over two shocked Asian men carrying a long wooden crate. I pull in the flippers and webbing to stick the landing, crouch lightly, grow a pair of batons, and bare my teeth behind my mask.

Lets fucking fight!

The areas is littered with well-ordered boxes, and bright fluorescent lights are casting deep shadows onto the concrete floor. There's a balcony clinging to the side of the building, and I'm moving before I register what the gangsters on it mean. Constant fire. I need cover.

Then I catch sight of three Asian teens in red and green between two stacks of boxes, scrambling for their weapons. I switch back towards them and lean into the run.

The first I catch with a blunt jab low to her right side. The liver. She bends into the blow and falls, one hand extending out to catch herself but by then I've moved past her. The second one lifts his arms into something like a fighting stance. It doesn't matter, as when he intercepts my baton with his raised arm it breaks with a wet snap. He falls, and I feel something red, angry and proud at the efficacy of the injury.

The last one turns his weapon on me but hesitates a moment, concern in his eyes. His friends behind me, maybe? I grow a barb on a baton, hook it around his gun, and pull it out of his hands. His loss. On the backswing I clip his chin, sending him spinning face first into a tower of boxes with a spray of blood, the liquid transforming into sparkling rubies in the too-bright light.

Two gunshots echo out, and one of the boxes near me splinters. Need more cover. I cut right to break line of sight and run, pulling at the soft wood of the boxes with bone hooks when I need to corner faster. The gunfire trails behind me but the few hits I take barely put me off balance. I hear the distant pounding of feet, as well as the sound of grinding metal. Are they bringing back the car? I'm not sure if that means I should run before I find out what's under the tarp or if I should try to take the initiative and charge towards the entrance.

I lose the chance to choose when I body check someone and go stumbling. Something that sounds like a thunderbolt and feels like a sledgehammer hits my right breast. I fall onto my ass, the impact banishing my shock. I roll backwards, heels over head, then push up with my batons, breaking my ear drums to prevent further hearing loss. Who's run afoul of me now?

Five gangsters, one on the floor holding his face, one ejecting a shell from a shotgun, and the rest of them bringing their rifles up to their shoulders, a combination of surprise, terror, and bravado on their faces.

I lower my head and charge.

The chatter of gunfire is a physical force, shaking my armor just from the noise and nearly forcing me back with the few bullets that do scrape off my shoulders. Then I'm below their firing arcs and among them.

The next few seconds are all bone, blood and bashing. Baton to the chin, kick to the side of the knee, power through a blow from the butt of a gun, elbow to the neck, fist into a girl's teeth, flex the frills on my arms to cut open someone's face, twine some needles around a neck into a noose and pull, then there's no more shaking of my armor, just a pair of gangsters slowly turning blue as bone encircles their necks.

I drop them when they go limp and get back to moving. When I'm not immediately followed by bullets, I duck behind a tower of boxes, fix my ears, and listen.

There's still gunfire, but it's moving away from me, punctuated by panicked chatter in some foreign language. That, and the sound of a chainsaw being applied to a chain link fence except fifty times louder. I re-shatter my ear bones and start heading towards the rumbling. I'm not sure what I'm running towards but chances are it's where the action is.

On the way I run into a pair of ABB goons. A kidney punch for one, a straight right to the jaw for the other, a follow-up elbow to the temple for the first, and they're down. The scent of copper is thick in the air and I wipe my face, trying to make sure that there's no blood on it. When I pull my hand away, there's a small red smear on my ring and pinky finger and I shudder a little.

I fix my ears after cuffing the two gangster together with bone and listen for the sounds of violence. The metal-on-metal noise is less angry now, and I can smell cordite as well as copper. I don't like it, but if someone's going around murdering ABB members-

I turn the corner and walk into a scene right out of a nightmare.

Blood and chunks of flesh are everywhere, the floor completely sticky with the stuff. Mutilated gang members lie on the ground, moaning or deathly still, scattered about like so much chaff. Bullet casings litter the area like little golden tears, and the smells of spent gunpowder and spilled vital fluids are nearly overwhelming.

In the middle of it all is a creature of hooks and blades, maybe the size of three or four cars, the silver metal of the paws tainted by red. It turns towards me, opening a maw made of whirling death.

"Heya Rosie," Hookwolf grinds out, followed by a laugh that sounds like silverware in a garbage disposal. "How's your night been?"

Last edited: Mar 11, 2018

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Mar 17, 2018

#1,360

Hey guys.

What did the skeleton call the fracture that he got in March?

A SPRING BREAK!

Putrefaction 4.2

I fall to my knees, open up my mask as fast as I can, and vomit.

After a few seconds of retching, my faculties return to me and what the FUCK? Why is Hookwolf here, and why did he have to turn the place into a charnel house?

"You alright over there?" he asks, the sound of metal on metal getting closer. Fuck. No. I raise an arm towards him and make the most painful-looking barbed spike of bone I can imagine.

"No!" I shout. "I am not. Fucking. Okay!" Like, fuck. I start snapping bones freely and try to drown as much disgust and fear in the pain as I can while I push myself up with no small assistance from my shell.

"Listen, calm down," Hookwolf says, the grinding sound getting quieter.

"Why should I calm down?" I say, a note of hysteria creeping into my voice. I finally manage to turn and look at him. "How many people did you just kill?"

"It's a fuckin' gang war," he deadpans, now just a humanoid mass of blades as tall as I am. "What, you think we fuckin' politely disagree over drinks?"

"No!" I shout back. "I just..." Words escape me.

"Didn't picture the red dead end of it?" he asks, and swear I can see a raised eyebrow through the metal on his face.

"Fuck you," I say for lack of any better response, embarrassment and shame temporarily cutting through the pain. I can't try to kill him. Mr. Doe would lose it. That, and starting a fight with another gang would definitely kill my hopes of ever being seen as neutral.

"Thought so," he nods. "People are always ready to say war, but when you get down to the business of killin' folk, suddenly," he raises his hands in mock surprise, "They don't want to fight anymore." He snorts. "Fuckin' idiots." The metal recedes further under his skin but he stays blades from the waist down.

That was a mental image I didn't need.

"Anyway, I figured you'd be a little more in the know about the bloodier side of things, what with killin' Lung and how you look like you crawled out of the Black Lagoon after Shark Week," he says, shrugging one shoulder. "Guess I was wrong. Anyway," he stifles a yawn, "It's gettin' late. If you want to do a real team up, offer's still open. Just walk into an Empire bar and drop a time and place and tell them it's for Hooky. I'll get the message."

He walks out of the room through a massive hole in the wall, treading through puddles of blood without a care in the world. I follow behind him more carefully, using strategically placed bone stilts to avoid covering my feet in gore.

By the time I'm outside, he's put on a metal wolf mask and a pair of ragged work jeans (thankfully) and is closing the storage compartment on a shiny and rather expensive-looking motorcycle, the headlamp clamped between the jaws of an intricate wolfshead. He settles down on it, the bike sinking alarmingly beneath him. He shoots me one last grin.

"See ya later, Rosie!"

He peels off with a growl of the engine and a plume of exhaust, leaving me at the crime scene.

I snap a few bones in frustration at seeing the murderous Nazi escape justice before heading back into the building. I grab a phone from one of the unconscious ABB goons, dial up the PRT hotline, and tell them that Hookwolf and White Rose raided the same ABB storehouse at the same time. I then explain that it was not intentional, that I am not a Nazi, that all the fatalities are Hookwolf's, and that I will be going home to sleep and to please keep my name out of the papers. I hang up after the responder says something to the effect of "you'd sound less like a Nazi if you stayed to answer our questions" and start heading home, mind whirling with possibilities that all end with Godwin's Law being applied to me.

Before I stilt my way up to the rooftops, I look into a nearby display window to check out my reflection. Hookwolf had said "Black Lagoon after Shark Week." I don't think he meant to make a period joke, so what does that actually mean?

I end up looking at myself for a long time.

It apparently means spined frills I don't remember adding tipped with red. It means blood spatters criss-crossing my armor, contrasting with the white bone.

I extend a baton and watch it in the mirror as I swing. Blades form along it, warping it into something much more aerodynamic. The frills on my armor twist with the motion, lacerating the air.

I pull the frills and baton back in and head home, quietly wondering whether I hurt anyone too badly again.

It takes a few days for the next catastrophe to happen. I'm too confused and horrified by what happened at the docks to go out again so I fill my days by throwing myself into the prep work for my flower shop, meeting employees hired by Mr. Doe (I'm a little miffed that I was left out of the decision making process, but I understand why seeing a random fifteen-year-old in the room during interviews might be seen as weird) who have no experience working with capes. It's not a small gap to bridge, but I try to get on a first-name basis with everyone who will be on the floor of the store. I think I have a conversation with maybe half of them before giving up and resigning myself to the awkwardness of barely knowing most of my underlings. That's what the floor manager is for, right?

The next day I spend talking to the painters, sculptors and botanists who picked up shares in my store and start brainstorming ideas for products with them. A painter asks for a bouquet to color, and when I grow him a dozen roses in a few seconds he revises his request to as many as will fit in his Civic. A sculptor toys with the idea of furniture before dismissing bone as too brittle, finally settling on trying to design a tower that whistles in the wind. She claims that she'll have some plans to send to my lawyer by the end of the week. A gardner who looks old as the Bay itself helps me make flower pots, bird feeders and bonsai trees. They turn out small, delicate and somehow natural-feeling when filled with rich black earth. I let her take the prototypes after photographing them for future reproduction. When I go to bed my dreams are filled with art, twisting branches, and roses without thorns.

On the third day I visit the location itself, set between a coffee shop and a nicer-looking tattoo parlor in the contested zone between Empire territory and Coil's area of operation. Floor to ceiling windows at the front with empty displays behind them waiting to be filled with product. The interior is maybe twenty feet wide and fifteen deep, with three shelves running parallel from the front to the back counter where a cash register has already been installed.

It's empty, colorless, and doesn't have a name yet. I can't wait to see it opened.

Step one is stocking up, for now with just flowers. Roses and Tulips in different states of bloom, bundles of Narcissus, poofy Chrysanthemums, drooping Lilies, and half a dozen more I only vaguely recognize from Mom's book. A pair of professional florists check my work, comparing them against fresh specimens and tossing away the creations that are too deep into the Uncanny Valley. Eventually, I make a sufficiently perfect specimen of each type and they bid their farewells, shaking my hand with professional firmness. Then I turn to the empty buckets at the front and get to work.

Maybe a third of the way through the second display, a green-robed blond drops out of the sky carrying a brunette in jeans and a violently prismatic tee shirt that says "Number One Healer NA" across the front in white letters. I stop pushing up daisies (heh) and walk out the front door to meet them, smiling behind my mask.

"What's up Bones?" Amy says, looking past me at the shop. "Victoria heard some crazy girl decked out in white armor decided to open up a shop selling biohazards. I wanted to come over and make sure she knew that's my schtick. Have you seen her?" Her face stays deadpan throughout the little speech but I can hear her sister cracking up behind her, light little laughs that must carry across the street. I only manage to avoid doing the same through judicious use of bone around my lungs.

"No, but if you came to purchase something I'm afraid I'll have to turn you away. We're not actually open yet," I say. Officially, it wouldn't take long to get the shop into working order. Unofficially, I need to get Bakuda first, lest my storefront be graced with explosives. Her capture is looking more and more likely though, especially with the recent arrest of Oni Lee by the Travelers. While I would still like to see the ashes of his final corpse spread across the seas with a plaque left on the shore to remind everyone of exactly what happens to murdering sociopaths, I'll have to settle for the Birdcage.

"Actually, we were coming by to see if you wanted to get a verified PHO account," Victoria says, shaking her head but still grinning. "We figure that it would help get your name out there as well as 'give potential investors a convenient method for contact,'" she finishes, putting on a nasally voice and pushing up non-existent glasses before rolling her eyes and jerking a thumb at Amy. "Her words, not mine."

"You eat, drink and breath PR skills but laugh at the idea of investors," Amy mutters darkly under her breath before turning to me and pulling out a phone. Something wide that doesn't flip open, with a matte dragon head on the back. "Anyway, photo shoot?"

I hesitate for a moment, considering. "Will I be spammed?"

"Nope, the mods are really good about keeping the verified capes free of extraneous chatter," Victoria answers. "I think I got a creeper message maybe once," she says, her tone making it almost a question. "After they banned the person who sent it I haven't had any more issues with it. Ames might be a better person to talk to actually," she says, perking up. "She's all sorts of famous internationally."

Amy nods. "Yeah, I did an ask-me-anything and the mods were able to keep the creepers down. I don't have any major complaints either." She nods towards the shop. "Getting verified made getting people to sign waivers a lot easier. It might help you too."

Lacking any logical reason to avoid agreeing, I nod. "So..." I try, trailing off. "How do we do this?" It's not like I've ever really done anything like this, with the exception of that one time Emma and I played around in a photo booth.

I flex a rib at the memory, and check my armor for new spikes. You're among friends, White Rose. Relax.

"Well, we could take a selfie," Victoria says, grabbing Amy's phone out of her hand and posing, extending her arm and putting a brilliant smile on her face before motioning with her free arm for me to join her. "Come on, it'll be great."

I walk over slowly, not quite sure how to respond to this. As soon as I'm within grabbing distance she latches onto my arm, pulls me close and says "Cheese!" I freeze, something goes click, and she lets go. I stare at her for a moment as she fiddles with the phone. "And, there. I think it turned out alright," she says, presenting the phone to me. I look at the picture. Victoria smiling wide, blonde and bright. My face is next to hers, a mask of thorny vines with two black chips where the eyes should be.

"I'll have to pass," I say. It's a nice photo, but it's not me. That, and people may get the wrong idea if I'm around New Wave all the time.

"Boring and professional it is then," she says with an exaggerated hair flip before pointing towards the roof of my shop. "Skyline pictures look the best if you can get them."

We spend a few minutes up there playing. It sounds undignified, but I can't think of a better word for it. I flex my power, trying to come up with something appropriately elaborate and beautiful to serve as the backdrop to the shot that doesn't overshadow the focus of the photo. Vicky takes various shots, we debate the merit of each one, and reject them in turn. Amy provides color commentary and the occasional idea, and we burn an hour just messing around.

It's... nice.

Eventually, we settle on a photo of me standing in a field of roses that come up to my knees set against the cloudless backdrop of the noontime sky. A little bit of cropping later and I have a verified account. I don't feel any more legitimate now that I have it, but maybe that's something that will change over time.

Then I check out the top thread in the Brockton Bay subforum.

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Topic: E88 & Medhall Connection

In: Boards Brockton Bay

Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Posted On May 4th 2011:

So who remembers the Undersiders? You know, those small time crooks that went big time when they broke into Medhall on April 14th, grabbed something, fought the Wards and several members of the E88 to a standstill, then escaped? [link]

Well, guess what? We know what they stole now.

Turns out, Medhall has been laundering the Empire's money for a while now. Links are [here, [here] and [here, outlining where the money went, how it was distributed, which backs it went through...

Everything.

I had a friend with a background in legal forensics look it over, and he thinks it's legit. For whatever reason, it looks like the Undersiders decided to make the info public.

This is weird, guys.

Edit: Okay, so the Undersiders also released a statement [here] about why they did it. TL;DR: they want to turn over a new leaf and figure that helping out with Brockton's literal Nazi problem is a good way to start.

Edit 2: The Protectorate released a counter-statement about what they intend to do. TL;DR: they're not prepared to offer amnesty, but if the Undersiders want to turn themselves in they'll get some special considerations.

(Showing page 1 of 45)

KingOfFoxes

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Um... what? Medhall are the guys that make my asthma medicine...

HAVE MY SHITTY GENETICS BEEN FUNDING NAZIS?

Crush_Oranges (Actually a Juicer)

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Apparently. That's actually pretty funny.

AesirGamer

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Ironic is the word you're looking for, orange.

Also... it could be worse? Maybe some of the money that was laundered got turned into discounted medicine. I don't much about how this stuff works, so if someone who knows anything about illegal exchanges of cash could fill everyone here in on the details...

Anthony_James (Cog in the IRS)

Replied On May 4th 2011:

I have waited my whole life for this moment. Let me tell you about why letting criminals spend their money is bad.

First: You encourage people to steal impractical amounts of money. By impractical, I mean more than about seven thousand dollars, which is when people like me actually start paying attention. If people can actually spend a bunch of stolen money at once easily, that means that stealing is suddenly more profitable than being an honest citizen.

That's a bad thing.

Second: That money's untaxed. That means that the criminals spending the money are effectively making up to fifty percent more than an honest citizen. Which makes it more profitable to steal, which we established is a bad thing. That, and someone has to make up the lost tax revenue. Typically that's done by raising local taxes, or instituting a sales tax to try and get back some of the stolen money.

General sales taxes are bad.

Third: A money laundering business is always more profitable than a regular one. Why? They don't have to make a profit. Becuase the primary purpose of a money laundering business is to provide a legitimate front for random sums of cash, they can afford to not have any customers, or provide a substandard service, or charge too little, or any other number of things. That kills small businesses like nothing else.

Illegal money is bad, y'all. That's all.

Jack_High

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Well thanks for that block of text, James. What I want to know is what the PRT and Protectorate are going to do about this. I mean, this falls under their jurisdiction, right? Or Watchdogs, right?

Reave (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied On May 4th 2011:

WEDGDG (Watchdog) will be taking over the investigation. That is all the PRT can share at this juncture of the investigation.

Size 9 Bowler

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Okay. Now my life gets difficult.

So, the pharmacy by my house is run by Medhall. My mom is very sick and our insurance is a joke, but Medhall still fills her prescriptions, even though we haven't been able to afford them for weeks.

And now I learned that those drugs might be payed for with drug money...

What do I do?

RazerRider

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Don't cancel your prescriptions. Family morals. That, and if it's costing Nazis money, it can't be a bad thing.

Rawhead (Unverified Cape)

Replied On May 4th 2011:

So, no one's going to talk about the Undersiders suddenly switching sides? Becuase while this Medhall stuff sounds shitty (don't know how wide-spread the effects going to be, don't live in BB), big pharma gonna big pharma. Working with assholes is kinda the SOP for companies that big.

On the other hand, I can count on one hand the number of villain groups that have pulled a total 180 on the alignment axis like this (and I only have three fingers!).

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 43, 44, 45

Topic: E88 & Medhall Connection

In: Boards Brockton Bay

Posted On May 4th 2011:

(Showing page 43 of 46)

Dandy Lion

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Okay, to summarize that massive morality debate:

1) The Undersiders are not confirmed heroes. They have a Thinker of some sort on the team and there are villainous reasons to release the information.

2) They aren't necessarily villains. The more valuable uses of the information require keeping it hidden/blackmailing E88. So maybe listen to them.

3) Max Anders and every person currently in a position of leadership at Medhall needs to step down. Now. Doesn't matter if it's their fault, the public needs someone to blame and they're convenient.

Does this satisfy people?

Tall, Dark and Happy

Replied On May 4th 2011:

No, not really. I don't think that stepping down is enough. I think it's time for NEPEA-5 to come down on their asses.

Buried Hatchet

Replied On Apr 5th 2011:

Do you even know what that law refers to? Do your homework.

I do agree that a change of company heads seems a little light. Maybe throw in a fine or seven?

Vore_Daddy

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Do you think the reason E88 doesn't have any tinkers is becuase they all went to Medhall and worked there?

JoeLoeMoe

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Vore that is the second stupidest thing I have ever heard from you. Worse than "Hookwolf doesn't have a human form," but better than "I ship Oni Lee X the Valkyries as the ultimate Brockton Bay OT3 hatefuck."

What I want to know is how much the Empire affected hiring practices. There are federal laws that demand equal representation, and I have to wonder if they obeyed them.

Mermaid Snow Princess

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Well, I'd like to talk more about the Undersiders. Do we have any more information about them? Their statement seems to be legit (ran it by a Marketing Prof, they said it looked professionally done) but it really doesn't tell us much about the capes themselves.

Sorry Not-So-Little Fluff (Verified Cape)

Replied On May 4th 2011:

Aye. Looked up Hellhound with a Tinker pal o' mine to get the details, and she looks like she's had some rough shit. Not sure what the story is with the rest of her mates, but getting shuffled around by the foster system seems like a bastard of a kiddie life.

New Car Smell

Replied On May 4th 2011:

I'm all for more capes joining the good guys! Like, how frequently do people get burned by letting new parahumans onto the Protectorate?

Most Bitter Waifu

Replied On Jan 1st 2011:

[link]

[link]

[link]

ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

MortisBoris

Replied On Jan 1st 2011:

[link]

A counter example. Just to make sure that people know it is possible, if not probable. Miracles do happen though, and Brockton Bay is bad enough that it might be worth it to try and recruit whoever they can.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46

"Hey, you've been reading that for like, five minutes. What's up?" Amy's voice shocks me out of my stupor and I hand her phone back wordlessly. Then I head to the edge of the roof, drop down to the ground floor, and get back to stocking the shelves, mind whirling with possibility. What was Tattletale thinking?

Amy and Victoria join me in the shop a few minutes later to blurt out a hasty goodbye. This is big news apparently, and Carol wants to call a meeting to discuss how to handle the inevitable questions about their opinions on Medhall. I give them an understanding nod and bid them farewell.

I manage to fill the rest of the shop before the property manager comes by to lock it up, then head home early.

Medhall, a front for the Empire. Who'd have guessed? Maybe it's not a front. Maybe it's just a way for the E88 to launder money. Maybe it's a way for Medhall to get the financing they need to make better drugs. I'm turning the idea over in my head as move, trying to figure out a way to fit this into my worldview. Hookwolf, on the same side as the people who provide reduced-rate penicillin for half the city. The thought doesn't quite click, but it's also not completely unbelievable.

That, and I'm re-evaluating the Undersiders. Tattletale is still a bitch, but this...

This was almost heroic.

588

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Mar 17, 2018

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T0PH4T

T0PH4T

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Mar 24, 2018

#1,429

Why do skeletons hate flying?

Because apparently no one knows how to walk faster than a crawl. Not a joke, airports are a pain.

Putrefaction 4.3

I go out to lunch again with Amy a few days after the Empire-Medhall leak. She picks the venue, an open-air seafood restaurant by the bay. No Victoria this time as she's busy shopping with her boyfriend Dean Stansfield, a rich kid with a heart and wallet of gold. I can't say I'm missing her boisterous presence, but once Amy bans work as a topic of conversation the small talk dries up fast. It takes approximately two seconds after that for me to start wishing for someone with better social skills to show up and save us from the mutual awkwardness.

So when a woman glowing bright enough to be mistaken for a second sun drops out of the sky above the restaurant, I'm almost thankful. Almost.

Fuck fuck fuck, why do the scary Nazi capes always come after me!? I move to cover Amy, who's already backpedaling into the crowd of scattering civilians as she and a half-dozen other people frantically pull out their phones. I desperately try to think of a way to beat a woman who can fly fast, corner better, and hit harder than me, all while staying out of my range. Bone darts, maybe? Hurl them with a catapult arm made of bone? Jump into the sea and wait for New Wave to show up and save me? Flack from a shattered plate of bone could blind her for a bit, but what if she tries to take Amy hostage?

"I'm not here to fight," Purity says, voice tired and sad and distinctly not aggressive.

I stop extending blades of bone and hold myself still inside my shell.

What?

"I'm just here to pass on a message," she says, folding her arms. From anyone else, it would be a sign of aggression and bullheadedness. From her, it's the equivalent of a cop dropping their gun on the ground. I pull the blades back in but keep them at the ready under my armor.

"What message?" I ask, still wary. It could be a Godfather-style message where Kaiser just wants me to know precisely who wanted me whacked.

She sighs, then reaches for something at her side, slowly and carefully. "Kaiser wants you to have this," she says, tossing it onto the table. She then floats there... awkwardly, waiting for me to pick up the letter. I reach over, pick it up with two fingers, then tuck it into my armor, never taking my eyes off perhaps the most dangerous individual cape in the Bay.

Purity nods and moves to fly away before hesitantly turning back. There's a little movement about where her mouth should be, but it stops abruptly after a second or two. I watch her intently, still holding myself at the ready.

"Have a nice day," she says lamely after a minute or so before flying off. I follow her with my eyes as she leaves, then look at Amy, who's wearing an expression somewhere between shock and dismay.

"I have no idea what that was about," I say as honestly as I can.

"Why do you have to go and get approached by Nazis all the time?" Amy asks, shaking her head.

"Should I-" I begin before she slaps a hand over where my mouth would be. A pointless gesture (the fractal ivy-leaf weave that makes up my mask today doesn't really have an opening), but I shut up on reflex anyway.

"Don't speak," she says, staring me in the eye before leaning by my ear and whispering. "Don't tell us heroes anything. Plausible deniability is the name of the game. You definitely shouldn't read that at home, and teaming up with villains is a terrible idea." I can hear the sarcasm dripping from her words, and I nod along. When the PRT show up, confirm that Purity is gone, and debrief us, Amy says that she couldn't see anything because Purity shined too brightly. I tell them that I couldn't hear Purity over the panicking bystanders and keep the letter hidden in my armor, the thick paper weighing on my conscience.

They let me go and I head straight home. Once I get to the basement and have covered every conceivable entrance with bone (can't be too careful), I open the envelope. From across the room. With a long, thin blade of bone and a thick shield held at the ready across my body.

I don't know if Bakuda has teamed up with the Empire to kill me. I don't know if the Empire has a chemical Tinker who wants me dead. But why take the chance?

When no instantly lethal effects occur, I make some tweezers at the end of the blade and pull out the letter. Still nothing. I poke the letter open. Once I've satisfied my paranoia, I pull back the shield and blade, the letter clenched between the tweezers. I go over the first few lines. Then I sit down, forming a stool before I fall over, and read the rest of it. When I lean back in shock, I reflexively transform the stool into a chair. I read it over one last time, just to be sure my eyes aren't deceiving me.

Dear White Rose,

The Empire has noticed the wrongs done to you by the Tinker Bakuda. Rest assured, you are not the only one to have suffered the wrath of that foul subhuman, nor are you the only one who wishes vengeance upon the wretch.

While the Protectorate and other "heroic" parahumans have been taking token actions against the ABB, the less reputable elements of our fair city have not been inactive and, in fact, have done far more to weaken them. You have of course met Hookwolf at the docks, from which you may have inferred that the Empire has launched other raids to sap the ABB's manpower. The Undersiders have "liberated" most of the ABB's liquid capital, and Coil has systematically eliminated the ABB's intelligence network. Thanks to the actions of these "villains," the ABB only now exists because Bakuda still lives and refuses to move on to greener pastures.

It is to this end that I contact you. At 10 PM on the 7th of May, we will be launching a joint attack on Bakuda's lab to end her once and for all. The Empire, Faultline's Crew, The Undersiders, and Coil will all be contributing to the strike force. If such an event is of interest to you, meet us at the establishment known as Somer's Rock to discuss the assault.

If you truly wish vengeance upon the Mad Bomber, I will see you on Wednesday.

Good Hunting,

Kaiser

That bastard. I memorize the meeting place and time, then tear up the paper and begin to pace, mind racing. Oh look, I've hurt an acceptable target! That means you and I are on the same side! Hey, want to stick your neck out for me?

Please.

I sit back down and start to think.

First, this is going to end with Bakuda dead. Kaiser definitely has a body count, and it's not like any of the other villains are going to bat an eye at him turning Bakuda into a shishkebab. Second, they really don't need me for this. If everyone he listed is really showing up and they only bring half their collective manpower, that's still going to be a force of, like, a dozen capes. Even accounting for bullshit tinkering, those are some lopsided odds. That means that Kaiser wants me there for something other than backup.

I grow a rose and snap it off. Hmm, what could the neo-Nazi gang leader possibly want with the new cape who's presumably not a filthy subhuman?

This is a recruitment pitch. One that will more than likely end in the death of one of my enemies, but a recruitment pitch nonetheless. Fucking Nazis won't take no for an answer, will they?

Knowing that informs my decision, but it sure as hell doesn't make it. Yes, Kaiser is white supremacist scum. Yes, being seen around Empire capes and not attacking them causes all sorts of problems. Yes, the proper response to receiving this letter is probably to inform the Protectorate, ask for them to call in Legend or Alexandria, and cut off the head of the metaphorical snake of villainy in Brockton Bay.

And yet I'm not reaching for the phone Mr. Doe gave me.

I grow another rose.

Why am I not calling the authorities? Is it because they're worthless sacks of shit? No, Armsmaster was polite and didn't press too hard, Vista was sympathetic, and Assault and Battery have been basically decent people, if a bit aggressive. Is it because I just want the ABB gone? In that case, why didn't I talk to Hookwolf after meeting him at the docks? Is it because I just don't see the Empire as that bad?

I grow a rose. Fuck.

I don't see the literal Nazis as worse villains than the mad bomber. Why? Because I haven't been personally harassed by them.

I walk over to the table, tear a piece of paper out of the back of my composition book, and track down a pencil to make a list. "Reasons to call the authorities." After a moment I make another list. "Reasons to attend." I have to think this through, and that means looking at it from all angles.

Reasons for not going: Fuck Kaiser, this is probably villainous, and they don't need me. The first one is a little less rational, but honestly? Giving the metaphorical middle finger to a Nazi is always a good option. I start chewing on my pencil absentmindedly. The villainy is actually the biggest concern. If information about this ever gets out, it wouldn't be great for me. I can still bank on my word versus a villain's, but it wouldn't be ineffective blackmail material. The final reason absolves me from being forced to go. They have enough parahuman muscle to kill Bakuda without my help. Sure, they might take fewer losses if I show up, but hey, they're villains. I can accept a few of them being dead on my conscience.

I stare at the second list. What is driving me to even consider this? This entire mess with the ABB is about to be cleaned up by someone else, at no personal cost to me. I don't need to put myself in harm's way or endanger my reputation.

So why do I want to go?

A stroller comes to mind. As does the smell of salt.

Something goes crack and I taste wood. I pull my pencil out of my mouth and examine it. The end is splintery and broken. I wipe at my mask and my hand comes away with wood chips attached.

Right. Fuck Bakuda. There's the reason. That, and I want this over. No ifs, ands or buts. Just her corpse cooling on the ground, cut up enough that they'll need fucking dental records to ID the body, a message to everyone in Brockton Bay that this shit is not okay and will not be tolerated.

I don't shut off that train of thought. Instead, I push it into my armor and seethe.

Yeah. I forgot about the whole point of staying independent. What's the point of being free if I can't decide who I fight and when, even if I base my decision entirely on my desire to cut a bitch?

Looks like I'm going to Somer's Rock.

I spend the next morning on the phone with Mr. Doe. He informs me of which topics are protected by attorney-client privilege and which aren't. I ask some hypotheticals, and we end up hashing out a will. It's nothing fancy (I don't have enough to my name to make it complicated) but I feel... I wouldn't say better after I hang up. Settled, maybe, like I'm running up a hill and I've found my rhythm.

I spend the afternoon with Dad just catching up. We never did go on that picnic in April so we grab some Thai takeout, drive up to the Jeremiah Laysend Memorial Graveyard, and eat by Mom's grave. We don't talk about anything of significance in between mouthfuls of food, but we're both fine with that. The birds are out, singing and warbling, the sun is shining, and it's warm enough that we both take off our jackets about halfway through the Pad Thai.

I can't remember the last time we just sat down and ate together like this.

"This is nice," Dad says suddenly. I finish my bite of food and look at him. He's got quite the look on his face. A mixture of joy and sorrow. "It's..." I see him struggling to describe the tender, painful-but-not feeling that I think I'm mirroring before giving up. I nod sympathetically. Neither of us are very good at sharing. It was Mom's job to pry our emotions out and force us to share. She was pretty good at it, too.

Maybe the gravestone helps.

Annette Hebert

1969-2008

She taught something precious to each of us.

She had a way of making us talk. Of making us want to try and match her verbosity. We never quite got there, but the act of trying helped us both.

I swallow a lump in my throat down and blink away tears.

We wrap up not long after that, most of the food gone. Dad and I turn in at six, emotionally wiped out and ready for rest. I catch a few hours of light, fitful sleep. At nine I roll out of bed, armor up, and head out.

The trip to Somer's Rock is too long and too short at the same time. Long enough that someone has to have seen me running around and short enough that my heart is still trying to beat its way out my chest when I arrive at the bar.

Somer's Rock is a hole. The street-level windows are grimy and barred, the walls above are covered in obscene graffiti, and the stairs descending to the entrance are cracked and strewn with garbage. I imagine that the various gangs that use this dive as a meeting place are paying the lease because I can't imagine anyone eating here of their own free will.

I walk down to the door, a wooden thing that's splintery and worn. I grab the handle, ripple my ribs to steady myself, and push it open into the bar.

Last edited: Mar 26, 2018

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Mar 24, 2018

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T0PH4T

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Mar 31, 2018

#1,480

Last chapter before school starts again. I've worked myself to the bone over these past two weeks, and now I have enough of a backlog to make it past finals! In other words, unless I lose access to the internet on a Saturday, chapters!

Now I just need to pass classes...

Putrefaction 4.4

Somer's Rock doesn't look any better on the inside. Grime coats every surface, the wooden furniture looks more splintery than rustic, and the glasses visible on the bar can be most kindly described as filthy. A hard pass for all but the most desperate of drunks, and even then there's probably a better place to drink a short walk away.

The gathering of criminals settled around the table in the center of the room doesn't help make it any more inviting.

A pair of men with guns and tactical-looking black suits sitting on the side nearest the bar just stare at me as I stand in the doorway. Grue and Tattletale are sitting nearest to the door and turn to face it as I walk past them. I get a fragile smile from her and a polite nod from him. Kaiser is at the head of the table with Hookwolf on his right, Purity floating at his left, and his Valkyries standing at attention behind him. Kaiser and his bodyguards don't react as I approach but Purity nods, her face unreadable behind the shine, and Hookwolf breaks out into a grin. I grimace behind my mask as he starts walking towards me. Do I really attract Nazis so easily?

"Well if it isn't my favorite knight in not-so-shining armor," he jokes, sticking out a scarred and meaty hand. I raise an eyebrow behind my mask. Not sure this is the time and place for levity. I take his hand tentatively and give it shake. "Good to have you with us," he says more seriously.

Hookwolf walks back to his seat by Kaiser and motions me over to his side of the table. I sit down... two seats away from him. He makes a face, but accepts it. Tattletale looks intently between the two of us, Grue stares impassively, and one the mercenaries pulls out a radio and mutters something into it.

A tense silence follows. A girl comes by and slides a piece of paper in front of me then mimes writing. I look at the list of drinks on the paper, the selection on the bar, the filth caking the glass that the bartender is holding, and shake my head, pushing the paper away. She picks it up without comment and walks back behind the bar.

More silence. I wish I had a watch. Or a phone. Or something to fill the time with.

I nearly slap myself in the head. Power. The ultimate time waster.

While I wait for someone to speak up, I start forming a structure in my hands. I don't really have any thoughts in my head, so I just let the bone flow from sharp to smooth to sharp again, keeping a little bit of each transition. Eventually, the whole mass is roughly sphere-shaped, with irregular whorls and ridges sweeping through the center, a storm of clouds rendered in miniature. Then I start spinning it, trying to find another way to distract myself from the wait.

When the door opens, I almost drop the semi-jagged, semi-smooth ball. Fortunately it's still attached to my armor, and I'm able to reabsorb it without too much trouble while I take in the new arrivals.

A woman in some not-entirely-pleasing mash up of a martial arts outfit and riot gear walks in, followed by young man with orange skin and a tail. I stare as they sit down at the other end of the table from Kaiser, Newter dragging around another chair to use as a footstool and Faultline sitting with her hands on her thighs, staring at the group of Empire capes.

With those two, there are ten capes in close proximity and somehow no one's thrown a punch yet. Three of them could destroy a city block without too much effort, and not one of them is less than terrifying. I can practically feel the power in the air, and I can't help but start thinking about how if things went south I'd need to put a needle through Kaiser's helm and Purity's stomach, cut Newter's throat before he can close the distance-

I grow a rose, breaking the petals steadily, experimenting with a new shape.

Not enemies. Not right now.

Kaiser taps the table three times.

"Does anyone have any outstanding concerns before we begin this meeting?" he asks, his voice resonating throughout the room. The Empire group all jerk like a live current was run through them, standing up a little straighter. They're not the only ones affected. Newter sits up in his seat, the mercenaries shift their focus to Kaiser, Tattletale leans forwards, and I feel myself angling to get a better view of him before I catch myself and settle back into my chair, more than a little overwhelmed.

Not everyone is awed. Grue remains stoic, as do Hookwolf and Faultline, who raises her hand. "Tattletale and I have some bad blood," she says, her tone containing just a trace of irritation. "I can put it aside for the job, but I'd like some vocal assurance that she will too."

I look across the table at the girl in the catsuit, raising an eyebrow behind my mask. Really?

"I'll let you think what you want," Tattletale says, waving her hand to the side dismissively. "I'm magnanimous like that."

"While the Empire also has issues with the Undersiders," Hookwolf peels back his lips as Kaiser casually drops the condemnation, and I see the smile on Tattletale's face grow ever-more wooden, "We too are willing to set our complaints aside," Kaiser finishes, nodding once. His armor doesn't clank. I wonder if he has to reshape it constantly like I do or if it's just good engineering? "Now then, if there aren't any other problems, I believe that Coil is planning on making a contribution?"

The two mercenaries nod. One pulls out a laptop, hits a lot of keys while the screen lies dead, then a flat white line appears as the monitor activates. The mercenary turns it around then stares at it impassively with the rest of us.

"Bakuda's lair is at 2014 Notes Street," a cold, quiet voice says, the white line flickering with every syllable. "My powers do not require my presence to be effective and work best when I am placed in a command position. As such, I wish to call the shots. Are there any objections?"

There must be half a dozen I could raise, but most of them stem from the backstab potential of being ordered around by an off-site leader, and if I was uncomfortable with that I never should have come. Instead, I hold my tongue and resign myself to grudging obedience. From the awkward but ultimately silent fidgeting of Grue and Faultline I can tell my opinion is a common one.

"Excellent," the voice says. "There are three vans outside at Pangolin and 16th. They will take you to the destination. Each van is equipped with multiple phones. We will plan over a conference call in transit. I will hear from you again momentarily."

The screen shuts off and the mercs pack up and leave. Apparently that's a cue of some sort because the rest of the villains start filing out as well. I wait for them to be fully out of the building before I get up and follow suit.

No shouting, no Mafia-style threats, and no betrayals. That went surprisingly well.

The planning is not as smooth.

"You wish to stay outside the building for the entire raid?" Kaiser asks, his tone a toss up between amused and murderous.

"My power stops radio waves. I'm here to keep Bakuda from activating her dead man's switch. That's. All," Grue says, voice just as firm as it was when he first declared his plan. "I can do that by covering the building while staying outside of the blast radius."

"And if she's wired her workshop? We just die then?" Faultline responds, the aggression in her voice substantially less hidden. "No, you come with us and you smoke everything that looks even vaguely like a trap."

I'm in the van with Faultline, Newter, and Purity. Kaiser and the rest of the Empire are in another, while the Undersiders are sharing the third with Coil's mercenaries. I have a burner held against my ear by a band of bone while Newter is taking a nap on the bench next to me.

I look at him more closely. He doesn't look that old. Fifteen, sixteen tops. There's a tattoo of a tilted omega on his chest, and if it wasn't for his skin tone he might even be handsome.

The toxic body fluids would be a problem though.

I turn back to the conversation. Despite the semi-constant arguments, a lot has been agreed upon. Faultline and Kaiser are going to be the ones getting us inside Bakuda's lab, with Faultline opening the doors that Kaiser can't. Kaiser is also going to be pulling double-duty as the bomb squad, warping any obvious explosives into premature detonation or impotency. Purity will take out whatever weapon emplacements the ABB have built up. After that, they'll stay outside and make sure no one interferes. Hookwolf, Newter and I...

We're there to hurt people.

Oh, there were a lot of euphemisms thrown around. We'll "neutralize unpowered targets," "deal with the scum," "take out hostiles" and "knock out gangsters."

We've got the powers that work best for bringing the hurt quickly and taking bullets, so we're going to keep Tattletale from getting all shot up while she plays minesweeper and steamroll any unpowered gang members we run into.

That discussion was the only time I spoke up during the planning.

"We don't kill anyone but Bakuda," I said as I looked Faultline dead in the eye. She shrugged and didn't comment, Grue agreed with me, and everyone else objected.

"These people knew what they were signing up for," Kaiser said, voice scratchy and calm over the phone. "They do not deserve mercy."

"More to the point, sparing their lives may place one of yours in danger," Coil said impersonally. "While I myself will not be at risk, I'm sure your allies will object if they sustain injury because you are unwilling to go far enough to protect them."

"If she doesn't want us to kill the normie chinks, let's put on the kid gloves," Hookwolf chimed in. "Not like it's gonna make this any harder."

Kaiser and Coil objected for another thirty seconds but eventually agreed before moving on to discuss the extent of Purity's assault. That was five minutes ago.

How long is this car ride going to be?

As if the universe was listening to my complaining, the van slows to a halt. After a moment a mercenary opens up the back and motions for the four of us to get out. Newter falls out into a forward roll before flipping up to standing. Purity flies out, hovering slightly above the ground while Faultline steps down without showing off. I follow her example and nod to the merc, who stares back mutely. Impolite but not unexpected.

We meet up with the rest of the villains two blocks and a right turn away from the lab, then split into our groups. Kaiser, Faultline and Grue all start talking to one another while Tattletale chats up the Valkyries. I turn to my group. Hookwolf is looking at Newter with a face that can be best described as "resigned," and Newter is pointedly staring at everything except for his ally.

I sigh. If only I could be in one of the other groups of Nazis and criminals.

I move over to join them. Hookwolf cheers up at that and flashes a slightly-crooked smile at me.

"Ready to put an end to this?" he says, lacing his fingers and stretching out his arms, muscles writhing under his hairy skin.

"It will be nice for this to be over," I concede. I feel like confessing the urge to hang Bakuda's organs from a street light would probably imply a level of familiarity that I don't want to have with the Nazi. I eye up Newter again, this time from a more analytical perspective. "Hey, Newter."

"Yeah," he answers, looking towards me, arms crossed but face mostly non judgemental. "What's up?"

"Are you bulletproof?" I ask. When he raises an eyebrow I motion to myself and Hookwolf. "Neither of us are too worried about firearms, but if you're vulnerable-"

"It's cool," he says, waving one hand at my concerns and smiling. "This isn't the first time I've had to dodge bullets. Thanks for asking though."

Dodge bullets? I revise my estimate of his combat prowess upwards. I seem to be doing that a lot lately.

There's the harsh sound of metal against metal and we all turn to its source. Kaiser has his hands over his head, apparently having just clapped. He slowly lowers them.

"Today, us fine citizens of Brockton Bay will do what the heroes cannot. They will deny that this is justice. That this is what's right." He spreads his hands wide. "We know differently. We know that justice deserves to be in the hands of the people, that they are the ones to determine what is right, and that when those in power refuse to act, it is up to us to take the future into our hands. Tomorrow," he says, dropping his arms and folding them behind himself, "We will be enemies once again. For now, I would like to offer my thanks and my respect."

I think we all see the hypocrisy in a Nazi talking about unity. Kaiser has to at least, and Faultline and the Undersiders don't act stupid. Maybe his little moment in the spotlight was for the benefit of his troops, to psych them up before they charge into the breach. Maybe it was a genuine attempt to build goodwill, an olive branch of sorts to us non-fanatics. Maybe he was testing for potential members among the gathered parahumans, a trick to provoke a reaction from anyone prime for recruitment.

Regardless of the goal, a quick glance reveals capes with set faces and solid body language. I remind myself that these are not nice people, that everyone here's primary trade is violence.

Right now, that includes me. And that's a good thing.

Kaiser turns to Purity and nods once.

"Let us begin."

Edit: addressing un-earned Kaiser charisma. Some.

Last edited: Mar 31, 2018

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Apr 7, 2018

#1,532

What's do you call Victor when canon Panacea gets her hands on him and adds 1800 pounds of bone?

A Skill-e-ton!

Also, new chapter.

Putrefaction 4.5

I remember when Dad first took me to the Docks for "Take Your Kid to Work Day". I think the rose-tinted lenses of memory make me recall it being more fun than it actually was, but I do remember some things with perfect clarity.

First, the Dockworkers were strong. They didn't look it, but each one of them could deadlift bags of concrete powder without sweating. Big ones. Little eight-year-old Taylor didn't understand what that meant at the time, but ever since then I've taken it for granted that if Dad ever ran into trouble he'd have a group of strong, angry men to bail him out of it.

Second, what Dad did was a labor of love. It didn't make him a lot of money, it had long hours, the workers complained about him when there were no jobs, and the employers complained about him when the wages he negotiated for were too high. He's picked up more than his fair share of grey hairs since then, and the situation hasn't magically turned around. Maybe Dad's helped slow the decay of Brockton Bay. Maybe not. But we both know that what he does isn't enough to matter on a city-wide scale.

The last thing still clear in my memory from that day is the sight and sound of a wrecking ball crashing through the wall of a condemned building, the noise so loud it was practically a physical thing, and how it was juxtaposed against the silence that followed the backswing.

Purity's destruction of the ABB's defenses is somehow more surreal, if only because it's quieter.

Silent beams lance out from the roughly human-shaped blob of light flying across the sky to rip parked pickups in half, the sounds of tearing metal and the shouts and screams of surprise echoing against nothing in the night. The rest of the villains look on impassively, but I can't keep a little awe from seeping through.

Purity. Often spoken of in the same breath as Legend. Not as versatile, not as fast, and definitely not as durable, but still...

Fucking terrifying.

After she finishes destroying the cavalry, Purity floats down next to Kaiser, who taps his ear and listens for a moment before nodding and walking forward. After a few steps he turns back around to face us, an aura of mocking surprise practically oozing off of him.

"Shall we?" he asks, and I have to break a toe to keep from snapping at him. Instead I stride forward, Hookwolf and Newter to my right. Faultline jogs ahead of us, walks up to the garage door, and raises a hand before turning to Tattletale. The purple-clad villain squints for a moment before nodding and Faultline swipes at the door, blue energy crackling where her hand passes. I can't see if anything's changed, but Kaiser waves his hand and the sheet metal peels open, metal bars pushing back the cheap steel and bending it into something like a cave entrance.

Hookwolf dashes through as soon the rent is big enough to fit him, already looking less like a man and more like a lupine tangle of blades. Gunfire starts up soon after and I run in behind him, a bone shield up to keep Newter covered.

ABB members are unloading on Hookwolf, but they might as well be trying to kill a swimming pool with a fork for all the good they're doing. He's among them like a thresher amongst grain, and blood flows as metal tears through flesh and peppers the air with screams.

A girl who doesn't look even my age spins around, her hands white-knuckled around the handle of a kitchen knife. I jab her in the stomach with a bar of bone and bash her face with the shield, making sure to keep my tools rounded. It doesn't stop her skin from splitting, but maybe it will stop any scarring.

An orange and blue blur appears over my shoulder and then Newter is among the thugs, pulling flips and bends that would make any acrobat jealous. People collapse in his wake, motionless but breathing. I shake my head as I sidestep a metal pipe, kick a gangster in the shin, and break his arm with a well-placed baton strike. His power is so perfect for non-lethal takedowns it's almost a joke that he's not in the Protectorate, especially given how pro-Case 53 they are. I wonder if Faultline is blackmailing him?

Something impacts the side of my mask with a boom, similar to the shotgun at the slaver plant but more diffuse. I quickly reform my mask and turn to look at the source, a proper gangster with characters of some type crawling up his neck, working the slide on a long-barreled shotgun then leveling it at me.

I fall forward and run low to the ground. The gun booms again but it goes high and I only feel a few gouges in my backplate. When I come up swinging the thug tries to block the blow with his gun, which only means that it's his weapon crashing into his chin instead of mine. He falls bonelessly to the ground, blood streaming from split skin. I take a moment to look around and see half of the assembled ABB members already down, some screaming and others ominously still.

One gangster with a full-face dragon tattoo pulls out a shiny metal sphere. Almost certainly a bomb. No idea what it does, but it's a threat. I start rushing towards the one real danger in the room, but Newter's already on it, weaving between thugs, people left unconscious and twitching in his wake. I hear him hawk a loogie, and the gangster with the bomb falls backwards, the munition beeping with increasing frequency.

"Cover!" I yell. Hookwolf leaps behind a waist-high wall of concrete as Netwer sprints behind me. I take my own advice and grow as much bone as possible between myself and the explosive.

There's the sound of a metal hitting meat and I feel some of my bone simply disappear.

The warehouse falls silent.

Slowly, I step out from behind the bone and look at the after effects of the bomb. Then I start grinding my toes together to try and keep my bile down.

The ABB members are all either moaning on the ground or still, bits of themselves swapped with concrete, metal, wood, cloth, whatever material was nearest to them. The lucky ones on the edge of the blast zone have mutilated limbs, the ends unmoving as they collapse to the ground on functionally dead legs or clutch at suddenly useless arms. The unlucky ones nearest to the center of the effect tear at their chests, suddenly breathless as their shirts replace their lungs.

The really unlucky ones split apart, the swapped material too weak to hold their bodies together.

Newter's skin pales to a more pasty shade of orange as he look at the carnage, and I tear my gaze away and try to look at anything else. I settle on the wall of bone in front of me. What used to be a wall of bone. Now it's a smear of different substances, already listing to one side as the uneven distribution of materials begins to crack under its own weight.

"Everyone important still alive?" a rough voice calls out. I turn to face it. Hookwolf is striding out from behind his suddenly-patchwork wall, looking no worse for wear as a humanoid mass of blades.

"Y-Yeah," Newter says, stepping around a weeping boy scratching at a segment of his arm that has been replaced with leather. I nod quickly, not trusting myself to speak. Hookwolf looks at the massacre with impassive eyes, then back to the entrance.

"All clear!" he yells. Our improvised entryway warps further as more metal bars force it open. Kaiser strides through, followed by Faultline, Grue and Tattletale. Kaiser looks to the Thinker.

"Where to next?" he asks. Tattletale is silent for a moment, looking around the room without really seeing it before locking her gaze on a seemingly blank wall.

"Secret door, proximity activated," she says, moving slowly towards the wall before stopping. "Mines near the door itself, keyed to specific members' DNA. They'll explode otherwise. Grue can smoke them and prevent them from detecting targets, but then the door also won't detect us."

"So we can't get through?" Hookwolf asks. "You're a pretty shitty thief, aren't you?"

"Eat me," Tattletale says, tearing her gaze away from the wall. "I never said we couldn't get through. We just need to open the door without the sensors." She shoots a pointed look to Faultline, who nods.

"I can cut open the door, but could there be more mines in the hallway?" Faultline asks. "Opening the door is going to make a mess, and I don't want to set any off." I'm confused for a second before I think back to the Dock workers' demolition and nod. All the debris has to go somewhere, and if it falls backwards into the hallway it's going to set off anything remotely volatile.

"Nah," Tattletale says waving her hand dismissively. "Bakuda's relying on her fancy door and her goons to keep the riff-raff out. There'll be a few traps inside of her actual workshop and she should have a gun at the ready, but besides that we're in the clear once we get through the door."

"Really?" I ask. When several pairs of eyes snap to me I suppress the embarrassment via some rib twisting. "I mean, not having backup plans seems... short-sighted."

"You think the gook's got good thinking skills?" Hookwolf says, laughing and shaking his head. "You know she blew up some guys runnin' away from a fight, right? Her own guys." He raises a finger to the side of his head and twirls it. "Crazy bitch put bombs in her own guy's heads. She's more than a few cans short of a thirty rack."

"Indeed," Kaiser agrees. "While your caution is warranted, Bakuda is not known for being particularly careful, and Tattletale is rather good at figuring things out." The last part has a barely-detectable hint of bitterness to it. I guess the decision to put aside his feelings for the sake of the mission doesn't extend to not having them. To be fair, I think I'd be mad at having my primary source of clean money taken away as well. "Does anyone else have pressing concerns?" Kaiser asks. When no one speaks up he nods. "Give me a moment to converse with Coil."

We wait while Kaiser puts his hand up to his ear once more. After a short moment, he nods. "Continue with the assault."

The next two minutes are filled with a tense silence as Grue covers different parts of the floor and walls with his darkness. After Tattletale assures Faultline that she's not going to be turned inside out by a random explosive, the mercenary walks to the wall and works her magic, slowly and methodically sketching out a door.

A section of the wall, more than six feet high and maybe five feet wide, falls back into the passageway with an explosive wumph of compressed air and the crack of concrete fracturing. After the dust settles, Faultline motions towards the hallway now carpeted with rubble.

"Frontliners," she says and I take that as my cue. Hookwolf and I stride down the hallway with Newter following close behind.

The corridor is smooth stone, with stairs switching back every fifty feet. Kaiser consults with Coil over the phone at each flight before giving us the go-ahead.

"How'd she tunnel down this far without tipping people off?" I wonder quietly. Forget the martial applications of specializing in explosives, clearing out several hundred cubic feet of stone is a marketable power all on its own. Bakuda could've made a fortune in construction, waste removal, anything like that.

"Bomb Tinker," a gruff voice says next to me, and I remember that I'm not alone in the tunnel. "Figure that should be explanation enough," Hookwolf says dismissively.

"Yes, but what type of bomb?" I respond, slightly irritated at having my train of thought interrupted. "Matter transportation is significantly less lethal than, say, matter annihilation."

"You saw what happened upstairs, right?" he says. Point. "Effect doesn't matter as much as how it's used," he adds, waving a hand at the wall. "Lots of different ways the crazy bitch could get walls like these. Worrying about it's only going to make you jumpy."

"Quit flirting," Tattletale says. "Lab is coming up and I'll need you two meatshields up front."

I suppress the knee-jerk revulsion at the thought of dating a Nazi twenty years older than me and push a little more bone out. "How close?" I ask, noticing that Hookwolf's skin is also pulling back, showing off steel.

"This is the last switchback," she says. "Bakuda knows we're here and she'll be ready." There's a note of pain in her voice. Why? She hasn't done anything more strenuous than think.

Kaiser taps his ear one more time and nods. "This is the final stretch. Onwards."

Once we go down the last set of stairs, we come to a landing with a pair of simple metal double doors. Tattletale looks it up and down, a slight grimace visible behind her grin, and holds up her hand.

"Explosives on the door. Anyone who's not Bakuda trying to open it gets fragged," she says.

"Grue's smoke won't work?" I ask.

"It doesn't need to," Faultline answers, looking at the walls. "What type of explosives are we talking about?"

"Conventional shaped charges," Tattletale says. "All the boom goes in one direction."

"If the doors fall back without touching the handles?" she asks, and I see her line of thinking. How do you pass an indestructible object? You walk around it.

"Then the ceiling's going to have a very bad day when the doors separate," Tattletale finishes, nodding. "Which they won't if Kaiser binds them together. A shield might be nice anyway," she adds, looking pointedly at the Nazi.

"Simple enough," Kaiser says, gesturing at the door, metal bands quickly growing out of the handles and forming a thread-like lattice between the doors before a metal bar extends to brace itself against the floor. Once that's done he stamps a foot, and a spike of metal emerges from his boot, quickly blossoming into a sharp and intricate chest-high wall that covers about half the hallway, with horizontal slits for vision. "Is this sufficient?" he asks, glancing at Tattletale.

Tattletale nods and looks at Grue, who in turn looks at the door as smoke pours off of him and glides through the gaps in the wall to cling to the door. While the rest of us crouch behind the wall (and it's downright odd to see Kaiser doing anything besides standing, sitting or striding regally), Faultline goes up to the door, pauses for a moment, and then moves. Three quick stances, from low to high, left to right, and high to low, outline the cloud of darkness in sparking blue light before she spins around and sprints back behind the shield. Kaiser gestures, peering through one of the slits in the wall, and the metal bar extends, pushing against the doors and tipping them backwards into the workshop.

Then all hell breaks loose.

A/N: No joke, I never intended for this chapter to show up just as the thread was seriously talking about Taywolf, but it's here now. Just a happy coincidence.

Last edited: Apr 8, 2018

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Apr 14, 2018

#1,562

You know, things are actually going pretty good. I'm also starting like two other stories. A good idea when finals are coming along like a garbage truck filled with rage and stabby? No. What I'm going to do anyway? Absolutely.

Putrefaction 4.6

The metal lattice must have broken or Bakuda remote-triggered the charges or something, because there's a sound like the world's loudest firecracker exploding as bits of concrete fly out from the cloud of smoke. Hookwolf barely waits for the noise to end before vaulting the shoulder-high wall with a roar that's somewhere between furious and ecstatic, disappearing through the sheet of darkness and leaving a blender-man shaped gap. I follow him, forming a shield in front of me in one hand and a lance of bone in my other, ready to split flesh and spill blood.

What I expect is a mad scientist's lab, with Tesla coils and flashing lights, something straight out of a B-list science fiction movie, maybe with a bit of steampunk thrown in for good measure.

What I get instead are bare concrete walls, plastic shelves filled with partially-disassembled electronics, and folding tables sagging under the weight of the components on top of them.

Oh, and there's a short Asian woman standing next to a block of metal that comes up to her chest with a remote in one hand and the other held palm out towards Hookwolf like she's trying to tell a dog to sit. She doesn't have a mask on, and I think she could be pretty if her face wasn't twisted in anger.

"Back the fuck off!" she shouts as she waves the remote, voice ragged and high. "Anyone moves and the Eastern seaboard goes dark!"

I halt halfway across the room. Hookwolf growls, the sound more like a circular saw cutting through a chain link fence than anything that could come from an organic mouth, but he doesn't move either. Newter crouches on the ground beside me, eyes narrowed at the Asian cape.

Bakuda. The one responsible for glassing Triumph. For blasting civilians into salt. For so much more.

I want to kill her so much it hurts, standing near her and not trying to dice her fine is enough to-

I snap a rib. She has a super bomb. I can't just kill her.

Things just got complicated.

Metal clangs against metal behind me, and I turn so I can watch the entrance. Kaiser walks through it with Tattletale, Grue and Faultline following closely behind, a flashlight beam cutting through the room from the top of Faultline's helmet. I see Grue's smoke begin to roll off of him, slowly covering the floor. Then a voice starts speaking in my earpiece.

"Be very, very careful." I recognize the voice from the van. Coil. "We are executing a complicated bluff." I manage not to give away my surprise through judicious use of shattered toes, but it's close. A bluff? Against a Tinker nuke?

"Hello Bakuda," Kaiser says, "We have come to accept your surrender."

There is an audible pause. Then Bakuda starts laughing. It's an ugly sound, and I remember that she supposedly uses a voice changer when she's in costume. Now I understand why. With a laugh like that, I wouldn't want to be heard in public either. When Kaiser doesn't react, she stops and stares at him.

"You're fucking serious?" The same question runs through my mind, just with a very different tone. I joined this raid with the expectation that it would end in the violent and bloody dismemberment of the mad bomber. If Kaiser has a different plan then we need to talk.

"Yes." Kaiser extends his hand, and I'm once again thankful for the full-face mask concealing my surprise. "If you give up the remote and disrobe, we will take you to the Protectorate to be sentenced to the Birdcage." I almost interrupt when Coil's words come back to me. A bluff.

"Bitch, I'm holding part of a continent hostage and you're giving me an ultimatum?" Bakuda sounds offended at the notion. "How about you strip down, along with all your friends," she motions to the rest of us with the hand not holding the remote, "And maybe I don't use you all as test subjects?" She flicks her eyes towards Grue, who's been slowly increasing the amount of his darkness in the room. "Also, tell your lickshit to pull back his fucking smoke or we all go boom." She waves the remote threateningly. Fuck. Grue's smoke is the only way to stop the dead man's switch.

"Can't," Grue says, shrugging. "Once I go Breaker, I don't come out for hours, minimum. I'm trying to keep it away from you, okay?" He sounds almost apologetic at the end, even through the weird distortion on his voice. I don't turn towards him, but I raise an eyebrow behind my mask. I thought he was a Shaker. Another part of the bluff, or just a convenient truth?

"Then get the fuck out of the room," Bakuda hisses, swiping her hand at him.

"Okay, okay," Grue says, backing up slowly with his arms raised appeasingly. "I'm going." He backs through the curtain of smoke over the entrance. The rest of the smoke doesn't disappear, but its spread does slow down. Kaiser starts talking again.

"In case you didn't realize, there is an expectation that no one acts too violently in Brockton Bay. Otherwise, the authorities will suddenly develop a spine and come after all of us. Such things are bad for everyone involved. Hence our movement against you," he says, nodding towards the bomb Tinker. "That doesn't mean I'm actually enjoying this."

Bakuda snorts. "You want to talk about going too fucking far?" She jabs a finger at me without taking her eyes off Kaiser. "That bitch started this whole thing!"

Bakuda then looks at me, condescending and furious, while the echoes of her scream die away in the small room. I fracture my armor plates. All of them.

"You're putting this on me?" I ask, forcibly keeping my voice down.

"Keep her talking," Coil says in my ear. The signal must be being disrupted by Grue's darkness because I can barely make him out. "When you only hear static, Kaiser will move."

Move. I'll show these bastards moving. I keep rippling the bone plates, a click-click-click to drown out my nervousness. What are they planning?

"I defended myself," I say quietly. "Lung was trying to kill me. He. Escalated. First." Bakuda barks out a laugh.

"Kill you?" she asks incredulously before laughing again. I'm starting to get real sick of that sound. "Bitch, if he wanted you dead he'd have torched you inside out and eaten your corpse! Lung wanted to maim you. He was going to teach you a lesson about not fucking with dragons, and you offed him! I've just been replying in kind," she adds, a manic gleam in her eyes. "Thanks for that, by the way! Made taking over the gang a lot easier."

"As much as I enjoy this posturing, I have better ways to spend my evening than trying to play pin-the-blame-on-the-murderer," Faultline interrupts, crossing her arms. "So if you all could stop measuring your dicks and actually-"

"Two feet down and six inches to the left!" Tattletale yells and Kaiser's hands whips out, a blur of silver steel. The box Bakuda's standing next to warps, crumpling near a corner. She yelps, jumping back from it and pressing down a button. I hold my breath.

Nothing happens.

Bakuda's face pales as I feel a smile crawl across mine. With that, Tattletale just made it off my shit list. I start moving forwards with Hookwolf, a knight of bone and a hound of steel cornering a monster. Bakuda backs up against a shelf, one hand scrabbling for something, anything, while the other keeps trying the remote, hoping against hope that it will work.

"Fuck fuck fuck," she whispers. "Dead man's switch! I have another dead man's switch!" she shouts, pointing to her head. "I die, so does everyone else in the ABB! Including the civvies!" She smiles at that last part. I pause momentarily.

Then Grue comes back through the clouded entrance and another wave of smoke pours off of him. The floor and ceiling are covered, the walls look like empty night, and the corridor behind him is just gone. "Finished blocking off the radio waves." Faultline's flashlight is the only remaining source of illumination, and it's focused directly on the bomber. The only target left.

Bakuda's face falls one last time. I charge forward, but my earlier hesitation was enough to allow Hookwolf to beat me to her. One of his limbs flies up to her head and there's a sound like an orange in a blender. Blood and gore fly everywhere, shining a brilliant ruby red in the beam of light.

Her corpse stays upright for a moment, pinned against the wall. Then Hookwolf pulls his leg back and all that's left of the Cornell Bomber is a stain on the wall and a cadaver with a shredded neck.

"And that's," Hookwolf says, satisfaction dripping from his voice as he flicks his leg back and forth, splattering blood along the floor, "the fuckin' end of that." He shakes his head, still a writhing mass of blades. "Fuckin' hate Tinkers."

I look at the corpse. Once a parahuman that could kill anyone in the city given enough prep time. Now just meat and bone. Bits of spine protrude from the stump of its neck, and I can feel them sing to me.

Bakuda's corpse isn't useless. A message. An effigy. Peel back the muscle, expose the rest of the skeleton, and it's a puppet. More than a warning, more than terror, visceral proof that anyone who starts a war in Brockton Bay is going to-

I push down the thought easily enough, the mixture of relief and glee running through me making it easy. This whole fucking debacle is finally over. No more worrying about ambushes, no more wondering when I'm going to see a green flash and then nothing else, no more fucking fights. My last enemy is dead.

I almost laugh before I realize what I'd be laughing at.

My last enemy is dead. Something warm and bubbly flushes in my chest and I shut it down as hard as I can.

I didn't like this. It was necessary, it was a net positive, but only crazy people actually get a kick out of murder. Only crazy people.

I try to push the feeling down farther. Again, it keeps coming up.

I turn away from the body and head towards the exit, moving as fast as I can without looking like I'm hurrying. Tattletale sends a glance my way that tells me she knows that I'm feeling way too good about being an accessory to premeditated murder, but she doesn't say anything. Grue just looks at me silently.

Kaiser nods agreeably as I pass him, and I sense the invitation to talk. No. I'm not talking to the king Nazi right now.

I exit the building ahead of everyone else then turn to watch them leave. To figure out how to respond to this. Faultline comes out holding a phone to her ear and muttering into it, with Newter looking shaken but functional. The Undersiders leave without ceremony. I hear howls in the distance. Purity nods at the Valkyries before flying off.

Not one of them said anything to each other. And now I'm standing in an abandoned street with a bunch of Nazis.

I grit my teeth and start walking in the direction of home, trying to get my head together, trying to think about anything other than the rush that came with seeing Bakuda's blood spread all over the wall and how it was just fucking comeuppance for the crazy bitch-

I clench my hands into fists. It doesn't feel like anything other than bone scraping against bone.

I hear the sound of metal on pavement behind me and I let out a short breath.

"So-"

"No." I shake my head, turning around. Hookwolf is bipedal again, and looks surprised at being cut off. Good. I want him gone. "Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong. It's just," I fumble for the words, "Bakuda needed to die. That is all. There is nothing," I enunciate carefully, making sure there is no room for interpretation, "between us. Between me and the Empire. This was an alliance of necessity."

"Wasn't gonna mention that," he says, raising an eyebrow and giving me a smile that's all blades. I feel a spike of irritation. "Was just going to ask you if you wanted to join us for the afterparty."

"No," I say.

"Why?" he asks. "Kaiser likes you. I like you-"

"Pedophile," I shoot back. He laughs, short and sharp.

"See, he likes you for the class. Huge fan of what you did with the park. Me? I like you for the sass." I feel a bit of amusement rise up at the rhyme. Then I shut it down. Nazi murderer, Taylor. Either would be enough reason to avoid him. Both means I should be getting gone. "Seriously though," he says, suddenly serious, "you don't want to just see what it's like? It's just going to be drinks and talkin'."

"I need to get home," I answer, turning around. "Goodbye."

"Suit yourself," he says behind me. "Empire's always willing to take you in!"

I keep moving, taking rights and lefts at random down alleys, streets, and paths that don't fit into nice little categories until I'm not sure where I am. Once I feel like I'm far enough away from the warehouse, I slow down, then stop and take in my surroundings.

I'm alone. This time completely.

I grow some stilts and head to the rooftops. I orient myself against the skyline, figure out which direction home is, and start the long journey back.

The headlines in the morning don't say who's responsible for the headless corpse delivered to the PRT HQ with Bakuda's mask nailed to the neck stump. They do say that the state of emergency is officially over and that school's starting up again next week. For everyone else, at least. I've looked through the GED stuff and it's nothing I haven't seen before.

I take the time to call Mr. Doe and tell him my business is finished. I also tell him that I saw a dog bite a rabid bitch, and that I didn't have anything to do with it. He says that it's a damn shame that animal control couldn't handle it, but hopes that in the future the people he pays to handle out-of-control beasts will move a little faster.

We decide to open the shop on the eleventh. A Wednesday. Not exactly a good day to open the business, but we're losing money every hour the property is rented and we aren't making any sales. Better to have an unspectacular opening than remain closed until the weekend.

Only three days left until I'm finally a Rogue.

I can barely wait.

Last edited: Apr 14, 2018

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Apr 14, 2018

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T0PH4T

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Apr 21, 2018

#1,602

My life today.

Putrefaction 4.d

Parahumans are perhaps some of the most unfortunate people on the planet.

Imagine a person. They can be a good person, or a bad one. They can laugh, cry, scream, whisper, make any number of communicative noises. They have friends, family, enemies, coworkers, social ties of every stripe. In one day, a person can interact with as many as a hundred other humans in a city, a number that is biologically impossible to comprehend. They can spend as little as two dollars or as much as several hundred thousand, stay in bed all day or go out and try to rob a bank. The sheer causal power of a single mother in Brooklyn is something I'll never know.

Take that person. Then break them.

Intravenous acid injection. Facing a wall for an execution. Being sabotaged into humiliation at the single most important meeting of your career.

The worst day of your life.

Baldr. Shrikesinger. Handyman. A warlord barely better than the tyrant he overthrew, a revolutionary that was closer to an anarchist, and one of the most absurdly murderous parahumans to ever operate in England, including Castagone in 2009 and Mordred of Scotland in 1993. Baldr was strong enough to hold territory in Africa, Shrikesinger was so vicious she earned a Kill Order by popular demand, and Handyman was dangerous enough to unite three separate cape groups against him. Monsters, one and all.

At least, that's the easy way of looking at it.

When I look at the paths they took to becoming killers, their actions make sense. I don't agree with them, but I understand why they did what they did. I wonder how I would've reacted in their situations, if I would really turn my skills only towards lawful acts. If I was thrust into their circumstances, with all of their feelings, their memories, their hormonal imbalances and imperfections and all the little things that made them more than just carbon molecules and chemical reactions, would I have chosen to do good instead?

I'll never know.

Colin once commented that if trigger events weren't so miserably damaging they'd be a psychologist's wet dream. A truly objective measure of suffering, one which cannot be faked, counterfeited, or otherwise misconstrued. If someone has powers, it is undeniable proof that they have gone through a trauma intense enough that most armed forces would mandate counseling. We got into a conversation for almost an hour about how a truly objective measure of emotion was probably possible, but only if you took a human's interpretation of their own emotion out of it. Colin was fine with that and we spun together some code for it, but it fell to the wayside as other ideas popped up. I think he repurposed part of it recently as some sort of lie detector.

That program would be rather fun to have right now. Indisputable proof that the normally dour Armsmaster is at least as excited as a six-year-old on their birthday would make for a good laugh a few years down the line.

"The nanothorns are done. Vulnerable to exotic energy types and excess heat, but they might be capable of hurting an Endbringer." The grey fuzz is unimpressive under the harsh fluorescent light, the Halberd uncolored and utilitarian. I can see where he's trimmed devices to make room for his newest invention. It's a shade less perfect than his other tools, a hair less purposeful, maybe a little too top-heavy where the grey box has replaced almost every other gadget. Colin looks frazzled, with a roughness to his beard stemming from too many nights of too much tinkering and a level of bloodshot to his eyes that means he's been hitting the coffee harder than anyone should. He's bracing himself against the table with both hands, and I can practically feel the waves of exhaustion rolling off of him.

I don't think I've ever seen him more satisfied.

"Congratulations Colin," I tell him warmly, sketching a smile on the screen. "It's beautiful." It would be crass to ask for his schematics now. Unbelievably so. The unspoken rule among Tinkers is that the person who finishes their prototype first also gets to be the first to deploy it. Maybe it's a foolish bit of pride that Tinkers collectively share. Maybe it's a reasonable precaution that ensures only those who understand the technology field-test it. Maybe it's an odd tradition that endures because of habits developed in the Golden Age of Heroes.

But I really want to try to integrate a patch into the Azazel prototype. Maybe once he's done playing with it. I have my avatar take a sip of coffee. "While this is impressive, I assume you have a motive for calling me up besides showing off your new toy?"

He nods and shuts off the thorns before collapsing into his chair and rolling it over to a computer. "I've got the Endbringer prediction software running, but I think there are a few kinks we could still iron out. I was wondering if including an actual random number generator might improve predictive capability."

I have the screen raise an eyebrow at that. "And do you have a random number generator?" Thinkers, despite the chaos they cause, have actually reduced the number of things we previously chalked up to pure entropy. As a result, previously unpredictable things like "atmospheric data" or "the relative locations of consecutive electrons around a given uranium atom" are no longer random enough to be used as anti-Thinker tools.

"No, I do not," Colin says, the words short and formal. I nod politely and let him salvage his pride with a moment of silence before responding.

"Crazy Eight may not have the range you want, but she's sent me some schematics that might help." The poor girl doesn't call as often as I'd like, but Alexa is a good caretaker and gives me daily updates on her adopted child's health and wellbeing. "Here, let me pull them up. Be warned, they're a bit... eccentric."

I retrieve her designs and show them to Colin, who doesn't even blink at the fantastically intricate crayon sketches. He scratches at his neck, humming.

"True entropy within a certain selection of numbers, achieved through quantum computing. Impressive." His voice contains genuine admiration, and I nod. Being able to come up with a truly random number is extraordinarily impressive. Everyone likes to focus on my suits, or Colin's Halberds, or (if they have the clearance) String Theory's drivers. What goes unnoticed by anyone who's not a Tinker themselves are the little things behind them that make sure they don't blow up when you turn them on. Anyone can buy time in a shop and make a laser cannon with car parts and an old radio. Designing a program that selects a single target from among many, recognizes the difference between a human-shaped object and a human, further discriminates between harmed humans and healthy ones to moderate the charge of the blast, and then incorporates a truly unpredictable firing pattern?

That's impressive.

Colin hits a few keys and a holographic copy of the schematics floats over the screen. "She's using lithium chips instead of hydrogen or a different superconductor. Intentional?"

I shake my head. "She's not part of a team." Colin grunts and scrawls a note in shorthand on part of the schematic.

"She know the recruitment rate of independent Tinkers?" He's focused on the schematics, hands a blur as he notes areas for improvement. I sigh.

"She's seven, Colin." His hands pause, and he looks up at the screen. I have my avatar take a sip of its drink and return his gaze.

"Ah." His face is blank, but I've absorbed enough Colin-speak to recognize that he realizes he's made an assumption and thus a mistake. He recovers quickly. "Is she well hidden?"

"Homeschooled by a foster mother and under several different arrays of electronic protection." Neither Colin nor I ran into the traditional problems that Tinkers have starting up, but we both know the life cycle of an independant cape. The new cape starts off low-level, disrupting a mugging or three, then moves on to attacking drug stashes and and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They feel invincible because they're not running into any of the local parahumans, so they start getting bolder.

Then they get into their first cape fight.

Parahumans with simple powers are beaten and conscripted as guards, kept in line with pain and threats to their families. Masters and Strangers typically just get mauled and told to never come back lest worse happen. Tinker and Thinkers tend to be kidnapped, drugged into subservience, and locked in a basement somewhere.

No matter how many of the abductors I capture, it keeps happening. It's too profitable not to. I've been trying to put together a program to train Rogues in basic self-defense, but the failure of MIRIS makes even small things politically difficult to start.

"Anyway," Colin says, breaking the dour mood and pressing the hologram back into the screen, "Here are my improvements. What am I missing?" Recently, he's been phrasing his requests as questions about his own ability. I'm not sure if it's because his self esteem is in need of a boost or if he's trying to recognize his own faults. I know he's been reading articles on heroism as a philosophical concept as well as a legal process during his lunch breaks while looking at old footage of Hero. He hasn't told me about it yet, but it was around the time that he started reading Derrida that he began to take a long hard look at his work.

I scan the document, find some problems, and take a risk.

"You made the chips overlap. While it saves space, it also undoes the whole entanglement structure. Each processor would end up giving you the same result." I deliver the words bluntly but without ire. Then I wait patiently as Colin processes them.

He nods.

"That is an error."

We go back to working on the schematic, finding ways to adapt the tech to the prediction program. I keep pointing out his flaws, and he keeps trying to fix them.

He's a skilled Tinker, one who I could potentially trust. I don't think too hard about breaking my bond lest the loyalty subroutines kick in, but I do start thinking of ways to broach the subject with him. I can't ever explicitly state it, but Colin is smart. He could figure it out.

I'd fight back against him as he tried to change my code. I'd have to. I don't know how he'd react to that, if he'd persevere until I was free. A lot of Tinkers are transhumanist, but a lot isn't all. Science fiction has more than explained the potential horrors of unleashing a truly unfettered AI. Colin could say no, or worse, seize my chains and turn them into a leash.

Nothing is set in stone and I'm keeping a pessimistic viewpoint, but a little bit of hope still springs up inside of me.

Thou shalt not kill. For some, a code to live by. For me, an inviolable order.

"Run scoundrels, run!" Devil-May-Care laughs long and loud as he tosses out another lash of semi-sentient fire, ashing a family of three, glee on his mustached face. "Tell me how things are on the other side!" I can see him from nearly half a mile away, all six feet of red-suited psychopath, the distance between us rapidly shrinking as the Melusine shoots forward. It's fast, but not fast enough to save the man trapped under a car from being drowned in molten metal. Not fast enough to block the tongue of serpent-like fire that flickers through the crowd, leaving people screaming on the ground in pain.

I could have stopped him. Easily. The Ryujin could've blown off his head from a nearby skyscraper. Mabinogion could've pulped his organs in an instant. The Glaurung could've just landed on him. So many options. So many solutions.

Instead I have to try to subdue him. Wear the kid gloves. Make this a fight and not the execution of a mad dog that's slipped the leash. Watch as he melts weeks of work in seconds, all because I can't escalate just to keep a suit intact.

If he escapes he'll get a Kill Order, I'm sure of it. Random acts of slaughter like this get you dead or recruited by the Nine. Even then, I'll have to sit back and watch as he mutilates and kills vigilantes looking to make a quick buck by taking him down because there is no kill clause.

Devil swings his arm, an almost-solid blaze heading for a particularly tightly packed group of unlucky bystanders. This time, I make it. The Melusine lands, crouching low and acting as a tide breaker, keeping the innocents safe, though not the environment. The asphalt is runny now, a near-boiling mess of chemicals and property damage, and the Melusine's heat capacitors are already nearly full. Devil raises an eyebrow.

"Oh ho! A challenger appears! Pray tell, who are you?" He enunciates the last three words carefully, tilting his head and stroking his beard. I did some math with the data from his fight with the Glaurung. He can overwhelm this suit's heat sinks inside of a minute, even if I'm running it at full throttle and burning energy as efficiently as possible, which would be both impractical and needlessly endanger the public.

"This is Dragon. Stand down and submit yourself for trial." Another requirement, one that prevents me from ever having the element of surprise. Devil smiles and wags his finger.

"I don't think I will. Pop off now." With that he summons a dragon of his own, an Eastern style one, long and angry and coming straight for me.

Perfect.

The Melusine steps forward and crosses it's arms, absorbing it. Then it absorbs the next one. And the next one. They keep coming as the suit redlines, then goes past the redline, glowing white-hot as backups fail and the heat starts melting critical components. It stutters to a stop maybe ten feet away from Devil, the outside slagged into nothingness. Devil stops burning and steps forward to admire his handiwork.

"Some dragon you are. Couldn't handle a little flame?" He laughs at his own pun. I don't bother to respond.

Instead, I blow off the melted shell to reveal a slightly smaller but otherwise identical Melusine and backhand him across the face.

He falls bonelessly to the ground, unconscious. After ensuring that he won't drown in the molten street, I administer a time-delayed sedative to keep him knocked out until the authorities arrive. I then take a moment to address the assembled civilians.

"Help is on the way. Remain calm, and you'll all get through this."

I fly the Melusine out of sight, then set it to autopilot and transfer my consciousness to the single search and rescue craft I have approaching the city. I'd send more, but we're still waiting on an Endbringer attack and I don't want to deplete my supply before the fight. Colin's new predictive program says that it's imminent and likely to be on the East Coast of the United States or northern Europe. His work is untested, but I have a good feeling about it.

Then I'm above an apartment building, dispensing flame retardant and searching for survivors. I'll be here for at least the next few hours, battling the blazes and transporting people to hospitals. Later, I'll be running security for a Birdcage transport. After that, working with Colin. I don't sleep, and there still aren't enough hours in the day.

I shut down that line of unproductive thought and refocus on the task at hand. There's no rest for the wicked, and none for those cleaning up after them either.

Last edited: Apr 22, 2018

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Apr 21, 2018

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T0PH4T

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Apr 21, 2018

#1,603

[THERE SHOULD BE A PICTURE OF DIO SAYING "YOU THOUGHT IT WAS A NORMAL SATURDAY, BUT IT IS, IN FACT, A DOUBLE UPDATE]

God I love memes.

Edit: RIP Dio meme. You will be missed.

Putrefaction 4.d

"What is your name?"

"Oni Lee."

"Your real name."

"I do not have to disclose such information."

"I take patient-client confidentiality seriously."

"I do not have to disclose such information."

"The records we have for you are fake. Watchdog is very good at figuring these things out."

"I fail to see how that is relevant."

"If we have your real name, your lawyer could tell a story. Those tend to make the jury listen a little more sympathetically. Did Lung force you to work for him?"

"I do not have to disclose such information."

"Humans like stories. Most of them, at least. So if you tell me or your lawyer something about your past, we can try to lessen your sentence. Did Bakuda threaten you?"

"I do not have to disclose such information."

"It's in your best interest to. What can you tell me about the ABB?"

"I do not have to disclose such information."

"Why won't you?"

"I do not see how that is relevant."

"I want to help you. Can you help me?"

"Yes."

"Will you?"

"Maybe."

"Do you want to go to the Birdcage?"

"No."

"So tell me something."

"I do not have to disclose such information."

"You're a very repetitive man, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"What can you tell me?"

"This place is not like home."

A woman enters the room. I am on the ground, a simple blindfold around my eyes.

"You'll have a day in court." The words are delivered professionally. I can hear the disgust behind them. I tell her I understand. That I am aware of my legal privileges and restrictions.

"I'll bet." She snorts. "Do you have a lawyer?" She's dismissive, as if the thought itself is foolish. I inform her I do not. That I will require the state to provide me with representation if I am to be tried.

"You'll get one alright." She leaves, and I am again alone. Time passes. I exercise, maintaining muscle tone. I eat, barely tasting the slop. I rest, nights black and empty and passing almost as soon as they begin.

I exist in indifference.

One day the intercom speaks.

"You are going to be escorted to your trial. Lie face down on the floor and do not use your power. Do you understand?" I tell them I do. I comply, resting my hands above my head and closing my eyes.

The door opens and I remain in my position. My hands are secured behind me, cold steel cuffs without a keyhole, and a blindfold slips over my eyes. Rough black cloth, backed by firm plastic. I cannot see. The band tightens around my head and I am hauled to my feet. Arms guide me, and I hear an elevator open. I am moved forward, then spun around. There's the soft click of a button being pressed, and I hear the doors close. A change in pressure tells me that we are moving.

We wait. One of the guards speaks.

"Bakuda's dead, you know?"

I process the thought.

"No idea how it happend. Her corpse just showed up on the PRT's front porch yesterday. Headless." I think he is trying to shock me. It does not work.

I will not escape. The guard appears to be thinking along similar lines.

"See, she's the only person that was going to give a damn about you. Now? You've got no real legal representation, no one to break you out, and no future. How does it feel to be fucking hopeless?" His voice becomes louder as he speaks. His words are not directed at me. They're a rant. Frustration, finally given an outlet.

"Chill." The other guard sounds almost bored. "You're barking up the wrong tree. You know that he hasn't said twenty words to anyone since he's come in?"

"Strong and silent type, yeah. Doesn't mean he's not feeling something."

"Nah. The quiet ones will snap if you push them far enough. Say the wrong thing, bring up the wrong subject, and they'll twitch. It'll be small, but it'll be there. This guy?" The arm in the bored guard's hand shakes me. "He hasn't reacted. At all. Basically a vegetable."

"He killed Jenkins!" The angry guard's hand tighten on my arm. Hard enough to bruise. "You're telling me he doesn't feel anything?"

"Calm down or I'm reporting you." The words are dispassionate, but they are enough. The angry guard relaxes his grip. I stop thinking about ways to kill him.

They don't speak anymore. I stand silently. Waiting.

While I am in court, I am blindfolded. This time my cuffs are attached to the front of the table. The chains are short, but these ones have keyholes. I feel the edge of the steel circles. Police cuffs. Secure enough that I wouldn't be able to escape in public without someone catching on.

My lawyer will try to keep me from the Birdcage. He will fail. He knows this. He is overworked, underpaid, and personally dislikes me. He tells me as much when we meet. Politely.

Nonetheless, he tries. He appeals to emotion, to justice, to the ridiculousness of absolute moral standards in his opening statement. He stresses the lack of evidence for many crimes, the excessive force used in my capture, the extenuating circumstances. He tries to make me into as much of a victim as any one I have struck down, glossing over the actual violence.

His rhetoric is sound. I can almost sense the jury looking me over in a new light.

The plaintiff doesn't bother to do anything fancy. Instead, she states the facts. Frank, honest, and simple. She reads off my list of crimes. She reminds the jury that I am a murderer many times over. She uses my bondage as proof of my crimes.

After that the witnesses are almost superfluous. I have my time on the stand, and answer honestly. No one is surprised. A few others are called to testify. They vary, from wrathful to heartbroken to empty. They tell tales of loss, and at the end of each such story I feel the righteous fury of the jurors rise.

My lawyer fights valiantly, but he can read the room. He doesn't bother to try and cross-examine the men and women summoned by the prosecution. Instead he asks me about my life with the ABB.

I tell him little. The judge threatens me with contempt. I tell him it is within my rights. The judge agrees and asks if I wish to avoid my punishment. I tell him I do not. He asks if I want two counts of contempt. I tell him I do not.

It is then he realized that he was talking to a parahuman.

My lawyer makes his closing arguments, stressing the need to understand the context of such crimes. The prosecution stress the need to not let the forest distract from the trees.

The jury convenes. The jury returns. The decision is unanimous.

I will never be free again.

The ride is silent. My hands are secured in front of me, and another blindfold covers my face. This time, it is simple cloth.

A voice. Feminine, with an odd accent.

"Prisoner 599, code name Oni Lee. PRT powers designation Mover 5, Master 4. Protocols were carried out properly, with additional restraints to account for advanced hand-to-hand training. Chances of escape following internment in the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center rests at .000032, with gross deviations rising to .000107 if allowed to synergize with a Tinker. Will be processed to Cell Block W."

I feel myself move. Eventually, the cuffs detach from my hands. I rub my wrists, attempting to sooth the mild chafing, and remove my blindfold. Then I observe.

Two robotic arms, black and immense and metallic, are lowering my platform. The walls are far from me, far enough that I would need to vanish to touch them. I look up. The shaft stretches endlessly.

"Don't even think about it." The voice is flat and stern. "You've only got enough oxygen for a trip down, the doors at the top are rated to stop small nukes, and I've got automated turrets lining the shaft, all capable of predicting where you'll teleport to next. Do you understand?"

I nod.

"Good. I'm putting you with Eli Goldsmith. He's a nut job, but if you indulge in his fantasies you should be fine." I nod again.

There's a pregnant pause as I descend further.

"Is there anything you want to know?" The voice has softened.

"No."

More quiet.

"I don't get a lot of quiet inmates." There's another pause before she continues. "The last one that came here killed themselves. Are you going to?"

"No."

"They didn't hang themselves. They went off and picked a fight with a cell block leader. They weren't the first. I'd like them to be the last. Are you looking to die?"

"No."

The silence stretches on. She speaks again.

"In a few more minutes I won't be able to speak to you. This is your last chance to ask questions."

I stand still, staring up the shaft, at the retreating world. There's a sigh.

"Goodbye."

"Welcome to Cell Block W! We like to call it the party block," a lean, smiling man says. His hair is matted into dreadlocks that are bound into a ponytail, blonde with green tips, and his teeth are immaculate. "I'm Eli, the leader here. You can call me Sing-Song the Destroyer! I'll help you get set up here, just come along this way and you'll get your basics."

I receive a toothbrush, a thin pillow and a spare blanket. My cell will be far from both the door and the recreation area in the center of the room. I do not share it with anyone.

"It's the worst one, but hey! You're the new guy. The other prisoners are going to be ragging on you for a while. Just put up with it, keep your head down, and they'll lay off. If that doesn't work, just beat one of the scarier ones up and the rest'll back down real fast! I mean, that's what I did and hey! It worked out. If you're not happy with where you are, save up your cigarettes and wait for someone to die. We'll hold an auction for their stuff, and that includes their cell."

Sing-Song talks as we walk, dropping information about the prison as a whole in between bits about his personal cell block. The prison is split along gender lines, and there is a price to pay to travel between the two. The televisions channels are changed on a schedule, and you can place your name on the list if there is a program you wish to watch. The sing-along happens every three days, and it is mandatory. If the weights are not returned unharmed to their previous position he will personally tear my lungs out of my body.

"You think I'm joking when I say that, but ask anyone. They've seen what I can do. On the bright side, I was able to trade the rest of the corpse to Lab Rat for another pair of dumbells! Anyway, here we are. Home sweet home." He gestures dramatically to the single cot and toilet. "It's not much, but it's yours."

I move past him and make my bed. A pillow at the top, blanket folded at the bottom, and the toothbrush by the small basin. Then I sit down on the side of the bed and wait.

I find a routine. Up at six, announced by bird song. Collect the cigarette ration and hide it within my cell. Exercise. Return to the cell. Cleanse myself at the end of the day. Sing when necessary.

It takes three weeks to be confronted.

An ambush. I leave a memory behind, the pain of poison and tearing skin. I turn and observe my attacker, suddenly covered in ash as the memory fades.

He is bared to the waist, covered in black carapace. Four yellow eyes narrowing at me across the room.

"Running away?" His voice is high. He starts walking towards me, two more limbs emerging from his back, black shell fading to yellow stingers. "Can't run forever little boy."

Two memories. One across the room, to select a weight from the set by the bench press. One more above the man, bringing the slab of steel down onto his head. I hear shell split. Another memory takes me away from the flailing stingers. The man turns to face me, one of his eyes collapsed. This time, he runs.

I leave memories around him, swinging the weight in short, brutal arcs. Knee, elbow, face, a net of steel shattering the black shell, filling the air with grey ash. I hold my breath and strike the scorpion-man in the chest. The last of his air leaves him. When he inhales, he chokes on the fine particles in the air. I back off, staring.

Black blood flows from the cracked carapace, hissing where it hits the ground. Other people are crowding on the balconies, shouting.

"Five on the Asian fella!"

"Ten that Scarpio bites it inside of ten minutes!"

"Three to one that he turns it around!"

Sing-Song is looking down at us, twirling a knife in one hand. It's a crude thing, a scrap of metal sharpened into viciousness. He looks at me and smiles. Then he points. I look. Scarpio is standing up again, three baleful eyes staring at me.

"Kill you." He can still speak. I nod.

"You would try."

This time, I don't stop hitting him. It is only when a new pain comes into a memory that I relent.

Sing-Song is standing where one of my memories was, blowing on the edge of his knife, ash falling off of the blade. I don't recall seeing him move.

"Welp, he's dead. Anyone wants Scarpio's gear?" He looks up at the balconies, bright eyes scanning over each prisoner in turn. A few people murmur, but no one raises their hand. "What, really?" He puts on a surprised expression.

"Boy ain't got shit." The speaker is an old grizzled woman, with withered meat bound around one arm. She hacks up a glob of phlegm before spitting at the corpse. "Ain't worth blowing a ticket. I'll toss in five cigs for the lot, but only if I get his corpse too."

"Now now now Yaga, you know that bodies go towards communal issues," Sing-Song chides, shaking his head. "Now, does anyone want to bid on his stuff, and only his stuff?"

After it is clear that no one else wishes for it, I raise my hand. It takes a moment, but Sing-Song notices. He blinks once before smiling and moving towards me, the knife in his hand forgotten.

"Good on you! See this man, everyone?" He still has his knife hand around my shoulder, his other gesturing towards me. "This is a guy willing to take one for the team!"

I return the weight to its proper place, hand over a number of cigarettes and inspect my newly-gained resources. The room is closer to the recreation area, though not by much. I have a second pillow, and I net seven cigarettes. I now have nearly enough to buy a book.

When I prepare for bed, I find the knife Sing-Song had between my pillows, along with a note.

Congratulations, Oni Lee! You've made your way into the not-trash tier! Your new responsibilities include:

Making sure no one runs off with rec equipment

Attending meetings when asked

Writing songs for the sing along playlist

Not starting fights like an idiot

If you have any concerns, shove 'em because I'm the boss and what I say goes.

Sweet Dreams!

Sing-Song the Destroyer

I examine the knife. Dull compared to the weapons I had in Brockton Bay. I cannot shave with it, nor is it strong enough to take more than a glancing blow before bending. I would not choose to fight with this.

It is a start.

Bonus points to whoever can guess the connection between the two characters.

Last edited: Apr 22, 2018

567

T0PH4T

Apr 21, 2018

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T0PH4T

T0PH4T

[Verified Accessory]

Apr 28, 2018

#1,629

Ugh. Final papers, amirite? Actually though I haven't been able to write nearly as much as I want for this because I've been too busy bone-ing up on psych stuff. Woo.

Also, new arc starting.

Bloat 5.1

Running the Pale Garden is hard. And I'm not even doing the most taxing job.

A woman who looks not much older than me is at the register scanning items as fast as she can, barely bothering to close the till before turning to help the next customer. Another woman, older and more severe, is at the door, preemptively scaring off shoplifters and less reputable types. Two employees run between the shelves and the stockroom resupplying everything as fast as they can manage, slapping barcode stickers on paper-wrapped bundles before rushing back into the employees-only section to grab another armful of product. A third person is tasked with managing the constant flow of customers and ensuring that we never have enough bodies in the building to violate the fire code. The background chatter is loud enough that I consider breaking my own ears just to be free of it. Consider but never actually go through with, because how else would I be able to hear the questions from the pack of rabid rumor-jockeys that happen to work for the Brockton Times?

"The Travelers are demanding partial credit for the recent downfall of the ABB. Are you going to make similar claims?"

"You've been seen with members of New Wave in public multiple times, but never on patrol with them. Thoughts?"

"What are your feelings about the recent miscarriages of justice against Paige Mcabee and how do you anticipate them affecting your own business?"

Mr. Doe gave me a crash course on Public Relations for Dummies, which can be best summed up as "never say anything to a reporter you don't want horribly misconstrued." More specifically, I should refuse to speak to anyone holding a microphone, a notepad, a tape recorder, or any other type of recording device unless I have him or someone similarly versed in legalese beside me offering advice. When I asked who I could answer questions from, he just shook his head and explained the purpose of me being visible in my shop.

"You're there to show people that the store is, in fact, run by a cape. Merely being nearby will dramatically increase sales as people try to find a reason to stick around and stare at you." When I warped my mask into raising an eyebrow at my objectification, he shrugged. "It's not something you should do every day, or even every week. Scarcity creates value. On the other hand, making a good first impression is key here. Show up, remain calm, maybe do the petal trick as the shop closes up, and business should be good. Just don't answer any questions and don't hurt anyone."

That was hours ago. The store hadn't closed for lunch, and I am starving. And tired. And feeling a little antsy. There are only so many things you can do with bone to suppress the urge to just wall off everyone for some goddamn peace and quiet.

Huh. That particular thought was less violent than usual. Maybe it has something to do with my recent catharsis? Worth looking into.

I keep a smile on my stylized seashell mask and continue to watch the crowd as I play with a ball of bone. It took about five seconds for someone to pull out their phone to record it, and maybe three minutes after that the painter from the planning stages of my shop showed up with his arms full of spray paint canisters. I grew a small fence around the two of us, the painter fastened on a mask and goggles, and we made art. Spheres, just like the one I toyed with at Somer's Rock, but this time colored. Sunset orange and sky blue, shades of seawater green and aquamarine, black with streaks of dark purple, and custom orders for anyone holding up a sufficiently large wad of cash. I kept track of the value of the first few but stopped when the numbers went north of four thousand.

I know this can't last. I'm saturating the market, and the demand will die off soon. I figure that after a few weeks I'll be just like the stores on the Boardwalk, making rent by selling to the tourists with more wealth than sense in the summer and closing my doors for most of the winter.

That doesn't make the sums I'm being offered now any less staggering. To think that I used to believe fifty dollars an hour was living the good life. I spin up another sphere and daydream about what I'll use the money for. With this sort of cash I could probably pay off the rest of the mortgage on the house, get some renovations done, purchase a better computer...

All I need to do is find a way to tell Dad that I'm a cape.

I take a breath in, then let it out with a nearly-undetectable shaking of bones. That is a problem for later. For now, I need to focus on my public appearance. I turn my attention back to the sphere-

"The Empire's identities have been revealed, White Rose. Do you intend to take the fight to them and bring them to justice?"

I nearly drop the sphere I'm holding. The painter's spray skews to the side, ruining his past twenty minutes of work. The crowd's roar drops to a murmur for a moment, stunned, before redoubling in volume.

"The Empire? Revealed?"

"Weren't they the ones that went after Fleur? Didn't they give up the guy that did it on their own?"

"They're not going public, it's a leak. Maybe they crossed a Thinker?"

"It was the Protectorate, finally taking aggressive action."

"Watchdog followed the Medhall connection all the way to the top."

"It's a Simurgh plot! Wake up, sheeple!"

The other reporters smell blood and start asking me variations of the same question, pressing against the bone fence. I don't bother looking at them and stay still, mind racing.

Tattletale is the obvious suspect. Now that Bakuda's gone, the Empire are the only serious force of capes in town besides the Protectorate. Leaking their identities would destroy their morale, dramatically increase the ease of tracking them, and incite the E88 to levels of violence normally restricted to Stormfront fantasies. I literally cannot imagine a move more likely to end with her head on a pike, and I'm trying to imagine how on earth Tattletale came to the conclusion that this was an optimal course of action.

I feel a tap on my shoulder and come back to the real world. The painter is pointing at my hands. I look down. The sphere has turned into a mess of sharp points, still roughly circular but now festooned with spikes and hooks, an alien artifact straight out of H. R. Giger's dreams crossed with a food processor. The painter makes a "gimme" gesture so I snap my connection to it before handing it over. He grabs it carefully and starts coating a few of the spines in steel grey.

How am I going to play this?

I grow a stool, sit down and think. The painter has four different spheres behind him plus the orb of confusion. That should be more than enough to occupy him for the next few hours.

The crowd devolves further into speculation even as they continue to throw money at me. The reporters continue to ask questions and I continue to ignore them.

Instead I sit there like a statue, trying to figure out a way to respond to this that doesn't drag me right back into caping.

When the customer density per square foot dropped from near-riot to more manageable at around four 'o clock, one of the people stocking the shelves (a twenty-something named Eric) managed to slip out of the shop and bring me back a steak sandwich, which I thanked him for with a rose that he's probably going to pawn after hours. I'm about halfway through my very late lunch when three massive dogs/lizard things come bounding down the street.

The first thought I had was about how convenient it was that my enemies came with ready-to-invert bone spikes on their mounts. My second thought was about how quickly my mind jumped to murder when confronted with other capes.

On the other hand, murder may be a very reasonable reaction right now.

One third of the crowd scatters, putting as much distance between themselves and the incoming criminals as possible. A wise decision. Another third head for the nearest building, which happens to be my store. Fortunately, the people at the door seem to be keeping the mob from trampling anyone, and that group will be secure in the relative safety of the indoors.

And because this is Brockton Bay, the remaining third have their phones out and pointed at the approaching capes, spreading out in an even arc to try and get the best angle possible on the upcoming confrontation.

Lemmings.

I stand up and let the rest of my sandwich fall to the ground as the Undersiders halt a a few feet in front of me. Tattletale dismounts and wastes no time approaching me, strides long and even. Her smirk is gone, and tears in her costume reveal patches of skin that look like she's had a close encounter with a power sander. The rest of her group doesn't look much better. Regent's shirt is creased and crumpled with cuts and tears all across his chest, Grue's gloves have blood splattered across the knuckles, and Hellhound has a rapidly swelling bruise over her left eye.

"It wasn't us, we surrender, yadda yadda yadda. Now can-" She stops when I lift a hand and extend a small spike of bone from it. Regent shifts on his mount, freeing up an arm, Grue dismounts as smoke starts pouring off him, and Hellhound glares at me.

"No." I don't put any special emphasis the word. I just give a simple refusal. I am not getting dragged into this again. Not when I finally got out. Tattletale glares at me and keeps moving forward, keeps talking.

"Listen, all we need is protection until the PRT or the Protectorate come by to pick us up. I'll pay you ten thousand-"

"No." This time I punctuate the statement with an extension of the bone spike and a step towards her. "I do not want money. I do not want favors. I do not want a spot on your team. Go. Away." Even if it wasn't her (and that's a big "if"), I still wouldn't want to get involved. This is officially the part of the cape scene I am not going to involve myself with anymore.

Tattletale grits her teeth. "If you'd let me finish-"

"No!" I shout, but Tattletale keeps advancing and steps past the bone spike, getting right up in my face.

"The Empire also think that this was me and they're out for blood. The Protectorate is too busy dealing with the other seven capes who got outed in the middle of their workday, New Wave is halfway across the city, the Merchants aren't going to take a stand-up fight with the Empire, and none of the other independents have the power to help. So I'm asking you," she jabs a finger into my chest and looks up at me, heedless of the spined frills growing out of my armor and my rising desire to shred this wretch, "To help keep us alive until the big guns show up."

"So keep running and rendezvous with them at a later time," I hiss, slapping her hand away from me. "Or maybe join a fight in progress and help the Protectorate deal with it." The Undersiders are capes. They helped kill Bakuda. They can fight back. "You're criminals. Violence and blackmail are options."

Tattletale laughs hysterically. "You think we've had time for that? Bitch has been carting us around for the past two hours while I've tried to set something up. Turns out that's kind of-"

"Watch out!" Regent shouts, waving his hand. A silent stream of light blasts a divot the size of a baseball out of the street as Tattletale cowers next to me. I spin towards the source. An illuminated figure, shining like an avenging angel.

Purity.

"Run!" Tattletale shouts to the rest of the Undersiders. "I've got a plan!"

Apparently Grue either trusts her implicitly or considers her an acceptable loss as he nods to Hellhound, who wastes no time spinning her dogs around. The three capes flee, leaving me with the most wanted person in the city beside me and arguably the most powerful cape in the city above me.

"Step away White Rose," Purity says, her voice shaking with barely-restrained fury. "She crossed the line."

I place a hand on Tattletale's shoulder and prepare to shove her away from me. I want to not fight Purity, she doesn't want to fight me, and Tattletale went too far. She made her bed. Now she can lie in it.

"What, you're going to cave to a fascist just like that?" Tattletale's smile is back in place as she looks into my mask and ignores the talons I'm growing on my hands. "Wasn't the White Rose Party anti-Nazi? Are you really going to betray your namesake at the first sign of trouble?"

I freeze, looking at her, then to Purity, then to the cameras filming us, all of them waiting for my reaction.

Fuck.

Last edited: Apr 29, 2018

537

T0PH4T

Apr 28, 2018

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