Alright, much as you despise having to plan out your future, you guess it IS immediately relevant in this case. So, you're, fairly obviously, gonna be a villain. Like, no two ways about it, you eat people. And it, kinda, really, really feels good. And is required for your survival. Though even if it weren't, you don't think you COULD stop doing so if you tried in the long term. Something deep inside you demands that you eat people now.
So, where does that leave you? Well, for once, you could be a solo villain, join a gang or start up your own. Though, given what your options are, you're neither Asian, so the ABB is out, a druggie, so that new group, the Merchants are out even if you wanted to join them, and fuck the hell no are you ever gonna shack up with the nazis. So it's really more of a choice between going at it alone and finding some mooks to help you out as well as other capes that wouldn't be opposed to working with you.
Your instinct is idly poking you on this topic, but it's so damn vague you ignore it.
With the choice between solo villain and starting up your own group clear, time to weigh the pros and cons. Solo villains have it much harder, given that they're, well, alone. People like to make a big thing about the survival rate of independents, though the statistics are obviously manipulated and/or faked (of course they are, they're statistics), but you can't help but think it's even worse for people just starting out already aware they're inevitably going to be villains. Similarly, they have a harder time committing crimes on a large scale, as they're, again, alone. Hard to pull a drug empire outta nothing when you have to do everything yourself, after all. On the other hand, solo villains would, you reason, have an easier time staying with smaller crimes. Robberies, burglaries, and thefts, etc are much easier to plan out on an individual scale anyway. Of course, with a bunch of unpowered mooks, you could commit more crimes in total, but they're more likely to fuck it up, and you can't be everywhere at once.
Now, actually going and starting up a gang outta nowhere? That's hard. You can't just walk up to a random gangbanger and tell him he works for you now. Well, you could, but that would be retarded and the consequences would be fucking well earned, you'd say. No, you'd have to go to the people at the bottom, in this city. The downtrodden and the homeless. Anyone else either already got snatched up by the other gangs or isn't ever gonna be gangster material in the first place. You just have a limited recruiting pool, so that's an issue. Also, those Merchants would be recruiting from that same pool, though forcefully taking over their operations would be an alternative to starting from scratch. Might be worth a thought later.
Similarly, you can't just pull new capes out of your ass the same way you do with powers. Everyone either wants to recruit capes or make sure their rivals can't recruit them- usually in a fatal manner. A dead blaster blasts nobody, after all. So you'd naturally have to keep an eye and an ear out for any independents and get them to work for you, along with poaching capes from other groups whenever possible.
Overall, it might be worth the effort to keep your group on an acceptable level of respectability, too- kind of the way Marquis did way back when. Really, it's still kind of a shame he got taken out. Yes, the man was a murderer, but so's Hookwolf, and you don't see the now-named New Wave take him out either, do you? But regardless, being an actual improvement on the area you're laying claim to. And gangs inevitably have to claim a territory, in contrast to smaller groups- would actually be possible, you reckon. Heck, that's a big part of how the Empire has numerical superiority over all other groups, including the PRT/Protectorate in not only capes, but mooks as well; they have a LOT of skinheads living in the areas they control, and those skinheads later join them as gang members. Whites in the area they control gladly pay them protection money to 'keep the rabble out' and that's how the actual gangers get paid. That and their weapons smuggling and drug trade. Bunch of fucking retards.
But yeah, allowing certain kinds of crimes, coming down on murderers and rapists (that don't belong to you, at any rate), and making sure the drugs your peddlers are selling have a minimum of standards at least, if only so your consumer base doesn't die on fucked up drugs would lend any actual organization you start up an air of legitimacy. Which neither the Merchants nor the ABB cares about, really, One being filthy druggies and proud of it and the other being 'I AM DRAGON' and 'nuff said. You figure you could beat out the E88 in that sense as well, at least in areas with non-whites living in them, the PRT/Protectorate would be the only uphill battle PR-wise.
Alright, so, it's... honestly pretty hard to decide, but you'll be going with starting up your own gang. Like, heck, if other people can do it, so can you! Now, what does a rising criminal empire need? Well, a good right-hand man to help manage the whole thing wouldn't go amiss. Besides that... Well, drugs are an obvious point to start with. Get drugs, sell them, profit. Except it isn't that easy, is it? Of course not. You'll need a steady supply of drugs, a network of drug peddlers to actually sell the stuff, a bunch of enforcers to make sure nobody starts any shit on your turf...
Well, this is, rather obviously, gonna be a long-term goal. The sheer manpower and contacts you'll need alone...
Huh? What is this?
Scratching your wrist, you tilt your head as your instinct pulses a message amounting to 'You got this, man!' and a feeling of how to use a new power. Or is it a power you already had? This shit is still confusing.
Either way, you now seem to have some kind of master power based on your blood. That's... good? Like, if you can use it on a decent number of people at once, you should be able to get that whole gang business off the ground much easier. On the other hand, if anyone in an official capacity ever finds out, you're kinda really fucked. People do not like human masters. So, on the pile of 'things nobody must ever find out' it goes.
Regardless, you have all the tools you'll need to get started, so no time like the present to... "GAHHHHHHH!"
Okay, not going outside. Just the sight of sunlight (apparently the sun came up during your little thinking session) is enough to make every cell in your body scream "The fuck are you doing, retard? Get to safety NOW!"
Guess now you know why you felt the instinctive need to find a safe lair.
Still, while you're safely stuck in here for the day, you have a plan now. It's not much of one, more of a rough general outline for what you want to achieve, but it's something.
Now, what will you do next? You can't go outside, for the time being, so you'll either have to stay inside your lair and... train, or try to remember stuff, or something? Or else you could slip through the barrier keeping your lair safe from the rest of the sewers as a shadow and explore around a bit. You just won't be able to go aboveground, after all.
Over the next while (no real way to accurately tell the time down here) you repeatedly transform into your shadow form, shedding your clothes, before transforming back and putting them back on, all with the determination to keep your clothes on for the whole experience.
It's boring in the extreme, but at least it doesn't require much effort beyond putting your clothes on. Halfway through, you decide to just use your pants and not bother with the rest of your burial suit, simply because you can't be arsed to keep on putting the whole thing on.
Eventually, it happens. You transform and do not see your pants on the floor. Truly, a small step for you, a big step for pants everywhere.
Alright, after a few repetitions, looks like that wasn't a fluke. You actually keep your clothes on you when you transform now. Suck on that, parahumans everywhere! Your powers can grow!
It hasn't been that long, though, and you're not too keen to repeat a close encounter with the sight of sunlight, so what will you do now?
Calling back to the time you left the graveyard (would it count as your birthplace? Unbirthplace? Incubation facility?), you remember that weird feeling you had and try to put yourself back into that same mindset.
Breathing deep, you breathe out, in, out, in...
and swallow yourself down...
... finding yourself elsewhere inside yourself.
Standing in some kind of throne room, overgrown with vines and moss and filled with statues of all kinds, many of them holding up the platform upon which the throne rests, beseeching the throne or screaming in exuberance at it.
It is entirely silent. Not a single sound to be heard. You don't think you've ever heard so much... nothing. The silence is pressing down on everything.
The throne seems like it's just waiting for something... or maybe someone? Only one way to find out you suppose. After all, best you can tell, this place is you. Hard to describe as this feeling is.
So you muse to yourself as you approach the throne. Unceremoniously taking a seat, you have to suppress a flinch as images and thoughts slam into your mind...
... and are gone again just as quick.
What the fuck.
Okay, so from what you can tell, this throne is meant to be used to oversee the realm it presides over, but it's missing something. Incomplete. Broken.
You'll have to figure out a way to fix it if you want to get any proper use out of it, you guess.
That still leaves you in the throne room, though. What now?
Deciding to just start walking and take a look around, you exit the throne room and do just that.
And so you walk.
and walk...
...and walk...
and after crossing what seems like several temperature zones much faster than you should be able to, you see something moving in the distance.
Entering what seems like some kind of courtyard, you approach the figure you saw in the distance. The figure you recognize, as the man you ate just after you first crawled out of your grave. Small world, huh.
"Hello there."
Turning around, you see him paling, before he visibly pulls himself together.
"I know you. You killed me."
"I did", you answer with a nod.
Considering you, and the way you're making no threatening moves, he eases up a little and takes a look around. "I was exploring this place since I... since I woke up. Where are we?"
Shit, think fast "No idea, really. The best I can give you is we're in some kind of pocket dimension everyone I eat goes. Powers are bullshit weird."
"Huh. Name's Marco. Figured I may as well introduce myself, seeing as I haven't found a way out of here so far."
"Not sure there even is one. Been looking around for a bit and I saw a few different climate zones, but no exit. I'd give you my name in return, but I'm afraid I don't currently remember it. I seem to suffer from a spot of amnesia ever since I woke up in the graveyard.", you smile.
"...Right. So, where does that leave us?"
"Well, seeing as how I have to eat people now to survive, I'm fairly sure you'll get some company sooner or later. Sorry about the whole eating you thing, by the way, you know how it is. Wrong time, wrong place and all that.", he frowns as you continue, "So yeah, it'd be great if you could tell anyone else you see what I've told you about this place. In the meantime, feel free to take a room once you find the bedchambers. Hell, you might as well clean the place up a bit; you'll be staying here for a long time far as I can tell. I'll see if I can help things along somehow, but there's honestly not much I can do for you right now."
Concentrating on breathing yourself out again before he can answer, and damn if that isn't a weird sentence, you come to, nearly faceplanting onto the floor of the dry parts of your lair before catching yourself.
So, you think to yourself, that's a thing now. Fuck my life. Or unlife or whatever.
Disregarding the existential questions raised by the proven existence of souls, or the fact that you can eat them now, you mentally recenter yourself. What's next on your agenda?
Deciding to take a look around the sewers, you turn into your shadow again and take off at the speed of not-light. Which actually makes sense when you say it, hah.
Hopping along the walls, you randomly zip around the surroundings of your lair, regularly checking to make sure you're not getting lost. It may literally be a hole in the ground, but it's your lair now and you're keeping it.
After what you'd estimate is a decent while, you turn to return to the safety of your lair, only to come to a halt as you faintly hear voices. Following the sound, you eventually find what looks like two hobos climbing down a sewer entrance. Keeping your distance until the dreaded sunlight cuts off (it even looks nauseating as a shadow, however that works), you come closer and observe them.
"So, ugh, dude, whadda we doing here agun?" asks the guy looking like he washed all his clothes in a dumpster every morning.
"We'ah takin' a look around for any good places ta set up shop down here, Manni. Don't'cha ever fucking listen when I tell ya stuff?" answers the guy with a funny armband that really sticks out to you.
"Dude, chill off. So what are we supposed ta find down here anyway?", Manni, apparently.
"I don't fucking know, Manni, and I don't fucking care. We were told ta take a look around, so we'ah takin' a look around."
What follows is what feels like hours and days of boring watching as 'Manni' repeatedly asks his companion things nobody cares about. Seriously, you started just blending his voice out after five minutes.
After thorough observation, you can say with some confidence that one or both of these guys is, like, high. Or otherwise just highly non-neurotypical. Small twitches, their eyes tracking things that aren't there, the works. Once or twice you're kinda worried they may have seen you in a corner of their eyes, but they're just that fucked up.
Eventually, they reach an exit from the sewers. Which you're pretty sure they didn't know about, seeing as this is the third time they're passing this particular intersection before noticing it is there.
From their idle talk (and man, does Manni ever shut up?), you surmise that these guys are actually with that new gang, the Merchants. You'd heard, before your death, that these guys were becoming a thing in the trainyard and the slums. Druggies and proud of being human waste, etc.
The reality, as far as you can ascertain as they're leaving the sewers under the cover of that blasted sunlight, is even worse. They're drug dealers that use their own product, though calling it abuse would likely describe the gang as a whole just fine. And they're not even smart enough to take their stuff before they cut it with something.
You'd been planning to start up your own gang, but here, at least, you can take solace in the fact that wiping these idiots off the face of the earth would be an objective improvement, no matter what you replace them with. The only silver lining you can make out is that you can take them as an example of what not to do. Common sense would have told you much of the same things, but not with such a great example of what happens otherwise.
Disgruntled at the missed meal, but also sure that none of those fuckwits are looking to seriously start anything in your area of the sewers (not that they could; at least half their people would get lost and starve to death down here, you think to yourself), you return to your lair. It's still nothing much, but it's starting to look downright homey after you've spent some time in it.
Taking stock of your powers and what they can do, you realize that your heightened senses may be an issue. Not so much in themselves, but you'd noticed you'd actually smelled the sewers through your trash barrier while staying in your lair sometimes, something you were fairly sure a normal sense of smell wouldn't allow for- this was a relatively clean corner of the sewers.
Wondering if you could actually train on this to dial your senses back down on demand, or at least learn to better ignore their inputs, you decide there's only one thing you can do.
Girding your metaphorical loins, you take a step towards the barrier and breathe in... carefully... and it stinks. Yeah, no matter how nice it is for the sewers, it's still the sewers. You'd actually noticed you didn't really carry scents with you when going shadow- an unexpected, but not unwelcome discovery.
But no, no distractions now. No matter how much you'd like, you have to actually contemplate the smell of rotting feces... ugh... come on, you don't want to have to smell this anymore!
After some time has passed (still too long for comfort), you notice the worst of the smell receding. It's still there, of course, and you can identify it just as well as before, but it's not worse than for anyone else with an average sense of smell, you reckon. That's actually better than you'd hoped for, you'd expected the ability to reduce the sharpness of your senses to make stuff more bearable. Instead, you get to have senses just as good as before, just not as vulnerable as they should be. Bullshit powers are bullshit, you smile to yourself.
Hoping the effect works on your other senses, though unwilling to test it out, for now, you ponder what time it is. A quick (very quick) look outside confirms the sun's starting to flag. You estimate you have enough time to do one more thing, two if you're quick about it and it doesn't take all too long.
Deciding to further improve your shadow transformation, as you'd like to actually get some use out of your wrench, even if it's not the intended use, you grab it and transform into a shadow. Dropping it. Transforming back, picking it up again, transform, drop, transform, pick up,...
After a while, you decide to take a break and decide to further investigate your super strength. You get a negative feeling when you think about improving it, so for now you just try to figure out exactly how much stronger you are in short bouts when you take breaks on the transformation routine.
Turns out, while you can't exactly measure your grip strength or anything, you're fairly sure you're somewhat above the human norm. Your first tries with pushups show just about no strain whatsoever, and you're not sure you CAN grow tired anymore. One-handed pushups are similarly trivial for you.
As you don't exactly have many ways to measure your physical prowess, you decide to get creative after your next dose of transformations. You go for a handstand, and other than a few balance issues, you can do it without any problems. Taking one hand off the ground, you start to lower and raise yourself, on one hand, feeling a bit of strain, but rather manageable overall.
Deciding to stop here, as your frequent transformations are starting to become monotonous in the extreme, you realize you might... okay, yeah, a quick check reveals you can tell if the sun has gone down because you feel just a little bit hungry.
Useful, that.
Deciding to exit your lair now that you won't freak out at the mere sight of sunlight, you turn into a shadow and dance along the walls of Brockton's nightly back alleys. Time to explore, see what you find, maybe enthrall someone if you're lucky enough to find someone worthy.
Who knew you'd be so proactive with a clear goal before you?
Hushing along the streets and roofs, you stop as you faintly hear something. Turning back into your human shape safely on a roof, you concentrate on your hearing. It's faint, but you can vaguely make out voices... in several directions.
Well, what to do now?
Deciding to go and investigate the mostly silent direction you think you heard something from, you become your shadow again and wander off in the general area...
Until you're brought up short by the sight of a pair of strung-out junkies looking to be breaking into a random apartment building. So that's what I heard.
What shall you do now? Keep in mind, they're likely to be at least somewhat armed.
Thinking quickly, you slip around the two would-be-burglars into the building, right through a small crack in a hallway window. Untransforming and taking a position on the other side of the door they are trying to enter, you wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
Man, these guys are bad at this.
But eventually, you hear a sound and the door starts moving. Acting quickly, you reach through its open crack and...
Pull the guy on the other side through. Before he can react, you slam him into the door, closing it and keeping pressure on him to ensure it stays that way for as long as you're holding him.
His ribs begin to buckle as he tries to scream, only to be cut off by the severe lack of airflow to his lungs as you're pressing onto him with literally supernatural might. Not giving him much of a chance to do anything else, you unhinge your maw the way a snake would and dig your fangs deep into the area around his collarbone.
Even as said collarbone snaps under your furious assault, you begin to drain all his blood far faster than should logically be possible, making his struggles cease in short order.
Letting the body drop to the floor like a sack of potatoes, you open the door to see his friend trying to do the same, only with far less success. Seeing you standing there with a literally bloody smile and the corpse of the other burglar off to the side, he...
Stands there, looking at you, at the corpse, at you, the corpse, your mouth covered in blood. You would just grab him, but this is too amusing to pass up.
Apparently, his second reaction is to piss himself while turning to run in one smooth motion. Impressed with the sheer speed he does so after making up his mind, you follow after him.
He makes a good attempt, but your sheer speed allows you to catch up to him in short order. Grabbing onto his shoulder, you whirl him around, slightly annoyed by the sound and smell of feces all around his lower half.
Once you have a secure grip onto his shoulder and head, you pull both towards you while he flails his limbs in panic. Opening your mouth, you don't so much bite down as you pull his neck into your maw, reveling in the taste of blood once again. Though you think you may taste the drugs he's on, it's not an unpleasant taste by any means, just a little different.
You don't particularly like it, you just don't dislike it, either.
Joey was always a follower at heart. It's not that he couldn't come up with plans or anything, he just preferred to go along with someone else's. So when his buddy Mark decided he would just become a criminal after high school instead of working himself to the bone in a boring office job, he just went along with it.
The arrangement worked pretty well, Mark picking locks and casing places out before the heist and Joey went along to help, threatening the people they stole from via numbers and guns if they were at home unexpectedly. Eventually, the two of them got into drugs, what with all the dosh they made, and things went well, really.
Over time, they needed more drugs, and correspondingly more cash. Their money reserve grew thinner, but never quite dipped to nothing for long, so he didn't mind. One night, they both went for an apartment building Mark had cased out ahead of time, only to encounter something they didn't expect...
Mark always tried to do his best, really. He had to, somebody had to bring food on the table, and his 'ma wasn't the best on her legs.
Until she wasn't on her legs, period.
Cancer, the doctors said. Lung cancer, to be exact. Nothing could be done in that late stage. Mark tried to do anything he could, prayed to any deity that would listen, but it didn't help. Panacea could get her better, of course, but you try getting on her waiting list early enough to be seen to within a year.
Of course, you could buy a place on the list if you knew the right people, as he found out. So, after he graduated high school, he asked his buddy Joey, jokingly at first, if he wanted to just be a criminal together with him. He didn't quite know how to answer when he, in response, looked at him and said "Sure.". Either way, the both of them set upon becoming burglars.
Sure, Mark would do most of the work, casing the places they'd rob and picking most locks himself, but Joey didn't demand an equal part of the pay, and didn't ask why Mark needed all that money, so it all worked out in the end. The two of them eventually got guns, not to ever actually shoot anyone, but just to have an easier time threatening people if they happened to be at home at odd times just when they would come by. Most people shut up and hope it'll be over soon when you hold a gun in their face, after all.
And if they didn't? Well, you just so happened to have a gun in their face. Some problems solve themselves.
Things went fairly well for a while. Until they didn't. Turns out Mark's mother didn't have all the time in the world, after all, and eventually died in her sickbed. Mark spent a week wondering how the fuck all that he did was worth it until Joey dragged him out of his funk by sticking weed in his mouth and demanding they smoked away some of the money they'd saved up together. Mark couldn't help himself; he laughed until his sides hurt and tears ran down his face and agreed. "Sure."
Ever since then, the two kept on breaking into places to steal stuff. They were less affluent, sure, but fuck it, Mark decided he didn't give a fuck anymore either way. May as well have fun with his best buddy.
Until one night, they broke into an apartment building he'd cased out a day earlier, only to encounter something neither of them had expected...
Dropping the second body of the night, you bask in the afterglow of two good meals one after the other before shaking it off and considering your surroundings.
Sustenance is now 7/7
Dragging the soiled body back towards where you left the first one, you concentrate on your senses, but you can't hear any movement or voices nearby. Seems as though you've remained undetected during that little... altercation. It helps, of course, that nobody got off a scream or anything.
Now, what shall you do with the bodies? One of them's soiled himself, so you don't really want to touch his stuff. The other one, though, looks fine overall. You must've killed him so fast his bowels didn't have the time to void themselves.
Taking a moment to search the two criminals' corpses, you come upon a simple realization: Human feces stink and are perfectly capable of ruining anything said human has on them.
Turning away from the stinker's corpse, you pat down the other guy and find a pistol on him, but nothing more of particular interest. Seems they didn't see fit to bring their wallets to a burglary, which is a shame, really. Ah well, at least some of the criminals in this part of town are capable of basic criminal 101.
Gained: Handgun (6/6 bullets)
Deciding to see if any of the nearby apartments were empty so you could just dump these bodies in there, you start going through cracks under doors as a shadow...
Searching through the apartments one by one, you quickly encounter one that seems to be empty... except for a small crate in a corner of the bathroom. Investigating closer, you see...
Cash. A lot of cash. Most of it is in small denominations, but still, this is a LOT of cash. This must be part of some gang's money-laundering operation. Well, next time someone gets sent for the dosh, they're gonna encounter a whole lotta more than they expected, but no money.
Quickly taking a look around inside and outside the apartment, you soon find the key to the place hidden in the planter right next to the door. Seems like the gangbangers couldn't be arsed to hide the key to their handoff apartment better.
Regardless, you drag the bodies inside, load them into the bathtub, and... yes, this place has water. Your guess is whichever gang uses this place actually has someone renting the apartment, just to make sure nobody interferes in their situation. Once the bathtub is filled enough to cover the bodies, you search around, only to reconsider and decide you don't need to cover it, as someone from the gangs will be by sooner or later... and as they can't risk this place being investigated, they'll make sure the bodies are disposed of for you, all without asking too many questions.
Meanwhile, it's time you made off with your new gun and box of cash. Well, this was a greatly rewarding little excursion, if you do say so yourself.
An hour later, you're back in your lair. You would've been here in a fraction of the time, but you can't take the cash nor the gun with you in shadow form, and there's no way you're leaving either behind.
Deciding you had a good bit of action for now, you hunker down next to your crate full of cash and work on taking your weapon, now weapons, with you when you transform. Being in a better mood after grabbing both said load of dosh and a gun, you make much better progress than last time.
By the time you come back out of your funk of transforming, detransforming, picking your weapon up and repeating, you've got the feeling you're rather close to a visible change. The wrench starts getting a bit shadowy around the edges before it glides out of your fingers, at any rate.
Using the momentum you've built up, you keep on training the same thing. You've gotten used to the routine by now, such that you keep on transforming a few times while keeping your wrench with you before you notice there's a difference.
With a small smile on your face, you begin to juggle the shadow of your wrench as a shadow on the wall.
With your latest project taken care of, next on your list is entering yourself again and finding your two newest... victims? Tenants? Spiritual body parts? It's honestly pretty hard to define what they are to you once you've eaten them.
Regardless, you sit down next to your money-crate, take a deep breath, and...
... open your eyes inside yourself.
Considering your dilapidated throne room, you exit it and take a look around in search of your targets. Lamenting the fact that you can't use powers in here (and you tried), you have to search the old-fashioned way, though you quickly hear something.
You're led towards one of the destroyed rooms by the sound of voices. Entering it, you see the two stooges you ate earlier.
"Woah, stay the fuck back!", says the guy you've mentally labeled soul number 3. Should you be concerned that you don't give a fuck about people by now? Maybe. You just don't give a fuck, though.
"Stand down, man.", you counter and he visibly has to stand down. "What the fuck, you mastered me!", he shouts when he realizes he literally can't square up against you. "No, how did you know?", you drawl back in an amused tone.
"Now, I'd love to stay and chat, but I have shit to do and only so many fucks to give. I came here to ask you two about criminals in the Bay and where you got your drugs and guns from, and before you shout it out loud, yes, you have to answer my questions truthfully and to your best ability. You're technically a part of me."
And so they do.
Quickly getting information out of them, you take stock of what you find out. They used to buy their stuff from a local dude, but he got taken out by the Merchants when they started expanding into the general area, so they started to buy from them. It's not much, but at least you know of the place one of their low-level drug pushers hangs out and sells his wares.
They also have great news for you; they sold their stolen goods to a local black market/pawnshop/fence somewhat of an institution in some parts of the Bay's underworld. Reliable and minimum fuss, though the old man apparently haggles like nobody's business.
He actually sold them their guns, though they have something really interesting to tell you on that front, too. Apparently, there's a small group of a few people operating precariously close to the boardwalk, mostly smuggling weapons into and through the city. The E88 would normally take offense at that kind of thing, as weapons smuggling is very much their main source of income, but as the group is led by a white chick, they're apparently taking their time in either stamping them out or absorbing them into their own operations. All the better for you to strike first, you suppose.
Finding competent employees is always a headache, after all.
"Okay, you guys, if you got any questions, try and find Marco. He should be around... somewhere. He can probably tell you more. In the meantime, make yourselves at home, soul number 2, soul number 3", you tell them with a nod each, ignoring their matching frowns as you turn away.
Breathing yourself out of yourself, which is getting easier now that you've done it a few times, you get up and ponder what you should do next.
Well, stretching a bit, you think to yourself, that went well. I've got a lead on a group to take over, a reliable way to sell off stuff and acquire the odd piece of equipment, and also a possible target to hit once I'm ready to start working on the Merchants.
Thinking about it, I'll need a cape name if I am to openly act as a cape. ... And it'd be nice to know my own name, come to think of it. Now, what WAS my name? Who am, or rather was, I?
Yes, you remember now... Your name was Gabriel. Gabriel Livsey. You died when... when you got into a traffic accident. You were on the way to board a train back home, after Rex killed himself... Man, if you still had empathy, this would fucking kill you inside.
Good thing you don't.
Fuck, Sarah must have been torn about this. She and Rex didn't get along the best, but you made a point to be a family whenever you could. That went by the wayside when you went to college out of town, but you'd hoped your younger siblings would get along... until you heard he'd hung himself. Which is, man. You never realized your newfound sociopathy would mess with you this much, but you literally don't feel anything about that.
Sure, you can follow the line of thought that would make OTHER people feel upset, but you don't particularly care.
Now, Sarah on the other hand, her you do care about... though you figure that's mostly because you see her as a kid and because she's still alive enough to matter. Huh.
Either way, you can't exactly leave the city. You can't stand the sunlight, and there's no way you'll manage to smuggle aboard a train, even with your shadow power. The things have lamps and not much dark surface area to keep you hidden.
You'll have to stay here, in Brockton, for the time being... but sooner or later, you will come to get Sarah.
No matter how fucked up you are inside, you are Gabriel Livsey, and you refuse to accept any other outcome.
With your newfound determination settled, you think about what else you'll need... And realize that you completely forgot to think about your cape name, which is how you came upon the topic in the first place. Whoops.
Going through several ideas in your head, you think about calling yourself Mausoleum or after some mythological death gods... but you decide that referencing your own death like that would be too obvious. While you sincerely doubt anyone will ever get the idea to connect you to a dead person, it always pays to be careful.
That's when it occurs to you; your parents made you read the bible as a kid, mostly when, you suspect, they couldn't be arsed to deal with your existence. One biblical figure sticks out to you right now, Cain, the first murderer. Bit edgy, but you suspect all the names you could come up with right now would be. But yeah, the very first thing you did after being (re)born was eating a guy, and you don't think you'll stop doing so anytime soon.
It's not perfect, but it'll do.
You briefly play with the thought of taking a page out of Marquis' book and calling yourself Count Cain, but... no. Just no. If you can't say it out loud without bursting out in laughter, you won't call yourself that.
With that out of the way, what shall you do next? You're fairly certain it's daylight outside by now, so you can't really leave your lair or the sewers.
Following the feelings you got over the course of messing with your internal palace, you breathe out and try to give it meaning.
Other than making you cough a bit, it does nothing, but you keep on going. Over the course of what feels like an eternity of coughing and awkward breathing, you eventually manage to exhale a pale silver-ish mist, but it keeps on retreating inside your lungs whenever you inevitably have to cough or just run out of air to breathe out.
Still, you've made some progress in how long you can have the mist of mystery extend. It's a nice feeling.
Sticking with the awkward breathing exercises (you want to see if this makes anything happen), you keep at it for the next while, until, well, something happens.
Breathing out and getting the breath just right, you stare in bewilderment as a figure forms out of the silver-ish fog.
Huh. So apparently you can not only breathe yourself in, you can also breathe the souls you ate out.
"Hey, what the fuck?"
"Nothing, go back to sleep.", you answer, also quickly answering the question of whether they still had to follow your orders when outside the palace, as you watch him fall over, fast asleep.
Sighing and breathing him in again, you cough one last time to get your voice back to how it is supposed to sound as you wonder what to do next.
Breathing yourself in again to see if something changed, you quickly realize that yes, it did. You look around your throne room, mentally noting that the statues look much more impressive in perfect condition.
Without the plants all around the room, it, too, looks much more visually appealing. Walking your way up to the throne, you sit in its immaculate seat and very quickly find that you now have perfect awareness of the castle. You see souls number 1, 2, and 3 conversing in a side chamber not that far from where you are, as well as a strange tree growing near a sea of blood, deep underground caves filled with breathtaking architecture, what looks like a mausoleum overgrown with plants and surrounded by a thick forest as well as all the images you saw before and the places you'd already discovered on foot.
This place, well... it's big.
Very big.
Like, it's hard to conceptualize the sheer distance you're now intimately aware of. If you had to describe it, it's more like an enormous dilapidated complex of connected buildings stretching all across a continent, and below and above it in places as well.
...You quickly leave before the experience overwhelms you.
Trying to see if you can mess around with your shadow powers some more, you slow down your transformation as much as you can to see if any part of you gets affected sooner than any other.
Well, it turns out you start to shadowify at the outer edges first, which is honestly no big surprise, as it's the same way you progressed when practicing to bring your wrench with you.
Alright, time to get started messing around with this.
A decent while later, you stop, having enough of slowly transforming to and from your shadow state. It looks like you actually can try to affect specific parts of you, but you've made little progress so far on getting it down.
Deciding to stick with it, you quickly come upon the realization that you don't need to slow down your transformation so much as speed it up in an area you want. It's still hard to get it to stop once you've transformed the parts that you want, but you make good progress and have it down by the time your hunger has noticeably risen once more, signaling the end of the day and the start of your time.
Deciding you may as well follow up on the best lead you have towards starting up your own gang, you transform and set out to find the area the two guys you ate described to you.
After a few minutes of racing across walls and roofs, you find the street name you were given and start to look around for signs of the group you were described while staying safely in the darkness of unlit streetlights.
What you find, well...
A bunch of Empire fuckers, armed with lead pipes, baseball bats and, in one case, a gun, arrayed against a building filled with, what you can tell, a few people that seem to have more guns than the skinheads, judging by the half-dozen corpses cooling on the pavement. You count six of them alive, funnily enough.
"Come out! We know you're in there! If you don't, we'll fuckin' burn this place down with you in it!", the apparent leader shouts while the guy next to him brandishes what looks a lot like a molotov cocktail.
Vaguely making out some feminine shouting involving the words 'fuck nazis', 'cocksuckers' and 'go fuck yourselves back to where you came from', you guess the occupants aren't planning to come out. On the bright side, at least they aren't friendly to the nazis, so they might be tolerable, for once.
Now... What shall you do? This is your best chance to make an entrance and secure the loyalty of your possible future minions... on the other hand, there are quite a few nazis, standing there out in the open. Then again, you remembered to bring both your gun and your wrench, just in case.
On another note, should you conceal your identity? And if so, how?
Well, you figure, better eat the greatest danger first. I spy, with my little eye, a little dead nazi with a gun.
Jumping down from the roof, you manage to land just behind the lead nazi and slam into him as you both go down. He tries to struggle, but you get your hands on him and before he can really react, you unhinge your maw wreathed in shadows and lunge for his neck.
He is dead before the rest of the skinheads have a chance to really process what is going on.
Robert was always gonna be a skinhead. That was never in question. What else do you do when you're a white high school dropout in the poorer parts of the Bay? So he spoke to a guy he knew, shaved his head, and there he went.
Mom and Dad would turn in their graves- if they could afford any, that is, so joke's on them.
So he rose in the ranks of the Empire- slowly, but surely. So what if he was shit with numbers and couldn't remember some instructions to save his life? There's a reason he dropped out, damn it. At least he could beat the shit out of niggers just fine, and isn't that what the Empire was all about?
Over time, he got put in command over some other thugs here and there. Turns out it doesn't require too many brains to stand guard and fuck up anyone looking too often at something they shouldn't.
So Robert got put in charge of small groups guarding weapon shipments in and out of the city. The pay was decent, he got to keep a gun on him and even shout at anyone fucking around on the job, and he at least managed to take said job seriously.
Which, he supposed, was why he got promoted in the first place, come to think of it.
Every now and then, he and his guys were called in to beat and rape a few sandniggers and whatever other fuckers ran around the empire's borders. Really, just business as usual. It was just to make a point, mostly.
Eventually, the crew was called to deal with a few minor players near the boardwalk, smuggling weapons around right under the Empire's nose. When they started shooting his guys, he decided none of them would leave this place alive, until suddenly...
Swallowing the last of the blood, you drop the dead body and survey your surroundings. The nazis have realized their leader is dead and are now starting to react. If you want to do anything, the time is now!
With a big toothy grin, you turn towards the next biggest target now that mister shooty nazi is dealt with, the one with a molotov cocktail. Drawing your gun, you let off a shot and as you shoot, you're distracted by movement in a window of the house the nazis were besieging.
"Fuck yeah! Show these faggots how a real guy does this shit!"
... you miss, of course, but she shoots right at the molotov as the nazi turns towards you.
Resulting in a VERY well grilled nazi. He screams for a bit, but you don't think anyone with that heavy burns combined with the glass shards as shrapnell in addition to the gunshot will keep on going for any length of time.
Leaving you with four other nazis one of which is just standing there, staring at the guy that's currently dying an agonizing death.
The other three come at you with a pipe and two baseball bats at the ready.
Deftly avoiding one bat and the pipe, you're out of position to do the same for the second bat, taking a hefty smack to the side.
It doesn't hurt too much and neither are you particularly hindered, but it annoys you that these retards even managed to land a hit. Then again, maybe you'd been overly optimistic on this fight. Either way, what shall you do next?
Eyeing the fucker that hit you, you smash your wrench at him in an overhead swing, hitting his shoulder with a satisfying crack. In the next moment, you dart to the side, forcing two of them to move around the guy you just hit...
Except, uh. Wow. Okay.
One of them trips, flailing wildly, managing to grab onto the waistband of your human shield, taking his pants down with him.
You try to keep to yourself, but can't quite manage to keep the smug, demeaning smile off your face.
You look in his eyes and say with that alone: Yeah, you really ARE small.
From a nearby window, you can hear feminine laughter and whistling.
He just stands there, looking to be too embarrassed to do much of anything.
Ohshittheotherone-
Luckily, you manage to evade his swing. The fallen nazi is just getting up, even while the other one is trying to get his pants up again to conceal his shame.
On the other hand, the last nazi in the quartet just rejoined his comrades, leaving you in a 2v1 for now.
Except no, "We finally found the ammo!", a voice calls from inside the house, swiftly followed by the resounding cracks of gunshots.
One shot lands, hitting the nazi without pants right in the shoulder you already hit, staggering him and keeping him from pulling his pants up.
Now, the skinheads are trying to surround you, the two who are on their feet at least. One is currently struggling to his feet, while the last one is holding his shoulder, trying to stem the bleeding, cursing unimaginatively all the while.
Taking stock of the situation, you smile at the two nazis currently trying to surround you... and jump backwards before pulling out your gun and shooting the one on the right.
Or at least you attempt to shoot, as once again you're interrupted by a chick leaning out of a window.
With a gun in each hand this time.
In a perfect show of acrobatics (which would actually get you hard if you couldn't control your erections now), she jumps out of the window, lands in a split, shoots the half-naked nazi and the one you were aiming at in the balls, and then jumps right back in.
So. That's a thing now.
In other news, the nazi without pants just died. Was it the shock or the bleeding that killed him, you wonder? The nazi that was struggling to his feet has finally succeeded, but in exchange the one that was shot in the balls is currently on the ground, crying.
Awkward.
You share a look with the only nazi currently facing you, both of you implicitly agreeing to try to ignore the surreality of what just happened before you go back to killing each other.
Addressing the one guy that finally just got up, you give him your best grin and comment: "Hey, you're pretty good at killing your friends. He died like a little bitch, too."
He looks at you, then at his comrade's corpse still bleeding from his exposed, shot apart genitals, back at you and completely flips out. He screams like a psychopath and rushes you. You just keep up your smug smile behind your shadowy mask and prepare to grab him.
It's not easy, but you manage to grab onto his arm as he flails his weapon around, stopping him short. Now that you have a secure grip on him, you work on dragging him closer so you can feed, even as the other nazi attempts to strike you.
Rearing back, you pull your victim towards you for easier access and bury your teeth into his neck, creating a nice number of wounds from which to draw blood even while you suck said blood into your mouth and down your gullet.
It's a whole new rush every time you do this, really.
Eric, well, he never was a good person. As far as he could remember, he always enjoyed the pain of others. Though it wasn't even about their pain, necessarily; he also enjoyed causing them humiliation, sadness, misery, fear, and so on and so forth.
In short, Eric was a depraved asshole, and he enjoyed it.
That wasn't to say he couldn't enjoy other things, he just always came back around to causing pain as his favorite pastime. Was it strange, then, that he gravitated towards the E88? Sure, he didn't give a fuck about their whole racism thing, but getting to rape and torture anyone not fitting into their color scheme was always fun, regardless of their skin color.
Besides, if he got in the mood, he could always grab a white bitch to fuck and kill, not like he didn't have free time, after all.
The other guys in the Empire knew he wasn't in it for ideological reasons, of course, but they didn't mind. The E88 took in anyone that wanted to 'fight the good fight', and didn't care why they did it too much, and any enthusiasm such as his was welcome especially.
And if Eric always got excited when they fucked up a family with children, nobody mentioned it.
All this went rather well for him, overall. Sure, he would've liked to see some more action, but someone still had to guard weapon shipments and shit, and the wait just made the eventual spot of fun all the more... intense.
One day, the group he was with was called in to deal with a group of 'independent' smugglers. Only to be greeted by a hail of bullets. As Eric and the survivors came out of cover (the body of another skinhead, in his case), they figured the little fucks had run out of ammo. Little did they know they would have aroused the attention of something else entirely...
Dropping the corpse, you turn towards the last standing nazi. You make it a point to show off your beautiful smile... that may or may not be coated in blood and contain enormous amounts of far too sharp teeth, but hey, you win some, you lose some.
The skinhead shouts "Yeah fuck this, no! I'm out!", while turning to run, apparently having seen something in your smile... whyever might that be?
Regardless, he doesn't make it far, as he's positively riddled with bullets shot from the building they were originally here for.
Well, that's that, you suppose. Only one nazi left, and he's bleeding out on the floor.
Nope, never mind, he just croaked before you could reach him. Who'd'a thunk getting your balls shot off would do that?
Regardless of his critical existence failure, you still have to go and approach your new friends. And it's important you think of them as such rather than mooks or minions, because that might slip out during conversation, and wouldn't that just be rude?
Knocking on the door (you're nothing if not at least polite), you quickly find it is unlocked. Apparently, those nazis could have entered the whole time, huh?
Well, their loss. Inside you find a bunch of heavily armed women looking at you with a look in their eyes you're not sure you're comfortable with.
"You sure showed 'em fuckers, huh?", the apparent leader grins at you.
"I feel like you showed 'em more than I did. I didn't get a single shot off!", you grin back.
"Oh none a' that, you were a very nice looking distraction out there. Great job, really!"
Seems like you've established a positive tone to this relationship already. Yay for shooting nazis, you suppose.
Now if only she'd stop looking at you like that. Again, you'd get a hard-on if you couldn't control your dick perfectly now. The fabled why-boner, to be exact.
If only shooting nazis didn't make her so attractive...
Wait, what? This must be more of your recent personality changes playing into your preferences. Ah well, you can live with that. Still gotta answer rather than stand there staring like a weirdo.
"So, you shoot nazis here often?", shit you're still thinking with your dick-
"We don't normally, but apparently the fuckers got tipped off to our hangout. We're gonna have to relocate our little operation here soon."
"Shame, but I guess there's only so many idiots willing to come to get shot at.", is she... she's grinning even wider, "So, you girls open to working with a cape? I was thinking of starting up my own little gang, but if you guys happen to need a few assholes eaten, we may as well combine the useful with the pleasant."
"Oh, you're into that?-" "Oh fuck no. Okay, maybe a little, but it's all power-related."
"Explain.", she says, looking a little serious for the first time this conversation, though still grinning and eyeing you.
"Well," you open up, "in exchange for drinking people's blood, I get to turn myself into a shadow," as you stroke along your shadowed face, "I got a physical improvement package, including senses,", at the words 'physical improvement package her grin widens again, "anyone whose blood I drank until they died, I can summon copies of and lastly I can grant minor brute powers to people. It's a bit of a tradeoff, but worth it, I'd say."
By the end, she's absolutely beaming, though you get the impression that's her way of putting people off guard rather than only an expression of happiness, though she certainly seems rather happy with the situation she's just found herself in.
"Well now, do tell me more about those last two. Could you, say, summon copies of the dudes you ate out there, and would they actually know what their originals did?"
"They sure would, no prob."
"And that other power? I know Othalla from nazi-land can grant powers temporarily, but you didn't make it sound like that?"
"Yeah, it's semi-permanent. It needs to be renewed regularly, but it works for a while. In exchange, it's fairly minor, though."
"Hey, anything's better than nothing. Okay, how do we do this?"
"Let's interrogate the suckers first. Better find out if there are any more nazis incoming first of all."
Doing as you said, you breathe out what you figured to be the leader of the bunch. Looking around wide-eyed, he doesn't have much time to do much of anything, as you order him to hold still and answer your questions, commands he can't help but follow.
In short order, you're told that there are no more nazis coming, though the group is expected to be back at a safehouse in an hour or two and if they don't return, it's likely other groups will be sent to search for them.
The E88 found this location from a tipoff by some homeless guy that apparently saw suspicious deliveries a week or so back. Turns out unloading a truck filled with crates containing guns in the middle of the day actually got a second look eventually, even in this part of the Bay.
With a grimace, she mentions that they had a warehouse lined up near the relatively safe parts of the docks, but they never moved their operations over because nobody gave them trouble at their current place so far.
"Okay,", you say, breathing in a lungful of nazi, "let's move everything over before any more nazis arrive first of all."
"Aww, no brute rating for me?"
"Getting it installed takes a few hours, so let's go somewhere we won't be interrupted."
Pouting, she complies.
Thanks to your immensely improved strength, you can carry everything that the girls want to take with them into the trunk of their beat-up little truck.
"We actually sold off most of our newest delivery.", she tells you when she sees you looking at the very much smaller load than you expected having to move. "That's why we took so much time to find the reserve ammo."
You thankfully finish bringing everything over before even an hour passes, the gang packing up everything they need and you ferrying it over.
You may get a few catcalls and your butt groped here and there, but you figure it's just a job hazard when working with female gangsters.
"-Katrina, but you can just call me Kate or something, I don't mind."
"Alright. Call me Cain while I'm in costume. So, do you happen to have enough space in that warehouse for a guy? I happen to be squatting in a literal hole in the ground right now. Just got my powers a few days ago and I'm still working on getting my life back on track."
"Oh sure, the place has nothing but space. You, uh, you might wanna show your face to the girls eventually, though, it'd just be weird to live with a guy whose face is covered 24/7."
"Oh sure, that's okay. I'm just trying to figure out how to move this whole thing forward."
"It's cool, it's cool. So, about that brute power- how's that work?"
"Well, I feed you a few drops of my blood repeatedly over the course of a few hours. Yes, I know my power apparently has a theme, but hey, as long as it works... So, anyway, at the end, you become just a little more durable. Like, you're not necessarily harder to damage, you just have an easier time ignoring wounds that would otherwise kill you. Bloodloss especially, you can just keep on going beyond what you should be able to and heal back from that eventually.
To 'maintain' your power, you need another few drops of blood from me regularly. Like, about once a week. That's really all it takes."
"Okay, let's do this shit as soon as we have some time. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure you have a lot of... personality beyond your power, but I sure wouldn't say no to being harder to kill.", she says with a grin.
Arriving at the warehouse without incident, everyone gets out of the truck and starts unpacking the cargo. As the strongest guy present, you naturally have to carry everything heavy around. Not that you mind, though you still feel like you're being viewed like a piece of meat.
It's supposed to be the other way around, damn it.
Regardless, in short order everything's stowed away and you have laid claim to a storeroom in the cellar without any direct windows for pesky sunlight to come through. They even got electricity in this place!
Not much later, you got Kate cornering you.
"Now are we doing the thing or what?", she asks with an impatient look.
"Alright then, let's do 'the thing'.", you smile at her, letting the shadows your face had turned into morph back into said face.
She seems to be stunned at seeing your face, though you can't imagine why. Either way, she wanted to do the thing, so you're doing it now. Bringing your wrist up to your mouth, you bite down hard enough to draw blood, before offering it to her.
Looking at you oddly, she shifts her eyes to your wrist. "Come on, it won't stay open forever. Take a sip.", you encourage her. Huh, come to think of it, does this count as an indirect kiss? Eh, not like it really matters.
A few hours later, you have your first thrall.