You wake up on a Sunday morning, feeling refreshed despite having stayed up so late last night. With a combination of Elliot gushing about his day and you waiting around for Tattletale to negotiate some sort of deal with her and the Undersiders, you had fallen asleep at about midnight.
Rolling over, you check your phone and see that it's about 7:00 AM. Seven hours of sleep wasn't bad, but you still feel a lot more refreshed than you probably should. Probably just a good night's sleep.
You wonder what you're going to do today. You didn't get any emails about jobs, other than the ones you get related to your payments for the Mayor's job, and after deleting all of Bakuda's emails, you're left with an empty inbox.
A lazy Sunday maybe? With all your bodies? It's been a while since you've completely done nothing training or work related. You could probably hang out with one of your friends or family as Jay, but you wonder if there's anything you should be doing as Legion.
You decide that you'll take Little J out for a day of shopping for whatever she wants. You've been criminally under utilising your spoiling power and you plan to fix that.
But if it's 7:00 AM on a Sunday, waking Little J up at this time for any reason, is a criminal offence punishable by death. With none of her good cartoons being on at this time, Little J often sleeps up to 9:00 AM, and you suppose that a good start to your day would involve not interrupting her night's sleep.
As you exit your room, you see a man in a suit about to walk out of the apartment.
"Woah," you can't help but say. "Nice tux, Uncle Rusty."
"Thanks," he says, without a single hint of stutter. "Gotta switch up the attire from time to time. Can't establish a pattern. God, I forgot how nice expensive clothes can be. Wanna feel?" he asks, holding out a sleeve.
"Sure," you say, shrugging. As you approach, you notice the bags under his eyes, but they're largely overshadowed by the wide grin that he sports.
When you pinch the part of the sleeve he holds out to you, it feels incredibly nice. Just like the Alcotts' couch you suppose money really can buy a surprising amount of luxury.
"Doing good for yourself, Uncle Rusty," you say.
"Yeah, thanks for hooking me up with the gig, James. Don't think I ever mentioned it."
"It's no problem," you say, even without the suit, you're shocked to see just how confident your Uncle looks. You can't help but wonder if Mackenzie would even recognise him if she saw him again. Though you loved the old version of Uncle Rusty just as much, you're happy to see him so self-assured.
"Sorry I can't stick around for breakfast," he says, reaching up to tousle your hair. You let it happen while you note that he's actually taller than you when his posture's straight. "Want me to pick up something for dinner?"
"Maybe," you say. "I'm planning to go shopping with Little J, though so I'll shoot you a text if we decide to eat out instead."
"Good idea," he says. "Well, I've gotta run. See you around, James. Love you."
"Love you too, Uncle Rusty," you say, waving as he exits the condo, the door clicking shut behind him.
Across the city, you can't help but smile to yourself as you wait in line at the Starbucks as your body back at home straightens out your hair. From the corners of your vision, you notice the entirety of the cafe staring at you, but you ignore them as the person in front of you orders their drink in a hurry, aggressively tapping in their PIN to pay for their drink and rushing off to the side.
You ignore the quiet clicking of camera apps as you walk forward.
"H-how can I help you, sir?" the barista asks you.
You look at the menu for a moment before realising that you have no idea what Tattletale likes.
"Hmm," you say, which causes the barista to flinch slightly as you reach up to scratch your head in thought. "Can I get a black coffee, the most expensive drink you have, your personal favourite, and three random drinks? Your choice."
"A-are you sure?"
"Yeah," you say, shrugging. You suppose you can buy a wide range of drinks and give away whatever Tattletale doesn't choose to the rest of the Undersiders. You don't like wasting coffee, and it would be a shame if some of them don't drink it, but you suppose you could just store it or dump it in the sink.
"Y-yes, sir. Right away, sir," the barista says.
You wait awkwardly as the barista turns away to tend to the machines.
"I still haven't paid," you say. "How much do I owe you?"
The barista mumbles a number out and you pay the amount, counting out a few coins so the barista won't have to make change. Eventually, she hands you a tray of four cups and another tray of two. You're a bit surprised to see your order coming through before the queue of three other customers, but you suppose they just want you out as fast as possible.
The other customers don't seem to complain, and you don't have any reason to dispute it so you create a clone to pick up the extra tray and start to walk.
Though you don't really care if people take pictures of you, you realise that it probably won't do to walk to the Undersiders base with a potential horder of civilians following you, but you also can't cloneshift or run with your coffee cups.
So instead, with one of the clones across the city, you walk to the Undersiders base and press the button on your backpack right as you feed the coffee trays into your bag with your Starbucks clones. Surprisingly, none of the cups are spilled when you retrieve them and you happily create two more clones so you can comfortably carry your trays with two and knock on the door to the Undersiders base with one.
It takes a whole minute before the door opens up and Regent gives you a slight wave.
"Sup," he says. "You wanted something?"
"Is Tattletale home?"
"No," he says. "She's at Coil's base. Still cleaning up a lot of shit."
"Oh. You have an address?"
"Sure," he says, listing it off for you.
"Thanks," you say.
"Are one of those for me?"
You give him a glance. "Do you know what Tattletale usually drinks?" you ask. "I got these for her, but I didn't know what she liked."
"Oh she likes those lattes. I don't know what specifically."
You look at your coffees. There's one that looks somewhat like a caramel latte, though you suppose that swirly stuff could be chocolate.
"You can take one," you say, holding out the tray towards Regent. "Just not the latte."
"Sweet. You wanna hang out?"
You consider the thought. You suppose it's not like you don't have time.
"Sure."
One benefit of having your clones combing the city for any signs of Bakuda is that there's always a clone nearby every location. You spawn another clone off the one nearest to the address that Regent gave you, and casually begin cloneporting towards the location.
You spot a few armed guards that raise their guns at you as you approach, but quickly lower them once you get close enough.
"One moment, sir," an armed guard tells you, right before he presses a finger to his ear. In another second, he nods at the other guard on watch with him.
"I'll be escorting you to the boss, sir," he says.
"Thanks."
It's quite a long walk through an unnecessarily winding office building, but your destination is a large office where Tattletale is sitting behind a large wall of computer screens while Coil sits slumped over in a mahogany desk just behind her.
"No need to shoot this one, Smiley," she says, without turning around.
"No, I insist. Please do," Coil says with a groan. Something about his voice seems off, though you suppose you'd only spoken to him once on the phone. Hearing him saying surrender hardly counted as a conversation.
"You sure?" you ask.
"Yeah," Tattletale easily replies.
"Okay, then," you shrug as your escort leaves the room. "You want some coffee?"
"Oh, yeah. You got some for me? That's sweet."
"Did you get one for me?" Coil asks.
You give him a look as you press the button on your backpack, right after you feed the latte through.
"I don't know if it's caramel, but hopefully it's close enough," you say.
"Huh? Why caramel?" Tattletale asks you. "Oh. You went to the base, didn't you? And Regent answered? I like black."
Across the city, you let go of your controller to lightly slap the back of Regent's head in the middle of your Tekken match, dropping a combo in the process.
"I'll take the caramel," Coil says, weakly raising an arm.
"No you won't," Tattletale says.
The spandex mask over Coil's face twists slightly as you assume he's grimacing under it.
"I'll take black," he says.
"I only have the one," you say as you retrieve the black coffee from your backpack.
"Oh thank god," he says.
"No," Tattletale says. "Take the black. I'll take the latte. I need the extra sugar anyways."
"You're welcome for the promotion, Miss Boss Tattletale," you say, walking over to her and holding out the latte. When she turns around, she gives you a smirk.
"One murder together and you get snarky on me, Smiley?" she says, giving you a tired grin. "You should be saying sorry instead."
"Oh," you say once you notice how bloodshot her eyes are. "How long did you sleep last night?"
"Didn't," she says, as she takes the cup from your hands.
"Oh. My fault?"
"Absolutely."
"Sorry. Is there anything I can do?"
"You brought me coffee," she says, letting out a loud yawn. "Buy me something nice with the money I get you later. I don't know," she says letting out a loud yawn. "So what's up?" she asks.
You shrug. "You seemed like you were going to be busy. I guess I was right. Anything I can do to help besides the coffee?"
Tattletale thinks for a moment. "Poke me when it looks like I'm about to fall asleep. I can keep going for about five more hours then I'm passing out. I'm still running on that adrenaline high from yesterday and I want to ride it for as long as I can. Oh and poke Leech over there if he's doing anything not Coil-like."
"I'm on break!" Coil says angrily.
"Forty eight more seconds of it," she says. "But speaking of which, I'm not on break. Any questions before I sink back into the bank accounts?"
"I don't know what Coil acts like. When do I poke him?"
"Wait, you were serious about that?" Coil asks.
"Hmm. If he's not acting pompous or arrogant enough that you feel like punching him in the face, he's doing it wrong."
"Hey, I've only got so much of his blood to go through, lady."
"Which is why you need to get a grasp on his character before it runs out," Tattletale says. "Now both of you, be quiet and let me work on not having Brockton Bay implode."
You do as Tattletale instructs and begin your job as an automated alarm clock, poking her in the face whenever she closes her eyes for longer than five seconds.
In the meantime, while your other clones are busy socialising with Faultline's crew, this time with Faultline herself included, gifting Skitter some leftover coffee despite her adverseness at talking to you, dodging Bitch's halfhearted attempt at siccing her dogs at you before she eventually gives up, and posting about your most recent escapades online, as well as trying to set up new avenues to be recruited, you are currently in the process of being dragged across one of the larger shopping malls across Brockton Bay.
You've already bought a new laptop for her, and you've already promised her a new game system, but don't feel the need to try and carry that thing around all day, so you agree to wait until the end of the day to pick it up.
For some reason, Little J seems a bit hesitant about your shopping spree, asking how you got so much money, but when you explain that Uncle Rusty supplied you with money from his new job, her inhibitions seemed to melt away.
When Little J drags you to a men's clothing shop however, you can't help but raise an eyebrow.
"Little J. Are you having an identity crisis?" you ask.
"What? No!" she giggles. "We should buy something for you too. Uncle Rusty gave you that money for both of us."
"Oh," you say. "Why this store though?"
Little J shrugs. "Looks expensive."
You think about Uncle Rusty's new suit. "Fair enough," you say.
You end up buying a nice-looking suit at Little J's suggestion, for some reason, as well as a matching tie. You have no idea when and why you would ever wear it, but you suppose you're far along enough through puberty to have stopped growing. You might still outgrow it soon, with how much you're training with your other bodies, but you can admire how good you look.
It's a spoil Little J day anyways, and since she seems to like it, you buy it on the spot.
Though you already told Little J that you'd be buying a console at the very end of the day so you didn't have to lug it around needlessly, you remember that you would need to pick out a few games to buy to take home along with it or it would be useless.
You ask Regent for a couple of game recommendations, and he lists you a few. While perusing through the shelves, you find what he recommends, but a majority of them seem to be incredibly violent and not to Little J's tastes. He rolls his eyes when you let him know that you want less violent suggestions and lists out a few more.
As you pick out a few, and Little J does the same, you suddenly remember your other duty of picking out a gift for Tattletale, at her request. It was pretty vague, and you really didn't know what she would like, but you don't really have many options on people to consult.
With Regent right beside one clone and Little J beside another, you ignore Regent completely and turn to Little J.
"Hey, Little J?" you ask.
"Hmm?"
"Can I ask your opinion on something?"
"What is it?"
"Do you have any idea what a teenage girl would like as a gift?"
"A gift?" Little J asks, confused. "Who is it for?"
You shrug. "A friend."
Your head twists to the side at the quiet clatter of plastic as Little J drops the case she's holding in her hands. You ignore the clerk yelling at you to watch the merchandise as you meet Little J's wide eyes.
"What's wrong, Little J?" you ask.
"You're buying a gift?" she asks.
You raise an eyebrow. "Yeah."
"For a friend?"
"Yeah."
"A girl?"
"Uh-huh."
"So not Elliot, not Ranger?"
"They're boys."
"Not Auntie Mackenzie?"
"I don't know if she counts as a friend."
"Not me, right?"
"No. Do you want another gift?"
Little J's slack-jawed expression slowly, but steadily curls up into a wide smile.
"You have a friend that you want to give gifts to?!" she asked excitedly. "A new one?!"
You raise an eyebrow. "I thought we established this."
You're still confused as Little J charges at you and wraps her arms around your waist in a tight hug.
"What are we doing here?!" she screams, after letting you go and grabbing your hand. "This is so much more important than video games!"
You're still a little confused about why Little J is acting this way, but she seems happy. You follow along, tossing back the game cases you're holding onto the floor of the video game store. It doesn't seem like Little J is willing to slow down so you can place them back on the shelves.
Little J drags you aimlessly across the mall for a couple of minutes before realising that she hasn't actually entered any stores. She then takes a moment to relentlessly interrogate you about what your new friend likes, before you realise that you don't know much about Tattletale and she's much too busy to ask anything of her at the moment.
In the end, you describe Tattletale as constantly busy, knows a lot, and very smug.
Little J seems somewhat exasperated at your response, since it doesn't give her much to work with, but still seems glad for some reason.
You begin to grow a little concerned as she almost seems like she's about to start hyperventilating, but you're surprised when someone calls out your name.
"James? James!"
You turn around and see a familiar looking girl, smiling and waving at you from a short distance away. It takes a second for you to remember her.
"Hana?" you ask. You're not sure whether to be happy or annoyed to see her. Though she did break up with Elliot just last night, he seemed happy enough about it, quoting it as 'the best day, evening, and night of his life.'
"Is that her?!" Little J shouts, gripping your hand and causing more than a few heads to turn.
"No," you say.
"Cute," Hana says.
"Why'd you call me?" you ask.
"Oh what? Since Elliot and I broke up, we can't be friendly? Our breakup was pretty," you clasp your hands gently around Little J's ears. "Amicable," Hana continues, with a smirk.
You frown a little. You don't know why, but the way she said it sounded rude somehow. You don't know if you imagined it.
"Anyways," she says, giving you a wide smile. "I was just hanging out and wanted to see what you were up to. I assume you were here to shop for underwear?"
"Why would you assume that?" you ask.
"Oh, I just thought you'd be here for the big sale? It's like 90% off in one of these stores. There was a huge lineup for it."
You frown, not sure if you remember seeing anything like that.
"Also, I'll admit that I'm kind of looking for participants for a study I'm a part of. It's a whole research thing for college. Would you mind if you could take five minutes or so to take part? Buy your sister something nice?"
You raise an eyebrow.
"Sorry. I'm bonding with my sister," you say, squeezing her hand lightly. She looks up at you but doesn't seem to be anything but confused.
You're not sure if you imagine the way Hana's eyes narrow or the downward twitch of her lips, but after a moment, she smiles and waves.
"I see," she says. "Well, then have a good day, James."
You don't say bye before turning around and walking away.
"What's wrong, Jay?" Little J asks, a few seconds after you start to walk away.
"I'm feeling a little sick. I'll get the console later today, but I just want to rest at home for an hour or so."
Even to your own ears, your response feels wooden, but Little J's face looks stricken as she looks up at you.
"Jay," she says. "Even if she hurt Elliot, he's going to be okay. You don't need to do anything. We can just stay home and eat ice cream, okay? Please, Jay? Let's just stay at home?"
You scoop up Little J into your arms. You don't know if it's to comfort her or you.
"Of course. We can stay at home."
"You're not going to hurt that lady?" Little J whispers into your ear.
"Of course."
"Tattletale," you say.
"I'm awake!" she says, instantly bolting up in her seat. "Wait, I really was awake. What..."
She trails off when she see looks at you.
"Fuck."
You curse under your breath as Uncle Rusty's phone refuses to ring. Something about not allowing phones in secret clearance government facilities. You approach the PRT building.
"Elliot," you say, as the phone is picked up.
"Woah, what's up Jay. You sound like someone pissed in your cereal."
"What happened last night?"
"Oh? Really? You want to hear it over voice, huh? Text not enough to get your blood running?"
"I just saw Hana. She was saying some pretty weird shit."
"Let it be known that most guys don't last much longer than a few seconds during their first time. At least I made up for it in round two and three. Let me guess, was she at the mall?"
"How did you know?"
"She hangs out there all the time. Except for yesterday, most of our date time involved sitting around crowded areas and just doing some casual people watching, not that I was watching more than one person, if you get my drift."
Something he says catches your attention.
"What do you mean except for yesterday?"
"Wait, you seriously want more details about me losing my virginity? Even for you that's a liiittle bit weird, man. Not that I wasn't going to tell you tomorrow in person anyways, but it's a little weird you're so eager."
"I'm sorry," you say. "But it's important."
There's a pause on the other end.
"You okay, man?"
You can't help but make a small sound of frustration. "Elliot, please. I know it's weird, but it's important."
There's another pause.
"Okay, do you already know what we did? I'm starting to think I'm in trouble."
"Elliot!" you growl.
There's another pause.
"You're not going to do anything, are you, Jay?"
"Please, Elliot. It's important."
"Okay, geez. You're making me start to feel bad about this now..." There's a pause. "I broke into the school. And Mr. Kennings's office. And we fucked there."
You frowned. Why?
You feed a baseball cap and sunglasses into your backpack, which the clone you have closest to the mall quickly uses to replace his mask while hidden from view. Splitting whenever you can, absorbing useless clones across the city, and using every tool you have at your disposal, you comb the entirety of the mall while trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible.
Though you were able to start your search not three minutes after you left the mall with Little J, it takes you five minutes to find her, skipping along a busy downtown intersection. It's no trouble for you to follow her while avoiding her gaze, especially since she's making no effort to hide herself, all while seemingly drawing as much attention to herself as possible.
She's singing a song, not one that you recognize, and not one that likely exists. She's singing off-tune, but rather it sounds more like a poorly improvised song that doesn't follow any real rhythm or pattern, but just melodious to be mistaken for a song.
"Deeead Maaan's Switch. Got myself a fucking love, for mutual destruction. Deeead Maaan's Switch. Killing everything from here, to the ends of the earth."
Though the strange lyrics and accompanying dance draw more than a few eyes, Hana's hardly the strangest thing in the crowded parts of town. Not ten feet from her, a Bible-thumper ignores her to scream at passengers about the path to redemption, while the sound of a steel drum-playing street performer threatens to drown out Hana's voice.
As Bakuda continues to dance and sing, you have a clone pull out a phone to start a video chat with the clone currently standing next to Tattletale. She has to blink a few times and rub her eyes before she looks at the video again.
She looks at you and then at the video before pounding her desk, causing Leech to jump in his seat.
"Fuck!" she barks out. "Please tell me you know something that can convince me that that ISN'T Bakuda threatening the busiest fucking intersection in Brockton Bay."
You stay silent, watching as Bakuda pulls out a pair of goggles from her purse and gently places them over her eyes, integrating the motion into her awkward dancing. As soon as she does so, she looks around with a maniacal grin, glancing at a few places until she looks towards one of your clones.
"Fuck!" Tattletale yells, standing up suddenly, causing her chair to fall over and clatter loudly onto the ground behind her. In that same instant, her legs seem to buckle from underneath her and you quickly swoop in to grab her with a fresh clone.
"Shit, more tired than I thought. You couldn't have provoked the maniacal supervillain at a more convenient time, Smiley," she asks.
She pauses for a moment.
"Right. Sorry. No time for jokes. But while I do love our little back and forth, I'm gonna need more input from you so my power doesn't overload itself trying to figure you out. I'm already on the brink and I'm thinking I'm close to the point where I'm going to shut down. Let's try to delay that for as long as possible, shall we?"
You nod. "Understood."
You rush into the PRT building and with a quick cloneport, you have several guns pointed at you, but you ignore them as you lean over the counter.
"Get everyone! Get Red Mettle. Bastion. Now!"
"Um, sir. Please," the receptionist says.
"Bakuda is in the middle of core of downtown, wearing a dead man's switch, with god knows how many bombs planted around the city."
You're not sure if the receptionist has even processed what you're saying.
"Is there any way you could confirm your story?"
"Red Mettle?" Tattletale asks as you relay the information to her. "How do you- Fuck," she says as she grabs her head. "Don't answer. Not important. I don't know enough about him, but if you trust him do something. Trying to convince the receptionists will be slow, but I can't afford to think about that. Show me the video again."
You remove your hand from over the phone, uncovering it and revealing the screen to her again. The phone is muted, at her request.
"Stop," Tattletale says, closing her eyes and twisting her head away. "She's saying something new. Find out what it is."
As you jump over the receptionist's desk, resulting a mass amount of yelling and guns being pointed in your direction, while you hold a pistol to the receptionist's head, demanding to see Bastion and either Armsmaster or Piggot, you are also calling the mayor's Lawyer to ask him if he can do anything to speed up your contact with the PRT and approaching Bakuda with one of your clones.
She seems to notice you approaching, holding out a hand while she awkwardly spins on the spot, as if asking you for a dance.
"Jaaaames. James Pagliacci. Interesting name. Honestly not one I expected from my arch nemesis. Less of a rat, more of a clown. I knew I was fucking right. Why couldn't you have confirmed my theory in the mall? It's always more fun to look at explosions when you're indoors."
"What do you want, Bakuda?" you ask.
"I really just want you to say something for me."
"Excuse me?"
"Yes!" she hisses, clapping her hands and spinning around, catching a few annoyed passerbys on the shoulder. "Really? You do realize you only just got out of prison, right? Anyways, I'm still offering to work for you. I'm sure you're aware of how effective I can be. Get to the point. Are you going to give me a real job offer? Am I being paid for it? Excuse me? Excuse me? Am I being paid for it?"
Bakuda's chest heaves as she catches her breath, a wide smile still painted on her face.
"Your voice. Your fucking voice. Played on repeat for eighteen hours straight. I studied that shit like it was fucking Sunday school. Repeated in my brain over and over and over and over. I'd know that fucking, Excuse me, anywhere. You just had to say it in the mall, and this would all be so much prettier."
"It was the best I could do with a shit ass photographic memory that doesn't include auditory shit, but you followed me! With so many of you too. Oh god. Way to make it obvious, you fucking retard."
She lunges forward, her arms wide as if trying to give you a hug.
"What the fuck?" Tattletale mumbles.
You can't help but think the same, but as Bakuda hugs you tight and buries her face into your chest, letting out a deeply content sigh, you have no idea how to react.
"Ah, bliss," she says. "I know it's not the end, but let me have this for a second, mmk?"
Back at the PRT, you see a whole host of superheroes appear in the lobby and you create as many clones as you can afford, just so that you can't be incapacitated as easily. When you see Uncle Rusty, you breath out a sigh of relief.
"Legion," he says, calmly. "Toss me the gun."
You obey instantly, tossing the pistol into the air. The instant you do, what seems like the entire group of superheroes starts to charge at you.
"Hold it!" you hear Uncle Rusty say.
You look up at him to see he has the pistol pointed towards his own head.
"Let the kid talk," he says. "Or you lose your golden goose."
After a brief second, you feel the pressure around you lessen as Bakuda lets go of you and hops back.
"You get my job requests?" she asks.
"Yeah," you say. "Why are you bringing that up? Is that what this is? You're offering me a job or something?"
"Oh calm down you spaz," she says. "A bitch ass merc to the very end, caring about nothing but money, money, money. But yeah. I do have something for you. In fact, I think it's a pretty familiar one."
With a flick of her wrist, a silver disk appears in her hand.
"Pretty neat trick, huh?" she asks. "Catch."
Back at the PRT, the entire room seems to be stunned into silence, which you take as your opportunity to speak.
"Bakuda's got a deadman's switch in the downtown core."
"What's Bakuda do?" Uncle Rusty asks.
"Bombs."
"Got any hooked up to important places?"
"What does he mean by important places?" Tattletale asks. She shakes her head. "Nevermind, doesn't matter. Ask her."
"Where else have you got these planted?"
"Your house," she says, with a blissful smile on her face. "Your base. Your school. Your friends' houses. Your parents' place of work. Do I need to continue?"
"She's bluffing," Tattletale says. "She didn't even confirm your identity until she saw you following her. Poke a hole."
"My parents don't have a place of work."
"Ah. You're homeless. Should've been trying to smell you then, rather than look for you."
"Dead."
"Aw. Poor baby. Do you need another hug?"
"Do you know what tech she usually works with? Can we jam the electrical signals from her deadman's switch? Radio towers? Cell phone?"
"It was electrical signals the last time we captured her, but she's could have changed her methods since I was able to block all three of those with a localized EMP field last time," Armsmaster chimes in, though he doesn't seem to be too happy about it.
"She doesn't seem to be worried about you calling your bluff. She's distributed bombs randomly throughout the city, hoping that she caught at least one thing you care about. Frankly, I don't know if we're out of the blast radius. We might be safe just from the fact that this place is built like a bunker, but with Bakuda's bombs I can't guess what'll happen."
You inspect the disk she's thrown to you.
"That's an ugly one. Not quite a big of a show as the other ones of my creations, but at least I'll know what it does. I like to think of them as pain bombs. I've done some intensive studying on every single example in history about cloning capes, and I've got to say, every single cloning cape either creates an autonomous minion through some weird programming or they actually control and feel what their minions do. I'm guessing your the type that controls your clones directly, aren't you? I'll admit, it's a bit difficult to tell, given how retarded you are, but there is a semblance of self in you, isn't there? I'm betting that it can feel pain, and maybe your main body can too."
You don't say anything.
"Are you at your main base, Legion? With the Smaller Legion?" Uncle Rusty asks.
You nod, ignoring the strange looks from the other superheroes.
"Get to my main base."
You nod.
"Don't worry, James. I'm not stupid," Bakuda says, tapping her head. "I know that just because I caught you here, doesn't mean that I win. You've got IP addresses all across the country, and I doubt your main body is here, in this piss poor city. If you could take me down, there's no way you're here for anything other than to use it as a stepping stone."
"Wait... Is she just going to leave?" Tattletale asks out loud, wincing as she grips her head. "She is. She's planning to hunt down the rest of your clones in other cities. She seems to believe that you have more identities than just J- Fuck!"
Tattletale suddenly screams and falls forward, grabbing her head on her way down. Though she almost lands on her chair, she hits it an an awkward angle before tumbling towards the ground, almost hitting it if it weren't for your body diving forwards to catch her.
You try to right her up so her neck isn't hanging down so awkwardly, almost worried that she's fallen unconscious until she started slapping your face and chest weakly. You don't understand why until she turns her head and a small amount of vomit spills from her mouth.
"Fuck," she says, panting, after she wipes her mouth. "I'm done. Sorry."
"I want you to hold onto that for me, won't you? Don't worry, my remote detonators only have a range of a 100 miles or so. I'll be out of your hair in no time and as long as nobody's tracking me during that time, I won't blow up the entire fucking city. Tell that to your butt buddies at the PRT too, won't you? Hi Armsy! If I even get the fucking suspicion that I've got a drone on my ass, I'm killing everyone. Got it?
"Now, I know it won't do much to stop you if you really wanted to follow me, but make sure at least that that bomb stays where it is, okay? If it goes anywhere, then everything goes boom, just the same."
You grimace.
Armsmaster frowns. "The radius claim checks out. The last time I inspected her equipment it was similar, and I doubt she would have been able to make significant upgrades in the last few weeks."
You walk forward to give her a hug, though you can see her eyebrows raising, she lets it happen.
"You're incredibly smart," you say. "Hunting me down like that. I didn't think it was possible."
"Aww," she says, pressing her cheek into your chest. "That's sweet. Just for that, I'll do you a big favour. I hope you don't like school."
You hear a rumble in the distance, and Bakuda stomps on your foot. It's not painful enough for you to let go, but you look down and see Bakuda's mouth contorted in a furious snarl.
"Try patronising me again, you little bitch. Lets see what blows up next."
You decide to try something.
As you press a small button on your backpack, you raise the hand over the opening of the bag and drop your bomb inside.
Bakuda's eyes widen when a loud shrill beeping sound from somewhere in your nearby vicinity. You're not sure where it's coming from, but Bakuda's eyes seem to be glued to a small building about half a block away.
It takes a second for her to come to life, grabbing your collar and pulling you close.
"No! You motherfucker! Bring it ba-"
You're not certain about what exactly happened, but your bodies feel a sudden wave of... something.
It seems familiar, somehow. You're not sure exactly what it is, but it's a strange sort of emptiness, like a part of you has been hollowed out, like a part of you is numb, but your bodies feel fine.
It reminds you of something, but what?
"Legion? Legion?!"
You look up at your Uncle Rusty as you slowly notice him shaking your shoulders. His gun discarded on the floor.
"Talk to me, Legion!" he screams. "Please! Say something!"
You tilt your head towards him, unsure of why he sounds so desperate, but you shake your head to try and clear it. You feel a little sorry for him, but you still need to figure this out. What's going on?
You try to see what's going on, to look at Bakuda to see if there's any hint of an answer on her face, but you suddenly realise that you can no longer see her. As you try to look through the eyes of the body that currently must be holding her, or at least that was the last thing you remember it doing, you're suddenly made aware of the fact that you can't.
Huh.
You try to look at the scene with the bodies you had surrounding you and Bakuda. Still nothing.
Hmm.
There are a few clones you have placed nearby. They watch as civilians stream around them, their panicked scream filtering into your mind through a strange haze.
You ignore them as you walk forward, feeling the need to investigate this hollow feeling you have inside of you. Your bodies still exist, you know this for sure, but where are they?
You walk and walk and walk and walk, bodies bumping into you as you do, some trying to pull you along with them, but you ignore them and walk.
You bump into something that you don't quite see.
You try to walk forward, but the invisible wall stops you, like a pane of glass. You try again, this time going around what you don't see, but it covers the whole street. You look at it, hoping to find some clue as to how to circumvent your unseen obstacle. Maybe over?
There are people beyond your obstacle. They're unmoving, frozen midstep, as if stuck in a snapshot, on their phones, mouths open mid-sentence, uncaring of the world around them.
You frown. It seems like the scene is wrong, but you can't spare the energy to think about it. You try to walk forward again. The invisible wall stops you.
As your shoulders are being shaken, and you continue to try walking into the strange obstacle that blocks you from your other bodies, you create as many versions of yourself as possible to see if there's any sort of angle that you can approach it at.
You bump into the walls again and again and again.
There doesn't seem to be a way in.
You frown, pushing your hands against the invisible wall. You can barely move, with how many bodies you've unconsciously made. One hundred? Two hundred? You can barely think as you press your bodies against the invisible orb that houses six of your bodies, lost, gone, hollow.
You don't know what to do, but as your consciousness starts to scream at you, you feel something.
Something floats by you. It's you, but not?
You feel like if you could reach out, you could grab it.
You grab it.
A new you is born.
Your bodies stand up as one.
You feel a large weight on your body as Uncle Rusty collapses on top of you. You grab him automatically, and though he's taller than you, he's also much lighter, letting you support him easily.
Beyond him, the rest of the superheroes surrounding you collapse, and the few PRT officers pointing guns at you flinch at the sound of half a dozen superheroes collapsing suddenly to the ground.
In your arms, Lisa's head lolls back as her eyes roll back.
All your bodies look up.
You look up, to see something.
It's far away, too far for you to see, but you still know it's there, looking down at you, staring into each of your eyes, paradoxical the concept may be. Even the bodies you have indoors are staring directly into the eyes of what appears to be a golden man, floating in the sky, countless miles above the earth.
He doesn't seem to know what to think of you.
And then.
He's gone.
You look into the invisible orb. You don't have a good angle to see your bodies, but you're not sure you need to. It doesn't feel like it's there. The hollow feeling inside of you is gone.
You suddenly collapse as you struggle to control your legs. You make sure to the best of your ability that Uncle Rusty and Tattletale aren't hurt in the fall, trying to push your bodies underneath them. Little J tries to support your fall so you push yourself away, trying not to fall on top of her.
You absorb as many clones as you can, in order to regain control of your bodies. Once you've absorbed a suitable amount, you stand back up. You look around you, and the capes nearby still have yet to move.
You feel whole again, nothing like how it felt when you had bodies in the time-frozen sphere. You're surprised to realise that you don't think they're there anymore.
In fact, instead of the hollowness you felt before, right now, you feel slightly more... full.
You can deal with that feeling later. Right now, you have more important matters to worry about.
Holding Uncle Rusty in your arms, you gentle shake him, trying to wake him up. "Un-Bastion? Bastion? Red Mettle?" you ask. A sudden thought strikes you and you quickly put your finger against his neck and your ear against the mouth hole of his mask as you do the same to Tattletale.
You find a pulse and you hear steady breathing.
As you sigh in relief, it's as if you've given a signal for the PRT officers to do the same, checking each of the collapsed capes for signs of life. There seems to be no panic, so you assume that none are dead.
You feel that sensation of fullness again. It's familiar. Though it feels like a faint memory by now, you remember the sensation of grabbing something and having a new you being born. Are you the same you? Yes, but there's something else with you, here.
You decide that your nondescript motel room in Austin, Texas was a secretive place as any to try and bring out your new you. So you do.
The Legion that pops out looks identical to you, but it isn't. It feels like you, and you know that you could bring it back if you chose, but it isn't you.
"What's up, dude?" your new you asks.
You didn't say that. You hadn't meant to say that.
"Yeah, I know. Pretty fuckin' freaky, huh? I mean, I was born literally a few seconds ago, but can't say I'm liking life if this is the regular old normal."
"We don't normally get bombed, no," you say.
"Actually, I wasn't around for that part. To be honest, I'm just talking about the whole existing thing, though I'm just gonna go ahead and assume it gets easier."
You don't say anything, unsure of what you really can say to that.
"Where are we, anyways? Wait, no. Just forgot. You pulled me out in Texas. Didn't see my little birthplace so I got a bit confused. My bad."
"What's the value of Little J?" you ask.
At that, your clone laughs. "Goddamn, dude. No offence, but you should start listening to yourself more, and when I say that I want to clarify that I don't count. I know we're the same person and the robot talk doesn't really sell your friendly side."
"What's the value of Little J?" you ask again. "If she skinned her knees, what would you do?"
"Priceless. I love the kid, you should know that. And if she skinned her knees, well, I don't know what I can do if she just tripped or something, but if someone pushed her over? Well, it wouldn't happen again."
You nod and reach over to place a hand on your clone's shoulder. He doesn't seem to resist as you absorb him and you feel that same sense of fullness again. It's not an uncomfortable feeling, and you suppose that if you tried hard enough the feeling could fade into the background, but you know it's there.
You release him and spawn him in front of you again.
"You should really ask for consent before you touch somebody," he says, though you get the feeling he's grinning underneath his mask. "Though I guess it might not count if we're the same person. We could try to sue each other to see what the law thinks."
"What did you mean by your birthplace?"
"No back and forth banter?" the clone asks. "I guess it is pretty crazy to talk to yourself. I was only talking about that weird bomb that birthed me. I guess I should be referring to Bakuda as my mom then?" Your clone thinks for a moment then shudders. "No nevermind. I'd rather be the son of a bomb than be associated with that bitch."
"You feelin' any weird urges? Pizza? Chinese food? Overthrow democracy? Assassinate our family? Anything like that?" you ask.
"Nope!" your clone cheerily answers, definitely smiling under his mask. "But in the future, I'm probably going to want food. I don't feel the things you do in the same way, so I'd like to just pig out once in a while, if that's okay with you."
"You got new powers?"
"Yeah."
You raise an eyebrow.
"What is it?"
"You wanna a demo, big man?"
"An explanation first, then a demo."
"Alright then. Well, I'll just lay it out simply. I'd definitely be defined as a Master, firstly. I need eye contact with someone and if I concentrate really hard, then they want what I want."
You raise an eyebrow.
"That's..."
"Really out there? Not like your power at all? I don't know man. I'm like, three minutes old."
You frown, unable to decide on what that means.
"Anyways, that was the thirty second elevator pitch. There's a bit more detail than that, but that's basically it. There's a little more complexity involved with it, but I'll let you know more if you want. Now since it requires eye contact, it's a little finicky to do with this mask on, but I imagine we don't want to really go around maskless while we test this? It also doesn't work on you, if you were wondering."
"Okay. What do you want?"
Your clone tilts his head as he holds his chin in a thinker's pose. "Lots of things, really. I want to eat pizza and chinese since you mentioned it. I want to go home and tell Little J that everything's going to be alright. I want to make sure Uncle Rusty and Tattle are okay. Last time I saw, they were still unconscious. What's up with that?"
You nod. "I'm checking up on them right now."
Your clone gives you a one-handed shrug. "Yeah, but I'm not. I have no idea what's going on with them, big man, and you know exactly how much I care about them. I at least would like to know what's going on."
You nod, obviously sympathetic to how he's feeling.
"Alright," you say, placing you hand on his shoulder again.
"Once again, consent big man," your clone says playfully, right before you absorb him.
Across the country, as you pat down Little J's hair in an attempt to assure her that everything's going to be okay, you frown when you feel the fullness within your body grow slightly, as if pulsing. Then it stops, and you almost feel like it's being hesitant, before you feel it again, this time in the body holding Tattletale.
You let your clone out in the body holding Tattletale, and you instantly notice that he has his shoulders down in a dejected slump.
"What's wrong?" you ask.
"Eh. I only just realised I can't talk to Little J until you let her know that we have powers. I doubt she'd just randomly accept her older brother has a twin she doesn't know about."
"Oh." It's easy to empathise with what he's feeling, especially since it's almost like you're looking into the mirror at a much more depressed version of yourself. You can't bear the thought of being cut off from Little J for any reason.
"Whatever," you clone says, waving a hand tiredly. "I'm sure I'll get to talk to her one day. For now, let's make sure that everyone's not braindead?"
As if roused by the statement, Tattletale starts to stir with a groan, as do Uncle Rusty, the PRT capes, and Regent, who you've sent a clone to check up on.
"Oh, hey Tats is awake!" your clone says cheerily.
Tattletale's eyes blearily open and look around the room. She grabs her head in confusion and looks directly at your clone.
"Wait. Who the hell are you?"
You clone looks between you and Tattletale.
"Whoops."
"Legion? Are you okay?" Uncle Rusty says, as he stirs in your arms.
You nod. "Yeah, are you?" you ask, ignoring the way that the other capes around you groan as they struggle to get back on their feet.
"Yeah," Uncle Rusty says, shaking his head to clear it. "Jesus fuck, what was that about."
"Did someone have a trigger event nearby?" another voice asks. It takes you a second to identify it as Miss Militia's voice.
"Trigger visions incapacitate for a few seconds at most," Armsmaster grumbles. "Unless my helmet is lying to me, we were unconscious for more than five minutes."
"What the fuck happened?" Regent asks as he comes back into consciousness.
You shrug, though you're not sure he noticed.
-Interlude 6.a-She was Little J.
About twenty minutes ago, she had been the happiest she had been in very a long time. She had learned that Jay had made a new friend, and with how rare that occasion was, she had felt it appropriate to absolutely freak out over the fact. In retrospect, it was embarrassing to think that her first reaction, after Jay had asked her what sort of gift a female friend would like, was to try and drag Jay to the jewelry store for a ring.
She didn't actually do it, changing her course away from the store at the very last second as she realised how insane she was being, but it was an apt description of exactly how excited and happy she was.
And then some bitch happened.
If she was being honest, as soon as she saw Jay face turning into a frighteningly familiar scowl, she had automatically started to panic, doing everything she could to try and calm him down, which was frustratingly not much. Even now, as she stroked her brother's hair and spoke softly in his ear, telling him everything was going to be okay, she was doing so through gritted teeth.
Her fear had long since turned to frustration, and her frustration had long since turned to anger. At Elliot's girlfriend, ex or otherwise, at Elliot himself for not keeping the bitch away from her brother, and most recently at Uncle Rusty, who apparently had some sort of secret magic room in their apartment, something which she hadn't quite fully processed but was surely going to get angrier about once she got Jay to finally calm down.
She hated being eleven.
-Interlude 6.b-"Just four hours ago, at approximately 1:30 PM, parahumans all over North America simultaneously experienced a brief loss of consciousness lasting approximately five minutes. This phenomenon was allegedly experienced worldwide, however, we have yet to hear from our international sources on whether this is truly the case.
Currently, there are no clear causes that have been identified as the source of this phenomenon, but many experts are discussing several potential causes, some of which may be as close as a city in our neighbouring state. Brockton Bay was the host of a tragic event that is one of many possible causes for this potentially worldwide phenomenon.
In a tragic event, a large sphere appeared in the middle of downtown Brockton Bay, trapping thousands in a state of frozen time. It is unclear on what caused this phenomenon, and without comment from the PRT division within Brockton Bay, several experts have been lead to believe that this phenomenon was a seemingly random natural event driven by causes unknown.
Other experts point to other events occuring within a similar time frame in Florida, Alaska, and Mexico City, but as of this moment, we have not been able to confirm or deny these events in any capacity, other than to provide the locations. If you have any sources of information, please feel free to call the number onscreen to provide them and to help us get this story to as many people as possible.
This is six o clock news and thi-"
The TV turned off with a click of the button as Jack Slash tossed the remote somewhere behind his back, it fell with a silent clatter on the hardwood floor.
"Wooow," Bonesaw said from beside him. "That looks really interesting. Do you think that the time thing was the cause? Should we go check it out? It seems like it could be a lot of fun!"
Jack Slash opened his mouth, but for the first time in a very long time, no words came out. He almost frowned at that, having expected the words to come naturally to him before he even needed to think of them. It was just how it worked. Ever since he'd gotten his powers, he'd gone with his gut, saying something before he could even think of it, going this way and that, trusting only on his instinct to lead him.
He did frown. When was the last time he'd been unable to think of an answer?
When was the last time he couldn't decide on something?
"Hmm. Brockton Bay, huh?" he said out loud, as if his own words would somehow inspire an answer.
When they didn't, and nothing came to him, he frowned. He... didn't know. And he wasn't sure if that scared him.
Rather than answering, he lifted his leg and swung it back, hitting the leg of Bonesaw's chair with the back of his heel.
"Jenga!" he shouted, raising his arms in victory, as Bonesaw yelped in shock and the young girl she was sitting on crumpled onto the floor with a muffled cry of pain.
"Hey!" Bonesaw pouted. "You cheated."
"Eh. Rules are made to be broken," Jack said casually, standing up and spinning a scalpel in his hand.
"Not in games, they're not!" Bonesaw shouted again.
Jack Slash smiled as he turned his attention away from Brockton Bay, to deal with Bonesaw's childish pouting. Maybe if he thought about it later, he would be able to answer the question of whether they should go.
Right?