by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings.
Awaken, SleeperSleeper is the name of one of the most dangerous parahumans, according to the PRT. His power isn't widely known, besides that, allowing all sorts of conspiracy theories on PHO. As these things tend to go, some of their conclusions end up correct.
Sleeper's power is made of two distinct abilities, and encompasses a volume around him wide enough to affect a whole city – much like Shatterbird. The first effect happens when he's awake, and sends everyone into a deep sleep. Thankfully, that includes him too. The second effect occurs whether he's awake or sleeping, and deprives capes from their powers. It also wakes him for a few hours (the exact number depending on the relative strength of the parahuman in question). There is a third part, too, but it only concerns him: he's quite resistant to damage, negating most normal methods of killing him. Abnormal methods can include a nuke, but few countries still had those. America was one of them, but they didn't really care as long as it didn't concern American cities.
Having Sleeper "asleep" in some remote city-state was quite handy for the Triumvirate and all their acquaintances. The people living there were a bit less happy, of course – triggers still happened, and Sleeper would awaken immediately should one occur… and plunge everyone into slumber. Wherever they are. And whatever they are doing.
Thankfully, regular people can be quite inventive, and many vehicles in the area got failsafe mechanisms to stop as soon as that happened. It means that few lethal accidents marred the cityscape when Sleeper eventually awoke.
As he often did, Sleeper checked the news upon awakening. That day, he found a segment about bullying in the USA – since every television station copies America, in a way, it's almost normal to be informed about any little mishaps in Uncle Sam's country. For some reason, the news resonated within him. He hopped on his feet, resolute to journey there… alone, as usual: people fell like flies, everywhere he went.
Leaving a city that had adapted to him, and starting to walk across proper civilization, he got many people killed. Capes, too, which, once depowered (and powering him for some more hours), were as squishy as normal humans. And fell from the sky. Or between roofs.
It took him some time, because he was travelling by himself (no train or plane for him, thank you), and also because he didn't know the way, and was also too determined to do things his own way to ask for directions. From sleeping people, too.
He ended up turning left when arriving at the Black Sea, mostly because the other road was blocked with quite a pile-up. He followed the path southwards until he couldn't go that way anymore (because of the Arabian seas). Then he reflected for a bit and headed to the west, because he finally remembered that his destination, America, was that way. Yes, it made him travel through the African deserts. Thankfully, for him, he didn't need to eat, or drink – otherwise he would have been dead a long time ago, his sleeping bouts able to last for years, sometimes. He was equally resistant to the weather.
As to his ability to keep going while travelling deserted areas? Let it be known that, on Earth Bet, those areas aren't completely empty, and he ended up depowering what he thought was a big-ass Sand Worm, à la Dune, and then what he thought was a pocket of Spice that exploded.
Given the power attributed to Moord Nag (and her cape lieutenants) and Ash Beast, that kept Sleeper awake for quite some time. Enough to reach the Morrocan shore, "take" the smallest sea-worthy ship that he could comfortably pilot through the ocean, and reach the US of A.
And then he settled in Brockton Bay, the place he had seen. Like a dog in a game of pins, that choice upended the many carefully elaborated plans for that place, pushing some people and organizations back several decades.
He didn't care, as he was quite happy living in a city with more triggers than any others: it granted him more time doing something other than sleeping. As such, he resisted the incentives some people dropped for him to move westwards. For a time.
With a properly constructed narrative, fed to the screens he was watching (and a few others, to corroborate the story), Sleeper learned that there was another place, with even more triggers and parahuman activity. It was a lie, and many Brocktonites laughed at the news, or jeered at seeing "their" reputation taken up by another city.
The name Ellisburg wasn't even uttered, just a general indication of the place. And non-powered people were left in charge of opening the one-way gates (through remote controls), once he was in sight of the place.
And, once there, he removed all power from Nilbog and his creations, before sleeping again. And only then was a surgical-strike-from-afar decided – it hadn't been done before because people feared that Nilbog had created airborne agents that could be disseminated if the town exploded.
Ellisburg ceased to be. And work would be done for years, by capes and non-capes alike, to deal with the fallout.
By then, Emily Piggot was in her own sort of hell, because Sleeper had depowered everyone in the Bay. She would have been happy, given her bigotry, but she realized that she simply had nothing to do anymore: there was no more parahuman to be lorded over, in her town, leaving her without colleagues and enemies, and prone to boredom.
Still, hearing about the demise of Nilbog and Sleeper (hopefully), she raised her glass to the occasion.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
To be continued… not by meAuthor's Note: Just a little thing that wouldn't leave my noggin, and which started when I wrote "Awaken, Sleeper", in Unpowered Stalker. I "blame" Lynch's version of Dune.