* Friday. April 9, 2010 *
Taylor Hebert fell down.
It was just a little shove, but at exactly the wrong time in the wrong place.
It could have ended up with a broken leg as she fell down the stairs. It didn't.
Instead she found herself floating in a field of blue sparkles and no sign of the school.
That lasted until she felt a burning sensation on her chest.
{Avatar/Operative Chosen. Queen Level.}
{Standard Physical Upgrade: (Above Average Health) by standards of selected species - Complete.}
{Group Chosen: Sheng Xiao}
{Fire Element - Primary - Approved.}
{Metal Element - Secondary - Approved.}
{Parahuman Ability - Arthropod Control - Rejected/Overidden.}
{Shard Entity Influence Removed}
{Sigil: Rooster}
{Examining mythic/legendary of Host species for (Sheng Xiao) role.}
{Rooster + Fire + Metal}{Match Found: Phoenix/Fenghuang. Specific: Suzaku.}
{Intelligence, Ego Strength, and Dexterity - Values Increased x4)
{Primary Abilities: Pyrokinesis, Precognitive Visions, Telepathy. (Pyro-9, Sier-3, Hier-4)}
{Secondary Abilities: Flight (high speed, flame trail), Mental Fortress, Fire Immunity (Flight 4, Shell-3, ED-5}
{Tertiary Abilities: Heal, Area Heal, Cure, Raise. (Heal-7) Instant Change.}
"I don't understand!" protested Taylor as she still felt as if she was in Zero-G.
{Request for information received. First of three inquiries allowed for high-value operative. Specific topic?}
"Uhm, what just happened?" asked Taylor.
{School bully (Aggressor/Shard-Enhanced) knocked you down the stairs. High chance of fatal or debilitating injury. Empowerment opportunity. Second of three?}
"Ah, who are you?" tried Taylor.
{Empowerment mechanism assigned to this operative. Third of three?}
Taylor made a face and thought desperately. Three questions? She had LOTS of questions but she only got three and she'd already used two?! "What's 'Shell-3'?"
{Shell is psychic and magical resistance. Three indicates the strength of that defense and is very high for a beginning hero. As Operative is High Level Avatar, Leveling System is active.}
"Oh," said Taylor. Her eyes widened as the implications of that hit. "Wait, wait, wait."
{Good Luck, Avatar. Whether you choose to be a hero or a villain is up to you. Current time to predicted End of World Scenario: Two solar years, three months, thirteen days.}
"WHAT?!"
* * *
Taylor Hebert landed on the pavement in the typical superhero pose: knee, foot, fist. A moment later she rose from the ground and glared at the person who had apparently thrown her down the stairs.
"Maybe you should just spend all your time on your knees, Tay-tay," called out Emma. "It's natural for you after all."
Taylor fought down the desire to engulf all the tittering idiots on the stairwell in a fire that would leave floating ash.
She had better uses for her time than dodging police or the PRT. Figuring out that whole 'end of world' stuff sounded like something she needed to focus on.
Getting through classes, finding someplace isolated she could get to. These all took way too much time. All the time there was a feeling of pressure or like an itch she couldn't scratch.
Finally she was through the classes and could find a spot out of the way.
She called her costume to her. She just knew this would work. She brought one clenched fist up and touched the back of that fist with her other hand to activate Instant Change. "Suzaku." A symbol flared into being for just a moment.
There was a flash of fire, an impression of wings.
By the time she was analyzing that she was already at an altitude of way up high and had an airspeed of very fast indeed.
And it was glorious.
* The Rig *
"What have we got, Carruthers?"
"Reports were initially of Purity flying over the city, but there were too many details wrong."
"What details?"
"Purity has a white glow. This is yellow and red and leaving a trail behind. Purity tends to fly under 1000 feet. Radar picked this up at 4000 feet and going just under 400mph. Left our airspace still gaining in speed and altitude going South-Southeast."
"Check with Boston, see if they pick it up. Might be some Tinker vehicle."
"Already did. Boston reported our bogie was at 14000 feet and 2100mph by the time it left their range."
"Sounds like gorram rocket. Might be E88 or ABB has a new Tinker. How big was it?"
"Small, weird return though."
"Could it just be a parahuman flyer and not some tech?"
"Could be. Parahumans just tend to fly though and there was an actual fire trail reported. I... hang on. Got a response from the Naval Yard Observatory."
Agent Farquod waited as Carruthers read out the displays scrolling across one of his monitors.
"Whatever they launched, it just went extra-orbital," said Carruthers.
* Space *
Space.
The Final Frontier.
These are the voyages of Taylor Hebert.
To squee at the sight of the Earth turning slowly beneath her.
To wonder at the way her costume's helmet had extruded parts that covered her so that she had an air supply.
To boldly go where damn few had gone before.
Now she was here, up above the atmosphere and so much of what she'd experienced in her life seemed so terribly petty.
She was Taylor Hebert, yes.
She was also Rooster, one of the Thirteen Guardians of the Zodiac. Not the most powerful to be sure, but none of the Guardians were exactly pushovers.
Only Dragon was a better flier among their Zodiac grouping. She lacked the combat orientation and power of Tiger. She was not as good at being a spy as Rat or Snake. She had no innate 'skill without compare' the way Monkey or Sheep did. She lacked the endurance of Pig or Dog, Horse's ground speed, Rabbit's teleportation and agility, or Ox's massive strength. Cat was better at stealth and direct in your face combat.
On the other hand she was Fire and Metal. She might not be up to the standards of the Dragon Guardian but she was hardly a pushover.
Taylor spent long minutes watching the Earth turn beneath her before deciding to return and her fire aura shifted to send her back home. There was no burst of heat on re-entry beyond her normal aura of flames, she was going just as fast as she wanted to and none of this "falling so fast the air ignites" sort of thing. Besides, she had no speedometer or altimeter to give her the useful data and she did not want to suddenly find herself impacting a commercial flight.
She was trying to figure out altitude and such when someone came up next to her.
Someone she recognized from TV. Legend.
Talking while flying didn't sound very likely when you had a dull roar from the flame aura going on, so landing sounded good.
* Legend *
Everything he'd seen so far fell into a very very familiar pattern. Well, everything except the costume. The costume was very well made.
The costume was red and white and looked kind of like something the Japanese Sentai team had worn back in the days before Leviathan. Except better. The helmet had wings to the side and now that she was no longer emitting fire he could see the girl's face. She would be too young to remember those now-fallen heroes.
What was very familiar were all the signs that this was a new trigger trying out their power. "New cape?"
"Yessir," said the girl. "First flight."
"Fun, isn't it?" Legend asked, smiling.
"YES!" answered the girl, looking up at the sky.
"Just hold on, you made a lot of people very concerned. Do you have a cape name yet?"
The girl paused. "I am Suzaku, the Vermilion Bird. The Phoenix of the South. One of the Thirteen of the Sheng Xiao. I am fire and rebirth, metal and healing."
Legend was still unwrapping all that when the girl spoke again.
"How do I know all that?" asked the girl.
"Not something you rehearsed then?" asked Legend.
"Wait. Healing. I can heal?" asked Suzaku. "That must be what the Tertiary Abilities were about."
"I see, well, have you considered coming in for Power Testing?" asked Legend, thinking this might just be an opportunity. She certainly didn't sound hostile.
* Monday. April 12, 2010 *
* Another Earth *
Everyone found their seats and glanced at the large monitor showing the map of Earth Bet with all the little red dots.
"This new wave of empowered individuals do not appear to have the same limitations and abilities that the Entity Passenger based parahumans have," noted Doctor Mother, tapping a stack of print outs.
"Smaller number, vastly smaller," pointed out Legend. "Just over two hundred worldwide. Most belonging to some sort of pre-set grouping based on local myths or legends."
"You attended two of their power testings," noted Doctor Mother.
"Suzaku in Brockton Bay and Genbu in Norfolk," said Legend. "Suzaku seems to be of two groups, the Four Cardinals and the Chinese Zodiac. Genbu is of the Four Cardinals. No evidence of either having met at any point."
"What was your impression of either of them? We have the report of course, but your personal analysis?" asked Doctor Mother.
"Suzaku is very young, distrusts people her own age as well as most organizations but especially the school system," said Legend. "Mentioning getting her fast-tracked to one of the better schools in the area did get some positive reaction from her. She has knowledge of what powers she has, but no practical experience with controlling them - again that idea seemed to resonate with her."
"The fact that all of these individuals have multiple powers and not all of them being weak is another difference between the normal parahuman and these new ones," noted Doctor Mother.
"Genbu on the other hand is much older, even more cynical, and has very much a goal-oriented focus." Legend shook his head. "I'm thinking Special Forces background or something along those lines from his comments. Combined with his powers, it is a potentially deadly combination."
"Genbu is the turtle-snake of the North, correct?" asked Number Man.
"Yes. His powers are: short-range teleports, a fear aura, a pretty strong Stranger effect, and improbable accuracy with thrown or ranged weaponry. That and his armor is apparently bulletproof when he has activated his power-set. I think the only reason he agreed to power testing was his own amusement and I wouldn't be surprised if he was sandbagging during the test," said Legend. "Both he and Suzaku were physically altered during their 'trigger' - apparently Genbu had a number of near-crippling injuries and was balding prior to that. Suzaku required glasses and was a good deal skinnier and out of shape before her trigger and was quite surprised to learn even outside her empowered state that those changes remained."
"Whereas Suzaku can fly and reached geosynch orbit on her own," noted Doctor Mother. "Pyrokinetic, but more generating superheated plasma than actual fire. Minor healing talents. This 'Shell' ability?"
"Everyone who states they have that particular ability cannot be Pathed. Precogs and Clairvoyants fail when directly targeting them, though others in their vicinity are not so protected," stated Contessa. "Out of two-hundred and twelve of these new types - eighty four have some degree of 'Shell' ability. Including both Genbu and Suzaku."
"Suzaku states that she has a precog and telepathic ability, but has declared a desire not to look into anyone's heads because it got 'icky' very quickly," stated Legend. "She has to turn the telepathy power on, so there is some control at least. The precognition though is not under her control and only deals with widespread effects or those directly affecting her."
Eidolon spoke up next. "I investigated some of these new triggers myself. Had an analysis power up. Each of these new guys has their power start up by displaying a symbol on their skin before their Changer power activates. One of these is of that Chinese Zodiac stuff - Iron Boar over in Amarillo. Mover and Brute primarily."
"That's three of this Zodiac," pointed out Legend. "Suzaku stated thirteen of them, so we can expect another ten eventually."
Eidolon looked slightly annoyed as he continued. "The other two were Pawn-level, similar to more common parahumans in that they have a single power. Miss Fixit calls herself a mechanic. Can look at machines and tell immediately what's needed to repair it or tune it up so it works better. The other calls himself Leonidas, has the ability to form a phalanx of guardian warriors. Similar to Crusader in power except these are solid and look and react like they were human."
"I saw the pictures," said Doctor Mother. "Why do all of his warriors look like fitness models? Female fitness models with large... assets."
Eidolon shrugged. "Maybe because Leonidas is a fourteen year old boy?"
Most of the members of Cauldron seemed to think that made a certain degree of sense.
"So, the question remains, what do we do about it?" asked Alexandria.
* New York, April 13 2010 *
Legend flew through his city, watching things develop before his eyes.
The "Gamesmen" - those empowered by some means other than the Entities that Cauldron knew of - were still turning up through odd Trigger Events. Odd, because they weren't all 'worst day of their life' events. He'd just interviewed one whose entire Trigger Event was his career as a purse-snatcher being interrupted by a guy with spider powers. Who was now after that spider-hero for ruining his life, which had made no sense as the guy had been in jail for three days before being released on bond. And this career criminal, an out-of-work nuclear physicist who apparently lost his job due to drug use, now had a set of tentacles on his back and called himself 'Doctor Octopus' despite only having four tentacles.
It was strange, very strange indeed, as apparently normal parahumans (and who would have thought THAT was a phrase?) tended to seek out fights a lot more than these "Gamesmen" did. If the bulk of parahumans could be said to have a need for conflict and violence, these others had more of a creativity drive. Finding new ways to use their abilities was more important than getting into a fight. Very few of these others actually wanted to do anything like 'patrol the city and punch bad guys' when they could be doing something like using a beam of superheated plasma to cut apart a wrecked supercargo ship.
At least they could monitor some of them closely like Suzaku up in Brockton Bay. He'd suggested a school upgrade because this girl had flinched slightly when schools had been mentioned during her power testing and apparently there were Wards attending a specific school. Having them keep an eye on a fellow student might give further insight into the nature of these other-parahuman types.