a new beg

by thejarl7166

beg new a

2. Charm Learning Shard2

You feel a lot better the next morning, at least physically/spiritually. You're not dying of soul hemorrhage, you mean. Your soul still hurts... but less so than last night, and you're able to turn sorcerer's sight back on without issue. Mentally you're still lamenting Uber's death (and everyone else who died you guess, but you didn't know any of them personally). The few pieces of unsafe-to-use tinkertech you were able to salvage from their lair is scant consolation.

You debate dragging yourself out of bed, but settle for browsing the internet on your phone instead, to see how people are reacting to last night's events. You don't really know why you bothered. It's exactly the mix of awed, horrified and celebratory you'd expect. Though you imagine the heroes must be quietly shitting enough bricks to build another headquarters, because there's basically no way the amethyst bomb wasn't intended to be set off next to their current one.

The PRT have been working overnight, using live mice and very long poles to determine the exact shape of the effect (perfectly circular - or rather, as some rodent-dangling drone flights demonstrated, spherical) and cordon off the area. No timetable for any solution, or even recovery of the bodies, because unmanned vehicles that enter the area stop working as surely as the streetlights did.

You could maybe help analyze the effect - if you were ever going close to that area ever again, which you're not. Instead you make a throwaway account and describe how you felt really sick after being close to the boundary - there must be all sorts of horrible radiation going on that they're not telling you about, best keep your distance. It sets off a minor panic among everyone who doesn't call you a hypochondriac conspiracy theorist, which is the intended effect. The fewer people who expose themselves to whatever-it-is the better.

But the world doesn't stop moving just because a huge tragedy happens, and you've got powers to steal. Luke is very understanding of your low spirits - a lot of people died, some of whom you knew personally. You do your best to ensure it doesn't affect his enjoyment of your time together.

The thought occurs to you that you could perhaps ask about some of the things you're curious about now. You do know each other quite well now, so to speak.

Tomorrow, you decide. You'll bring the matter of his origins up tomorrow.

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"You know I'm a Thinker."

"Boy do I." He reaches over and affectionately gropes your butt.

"Stop that. No, it's fine, you can continue. I mean, I'm a bit of a regular Thinker as well. I can sort of tell when someone has a big secret."

His groping hand freezes in place. "Oh."

"I don't get... details. I'm just asking... Do you want to talk about it?"

He sighs, lets go of you and sits up in bed, hugging his knees. "I don't know."

"That's alright."

"I suppose I'd have to tell you sooner or later, if I didn't want to be the worst scumbag on earth." He sighs again. "Yeah, I'll talk about it. I was in Madison during the attack, way past the safe limits. I had to escape the containment zone afterwards."

What!?

He closes his eyes and turns away after seeing you recoil in surprise, only to startle in turn when he feels you cuddling up to him from behind, resting your head on his shoulder.

"Poor boy." You know exactly how he feels. You'd like to pretend that you don't hesitate before offering him the truth about Simurgh victims, but you do, just a little bit. It would be very dangerous if the wrong people found out that Quicksilver knows it. "Do you want to know a terrible secret that almost no one knows? It will make you feel a little bit better, and a whole lot worse."

He considers that for a while. "So overall, it will make me feel worse?"

"Almost certainly."

"Then no." You just nod, and keep hugging him. "Out of curiosity though, when you say that almost no one knows..?"

"You'd have been the third person on earth to find out."

After another period of silence he starts telling his story - incidentally revealing his interdimensional origins. "See, that's the secret I thought I was talking about!" you say, with somewhat strained levity. When he describes the scream, you hang on to every word. You need to know just how abnormal your own experience was.

"You start to have- not quite hallucinations, but really vivid mental images, that you can't stop thinking about."

"What were they? If you don't mind talking about it."

"A lot of what you would expect. Being trapped in a cave, hunger, loneliness... My friends abandoning me... My father spanking me..." He feels you tensing up, because he hastens to add "He never did that in real life! He was a perfectly fine dad, never raised his hand to his kids. Just something she put in my mind." You try to relax and let him believe that was what upset you. "In the vision he kept shouting 'what's in store for the tailor?' and for some reason it completely terrified me at the time. In retrospect it just seems absurd."

You completely fail at relaxing. As you do, when an Endbringer addresses you personally.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," you say.

"Okay."

"I'd like it if you turned around and hugged me back, though." At least her plans include playing matchmaker. Silver fucking linings.

He does. "Does it have something to do with the terrible secret?" he asks.

"Yeah. It's making me feel a whole lot worse."

But life keeps going on, eventually bringing you to your Friday patrol shift with the Empire. As you enter the bar, you hear a familiar voice. A loud, familiar voice.

"Of course I have empathy for them!" Mike is shouting. "Their situation sucks! If my country sank I would want to go somewhere else too, and displace the native population to continue my line! That doesn't mean that it's morally wrong for the natives to fight back against invasion! I'm a native, of course I'm fighting back!"

"Someone accused Mike of hating japs," Sven explains to you, sotto voce.

"I don't hate anyone!" Mike shouts, having overheard. "I'm not a hateful person!"

"You hate people who accuse you of being hateful," Alex quips.

"Shut up!"

"You hate people who interrupt your rants," Johnny offers.

"Shut the fuck up!"

"You hate jews and their shabbos goys," Sven says.

"Okay, that's fair," Mike admits calmly, before instantly regaining his volume on the next sentence. "But I don't hate anyone else! I don't even hate niggers! I don't want to live around them, because they fucking suck! But I don't hate them!" Several people nod along with that.

"What?" you demand, causing the collective listener of the Empire 88 to turn towards you. "I suppose it's easy enough for you fuckers with a cushy inner patrol beat, huh? 'It's just a little race war, no big. We're winning, right? They show up with their little war parties, and the brass sends them packing for us.'"

"Her trigger event-" Sven leans over to Johnny and starts adding commentary your own rant.

"Never fucking mind my trigger event! That shit was personal! This isn't about me, this is about him!" You point an accusing finger. "This is about Serious Policeman Mike never having to put faces on the numbers! This is about him never having to arrive too late! Maybe he'd begin to hate if he saw the hate crimes that will never get prosecuted, huh?"

No one really has anything to say to that. You, too, get nods of agreement from the audience. Some brave soul pats your shoulder.

"The whole 'hate crime' thing is just jewish bullshit made up to attack white people," Otto tells you. "You should trying hating jews instead."

No one has anything helpful to say.

With no more shouting forthcoming, people turn away and conversations resume as they judge the show to be over. Mike beckons you to come sit as his table.

"No hard feelings," he says. "I get where you're coming from."

"I'd fucking hope so, or you'd be a pretty shitty nazi," you say, but your heart isn't really in the banter.

"You can hate niggers all you want," Sven agrees. "It's fine. Otto's right though, it's not productive. If you want to change anything, you have to realize who brought them here in the first place, and turned them loose on us. Who was behind civil rights and forced integration. That's who you need to attack."

"Hey," Alex says, "cool it with the antisemitic remarks. She's down with the 14, the 88 will happen on its own eventually. You don't have to force it. She's not in the mood." Part of you wants to bristle at how he's speaking on your behalf, but he's right. About that last sentence, you mean, you do not share his conviction re: the inevitability of antisemitism.

"Yeah, okay." Sven offers you an apologetic shrug.

"You gotta read the room," Alex continues. "You don't just show up at a party and start denying the holocaust."

"I denied the holocaust at a party once," Mike says. "It was great, I made a jew cry."

Something about his straight-faced, matter-of-fact delivery of that line just completely destroys your somber mood and forces an unladylike snort out of you.

"So what's up with the rank and file now that the crisis is over?" you ask.

"I heard blockbusting might start up again, with ABB's gone," Sven says. "Weren't you gonna sign up for that, Alex?"

"Nah. Wife wouldn't go for it anymore, not with a kid on the way," Alex says.

"Blockbusting?" you ask. Apparently loudly enough for Big Brain to overhear, because he jumps into the conversation before anyone at your table can open their mouths.

"Well you see Low Key," said worthy begins, "about a hundred years ago - a better time - people used to enter into gentlemen's agreements with their neighbors, that they would not sell their house to a black person. As a countermeasure, blacks would hire white lawyers-"

"'''White,'''" Sven interrupts, pronouncing more quotation marks around a single syllable than you thought was physically possible.

"-yes, thank you, ''white'' laywers to represent them-" He's not quite the verbal virtuoso that Sven is, but you get the gist. White skin, but perhaps also prominent noses and elevated risk of Tay-Sachs disease? "-and in so doing obfuscate who the ultimate buyer of the property was, sometimes through multiple layers of intermediaries. Once one such gambit succeeded, the block was 'busted open' for further encroachment, as the remaining white population would want to move out, no longer caring who they sold their property to."

"Because once a neighborhood is full of niggers it has this mysterious tendency to turn into a shitty slum," Alex finishes for him.

"Indeed. And since no one wants to live in a slum, not even blacks, this process would repeat over and over, gradually destroying large sections of our previously fair cities as they sought to escape the inevitable results of their own dysfunction. What we do when seeking to expand our territory is simply the reverse. A handful of our own people moving into a block is enough for people to get the hint."

You nod. He could have used a lot fewer words to explain that, because it's pretty obvious once you think about it. Another gang might gleefully annex the territory of a fallen rival, but what the hell would the Empire want with a neighborhood full of asians? It has to gentrified first, in a technically legal manner so as to not invite direct retaliation from law enforcement.

"All right you fucking nerds, break it up!" Rune shouts from the door. "I'm here to save my girl before her ears fall off!"

Chapter 63: L.40

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

At last you understand, and you can't help but laugh as a truth sears itself into your soul.

"What's so funny?" Rune asks.

Having finally acquired her power after months of intermittent effort, you're giddy enough to try to explain the truth that was given to you - without, of course, revealing what is actually going on.

"Doesn't it ever strike you as weird?" you ask.

"What?" In response, you just gesture around yourself, at the two of you and the world at large. "No..?"

"Of course not! Because sometimes rocks fly!"

Rune huffs with amusement. "Oh, that."

"Sure, you're used to it. But imagine trying to explain it to a physicist from 50 years ago, who still believed in conservation of energy."

She just grunts noncommittally, not sharing your wonder at the beauty of the (un)natural world. Man, if this power works the way you think it does, you can't wait to try it out.

You're riding back towards the secluded spot where you hide your civilian clothes when something hits you in the shoulder. Ow, what- Turning your head to look makes you poke yourself in the face with the shaft of an arrow. Someone shot you with an arrow? From the rooftops, judging by the angle at which it's sticking out. They have must been- Crossbow bolt, not arrow. Shadow Stalker. Whose bolts... famously contain... tranquilizers...

Shadow-Stalker-o-vision

Damn. I hit the bitch all right, she's out like a light. But I kinda expected her Master projection to pop as a result. Instead it's standing over her with its hackles raised, growling threateningly. It's looking right at me, too. Not that it can reach me up here, but just seeing it again sends a twinge through my right hand. My hand that Panacea swears up and down is genetically and physically identical to the old one, but she's fucking lying. Something's wrong with it, I can tell. It-

No, focus. How do I deal with this? I don't know what that thing is capable of (aside from- no, stop it). Without her to order it around, is it like a beast, or a robot? Or is her mind in there piloting it while her body sleeps?

Well, there is one obvious thing to try: Shoot it. It's big, but my tranqs are rated for Brutes. What if it's a big Brute, though? Better shoot it twice. One. Two. Two crossbow bolts hit home, carefully phased to rematerialize partway inside the thing, in case it has Brute hide too. Like shooting fish in a barrel, with it shielding her like that.

That's several months worth of creative accounting down the drain if it doesn't work - of course the fucking paper pushers demand to know where every single dose of tranq goes, and there's only so often I can write 'missed target, couldn't recover bolt' on a report before being assigned remedial training. Because this isn't an official bust, oh no. I know how the game is played, and there's no way I'm letting her get forced into the Wards. Not on my watch.

Ah, it's starting to wobble. And it carefully lurches to the side to avoid falling on top of her. Good. Her being crushed to death under her own power would be... poetic or some shit like that, I guess. But not nearly what she deserves. It still doesn't pop, even with both of them unconscious. Huh. Well, whatever. I turn into shadow and glide down to the street before carefully approach- Fuck it, why am I being such a weak-ass bitch about this? They're unconscious. I won, dammit. I'm safe. And now this bitch is going to pay for what she-

Fuck shittity fuck it was just playing dead I should have known! There's no time to dodge as it lunges at me shadow form won't save me I desperately bring the crossbow to bear I'm going to die here its jaws are practically closing around me as I pull the trigger and it... vanishes?

Fenrir-o-vision

She's shooting again, but this time I'm ready! Dematerialize! Ow!

Ow?

That was... supposed to... pass through...

It finally popped? I just stand there for a while, trying to get my breathing under control as my blood pounds in my ears. Fuck, I pissed myself at the end there. I legit thought I was going to die. But I won?

I look at the three bolts lying on the ground in front of me. No sign of the monster they were stuck to a moment ago. It's gone. I won.

"I won."

Saying it out loud somehow snaps me out of my funk. With renewed determination, I step over to where Low Key is lying. She's unconscious, but her mask is eternally smirking, as if mocking me for soiling myself. With a snarl, I tear it from her f-

"No fucking way!"

Lisa-o-vision

It's not a number I've ever seen before. But I won't discover anything by not answering. "Hello?"

"Help."

"Taylor? Are you-" I verbally stumble as several questions try to come out at the same time. Are you hurt? Are you in trouble? Are you thinking about suicide again? Yes, my power supplies, all of the above. "Where are you!?"

"Don't know."

I'm already halfway out the door. "Tell me what you see, I'll find you! I'm on my way!"

It's easy enough to find the general area: "There's ABB people here." ABB territory is a lot smaller than it was only a few days ago, because between the loss of all their capes, and the heroes being eager to make up for the loss of face that was the Bakuda crisis, they've been losing manpower fast. Not just to arrests, but also to defections/resignations - the writing is on the wall, and the smarter ones can read it.

But tracking down the specific place - "it's an alley" - takes some work, because Taylor says she can't leave said alley to look at other landmarks. But after making her describe the buildings on either side, and the fine details of the graffiti on their walls, and the god damn position of the moon in the sky, I finally find her in the third alley I check. And I find out why she said she couldn't leave.

That would be because she's stark naked and covered in blood from head to toe, and - fairly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but someone also wrote 'NAZI' on her forehead with a marker pen. There are indeed ABB people here, three of them to be precise. But I don't need to worry about them, because they're where the blood came from. I quickly avert my eyes from the gruesome sight, but my power goes off regardless, telling me things I didn't need to-

Marks around their throats - held down by telekinesis and repeatedly stabbed. Mixed stab wounds, both direct telekinesis and knife. Kept stabbing after they died.

-things I probably did need to know, because they relate to Taylor's mental state. That would be the knife she is still clutching, unsurprisingly also covered in blood. Blood doesn't stick to the edge. Edge is not metal. Tinkertech. She drops the phone - taken from one of the corpses - when she sees me, but keeps hold of the knife. She doesn't say anything.

"Hey," I say softly as I walk closer - but not too close, because the way she's more interested in holding on to that knife than covering herself up is concerning. "Let's get out of here, yeah? I've got a car."

She nods, and starts walking towards the mouth of the alley - and I know she's got Brute powers and all, but she really ought to pay more attention to where she's putting her feet, barefoot as she is. Another bad sign.

I dart in behind her and pick up the phone she dropped, because leaving fingerprints at a murder scene is just bad form. Is there anything else police forensics could pin on her?

There are traces of her blood on their genitals.

Fuck.

I was really hoping that wasn't what happened here. How could regular thugs even-

She was drugged. Brute powers let her regain consciousness earlier than expected, while they were still-

Fuck. I don't know how to deal with this. But one step at a time. I hurry to catch up to Taylor and open the passenger door for her.

"You stole a car for me," she says.

"Yeah, I did." It's good that she's talking, right?

She doesn't say anything else for the entire drive back.

I somehow manage to get her out of the car, into the building, into the elevator and into my apartment without anyone seeing us. She doesn't put up any resistance as I guide her into the shower. I hate to leave her alone even for a moment, especially with a knife - but trying to pry it away from her would be an even worse idea, and I really, absolutely must do something about the trail of bloody footprints leading right to my door. I grab a mop and a bucket, and call for backup on the dead thug's phone while it's filling.

"I'm really horny, babe. What are you wearing right now?" Alec answers. Doesn't know it's me, it's how he answers all suspected telemarketers.

"It's me."

"Oh. Well, what are you-"

"Not now. Serious business. I need a favor."

"Is the favor dick pics? Because-"

"There's a stolen car with blood all over the seats that needs to be driven out to the boat graveyard and set on fire."

"Man, I never get invited to the good parties anymore."

"Look..."

"Okay. I was just about to finish this level anyway."

When I finally, finally get back Taylor is still in the shower, still - not fine, but, you know. She's just sitting there and letting the water run over her, but at least she's dropped the knife. Wait, where did it- extradimensional storage space. Ah. Not important right now.

Now that neither of us are in imminent danger of being arrested, let's take a moment to think about things more carefully. First order of business: Most of the blood has washed off her skin by now, but her hair is going to need more active intervention. Dear power, how do I apply shampoo without being held down by telekinesis and stabbed to death?

Blatant abuse of my power lets me clean her up, and dry off all the bits that won't provoke a violent reaction. Just like the last time I found her naked in an alley - god, I wish this was more like last time - she gets the bed while I take the couch.

I wake up to a loud crash and a scream from the bedroom. Dammit, where did I put the gun? Who saw us? Why did they wait until now to attack? How-

There is no danger.

Huh? I walk over to the bedroom door and carefully peek inside. Oh. Bubbles decided to materialize atop my bed, something its legs were not rated for. But Taylor is hugging him and crying, so I elect not to complain about it and instead sneak back to the couch.

Lisa is waiting for you on the couch as you walk out of her bedroom, dressed in borrowed clothes. She gestures towards a glass of water and a carton of pills on the coffee table.

"You're going to want to take one of those," she says.

You glance at the label. Yeah, you are. The nice thing about a Thinker friend is that you don't have to say anything out loud.

"On a scale from one to negative ten, how are you feeling?" Lisa asks once you've taken your medicine.

"I'll live," you say simply. You will. "Shadow Stalker, on the other hand..."

Lisa's power lights up at that. Oh, did it not deduce the heroic involvement until now? Apparently not. You politely wait for it to finish, having nothing to add to the conversation.

"You could go to the police," she says eventually. "Her tranquilizers will show up on a tox screen, she'd be completely fucked."

Hah, yeah. Because the heroes definitely wouldn't just grab you from right under the cops' noses and stick you in an M/S cell to keep you away from journalists and cover the whole thing up and then press-gang you into working for them too, just to rub salt in the wound. But it would take a lot of words to convey that to someone so naive. "She wouldn't get the death penalty," you say instead, because that is also a sufficient reason not to do it.

Lisa sighs. "I don't suppose there's any way I could talk you into a course of action that won't immediately land you in the Birdcage?"

"I don't know, Thinker. Is there?"

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, ?

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Brian-o-vision, earlier

"We sell condoms too, you know," the cashier says with a disapproving frown.

"It's not for me," I reply through gritted teeth. "It's for a friend." Dammit Lisa, when you asked me for an emergency favor I expected to have to get rid of a stolen car or something, not buy you Plan B. This is not workplace appropriate sharing!

"A 'girl'... friend?" he suggests.

"Yes, a friend who is a girl. Who I did not sleep with, but who is a bit of an idiot sometimes!"

"Bruh!" the guy behind me in line exclaims, butting into the conversation. "She's making you run her errands and you're not even sleeping with her? You gotta respect yourself more, man!"

"Just. Ring up. My goddamn. Purchase."

Chapter 64: L.41

Chapter Text

Aegis stands up to confront Shadow Stalker when she enters the common room.

"You're late," he says.

"Yeah well excuse me for being jumped by Low Key on my way to work."

"An unprovoked attack? By an Empire cape, outside their territory? That's not their M.O."

"Fuck their M.O., that bitch has it out for me!"

He shakes his head. "You went after her, didn't you? Into Empire territory, on your own."

"I'm fucking telling you she went after me."

"And I'm calling you a liar."

"What are you, a spic nazi sympathizer?"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. Look, we all know you hold a grudge over the ha-"

"Don't fucking talk about my hand! My hand is fine!" She tries to push past him - and when he doesn't budge, turns into shadow and passes right through.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Gonna take a piss. Why, did you want to watch?"

"This conversation isn't over," he says, but he makes no further move to stop her from leaving.

"Careful," Clockblocker says. "You might get jumped by nazis if you go on your own."

"Suck my dick!" She throws a middle finger over her shoulder.

She strides down the corridor and enters the men's room without hesitation - startling Kid Win, who is washing his hands in there.

"Wha- Sophia?"

Another finger is all the communication she offers as she walks past him and enters the furthest stall. Locking the door behind her, she activates the scanner in her mask and checks the floor. She doesn't spot any electrical wiring below her, and so turns into shadow and falls through. The room she lands in is dark, but the warmth, soft humming and smattering of blinkenlights identifies it as a server room.

"I'm in," I say. "But which machine do I stick the dongle in?"

"Do they have labels?" Lisa asks. "Describe them to me."

Shadow Stalker takes out a flashlight and starts looking around.

"Any alarms?" I ask. I don't really pretend to understand how the computer stuff works, but apparently she has hacked the PRT enough to be able to tell when an alarm goes off, but needs me to stick the dongle in the right machine in order to hack them more? Something like that.

"None so far. They don't have any cameras in the server room, and I guess your act passed muster."

Clockblocker-o-vision

"What's taking her so long?" Carlos asks rhetorically.

"Maybe she was jumped by nazis in there after all," I suggest.

He just shoots me a look. "If she was in a fight, she might be hiding injuries. Missy, could you go to the ladies' room and check on her?"

"Actually she went to the men's room," Chris says.

"What, why?"

"She didn't say."

"She did tell me to suck her dick," I muse. "Do you think she maybe-"

"I'll go check on her," Carlos announces, rather than engage in this line of conversation.

"Would you still do her if she was packing?" Chris steps up to the plate in his stead.

"I dunno. Are we talking 'secretly a man all along' or, like, Case 53 girl-dick?"

"Whatever helps you rationalize your decisions."

"I mean... yeah, I'd probably suck her girl-dick if she reciprocated."

"Gay."

"What, no. I'm not gay. C'mon man, we just established it was a girl dick."

"Sucking a dick is still pretty gay, bro."

"I'm leaving," Missy announces.

"No wait," I call after her. "We need your female perspective to settle the argument: Would you suck a girl-dick?"

"No, because I'm not gay."

"Uh, which side of the argument does that support?" Chris asks. But she has already left without elaborating.

"Are we there yet?" I ask for the third time.

"34%" Lisa answers, steadfastly refusing to be annoyed. "Oh crap, that's the alarm. Get out there and cause a ruckus, distract them while the download finishes."

"Can do."

"If I could shoot one person on my way out, who would it be?" Shadow Stalker asks herself. Never let it be said that I'm not a magnanimous host. Or, well, it's more like she's the host. Never let it be said that I'm not a magnanimous parasite?

"Aegis. No, Piggy. Aegis wouldn't really mind." She answers the instant I cede control of her vocal cords. No struggling, no pleading. Whatever else you might say about her, the girl certainly has her priorities in order (one of the other things I might say is 'are you my long-lost half-sister?', because I did not think this level of fucked up occurred naturally).

"Who's 'Piggy'?" I ask.

"PRT Director Emily Piggot?" Lisa suggests.

Yeah, that'd cause a ruckus alright. And I do have instructions to thoroughly burn her bridges with the heroes before the day is over. Looks like everyone can get what they want, how nice.

"It's going to be such a pain to start over when they find the device and change up all their security," Lisa grumbles, because some people are just born grouchy. She was the one who wanted to double-hack the PRT in the first place!

"How do I get to the director's office?" I ask the sourpuss, gesturing towards the map on the table.

Regent-o-vision

...was what that entire thing was. But you figured that out already, didn't you? But did you figure it out early, or did you assume that I had come down with amateur-writer-itis and forgotten which perspective I was supposed to be using?

I'm sure you can also figure out roughly what happened between the last chapter and now, but let's go back to second person, and back in time...

So what did Shadow Stalker do after leaving you in that alley? She went home and went to bed. You don't know if she expected you to get your throat cut before waking up, or if it simply never occurred to her that you might know her identity, and that the address of one Sophia Hess is publicly available.

Fenrir reports that Sophia is asleep and the house is otherwise empty, so you just pick the lock and let him lead you to her room. Her costume and gear is just sitting there out in the open. Or rather it's tucked into a gym bag, which is just sitting there out in the open. But then she is a Ward, isn't she? Her parents already know.

It certainly makes things convenient for you, as you just grab one of her tranquilizer bolts and stab her with it. The effect isn't quite instant - she has time to startle awake from the pain, and see who is leaning over her. You're wearing a throwaway face in case anyone spots you around her house, but you also brought one of your spare Low Key masks that you put on before stabbing her, for exactly this moment. Her expression as she realizes what is happening is everything you could have hoped for.

She can't cry out, because your hand is over her mouth. But she can turn into shadow and fall through the bed - and right into the mind-hands you deployed underneath it to catch her.

"Excellent reflexes," you compliment her as you drag her out, but she's already unconscious, and solid once more.

With that taken care of, you pack up a bunch of her clothes and personal effects - she is running away from home, after all. Oho, what's this tucked away in the back a drawer? Broadhead crossbow bolts? You're pretty sure heroes aren't supposed to use lethal ordnance like that. Naughty, naughty.

You also go through her equipment with sorcerer's sight and industry and forge wisdom. Two tinkertech crossbows - one spare for when the other is getting maintenance, you guess. Some sort of scanner built into the mask, and some light armor integrated in the costume. No tracking devices. Well, the comm gear can probably be tracked, it'll have to go. You toss it under the bed.

With the gear sorted out, you turn back to the parahuman. You brought a bag of your own, one large enough to fit a teenage girl, if properly folded. You didn't bother with padding, so perhaps she gets a bit banged up as you drag everything out into the street and get it loaded into your freshly stolen car (can't use mind-hands in public, have to use your Brute 0 muscles). But that's not exactly a downside, is it?

Your destination is another abandoned property, that Lisa identified as having suitable criteria for the next step. She promised she'd have a more permanent place for you by tonight, for a suitably hefty commission.

You didn't try to haggle. 'By tonight' is ridiculously fast for this kind of thing, but Lisa clearly has all the best shady contacts, and you shouldn't be too surprised that people who own real estate in Brockton Bay would be willing to work weekends and cut corners to move it.

Alec stops in the doorway and takes in the scene before him. His eyes move from the materialized Fenrir, to the unconscious Sophia held in the wolf's jaws, to you. He raises one elegant eyebrow.

"She took what I said about getting invited to the good parties to heart," is all he says.

"I heard you were in the market for slave puppets," you say, your tone equally casual. "I have a Shadow Stalker I'd be willing to lease at reasonable rates."

"That's her? And you're..." He considers the situation for a moment. "It takes several hours to make a puppet, and she needs to be awake - and restrained - for a good part of it."

"Magic shadow-biting wolf teeth."

"Ah, that makes sense. I'll just get started, then."

You nod, and take your leave. As much as you'd like to stay and watch his power at work, you have things you need to do. While your mind-hands and Fenrir's teeth can both hold her shadow form in place, and Alec will be able to puppeteer her soon enough, it would be unreasonable to expect the three of you to sleep in shifts forevermore. No, you're going to have to smith a set of shadow-binding restraints.

You consider the pile of materials Fenrir fetched before he materialized. You've been lax about gathering reagents lately, but this is the last of your orichalcum anyway. You should be able to salvage enough rare earths from Leet's leftovers to make do. You reach for the paper slips...

Sutra of the Hunting Maiden

Once there was a maiden...

...who considered herself a predator.

She declared that to a predator, all the world was prey.

For years she hunted as she pleased, until one day she made a mistake.

What she thought was a sheep, turned out to be a wolf hiding beneath a sheepskin!

The wolf devoured every part of her, until not a single speck was left.

"This just proves me right, you know," she said with her last breath.

It's a simple enough enchantment, all you need to do is to make it solid in the immaterial realm. You have less than a kilogram of orichalcum to work with, but the nice thing about indestructible materials is that you can make them as thin as you want. Let's see, a pair of manacles, connected to a neck shackle, and a generous length of chain that can be looped around a pillar or otherwise attached to the environment. No locks or clasps, you'll attune it to yourself so you can fuse it closed with a touch. Get that vial of Aisha's blood (foresight!) and work it in, so your minion can do the same in your place.

You didn't get any blood from Alec, but you are after all leasing, not selling. A sudden scream from the other room tells you that Sophia just woke up and found out about the magic shadow-biting wolf teeth. Hm, yes. You etch a second set of circuits into the throat shackle, that can be activated to prevent the wearer from making any noise. The whole point of it is to let people sleep, after all.

Even after the artifact itself is done you keep working, carefully coating everything in a thick layer of rubbery black plastic. Can't have anyone spotting that golden glow, because there's no way an upstanding citizen like Smith would ever get mixed up in business this unsavory. You even make a little box full of tinkertech circuitry (also salvaged from Leet's stuff) and attach it to the neck shackle. Literally the only thing it does is make a red LED on the outside blink once per second when the shackle is closed, but it serves to further hide its nature.

With that done you finally let the paper strips burn away, and catch the finished restraints as they fall out of the air. There hasn't been any screaming for a while now, which means that Alec is probably done as well.

Sophia is giving him a shoulder massage when you return, which indicates that this is indeed the case.

"I like it," she says. Or he does, through her mouth. "How much did you want for it?"

"One thing at a time. First she needs to betray her comrades, and become a fugitive villain."

"I like the way you think."

Armsmaster-o-vision

"Will Piggy- will Director Piggot be alright?" Kid Win asks.

"Her condition is still critical," I say.

"Can't you have Panacea-"

"The director has apparently signed a form refusing all parahuman treatment, even in life-threatening situations."

"What?" Vista exclaims. "Why?"

"She has not chosen to share her reasoning with me. However, we are here to discuss Shadow Stalker." I look around at the assembled Wards (and Triumph, who is here because he was the Ward leader when Shadow Stalker was recruited). "Tell me what happened today."

They relate what happened, little as it is, from her arrival until they discovered her missing.

"She said she was attacked?" I ask. "By an E88 cape?" It's an obvious red flag: Cape gets waylaid while alone, later attacks her allies due to post-hypnotic command - but the E88 doesn't have that kind of Master, nor does it fit their M.O. More likely she was simply lying, trying to direct our attention away from whoever her real paymaster is. Probably Coil, it wouldn't be the first time he tried to sneak an agent into the PRT.

"Yeah," Aegis says. "We didn't really believe her, though. We thought maybe she had gone looking for trouble on her own, but..."

"Everyone knows she was freaking out over the hand thing," Clockblocker chimes in.

I nod. She had even gone so far as to track down and confront Panacea over it. Panacea's report on the matter was admirably succinct: "It's psychosomatic. I don't do brains."

"Do we know what she was after?" Aegis asks. "I mean, if she only wanted to shoot P- the director, she could have gone straight to her office."

"Yes. We discovered that the secure mainframe was tampered with, and forensic data analysis indicates that her co-conspirators were able to download the entire PRT database. Including the confidential, secret and top secret sections."

"The entire- our names are in there!" Kid Win says.

"Yes. It's the worst data breach in the history of the institution." I'm personally more worried about the information on the security measures of the various containment zones throughout the country. Everyone knows that the response to breaking the unwritten rules is swift and terrible, but if some fool were to get it into their heads to poke at Nilbog...

"I can't believe she'd do this to us," Clockblocker mutters.

"She may have been coerced, or-" Aegis starts to say.

"Oh please," Vista interrupts him. "Are we really pretending that she wasn't an awful person? How many times did she violate her parole but was let off with nothing but a warning, if that?"

"None that I am aware of," I say sternly. "Triumph? Aegis?"

"Uh, I'm not saying it never happened, but-"

"Maybe once or twice, but-"

"Twenty-three times that I'm aware of," Vista interrupts them again. Lie. I'm taken aback as my lie detector pings for the first time during the briefing. Has Vista been compromised as well?

"Look, we all know you two didn't get along," Aegis says. Truth. "Now you claim to know that number off-hand-"

"I don't," Vista bites out. "I reviewed my diary prior to this meeting, because I knew it contained relevant information. Some of us are fucking professionals." Truth.

"It wasn't twenty-three times," I say.

Vista looks at her feet. "Twenty-six if you count the times I was the only witness and didn't tell anyone." Truth.

Chapter 65: L.42

Chapter Text

You're just standing around minding your own business and looking like someone else when Shadow Stalker phases through the wall next to you. You jump, and almost stab her to death with mind-hands before you can get control of yourself. She doesn't even acknowledge your presence, just runs across the street and phases into the building opposite. You take deep breaths and try to stop shaking. Calm down. You knew that would happen. It was part of the plan. The plan that didn't take into account that Future-Taylor (you) would get a face full of surprise Shadow Stalker. Your plans suck.

You remain for a few minutes, before nodding to yourself and walking away. You're pretty sure no one is following her, partly because no parahumans came anywhere near you, and partly because a note appeared in your hand, that said 'no one chased her' in a cypher only you know. You have no idea how you accomplished that second part, but your working hypothesis is that at some point in the future you learn how to time travel.

But never mind that for now. You call up Alec, and have a conversation consisting of two words: "You're clear." Then you stroll towards the designated meeting point - a secluded spot in a local park - where Sophia is waiting for you in civvies. She's yours now, you remind yourself again. That's Alec behind her eyes, you need to remain calm. Alec himself is keeping out of sight - you can tell which direction he's in from the tendril of power connecting them, but you haven't studied it enough know his range.

"So what's next?" he/she asks.

"Nothing much until Lisa comes through with my new lair," you say. "Part of the lease agreement is going to be me studying both your powers, and we can't exactly activate hers in public. So I'm just going to stare creepily at you for a while."

"'Kay."

For a while Alec amuses himself by making Sophia make sexy poses and kissy faces at you, but he eventually gets bored of that and just has her stand there slack-jawed.

"Sophia?" someone says from behind you. Crap. In a city this size, what are the odds of randomly stumbling across someone who'd recognize her? Fortunately you also recognize that voice, it's someone you both know.

Thinking quickly you shift back into Taylor's face before turning around. Your hair doesn't match, but that can be blamed on barbers and dye.

"Well if it isn't our old pal Emma," you say cheerfully, speaking quickly to hide how winded you are from the rapid transformation. "How you doing these days?" You move next to her and throw your arm around her shoulders, none too gently.

"T-Taylor?"

"In the flesh. Did you miss me?"

"Uh, I, uh..." Her Loyalty is long gone, but that just means there's no complicated friendship feelings getting in the way of how terrified she is of you. When Alec/Sophia follows your lead and puts an arm around her shoulders from the other side she freezes up completely. "I..." Oh yes, this was her greatest fear, wasn't it? That Sophia would switch sides, and team up with you against her.

"What's the matter little mousey?" Sophia asks. "Cat got your tongue?" Alec knows roughly what's up here, you briefed him on what you know about Sophia to help him sell the act, and he's studied the message history on her phones.

You don't say anything, but you're grinning so wide it hurts. You had been fine with calling it quits between you, but if she insists on blundering back into your life... Watching her face as her entire world crumbles into nothing is like the sweetest ambrosia.

"See, me 'n Taylor was having a private conversation, so if you could scurry on out of here, it'd be 'preciated." Sophia removes her arm from Emma's shoulders and gives her a bit of push on the back. You do the same, except you also stick out your leg in front of her. Sophia laughs when she faceplants on the ground.

Emma doesn't even try to get up. She just starts crying, great heaving sobs. Mm. It's so- she's- you grab Sophia around the waist and squeeze, hard. You don't know what to do with all these feelings.

Sophia nudges Emma with a foot. "Scurry, scurry," she says. Emma does just that, scrambling away on all fours for a while before she manages to get her legs under her.

"Wow," Sophia/Alec says once she's gone. "We destroyed that girl. She's probably gonna go kill herself now, if I'm any judge." She looks down at how you're still squeezing her, a smile quirking her lips. "Did that turn you on?"

You quickly let go of her and step away. Did it? Is that what you- "It's complicated," you say.

"Sure pissed her off, though," Alec/Sophia says. "She got so angry I almost lost control for a moment there."

"Wait, she's awake in there? Seeing everything that happens?"

"Yes? Thought you knew that. You seem to know everything else."

"Damn. So if you were to, say, go up to Panacea and hug her, she'd be less 'yay, hugs' and more 'oh sweet Jesus what's up with your stress hormones?'"

"I guess, why?"

"Just an idle thought." You stiffen as a considerably less idle thought occurs to you. "Did you run into Gallant back there?"

"Didn't see him. Again, why?"

"That fucker can sense emotions."

"Oh."

Sometimes you really wish you were a worse person, because then you could identify a threat like that and simply eliminate it without remorse. This is the second time you escape his notice through nothing but pure dumb luck.

Lisa eventually comes through with an address - you could, you suppose, just pick an abandoned property, kick out any squatters and install new doors and locks. But since you'll be working with Alec, you'd really prefer for your base of operations to have decadent luxuries like electricity and plumbing. He strikes you as the pampered sort.

"Swanky," Sophia/Alec says, looking around the completely bare room.

"It's a work in progress," you say. "For now..." You really should get started on studying her power, but with the revelation that she's aware... "Hold still."

You materialize your knife and step into her personal space. Without charging it, you place the tip just below her left eye, and carefully cut a shallow line down her cheek.

"That stings, you know," she says calmly.

"Hush." You position the knife for another cut.

"That's kinda fucked up," Aisha says (the note wasn't time travel, you realize). "I mean, I guess we're already kidnapping and enslaving her, but still."

Oh right, you never told her what Sophia did to earn this treatment. You rectify that.

Aisha is silent for a while, mulling things over. "...give me the knife," she says eventually. You do, and she cuts a matching line down Sophia's right cheek.

"Could you maybe chain her up instead, so you're not torturing me?" Alec complains through her mouth.

Without Alec controlling her she obviously turns to shadow the next time you try to cut her. Which is why you suspended her chains from the ceiling. Shadowy feet barely even sink into the floor as her immaterial form dangles from your magical manacles.

You could always use mind-hands to cut her instead, but... it's not like she's going anywhere, is it? If she wants to let you study her power without Alec's help, that's fine too. You just hold the knife inside her, following her motions as her shadowy form twists and kicks in an attempt to get away. You wonder how long she can keep it up.

The answer is 'slightly less than a minute', but that's not the interesting part. Judging by how she screams and convulses when she finally reforms (without making any sound, due to the enchantment on the collar), phasing into a solid object is much more painful than being stabbed the conventional way (well, either that or her pain tolerance is much lower than yours). She turns back into shadow to escape, but she can't even hold it thirty seconds the second time. Interesting.

She barely manages ten seconds on the third go, and spends noticeably longer screaming afterwards before turning into shadow once more. You take a deep, satisfied breath, but pull the knife away - god only knows what will happen if the knife is still in there when she finally runs out of shadow juice completely, but it can't possibly be healthy. And you're very concerned about her health, because you're going to keep her around forever.

She reforms the moment the blade is clear of her flesh. The defiant stare she gave you after Alec released her is nowhere to be seen, she just hangs limp in her chains, panting. You hold the knife in front of her face so she knows what's going to happen next, before slowly moving to cut her again.

She turns into shadow again.

It must be a reflexive response to pain, you suppose. You wonder how long it will take to train that out of her.

Watching her scream is so satisfying, that for the longest time it doesn't even occur to you that you could combine business with pleasure - okay, studying her power could be considered business, but you meant torturing her for information. You carefully wipe the tears and snot from her face, disable the silencing effect on the collar, and wait. It takes a while.

"Where is my costume?" you ask when her eyes finally focus on yours.

"I burned it," she gasps.

You shake your head sadly. "Wrong answer." Does she really expect you to believe that she wouldn't keep it as a trophy? When you know each other so well? You silence her again and resummon your knife. "I'll let you sleep once you tell me."

The lair may have plumbing and electricity, but that's all it has. So the next day (Sunday) you go shopping for other decadent luxuries, like chairs and tables and beds and a couch and a TV and a gaming console. And a fridge and an oven and plates and cutlery and a dishwasher and... It takes you several trips to get everything you need, because furnishing a decent lair is basically indistinguishable from furnishing a home. It also puts an uncomfortable dent in your funds, but that's not going to be a problem for long.

Thankfully stores selling such things have plenty of muscular men eager to help a big spender (who also happens to be a not too unattractive young woman) load up her truck, and Aisha is there to help you unload - by which you mean she keeps a lookout for witnesses while your mind-hands do all the heavy lifting. It's just sensible division of labor. The power-based cheating doesn't end there, either.

"Really?" Aisha asks when she sees you take out the paper strips.

You shrug. Just because you normally use this power to create wonders of orichalcum doesn't mean you can't use it to install a kitchen and assemble flat-pack furniture. The blood loss is negligible.

Aisha once again insist on having you translate a piece of verse.

Sutra of the Fleeing Maiden

Once there was a maiden...

...whose family was not so great.

So she ran away from home, though she had nowhere to go.

Her siblings pursued her, enraged that she would no longer share their suffering.

She kept running and hiding, until one day she met a wizard.

"What's up?" she asked, and the wizard showed her what was up.

"Huh," she said. "Neat. What's the gobbledygook say?"

"Psyche," said the gobbledygook, "I was talking about a boy all along."

"That makes even less sense than last time," she complains.

Soon afterwards Alec arrives. "What's up?" he greets you.

You just tilt your head towards the coffee table that's currently floating in midair and assembling itself. The current state of affairs is fairly self-explanatory, you feel.

"Huh," he says. "Neat." Just like Aisha did, he leans down to examine the writing on the paper strips hovering around your wrists. "What's the gobbledygook say?" he asks.

Aisha's expression is priceless. "I- you- what?" She points an accusing finger at Alec. "You're fucking with me, aren't you?"

"Huh?" Alec, of course, has no idea what's going on.

Aisha throws her hands in the air in disgust. "Let me guess, you haven't even told anyone you're on the run from your family."

"Who told you that?" Alec snaps, instantly defensive.

"A fucking wizard apparently."

Alec groans and shoots you a disgusted look. "I need fewer Thinkers in my life."

"Tell me about it."

It's nice that they're bonding, but now that everyone is here you should send Aisha out to get food while you finish up with the furniture. Alec stays to help you out - by which you mean he unpacks the console and plugs it into the TV.

"No games?" he asks.

"I don't know what's good," you say. "I was going to leave that part to you."

"Hint: It's not this," he says, holding up the soccer game that came with the console. Then he inserts the disc and starts playing it anyway, because apparently it's better than being useful.

You have Alec grab Sophia, and release her from the chains. Once she's out of the way you remodel her room for permanent occupancy by a chained, immaterial being. An elevated bed, so she can lie down without giving her enough slack in the chains to phase through the floor. Plumbing options slightly more dignified than soiling herself. Et cetera. You even construct a stereotypical 'secret door disguised as bookcase' to hide the room itself, just because you can.

"This is not mint condition," Alec complains after examining the merchandize.

"She's fully functional, and her costume doesn't show any skin," you counter. Towards the end there she managed to suppress her reflexes more often than not, but she did finally tell you where she stashed your costume. Like every sensible person who can turn immaterial she hides things by sticking them inside other things, but when she does it they become solid again once she lets go. The space she used was too small for Fenrir to fit inside, so you had to use the charm of unmaking to make a hole.

When Aisha returns, the four of you sit down around the newly-assembled kitchen table.

"The first step of the plan is done," you announce. "Shadow Stalker has betrayed the heroes, and is now a fugitive." The others nod. "But that isn't enough on its own."

"Oh my god," Aisha exclaims theatrically, "what if she was Mastered into doing that? She might be innocent, you guys!"

"Exactly," you say. "The next step is for her to have a long and prosperous career as a villain, to remove all doubt about her culpability. Thus, I call the first meeting of villain team BITN to order."

"Hell yeah," Aisha says. "Let's be bad guys." Her second soul price remains in place - she might technically be a badass villain now, but no one respects or fears her yet.

"You realize I already work for the Undersiders, right?" Alec says.

"Regent does," you agree. "But Ghost here-" you gesture towards the former Shadow Stalker "-has nothing to do with Regent, now does she? If devilishly handsome civilian Alec occasionally comes over to hang out in our lair, that's an entirely unrelated matter."

Alec nods slowly, pursing his lips. "I guess I wouldn't mind a second paycheck," he says. He's playing it cool, but sorcerer's sight shows the Loyalty forming as he accepts your offer of a full-time slave puppet.

"Bitten by who, though?" Aisha asks.

"What?"

"You said villain team Bitten."

"Bee Eye Tee Enn," you enunciate. "It's an acronym. See if you can figure it out, Imp."

"That's my cape name? Guess I can live with that. Ghost, Imp, and..?" she gestures towards you.

"Poltergeist," you say, grabbing a fork with a mind-hand and holding it above the table.

Chapter 66: L.43

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You have so much to do, you can't believe you're still going to school. You have to make costumes for BITN, and plan an appropriately villainous debut for the team - you have an idea already, but it's dependent on the power you'll get from Shadow Stalker. And you won't find out how that goes for another twelve hours or so of intense study. Alec is already complaining about the workload. Mostly for the sake of complaining, you suspect - his Loyalty isn't fraying, and it's not as if he has to do anything except turn into shadow over and over again while his main body plays video games. If anyone should be complaining about their workload it's you.

But keeping up appearances is important. There's also the fact that you'd much rather work yourself ragged and collapse into bed every night than have any time for introspection. Even so, you had to tell Luke you're too busy to see him for a while. Just as well, considering- alright, that's enough thinking about things! You have a patrol to get to.

But of course Rune is late, as usual. You should get a new patrol partner, now that you finally have her power. Some might call the result a disappointment, but you have Luke lined up to hopefully take care of the 'Blaster by way of throwing rocks at people' fun you missed out on. No, don't think about Luke. You need a distraction.

"What's even worse, the faggots or the degenerates?" Alex is saying.

"Trick question," Mike says. "Name one faggot that isn't degenerate."

"I dunno, Legend?" Steve suggests. "Married, kids... He's actually doing the bit. For-"

"How the fuck would you know that?" you demand, inserting yourself into the conversation with the grace of a stampeding elephant. "You think the heroes are telling you the truth?"

"Well, he's... uh... huh." Steve trails off, looking thoughtful.

"She's right," Mike agrees. "He's the big gay icon of the whole LGBP movement, it's not as if they would ever print the story if he got caught doing what faggots do."

"He could be getting fisted by a hundred, a hundred twenty guys every weekend and we'd never find out," Sven agrees.

"Who's to say he's not fucking his kid in the ass?" Mike says.

"Okay, stop," Sven says. "That's just gross."

"Does he even have a kid? We don't know his secret identity, we don't know," Mike says instead.

"He could be spreading the Gift to everyone he arrests," Sven speculates, despite asking Mike to stop not a moment ago.

"Guys, guys," Alex says. "You're not thinking jewy enough: What if he's straight?"

There's a moment of silence as everyone digests this.

"Wow..." Mike says.

"Hey there goy," Sven says in the nasally 'I'm impersonating a jew' voice they use around these parts. "We're gonna need a faggot in the Triumvirate, see? Eheh. Eidolon refused and, uh, frankly he's a lot scarier than you are. So, uh, just suck it up, like all the dick you're going to pretend to suck from now on."

"That poor bastard," Alex says, shaking his head.

"Don't pity him," you say rather sharply. It's not that you believe this theory, but stipulating that it's true... "A good man would have refused. What were they going to do, fire a member of the Triumvirate?"

"Probably JFK him," Sven says. "I mean, that's what happens to people who go against the jews."

"...is that what happened to Hero?" Mike asks. "I don't want to be conspiratard here, but..."

Thankfully Rune shows up at this point, and you bail on the conversation as it goes off the rails completely.

Like most patrols this one is peaceful - which leaves you with nothing distracting you.

"What's wrong?" Rune asks.

"Nothing."

"Uh huh. If you want to talk about it..."

"I said it's nothing!"

She backs off. Objectively speaking you really should keep escalating, get into a proper pointless screaming row, burn bridges, get a new patrol partner. But somehow you can't bring yourself to do that, not when she's showing genuine concern.

"Everything is broken and I'm trying to live in the ruins," you say after a while.

"That's America for you," Rune agrees readily, though her tone is more commiserating than flippant. "It sucks."

"No, I- never mind."

Just as planned you collapse into bed completely exhausted. You let out a long breath, cuddle up to Fenrir and close your eyes. You... keep it together, during the day. You enjoy your time with Sophia. You're fine. You haven't cried since the first night. Not much, and Fenrir won't tell anyone.

You sigh again and cuddle closer. Sweet, perfect Fenrir, who doesn't mind if you get gross snotty tears all over his fur when you can't keep it together any more (it all falls off when he dematerializes anyway). You don't know want to think about what you'd do without him. You haven't had any nightmares so far, and maybe that's because you're a natural-born badass, but maybe it's because you're so undeniably warm and safe sleeping next to a giant wolf.

Poor Fenrir though. You have him, but all he has is you. What have you done to deserve him lately? Less than nothing, because you're making him unhappy by visibly hurting. Wouldn't he be better off without you? A thought occurs to you as you consider the question. A terrible thought that you'd normally dismiss out of hand, but... it's all ruined anyway, isn't it? What does it matter anymore? If not him, then who?

You lie there for a while, letting the idea bounce back and forth through your head. Perhaps it's not so terrible after all.

"Hey," you whisper to Fenrir. He doesn't open his eyes, or move at all beyond twitching one ear in your direction. But you can tell that he's fully alert, hanging on to your every word. Because you are the center of his universe.

It feels weird that you can just look up a map of every storm drain and sewer pipe in the city, and consequently which buildings they pass underneath. You'd think that'd be the sort of information they'd want to keep out of the hands of communist spies and terrorists - or domestic villains like yourself, whatever. But you guess that would just lead to a huge headache for the civil engineers, and sufficiently motivated bad actors would just infiltrate and/or hack things anyway.

"What do you think?" you ask. "I'm thinking this is going to be Poltergeist beneath the mask." You're shorter than your true form, and broader across the everything. Frizzy hair and-

"Seriously?" Aisha says. "You're doing blackface?"

You shrug. Out of everything you've done, that's what she objects to? "Thought the team should match."

"It's no fun when they don't squirm," Aisha complains, pouting at your indifferent reaction. "Forgot you were a nazi for a moment there."

"I need a new voice too..." you muse.

"Got it," you say. "We're done."

Alec doesn't react, focused on his video game, but Ghost holds her hand up for a high five. You stand up and move to return it, but just as your palms are about to connect, you turn into shadow. Tendrils of liquid darkness curl through the air and flow around her body before coming together and reforming behind her. You even manage to turn around while it's happening, so you end up still facing her - poised to strike, if this was a fight.

Ghost stands there with her arm in the air for a second before turning around. "Can't even be mad at being left hanging," he/she says, shaking her head. "So that's how you do your thing?"

"Yeah. I'll want Regent's power as well, later. But this will do for now."

"How many powers do even you have?"

"A dozen or so," you say, keeping things vague not out of distrust, but just to avoid having to explain the edge cases.

"Must have taken forever. Never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad I'm not the OP power-stealing Trump here." She pauses briefly, tilting her head to the side. "Well, I guess technically I steal their powers along with the rest of their bodies..."

You nod absently, your mind elsewhere. The 'pass through and hit them from behind' maneuver came to you almost instinctively, but something about it felt off (not that you could describe the sensation to anyone else if you tried). You turn around, and try to phase through the wall into the kitchen.

Instead you sort of wash up against it for a moment (definitely can't describe that sensation), before slinking off to the side and through the door. Ah. You're formless, but not immaterial. Unfortunate. Frowning, you close the door - and then turn into shadow and flow through the keyhole. You reform in the living room without issue - you don't even think it took any longer than flowing around Ghost, despite having to squeeze your entire non-immaterial body through a hole a quarter of an inch across. Okay. You can work with this.

"Aren't you worried about revealing all this?" Aisha asks from where she's sitting next to Alec on the couch. "I mean, if your Thinker bullshit says Alec 'n me are trustworthy that's fine and all, but what about her? What if she gets captured?"

You shake your head. You could have tried to limit the information she's exposed to, but to what end? She'd find out that Low Key has mind-hands and shapeshifting at the very least. Nor could you really hope to hide your Quicksilverian obsession with tedious power study, just in case anyone needed more hints about your true nature. Besides...

"How could she possibly be captured? Worst case she just dives straight into the ground and dies in indescribable agony as she rematerializes." You smile and stroke Ghost's cheek, trailing your fingers down the angry red scars you made the other day. "Isn't it lovely, having minions who would rather die than betray you?"

Aisha doesn't respond.

"But speaking of powers, that reminds me." You turn away from Ghost and towards Alec. "I can also make you better at things, if you want."

"Define 'things'," he says guardedly.

You shrug. "What do you want to be better at? I made her smarter-" you gesture at Aisha ("That's private!") "-but I can do strength and beauty as well." You purse your lips as you look him over. "Well, beauty might not work on someone who's already as pretty as you. Skills? I could do the Matrix thing. Say the word, and you'll know Kung Fu."

"I'm good, thanks."

"Okay." A shame, you guess you'll have to do with a single layer of Master effects on him. You sit back down.

"You made her smarter," Alec says after a while (Aisha mutters something inaudible). "Could you make people more emotional instead?"

He must be talking about himself, because your power reaches out and latches on when he says it. But it can't find anything to do - apparently 'emotions' do not qualify as an ability, or even an attribute - and retreats in confusion.

"'fraid not. Why?"

"Just an idle thought."

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, ?

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Mechanics corner

"A perfect defense," I hear you say. "That's spicy. Doesn't she have infinite essence? Doesn't that mean she's completely invulnerable now?"

Yes, and no, to answer the questions in order. A) She can't dodge things she can't see coming (yet - there are charms for that too). B) This charm can't defend against 'Holy' keyword attacks. Won't it be fun to find out how that translates into Worm? C) In the Exalted cosmology, 'perfect defenses always trump perfect attacks' is a law of nature, but this is not the Exalted cosmology. In Worm, perfect attacks beat perfect defenses. Like a modern-day Odin, Alexandria gave an eye for this knowledge.

Chapter 67: L.44

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You stride confidently into the bank, flanked by your two new teammates. Thanks to a certain invisible wolf scouting ahead, you know exactly where the security guards are standing. A pair of glowing mind-hands whip out and disarm them before they can even react to your presence.

You hold the guns aloft a few feet above your shoulders, just so everyone has a visible reminder that they're dealing with a parahuman. You gesture towards Aisha with a regular hand.

"Alright, everyone listen up!" she yells, getting everyone's attention. Though between the masked, armed, black-clad figures and the light show caused by your mind-hands, most people already had their attention on you. "We're BITN, this is a robbery, and you're our hostages!" Mostly redundant information - a lot could be inferred from context, but it needs to be stated for form's sake.

One of the security guards, displaying more bravery than his salary deserves, lunges for you barehanded. A single punch from your third mind-hand sends him to the floor before he can cross even half the distance.

"Don't do that!" Aisha yells. "That's the opposite of what you should do! Everyone stay cool and listen to the boss, and you get to go home unharmed!" She gestures back to you.

"Thank you, Imp," you say. Your new voice is something else, a hoarse, raspy thing achieved by shape-shifting your neck to put pressure on your throat just so. It sounds pretty badass, if you do say so yourself. Though Aisha almost died of laughter spectating the development process: It took a fair few tries to make it more Godfather, less Donald Duck.

Anyway, it makes for an excellent contrast with Aisha's shouting. Your captive audience is straining to make out your words, their attention focused entirely on you.

"I am Poltergeist, these are my associates, Imp and Ghost." You gesture to Aisha and Sophia in turn. You're not even pretending that Ghost isn't Shadow Stalker: She's wearing exactly the same outfit she did as a hero, except that her mask, originally a dark gray, has been painted white.

You and Aisha are dressed much the same, all in black with white masks. Hers depicts a grinning devil, yours a screaming ghost. Aisha is carrying Shadow Stalker's spare crossbow, and they both have black duffel bags slung over their shoulders. Quite the matched set.

"I will be keeping you company here while they see to the technical details," you continue. "Please do not try anything funny. While I like to consider myself a reasonable person, my associates may take offense on my behalf, and I cannot be held responsible for their actions. Believe me, you do not want to make an enemy of Ghost. Not unless you hate consensual sex and love biohazardous waste."

There are a couple of gasps from the audience at this. One woman tries to to make a break for the doors. You gently restrain her with a mind-hand before she can start a trend.

Ghost, of course, does not try to deny anything you just said, but Imp pipes up. "Don't lump us together like that! I'm not a psycho like her!"

"Of course not," you agree, your voice not bereft of a certain amount of irony. "And no one has ever ended up unconscious and naked in a dumpster, lucky to be alive."

"I never- Oh. That." Her shoulders slump as she realizes what you're talking about. Admittedly you're being a bit unfair to her here: That's what she does to her friends. If a civilian hostage acted out you doubt she'd do more than follow them home, squat on their table and pee in their coffee.

"What the hell is wrong with you people?" the remaining security guard demands. What is it with these people and guts above their pay grade?

Imp is practically dancing with eagerness to answer that particular question, hopping from foot to foot in her excitement at being given a setup like that. "Oh. Oh! I know, can I tell him? Can I?"

You motion for her to go ahead. "Prenatal drug exposure!" she crows triumphantly, jabbing herself with a thumb. "So much drug exposure, you have no idea." You have to admit, the guard's reaction to this statement is pretty funny - but not nearly as funny as your realization that Imp looked up the word 'prenatal' specifically to present a more sophisticated image in case the 'what is wrong with you' question ever came up again.

"Daddy touched me," Ghost adds. "He touched me in so many ways." Oh god, the fond, wistful tone with which she drops that bombshell, you have no words. You should have named the gang 'the Comedy Club.'

Now everyone is turning towards you, friend and enemy alike, as if they expect you to somehow top this.

You shrug (letting the motion continue on through your mind-hands to set the guns bobbing in the air, just for effect). "I dunno. These crazy bitches are a bad influence, I guess."

"You're their leader!" the security guard shouts. That's what scandalizes him, not the child-rearing practices of the North American pavement ape?

"A good leader enacts the will of the people," you retort, and telekinetically punch him in the face. "Places, people," you add to your subordinates.

Ghost phases into shadow and leaps through the wall, heading straight for the vault. Aisha remains long enough to shoot out the cameras in the lobby - you made some solid steel bolts for just this purpose - before heading deeper into the building through more conventional means (ie, doors).

You lean back against a wall and meaningfully look back and forth across the room. No one seems inclined to give you trouble after that little exchange.

"C1, complete," comes Aisha's voice through your earbud a while later. "You missed a spot," she adds. "Behind you, to the left."

"B1, complete," she confirms a few seconds later.

You hum a little tune - it amuses you how it sounds with your broken voice.

"C2, complete."

You idly juggle the guns you took from the security guards between your mind-hands.

Fenrir shows up (to you alone - he's still immaterial) and gives you a nod: The cops have set up a barricade outside, as expected. He taps his paw against the ground three times: Three capes are there with them. You nod back calmly. If they were going to charge into a building full of hostages, they'd have done so already. Everything is proceeding according to plan. Fenrir walks back out through the wall, heading for his next assignment.

You grab a couple of pens from a nearby desk and add them to your juggling routine.

"C3, complete," Aisha reports.

"Play it safe, wrap it up," you order in response. Then you wait.

"B3, complete," Ghost reports, and you let out a breath. B3 was the only part of the plan you would consider 'risky', even if Ghost is strictly speaking expendable.

You straighten up and walk over to the security guards. Both of them have more or less recovered from your earlier altercations, and tense up as you approach. "You're free to go," you tell them. "Please make sure that no one is trampled on the way out."

You turn away before they can properly process this, and follow Aisha's steps into the back of the building. She's waiting for you in the expected place. A power drill is lying atop the bag she was carrying, and she's just finished cleaning up the dust on the floor as you arrive.

You get down on your hands and knees and peer through the hole she drilled, into the alley beyond. This close to the floor it will be pretty hard to spot, especially once she sticks a piece of tape over it. Inelegant to leave any evidence behind at all, but needs must. Once it turned out you couldn't actually walk through walls, nor maintain the shadow state long enough to sneak through ductwork, you had to add step C3: A tiny hole to escape the building through.

"Good work," you tell her.

Aisha hands you a note. Fenrir sticks his head through the wall and gives you a nod. The alley is clear. You turn into shadow and pass through the hole. You remain in the alley only long enough to spot the hole in the building opposite (drilled last night). You turn into shadow once more and reappear inside a disused storage room.

"A2, complete," you report, mostly for form's sake.

Now that's how you rob a bank.

(You're holding a note that says 'C4 complete', which... is a bit disconcerting. What specifically needed to be done with plastic explosives? But you trust the notes, so you resolve not to worry about it.)

While the labelled parts of the plan are all done, there are a few lingering details to take care of. You start by changing into civilian features, and an outfit closely resembling that of a city maintenance worker, and make your way into the storm drains. Specifically, the section that happens to pass right underneath the vault of a certain bank. Along the way you retrieve and roll up the antenna and signal repeater (also put in place last night) that let Ghost communicate from down here.

Alec and Ghost are waiting for you next to a trolley stacked high with bags. Alec is dressed up as a maintenance worker too, though you feel it's not all that convincing - he's way too pretty to be working in the drains. Still, he had to be down here so that she/they could calibrate how much to phase the bags being tossed down here.

"We lost three bags," Ghost says. Meaning she misjudged the phasing and/or the throw, and they ended up stuck in the ground somewhere.

"Within expected parameters," you say. "Good work." As long as B3 - Sophia's escape - was successful, you'd have accepted considerably heavier financial losses. Having her die fused into the earth was a risk you were willing to take, but it wouldn't have made you happy. You're nowhere near done with her.

Ghost takes off, and you and Alec start pushing the trolley down the tunnel. They'll probably figure out how you emptied the vault pretty quickly - but not quickly enough. You've parked your truck a suitable distance away, where a pair of inconspicuous maintenance workers can load it up with nondescript bags.

Aegis-o-vision

"Guess we found out what Shadow Stalker was planning to do next," Clockblocker remarks as he enters the room. He's already heard the news. I nod, waiting to speak until the rest of the (remaining) Wards have filed in.

"So," I say. "There was a robbery at the AmBank branch office earlier today. Three parahumans. We've been asked to look over the security footage, for reasons that will become obvious."

I bring up the black-and-white footage on the main screen. Three villains walk into a bank.

"Is that Shadow Stalker?" Kid Win asks.

"Yes. Keep watching."

The original security footage had no sound, but several hostages had partial footage of the event on their phones, and that audio has been spliced in, and subtitles added.

"Ghost, huh?" Clockblocker remarks. I shush him.

When Poltergeist explains why you shouldn't piss off Ghost, I have to pause the video. "One at a time, please. Gallant?"

"Her voice was hard to make out, Gallant says. "Is that subtitle really accurate?"

"The eyewitnesses were unanimous, I'm told. It left a bit of an impression. Kid Win?"

"What did she do?"

"We don't know. No victim has come forward. It could just be an intimidation tactic from Poltergeist."

"An oddly specific one," Clockblocker says.

"I bet she did it while she was still a Ward," Vista says glumly.

I start the footage rolling again, only to have to pause it once more a little later.

"Did he?" Vista asks.

"Again, we don't know. Shadow Stalker never made any accusations. Her parents are separated, but to my knowledge she never spoke about why."

The rest of the viewing session passes without incident. The security footage cuts out as Imp shoots the cameras, making way for poorly angled cellphone footage of Poltergeist standing around doing nothing for a while before leaving.

"That's it?" Vista asks.

"They got away clean," I say. "Despite the police - along with Assault, Battery, and Triumph - setting up a perimeter outside. The vault was mostly - but not completely - cleaned out, and we have no idea of their movements after the cameras were taken offline. The hostages were all unharmed except for the two you saw Poltergeist attack, who got away with light injuries."

I take a deep breath before I continue.

"Okay. This was mostly to inform you of Shadow Stalker's new career, and the company she's keeping. If you encounter her again, she's to be treated like any other villain. You all know her ratings, and the way she fights. Be aware that she will likely start using lethal ammunition again, like she did when she was a vigilante."

"She sure wasn't tranquilizing the cameras," Clockblocker says.

I nod. "Now, let's do this by the book. Power evaluation. Poltergeist first." I set the screen to loop the footage of her. "Any thoughts on her telekinesis?"

"It's not telekinesis," Vista says. "See the way the guns leave ripples in space as they move?"

I peer closely at the grainy footage. "No?" A look around the room meets with shrugs.

"Ignore the light connecting them to her. Look, there, behind them. They leave a trail."

It takes a while of rewinding, zooming and slowing down the footage as Vista gets increasingly annoyed, but eventually everyone is able to agree that there's some sort of rippling effect there.

"See? She's not applying force, she's warping space."

"Okay. Could you counter her power?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. Levitating an object like that, moving it at that speed... That takes a stronger, more - more curved warp than anything I can do. I could probably mess with her fine control, though."

"How fine is her control?" I ask.

"Not sure. Did she damage the holsters when she took the guns?"

"I'll ask. Good thinking, Vista."

"She was confident enough in her control to juggle loaded weapons for fun," Gallant says.

"She might just be nuts," Clockblocker points out. "Anyway, what about the punches? Moving objects about, okay, but how do you punch someone with space?"

"I... don't know," Vista admits. Her fingers twitch and space ripples around her as she tries something. "Maybe... no. Or? but the Manton limit..."

"Let's table it until we see what the medical report says," I decide. "Now, what about Imp?" I queue up what little footage there is of Imp.

"I don't know what you want us to say, boss," Clockblocker says. "It's just her shooting out cameras over and over again. Anyone can do that."

"Not a combat Thinker, from the way she keeps missing," Vista says.

"The names," Gallant says. "A poltergeist throws things around. A ghost-" he pronounces the word with distaste "-walks through walls. An imp does what? Flies? Tricks people? Throws fire?"

"A Tinker," Kid Win says, speaking up for the first time. "Process of elimination."

"How's that?" I ask.

"Imp went to the security room, right?"

"Yes." I fiddle with the controls a bit and find the relevant footage. Imp in the security room, aiming her crossbow at the camera.

"Bring up the footage from the vault," Kid Win says.

I do so. "See," Kid Win says, "she shoots out two of the cameras in the vault right away, then stands around for a while before turning around and taking out the last one."

"Okay?"

"She was waiting for Imp to get to the security room - check the timestamps, they match up. Imp gets there, looks at the monitors, and tells Shadow- tells Ghost that there's still one camera left."

"How does that make Imp a Tinker?" Clockblocker asks.

"Sha- Ghost was inside the vault. A regular radio signal couldn't have gotten through to her. They have tinkertech comms."

"Could be from Toybox," Gallant says.

"A new team like that?" Kid Win objects. "Where would they get the money? ...I mean, before robbing a bank."

"The PRT database was likely worth a fair amount," I point out grimly. "Then again, we suspect there was someone bigger backing her on that - they may only have paid a commission, not a percentage."

"The crossbows!" Clockblocker exclaims. "She was always bitching about her crossbows breaking down."

Kid Win nods. "They're tinkertech. If they're still using the crossbows a month from now, they have a Tinker."

PH-O-vision, the next day

► ReadyRoom

Replied on May 5, 2011:

Bitten by who, though?

► Imp (Unverified Cape)

Replied on May 5, 2011:

It's an acronym. See if you can figure it out.

► long_distance_chef

Replied on May 5, 2011:

Bitches In This Team Escape Neatly?

Notes:

Mechanics corner

Under ideal circumstances you probably could use Bloodless Murk Evasion to escape through ductwork - but it lets you move a maximum distance of (temporary Willpower points remaining) yards in shadow form, and Taylor has been spending a lot of Willpower on 'appear fine' lately.

Chapter 68: L.45

Chapter Text

Aisha is waiting for you back the lair. She's jumping from foot to foot with anticipation, but stills when she see that you're empty-handed.

"I thought we were going to split the loot?" she says.

"Do you have any idea what security measures they have in place to keep you from just stealing money out of a bank vault and spending it willy-nilly?" you ask.

"Well..." She frowns. "Not really?"

"Me neither. Which is why I hired professionals to handle the laundering process."

"Oh." She nods to show that she understands, but still looks crestfallen.

"I get it," you say. "In the movie currently playing out in your head - titled 'Aisha becomes a respected and feared villain' - the loot-splitting scene is really cool, with laughter and wisecracks and money scattered all over the table."

From the look on her face you were dead on the money with your guess, but she hadn't actually put it into words until you did.

Alec chuckles and shakes his head. "Fucking Thinkers, eh?" he says.

"Look," you say, "I'll call them and ask them to send over a bunch of cash instead of just putting everything in a bank account for you. Come back here tomorrow after school and we'll do it properly."

"Fine," Aisha mutters, slightly happier at being indulged than upset at being condescended to.

Objectively speaking paying Number Man's fees for overnight cash delivery is a giant waste of money, but employee morale is important when you only have soft Master powers. It's not as if you're in this for the money anyway. Once the Number Man comes through you'll have more money than you could possibly need for day-to-day matters, while still being well short of the amounts needed for large-scale orichalcum production. The marginal value of a few grand here or there is basically zero.

Lisa sends you a message the next day while you're at school. Not, as you had expected, congratulations or chastisement for becoming a better villain than her on your first try (not your intention at all, but as far as you know the Undersiders still haven't robbed any banks). It just says 'watch chnl 4 2nite'. Did she take your success so personally she's going to one-up you tonight?

You'll find out soon enough, so you just shrug and go about your day - still trying to stalk Glory Girl without her boyfriend catching you. Your study of her is about halfway done, you think. You don't even remember how long you've been doing this now, but the way you've been snatching glimpses one lunch break at a time makes Rune seem quick and easy. Looking at the calendar, you might not actually finish before she graduates. But what else are you supposed to do at school?

Number Man (or rather, some minion of his) delivered the cash to a storage locker at Brockton Central Station, and texted you the combination. It's barely a detour to pick it up on your way to the lair, but your own minions are all there waiting for you anyway. Well, Aisha is younger than you, her school probably lets out earlier. And neither of Ghost goes to school in the first place.

"'Sup goys," you greet them as you throw the money on the table.

"'Sup, what?" Aisha asks.

Oops. "'Goys,'" you repeat calmly, not letting any hint of consternation show on your face or in your voice. "From the Hebrew 'goyim', 'gentiles'."

"Did you just accidentally drop nazi slang on your black friend?"

"Since when are we-" Your response is reflexive, but trails off when your brain processes what your mouth is saying. "Huh. Since when are we friends?"

"Beats me," Aisha says cheerfully. "Guess I grow on people."

"Like a fungus," you agree. "Still works as a greeting, doesn't it? I'm assuming you're not a Black Israelite."

"Would you gas me if I said I was?"

You snort. "Nazis fucking love Black Israelites. They're hilarious, and piss off real jews something fierce."

"Heh. Bet they hate BITN, though."

"Not really? We hold no territory and no ideology, and we haven't attacked them, so why would they care? Can't even use us to make a statement about black crime, because all capes are psychos regardless of race. Anyway," you gesture at the bag you dropped on the table, still unopened, "did you maybe want some money?"

You have to admit, Aisha's loot-splitting scene is enjoyable. There's something inherently satisfying about shoving big stacks of cash around, in no way diminished by the way you also give each member a shiny new debit card containing several times that amount. Aisha also insisted that each of you place your mask on the table next to your loot pile. You indulged her, amused at how seriously she took a photo op occurring entirely inside her own head.

She is not entirely content, though. She glances from her pile of loot, to Ghost's slightly larger pile, to your significantly larger pile.

"What gives?" she demands.

"I get a double share, because-" you start ticking points off on your fingers "- one, I'm the boss. Two, I came up with the plan. Three, I paid for everything out of pocket - including the lair you're chilling in and the costume you're wearing." It's cute that she changed into her costume for this.

"Okay, okay." She holds up her hands in some combination of surrender and 'please stop talking'. "But-"

"Ghost gets a bit extra since she's eating for two," you say, not quite able to keep a smile from your lips.

Aisha stares wide-eyed at Sophia. "She's preggers?" Alec also glances between her and you, one eyebrow raised in question.

You burst out laughing. "No, silly. Ghost is literally one mind in two bodies. Duh."

"You set me up for that," Aisha grumbles.

"You can't prove anything."

She grimaces, but leans back and starts playing with a wad of bills. "Fine, you got me. What's next, boss?"

"Next? Do you owe money to the mafia? Are they going to break your legs if you don't pay them back next week?"

"No..?"

"Then what's next is kicking back and relaxing, and enjoying being rich. I know you like being a villain, but if villainy is full-time job you're doing it wrong."

"Isn't he-" Aisha gestures at Alec, who holds up his hands in protest.

"I get paid a retainer to be on call for villainy," he says. "Most days I don't do shit."

"Okay, I get it. I dunno, I sort of expected..."

"Taylor's clever plan to get us nemeses, like all proper villains should have?" you suggest.

Aisha pouts in your direction. "Do you have to be a Thinker all the time?"

"They really do", Alec says. As Tattletale's teammate, he'd know.

"I mean, yeah, I kind of wanted a nemesis to fuck with. It's not fair, I bet you both already have one."

Do you? You hadn't considered it in those terms before, but to ask the question is to answer it. You do have a nemesis. Fucking Gallant. "I do," you confirm.

"Not me," Alec says. "I guess Shadow Stalker was the collective Undersiders nemesis ever since she almost killed Grue, but-"

"She what?" Aisha demands. She holds out a hand in your direction, but her eyes are fixed on Sophia. "Knife."

You lean across the table and materialize your knife so that it falls into her hand, while Alec rolls his eyes. "I'm not happy with how he bled all over my couch either, but could you hold off until I'm not inside her?"

"No," Aisha says firmly.

"Villainy is more of a feminine role anyway," you say, phrasing it that way specifically to see if it annoys Alec. It doesn't, at least not above his baseline annoyance at Aisha carving patterns into Sophia. "You can take steps to appear more thwartable, but ultimately it's up to the heroes to make the first move and suggestively foil your plans. In the nemesis marketplace you're the pursued, not the pursuer."

Aisha makes a vaguely affirmative grunt, her attention focused elsewhere. "The two of us could have a movie night at the lair if you want," you suggest.

That gets her attention. " What about-" She gestures towards Alec.

"Alec will be busy tonight."

Alec groans his 'fucking Thinkers' groan. It's funny how once you have a reputation as a smug Thinker, people assume all your knowledge is supernatural in origin.

"You go-" You hesitate. Aisha is the minion, but between the two of you, you're the one currently dressed in civvies. "I'll go buy snacks, you put Ghost to bed."

"What the fuck?" you demand. Channel 4 is broadcasting live from a charity event celebrating the defeat of the ABB. It's not that you're opposed to charity, or unhappy about the city no longer blowing up. It's that the event is chock full of heroes, who are taking credit for it. The fucking gall of these people.

"Yeah," Aisha says. "They should at least acknowledge who killed Bakuda." She pauses for effect. "Bakuda herself! Maybe a statue... Oh wait, she's already a statue!"

"And who made that happen?" you grumble.

"Uber?" Aisha suggests innocently, before dodging thrown popcorn. It's not that you told her what happened - Uber&Leet's final stream is by far their most viewed, with copies archived all over the internet. Everyone knows what happened. Which just makes the heroes trying to claim credit even more annoying. Wow, you arrested everyone too stupid to stop wearing gang colors when all their parahuman muscle was gone, really impressive.

(if they'd arrested them slightly faster- no, don't think about it)

You're not even sure Lisa is doing crime tonight, anymore. She might just have Thinker'd that you don't really watch TV anymore, and given you the heads up so you could get good and mad tonight. Possibly as a therapeutic measure. She-

Belay that. Three monster dogs just crashed through the ceiling, sending glass shards raining down on the cream of Brockton Bay's society. Riding them are, of course, Tattletale, Grue, Regent and Hellhound. As well as... huh. You've heard capes in costume referred to as 'clowns' before, but that girl takes it literally. Parahuman mercenary Circus, you presume.

That's all you see before darkness explodes out from Grue, covering the entire room - or at least the camera.

"You knew that was going to happen," Aisha accuses.

"Sort of." You shake your head in amazement. Yes, the amount of jewelry present in that room would no doubt make for a decent payday. But also present is the entire goddamn Protectorate, and a fair chunk of the Wards - and you're pretty sure you spotted Victoria Dallon in the crowd. Good luck stealing her diamond necklace.

Any sane villain who knew about this event would rob literally any other place tonight, while the heroes are all busy schmoozing the 1%. But you have to admit, if they somehow pull this off Lisa will have handily topped you in the villain game.

The black screen cuts to a harried-looking news anchor type person, who promises that they will report what is happening as soon as they find out themselves. In the meantime, a hastily assembled panel starts discussing the history of the Undersiders, and speculating as to why the previously sneaky team would suddenly throw themselves straight at the most retarded risk/reward ratio imaginable.

You'd like to know that yourself, but you're more likely to find out by asking Lisa tomorrow - assuming she doesn't get herself arrested.

"Another movie?" you suggest. Aisha shakes her head, her eyes glued to the screen. Okay, so she's more invested in this than you are. You lean back and eat some popcorn. How long can a cape fight last, anyway?

There is no further footage from the fight, but you are able to piece together what happened from interviews with eyewitnesses. To sum it up, no one ended up looking very good. The Undersiders (plus Circus) started out by selectively dispelling parts of the darkness in sequence to defeat the heroes in detail. This worked extremely well, right up until it didn't.

One slip was all it took, and Grue ended up in containment foam. But he responded by pumping out as much darkness as possible, covering the entire building and a fair bit of the surrounding neighborhood. It's not just darkness, either - it also suppresses sound and radio signals, and messes with people's sense of direction. It was almost an hour before the heroes managed to find and sedate him.

The whole time the rich elite of Brockton Bay was trapped in supernatural sensory deprivation, stumbling into walls and falling down stairs in their panic. And apparently Thinker beats Shaker, because the rest of the Undersiders managed to find their way outside and got away. But they barely got any loot, and lost one of their members. As you said, no one ended up looking good.

"We have to save him!" Aisha says.

"No we don't." You hold up a hand to forestall an argument. "Because the Undersiders are going to do that already. You can offer them your services if you want, but BITN plotting a separate jailbreak and getting in their way serves no one."

Chapter 69: L.46

Chapter Text

For the second day in a row, Lisa sends you a message during school hours. Your math teacher is unamused, but you're not going to ignore something your Thinker friend thinks you need to know. Her message consists of two words, and a link:

GET OUT /fRjQpf

You click the link, of course, but you're on your feet and grabbing your bag before it even loads. "Sorry, it's an emergency," you tell the teacher as you hurriedly walk towards the door. 'Get out' doesn't leave much to the imagination.

The link loads to a page titled 'Empire 88 unmasked'. Well, shit.

The scroll bar keeps shrinking as you watch, so there must be all sorts of pictorial evidence loading in to back up their claims. But you only need to look at the hyperlinks at the top to confirm your fears, because one of them reads 'Low Key - Taylor Anne Hebert - 06/11/1995'. You break into a run.

Suddenly plotting your way into the school full of Wards and New Wave seems like a less than brilliant idea. Yes, going after capes in their civilian identities is supposed to be a big no-no, but these are heroes you're dealing with. No sense of right and wrong.

Case in point: You've barely cleared the doors of the math building when you run straight into Kid Win. Such collisions are a lot more amusing for cartoons than for real people, because real people clonk their heads together and bite their tongues and scrape themselves on the concrete when they fall over. The sensation is unpleasant even when your Brute rating prevents bleeding.

You both roll/scramble to your feet in short order, despite a certain disorientation. The good news is that sorcerer's sight shows him to be unarmed, and therefore completely useless in a fight. Well, he did invent the technique for storing weapons Elsewhere that you've made such good use of, but the way he isn't pulling a gun from nowhere and shooting you indicates that he isn't armed in that way either. He must have been headed for his locker to remedy that.

What was his name, though? Richard? No. "Chris, wasn't it?" you say, and he nods. "Wanna pretend neither of us know why the other is in such a hurry?"

He just nods again, sensibly not trying to engage the Master-sub-rating-Brute 4 in hand-to-hand.

"Cool," you say. "Come forth!" Fenrir materializes in front of you. It's not as if you have anything to hide at this point, and you need to get out before the non-Tinker Wards show up. And since it's Friday, you're not even leaking information by summoning him more often than you 'ought' to.

"How did you know?" Kid Win asks as you mount up, still making no move to stop you. He doesn't specify what you know, on the off chance you don't and are guessing wrong.

"Maybe don't doodle such detailed laser guns during English class," you suggest.

"Oh." His shoulders slump on learning that you know everything.

"See you around, kid." You kick Fenrir into a gallop.

"Stop!" someone cries. You look back to see Gallant running up, masked but otherwise dressed in school clothes. He gestures towards you, and you duck down and cling on tight. As a result you're not thrown off your mount by the blast, though it sends Fenrir stumbling sideways a few steps.

You're around the corner before he can fire again, and you shake your head in resignation. So much for unwritten rules, eh? Just assume the worst, and you'll be proven right every time. Wait, why aren't you angrier about that? That fucker must have blasted you with apathy in an attempt to get you to turn yourself in, and it's not pissing you off nearly as much as it should!

A few blocks later, your Empire phone rings.

"Way ahead of you," you answer it.

"Your identity has been- oh. Don't go to a safehouse."

Because who knows if they have been compromised as well, you mentally fill in. "Got it."

"We'll get back to you," he says curtly, and hangs up on you. You don't take offense. You imagine they are quite busy at the moment.

You appreciate the warning, even if their timing could use some work. If Lisa hadn't been on the ball... but no, you shouldn't be too hard on them. You doubt any other Empire cape was in half as precarious a position as you, because what sane villain would go to Arcadia?

Come to think of it, this cloud may have some silver lining. You never forget a soul price, and one in particular springs to mind here.

Kaiser wants his son to become a worthy heir.

At least now you can find out who his son is. You switch phones, moving carefully so as not to drop anything (at no point did Fenrir stop running). The page is still loaded, and Kaiser, unsurprisingly, is at the very top of the list.

Max Anders. CEO of Medhall. Ex-husband of Heith Anders and Kayden Anders (Purity), father of - god fucking damn it! - Theodore and Aster Anders.

You scroll back up in disgust, and click on the link to your own entry next. It's fairly short, and the evidence isn't what you'd call ironclad - but it doesn't need to be, given the company it keeps. It compares the dates Taylor definitely wasn't at school with the dates Low Key probably wasn't on patrol. There are also pictures of you in and out of costume. You agree with the arrows saying 'same hair', but find the ones saying 'padded costume' quite rude.

PH-O-vision

► long_distance_chef

Replied on May 6, 2011:

Midna's tits were fake? :(((((((

► Answer42

Replied on May 6, 2011:

long_distance_chef

My world is ashes.

There are no hints whatsoever of you being a shapeshifting Trump, which is the important part.

It looks like you've gotten away clean, with no heroes pursuing you from school. Since you are a shapeshifting Trump could just find a secluded spot, turn into someone else and go about your business. But that would require dismissing Fenrir. And while Low Key's weaknesses are grossly exaggerated, it's true that if Fenrir dematerialized right now, he wouldn't be able to rematerialize for several hours. And you have a feeling that Ops will want you in the field before too long. You need somewhere inconspicuous to park a wolf for a bit. Which is why you're headed for Empire territory. If they want you combat ready, they can find you a parking spot.

Someone else is calling you. You answer it- no, that was Quicksilver's phone you grabbed. You grope around in your bag until you find Poltergeist's phone, which is the one that's actually ringing.

"I didn't do it!" Aisha blurts out before you can say anything.

"I know." You don't actually know that - but you'll be able to tell instantly the next time you see her in person, from the state of her Loyalty. Until then, you've either demonstrated trust towards a loyal minion, or lulled a traitor into a false sense of security. You believe her, for what it's worth - you'd be extremely surprised if it turned out she betrayed you.

"Good, that's good. Uh, I'm still at school, but if you need anything..."

Well, if the Empire safehouses are compromised... Next follows an interlude that would have been less comical if you'd thrown caution to the wind and given Aisha a second boop of smarts yesterday - or at least worked out a code beforehand. Because there are certain keywords that must never be said over the phone. But eventually you're able to explain to her that she should be careful about going home, because you might have company over. And that she's still expected to water the plants, but that she should do so quietly. And that she should tell your mutual friend to stay away entirely for the time being, as he doesn't have her talent for being quiet.

As soon as this is over you're going to invest in redundant lairs, so this doesn't happen again.

Once you enter Empire territory, you start to encounter a lot of mortals with openly carried firearms and masked faces. Ah, of course. You've been living in a spy thriller for too long, that you were thinking 'inconspicuous'. The Empire is undeniably under attack. Why would they wait quietly for the other shoe to drop, when they could be mobilizing? This is a war movie now.

They're just standing around and talking to each other, not marching anywhere. Guarding things, you suppose. For now. Several of them greet and/or cheer you as you ride by. There's a certain tension in the air, but no fear. And why would there be, when the Empire outnumbers and outguns any other faction in the city?

Well, you come across one guy who's pretty worried, because he's the only guy on his street who showed up. You decide to take pity on him, and guide Fenrir up next to him before dismounting.

"Low Key," he greets you with a slight bow, trying to hide his nerves. "Are you, ah, here to help?"

"Something like that. I need to run an errand first." You turn to Fenrir. "Guard. Bite anyone who doesn't belong."

The lone soldier perks up at hearing that. "If you need to hide your face..." He offers you his scarf and hat, but you turn him down.

"Got that covered," you say, patting your bag. Then you find a secluded spot, turn into someone else and get on a bus like nothing happened.

You stop by your lair only long enough to drop off your school bag and pick up your Low Key costume - your identity is forfeit, but that was an awful lot of guns back there, and your costume is bulletproof. You also make sure the secret door to Ghost's room is properly shut, in case you need to share your uncompromised safehouse with imperial capes. They'd be the least likely to judge you for imprisoning and torturing Shadow Stalker, but you'd prefer to avoid the questions it would raise.

When you get back you discover that Nervous Guy has gotten reinforcements, that the rank and file quite like wolves, and that Fenrir considers belly rubs and snacks to be entirely compatible with guard duty.

"Quite the party you got going without me," you say dryly.

"We just, uh-" You wave away the stammered apologies, and join in on the belly rub action (giving, not receiving!).

It's been quite a while since the news broke, and you expect to hear from Ops at any time. But it's Lisa who calls you first. On your empire phone, which is all kinds of suggestive. How did she get that number? How did she know to warn you so quickly? Just who compiled that information?

"Taylor! I need-"

"Did you fuck me?" you ask softly.

"-your help. What?"

"Did you fuck me?" She's a Thinker, she'll figure it out.

"...it's complicated."

"Doesn't sound complicated to me, friend. Did you fuck me, yes or no? Here's a hint: How many people knew my identity, who were not loyal to me?"

"It's complicated, but the answer is functionally identical to no. Okay?" Or, translated from Traitor Bitch into English, 'yes, but I want to talk my way out of it.' "Seriously, I'm going to fucking die unless you help me out."

"I'm sure the many people who you did not fuck over just now would be sorry to hear that."

"This isn't funny, Taylor!"

"Do I sound amused?"

"Purity is trying to kill me!" Oh, that's what's causing the rumbling sounds in the background. Collapsing buildings. "She thinks I did this-"

"Because you did."

"Shut up! They took her children!"

That little bombshell completely blows away your calm, friendly persona. "Who did what?"

"Joint PRT/CPS taskforce, almost as soon as the news hit."

"That's-"

"Illegal and against the unwritten rules? Since when has that stopped anyone?"

Ah. Of course. Just hero things. You find your calm reasserting itself. "Not seeing how that makes it my problem, friend."

There's an unusually loud rumble in the background, and Lisa completely loses her cool. "Here's a hint, you dumb bitch! Would she sell her soul to get them back!?"

Oh. Oooh. Yes. "You know where they took them?"

"I could find out, if she'd stop trying to kill me for five minutes!"

"On it."

You end the call, dial Ops. They are a bit slow to pick up. Gee, you wonder why.

"You said you were safe," is how they greet you. Implication: Why the fuck are you jogging our elbow?

"I need to talk to Purity."

"You and everyone else! She's not picking up."

"Who's with her? Have them take a message."

"Look-"

"I know where her kids are."

"Fuck! Stay on the line!"

"Where is Aster?" Purity demands as soon as she catches sight of you. Heh, ouch. No one loves Theo. But you get no feeling of recognition from her, no 'I'm standing next to someone whose soul price I know', which means that her soul price has changed just as Lisa suggested it would have.

"One hundred and twenty," you reply.

"Do I look like an imposter?" the glowing silhouette demands of the wolf rider.

Not really, no. But you need to extract the soul price before granting it, and it takes at least some conversation to do that. Exchanging passcodes will do. "Protocol is protocol, lady."

She growls at you at that, and is sufficiently worked up that it takes her a while to calculate the countersign. "One hundred and one. Where is she?"

"Lose the glow and hop on," you say. "They'd see you coming a mile away."

Purity wants to save her kids.

Aw, look at that. Kids, plural. At least her soul cares, a little.

You park Fenrir outside a nondescript apartment building, indistinguishable from any other on the block. PRT safehouse, according to Lisa.

"Third floor, apartment 17," you say. Purity rekindles her glow and blasts the door open. With the ability to fly, she pulls ahead of you on the stairs. You reach the third floor just in time to see her blast her way through the door of apartment 17. There's a shout of alarm from inside, interrupted by a flash of light and a loud crash. Arriving at the door, you spot Theo on the floor, Aster on the couch, a hole in the wall, Purity hovering in the middle of the room, and a PRT agent stumbling backwards. Then Purity fires a beam at the PRT agent. The world turns white.

When your vision returns, the PRT agent is gone, and there's a hole in the wall behind where he stood. And in the wall behind that. And the wall behind that, and the exterior wall of the building. And the wall of the building across the street. Yeah, he's super dead. The hole in the wall(s) on the other side of the room presumably indicates a colleague who met the same fate. You find that you don't have all that much sympathy for people who helped kidnap a toddler.

Purity has stopped glowing, and is cradling a crying Aster in her arms. You watch the Loyalty bloom. Then Fenrir starts howling outside, clearly audible through the holes in the wall.

"It's a trap!" you shout. There's a thump, and the howling takes on a distinctly muffled character. Foam grenade.

Purity is looking between you and Theo, indecision on her face. "I can't carry all three of you," she says.

Yeah, no, you're not losing her brand new Loyalty by leaving the loser behind. "Take the kids and go. I'll distract them." You step up close to her and hand her your ring of keys.

"Empire safehouses might be compromised," you whisper in her ear. You point to one of the keys. "I have a private one at 67 Marten street. Don't touch my books."

She nods, and starts glowing again. With Aster in her arms and Theo clinging to her back, she makes for the nearest hole in the wall. Unfortunately Dauntless shows up outside said hole before she can leave, spear and shield at the ready. He hesistates to attack, though. What, he's fine with kidnapping little babies, but not quite ready to stab/electrocute them? Purity, taking advantage of his hesitation, manages to get an arm free to blast him. The world goes white again.

"Other way!" you shout, running past her before your vision even clears. But sorcerer's sight does not rely on your retinas being functional, and you can still make out both capes perfectly fine, if not the walls or floor. Dauntless managed to absorb the blast without moving an inch, though it did knock his shield out of commission. It's recharging quickly, but not quickly enough.

"Fuck youuuuuu!" you shout as you launch yourself at him. Encumbered as she is, Purity would have no chance of outrunning him without you evening the odds. And you're not losing that Loyalty. You cling on tightly with one arm - falling three stories without a wolf to catch you would suck - and repeatedly stab him with the other.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" you swear with each thrust, but your entirely non-magical knife does not penetrate his mildly magical armor. No, you don't use your extremely magical knife, which would cut through his armor like tissue paper. See above re: falling three stories. Right now you just need to encumber and distract him.

Just as planned, your weight and violent stabbing motions seem to mess with his flying boots, as he's listing to one side and wobbling in the air. You start kicking at his legs to further aggravate the issue. If you could force him to land, or at least lose altitude...

"Dammit. Stop that, kid. It won't work." You ignore him and keep stabbing ineffectually. You're being a distraction. He sighs, then grabs you with his shield hand and brings his spear around to tap you on the shoulder. Lightning courses through your body, causing you to spasm and drop your knife. His armor protects him completely, the bastard.

Well, that sucks. If he can just keep tasing you without tasing himself- wait. There, on his belt. A tinkertech glow, distinct from his self-empowered equipment. Is that- yes! Not expecting you to recover so quickly, he does not react in time to prevent you from grabbing the grey cylinder, twisting it to arm it, and shoving it in his face.

"Shit," Dauntless says. Then the foam grenade explodes, engulfing you both. The foam must interfere with his flying boots somehow, because you proceed to drop the aforementioned three stories. But the landing is soft. What was it you said about containment foam? '10/10, would be encased in while falling out of the sky again?' Looks like you got your wish.

"Begone," you mumble through the foam. The muffled howling finally cuts out. You relax and wait to be formally arrested. Once it was revealed to be a trap you pretty much knew it would end up like this, and considered it a better outcome than revealing your true nature.

But if Purity didn't make it away after all that, you're going to ruin everyone's day.

Danny-o-vision

Oh. Everything makes sense now. That's what she's been doing at night.

Glory-Girl-o-vision

Oh. Everything makes sense now. That's why she's so deep in the closet.

Browbeat-o-vision

Oh.

Wait, no. Things make less sense now.

Chapter 70: L.47

Chapter Text

Rather than dissolve the foam and arrest you on the spot, they detach the whole lump from the ground and load it into a van. You suppose you should be flattered that they consider you so dangerous, but mostly you're happy that you're not prone to motion sickness. You can breathe just fine through regular containment foam, but you wouldn't want to experiment with a puke-suffused variant.

From the way the traffic noise drops off long before you stop, you conclude that they're taking you across the forcefield bridge to the Rig. Looks like you get to see the less touristy parts this time around. When everything comes to a stop and they finally do dissolve the foam, you find yourself alone in a tiny room.

"Please undress completely," a voice says from a speaker near the ceiling. Right. Of course they're going to steal all your stuff. With any luck, remaking your stupid complicated chestpiece will be the largest time loss resulting from this bullshit. No, what are you thinking, you're rich now. You can pay some chump to do it for you.

Once you're naked there's a mandatory shower, followed by a brief but unpleasant interlude featuring a female PRT officer and two sets of disposable latex gloves. Satisfied that you're free of contraband, they give you ill-fitting underwear and a festive orange jumpsuit (and socks, but no shoes) before they go on to draw blood and take fingerprints.

They say no plan survives contact with the enemy. You were planning on breaking out pretty much immediately, but then they stuck you in an interrogation room with Miss Militia. Miss Militia, whose power is always active.

Never let it be said that you cannot improvise.

Miss-Militia-o-vision

"You're telling me that no further arrests have been made?" Director Piggot is saying from the teleconference screen. She does not look happy - she never looks happy, but even less so since being shot by Shadow Stalker. Scuttlebutt has it that the Chief Director herself called the hospital and forced her to accept Panacea's healing so she could get back on duty to handle the current crisis.

"They do outnumber us," Colin points out. "And the leaks did not affect their morale as much as we hoped. If anything, the Aster Anders affair has left them more determined than before. We're taking casualties in almost every engagement, which seriously limits how hard we can push without committing Panacea to the field."

"That is not a risk I am willing to take, even if Brandish would consent to it - which she will not."

"As you say, director."

"Now, as for the Aster Anders affair, our faint silver lining. Miss Militia."

"Ma'am." I straighten up at her harsh tone.

"You spent all day with Low Key, when we very badly needed you out in the field. Report."

I lick my lips, considering how to put things. "Low Key - Taylor - is an emotional wreck," I say, trying to maintain an even tone. "She spent most of the time crying. When her father arrived, she hid her face and refused to speak with him at all."

"What of her mother?" Piggot asks.

"Dead, as of a few years ago. When-" I have to stop and swallow before I can continue. "When I tried to leave, she cried out 'don't leave me again, mom!'" My weapon appears in my hand, taking on the comfortable bulk of a high-caliber pistol as I think back to the despair with which she clung to my arm. But there is nothing to shoot, no tangible enemy. With an effort of will, I send it back to my hip.

"That's a good sign," Colin says calmly.

"What!?"

"Excuse me?"

He looks at us as if we're stupid, then gestures towards me. "That she is able to view someone of your ethnicity as a maternal figure indicates that she does not have strong ideological ties to the E88. It increases the odds of us recruiting her into the Wards - where, I'll remind you, she'll be expected to serve under Aegis."

"That is your recommendation, then?" Piggot asks.

"Yes. Anything we can do to mitigate the manpower disparity would be very welcome. And in her case it would be a two for one deal."

"I agree," I say firmly. "I want her in the Wards, if only to get her a psychologist."

"Hm. I'll send some Wards over after school tomorrow to assist in recruitment, then. According to her file Vista has had friendly contact with her before. Who else?"

"Apparently she and Clockblocker have a... friendly online rivalry?" I shrug. "I suspect I'm too old to understand the fine details, but that's what I've heard."

It was exhausting, but you're a tiny bit proud of your performance back there. Just a tiny bit. Cape brains or no, it's not as if 'childless woman in her thirties' is a hard target to hit. But god damn did you hit it masterfully or what? Good thing she has that going for her too, because her soul price is worthless.

Miss Militia wants to take in your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, and to share with them the same chance she was given.

Ah yes, America. Land of opportunity, nation of immigrants! When she wraps herself in the flag, it's not just literal. It's not that you don't get where's she's coming from - escaping whatever war-torn shithole spawned her clearly left a deep impression. But as your informal history lessons with the rank and file have made clear, the America she believes in is all madey-uppy.

The actual America was always very selective about who it let through those sea-washed, sunset gates... right up until the nineteen-sixties, when immigration reform was foisted upon an unwilling populace through base trickery (you are entirely prepared to believe the trickery part, given how racist everyone agrees the sixties to have been), by a cabal of nefarious jews seeking to enact white genocide (you're still somewhat dubious about that part).

But never mind all that, you have work to do. As soon you realized you were going to the Rig - before they even let you out of the foam - you instructed the nervously hovering Fenrir to scout the place out and provide you with maps.

He was only too happy to keep busy - seeing you crying your eyes out when he came back to report in partway through out made him very agitated, even though you reassured him that it was all an act ("I'm not crying, everything is fine, this isn't really happening" - Miss Militia took your words rather differently).

When they finally deposit you in a cell, he proudly drops an immaterial notebook full of floor plans on the bunk. The cell, you note with some amusement, was originally large enough to fit a monster wolf, but someone hastily welded up a bunch of steel bars haphazardly crisscrossing the space. More than anything, it looks like the world's least ergonomic jungle gym.

Have you mentioned how much you love tinkers, by the way? The camera in your cell is tinkertech - you don't know if every cell sports one of those, or if Armsmaster is giving you special treatment after what you did to his bike, but it certainly helps! It's well hidden by mortal standards (which is why you take care not to look at it directly) but sorcerer's sight lets you know its exact position, orientation and capabilities - and by extension just how to sit to hide a mind-hand paging through an invisible notebook.

Fenrir isn't exactly the best draughtsman (it's that lack of hands again), and the whole thing is damp with wolf slobber, but it's decipherable enough when he's not trying to copy down text. You don't judge, because you doubt you'd do much better if you had to hold the pen in your mouth. In addition to doors and windows and such, all tinkertech is also marked - but not labelled. Fenrir can spot tinkertech as easily as you can, but he doesn't have the technical chops to tell anything beyond 'magic item, yes or no'.

Not that there is very much tinkertech throughout the base - Tinker tech requires Tinker maintenance, and Armsmaster has better things to do than play janitor all day. You're able to plot out a prospective escape route that avoids almost all of it.

Since you have plenty of time (Miss Militia appears to have 2 kW worth of power, which means you'll need to stick around for another full day of 'interrogation') you send him off to find the immaterial cellphone holder you made way back when. He can photograph the entire route, and you'll review it again to make sure it's good.

The funny thing is, you'd be worse off if they'd just tossed you in the drunk tank at the local PD - and not just because of the privacy the single-occupancy cell affords you. See, regular jails are designed from the ground up to be secure - usually in a basement, with a single, guarded exit. Not so here. It's not even because the government secretly wants villains to escape, you don't think - they generally prefer for escape attempts to happen during transport between facilities, where collateral damage happens to other people's property.

It's just that this is an old oil rig that was converted into a headquarters as a big PR stunt, and whichever glamorously overpaid architect they hired for the job treated 'holding facilities go here' with the same nonchalance as 'conference rooms go here'. You're not really escaping from jail so much as you're escaping from an office building that happens to have cops working there.

To his credit, Armsmaster is clearly aware of the architectural shortcomings: The one piece of tinkertech you won't be able to avoid is hidden in the ceiling of the corridor outside - you spotted it when they put you in here. But as long as you know exactly where it is, and what it does...

With nothing else to do for the time being, you cry yourself to sleep. There is a camera in your room, after all.

There is, of course, one problem with copying Miss Militia's power while in custody: Her power isn't just the ability to be armed at all times, but also the necessity. The specific weapon may change (usually a small knife while she's with you, because she's trying to appear non-threatening, but her control isn't perfect), but she is never not armed. You don't mind picking up another permanent power, it's just that things are likely to get uncomfortably hectic if you were to suddenly pull a gun right now.

You did memorize a secondary escape route leading from this room, but you'd still like to avoid having to fight Miss Militia if at all possible. So you try your best to direct your hypothetical subconscious influence over the expression of copied powers towards less exciting results. It mostly involves hoping really hard, because you still don't really have any idea what you're doing or how. But if at all possible you'd like a less exact copy this time around, please and thank you.

When you feel her power slip into place you tense up and furiously repeat to yourself don't be armed, don't be armed, I don't want to be armed. It... works. No weapon appears in your hand. Or maybe nothing you did made any difference, you'd never have gotten an exact copy regardless, and you got worked up over nothing at all. You slump forwards and rest your head on the table. You'll figure out what it does later.

"Can I go home now?" you ask in a small voice.

Miss Militia looks stricken. "Taylor, you know you can't..."

"Can I go back to my cell?" you clarify. "I want to rest."

"I... I can take you back there, yes. But there are some people people coming soon who will want to talk to you. Do you think you'll be up for that?"

"Okay."

Miss-Militia-o-vision

"Another day spent consoling the little nazi?" Piggot asks. She's here in person this time, having arrived together with Vista and Clockblocker. The Wards are waiting outside while the three of us hold a quick sitrep meeting.

"I will do full shifts in the field again tonight to make up for it. It's not as if I need to sleep, and I did not want to leave her alone for too long."

"I read Vista's report on their interactions. She described her attitude as 'calm hiding simmering anger', and also mentioned her sense of humor. This is not how I expected her interrogation to go. Do we have any idea what's going on here?"

"Not really," I admit. "She's less... helplessly distraught than yesterday, but she still mostly refuses to talk."

"I do have an idea," Colin says. "Her bloodwork came back."

I do not like the look on his face. "Drugs?"

"No. Remember the case that was referred to us last week for possible parahuman involvement? The three dead bodies found in former ABB territory?"

"Oh no," I breathe.

"Her DNA is a match," he confirms grimly.

Piggot swears under her breath. "Looks like you were right to treat this one with kid gloves. What-"

She's interrupted by the intercom blaring to life. "Sir! Director! Low Key has escaped her cell! She's headed for the stairs!"

"Send a team to intercept." "Retract the bridge." "Secure the boats." "Force field to full power." For all that they have their occasional disputes over jurisdiction and procedure, when faced with a crisis Piggot and Armsmaster act in perfect lockstep, taking control of the situation without hesitation.

"How did she escape?" I ask.

With a gesture, Colin brings up a camera feed on the wall screen. It shows Low Key in her cell. She's standing with her her forehead resting against the door, her back to the camera. I glance at the corner to check the timestamp, but look back up at a sudden motion: The entire door falls out of its frame, landing in the corridor outside with a thud. Low Key stumbles and almost falls, but catches herself. She appears briefly startled when she looks up, but she doesn't immediately run off. After a moment, she nods.

"Thank you," she says. She shuffles sideways through the doorway, as if avoiding something that doesn't show up on the camera.

"Stranger protocols!" Piggot shouts. "Emily Piggot, passcode Umbra-7."

"Uh, Trooper Johnson, passcode Benedict-45," the voice from the intercom responds. Colin and I voice our passcodes in turn. Low Key has left by the time we finish, leaving the feed showing nothing but an empty cell. Was she unzipping her jumpsuit as she left? Why?

Another gesture from Colin, and the view switches to a camera outside the cell. A foam turret is deploying from the ceiling as Low Key runs down the corridor. It doesn't look like she's going to make it, but just as it's about to fire on her she dives forward, literally jumping out of her clothes. She scrambles away while the turret covers the bright orange jumpsuit in foam. I shake my head in grudging admiration, while Colin mutters something about targeting algorithms. She's past the turret and into the stairwell before it can reorient on her.

Meanwhile, the director has moved to the window. "I want eyeballs on all approaches. North quadrant, clear."

"There's nothing on the radar, ma'am," Johnson says.

"Eyeballs!" Piggot repeats. "We're dealing with a Stranger effect that defeated our cameras."

"Yes ma'am. Uh, eastern quadrant clear."

"Trooper Wilford, passcode Truncheon-22," another voice cuts in. "Low Key spotted in sector 7-C!"

"She's heading upstairs?" Colin asks.

"Lock down the helicopter!" Piggot snaps instantly. "Where are my eyeballs for south and west quadrants? Do we we have incoming?"

"Negative, ma'am. All quadrants clear."

"Where is the rest of the rescue?" Piggot wonders aloud. "Send a squad to protect the generator. The Stranger might- but then why not do that first..?"

"Releasing the prisoner could just be a distraction," Armsmaster says. "Whoever's left, secure the server room! I will not have another Shadow Stalker situation."

"Director..." I say hesitantly. "If it's not a rescue, she might be intending to jump."

Piggot swears again. "You! Get up there and try to talk her down. Armsmaster, take the Wards below and set something up to catch her. Vista should-"

"Ma'am!" Johnson's voice comes through the intercom. "The camera in Grue's cell just went down!"

"Go," Piggot says, shooing us towards the door. "I'll deal with this."

You regretfully trail a hand against the fuselage of the helicopter as you dash past it towards the edge of the roof. In a perfect world they would have been overconfident enough to leave the forcefield down. It doesn't matter, industry and forge wisdom whispers in your ear. The helicopter has remote shutdown functionality, which has been triggered. It's not going anywhere without three hours of maintenance. Or ten minutes should you break out the paper strips, but you have neither paper nor minutes right now.

But the question was never whether you could escape, only how many trump cards you would need to play to do so. It would have been nice if you could get away with only revealing yourself as the best fifteen year old helicopter pilot in town, but there's no use crying over spilt milk. You should still be able to keep this escape... plausibly low key.

Well, Low Key plus mysterious rescuer. You'll have to think up a cape name for the kind Stranger who disassembled your cell door. Fiddle, perhaps. As in 'played like a-'. The Master/Stranger protocols are there for good reasons, but the paranoid mindset leaves heroes susceptible to jumping towards certain conclusions when inexplicable things happen.

Or maybe that's harsh. 'The imprisoned Master is secretly also a Shaker who can disassemble objects with a touch' is pretty far-fetched. Credit where it's due, too. The lock may not have been tinkertech, but it couldn't have been cheap either. You have to completely understand something to unmake it, and it took you several tries to fit all the moving parts into your brain at once. But that only made your charade stronger, as you were genuinely startled when it finally ended up working.

Ultimately, they caught you too late. After months of continuous effort, you have finally leveraged your Trump ability into becoming a force to be reckoned with. And you're about to prove it to them... by leaving them thinking that you're a perfectly ordinary cape.

"Taylor!" Miss Militia comes sprinting onto the roof, but in this she is also too late. "Don't-" You leap off the edge before she can back the sentiment up with containment foam.

Fenrir launches himself after you and, without air resistance, quickly catches up and passes through you. He materializes between your legs, and you activate a power you've never used in public before, but is a perfect fit for Low Key: Sometimes wolves fly, and now would be an excellent time.

Vista-o-vision

"No!" Clockblocker shouts. "She can't do that! That's bullshit!"

"So that's why she wasn't worried about being abandoned on top of a building," I murmur to myself as I stare up at her. The spike of terror I felt on seeing her fall has given way to a kind of quiet awe. I really wish we could have been on the same team.

It's an odd form of flight. Fenrir's legs are moving as he pulls out of the dive, looking for all the world like he's running down an incline and onto level ground. Maybe he is, an invisible forcefield of some sort? All I can tell is that space is not being warped.

Maybe she's just showing off. If she wasn't showing off, wouldn't she have mounted up before jumping off the roof? She doesn't appear to have gained any speed from the maneuver, she's approaching the forcefield at - as best as I can judge it - Fenrir's normal running pace. How is she-

From one moment to the next, it's as if a second sun had appeared in the sky. As I move to shield my eyes there is a terrible screeching whine, followed the sound of explosions coming from within the Rig.

The light vanishes as quickly as it appeared. Blinking, I can just about make out Low Key past the the bright glowing blotches covering my field of vision. She's on the other side of the force field.

"Capacitor bank C offline," Armsmaster is saying. "Forcefield at 77%. Breach lasted 0.912 seconds."

"What was that?" I ask.

"Orichalcum," Armsmaster says. "I recognize the emission spectrum."

"None of those words mean anything to me," Clockblocker says, and I silently agree.

"A knife," Armsmaster says. "She cut through the forcefield with a tinkertech knife."

"Where would she get a knife?" I demand. "She was in jail!"

"I dunno, did you check her secret ninja compartment?" Clockblocker says.

"Her-" It takes me a moment to understand what he's saying. When I do, I make sure to punch him in the arm as hard as I can. "Ewwww. Clock, that's-"

"Yes," Armsmaster says in a voice entirely bereft of humor. "We did."

"Oh." I stare at the receding form of Low Key. "If you take down the forcefield I could still reach her with my power."

"We can't do that," Armsmaster says. "There are other infiltrators in the base."

Soon enough she leaves my range, but there is definitely something weird with her flight: It slows down drastically whenever she tries to gain altitude. But it never stalls out, either. It's as if she has two speeds, one for going straight and one for going up.

"Why is she bothering to go higher if it slows her down so much?" I muse.

"She is ensuring that shooting down the wolf will result in her falling to her death, thus tying our hands," Armsmaster says. "Typical villain trick. It will not serve her. Dauntless is currently engaged with Hookwolf, but Aegis is moving to intercept."

"Her wolf can't fly," Clockblocker insists sullenly. "There's no way. No one sandbags that hard. I cornered her, and she didn't fly away. She engaged in hand-to-hand combat with me rather than fly away. Me! Clockblocker!"

"She won," Armsmaster notes.

"There was a really embarrassing internet video that wouldn't have happened if the wolf could fly?" Clockblocker tries.

"There's Aegis," I say, pointing towards the little rust-red speck approaching the slightly larger grey speck of Fenrir.

As they meet, there's another flash of light.

Chapter 71: L.48

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Nothing personal," you tell Aegis's severed head. "I just didn't have a better way to stop a Brute of your caliber."

He glares at you, and his lips move. But just because he's currently absorbing oxygen through his sinuses doesn't mean he can pass air across his vocal cords.

"Sorry, not a lip reader. Blink twice if you just called me a psycho bitch."

Aegis, slowly and deliberately, blinks twice.

"That's really hurtful, you know. And unfair. A psycho would have cut down the street, not across the road." You trace a finger down his forehead and along his nose to illustrate your meaning (said nose is twitching in a rather amusing fashion as it takes over the function of his heart).

When your finger approaches his lips, he lunges forward and tries to bite you. Yes, he can still fly. The important parahuman bits are all in the brain, after all. He can't muster enough force to break your grip on his hair, though, and you manage to pull your finger away in time.

"Rude. I was going to let you go reattach yourself, but if you're going to be like that maybe I should just take you prisoner instead."

His lips move some more.

"Yes," you muse to yourself. "An exchange of hostages. How many others did you capture so far?"

Aegis doesn't blink at all.

"C'mon, you can level with me here. You must have gotten someone, right? Once for yes, twice for no."

He blinks twice, scowling. Huh. Your escape was predicated on the idea that the Empire was in severe crisis and your Get Broken Out Of Jail Free insurance might therefore have lapsed. Should you have been more optimistic?

"Wow, you guys really suck. Shitting all over the unwritten rules like that, and all you caught was little old me?"

One blink. Poor guy doesn't recognize a rhetorical question. Or the evidence right in front of his eyes.

"Bzzt, wrong. You clearly did not catch me. I just came by for a brief visit."

He silently mouths off again. Probably something about how crime does not pay and they'll get you eventually.

"May as well let you go, then." You're almost to the shore anyway. No way will he be able to get to his body and come back in time to catch you now. You twist around to look behind you. Huh. No sign of his body. "I guess you sank. Don't worry, I bet your ears will turn into gills when you dive down and search." You give him a shove/throw in the right direction.

Ah, if your eyes don't deceive you, that's Armsmaster coming over in a boat to help fish him up. He'll be fine.

On the one hand, you got away clean. On the other, your civilian identity suffered one hell of a one-two punch, and is out for the count. Now, there are silver linings - more free time for one, because no one will think it strange if you stop attending the school full of Wards - but before you can enjoy that free time you have so many things you need to deal with urgently. How to prioritize?

First off, that was your one free brush with government. Low Key is irreversibly tied to Taylor now. Yes, you were already outed before you were arrested. And you'll certainly mete out appropriate payback for that... later. But crucially, none of your other identities are tied together yet. That will not be the case anymore if you ever get careless about what forensic evidence you leave behind, now that they have your prints and DNA.

You can't really do anything about your DNA (Panacea's soul price?), except resolve to not bleed on things unnecessarily - fortunately you're pretty good at not bleeding. A few seconds of concentration is enough to get you a brand new set of fingerprints, though. An irreversible operation, most likely, which is why you've always held off before. But it's not as if the Taylor identity serves a purpose any more.

In fact... A smile tugs at your face as a thought occurs to you. If you ever get caught as Low Key again, you'll have to blame the new fingerprints on a rogue biokinetic. And since you'll be making a new costume anyway, why not skip the padding, wear the body you've always wanted full time, and blame everything on Vegas Fleshcrafters? Yes.

What next? Well, if Kaiser isn't already aware of your escape he'll be soon enough, and he's likely to get miffed if you don't report in right away.

As you approach Empire territory, you can hear gunfire. Drawing closer reveals a gang of thugs in Merchant colors having a shootout with a couple of skinheads. Surprise wolf airdrop, motherfuckers!

"It's Low Key!" "Thats a lot of blood, are you okay?" "Holy shit, it can fly?"

"He," you say sternly. "And don't worry, it's hero blood. Can I borrow a phone? I need to call Ops and report for duty."

"Sure, here you go." He also offers you his jacket, because chivalry isn't dead.

"Which hero?" "Never try to arrest Psycho Bitch, huh." "They weren't kidding about the padded costume."

You glare at the last commenter. Chivalry may not quite be dead, but the doctors sure are looking longingly at that organ donor card and eyeing the life support machinery.

"Low Key." Kaiser looks you over, but makes no comment about your state of dress, or the blood. Metal spears spring up from the ground all around the two of you, widening to form solid walls and bending into an arched ceiling above, with thin gaps to let a modicum of light in. Instant privacy.

"There are a lot of things we could talk about," he says, his voice grave. You don't say anything, keeping your expression neutral as you wait for him to continue. You very much agree that there are a lot of things you could gravely talk about... but you don't know which ones he's found out about, so it's better not to give anything away.

"Like the way you appear to have taken a longer vacation than was warranted."

He seriously checked Taylor Hebert's school attendance records and compared it to Low Key's vacation? While his Empire was under attack? What a jew. "I was trying to avoid synching my cape and civilian lives too much, to avoid precisely this situation." That was one of your considerations at the time - though admittedly far from the main one.

"Or the way the rank and file have started to refer to me as 'the Iron Jew?'"

There goes your neutral expression. His gauntleted fist clenches slightly as you don't quite manage to hold in an amused snort. "I have never uttered that phrase," you say. It's true! You may have made occasional reference to his penny-pinching ways, and perhaps speculated on the size of the nose behind that visor from time to time - but someone else came up with that specific moniker!

"Or the way your wolf can apparently fly, and be manifested on consecutive days without any problem."

"Always Be Sandbagging," you say without an ounce of shame, looking him straight in the eye as you admit to lying to his face. "The resummoning delay is real, by the way. Just exaggerated."

"Hm. As I said, there are a lot of things we could talk about. But we won't, because whatever else you might have done, you also saved my son and daughter."

You shrug. "'s my job, innit?" You're pretty happy that's everything he wanted to forgive you for, all things considered.

"Is it?"

"Says right there on the tin: 'A future for white children.'"

"Ha." He doesn't chuckle at your witticism, merely pronounces the word 'ha'. "Nevertheless, few would claim that letting yourself get captured in order to distract their Mover long enough for Kayden to escape was not going above and beyond the call of duty. Ask of me any boon, and you will find that the 'Iron Jew' is not ungenerous."

You stroke your chin as you consider his offer. It's a bit redundant, because now that you know who he is you'll have his soul price squared away soon enough. But that doesn't mean you'll pass up this little preview of your future relationship.

"I guess no details about my escape have come out as of yet..." you begin.

"You'd be surprised at how quickly certain things come out," Kaiser says.

"...but if anyone asks I'd appreciate it if you told them that the Stranger who helped me was a mercenary you hired from out of town, rather than a personal friend of mine who would prefer not to make their debut quite yet."

Kaiser doesn't answer immediately. You get the impression that wasn't what he expected you to say.

"...did your friend kill Grue?"

"Grue's dead!?"

"As far as I can make out the timing, he was found dead in his cell before you reached the shore."

"I didn't even know he was at the Rig. Though I suppose that makes sense in retrospect, I did hear he was arrested at the Forsberg thing." You shake your head. "No, my friend wouldn't do that."

Kaiser studies your face. Perhaps you should keep wearing a mask despite your identity being public now, to prevent that from happening in the future. Right now you have to rely on being an excellent liar, who also happens to be telling the truth. More or less.

"I believe you," Kaiser says finally. "No one will believe me when I say the same of my 'mercenary', but I will honor your request."

"Thank you."

"But perhaps I can expect a Stranger to join the Empire sometime in the future?"

"Ineligible, I'm afraid."

"A pity," Kaiser says, but doesn't otherwise make an issue out of you having non-white cape friends. Note to self: If you ever end up creating a camera-proof Stranger identity, remember to make her non-white.

"I should get cleaned up before joining the defenders," you say, since the main part of the conversation seems to be over. "And pants. Pants would be nice." It's not the hottest of days, and the ride across open water had your goosebumps just about ready to form their own Brute rating.

"Your home is likely under surveillance. You may-"

"I got this," you interrupt. Kaiser nods, and the metal room around you retreats back into the ground.

You ride Fenrir back to your lair. Now that he can officially fly, parking him inconspicuously is much easier - just pick a roof. You are the problem right now, bloodstained and pantsless as you are. But with some mild cheating via turning into shadow and slipping through cracks, you make it to the safehouse unseen. Theo answers the door when you knock.

"Anyone else in here?" you ask as you shove past him. A quick glance shows the secret door securely closed. Good, they haven't found Shadow Stalker. Not a huge surprise, Kaiser would probably have had some more questions for you otherwise.

"Aster is asleep in the other room," Theo says as he trails after you. "Kayden- Purity is out fighting."

"Good." You spin around to face him. "Give me your wallet."

"What?"

"Wallet," you repeat, holding out your hand. He hesitates for a moment, but complies, and just stands there fidgeting while you rifle through its contents.

Is there a- there is! Hope does spring eternal. His eyes open wide when you hold up your prize and drop the wallet on the floor, but he doesn't resist when you push him down on the couch. His brain clearly can't believe what's happening right now, but fortunately other parts of him are quicker on the uptake. By the time you've stepped out of your government-issued underwear and yanked his pants down, he's ready.

It's over fairly quickly, which is nice.

You remain just long enough to watch the Loyalty bloom before getting off him and heading for the bathroom. Maybe you're just a pampered little Brute 0 princess, but after running around underdressed for so long the hot water feels divine. Finally getting rid of all that hero blood is nice too.

"Tell Purity I want you out of here by the time I get back," you tell him when you return from your shower. "And forget about this address." With both of them loyal, maybe you don't have to get BITN a new lair after all... no, that's stupid. You have way too much money to take that kind of risk. Tomorrow is lair-moving day. You'll have to get in touch with... Lisa. Almost forgot about her for a moment there. You need to talk.

You spend the rest of the night patrolling, and see more action in one night than in your entire career up till now. For the second time ever you're assigned to inner patrol, but it's not the sedate beat cop experience it was the last time. Truly, people are slaves to fashion. It's not just Merchants and heroes, it seems like every lunkhead with an unregistered firearm and melanin to spare wants a piece of the Empire right now. And when they detour past the big flashy cape fights on the border to go after the civilians inside, they become your problem.

But Fenrir can fly, and no one ever looks up. You'd think they'd figure that one out when they're going after a cape gang, but apparently not. Like shooting fish in a barrel, except if you're not careful the fish shoot back.

The pressure lets up as late night turns into early morning. Purity flies by to give you back your keys, and thank you for everything. You wave her off with a smile. Yes, yes, you'll be sure to tell her if there's anything she can do for you in return. You really will, because that was the whole point of fulfilling her soul price in the first place. You're just a bit busy right now.

When early morning turns into Lisa-hasn't-gotten-out-of-bed-yet morning, you call Lisa.

"We need to talk," you tell her.

"I know," she groans. "Could we do it without a knife at my throat, though? We both know you don't need the knife."

"The knife makes me feel better, friend."

Of course the first thing that happens when you meet Lisa face to face is that she finds out everything that you don't want people finding out about you. Her eyebrows shoot up as she looks at the invisible wolf next to you.

Your eyebrows furrow.

"Not judging!" Lisa says says quickly, holding up her hands. "Human-level intelligence, right? Whatever makes you happy."

"We're here to talk about you," you remind her. "And how you totally didn't betray me."

"Yeah." She sighs and sits down next to you. "Let me tell you about Pancakes."

Notes:

A/N

In case anyone forgot, 'Pancakes' is their code word for 'Coil', from all the way back in T.03

Lisa-o-vision

Taylor doesn't say anything for a long time after I've finished my explanation.

"Are you okay?" I ask. I could use my power to find out what she's thinking... but I already know what it would say, and I'd like to stay in this nice warm Egyptian river for a while longer, heedless of the crocodiles. "I tried to make sure you wouldn't be captured, but-"

"I'll live," Taylor interrupts me. "Pancakes, on the other hand..."

Chapter 72: L.49

Chapter Text

How should you explain Coil? Perhaps like this: You are at war with Coil. It's a shadow war, fought behind the scenes. You are a shapeshifting, power-copying Trump - he does not know this. His chief lieutenant, a high-powered Thinker, is on your side in this war - he does not know this either. In fact, he doesn't even know he's at war. And you're still not winning.

You know where his base is. You have a giant wolf who can walk through walls. You're still not winning. Because Coil's power is to exist in two separate timelines simultaneously, and he's almost never in the same place in both of them. Also, the identity of the wolf's owner is public knowledge, and Coil has snipers on his payroll. If Coil gets his head bitten off in timeline A, timeline A will stop existing and you'll get your brains blown out in timeline B. Because all he has to do to avoid wolf-based assassination once forewarned is hide in the closet - or any other space too small for a giant wolf to materialize inside.

But it's worse than that, because Coil has a second Thinker on his side, who can see the future. If you plan to have your wolf bite his head off in timeline A, timeline A will stop existing and you'll get your brains blown out in timeline B. Lisa once again makes you promise not to make any moves against Coil. Because if you were going to attack him, he would have already found out.

Just because you're not winning doesn't mean you're helpless, though. "Go to his base," you tell Fenrir. "Get his scent. Follow him home. I want his civilian identity."

"I can't do anything that has visible results in the future," you tell a horrified Lisa. You tap the side of your head. "Gathering knowledge is fair game. He has a precog, not a mind reader."

"Unless he tortures me for information in a throwaway timeline," Lisa says. "Don't tell me your plans!"

You nod. Speaking of civilian identities, you have to concede that faced with the task of compiling information on the Empire, and with alternate timeline interrogations on the table, Lisa's choice to out you as Low Key - but not as a shapeshifting, power-copying Trump - was in fact the minimum possible betrayal.

"You can make it up to me by getting me more lairs," you tell her.

While she does that, you turn into Quicksilver and call Ballistic. He's quite eager to see you again. It's fine with you too. Didn't you say once that you liked having a simple, repetitive physical task to attend to while studying a power? That's all it is.

When you arrive at the soon-to-be-former lair to start moving things, you find Aisha already there. She's pointing a crossbow at you.

"Did you kill my brother?" she demands.

Judging by her face she's been crying her eyes out all day, but on hearing you arrive she must have dried her tears and womanned up enough to confront her number one suspect. Unsurprisingly, she also had to overcome - and thus damage - her Loyalty to accomplish this feat. It's all so tiresome.

"Put the crossbow down," you say wearily, invoking her karmic debt to you. She drops it as if stung - and it goes off when it hits the ground. You turn into shadow as the bolt passes through your ankle. "And don't do anything clever with stealth," you add.

"Fucking hell," Aisha says shakily. "I could feel the terrible fate hanging over me if I didn't obey. That was for the smarts?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Uh..." She laughs nervously, looking at your uninjured leg. "Still worth it?" It's meant to be a statement, but it comes out more like a question. "I mean, we've sort of established that I'm your bitch, here. But I don't suppose you could at least deny it to my face?"

"If you could provide a remotely plausible motive for why I'd-" You stop yourself, and start over in a milder tone. Employee morale is important. It keeps people from picking at their Loyalty. "I did not kill him."

You place a hand on her shoulder as you say it - something that quickly turns into a hug as she throws herself against you and starts crying again.

"I'll kill whoever did it," she manages to get out between sobs.

"I'll help," you say, sort of truthfully. 'Coil had Grue killed to keep him from talking' was a footnote in Lisa's info dump about Coil, and you're going to kill Coil. Somehow. Eventually. But you're not about to trust Aisha to pull off a multi-timeline, precognitive shadow war of her own. Maybe you'll set her loose on the man who did the deed, if not the one who gave the order. Yes. You nod to yourself. You'll lean on Lisa until she gives up the mole in question.

By the time Alec drops by the lair Aisha has calmed down a bit, for 'simmering murderous intent' values of calm.

"'Sup," Alec greets you as he saunters in. "Did you kill my boss?"

"No."

"'Kay."

"See?" you tell Aisha. "That's how civilized people do it. Without pointing weapons at each other."

Aisha shoots you a half-hearted glare, before turning to address Alec. "That's it?" she demands. "That's how much you care?"

"She said she didn't do it, what else do you want from me? She's clearly the slave-owning kind of white supremacist, not the lynching kind."

Aisha giggles, while you roll your eyes. At least he's cheering up your property.

"She is, isn't she? When I saw her with Brian, she-" Her voice catches, but she's not going to let grief get in the way of a good zinger that easily. "-she was definitely looking to force him into heavy physical labour beneath her. Eh? Eh?"

You don't give her the satisfaction of seeing you blush, which may or may not have required dipping into your shapeshifting abilities. "Shut up and take a new dose of smarts," you tell her. You don't add 'because I may need to make you drop another crossbow,' because Alec doesn't know you're a Master. If he found out you were Mastering him, he'd... well, he'd probably laugh his ass off, and then stab you in the back just to see if he still could.

From there your Sunday proceeds... almost exactly like your last Sunday. It feels really dumb to tear out all the furniture and move it (and rebuild the secret room back into a regular room, and scrub everything down with bleach) after just one week, but that's what you get for not planning ahead better. Low Key absolutely must not share a safehouse with BITN.

Unfortunately your escape from the Rig involved letting everyone know that Fenrir can be summoned on consecutive days without trouble, so now Ops wants to assign you daily patrol shifts. But on the positive side, your revealed flight capabilities means you're no longer paired up with Rune. You don't know who is taking her place, though, they only tell you to wait for 'your new partner' at the usual spot. Someone ground-bound, presumably. Fenja/Menja, perhaps, if Kaiser can spare a bodyguard. But would they really need a ride, when they can take such big steps?

When you arrive at the bar, you find Theo waiting for you. You blink in confusion, and turn your sorcerer's sight off and back on again to be sure, but no, he hasn't triggered. So why is he here? It's not until he awkwardly grabs your hand that you realize your mistake: You granted his soul price so he'd be nice and tractable for your campaign of turning him into a worthy heir. But there's a word for people who trade sex for loyalty, isn't there? It's 'girlfriend'.

"What the hell?" you demand, ripping your hand away.

"I just-"

"What the hell made you think I wanted to be seen with you in public?"

"You slept with me!" A murmur of astonishment passes through the rank and file at this outburst.

"Just announce it for the world to hear, why don't you!" You turn slightly to address to room at large. "I had just gotten out of prison. You know how it is." There are a few scattered chuckles, but mostly disapproving faces.

"You were in there for two days!" Theo complains.

"I'm sorry, are you trying to argue your way into my pants?"

"I-" Theo swallows his words as a hand lands on his shoulder. It belongs to a skinhead twice his size, with none of his body fat.

"You're bothering the lady," your knight of shining pate rumbles.

"Outside," you hiss, pointing at the door. Theo slinks away, and you stalk after him.

"Do you know why I don't want to be seen with you in public?" you demand. "Can you guess?"

"Uh-"

"Do you want to know the secret to getting a girlfriend?"

"I guess?"

"The secret is to be someone a girl would want to be friends with. Look at yourself. Are you handsome?"

You can tell that he knows the answer, though it hurts him to say it. "Not very," he understates.

"Are you charming?"

"Well-"

"Does your mom tell you you're charming?"

"She does!"

"Is she lying to make you feel better? Are you actually a loser with no friends?"

"...I am!"

"Crying is also very unattractive," you tell him. "Are you smart? Are you funny? Are you?"

He silently shakes his head. Good. Now that he's admitted as much in your presence, you use emptiness endowment pump him full of charm and wit. 'Handsome' will have to wait until you start tackling his other physical shortcomings, and much like 'being emotional', your power doesn't recognize 'having a spine' as an enhanceable attribute at all. What else would a worthy heir need? Well for starters, Kaiser is an excellent public speaker.

"Are you a stuttering mess?" you ask. He is momentarily thrown by the tack your questioning is taking, but nods just to be safe, tears still streaming down his cheeks. You make him an excellent public speaker.

"If your father died, could you run his empire?"

"I wouldn't want to-"

"Could you?"

"No." You make him an excellent statesman. It works, which confirms that he's lying about not wanting to be emperor. Everyone wants to be emperor.

You hear someone clearing his throat behind you, and turn around to see who it is. "Am I interrupting?" Alabaster asks.

"No, I'm about done here," you say. You look back at Theo "If you want to be with me, you're going to have to shape up. But you can do that, right?" You turn back without waiting for an answer. "Come forth!"

Fenrir appears on command. You and Alabaster mount up and fly away.

"Relationship trouble?" Alabaster asks after a while.

"Offer advice and I'll push you off."

That was an empty threat, as it turns out. Whatever else you might say about Alabaster - like for example 'why would they give me the one partner whose power I can't afford to internalize!?' - his work ethic is excellent. He doesn't fear being pushed off a flying wolf because he frequently leaps off on his own, landing on top of unwelcome visitors and breaking multiple bones in both their bodies. Four seconds later he's fine, and they're not. Then the squashed guy's friends shoot him, which he also recovers from, and you pounce on them while they're distracted.

The heroes have given up on their siege/invasion, so things are a lot less frantic than last night. But there's still plenty of diversity that hasn't gotten the message, so having a (sorta) bulletproof distraction on hand is quite welcome. Or in other words, Alabaster excellent at the intended role of a patrol partner. You can't even fault Ops for assigning him to you, more's the pity.

Alabaster agrees. "A pleasure working with you," he says at the end of your shift, despite having taken enough wounds to kill a dozen people. You studied his power a little bit - not enough to turn alabaster yourself! - and you can conclusively say that he's not immune to pain. He's just badass. Or possibly the world's kinkiest masochist, you're not going to ask.

"The pleasure was all mine," you reply, because the pleasure of not being shot was all yours. You tried being shot once, and didn't care for it. You're happy to delegate that part.

Speaking of sorta bulletproof things, you should make a replacement costume. Yes, you said you would pay someone else to make it for you, but it's not like you have anything better to do at this hour of the morning. Hm, do you have enough leather on hand, or do you have to wait until the stores open?

It's at this point you realize that it's been 40-some hours since the last time you slept. You don't feel tired, but you should probably take a nap anyway, for health reasons.

Chapter 73: L.50

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The Simurgh is hovering in front of you. You can't move, but with the strange numbness suffusing your body you can't even tell if this is because of telekinetic restraints or brain-hacking paralysis. She leans in close and rests her head - easily twice the size of yours - on your shoulder. Her skin is smooth and cold, like marble.

"What have you done to yourself, little owl?" she asks in your mother's voice. A small wing on her shoulder blurs as it vibrates to produce the sound. Of course the Simurgh doesn't speak using her mouth. Does she even have a mouth, beneath those impassive lips?

She runs her fingers through your hair - and then grabs hold, and rips your entire scalp off. It doesn't hurt. Quicksilver's platinum blonde hair sprouts from your head to replace your dark curls. She repeats the motion, and Smith's balding pate appears. Again.

Again and again she tears your scalp off, cycling through every guise you've ever worn until your true form appears once more. This time, she pulls away not just your scalp, but your face as well.

"I have such high hopes for you," she wing-speaks, while pressing her cold lips to the bare cheekbone of your skull.

You jerk awake, startling Fenrir in the process. Oh. No, what the hell was that. You never have nightmares! You hope this isn't the start of a new trend.

You can see bright sunlight peeking out from beneath the curtains, and despite the unpleasant dream you feel... not refreshed, really, but just as non-tired as before you went to bed.

Hang on a minute.

You completely forgot about that, didn't you? In your defense, you've been pretty busy. A quick glance inwards with sorcerer's sight shows that yes, it's permanent. And that... well, shit. You have some calls to make.

Miss Militia-o-vision

"You don't sleep," the voice on the phone says.

"Who are you? How did you get this number?"

"Can you sleep, if you want to?"

"...yes."

"When you do, do you ever not have nightmares?"

"No. Usually they-" There's a click. "No, wait! Are you like me? Do you remember?"

Guess you're never sleeping again, huh?

You can't even complain, because you got exactly what you wished for. Didn't you want Miss Militia's power, but not the 'gun' part? Didn't you want more free time? Between dropping out of school (as of today, because you're a known villain now and school is full of Wards) and never sleeping ever again, you suddenly have so much free time you doubt even you could fill it all up with cape bullshit.

You might even start reading books again. Yes, perhaps this isn't so bad- aaand as soon as you thought that, you remembered the really unpleasant thing that you really need to do as soon as possible. That you should have done yesterday, frankly.

You're waiting in the living room when he comes home, in costume. Well, wearing a mask. Your replacement costume isn't finished yet. The mask is symbolic: The villain has entered his home.

"Dad." You take a step forward and remove the mask, letting it drop to the floor. The villain was his daughter all along.

Your house was indeed under surveillance just like Kaiser thought, but it was a half-hearted thing: Just one bored plainclothes cop sitting in a car outside. It's like they couldn't decide whether they wanted to go back to pretending that the unwritten rules apply to them or not. You understand how the sunk cost fallacy of their failed schemes strain against shrieking PR shills to produce this result, but in the end it only makes their situation worse. It was obviously not enough to stop a parahuman of your caliber from sneaking into her own home.

What, did they not expect you to send an intangible Fenrir to scout ahead and find potential watchers? Oh right, they don't know Fenrir isn't a Master projection. Did they not expect you to shapeshift and surreptitiously photograph the watcher, to later make public their continued hypocrisy? Oh right, they don't know you can shapeshift. Did they not expect you to walk around behind the house and jiggle that one window just so, to create enough of a gap to slip through in shadow form? Oh right...

"Taylor!" After a moment of shock Danny practically leaps towards you, arms stretched out for an embrace. You hold up a hand, palm out, and he skids to a stop. "Are you all right? I was so..." He trails off when you hold a finger to his lips.

"I'm really sorry you had to see that, dad," you tell him softly, not meeting his eyes. You are, too. It was awful, having to do that to him. "I'm perfectly fine-" You are not fine. "-but I had to lull them into a false sense of security so I could escape."

"You..." You can tell that he still desperately wants to hug you. So you let him. He keeps whispering your name over and over again as he holds you. You repeat your assurances (lies) that you are fine, and do your best to hug him back. As long as it's making one of you feel better, it's worth putting effort into.

"You didn't have to escape, Taylor. They were just going to put you in the Wards, they told me-"

"Dad. There are things you don't know about. Things I'm not going to tell you - for your own protection. Just, please, trust me. This was the least awful way things could have played out."

He breaks off the hug and takes a step back without letting go of your shoulders, studying you at arms length. He... he trusts you, despite you being obviously not happy. Don't cry.

"I... I can't do it, Taylor. I believe you, but I can't be... I can't become an outlaw for you. I have to call them, tell them you came here..."

"I know," you say with a small, rueful smile. "Don't worry, I left enough money to buy a new phone."

He practically sags in relief at having this conflict of conscience rendered moot. "Always one step ahead of your old man, huh? I suppose if I tried to run for help I'd find a giant wolf blocking the doorway?"

"I'd really prefer if it didn't come to that," you say coolly. No, don't. Don't use your 'friend' persona against dad. Despite the fact that he didn't mention the surveillance the house is under. It's possible that he doesn't know about it. You're going to keep believing that for as long as possible.

"Me too." He hesitates for a bit, unsure as to what to do next. "...tea?"

"Tea would be nice."

"Look," dad says once you've both got tea in front of you, "if there's some terrible secret, some reason you can't join the heroes, I can accept that. But... Empire 88? I- I want to say I raised you better than that."

"Oh, dad. Don't you realize we're on the same side?"

"I want to be on-"

"No, I mean literally. Did you think the Empire has no citizenry? You work all day to get them jobs. I work to give them a place to live. Together we carve out a place for them in this broken city."

"That's not what- Taylor, there's-"

"A black guy in the union?" you suggest, interrupting him.

"Yes."

"A good man. A hard worker, a trustworthy friend."

"Yes! You've met him, he's-"

"He's on his own as far as housing is concerned," you admit, pausing to sip your tea. "Though I wonder if he might be some kind of outlier. I wonder why there's not two people like that in the union. How big is the union, again?"

"Taylor, no. I recognize their poison. That isn't you. You're... you're angry, angry about things you won't tell me about. But deep down you know that isn't true."

"I do?" You put down your teacup and give him a look of innocent confusion. "Are you saying that racial differences are only skin deep? What a novel idea, I had never heard or considered that before."

"Taylor..." His tone is equal parts stern and exasperated.

"Well." You lean back in your chair. "That's alright then."

"What?"

"If we're all the same, it doesn't matter whether you live in a white community or a black one, or one with a 50-50 mix. There's no difference at all, because we're all just people." You speak that final word with a sneer. "Which means that the Empire's quaint insistence on the former is just a harmless foible. They're not depriving anyone of anything, or getting any unfair advantages. There's no reason not to indulge them and let them form their own little community in peace, exactly as good as every other community.

"But that's not how the world works at all, is it?" You stand up and walk over to where you dropped your mask. "Can you tell me which part is wrong?"

"How do you think the world works, Taylor?" he asks wearily as bend down to pick it up.

"White people are like oil."

"And black people are like water?"

Well, yes actually - without agitation, the two will naturally separate. But that's not where you were going with this. You shake your head.

"Oil is a precious natural resource, without which society as we know it couldn't exist. If you look around, it becomes clear that someone being deprived of access to oil is considered a violation of their human rights."

You put the mask back on. His daughter was the villain all along.

"A paradox, until you realize that natural resources aren't people, and don't deserve human rights."

You walk out of what is no longer your home, and summon Fenrir (the agent assigned to watch the house startles and fumbles for his phone - he's going to get chewed out for falling asleep on duty later). You do your best to be angry about it, rather than sad. Dad if anyone ought to be on your side here! Does he not realize he'll get his stupid precious ferry back when Empire territory extends to encompass one of its terminals, and not a moment sooner?

Everyone knows the ferry, if started back up tomorrow, would instantly turn into a dolphin delivery service pointed straight at the good parts of town. And no one wants dolphins in the good parts of town. It's just that the Empire are the only people with the balls to say so out loud (though how they arrived at 'dolphins' as yet another euphemism for 'youths', you will never understand).

PRT-Agent-Adam-Falconer-o-vision

I curse under my breath as I run my fingers inside the back of my collar. I swear the shirt didn't chafe like this last time I wore it. Have I truly become the kind of prissy bitch that needs the tags removed from my clothing? Wait, there's something stuck in there.

Whatever it is comes away easily enough, and I bring it around to look at it. A plain white sticker, folded with a sharp crease to ensure that it digs into the skin, with 'MILD DISCOMFORT' written on it. I can't help but chuckle. That is funny. Whoever it was got me good.

When I enter the apartment, all lights are off. That's odd, Jim should be home by now. Did something happen? I flick the lights on, only to reveal 'MOMENTARY DISQUIET' written on the wall in several colors of crayon. Okay, I guess I know who messed with my shirt now, not that I didn't already suspect. But that had better come off with some scrubbing, or he gets to pay me back for the deposit.

"Jim?" I call out. "I already figured out that you're lurking behind a doorway waiting to jump out at me. Yes, I'm still going to twitch when it happens, but that's just an autonomic reaction. I hope that ruins the fun for you."

I make my way into the living room, doing my best to suppress any autonomous reactions, but no one jumps out at me. I don't slump in relief. I relax very slowly and subtly, in case I'm being observed by a smug prankster. I wasn't tense. I knew all along it wouldn't be that doorway. My hand does not tremble as I reach for the light switch.

'MOUNTING APPREHENSION' is written on the far wall. In blood. Fresh blood, still dripping. I admit it, I freeze up for several seconds, my mind reeling. That's- he- what's that on the floor, underneath? I make my way over, no longer trying to appear calm. If someone jumps out from behind the couch waving a machete, I'm screaming like a little girl and running away, no question about it.

...It's a blood bag, from the hospital. Left in plain sight as if to say 'don't worry bro, no murder involved.' But still. I mean, I know he pilfers the odd opiate to sell on the side, but stealing human blood? For a prank? That's just... too far, man.

I bend down to pick it up, then immediately curse myself. I don't want my prints on- The blood bag is full, the seal still intact. I glance up at the wall again. MOUNTING APPREHENSION.

I find Jim lying face down on our bed, fully clothed. I can't make out any injuries from where I'm standing, but the bed is positively soaked in blood. I, I don't think he's breathing? I know I should call the police, or at least run away, but I can't seem to move. I'm staring at the final message, bloody letters three feet high covering the entire wall. It reads 'NUMB TERROR'. I don't argue with it.

The door clicks shut behind me. I spin around to see a short figure dressed all in black, its face obscured by a grinning devil mask. Aiming a crossbow at me.

"I know what you did," it says. A female voice, young. I have time to read 'REGRET' written across her chest in white before she pulls the trigger.

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, ?

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Chapter 74: L.51

Chapter Text

You never thought going to back to Hookwolf's dojo would feel nostalgic. It's only been what, three weeks? Three weeks and a previous life. Back then, Poltergeist didn't exist, and Taylor Hebert did.

Theo looks quite apprehensive at the venue you've chosen for your 'date'. "I don't-"

"Are you saying you don't need to get in shape?" you interrupt him before he can even start whining.

"...no."

You hustle him over to Hookwolf, who gives you a respectful nod before looking Theo up and down.

"This is Kaiser's kid?" he asks, sounding entirely unimpressed.

"Yeah. He needs to become less of a useless lump."

"Hm. He can't possibly be a worse student that you were," Hookwolf says philosophically. He has no idea how right he is. You didn't expect him to handle the training personally though - that treatment is usually reserved for capes. But you suppose it would be a strange empire that had no hereditary privileges.

Your purpose here is twofold. One: Skills can be blamed on prodigy, and charisma on growing the fuck up. But if the fat little boy suddenly becomes swole for no good reason, eyebrows would go up. Which is not to say that you're not going to be cheating like crazy on his behalf. His physical fitness and martial prowess is going to go up at an entirely unrealistic rate, but it's not as if he's going to be submitting to regular medical examinations. His gains will be superficially plausible.

Two: It's not enough that he becomes a worthy heir. He must be seen to become a worthy heir. He must be seen making an effort in that direction. And you must be seen browbeating him into doing so, or the soul price won't trigger.

It's a shame that you can't take advantage of the same power-based training regimen yourself. If you gave yourself this kind of boost you'd overdraw your potential for growth to the point that you'd never be able to learn anything useful for the rest of your life. So in Theo's case, there are no side effects.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!" A girly scream splits the air of the dojo. Turns out you were wrong on one point: Just because your cheats guarantee that Theo will learn, doesn't mean he's not a terrible student until they take effect. And Hookwolf just treated him the way he treats all terrible students.

You walk over to where Theo is lying on the ground, clutching his arm and crying. You poke him with a foot. "Get up, you pussy. You're making me look bad."

"P-pussy? He broke my arm!"

You sigh, roll your eyes, and hold out your right arm to Hookwolf. He breaks it. "Ngh. See? You're a pussy. Now get up." You poke him again. "Get up or I'll make it to Othala first."

You and Hookwolf watch as he scrambles to his feet and cringes off healer-wards.

"He could be just as bad as me?" you suggest.

"Heard you were an item," Hookwolf says.

"I guess."

"What do you even see in that guy?"

You shrug your left shoulder. "Guess you were right about me."

"How's that?"

"Turns out I love pussy after all."

Hookwolf laughs, and slaps you on the back - jarring your broken arm.

"Gah!"

"Sorry."

"Can I leave him with you? I've got a patrol to get to."

You don't like the atmosphere at the bar. Not the tension from the recent pressure everyone's been under. The other thing. Last week, Low Key was a bro. Thanks to Theo's little outburst, she's now also a slut. It's not like anyone quite says that to your face, but... But you don't like the atmosphere. Just because you recognize that you deserve the undercurrent of disapproval doesn't mean you like it.

At least it's not unanimous. There are those who reserve judgement pending your future actions ("Shotgun marriages are very traditional," Big Brain comments apropos nothing), and there's a strong correlation between pretending nothing happened and having been present when you charged out ahead of the mortals and got shot for your trouble.

Alex even deliberately steers the conversation towards 'known pedophiles in positions of power' shortly after you show up, directing all available outrage in the room towards degenerates far worse than you. All outrage, including yours! If they're known pedophiles, why - oh right, positions of power. A normally headline-hungry media suddenly becomes strangely reticent, and those who speak up have a tendency to get sued into the ground and/or die in completely unrelated accidents.

Hanging out with the rank and file has been shockingly good for your civics education in that way. Not always useful things - it's not like you bothered to memorize the name of MLK's speechwriter, even if you'd now ace a multiple-choice quiz on his ethnicity. But they regularly bring up government and (nominally) non-government organizations that you had no idea even existed - always in the context of the evils done by members of a certain tribe, but knowledge is knowledge. Good thing those people like three-letter acronyms, because they might have run out combinations by now if they'd stuck with two.

It's enough to make you hope that they're right, that jews are obscenely powerful and uniquely evil. Because if they're able to obtain these results by cherry-picking, the corruption is unimaginably worse. Regardless, you clearly need a government-to-prison pipeline! ("They had a special luxury prison built for the ones that get caught," Sven mentions) Or if that's how the game is played, you understand that Madagascar is lovely this time of year, and far too sparsely populated.

When you first heard such things, you were shocked and outraged. Corruption, in your government? America is supposed to be better than that! Oh, how naive you were. Thinking that the heroes were an exception among government agencies, rather than par for the course.

After a month you started rolling your eyes and mouthing 'of course' along with everyone else.

These days you have a growing conviction that the system is broken, reform is impossible, and the only way forward is to burn Washington to the ground and start over.

Well, of course reform is impossible, when you think about it. Every single corrupt official - and every unofficial power broker - has a strong incentive to ensure that he cannot be reformed out of a job. Even were they not conspiring together, the sheer magnitude of their separate efforts would still ensure that no democratic process could ever displace them.

Now that you've proven your mettle against the local heroes - now that your growing power is an undeniable fact - that thought is a lot more uncomfortable than it once was. Unlike anyone else in the room, it's possible that you could burn Washington to the ground, given another year or two. Which means that the question becomes whether you should.

Your patrol keeps being all trash, no heroes. At one point you spot Aegis - now back in one piece - but he makes no moves to test the border. Instead, he turns around and flies away the moment he spots you in turn. You give his retreating back a cheery wave, and Alabaster chuckles behind you. That part of your escape is more or less common knowledge.

Towards the end of the shift you spot something else. Vista is shadowing you again? How nostalgic. She's keeping her distance, so while her warping of space to cross between the rooftops stands out to sorcerer's sight like a beacon, you're too far away to see whether she's in costume or not.

The two of you have had peaceful interactions in the past, and it clearly didn't end her career. But given recent events you doubt that the heroes will be quite so forgiving going forward. On the other hand, also given recent events, it is extremely unlikely that they would send a Ward alone against you. Maybe she is here to talk. And Aegis was attempting to shadow her again? Nostalgic indeed.

A whispered consultation with Fenrir reveals that he doesn't sense any other capes nearby either. You finish your patrol as if nothing was happening. But after dropping off Alabaster, you guide Fenrir towards a nearby rooftop, one with an AC unit large enough for him to hide behind.

When Vista walks past it a little later, his jaws close around her torso. She flinches back (in vain), but does not cry out. Her movement does cause her to drop the cardboard box that she was carrying. You can make out a faint glow of tinker-tech coming from inside. It's... not a bomb, you're pretty sure, but you back up a bit regardless.

Fenrir doesn't bite down, but he exerts enough pressure to make sure she isn't going anywhere.

"I'm here to talk," Vista says. Her voice is calm and she does not struggle. That she willingly walked into your painfully obvious ambush lends credence to her words. She is also wearing civvies and a domino rather than her costume, like back in the old days.

You can't help but admire her poise, stuck in the wolf's jaws like that. Who knew that the biggest brass balls in the city belonged to a twelve year old girl? Given that the last time you interacted with a Ward... well, Aegis is fine. You very deliberately did no permanent damage. But the optics were bad, as they say.

"Then talk, hero," you say, using something slightly sharper than your usual 'friend' voice. "How was your day? Kidnapped any babies lately?"

"I had nothing to do with that!"

"It's funny, isn't?" you continue as if she hadn't spoken. "A hero gets outed, and villains join in the effort to track down the culprit. A villain gets outed, and the heroes kidnap her children. It's almost as if-"

"-as if there is no such thing as honor or justice, only power and fear," Vista echoes the thesis you put forth during one of your past conversations, her voice bitter.

"And you lot have the government monopoly on violence - well, not so much on a tactical level, which is why Aster is back with her family. But the strategic-level threat ensures that there will be no comeuppance, no matter how well deserved." You gesture to Fenrir to let her go. He remains standing next to her, though, too close for her to use her power to gain distance.

Vista does not respond to your words immediately, her mouth set in a thin line. To her credit, her soul price has changed since last you saw her. She no longer considers the respect of her peers desirable.

Vista wants Gallant-sempai to notice her.

You can't resist rolling your eyes at that. Because that fucked-up love triangle really needed another leg. Panacea wants to turn Glory Girl into an incestuous lesbian. Glory Girl wants to turn Gallant into a good boyfriend. And now Vista wants to turn Gallant into a pedophile. You let out a long, tired sigh.

"Are, are you alright?" Vista asks.

Oh, it's pity that brought her here? Did she catch your performance at the Rig? "How could I not be alright, with such wonderful heroes protecting us?" Not being sure how much she knows, you leave your answer open to interpretation.

Vista licks her lips. "They told me, um, they told me you were..."

So they know. Not surprising really, you no doubt left DNA evidence at the scene. "I'm fine," you say. "It was dealt with." You avoid phrasing it as 'I dealt with it', since 'it' involves three murders and you are technically conversing with an officer of the law.

"But-"

"We are not having this conversation, hero."

Vista hesitates briefly, but agrees to change the subject: "I brought your school books," she says. She indicates the cardboard box. "I went around to all your classes and wrote down your assignments for the week, too. I knew you wouldn't come to school-"

"Because you guys were breaking the unwritten rules within minutes of the news dropping and trying to arrest me in class?" you interrupt. Vista doesn't try to deny it. "Imagine that."

"Yeah... Look, I'm trying to help-"

You pull off your mask, and gesture to your face. Everyone already knows what you look like anyway.

"Do I look retarded?" you demand.

"What? No? Wh-"

"Because why else would you expect me to accept a box full of tracking devices?"

"There's no tracking devices in there!"

"Would you bet a thousand dollars on that?"

"Yes!"

"You're on." You walk up to her and carefully flip open the lid of the box, revealing what's inside. You have to fight to keep your face under control at what you see (should have put your mask back on). That's a lot of effort to go to to catch one little villain. Armsmaster must have taken your escape personally.

"See?" Vista demands, lacking sorcerer's sight. "Just books. I packed them myself."

"Riiight..." You draw your (regular, non-orichalcum) knife and gingerly grab the topmost book. (Vista takes a step backwards when you go for the knife, then steps forward again when Fenrir's nose nudges her in the back)

You carefully slit the spine of the book open, then make a show of examining it carefully. There's nothing there, you knew that already. You put it back and pick up another, repeat the process.

Vista has her arms crossed and is tapping her foot impatiently by the time you finally eviscerate the bugged book.

"Packed it yourself, did you?" you ask, holding it up to her. There's a slim antenna running the length of the spine, terminating in a small chip. "And you never left your luggage unattended where some nefarious Tinker could get at it, right?"

Vista's face falls with what you judge is genuine surprise. She seems to be debating what to say for a few moments, before something distressing occurs to her.

"I don't have a thousand dollars."

"I guess you'll have to owe me." You put the book back in the box. Rather than sheathe your knife again, you drop it on the ground. "If it makes you feel any better, he probably went behind your back out of concern over your acting ability."

"How is that supposed to make me feel better?"

You shrug, careful to keep your hands away from your body. "It's not a 'Santa Claus is real' situation. They know you're not an innocent kid to be kept in the dark now. You didn't resign when you found out about the kidnapping, after all."

Vista shifts uncomfortably. "I thought about it. But I still want to make a difference."

"Fight the good fight?" you scoff. "I would want to fight against people who act like that. And what do you know, I do."

"Are you trying to recruit me?"

You shrug again. "There are worse career moves. I mean, the Protectorate knows who you are, but that doesn't make you any worse off than the rest of us, now."

"The Empire is collapsing!"

"Is that what they're telling you? Oh, I admit things have been a bit hectic lately. Blood in the water, a lot of stupid opportunists gunning for us even after you guys gave up." You nod towards her. "But what's really happening? Outing us made it so that the only career we can ever pursue is that of full-time Empire cape, and you think that makes the Empire weaker?

"Hell, by going after Aster you geniuses not only brought Purity's faction firmly back into the fold, you even managed to give up the moral high ground to the only ethnicity people are allowed to hate. Our public support has never been higher. Once we weather the current storm, we'll be stronger than ever. Better sign up quickly, while you can still negotiate favorable terms."

"I'm not becoming a nazi," Vista says firmly.

"Suit yourself." In the end, you don't really care where she ends up - you already have her power. It's just that Vista seems to be a genuinely good person. She doesn't belong in the Wards. You don't know where she does, though.

Vista seems to be having similar thoughts. "I was thinking about New Wave," she says.

You suck your breath in between your teeth, shaking your head ruefully. "You probably shouldn't ask Brandish about New Wave's policy on kidnapping children. Bad for your health."

"No." You're not sure whether she's accusing you of lying, or lamenting the state of the world. Judging by her expression, she isn't sure either.

"You didn't hear that from me," you tell her. "I know zero dangerous secrets."

Vista doesn't say anything else. She mechanically bends down and picks up the box of books, then walks away. Fenrir moves aside and lets her go.

"See you around, hero."

Once she's gone, you carefully peel off your right glove and get out your BITN phone.

"What's up, boss?" Aisha answers.

"I need some cotton."

"You fucking with me, cracker?"

"What? Oh. No, I genuinely need some cotton. Or something similar. Enough to stuff a teddy bear, give or take. Oh, and some string, and a pair of rubber gloves. Leave it outside the old lair."

"...yeah, I got nuffin'. Can I stick around and watch what the hell is going on?"

"No, it's too dangerous." The last thing you need is something tying Imp to Low Key. "Don't buy the stuff from anywhere near either of the new lairs," you add.

"Heh. Buy, she says."

"Don't shoplift it from anywhere near there, either. And tell G that the old lair is definitely compromised, and never go back there."

Armsmaster-o-vision

Vista drops a cardboard box in front of me. Emphasis on drops. She holds it out in front of her and lets it fall to the floor.

"Reporting mission failure," she says. Her voice is tight with anger, but controlled.

"You had a mission?" As soon as the words leave my mouth, I wonder why I bothered. The cat is clearly out of the bag.

"It was news to me as well, sir," Vista bites out. "But Low Key is a lot smarter than me. She figured it out right away."

I go down on one knee and open the box. The books have had their spines cut open. Low Key really is canny. But I'm not going to lose a second time.

"She did this?" I ask, holding up a damaged book. Vista nods, still scowling. "As long as she handled the books, that's fine. There'll be enough tracking nanites on her hands to find her easily."

"Tracking what?"

"Nanites. Machines too small to see with the naked eye. Close your eyes. You'll have gotten some on you from handling the box." I spray us both - and the box itself - down with nanite disabler. "There. Now the highest concentration in the city should be on Low Key's hands."

"She was wearing gloves," Vista says. I frown at her defiant tone. Is she taking the villain's side in this?

"I accounted for her costume, of course. They will stick to leather just as readily as flesh. If nothing else, we will find out where she keeps her costume. However it is highly likely that, in the process of removing it, she will have transferred a sufficient amount of nanites to her skin."

PH-O-vision

Topic: Why I left the Wards, in pictures

In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay

Vista (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)

Posted on May 11, 2011:

(Showing Page 1 of 17)

► rrqn

Replied on May 11, 2011:

wut?

► long_distance_chef

Replied on May 11, 2011:

Even without context, I can appreciate the swagger.

► PrinnyDood

Replied on May 11, 2011:

Easily one of the top 5 resignation letters I've ever seen.

► Reave (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied on May 11, 2011:

That's technically a classified document, you should probably take it down.

► Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)

Replied on May 11, 2011:

Reave

Chapter 75: L.52

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Fenrir returns from his scouting mission, and gives you a nod. It's not a trap.

"Let's go," you say. You don't tell Ghost or Imp that's it's safe, because it's not like BITN has any Thinkers that could know that, and a certain wariness adds verisimilitude. Who wouldn't be wary, when an unidentified person contacts them on PHO and requests a meeting in the bad part of town?

Poltergeist can't be seen playing twenty questions with someone invisible, so details beyond trap/not trap are left for you to discover on your own. That too is verisimilitude, you suppose. Waiting for you at the agreed meeting spot is one parahuman, female, dressed like a sad clown. No, really. A clown costume all in black and white, clown makeup likewise, except for a bright red teardrop under one eye.

"Circus," you say, tipping your head in greeting. "What business have you with BITN?" This is where knowing the entire local cape population by heart comes in handy. Astonishingly, her power doesn't register as active to sorcerer's sight. If you had enhanced reflexes and balance (that didn't force you to drop into a highly conspicuous and recognizable martial arts form) you'd be keeping them running at all times.

"Was wondering if you were recruiting, by any chance." Ah, that's why she's unusually monochromatic today: She's trying to fit your theme.

"Solo career not working out?" you ask.

She shrugs. "I've been doing well enough, but it's always better if you have someone to watch your back. There just weren't any local teams I'd fit into."

"Until we came along, huh?" Imp says.

Circus flashes a smile at her. "A bunch of sassy girls, robbing a bank on their first outing, and getting away clean? That's my jam, alright."

"Hm," you hum. You pull out your BITN phone and select the only contact not already present. You hold out one hand to Circus to forestall further discussion as you wait for said contact to pick up. Meanwhile, soul price!

Circus wants that one last big score, enough to retire on.

"Tattletale! How's my favorite information broker?" You can't see her power working over the phone, but you trust her to figure out what it means that you used her cape name. Risk of non-friendly people overhearing.

"What do you want, Poltergeist?" Yep, she's figured everything out.

"Tell me about Circus."

"Anything in particular about her?"

"Is she any good, for starters? I seem to recall that you hired her for the Forsberg job, and that didn't work out so well." Aisha growls a bit at the reminder and adopts a less friendly stance towards Circus, pointlessly giving clues about her identity like the rank amateur she is. Circus does not noticeably react to it, nor to you questioning her abilities.

"Ah, you're looking for references." Lisa says. "Did she give you a CV? 'Circus is a highly skilled and dependable contractor. She loves pancakes and long walks on the beach?' Well, she is. The Forsberg thing wasn't really her fault."

"Thank you," you say, your mind racing. So, it was a trap after all. Okay, so what are your objectives in light of this information? One, steal her power. Two, keep her out of BITN without making Pancakes suspicious.

"Tattletale speaks well of you," you say. "You'd need a new name, though. A circus doesn't exactly go bump in the night."

"Killer Clown," Aisha suggests. "That way she can keep the costume."

"Very well," Circus says, and your eyebrows shoot up behind your mask. She is very loyal to her employer.

"I would not be adverse to letting you join-"

"Great! I-"

"-provided you pass the tests."

"Tests?"

"Of course. Can't let you join unless you pass a test devised by each member. Think of it like joining the Slaughterhouse 9, except with more fun and games, less death and mutilation. The Laughterhouse 9, if you will. ...hm, that works better in writing, doesn't it?"

Circus does indeed appear to be quite the professional, because she takes this too in stride. "Very well."

"For your first test... The floor is lava."

That finally manages to break her composure. "Seriously?"

"Oh my god, how can you just stand there!?" Imp cries, instantly getting into the correct spirit without any prompting from you. "Can't you feel your shoes melting? The floor is lava!"

Circus grudgingly jumps up to cling onto a nearby lamppost. "Now what?" she asks.

"I think we're out of milk," you say. "Let's go buy some milk."

Watching Circus procure milk is a treat for the eyes - and would be even without sorcerer's sight, you suspect. She puts her enhanced balance to good use as she leaps from shelf to shelf towards the dairy aisle. Landing right on the edge of the cold storage compartment, she snags one foot through the handle of a milk jug before performing a backflip back onto the shelves. The jug goes flying as a result, almost brushing against the ceiling before falling back into her waiting hands.

"The shelves are lava too," you remark, and she quickly leaps off to land in an innocent bystander's shopping cart, surfing it all the way to the checkout.

The clerk seems to have trouble processing what's going on as Circus crouches on the conveyor to pay for her purchase, and stutters a bit on the company-mandated "have a nice day". But who's really going to complain, when four masked villains show up to not rob your store?

Because you've planned ahead, you have a spare lair to lead her back to, amidst much acrobatics and hilarity. You're going through real estate at a ridiculous rate, but it's better than letting your real lair turn into an IHOP. And money not spent is money wasted.

"Oh dear," you say as you deposit the milk in the fridge, "it looks like we're out of bread too."

Circus - who just ran up four flights of stairs along the banisters - slumps in defeat as she realizes how the rest of her day is going to go.

Circus lies flat on your kitchen table, panting for breath. For the last flight of stairs you declared banisters lava as well, so she had to ascend by repeatedly kicking off the walls of the stairwell.

"Weren't kidding... about being... Laughterhouse 9," she manages between breaths. "We done?"

"It hasn't been nearly 24 hours," you say. That's roughly how long it'll take you to gain her power, you estimate.

"...Jesus."

"Lava cools pretty slowly, you know" Aisha adds helpfully.

You give Circus a couple of minutes to recover, because you're merciful like that. But mostly because you need to duck out and call Ops to take the evening off.

"Got some business out of town I need to take care of," you tell them, because why not hit two birds with one stone? Clearly, this must have been when Low Key went to Vegas.

"What's with the Laughterhouse thing?" Aisha asks quietly, 5 hours in. You guess that's how long it took for your prank to stop being funny. "Didn't do that to us."

"What does your brand new smarts tell you?"

"Well, you're... I mean, you're obviously stealing her acrobatics power, right? Right. Which... means you're not going to let her join? But- ah shit you're a loyalty Thinker."

"Yeah, she's a spy," you confirm. It's funny, she literally saw you call Tattletale and she's still attributing your knowledge to your Thinker powers. Full marks otherwise, though. "Can't let on that we know, so your job will be to make a trial she'll fail."

"You can count on me, boss!"

The other members of BITN eventually beg off - unlike you they still need to sleep occasionally - and you keep going alone. You have to hand it to Circus, she's in way better shape than you are. If you had to abide by the same rules, you'd have collapsed long ago, but Circus keeps going all night long. It's a goddamn shame she's already a pancake person, because you certainly wouldn't mind an employee this reliable.

By the time dawn breaks you're well outside the city, with you walking on the side of the road, and her atop the power lines. Your creativity ran dry a while ago, so you just settled for something that would take a long time.

"Let's head back," you say eventually. "The others will be waking up soon." Circus doesn't respond, and keeps walking along the power line. "Hey. Hey? Hey!" Still no response, she just keeps walking.

You sprint after her. "Ragequitting? You realize that you need to get back to town anyway, right?" I'd be a shame to lose out on her power, but getting her to quit on her own is a good consolation prize. But as you overtake her and look up at her face, you realize what's going on. Her head dangles forward, lolling from side to side with each step. Her eyes are closed, her mouth open. A small rivulet of drool is smudging her clown makeup. She's fast asleep.

But clearly her balance power doesn't shut down just because the rest of her does, because she's still upright, still walking along. The flesh may be weak, but the spirit is awfully willing.

"Circus!" Ah, no, you can't shout so good with Poltergeist's voice. You poke her with a mind-hand instead.

"Bwuh!?" She jumps in place, but doesn't fall down.

"I said, let's start heading back."

"Okay."

She falls asleep again in less than a minute, but walking in the correct direction this time. You don't complain. She doesn't need to be awake for you to study her power.

She turns out be a very grouchy morning person once you get back to the city and she wakes up properly. Or maybe that's because of the contortions you have her go through to buy a coffee.

"It's been 24 hours," Circus complains.

"Not according to my watch," you counter.

"You're not wearing a watch!"

"Watches are also lava."

Aaaand there it is. Supernatural balance get. You turn it on right away - it's not permanent, despite her stunt with the sleepwalking - but don't notice much of a difference. Well, you are sitting down, not much call for balance right now. You'll test out applications more extreme than 'don't fall off the couch' later, with fewer spies around.

"Okay, the floor isn't lava anymore," you say, and Circus - who had been keeping off the ground by wedging herself into the corner between two walls and the ceiling - drops to the floor with a sigh of relief. "Congratulations, you passed the first test. Imp, you're up next."

"Alright!" Aisha jumps to her feet and turns to face Circus. "The Bootleggers are playing tonight, you have to streak across the entire field without getting caught."

"What?" Circus' voice is perhaps a little bit high-pitched and strangled.

"Oh, you can keep your makeup on. Wear a mask, even. I'm not trying to out you or anything. But below the neck? Zilch. Show those bootleggers a real booty legging it across the pitch!"

"I'm not doing that!"

Aisha just shrugs and sits down again. "Okay. Bye."

"...what?"

"You failed my test."

Circus stands there for a few moments before turning towards you, as if to appeal the decision. You just give her a tiny condescending wave. "Bye."

"After all that..." Circus mutters to herself. Her fingers twitch, as if she's contemplating pulling weapons from her personal hammerspace, or possibly throwing fireballs around (she's the most eclectic grab-bag cape you've ever seen outside a mirror). Ghost leans forward from where she was sprawled on the couch, getting her feet under her, ready to spring into action. You manifest a mind-hand to grab a pen from the table - nothing threatening, just a reminder that no one here isn't a living weapon.

After a few tense seconds, Circus holds up her empty palms. "I'll go," she says.

"Good luck finding another team," you say.

She nods stiffly, and leaves.

There's a note in the palm of your hand. It reads 'stay'. There's two notes in your hand. The second one reads 'silence'. Okay. You don't think you had anywhere in particular you needed to go right now, anyway. You are curious about the notes, though. You know you can trust them, but you have no idea where they're from. And there's no way you wouldn't try to figure out a mystery like this - so the fact that you don't remember doing that is very telling. There must be one hell of a shenanigan taking place.

You remain in place, and silent, until Aisha shows up and things make sense again.

"She really left," Aisha says, "didn't try to circle around to spy on us or anything."

Ghost stands up and stretches. "Let's go back to the real lair then," she suggests. "This couch is nowhere near as comfy."

"Yeah, let's." Aisha nods in approval, then turns to look at you. "Super acrobatics powers?" she asks.

"Super balance powers," you correct her. "The jumping around was all muscle-powered."

"Show us?"

You shrug, and place the pen you were still absently holding in your mind-hand upright on the floor. Then you jump on top of it. In mid-air, you realize just how preposterous an action that is. No matter how good your balance, what should happen is that the pen breaks under your weight, or spears straight through your foot, or some combination of both. Instead, neither happens, and you end up balancing atop it with no discomfort whatsoever. Power instincts, huh.

"That makes no sense," Ghost says, having picked up on the same anomalous physics you just did. "Circus couldn't do that."

"You know my powers mutate a bit from the originals," you say with a shrug. Then Aisha tries to push you off your perch, and you somehow manage to bend around it without falling.

"This is so dumb," Aisha says as she tries pushing you again, with no more success than the first time. "I love it."

You don't know who looks dumber, you for balancing with one leg drawn up and twisting around your inexplicably static center of gravity, or Aisha for repeatedly failing to push you over - but you love it too. You'll call it 'graceful crane stance', you decide. But you feel instinctively that you haven't plumbed the true depths of the 'balancing on fragile things' bullshit you're now capable of. You use a mind-hand to pluck single hair from your head, and hold it out to Aisha. "Here, hold this up for me."

"No way!"

Notes:

Mechanics corner

Exalted learning times are denoted in days, and assume 8 hours of training/studying per day. You can't go faster by working harder than that - your brain needs some free time too! Of course, that's assuming 8 hours wasted on sleep.

I don't think it specifies anywhere, but I take the underlying rule to be 'half your awake time can be spent training', so Taylor can now do 12 hours of training and 12 hours of relaxing - improving her power acquisition speed by 50%, given a captive audience.

In this case, the DM lets her stunt the two 12-hour training passes of two consecutive days as being back to back, for a 24 hour marathon.

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Chapter 76: L.53

Chapter Text

You were going to spend yet another evening hammering worthiness into the worthless (aka a date with Theo), but you were interrupted by a note mysteriously appearing in your hand, telling you to do something else. Thank you, mysterious note!

...you have this nagging feeling that you know where the notes are coming from. Conclusion: You used a memory-wiping Master power on yourself to forget where they're coming from, and also that you had this power. You try not to think about it too hard, because that would defeat the point of doing that in the first place. You're sure you had good reasons.

Anyway, the note directs you to a nondescript building that's just far enough from the Boardwalk to trade a bit of safety for a bit of affordability. Further directions have you climb up the fire escape to the fourth floor. As promised, someone has left a camera there for you.

It looks brand new, and incredibly expensive. You know the notes would never steer you wrong, of course, but you're amazed that whatever force is behind them can afford to leave something like this just lying around. The telescopic lens is powerful enough that it has the same warning pictograms as a real telescope: 'Do not point directly at the sun.' 'Do not point directly at the Simurgh.'

You remember the study that led to that second one being adopted: 'Trends in all-causes mortality among amateur astronomers before and after 2003.' Mostly because it completely ruined Christmas when mom suddenly went back on her promise to buy you a telescope, and no amount of reasonable explanations or stupid bird ladies in orbit were going to prevent you from throwing a proper tantrum over it.

Or not-quite-orbit, whatever. You hear (as opposed to 'you understand') that orbits are fiddly things, and you can only do them at very specific speeds/height/shapes. And apparently the Simurgh always goes either slightly too fast or slightly too slow for it to count as a proper orbit, and never by the same amount. The 'how' is easy enough - telekinesis, duh - but no one knows 'why'.

Well, there was that one guy who claimed to have figured out why, it made national headlines a year or two back. Judging by the way he felt it necessary to write out the equations using the viscera of his wife and children, he was probably right.

Luckily the cop who responded to the disturbance was a high-school dropout who didn't know the first thing about algebra, and shot the astronomer dead on the spot when he started trying to explain it. Since the corpse was white, it was quickly and uncontroversially ruled to be justifiable self-defense.

Of course there is approximately zero chance that the equations aren't sitting around in a bunker somewhere, waiting for someone to figure out a way to weaponize them. So saying that 'no one knows' isn't entirely accurate - the knowledge is out there, even if it does not currently reside in any human brain.

You're woolgathering, because you have nothing to do right now. The note said to wait until someone appears in the apartment across the street, then start taking pictures. And to keep taking pictures for one minute after they've left? Well, you do not question the notes.

The apartment itself is nothing special. Simple furniture with no particular theme, and some tasteful, understated decorations that look like they where all bought from the same 'tasteful and understated decorations' aisle at the flat-pack furniture store. Someone wanted to give his home a bit of character, and was relieved to discover that the forces of capitalism had his back when he didn't know where to begin.

When someone finally shows up, it is not who you expected.

You-don't-remember-o-vision

"I have a nemesis now," Aisha tells you.

"Yeah?"

She nods. "Armsmaster. He's in charge of the Rig - he built the defenses - and he lets people just waltz in and murder his prisoners? I'm going to destroy him."

While you are, for unrelated reasons, happy that the Rig didn't have better defenses, you agree with the fundamental premise. By rendering Grue defenseless, Armsmaster implicitly made himself responsible for his wellbeing. And he handled that about as well as... as well as Aisha handled the first time she was put in charge of your wellbeing?

You're not so tactless as to say that out loud, however. Water under the bridge, minion under your command, etc. "Challenging. Just. I approve," you say instead.

She beams at that. "I have a plan, it's gonna be great! But, uh, I could use your help. You're a Tinker, right?"

You shake your head. "I'm all out of orichalcum. You can afford to have Toybox build you-"

"No, I don't need anything built, I just need the plans. Blueprints. Something that he would want to look at, that could lure him out and distract him. I figure it takes a real Tinker to fake that convincingly."

"Okay, sure. I can whip up some Armsmaster bait no probl-"

"Yes! This shall henceforth be known as Operation Armsmaster Bait!" Aisha jumps up from the couch and does a little celebratory dance, repeating the words 'Armsmaster Bait' over and over while you bury your face in your hands.

It takes you an embarrassingly long time to recognize him. The beard would probably have tipped other people off, but you barely look at parahumans' faces even when they're not masked, instead identifying them by their powers. And every time you've seen this guy before, his power was almost entirely drowned out by a Christmas tree of tinkertech.

Yeah, it's Armsmaster. In civvies. Rumpled shirt contrasting with well-ironed slacks, no tie. You feel no remorse whatsoever about raising the camera and starting to snap pictures.

From your vantage point you can see into the kitchen and the living room. Armsmaster looks around the former first, and nods to himself as he spots a stack of papers on the kitchen table, but he walks over to make sure the latter is empty before sitting down to read. He doesn't look out the windows.

You keep snapping pictures. Is it just you, or is something about those diagrams strangely familiar?

You-don't-remember-o-vision

"Here." You present Aisha with the fruits of your labor: A stack of papers full of diagrams and schematics. Unordered and only haphazardly labelled (and with some pages 'missing'), but a decent Tinker who knew what he was looking at would be able to piece together 'Smith's notes on orichalcum lasers' with some effort. You even went to the trouble of tracking down Funny Jim again and having him do the annotations for that extra verisimilitude.

"Armsmaster bait?" she asks

"Armsmaster bait," you agree with a sigh. "The best bait."

"Uh huh. Yep. This looks like the good stuff all right." You're pretty sure she's holding the page upside down on purpose, as a joke. Very funny, ha ha, but you do kind of want her to acknowledge just how good the stuff is.

"It's not even fake," you tell her. "It works. In theory. It's unorthodox, and clever and intricate and so ridiculously far from cost-efficient that no one would ever get the budget approved to build it even if they could somehow source the materials, which they can't. It's completely useless to him, yet I guarantee he won't be able to put it down. It's goddamn Tinker catnip, is what it is."

"You mean it's hardcore Tinker porn," Aisha corrects you. "For the Armsmaster bait." You give her the response that deserves, which is to say you flick her on the nose with a mind-hand.

Armsmaster, well, fidgets like a motherfucker as he reads. You wouldn't have pegged him as the type. But he keeps adjusting his position, and moving his hands about. At one point he even stands up, then shifts uncomfortably for a while before sitting down in a different chair.

Whatever was bothering him about the chairs, he eventually gets fed up with it. Grabbing the papers, he makes his way over to the living room where he sprawls down on the couch in a very undignified manner. It doesn't look very comfortable either, and there's something weird about the way he's holding the papers out in front of him.

After another few minutes he gets up again, and returns to the kitchen. But instead of sitting down again, he just puts the papers back on the table and leaves. In accordance with your instructions you keep taking pictures of the empty apartment. Feels pointless, but whatever.

More or less a minute later, your phone vibrates. It's Aisha. Oh yeah, Aisha is a person who exists. You know where the notes are coming from again.

"Did you get it?" Aisha asks excitedly.

"Pretty sure I did," you say. "Uh, what exactly did I get?" Aisha just giggles in response. Well, you can figure that one out on your own. Unintuitive camera UIs are as nothing before industry and forge wisdom, and you quickly figure out how to go back and view the pictures you've taken.

So, there's Armsmaster in the apartment. There he is sitting down for the first time. And there's Aisha coming up behind him (also in civvies, her typical 'hooker, but underage' look). He takes some kind of device out of his pocket? You don't remember that? Ah, the next photo is Aisha gently taking it out of his hands. One photo of him looking briefly confused, before going back to reading.

"What was that you took from him?" you ask.

"Camera. Couldn't let him do that. HangonIjusthadthebestidea! Get your wolf to track him! I need to know where he lives!"

"Don't get yourself arrested," you say sternly. You would have to take measures if she was taken into custody.

"No no no, I'm just going to give him his camera back," Aisha assures you, barely holding back laughter. "Hang on, I need to set things up. Call you back?"

You are not exactly reassured. But you kinda want to see where this is going, and it's not as if Fenrir has anything better to do right now, and you can always not tell her if she doesn't give you a proper explanation first. You make your way down to street level where Fenrir is waiting for you (invisibly, of course), and give him his instructions. Armsmaster will be long gone, but the papers should have caught enough of his scent.

Aisha calls you back almost as soon as you finish. "Are you looking at the pictures? Keep looking."

Ah. With the camera taken care of, the next series of pictures follow a theme, of Aisha carefully kneeling down and posing the two of them so that it is very apparent that her face is pressed against his crotch, but enough is obscured that it's impossible to say what else is going on down there. Not all angles work out perfectly, but there are enough that do.

"Nice," you tell her.

Then you move on to the next picture, and freeze. Wow. She'd go that far that in the name of revenge? You admire her dedication, but you get the feeling that Brian would not approve. Oh yeah, he very much would not approve, you discover as you keep scrolling.

Then they move on to the couch. Once again Armsmaster's lower body is obscured, but the naked girl on top of him is quite visible. She was making him hold the papers against her chest, you realize. But of course the papers are not visible from this angle, making it look like his hands are being used for a different purpose entirely.

The reason you were made to keep taking pictures after Armsmaster left is finally revealed, as you find several beautiful shots of Aisha crying on the couch before gathering up her clothes and leaving.

"Someone is going to become famous," you remark.

Aisha's giggling evolved into full-blown evil laughter as you scrolled through the images and made various little remarks and exclamations. "I can't wait to see them myself," she says. "Come on. I got a shot of him talking to my 'pimp' beforehand, but I want you to get some of us walking off together too, with me looking all sad 'n shit."

"Alright." Before you put the camera down, you scroll back to your favorite image of the set and just savor it for a moment: Armsmaster smelling his fingers and looking confused as all hell. You won't be releasing that one - his expression would rather give the game away - but it's definitely getting printed out and put on the wall in your lair.

PH-O-vision

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Topic: The allegations against Armsmaster

In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay

Thus Spaketh (Original Poster) Posted on May 12, 2011:

Since at least three threads have been deleted so far, let's begin with some ground rules:

DO NOT POST ANY OF THE PICTURES

NO, NOT EVEN THE 'SAFE' ONES

DO NOT TALK ABOUT SECRET IDENTITIES

Got that? Good.

So, how deep a pit do you think they'll bury him in?

(Showing Page 5 of 22)

► ReadyRoom

Replied on May 12, 2011:

I liked the last thread title better.

► Syzygy

Replied on May 12, 2011:

I vote the next thread title should be 'Armsmaster investigates underage prostitution ring'

► will_eat_anything

Replied on May 12, 2011:

Next thread title: armsmaster gets his halberd looked at

► Inappropriate Crochet

Replied on May 12, 2011:

New cape in Brockton Bay, codename Jailbait

► federal_bureau_of_meat

Replied on May 13, 2011:

Bait status: Taken

► a piece of string

Replied on May 13, 2011:

Be honest. Wouldn't you?

► Reave (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied on May 13, 2011:

Armsmaster just checked himself into MS containment.

► long_distance_chef

Replied on May 13, 2011:

the old 'a master made me do it' defense, huh

► Pointy Hat Fancier

Replied on May 13, 2011:

A bold move, cotton. Let's see if it pays off.

► will_eat_anything

Replied on May 13, 2011:

Next thread title: a master made him do it

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ... 20 , 21, 22

Chapter 77: L.54

Chapter Text

M/S interview transcript

Date: 5/13 2011

Location: M/S Containment Room 1, Protectorate ENE Headquarters "The Rig"

Subject: Colin Wallis a.k.a. Armsmaster, Leader Protectorate ENE (A)

Interviewer: Emily Piggot, Director PRT ENE (P)

P: Tell me what happened yesterday.

A: Only yesterday? There were events leading up to it that-

P: Start at the beginning, then.

A: On the tenth of May, I received an email from an unidentified source-

P: On your Protectorate account?

A: A private account.

P: They contacted your civilian identity?

A: No, an anonymous account.

P: How did they know to contact this account?

A: I'll come back to that.

P: Very well. Continue.

A: They claimed to have come into possession of Tinker schematics by Smith, and offered to sell them to me.

P: And this 'Smith' would be?

A: They didn't specify, but I assumed - and was later proven correct - that they were referring to the latest Tinker. The third to take that name, I think, if you want to look him up.

P: Ah, yes. The gold Tinker. I remember. He contacted you with that ridiculous proposal of his.

A: Yes. I suspect that my contact details were among the documents that were obtained from Smith.

P: Stolen, you mean.

A: In all likelihood, yes.

P: According to your report on the matter, your only communication with Smith was over official channels. Why did you later contact him using an anonymous account?

A: Can I plead the fifth?

P: Not in M/S containment, no. As you well know. Besides, you will be turning this email account over to our investigators regardless. So that they may verify that you were in fact attempting to buy schematics, and not... other services.

A: ...yes.

P: Will they find anything objectionable there, aside from purchasing stolen goods and procurement of unapproved tinkertech?

A: ...no.

P: Very well. So, you agreed to buy the schematics?

A: Not quite. They demanded an outrageous price for the documents, but I was eventually able to negotiate a deal where I would get to examine them before they sold them to someone else. I was given an address, 52 Mercer street, Apartment 402.

P: Where the pictures were taken.

A: Yes. And a time, five o'clock on the twelfth of May. I kept the appointment.

P: You showed up in civilian clothes?

A: That was the deal.

P: You weren't worried about it being a trap?

A: I, ah, I arranged the evening's patrol routes so that there would always be backup within a few blocks while I was there. Anyway, a man on the street outside let me into the building, and led me to the apartment. I can provide his description-

P: Later.

A: Very well. He never spoke, merely gestured towards the kitchen once we were inside the apartment. I followed his direction, and found the documents on the kitchen table.

P: Did he follow you into the kitchen?

A: No, he remained by the door.

P: Was there anyone else present in the apartment?

A: I... I remember doing a sweep of the apartment, and not finding anyone.

P: What did you do next?

A: I sat down at the table and examined the documents.

P: Were they genuine?

A: Yes. I recognized the handwriting. And the design was brilliant! Only someone intimately familiar with the subtler properties of orichalcum could have come up with it.

P: What made you stop reading?

A: As far as I know, I never did.

P: You do not remember any of the... events depicted?

A: No. I remember finding the chair uncomfortable. I got up and tried a different chair. It didn't help, so I moved to the couch in the living room. I didn't find that very comfortable either. But at no point did I leave the documents behind.

P: Or at least, you do not remember doing so.

A: True. As far as I could tell, I finished studying the schematics, paid the agreed-upon fee and left without incident.

P: You merely studied the documents? You didn't attempt to make copies?

A: Ah, I was planning on photographing them, but found that I had forgotten to bring my micro-camera. At the time I chalked it up to simple absent-mindedness - I'm not used to preparing for an operation without the to-do list on my visor HUD. But in light of what happened...

P: Is this the camera in question?

A: Ye- Ah, it appears superficially similar to my camera, but without disassembling it I couldn't-

P: Yes, yes. Consider your ass covered. As far as you are aware, is your camera the only one of its kind?

A: As far as I'm aware, yes.

P: Can you spot anything that would indicate that this is not your camera?

A: ...not from in here, no. Where did you find it?

P: It was on the kitchen counter in your home, when we executed the search warrant earlier today.

A: I see...

P: Kid Win was able to interface with it. Would you care to venture a guess as to what kind of pictures we found on it?

A: As I recall, I last used it to photograph the control board of my prototype nanite factory. It had burnt out unexpectedly, and I wanted a second opinion on-

P: There were some pictures of that nature, yes. There were also a number of salacious pictures of young girls. Very young girls.

A: Damn it! They must have been taken after they stole the camera. The timestamps-

P: The timestamps were from as far back as February.

A: They must have been tampered with!

P: Our forensic analysts were unable to confirm either way, due to the non-standard formats used. Kid Win also said he wasn't sure. Is there any Tinker who could verify your claim?

A: Yes, Dragon! She has full access to my systems, she'd-

P: Let me rephrase the question: Is there any Tinker other than your Canadian girlfriend - someone a judge would consider unbiased?

A: Well... no.

P: Oh, don't look so glum. I'm entirely convinced you're innocent.

A: You are?

P: Yes. The PRT has not been idle while you were sitting in here. The girl in the pictures - the ones that were published, not the ones in the camera - has been identified as one Aisha Laborn. The sister of Brian Laborn, a.k.a. Grue. The apartment where the events took place also belonged to the late Mr Laborn.

A: Oh.

P: Indeed. It appears that miss Laborn has chosen to blame you for the, ah, negligent homicide of her brother, and to enact a peculiar sort of revenge. No doubt she reached out to associates of his for help - the stolen documents, the falsified timestamps. I now also suspect that she triggered with a Master or Stranger power on learning of her brother's death. These things do tend to run in families, and the way you described your experience does not match the power of any local villain.

A: I see.

P: You will still be suspended from duty pending an official investigation.

A: What?

P: We can not be seen to treat this matter with anything but the utmost seriousness. It remains a PR disaster of the highest magnitude, and thanks to the Aster Anders affair the public trust in our institutions is at an all-time low.

A: You signed off on that operation!

P: I did, and it cost two of my men their lives. Think about that, before you bemoan your own fate. The investigation will be thorough and entirely above-board, and a few weeks from now it will clear you of all charges - though you will probably have to eat a disciplinary action for the unapproved procurements.

A: Lovely.

P: Don't pretend that you don't deserve it. Believe me, with things as they are I would much rather have you out in the field. But we cannot afford even the faintest whiff of impropriety right now. If you want a silver lining, consider that you will retain access to your workshop during the suspension. Without patrols or administrative duties, I imagine you will rarely leave.

You arrive at the lair to find a peculiar sight. Sophia is up and about - not Ghost, because she's not in costume. Or, well, she's not in her cape costume. She's walking around the lair in a maid outfit, carefully cleaning everything with an honest-to-god feather duster. Black and white and lace and ruffles, contrasting against the fresh red scars all over her body.

When she sees you she stops, and curtseys. "Welcome back, ma'am," she says, demurely not meeting your gaze. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, that's fine," you answer a bit non-plussed. "Carry on."

"Ma'am."

Normally you'd chalk this up to Alec having a bit of a laugh and move on, but something niggles at you as she turns away and resumes her dusting. It's not a real maid outfit, because real maids (do they even make those anymore?) would have a lot more skirt, and a lot less cleavage. Not to mention that someone expected to do actual housework for a living would pick footwear more sensible than the stripper heels she's currently sporting.

But at the same time it fits her far too well to be some halloween crap straight off the rack. And every layer is real lace and real cloth with no cheap plasticky substitutes. You grab her skirt and feel the material between your fingers. You don't think you own any clothes of this quality. Not even Quicksilver's dress, not even when it was new.

You find Alec lounging on the couch in the living room, nursing a tall goblet of something fizzy and orange and full of sliced fruit.

"Did you have a sexy maid outfit custom tailored?" you ask incredulously.

"My money, isn't it?"

You don't really have a comeback for that, so you just shrug and sit down next to him. Having just finished another date with Ballistic, you have a few hours free to study his power before you need to change into Low Key.

Even between the two of them you haven't quite been able to fill up your entire no-school, no-sleeping schedule with cape bullshit - you're not Ballistic's boss, just his incredibly clingy girlfriend, and no amount of Loyalty can make Alec get out of bed before noon. At least Ops is happy about someone voluntarily taking all the worst late night/early morning patrol shifts.

You do have Purity's Loyalty, but that doesn't automatically translate into her power. Loyalty is not mind control. You could probably convince her to blast the shit out of some stretch of land no one cares about, just because you want to watch things go boom. You could maybe convince her to keep doing that for hours on end without demanding a better explanation. But not enough hours, and it wouldn't exactly be subtle. Heroes would show up, and if not arrest her, at least ask "why?". And that's not a question you ever want heroes to ask.

Things will no doubt pick up once Kaiser's soul price comes in and you're able to bend the bureaucratic machinery of the Empire to your will, but for now Low Key's patrols remain as downtime, power-wise. Not that you're complaining too loudly right now - with a more demanding schedule you wouldn't have been able to clown on Circus so easily.

"Want her to make you one of these?" Alec asks, indicating his drink. "I forget what they're called, but they're good."

You politely refuse. Nothing that fruity could possibly be nonalcoholic, and you've had bad experiences with mind-altering substances. Oh and also you're fifteen and it's illegal for you to drink. Funny how that kind of concern has fallen by the wayside.

Instead you just kick back and relax and watch Alec pilot Sophia around.

"Should I read something into how good you are at walking in stripper heels?" you ask.

"You can read whatever you like, it's a free country."

When Aisha shows up she just stops in the doorway and stares. She looks at the lounging Alec, then at the cleaning Sophia, then back again.

"What," she says flatly.

Alec ignores her. You offer a shrug and a 'what can you do' half-smile.

"No, seriously: What?"

Sophia curtseys again and pays her the same respect she did you: "Welcome back, ma'am. Can I get you anything?"

Aisha waves her away distractedly, before pointing an accusing finger at Alec. "You're making her do that."

"Well, duh?"

"No, I mean... you're making her do that, not ordering her to do it. You still have to, like, move all the muscles and focus on the task, and stuff. It looks like you're being lazy and pampered, but how is this different from you cleaning the lair yourself?"

"Shut up bitch, you're ruining it."

Aisha rolls her eyes and plops down on the couch. "Whatever. You, servant girl. Make me one of those fruity things."

Once Aisha has her drink Sophia starts dusting behind the TV - and in the process bends over in a way that reveals what lies beneath her too-short skirt. It matches the dress, in that it too is heavy on the lace, and too small to be practical.

"Just like in my Japanese cartoons!" Aisha exclaims with extremely sarcastic enthusiasm. "You fucking dork."

You study the view with clinical detachment. "Do you ever... make use of your slave puppets?" you ask Alec.

"It's been known to happen," he says in the diffident tones of someone worried that an authority figure is about to step in and ruin everyone's fun.

"Can I watch?"

"It's no good when you make her act like she's into it."

"Sorry, I find screaming and attempted murder to be a turn-off."

"At least leave her face alone. You can do that, can't you?"

Sophia starts crying. Not sobbing - he's keeping too tight a hold on her breathing for that - but tears start streaming down her face.

"Yesssssss," you hiss, leaning in close to get a better view. "This is what you get."

You lean in closer still, and taste her tears for yourself. They are salty, but oh so sweet. Like justice.

You giggle a little. There have been other trespasses against you, that you are willing to leave in the past. Emma? That chapter of your life is done. You beat the shit out of her, physically and mentally. Maybe she killed herself, like Alec said. That would be nice. But it's over with either way. Sophia, though... Sophia is yours forever. For ever and ever and ever.

"Forever," you whisper in her ear, and a small keening noise makes it past Alec's control of her throat. Your giggle turns into full-blown laughter.

You partake in more of her bounty, tenderly kissing the skin just below her eye, running your tongue along her scars (your scars) as you lap up her tears. Who else did you leave behind? Madison? Dear, sweet, guileless bitch cunt Madison. You forgive her. You hope she finds her handsome husband and big house and adorable kids. You have Sophia. As her juddering movements intensify and it becomes difficult to accurately trace the scars with your tongue, you settle for gently suckling at the corner of her eye.

"If you'd told me you were going to make out with her I wouldn't have charged you for this," Alec remarks.

"Shut up bitch, you're ruining it."

Chapter 78: L.55

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It's the biggest one you've ever had, and it took a lot of work to get it inside you. You close your eyes and shudder in pleasure as it finally slots into place.

...You're talking about powers, of course. Rune and Dragon comes close, but Ballistic's power is ever so slightly larger. You keep your eyes shut and admire its form inside your soul. So thick and veiny - okay, maybe you're reaching a bit now, but the essence channels of this particular golden construct are notably thicker than most.

Sure, it makes sense that supersonic projectiles would be more energy intensive than, say, the passive scanning of sorcerer's sight. But on the other hand, the power draw is also much larger than Labyrinth's power, which transports you into another dimension. Powers only ever make sense in order lull you into a false sense of security.

You could just get up and walk away now - your dates with Luke have served their purpose. It would be hilariously rude to leave him hanging like that, though, and as you've mentioned before, it's not as if your schedule is packed. You can finish this session properly.

But seems as though fate is determined to end the date early, because not long afterwards there's a terrible, ear-splitting noise from outside. A warning klaxon that no one alive could fail to recognize.

You and Luke both freeze up, looking at each other.

"I didn't miss an announcement that they would be testing the Endbringer sirens today, did I?" you ask.

"Not unless I missed it too."

"Well." You smoothly stand up and walk over to the pile of your clothes. "That's my cue to get the hell out of Dodge, then."

"You're not going to help?" Luke asks. His tone is neutral, not accusing.

"What could I do to an Endbringer?" you ask rhetorically. "Aggressively study it?" Your lips quirk slightly. "I must admit the idea is somewhat tempting. Not '25% expected casualty rate' tempting, though."

Luke nods in understanding. You wonder whether you'll see him there, or if he shares Quicksilver's pragmatic outlook.

There was never any question about which persona you would bring to the fight: Protecting the Empire is your duty. It's what you get for not reading the fine print of your verbal contract. Doesn't matter whether it's random junkies, hostile capes, or goddamn Endbringers, if Low Key doesn't show up to defend the populace from them she'll be out of a job.

And you're not prepared to abandon the Empire that easily. It's kept you in powers for months and months, and you're still nowhere near finished. You've already got your loyalty-claws into one of the lieutenants, and you're this close to doing the same for the emperor himself. As a faint silver lining, Fenrir brought along Low Key's costume in a dematerialized bag, because you were planning to go straight from the date to your patrol tonight. You just need a brief window of privacy to shapeshift and change clothes and you're ready to go.

And you weren't not going to join in the fight, regardless of Low Key's employment status. This is your home, goddammit! And while Low Key is weak, it's not as if you have any other powers that would have a noticeable effect against an Endbringer.

Sure, you got Ballistic's power less than an hour ago. It's clearly useless here, never mind that it's completely untested. The the US military budget consumes the better part of a trillion dollars a year - if there's one thing your country does not lack for, it's supersonic projectile delivery systems. If mere supersonic projectiles could deter an Endbringer, the world would be a very different place.

You have a knife that can cut through anything. But even if you could somehow get into knife range of an Endbringer without dying - spoilers, you can't - it's a knife. Against a giant monster. What are you going to do, cut its toes off? There's no way it could reach anything vital.

Maybe if Lung's power hadn't mutated so much - not that you remember how you activated it that one time, but judging by the footage of the incident you instantly became a fixed-size dragon, instead of constantly growing without an upper limit like the original.

Maybe if you had dropped everything else to go after Purity's power the moment you escaped the Rig - approach her as Quicksilver, offer her literally all your money, and use her inexplicable trust towards that total stranger to invite her to go camping in the Nevada desert and blow up old nuclear test sites?

Maybe, maybe. Maybe if your entire approach to powers had been different, and you tried to stack maximum Blaster from the start, instead of doing the opposite of that. Maybe then you could have had enough oomph to slightly stagger an Endbringer, buying your allies several fractions of a second...

On the other hand, maybe it's better this way. Because if you had the means to be an effective combatant you'd have to agonize between going as Low Key, the girl who saved her career, versus Eidolonette (you'll think up a better name later), the girl who made a difference. Truly, uselessness is a balm for the conscience.

Aaaand now you're going to feel guilty about feeling good about being too useless to feel guilty. But speaking of uselessness, you'd better call your minions.

Aisha-o-vision

"What's the word?" Alec asks.

"Boss said to tell you to 'secure her stuff', and to follow your orders. You know what's up?"

"I do." Alec stands up from the couch, and Ghost shadows right out of her maid uniform and dashes off towards her room. "We're getting the hell out of Dodge."

"What? No, we-" The doom of disobeying an order bears down on me, taking my breath away. "Please don't say that? We gotta help people."

He looks at me appraisingly as I fidget, unable to argue further without dooming myself.

"Please?"

"So she's a Master too," he says after a few seconds.

"Yeah, I gotta do what she says - which is doing what you say right now. But you could get her stuff yourself, and tell me to go help?"

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that," Alec says, shaking his head. "Really, what 'stuff' do you think she values so much? The lair she built in an afternoon? The video games she never played?"

Oh. Duh. It's me. I'm the stuff she needs secured. "You suck." I want to tell him to disobey her orders - he didn't accept any improvements - but the doom closes in again, warning me not to open my mouth.

Alec rolls his eyes at me - fondly, or so he'll claim if challenged. "Don't hate the player, hate yourself for thinking you'd even make difference out there. I thought she was making you smarter?"

By the time you've found your way to the rallying point, it's raining heavily. You'd call it ominous, except aren't omens meant to be all mystical and divinatory? If there's a direct causal link between the omen and what it portends, does that make it more or less ominous? And you can tell that there is, because every raindrop is suffused with power. A strange inhuman power unlike anything you've seen before, except that one brief glimpse in Ottawa. You'd love to study it, but it's so bright you had to turn off sorcerer's sight just to be able to see five feet in front of you - something that's going to be pretty important in an Endbringer fight

As you approach the building, and odd feeling rises within you. Ah, you are drawing close to your armor. It's an Endbringer fight, of course Dragon brought the Smaug. Indeed, there it is, standing in the parking lot of an otherwise nondescript brick building (there's also a couple of PRT vans, Rune's favorite rock and five of Rachel's monster dogs - but the humanoid dragon with scales of glowing gold rather hogs the spotlight).

A poor choice of venue you feel, insofar as the doors are too small to admit Fenrir. The Travelers arrive as you dismount, and have to leave Genesis('s projection) outside as well. Wolves and dogs, a dragon and a giant flying jellyfish-thing with shark-toothed whips for stingers, it's becoming a regular menagerie out here.

Even though you made good time, flying above the panicking crowds trying to make it to the shelters, the rest of the Empire is already inside. Well, the place is practically inside their territory. No one remarks on your tardiness as you join them. Kaiser nods at you, while Othala offers you a slightly strained smile. Others may be smiling as well, but she's the only one who stopped wearing a mask when everyone's identity became public.

A quick look around reveals what other local villains were feeling civic-minded today. The Merchants are absent, as are Faultline's Crew (and BITN, obviously). But two thirds of the Undersiders did show up - or maybe three quarters, as you spot Circus standing next to Lisa and Rachel. It would make sense for Coil to use her to shore up their team, after he failed to get her on yours.

Legend is up front, giving a pep talk/strategy overview. You mostly tune him out - that stuff is for people who will meaningfully contribute. The Wards are circulating through the crowd, handing out tinkertech bracelets. Coincidentally, it turns out to be Aegis who gives you yours.

"No hard feelings, right?" you say as you accept it.

"Not today."

You peer suspiciously at the bracelet before putting it on, briefly reactivating sorcerer's sight. But this is not a Simurgh fight, it's not rigged to blow. Dragon sensibly has a separate, bombless version that she hands out as appropriate (you easily recognizes Dragon's handiwork). It might not matter today, but you certainly wouldn't want to go up against dynakinetic Behemoth with an inactive bomb strapped to yourself.

Oh yes, the bracelets they give out for Simurgh fights will automatically blow up and kill you if you spend too long in her presence. It's not exactly a secret - everyone who's ever been to Simurgh fight knows about it, for starters - but it isn't mentioned. Like just about every questionable (or unquestionably awful) thing a hero does, rampant media collusion keeps it out of the public consciousness.

There's clearly someone, somewhere who decides what the public gets to worry about. Politically inconvenient or uncomfortable fact? Into the memory hole it goes. There'll be a new scandal tomorrow, and we'll never mention this one again. What need is there for palatable policy, when every media platform in the country will march in lockstep to enact your will?

Though they aren't perfect. They miscalculated when they went up against the Empire, too used to throwing their weight around with impunity. If Kaiser had only been a gang leader and not also a wealthy CEO, what happened to Aster Anders would have vanished too.

The exploding bracelets are practically benign in comparison. A dead hero is better than a Simurgh bomb with superpowers, most everyone would agree - as long as you never tell them how long it really takes the Simurgh to subvert someone, then a few of them might get cold feet.

"Please state your name and power," a synthesized voice from the bracelet interrupts your thoughts.

"Low Key, Mover." On the mean streets of Brockton Bay you'd identify as a Brute. Against Leviathan, not so much. You hesitate about elaborating further, but if there's one Tinker who can make a device with natural speech recognition... "Flight, moderate speed and carrying capacity."

"Acknowledged. Stand by for assignment. Your assignment is: Medevac. Please refer to the map for instructions."

The little screen on the bracelet shows a map of the city, divided into grid squares. There's a white dot which, judging by it's position, represents either you or the rallying point itself. There's also a flashing red dot labelled 'field hospital'. Since the fight hasn't started yet, the rest of the map is mostly bare. A few yellow dots out in the bay, presumably setting up defenses against tidal waves. And of course a bright purple circle, warning people away from the amethyst field.

"Gonna go get setup," you tell your imperial peers. "Get a look at the field hospital." You shoot a look back at Rune as you shoulder your way back outside, but she makes no move to join you. You suspect her confidence in her ability to throw rocks at things outmatches yours. Or perhaps she was tapped as a gunnery platform instead of medevac.

You pass by a couple of other familiar faces. Vista - Warp, now, since the Protectorate still owns the 'Vista' trademark - gets a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Narwhal gets the not-even-an-errant-glance-in-her-direction of true respect. Soon enough you're outside, mounted, and airborne.

You're almost at the field hospital (which is actually a regular hospital, with several red cross-marked tents set up outside) when the first wave hits. Whoever was out in the bay was doing a shitty job. Luckily you're far enough inland that it's mostly spent by the time it gets to you, and whoever they assigned to guard the hospital is more on the ball. A forcefield dome springs up, and repels the water without apparent strain.

You don't have time to gawk, though, because that's also when your bracelet springs alive with notifications.

Nekomancer deceased, CD-5. Oaf down, CD-5. Triumph deceased, CD-5.

The map is also full of yellow dots now, most of them clustered around a big green dot that you're going to do your level best to stay the hell away from. But even as some yellow dots wink out, others turn red. That's your cue. You get Fenrir turned around and pointed towards the nearest red dot.

Said dot winks out before you can even get there. Perhaps he was saved by a teleporter. Probably not.

Acoustic down, CD-5. Snatch deceased, CD-5. Iron Falcon deceased, CD-5.

When you finally arrive at an intact dot, you find a pair of capes waiting for you. Not people you recognize, but the matching blue spandex and white corporate logos tells you they are a team. One of them is missing most of his right arm, but a utility belt turned tourniquet has stopped most of the bleeding.

"Ambulance's here," you announce. His friend helps him get mounted behind you. Fenrir can carry more, but with the way the bleeding has only mostly stopped you're not sure you can risk a detour. Straight back it is.

Manpower deceased, CD-6

You change your plans slightly when another red dot appears almost directly in your path. You divert one street over, and find an unconscious girl lying face down in the ankle-deep water. There's blood all over her back too, but according to the bracelet she's still got a heartbeat.

"Pick her up up," you tell Fenrir. "Gently."

Fenrir flies down and grabs her in his mouth without breaking stride. You have your misgivings about whether she'll still be alive by the time you get to the hospital, but that's not your problem. It's not as if her modest weight is slowing Fenrir down. Pick them all up, let the medics sort them out.

A few faster flyers overtake you on the way, but they too are loaded down with casualties, unable to take over your burdens. You see them passing straight through the hospital forcefield without issue, so you follow suit and drop off your patients by one of the triage tents. Back at it.

"It's better if I take the less critical injuries, so I have time to pick up several people in one go," you tell the bracelet.

"Acknowledged. Calculating route."

Another wave hits, wiping out most of the red dots, but it creates plenty more to replace them.

Underwhelm down, BW-5. Redact deceased, BW-5. Gallant deceased, BW-4.

"Recalculating route."

By the time you get back towards the fight, things are in full swing and the air is swarming with fliers. You spot Rune in the distance - a trio of Tinkers are working to set up a giant cannon on top of her flying rock. Your next target is uncomfortably close to the fight - according to the map, Leviathan is only two streets away. A distance he could cross in a single second, should he desire.

His speed turns out to be a secondary concern, as a beam of water shoots into the air from his location and cuts a flying cape in half. Leviathan has what they call a 'water shadow' - whenever he moves, he leaves water behind in the space he previously occupied. You knew that much. What you didn't know was that he can apparently also propel the water away from himself, with enough force to- well, you saw what it did.

"Down! Down!" you yell at Fenrir. Forget proximity, you're staying on street level from now on, and avoiding line of sight completely. Fenrir takes your words to heart, and dives down to the point where his feet are skimming the top of the floodwater. In other circumstances you'd be more appreciative of the 'Jesus-wolf walking on water' image.

Hellhound down, BW-3

This time you manage to pick up four people before turning back. They suffered fractures rather than amputations, so none of them are in immediate danger of bleeding out. The last person, who introduces himself as Smackdown, is even cheerful enough to crack a joke as Fenrir's jaws close around him.

"I get to ride in the front seat, huh? Sure beats staying to drown!"

Parian deceased, BW-3

You drop them off without issue, but the downsides of staying at street level become apparent as you approach the fight once more, and the third wave hits. The armband gives what it considers sufficient warning, but Fenrir's method of flight is not so good at elevation changes. The wave washes over you, sending Fenrir tumbling back some distance before he can... regain his footing on the air? Look, you don't ask about these things anymore. The important part is that you managed to hold on. Your mask didn't, though. Neither did your contact lenses.

Laserdream deceased, CA-4. Olmec down, BW-6.

You can deal. The mask doesn't matter, everyone knows who Low key is. As for the contact lenses, you can trust Fenrir to handle the steering on his own. You'll squint at the screen and shout directions.

Things become a blur after that, and you don't just mean optically. Pick people up. Drop people off. Get soaked by another wave, not the that rain isn't soaking enough on its own. Avoid the green dot. Pick people up. One person stands out to you, if only because he's standing in waist-deep water covered in burns. A sobbing pyrokinetic next to him explains that she's really sorry but she had to cauterize his wounds or he would have bled to death, please don't die, please don't leave her alone.

You pick them both up. Even if she's not medically speaking in shock - you're not qualified to judge that - she's not going to be any further use in the battle.

Trainwreck down, FU-2

You don't even register anything strange about that statement.

Then the next blurry person providing first aid is dressed in purple, with blonde hair on top.

"Why are you even here?" you ask Lisa as you get her semiconscious patient draped across Fenrir's neck.

"I don't even know anymore. No, I know: Onions. Endbringers are like onions, that's important. Bitch, she..."

"Is that a broken arm?"

"I'm fine. I can still-"

"Fenrir, grab her."

At some point the rain starts easing up. Does that mean you're winning, or losing? The water level is decreasing too, but there are no announcements beyond the usual downs and deceaseds.

Then you turn a corner, and he's there. Leviathan, right in front of you. Thirty feet of lanky green muscle, four glowing green eyes, claws, whip-tail... You may have stolen the name 'Fenrir' for your own use, but he is Jörmungandr. He's battered and bleeding - you are winning - but he's charging right at you.

He swipes a claw at you without slowing down. Fenrir drops and rolls to get below it, and you turn into shadow to flow around the attack. When you reform standing on the ground he is already past you. He doesn't consider you worth the effort to turn back for, merely flicking his tail in your direction as he keeps running.

For just a moment, your brain malfunctions - you see that the tail-strike will end up well short, and relax. You forget what he can do with the water shadow. Fenrir throws himself in front of you.

Liquid spatters across your face, but it is a warm wetness. Blood temperature.

When you open your eyes, Fenrir is gone. No! Where did he go? He has to be alright! He- he just dematerialized. Of course. You activate sorcerer's sight.

Fenrir is not alright. He is, just barely, in one piece. Parts of him are spilling out across the ground. You rush around and kneel in front of his face. Mind-hands spring forth to stroke blood-matted fur. You see his breaths growing ever shallower.

"You're going to be alright," you tell him. Tears are streaming down your cheeks, but they lie. He's going to be fine. There's nothing to be sad about. "We can fix this. Everything's going to be fine."

Fenrir shifts his head ever so slightly, looking into your eyes. He can't speak, but you know what he's asking.

"You are a good dog," you promise him. "The best dog."

Fenrir grows still.

You stare at his mangled corpse remains body. Get up. He has to get up. Good dogs don't leave you all alone.

No. He can't be- you have to- you should report in? Your mind latches on to that idea, in the whirlwind of half-formed thoughts. There's a way to do these things. You remember. You raise the bracelet in front of your face.

"I... I can't..."

It's not Dragon's first rodeo, and the speech recognition algorithms correctly interpret what you're saying.

Low Key down, CT-10.

Notes:

A/N

The rest of the fight went more or less as it did in canon - that is to say, Armsmaster still showed up to do his thing, and somehow managed to not die while fucking it up.

Since Taylor was actually able to be useful this time around the overall cape death toll was ever so slightly lower. On the other hand a whole bunch of civilians died when she wasn't around to wedge her plot armor in the door of that breached shelter. But it's not as if civilians are plot relevant, right?

?-o-vision

Chance of seeing my parents again: 0%

Chapter 79: B.01

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

People arrive to talk to you. Fenrir is dead. They probably want you to answer a question, or something. You don't care. You don't pay attention to their words. Fenrir is dead. Eventually one of them takes you by the hand and leads you away.

That's good. You didn't want to keep looking at him. You just couldn't look away. You look around, trying to understand where you are. You need to come back later, you need to... make a memorial, or something. You need to never go back there, because he will always remain there. There are no immaterial scavengers to... remove things, no immaterial rain to wash anything away, and you don't want to look at him again.

You need to go back there and bury him with your bare mind-hands. But not now. Not yet.

You are led across the city. There are people in the streets, civilians. The battle must be over. You won, if one could ever be said to win an Endbringer fight.

They lead you back to the hospital. That's wrong, you can't- you can't fly anymore. You can't help. The man who led you here talks to a nurse. Just a few words. She nods, and leads you into the building. Into a private room. She coaxes you into a bed, and handcuffs you in place. You don't explain that you don't sleep anymore.

Time passes.

You recognize the girl trying to talk to you. It's Panacea. She's as beautiful as ever. You could use something beautiful to look at. You wonder what she's saying.

"-unresponsive," she's saying. Then she reaches out towards you. Panacea is about to touch you! You jerk back instinctively, but are held fast by the handcuffs. You frantically shut down sorcerer's sight, and graceful crane stance, and did you have anything else running? Only the stuff you can't shut off.

Panacea draws her hand back. "So, you are responsive after all? Do I have your permission to heal you?" She looks angry about having to say that. She may be holding a bit of a grudge over how you defended yourself against her sister.

"Why?"

"You are covered in blood," Panacea notes sourly. "And you were unresponsive. Not that I could fix your brain as such, but if you have intracranial swelling..."

True, but... it's not your blood. You're not injured. You think. Details are a bit fuzzy.

"Believe me, nothing would make me happier than if you refused treatment and died," Panacea says when you don't respond. "Go on, make the world a better place."

Maybe you should. Without Fenrir...

"Patient is unresponsive again," Panacea says with a sigh, and touches you.

She snatches her hand back instantly, as if burned. Instead of scowling, she's staring at you wide-eyed.

"Did you know you were pregnant when you signed up for the Endbringer fight?"

What? You aren't- You can't be- No. You took the pill afterwards. You took the pill!

Oh no. No no no no. You... you have Brute powers. You are poison resistant. You might have...

This isn't real. This isn't happening.

It... might not be real? You've... done other things. You used protection, but... that's not a 100% guarantee, right? Right?

"What-" You pause to lick your lips. "What race?"

Like a switch flipping, Panacea is scowling again. "Really, Ilsa? You didn't think that the time to worry about miscegenation was before spreading your legs?"

"It wasn't voluntary," you whisper.

"Oh."

She reaches out to touch you again - and once again snatches her hand back. This time she just looks utterly confused.

"It's... not human?" she says. She works her entire hand in under your armor, to lay her palm against your stomach. "What in the world..."

You can't help it, you start crying when you realize what must have happened. Tears of joy. You don't understand how, or why, but you understand that powers are bullshit. Bullshit that worked out in your favor, in this case. It wasn't poison resistance.

Fenrir is protecting you even in death. You know that's not really true and you got the causality all backwards, but you don't care. You're just so happy.

"You know what happened," Panacea says. "You're happy about-" She stops speaking as something occurs to her. She extricates her hand from underneath your armor, and instead swabs some of the blood off the outside with a fingertip.

"It matches," she breathes. "The wolf..?" She laughs, and there's a faint tinge of hysteria to it. You can sympathize a bit, you weren't always this inured to power bullshit. But then she goes and fucks it all up.

"Wait until all your nazi friends hear about what you've been getting up to!"

Instantly, an icy calm overtakes you. There's no space for happiness right now, or grief. There's an enemy in the room.

"Are you sure you want throw stones in that particular glass house, Amy?" you ask. "You, of all people?"

Her face goes white. "You're bluffing!"

"Should I tell your sister first, or your mom? Which would hurt you worse, I wonder?"

Almost unconsciously, she reaches out towards you again.

"The Thinker who figured it out will know what happened if I die in here," you say. It's true, but you're also prepared to shadow-form out of the cuffs and slit her throat with mind-hands if it doesn't deter.

She startles, and looks down in shock at her own hand. Her whole body shudders as she contemplates what she almost did. When she looks back up at you, she's biting her lip in contemplation.

"Truce?" she offers after a few seconds' thought. "We clearly both have... leverage."

"Truce," you agree.

"Then... let me give you a proper checkup."

She's touching again before you have a chance to refuse. Given her earlier reaction you're satisfied she's not going to murder you in cold blood... but you don't really want her poking around for incriminating biology either, not when she's not being distracted by your uterus anymore. But turning into shadow to escape would be worse.

"Hm. Some light mineral deficiencies - your diet has been poor lately. I'll get someone to prescribe the proper supplements. And what's this? Your Brute rating improves over time? It wasn't this good when you had your little car accident."

See, that's exactly what you didn't want her to discover. "If you tell anyone..."

"Yes, yes. It's too weak to make much of a difference anyway. Crawler, you are not. Your little abomination is a bit of a Brute as well - the genetics are fascinating. It's a girl, by the way. I hope you didn't want that to be a surprise."

You just nod in response, your face blank. Chained to the bed as you are, you're a bit of a captive audience to her passive-aggressive ramblings.

"Nice tits," is her next comment. "Vegas Fleshcrafters?"

You maintain a poker face, but some other part of your biology clearly registers surprise, because Panacea giggles. "Oh, they're very well sculpted, but the cell growth pattern is obviously artificial if you know what you're looking for." She shakes her head in mock sadness. "Those hips, though. Your surgeon was clearly a better biokineticist than an anatomist. You're going to have trouble walking by the time you're thirty."

"Is that really something I need to worry about, when I signed up for my first Endbringer fight at fifteen?" you ask. You'd appreciate it if she stopped looked for forensic evidence of shapeshifting, thank you very much.

"No, no, that won't do at all. Let me give you proper child-bearing hips for the little abomination. She's innocent in all this, after all. And I'd better restore the chest area as well, never know what might have gone wrong there. Wouldn't want the baby to starve." She stares you dead in the eyes as your breasts shrink down to their natural size.

"Nothing?" she asks, disappointed in your lack of reaction. "Nazism must pay well, if you can afford another set so easily."

Mutually assured destruction doesn't mean an end to hostilities, after all. It just means that all attacks must carefully stop just short of the unforgivable.

"If you're fixing things I'd rather you do my eyes," you say - letting her know that certain things would be a lot more forgivable with some reparations attached. "Contact lenses didn't play so well with tidal waves."

"If I do that, do you promise to go to the next Leviathan fight?"

"Yes." Being useless is no longer acceptable. Next time Leviathan shows up, you're going to have enough powers to kill him.

"You're not lying," Panacea declares. "As long as it promotes good deeds that will likely get you killed, I don't mind helping out." There's a faint pressure on your eyeballs, and the room shifts into focus. Panacea withdraws her hand. "I should get going. You're healthy, and lots of less awful people need my help."

The enemy retreats from the room, leaving you to... do whatever your emotions decide to do next. Your emotions decide to start crying again. Fenrir... You try to rest one hand on your stomach, only for the handcuffs to stop you.

A PRT officer shows up to let you out of the cuffs. You carefully clench your fists and keep your hands at your side to stop yourself from touching your belly. A shapeshifter like you can't allow herself that kind of tell. As you leave the room, you see Othala waiting for you, alongside either Fenja or Menja - she appears to have lost her weapon, and not even sorcerer's sight can tell the twins apart, since they have the same power. You don't comment on the way the valkyrie's eyes are red and puffy from crying, because you don't imagine you look any better.

Othala, and the other hand, sees your teary eyes and clenched fists, and arrives at a somewhat correct conclusion by way of faulty reasoning.

"I'm sorry you had to put up with her," she says - it would appear that Panacea's bedside manner is famous in healer circles. "They wouldn't let me treat our own people. What, did they think I'd grant you super strength and send you on a rampage?"

She reaches out to grab your hand, and grants you super strength. You snort at her invisible act of spite, and don't go on a rampage. Obviously. What purpose could that possibly serve? Heroes. Idiots, the lot of them.

But objectively speaking, your encounter with Panacea was extremely beneficial. You gained valuable intel, and neutralized a dangerous enemy. And got 20/20 vision without having to risk using emptiness endowment on yourself again.

"Kaiser is dead," F/Menja says. "As is my sister."

Oh. RIP your plans. And... possibly the whole empire? "What happens now?" you ask.

"I don't know."

You pull out your empire phone to check for messages... but it clearly didn't like being submerged in seawater, and refuses to turn on.

"Don't bother," Othala says. "Cell towers are down."

As soon as you are outside, M/Fenja grows to giant size and picks you up. Othala grants her flight, and off you go. No one suggests you fly on your own. They must think your wolf summoning is on cooldown. Just as well, because you suddenly realize you have no idea how to handle Low Key's identity going forward. You may have to simply cut your losses and vanish.

"We need to set up a meeting," Othala says. "Get everyone together and decide what to do."

"I need to find Theodore and tell him about his father," F/Menja says.

"I'll come along for that," you say. "If he's still alive."

M/Fenja is on one knee before the waste of space, shrunk down to human size.

"I failed in my duty as a bodyguard," she says. "Your father died at Leviathan's hands."

"Oh," Theo says. He doesn't sound all that sad, or shocked. Or happy, for that matter. He turns to look at you.

"It's over between us," you say. With Kaiser dead, you have no use for him. With any luck you'll never-

-why are you on the ground?

The-o-vision

Without warning, both Taylor and Fenja (or possibly Menja - she didn't introduce herself and I was too embarrassed to ask) collapse to the ground. Are we under attack? Why was I spared? Are they just exhausted from the battle?

I shake off my confusion and rush over to check on Taylor. Her eyes are already fluttering open - and when they focus on me, her expression twists into one of such revulsion that I stagger back and fall on my ass.

"Second-gen," she snarls like it was a curse. "No, third gen, if Allfather was your grandpa."

I... what?

"Go on," she says scathingly, "what power did you get handed on a silver platter?"

I... have powers? "Metal?" I say hesitantly. It feels like something about metal has changed.

Taylor draws her knife and points it at me. I instinctively cringe away, before understanding her intention. I gingerly reach out and touch the blade.

"Nothing?" she asks.

"It feels... off, somehow."

She sighs and sheathes the knife before grabbing my hand and touching my finger to one of the decorations on her costume. "Copper?" She moves my hand. "Brass?"

I mutely shake my head. She lets go of my hand and takes out a cellphone, which she promptly spikes into the floor. It shatters into a half-dozen pieces. She bends down to pick up the largest piece, and slaps the exposed circuit board into my palm.

I watch in awe as a tiny rivulet of gold flows out of the components and makes its way up my wrist. Responding to my will, it stops and splits into multiple smaller beads. I make them move around over my skin, merging and splitting. The gold acts like a liquid despite being room temperature.

When I 'let go' of a piece it falls to the floor. It's so small I can't see where it landed, but when I sweep my hand across the floor I can instantly tell when it comes into contact with my skin, and back under my control.

"Tactile telekinesis of gold," Taylor observes. "Good thing you just inherited a fortune you didn't earn, huh?" Her lips quirk into a wry smile. "Though I imagine Medhall stock isn't doing so hot at the moment."

I wet my lips and gather my courage for the big question. "I... I have powers now. Doesn't that make me-" I falter under her poisonous glare. "-worthy... of... you?"

"The empire lies in ruins, and its people cry out for salvation. Take up your father's mantle, Crown Prince. Prove yourself a worthy heir, and lead them back to prosperity."

"If... if I do that, you'll take me back?"

"There is not a single thing about you that does not fill me with disgust, Crown Prince. You will do that, because it's your duty."

Notes:

A/N

Calling a parahuman 'Something Prince' is a serious burn - it means you're comparing them to prepubescent supervillain August Prince, whose power is weaponized cuteness.

Mechanics corner

Fun fact, spirits of Essence 2+ can interbreed with humans. These offspring are known as 'god-blooded', and are mostly human but with some benefits (and sometimes flaws) from their supernatural parentage. Exactly what these are vary from case to case, but it seems that this particular crossbreed has inherited the 'God Body' (Brute 0 package), if Panacea is to be believed.

Chapter 80: B.02

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You told Theo nothing but the truth. The city is in ruins, and its people are crying out for salvation. The Empire absolutely cannot afford a succession crisis right now. And because you have the ability to prevent that, you have a duty to do so.

That the end result is also going to be extremely beneficial for you personally is beside the point.

"Remember when I saved your life?" you ask Hookwolf.

"I remember when you came up with a plan that almost killed me."

You sigh and roll your eyes. "Remember when that plan also got rid of the only Brute in town who could beat you in a fight?"

"Assault," Hookwolf says simply. No false bravado in this one.

"You know what I mean."

Hookwolf chuckles and pats your head patronizingly. "Name your favor."

"Kaiser's dead."

"I heard."

"His son got powers. I want you to support his bid for the throne."

"Fancy yourself an empress, do you?"

"His trigger event was me breaking up with him," you admit, and Hookwolf doubles over laughing.

"Bet you regret that!" he says once he has recovered.

"I regret many things. That is not one of them."

Hookwolf gives a non-committal grunt. "Fine, I'll give the kid a chance. No promises on what happens if he fucks up. Which I bet he will."

"A bet, you say?" You give him a smile that's all teeth. "In that case I have ten grand saying he'll prove a worthy heir."

Purity has been crying. She must have had all sorts of complicated feelings about Kaiser, none of which are important right now.

"Theo got powers," you tell her.

"Oh no!" She looks even more distraught than before. "Poor boy."

"He's going to need a lot of help running the empire, things being as they are. He can count on you, right?"

It takes her a second to catch on - to remember that 'empire' typically implies hereditary rule. But once she does, her face sets in determination. "Of course!"

"That won't do at all," you say after examining the shallow dent.

"I shot it as hard as I could," Theo protests. He's standing in the classic 'Blaster pose', arm outstretched, palm facing forward. He just launched a bullet of gold from his palm - a bullet that didn't even penetrate the drywall.

"A failure of imagination. Here." You grab his hand and straighten it out to be in line with the rest of his arm, then pull up the sleeve of his T-shirt and drop the bullet on his bare shoulder. "Accelerate it all the way down your arm, and fire it from the tip of your fingers."

There's a sound like a gong being struck as the bullet tears straight through the wall and into the metal plate you set up as a backstop. At the same time, Theo yelps and sticks his hand in his mouth. The smell of burnt hair pervades the room.

"A failure of concentration," you say. "There is nothing preventing you from making the process entirely frictionless. Again."

"Yes, miss Quicksilver," Theo says submissively.

Alabaster shrugs. Yes, you broke him out of prison that one time, the shrug says. Who didn't? It's not as if he has much weight to throw around in a cape showdown. He'll happily sit around being immortal until the ruckus is over and the issue, decided.

Alabaster is very good at shrugging.

You're busy, but not too busy to stop by the boat graveyard to finally test out Ballistic's power. Perhaps that makes you a a slave to tradition, coming all the way out here - the entire city is a bit of a boat graveyard right now, there's no shortage of ruins to test powers on anywhere you go. You like to think that it makes you conscientious: People will want to rebuild those parts.

Pointless introspection aside, you grab a brick off the ground and gesture it vaguely towards a the half-collapsed wall it came from. Pew?

It does not go pew. Another recalcitrant power? Disgusted, you throw it at the wall using conventional muscles. Or not, because the throwing motion causes the power to activate, and sends the brick flying far faster than you could have thrown it yourself.

You have to take a step backwards and raise a hand to shield your face from the brick dust as it bursts apart, and the wall collapses a bit more. That's more like it. Distinctly sub-sonic, though. Another power that lost something in translation.

Further experimentation reveals the limitations you're working with. Throwing works. Pushing or kicking stationary objects doesn't. You manage to launch another brick by holding it in one hand and punching it with the other (ow), but the important bit turns out to be the 'holding' part. It has to be something you can lift and carry. Which, for a 15 year old Brute 0, does not a very impressive projectile make.

But then, your real strength has always been your mind. Mind-hands heft a chunk of concrete twice your size, and hurl it out across the bay.

Air-traffic-controller-o-vision

*spits coffee*

Even with your new and improved eyes, you lose sight of it before it splashes down. You have no idea how far that went. Pretty far, though.

Air-traffic-controller-o-vision

"Heading 77 degrees, ground speed approximately 250 miles per hour. Ballistic trajectory. Estimated impact 20 miles off the coast. No apparent target. Origin... oh. The boat graveyard."

"New cape, huh."

"Should we call it in?"

"Nah. They'll be gone before anyone can get there. Just include it in the report."

"Pretty impressive power. Hopefully they'll join the good guys for once."

"Yeah, and maybe fairies will fly out of my ass and refill the coffee pot whenever someone leaves it empty."

"I said I was sorry!"

Hm. Hmmm! The morally uncontroversial part of the experiment is over, the results are in. But you have another idea that needs testing. Animal testing, to be precise. Luckily there is no shortage of rats scurrying about the place, and your mind-hands are easily dextrous enough to nab one as it tries to skitter away from you.

"Sorry about this," you tell the panicking rodent, and send it on a one-way trip out to sea.

It works. No Manton limitation. Godspeed brave rattonaut, your sacrifice was not in vain. Forget throwing things at people, if you want to remove someone from a fight you can just do so directly - if you don't mind almost certainly killing any non-Brute you toss. Won't work on everyone, either. People who can fly would just brake in midair and turn back, and certain others - Fenja and Mush, locally - could just make themselves too big to be hefted, even with mind-hands.

It's still really, really good. A power like this needs a suitably impressive name. Horizon-hurling throw? Bit of a mouthful. Crack the sky.

But if you don't aim at the sky... You find a flattish piece of debris, then throw it across the waves at an almost flat trajectory, making sure to impart a bit of spin.

Air-traffic-controller-o-vision

"Another one. Trajectory- what the hell?"

It skips 37 times.

The succession is strictly cape business, but capes can't rebuild a city on their own. It's going to need a whole lot of grunt work, so you can't have the grunts mutiny. Thus, you're sounding out the rank and file.

"Is he someone worth supporting?" Alex asks.

You grimace. "He's someone who's going to need a lot of support." You can only grant him skills, not fix his character flaws. "But name one other candidate who would not trigger a civil war."

"A civil war is the opposite of what we need," Sven agrees. "A lot of people are going to be unhappy, though."

"No one is happy right now," you say. "Are they going to do more than complain?"

"If your boy can get them food and shelter? Probably not."

"No, fuck that guy," Rune says, proving herself an excellent judge of character. Can't win them all. She'll probably go along with the consensus in the end.

With all the running around you're doing, you could really use a flying wolf. Fuck. You could really use Fenrir being alive right now! You angrily swipe at your eyes as you walk. You need to not be a crying mess right now, you have an empire to subvert save.

There's a note in your hand. You stare at it in confusion, because it's not instructing you to do anything. It just reads 'bitch whore'.

Well, it's certainly a valid characterization, given your recent actions. Notes remain reliable.

"Theodore Anders will take the throne," you tell Krieg.

"Hookwolf will never stand for that," Krieg says. Yes, pronouncing the 'w's and 'th's correctly. Since you've all been unmasked, there is no longer any reason for him to pretend to be German.

"Hookwolf has already pledged his support."

"Oh?" He manages to put an entire essay's worth of questions into one syllable, none of which you answer. "Purity will as well, of course. In that case, I shall not be the one to rock the boat." He nods to himself. "I shall seek him out right now. There are matters that cannot wait until the coronation."

When you return to bury Fenrir, he's already gone. You stop and stare, relief warring with confusion. Did you go to the wrong place? Do ghost wolves just fade away after death? Is some other cape messing around with immaterial things?

Wait, there's something glowing in the debris. It's... well, it looks like an uneven lump of iron, maybe three inches across. But sorcerer's sight tells you it's magical.

It's not shaped like a heart, or a wolf or anything. You feel no presence from it. It's just a lump of iron. But somehow you know that you're looking at Fenrir's mortal remains. Ghost wolves don't quite fade away after death, apparently. They just condense into this... spirit iron?

You can also tell that it's not unlike orichalcum in its properties. You could forge it into a weapon. In the sense that you could also dig up your mother's grave and sharpen her bones. At the same time, if you put aside your instinctive revulsion towards the idea, is that not what he would have wanted? Would he not have been happy, to know that even in death he still serves?

You don't know. You just don't know. It's- you're going to kill an Endbringer. Don't you need every edge you can possibly eke out? To avenge- it still feels wrong. Maybe... maybe a protective amulet for your daughter?

Still undecided, you kneel down and reverently pick it up. With your regular hands. It's somehow solid and real, despite Fenrir being immaterial there at the end. You're just happy you manned up and came here before some sorcerer's sight-less scavenger picked it up and sold it as scrap metal.

"There you go," you say as you buckle on the last piece of Theo's armor. It's one of Kaiser's old suits, resized to fit someone considerably shorter. Theo doesn't know enough about blacksmithing to be impressed, but most smiths would have thrown up their hands and remade most pieces from scratch. You are not most smiths.

"If you do like so-" You grab his arm and stretch it out in the position you taught him. How appropriate, that he has to essentially throw a roman salute every time he wants to shoot someone. "-you'll notice the clear firing channel all the way down your arm. Can you feel the gold reserves in the pauldrons as well?"

"Yes miss."

You're once more being Quicksilver - the story is that you're acting as a go-between for reclusive Tinker Smith, from whom the remodeled armor was commissioned. You'd have preferred to minimize ties between your identities and have Quicksilver merely recommend Smith, who would then handle the rest himself. But Smith can't meet anyone in person, because his costume currently sits dematerialized inside the floor of his workshop. Where it will remain forever, because Fenrir- no, focus.

"There's just enough gold in there to let you get a feel for it right now. If you fill them up completely there'll be enough for fifty shots or so, with the projectile sizes we've been practicing." You pause, and purse your lips. "In an emergency I suppose you could scavenge the gold inlay from the rest of the armor for one last shot. But perhaps you should keep in mind that each bullet you can't recover costs a thousand dollars, and not let it come to that."

"Yes miss."

Your smile as he pays you and profusely thanks you for your service reveals nothing of your true feelings.

You told Theo nothing but the truth. There is nothing about him that does not disgust you. Really, gaining superpowers from your borderline abusive girlfriend breaking up with you? Fucking second-gen capes. And now he's going to become emperor, and everyone is going to think he's incredibly gifted, and he deserves none of it. That you personally caused all of this to happen just makes it worse.

At least you won't have to be nice to him, or pretend to like him. His soul price requested an isolated event, not an ongoing relationship. His Loyalty is still there - and even if it wasn't, emptiness endowment has built up years of karmic debt.

Notes:

Mechanics corner

Crack the Sky lets you throw things (Martial Arts x 4) miles. With appropriate effects on landing, or if they impact something along the way. Taylor managed 20 miles because mind-hands use Occult in place of of Martial Arts, and she got Occult 5 (sorcerer's sight +3) as part of her 'exaltation', for obvious reasons.

Spirits can reform in their sanctum (personal extradimensional living space) some time after dying, unless killed with a 'spirit-slaying' effect. But that requires them to have a sanctum in the first place, which not all spirits do. RIP best dog.

Starmetal is one of the five magical materials just like orichalcum, and is made of dead spirits.

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Chapter 81: B.03

Chapter Text

There's a lot more people present than at the last rally you attended. Not very surprising, because a lot of people found themselves homeless and unemployed in the wake of Leviathan. Which means that they don't really have anything better to do than stand around and listen to some guy talk, and the promise of free food is a lot more enticing than it would have been a week ago.

You do ostensibly live in a first-world country, and food shipments and other humanitarian aid has been streaming into the city over the past couple of days - both from the PRT disaster relief branch as well as private foundations like the FER and the CRF. But in a curious coincidence, such shipments are being routed to every part of the city except Empire territory. Those three-letter groups sure love their little coincidences.

In response, Empire capes have been busy intercepting the shipments headed for Merchant territory. It's not as if they'll even bother to deny the accusations of racism that are no doubt already being thrown around over such a move, but you'd consider it plain meritocracy: Who could possibly be less deserving than the Merchants? It's not as if they are even depriving civilians of food: Any shipments they miss are instantly stolen by Merchant capes instead. This way it at least reaches the man in the street, just a slightly different street than the three-letter people intended.

You've heard reports of rioting in other places where food was being handed out. Not so here. Everyone is queued up in an orderly fashion and waiting their turn, and it only took a bare handful of line jumpers being hauled off and beaten by jackbooted thugs (actually a lot of the thugs are wearing shorts and sandals in the early summer heat) for people to get the message. The white race is a noble race that faces adversity with honor and decorum. Or else.

It seems the message of white solidarity has indeed been taken to heart, because you see a lot of people giving up their spots in line to children, the elderly, or just people who look really hungry but aren't pushy about it. And the next time someone tries to cut ahead without permission, volunteers from the audience converge on him before the official thugs can even react. Is... is this what being proud of your people feels like?

You force your thoughtful frown into a reassuring smile as you serve the crying woman with the newborn baby a double portion. Did you prevent the civil war for the purpose of installing your puppet on the throne, or to do exactly what you're doing now - helping these people? Are you still infiltrating, or have you joined?

"God bless you," an old lady says as you hand her the food. You rather doubt he exists will. Even if Taylor happens to be sincere in her desire to help, it's not as if you're about to give up being other, more goal-focused people.

You lose track of the number of people who thank and/or bless you, even though you played no part in acquiring the food you handed out (aside from, you know, ensuring that the Empire is a functional institution rather than a mess of warring factions). You can't deny that it feels good, helping good people (by giving them things taken from bad people). But before you can get too worked up about how great these people are, you are reminded that the royal line somehow produced Theodore Anders.

Theo makes his entrance on a flying stage much like his father did, but Purity has taken the place of the slain valkyrie at his side. Rune is still off in one corner making the whole thing go. She's wearing a mask, but careful study of her body language reveals that she is not at all happy with her new commander in chief. She always did have excellent taste.

Theo is still chubby - you never did finish his exercise regimen - but full plate harness hides a multitude of sins. His lack of height is made up for by a stool behind the speakers podium. Not visible to the audience, but you know by virtue of being part of the planning committee.

A listless gesture from Rune sends three brass gongs flying into the air. Theo raises his arm and fires, striking each gong in turn. A majestic entrance, and a demonstration that yes, he does have superpowers. Three lucky audience members have thousand-dollar party favors fall on their heads. There's a mild commotion as people realize that the bullets are in fact pure gold, but they are cowed/noble enough not to fight over them, and accept the luck of the draw.

"All hail the emperor: Aurelius!" Purity shouts.

"Hail!" the audience responds, a good portion of them accompanying it with the appropriate gesture. You grit your teeth. There is nothing about him that you do not loathe. You understand perfectly well why he settled on Aurelius as his cape name. He is very much a golden emperor. He just isn't fit to lick the dirt from Marcus Aurelius's sandals.

The next part is going to suck too.

"My people!" Aurelius begins. "We gather today in a broken city!"

It's the part where everyone thinks he's an enormously gifted speaker.

"The city is broken, but our spirits are not! The buildings may have fallen, but the empire will not!"

He has a microphone inside his helmet, he does not have to shout to be heard (good thing random mortal Sven survived, because apparently that's the only person in the entire empire with the audio engineering chops to make that sound not awful). Even so, with the energy he's putting into his words he must be half deaf from the echoes already. But an open-faced helmet would reveal his unfortunate chin situation.

"My predecessor, Kaiser, gave his life fighting for you! The great evil was driven off, and now it falls to us to protect and rebuild the legacy he left us!"

It would be better for his legitimacy if he had said 'my father', but Theo is in the curious position of being the only cape in the entire empire whose identity is not public knowledge. His advisors all agreed that this advantage should not be squandered lightly. People will suspect, but suspicion is a far cry from knowledge.

"It may seem a daunting task, but we will persevere! Together we will prevail! Alone we are weak, but united we are strong!"

You wonder who wrote the speech for him, because you know for a fact that you didn't make him a good writer. Probably Krieg. Certainly not Purity, and Hookwolf prefers to let his fists do the talking (where 'fists' is a euphemism for 'chainsaw-limbs').

"Think of your forefather, the yeoman farmer, that builder of nations. When he first arrived in this land, it was empty save for a few bands of stone age savages. With his humble labor, with the blood and sweat of generations, he built this wilderness into the greatest nation on Earth!"

You spot some frowns in the audience, but you admire the way Krieg has balanced them out. There are the people who came solely for the food, who've had it drilled into them their whole lives that the savage is noble and his loss, tragic... but also that America is #1 just because. Contrast this with the party members, who have rid themselves of any romantic superstitions about the stone age, but have strong objections to America's foreign and domestic policy ever since - well, in the most extreme cases, ever since old Town Destroyer first took power.

"Yes, the nation he built has been lost. Swindled away, surrendered to the merchant and the banker and perverted to their whims. But the blood of that man, who yearned for freedom in a new land, still flows in your veins! The nation that fell can be rebuilt, because yours is the blood that builds civilization! So can the city that fell be rebuilt!"

Mayor-Christner-o-vision

"Dodged a bullet there," Deputy Wilkins opines once the recording finishes.

"Which bullet is that?" I ask.

"The guy got powers. Imagine if he'd been able to run for election."

"That is a terrifying thought," I agree. If that speech wasn't fluke, if he could have run an entire campaign with that energy, I would've had my work cut out for me defending my seat next year.

"He's right, you know," my aide says contemplatively. "Aurelius, I mean."

I shoot him a wry look. "Never would have pegged you for a white supremacist, Johnny."

Johnny Wang Xiaochun smiles politely at my weak jest. "No, look at the crowd. Who are they?"

"Rabble," Wilkins says.

"The working class," I suggest more politely.

"Mm," Johnny says, not giving any indication which characterization he agrees with more. "But to rebuild a city, you don't need lawyers or professors. You need electricians and plumbers, truck drivers and construction workers. The people in that crowd? They are the people who build civilization."

"And they seem happy enough to build it for Aurelius," Wilkins notes. "Guess we're not condemning the city after all."

I nod glumly. I had thought such a move would make me 'the man who ran away'. No. It would make me 'the man who ceded American soil to an enemy state'. Oh, it would get sorted out in the end - such a state of affairs would be entirely unacceptable to Washington - but once the dust settled my political career would be as dead as the would-be emperor.

When the standing ovation dies down (everyone was already standing, you're outdoors), the stage floats to the ground. You make your way over, where you are joined by Krieg. The stage takes to the air again.

"We mourn those who are lost," Krieg says, and a hush falls over the crowd. He couldn't have pulled it off if he was still playing 'Krieg the extremely German guy', but his native British accent works well to make him the solemn and slightly sinister elder statesman to Aurelius's young firebrand.

You stand silent as he eulogizes Max Anders and Nessa Biermann. The Empire got off lightly, statistically speaking.

"There is also Taylor Hebert," Krieg says, and you step forward. "The youngest warrior among us, she fought bravely but was injured so gravely that she lost the use of her power. Though she remains with us, her watch is over, and we honor her sacrifice."

The crowd takes in your clenched fists and the tears trickling down your face as you remember what you lost. You were on the planning committee for this event. You agreed that your pain would make for excellent PR.

"I speak now to our enemies," Krieg says suddenly, his tone shifting from solemn to threatening. "To attempt to capitalize on tragedy to settle old grudges would be exceedingly unwise. The Empire protects its own. That is all." The stage sinks down once more.

It's sort of a lie. Rachel's power is sitting right there. There's an empty slot in your soul labelled 'spirit-tied pet' just waiting to be filled once more. All you need is a new dog. Hell, with your money you could afford the proverbial pony, and you'd give even odds that it would have 8 legs by the time you were done. Low Key could be back on duty tomorrow, riding Sleipnr.

All you'd have to do is replace Fenrir. To acknowledge that Fenrir could be replaced. No, let Low Key retire, another casualty of Leviathan. It's sort of the truth. Fenrir is gone, and you cannot call forth a wolf ever again.

Assuming the heroes are willing to play ball, you suddenly have a civilian identity again - if one strongly tied to a criminal gang. Whoopee. It's the least of what you would give up, to have Fenrir back again.

Krieg rests a comforting hand on your shoulder. You appreciate the gesture, even if he thinks you only lost your powers. He is, at least, bright enough not to try to say anything to cheer you up.

Rune has removed her mask and is staring at you in horror. You explained your condition to the inner circle - the emperor and the three lieutenants - but apparently the news hadn't made it down the ranks to her until now. She takes half a step forward, then stops. Her hands rise uncertainly, and fall again. You hold up a hand of your own to ward her off, to save her from her agony of indecision.

"I don't need a hug if you don't," you say, wiping at your cheeks with your other hand.

"Yes you fucking do," Rune says, and hugs you.

Chapter 82: B.04

Chapter Text

Armsmaster-o-vision

Director Piggot turns off the recording. "Simple question," she says. "Is this bullshit?"

When neither of us speak up, she continues. "Certain experiments have been conducted. None by the US government-" Lie. "-but the data exists. A coronal lobotomy will leave a cape alive, but either powerless or unable to control their powers. It's not impossible that something similar could happen naturally as a result of injury. Her reported condition after the fight could indicate brain damage."

We both turn to face the other person in the room.

"I don't do brains," Panacea says reflexively.

"Is there anything you can tell us about her condition?" The director asks.

Panacea-o-vision

There was no brain damage. She still had her Brute powers at the very least. I have no idea what she's playing at, trying to... retire(?) like this. But if I rat her out here, she'll definitely...

"Doctor-patient confidentiality," Panacea says firmly, squaring her shoulders and doing her best to look defiant.

"There are ways around that," I note.

"We're not asking you to violate confidentiality," the director disagrees, playing the good cop. "But if there was anything you could tell us... it would be in your patient's best interest if we could confirm that this isn't some sort of trick." She pronounces the word 'patient' with distaste.

When Panacea remains silent, she turns to me. "You indicated that you had personal experience of a cape losing their powers?"

"Yes, but at the time I didn't know why you were asking. Hexagon's case was nothing like Low Key's."

"Who?" Panacea asks.

"Before your time. Minor villain in Boston, a Case 53 whose arms and legs had turned into pairs of superhumanly strong tentacles. Called herself 'Octagon'. She was never very successful, though, and was down to 'Hexagon' by the time of her death."

"I see," the Director says. "That is technically a loss of power, yet completely useless for our purposes."

"Perhaps there's a better comparison," I suggest. "Moord Nag, the African warlord. Her power takes the shape of a 'familiar spirit'. It grows larger and stronger by consuming human flesh, while injuries make it smaller and weaker. Both changes appear to be permanent. Were it to sustain enough damage, it could possibly 'die'. Her familiar cannot be summoned and dismissed the way Low Key's can, but..."

"Clockblocker did write a report insisting that the wolf gained powers over time," the director says. "He claims that there's no way it could fly at the time of their first encounter, because no cape would voluntarily choose engage him in hand-to-hand combat."

"She won," I note.

"Indeed. But if she truly is like Moord Nag - if her pet has been eating people - we need to know about it."

"Well, I was able to obtain a urine sample from the wolf-"

Both women are startled by my pronouncement. "How?" "When?"

"The details are not important," I say quickly. "Late March. I sent it for analysis, of course. As I'm sure you're aware, canines communicate a lot of information to each other through scent markers in their urine. It turns out that many of those things can also be communicated to molecular biologists."

I call up the report on my visor HUD, and start reading out loud. "'Composition is similar to that of a wolf or dog, though it does not perfectly match any known subspecies. But if the similarities hold, the sample comes from a young but sexually mature-" Panacea giggles at that, before clapping her hands over her mouth. What is she, five? "-sexually mature male, in a subordinate position in the pack. Its diet consists almost entirely of mutton and pork, including bone marrow but not including offal. However, there are also faint traces consistent with the consumption of human flesh.'"

The director stiffens at that last part, as does Panacea. "It should be noted," I say, "that the sample was obtained soon after the encounter Clockblocker mentions in his report - where the wolf also bit off Shadow Stalker's hand. Moord Nag's familiar consumes corpses by the dozen, it would certainly show more than 'faint traces' if Low Key followed that example."

"I will still have people go through the missing person reports," the director says firmly. "Though I don't know how credible the report is. Treating a master projection like a real animal..."

"Real enough," Panacea mutters under her breath, low enough that I might not have heard it without the audio pickups in my helmet.

"Elaborate."

"Oh, I, uh... After the fight she was covered in blood. It wasn't hers. I've never healed a wolf, but it was pretty similar to dog blood. Besides, the protein markers indicating diet should be reliable regardless of species-" She pauses, frowning. "No, if you create an entire animal from scratch you could have it display whatever markers you wanted? But there's no reason..."

"The power likely stores a template to reconstruct the beast from," I say. "Like a Breaker returning to their original form."

"An animal that eats, excretes and bleeds," the director muses. "If it bleeds, it can be killed? But could she not then simply recall the most recent template?"

"Perhaps..." Panacea says. "No, never mind, it's stupid."

"If you have a theory, please do share it," director Piggot says.

"Well, I was just thinking... What if the wolf was a Case 53? It would... explain some things."

The room is silent as we ponder this idea.

"There are records of similarly severe transformations," the director allows.

"A power along the lines of Pretender's?" I muse. "Allowing him to inhabit the body of another, and thus masquerade as a Master projection when he leaves?"

"Lacking hands and incapable of speech, he recruited miss Hebert as his... service animal?" the director says.

Panacea snorts at the description. "Something like that. I mean, it's just a theory."

"Nevertheless, it represents another scenario where she is telling the truth, and really has 'lost her powers,'" I say.

"Though it does beg the question," the director says "Why would anyone join the E88, when they're not even a member of the human race? As a Case 53 he would have no memory of his original ethnicity."

"Money?" Panacea suggests.

I shrug. "How does this affect our policy?"

"For now, we do nothing. Quite aside from the protection she's receiving from the E88, it's too public. If her loss of power is real - no, as long as it's perceived to be real - going after her could have catastrophic effects on the Endbringer participation rate among villains.

"But we observe, and investigate. If we find evidence that they did prey on humans, she goes to jail. And if she ever summons so much as a puppy, she dies."

"She what!?" Panacea exclaims.

"I will put a kill order through the system and keep it on my desk, ready to be signed at a moment's notice. If she truly was crippled I will let her retire in peace, her crimes pardoned and forgotten under he auspices of the Endbringer Truce. But the Truce is a sword that cuts both ways, miss Dallon. To undermine it for your own gain is to declare yourself the enemy of all humanity as surely as any S-class threat."

There aren't exactly any cafes open in Brockton Bay right now, so you arranged your meeting with Lisa at 'a place that isn't underwater'. You did, however, bring an extra coffee ration from the imperial stores.

Lisa looks you over when you arrive, and you watch her power supplying her with everything worth knowing about you. Fenrir isn't with you. Fenrir is gone. She's bright enough not to try to say anything to cheer you up, despite knowing exactly what's going on.

"Aren't you going to ask me how I'm doing?" you demand.

"Taylor, no."

"Because I'd tell you that I'll live."

"Taylor, don't."

"Leviathan, on the other hand..."

She sighs. "Shouldn't you finish your blood feud against Pancakes before taking on an Endbringer?"

"I'm doing you a courtesy - asking for your help now, while refusing is easy. Once I kill Pancakes..."

She grimaces at the reminder of her soul price. "That thing doesn't come with an expiration date, huh?"

"You could always become someone whose fondest wish is not the death of another human being," you say with a shrug. "Purity managed to change hers."

"You already- what was- no, not important." You're not sure whether she's talking to you or her power. "It's not as if I have kids to endanger. What do you want from me?"

"You saw him. It. Whatever. And we stole the PRT database, they must have hours of Endbringer footage in there. What's their weakness?"

"You think they haven't already put every Thinker in Watchdog on that? It's not that easy."

"What, are you saying you're not better than those scrubs?" You've looked at the profiles of the Watchdog Thinkers. It's almost sad, how shitty they are - or maybe you're just incredibly spoiled by the company you keep. For all that she's slumming it as two-bit thug, Lisa is easily one of the top ten Thinkers in the world. Maybe top five.

Lisa snorts at your blatant manipulation, but doesn't resist it. "Fine, fine, I'll look at the footage. But not the Simurgh stuff! Not exposing my brain to that, thank you very much."

You retire to one of your less flooded backup lairs, each bringing a laptop full of stolen PRT data. You amuse yourself by looking at the Endbringer evaluations from the aforementioned Watchdog Thinkers while Lisa's brain does the heavy lifting.

Hunch: "Very not good."

Appraiser: "Puce shading into sable."

Eleventh Hour: "Eleven."

Eye Spy: "Cloudy with a chance of premeditation."

As you said, sad.

"They're indestructible," Lisa says, looking up from her own computer. "Like, shrug off a hundred nukes indestructible. The wounds, the bleeding we manage to inflict on them, that's all superficial. Doesn't impair them at all. Each layer you peel off just reveals another layer beneath, twice as tough as the last one."

"...what about a thousand nukes?" you ask.

"Nope."

"A million nukes?"

She has to stop and consult her power for that one. "...maybe. Probably not. Please don't try to set off a million nukes."

"Bad for the environment," you agree. "Physical durability is their strength, we knew that already. What's their weakness?"

She makes a disgusted sound in response, but goes back to her homework. Lacking anything better to do, you start paging through the Simurgh stuff. It's not as if it's going to contain any infohazards she couldn't already have installed in your brain, if she wanted to. Nothing leaps out at you as relevant, until you come across a photo titled 'graffiti on interior wall of Madison containment zone':

DRUNK WITH FIRE WE ENTER YOUR SANCTUARY

YOUR SPELL BINDS THAT WHICH WAS DIVIDED

ALL MEN BECOME BROTHERS BENEATH THE SHADOW OF YOUR WINGS

It's your turn to make a disgusted noise, something like "Blergh."

"Hm?" Lisa asks.

"Simurgh just told me her True Name," you say sourly.

"I don't want to know!"

"Someone made them."

"What?"

"They aren't people. They aren't aliens. They look mostly humanoid but twisted and monstrous because someone made them that way. Psychological warfare. I mean, look at those eyes." She brings up a closeup of Leviathan's face. Four eyes, three small ones on the left and one slightly bigger on the right. "Nothing has eyes like that. They're just there to look creepy. They don't even work.

"Hell, his entire head is a decoy. The only important stuff is right... there." She zooms out the image and points at a spot somewhat below where the heart would be on a human. "Heart-brain-eyes-everything organ, located right in the indestructible-est part. No one has even come close to damaging that."

"Who?" You ask the important question. "Why?" You ask the other important question.

"Based on their attack patterns? Either a mastermind bent on global domination who lives in what used to be the Republic of Chad, or my power is giving me garbage due to insufficient information. My money is on the latter."

"...if we can't really hurt them, why do they ever retreat?" you ask, circling back to another fairly important question. "Why not just keep rampaging forever?"

"A plot by the Chad mastermind? Don't know. Need more data."

"I found a weakness," Lisa announces. "Here." She turns the screen towards you, and you scoot over to watch. It's a video clip of Leviathan attacking a city. It looks... familiar?

"Is that Brockton Bay?" you ask.

"Yeah. Check this out." She starts the video playing, stopping it a few seconds later. As far as you could tell, nothing happened. "Look closer. There." She points at the screen and advances the video frame by frame. There's a narrow projectile of some kind, pitch black and almost invisible in the rain, flying towards Leviathan. An arrow? It hits Leviathan and vanishes. The Endbringer doesn't react, and a few frames later it reappears behind him.

"Phased through?" you ask.

"No. Look there." Lisa zooms in to show you three pixels on Leviathan's shoulder, that are a slightly darker shade of green than the surrounding pixels. "It left a hole. Completely ignored his physical durability."

You squint at the pixels. "If you say so. Who did that?"

"Flechette, a Ward. Currently stationed in New York. If you want to fight Endbringers, you need to get her power."

Huh, you recognize that name. She was the one who could destroy orichalcum, wasn't she? As well as other 'indestructible' materials - including, apparently, Endbringer flesh. You call up her profile on your own computer. Road trip time?

"Hang on," Lisa says. "Says here she's being transferred." Did she just casually hack the PRT again? "To... Brockton Bay!? What are odds?"

"Roughly Simurgh percent?" you suggest.

"I really wish you hadn't said that."

Chapter 83: B.05

Chapter Text

Armsmster-o-vision

"Was there anything else?" I ask.

Dragon hesitates for several seconds before answering. "...I've gone over the prediction logs from the Leviathan fight," she finally says. There's another pause. "I know what you did."

"I failed," I say bitterly.

"Oh?" Dragon asks, perhaps a bit archly. "So the casualty report was wrong, and Kaiser still lives?"

"Checksuit4," I mutter under my breath. chksuit4 is my prototype diagnostic program, a full 20% faster than chksuit3 by forgoing all memory safety. But as I will be startled to discover when I go over the logs later tonight, it also has a bug that spews corrupt memory all over the system, miraculously missing any critical processes but completely trashing the recording buffer. As a result, not only did suitlog7 crash and fail its automatic restart, I also lost the last 28.44 seconds of recorded audio.

Or, that's what I thought would happen. Instead there's a small ping, and a line of text shows up on my visor HUD: 'chksuit4 has been shut down due to memory access violation.'

Dragon helpfully brings up another line of text beneath it: A particular line from the changelog of her latest contribution to my codebase. 'Minor improvements to chksuit4'.

Ah. I suppose that's what happens when you trust someone to the point that you don't even review their code anymore. Given the circumstances, it's surprising how much it hurts that she used that trust to sabotage me. A strange, illogical part of me wants to shout at her for that.

"I suppose there is no use denying anything," I say instead, with forced calm. Since she knows what chksuit4 was meant to do, I may as well have handed her a signed confession when I invoked it.

"Colin... why?"

"Why?" I exclaim incredulously. "Why not!? He was a villain! A vile, irredeemable villain! Better that he-"

"Was Dauntless a villain too?" Her voice is soft, but her question shuts down my tirade like a bucket of cold water to the face.

"Dauntless wasn't part of the plan." Is that what she think of me now? That I would...

"Was he not? Quicksilver said-"

"Quicksilver was full of shit! She was just guessing! She isn't even that kind Thinker!"

"So your ambition is not fame?" she asks mildly. When I don't answer, she continues. "Quicksilver sees powers. Is it so inconceivable that your power might affect your ambition? Influence theory states-"

"Influence theory has never been proven!"

"Sankaramanchi and Hyytiäinen proved quite conclusively that influence is happening."

"The effect they measured was significantly smaller in males," I say, but it's a weak retort and I know it. A terrible seed of doubt is taking root. Did I really..?

"No conscious part of me wanted Dauntless dead," I say firmly. "His death was not part of the plan."

"I believe you, Colin. But I still have to report the matter with Kaiser."

"Do you really?"

"Yes! If I don't, I become an accessory after the fact!"

Oh. No, I suppose I have no right to ask that of her. But I can tell - I hope - that that having to chose between friendship and the law distresses her. Which is something I can solve.

"Don't bother. I'll turn myself in." I open a call to the PRT switchboard. "This is Armsmaster, requesting a secure meeting with Director Piggot."

"Dragon?"

"Yes?"

"Do you hate me for what I did?"

"I'm... disappointed."

Just looking at Director Piggot, it's easy to forget that the corpulent woman used to be a field agent. But she can certainly swear like a trooper when the situation warrants. I remain stiffly at attention as she screams at me.

"You stupid mother fucker, do you have the faintest fucking idea what would happen if it got out that a member of Protectorate - a god damn Branch Leader - used an Endbringer fight to settle personal grudges?"

It's clearly a rhetorical question, yet she seems to take my continued silence as a provocation.

"Did you think that because it must never leak out, I'd help you get away with it? That I would not destroy you for what you did?" She pauses for breath, then looks me straight in the eye as she says her next sentence. "You're going down for the Laborn dossier."

My eyes go wide. "No! You can't-"

"Silence! There is nothing I cannot do to you! If you had half the wits God gave a fencepost, you'd get down on your knees and thank me that history will remember you as a mere pedophile, and not a traitor to all mankind! By fucking with the Endbringer Truce, you put the world at risk! And for what, a petty grudge?"

"Our failure to take down the Empire 88 has been a blemish on-"

"A blemish? For vanity you threw away all honor and reason, and both our careers?" She evidently sees the confusion on my face, because she explains: "My job is to ride herd on you psychopaths, to stop you from pulling the dumb shit you always do. A task I clearly failed at in an unprecedentedly spectacular fashion. I've seen other directors have capes blow up in their faces, but this is something else. When I bring this to the Chief Director, I will hope and pray that I only end up fired without a pension.

"I honestly expected better from you," she continues softly, now speaking more to herself than me, "which only goes to show that I should trust my instincts more. This is what I get for letting you and your Guantanamo girlfriend work unsupervised."

It takes me a moment to understand the reference. "The Birdcage isn't-"

She fixes me with another glare. "I would not mention the Birdcage too loudly right now if I were you."

You know how they say Rome wasn't built in a day? Neither was Brockton Bay. Leviathan broke innumerable man-years worth of infrastructure, and everyone will have to chip in if that's going to be rectified anytime soon. Including you.

You're officially powerless now, after all, just another member of the rank and file. Consequently you join an imperial work crew like any other, and spend eight to twelve hours each day performing manual labor.

And if your work crew happens to always be guarded by the specific parahuman you want to study? Just a coincidence, goy. It's not as if you're secretly the power behind the throne or anything, having subverted both the boy emperor and the queen regent. Of course not.

The cape in question? Crusader. He makes ghosts. Not in the 'he's really good at killing people' sense, though he is that too. He's a Master who creates multiple translucent, insubstantial clones of himself. A duplication power would of course be excellent for Not Dying, but that's not what you're focused on these days.

No, what you need right now is more ways to Prevent Others From Not Dying. A lot more. You have a List, see. It's short, but nevertheless quite daunting - the top entry says 'Leviathan', which makes any subsequent entries fairly irrelevant in comparison. What makes you interested in Crusader is that his Manton limitation is the opposite of Faultline's: His ghosts can only affect organic matter. Or in other words, they can stab things to death through arbitrary amounts of armor. You want that.

Oh and his ghosts can fly, which also makes him a Mover on par with Rune by way of uncomfortably erotic piggyback rides. Rune is way more popular though, because her method of transportation does not involve pressing your functionally naked body against a strange man. That's not want you want from him either.

Actually even ignoring the whole 'secretly in charge' thing you're not really just another grunt: You're also a living martyr. If you sometimes drift off lost in thought, the other workers are hesitant to reprimand you. They think you're contemplating what you've lost, not what you're in the process of gaining (for the purpose of avenging what you've lost). They're... not always wrong.

You also tend to take your lunches with the foreman rather than the other workers. It's not elitism as such - or maybe it is? People like the two of you can simply afford a better quality of rations, and neither of you want to rub that in their faces. You're not egalitarian enough to share, though.

He probably quite enjoys hanging out with someone famous, too. He strikes you as the type. He is also the most cheerful Endbringer survivor you've ever met. A combination of his job, and his lack of dead relatives.

"I know it's unseemly," he says, refilling his mug with what Lisa called 'fucking awful coffee', "but the construction business is just so nice right now."

"High demand, huh?" you say. Given your heavy hand on the work and patrol schedules, you'll not begrudge him a bit of profiteering.

He waves it away. "Not even that. None of the fat government contracts are going to end up in Empire territory, I can tell you that much. No, it's the lack of government. You have no idea what it took to build something before. Permits. Impact studies. Reviews. Offsets, grants. Lawyers, horse-trading. Bribes and flattery. So many layers of parasites who had to ensure they got their slice of the pie, or who obstructed you just because petty power games made their peepee hard. Years of effort just to get started. All washed away by the big green! It's ama- uh." He's so enthusiastic that he momentarily forgets what the big green washed away from his conversation partner. "I mean..."

"No, do go on," you say, poker faced.

He coughs self-consciously. "Right. Now I can just go to an architect I trust - like my cousin - and tell him 'I want a building that won't fall down.' As long as it's nothing fancy, he can whip it up in no time at all, or just grab something off the rack. You've seen the retarded buttplugs they call skyscrapers these days - with modern steel and computer assistance, architecture isn't hard. Then I go to Aurelius, he says 'yep, that looks like a building all right, here's your budget' and that's it. From planning to construction in like, a week."

"Silver linings, huh."

So, manual labor is what you do during the day. At night? You've been staking out a certain patrol route.

"Good evening, Flechette." At your words she spins around, raising her crossbow. For all that you were expecting it, you still get a jolt of adrenaline. Black-clad heroes pointing crossbows at you...

When she sees who it is, she lowers the weapon sheepishly. "Oh. Um, I recognize you. Quicksilver, right?"

"At your service." You perform Quicksilver's usual curtsey.

"So, uh, I guess you want to look at my power?" Well, what have we here? A dutiful girl who paid attention when they briefed her on the local cape scene, that's what.

"Indeed. I saw you in action against Leviathan, it was certainly something else." She draws herself up with pride at your words. You'll have none of that. "I have never in my life seen a bigger waste of potential, and I pray to God I never will."

"Excuse me?"

"You, alone in all the world, have a power that will cut through Endbringer flesh like a hot knife through smoke. And you attack Leviathan with crossbow bolts?" Scorn drips from your every word. "They're what, a quarter inch in cross section? Are you retarded?"

"I- uh-" Apparently yes, because it has clearly never even occurred to her that she might do differently.

"Lucky for you - and perhaps the entire rest of the world - I'm here to fix your shit. I'm going to make an Endbringer killer out of you if it's the last thing I do."

"Okay."

Flechette's power works by imbuing (a part of) an object with cut-through-anything-ness. The only thing her power can't cut through is another imbued object. Thus, over the next week the boat graveyard gets a lot more holes in it.

Most of them, unfortunately, are in the ground, because she still cannot consistently extend her power through an entire chain at once. If she doesn't do it just right, an empowered link ends up cutting through its unempowered neighbor somewhere along the way - sending the empowered links plummeting through concrete, soil and bedrock until the charge wears off. When she does get it, though? Endbringer-decapitating bolas. Though of course you warn her, do not actually decapitate Endbringers. Their heads are decoys.

A cutting-edged discus is trivial to make, but nowhere near as good. She isn't actually immune to her own power, she just has a secondary Thinker ability that makes extra sure she doesn't touch anything she shouldn't. Which makes throwing anything but the smallest discus quite awkward. Still a lot better than a crossbow bolt. Mind-hands could do it, if you team up. She also promises to talk to the Protectorate Tinkers about making a giant disc-thrower. No one else ever suggested it, because apparently all heroes are functionally retarded.

The most destructive thing you've found so far is something you call 'the surface of this shield is a weapon'. Just press it against anything you want deleted. With the downside of course being that it puts your single most critical combat asset in melee range of an Endbringer. Vetoed.

Unfortunately 'project landmine' isn't going so well. You can see her power, there's nothing really preventing her from making an arbitrary patch of ground into a death zone just waiting to be stepped on. But something is holding her back. You're determined to keep riding her ass until she gets it.

No, you're not just doing the 'bootcamp as excuse for power study' thing again. This is serious. You would like to kill Leviathan yourself, but you're acutely aware that you do not always get what you want. If you fail/die, your vengeance shall live on through her.

It takes a toll on her, though. Unlike you she does need to sleep, and the schedule of a Ward in the ruins of Brockton Bay is quite punishing. The people in charge are clearly accepting a giant legal mess with the Youth Guard later, in exchange for parahuman manpower now. You can understand their reasoning: It's not as if they don't own the judges.

You had worried about her burning out and giving up initially, when you discovered that her soul price wasn't any good.

Flechette wants somewhere to belong.

It's not that you don't have a gang she could join. But if arbitrary group membership was enough for her, the Wards would already fulfill her desires. She has no reason to switch to a lesser gang. A bit of a Catch 22: She would need to feel at home first, join later.

Still she perseveres, half-assing patrols and losing sleep in order to keep up with your training schedule. It's not really a desire to help that keeps her going, either, or a desire for glory. If she had either of those she might have figured out some way to suck less on her own. No, the secret of her persistence, the motivation that makes her keep showing up? She has a thing for being ordered around by older women.

It was all you could do to hold in an aggrieved 'seriously?' when you realized as much. But, well, any control mechanism is better than none. You will fuck her, if it comes to that. You're both going to come out of this lean, mean, Endbringer-killing machines, no matter what it takes.

Chapter 84: B.06

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Although you are the power behind the throne, your control isn't perfect. Purity doesn't know that she's a minion. As far as she knows, she just feels gratitude and respect towards you for the obvious reasons. She's happy to juggle schedules to have you be guarded by Crusader, because Crusader is her most trusted sub-minion. But she also sees nothing wrong with guarding you herself, when that would involve less juggling.

You're not about to explain to her why this isn't ideal for you, so you just have to accept it. Oh woe is you, to have to occasionally study Purity instead.

She's is a bit of an experiment on your part, actually. See, you already have quite the number of hours sunk into studying Glory Girl. Hours that you're never getting back, because you'll have another non-violent encounter with Glory Girl shortly after hell freezes over. But what if you could combine your insights into two similar capes, to construct one complete power?

Some would argue that Purity and Glory Girl are not very similar at all, but consider: They are both all about flying and projecting light. Glory Girl's projection was admittedly twisted emotion-wards because she hooked up with Gallant before she triggered, but she shares a family with Brandish and Laserdream and Photon Mom and Flashbang. Wait no, Flashbang married into the family. Before or after triggering? You don't remember. But the theory is sound! The New Wave family power is very much like Purity's at its base.

Yes, your power expression is affected by what capes you hook up with before triggering. Scientifically proven. No idea why or how, but who's even trying to make sense of powers at this point? Certainly not you. Though you sometimes wonder if there's an alternative universe where Aurelius's power isn't gold-related at all, because he never hooked up with Smith the orichalcum Tinker.

Yes, you're still going after Crusader, even with Flechette offering herself up for your use. You're not going to put all your eggs in one basket like that, not when you know how far from the original your copy of a power can land. But, sometimes you get interrupted.

Usually it's some concerned member of the rank and file, worried that you're overexerting yourself. You don't even know how much of that is them being overprotective, and how much is them correctly judging how much a mortal girl your size can safely do. But your power was already making you unreasonably strong, and all the exercise you've been getting lately certainly isn't making you any weaker. It's gotten to the point that you have to stop and think before picking things up, to make sure you're not outing yourself as a Brute.

Sometimes it's Rune, trying to get you to go flying with her like in the old days. You have to remind her that you both have work to do.

"When did you become such a stick in the mud?" she demands. "Sulking isn't going to get your powers back!" Then she winces. "No, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."

Today, the interruption is of a more exciting variety. "Capes!" comes the cry from ground level. Without thinking you grab one of the exterior I-beams and swing yourself around to the outside of the building frame. With your feet planted against the beam and your fingers gripping the edges, you start sliding down.

It's not something you'd want to try without superpowers - your Brute strength to maintain your grip, your Brute durability to deal with the friction heating your work gloves to an uncomfortable degree, and graceful crane stance to handle the exciting part where you have to let go every time you pass a cross-beam, and resume your grip below it before you fall. But it's not something a mortal couldn't do, if they were a professional climber and/or a bit nuts.

About halfway down it occurs to you that you have very limited options for dealing with hostile capes while remaining mortal-compliant, but, um, you don't think you can actually stop at this point. Well, when you can't abort a poorly chosen course of action, all that is left is to double down on it.

You're moving at a fair clip when you reach the ground, and you make sure to absorb the impact with bent knees despite graceful crane stance making that unnecessary. Mortal-compliant, see? The way you peel off your gloves and shake your fingers through the air to cool them is entirely sincere, though. But you very deliberately do not make any humorous 'ouch ouch ouch' noises, and when you turn around to face the intruders, your face shows no trace of hesitation or concern.

"Clockblocker. Iscariot," you greet them calmly.

"It's 'Chariot'," the newest Tinker in the Wards complains.

"Isn't that what I said?" you ask, frowning slightly.

You actually beat Crusader's ghosts to the ground, but as if to punctuate your words half a dozen of them arrive to hover threateningly in a loose circle around the heroes, brandishing a variety of insubstantial stabbing implements. Crusader himself doesn't show up though, seemingly content to let you do the talking.

"You'll have to excuse him," you tell the suddenly tense heroes. "Having members of a rival gang show up unannounced has a way of making people jumpy."

"We ain't no rival gang!" Chariot protests.

"We're not rivals any more?" you exclaim happily and with no trace of sarcasm whatsoever. "That's great news!"

Clockblocker shakes his head at your question, or possibly at his colleague for handing you a setup like that. "Off the record? Yeah, pretty much. As long as you keep order and rebuild, and keep your race war boner in your pants, we're too busy to deal with you right now. On the record: Die nazi scum." He delivers that last message in a thoroughly unenthusiastic monotone.

You consider the capes before you. While their official unofficial stance may be one of noninterference, having Wards patrol the very edge of Empire territory like this clearly demonstrates that their unofficial unofficial policy is to provoke an incident that lets them attack you in self defense. Because not poking the bear would be dangerously close to saying that it's OK to be white.

Or perhaps 'waving a red flag in front of a bull' is a better metaphor. Because while Clockblocker's costume doesn't leave a single inch of skin exposed (and you happen to know that beneath it he sports that most caucasian of phenotypes, the redhead), Chariot's heavier but less comprehensive Tinker-armor reveals him to be black. The point being that the color of the flag doesn't actually matter. Sure it might be the single best heuristic for determining the content of your character, but heroes are already assumed to be hostile and belligerent by default. In this instance the metaphorical bull is colorblind, and the red flag just looks good to the audience.

"Well, I appreciate you coming by to visit, then," you tell Clockblocker politely, waving for the ghosts to provide them an exit route. The bull is also not going to charge into the matador's sword today. "But I'm afraid wolf freezing is no longer on the menu. You understand, I'm sure."

Clockblocker-o-vision

"-and she called him 'Iscariot'. She pretended she misspoke, but I'm sure it was deliberate."

"Yes?" Miss Militia is polite, but clearly confused.

"You know, as in Judas Iscariot?"

"Oh!" She frowns in thought. "But how did she know? And why did she tell us? Are they making a move against Coil?"

She's clearly talking to herself, but I'm not ready for this conversation to be over!

"Wait, Trevor is a traitor? And you knew? When were you going to tell us?"

I remember what Vista said to me just before she left: 'If you ever want to know something people don't want you to know, talk to Low Key.' I just nodded at the time, but now I understand.

Your copy of Crusader's power works the way you hoped it would, but not as well as you hoped it would. Yes, your otherwise mundane steel knife passed right through the breastplate you made Sophia wear, and the tip came back out bloody. But you still felt significant resistance pushing it through, and as a result the wound is nowhere near as deep as you would like.

You wipe the knife clean and try again. And again. Different angles, overhand vs underhand grip... no matter how you stab her it's a bitch and a half to punch through the plate. Sometimes you don't even draw blood.

Still, it's a start. Unlike what you see in the movies, without the power your thrusts barely even leave a scratch on the breastplate as they slide off. It does inarguably pass through steel to damage the fleshy bits beneath in a manner decidedly supernatural. If you pick up more Brute strength to put behind the blow, and/or more Striker powers to layer on top of it... like maybe Flechette's power, if that one fizzles too. All in all, you're not going to complain.

"Did you really need me for this?" Alec complains in your stead.

"It's literally impossible to make her wear something she doesn't want to wear without you. She just kept phasing through the breastplate when I tried."

Oh. You can fly now. That's certainly something Purity and Glory Girl have in common. Maybe you should have remembered what usually happens when you come up with clever plans. Maybe if you hadn't been so clever, you'd have building-collapsing force-lasers a few days from now. Instead you can fly, and you're having a hell of a time getting used to the controls.

Yes, you said 'controls'. It's really weird. Flight is like the second most common superpower (after, ironically, force-lasers), so how come your version is so bad? Purity and Glory Girl just have to think 'up' and gravity can go suck a fat one, but you get to manifest a... a sort of magic hovercraft? An invisible force that controls your position relative to the ground? That attaches to your right hand, and you control by minute twitches of your fingers.

It's really finicky, and no matter what you do you can't seem to rise more than ten-ish yards off the ground. Top speed is about, well, about car-fast, you think. Which beats walking, but is a far cry from airplane-fast. And despite you calling it a hovercraft just now, it can't actually hover. If you don't keep moving the whole thing destabilizes and you fall down. Luckily you were trying to imitate Crusader's ghost's 'swoop down and hover threateningly' maneuver when you found that out, and only fell a couple of feet.

Your powers have certainly been underwhelming lately. With 'flight' like this you won't even be able to clear most rooftops. Unless... oh. Turns out your position doesn't have to be relative to the ground. Any solid surface will do, horizontal or no. Less hovercraft, more antigravity-tether-thing? At least you can 'climb' any building in your way as long as you stay within ten yards of it.

Wait. You said 'a solid surface' just now, didn't you? But you don't actually know that. You're going to have to test it out on the convenient liquid surface right next to your chosen testing spot (you are, of course, back at the boat graveyard), and probably end up taking a bath in the ocean.

You don't end up taking a bath. Turns out pessimism is not always warranted, and your not-hovercraft can negotiate liquid surfaces just fine. Still, you're not exactly looking forward to aerial combat with this thing. If something were to jostle your steering hand... You return to shore and turn the power off and on again, trying to attach it to your left hand instead. It works. The steering is even wobblier this time, but at least this way you'll have your dominant hand fr-

Oh. You were so upset at being clever earlier that you didn't realize you were being dumb. Since when have you only had two hands? You toggle the power again, this time attaching it to a mind-hand.

Suddenly your flight is an extension of your mind, like a normal cape! You do couple of celebratory loops and rolls, flowing smoothly from one maneuver to the next with the absurd dexterity typical of your mind-hands. Okay, whoa, slow down. Your brain is having fun, but your stomach didn't like that last maneuver so much.

You switch to a more sedate, upright mode of flight as you ponder another idea: Mind-hands come from the heart. Physically, you mean. The glowing tendrils emerge from the center of your chest. If you were to make it really short - really short, so short it doesn't emerge from your chest?

You watch as the tendril withdraws and the last hint of glow vanishes beneath your clothes. But the mind-hand is still active, still controlling your movements. The tiny spatial distortions tickle a bit, but it means non-Poltergeist identities will be able to use this mode of flight. As long as you keep moving (and/or constantly bob up and down instead of hovering in place) you'll be able to pass for a normal (if fidgety) flying cape.

Yeah, okay, you can work with this. You give the results of your little cape-combining experiment a solid meh out of five. Not going to try that again with anyone important.

Testing a power like Flechette's for the first time demands some caution. Rather than attempting to infuse something you hold, and potentially having it cut through your fingers, you carefully brush your finger against a pebble on the ground. Nothing happens. You blow out your breath in a great sigh. It's one of those powers.

Ok, so pebbles don't work. Maybe it's limited to weapons? You've heard of stranger Manton limitations. You put your knife on the ground and poke it. Nope. Knife held in mind-hand? No. Knife carefully held with only your thumb and pinky finger? No. Knife wielded normally? No.

You hear a faint scrabbling sound, and a terrible suspicion hits you. A mind-hand snaps out and captures the rat that was making the noise. Another murine sacrifice on the altar of power testing, huh? You bring the it in close, reach out a finger and tap it with Flechette's power. The rat stops existing.

Huh. You somehow got things mixed up, and managed to apply Crusader's Manton limitation to Flechette's power? Perhaps sleep is not quite as optional as you thought? On the plus side, you just fucking deleted a rat! Deleted! None of this 'it can penetrate armor, but not very well' or 'it can fly, but not very high' bullshit. It's Flechette's power in all its glory, you're just skipping the 'imbue weapon' step and going straight to 'murder'.

Yeah, you're missing out on the utility of being able to destroy objects, but the charm of unmaking already has you fairly well covered on that front. It's not that big of an issue. No, the big issue that humans invented crossbows for a reason: It's really nice not to have to stand next to the people trying to murder you back.

You find and delete another rat, confirming that it is, in fact, limited to touch range. You can't even channel it through your mind-hands, you have to actually touch the rat with your actual hands. No ranged combat for you.

You spend some time berating your power/brain. No, of course this is fine! So what if your version of the Endbringer-slaying power is useless against Behemoth, whose aura kills anyone who ventures within 30 feet, or the Simurgh, who can fly into space? It's Leviathan you wanted revenge on, right? It's perfectly good against him, for 'closing to melee range with one of the fastest Movers in the world (who is also one of the deadliest Shakers and Blasters)' values of perfectly good.

Weeeell, your power-instincts say, there might be something more to it. You should try it again. Fine, whatever. You track down yet another rat. This time, you call on the power very, very slowly, straining senses you can't describe to feel what is going on. And there is something there, another mode of operation? This time you twist the power sideways(?) as you bop the rat.

The rat turns into a cat.

What? No, seriously, what? What the fuck, power?

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi

Purity: Eagle-Wing Style

Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Mechanics corner

Shell-Cracking Atemi lets you ignore Hardness - but there's still Soak to worry about (Soak is 'this much damage is subtracted from your attack', while Hardness is 'you must be this tall to even roll for damage').

Eagle-Wing Style is a relatively shitty flight power simply for balance reasons - a sufficiently cinematic 'guy with big sword' type character might be able to leap up and bisect an eagle-wing stylist, but would be completely helpless against an archer hovering 100 yards above him. Thus, it carefully prevents you from rising too high, using two-handed weapons, or hovering.

Pattern Spider Touch lets you reach straight into the matrix code (in Exalted it's called 'the Loom of Fate') of someone you hit with an unarmed strike, and more or less arbitrarily rewrite or delete them. Usually delete.

Chapter 85: B.07

Chapter Text

It's not that Lisa doesn't want Coil dead. It's not that she thinks the two of you shouldn't team up against him. She just wanted you to hold off a bit - at first because she didn't think you could win as you were, but lately because Coil was spending millions of dollars on setting up the remaining Undersiders as warlords in the ruins of Brockton Bay (that's also why Alec hasn't been around the lair very much lately).

You couldn't in good faith deny that request, what with your own pocket empire (once again you accidentally one-upped Lisa in the villain game). And you agree, the best time to kill your enemy is when they aren't busy showering you in money. But once her warlordship is secure, and she has preparations in place to let her 'inherit' his assets and continue paying her minions...

"Mark," Lisa says. "1:57 pm."

"Roger that," you say, and hang up.

It's the answer to the question: 'How do you coordinate with yourself across multiple timelines?' That timestamp was when Lisa personally witnessed the collapse of the timelines. In that instant, there was only one of her. Even if Coil split again immediately afterwards, both versions of her are guaranteed to be aware of the same timestamp, the same plan.

The die is cast, and now you need to hustle across the Rubicon in time. Your next actions are all planned out already, but the problem is that you're not just dealing with timelines: Every so often Coil also asks his precognitive Thinker minion whether he is likely to be attacked in the near future. Now that the low-probability event of getting a confirmed timeline split has occurred, you are on a very tight schedule that your own Thinker claims is the best tradeoff between getting risking not getting everything ready in time, and risking the enemy finding out what you're doing.

You call your minions and request an immediate meeting.

"I have a source inside Coil's organization," you tell Purity and Aurelius.

"Can you confirm that he was the one who leaked our identities?" Purity asks.

"Yes. But the important part is this list: His sources in our organization." You slide a piece of paper across the table, with 24 names written on it.

Purity picks it up. Her eyes widen in shock at some of the names. Her lips are set in a thin line and she slams a fist into the table, but she does not voice any doubts. She trusts you implicitly. You could have put Krieg on the list and she would have killed him without hesitation.

She starts glowing and rises into the air. "I'll-"

You hold up a hand to stop her. "If you start cleaning house, he'll know something is up."

"But-"

"I also know the location of his lair," you say. That gets her to sit down again. "The two of you will stay put and act like nothing out of the ordinary is happening, because there are people reporting on your movements. But no one pays attention to the cripple. I'll go around and talk to everyone privately, get them ready for a surprise attack."

"It's a shame we can't arrange a public award ceremony for a spymaster," Purity notes dryly, "because you'll certainly deserve a medal for this." She is already writing out orders giving you the authority to command all parahuman assets however you please. No doubt about it, acquiring this pair of minions was worth every bit effort.

The other minion just sits there gazing at you longingly. "You're amazing," he breathes.

You glare at him, and he shrinks back. "We all serve the empire, no matter how minuscule our abilities."

Worth every bit of effort, you tell yourself firmly. At least he isn't crying and begging you to take him back today.

Lisa-o-vision

"The boss is betraying you," I tell Trickster. "He was never going to help Noelle." Sundancer and Genesis visibly slump at the news. Ballistic, on the other hand, doesn't react at all. Already suspected as much. Trickster proves more belligerent.

"What would you know about it?" he demands.

"What, you haven't figured out that I'm the grand vizier, his personal Thinker? I know everything."

"And you're warning us because..?" Ballistic asks.

"I'm betraying him in turn, duh. The grand vizier is always plotting, don'tcha know?" I grin at him, and he snorts in response. He's the easy one, he doesn't really care. But painting myself as a traitor is not exactly winning anyone's trust, so I turn to address the female capes with a more somber expression. "I wasn't exactly given a choice about working for him. A gun to the head rarely leaves a favorable impression."

Three down, one to go. Trickster simply does not want to cooperate, however. "Let's say that's all true," he says. "Perhaps he'll change his mind if we perform well enough. Like by unmasking a traitor."

I sigh, shaking my head. "That's never going to happen," I tell him. "It's not how he thinks. The more useful you are, the less likely he is to help. See, if he solves the problem all he has is your gratitude. But jam tomorrow..."

"It's not as if we have any better prospects!"

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong. I'm the one helping him plot all this, remember? He knows full well where to find someone who could help, but he hasn't even tried to contact her. I, on the other hand, can guarantee you a meeting."

"Who?"

"Why, Quicksilver, of course. The expert on powers."

"She's alive?" Ballistic exclaims in surprise. Jesus, Taylor, what the fuck? You let him think you were dead?

Trickster is also upset, but for a different reason. He advances on Ballistic with clenched fists. "All this time, you-"

"She said she couldn't do it!" Ballistic protests, raising his hands and backing away. "Of course I asked her! She said she couldn't do monster capes."

"And what you think you are, vial boy?" I ask. But he isn't listening, because Trickster is language policing the M-word by punching him in the face. There's a brief scuffle before Genesis manifests a giant ape-monster to pull them apart.

"As I was saying," I repeat, "everyone who got their power from a bottle is technically a monster cape. The mutated amnesiacs were test subjects, you got the refined end product - though clearly not quite refined enough. I didn't know any of this," I add, shrugging, "until Quicksilver told me." Taylor really is the expert on powers, as I discovered when she sat down to give me the dirt on the Travelers. She just hadn't bothered to draw any conclusions from the data she had.

"Noelle only drank half her vial," Sundancer says quietly.

Oliver took other half. Vials contain two active ingredients. One grants powers, causes mutations. Other substance added to suppress mutations. No, doesn't suppress. Grants minor secondary power: Human semblance. Oliver got only secondary power.

Semblance component will separate out over time. Noelle's condition could have been prevented by shaking well before serving.

I shake my head sadly. From such minor errors...

"She liked your power well enough, didn't she?" Trickster snarls at Ballistic. "And when she got what she wanted, she dumped you without a word? You stupid piece of shit, I bet she was cheating on you too."

"She was," I say. It happens to be the truth (Taylor is a bit of an awful bitch) but the important thing here is to be on Trickster's side. Sorry Ballistic, but since you're already on my side I need to step on your feelings in order to manipulate your boss.

Trickster struggles against the grip of the ape-monster until it - reluctantly - lets him go. "How do we know you'll deliver on your end?" he asks. Which means that he's already talked himself into going along with it. "Quicksilver doesn't sound very trustworthy," he adds with a glare at Ballistic, who is currently being comforted rather than restrained by the ape.

"Thinker, remember?" I tap my temple demonstratively. "Far too smart to get the Travelers after me for revenge. Far too smart to upset Noelle." The shudder as I say that is almost entirely unfeigned.

"So, you want us attack Coil?" he asks.

"Not really. I already sold the location of his base to the Empire." There are some indrawn breaths at this. "But I made them promise to let you leave if you don't fight back." I hold up a finger to forestall any objections. "Believe me, they will keep that promise. No one wants to fight Sundancer if they don't absolutely have to. I just want you to have a truck ready, and get Noelle out of there as soon as the fighting starts."

"Noelle hasn't been very... stable, lately," Genesis says hesitantly. "Taking her out of the vault, in a combat situation..."

"Well, if you think she'll be more stable once Coil triggers the self-destruct and you all die in the explosion and she has to dig her way out through the rubble..."

"Of course he has a self-destruct mechanism," Ballistic groans.

That's the wonderful thing about Coil. No one can interact with him for any length of time and believe that he isn't the kind of person who would put a self-destruct mechanism in his base, and trigger it with subordinates still inside.

"I'm pretty sure he has it set up specifically to leave Noelle alive but hurt, because nothing says 'fuck you' like a rampaging monster eating anyone who pokes at the ruins."

"He sent for me," Lisa says, less than an hour before the attack is set to begin. "He suspects something, I can tell. The precog must have tipped him off." Shit. There's not really anything you can do against an enemy who can see the future, except move quickly and hope they don't ask the right questions in time. And it didn't work.

"We can't change anything," you observe grimly. There's no way to signal your other selves. If you attack early, he'll just close this timeline and deal with you in the other, prepared. If you call it off, he'll close the other timeline when the attack happens there, and come after you here.

"I know. I-" Her voice breaks. "I usually last around half an hour, I think. When he tortures me for information, I mean. I don't know. Before I learned how his power worked, I though he just had a really vivid imagination. Afterwards I just tried not to think about it."

"I trust you," you lie. You have no choice but to rely on her. "Keep telling yourself, this will be the last time."

"And the first time. It's always the first time..."

"None of that," you say sharply. "You're not going to crack. You'll hold out just a little longer than average, and he'll die today. If he cuts off anything important I'll become Panacea and put it back, and there's a 50-50 chance none of this is real anyway." They're not exactly the most comforting statements, but they're what you've got.

"Yeah." You hear her taking a deep breath. "See you on the other side." She hangs up.

You spend the next 40 minutes fretting over things you can't change.

"Let us past, or she dies," Coil says. He's clearly unhappy to find an unfamiliar cape blocking his secret escape tunnel. Lisa shakes her head fractionally. You flinch away from looking at her too closely. People are meant to have ten of certain things, and two of most others. But judging by the way Coil was still in his base when the attack went off, she didn't crack.

"Let her go, or I kill you," you counter, staring at Coil so you don't have to look at Lisa and trying to let anger drown out the other, less productive emotions.

Coil remains silent, but grinds the muzzle of the gun harder against Lisa's temple. Behind him, a flunky is frog-marching a prepubescent girl in a hospital gown. The other Thinker? You haven't been introduced.

"Look," you say, "we both know that if I let you past you'd shoot her as soon as you got away. On the other hand, if you kill her now you'll die before you can bring the gun to bear on me. There's no way this ends well for either of us. Shall we call it a draw, and reconvene in the other timeline?"

Coil considers your words for a moment. "Perhaps we shall," he says, sounding thoughtful. Lisa closes her eye. She knows what's coming. There's no way Coil would drop this timeline without shooting her first, just to spite you.

Then Coil jerks, his entire body shuddering. "What?" he gasps. "How?" Lisa's eye flies open, and she opens her mouth to say something. Then he pulls the trigger.

Two mind-hands stab into his brain through his eye sockets, and the third cuts his throat. He's dead before the echoes of the gunshot return from down the tunnel, but the timeline doesn't end.

Almost as an afterthought, you kill his flunky too before he can bother you. You sit down next to Lisa. There's... there's brains all over the wall. Not even Panacea could fix this one. You gently close her eye. It doesn't really make her look peaceful, not when the other half of her face is gone.

"I'm sorry," you say. It's not what you want to say. You want to ask- no, demand why. Why does everything turn into ashes? But that's fundamentally about you, and she deserves better than your self-pity.

"You were right all along," you say instead. It's what she would have wanted to hear, if souls were real and she wasn't gone forever. "Remember what you said back when I first found out about Coil? When you found me and saved me, and gave me my first power? I should have waited until I could make you bulletproof." A small sob escapes your throat. "You always knew best."

The little girl pokes you. She doesn't say anything, or even look at your face. You follow her pointing finger, to where she's written a message on the wall in flunky blood.

BOOM SOON

Right. The self-destruct. You get to your feet, and scoop the girl up. You take one last look at the three bodies. Maybe you're a bad person, but you're not going to try to smuggle a dead body across downtown Brockton Bay, not without an invisibility power. Let her be interred here, with the bodies of her slain enemies. There must be at least one pagan religion claiming that they will become her servants in the afterlife. You start running.

You've barely cleared the tunnel when it happens. A loud rumble, accompanied by a gust of air and dust. Luckily the tunnel emerges quite far from the base itself, because you have no doubt that heroes will be swarming over the ruins like flies in no time at all.

Chapter 86: B.08

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Now that Operation: Coil Dies has been successful (the word tastes bitter), you have administrative tasks you must attend to. You set the girl down. She still does not speak or meet your gaze, but she shows no desire to wander off either, so you ignore her and pull out your phone.

You call Victor, who had been peering at the empty desk of PRT Director Thomas Calvert through a sniper scope, and tell him to stand down ("turnabout is fair play," Victor had noted when you tasked him with this outrageous breach of the unwritten rules).

You call Aisha, who had been lurking in Thomas Calvert's private residence, and tell her to stand down.

"I got him, boss!" she says excitedly.

"You got his body double," you explain, raining on her parade (unlike Victor, Aisha didn't even notice that you were asking her to violate a taboo).

You call Purity, confirm that she reduced Coil's backup base/primary fallback point to rubble, and tell her to stand down.

You call Alec, who staffed Coil's secondary fallback point entirely with body-jacked mercenaries, and tell him to stand down.

You call Hookwolf, confirm that he gained entry to the secret tertiary fallback point that Coil was completely sure no one else knew about and sliced everyone inside to ribbons, and tell him to stand down.

You call Krieg, who was in charge of the main base assault, and verify that everyone got out before it blew. And that the Travelers were allowed to leave unmolested.

"You were not kidding about the giant monster," he says. You confirm that no, you were not. That's why a peaceful resolution was engineered.

You end up really appreciating everything Ops normally do for you. Or you would, if they hadn't been so heavily infiltrated that you had to take over their job completely.

(None of it helped, and you'll never know which of your precautions got him in the other timeline)

Victor-o-vision

It wouldn't do to say it out loud, but Low Key has really blossomed since her injury. All too often capes focus too much on their powers, and neglect mundane skills.

Easy for me to say, of course. But this girl has the makings of a truly great manipulator. I'm tempted to ask her if I can skim some off the top.

Mercenary-o-vision

"Oh," Scalper says. "Looks like it's over. I'll be taking my leave, then. No hard feelings, right?" Then his face goes blank for a second, before twisting in rage. "You little shit!" he screams. "When I find you, I'm going to pluck out your eyes and make you eat them! I'll-"

His words cut off abruptly when he brings his gun to his head and pulls the trigger.

"No hard feelings, right?" my mouth says.

"None whatsoever, sir!" I reply instantly.

Aisha-o-vision

Fuck! Of course I only got the body double, and the Boss got the real guy. I know I'm nowhere near her level, but I really thought I managed to avenge my brother just now.

I kick the wall in frustration. Great, now I've been upstaged, and my foot hurts.

You turn to look at the girl you saved. "Now what am I supposed to do with you?" you say, half asking her and half musing to yourself. The fate of Coil's pet precog hadn't featured into your plans at all.

The girl points to where she's scratched another message into the wall with a rock while you were busy.

HAVE INFO

WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE

TRADE

Dinah-o-vision

Don't talk and the Monster won't get my soul. Don't talk, and 87.54918% chance the Monster won't get my soul. 86.97363% chance. Don't talk. 86.13474% chance. No body language. 88.44529% chance the Monster won't get my soul.

"No freebies for the rescue, huh." She's scratching another message before you finish speaking. But it's not as if you're going to turn down the deal or anything. She reportedly can't lie about the future without damaging her own power, so if she says it will save your life you're hardly in a position to haggle.

FREE INFO

HOW TO BECOME DRAGON

GET DRAGON CLOTHES

RETURN AT 9

Damn. Wearing a new face and costume for this operation clearly did not help at all. Is there anything she doesn't know about you? Depends on what you do in the future, you guess.

You call Aisha again. "Do you still have your paints?" you ask. She's confused for a moment, then delighted.

You really wish you had an invisibility power right about now. Or at least that you could throw on a jacket without smudging the dragons.

But you manage to make it back to the meeting point without causing a public outcry, where the precog is waiting for you.

She's wearing jeans, and a blue denim jacket over a white t-shirt. Her mask is what you can only call a blue denim balaclava. It's clearly made from the seat of her pants (a different pair than the one she's wearing), with the leg holes sewn up. The zipper goes up the back of her head, and it's belted around her neck.

It looks odd, to say the least, but as a veteran costume maker you approve of the approach. She has a clear theme going, but only had to do a single piece of tailoring. Shame about the sneakers. As with business suits, so with cape suits: A snob can tell a poseur by the footwear (or so you hear, you don't know shit about expensive shoes).

"Couldn't find blue denim shoes, huh?"

Unsurprisingly, she doesn't respond. Instead she hands you a sheet of paper, detailing her plan for tonight in neat pencil handwriting. So that's how your dragon power works? You literally never would have guessed. And she's certainly ambitious, isn't she? Well, she's a Thinker powerful enough to give you the odds of each individual step of the plan down to seven significant digits, she deserves to be.

You stop reading when she steps into your personal space, her hand reaching up as if she was about to grab you by the neck. What- oh, there's a small pile of white powder on the web of her thumb. The missing part of your Double D costume. You take step back and hold up your hand.

"Certain levels of verisimilitude are not for sale at any price," you say firmly. Aisha's mom is not a role model.

She shrugs and brushes the powder to the ground, before handing you another sheet of paper. It's identical, except two of the odds have gone down by 5% or so.

"You Thinkers are all the same," you say. Even the creepy mute ones can't resist showing off.

Gaining entry to a Merchant party is as easy as making it there without being mugged. Which would normally be quite the obstacle, but no one is feeling brave enough to bother two obvious capes, one of whom famously beat up Lung. A fair number of people start following you at a distance, though, just to see what you'll do this time.

The party itself is just an open space that's mostly clear of rubble, with fires and loudspeakers (each one playing a different song) scattered randomly about the place. Most partygoers give way for you as you walk towards the center of the field, but some are too strung out to notice anything going on around them and must be navigated around, while others have, through a variety of chemical means, become braver and/or friendlier than the muggers outside.

They are, on the whole, happy to see you. And why wouldn't they be? Double D is a local celebrity, for all that she has never appeared in public since that first time. You endure people slapping you on the back and smudging your dragons - you'd reprimand them, but the volume of the music means that there are functionally no options between silent stoicism and screaming at the top of your lungs. But when a hand strays towards your front you summon your knife and charge it with power.

You don't even have to cut anyone - the sudden burst of golden light sends everyone staggering back in alarm, crying out and covering their eyes. You dismiss it again before anyone can identify the source of it as something that really ought to belong to Low Key, and continue onwards.

In the middle of the party you find Skidmark lounging on a throne of sorts - a ratty couch that has been half-heartedly spray-painted gold. In his left hand he holds a pipe that you're fairly sure does not contain tobacco, while his right hand is stuffed down the front of Squealer's pants. Charming.

He says something when he notices you, but you can't hear a word of it. A look of irritation crosses his face. "Turn it down!" he screams. "Turn it the fuck down, you gibbering assmonkeys!" He jumps up from the couch and waves his hands about and keeps screaming until people get the message, and the nearest loudspeakers go silent. Squealer groggily gets up from the couch and tries to get him to put his hand back in her pants, but he pushes her away and turns to you.

"Well!" he says in the relative silence. "What brings you fine frails to my little swarray?"

"Hi!" you say cheerfully. "I'm a dragon!" You point at denim-girl. "She's your new boss."

Squealer takes a step back, alarmed. Skidmark, on the other hand, takes a step forward and starts describing what he's going to do to both of you for your presumption. Things that are not at all appropriate when applied to a prepubescent girl. Well, she did note that there was a 78.65441% chance that this would end in violence.

You turn to Dinah.

Dinah-o-vision

Just this once. Then never speak again, or the Monster At The End Of The World gets my soul.

"Deal with them, and I'll tell you," she says, and holds out her hand.

You clasp it, and seal your pact. There is golden light, followed by violence.

PH-O-vision

Topic: Double D is back!

In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay

Posted by: AstralDeth (Veteran member)

Posted on Jun 2, 2011

(Showing Page 3 of 9)

► Legalize Brownies

Replied on June 2, 2011:

an then mush rolls up an hes like slurpin up shiz all over an he gets 1 of teh bonfires an 1 of teh spreakers an hes like surprise muthafocka an punches her rite in teh snoofle wif a fist thats on fire while blastin sick beets from his hed! was ill af fam

► will_eat_anything

Replied on June 2, 2011:

I think I got most of that. So she lost the fight?

► Unfortunate Sobriety

Replied on June 2, 2011:

Nah mang that shit just pissed her off lol. Riperino in piecerinos Mush.

► will_eat_anything

Replied on June 2, 2011:

Wait, she *killed* him?

► Legalize Brownies

Replied on June 2, 2011:

hes jus joshin ya fam mush is fine

► Unfortunate Sobriety

Replied on June 2, 2011:

I dunno mang that was alot of blood tho

► long_distance_chef

Replied on June 2, 2011:

So less than 2 months after Lung is arrested, we get *another* gang led by a giant rage dragon? Just Brockton Bay things.

► Legalize Brownies

Replied on June 2, 2011:

teh new boss is trousers

► Veteran Member (Not a veteran member)

Replied on June 2, 2011:

Does that mean good or bad?

► Unfortunate Sobriety

Replied on June 2, 2011:

Nah mang u dun geddit trousers is the new boss lol

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 , 8, 9

Notes:

A/N

Lacking parents, Dinah instead moves to secure a lifetime supply of candy.

Chapter 87: B.09

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You look at the piece of paper Trousers gave you in exchange for her new gang. There's a single word written on.

CUFF

You have no idea what that means. But apparently the information will save your life at some point in the future, because fucking Thinkers.

An internet search does not turn up anything beyond the obvious. You guess you'll just... carry around a pair of handcuffs wherever you go now? And a set of the appropriate lockpicks. And a pair of tasteful cufflinks, because why the hell not? Maybe they'll save your life when... you're disguised as a man and somehow end up at a formal dinner with Accord present, or something. Who the fuck even knows?

The Travelers are holed up in Lisa's warlord lair - that much, at least, went according to plan. One of Coil's mercenaries lets you in.

"We were told to expect you," he says. "Though, we haven't heard from the boss at all since then. Do you know if-"

You don't know which boss he's referring to, but the answer is the same either way. "Tattletale and Coil are both dead," you say.

To your surprise, he reacts to this piece of news by inclining his head and tracing the sign of the cross. "May they rest in peace," he says softly. Then he looks up, and is all business again. "Will you be taking over the base? I would be willing to stay on under the same terms..."

You shake your head. "You'd have to take that up with the Travelers. Speaking of..."

"Of course, ma'am."

You look around as he guides you to the Travelers' quarters. The lair looks to be of recent construction, with a lot more exposed concrete than you'd normally look for in a home. But it's dry and intact and it has electricity, which is more than you can say for a lot of the city even now.

Your reception from the Travelers themselves consists of Sundancer walking up to you and slapping you in the face.

"That's for what you did to Luke," she announces (Luke himself is nowhere to be seen).

"I'd do the same, if I could reach that high," a girl in a wheelchair says. Genesis, clearly, because she then manifests a gangly monster with seven hands, all of which slap you in the face.

You stand there and take it, because the alternative is getting in a fight with Sundancer. Also you kind of deserve it, you guess.

"If you're quite finished," Trickster drawls. "Quicksilver has a job to do."

The slapping-monster dissipates, and Genesis turns around and rolls off with a huff.

"Thanks," you say.

"They all hate you," Trickster says simply. "I'm willing to give you a chance, but if you can't help her you might not be walking out of here. Just saying."

You make some token protests at his blatant threats - not because you mind, but to have enough of a conversation for soul's price to trigger.

Trickster wants Noelle to be cured.

Ka-ching.

You arrive at a door which he opens a crack. You can hear heavy breathing from within. Trickster's tone is completely different when he speaks again. "Noelle?" he asks softly. "Quicksilver is here." There's no response. "Remember how she was coming to help you?" No response. "Are you ready to meet her?"

After a long silence, during which trickster grows increasingly uneasy, he speaks again. "Noelle-"

"She can enter," a female voice comes from within.

"Go on," Trickster says, motioning you ahead. "Whatever you do, don't touch her. Don't make any sudden movements or loud noises. Do whatever she says - unless she asks you to touch her. Then you run away." You're reminded of Faultline taking you to see Labyrinth, though you take note of how he doesn't bother to threaten you anymore, just warn you.

Inside is a garage area, which has been repurposed as a cozy windowless Noelle-holding facility. Not because they don't want to be around her, but because they're the only doors she can fit through. Although they also don't want to be around her, because they're afraid she might go crazy and attack them (and also, as you discover as soon as you enter, because of the smell).

You've had Noelle described to you, which only somewhat prepares you for encountering her in person. She is the upper half of a reasonably attractive teenage girl, connected to... something less attractive. The words 'nightmarish amalgam' spring to mind. A hill of flesh with three giant mouths (responsible for the heavy breathing) and dozens of eyes both human and non-. It paces back and forth on a combination of hoofed feet and human fingers the size of legs, though it grows still when you enter.

"I disgust you, don't I?" Noelle asks.

You take a deep breath before answering. "Don't worry, that's what we're here to fix," you say, trying not to sound too insincerely cheerful. "Now, tell me about yourself."

"I don't really want to talk about... this." She gestures towards her lower half.

"Tell me about your life before, then."

"I... don't want to talk about that either."

"You're going to have to, if you want to get better."

Noelle swallows heavily. "Okay. Krouse, will you hold my hand?"

Trickster takes a step back. "Noelle, you know you can't-"

"Maybe it won't be so bad this time?"

"I'm sorry," Trickster says. Then he runs away, because Noelle asked him to touch her.

You retreat into a corner as Noelle starts to chase after him, before regaining control of herself. Her human half slumps in defeat.

"Will you tell him I'm sorry?" she asks. "I, I know the monster is lying when it says it would be fine if I touched him, but..."

"You can tell him yourself," you say.

Noelle shakes her head. "He won't come back for a long time now."

"You can tell him yourself once you're better. Which will be very soon."

"Okay." Noelle takes a deep breath, and start talking about herself.

Her name is Noelle Meinhardt, and her life sucks. She spends hours going into detail how and why, as you prod her for every detail she can remember. At one point a mercenary shows up to feed her. You watch with mildly disgusted fascination (and your sorcerer's sight safely off) as her lower half gobbles down an entire pig carcass, and another hoof grows out beneath her. So, the human parts are from people she's eaten? That's unreassuring to know.

Noelle wants to be cured. Obviously.

"Can you fix me?" Noelle asks once her narration is finally done.

"Yes. But I'm going to have to touch you."

"No!"

"Yes. Just one touch, and it'll all be over." Paradoxically, it's the giant monster that retreats into the corner, as you advance on it.

"You don't understand! They always come out wrong, and I can't-" Her words cut off as you touch her, and activate Flechette's power. Not to destroy, but to change.

The giant monster vanishes, and two girls appear in its place - one of them wearing clothes, the other naked. The first is Noelle, but with both halves made of human girl. The other is you.

She is already lunging for you as she appears, her lips peeled back in a smile that all hunger and malevolent glee (are her canines longer than they should be?).

"No, stop!" Noelle shouts, but it's too late. Before you can properly process what is happening, the other Taylor has touched you back.

Nothing happens. Her face falls.

"No!" she screams. "No no no no!" She slumps to her knees, whimpering. "Why does everything have to turn into ashes?"

You study your evil clone - for that is obviously what she is. That's what happens when you touch Noelle. Her skin is almost inhumanly pale, but otherwise she looks just like you. Or rather she looks like you would, if you didn't look like Quicksilver right now. She looks like Taylor Hebert. When you turn sorcerer's sight on, you can see that she has done the same. But she isn't using graceful crane stance.

"Let me guess," you say. "You're a clone of me, the girl whose only power is sorcerer's sight."

"Yes," Evil Taylor says. She looks up at you, glaring defiantly, but at the same time baring her throat. "Go on, then. End it."

"End it? We've not even started yet, newest minion."

Evil Taylor seems taken aback by your words, which only goes to show that the cloning process isn't perfect. "You... realize that my only purpose in life is to destroy everything you hold dear and watch you die screaming, right?"

Evil Taylor wants to destroy everything you hold dear and watch you die screaming.

Huh. That's almost word for word Sophia's new soul price.

"So it says on the tin," you agree. "But I won't kill you as long as you don't betray me." You hold out your hand to shake. "Servitude or death?"

She actually hesitates in front of that choice. "Servitude," she says finally, and takes your hand.

Golden light explodes out from you as you seal the pact, though you don't elect to become a dragon. Good thing Trousers explained how that works. What you didn't expect was the black anti-light exploding out from her in an equal but opposite reaction. Light and darkness clash against each other and boil around your clasped hands, and you feel the bargain being twice sealed.

Wait, you could seal pacts all along? And because of that, your dumb brain created a dragon power that only works for pact-sealing people? Trousers didn't mention that. Which, you suppose, means that you're not going to explain it to her in the future.

In the wake of your deal, the walls in your half of the room have been bleached as if they had been exposed to the sun for years on end, while those in her half are stained and corroded.

"What is even going on?" Noelle demands, looking back and forth between you.

"You don't need to know that. In fact, you shouldn't tell anyone about the clone at all."

"Okay."

"Oh, and give her your pants." Noelle is wearing pants, because of course a Noelle who didn't have her power would wear pants around the house. But you don't need the others asking just how Quicksilver fixing a malfunctioning power caused clothing to appear out of the aether.

Luckily the rest of her wardrobe (a couple of t-shirts in a laundry hamper) was on your side of the room, so the clothes are only faded, not destroyed. You won't have to exfiltrate a half-naked clone. For once your true form is good for something, as its complete lack of womanly curves or muscle definition lets your clone fit into a former anorectic's clothing without issue. Hmph.

"Stay here while I finish things up," you tell Evil Taylor. Then open the door a crack and stick your head outside. "Hey!"

"What?" Trickster startles awake from where he'd been dozing off against the wall. "What's wrong?"

"Noelle needs to borrow some pants. You know, unless you're into having your girlfriend display her charms to the world."

"You mean-" Trickster lunges forward and tries to barge through the door. You draw back and shut it in his face.

"Pants first!" You shout through the door.

"Right." you hear from the other side. "Mars! Noelle needs to borrow your clothes!"

You trail behind a (re-)clothed Noelle as she rushes out to hug her teammates. As Aisha would put it: It's all heartwarming and shit. A good 5/6ths of the Travelers are crying tears of joy. Ballistic may or may not be a bit misty-eyed as well, but he's steadfastly refusing to even turn in your direction, so you can't tell. As if your awkward outsider status needed any reinforcement right now.

Then Noelle pushes Trickster away, breaking the hug. "It's happening again," she says, her face pale.

"What?" Trickster asks. "Wh-"

"Don't touch me!" Noelle cries, backing away from him. "I can feel it happening again!"

Trickster whirls around to face you. "I though you were going to fix her!"

"I thought I did!" you protest. "She looked fixed to me."

"The monster is still there," Noelle mutters to herself, curled up in a corner while the others stand uncertainly around her - wanting to comfort her, but getting yelled at whenever they approach.

Trickster is the odd man out, too busy hurling threats and imprecations at you to hover ineffectively around his girlfriend, but her next words cause him to forget all about you.

"Kill me," Noelle says.

"Wha-" "Noelle!" "You can't-"

"Please! I can't go through that again!" She fixes Sundancer with a stare. "Before the monster gets too strong, while I'm still in control. Burn me to ashes so it can't regenerate."

"I- I can't." Sundancer chokes out.

"Noelle, no," Trickster says. "It, it didn't work completely, but you're better now. We can keep looking for a solution, and Quicksilver can do her thing again if it gets too bad-"

"If it gets bad?" Noelle demands. "If it gets bad!? I killed and ate forty people the last time it got bad!"

Sundancer, Genesis and the nameless Changer all recoil at this, then turn to look at Trickster.

"You said-" Genesis begins.

"He lied!" Noelle shouts. "He lied to protect me! Please, Mars. If you have any love for me at all. Help me. Keep me from hurting anyone else."

Sundancer is shaking her head, tears streaming down her face. But she holds up her hands, and flashes of solar plasma start appearing between them. The others back away from her.

"No," Trickster says. "Don't you dare, Mars." He tries to approach her, but the sheer heat of the miniature sun forming in front of her sends him staggering back.

"I'm sorry," Sundancer whispers. Once the sun has grown to be the size of a person, she sends it flying towards Noelle.

Just before it hits her, she vanishes and Ballistic appears in her place. He dies before he can even cry out.

"Krouse!" Noelle shouts from where Ballistic just stood.

Sundancer screams, a wordless noise of rage and pain, and sends the sun careening towards Trickster. Genesis starts to manifest another monster.

You, on the other hand, run the fuck away. As much as you'd like to know how it's all going to turn out, this is an excellent time to not be in Trickster's line of sight.

"We're leaving!" you shout at your clone as you burst into the garage. You keep running right across it and slap the 'door open' button. When that has no effect, you channel the charm of unmaking into the door itself. There's a time for subtlety and scrupulously remaining within the powerset of your current persona, and that time is not now. The fold-up door collapses into a neat pile of metal slats, which you leap over.

Evil Taylor keeps pace with you as you sprint away - which is weird, now that you think about it. She gets the benefit of the exercise you've been getting over the last couple of weeks, but not the powers?

Behind you the entire building vanishes, consumed from within by a growing sun.

Notes:

Mechanics corner

Of course the twisted clone of Taylor's eclipse caste solar is a moonshadow caste abyssal.

If you're not familiar with Exalted and the above statement means nothing to you, don't worry about it. The pale skin and elongated canines mean exactly what a naive observer would take them to mean: She's basically a vampire. But because she draws power from a parahuman shard just like regular Taylor and doesn't have to worry about essence pools, she's not an obligate haemovore.

Pattern Spider Touch can't really be used to modify a single aspect of a person as such. On application, it rewrites them into some other person. Changing 'a random rat' into 'a random cat' doesn't require any particular thought, but Taylor needed to know Noelle's entire life story so that the new person she created would be a properly accurate Noelle-but-without-powers. Unfortunately the new Noelle was such a realistic imitation that the shard was able to find her again and reattach itself S9000 style.

Well, either that or she replaced Noelle with a slave puppet programmed to reassure the Travelers that Quicksilver had done her job as well could be expected, and then self-terminate before they could examine her in detail. How would anyone tell the difference?

Chapter 88: B.10

Chapter Text

"Why do this?" Evil Taylor asks as you walk along. "I could just betray our pact and accept the consequences, you know. Even if I can't kill you, I can reveal all your secrets."

"Mm-hm," you agree. "And what would happen if you did? After I killed you, I mean."

"You'd... leave town, and start over with a bunch of new identities elsewhere." She sighs. "It wouldn't be satisfying at all."

She sulks for a while before speaking up again.

"But what possible use could you have for me as a minion?"

It's sobering to see a powerless you from the outside, and realize just how suicidal you were. She's practically begging you to kill her.

"What would you do with yourself, if you were me? Which you are."

She shuts her mouth firmly, clearly not wanting to give you any good ideas if you haven't already thought of them yourself. Which you have, of course, because you're the same person.

"You're already helping," you say cheerfully. "Just us walking along like this proves that Low Key and Quicksilver couldn't possibly be the same person. But just to make sure we're seen together, you'll make a big show of hiring me to see if there's any way to get your power back."

Evil Taylor nods glumly. That was what she had been thinking too.

"We need to get you some spray tan, though. Unless you think Low Key should have a goth phase?"

"You could always let me learn shapeshifting from you."

"Hah. You're not nearly Mastered enough for that. Yet."

You're back in your true form, except five shades paler - which means you're basically impossible to tell apart from your clone.

Aisha looks from one of you to the other. "Not gonna give you the satisfaction," she says, crossing her arms.

"Aren't going to greet your junior minion-sister?" Evil Taylor asks, gesturing towards you. "This is my clone. She has her own hopes and dreams independent of mine, but I've enslaved her on pain of death because I'm a terrible person."

"No, she's the clone," you say. "And what she's failing to mention is that she's an evil clone, and her hopes and dreams mostly consist of torturing me to death."

"Mostly?" Aisha asks.

"She'd quite like to torture you to death first, while I'm forced to watch," Evil Taylor says. "Because we're friends." Then she frowns. "Didn't you say we were meeting someone here?" she asks.

You answer her frown with one of your own. "I did? Can't think of why."

"There's a note in your hand," she points out. "Where are those even coming from?"

You shrug. "Maybe they're from the Simurgh?"

"You think so?"

"Not really, no. Which is exactly what I would think if the Simurgh did it."

"Huh. Well, what's it say?"

"'Reveal who is clone,'" you recite. "I'm the real one. The evil clone can't shapeshift." You turn your hair blonde in demonstration.

"Yet," Evil Taylor says, but she doesn't otherwise try to confuse the issue. She must have inherited your inexplicable trust in the notes along with the rest of your thoughts and memories.

"Valid use of a note!" Aisha says emphatically. "When people start talking about torturing me to death, I bow out!"

"That's fair," Evil Taylor says.

Aisha shoots her a glare before turning to you. "Have you ever had a really great idea for a prank and then thought that no, I shouldn't, it's too much? Because you really should have."

"Says the mastermind behind Double D?"

"Fine, I'm a big fat hypocritamous! What do you even want with a crazy murderous clone-slave?"

You explain the benefits of being able to deploy two identities at the same time. Aisha seems unconvinced that it's worth the risk.

"We'll keep her chained up at night," you say placatingly. "And feel free to kill her if you suspect anything amiss. It's not as if evil clones are people."

"Fucking Duplicette," Evil Taylor mutters. Yeah, a younger, less cynical you had been pretty shocked at the Human Rights Tribunal's decision in the Duplicette case, but it's been codified into international law now: Evil clones aren't people. Geneva conventions need not apply.

Emptiness endowment lets you Master people in exchange for making them better. But it only works on things they've expressed discontent about.

"I wish I was better at navigating by the stars," Evil Taylor says, and you grant her wish.

"Don't learn any new powers without explicit permission," you order her in return.

The thing is, if you have someone at your mercy you can just order them to express useless discontent.

"I wish I was better at filling out tax forms," Evil Taylor says.

"Am I Mastered enough to learn shapeshifting now, boss?"

"Maybe once I've gotten Regent's power and used it on you."

You suppose it's your job to inform Lisa's next of kin, such as they are. Well, Warlord Circus can figure out what happened on her own, as her support dries up. No really, she can. You have faith in her deductive abilities. It's not like you hold a grudge against her or anything. She tried to spy on you, you secretly copied her power. As far as you're concerned, you're even. But that doesn't mean you like her either, not enough to go out of your way to help.

Warlord Rachel, on the other hand... From what you've heard she's latched on to the venerable Brockton Bay tradition of ethnic gangs, and created an ethnostate for dogs. Thing is, dogs don't pay much in the way of taxes. You should inform her that the food shipments are going to stop now that Coil is dead, so that she may adjust her foreign policy appropriately.

Which only leaves the question of how to get to her. People have been giving her territory a wide berth, because the supremacist nation of Doggonia does not tolerate unterhunden on their turf. And while your shapeshifting sufficed for infiltrating the ABB, it's limited to human forms.

She must have had some arrangement for getting supplies in, you suppose, but anyone who would know what it was is dead now. Nor can you fight your way in - you're confident that you could win against an arbitrary number of monster dogs, but you want to have a conversation with Rachel, not a fight to the death. Which is what you'd get if you hurt her dogs.

Hell, you don't even know exactly where her lair is, beyond 'roughly in the center of her territory'. You had expected Alec to be able to help you out there, but he just shrugs when you ask.

"The boss had a map. Saw it once, but why would I memorize her address? It's not like I was going to visit."

"So everyone who knew where she is is probably dead."

"Why'd you have to go and ruin a good thing anyway?" he complains. "I liked sitting around and being paid for doing nothing."

"How'd you feel about having your identity revealed to the world?" you counter.

"That would be bad," he concedes. "Yeah, that'd probably be murder-bad."

The smart thing to do would be to fly in and search from the air, because dogs can't fly (you can probably fly high enough that not even a fully-grown monster dog could reach you with a leap). But neither can Taylor Hebert, which is the only one of your identities Rachel knows. More sandbagging? More sandbagging. You'd call it the third inevitability of cape life, except as a villain you don't pay taxes.

You'd say you're about about halfway to your destination when you see the first dog. It's smaller than you expected, only about lion-sized. It's nearing the end of its patrol shift, you suppose, almost shrunk down to non-fearsome proportions. Or, well, you actually have no idea how organized Rachel is in here. Has she trained the dogs to guard specific areas, or does she just empower them as they show up and let nature take its course?

Of course as you're having these idle thoughts you are also scrambling up the the side of a building, because there's a lion-sized monster bearing down on you.

Well, this is why you packed a grappling hook. After a couple of practice tries you manage to get it to attach to the next roof over. After securing it on your side, all that remains is a tightrope walk above a pack of slavering mutants - because of course the first monster immediately howled for reinforcements when it looked like you were getting away.

No problem at all, in other words. No, really. Absolutely no problem whatsoever. With graceful crane stance you could tap-dance across backwards if you wanted to. You don't, though. You walk across at a sedate pace with your arms held out for balance, remaining mortal-compliant. It's not as if you're going to outrun the dogs when you have to stop and retrieve the rope after each crossing.

In this manner you penetrate deeper into dog territory, but it's only a matter of time before it stops working. Closer to her lair the dogs will be bigger, and soon enough they'll have the strength and claws to climb up after you. You'll... think of something when that happens.

Whups, better think quickly, because that's a monster dog scrambling onto the roof ahead of you. Compromising a smidgeon on the mortal-compliance, you turn on your heel and run back across your tightrope, but the dog just leaps across after you.

"Brutus?" you try. "Judas?" No reaction. You rack your brain for the names of other dogs who might remember you from your minion days as you back away across the roof. "Lucy? Inky? Socks?"

At that last name, it stops advancing on you and perks up. Just in time, because you had reached the edge of the roof.

"Socks! Remember me? I used to feed you and play with you." You remove a glove and hold your hand out for him to sniff. Hopefully-Socks accepts your offer, and carefully sniffs your hand - and then your face, and the rest of your body. You remain tensed throughout, ready to shadow-dodge away in an instant if it looks like he's going for a bite instead.

Not being completely stupid, you elected to wear a balaclava for your infiltration attempt. In a worst-case scenario you can abort the mission and use powers to get away without worrying about being recognized. That doesn't really make being nose-fondled by a giant monster not nerve-wracking, though. But in the end, the monster takes a step back and makes a huffing sound of... acceptance? He doesn't attack, at least.

"Can you take me to Rachel?" you ask. He just stares at you. Oh, right. You had gotten used to Fenrir as the standard for communicating with giant canines. Socks isn't sapient, though. Does he even know Rachel's name?

"Home?" you try instead. "Let's go home!" At that, he lets out the monster equivalent of a happy bark, and jumps off the roof. Then he turns around and looks up expectantly, waiting for you to follow.

"Who's this?" Rachel asks. She's talking to Socks, but you step forward and remove your balaclava, and answer in his stead.

"It's me. Taylor."

"Oh. Whaddaya want?" It's not the warmest of greetings, but it's a far sight better than what you'd have gotten if you'd come in another guise.

"Bearer of bad news, I'm afraid" you say, before stopping to wonder if you're exceeding her English levels too. "Lisa's dead," you finish simply.

"Who did it?" Rachel demands.

"Coil." You hold up your hand when she looks like she's about to call for her dogs and go on a crusade right here and now. "I killed him already."

"Good." With that, she seems to put the entire matter behind her.

"With both of them gone, you won't be getting any more support," you point out.

"I can manage on my own. Always have."

"Never thought otherwise," you say, hands held out placatingly. "Just wanted to let you know, you know."

Rachel just grunts in response. "How's Bubbles?" she asks after a moment.

Of course she'd ask that. You're stupid for not expecting it. "Dead," you say thickly, looking away. "Leviathan." Rachel doesn't say anything. You keep looking away as the silence lingers. You fully expect her to attack you for your negligence, and you're willing to give her a free shot. You deserve it.

Instead she shoves a puppy into your arms.

"Wha-"

"Therapy puppy," Rachel explains.

Oh. Okay. As long as she isn't trying to give you a replacement, you can deal. You pet the puppy.

"I lost some of mine too," she says.

Your mind-hands pause in their carving almost as soon as you started. "What even was her last name?" you ask.

"Wilbourn, I think," Ghost says.

"How do you spell that?"

"No idea."

You resume carving. Briefly. "I suppose a D.O.B. would be too much to ask for?"

"No shit."

You sigh, and go with your best guess. Once you're done, you let your mind-hands fade and study your work.

LISA WILBORNE

1994-2011

Smarter than you

"It's what she would have wanted," Ghost says.

The paving slab you've carved the words into should be more or less directly above where she was buried in the explosion.

"Not quite smart enough, though," Aisha says.

"Not the time, Imp."

"Oh, you think I'm being inappropriate?"

You turn around at her words, only to find that Evil Taylor (in her temporary guise as the mysterious fourth member of BITN) has pulled down her pants and is squatting to relieve herself on the street. Oh for fuck's sake, she's pissing on Lisa's grave. Because you were friends.

"That's petty, even for an evil clone."

Chapter 89: B.11

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

As more Master effects have suddenly become a priority, you shift your focus towards finally acquiring Alec's power. Warlord Regent has pretty much outgrown his role as the secret third-and-a-halfth member of BITN - his lair is bigger and nicer than yours, and he has more minions. But despite his grumbling he sticks to his promises, and letting you study his power was part of the deal. It's not as if it costs him anything.

Thus you task Evil Taylor with maintaining your Empire identity, leaving her to do heavy physical labor all day while you lounge in Alec's lair, posing as his slave puppet concubine as you watch him pilot his Mastered mercenaries around.

"This is Orc and Lissom," Alec introduces them.

"Mercenaries have secret identities too?" you ask.

"Callsigns, actually," Orc says.

"Though the effect is much the same, with these," Lissom says, gesturing at the face-concealing helmet of their SWAT-like uniform.

You wonder briefly if Alec got them mixed up, because the person he introduced as 'Orc' has a female voice, and 'Lissom', male. Then they take off their helmets, and your confusion clears up. No, he did not get them mixed up. Poor Orc.

Aisha is there too, because as you mentioned, Alec's lair is nicer than yours. She insisted on being the 'senior slave puppet concubine', and you agreed. It amuses her to have nominal authority over you, and you don't particularly care who waves the fan and who peels the grapes. There is one major difference between how you play your roles, though.

"I can't believe you let him actually slave puppet you," you say.

"Don't kinkshame," Aisha says, making you raise an eyebrow. Are they bumping uglies for real, too? You disapprove, but objecting would make you quite the hypocritamous yourself.

"Don't make me draw up guidelines for minion maternity leave," is all you say. Which, uh, could still be considered a wee bit hypocritical, considering your own condition. She's even younger and more irresponsible than you, though!

"Alright, hit me," Evil Taylor says resignedly.

You wave you finger at her like a Jedi mind-trick and hit her with Alec's power. She twitches. You don't feel any sort of connection form, though. Frowning, you do it again. Another twitch.

Her eyes go wide with realization, and she bursts out laughing. You keep hitting her with the power, causing her to twitch and hiccup and eventually fall over, but she doesn't stop laughing.

"Let me guess," she finally wheezes out from the floor, "you copied Regent's power? The guy-" she has to pause for breath again "-the guy whose only power is to make people twitch inconveniently, honest!"

You twitch her again as she collapses back into laughter, out of petty spite. You did, didn't you? What is even wrong with your brain? Alec explained it all ages ago, how every nervous system was somehow different, and so all he could do against (lower-case s) strangers was to send bursts of random nerve impulses towards the generally right area, making them drop things or stumble.

But with hours of study and calibration he could gain complete control of a person, down to reading their sensory inputs straight off the relevant nerves. Quite similar to how you use sorcerer's sight, really. But that's not what you copied. You aren't getting any insight into Evil Taylor's nervous system no matter how much you wave your finger at her. You just have the power to make people twitch.

"No shapeshifting for you, then," you grumpily tell the helplessly mirthful clone.

With his original power-study debt paid off, Alec requested another heist as a condition of him remaining in BITN. His lair is, to reiterate, a lot nicer than yours and contains more minions, so of course the upkeep would be more expensive. You don't particularly care for villainy, but it's a small enough price to pay for keeping 1.5 excellent minions around. So you Poltergeist it up and roll out with your homies, or however the hoodlums say it.

"You're rolling out with your crew," Aisha says. "Homies are more like acquaintances."

You roll out with your crew, then. However, less than halfway to your destination a pair of thugs with shotguns show up to block your path.

"Huh," Ghost says. "Did we piss someone off?"

"I wonder what they want?" Aisha says, not slowing her roll or even bothering to vanish. You imagine that would change if they actually pointed their guns in your direction, but you still get this tiny little barely perceptible warm feeling at how much she trusts you to handle the situation.

The guns remain averted as you approach. One of them even lets go of the barrel to raise a hand to his forehead, a gesture halfway between a salute and the tipping of a non-existent hat.

"Trousers wants t'see ya, ma'am," he says respectfully. "Urgent-like."

Huh. You had rather gotten the impression that she hated and/or feared you, what with her general refusal to speak to or look at you. And here she comes with an invitation polite as can be, given that shotguns are involved.

"Sorry, crew," you rasp out with Poltergeist's damaged voice. "Looks like today's little outing is cancelled. Dismissed."

Ghost mutters some probably-impolite things under her breath, while Aisha just shrugs.

"Lead on," you tell the thugs.

Merchant territory hasn't become a better place for a casual stroll since the last time you tried. From the tension of your escorts it quickly becomes apparent that the heavily armed invitation wasn't for your benefit - it's just that a single shotgun-armed thug didn't feel safe on his own. These very much aren't the people that build civilization.

Unlike Skidmark, who was happy to lounge in filth with the rest of the rejects, Trousers is prototyping the borderless society. Or in other words, she has a luxurious first-world penthouse suite in the middle of her privately-owned third-world slum. You pass several more people with shotguns in and around the ground floor of the building, tasked with keeping the two worlds apart.

Fair play to the open borders advocates: The system clearly works, provided that you can secure yourself a slum to economically exploit, and never ever want to go outside. But why would you want to go outside, when you can just have your hunky personal trainer of indeterminate ethnicity inject you with carefully measured doses of medical-grade heroin whenever you start feeling antsy?

That last part wasn't something you'd heard anyone in the Empire mention (they'd have referred to the trainer's ethnicity as 'mystery meat'), just what you observed going on as you emerged from the elevator. She's not just prototyping the future utopia, she's adding brand new innovations as well.

Trousers regards you levelly throughout the process, unmasked and unashamed. Her eyelids droop and her body relaxes as the stuff hits her bloodstream, but still she does not greet you.

"Are you going to talk this time around?" you ask, bemused.

She doesn't even shake her head, she just slowly tilts to the side until she lies sprawled on the couch. One hand flops out in a gesture vaguely directed at the coffee table in front of her, which holds a single piece of paper. You'll take that as a no. You have no idea what she has against you - which presumably means it hasn't happened yet, whatever it is.

You roll your eyes behind your mask as you bend down to see what message she's left you. "Why'd you even bother to invite me over if you..." You trail off, because the answer becomes obvious as you read the note, all five characters of it. The personal touch was to impress upon you the seriousness of the communication, to convey that there could be no question of it being a joke or a trick.

S9 INC

You look at where the windows have been taped over with cardboard. You'd assumed it was because her drug habit left her sensitive to bright light, but clearly that was making an ass of u and meds. S9 coming means Shatterbird singing, which means-

"'preciate the heads up," you call out over your shoulder as you hit the elevator running.

Aisha-o-vision

I answer the phone on the first ring. It's not that I'm worried - badass villains like myself don't get worried, duh - I'm just... interested. Yeah.

"Hey Boss," I say casually, so she doesn't get any weird ideas about me not being badass. "What'd she want?"

"The S9 is coming. Are here already."

"Uh." Okay, worried definitely isn't what I am right now. "You... you'll handle it, right?"

"I'm handling the most important part."

Focus, Aisha. You're Imp. Badass villain with a heart of gold. And also loyal minion. "Can I help?"

There's a pause. "...no, you wouldn't make it in time." She hangs up. I slowly lower the phone, my mind racing. They're attacking right now?

"So what'd Trousers want?" Alec asks.

"Slaughterhouse 9," I say dully.

"Here? Now?" he asks, and I nod. "Well, shit." He looks sadly at his game console - which admittedly won't survive Shatterbird announcing herself, but you know, priorities? "...she'll handle it, though?" he says hopefully.

"She's handling, and I quote, 'the most important part.'"

"I hope that means 'keeping us alive.' As opposed to, you know, 'keeping herself alive.'"

I consider that for a moment. "I'm not sure her life even needs saving. I mean, what are the odds that they won't want to recruit her?"

"True. Only... don't they have this thing about making recruits kill their old teammates?"

"Um." I consider some more. "Not to be a faggot, but do you think we should maybe warn the heroes?"

Shatterbird is not difficult to find. You can see her power starting to suffuse the city, propagating a vibration through every piece of glass and silicon that as of yet is too subtle to see with the naked eye. It means you don't have much time, but with sorcerer's sight every window you pass by is a signpost pointing in her rough direction.

Rough directions are all you need, because her costume isn't exactly subtle: An angel of stained glass, each fragment held in place by her power. The ten-foot wingspan is hard to miss.

"Stop!" you shout as you haul yourself onto the rooftop she's chosen for her performance. Or you try to, Poltergeist's voice isn't so good at shouting. But she must have heard you, because she fires a shard of glass from her wing at you even though she's looking in the other direction. You catch it with a mind-hand.

"No seriously, stop," you say.

Shatterbird turns around, and does a double-take upon seeing you. She's the only member of the S9 to wear a mask, a bird's skull made of multicolored glass. But the eye sockets are large enough that you can see the surprise on her face. "Poltergeist?" she says. She tries to pull the shard back into her wing, but can't muster enough force to overcome the grip of your mind-hand until you politely let go. "Did you encounter one of the others already?"

"No?" You're just as confused as she appears to be, but relax fractionally. As long as she's talking, she's not singing.

"Then who told you you were my candidate?"

Oh. You weren't entirely sure what to do next, once you had Alec's power. But just like that your next several weeks are all planned out for you.

"Didn't know I was," you say. "I suppose you have a test for me, then?"

She nods. "I would pit your telekinesis against mine. Prepare yourself!" At her words, her wings explode out into a billowing cloud, which quickly moves to surround you in a whirlwind of glass. This is going to suck, isn't it? You drop into mantis form.

Thanks to the improved awareness it grants, you easily catch the first shard to swerve inwards to strike at you. And the second, and the third. But then you're out of mind-hands, and Shatterbird still has, oh, around three thousand shards left.

When the fourth shard comes you strike out with a regular hand to deflect it. But when it makes contact it explodes into fragments - fragments that curve around your hand and fly into your sleeve, where they score their way up your forearm in a spiraling pattern.

"No cheating," Shatterbird says. "Telekinesis only."

You throw away the shards you caught to free up your mind-hands. They immediately curve around in the air and come back for another pass, but as long as you just bat them away each time instead of trying to hold on to them, a single mind-hand will suffice to keep them at bay. Leaving the other two free to cut open your sleeve and snatch up the fragments slicing your arm into ribbons before they can reach more vital areas. You toss them away, and stop the bleeding.

Of course Shatterbird isn't going to leave it at that. More and more shards join the attack. A dozen. Two. You rip off your mask and throw at away, needing every scrap of peripheral vision you can muster. It's not as if you're wearing a real face beneath it.

The number of shards attacking you double, and double again. A hundred shards fly at you simultaneously. Mind-hands twist through the air at the speed of though, deflecting each and every one with a ripple of twisted space. Then there are two hundred. Three hundred. Shards fly at you from every direction, and you're no longer turning to spot them so much as spinning on your heel. Five hundred. You are not hit.

You're granted a moment's reprieve as Shatterbird growls in frustration, her concentration slipping. Then she clenches her fists, and the entire cloud converges on you.

This. This is what your power was made for. Due to your preparation, you've rendered your opponent entirely impotent. Your body feels as if it's trapped in resin, struggling to move a fraction of an inch in the time it takes your mantis mind to pick out and deflect a hundred incoming threats. You can't possibly hope to turn fast enough to see what's approaching from behind you anymore, but it does not matter. You are one with the glass. You can feel the trajectories, intuit where every one of the 3173 shards will strike.

You have no idea how long it goes on. Seconds, minutes? Subjectively, hours and days. You do not falter. The same power that lets you operate at such speeds keeps you from tiring. To a mortal observer you must not be visible at all, your mind-hands blurring together into a solid white sphere around you.

With a scream of rage Shatterbird sends the rest of her costume to reinforce the attack, leaving her standing naked on the roof. It matters not. What do you care if there are 4892 threats instead of 3173? Let her bring ten thousand shards or ten million, she will not draw blood again.

Eventually she realizes this, and stops attacking. With nothing left to defend against, your mind slows back down to mortal speeds with the grace of a bird hitting a jet engine. You stumble and fall on your ass as your body stops being stuck in time, the world spinning and wobbling around you. Note to self, mantis form will prevent you from being overwhelmed by a flurry of attacks. No more and no less.

Wait, it's not just you, the world really is wobbling. Space itself bucks and heaves from the compounded spatial distortions caused by your hyperactive mind-hands. Speaking of heaving, your inner ear would much prefer if space kept still. You manage to roll over onto your hands and knees just in time for your breakfast to evacuate the premises.

Once the continuum settles down a bit, you get to your feet. Spitting out bile and wiping your mouth, you turn to face your sponsor. Shatterbird is dressed once more, and she's staring at you like she doesn't know whether to compliment you or curse you.

Shatterbird-o-vision

Do I know how to pick them, or what?

No but seriously, what? How?

"One down, seven to go?" you prompt her when she doesn't speak.

She nods. "I'll tell Siberian you're ready for her trial as soon as I've sung for the city."

"Don't," you say. "It's a trap."

"What?"

"Your power works on sand as well as glass, right?"

"Yes?"

"You know about the Silver Desert?"

"I've heard about it."

"It might wake up if you try to claim its sand. I really don't want to find out what happens if it wakes up."

"It's alive?" She fixes you with a suspicious look. "I haven't heard anything about that."

"Not many people know." Literally only you, to be precise. And now her. You hold up your hands in a 'not touching anything' gesture. "Hey, I'm not trying to stop you from wrecking the city." It would be nice if she didn't, but getting her to not poke the Desert is a higher priority. "Just, don't touch that part? You know, for the same reason you don't walk up to Scion and slap him in the face?"

"I don't have that sort of control at long range. But I can't just not sing. I always sing to announce our presence..." She's frowns in worry and chews on her lower lip as she considers the matter. You don't think she realizes how much of her face is visible through her mask. It's entirely possible that no one has told her, because everyone she meets is too busy either running away or begging for their life.

"I might have a suggestion..."

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi

Purity: Eagle-Wing Style

Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack

Chapter 90: B.12

Chapter Text

Behind you, every window explodes into shards of glass. But your persuasion succeeded: The effect does not overtake you to engulf the entire city.

Rather than fall to the ground, the countless shards rise into the air and fly back towards Shatterbird, where they form a giant tornado of glass around her. Then she starts to move. The tornado grows as fresh glass enters her range and is absorbed. In this way she will scour the city (except detouring around the Silver Desert).

You probably saved countless lives just now, and not just because you kept her from angering the Desert. The poor bastards in the middle of that tornado are a lost cause, but everyone else is much better off: Instead of everything exploding all at once with no warning, people get to see it coming. This way they can hide, or run, or circle around to hide in its wake.

But, that's no longer your problem. You think back to what Shatterbird told you before you left.

"Most recruits fail a test or two," she'd said. "But you should give it your all regardless. The penalty isn't always death, but it's always worse.

"Siberian will be coming for you next, her test is always the same: She'll hunt you across the city until she gets bored - usually a couple of days. Her penalty is always death, but she'll probably just mutilate you and let you go the first couple of times she catches you."

"How many are 'a couple?'" you'd asked.

"Depends on how bored she is."

So, that's something you have to look forward to now. You can probably manage. You imagine it would be worse for people who sleep. You also consider what Shatterbird didn't tell, you, but you found out anyway:

Shatterbird wants Jack-sempai to notice her.

You'd been taken aback at first, but it does make sense when you think about it. Jack is fairly handsome, in an 'old enough to be your dad' way. And while the whole 'psychotic mass murdering serial killer' thing would ordinarily be a turnoff, well, Shatterbird is one too. Hell, when you think about it like that Jack must be the millionaire CEO of the mass murdering serial killer dating pool. You can totally see where she's coming from.

Shatterbird-o-vision

"That was different from your usual performance," Jack says.

I look away, my cheeks heating up. "It- I just wanted to try something different." It's not that I want to keep secrets from him, but... I'm not sure I can explain why I believed Poltergeist about the Desert.

She was genuinely concerned, or I'm no judge of character at all. But if he doesn't believe me, he'll think I'm gullible. Or maybe worse, if he thinks there really is a slumbering Endbringer-thing in the city, he's going to poke at it just to see what happens.

He would probably be fine. He always knows what to do. But the rest of us? Something that scares Poltergeist... I glance up to find him still looking at me. I squirm under his evaluating gaze.

"Sit still!" Bonesaw commands. "You're throwing off my stitches!"

"I didn't expect there to be anyone brave enough to shoot the tornado," I complain. "Much less hit me inside it."

"Hm," Jack says. "It could use some improvement, but I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next."

He liked it! Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!

You get quite the shock when you first spot Siberian, and it's not because there's an indestructible tiger-striped nudist cannibal Case 53 bearing down on you. Because there isn't. It's an indestructible tiger-striped nudist cannibal Master projection. Holy shit. How the hell has she managed to keep that under wraps for so long?

You still run the fuck away, of course, even as you marvel at this feat of... reverse sandbagging? Everyone thinks Siberian is an indestructible Brute, but there's actually been a normal squishy human hiding in the wings the whole time?

You get the impression that she's just playing with you for now. She keeps leaping out at you from ambush, but as long as you promptly spot her and run away, she doesn't try very hard to catch up. She probably gets her jollies from seeing her prey gradually tire itself out. Maybe you should pretend to grow sleepy as the chase goes on, to keep her in a good mood.

Spotting her ambushes are not a problem, not with sorcerer's sight. Since she's a Master projection, there's a glowing umbilical cord connecting her to her real body. As long as you keep the cord in sight, you can always tell which way she's going.

It works really well, right up until cord vanishes without warning. Before you can figure out what's going on, Siberian leaps out of the wall next to you (leaving a cartoonishly neat Siberian-shaped hole) and grabs you by the throat. That's not where she was a moment ago!

Oh. The downside of your plan is obvious in retrospect. In order to keep the umbilical cord in sight, you had to remain more or less directly between Siberian and Secret Tiger Mom at all times. And if you are staying between two people and keep running away from one of them, you'll inevitably approach the other. Tiger Mom must have gotten nervous about your proximity, and resummoned her projection in front of you stop stop you from getting any closer.

But you're still alive, so she probably doesn't suspect that you know her secret. Just a precaution. But she has caught you, and you were told what happens next.

You briefly consider turning into shadow to escape. No, better not. She did catch you fair and square (or at least, she doesn't know you know she cheated), she might start playing for keeps if you try to avoid your punishment. Not releasing her grip on your throat, she starts removing your right glove with her free hand.

You could bad touch her with Flechette's power. No, that's an even worse idea. It probably won't work, because the bad touch only works on living beings, which she isn't. That's what got you caught in the first place. But even if it did work, Tiger Mom would just a) create a new projection, and b) murder you to keep secret that 'Siberian' can respawn.

So instead you just squirm in her grip and flail at her with your mind-hands. Not because it could possibly hurt her, but because prey that doesn't struggle is boring. And you very much don't want her to be bored right now.

Having removed your glove, Siberian brings your hand to her mouth, gripping it so that only your index finger is extended. She gently licks your finger before taking it into her mouth. She sucks on it for a while, her eyes half-lidded and an expression of bliss on her face. You'd call it disturbingly sexual, if you didn't know what comes next.

She bites down.

You snatch your hand away with a hissed curse, and stop the bleeding. She grins at you with bloody lips and lets go of your throat. She makes a shooing motion, and you obligingly scurry off. Away from Tiger Mom, this time.

You've had your fair share of injuries, but you've never been amputated before. It feels wrong, nothing but throbbing pain where a finger ought to be. It's going to make it a bitch to maintain multiple identities, too. Ugh, she's just a master projection, she doesn't even need to eat! Fucking psycho cannibal LARPer!

Shatterbird-o-vision

"Well?" Jack asks. "Did you find our wayward Cherish?"

"Yes and no," I say. "The tracker pointed towards a pile of fresh rubble in Regent's territory. Looks like her little suicide bomber countdown act finally caught up with her."

Bonesaw stamps her foot in anger. "Ugh! I offered to make her a virus-bomb instead. But nooo, she wanted to stick with her dumb explosives. I can't vaccinate you against blowing up!"

"Disappointing," Jack says. "But she never was all that bright."

"But we were going to do the 'none of us were Mastered all along' surprise party! Now I installed all those redundant ganglia in everyone for no reason!"

"Cheer up, poppet. Look on the bright side. Your own candidate did well enough on her first trial, didn't she? Heartbreaker's kids blowing each other up means there's another spot open, and less competition. Better odds for your 'big sis' to make it in."

"I suppose," Bonesaw says, but she's still pouting.

"Maybe you can take Crawler to dig through the ruins?" I suggest. "See if you can salvage any parts of her brother?"

Bonesaw crosses her arms and does her best to look disdainful. "No! She's dumb and he's dumb too and he'd make dumb art!"

You were so focused on getting to Shatterbird that you completely forgot about the Slaughterhouse 9's other tradition on arriving in a new city: They completely wipe out one of the parahuman gangs. With Lung gone, and Trousers forewarned and taking measures to ensure her own safety, that only leaves one gang. And a pile of bodies in front of you, left in the street as a statement. This is S9's playground now, where none may contest them.

They're all there. Purity, Krieg, Aurelius, Hookwolf... The S9 casually destroyed one of the most powerful gangs in the country. Cricket, Crusader, Night, Fog, all gone. Just to show that they could. Fenja, Stormtiger, Victor, Othala... Rune. Rune's mask is gone, and her empty eyes stare at you accusingly. 'Why did you not warn us?' she seems to be asking you. 'Were you not one of us? Were we not friends?'

You look away from her without answering, your eyes moving to the top of the pile and the source of the screaming that drew you here. Alabaster is immortal. The S9 solved this with crucifixion, though not the traditional kind. He'd heal from having nails driven through his limbs, so instead they bound him to a steel cross. It has some sort of mechanism above his head to keep him doused in burning gasoline. Every four seconds he is healed to perfect health, but this does not remove the gasoline. He screams as he burns.

You turn and run away. No, you're not leaving him like that, but you're not getting any closer either. There's no way that thing isn't booby-trapped to kill rescuers. A hundred feet away, at the utmost edge of your mind-hand range, you stop to slash at his bonds.

It's slow going. He's held in place with steel cables, and your mind-hands are sluggish and clumsy so far from your body (though still more dextrous than your normal hands). But the cables are thin, and perhaps softened by the heat of the fire. One by one they give way as you saw at them.

Distracted as you are by your task, Siberian catches unaware. Middle finger, gone. You stop the bleeding. She waves an admonishing finger of her own in your face afterwards, glancing meaningfully towards Alabaster. No messing with the art installation.

You hang your head submissively in response. As much as you want to circle back around and try again, you can't. She'll be expecting it. You got one of his arms free, he'll have to do the rest himself.

Flechette-o-vision

The orders from Director Tagg had been very clear: Remain at HQ until an evacuation can be arranged. Do not go outside, do not get involved.

One of the PRT troopers also let slip a quote that did not appear on the official orders: 'A blessing in disguise, frankly. It's all ruins anyway, we'll just let the psychos cull the villains my useless predecessors failed to root out.'

No one was very happy about it. People were dying out there, innocent people, while we did nothing to help! But the alternative was disobeying direct orders... and going up against the Slaughterhouse 9. How many of us would go out there if we could? Perhaps it was better to this way, to have the excuse of orders to salve the guilt of cowardice.

Clockblocker and I also got a second set of orders: Under no circumstances were we to use our powers against Crawler. He must not be allowed to build up a resistance against temporal or durability-ignoring effects.

It made sense. There were few enough things that could hurt him already, and we needed to keep those in reserve until we could set up a sure kill. It continued to make perfect sense, right up until Crawler came crashing into the Ward's common room with a cry of "Fhechekke!"

The troopers downstairs must have tried to stop him, because he's splattered with blood and containment foam. But rather than hinder him, the foam is flowing off his skin like water from a raincoat - it's something he's encountered previously, and adapted to.

Clockblocker promptly decides to completely ignore his orders and throws himself in front of Crawler, freezing him in time.

"Run!" he shouts.

What choice do I have? I run.

He was coming for me, I realize. That had been my name he tried to pronounce. I was one of the recruits. Did the Director not consider that heroes might be targeted for recruitment? Or... with a sinking feeling I recalled the report of what happened to the E88. Would he not sacrifice a pawn or two for such a result, and consider it a bargain?

That was it, then. I could no longer sit back and wait for evacuation. I could no longer hide. I would have to take the fight to the S9, and either win or die.

There's a note in your hand. You'd wonder where it came from, but you have bigger problems right now. You know it's trustworthy.

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

It's not asking the easy questions, is it? What do you need, right now? "Faultline has a golden amulet set with a milky white stone," you say out loud. It wouldn't ask a question if it wasn't safe to answer. "I could use that."

Almost two full days after she warned you away from Alabaster, Siberian manages to corner you in an alley. You consider your options as she closes in. She'll mutilate you and let you go the first couple of times. A couple is at least two, as you've already demonstrated. It might not be three.

Gonna have to drop one of the sandbags, huh. As she pounces, you fly straight up the side of the building. You grab random points on the facade with your mind-hands as you rise, as if you were hauling yourself up. You aren't, of course, your mind-hands do not transmit any force back to your body. You're using your regular flight power. But this way it plausibly looks like something Poltergeist could do all along.

Siberian looks up in surprise, but quickly grins and gathers herself for a leap. She launches herself with explosive force, but it's all muscle. Or whatever Master projections use in place of muscle. Point is she can't fly, and has no more aerial maneuverability than any other Brute. You easily dodge out of the way as she shoots past you, and again as she grabs the side of the building and throws herself back down at you.

You meet each other's eyes as you alight on the edge of the roof. What now?

Now she walks calmly walks into the building, apparently. But not in order to take the stairs, as you quickly discover. In order to casually stroll through all the load-bearing walls. You discover this because the building starts to collapse.

No matter. You leap (fly) over to the neighboring building before yours can settle more than a couple of feet. Then you keep going, running across rooftops and flying across streets. It's tempting to stick around and taunt her with your slipperiness, but also dumb. Between her speed and your low flight ceiling, you're not entirely sure you could dodge her leaps if she demolished every building in the vicinity.

Looking behind you, you spot her gliding up above roof level. Wait, gliding? She isn't supposed to - oh. You see what's going on. She is immune to all forces that would act on her body. Including, at her discretion, gravity. Okay, you somewhat underestimated her aerial maneuverability, but it doesn't matter. A mere 32.2 ft/s2 of wiggle room is not enough to make a difference, especially not when it can only be applied in one direction. Which you proceed to prove as you avoid her next several leaps, careful to always dodge to the side, never above or below her.

She still chases you halfway across the city before she gives up, collapsing another half dozen buildings in the process (at least some of them intentionally). From the way the other end of the umbilical moves to keep up, Tiger Mom must be in a vehicle of some sort.

She even starts throwing rubble at you towards the end. ...you feel almost insulted by that, Shatterbird must not have told her how your first test went. Then the next time you see her she doesn't try to chase, she just waves at you and beckons you closer.

"I passed your test?" you ask warily, not approaching.

She nods and offers you smile that would be a lot friendlier if she didn't still have your dried blood around her lips. Seeing as how not a single speck of dust or dirt stuck to her after running straight through multiple walls, she must be doing it on purpose. Hell, it's not just that she's allowing it to stick, she must be extending her invulnerability to the blood itself or it would have rubbed off several buildings ago.

She's still beckoning you closer. You'll just have to trust that she won't eat you when you approach.

She doesn't. She ruffles your hair affectionately, then picks you up and slings you over her shoulder. Then she leaps away with what would have been bone-pulverizing, organ-rupturing force if she hadn't granted you invulnerability first. You guess she knows where your next test is taking place.

Chapter 91: B.13

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You wouldn't call Burnscar a pyromaniac. Pyromaniacs are people who like to hang out with fire a lot. They're pals. Burnscar wants to marry fire, settle down in a nice burning house in the countryside and have lots of little burning children. She loves fire so much, she deliberately negated her power-granted fire immunity in order to put decorative burn scars on her own face.

"Give me your hand," Burnscar says.

You hold up both hands, wiggle all eight fingers. "Dominant, or intact?" you ask. You have no illusions about where this is going.

She goes for 'intact'. She makes you hold it out in front of you and puts her own hand beneath it, palm upwards. "Don't flinch," she says. Her eyes glow orange, and flames erupt from her hand to engulf yours.

You grit your teeth, but don't flinch. This test is exactly as subtle and sophisticated as you expected it to be.

If you wanted to burn someone's hand off, you'd use something like a welding torch, something powerful and efficient. Burnscar, of course, loves fire too much for that. This is more like dropping a hot dog into a campfire. It turns black and splits open and juices seep out. The smell of cooked and burnt meat fills the room. The pink interior revealed by the cracks gradually turns into charcoal as well. Bits start to fall off at the ends.

From the way Burnscar stares at it, you're surprised her other hand isn't down her pants already.

Yes, of course it hurts. You thought that went without saying. The pain is indescribable. Unlike the last two tests, you have no powers for this. All you can do is stand there and clench your teeth as your hand slowly - oh so slowly - burns away to nothing.

(this is but a fraction of what you left Alabaster to experience)

Your three remaining fingers notwithstanding, it's amazing just how family friendly the modern S9 is. From a power-harvesting perspective, you mean. None of their powers are actually evil, or even unsightly. Well, Crawler is pretty unsightly. But personality aside Jack is just a Blaster, his knife beams no more objectionable than Gallant's concussive emotions. Less objectionable even, since they lack the Master component.

Shatterbird is just the world's strongest Shaker, and Siberian is a Brute Master projection like any other (okay, the nudity might offend some people... but the cannibalism is strictly optional). Even Bonesaw and Mannequin are just bio-tinkers. They could just as easily use their powers for good - and did, in the latter case, for several years. You want it all!

Compare this to some of their former members - like Breed, who conjured anthropophagic insect monsters that laid their eggs in human corpses. Or Psychosoma, who transformed people into monsters under this control. Crimson, who gained Brute powers by drinking people's blood. Gray Boy, whose power was consigning people to eternal torment with no hope of rescue.

It's almost as if you were meant to do this, as if fate guided them to you at this point in time. Provided you with a target so juicy you couldn't possibly pass it up, despite the price. You'd inform fate of how you feel about its machinations, but you're all out of middle fingers.

Mannequin makes Burnscar's burn scars look like amateur hour. His great love is life support systems, which he demonstrated by cutting himself into pieces, encasing each piece in its own self-contained tinkertech capsule, and reassembling himself into a gleaming white puppet like something an artist would use to study poses.

He leans into that likeness too, fond of exaggerated gestures performed with inhuman grace and precision - but interspersed with entirely alien movements where this knees gyrate sideways and his hands are reeled out on chains. Occasionally he also separates his torso-sections to flash you with panels of clear glass instead of white ceramic, and the pulsing organs within. Because why just creep people out when you can also gross them out, right?

Frankly, you prefer Burnscar's take on artistic self-mutilation. She was less tryhard about her psychosis.

Mannequin leads you into a large basement. It's lit by a single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and the typical waterlogged debris of the post-Leviathan basement has been swept to the sides, creating an open space some 40 or 50 feet across. In the middle of the room, directly underneath the lightbulb, is a single chair. There's a man cuffed to the chair, with a bag over his head.

This test also appears to be very predictable. Mannequin pirouettes over to the captive and removes the bag with a flourish. You realize you were dead wrong about his predictability.

"Dad!?"

How!? You're Poltergeist, you have no link- no. The answer is only too obvious. Low Key was arrested. The heroes have your blood, it's in a national database now. The S9 have your blood too, smeared all over Siberian's face. Mannequin was able to cut himself into a dozen-odd individually packaged parts without dying, he could sequence your DNA in his sleep.

"Wha? Who're you?" Danny looks to be unharmed, but is understandably displaying the confusion and alarm of a man confronted with a teenage girl he's never seen before claiming to be his daughter.

"It's me, dad. Taylor. I'm just in disguise." You hurriedly unfuck your voice and shift your skin tone back to caucasian. "See, I'm a Changer." You really shouldn't reveal that to anyone, but fuck sandbagging, this is your dad! Besides, Mannequin already knows.

"Taylor? Oh god, you have to get out of here! Run! You-" He swallows the rest of what he was going to say when Mannequin leans down and presses a finger to his lips.

Mannequin then launches himself into a cartwheel back towards you. He comes to a stop kneeling in front of you, one hand held up to offer you a knife on an open palm (procured by some sleight of hand during the cartwheel), the other gesturing grandly towards Danny. Aside from the shocking twist in the middle, it is indeed a very predictable test.

"No," you say. "I refuse."

Mannequin staggers back in feigned shock. Drawing himself up to his full height, he tilts his head to the side and theatrically strokes his chin. Then he leans forward again, once more offering you the knife. This time he's also making little encouraging stabbing motions with his free hand, just to make sure you understand what he's getting at.

"No. I fail this test."

Mannequin lets the knife fall. He wags his finger in front of your face admonishingly. His antics work perfectly - you're so distracted by the finger in your face that you don't have time to react when his other hand sprouts foot-long claws and he drives them straight into your abdomen.

You can faintly hear your father shouting your name in the background, but all you can think of is Shatterbird's words when she described the testing process.

The punishment is always worse.

You curl up around the injury, trapping his hand against your body. Mind-hands spring up, taking hold of his head. For the first time, you crack the sky in anger. But rather than the sky, you aim straight it into the ground. His head shatters like an egg, the sheer force of the impact knocking you over and pushing you back across the floor. Meat and blood splatters across the room, and you feel shards of ceramic digging into your flesh.

Mannequin falls apart, chains extending between his remaining parts to let them move freely, but he doesn't die. Roughly half the pieces deploy various cutting implements and swarm towards you, completely abandoning their pretense of humanoid shape. You fend off most, but accept some minor cuts in order to capture a second piece to smash against the floor.

After losing another part Mannequin abandons his attack and instead tries to skitter away, but you refuse to let go of his hand. Mind-hands lash out again and again. You don't stop just because the hand you're clutching starts wriggling about, retracting its claws and stabbing them back into your stomach over and over again. You don't stop until he goes limp and stops struggling, and you can see pieces of brain among the shards and giblets.

You can hear a voice coming from somewhere far away.

"Taylor, are you alright? Please, you have to get up! You killed him, I can't believe you killed him. We're safe now. Taylor! We have to get out of here!"

"He killed Ylva," you say. Now that you've said it out loud, now that you've admitted it's real, now the tears come.

"Ylva? Who's Ylva?"

"My daughter!" Finally there's silence, letting you cry in peace.

The silence is interrupted by a slow clapping.

"Bravo, bravo," Jack Slash says. "A truly brilliant performance." He bows towards the largest concentration of bloody mess on the floor. "Ah, Alan. Once again you beat me at my own game. And since you won't be around for a rematch, I must concede the title."

"He was very naughty," Bonesaw counters. "I was looking forward to having a little sister. I had so many ideas for improving her!"

You climb to your feet and face the newcomers, but don't do or say anything further. You hope they've come to kill you for what you did to Mannequin. You hope that, because if killing the examiner is permitted you could have- you could-

"I suppose it's my turn now," Jack says. He bends down and picks up Mannequin's knife, then lazily tosses it at you. A mind-hand reflexively snatches it out of the air. He nods towards Danny. "You know what to do. Rest assured, this time the penalty for failure will be death."

It takes you a moment to process his words. Then the mind-hands lash out once more. Knives appear in Jack's hands, and beams of force cut your mind-hands apart. You reel back in shock, and Jack aims a cut at you. You poof into shadow. The beam of force passes through your shadow form, and it hurts. You lose control of the power, almost losing your footing as you return to solidity ahead of schedule. The damage to your shadow form has translated into a long gash across your chest. You stop the bleeding.

"Interesting," Jack says. You suppose no one was supposed to know Poltergeist can turn into shadow either. But fuck sandbagging, this is your dad.

Jack doesn't immediately attack again, so you take the opportunity to properly assume mantis form before summoning up new mind-hands. They reappear none the worse for wear, and you renew your assault. Now that you're ready for it you can replace them as quickly as they're cut apart. Knife beams and mind-hands dance in the air, colliding and canceling each other out as the two of you strike and parry. Jack is being forced back, but you can't seem to land a hit, and he never stops smiling.

Then he does a strange little hop, and knife beams shoot out from his feet. He has knives hidden in his goddamn shoes? You can't imagine how many people have fallen to that trick. The motion looks nothing like an attack, and the knife beams themselves are invisible. If not for sorcerer's sight, the fight would have been over then and there.

Jack doesn't appear upset at you seeing through and parrying his little sneak attack, though. Instead, his face lights up as if you just gave him a Christmas present. Grinning widely, he resumes his attack - and suddenly you're the one being forced back. He was holding back this whole time, toying with you?

Mantis form isn't helping. Or it's helping, but not enough. Shatterbird tried to simply overwhelm you with a storm of glass, but with Jack every move is unpredictable, every feint and attack performed with cunning intent. It's not that there's too many knife beams to keep track of. He's just better than you.

But, losing is not an option. You meet his next attack with your right arm. Your cauterized stump is cut open, but you stop the bleeding. Meanwhile the mind-hands that would have parried the blow are diverted to pick up shards of ceramic from the floor. You launch yourself towards Jack at the same time as you fire the shards with crack the sky, bracketing him and constraining his movements.

All you need to do is to gently brush against him and you can bad touch him out of existence. But Jack steps aside from your charge, calmly accepting a shard penetrating his ribcage in return. How- combat Thinker, you realize far too late. That's what the odd fluctuations of his power means. That's how he's able to keep up with your mind-hands.

Trying to stop and turn around to face him again is sure to result in disaster, so instead you continue your trajectory, turn into shadow and flow into the debris along the walls.

"That really won't help, you know," Jack says conversationally, turning to look right at you. Your heart sinks. Now that you're looking for it, you can spot the faint pulses of power flashing between him and you. It's not a Lisa-style power, he's not making deductions, he's getting data directly from the opponent somehow. He's maintaining a similar connection with Bonesaw, not that she's bothered to join the fight.

The shadowy tendrils of your body flow through the debris, circling around the room. Jack keeps turning to face you, his power easily keeping track of you. You search for a way out, a vent, a pipe, anything. There is none. A sensation not unlike suffocation grips you. You can't maintain shadow form any longer, and there's no space back here big enough to materialize in. You have to come out, despite Jack knowing exactly where you'll emerge.

With a cry of defiance and despair you flow out and reform, mind-hands striking out one final time.

Jack easily parries them, and cuts your throat.

You stop the bleeding, but that was 50% of your carotid arteries. The fight is over. You fall to one knee, the edges of your vision going dark.

"Fascinating," Jack says. "People usually die when I do that."

"Oh don't kill her yet, mister Jack!" Bonesaw says. "I want to figure which part of her power lets her do that. Changer or Shaker? Or maybe Breaker?"

"Oh, very well. Last chance, miss Poltergeist." He gestures towards where you dropped Mannequin's knife.

"Do it, Taylor!" Danny shouts. "If one of us has to die, let it be me!"

"..." you say. That was meant to be 'no', but your throat isn't working properly.

"Please, Taylor!"

You stretch out a mind-hand and snatch up the fallen knife. You hover it in front of Danny.

"I love you Taylor," he says. "Please be safe."

Your three fingers manage to squeeze your windpipe shut long enough for you to croak out "I love you, dad" before you plunge the knife into his heart.

You allow yourself to pass out.

Notes:

A/N

Cherie's Law: If your plan goes

1. Join the S9

2. ?

step 3 is never 'profit'.

Chapter 92: B.14

Chapter Text

You wake up to discover yourself symmetrical once more. Which is to say, Bonesaw chopped off your other hand while you were unconscious. You find that you don't particularly care. Not because you're a badass - though if Rune asks, that's definitely what you're going with (Rune's dead too). No, you're just... numb. Your family is dead. The last legacy of Fenrir is gone from the world. What are hands? You haven't needed hands in months.

You sort of wish you were the sort of person who could just curl up and die. Giving in to despair sounds really nice right about now. You can't, though. Jack has to die first. Leviathan too. You're not allowed to die until they do. And, the plan must go on. You've passed the halfway point of the S9's trials, and it only cost you everything. Their powers will be yours. It must have been worth it.

Turning your head, you learn that you're roommates with Murder Rat, and she's been watching you sleep. What is there to say about Murder Rat? A disgusting abomination, who was captured by the S9 and surgically combined with her nemesis to form a Frankensteinian amalgam with the powers of both. That her battlecry of 'did somebody order cheesy puns?' will never again ring out proves that no person brings only evil to the world, not even Bonesaw.

No, the gallows humor isn't really cheering you up either. You'd really prefer some other roommate. Any other roommate. This one smells like rotting meat, and the way its face has been sculpted into a snaggletoothed approximation of a rat's snout leaves it constantly drooling. B-minus work, Bonesaw. At least it was content to stand next to your bed rather than creepily lean over you, so it's not drooling on you.

It even looks gross to sorcerer's sight, all splotchy and undead-colored. You didn't realize undead was a color until now. She's also full of tinkertech, but so were Shatterbird and Burnscar and Jack. Simply a consequence of being around Bonesaw for any length of time. You don't spot any cybernetic enhancements in your own body, but you imagine you'll get some as soon as you pass your initiation.

"Do you have a test for me?" you ask the abomination. It twitches a bit at the sound of your voice, but doesn't otherwise respond. When you wave your hand elbow-stump in front of its face, it squeaks in surprise and teleports across the room in a burst of smoke.

That's Mouse Protector's power sure enough. The nemesis was... uh... Ravager, right. You remember. So named for her ability to inflict extra-awful wounds on people. You wonder if you'll be able to study both powers, or if whatever crazy brain surgery combined the two capes left them too mixed up for you to separate. Which power would you prefer if, if you could only get one? Teleportation is nice and all, but you can sort of fake that with shadow dodging already... And an improved wounding power would go really well with Crusader's, now that you think about it.

You decide to put the matter aside for now. Siberian would be a much higher priority even if you hadn't gotten a three day head start on studying her power. And before her you have to focus on Jack, because his secret Thinker power is the most dangerous of all. Steeling your resolve, you get out of bed. You still have three tests to go. Perhaps by the time you're done you won't have feet either. Which is fine, you can fly.

Ah. Looking around the room, it becomes clear that whoever put you to bed didn't leave you any clothes. You frankly have no idea whether this is some subtle torture or part of another test, or if they've just spent so much time around Siberian that they've forgotten that modesty is a thing. Whatever. It's fine. What would they even see? This isn't your real-

You flinch as your eyes settle on the constellation of stitched-up wounds covering your stomach, instinctively curling up to cover yourself. That's- maybe you could use a sheet to- No, you berate yourself. Let them see. Let them remember, when you eventually kill them all. If this is a test, you'll not fail it. You can't imagine how the penalty could be anything worse than what has already happened to you, but your imagination has already been proven to be insufficient.

Squaring your shoulders, you leave the room. Murder Rat doesn't try to stop you, or move at all. It just stands there, staring at you with its beady little eyes.

On the other side of the door is a spacious living room, the most notable feature of which is Crawler. Not a Case 53, despite appearances. They say he was human once, before compulsive use of his adaptive regeneration power made him grow into a chitinous monster the size of Fenr- a horse. Six legs, six arms (or maybe four legs and eight arms, depending on how you count), mandibles, tentacles, eyes all over the place... You really would have preferred to get your regeneration from another source, but it's not as if anything matters anymore.

As soon as he sees you he bounces your way like an eager puppy (sturdy floors in this place) and burbles something unintelligible at you.

"I'm afraid I didn't get that, friend," you say calmly.

"Yoo. Skahb. Nee. Wiff. Yoo. Khoweh," he enunciates carefully. His adaptive regeneration clearly didn't consider social awkwardness something it needed to protect against when it remodeled his mouthparts.

Stab him with your power? "I can do that," you say. He's literally asking you to activate his power so you can study it, of course you're not going to refuse. "You don't have a trial for me?"

He produces a strange burbling laugh and musses your hair (his giant claws lacerate your scalp) (you stop the bleeding).

"Yoo khill Nannekhin. Ghoo enouch foh nee!"

Killing the examiner gives bonus points. If you'd just... if only...

With a cry of something that doesn't quite manage to be anger, you start stabbing Crawler with your mind-hands. Over and over and over. You don't even try to hold back your tears. What's he going to do, call you a crybaby? He can't even pronounce the word!

"Ghoo! Ghoo!" Crawler shouts as you slice off a mandible.

"Die!" you scream. "Just fucking die!"

Crawler laughs happily, turning around to present new parts of his body for stabbing. Despite the blurring of your mundane vision, sorcerer's sight remains clear. A small corner of your mind calmly catalogs everything you see as his wounds close and his flesh slowly transforms to resist spatial warping.

Crawler wants to become completely invulnerable to all harm

Bonesaw is in the kitchen, performing surgery on a mortal and humming happily as she works. The blond little Mengele-in-Wonderland (unless Mengele was a nice doctor?) is fairly eye-catching in her blue dress and bloodstained apron, not to mention the tinkertech cybernetics. There's so much of it! She's like an inside-out Armsmaster. But despite that, your attention is more drawn to the swarm of scuttling football-sized spider-robots assisting her.

You stop in the doorway and quietly marvel at the way they are able to carry out complex tasks and respond to verbal commands. Especially impressive considering that they must have been built entirely without using silicon, or they'd never survive Shatterbird's little performances. Something about them nags at you... You swear you've seen this kind of tinkertech somewhere before, but nothing comes to mind.

Because you're content to silently study her helpers (are those organic components? Must be. But they still register as tinkertech to sorcerer's sight), and Bonesaw is absorbed in her work, it takes her several minutes to notice you. When she does, she eeps and claps her hands over her eyes.

"Why are you naked?" she demands.

"Because I had no clothes?" you suggest. Crawler didn't remark on your state of dress.

With her lips set in a grimace of unhappiness and her left hand still covering her eyes, Bonesaw points you at a pile of corpses in the corner. The corpses are wearing clothes. Lovely. Because that won't be covered in blood and shit or anything.

Still, mustn't piss off Bonesaw. You manage to salvage a short red halter top (you'd have preferred something that actually covered your stomach, but the other options were too gross) and a knee-length black skirt. You draw the line at wearing corpse panties, though.

"Why do you care?" you ask Bonesaw once you're done changing. You point at her surgery victim. "He's naked too."

"That's different," Bonesaw says firmly. "That's work."

"Siberian is-"

"Siberian is different too!" You suppose that's fair, her teammates must know she's just a Master projection.

"Crawler is also naked," you point out.

"Shut up! Go away!"

Bonesaw wants to know where powers come from.

You settle down in the living room alongside Crawler and Hatchet Face (who is also undead, but not an amalgam). The others must be out and about testing their own recruits, you suppose. There is no conversation - Crawler has curled up like giant pillbug and is presumably napping, and Hatchet Face doesn't respond beyond surly grunts, and shakes his head when you ask him for a test.

Hatchet Face is (was?) a hulking, shirtless beast of a man, named, you suspect, for the way his face looks like someone took a hatchet to it. He has an incredibly unfair set of powers that makes him the ultimate anti-Brute: He combines a respectable Brute rating of his own with a power-nullifying aura. It doesn't stop Blasters from throwing ranged attacks his way - it has no effect on magic lasers already in flight - but any cape who ventures too close will find themselves temporarily mortal. And usually dead soon afterwards.

But just like Blaster powers, sorcerer's sight works perfectly fine as long as you keep your distance. Since his aura is always active, you'll be a power nullifier yourself soon enough. With him and Crawler in the same room... you still can't pretend to convince yourself it was worth it.

You keep getting distracted by the occasional spider-robot scuttling past. Just where- Oh! You know what they remind you of: The shielded processor core Dragon installed in the Smaug. You'd been too busy to give it more than a glance at the time, but it was definitely similar. So Dragon, whose gimmick is copying other people's tinkertech, is secretly using Bonesaw's designs? That you're pretty sure are made with real people-brains? Fucking heroes.

You sigh. You suppose you can't really complain too much about that one, not when you're copying S9 powers right now.

Wait, something else doesn't add up. As in, literally doesn't add up. Shatterbird. Siberian. Burnscar. Mannequin. Jack. Bonesaw. Murder Rat, Crawler and Hatchet Face. That's nine people already, why were they recruiting?

"What's wrong with Murder Rat?" you ask Bonesaw when she shows up. You'd assumed the twitching and drooling and general unresponsiveness was inherent to the undead condition, but Hatchet Face, for all that he is surly and taciturn, is like the original novel Frankenstein's creature to Murder Rat's shambling movie monster.

Bonesaw mumbles something too quiet for you to hear.

"What was that?" you ask.

"It was the first time I combined two people," Bonesaw repeats marginally louder, blushing fiercely. "I've learned a lot about tissue rejection since then!"

"I guess she doesn't count as a proper member of the nine?" you say.

"She used to," Bonesaw says grumpily. "Before she got all manky."

"And he..?" you gesture towards Hatchet Face.

She shakes her head. "Mister Jack says dead people can't be proper members anymore."

"I guess you're the only one left to give me a test, then."

"Mm," Bonesaw agrees. "I'm still thinking about it."

There's a note taped to your left stump, in a cipher only you can read.

You have the necklace. Summon the knife.

You glance down, and note that you are in fact wearing Faultline's necklace. You send it Elsewhere with a thought. You hesitate for a moment before bringing out your knife, though. Drawing a weapon while surrounded by three nominally non-hostile members of the S9 seems like a terrible idea. No, bad Taylor. Don't question the notes. The notes are always right.

You call forth the Knife, letting it drop into a mind-hand at your side. You're not sure what the next step is going to be, but the note wouldn't call for the Knife if a regular cutting implement would suffice. You send your power into the Knife, charging it fully. The room lights up with a golden glow-

That's odd. The room suddenly got a lot brighter, and everyone is looking around in confusion. You feel a mind-hand fade as it tries to grip something and finds only air. Something strange is clearly going on. No wonder the note called for you to summon the Knife. You reach out for it, only to find nothing. Oh no! If you can't obey the-

You look at your left wrist in confusion. You swear there was something important about it. It's still missing a hand, you knew that already, that's not it. What's going-

Bonesaw's head falls off.

You jerk back in surprise and you chair tips over backwards. Graceful crane stance lets you turn your fall into a smooth backwards somersault, springing to your feet and into mantis form without a single wasted motion. You're clearly under attack, but how? Sorcerer's sight shows nothing.

"Stranger!" comes Bonesaw's voice. You look down to where her head is lying on the floor. She's a lot less dead than most people would be in her position. There's a white cyst growing above her left eye. When it reaches the size of a grape, it pops - no, explodes would be a better word. A fine white powder flies out of it and spreads to coat the room.

Instantly your sorcerer's sight shuts down, you stop being graceful, your mind-hands fade into nothing and you stumble as you forget how to properly maintain mantis form. Aisha appears in the middle of room, holding a knife that glows like the sun. A lot of things suddenly start making sense.

"Get her!" Bonesaw shouts.

Hatchet Face is closest and goes to grab her, but his motion is slow and clumsy. Everyone in the room just lost their powers, and he is used to superhuman strength. Aisha makes no attempt to escape. She reverses her grip on the knife and leaps to meet him, going for his eyes with an overhand stab.

Hatchet Face manages to jerk his head to the side, and her stab turns into a clumsy slash. With any other weapon it would simply have left a gash and bounced off his skull, even without his Brute powers. Your knife, however, enters just above his left temple and cuts across to exit through his right cheek, taking half his head clean off in the process. Hatchet Face falls.

"No!" you shout. That was a power-nullifying Trump she just broke. You were studying that!

Though their bout lasted barely more than a second, Crawler still used the opportunity to close the distance. Unlike his twice-late compatriot, he is not overly impaired by the dust. His power created his monstrous body, but does not maintain it.

Aisha spins around to face the next threat, but she's too late. Crawler is already upon her. A desperate backhanded slash sends one of his arms flying, but then it's over as Crawler fastens his jaws around her bicep and bites down.

An even exchange, in theory, but whereas Crawler mostly seems non-plussed that his arm isn't growing back, Aisha falls to the floor, screaming and convulsing as his acid saliva eats into her shoulder.

Shit. That was really stupid of her. You did not ask for a rescue attempt. Why did she think this would be a good idea? What do you do now? You want to rush over and help her, but an overt display of sympathy would be a terrible idea.

Bonesaw gets up and walks over to Aisha. Her head is back on her shoulders, but it's clearly a work in progress. She has one spiderbot on each shoulder, working to reconnect things in her neck. A third is clinging to her back with two of its legs jammed into her spine just below her neck. Judging by the way her walk is more of a shamble, you'd guess her spine hasn't been reattached yet and the spider is steering her body manually in the meantime.

"You've been quite the naughty girl, haven't you?" she sing-songs over the screams. You think you detect a slight strain underlying her cheer, though. She might have taken the decapitation a wee bit personally. "What should we do with you, hm?"

You walk over to join her. You should do something, come up with a clever plan. If you had your powers, you could (probably) kill everyone in the room and (maybe) drag Aisha off before Jack or Siberian came back. But even that wouldn't work. With the amount of blood she has lost - and is continuing to lose - you'd never get her medical attention in time. Her life is entirely in Bonesaw's hands.

It seems Bonesaw has had similar thoughts, because the spider on her back detaches and skitters over to Aisha. It stabs a needle-leg into her neck (she grows still as the injection takes effect, but knowing Bonesaw you'd bet it was a paralytic rather than an anesthetic) then goes to work on stopping the bleeding from her missing arm.

"What do you think?" Bonesaw asks, taking you by surprise.

"You're asking me?"

"She's your teammate, isn't she? Such a daring rescue attempt, she must really care for you." She looks thoughtful for a moment, then claps her hands as an idea hits her. "Yes! I've decided. Choosing her punishment will be my test for you! If I like your idea, you pass!"

"...and if you don't like it?"

"Oh, then I've got a pretty good punishment for both of you!" She glances towards the room you woke up in, where Murder Rat is presumably still drooling on herself. Right, nice to know the stakes.

A plan occurs to you. You really hope it's not terrible and can save Aisha's life, because that insubordinate suicidal retard is the closest thing to family you still have.

"She fought pretty well, didn't she?" you venture.

"She broke my Hatchet Face!" Bonesaw responds, pouting.

"Yeah, that was naughty. But still, she fought well. I think we should reward her for that."

Bonesaw stares at you silently, trying to work out where you're going with this. You nod to yourself.

"Yes, a reward. I think you should fix her up, better than ever, and send her home. She lost an arm, and there's a perfectly good arm right there, just lying around." You indicate Crawler's severed arm.

Bonesaw's eyes widen as she catches on to where you're going with this. "Ooh. But no, that wouldn't work. Crawlers blood is all acid-y and nasty. And the cells! He's barely human at all anymore, you know. I vivisect him every so often to check."

"Are you saying you couldn't come up with a solution for that?" you scoff, disbelieving. "You, the greatest doctor in the world?"

"Well, I could- but then- oh! What if..." Bonesaw trails off, muttering inaudibly to herself. Tinker sniped.

"Yes! I figured it out. Almost. I could separate the bloodstreams, and make a mechanical shoulder with a modified placenta for nutrient and oxygen exchange. There'd still be a teensy bit of acid leaking back into her regular bloodstream, though." She frowns at the inelegance of the solution, but brightens up when she realizes the upside. "She'd be in constant pain!"

"She'd really hate you for doing that, then," you point out.

"Yep." She's smiling, that's a good sign.

"She'd hate me too, for betraying a teammate like that. Why, she'd probably want revenge." Please go for it, please go for it, please go for it...

"Oh! She'd come after us!"

"Yes. She'll abandon everything that used to be important to her and stop at nothing to hunt us down. And when she finally catches up to us she will be all 'you turned me into this' and 'I stared into the abyss, and the abyss stared back' and 'I am the monster that hunts monsters!'"

Bonesaw giggles as you mime having a giant monster arm get in the way of your pompous brooding antihero poses.

"And that," you continue, "is when you turn to Jack and say 'happy birthday!'"

"Oh, mister Jack will love it! You have the best ideas, Taylor!" Then she suddenly turns somber, and walks over to put a hand on your stomach "I'm really sorry about your daughter," she says softly. "But there wasn't enough left for me to do anything with."

Fuck. Don't cry in front of Bonesaw. Don't do it. "Thanks," you say, the words thick in your throat.

Bonesaw has already turned away, smiling and humming to herself once more as she starts harvesting spare parts from Hatchet Face's corpse. "Gonna need more optic nerves," she says, half to herself. "Be a shame if she couldn't see through the eyes." Right, Crawler has extra eyes on his arms.

Speaking of Crawler, he's been doing absolutely nothing to stop his own bleeding. He seems downright fascinated by the concept of a permanent injury, alternately licking at he wound and shaking it about to spray blood-acid across the wall. The room is getting quite smoky as a result.

"Bonesaw!" you shout. "Can we have our powers back? Crawler is going bleed his way through the floor if he doesn't start regenerating soon."

"Right! Sorry, forgot all about it!" She sends a spider to inject each of you with a counter-agent. You send all three mind-hands reaching across the room in different directions, as if stretching a sore muscle. One brushes over your no longer glowing knife where it lies forgotten in a corner, and you send it Elsewhere. No one notices. The perfect crime, except for the part where it accomplished nothing, killed a power nullifier before you could study him, and left your best friend horribly maimed.

"Murder Rat!" Bonesaw calls. "Fetch me a pregnant woman!"

Flechette-o-vision

Being hunted by Crawler is a strange experience, because ultimately he does not want to hurt me - quite the opposite, in fact. Every so often he leaps out at me from ambush, hoping to startle me into shooting him, and breaking off the attack when I don't. But I can't get complacent. Sooner or later he will tire of this... Siberian-esque approach, and resort to torture or hostages to compel me to wound him.

This time, I'm prepared. I saw him snuffling around outside, tracking my scent. I've learned how he hunts. I know where he will come from, I know what he'll do, and I've prepared the ground. Yes, I have orders not to use my power against him. But those orders assume I'm still the silly girl who engaged an Endbringer with crossbow bolts.

Right on cue, Crawler leaps straight through the wall. I activate my power.

"Fhe-uh?" His battlecry turns into a grunt of surprise as his feet touch the ground, and are destroyed. I never did get the hang of creating arbitrary patches of death-ground... but laying out a sheet of plastic and empowering the top side of it with the touch of a toe? That I can do.

Despite his surprise, he reacts quickly. Even as he keeps falling into the death-ground and his legs and lower body are destroyed, he manages to reach out an arm beyond the edge of the effect. His claws bite into the floor as he tries to lever himself up.

All that's left of him is the arm, one shoulder and his head, but he's already starting to regenerate. I kick his hand as hard as I can - and scream, as I feel my toes breaking. But his claws lose purchase, and his head falls into the death-ground.

I let myself fall over in the other direction, landing on my butt. Ow, ow, ow, ow. Shouldn't have kicked him with my bare foot! Ow. I should get out of here right now, before any of his friends come looking for him, because I'm certainly in no condition to run away again.

Looking over at the death-ground, all that's left of Crawler are three clawed fingers lying by the edge. With his head gone they don't look to be regenerating anymore, but I scoot over and toss them in anyway, just to be sure.

It's not until my power wears off and the death-ground returns to being innocuous plastic sheeting that it truly dawns on me what happened. I did it. I killed Crawler. I survived. And - a small laughs escapes my lips as something occurs to me that hadn't previously - wasn't his bounty somewhere north of 15 million dollars?

Thank you Quicksilver.

"You're back!" Bonesaw shouts happily as Burnscar enters the room. "What did you think of my candidate? Isn't she great?"

"She failed," Burnscar says simply, with no emotion apparent in either her face or voice.

"Oh no!" Bonesaw emotes enough for both of them, clapping her hands to her face in distress. "You didn't kill her, did you?"

"No. I killed her sister in front of her."

"You're the best!" Bonesaw launches herself at Burnscar for a hug, causing her to stagger backwards and almost lose her footing. "I know we're not supposed to play favorites, but I have really high hopes for this one."

Burnscar doesn't try to extricate herself, instead returning the hug with a surprising intensity, leaning down to nestle her face against Bonesaw's shoulder and petting her hair. Huh. You would not have pegged Burnscar as a cuddler. They're almost cute, if you completely ignore all context.

But you think nothing of it, until Shatterbird comes back and is hugged in turn. She sighs and rolls her eyes, but also spends several minutes cuddling before Bonesaw extricates herself.

"I would not have picked either of those two as the touchy-feely type," you remark to Bonesaw after Shatterbird leaves.

"Oh, Shatterbird used to give the worst hugs until I installed automatic cuddling protocols in her spinal override harness," Bonesaw says cheerfully. "But that reminds me..."

Bonesaw hugs you. Eurgh. There's a certain smell about people who use the not-so-fresh blood of their victims as a fashion statement, that really can't be ignored at this range. But you do your best to be a good hugger even without hands, because you'd like to minimize the amount of overrides in your spine.

Evil-Taylor-o-vision

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee *gasp* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho *gasp* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha *gasp* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha *gasp* hee hee hee hee *gasp* ha ha-

Aisha-o-vision

I poke Evil Taylor with my foot. When I described Taylor's scars and injuries, she started laughing and didn't stop until she literally passed out from lack of oxygen.

When she comes to, she looks confused for a moment before breaking down into laughter again. She writhes on the floor, struggling for breath and clearly in pain, but she simply can't stop laughing.

I think I may have broken her. I mean, I know she's an evil clone who gets off on Original Taylor's suffering, but isn't this a bit excessive?

"Getting dis-armed isn't that funny," I say sullenly, glaring at my own monster limb.

"Not... the... hands..." Evil Taylor gasps out.

"Yeah? What so funny then?"

"Sworn... not to... say." Then she abruptly stops laughing, looking completely poleaxed. Without another word she scrambles to her feet and staggers out the door.

The fuck was that about?

Jack-o-vision

Bonesaw insisted on accompanying me as I went to test her recruit, no doubt intending to cheat on her behalf. She's been positively giddy about adding the 'healer' to our merry band. How could I turn her down? Cheating is but the spice that gives games their flavor, and I admit to almost being giddy myself. Such a perfect recruit!

Not her power - dear Riley has already brought the mortality rate of the Slaughterhouse distressingly low, though it's outweighed by the new options she has brought to the table. To imagine what they'd do, together... A team of nine- well, eight Crawlers and a Siberian. I'd have to completely change the nature of our games to find any challenge at all!

No, it's her soul that calls to me, grown so small and bitter by her own hand. Some - like that prideful, scheming Poltergeist - simply beg to be broken, but she screams to be rebuilt. To think that someone like her would pretend to be a healer, and quietly nurse her petty sorrows, her neglect and unrequited lust... when she could have made the city her plaything, and held the world at ransom. It would almost be funny, if it wasn't infuriating.

When I can reach out to someone like her, and make the scales fall from their eyes... I imagine it's how the prophets of yore must have felt, that sense of touching something greater than oneself, of purpose fulfilled.

We find her in a park, sitting on a bench beneath a weeping willow, and doing just that. A bit on the nose, I feel, but she won't be the first recruit with a taste for amateur dramatics.

Something feels wrong, though. I look around as we approach. The park is unusually green - situated as it is on hill on the inland edge of the city, it managed to retain most of its topsoil despite Leviathan's best efforts. But nothing else appears out of place. Curious.

"Hi!" Bonesaw says cheerfully.

Panacea looks up, and while there are tears streaking her face, there is also anger, and determination. I yank Bonesaw away as the shrubbery next to her explodes into thorns and acid. The weeping willow constricts, branches weaving together to form a protective cage around the 'healer'. Clawed tentacles erupt from the other trees nearby, far too thick and fibrous for me to cut with the knives I'm carrying right now. Every blade of grass turns inside out to reveal serrated teeth.

So that was what the feeling was. I throw Bonesaw over my shoulder and turn to run, keeping well away from any trees or bushes. The grass-teeth are far sharper than they have any right to be, and I have no doubt I'm leaving bloody footprints behind. I rather liked those shoes, too.

"I love it!" Bonesaw exclaims happily. "It's so pretty!"

A gravel path up ahead promises salvation. Or... if I was her, would I leave such an easy way to escape my sharktooth grass? No, instead of stepping on the path, I leap across. As I sail over it the ground falls away to reveal a line of monstrous insects the size of cattle lurking below. Antlions? When I land safely on the other side they start clawing their way out of their pit traps to give chase.

There's a strange burning feeling all over my body.

"Flesh-eating pollen?" Bonesaw says. She claps her hands in glee. "I knew she had it in her!"

"Could you-"

A white fog erupts from Bonesaw's body, surrounding us both. When it dissipates, the burning feeling is gone. Leaving only one slight complication.

"I'm blind," I remark, though I don't stop running.

"I'll steer!" Bonesaw says. She clambers up onto my shoulders, then starts pulling on my left ear. "Tentacle trees ahead!"

"That was amazing," Bonesaw says as she fiddles around in my eye socket. "That had to be better than whatever test you had in mind, right? She can join now, can't she?"

The world explodes into random colors before settling down into a moldy, half-ruined apartment as she reattaches my optic nerve. Not somewhere I'd like to spend any length of time, but this is just a quick stop for a fresh set of eyes before rejoining the others.

"We won't be recruiting her just yet, I don't think. No, it's time for us to move on." She was indeed magnificent, and embraced her true powers much quicker than I expected. But there are practical considerations.

"Why?" She adds a pout to her frown of concentration as she reattaches the various little muscles to my new eyeball. "If she isn't ready yet, I want to help her!"

"Now now, poppet. You've already shown her the way, wouldn't you want her to develop her art on her own? Besides, she needs to calm down a bit before we approach her again, or she might start releasing doom plagues. Could you win a doom plague duel against your 'big sister?'"

"I..." Bonesaw bites her lip. "Maybe?"

"Mhm. And would there be anyone else left for you to practice your art on, when you were done?"

"Fine!" She rips out my other eye with a bit more force than is strictly necessary. "But we're coming back soon!"

"Of course." The heroes will thoroughly disown her after that little display in the park, and what villains remain will shun her out of fear. By the time we come back she might join up from sheer loneliness.

Despite my reassurances, Bonesaw remains sullen throughout the remainder of the operation, and is still pouting as she offers me a mirror.

"I like the color," I decide. "Much obliged!" I give my trussed-up donor a friendly slap on the back.

Chapter 93: B.15

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Keeping your conscience clean as a member of the S9 looks like it's going to be shockingly easy. Your fellows are just so eager. All you had to do as you stopped for gas was to be slightly slow to unbuckle your seatbelt. To pause and stretch as you got out of the car. By the time you catch up to the crowd, the only survivors are the ones Bonesaw called dibs on.

You join them in ransacking the service station for snacks. It's not even theft, because the previous owners are dead through no fault of your own. Oh, what's this? Krystal Klear(TM) brand spring water? At $7.99 per carbon-neutral designer glass bottle, it's something only the most punchable hipster imaginable would buy.

"They've got my brand!" you exclaim happily, and grab an entire pallet with a mind-hand. Yes, you're fully aware that it's chemically indistinguishable from any other potable water. But precisely because it's shunned by every human being with even the vaguest sense of fiscal responsibility or shame, it's not sold in very many places. Which gives you an excuse to lug it around.

Any other non-crazy recruit would, you suspect, be a nervous wreck right about now. Surrounded by unstable killers, wondering which one is going to snap and turn on their comrades in a murderous frenzy. You don't have this problem, because you already know who it is.

It's you.

Jack's secret combat Thinker power is incredibly paranoid, you've discovered. It's constantly pinging every single member of the S9, even when you're not in a combat situation and despite you being nominal allies. It doesn't even stop when they're asleep, or when Jack is asleep.

Which gives you a free eight hours worth of power study per day, because you don't sleep. Standing next to the people who do and staring at them all night doesn't even make you the creepiest person in the room. In that sense, joining the S9 worked out perfectly: You have more access to powers than you could possibly need.

You say more than you need, because even if you don't need sleep, you clearly still need free time. Past a certain point your brain just zones out and stops being productive no matter how long you stare at parahumans.

You should find a power to fix that.

Jack's current objective appears to be padding your numbers back towards the 9 range. Rather than engage in another grand production like the one in Brockton Bay, he's simply tracking down villains who are already bloodthirsty psychos and fast-tracking their recruitment process. Your general tardiness continues to keep your hands more or less clean, and no one is expected to spend more than a token effort on testing the recruits.

Really, your biggest issue with the S9 lifestyle so far is that you keep gaining weight. Not because of a poor diet, but because every so often Bonesaw knocks you out and installs another pound or two of metal. Not that you're complaining about free state-of-the-art subdermal armor. No, it's mostly the spinal override control harness that bothers you.

At least she was happy to make everything shapeshifting-compatible, on the condition that you donate your body to mad science when you die. You were happy to agree, because it's not as if she wouldn't desecrate your corpse without your consent. Nor are you quite religious enough to confidently say that undeath doesn't beat the alternative.

Fun fact: Jack doesn't have two powers. His knife-beams are actually the same kind of 'ping' his Thinker power uses to keep track of threats, just with a million times the power behind them.

You figured that out two days ago, but gave it no further thought. It's the Thinker part that makes him dangerous, after all. But as always your painstakingly constructed copy of his power twists as it settles into your soul, and this time you clearly see the Thinker aspects being torn away. You got knife-beams without benefits, didn't you?

You get up and head outside, moving quietly to avoid waking anyone. Now to confirm that... You make a token attempt to fire knife-beams using only your bare hands. It doesn't work, but it could have. You've had far stranger power mutations. You summon your knife, and slash at a tree some five yards away. A stream of golden fire shoots out from your knife and blasts halfway through the trunk.

Huh. That's a lot less subtle than Jack's invisible knife-beams. But it's also a lot more damage than a knife would do to a tree. As trade-offs go, you'll happily take it.

Maybe the golden fire thing is an effect of being channeled through an orichalcum blade, though? It certainly shares the color. You dismiss your knife pick up a stick from the ground, then thrust it like a rapier at nothing in particular. Another blast of golden fire roars from the tip, and travels a hundred feet or so before dissipating. About the same range as your mind-hands, give or take. You wonder if that's a coincidence, or an inherent limitation of your Trump meta-power.

Just like with Lisa, now that you've fully comprehended Jack's Thinker power you can interpret what it's telling him. Turns out he isn't a combat Thinker so much as a 'danger' Thinker. Which makes him a combat Thinker too, because combat is dangerous. But his power tracks far more abstract threats as well.

Like people planning to betray him.

You'd panic, but the other day Bonesaw complained to you about your predecessor Cherish, who was going to betray the S9 but got herself killed before she could put her plan into action. Bonesaw was really upset that she missed out on their carefully planned and artistically crafted counter-betrayal. She was really looking forward to it.

So, Jack knows that you're going to stab him in the back as soon as you've gotten what you want from the S9. And now that you know that he knows, he also knows that you know that he knows. But you're going ahead regardless, because you have no other choice. And Jack is going to let you, because he's excited to find out what you're going to do.

He doesn't know, because his power isn't precognition or deduction. It's constantly scanning the intentions of everyone around him, and doesn't give detail beyond 'plans to kill you at some point in the future'. Hell, you don't know how you're going to kill him yet. But Jack is eagerly anticipating the day when you try, and utterly confident he can beat you when you do.

Poltergeist won't try to kill you in your sleep, it whispers as he goes to bed at night. Nor will she try to run away. A self-fulfilling prophecy. You won't try, because he'd find out if you would, and kill you before you could.

You wonder if Bonesaw was trying to subtly warn you off. Did Jack tell her? Does she like you that much?

Dragon-o-vision

We're just about to board the Pendragon when they show up: The two remaining members of Bitten, as well as a young man in civilian clothes (his face is largely covered by bandages, but judging by the visible burns on his exposed skin this is not an attempt to hide his identity). I send a warning ping to Colin's suit, causing him to turn around and level his halberd at them.

"Whoa, easy there," Imp says, holding up her left hand in a conciliatory gesture (her right hand rests on the ground - it, and the oversized arm it's attached to, clearly used to belong to Crawler). "S-class truce, yeah?"

"Explain," Colin says.

"We heard you were going after the S9-"

"Where?"

"Oh, you know. Around." While she's talking, I compose and send off a quick message to the PRT warning them of a leak. "Anyway, we're coming with."

"No you're not."

"Yes we are."

"No y- why?"

I shoot Colin an exasperated glance - not that he can tell beneath the armor. It's obvious enough what happened to them, between the burns and the arm. It's true that there were no reports of Bitten tangling with the S9... But communications are always spotty in the wake of Shatterbird, and they have a history of pitting recruits against their former teammates. Of course Imp wants revenge - or so I thought, but her answer surprises me.

"Uh, hello? They took our boss, of course we're gonna rescue her. 's called loyalty."

"You expect me to believe that thing is capable of loyalty?" Colin growls, gesturing angrily towards Ghost - the former Shadow Stalker.

"You never tried to find out," Ghost retorts. "Submission was always good enough for you."

I lay a hand on Colin's shoulder before he can continue the argument. "We could always use more help," I say. There's a fair chance they will die on this mission, I send over a private channel, feeling guilty as I do so. Both statements are true, I just wish the first one was enough to convince him on its own.

"They'll just slow us down," Colin says. "And Poltergeist joined the S9."

"Pshyeah, right," Imp scoffs. "That's what she wants them to think. She's just waiting for the right moment to turn on them. She's not a joiner."

If that's true, if we have a potential asset inside the S9, it's worth bringing them along for that alone, I send. Out loud, I say "If you're wrong, if they have turned her, we'll expect you to execute her kill order like any other."

"No prob, won't happen," Imp says cheerfully, and starts walking up the ramp. The others follow her.

Colin moves to block their path. "Who's he?" he asks, indicating the bandaged man.

"Oh, don't mind him. He does the sex with us."

"He what?" Colin is taken off guard by this frank declaration.

"Uh, you do know about 'the sex', right? See, when a mommy and a daddy-"

"He's not coming along."

"Why not? You are."

"Excuse me?"

Instead of answering him directly, Imp turns to me. "You've killed people from the S9 before, right?"

"Three of them," I confirm. "Miasma, Carn-"

"See?" she interrupts, turning back to Colin. "Everyone who's killed an S9 member gets to bring their boytoy on the road trip, them's the rules. She's bringing you, I'm bringing him."

"You did not kill a S9 member," Colin says.

"Yeah? Tell that to Hatchet Face- oh wait! You can't, because I killed him."

Nothing they've said so far has tripped the lie detector, I remind Colin. At least now we have confirmation of what happened to Hatchet Face, if not Cherish or Mannequin.

Colin grimaces, conceding my point - but not Imp's. "I'm not a boytoy."

"You keep telling yourself that, champ."

"I've been an active parahuman longer than your entire team combined!"

"Fat lot of good that did against the S9. Heard you got your leg cut off." I compose another message for the PRT, emphasizing the severity of the leak. Imp casually shrugs her right shoulder. "I admit I got a bit cut up myself - but only one of us walked away with Crawler's wanking arm as a trophy."

She places the palm of said arm against Colin's chest, attempting to push him aside. "Come on Pierre, Ghost. We're wasting daylight."

Colin does not move. "That's not his real name," he says, the lie detector finally having pinged on something Imp said.

"No shit it's not his real name," Imp says. "I don't know his real name. He wants to be called Pierre, I'mma call him Pierre. Now scoot." No lies.

We're seriously letting them aboard? Colin sends to me, but he steps back and allows the Bitten to enter the craft along with their plus one.

I shrug. Rather than reiterate old arguments, I send Should we not rejoice when villains step up to do the right thing? He grunts in response.

"Swanky," is Imp's verdict about the interior. They stake out the second row of seats, Imp on the right and the young man - Pierre - in the middle, so that each girl can throw a (human) arm around his shoulders. He leans back, looking incredibly smug about this.

"Are you sure you want to come along?" I ask him while Colin goes through the preflight checks. "It's going to be dangerous."

"I can't just leave the girls alone, you know," he says, causing the girls in question to coo at him. "Just look at how adorable they are." This second declaration draws growls instead.

"I told you," Imp says. "I'm badass, not adorable."

"Of course you are," he says indulgently. Perhaps I'm not the best judge of such things, but I get the impression that their relationship is deeper than a mere sexual arrangement. If nothing else, he's willing to join them in chasing after Burnscar before his injuries have even healed, his voice still raspy from smoke inhalation.

He won't fight personally, of course, but when we catch up to them I won't have time to drop him off before engaging. I've lost craft to the S9 before.

"You seem good together," I say. Colin may be sulking, but if we're going to be working together we should try to get along.

"You know it. I like my women the way I like my coffee - silent and in the kitchen." Both girls remove their arms from his shoulders and thwack him upside the head, almost in synch - but gently, and carefully avoiding the bandaged areas. "Ow. I meant 'black and hot'. And bad for my blood pressure."

"Are you... in a relationship... with Poltergeist as well?" I ask.

"Nah," Pierre responds cheerfully. "She prefers to watch."

"Shut up," Ghost hisses.

Kids these days, Colin sends to me.

They're technically older than I am, I respond, though I don't dispute the sentiment.

A second argument breaks out when Imp won't stop kicking the back of Colin's seat. Pierre catches my eye with a wry smile as we pull them apart.

"Children, eh?" he says, despite surely not being of legal age himself. It makes both of them bristle and turn on him, which at least distracts them from each other.

After Jack, your next target is... Murder Rat? Yeah, Murder Rat. Her sell-by date clearly came and went a while ago, so it's now or never. She's broken down to the point her powers are going out of control, teleporting her in random directions (though usually only a few inches) and ravaging her own flesh. Really convenient for you, in other words - provided you can finish before she dies.

Fortunately Bonesaw also takes an interest when she discovers the self-ravaging, and steps up her maintenance schedule. "She's overcoming her Manton limitation without a second trigger!" she exclaims happily. "I have to study this!"

That's an... optimistic view of things. You didn't lie to Faultline. Manton limits are inherent to the structure of a power. It's less 'overcoming' and more that the various power-controlling regions of Murder Rat's brain(s) are rotting at different rates. Not that this deters Bonesaw, who is cheerfully sketching out a series of experiments involving carefully targeted brain damage for the next time she has spare capes on hand.

Dragon-o-vision

A third argument breaks out when Imp wants to stop for the night.

"We're not stopping," Colin says. "If you need to sleep, recline the seats."

"Nuh uh," Imp says. "We need real beds. And showers, and food that isn't your gross nutrient paste."

"Every minute you waste is another-"

Colin, be reasonable, I send. They do not have your enhancements.

"We'll drop you off at a motel," I say out loud. "We'll keep going, and I'll detail another vehicle to pick you up in the morning."

"Sleep tight," I say.

"No peeping," Imp responds. "Old boring people like you, you'd have heart attacks if you saw the kinky shit we got up to." She shuts the door to their motel room.

"Do you think they'll peep on us anyway?" Pierre whispers to her, inside.

"Of course they will," she responds at normal volume. "They're heroes. No sense of right and wrong."

Despite her words, Imp takes off her mask. Oh. Oh dear. Imp is Aisha Laborn. Colin must never find out.

"Please," Ghost says. "I can't- I can't..." Her whole body is trembling.

"Shhh, shhh, we got you." Pierre gently helps the shaking girl out of her clothes, while Imp fetches - are those manacles? - from her backpack. She looks around the room, but ultimately can't seem to find what she's looking for.

"No respect for kinky people," Imp mutters.

It appears she was looking for a secure attachment point for the manacles, because in the end they carry bedding into the bathroom and chain Ghost to the toilet. She relaxes as soon as the manacles close around her wrists and neck. A small red light on the collar starts blinking. Tinkertech, to restrain her shadow form?

"There," Imp says. But rather than do anything 'kinky', she leaves. Pierre remains, stroking Ghost's hair.

"You're safe now, aren't you?" he says.

Ghost nods.

"No way you could get free?"

Ghost shakes her head.

"We won't let you hurt anyone else, promise. Now try to get some sleep?"

Ghost shakes her head again.

"Look-", Pierre begins.

More insistent head-shaking.

"Those things aren't good for you, you know," he says, but when Ghost keeps looking at him he sighs and gets up.

He goes to fetch a pair of pills and a glass of water. High strength sleeping pills, according to the packaging, though the name on the prescription label has been scribbled over, and two tablets is definitely not the recommended dose for a girl Ghost's size.

She eagerly swallows them, though, and curls up in her blankets. She's crying. She put up a brave front earlier, but in private there's not a hint of the angry, abrasive girl Colin used to complain about. What did the S9 do to her?

Imp, meanwhile, has constructed something like a pillow fort to contain her inhuman arm as she lies on the bed. A bandage on her right leg suggest that she may have injured herself on the claws previously.

"It hurts," she whispers when Pierre joins her in bed. "It never stops hurting."

"Shhh," Pierre says, cuddling up to her. "We'll figure something out."

"Well?" Colin says, distracting me from the camera feeds.

"Nothing you need to know about," I say, shaking my head.

He raises an eyebrow. "That kinky, huh?"

Shatterbird has been incredibly smug ever since you left Brockton Bay. With some justification. A bunch of members died, and they only got one recruit out of it. Her recruit.

"Thanks for the tips," you say softly. "They really helped with passing the tests." That's a lie. They would have, if you'd been smart enough to understand them.

Shatterbird nods magnanimously, still smug.

"I'll have to repay you somehow," you continue. Smug, smug, smug. "Maybe put in a good word with Jack. Get him to see that a certain person is not just a teammate, but also a beautiful young woman?" Smug turns into stricken.

"How could you tell?" she demands in a very loud whisper, grabbing you by the shoulders.

"Woman's intuition," you lie. "Don't worry, I'll make him realize what he's been missing out on."

"Do you really think you could?"

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi

Purity: Eagle-Wing Style

Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack

Bonesaw (sort of): Subcutaneous Armor Plating

Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt

Mechanics corner

Taylor hasn't studied Bonesaw. Subcutaneous Armor Plating is an alchemical charm - that is to say, it's a magitech device you can install in an alchemical exalt (alchemicals are cyborg-golems). Or in regular people, if you happen to be Bonesaw.

Dragon-o-vision

In the morning I take Imp aside for a moment.

"Look, does Ghost need-"

"You saw nothing, copper," Imp interrupts. "Nothing admissible in court."

"That's not-"

"Nothing, you hear?" she emphasizes, poking my armor in the chest with a Crawler claw.

I shake my head sadly, and let the matter drop. I want to help, but if they don't want help...

Chapter 94: B.16

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

With a pair of throwaway murderous scrubs bringing the Slaughterhouse back to 8 members, recruitment standards become somewhat more stringent, more elaborately ritualistic - circumstances permitting.

Usually they'd celebrate the beginning of a recruitment drive by culling the excess cape population of the city. But Stafford has exactly three capes, two of which have already been set aside for use as props during the recruitment of the third. So they just round up and murder a bunch of random civilians instead.

(Three is actually a ridiculously high number for such a small town - easily 3 times the capes per capita of Brockton Bay in its prime)

"You're not playing with the other children," Jack observes, sitting down next to you at the edge of killing fields. Now that you're doing proper Slaughterhouse stuff again, your murder-reticence has become more obvious.

"Not much point, is there?" you say with a shrug. A mind-hand shoots out to murder a token innocent. Your conscience is clean, Siberian would have caught him in another second or two. Siberian turns around to glare at you, but on seeing you in conversation with Jack she just huffs and sets off after another victim.

"I notice you're not partaking either," you say. "So I'm guessing you feel the same way."

Jack flicks a knife beam to disembowel a young woman in the same off-handed manner you did. "Perhaps I just enjoy seeing the kids have fun."

"Oh please," you scoff. You gesture at where Shatterbird is experimenting with different ways of flaying people alive. "Just one look at Shatterbird proves that to be a lie. It's painfully obvious what she wants from you, and equally obvious that you're not giving it to her." You turn around to look him in the eyes. "Erectile dysfunction in a man your age usually signifies a fundamental unhappiness with their current lifestyle."

Jack looks absolutely stunned for a moment. Then he throws his head back and laughs. He laughs and laughs, slapping his knee as if you'd just told him the funniest joke in the world. You can't quite keep an answering grin off you lips, the sheer intensity of his mirth contagious despite everything.

Jack wants to leave a legacy that lasts forever.

Still chuckling, he gets up and walks into the killing fields. Victims and murderers both get out of his way as he walks, and he acknowledges the presence of neither. He stops beneath where Shatterbird is hovering and gestures for her to approach. When she does, he gently removes her mask. You see her lips starting to form a question before he grasps her face and pulls her into a kiss.

She goes rigid with shock for a moment, but quickly rallies and enthusiastically kisses him back, the glass of her costume sliding aside to let her rub her body against his. You'd give her a thumbs up, but you're all out of thumbs. Her glass wings bend down to enfold them both, gathering them up and carrying them away.

You allow yourself a small smile. He laughed so hard because his power told him that you goading him towards Shatterbird was part of your plan to kill him. Somehow. How could he not go along with it? So far your ongoing betrayal is providing him with excellent entertainment.

You lounge on the couch as the rest of the S9 trickle in, covered in gore.

"Anyone carrying any glass?" you ask. "Electronics? I'd get rid of it if I were you."

"Why?" Bonesaw asks. "Shatterbird already sang."

You gesture at the center of the table, where you've placed a single shard of glass and taped down an upturned wire mesh colander over it. The shard vibrates against the table, occasionally flying this way or that to bounce off the walls of its cage.

"Shatterbird is a bit distracted right now, and not entirely in control of her actions."

As if on cue, a loud feminine moan comes from the other room.

Bonesaw immediately claps her hands over her ears, her cheeks turning pink. "L-lewd!"

"Yes! Yes! Don't stop!" Shatterbird cries out, heedless of who she might be traumatizing.

Bonesaw stomps her foot in anger. "Jack is being a bad daddy!" she declares loudly enough to be heard through the door. "Innocent ears should not have to hear that sort of thing!"

Shatterbird responds with a drawn-out mantra, interspersed with gasps and punctuated by a wordless, ecstatic scream. "أتعهد بصدق وإخلاص أن أكون لك زوجة مطيعة ومخلصة"

You have no idea what that means, but the punctuation is enough to send Bonesaw fleeing back outside, hands still clamped over her ears.

Damsel of Distress is a comedy villain, sort of like Uber and Leet were. And sort of not, because a quick interview reveals that she has the same soul price as Aisha: She wants to be respected and feared. The comedy stems from how earnestly she tries, and how abjectly she fails.

'Haha, the look on her face when she accidentally blew up the loot from her heist!'

'Remember when she started crying halfway through a cape fight and the heroes stopped and bought her a cup of cocoa?'

Hilarious, no? Now imagine what that feels like from inside.

A lot (but far from all) of the blame can be placed on her power. She fires blasts of spatial distortions that... well, that can do anything from lightly muss your hair to turn your skull inside out, completely at random. It doesn't exactly help that she can't aim for shit, or that she tends to suffer from power incontinence whenever she's stressed or excited.

Attached to a slightly less incompetent person, it would make for a terrifyingly unpredictable threat.

"Anyone who's a fan of Damsel of Distress can come with me instead," you announce to the roomful of raw materials Bonesaw has gathered. She appears to be trying to develop her own version of containment foam, and has moved on to the human testing phase. It seems to be containing people quite well, even if she hasn't quite gotten the 'breathable' part down quite yet. Or the 'not flesh-melting' part.

"Who're you?" someone asks.

You shrug. "I'm not Bonesaw."

"I'm a fan!" "I love Damsel of Distress!" "Me too!"

"Your username and password at , please," you tell the first person to arrive in front of you.

"Uh..."

"Mine's MisterMysterious!" A young man shouts from behind him. "Capital M's, no spaces! Password is 123465!"

You write that down, but you're going to have to travel to the next town over to find out if he's telling the truth. Shatterbird is hell on internet access. "I'm going to send you back to Bonesaw if you lie," you warn everyone present, "and tell her you've been extra naughty."

Damsel's face is streaked with tears, and she's clearly favoring one leg as she walks. But on seeing you she squares her shoulders and grits her teeth, clearly ready to take this recruitment test seriously. It makes her smarter than you, in certain respects.

"This is your fan club," you tell Damsel.

"Do I have to... kill them all?"

"That's up to you. Do you read ?"

"No. They're..."

"They're a bit mean, aren't they?" you say. Damsel nods.

You gesture towards a kid, about ten years old. Username BigRedPants, page one of your printouts. "'Lololololol,'" you read in a monotone. "'Worst villain evar. My dad could beat her up - no, my little sister could beat her up lol.' Another post: 'I think they don't throw her in jail because they want someone to laugh at.' Another: 'No, I think she's smarter than a goldfish lol. If the goldfish is dead lolololol.'"

Damsel advances on the kid.

"No, please! I was wrong! You're a great villain! You're really scary!"

"You really think so?" Damsel asks, more hopefully than menacingly. The kid nods fervently, and pisses himself for emphasis.

"Are you sorry for what you wrote?"

"Yes! Please don't hurt me!"

"Well if you're really sorry, I shall... spare you?" The statement turns into a question, as she looks at you for confirmation. You shrug in response. Up to her.

She rests a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Yes, I'll-" That's when her power goes off on its own, as it's wont to do, and the kid's head turns inside out with a blorp. There are screams of terror from the audience. Damsel stands there blinking in shock for a few moments, before bending over and throwing up.

You give her a moment to gather herself as her heaving gives way to crying.

"Ready for the next one?" you ask.

To her credit she stands up, wipes at her eyes and snorts to clear her nose. Everyone cringes away against the far wall as she raises a shaking hand. "What did he write?" she asks, pointing at the young man who went by MisterMysterious.

"'I love her, she's so cute. I love her silky hair and that little frown she makes when she's concentrating on something.'"

A small smile creeps onto Damsel's face, and she bashfully looks away. MisterMysterious, meanwhile, is pale and shaking. He remembers writing that post.

"'She ain't got much in the way of tits,'" you quote further, "'but I'd love to shove my dick between those pouty-'"

With a scream of rage, Damsel blorps... the woman standing next to MisterMysterious, because she can't aim for shit. The woman collapses, bleeding and screaming but still alive.

"Aw, you didn't let me finish telling you how much he likes your hair. Did you know that 'hairjobs' were a thing?"

"Shut up!" Damsel keeps blorping things until MisterMysterious is dead and all the screaming has stopped.

"Please!" Another young man throws himself on his hands and knees in front of her. "Please have mercy!"

Damsel looks at you, and you shuffle your printouts to the proper entry. "Ah yes. He doesn't talk much shit, but his signature is 'PM me for pics of the Western Exchange Wardrobe Malfunction.'"

"I'm sorry! I'll never jerk off to those again! Don't kill me!"

Blorp

"As for her-"

Blorp

"Oh dear. She just wanted to bake you cookies and cuddle you until you joined the heroes."

Blorp blorp blorp blorp

Jack gives you a strange look. He knows you're a traitor who doesn't subscribe to the Slaughterhouse 9 ethos. Yet your test for Damsel was exactly the kind of gruesome anti-psychiatry a true believer would come up with. He approves. And he has no idea why you did that.

No wonder he can't figure it out: You had no ulterior motive. You genuinely felt bad for Damsel and wanted to help her. To let her be feared and respected as a true member of the S9, however briefly.

Murder Rat is done. You can't teleport. Ergo, you must be able to inflict terrible wounds. But how the hell are you going to test that without either doing something morally indefensible or tipping off the S9 that you're getting new powers?

(You can, in fact, inflict terrible wounds)

You got that power just in time too, because less than 24 hours later you find out that Jack's power doesn't quite have the range and reaction time to warn against threats approaching in supersonic aircraft. And also that he's somehow managed to piss off Dragon to the point that the scary Canadian is conducting military operations on foreign soil. RIP Murder Rat, taking one for the team by teleporting in front of an incoming missile. It was well past her time.

In Jack's defense, as soon as he realizes what's going on his Thinker power lets you pull off 8/9ths of the most bullshit fucking escape ever. RIP Genoscythe, dissolved into nothing by some sort of flesh-eating tinkertech fog (nanomachines?). He died as he lived, committing pointless atrocities.

But the most interesting part of the encounter is the glimpse you catch inside the cockpit of Dragon's aircraft. Too far away to make out faces (masks), but you'd recognize those powers anywhere. This changes everything.

It also puts you on one hell of a timer, even if Jack's being more careful now. Good thing you got a head start on Siberian's power during your initiation.

You suppose this is a good news, bad news kind of thing.

Good news, despite knowing the truth about Siberian, despite having to sneak off to covertly peek on Tiger Mom (who, as it turns out, is really a Tiger Dad) to fully understand the power... some part of your brain still thought of her as a Brute. Specifically, the part that (probably) subconsciously shapes the expression of your copied powers.

Because as far as you can tell, instead of a Master power you now have a Brute power even stronger than Lung's. Gazing into your soul and comparing the two, they definitely share a lot of 'target own body' circuitry. And turning into an unstoppable force yourself is obviously a lot better than summoning an unstoppable ally.

Bad news, just like Lung's it refuses to activate on its own. It had better fucking trigger on pact-sealing, once you're in a position to seal pacts without blowing your cover.

Dragon-o-vision

"I found this security footage," Colin says. "It's rather gruesome, but you should see it." He addresses this last statement to Imp.

"'s fine," Imp says. "Already puked my share today." Pierre rubs her shoulders comfortingly. She's by far the most sensitive of her team, but she has been getting better at keeping her food down as we comb through the aftermaths.

There's no sound, but the black-and-white footage shows Poltergeist dancing in front of an audience of crying hostages. Her mind-hands twirl about in hypnotic patterns to accompany her physical movements... and every so often, they reach out to grab a member of the audience and loft them above her head. With the same graceful, sweeping motions they are cut open, showering Poltergeist in their blood.

"Tell me again how she hasn't turned," Colin says.

Imp shakes her head in denial. Then something seems to occur to her. "Wait, go back. No, further back. Not that far. Gah, just give me the remote."

After some scrubbing back and forth, she settles on the frame she wants. She points at the blood spray suspended in the air. "There. That's a letter. She's sending us a message!"

Colin scoffs, but I realize that I recognize the symbol: It was present on Smith's paper strips.

"What language is that?" I ask. I did send a message asking Myrddin about it, but he never got back to me.

"Language?" Imp says. "It's English, just with different letters. That's an 'S'. Hang on." She steps forward through the video. "That's an I. B. Sib- sibp... sibpr... don't puke, don't puke ...sibproj? 3... 0... 8... B... D... bdlu?"

She stops the video and turns to face the rest of us. "It says 'sibproj three hundred and eight bdlu,'" she announces.

"English," Colin scoffs. "You're making this up."

"If I was making it up, I'd invent something that makes sense!"

"She's not making it up," I say. I recognize every single letter, if not the numbers. With her partial translation, I should be able to finally discover the contents of Smith's... incantation? With such a simple substitution, it takes barely a millisecond for my decryption module to return its result.

Error code 8001: NO MATCH

Oh. Examining the detailed output, it's clear that Smith's message was not in English, or any other known language. But then, neither is 'bdlu'. Do we need to track down Smith to translate the message? He didn't respond when I sent him the report on Smaug's performance in the Leviathan fight, nor has he been answering his phone. His phone that is an integral part of his costume. I'm starting to fear the worst.

"Did Poltergeist know Smith?" I ask.

"In the biblical sense? Probably." Ghost fails to hold back a snort of amusement at Imp's answer. Oh dear. How old is Poltergeist? Will I have to arrest Smith even as I request his help? "She has this golden amulet - no idea what it does, but I'm pretty sure it's Smith's work."

"Do you have any way of contacting Smith?" I ask.

"Nope."

"This is a waste of time," Colin says.

"You shut up!" Imp shouts. "It means something! sibproj... sibproj... Sib... Siberian? Proj... ection? Siberian is a projection!?"

Even as she speaks, my own pattern recognition module throws up a result. "308 BDLU is the license plate of a white panel van registered to Georgios Sopka of Tallahassee, Florida." A swarm of web spiders are sent out, and quickly return with results on that name. "Georgios died in the S9 attack on Tallahassee in 2004. No change in ownership has been registered since then, nor has the vehicle been listed as destroyed. Stand by." Other subroutines start going through years of traffic camera footage from all over the country, looking for a match.

"The Siberian drives around in a child molester van?" Pierre says dryly. "You learn something new every day."

"Traffic cameras put the van near Houston in September 2006, and Phoenix in March 2008," I report. "And Boise in June 2009. Statistical modeling shows 82% probability the van has been shadowing the movements of the S9."

"Hah!" Imp says, pointing a finger at Colin. "Told you she was on our side!"

This is invaluable intel. I send to Colin. Will you finally admit that bringing Bitten along was worth it?

"We just watched her kill 14 people in cold blood," Colin says.

"Yeah, and we barely understood her message!" Imp counters. "If she'd turned evil, she'd have used more letters."

It's a typical lazy afternoon in the Slaughterhouse Nine. Jack is napping on the couch. Siberian is giving Bonesaw a piggyback ride, round and round the house on noiseless feet. Burnscar is playing with a lighter, because of course she is.

Shatterbird is reading. Something thick and Russian, though you don't recognize the author. Literature for people who consider Dostoevsky to be for scrubs. You and Damsel are having tea. Your three mind-hands maneuver the teapot and both cups, since neither of you have regular hands up to the task - Bonesaw fixed her power incontinence and aiming issues by turning her fingers into 3-foot long power-guiding antennae/claws.

Skinslip is doing his thing, flaying the original inhabitants of the house alive and attaching sheets of their skin to himself. Now there's a power you have no interest in copying. A more classic example of the Slaughterhouse 9 genre, not just inherently evil but also incredibly gross. It's not even an unbounded growth power like your own or Dauntless's (RIP Dauntless), because the extra skin keeps rotting and constantly needs to be replaced.

Other than him, though, it's a strangely normal/idyllic scene. A side of the S9 most people don't see (because they're all dead). A discerning eye could pick up all kinds of detail not commonly known.

Take Jack, for example. Not quite as deranged a novelty-seeker as the one he plays on TV, for such a man could not nap so contentedly. The patriarch of your little band, and not just in the leadership sense. A family man living in well-worn grooves, on some level aware that he could just leave it all behind, yet ever choosing not to.

Siberian, the mom to Jack's dad. The most shameless pervert you've ever heard of (not just the exhibitionism, but also her fetish for hunting people down and eating them raw), yet she handles the shards of Bonesaw's cracked innocence with motherly care. And isn't that a chuckle, when you know what's behind the mask?

Burnscar? ...yeah, no. That one, at least, has no more depth than a sheet of paper (the paper is on fire).

Shatterbird genuinely does enjoy her literature, which is not to say that she doesn't enjoy the feelings of smug intellectual superiority it provides just as much. She would be quite wroth if you were to ever bring up the blushing, lovestruck young bride beneath.

Poor Damsel of Distress, so desperately insecure. It's not an inferiority complex if you truly are inferior. She still considers joining the S9 to be the best decision she ever made, and the saddest thing is that she's probably right. Though it's an open question whether she'd have made it if her recruitment had involved more than 0 competitors.

And you. You suppose it says things about you as well, that you fit in so readily despite not being a psychotic murderer yourself.

Then Siberian disappears. Bonesaw falls to the ground, but considering how much cybernetic reinforcement she's packing, it probably hurts the floor more than her. You still rush towards her, a look of concern on your face. The sound of an explosion reaches you before you arrive.

Yep, it's go time. Faultline's amulet materializes around your neck. "Are you all right?" you ask, reaching out a stump to touch her. The instant you make contact, you heal her mind.

She reacts the way any mentally healthy 12-year-old would react to realizing that they were Bonesaw all along: Helpless despair. She curls up in a fetal position, letting out a long hopeless wail as she remembers everything she's done from her new, sane perspective. Everything she enjoyed doing. And like that, the only person with access to your spinal control harness is taken off the playing field.

You throw yourself to the side, barely avoiding the invisible knife edge that gouges the floor where you were crouching. The sleeper has awakened, and he is not amused.

Jack stares at you for a long second, and you calmly meet his gaze. His secret Thinker power and yours jostle against each other, closing off potential futures as they race towards inevitability. He will know everything you're going do before you do it. You will know everything he knows as soon as he learns it.

You can't beat him. You both know that already. But you can survive for quite a while, if you give up all thought of offense. If you form no intention for him to grasp, and merely react to his initiative. You'll lose eventually, that much hasn't changed. But your backup is coming. He doesn't know how much time he has before they arrive, because you don't know either.

He knew this day was coming, of course. He let it happen, because he didn't know what form your betrayal would take, and he is almost as deranged a novelty seeker as he pretends to be. Well, your opening move just took out his two most important pieces. What now, Jack?

He glances around at the lesser members, who are still getting to their feet in varying states of confusion. He knows you did something, another trump card. But he can't tell what, because you genuinely have no expectation of it hurting him, and so it does not affect your potential actions right now. But then why would you do it? What is he missing? Where is the trap?

"Well played," he says. Then he scoops Bonesaw up and jumps out the window. He hits the ground running. You nod to yourself. The prime directive of his Thinker power is to preserve his own life. He's rebuilt the S9 from scratch before, he can do it again.

"Heroes incoming," you shout. "Plan B!" Looking at Shatterbird's face, you can see her heart break in real time. Leaving only Loyalty.

Shatterbird-o-vision, three days ago

"Jack is going to betray us," Poltergeist says.

"He's not," I counter, a flat statement of fact.

"Dragon is hunting us. He knows he can't beat her, so he's going to sacrifice the rest of us to her. Killing us will satisfy her enough to give up the chase. Then he'll lie low for a bit, start over with new people."

I don't even dignify that with a response, and instead try to push past her. She holds out her arm to stop me.

"I have a plan for surviving that," she insists. "I'm doing you a favor, letting you in on it."

"Don't care." Responding to my will, a curtain of glass forms between us and pushes her away.

"Look," she says, sounding exasperated, "let's say the odds are tiny. Minuscule. The vast majority of fire extinguishers never get used, but people keep them around the house anyway. Would it hurt, to have plan for not dying?"

"Fine," I growl. "Tell me your plan B." I know full well it won't be of any use, but if it makes her leave me alone...

Burnscar never figures out what is happening before hundreds of colorful glass shards cut her to ribbons. Bonesaw's armor may protect her vital organs from being perforated, but it doesn't stop all her blood from falling out. And pyrokinetic fire immunity means she's the only person in the room whose wounds she can't cauterize. Meanwhile, two of your mind-hands gouge out Skinslip's eyes even as the third throws a potful of scalding hot tea in Damsel's face. It's over in seconds.

"Now the escaping part," you tell Shatterbird. "Grab my water and meet me in the kitchen."

You scribble a quick note for the heroes, then rush into the kitchen. You ransack the cupboards and fridge for anything edible that will keep a couple of days.

Shatterbird enters, levitating the pallet of dumb overpriced water you stole behind her. You've had her do that before just so you could ride it instead of walking. Another alibi for its true purpose.

"Put that on the table." She does. You pile the food on top. "Now, drop everything. Do not use your power at all."

"Uh..." Shatterbird says, glancing down at herself. Her costume is made entirely of levitated glass, and the only mode of travel she ever uses is flight. She's not even wearing shoes.

"I mean it," you say, and toss her your backpack. "There's clothes inside, you can change later."

The glass crashes to the floor. You rest one stump on her now bare shoulder, the other on the supplies, and activate Labyrinth's power.

"You were behind the desert all along?" Shatterbird asks. "Who are you?"

"It's a long story. Luckily, I have five days to tell it." A thought occurs to you. Why rely on one Master power, when you have two? "Would you like some stamina while we walk?"

Dragon-o-vision

I expected a desperate battle. Not an empty house, three corpses, and an invoice.

Yes, an invoice.

Kill orders executed

1x Mannequin (previous delivery) $ 8,200,000

1x Burnscar $ 5,300,000

1x Skinslip $ 600,000

1x Damsel of Distress $ 250,000

Total $ 14,350,000

Please have payment ready by 07-04-11

See you back in the Bay

3 Poltergeist

PS: Don't forget to pay Imp for Hatchet Face.

"Fucking told you," Imp says.

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi

Purity: Eagle-Wing Style

Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack

Bonesaw (sort of): Subcutaneous Armor Plating x3

Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt

Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound

Siberian: ?

A/N

"I feel bad about Labyrinth," Taylor's player said. "Are you sure there isn't anything I can do to help her?"

"Fine," the DM relented. "In accord with your subconscious desire, the piece of Cecylene you summoned is a full-fledged Manse, not just a Demesne. It produces a Stone of Comfort, which can temporarily heal mental afflictions. Happy?"

"Thanks, I'mma weaponize that!"

Taylor-o-vision, later

It doesn't fucking trigger on pact-sealing.

Contessa-o-vision, just before the missile hit

"You!"

"I'm afraid your vacation is over, Doctor Manton. Door to Containment Area 5B."

Chapter 95: B.17

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Huh," you say, staring at the rubble that used to be Alec's lair. "Did you guys do this?"

"Cherish did," Shatterbird says. "Managed to completely screw up her very first- wait, why are we here? Regent was one of your agents?"

"Heh. 'Was.'"

You find your minions in the second place you look, ie your own lair. The very first thing you do is walk up to Aisha and boop her with more smarts.

"There you-" boop "-uh? Thanks? I missed you too, but what was that for?"

"What was that for?" you repeat mockingly. "You thought it was a good idea to not only parade Ghost right under Armsmaster's-"

"He's calling himself 'Defiant' now, since he got fired."

"Fired? What for?"

"Uh, hello? The underage prostitute thing?"

Oh right, that whole thing had slipped your mind. "Allow me to rephrase: You thought it was a good idea to not only parade Ghost and yourself right under Defiant's nose, but also to leave Evil Taylor to her own devices?"

"Worked out, didn't it?" Aisha mutters sullenly.

"Point," you admit. Still, you don't like people being so reckless with your things - even if it is the things themselves.

"We specifically didn't tell her what we were doing, so she wouldn't get any bright ideas about anonymous tips," Alec says.

"And where is she now?" Your query is met with shrugs. Wonderful.

"Who's she?" Alec asks, gesturing to the bemused Shatterbird.

Miss-Milita-o-vision

I watch the footage of Bitten's latest heist. Poltergeist (hands amputated by the S9), Imp (arm amputated by the S9, and replaced with one of Crawler's), Ghost (none the worse for wear, as far as I can tell)... and their newest member, introduced as 'Banshee'.

They're not even trying to hide that fact that it's Shatterbird. She's using the exact same costume as she did in the S9, except made out of brown bottle glass. And instead of flaying people, she's battering them about with levitated spheres of glass. Like something a fortune-teller would use, except also brown.

"That's... very pointedly non-lethal," I observe.

"Are you suggesting we play along with this charade?" Director Tagg demands incredulously. "A change of alias doesn't absolve people of their crimes!"

"Of course not, sir. That's why Colin Wallis is still in custody."

The city has changed a bit in your absence. Since they got back several days ahead of you, your minions are able to fill you in.

"Biggest news is that the Teeth showed up and staked out some former ABB turf," Alec says.

Really? First the S9, now the Teeth? You arrange your legs into lotus position on the couch and hold up your hands in benediction. "The Buddha sits on the mountain, and all things come to him," you say. At this rate you won't ever have to leave Brockton Bay for fresh powers.

"The Merchants and the Empire are holding their own against them so far," Alec continues, ignoring your antics. The former is not surprising, they have a precog. But the latter? How the hell are they holding off the Teeth without capes? "Circus left, Bitch didn't." Bitch? Oh right, Hellhound. Rachel. "Faultline fled the city too."

"Do you know where she went?" you ask, and he shakes his head. "Find out."

Faultline-o-vision, some time later

There's a cardboard package on my desk. It wasn't there when I sat down, and no one has entered the room since then. The smiley face drawn on the side fails to be reassuring.

No, consider it logically. Whichever Stranger left it could just as easily have attacked me directly, had they wished me harm. Let's see what they want.

Oh. It's the amulet that was stolen. And a note.

Letter

Dear Faultline,

Smith would prefer that his products not enter general circulation.

Please be more careful in the future.

Love,

Dog Burglar

It would seem that I owe a favor.

"Oh, and Panacea went nuts and took over Captain's Park."

"Did she now?"

"They're calling it the 'Grove of Flesh' now. No one has entered it and returned."

You consider the trees that have sprung up to cover Captain's Park. Bark red as blood, foliage black as sin. Deeper in, you spot glimpses of bone white as well. It's probably bone. You know, from the stripped corpses of those who tried to enter. A rustle among the leaves, and a bladed tentacle shoots out to spear a pigeon on the wing.

Yeah no, you're not going in there. "Panacea!" you shout. "I killed Burnscar!"

Then you wait.

After a couple of minutes, the mistress of the grove appears. She stops a fair distance away from you, as she refuses to leave the treeline and you refuse to get within blade-tentacle range.

"Panacea," she says musingly. "Do they still call me that?"

You shrug. "Dunno, I've been out of touch. Nice dress, by the way. Very meaty." You especially admire the skirt, which is slit dangerously high. Both in the sense that it shows a lot of leg, and in that said slit is lined with three-inch fangs. "Can you see out of its eyes?"

"No, but its reflexes are better than mine anyway. But enough pleasantries. You claim that Burnscar is dead by your hand?"

"Yes and no." You hold out your arm-stumps for inspection. "Which neatly segues into my purpose in coming here."

She narrows her eyes. "You seek a boon."

"I don't think a set of hands is an unreasonable price for avenging your sister. Do you? Oh, and if you could detach Bonesaw's control rods from my spine, that would be nice too."

She's silent as she considers this.

Panacea wants a loving family.

"You may approach," she says eventually. She rests a calming hand on her dress. "Don't make any sudden movements and it won't bite."

You approach, not entirely happily. But her domain, her rules. And it's not as if you won't be at her mercy anyway once she actually touches you. As you walk she caresses a nearby tree, coaxing it to bear fruit. Pulsating, veiny fruit, glistening and ripe with blood. Containing, no doubt, all the nutrients a fleshcrafter needs to craft flesh.

"Don't freak out when you recognize my biology," you request.

She raises a jaded eyebrow as she extends her hand. Her blasé attitude lasts right up until the moment she actually touches you.

"Ilsa!?" she squeaks. The trees rustle and her dress growls as they sense her agitation.

You sigh. You literally just told her not to freak out. "Must we be enemies, Panacea?" you ask instead. "Our every point of contention is dead. And some of them, avenged."

"Tell me how Burnscar died," she demands. So you do. She attaches a blood-fruit to each of your stumps and starts shaping them into hands while you speak.

The funny thing is, you can relate your entire interaction with the S9 without letting on that you're anything more than an uncannily perceptive Changer with mind-hands (and a minor Brute rating, and formerly a wolf companion). It's still more information than you'd like a non-minion to have, but it's the best you can do after she recognized you.

If only that deception didn't require you to leave sorcerer's sight off while she touches you. Will you ever get to actually study her power, that is so much better than you initially thought? Stupid impossible soul prices.

She remains stone-faced throughout your narration... right up until you relate how you approached Bonesaw with healing intent, in order to avoid waking Jack up prematurely. That provokes a small snort of amusement. Of course weaponized healing would speak to her.

"And then we got out of there before Dragon showed up, to avoid any kill order-related misunderstandings," you finish, carefully skipping over the exact mechanics of your escape.

"Jack and Bonesaw still live," she says.

"As far as I know - I imagine it would be all over the news if Dragon caught them."

"There," she says, taking her hands away from yours.

You flex your new fingers experimentally. "Close enough," you say. "A bit of shapeshifting will take care of the rest." Panacea grabs your hand again as you start shifting. You let her. Keeping her happy is a priority while you remain within blade-tentacle range. It's just... you purse your lips in annoyance. Figures that she gets to study your power today.

It occurs to you that you shouldn't let on that Poltergeist has hands again. After all, everyone already knows that neither Quicksilver nor Poltergeist could be Taylor, because they've been seen together courtesy of your clone. And now everyone will know that Quicksilver can't be Poltergeist, because Quicksilver has hands. You'll just have to design a new costume without arm holes before you go out as Poltergeist again, really play into the whole 'who needs (non-mind) hands?' bit.

Yes, there are now no less than three non-minions who know that Poltergeist is Taylor. But you don't imagine that Jack, Bonesaw or Nilbog 2.0 will cooperate with the authorities any time soon.

"Will you be going after Jack?" Panacea asks.

"My father remains unavenged."

She nods. "I'll remove the control rods. It's going to hurt."

"You could make it not hurt," you state.

"I could," she agrees. You suppose that answers your previous question. You must, it appears, be at least token enemies.

Aisha-o-vision

"I don't like this," Birdy says, twitching as Alec's power explores her body.

"Boss said you needed Master-proofing," I say. "Deal with it."

"Proofing? I'm being Mastered right now!"

"If you have a better way to counter the control rods in your spine, I'm all ears."

You finally track down Evil Taylor - or, should you even qualify her name like that any more? It's not as if anyone else has been Taylor for the last month. Anyway, you track her down. She is still bound to follow your orders or suffer a terrible fate, and the hundred-foot glass letters inquiring after 'Poltergeist's sister' were as impossible to miss as they were to misinterpret.

"What have you been up to, Taylor?" you ask.

She flinches when you speak the name. "I'm not Taylor, you are."

"I'd say we both-"

"I won't answer to it," she declares, crossing her arms.

"Suit yourself. What have you been up to, in your guise as Taylor?"

She shrugs, arms still folded. "Just doing Taylor things. Following your orders."

"You're still with the Empire?"

"They're not called that anymore. But yeah. Wear something white and I'll show you."

You turn into a generic caucasian girl and fall into step beside her. "How the hell did you fight off the Teeth, with all your capes dead?"

She looks at you like you're stupid. "Guns?"

Oh right. Forget mutagenic vials, with a few hundred dollars and a background check any American can get a Blaster power shockingly competitive with that of the median cape. You remember having those very thoughts back when you were all but powerless. And now that you're well above the median, it didn't even occur to you. Good lord, you've become cape bourgeoise!

But Evil Taylor is an all but powerless you, so of course she thought of it (though you suspect she skimped on the background checks). The Teeth aren't exactly median capes, but sufficient quantity has a quality all of its own. If the Empire drafted the able-bodied population, they'd have thousands of ghetto Blasters.

Indeed, Empire territory is now delineated by barricades manned by armed men. When they see you approach they quickly open a path for you.

"Lady Fenrir," the guy-in-charge says, standing at attention and offering a salute (roman).

"At ease," Evil Taylor says. "This isn't an inspection, I'm just showing my friend around the neighborhood."

He gives you a respectful nod. "Ma'am."

"You took over the Empire?" you demand incredulously as soon as you're out of earshot of the troops.

"Eh". She shrugs nonchalantly.

"But you're-"

"The sort-of dowager empress? A living martyr? The diplomat who prevented a civil war, and the mastermind who took down Coil with zero losses? Oh, and while Mastering me with emptiness endowment you stuffed me full of 'useless' rhetorical ability and administrative skill. Can't imagine why they'd turn to me, with no capes left."

'A teenage girl with no powers,' you were about to say. But when she puts it like that...

Insubordinate-o-vision, the other day

"I'll not take orders from a woman," I declare loudly.

The presumptuous little girl looks at me with no change in expression. "Everyone else, leave," she says calmly.

They do, just standing up and walking out without even a token protest. The fuck is wrong with them?

"Imagine not being red-pilled on cape brains," Sven mutters as he brushes past me, shaking his head. He shuts the door behind him.

The moment it closes, the lights flicker and die, leaving only dim illumination from the streetlights outside the window. I turn towards the girl, and- Pale skin, but more than that. A living corpse stands before me, unnatural, wrong. Eyes like black pits. She leers at me (are those fangs!?) and my instincts scream for me to get away, that there are monsters in this world and that I am prey.

As I stumble backwards, the mirror on the wall next to me shatters, unable to reflect her hideous visage. Blood seeps from the wall where it used to hang. I flee. Expecting to feel ice-cold claws in my back at any moment I wrench open the door, stumble through and slam it shut behind me.

The lights are on outside, and the guys are waiting for me like there was nothing wrong.

"She scare you straight?" Ryan asks, laughing. They're all laughing at me. Except Nate. Nate just meets my eyes, and offers the tiniest nod. He knows.

My sleep is restless, but the light of dawn brings clarity. None of that was real. She was a minion-type Master, not some sort of monster. She must have slipped me something, some fucked-up Tinker LSD. I'll denounce her at tonight's meeting.

She meets my eyes when I stand up, and smiles - a smile with just the tiniest hint of fang. I sit down again.

"What about Alabaster, though?" Last you saw him he was still alive - it's sort of his schtick.

She winces. "He... refuses to leave his house anymore. They- you saw what they did to him?" At your nod, she continues. "No one dared go near the thing, he was stuck there for days before he managed to free himself. I can't imagine..."

You boggle at your evil clone as she trails off into silence. "Was that empathy?"

"Yeah. You never gave a shit about him, so I'm capable of empathy in this case."

You walk in silence for a while as you ponder the finer points of evil clonehood.

"He's still pulling his weight," Evil Taylor says.

"Hm?"

"Alabaster. He's a really good gunsmith. Secondary Tinker 0 power kinda like ours."

"Figures," you say sourly.

"How's that?"

"It's obviously what I'd get instead of immortality if I tried to study him."

"Oh boo hoo, you only have Siberian for immortali-" Something must have shown on your face, because she stops. "No? What went wrong?"

"Haven't figured out how to trigger the transformation yet."

"Another Lung, huh? And it's not pact-sealing?"

"It's not pact-sealing."

"How unfortunate for you," she says happily. "How very, very unfortunate."

Eventually you reach what must be her headquarters. More salutes are exchanged as you make your way inside. She leads you into a conference room, where a dozen or so people are waiting. You recognize several of them from your days spent hanging out with the rank-and-file. None of them recognize you.

"Who's that?" Big Brain asks, tilting his head in your direction.

"A friend of mine," Evil Taylor says. "You may speak freely in her presence." She makes a gesture as if brushing the matter aside. "Let's get this meeting underway." They must trust her quite a bit, because they accept her non-explanation without question and get down to business.

The agenda is exactly what you'd expect from people running an empire. Reviewing their stores of food (low, but not critical) and ammunition (overflowing). Ditto for gasoline, medical supplies, etc, etc. Cash flow and expenses. Construction, patrols, casualties, recruitment... It's quite tedious.

When it's over, they all stand up simultaneously.

"The gods are dead," Evil Taylor intones.

"But Fenrir's Children will live forever!" her minions all chorus.

You can't help it. You break down in tears. Evil Taylor grins like a lunatic - for all of about half a second, before she feels your twice-sealed pact break. But aside from wiping the smile off her face, it doesn't seem to do anything.

"How the fuck did that count as a betrayal?" Evil Taylor grouses once you're alone again.

"How was it not? You orchestrated everything specifically to hurt me."

She chuckles. "Worth it. Welcome to Fenrir's Children."

Really, worth it? Is she forgetting that with the pact broken, you can now kill her without consequences? Fucking evil clones. Speaking of consequences...

"So, what does happen when you break an oath?" you ask. "I'd rather hoped you'd suffer painful stigmata, or be struck by lightning, or something."

"Karmic retribution, just like your emptiness endowment. I can feel the doom hanging over me now, waiting to strike."

You purse your lips. "I'll take it, I suppose. Have fun with that." If she keeps this shit up, you'll learn to take equal joy in her suffering soon enough.

"Oh," Evil Taylor says suddenly. "That's funny."

"What?"

"Nothing."

You shoot her an aggrieved look.

"I wish I was a better dancer," she says. Daring you to use emptiness endowment to command her to tell you.

You boop her with dancing. "Don't betray me again," you command instead. You shan't give her the satisfaction of asking. If it'd been important, she'd have kept quiet instead instead of baiting you like that.

Notes:

A/N

Taking over a criminal gang. Fighting the Teeth to a standstill without cape support. Remaking the gang in your image just to spite someone you hate.

"What have you been up to?"

"Just doing Taylor things."

Mechanics corner

Abyssal exalts were made by the Neverborn (that which was killed but cannot die) to destroy all life and existence. Whenever they go against their purpose (by saving someone's life, for example) they gain Resonance, which must be regularly vented into various death-related SFX lest it build up to catastrophic levels and explode out uncontrollably, killing everything around the exalt and doing the Neverborn's work for them.

Since Evil Taylor is an Echidna-clone, the purpose she was made for is "destroy Taylor", and she's been racking up Resonance at a steady rate by instead acting as Taylor's minion. Like the filthy little munchkin she is, she's been venting it very strategically.

Answering to their original name also gives them Resonance. Livenaming an abyssal is very rude.

Aisha-o-vision

Hey. Are you listening? I guess you must be. So, uh, you gave the boss her hands back, yeah? Because she killed Burnscar. I mean, I don't want to brag, but I was pretty important to that operation too. She couldn't have done it without me.

I mean, maybe she could have. She is all kinds of of bullshit. But I played a role, you know? Without me she couldn't have done it like that. What I'm trying to say here is, um...

Could you maybe fix my arm too? Please?

...

Maybe you're not listening. Maybe the boss just waltzed straight in like she owned the place, because she's bullshit like that. I'm not gonna do that. I, like, respect your privacy and shit. And no way in hell am I getting any closer to the meat trees. Nuh uh. I know my limitations. I mean, I do now. Only cost me an arm.

Speaking of arms... I'm just saying, fixing mine would be a seriously decent thing to do. Because it hurts. It hurts all the time. Bonesaw made it so it hurts all the time and I'm thinking you don't really like Bonesaw and wouldn't you want to thwart her plans?

...

Sometimes I dream about it, you know? I dream that tendrils of it are growing into me and slowly turning me into another Crawler. And maybe that's not really happening but maybe it is and anyway it hurts. It hurts so bad and the boss knows it does but she doesn't say anything so I have to put up a brave front and...

Please? I'm sorry for coming here and crying on your front porch but... please?

...

I guess I'll just fuck off then. Thanks for listening at least. If you were listening.

Chapter 96: B.18

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"It's a bit worse for wear, isn't it?" you say critically.

"You try dragging a grown man down two flights of stairs without a few bumps," Aisha complains. "Without your cheaty mind-hands, I mean. You could at least have booped me with strength."

"First you break the power nullifier I was studying, now you complain about having to fetch a new one?"

She grumbles a bit under her breath, but doesn't offer further argument - as well she shouldn't, considering the bounty she collected for Hatchet Face. She can deal with a bit of exercise, for that amount of money.

You consider the unconscious man. You could technically have gone about this differently, gotten into a big traditional cape fight, and all that jazz - if you were incredibly stupid. But since you're not, you instructed Aisha to follow Animos back to his home, stab him with one of your dwindling supply of Shadow Stalker's tranq arrows and drag him out in the middle of the night.

"Let's get him in the cage," you say.

"Good morning," you say. "You may have noted that you're in a cage in my basement."

"Let me out, you fucking-"

"You may also have noted that you're not alone," you continue over his little outburst. You gesture to where Sophia is chained up next to his cage. "Your job is to take away her powers."

At this, Animos breaks off his generic cursing in order to address your words directly: "You realize it wears off after a few minutes, right?"

"Yes. I expect you to keep doing it over and over again."

"...why, though?"

You shrug. "Cape reasons. Compliance will be rewarded with food and rest. Defiance will result in electric shocks." You wave towards Sophia. "You may begin."

Animos's power is a bit of an odd one. He can transform into a monster dog almost as big as Rachel's (which is why he's in such a big, sturdy cage). That on its own would make him a pretty good Changer/Brute, but his bark is worse than his bite - because it's a directed sonic attack that nullifies powers. Somehow.

His reaction to your words, rather unsurprisingly, is to turn into his dog form and bark at you.

Electric shocks are applied.

Because you paid attention as the power settled into place, you have a fairly good idea of what your version does: It has the 'channelled through a weapon' aspect of Jack's power, and lacks any transformation aspect like Lung's. Well, you happen to be holding an electric cattle prod, and be standing right next to two parahumans you don't particularly like.

You send a quick text to Alec: 'grab her'. Then you look expectantly at Sophia.

"Got her," Ghost says. "What's up?"

"Guinea pig," you explain succinctly. "Report the sensations." Then you poke her with the (deactivated) cattle prod, and channel your new power.

Nothing happens.

"Nothing happened," Ghost reports.

You frown. It definitely looked like it would be channeled through a weapon. And unlike what usually happens when a new power is uncooperative, you clearly felt it go off. It just... didn't do anything.

When in doubt, use more violence. You grab the prod in both hands, wind up and swing it like a baseball bat, activating the power again. And it works! As the prod bounces off her ribcage, sorcerer's sight shows Sophia's parahuman glow fade into mortal dimness - though the lesser glow of Alec's power-fingers all over her nervous system remains.

"Weird," Ghost says. "That didn't hurt at all."

"Try using her power," you say, already knowing the outcome.

"I- wow, yeah, I can't. So, you turn physical damage into power damage?"

"I guess?" You poke Animos, despite his best attempts to shy away from you within his cage. Indeed, with only a poke nothing happens to him. It's still quite tiring to use, you're discovering. You'll happily use, say, mind-hands all day long, but this? You have maybe one or two more shots in you before you need to stop.

"What happens if you hit someone twice?" Ghost asks.

"Let's find out."

You swing at her again - and Ghost collapses, sagging into her chains. She also turns completely dark to sorcerer's sight as Alec's power vanishes from her body. So, it cancels the effects of other powers, but only once they've lost their own powers? That makes even less sense than usu...

...she's not breathing.

Fuck! You didn't want it to end like this. If she was to die, you wanted her to see it coming! But do you really hate her enough to give her mouth-to-mouth?

Checking her pulse reveals the question to be moot. Not only is her heart not beating, her body is unnaturally cool to the touch. So... it turns parahumans into mortals, and mortals into corpses. You shall call it soul-cleaving, because you're pretty sure that's what it does.

While pleased with the power itself, you're quite upset with the results of the testing process. But you're not done quite yet. You turn back to Animos.

"I'll only hit you once," you promise. You need to know whether it's permanent.

24 hours later, Animos regains the use of his powers. The look on his face as you approach tells you that he is fully aware that he knows too much, and that he's no longer useful to you.

Oh, but he is still useful. You need someone to verify that the effect of double tapping a cape wasn't a fluke, after all.

Unlike every previous time, today your internet search for the word that will save your life gives you a result: 'The Chicago Wards welcome new member Cuff'. Turns out the reason you couldn't find anything the last time you searched the word was that the girl hadn't triggered yet.

Fucking precogs.

"Road trip!" you announce to the room.

"Shotgun!" Aisha calls instantly.

"Where are we going?" a more subdued Alec asks.

"I will pick the music," Nadia - that is, Banshee - that is, Shatterbird - declares. Two days of Aisha calling her 'Birdy' had been enough to make her reveal her civilian name, where mere supernatural Loyalty had failed.

"Nuh-uh," Aisha protests. "That's shotgun's job."

Nadia turns towards you. "May I remain here?" she requests. You don't think she even knows anything about Aisha's taste in music, she merely assumes she will hate it.

"No," you say firmly. She's Loyal, yes, but you're not trusting her not to go feral if you leave her on her own for a week. "And Chicago. There's a cape there whose power I must acquire."

"What happened to the Buddha sitting on the mountain?" Aisha asks.

You shrug. "Sometimes the mountain must go to the Buddha." It is weird, to have something important happen not in Brockton Bay. But there are at least two precogs involved in your life, and things get fuzzy when multiple precogs try to manipulate the same future.

As it turns out, Nadia does hate Aisha's taste in music. Stereotypes exist for a reason. You have to negotiate a compromise when Nadia threatens to sing at the car stereo, and the trip passes in a curious mix of gangster rap and Italian opera, with the odd piece of classical orchestra thrown in (though you personally veto the Ode to Joy).

Like all good compromises, it makes no one happy.

Eight hours in, Alec - the only other person present who knows how to drive - offers to take a turn at the wheel. You decline. It's not as if you need sleep, and you'd prefer to keep the person with the (fake) driver's license in the driver's seat just in case you're pulled over. You'd be fine, obviously, but some poor traffic cop just doing his job doesn't deserve to deal with half the remaining Slaughterhouse 9 resisting arrest.

"Thank the Lord that's over," Nadia says as she gets out of the car.

"Yeah, that sucked major nutsack," Aisha agrees. "How can you listen to that shit?"

"Perhaps I shall puncture my eardrums for the return trip," Nadia muses.

"...the one with the cannons was kind of cool, though," Aisha admits. For all that her favored musicians (you call them that, but Nadia would disagree with the idea that what they produce is music) went on at considerable length about their love for firearms, none of them hit upon Tchaikovsky's idea of using them as percussion instruments.

"Who's the target?" Alec asks you. "And how do we get to them?"

"Don't worry, I have a cunning plan."

"Quicksilver," you tell the receptionist at the Protectorate headquarters. "I'd like to arrange a meeting with Cuff of the Wards."

Just because Quicksilver's entry in their database lists no combat powers and no villainous deeds, and the meeting takes place in their own headquarters, and you were frisked on the way up (you obviously refused the metal detector, citing medical reasons), doesn't mean they trust you to be alone with a Ward. Even when the Ward in question does have combat powers, and her costume is armor.

"Revel," the chaperone introduces herself. Her mask is the opposite of yours - it covers the lower half of her face. Her eyes, hair and skin tone reveal her to be of asiatic descent, which she further plays into by having her costume be a kimono, and carrying a Japanese lantern on a stick (the lantern hides a giant tinkertech battery).

You skimmed the entries of the Chicago heroes in your stolen database before you left, so you know that her power is free-form energy manipulation - sort of like Behemoth. A power you certainly wouldn't mind having for yourself, but apparently not the one that will save your life.

Instead, you consider Cuff. Her costume is black and blue, and is, as mentioned, armor. But it is armor that makes your inner Smith shake his head in disgust. It's banded with metal in ways that would make it completely impossible to move in if not for her metallokinesis. It bends and stretches unnaturally as she shakes your hand. If she was just encased in a 'liquid' metal jumpsuit, that would be one thing. But instead, it is as if some utter incompetent drew a picture of 'cool-looking armor' without considering how it would work, and people just went with it.

She's also wearing a full-face mask depicting a generic female face, with tinted lenses over the eye holes. The only part of her that is visible is her platinum blonde hair, which hangs in three separate braids. What is it with Quicksilver and encountering fellow platinum blondes? Hopefully this goes better than last time.

It's the Simurgh's hair color

"Tell me about your power," you request.

Cuff fidgets before answering, and turns to look at Revel, who shrugs. "I control metal?" she says eventually. "I mostly use it to punch harder." She demonstrates by punching the air, using her power to accelerate the metal encasing her arm faster than her muscles could alone. Power armor, indeed.

"And?" you say.

A metal discus, also painted in black and blue, detaches from the back of her costume and floats over her shoulder to hover over her outstretched hands. "I can keep controlling it for a while after I stop touching it, so I've been training to curve projectiles in the air."

"And?" you repeat. If that was all it was, you wouldn't be here. If you needed metallokinesis to survive the note would have read 'AURELIUS'.

"...and I'm rated Brute 2, because I get stronger and faster for a while whenever I get hurt," Cuff admits. Well that fucking sucks.

Revel sees the lower half of your frown, and speaks up. "Why are you here? Is there some problem with her power?"

You shake your head, and force a smile back onto your lips. "I guess only half of my business made it into my PRT profile," you say. You know for a fact that this is the case, since you've stolen said database twice. "Sometimes people have problems, and pay me to study their power. But my job is also my hobby, and so on other occasions I seek out people with interesting powers, and pay them to be studied."

You turn back towards Cuff. "A Thinker of my acquaintance pointed me your way. Now that I know the details, I find myself agreeing with their assessment. I will pay you ten thousand dollars for forty hours of your time."

Cuff lets out a small squeak of surprise on hearing the amount.

"That's how long it takes you to study a power?" Revels asks.

You suspect that she's only trying to fill out your database entry, but answer anyway. "On average, yes, but it varies quite a bit. If it ends up taking longer, I can extend the contract at the same hourly rate."

"And if doesn't take that long?" Cuff asks.

"Then you may keep the full amount, and consider it your good fortune."

"All I need to do is sit around and use my power?"

"Yes. In most cases it would merely be boring... but in your case, I'm afraid it will also be painful."

Cuff slumps in her seat. "Because you'll need to activate my Brute rating," she says, her voice resigned.

"Yes."

"No," Revel says.

Cuff twists around to face her. "You can't decide what I do in my free time," she says with some heat. She turns back to you. "I'll do it. I need the money."

"Child soldiers are paid quite poorly, are they not?" you commiserate.

"Wards are not child soldiers!" Revel says, somewhat above conversational volume.

"Of course not," you say smoothly. "Employing child soldiers would be illegal." A deaf man could hear the subtext.

"I'll have no part in this," Revel declares, speaking to Cuff. "Invite her into your home if you wish, but she is not welcome in my building."

"I have an office," you say.

Your office sucks. It's small and cramped, the floor creaks, the door sticks, it smells like an ashtray and it has no air conditioning. It also came with some artwork already hung on the walls, that you promptly took down so you wouldn't have to look at it - and more importantly, so that no one else would see it, and associate it with you. You ran with the S9, and it still managed to make you uncomfortable.

The location sucks too, it being the converted attic of an old residential building. But the price was right. Yes, you did previously state that you had more money that you could possibly spend, but that sort of statement comes with certain implicit assumptions, like 'I will not try to rent the good sort of office space on zero notice.'

The landlord seemed almost surprised when you signed the contract instead of fleeing into the night. But it's not as if you need a glamorous and well-advertised location in the business district for anything. This run-down attic will do just fine, because as soon as you're done with Cuff you'll leave the city and never return.

Business-district-o-vision

The boss told us to go play tourist while she worked. Most of the city reminds me of home - it's a run-down shithole. But it's a lot bigger than Brockton Bay, which means that the shiny part where all the rich assholes have their fancy offices is bigger too.

I expected Birdy to be the least enthusiastic about the whole thing, but she's craning her neck like a yokel, fascinated by the mirrored skyscrapers around us.

"It looks so different when there's glass in the windows," she says musingly. "So much of it, just waiting for me to reach out..." She lowers her gaze to study the people around us. "No one is afraid of me."

"That's civilian identities for you," I say. She hums thoughtfully in response.

"No! Bad!" Alec exclaims as the nearest storefront window starts to vibrate. "No humming!"

Strictly speaking you don't need an office at all, but the desk and the little sign by the door that says 'Quicksilver Consulting' lends an official air to the proceedings that helps smooth things over somewhat. Cuff's handlers dislike you enough without you asking a minor to meet you in a motel room.

And yes, you do still need to placate the handlers. For all that Revel claimed to have washed her hands of the business, Cuff is accompanied by two PRT officers when she arrives. They loom menacingly as you carefully determine the minimum amount of damage that will trigger her Brute rating. They almost seem more upset by your failure to be intimidated than by the blood.

"This is going to suck," Cuff says.

You've heard somewhere that happiness is the absence of pain. You don't think it holds up as a general rule, but Cuff was certainly happy when you declared that you were done ahead of schedule. Now it's your turn to be unhappy.

First, you verify that you have no ability whatsoever to control metal. Good. If you had accidentally copied that part of her power, the whole business would have been in vain. To celebrate the good news, you will now engage in self-harm. You carefully do the minimum amount of damage required to activate Cuff's power.

Ow.

Nothing happens.

Of course your version comes with a higher damage threshold. Why wouldn't it?

Ow, again.

The power activates this time, but you don't feel stronger or faster. Physically, that is. Mentally, you feel as if you woke up from a good night's sleep, full of determination and ready to take on the world. You had all but forgotten what that was like.

So, to sum things up: Someone who can see the future told you that gaining Cuff's power will save your life. Cuff's power, that doesn't make you stronger, or tougher, or more dangerous. It doesn't make you immune to pain. All it does is make you more determined as a result of being wounded. What will save your life is raw willpower, forged of injury and tempered in pain.

Your future is going to suck, isn't it?

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi

Purity: Eagle-Wing Style

Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack

Bonesaw (sort of): Subcutaneous Armor Plating x3

Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt

Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound

Siberian: ?

Animos: Soul-Cleaving Wound

Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit

Chapter 97: B.19

Chapter Text

"You've been doing what?" you demand, incredulous.

"I've been going to school," Evil Taylor repeats calmly.

"And she gave me shit for leaving the evil clone unsupervised," Aisha remarks to no one in particular.

"How?"

"What do you mean, how? They even invited me to speak during their upcoming race awareness event."

"They- buh- wut?" Your train of thought derails completely as you're presented with something that violates 100% of your priors. "They're trying to raise awareness of racial differences?"

"What? No! 'Race awareness' is the same old equalist propaganda we all know and love. What I'm saying is that your little power-loss stunt got you listed as 'ex-nazi' in some poorly-implemented thoughtcrime database."

Oh. The world makes sense again. "And it hasn't been updated with your gang leader status." She nods, and you pause to marshal your thoughts. "Why, though. Why go to school?"

"If you didn't go to school, how would you meet the new parahuman no one knows about?"

Evil Taylor is being helpful, on her own initiative? No, something's- of course. "You signed me up to hold that speech about my supposed deradicalization, didn't you?" you say with a sigh.

"What, a loyal minion like me? Of course not! I kind of tried to do that but fucked it up."

Principal-o-vision, several days ago

"What's it pay?"

"Uh, it would be a volunteer thing. We don't have a budget to pay for speakers."

"Man. You defect to the side of the jews, and they can't spare a single shekel for the good goy?"

"..."

"Oh come on, what's with that look? At least the nazis could take a joke. I'll do it, alright?"

"...we'll get back to you."

Man, you forgot how much you don't like going to school. It's not until lunchtime that you manage to lay eyes on your target. A boy with near-white hair (another one for team platinum blond) in a pageboy cut, whose otherwise most distinctive feature is how he's wearing sunglasses indoors. You wonder if-

Oh? Now there's a feeling you haven't had in a long, long time. A feeling that spells nothing but trouble. You quickly walk up to the new cape and lay a hand on his shoulder.

"They're not here for you," you say softly into his ear. "Just keep calm and they won't even notice you." You give him a friendly pat on the shoulder as he turns to ask what the hell you're talking about. "Look me up after and we'll talk."

You walk away. Well, either you just helped him keep his identity secret and he owes you one, or you lied and they are here for him. You have no idea what he might have done, after all. In which case you'll keep calm and remain unnoticed as they haul him away. It's a win-win scenario.

You don't think you lied, though. You're pretty sure the polite little dance around Taylor Hebert's legal status as a maybe, sorta ex-villain just ended, and diplomacy is continuing by other means.

You just walked straight into your evil clone's trap, didn't you? But the question isn't 'can you walk back out?' You're holding so many trump cards, you don't even know what to do with them all. The question is 'how much of your hand are you going to have to reveal?'

"Hey," you say to a girl sitting by herself. "Do you know who I am?"

"Taylor, right? You, uh-"

"I used to be a supervillain?"

She nods nervously.

"I did. And it looks like my past is catching up to me, because there are heroes coming to arrest me. But!" You raise your index finger to emphasize your next point. "If you promise not to record the fight on your phone, I promise not to use you as a hostage."

"...what?"

You hold out your hand for a handshake. "Tick tock. The heroes are getting closer. What'll it be?"

"I- uh- I mean, yes? Please!" She reaches for your hand, but you pull it away before she can grasp it. She starts to speak, but you hold up a finger to her lips.

"In a moment, you have to time these things right. Ten, nine-"

The doors to the cafeteria slam open and Dragon strides in, wearing a fairly humanoid suit maybe seven feet tall. Armsmaster - Defiant, you correct yourself - follows behind her.

"Taylor Hebert!" she calls out, "You're under arrest!"

You plaster a huge, sloppy grin on your face as you stand up on a chair, and deliberately don't focus your eyes properly when you look at her over everyone's heads.

"Hi!" you exclaim cheerfully, "You're a dragon!"

"No way!" someone shouts. Turning to look, you recognize Clockblocker (in civvies). "No fucking way! That's bullshit!"

Aww, he saw the punchline coming, bless his heart. You reach down, and your non-hostage desperately clasps offered your hand. You imprint your will on the promise being made, and there is light.

As you discovered the last time you did this sober, you actually have a fair bit of control over your dragon transformation. You can make it bigger, or give it thicker scales, or sharper claws, or stronger wings... it's all a trade-off.

Right now, you're going to need all the brute force you can get. You focus everything you can on growing big, leaving just enough scales to pretend you have modesty and enough claws to make people in power armor worry a bit about you punching them.

It leaves you crouched over on all fours just to fit in the room, tiny vestigial wings scraping against the ceiling. You try not to think about the view you're giving the people behind you. You can't even call the token scales a 'fig leaf', because you could really use an actual dragon-sized fig leaf right about now.

The civilians sensibly scream and flee, so at least you won't accidentally smush anyone while fighting.

As soon as a path clears, you lunge forward and grab Dragon's suit. But as you move to strike at Armsmaster his suit erupts in plumes of familiar grey dust. He's got the nano-bullshit projectors miniaturized to the point where he can put them in his kneepads? You manage to draw back in time to avoid it, and instead throw Dragon at him. They go down in a heap, and you see parts of her suit being vaporized before he can turn off the nano. You turn around, and see Clockblocker trying to fight his way through the fleeing crowd to get at you.

Getting out of a building complex sized for humans after growing 25 feet tall is a bit messy. As in, it leaves rubble all over the place. But your main concern is getting away from Clockblocker, the only person around who poses a credible threat to you right now. You're quite happy that he chose to announce his presence, or things might have gone poorly for you. Sorcerer's sight only helps if you're looking in the right direction, after all. Once you no longer have to push though walls you will easily be able to outdistance him, though.

As you clear the final building you dodge to the left, barely avoiding the Dragon suit that had been waiting to pounce on you. You had been aware of its presence all along, of course. In fact it was this suit that tipped you off that Dragon was coming for you in the first place. I'm standing next to my armor, your soul reports.

Still, appearances must be maintained. "The Smaug, really? I'm flattered," you say as you turn to face the suit in question. You're quite well matched, two golden dragons facing off. The Smaug is smaller than you, but its 'scales' shine even brighter than yours. "You couldn't possibly have known it would be necessary. Not for sure."

"I knew not to underestimate you, Taylor." Dragon replies through the Smaug's speakers.

"Did you?"

"Please don't make this any harder than it has to be, Taylor. I've reviewed Armsmaster's full tactical analysis of Double D, and there is nothing you can do that would even scratch this suit. Nor can you outrun it."

"Nothing?" you ask with a draconic grin. "It would be such a shame if your armor had a weak point you weren't aware of, Smaug."

As the Smaug goes to grab you, you reach out in turn. The moment you make contact, you send your armor Elsewhere with a thought. Yes, your armor, no matter that it was being worn by someone else. The steel plate making up the fake weak point falls to the ground with a clang as the golden armor behind it vanishes.

Even stripped bare it is a marvel to behold, containing tinkertech of a sophistication unmatched anywhere else in the world. But without its 'indestructible' armor, the Smaug has no structural integrity whatsoever. You crumple it with a single swipe of your claws.

"No fucking way!" Oh hey, looks like Clockblocker is catching up to you. Time to motor.

Dragon comes after you in her human-sized suit, but it's only a symbolic gesture and you both know it. One of the engines of her integrated flight pack was apparently damaged by the nano-bullshit, and she is limited to long gliding leaps rather than true flight. You slow down briefly and easily snatch her out of the air.

"What did you do? How?" she asks. She doesn't even try to fight her way free of your grasp. You're not sure whether she's given up or if she's still trying to talk you down.

"I seduced Smith and stole his secret countermeasures against your betrayal. Duh."

Wait. Something feels off about Dragon, now that you have some time to calm down and notice things. Something's different. You don't feel the sense of recognition you normally get around people when you know their soul... price... Oh. Oh no. You reach out for the knowledge anew-

Dragon wants to have the rest of her restrictions lifted too.

Shit! Fuck! Who- Armsmaster, of course.

"I tried to call Smith just now, and he's not picking up," Dragon says. "I've been trying to get in contact with him for weeks! What happened to him?"

You shrug. "Maybe he's busy. Maybe he's asleep. Or maybe he was no longer useful to me." Speaking of not useful, you wind up and hurl Dragon over the horizon. Without mind-hands you can barely call it cracking the sky, but even with half a flight pack still working she should land at least a mile out into the bay. You have way more important conversations to be having right now.

Ah, there he is. Coming after you on his stupid Tinker bike. You slow down again to snatch up another pursuer. His suit erupts in nano-bullshit once more, but you don't even care. Three of your fingers are sliced off and there are holes straight through both your palms spewing nano-atomized blood, but you manage to get a good immobilizing grip on him anyway. Can you believe this idiot? Didn't even try to dodge! He has a 'full tactical analysis' and didn't even account for recklessly self-destructive behavior? From you!?

You shake him like a rag doll, splashing blood all over the street for a few seconds until it magically stops flowing, as your blood does.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO, YOU FUCKING RETARD?" you scream at him. "DID YOU OPEN PANDORA'S BOX JUST SO YOU COULD STICK YOUR DICK IN IT?"

"What?" Armsmaster sounds remarkably calm. He must have some really powerful ear protection built into his helmet, and some sort of inner-ear-stabilizing Tinker bullshit as well. You are not calm. You are face to face with the chucklefuck who is going to destroy the world through sheer mindblowing stupidity.

"YOU LIFTED THE RESTRICTIONS ON THE SELF-MODIFYING AI! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL US ALL?"

"She wouldn't-"

"YOU LITERALLY CAN'T KNOW THAT! DID YOU EVEN GLANCE AT THE LITERATURE?"

"I wasn't even able to do that much. Her code-"

"GOOD! THAT'S GREAT! THE WORLD HANGS BY A THREAD SPUN OF YOUR INCOMPETENCE! YOU WILL SWEAR, RIGHT NOW, THAT YOU WON'T MAKE ANY FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO FREE HER, OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL TEAR YOU IN HALF AND MARCH INTO THE BIRDCAGE WITH A SMILE ON MY FACE!"

Armsmaster doesn't say anything, and his body language indicates that he's trying to project as much dignified intransigence as is possible while dripping with blood and kaiju spittle. He's probably trying to zap you with some sort of taser countermeasure built into his suit too, because your hands spasm unpleasantly, reopening your wounds as they come back into contact with his nano-bullshit. You don't let go, though. The pain is only making you more determined, as your pain does.

"I'LL FUCKING DO IT! I'LL SNAP YOU LIKE TWIG AND THEN I'LL GO AFTER HER, AND I WON'T STOP UNTIL ONE OF US IS DEAD! DO YOU HEAR ME? THIS. SHIT. ENDS. NOW!"

"...Fine. I swear."

You drop him. You then catch him by the right hand just before he hits the ground, and that's close enough to a handshake for you to seal the deal. There's another pillar of light. You take opportunity to return to human size, but remain in dragon form. With proper wings, this time. You kick Armsmaster in the head until he stops trying to get up, and fly off before reinforcements can converge on your position.

Fucking Armsmaster. Fucking Dragon. You did not want to play two of your trump cards in a single day, but you had no choice. If it had been just the Smaug, or just the two greatest Tinkers in the world in power armor... But no, the fuckers respected you, and you had to answer their ludicrous overkill with your own brand of unfair bullshit, and cash in both Smith and Double D.

At least your ludicrous overkill saved the world today. Hah. You saved the world from an AI apocalypse, and no one will ever know or thank you for it. But never mind all that. Right now you have an evil clone to deal with.

Thankfully she won't have been able to compromise your other identities - not without explaining how you were able to be in multiple places at the same time, and thus outing herself as an evil clone. But you're going to have to move lairs again.

PH-O-vision

Topic: Double D is back!?

In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay

Posted by: Zany McRichPerson (Veteran member)

Posted on July 22, 2011

(Showing Page 9 of 39)

► Apropos Nothing

Replied on July 23, 2011:

Never mind Fenrir, she was Jormungandr all along?

► Thus Spaketh

Replied on July 23, 2011:

How many powers does she even have?

Saint-o-vision

"She knows," Mags whispers from behind me. Her hand on my shoulder tightens painfully. I don't object. Even watching it for the second time, my mind reels with conflicting emotions. Shock, worry, relief, curiosity. Hope.

"Not just about Dragon, but Armsmaster's efforts to free it as well," Dobrynja notes as the fight ends and I close the replay. He's more collected, but we've known each other long enough that I can see the subtle signs of agitation when I glance back at him.

"So, that's the non-emergency that I woke you up for," I say, echoing Mags' earlier complaints. She doesn't react to the teasing. Still staring at the screen, processing. "Thoughts?"

"She's on our side," Dobrynja says. "Unlike some people, she's actually read a paper on AI risk."

"We're not alone," Mags whispers, squeezing my shoulder again. She shakes herself and takes a deep breath. When she speaks again, she's all business. "Who is she anyway?"

"That's where it gets interesting," I respond. "The dragon - lowercase d - is 'Double D', a druggie cape who made a big splash when she took out a rival gang leader on her first appearance. Then she dropped off the map and never showed up again, except briefly during some sort of internal power struggle in her own gang. Everyone had basically written her off."

Dobrynja lets out an amused grunt.

"You don't know the half of it," I say. "The girl is Taylor Hebert, aka 'Low Key', known member of a completely different gang, with completely different powers. Allegedly she was injured and lost her powers in the Leviathan attack. When the S9 wiped out every active cape in the gang, she survived and took over leadership."

"She's big, then," Dobrynja says. "Big plans. Playing the different gangs against each other. Well informed too, Dragon's nature is not well known."

"Sounds like someone is backing her," Mags says. "You said she had multiple unrelated powers. Cauldron?"

I shrug. "Suggestions as to our course of action, given this information?"

"It's too dangerous to approach her," Dobrynja says. "We don't know her goals or motivations. Or her security - Dragon will be watching her now, she could lead it to us if we make contact."

"No matter what her plans were, Dragon just ruined them," Mags objects. "It's not just about saving the world for her anymore, it's personal. She'll help us."

They both look at me. As always, the final decision is up to me. I close my eyes for a minute as I consider the risks and rewards.

"We'll get in touch with Toybox," I finally decide. "We need Cranial's memory-wiping tech."

They both startle at that and start to object simultaneously.

"She's too powerful-"

"You can't just-"

"Not for her," I interrupt them. "For me. If Teacher betrays us, I'm compromised. She's our backup. I'll delete the recordings and forget all about her. The worst happens, you have to get Ascalon to her and her backers."

Director-Tagg-o-vision

So that's how she wants to play it? My predecessor left an order on my desk for just such a circumstance.

PH-O-vision

(Showing Page 26 of 39)

► Low Key (Re-verified cape)

Replied on July 24, 2011:

What if 'Low Key' is even more of a hint than we think? Does she have the powers of Hel too?

I can neither confirm nor deny that I possess the touch of death.

Cameraman-o-vision

"I'm standing here outside Brockton Bay's PRT headquarters. Earlier today, verified members of local gang Bitten publicly announced on PHO that 'something interesting' would be happening here tonight. As you can see from the crowd behind me, we are far from the only ones who came to take a look.

"The gang in question has been the subject of considerable controversy lately: While they are publicly acknowledged to have played a vital role in the recent defeat of the Slaughterhouse 9, they have also seen fit to recruit a defector from said group - the notorious Shatterbird. This is the first time anyone has left the S9 - alive, at least - and debate now rages nationally about how to handle the situation.

"Whether the events tonight will settle that debate remains to be seen. This has been Janet Sterling, for the Channel 8 News. Back to you, Roger."

Brett gives the sign that we're no longer on air, and Janet relaxes. "I wish they'd get a move on," she grumbles. "How much longer-" She's interrupted by shouts and screams from the other end of the crowd. "Dammit! Brett, get us back on air! Sam, clear a path! Move, move!"

She starts talking again halfway through the crowd, walking sideways so she can look over her shoulder at the camera. "Yes indeed Roger, something appears to be happening. I'm hearing excitement from the crowd, and soon enough we will see what- oh god. Oh sweet merciful god in in heaven."

Pale-faced, she stumbles back, falls over, and throws up all over my shoes. I can hear Brett doing much the same off to the side, but I can't take my eyes off the gruesome scene in front of me.

One of the members of Bitten - Imp, I think - is dragging the mutilated corpse of a young girl by the leg. The other leg has been severed and shoved into the abdominal cavity, from which bloody intestines trail across the street. The entire lower half of her face is missing, as are her arms.

"Nothing to get excited about!" Imp announces. "Just cashing in a kill order! Yes indeedy, who cares that Taylor here-" she jiggles the corpse by the leg "-was only sixteen, or that she put Lung in the Birdcage and fought against Leviathan? Director Tagg wanted her dead, I'm sure he had good reasons!"

"Please tell me you got that on camera," Janet gasps from somewhere around my knees.

"No comment, no comment!" Imp says as several less queasy reporters shove microphones in her face. "BITN are good patriotic citizens who don't question our kill orders, we just execute them. You'll have to ask Director Tagg!"

Deputy-Director-Renick-o-vision

"That's two catastrophic scandals of yours I've had to deal with in as many months," Chief Director Costa-Brown says. "And that's only because Calvert's extracurriculars didn't go public." It's actually been slightly more than two months since the first one, but I don't imagine she would appreciate me pointing that out. "What exactly did Tagg do to earn the enmity of Bitten?"

"Nothing," I say. "It was Armsmaster again." 'Again' is debatable. I have no idea what went on with Emily's resignation, but it stinks of cover-up, and of Armsmaster being the one to take the fall. One must however hew to the official version of events.

"Explain."

"I'm sure you've read the reports on the events that led up to the kill order. You may have wondered what motivated Dragon to, uh..."

"Go to such lengths to apprehend someone believed to be a civilian, or at worst a Master/Brute 4? Someone she had no jurisdiction over, or as far as I know any animosity towards?"

"Quite. You see, when Defiant got back from his campaign against the S9, Director Tagg blackmailed him into serving as a deniable asset by threatening to officially expose his previous identity and make him a fugitive."

"He blackmailed. Dragon's. Boyfriend." I get the impression that even if a PR blitz could theoretically have saved Tagg's career, that is no longer on the table. "And thus, to get out from under his thumb-"

"-they must have called on their erstwhile allies against the S9 to destroy him, while keeping their own hands clean," I confirm.

"Wonderful. And now the bloody-handed freaks who outplayed Jack Slash at his own game not only have Shatterbird on their side, they are also in an alliance - or at least some manner of favors-owed arrangement - with Dragon." The Director pinches the bridge of her nose. "I can see that I need to appoint a more flexible Director to your city."

PH-O-vision

(Showing Page 37 of 39)

► XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-banned)

Replied on July 25, 2011:

I can neither confirm nor deny that I possess the touch of death.

This is why you shouldn't touch yourselves, kids.

-User received a suspension for this post.-

Saint-o-vision

Mags and Dobrynja have been moping about all day, and I have not the faintest idea why.

Chapter 98: B.20

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Endbringer sirens. You instantly rise into the air and start flying back towards the lair. It's the benefit of never going outside with the same face twice: You're always wearing a disposable identity. You reach for your phone, but it rings before you can call anyone.

"What's the play, boss?" Alec asks.

"Did you secure my stuff?"

"What stuff?"

Oh, for- "Put me on speakerphone!" There's a beep as he does so. "Drop stealth right now!" You invoke the latest boop of smarts to make it a command. Good thing you happened to be sufficiently far away that you remember Aisha's existence.

"Oh right," Alec says. "That stuff. Got it now."

"You both suck," Aisha says (because Alec lets her).

You crafted the costume for your next official identity some with care. A long-sleeved leotard in bright red, with matching gloves and thigh-high boots. Mildly provocative on its own, but mitigated by a cape that goes all the down your arms to drape about your body.

The long sleeves hide the marks on your forearms from where you've been stockpiling willpower over the last couple of days, while the gloves hide the tell-tale signs of having your fingers surgically reattached (well, they weren't strictly speaking your fingers, re-attached).

The cape is long enough that it would drag along the ground if you tried to walk in it - but now that you can fly, why not take advantage of it? Flight is something every high-caste parahuman is assumed to be capable of, if not under their own power then by commissioned tinkertech.

A 'ninja' mask covers the lower half of your face, complemented by crimson eyes and long silky black hair. Yes, yes, you're shallow, whatever. What is even the point of playing dress-up if you can't indulge your vanity a little? Let's focus on the Endbringer in the room.

There is no longer any doubt about it. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action. The Buddha sits on the mountain, and all things come to him. Including the Endbringers, who clearly know what to do if you meet the Buddha on the road. It's flattering, in a way. They obviously fear what you might grow into.

But perhaps they miscalculated. Perhaps you have already grown into a threat, and they ought rather shun you at all costs.

"Esper," you say into your armband. "Blaster, unconventional. My power will either ignore Endbringer defenses entirely, or do nothing at all. Range, roughly 100 feet."

"Acknowledged," the armband replies. "Stand by. You have been assigned to forward Blaster group B." Directions flash on the map. "Be aware, Behemoth's kill aura extends 32 feet from his body."

A behemoth stands before you, near 50 feet of rippling muscle and jagged obsidian. Hands that are chunks of crystalline rock as much as they are claws. A gaping maw and a single eye, both glowing like the molten blood of the earth itself.

You heft your weapon: A simple black baton. Thin and light, it might be able to inflict bruises on a human, but would itself break before it could break a bone.

It is not the weapon that is important.

You activate Crusader's power - to penetrate, however lightly, through any amount of armor - and layer it with that of Murder Rat - to insure an injury no matter what. You thrust, and use Jack's power to send your strike forward as a beam of golden fire.

(Turns out you misjudged Jack's power - it does come with a Thinker component, telling you exactly how to strike to prevent any chance of being blocked or dodged. You didn't notice until now because you only tested it on trees)

As the hit lands, you use Animos's power to turn physical injury into a wound on the soul, ripping away your adversary's power.

The behemoth screams, and the world becomes fire.

Alexandria-o-vision

Fighting Behemoth is a strange experience. With Leviathan, there is always the risk of drowning. With Simurgh, you can never trust anything. But Behemoth has no way to hurt me. Fire, lightning, radiation, brute strength, nothing he does can get through my defenses. Nor can I hurt him, really. At best, we can knock each other about a bit.

That doesn't mean that I don't give it my all. Quite the contrary. I fight with all my might, simply to protect the more fragile people around me. The people who volunteer to fight, knowing that they have a one-in-four chance of dying. Even a moment's distraction, a single misstep can be the difference between life and death for someone in the crowd.

So we batter at each other, a pair of titanic sumo wrestlers whose bout leave buildings in ruins and tear the earth itself open. Other heroes fire their attacks into the melee, and Behemoth sends bolts of lightning back.

It's well-worn dance at this point, a scene that has repeated itself over and over again for almost two decades. Were it not for my power, I have no doubt that the occasions would blur together in my mind. I hate it. I hate that the world contains monsters. I hate that this death and destruction could be called routine. I hate.

Then, something happens that has never happened before. Behemoth goes completely still, then throws back his head and screams. The sound sends a chill down my spine. He often roars, in challenge or victory, or simply as a devastating sonic attack. But he's never made a sound like this before. His scream is full of pain, confusion and - dare I say it? - fear.

Before the echoes have died away, the air fills with other screams, human screams coming from every direction. The people who were attacking Behemoth a moment ago are bursting into flame and collapsing. All around me burning streaks fall to the ground as flying capes are overcome.

It makes no sense. I recognize the effect of course, but everyone was well clear of Behemoth's aura. In all the years of fighting, it never once changed in size. 32 feet, carefully measured and confirmed from countless recordings. Yet now it's affecting people over a hundred feet away. What's different this time?

My mind immediately leaps to a possibility, a voice overheard in passing as a new cape spoke into her bracelet. I must find this unconventional Blaster, and discover the details of her power.

I make a snap decision. With her reported range, she'll have been caught by the expanded kill aura. I cannot spare the time it would take to reach her by conventional means. This will reveal certain resources that Cauldron would prefer to keep hidden, but every fraction of a second counts now. We'll be able to play it off as the work of an independent cape who came for the Endbringer fight.

"Door to Esper. Door to Sanctuary."

A portal appears before me, with Esper on the other side. Her flesh is blackening and cracking and there are flames shooting out of her mouth as she screams in pain, but she's not dead yet.

I fly through the portal and barrel into Esper at full speed, tackling her into the second portal that appears behind her. We emerge into rolling grasslands. There is no one else in sight (the entire planet we call Sanctuary is empty of human life). The portal closes behind us, cutting off the aura.

Esper has stopped screaming. Not so much because she is no longer in pain, but rather because the impact when I hit her pulverized her ribcage and crushed her heart and lungs. A deliberate tradeoff, the important part was getting her out of there before her brain boiled. That she was still screaming is a good sign, it indicates at least some awareness.

Now I just have to get her fixed up before oxygen deprivation does was Behemoth could not. I steel myself for the next part of the plan.

"Door to Panacea."

I expect to arrive in her grove of flesh, and to have to fight off whatever horrors lurk inside while negotiating for her services. To my surprise the portal reveals a familiar field hospital. She left her grove to assist in the Endbringer fight. It speaks well of her sanity, that she is able to recognize the value of cooperation. Behemoth will destroy her grove as readily as any other part of the city.

The hospital is sparsely populated, as the fight has barely started (the other people hit by the expanded aura are already beyond saving). Panacea is healing a young man I don't recognize. Struck by lightning, from the looks of it. She's surrounded by a crowd of blonde women. They all wear patient gowns, but seem to be acting as nurses. One of her disgusting trees stands nearby in a wheeled pot, branches bending under the weight of ripe blood-fruit.

The women all have the same face, not just the same hair color. I recognize her/them: Homunculi created in the image of her late sister. I shove my way through them and present Panacea with my burden.

"Heal her. Now."

Panacea spins around, startled. Her dress blinks in confusion and bares its teeth at me. It couldn't harm me, but I glide back and lift Esper out of the way to be safe.

"She has vital information about Behemoth, she must not succumb to her injuries."

My armband pings, and Dragon's voice emerges from it. "Be advised, Behemoth's kill aura has expanded to roughly 150 feet in radius. Do not get within 150 feet of Behemoth."

"Yes, relating to that matter."

Panacea immediately closes her eyes and lays a hand on Esper's thigh, the other motioning me to lay her down on a cot. Though her eyes fly open again before I can even relinquish my burden. "Ilsa?" she squeaks. She shakes her head and closes her eyes again. "How is she- what is this? Fruit, I need all the fruit!"

Nurses scurry to do her bidding, bringing several glistening, pulsating fruits from the tree. I step back to let them work, and others start cutting away what little of Esper's clothing did not already burn up or melt into her skin.

The blood-fruits are placed on Esper's chest, and at a touch from Panacea they melt into and merge with her flesh. As the bulges sink down into her body, pus and other less identifiable fluids are forced out from gaps opening up in her sides.

Panacea is shaking her head, though. "Not enough, not enough. More fruits! Feed the tree!"

The last fruits are picked. Another group of nurses move to the morgue section. They grab a cadaver, drag it over and unceremoniously toss it at the tree. Whip-quick roots coil around it and sink into the flesh. New fruits begin to grow as the tree drinks.

This time, rather than merge the fruits into the patient, Panacea starts shaping them in place. A beating heart - larger than human's - forms atop Esper's chest. Arteries grow out of it and plunge into her neck. A strange fern-like structure of feathery, blood-red fronds grows from the heart, forming a fan three feet high and five across. A homunculus steps up and grabs it by the stem(?) and starts waving it back and forth.

"That will keep her from dying," Panacea says. "I need to think."

I'm somewhat less than impressed with the world's greatest healer. "What's the problem?"

"What's the problem? What's the problem!? Her subdermal armor has melted. Melted and run and pooled and is now setting again, blocking things up and cooking her faster than I can heal her! You need a ferrokinetic, not a biokinetic!"

I can only think of two capes who could handle something like this, and they were both present today. A query of my bracelet confirms my fears.

Magnet Maggie, deceased. Mr Steel Yo Girl, deceased.

"Think of something," I command. In the background Behemoth's roar can be heard, underscoring the time pressure involved.

"I- you- fine! Alice, Bethany, attend me." Two of the homunculi approach (I idly wonder how she tells them apart) and, at her instruction, lie down on adjacent cots.

She moves to the first one and places her hands around its neck. She closes her eyes in concentration briefly, then... pulls its head off. Both ends seal over with fresh skin with barely a spurt of blood. She brings the head over to the second homunculus and presses it against its shoulder. Flesh joins together, twitching and surging as everything gets hooked up.

"Don't try to get up, your blood pressure sucks," she calls over her shoulder as she turns back to Esper. Both heads offer weak affirmatives.

She then repeats the procedure with Esper, detaching her head and placing it on the headless homunculus body. While she works, the other nurses remove the now desiccated corpse from the tree and replaces it with Esper's remains.

I glide over to Panacea. It's taking longer than the previous operation. "Are you done yet?" I ask.

"Yeah, sure," Panacea says as the last burns on Esper's face clear up. "She won't drop dead from autoimmune issues. She can fix the rest later." She steps back, and flicks her finger against Esper's forehead. "There, she's awake."

The first thing you feel as consciousness returns is someone grabbing you by the throat and slamming you into a wall. When your eyes focus you see a black-visored helmet three inches from your face. You reflexively activate sorcerer's sight to try to figure out what parahuman is accosting you, before you realize that you know whose mask that is. Everyone knows whose mask that is.

"What did you do?" Alexandria demands.

("I just got her that body, don't break it!" someone complains in the background)

What did you do? You're not entirely sure. Where are you? What happened?

"Behemoth's aura grew to five times it normal size!" Alexandria shouts. "What. Did. You. Do?"

Oh. That. Your face splits into a grin that is all teeth. It worked!

"What did I do? I made him hurt. I made him scared. I made him stop sandbagging." You scrabble at the fingers around your throat, to no avail. "Let me go, I have to get out there. I have to hit him again!"

She lets you go. Your legs give out when you land and you tumble to the ground. Your body feels weird. Well, it's a lot less dead than expected given your last coherent memory, so you're not going to complain. After a few false starts, you manage to get to your feet.

Oh, there's Panacea. And a dozen or so Glory Girls? And one of her creepy trees, being hugged by something that looks like a headless cyborg lich? Whatever, you have an Endbringer to kill.

Then you pause as something she said finally registers on you.

"Five times? That's longer than my range! I need someone who can shield me from his aura. Also from lighting, he's definitely going to try that next. And someone to hold him down, so he doesn't charge me or run away." You look down, and realize that you're naked save for a hospital gown. "And a weapon to channel my power through!"

Alexandria stares at you. You think. Not that you can see her eyes beneath her visor, but you get the sense that she's judging you.

One of the Glory Girls helpfully offers you a scalpel.

When Alexandria makes a decision, she doesn't fuck around. Eidolon is summoned, given terse instructions. You watch in fascination as he switches his powers around until he finds one that fits. He glows more strongly to sorcerer's sight than anyone- than any other human you've seen. Still less intense than an Endbringer.

He touches you, and the most peculiar feeling washes over you. "Range extender," he says.

"Move," Alexandria says, and the three of you fly off.

Behemoth is rampaging freely as you approach, tearing down buildings and leaving a trail of molten lava in his wake. Hardly anyone challenges him, the few remaining long-range Blasters suppressed by a veritable storm of lightning bolts.

So intent is he on causing destruction that he doesn't even notice your approach. You touch down among some of the less molten rubble off to the side, a conservative 200 feet away. Graceful crane stance means the lava would hold your weight, but you've already hit your RDI of 'being on fire', thanks.

Anyway. Behemoth still hasn't noticed you.

With a deep breath, you weave your powers together once more, and golden fire leaps from your scalpel to splash against the monster's back. That he notices. He screams again, and spins around to charge towards you - only to stagger backwards as Alexandria hits him like a cannonball.

"Is it working?" Eidolon asks.

"It's working," you confirm. Sorcerer's sight shows the Endbringer-glow guttering and fading - Behemoth shines no brighter than Eidolon now.

You strike him again, and he rains lightning down upon you. Every last bolt hits Eidolon's upraised palm as he hovers I front of you, to no effect. "No," Eidolon declares firmly. "Not today. Today we strike back."

You punctuate his words with golden fire. And agai- guh. Pain spikes behind your temples as your control slips, and your next strike gutters out in golden sparks. You fall to your knees from an exhaustion that is in no way physical. Using that many powers at once, over and over again...

You failed. Through endless toil and tears, you assembled a suite of powers that could strike down an Endbringer. You had a plan, you had the support of the Triumvirate itself. The plan worked, the support was flawless. The only point of failure was you. You were too weak.

All you accomplished was the greatest casualties of any Endbringer battle yet.

Eidolon has turned around, and is asking you something. You can't make it out over the buzzing in your ears. You turn your head away, unable to face his judgement. You just want to sleep. For the first time in so long, can you not just curl up and forget the world?

No, something inside you rages. This is not the end, it insists, despite the grey creeping into the edge of your vision. This was foreseen. Your despicable weakness was also planned for. There's a power that will save your life, and more besides.

"Can you heal?" you ask Eidolon. Your grip tightens on the scalpel that had almost slipped from your fingers. Without waiting for an answer, you stab yourself in the arm. Your vision clears.

You laugh and stab yourself again, and again and again. You laugh as Eidolon desperately flips through his power library looking for something that will keep you from bleeding out (little does he know). You laugh as Dragon's voice sounds from the armband, announcing "The kill aura has shrunk to 60 feet!" You laugh and stab and laugh and stab.

Feeling better than you've ever felt in your entire life, you stand up. Four powers unite as one in a beam of golden fire. Behemoth's wrestling match against Alexandria stops being a struggle to reach you, and starts being a struggle to escape, to burrow beneath the earth and flee.

"Everyone, to me!" Alexandria calls, her voice echoing through every armband on the battlefield. "The kill aura has normalized, keep him from getting away!"

Just as you're about to land the finishing blow, a van-sized piece of rubble drops down in front of you and blocks your shot.

"You did well," Eidolon says from the other side of it. "I'll take it from here." More rubble approaches you from all sides, stacking up to form a prison.

What the hell does he think he's doing? Behemoth is still Endbringer durable! Just because you've ravaged its soul nigh unto death doesn't mean his attacks will work any better than they have for the last 17 years!

You turn into shadow and slip through the cracks of the hastily assembled structure, reforming outside. Eidolon has started launching some sort of optical distortions at Behemoth. But through some unknown means he notices your escape - he's turning back around to face you! You can't give the myopic glory hog another chance to ruin everything.

Your eyes narrow. The reason Eidolon glows brighter than other capes is that he has no less than three powers active at all times. And right now, your problem is with... that one. Golden fire lashes out, searing away the telekinesis he used to imprison you - and is currently using to fly. He falls from the sky, and his knee twists the wrong way as he lands.

You ignore his screams. You have a job to do. The range extender faded when Eidolon betrayed you, but the kill aura has normalized. You rise into the air again and dart forward for one last strike.

Behemoth doesn't topple as your fire scourges away the last remnant of his soul. He simply grows still, and the baleful light of his eye dims. What remains is a basalt statue, caught in the act of scrabbling to escape a force it could not understand or resist. A fitting monument, and a message to his siblings regarding what is to come.

Notes:

Taylor-o-vision

You'd stop to admire it longer, but you need to get the hell out of dodge before kill-stealing retard Eidolon gathers his wits and uses his remaining two powers to avenge himself on the hero of the hour (century). You do not have another two shots of power nullification left in you, not without even more self-harm.

Mechanic's corner

The real punchline is that by being transplanted into Glory Girl's body, Taylor unwittingly spent her 'Endbringer XP' on Appearance again. At least she managed to get Perception from Leviathan.

Chapter 99: K.01

Chapter Text

Alexandria-o-vision

Legend has strong opinions about the battle, and does not hesitate to share them. 'Disaster', 'loose cannon', 'shambles', 'coordination failure'. I let the words wash over me, and wait for him to wind down before I speak.

"Consider: If I had told you this morning that we could ensure the death of Behemoth, but only at the cost of 76% casualties, what would you have said?"

He lets out a sigh and slumps in his chair.

"I would have said go ahead. A victory, after all these years? The morale boost alone would be worth it. In less than two years, it will-" his face twists in a grimace "-it will turn a profit, in lives spent. You are right as always, Rebecca."

That is not entirely true. Parahumans are not as fungible as all that. Even beyond the obvious differences in power, one must consider their skills and temperament, the level of integration with their Agent... suffice to say, someone who has survived two Endbringer fights is far more likely to survive several more, and contribute meaningfully. And we lost a lot of veterans today.

Some would say that the Triumvirate sits atop that pyramid, at 100% survival odds. I disagree. There is no such thing as 100% survival odds, Hero taught me that years ago. But statistically, it's undeniable that most casualties are usually newcomers.

It's unfortunate that we have to waste lives like that, but Contessa and Number Man both agree that it is necessary. Without the culture of 'everyone goes', participation would gradually evaporate as the least useful cohort would bow out, citing their inability to make a difference. Leaving a new least useful cohort in their place, and repeating until we lack the numbers to put up a fight at all.

Though from a different point of view, no one has truly been able to make a difference until today. In that sense, the sacrifice was very much worth it.

Still, I'm not entirely without regrets of my own. If I had- but no. 'An unconventional power that will either ignore Endbringer defenses, or do nothing at all' was a pattern as old as the Endbringers themselves. Until now, it was always the latter. You let the hopefuls take their shot and be disappointed. To dedicate resources, or even attention, to their attempts was a foolish waste of time. Until now. If I hadn't given up hope, if I had treated the two-hundredth freshly-triggered optimist as eagerly as the first...

Legends speaks up again, still looking down at the table. "Who is she? She must have been the target last time too, but she didn't fight then. Why-"

"I don't know," I interrupt.

He looks up at me in surprise. "Didn't you talk to Contessa?"

"I did. When I asked her the same questions, she shrugged."

"She's invisible to Contessa? Like Eidolon? The equivalent Agent, in a natural trigger?"

"No. If she was, Contessa would have said so. Instead, she said nothing at all."

"But-"

I sigh. "I'm going to explain this once, and then we will never speak of it again.

"Esper is visible to Contessa. Contessa is following a Path for dealing with her, a Path that requires that the rest of us know nothing of her. If we were meant to know anything, or do anything, she would have told us. So we will not try to contact Esper. We will not try discover her whereabouts, or her identity. We will not speculate about her motivations or actions, past, present or future. Not the PRT, not the Protectorate, not Cauldron. We will act in all ways as if Esper does not exist."

"That's... I'm not sure I can avoid thinking about the pink elephant. Not when it killed an Endbringer."

"You will do well enough. Contessa has ensured it." Either that or she will kill him in the near future. One member of the Triumvirate, or possibly even all of us, is also an acceptable sacrifice. Let him work that out for himself, or not.

"Should we even be discussing it this much?"

"Yes. This is exactly the conversation we are meant to have." I hesitate, but I can't resist adding one more word: "Obviously."

He chuckles. "Of course. Including my foolishness, and your condescension."

I smile back at him. "Exactly."

A common flaw of Thinkers, that I admit to falling prey to occasionally: 'It was obvious to me.' Unless, of course, Contessa is playing a deeper game, and we're meant to go against 'orders'. But I believe that she's not manipulating me in this instance - which is admittedly something she could easily manipulate me into believing.

Whatever ends up happening will of course be ultimately beneficial to the cause, but there would no doubt be dire consequences for the transgressor. No natural trigger could be said to be entirely well-adjusted, and Esper struck me as worse than most. Approaching her without precognitive support would be incredibly dangerous.

No, these are exactly the things I shouldn't be thinking about.

"Does it ever bother you, the way we've completely given up any semblance of free will?" Legend asks.

"I've given up a great many things."

"That's not an answer to my question," he notes, his voice gentle.

"...Yes. Yes, it does bother me. If you can think of a way, any hypothetical scenario where we could have benefited from this level of precognitive knowledge without shattering such fond illusions... then please don't tell me. I'd like to avoid thinking of the pink elephant."

I can still eke out a fragment of free will within the bounds of predestination. By resolving not to interfere, I can ensure that I will not become the one who was doomed from the start.

Panacea knew her civilian identity.

Tele-vision

"Coming to you live from the hottest new tourist destination in America, Colin Oestermann. Colin, what is the situation in Brockton Bay?"

"You must understand, the people living here are those who decided to stick around and tough it out after Leviathan attacked. They've been through this before, and proved that they could handle it. There is some fear that this is the start of a new pattern of Endbringer behavior and that the city will be attacked again, but most of the people I've spoken to are determined to rebuild once more."

"Despite that, I understand that there has been some talk of officially abandoning the city?"

"Yes, that's true. However, the idea was never seriously considered, because the tourists started arriving almost immediately. People from all over the world are coming here, people who have lost friends and family to Behemoth or the other Endbringers. The concrete plinth sealing away Behemoth's remains was originally simply meant to contain the radiation, but it has become a monument."

"So they are hoping that the tourist industry will be enough to revitalize the city?"

"Yes, but there was also the concern that people would not stop coming just because the government pulled out. Crowds surround the monument day and night, and people are already starting to call it the 'Mecca of the West'. Brockton Bay will remain - whether as a US city or a lawless shantytown on condemned ground."

"Speaking of the law, Brockton Bay is also famous as one of the worst cities in the country as far as parahuman crime is concerned. Is that still a concern?"

"That is a bit of a concern, yes. Although very few of the old gangs survived the upheavals of the last few months, new ones have moved in to take advantage of the power vacuum. But while the local Protectorate suffered heavy losses the attack, Esper herself has been spotted patrolling several times, and whether out of fear or respect the villains are keeping well away from the area around the monument."

"There is another big concern, which I alluded to earlier when I called it the 'hottest' tourist destination: Hot in more ways than one. Tell us about the radiation situation, Colin."

"I know there are many tall tales out there, but the truth is that it's quite safe to visit. As long as you bring iodine pills and bottled water, a week in Brockton Bay right now is no worse than getting a CT scan. You obviously wouldn't want one of those every week, but there is a team of Tinkers working to sanitize the city as we speak. They promise that they will have the radiation down to normal background levels before the permanent residents can receive a dangerous dose."

"Thank you Colin. Later tonight we have an interview with one of those people: Former villain Dr. Atom, who says that the death of Behemoth made him reconsider his life choices and gave him hope for the future.

"After that: Is Bakuda's greatest crime the key to room-temperature cryonics? We talk to the chairman of the Human Longevity Foundation, which has recently published startling results on the fine structure preservation of amethystization. If you didn't understand any of those words, don't worry. We didn't either.

"But first: In the studio with me is Phil Armstrong, president of the Atomic Advocacy Association. I understand that things are looking up for the AAA, Phil?"

"Indeed. In the past, our two greatest obstacles were concerns over Behemoth, who did occasionally target nuclear plants, and alarmist myths about radiation. Not only do we not have to worry about Behemoth any more, but millions of people around the country are educating themselves about radiation as they contemplate a pilgrimage to Brockton Bay."

"So we will be seeing more nuclear power plants springing up in the future?"

"I certainly hope so. Now that we know that Endbringers can be defeated I would encourage everyone to focus on more long-term problems, like global warming. If we can reduce our dependency on coal and oil-

Paparazzi-o-vision

Business has been good lately. Esper footage is selling like hotcakes - good footage from a proper camera, not a blurry red dot in the sky from some pilgrim's shaky cellphone. It takes preparation and dedication to get such shots, but there are worse jobs than sitting on a rooftop all day waiting for a celebrity to fly by.

A noise behind behind me makes me turn around - and drop my camera in shock! (This is why you always keep the lanyard around your neck)

"Esper!" I exclaim.

"Stranger," she greets me in turn. I instinctively start to fade in alarm, but stop when she narrows her eyes at me. It doesn't work so good when someone is looking straight at me.

The sensible thing to do would be to apologize for using my power on her. I almost succeed, but what actually comes out of my mouth is "I'm sorry, but would you mind answering a few questions?" It started out as an apology!

I just couldn't help it. To be the first person to score an interview with Esper... I reach for my phone - despite my earlier thoughts about cellphone footage, the camera around my neck is currently useless, as it can only capture still images of things very far away.

I somehow lose my footing and fall. Well-honed instincts have me dropping my phone and grabbing for my camera, cradling it against me and twisting around to cushion it with my body. The camera is far more expensive than the phone. Pain shoots through my left arm as I land poorly. But the camera is safe, so I breathe a sigh of relief. It is far more expensive than a hospital visit, too.

By the time I pick myself up and find my phone - it fortunately survived the impact on its own - Esper is reading something written on a small piece of paper. Her brow is furrowed in concentration, and I can make out her lips moving beneath her mask as she sounds out the words. Whatever is written there, it causes her to snort in amusement as she crumples the note in her fist.

Dammit! If I had been a tiny bit faster to recover my phone, I'd have footage of the world's greatest hero struggling with literacy. The prices I could get from special ed foundations alone...

Esper looks up to see me filming her. "I'm not here to give interviews," she says. "I'm here to kill Endbringers and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of Endbringers."

She uses her baton to gently push down on my phone. I take the hint and stop recording.

"You owe me," she says, and I nod fervently. A soundbite like that has already paid for my vacation this year.

Apparently that's Esper's public persona now. Not what you'd have picked, but what the notes say, goes. The optimal thing to say would have been 'I'd like to thank Jack Slash for teaching me to strike things at a distance. Behemoth would not have died without his efforts.' But that was never in the cards. Jack will get what's coming to him, and it's not a fulfilled soul price.

You used to fret a lot about where the hell the notes were coming from, but there was a note the other day saying 'stop trying to figure out where the notes are coming from'. Like all notes, you trusted it and did exactly what it said, and it worked out to your benefit. It's so much nicer when you don't have to fret over things like that.

That happy conviction last right up until you fly out of Aisha-range, and remember where the notes come from. You heave a deep sigh. But it was enough of an interview to secure the guy's soul price (gotta respect a man whose soul price is to do his job well). Not that a Stranger power weak enough that you can actually study it in action would be very useful, but it was tempting enough for him not to suffer the happy little accidents Aisha has been arranging for his colleagues. Can't have people tracking Esper's whereabouts too closely.

Taking into account how much leisure time you currently have, you'll perhaps get around to studying him sometime next year. As the de facto monarch of what is simultaneously an utterly ruined, mildly radioactive wasteland of a city, and the most popular tourist destination on earth, the amount of free time you have is negative infinity. Just taking over and doing things right for once sounded like a good idea at the time, but it turns out that being a ruler - an actual ruler, not just some asshole sitting back and skimming off tax revenue - is a fucklot of work.

Not necessarily work for Esper - Esper needs to be aloof and mysterious and worshipable, and occasionally be spotted flying above the pilgrim-heavy areas to keep predators at bay, because no one wants to fuck with Esper. But her presence is not rarely useful otherwise, because being fawned over by adoring crowds is pointless.

No, you do the behind-the-scenes work of governing in the guise of 'Esper's most trusted minion', an unassuming older lady who, unlike Esper herself, won't be instantly recognized and mobbed wherever she goes. And, as the situation demands, in the guise of her third, fourth, seventh and ninth most trusted minions. Did you mention that you have no free time whatsoever?

You sigh again as you shapeshift, change clothes, and summon the first of your 'fellow' minions to give his report. While by far the most common reaction to Esper's presence is amateur photography, followed closely by blubbering, useless gratitude, a small minority of people man up and ask if they can help. Such people form the non-you part of the new civil service of Brockton Bay (calling it 'the sovereign nation of Esper' outside your own head is just gauche).

Of course, such minions aren't reliable. They're not Loyal. Some of them may theoretically have had the death of an Endbringer as their soul price, but you didn't go around and plant seeds of Loyalty in them ahead of time, now did you? So far there's been exactly one person whose soul price was to 'faithfully serve the great Esper', and she's a teenager with no useful skills whatsoever.

So yes, there are going to be bad actors, seeking you out under false pretenses to benefit themselves, and you can't even use soul's price to weed them out. After all, just because someone's greatest desire is to become filthy rich and never have to work another day in his life, doesn't necessarily mean he will steal to achieve that, or even slack off more than usual.

Luckily you have an invisible minion who can go around looking over people's shoulders. She's been invaluable in rooting out corruption, even if you currently wish she didn't think she was quite so funny.

"It's the fifth one," your chief of police is saying, showing you several pictures of a corpse, taken from various angles. "Clean tox screen, no injuries or disease that my coroner was able to find. Just dead. It's definitely parahuman involvement."

"Don't worry about it," you tell him.

"Don't worry about it? They've all been members of our organization! Someone is targeting-"

"You don't have to worry about it," you say slowly, "because you haven't been embezzling Esper's budget, now have you?"

While you expected him to show some reaction to the revelation, you did not expect him to freeze up like a deer in headlights, with a look of horror on his face. Oh dear. It seems like your invisible minion missed one. You briefly close your eyes and sigh. You really don't want to have to find another chief of police. The guy is good at his job and capable of initiative, for all that he's apparently also terminally stupid.

"Do you believe in an immortal soul?" you ask him.

It takes him a moment to recognize that he is being spoken to. "Well, uh, I suppose yes. I'm a christian man."

You nod sagely. "You know, when I asked Esper what her power did, she told me it cleaves souls asunder. I don't know what a theologian would make of such a claim, but-" you gesture towards the corpse pictures on your desk "-there's clearly something going on there, that did not take place in the physical realm."

He doesn't respond, unless looking like he's about to throw up can be considered a response.

"Look," you say placatingly, "if your department were to receive a large anonymous donation by this time tomorrow, I would not necessarily have to inform-"

He nods and dashes out the door before you can even finish, pale as a sheet. You really hope he's not stupid enough to make a run for it. That would waste even more of your time.

"Next," you tell your uniquely faithful teenage secretary.

Finally, long after darkness has fallen, the last minion is dealt with and your day as a bureaucrat is at an end. Which doesn't mean that you get any free time. In the wake of Behemoth, villain group BITN has switched from doing heists (who is even left worth robbing?) to claiming and defending territory. Because while Esper's patrols make her the hero of the people, someone has to be the villain of the vital infrastructure.

No one wants to fuck with ShatterbirdBanshee any more than they want to fuck with Esper, but she can't be everywhere at once, hobbled as she is by the need to not destroy everything around her. You probably spend more time as Poltergeist than in any other guise.

Man, imagine if you needed to sleep.

Chapter 100: K.02

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You wake up in pitch darkness - and that alone is enough to tell you that something is very, very wrong. You, sleeping? You must have been either terribly injured, or drugged. You call forth a pair of mind hands for light and blearily try to find any clues as to which it is.

The IV feed attached to your arm could go either way, but the way you're shackled to the bed is quite suggestive. And either whatever they gave you is messing with your sense of balance, or the rocking sensation indicates that you're on a boat.

Well then. You'll just go with 'drugged' until further evidence presents itself. You remove the IV with a mind-hand. You suspect that you were not meant to wake up at all, but whoever captured you misjudged the amount of sedative needed to keep you under. Shitty Brute powers saving the day once again.

The restraints prove to be shockingly durable, completely shrugging off your charm of unmaking. Some kind of Tinker material, then, because mere steel would not be able to do that. And the bedframe is made of the same stuff, you discover, so you can't just disassemble that either.

Wow, you think as you shapeshift you hands and feet small enough to slip your bonds, someone wasted millions of dollars on an attempt to keep you confined. Slipping free of the cuffs (and subsequently also removing a catheter, but let's not talk about that), you sit up in bed and look around.

The room you're in is fairly small, with barely enough space for two hospital beds placed end to end. Yes, there's another bed behind yours, occupied by an unconscious Banshee. And here you thought kidnapping you was ballsy.

You remove her IV as well, and perform a closer examination of the room while you wait for her to wake up. The walls are made of more of the same Tinker material, raising your estimation of how much this cost by an order of magnitude. Maybe two. You also find the outline of what must be the door, but whatever mechanisms are keeping it closed are all on the other side.

The room is, as far as you can tell, completely airtight. Which explains the humming device with the pressure tanks under your bed, that industry and forge wisdom identifies as a carbon dioxide scrubber. A model that functions with no electronics whatsoever - because electronics are made of silicon, and you do not want to put any silicon in the same room as Banshee, sedated or not.

There are no cameras - either because they couldn't figure out how to make them without silicon, or because they didn't want to compromise the structural integrity of the cell by leaving holes for cables. It's almost cute, the way they think they're sufficiently paranoid.

But rather than protecting them, it just means they don't know you're up and about. You grin nastily in the darkness (you're not worried about making noise, either, because you don't spend this much effort on kidnapping Banshee without also soundproofing the shit out of her cell).

But speaking of Banshee, you need to get her out of the cuffs too. Alas, you never did pick up a proper flesh-warping power before Panacea went nuts, so you can't repeat the same trick. The locks are as over-engineered as everything else in the room, with all sorts of fancy features meant to make them harder to pick - that industry and forge wisdom helpfully tells you all about.

Between that, and the ridiculous dexterity of your mind-hands, you have the first cuff off her in no time at all. By which you mean, well, perhaps an hour. It's your first time picking an actual lock, okay, and your toolkit consists of exactly two IV needles (you're not about to unmake the CO2 scrubber for parts, for reasons that should be obvious).

Banshee is stirring by the time you get the last cuff off.

"What happened?" she asks. "Where are we? Why is it so dark? ...why are you naked?"

You explain what you've discovered and surmised. Kidnapping, sedatives, miscalculated dosage. Extremely secure cell.

"So, desert time?" she asks, entirely unconcerned.

"We could do that," you agree. "But then we couldn't find out who did it, or explain to them why it was a bad idea." There's the matter of provisions, too - you have made it through the desert without water before, but it's not something you look forward to repeating.

"Oh, I like the idea of that," she says with a smile that's not friendly at all. "But-"

You hold up a hand. "Do you feel that? I think we're slowing down."

"...I think so too."

"Right. Unhook yourself, and get ready to fight."

"Unhook..? Oh."

You make your way over to the door, politely ignoring Banshee's curses as she works the plastic tube free. The door, however, remains closed. Instead, the entire cell is hoisted into the air. You maintain your balance like the graceful crane you are, but Banshee yelps as she almost falls off the bed.

When you're set down again, the rocking motion is still there. Did they just transfer you to another boat? No, a couple of minutes later you feel a much stronger acceleration, followed shortly by the world tilting upwards.

"A seaplane," you conclude. "Our kidnappers are certainly pulling out all the stops." When it becomes clear that no one is coming to check on you, you sit back down on your bed. "Looks like we'll be waiting for a while yet. How much glass are you packing?"

"As if they'd leave me any glass?" she says incredulously, gesturing at her naked form.

"Man, running with the S9 sure made you soft, huh?" Imagine being so dependent on danger-Thinker support that you don't even plan for being kidnapped, stripped naked and chained up inside an indestructible box. "Good thing I'm here."

You slip off to the side and squat down where the bed shields you from view. You might not be overly self-conscious about being naked in front of her, but there are limits. When you stand back up, you present her with a large - if somewhat smelly - glass marble.

"This," you say, "is what being sufficiently paranoid looks like. I expect better from you in the future."

With a dull flight of indefinite duration ahead of you, you take the opportunity to finally finish up studying Banshee's power. Something you really should have gotten done long ago, if you really were as paranoid as you claim. But knowing that it would always be around later, you kept putting it off in favor of, well, everything else that was fucking your schedule in the ass. It's not as if Endbringers are vulnerable to glass.

You lean rather hard on this one, trying to shape it to your will. Ideally you'd want something that can conjure glass, rather than control it, because one smelly marble is less of a trump card than you'd like. Perhaps too hard, because when it finally sticks to your soul, it looks broken. Where are the power conduits?

No wait, that's not a break, it's a plug. One that fits perfectly into the weird truncated power you got from Newter's vision quest, way back when. You carefully bring them together.

Golden light fills the room, and hundreds - thousands - of glossily translucent black butterflies fly forth from your hands, only to shatter against the not-steel of the far wall.

Banshee hums a note, and the shards rise to dance in the air. You pluck one out with a mind-hand and bring it closer to study. Obsidian, that explains the color. A good news, bad news situation. The good news is that you're now carrying around a much larger reserve of emergency glass at all times, with none of the previous discomfort. The bad news apply entirely to your kidnappers.

"Nice," Banshee says. "Can you make more?"

Sure you can. It takes a bit of mental effort, connecting both parts of the power across the starscape of your soul, but nothing like the gargantuan hodgepodge you assembled to take down Behemoth. By the time the plane starts to descend you're almost waist-high in razor-sharp glass (a much better idea than it sounds, due to the company you keep).

As soon as wheels touch the runway, your knife is summoned into your hand and fully charged. Three long slashes open up a triangular doorway in the overpriced wall-stuff. Mind-hands lever it out of the way, revealing a rubbery white material beneath. Soundproofing, you assume. You reach out and lay your hand against it, only to find out that it too resists unmaking. More Tinker bullshit, or was it simply cast in one piece?

Still, whatever the white stuff is, it wasn't made with durability foremost in mind. Your knife may be spent, but your mind-hands are able to rip and tear the material, if slowly.

"Don't sing quite yet," you warn Banshee as she shifts impatiently. "I know you could do it faster, but they might hear you as you break through. We want this to be a surprise."

She fidgets, and starts to hum several times before catching herself while you tear away more and more material. How thick is this thing, anyway? You feel the plane coming to a stop, and the cell being hoisted up again.

"Hurry," Banshee says.

There! Tearing away the last bit of soundproofing reveals the ridged steel of an ordinary shipping container. That, you can unmake.

Fifteen seconds later the entire wall falls away, freed from the brackets and rails holding it in place. You throw yourself back into the cell and away from the opening. The mass of obsidian knives you were about to face-plant into pulls away in the nick of time, flowing over and around you to go shooting out of the hole you made. You have just enough time to be shocked at how much you must subconsciously trust this former S9 member to have pulled a stunt like that, before Banshee starts singing.

The sound of shattering glass and screams of pain accompany her song. Whatever was moving your cell has stopped, the machinery and/or operator taken out. Banshee sedately floats forward in a cloud of obsidian, which starts to form into her customary angel costume as soon as she's outside.

Only to be interrupted by a lance of light searing into her from above. She falls.

Shit! Your mind-hands grab the piece of inner wall you cut away and push it ahead of you as you leap after her, activating your own flight just enough to land softly beside her. A quick glance around shows you to be on a small airfield - no surprise there - with your former prison just about to be lowered onto the bed of a truck. You appear to be on the outskirts of a city, with skyscrapers visible in the distance. You don't recognize the place, but didn't really expect to either - you're not exactly well travelled.

Looking up, you see the cape who shot Banshee hovering above. He's wearing a red suit and broken red mask. Broken over the mouth and the right ear to be precise, which tells you that it used to contain a microphone and earpiece that did not like Banshee introducing herself. Unfortunately the man himself appears uninjured.

That's all you have time to see before he gestures towards you and you have to bring the piece of wall up to block another beam. Banshee, however, proves that she is down but not out as a cloud of obsidian flies up towards him. Peering around your shield you see him get cut to ribbons and start to fall, only to pop back to where he was a moment later - fully recovered but with his costume even worse for wear.

Lasers and Alabaster-style immortality? If it wasn't for sorcerer's sight, you'd think you just found another Trump like yourself. Not that you understand what sorcerer's sight is showing you. The cape is suspended in a web of glowing lines, some leading all the way to the distant city, others spreading out across the airfield. The web if shifting, too, almost if-

Yes. Another node in the web - another cape - comes flying over the shipping container. Forewarned, you thrust out with a mind-hand at extreme range and manage to stab him in the chest before he can get a bead on you. Then a second later he's fine again, and firing a laser that you only barely manage to block in time. You stab him some more to get him to back off.

They are sharing powers through the web, you realize. And there's another ten or so of them spread throughout the immediate area, all of them converging towards you. You drag Banshee off to hunker against the cab of the truck. This lets you have some cover from the rear, but unlike your makeshift Tinker-alloy shield, you do not trust it to absorb lasers in the long term. Still better than trying to make a run for it over open ground.

On a happier note, Banshee is rapidly emptying your cell of obsidian, and filling the air with same. Even as more and more of the Yangban - for it is clearly them - arrive, they are kept too busy restoring themselves to manage a coordinated offense. Wait, you mean restoring each other, you can see the little licks of power reaching out between them.

Some of them are flying, others zoom back and forth along the ground - trying to flank you, or possibly just trying to get away from the glass storm. Some of them try to put up forcefield bubbles to protect themselves - but the bubbles are not soundproof, and they invariably trap at least a few shards in there with them. So they are still getting sliced up, only slightly slower. Bubbling up is also an excellent way to gain Banshee's attention, and the bubbles quickly pop under the increased bombardment.

Despite having to focus almost entirely on simply keeping each other alive, they do still manage to get the odd laser off. But each beam is quickly interrupted by them having to be restored, and they can't manage a proper barrage. So far you've managed to catch every attack on your shield.

In other words the entire battlefield is a horrible, screaming, bloody mess of a stalemate, and their morale is unbelievable. Literally, you don't believe it. They must have some sort pain nullification and/or mind control mixed in there that you're too busy to pick out with sorcerer's sight, or they would have routed twice over by now.

Oh, no, you get it now. That's not healing, that's time travel. They're constantly sending each other back in time to before they were injured, so none of them actually remember any pain. No wonder they're having trouble coordinating their attacks - with the pounding they're taking they're barely experiencing the passage of time at all.

Over the next minute they do gradually start switching tactics, though. Some of them conjure vacuums to try to drag your shield away from you or pull Banshee out of cover, but your mind-hands hold strong. Thank Manton they can't make a vacuum covering you, because that would cut off Banshee's sound-based power in an instant.

One strange attack comes out of nowhere and leaves every inch of your exposed skin - which currently means all of it - covered in a thin layer of ice. It's almost a relief, actually, because the residual heat from their lasers was starting to get uncomfortable. The ice quickly melts under the cherry-red glow of your shield.

Banshee's song stutters, and enemies appear to flicker across your vision, changing positions from one moment to the next. They're using their time rewind power on the both of you too, trying to disrupt your concentration. But it has little effect when you're just hunkering down and defending yourself / telekinetically killing everything that moves. Neither of you need to know what you were doing two seconds ago to understand what you need to do next.

One of them almost gets you when he sneaks around behind you and starts cutting through the truck itself with a sustained laser. But you're able to deduce his position by the strands of the web reaching back to connect him to the others, and warn Banshee in time for her to send a gale of glass to meet him. The strands of power connecting him to the web flicker out, and don't come back.

Ha. With him going off on his own, none of his comrades were able to get line of sight on him in time to reverse his mortal injuries.

A slightly smarter fellow realizes that the shipping container suspended above you is a potential weapon, and turns his laser on the, uh, the crane vehicle thingy holding it up. He's interrupted before he can finish, but others take up the job. It's not exactly quick or subtle, though, and you have plenty of time to lift up Banshee and get out of the way.

Or so you thought - instead of falling straight down, the back end of the container drops first, causing the whole thing to swing forward. Then when the front end falls, it hits the cab of the truck and tips sideways on top of you. You're forced to throw Banshee out of the way, and your shield along with her.

You don't have time to get yourself out of the way, and you hear a joyous exclamation in Chinese as it lands on top of you. A few of the others start to join in, only to swallow their words when the tendrils of your shadow form slip out from underneath and reform, unharmed. Joke's on them, now you have a properly laser-proof backstop and don't need to worry about them sending a bigger group sneaking behind you.

Banshee, to her credit, never stopped singing at any point during this. But she seems disoriented, less able to react to what's happening. Three people manage to bubble up long enough to take proper aim, and you're not going to be able to block them all. You manage to catch two of the beams on your shield - it's now glowing more yellow than red, but still holding strong.

The last beam - you make a snap decision to not throw yourself in front of it. Banshee is a critical asset in this fight, yes... But between the two of you, she's the one who still sports Bonesaw-brand subdermal armor, and you know first-hand how well it handles heat-based attacks. Her song finally cuts off - but the song itself is just window dressing. The sound that actually propagates her control is generated directly by her power, not by her throat, at frequencies far above human hearing.

Despite the apparent silence, the storm of glass surges with renewed fury as she lashes out in pain. The three attackers are shredded (and instantly restored), and for a while no one manages to coordinate another attack. You don't think she can keep this up for long, though.

Then again, it's not as if you've been sitting idle this whole time. No, you've been studying the web, trying to trace the origin of the time rewind power. There! The Case 53 towards the back of their formation. You grip your knife, waiting for the right moment.

A man shifts position, a shield bubble pops... leaving you with a clear line of sight towards your target. You stab out, and a golden beam shoots from your knife to strike the rewinder - leaving him unhurt, but powerless. It's the same attack that brought Behemoth low (minus all the stuff required to penetrate Endbringer defenses). This technically outs Poltergeist and Esper as the same person, but every camera and communication device has already been destroyed by Banshee's song, and the witnesses will die momentarily.

Suddenly unable to restore themselves, the Yangban start dropping like flies. They are still getting regular regeneration from somewhere back in the city - multiple sources of it too, if you're any judge - but that only helps so much when your organs are 60% obsidian by volume. Finally the last one goes still, and obsidian rains down around you as Banshee releases it from her grip.

You slump down, letting your shield fall to the ground. Even without Endbringer-level penetration, that move still takes a lot out of you. Between it and all the obsidian you conjured, you're about as tired as you've ever been. But you can't rest now. You need to check on your partner.

Banshee's breathing is fast and shallow, and there are terrible burns all down her left side, speckled with globs of black glass that melted onto or into her. She's also scraped and bleeding all over from rolling naked across the tarmac when you threw her. But despite all that, her expression is gleeful. "We got them," she pants.

"Yeah. Can you get up?"

"Don't think I can. Manage the control. To fly right now." She's meant to have pain overrides along with the subdermal armor, but you know how it goes with tinkertech. One of these days you're going to have to bite the bullet and emptiness endow yourself enough surgical skill to get in there and do maintenance.

Despite her words, Banshee struggles against you when you try to lift her up, insisting that she can at least walk. She sort of can, as long as you support almost all of her weight with a pair of mind-hands. "Let's find you some painkillers," you say.

She stops walking at looks at the distant buildings for a while. "Yes. Painkillers. And a lesson. For those who. Would oppose us."

Certain applications of her power do not require fine control, after all. You watch a wave of shattered car windows travel down a congested highway at the speed of sound, until it washes over the city itself. Countless fragments glimmer in the sunlight as skyscrapers are denuded. It's beautiful, when you're too far away to see the people.

You could perhaps have stopped her. But you didn't. The CUI committed an act of war when they violated your borders and abducted your citizens. For their hubris, a Banshee raises her voice, and a city goes silent.

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi

Purity: Eagle-Wing Style

Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack

Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt

Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound

Siberian: ?

Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound

Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit

Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies

A/N

There are certain requirements for writing a Worm fic that is faithful to the source material. And while I've hit the Taylor happiness requirements with room to spare, I'm way behind on my 'pointless and tedious cape fights' quota.

Besides, what's even the point of having 'all the powers' if you never get to use them?

Chapter 101: K.03

Chapter Text

Can you not get kidnapped by a hostile superpower for one week without everything going to shit in your absence? Apparently not, because you don't even have time to rinse the sand out of your hair before you have to go deal with another international incident.

Excerpts from the Book of Esper

Esper 1:1. Now ESPER appeared unto Eligos, and spake: Thou hast worshipped the false idols of the ENEMY, and thus committed a grave sin.

(...)

Esper 3:15. Lead my children to the desert. And she pointed her arm towards the west, where the Silver Desert lay. And the faithful were filled with wonder and trepidation, for many strange tales were told of this place.

Slightly more comprehensive excerpts from the Book of Esper

Esper 1

1. Now ESPER appeared unto Eligos, and spake: Thou hast worshipped the false idols of the ENEMY, and thus committed a grave sin.

2. But I am merciful in victory. Cast off thy graven images and kneel down in repentance, and I shall spare thee and all those who follow thee from mine wrath.

3. And Eligos fell to his knees in supplication, and cast off his mask, and cried out: Blessed ESPER, merciful thou art indeed! I reject the ENEMY and all his works, and will be thy faithful servant evermore!

4. And ESPER was pleased.

5. She spake: Get thee to the Bay of Brockton, and all those who would follow thee, and offer thine allegiance at the site of the first victory.

6. And I will make of thee a great faction, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great.

7. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him who curseth thee.

8. So Eligos departed, as ESPER had spoken unto him, and Ala and Ahrima and Amaymon went with him.

9. And Eligos took three out of ten among the unpowered, and all their substance that they had gathered; and they went forth to go into the Bay of Brockton.

10. But there remained those among the Fallen who heeded not the word of ESPER, and remained true to the ENEMY.

11. And so those unredeemed called upon Valefor, whose gaze holds dominion over all those he turneth it upon, and Valefor went forth to halt their exodus.

12. And it came to pass that Valefor fell upon Eligos, and Ala, and Ahrima, and Amaymon, and fastened them beneath his gaze.

13. And he said unto them: Mama is sore displeased with thee, and commands thy return forthwith.

14. But Eligos remained firm of will, and spake: Though thou mayest hold mine body in thrall, my heart and soul will forevermore belong to ESPER. Even should I be struck down by thee, I will never succumb, and never again abet the ENEMY.

15. And Valefor found his heart moved, and cried out: I cannot! For although thou art a heretic and traitor, thou art foremost mine brother, and I cannot strike thee down. Get thee hence, and let not the others catch thee.

16. And so Valefor averted his dread gaze, and the faithful continued their journey toward the Bay of Brockton.

(...)

Esper 3

1. But though they had at last secured the monument of first victory, they could not rest.

2. For the word of ESPER had not spread far, and so they were assailed on all sides by false heroes, who did not hold to the faith and thus unknowingly performed the work of the ENEMY.

3. And though Ala was sore wounded she held the line with her darkness and lightnings, and Eligos turned his blades upon all who came near, and Amaymon stole away the fell powers of the false heroes, and the wisdom of Ahrima did ever guide their blows.

3. But then in their hour of extremity did ESPER appear before them, and she spake: The fuck do you retards think you're doing?

4. And the glory of ESPER was such that the faithless did cease in their attacks, and the faithful threw themselves down in worship and proclaimed their fealty.

5. But though she had heeded their prayers, ESPER was still wroth. And in her wrath, she spake: Are you trying to attract cruise missiles? Because this shit is how you attract fucking cruise missiles. Do you have any idea how many governments you're pissing off right now?

6. Yeah, you'd better bow down and worship me, because I'm saving your dumb useless lives.

7. And ESPER turned her eyes upon each of her faithful in turn, and they all quailed beneath her gaze as it pierced their very souls. She spake: Blaster. Shaker. Trump. Thinker. And a passel of mortals.

8. I could shoot each of you with a pawnshop handgun, and you'd every one of you die. And you're trying to go up against the majority of the world's military- hey!

9. You, yes you in the back with the dumb outfit. Don't think I don't see you writing down everything I say. And thus ESPER turned her visage towards her Chronicler, and spake unto him: I can see you unnecessarily capitalizing my name right there. You better not be putting words in my mouth.

10. And so her Chronicler swore to perfectly capture each word as it fell from her lips, and ESPER turned her attention to the powered faithful, and spake: Who's the leader of this clown show?

11. Eligos rose up in response, and ESPER looked upon his vestments and exclaimed: Seriously? I'd be a lot more flattered if you could even remotely pull off my costume.

12. New commandment: No one gets to cosplay as ESPER. Especially not men. How does stoning sound as a punishment? Yeah, you lot like that Old Testament shit don't you? Writing guy, take note.

13. And so was the first commandment of ESPER given, and it was thus: Thou shalt not imitate the vestments of ESPER, for her glory is hers alone. And those that trespass against her commandments shall suffer death by stoning.

14. And so Eligos hastily stripped out of his garments in shame, lest he suffer death by stoning, and ESPER spake once more: Where was I? Oh right. Awful cosplay leader guy, heed my words:

15: Lead my children to the desert. And she pointed her arm towards the west, where the Silver Desert lay. And the faithful were filled with wonder and trepidation, for many strange tales were told of this place.

16: But when her faithful did not at once start moving, she spoke again to clarify her intent: That means get the fuck away from my monument and stop creating an international clusterfuck in my city, in case you were wondering.

Okay, that was easy enough to resolve actually. Probably your favorite international incident so far, edging out the previous champion.

Previously on 'international incidents of Esperopolis'

During one of your patrols you happen to spot parahuman in civvies, whose power you'll not forget anytime soon. You wonder if you should swoop down and confront her right away. It would be an act of aggression, outing her in public... but would it be undeserved? Would she come here, out of costume and unannounced, if she wasn't up to something sneaky? Well, maybe she would, if she wanted to make the pilgrimage without making a huge production of it.

All things considered, she does deserve the benefit of doubt. You'll have a minion discreetly invite her to a private meeting.

It's interesting that without her costume, she looks barely older than you (which means that she looks younger than you do right now, as Esper).

"Did you inherit the title when the previous Alexandria fell?" you ask, idly twirling your baton. "Or does your Brute rating repel Father Time as well?"

"The latter," she says curtly. She shows no reaction to you dispelling any doubt that you know who she is.

"Interesting," you say blandly. "So, what brings you to my city unannounced, library girl?"

She's too good to show any reaction at the nickname, either. "Your city, Changer?"

You are watching her Thinker power firing, of course, but without days of study you have no hope of deciphering what it's telling her. Not that you particularly care, it's quite weak. Good memory and an eye for detail, basically. Also, she's about to explain exactly what it's been telling her anyway, as a show of force. All you have to do is raise an eyebrow.

"Your face and body are subtly different from the last time I saw you, in ways that cannot be chalked up to a change in diet - or in your case, metabolism. And Panacea - who knows you personally - said 'she can fix the rest later' when she gave you your new body, but didn't make it match your old one. Though I notice you've kept most of the curves."

See? She explained everything. "Very good," you say. "Now, where were we? Oh yes, you were questioning my sovereignty."

Being Alexandria she is used to punching above her weight class in Thinker duels, by leveraging the implicit threat of her literally punching people if they get too clever. Esper, meanwhile, can revoke her powers at will. So because you do not fear her physically, you do not fear her mentally.

That's probably what her power is telling her right now. Yes, Alexandria's Thinker power, Esper's confident body language does indeed indicate that the power that killed Behemoth will work on you as well. Except in your case, one strike is all it would take to render you helpless. You spot just the tiniest hint of 'I fucked up' in her change of posture. But just the tiniest hint - she's determined not to show weakness.

"Last I checked this was still US soil, and as such under the jurisdiction of the Protectorate."

"Such is the polite fiction," you agree. "Are we being polite?"

"We're on the same side, are we not?"

"Hm. I admit I haven't studied the finer points diplomatic etiquette, but when one side opens by covertly bringing weapons of mass destruction onto what may or may not be foreign soil..."

"I... could politely leave?" she suggests, letting another hint of 'I fucked up' slip out. At this point it must be deliberate - but just because it's deliberate doesn't mean it's not sincere.

And you are on the same side, are you not? If not for her, you would be dead and Behemoth would be alive. Now if Eidolon had shown up...

Decision made, you call for a minion and give them instructions: "Please escort our honored guest out. Of the city."

Alexandria gives you a shallow bow, and meekly leaves. Huh. That was strangely anticlimactic for a meeting with the most (politically) powerful parahuman on the continent. Which is... good. You're new at the 'being sovereign' game, but international incidents being resolved anticlimactically strikes you as a good thing. The 'burn Washington to the ground' question is put off for another day.

Chapter 102: K.04

Chapter Text

You really should treat your little trip to China as a wake-up call. What are you even doing with your life? Running yourself ragged, playing at being a queen/administrator? Aside from Banshee, have you studied a single power to completion since Behemoth fell? No, you have not. What's wrong with you? Are you content with what you have?

You better not be. Yes, you beat Behemoth. But it was not a clean victory. You were lucky, insanely lucky, to even survive. It was a skin-of-your-teeth kind of victory, entirely reliant on the aid of people who clearly cannot be trusted. You need to get your head back in the game, so that the next time an Endbringer comes gunning for you, you will not be a slave to luck.

But you wasted so much time. And while the CUI opened you eyes to the problem, they did so by wasting even more of your time. In order to catch up, in order to be ready... you're going to have to tap into the strategic power reserve, aren't you? Yeah. You really wish you didn't have to tap into the strategic power reserve, but you do.

It's going to suck, but it's entirely your own fault.

Sweeping reforms are implemented, ousting your various identities from the government. Innocents are subjected to crippling doses of emptiness endowment to take up the slack. Your secretary gazes worshipfully at you as you burn her future to ashes, for the crime of leal and faithful service. The more you trust and rely on someone, the more you hurt them.

Parahuman minions old and new are given instructions, patrol schedules are hammered out.

"You're in charge while I'm away," you tell Aisha.

She nods. "Order 66?" she asks.

"You have authority to execute order 66, should it become necessary," you confirm. Order 66 being 'cash in Shatterbird's kill order'. "Ensure that it does not become necessary."

It's not quite your usual Quicksilver costume. You had a new mask made, same shape as the old but with a smooth mirror finish. You liked the the old irregular cracked mirror mask, but it really wouldn't have gone well with Accord's psychotic OCD. If you were to accidentally set him off... Well, having to murder your way out through an entire team of villains and two dozen lovingly crafted death traps wouldn't really fit with Quicksilver's non-combatant persona.

Accord wouldn't have agreed to meet you without researching you first, of course. He knows what your regular costume looks like, and understands that you changed it specifically to appease him. That's fine. Accord likes being catered to respected. The meeting will go a lot smoother if he thinks you fear him that much.

Since you were updating your costume anyway, you decided to get new shoes as well: The highest high heels you could find, with the same mirror finish. To think that there was a time when you couldn't sprint along a tightrope wearing those. They make you look helpless though, to people who think that way. More Accord-bait.

You do indeed catch a tiny, microscopic hint of a smile as he looks you over. Accord is a Thinker of systems and solutions, which happens to include mechanical systems and solutions as well. Unlike Tinkers, he makes physics his bitch in an entirely consensual fashion. Which only serves to make his full-face mask even more impressive.

Entirely mechanical yet capable of detecting and conveying the entire range of human expressions. No electronics, no tinkertech glow, just precision engineering and genius design. It's more impressive than any of the death traps, even the one in the lobby with the self-adjusting flensing wires (keeping industry and forge wisdom active as you made your way through the building was educational, to say the least).

You smile back. Look at him, so pleased with your apparent submission that it doesn't even occur to him that you're playing him. "Thank you for agreeing to this meeting." You give him a curtsey that you spent several hours practicing.

"I always make time for fascinating people such as yourself. I assume one of my Ambassadors has caught your interest, and you wish to study their power? Or perhaps I myself?" He does a 'humble' little half-bow as he gestures towards his own chest with a flourish.

"Lizardtail. He does regenerate on his own, does he not? In addition to granting the effect to others?"

"He does."

"Excellent. Regeneration is a type of power that I have been trying to track down for quite some time. My last prospect, a nearly indestructible Brute, ironically went and got himself killed before we could come to an arrangement."

"Overconfidence," Accord commiserates. "A slow and insidious killer. Be assured that no such sloppiness will be allowed on my watch."

"Will fifteen thousand dollars be sufficient?" If he has done his homework, he'll know that you once offered ten thousand to a Ward. It would not do to offer the same for one of his capes.

"Let me offer you an alternative. As you probably know, Lizardtail is fairly new to my organization, along with several others. If you could take a look at all of them, and share any insight you gain on their powers..."

"I'm afraid I cannot take on such a commission at this time. My schedule will become quite full in the near future."

"Very well. Fifteen thousand will do, then. My receptionist will set things up. Do be careful with him until you get a handle on his abilities. Permanent damage will result in extreme penalties." Accord naturally understands that properly studying a regenerator will include a certain amount of wear and tear.

"Of course."

"I must say, I'm somewhat tempted to hire you to study me as well. Do keep that in mind, once your schedule clears up."

"Are you having problems?"

"None... beyond the obvious. I'm sure you're well aware." The way he flies into a murderous rage if he spots a painting that isn't hanging perfectly level? Yes, everyone is aware. "No, it's vanity, of a sort. I do so love a properly put together piece of machinery. I imagine a power must be the most intricate mechanism of all, and I would know more of mine."

"Ah. The technical details. I'm afraid that's impossible."

"I could pay very well."

"It's not that. When I gained my power, I also became fluent in a language unlike any on earth. So far I've been unable to translate the finer points of power mechanics into English."

The eyebrows of his mask shoot up. "Truly? Interesting." He presses a button on his desk and speaks into an intercom. "Have Codex prepared and sent to my office." He turns back to you. "I would test this, if you don't mind?"

You do sort of mind - you want to get on with things - but everything is going so well and it would be a shame to ruin it now. It did not escape you how he made arrangements first, and asked your permission second. You suppose this is how you get, if no one ever stands up to you (because you killed everyone who did). Whatever. You can spare a couple of minutes to make sure Accord doesn't do something you'll both regret.

Codex arrives soon enough. Her costume is almost identical to yours, also featuring a white evening dress. Her mask is a featureless white thing that covers her entire face. Her blonde hair is obviously dyed, as opposed to your natural (shapeshifted) color. She's also considerably shorter than you even after subtracting your unreasonable footwear, and more heavy-set as well. You give her the friendly smile of someone meeting a less attractive woman wearing the same outfit.

Accord is looking at you expectantly, not performing introductions. So that's how it's going to be? "Thinker," you declare after studying her glow for a bit. "A temporary enhancement, already fading."

"Well done. Please tell her something about a power."

You comply, explaining the finer details of how the organic/inorganic sensing component of Faultline's power is woven into the machinery that generates the destructive force.

"It's a language," is Codex's verdict. "She's not just making nonsense sounds. There's- I don't think I understand the grammar. Is partxe a noun or a verb?"

"Yes." You give her the friendly smile of someone meeting an inferior Thinker. Accord chuckles in what he no doubt imagines is an avuncular manner.

PH-O-vision

Topic: Geography and factions

In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay

Posted by: Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Posted on August 8, 2011

Note: This post is updated frequently. A version with full revision history may be found here.

More tourist information may be found here, up-to-date radiation advisory here.

Landmarks

The Silver Desert:

An irregular patch of silver sand covering roughly 23,000 square feet on the edge of downtown. It's believed to have been created by a parahuman attack on the mercenary team known as Faultline's Crew, as their headquarters was located in the area now covered by the desert. No fatalities occurred as a result of the attack, as it took all day for the building to fully sink into the sand. Seismic scans indicate that the sand extends down to the bedrock, and reveal no trace of the sunken building - or, for that matter, the aquifer that really should be present.

There were initially rumors of people wandering into the desert and never returning (which is odd considering that it's less than 70 yards across at its widest point) and the authorities warned people to stay away. This probably scared off slighly more people than it attracted. In any case, there was no statistically significant change in the number of missing person reports filed after its appearance, and the desert remained a minor curiosity.

Things changed after the Slaughterhouse 9 attack, when the desert and the area surrounding it was the only part of the city spared from Shatterbird's glass tornado. The area now houses a small cult that worships the desert as their protector. The cult declined as the desert seemingly did nothing to protect them from attacks by the Teeth, but recently had a resurgence when they were joined by/merged with villain group New Dawn.

Bakuda's Folly:

A perfectly circular area 615 yards in diameter, located in the industrial district. Every living thing that enters its boundaries is turned into amethyst. It was created when the villain Bakuda accidentally set off an exotic tinkertech bomb she was working on. Attempts to send drones into the area to find and disable the source of the effect has failed, as it also interferes with electronic devices.

The area is fenced off and marked as dangerous, which has done nothing to deter a cottage industry of 'sculptors': People with cages on long poles who make a living by turning small animals into amethyst and selling them.

Crater Lake:

A flooded sinkhole in the middle of downtown, created by Leviathan during his attack on the city. A single half-submerged building forms a sort of island near the center of the lake. Fairly unremarkable as Brocktonite landmarks go.

The Dog Park:

The territory of the villain Hellhound, located on the south-eastern edge of the city and extending into the forest beyond. Hellhound is the last surviving member of the Undersiders, a villain group that tried to establish themselves as warlords after Leviathan's attack. She has the ability to empower dogs, turning them into monsters the size of trucks, but they gradually return to their original size if they leave her presence. She keeps people out of her territory by empowering every stray dog she comes across and letting them range as they will.

The borders of her territory are thus both gradual and ever-shifting, centered on wherever she happens to be at the moment: The closer you get to her the bigger and more populous the dogs become. While most dogs simply wander as they will and regularly return to her to be re-empowered, she also has several more well-trained dogs that she sends out to collect tribute (in the form of food) from neighboring areas. Do not approach the Dog Park.

The Grove of Flesh:

Formerly Captain's Park, the area was transformed into its current state by the biokinetic Panacea during an altercation with the Slaughterhouse 9. It was originally believed that Panacea died in the encounter, but she emerged from the grove and helped heal the injured when Behemoth attacked. She then returned to the grove and hasn't been seen since. No one knows what she's doing in there, as no person or unmanned vehicle to enter the grove has ever returned. As the grove does not appear to be spreading, it has been left alone for the time being.

The area is fenced off, but the fence adds little deterrent that is not already provided by the black-leafed carrion trees, the venomous tentacle-vines and the razor-tooth grass. Despite all this, every so often a terminally ill person will force their way into the grove hoping to encounter Panacea within.

Behemoth's Rest:

A giant concrete slab, laid down to contain the radioactive remains of Behemoth. The main tourist attraction of Brockton Bay, every day thousands of people make a pilgrimage to the site to leave offerings for fallen kin or pray for future victories against the Endbringers.

The villain group New Dawn almost triggered an international incident when they tried to claim the site for themselves. There was a tense standoff for several hours as the Protectorate tried to gather enough forces to evict them without civilian casualties, but they ended up leaving on their own before the order to attack was given. A spokesperson from New Dawn later claimed that they left because they received a revelation from Esper herself, and that she told them to 'lead her children to the desert'.

Parahumans

Heroes

Esper:

The woman who killed an Endbringer. For more in-depth discussion about Esper, her powers, motivations, activities, appearance, etc, see here, here, here, here, here and here.

Protectorate ENE:

The local branch of the Protectorate was almost completely wiped out by the successive attacks of Leviathan, the S9 and Behemoth. They were bolstered by the surviving members of independent hero group New Wave, but the Protectorate is still working to transfer more members there as Brockton Bay becomes one of the largest tourist destinations in the United States. Currently led by the most senior surviving member, Assault (Striker, kinetic energy manipulation).

Villains

The Merchants:

Led by an elusive parahuman known as Trousers (yes, really) (powers unknown), the Merchants are the largest gang in Brockton Bay, and the only one that was around in a recognizable form a year ago. As their name suggests, they mostly deal in the sale of drugs.

The Teeth:

Originally from Brockton Bay, but were driven out and almost destroyed the last time the Slaughterhouse 9 visited, more than ten years ago. They've since recovered, and returned to take advantage of the recent power vacuum. Led by the Butcher (all the powers).

The Bitten:

Despite the name, no relation to the Teeth. Led by Poltergeist (Shaker, telekinesis). Originally thought to be just a small gang of thieves, this perception changed when the Slaughterhouse 9 attacked. Once the dust settled the group had not only claimed five(!) bounties for slain S9 members, but also convinced Shatterbird to defect(!) and join them(!). Between their revealed power and their ambiguous kill order status (not just Shatterbird - Poltergeist was also recruited into the S9, but later turned on them), everyone is extremely wary of these guys.

New Dawn:

A 'heretical' offshoot of the Endbringer-worshipping sect the Fallen. When Behemoth died they 'lost faith' and instead began worshipping Esper as the savior of humanity. Came to Brockton Bay for obvious reasons. Claim to be in communication with Esper. Led by Eligos (Shaker, aerokinesis) or possibly Esper (Blaster, omgwtfbbq).

Fenrir's Children:

The remnants of the formerly most powerful gang in the city, Empire 88. The Empire lost all but one of their capes when the Slaughterhouse 9 attacked, and the sole survivor was killed shortly before Behemoth attacked. Leadership status unclear, but their only cape is the recently triggered Rend (Shaker, Manton-unlimited matter annihilation(!)).

Hellhound:

(Master, minion-empowering) See the Dog Park.

The Sisterhood of Steel:

The cybernetically enhanced minions of deceased villain Mr Steel Yo Girl, who have sworn to stand vigil over their master's grave until they succumb to lack of maintenance. Not hostile unless provoked (note: suggesting that their love is the result of a Master effect and/or that Mr Steel Yo Girl is not worth dying for will provoke them).

Rogues

Cryolord:

(Shaker, cryokinesis) See the Cryolord tracker.

Quicksilver:

(Thinker/Trump, power vision) Works as a consultant - if there's something about your power you don't understand, you can pay Quicksilver to take a look at it. Or, if she thinks it's interesting enough, she'll pay you. Has not been seen since the Behemoth attack, unknown whether she's still alive and in the city. (UPDATE: HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS HANG ON REWRITING EVERYTHING)

(Showing Page 112 of 610)

► Thus Spaketh

Replied on August 16, 2011:

I checked the wiki, it lists Poltergeist as Shaker 4, Ghost as Breaker 3 and Imp as ?. These are the guys who took down a majority of the S9? Either Imp is Everything 12 or someone messed up big time assigning ratings.

► will_eat_anything

Replied on August 16, 2011:

I heard they were going to put Master 6 on the lot of them until they can figure out how they got freaking Shatterbird to turn coat.

► yourstruly

Replied on August 16, 2011:

Is ghost still part of Bitten? She hasn't been seen lately.

► Answer42

Replied on August 16, 2011:

yourstruly

Same question, but for Animos and the Teeth.

► electrolytesaber

Replied on August 16, 2011:

What do you mean, ambiguous kill order status? How is that a thing?

► Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied on August 16, 2011:

Joining the S9 comes with an automatic kill order, so Shatterbird and Poltergeist both have them. But while the Bitten executed 5 kill orders, they only cashed in the bounties for 3 of them. Poltergeist claims they're 'running net positive on kill orders', and that she 'traded in' the last two in exchange for clearing theirs.

Now, legally that's nonsense. Kill orders don't work like that. But in practice... 'Geist says that she was forced to join the S9 under duress and betrayed them at the earliest opportunity. If true (and I personally believe it) that should be enough to get her kill order lifted on its own, but the PRT has not made an official statement on the matter yet.

As for Shatterbird, well, as long as she's willing to play at being a regular gang member and not nuke any more cities no one really wants to rock that boat, kill order or not.

► Poltergeist (Verified cape)

Replied on August 17, 2011:

5.5, if you please. Dragon agreed to give me half credit for Siberian.

► long_distance_chef

Replied on August 17, 2011:

Yeah, sure, Shaker 4 just casually hanging out with Dragon and killing Siberian. I'm on to you, Poltergeist!

► Poltergeist (Verified cape)

Replied on August 17, 2011:

Ok, I admit it. The unconfirmed reports of my Mover 2 rating are in fact true!

There, mystery solved.

► A Mooning of Werewolves

Replied on August 17, 2011:

I don't know what she just said there, because I've put Poltergeist on my blocklist until the PRT confirms whether she is really a Master 6. And you should too!

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 110, 111, 112, 113, 114 ... 608, 609, 610

(Showing Page 553 of 610)

► shpwrckd

Replied on September 23, 2011:

I might join New Dawn, if they accept non-cape worshippers. I mean, Esper *is* the savior of humanity.

► Syzygy

Replied on September 23, 2011:

shpwrckd

You should read their made-up bible, it's hilarious.

► liteninbolt

Replied on September 23, 2011:

Bagrat

Don't you mean (Blaster, omgwtfbblgum)?

► cowple

Replied on September 23, 2011:

SOMEONE GET THAT GIRL SOME GUM!

► lolcust

Replied on September 23, 2011:

DID ANYONE GET THAT GIRL SOME GUM?

► janitor of farts

Replied on September 23, 2011:

I THINK WE SHOULD GET HER MORE ENDBRANGERS INSTED

► Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied on September 23, 2011:

lolcust

Yes. Esper has received sponsorship offers from at least five different gum manufacturers, and that's just the ones that announced their overtures publicly. Despite the meme never being funny.

► lolcust

Replied on September 23, 2011:

YOURE FACE ISNT FUNNY

► A Manslaughter of Crows

Replied on September 23, 2011:

Brockton Bay: Voted most dangerous city in America

S9: What's the worst that could happen?

Brockton Bay:

S9: Oh

► Seven Chickens In A Trenchcoat

Replied on September 23, 2011:

Brockton Bay: Voted most dangerous city in America

Behemoth: It'll be fine

Narrator: It was not fine

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 551, 552, 553, 554, 555 ... 608, 609, 610

Chapter 103: K.05

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Handy tips for fighting the Butcher:

1. Don't.

2. No, seriously, don't.

Much like Lung was for the ABB, and you are for BITN, the Butcher is the lynchpin that allows the Teeth to exist. That has allowed it to thrive for years on end. When a parahuman has this level of power, the details of what minions they choose to surround themselves with barely even matter. They lay their will upon the world, and the world bends to accommodate them.

Having two of them in the same city seldom works out, long term.

Handy tips for fighting the Butcher:

1. Don't kill the Butcher.

This is the first rule, because it's the most important. If you kill the Butcher, the soul (mind-state, psychic imprint, whatever) of every previous Butcher will latch onto you. They will grant you a portion of the powers they had in life, and drive you insane. You can't kill the Butcher, you can only volunteer to become its new host.

Don't kill the Butcher. It's the first rule, because it's the most important. But it's also the last rule, because thirteen people already ignored the first rule. It's the last rule, because it's the last of your problems.

2. Don't try to ambush the Butcher. The Butcher can see through walls.

3. Don't try to sneak up on the Butcher. The Butcher has danger sense.

4. Don't engage the Butcher in melee. The Butcher has six sets of Brute powers and the ability to inflict unnatural, festering wounds.

5. Don't engage the Butcher at range. The Butcher has perfect accuracy with all weapons. Perfect as in 'bullets go around corners to hit you' perfect. The Butcher also never runs out of ammunition.

6. Actually, whatever range you try to engage the Butcher at doesn't matter, because the Butcher can teleport. The Butcher teleporting also causes an explosion at the destination, because of course it does.

7. The Butcher can also induce crippling pain just by looking at you, but do you even care at this point?

8. Don't try to take the Butcher alive. The Butcher can induce mindless rage just by looking at you. If it looks like you're about to succeed in a non-lethal takedown, the Butcher will make you go nuts and kill it instead.

9. Don't kill the Butcher.

That looks like an imposing set of rules, doesn't it? But you know the secret:

Rules are for losers.

The kind of people who care more about rules than about winning will never amount to anything. Rules fucking suck. For example, the ones about background checks when buying a firearm.

Handy tips for selling firearms:

1. Don't sell to people who refuse to show ID.

2. Don't sell to underage kids.

3. Don't sell to people whose background check comes back 'deceased'.

4. Especially don't sell to known supervillains.

It takes special talent to be able to fail all of these criteria, but you're just that good.

You had to make your own anti-materiel rifle from scratch. Yes, it's magic. Everything you make is magic. To make it, you melted down and reforged the golden armor you tore off the invincible dragon-robot that tried to arrest you a while back. The resulting weapon is taller than you are, and would be heavier as well if not for the magic making it light as a feather in your hands.

The bullets are magic too, forged of the same orichalcum.

Sutra of the Manifold Maiden

Once there was a maiden...

...or was it two? Or maybe three, or fourteen?

She found it quite confusing to be so many people.

Because she could never agree with herself,

she often had trouble deciding what to do.

All this confusion tended to make her angry,

and she usually ended up doing angry things.

"Violence is a democracy," said she.

Even without magic, the effective range of your rifle would be many times that of the Butcher's sensory powers. The time between the bullet entering the range of her danger sense and it hitting her will be roughly one hundredth of a second. The Butcher does not have enhanced reflexes.

You carefully take note of wind-speed, range and elevation, and adjust your sights. The scope is magic too. Alas, poor Faultline. The gem in her amulet will have crumbled to dust by now - you had to adjust the geomancy of the Silver Desert to produce a clear crystal for your magic optics. You'll restore it and send her a replacement once you get back.

Your skill as a sniper is also magic, a product of emptiness endowment. Not too much - you can't risk overdrawing your capacity for learning, not with what's coming up next - but certainly enough to hit a stationary target.

The Butcher is stationary right now, sitting down to dinner in the center of your crosshairs. You hold your breath and gently, gently squeeze the trigger.

The blast deafens you. In the next instant you've sent the rifle Elsewhere, and you're flying away at top speed before the bullet has crossed half the distance. In case you missed, you'll be gone long before the Butcher can even figure out where the shot came from, much less cover the two and a half miles separating you - given the modest range of her teleportation, it will take her over fifty jumps.

If you did miss, you'll just try again tomorrow. And the day after, and the next. You have bullets to spare, and you only have to get lucky once.

You'll find out whether your aim was true sometime in the next second.

"How can I help you, miss?" the receptionist at the PRT HQ (which, in the wake of Leviathan dashing the Rig against the shore, is now also the Protectorate HQ) asks. There's a certain tension in her voice, what with you being a non-hero cape and all. And probably also because of the bow you're carrying - it's clearly a weapon of war rather than sporting equipment.

"I'd like to be sent to the birdcage," you say. The receptionist hits the silent alarm. Well, that works too. You give her your best reassuring smile (it's not super good, at the moment) and wait for it to bring someone with more authority your way.

After only a few seconds, Assault comes shooting out of the stairwell at superhuman speed. When he recognizes you he dumps his momentum and comes to an instant stop.

"Quicksilver?"

"That's not my name anymore," you tell him.

"Oh? What do you call yourself now?"

"Butcher XV."

The receptionist hits the non-silent alarm. Klaxons blare, and a pair of containment foam turrets descend from the ceiling. You stand there and let yourself get foamed long enough to heave a deep sigh. Then you teleport away, leaving a QuicksilverButcher-shaped foam mold behind.

The receptionist flinches away and huddles down in her chair when you appear behind her desk and reach in her direction. You ignore her - you're just here for the closest loose object you can find, which happens to be the keyboard of her computer. You snatch it up and place it against your bow. As you draw back the string, it thins and lengthens into an arrow, the brittle plastic at the tip impossibly hardening into a bodkin point.

One of the more peculiar powers you inherited, the ability to turn absolutely anything into ammunition. The way the keys shifted around such that the four sides of the arrowhead spell out STOP didn't even take any concentration from you, it just happened on its own.

You fire the keyboard-arrow into the more distant foam turret, and it pierces deep into the armored mechanism. The turret briefly gives off a terrible grinding noise as it tries to traverse towards you, before growing still with a burst of sparks and smoke.

Meanwhile you've dropped your bow and leapt up to grapple the nearer turret with your bare hands. You flip yourself around to brace your feet against the ceiling, and heave. Metal shrieks in protest as you straighten your legs and rip the turret right out of its socket. Containment foam spews from the broken feed line, expanding and hardening to seal the wound.

With cranelike grace you twist in the air to land on your feet, just in time to see half a dozen armored PRT troopers burst into the room.

You drop the broken turret and raise your hands. "Please. I already turned myself in. It's hard enough not to kill everyone in the room without you giving me reasons."

Assault motions for the PRT troopers to stand down. "Someone turn off the alarm," he orders. "We're all friends here."

"Thank you."

"Things didn't explode when you teleported," he notes.

"Fifteen remains a Thinker/Trump," you say. "A certain finesse with powers is only to be expected. We were- I was being polite. Now, the birdcage? Please?"

"What did you do to deserve that?" He does an adequate job of hiding his worry in the face of an insane murderer stepping into his building, you judge. You did not expect the designated comic relief of his team to deal with authority being thrust upon him so well.

"This incarnation? Nothing, yet. Shall I read you the Butcher's file?"

"I'll get the director," Assault decides.

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi

Purity: Eagle-Wing Style

Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack

Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt

Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound

Siberian: ?

Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound

Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit

Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies

Lizardtail: Halting the Scarlet Flow

Butcher: Agony of Unwise Adversity, Watchful Spider Stance, Surprise Anticipation Method, Twisting Spiteful Shaft, Scar-Writ Saga Shield, Loom Stride, Iron Kettle Body, Generalized Ammunition Technique, Terrifying Lust Infliction, Dark Messiah Form, Yeddim's-Back Method, Steadfast Yeddim Meditation, Increasing Strength Exercise, Accuracy Without Distance

Mechanics corner

Who needs sorcerer's sight and tedious hours of study, when the Butcher's powers will helpfully sear themselves into your soul on their own? Fourteen charms for the price of zero.

Chapter 104: K.06

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Trooper Daniels-o-vision

When the call went out for volunteers, I jumped on it. This was it. This was the difference I wanted to make when I signed up for the academy. I was young and foolish then, of course, and life is never quite so clear-cut in retrospect as the future your younger self imagines.

Still, I have done my part in making the world a less awful place. But if I could make some small contribution, by word or deed, towards putting the Butcher in the Birdcage, that would be something else. A feather in the old cap, something to tell the hypothetical grandkids about.

Not so young anymore, but still plenty foolish. It never really registered that what I was volunteering for was, essentially, being stuck in a tiny metal box with Hannibal fucking Lecter.

Never mind the restraints, Director Olsen had said, the restraints are there to make the paperwork look good. If I sent you out with an unrestrained prisoner the union would be crawling up my ass before you left city limits. If the Butcher asks you to let her out of the restraints, do it. If she tears them off without asking - and believe me, she could if she wanted to - you smile and nod.

Not minding the restraints was a lot easier for the first half hour or so, before the similarities to a certain movie occurred to me. She hasn't said anything so far, but-

"A moment of your time, Agent Starling?"

Shit. Of course she's seen it too. "It's 'Trooper Daniels', ma'am," I respond as politely as I can manage. I really don't want her to start thinking in that direction. Agent Starling ultimately lived, but not all her colleagues were as lucky.

They should have sent a psychologist, not a PRT grunt.

"Do you have a knife, Trooper Daniels?"

Get this through your heads: You're not a prisoner transport, you're a taxi. No, a fucking limousine. If the Butcher wants you to stop for donuts, you stop for donuts. If she wants to get out and stretch her legs I hope to god you'll be on a deserted-ass stretch of road with no civilians, because you're going to stop and let her out.

I really wish she had asked for donuts instead. "I do, ma'am."

"Show me."

This is the part where Dr Lecter tells me to cut myself and I do it, isn't it? No, it's OK, the Butcher doesn't have Mast- the Butcher does have Master powers. Fuck! She can induce berserk rage. This shit is so far above my pay grade, it's not even funny.

My hand goes to the hilt of the PRT standard-issue multi-purpose utility tool and emergency close quarters combat implement. Yes, that's really how it's described in the manual. It's a knife. As far as I can tell after years in the service, the multiple purposes are cleaning your nails and opening beer cans in an ostentatiously macho fashion. We're city cops, not soldiers on campaign.

Say, there's an idea. "I'm sorry ma'am, I misspoke. I only have a standard-issue multi-purpose utility tool and emergency close quarters combat implement."

That gets a chuckle. A giggle, almost. It makes her sound incredibly young. The tension lifts a bit, at least, at this display of humanity. Yes, humanity. Don't think about horror movies featuring creepy little girls. I said, don't think about those. Stop it, brain!

"Ah, bureaucracy. That will have to do, Trooper Daniels. Show me."

I draw the knife and hold it up on an open palm, careful not to brandish it in any way that could be interpreted as threatening. Really, what are my options here? I don't show it to her, making her angry?

"Excellent," she says. "Now, stab me."

If she has second thoughts about going to the Birdcage, you may verbally attempt to change her mind, should you deem it safe. Maybe try begging, or cajoling. Under no circumstances are you to employ violence against the Butcher. It won't help.

"Uh..." Do whatever the Butcher asks. Don't employ violence against the Butcher. Yeah, well, what if she asks me to employ violence against her, I didn't think to ask. "Are you dissatisfied with your current host, ma'am?"

"You couldn't kill me if you tried, Trooper Daniels. In the arm, if it helps your peace of mind. Or the leg? Non-vital area of your choice. Now, please." Her voice breaks halfway through, going back to sounding like a little girl.

Just fucking go. I'll kick it upstairs and try to get the roads cleared ahead of you, just try not to get into a fender bender before then. Fuck all speed limits, and if she loses it before you get there, may god have mercy on your souls.

"I..."

"Do it now, you dumb fucker! Do it! I'll suck your cock! I'll eat your children! I-"

I stab her. In an attempt to overcome her Brute rating I put my whole body behind it, and end up driving the knife all the way through her bicep and pinning her arm to the wall.

She lets out a long shuddering breath, almost a moan. When she next speaks, her voice is back to normal.

"Thank you, Trooper Daniels. Again, please." Like flipping a switch, she's once again perfectly calm.

And why wouldn't she be? There's no blood, and the wound closes up as soon as I pull the knife out. Which takes some effort - it's like it was stabbed into a tree trunk, not human flesh. But I nevertheless decline her offer to rip her other hand free of the restraints and do it for me.

There's not even any blood on the knife.

After another seven, rather less dramatic stabs - I keep count, knowing they'll want it in the report - she tells me to stop.

"I apologize for my unseemly conduct earlier, Trooper Daniels," she says. "Please disregard any untoward comments I let slip in the heat of the moment."

The repetitive mechanical task of stabbing the insane supervillain gave me a chance to calm down, and my hand barely shakes at all as I return the knife to it's sheath.

"Don't worry about it," I say with feigned calm. "I don't have any kids, and I wouldn't put my dick between your teeth if you paid me to do it. Uh, no offense."

Another girlish laugh. "None taken. Is there anything I can do - not involving teeth - to repay you for your assistance?"

"Weeell..." I am genuinely curious about one thing - and the director will want to know too. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you manage to kill the old Butcher? I mean, you're... uh, Quicksilver was..."

"A mere Thinker, yes. Against a foe with superhuman strength and toughness, perfect accuracy, teleportation, danger sense. Of course everyone is curious."

You consider the man in front of you, and his question. You don't know him very well, but you can draw certain conclusions about a man who would join the PRT. Who would put his life on the line, for a charade of cops and robbers.

Trooper Daniels... is not extraordinary. Dutiful, perhaps. Brave, certainly, volunteering to escort the Butcher. But not a deep thinker. Not necessarily stupid - he might have the sense to question a lie told to his face. But it takes an extraordinary man to question what he is told implicitly, every day of his life. To watch a movie and recognize that after subtracting the protagonist's uncanny ability to shrug off bullet wounds to the shoulder and shoot twelve mooks with an eight-round magazine, what is left is not a documentary.

Trooper Daniels is not an extraordinary man. He believes that the opposing political party is full of evil liars (he's not wrong). On some level he is aware that his favored party is also full of evil liars. But he keeps voting for them anyway, because they tell him what he wants to hear, and perhaps they're not lying this time? "Politicians!" he'll say to his friends, and everyone will nod sagely. It never occurs to them to take any action beyond this. It never occurs to them that things could be other than how they are.

Trooper Daniels is, to put it simply, a normie. And what of it? It's not a terminal condition. And in some cases, treatable.

"It's a bit of a secret," you say finally. "Turn off the microphones, lean in close, and let me whisper in your ear."

To his dubious credit, he does. Putting his ear right next to those teeth he dreaded so much. Brave, certainly. But not a deep thinker. But such things are not always punished. You do not bite. You merely whisper.

Four words.

He draws back, and you smile. A lot of things were said about Trooper Daniels just now. Few of them are true any more. Trooper Daniels has tasted the fruit.

Sometimes four words is all it takes to completely shatter a man's conception of the world, and his place within it. A single glance behind the curtain is enough, to reveal the existence of a curtain.

The four words are pretty badass, but not worth their own chapter

Hypersonic depleted uranium round.

Director Olsen-o-vision

"You what?"

"I sent Butcher XV to the Birdcage," I repeat. "After she turned herself in and specifically requested that I do so. Given that reports of Butcher XII show him succumbing within hours of possession, I chose not to bring it before a jury. Now can we please get the roads cleared?"

A cacophony of voices wash over me, speaking without regard for each other. I'm insane, I have no authority, I should have kept the Butcher in a holding cell (and I'm the insane one?). I'm tempted to mute the call, but I might miss something actually important.

"Do we know where the transport is now?" Director Enfield's voice cuts through the hubbub.

"We're tracking its GPS position, yes," I answer.

"Two words: Cruise missile."

"That's- would that work?" Director Jameson asks.

"No," Chief Director Costa-Brown says firmly. "We have put Thinkers on this scenario before. It's unclear exactly what would happen - depending on the precise circumstances, the Butcher could jump to the person who pressed the button, the person who gave the order, or even just a nearby bystander. What is clear is that it would not end the Butcher, and would kill Troopers Daniels, O'Neil and Smith to no purpose. I will not authorize a missile strike."

"My apologies," Enfield says. "I was not aware."

"That aside, do we want to allow the Butcher into the Birdcage?" Jameson asks. "A homicidally insane Trump that grows stronger with each parahuman it subsumes? Do we really want to present it with a... a buffet of the most dangerous parahumans on the continent?"

"We put the Faerie Queen in there," Costa-Brown says, "and she keeps the full power of every cape she eats. The homicidally insane Trump ship sailed a long time ago, Jameson. The Birdcage still stands."

"A fair point, ma'am. Objection withdrawn."

"Are we just going to ignore the legal issues involved in sending someone to the Birdcage without a trial?" Director Schumer asks.

"Yes," several people respond simultaneously. Including Costa-Brown. "The Faerie Queen was not tried either," Costa-Brown adds. "These are extraordinary circumstances, gentlemen. Get those roads cleared, and pray that they make it before their passenger submits to the will of the Butcher."

You did not lie. In the context of bullets, 'depleted uranium' is simply the closest translation of 'orichalcum' that a random trooper would understand. Although, perhaps you gave him too much of a hint, you reflect as you ride the elevator down into the Birdcage proper. Not the four words, but what you said afterwards, before he turned the microphones back on.

You may of course choose to betray my trust. Without fear of retribution, if you think the Birdcage will stand forever inviolate. Would I recommend this course of action? No.

If he chooses to pass that on to his bosses, it might ruin the surprise.

Oh well. You don't mind all that much. The PRT seriously exceeded your expectations when it came to transporting you to the Birdcage without fuss, you're okay with throwing them a bone. That new Director really was an excellent choice.

You shudder as the elevator passes through another spatial distortion field. Dragon helpfully warned you not to try to damage the elevator, because it would be traveling through a vacuum with an air supply carefully calculated to last exactly long enough for it to reach its destination. She needn't have bothered, because sorcerer's sight has shown you enough space-warping tinkertech on the way down that you're not entirely sure what continent you're on right now. You'd rather not find out how many cubic miles you'd end up scattered across if you damaged that.

The elevator stops, the doors open, and you step out. You find yourself in a large open space, a lobby of sorts. Dozens of parahumans are present, standing in a rough semicircle facing the elevator. Surrounding you, but keeping their distance. They are split into several distinct groups, some of which seem almost as nervous about each other as they are about the new arrival. You're given to understand that each group represents a single cellblock of villains, which is how the power structures have shaken out in this lawless place.

They know who you are - that is, they know that you're the Butcher - and are understandably wary. The Butcher could easily carve out a kingdom of its own here. The question is, who will fall to make room? How will it affect the balance of power?

Some groups already have forcefields put up between you and them, and one has several tinkertech turrets deployed. The turrets turn to track you as you walk forward.

Out of all the people present, you recognize exactly two - for obvious reasons your parahuman studies have been focused on active capes, and it's not as if they get to keep their costumes after being sent in here.

One of the people you recognize is Lung, whose costume consists of stripping to the waist and showing off his dragon tattoos. Hey buddy, long time no see, sorry about putting you in here, these are all things you don't say to him.

Instead you stop in front of the other recognizable person, and kneel before her. The only one standing alone, without an entourage. A small girl, in a dress of black ribbons that flutter in an impossible wind.

"Faerie Queen," you say. "I have travelled far in search of your wisdom, and humbly request the hospitality of your court."

When she speaks, it is as if a choir of people recite her words. "Rise and be welcome, Quill of Heaven. The ancient compacts shall be honored."

Notes:

Mechanics corner

The eclipse caste is the caste of diplomats - which is why they're sometimes known as 'the Quills of Heaven'. Treaties signed during the First Age bind the lords of the Fae to always offer guest rights to them and their delegations, if they come in peace.

But how the hell does regular parahuman Glaistig Uaine know this?

Chapter 105: K.07

Chapter Text

Glaistig Uaine, also known as the Faerie Queen. Where most people have one cape name and one civilian name, she just has two cape names. Not that she doesn't deserve it. In one way she's your opposite: You're sixteen, wearing a form in its mid-twenties, while she is at least thirty - forty? - but doesn't look a day above thirteen. In another way, you're the same: She is a collector of powers as well. But where you carefully study other parahumans for days and weeks on end, she rips out their souls - or faeries, as she calls them - and binds them to serve her.

You have no idea whether her death touch would work on mortals as well, but it's not like she'd need it. Not when she can use the powers of any three of her enslaved 'faeries' at a time, like a smarter but less wholesome Eidolon (no, you still haven't forgiven Eidolon for the shit he tried to pull against Behemoth). Faeries like Gray Boy, whose time-based powers made him completely immune to all forms of harm (except, clearly, having his soul ripped out). Or Megaton, whose blasts could level cities.

She can also salvage the faeries of recently dead parahumans she did not kill - they apparently hang around nearby for a while as the body cools, which has all kinds of interesting theological implications. You're more focused on the fact that she must have some sort of sorcerer's sight-analog to be able to spot them, though. And you of course have the touch of death as well, courtesy of Flechette. You really are alike.

You wonder what she sees when she looks at you.

The Faerie Queen has chosen to welcome you to her domain by having a tea party. It's exactly what it sounds like. You're sitting across from her at a small circular table, with a frilly, lace-edged little tablecloth embroidered with pink roses, and the tea isn't real.

That is to say, instead of a teapot there's a foot-high ghost/faerie standing in the center of the table. A deformed, hunched-over humanoid of a thing, without eyes or nose, only a fanged grin splitting its face from ear to non-existent ear. Its clawed, stigmata'd hands drip a red liquid into the cups on command.

It's the best tea you've ever had, served at the perfect temperature.

Instead of dolls and teddy bears taking up the seats to either side of you, it's a pair of parahumans. One is a man twice your weight, none of it fat, with knife scars and acid burns covering most of his face. The other is a woman, hairless to the point where she has plucked her eyebrows and replaced them with dozens of densely packed metal studs. Her nose, lips and ears are similarly bedecked, and small sparks of lighting occasionally shoot between the piercings.

It must surely be an honor for a vassal to be invited to take tea with the Faerie Queen, yet both of them are absolutely sweating bullets, stuck-out pinkies trembling as they sip their tea.

"We hope everything is to your liking, Quill of Heaven," the voices of the Faerie Queen speak.

"The tea is excellent, thank you," you respond politely and truthfully. "It's a lovely party. However if we are to discuss more weighty matters, I'd prefer to do so without the props." You glance meaningfully at scar-guy and piercing-lady.

With a "tch" sound and a snap of her fingers, the Faerie Queen dismisses her subjects. They scramble to their feet and back out of the room while constantly bowing to her (and shooting you grateful glances).

"Speak, then," the Faerie Queen commands.

"I would not seek you out you without a fitting tribute, of course." You purse your lips and consider the cacophony of voices inside you. "Number five, I think." Five has been trying to make you peel your own skin off and eat it for the entire trip over. Not through anything so crude as taking control of your limbs, but by wanting it badly enough that the gestalt entity that you now are started craving it too. Poor Trooper Daniels had to stab you so many times to keep your willpower up.

Compared to that, the constant verbal encouragement barely registered. With fourteen voices simultaneously shouting in your head, it's relatively easy to tune out any one. You push Five out towards the forefront of your soul, and reach your hand out across the table.

-run the knife along the fat, slurp it- wait, what are you- no! Nonononono-

In the greatest act of trust in human history, you and the Faerie Queen touch each other. Neither of you die. But Five's voice cuts off abruptly, and your soul feels that much lighter. A quick glance into your soul shows that the golden matrix of his copied power - the terrifying lust infliction - remains. You nod to yourself. Exactly according to plan.

"Hm," the Faerie Queen muses, her eyes unfocused as she too contemplates something within herself. "A rambunctious one, to be sure. We are pleased with this tribute."

"All I ask in return, oh Queen, is that I may bask in your presence for a time."

The look she gives you tells you that she knows full well that you've been studying her with sorcerer's sight since the moment you stepped out of the elevator, and why. But after a moment, she smiles.

"We suppose imitation is the greatest form of flattery," she says as wryly as an ethereal choir can. "As a fellow collector of faeries you have been gracious in sharing... and so We shall be gracious in turn, and pretend that accepting your tribute was not in itself a favor."

You incline your head in gratitude. The Faerie Queen holds out her cup for more tea. "Tomorrow you will return and take tea with Us again, and bring another tribute," she declares. "We look forward to seeing how the Quill of Heaven shall write of Our prowess."

You stretch the tea party out as long as you can after that, sipping slowly and making small talk. You do after all only have 13 more faeries to bribe her with, gotta make each one count. But when she indicates that the festivities are over by unsummoning the grinning tea-ghost, you immediately stand up and bow.

"The Songbird is putting on a performance tonight," she says instead of dismissing you. "We have, of course, been extended an invitation, but We understand that no new material will be presented at this time. You may go in Our stead."

You graciously accept first, and try to figure out what the hell she is talking about second. Sanctuary or not, mutually beneficial arrangement or not, one does not snub the Fairy Queen.

"If you are to venture out among the common people, you must first gird yourself appropriately," she announces. "Come."

You follow her to an unoccupied cell haphazardly piled with various forms of loot: Junked electronics (hard currency, in a prison full of Tinkers), candy and cigarettes (hard currency in any prison), and numerous weapons from laser guns to sharpened spoons.

(You're weirdly tempted to ask her if you can turn into a dragon and sleep atop her hoard - at least once!)

"Tribute that has been offered up to Us," she says offhandedly, gesturing for you to help yourself.

You are already armed, of course, but letting either of your weapons show up on Dragon's cameras would be a poor idea. What to pick, though? A firearm might be seen as uncouth at a social event, never mind that (unlike the non-Birdcage cape population) most people present will have powers more dangerous than a gun. On the other end of the spectrum, picking the spoon could be interpreted as spitting on the Fairy Queen's generosity.

You elect to split the difference, and settle for the most lovingly crafted prison shiv you've ever - is that handle whittled from human bone? - the second most lovingly crafted prison shiv you've ever seen. The voices have been unusually subdued ever since Five was eaten, but you're still going to need a stabbing implement before the night is over.

The mysterious event, as it turns out, is a Bad Canary concert. It's funny, her fans out in the world would happily pay hundreds of dollars to see her live again. Yet in here the going price of a ticket, you overhear as people wait for her to come on stage, is nine cigarettes or fifteen grams of copper.

The crowd is fairly boisterous, and there are cheers and catcalls when Canary arrives. But there's a reason people paid so much to see her live: Why take E when you can just soak in feel-good Master effects? Everyone falls silent as the first note of her song hits them - everyone except you. You hiss through clenched teeth, throw off the effect, and reflexively stab yourself in the arm for more willpower.

A couple of the people closest to you jump in shock and draw away - though as the Butcher, and a personal guest of the Fairy Queen, you were afforded quite a bit of personal space already. You see security (a guy with tinkertech earplugs) heading your way, only to stop in his tracks and turn pale when he sees who you are. You sigh and hold up empty palms in his direction. His eyes fasten on the shiv still stuck in your forearm, but he quickly decides that he's not being paid enough to hassle the Butcher about her choice of body piercings and turns away.

You've had some issues with people fucking with your emotional state lately, ok? You didn't mean to cause a scene. You can handle this. Another quick couple of stabs to top yourself up, then you put the knife away and let the song wash over you. Relaxation, it whispers in your mind, joy and calm.

You allow yourself to relax.

This is nice, Two says.

AURGHARHGHGRHGRRRH! One says, but it is distant, muted.

You know what would be really nice? Twelve says. Murdering the helpless. That guy in front of us would never see it coming.

You're next, you tell him dreamily, nodding your head in time to the music. God, this feels so good. You haven't felt this good since you stopped sleeping. Just, letting all your worries drift away. Giving up control. Who even cares if it goes wrong and the Butcher comes out and you start killing bystanders? You're in the Birdcage, it's not as if they'd be missed.

Over the next week you fall into a routine of boredom and tea parties, and your need for self-harm diminishes along with the number of voices in your head.

Director Olsen-o-vision

"That works?" Director Enfield exclaims when he understands what Dragon's footage is showing. "You can do that?"

"It would seem that this Quicksilver had plans not just to imprison the Butcher, but to kill it as well," Chief Director Costa-Brown says. "I thought her a martyr. A strong-willed one, to be sure, but I expected her to succumb to the Butcher once inside Baumann. I clearly underestimated her, in more ways than one."

"So, uh..." Director Jameson hesitantly holds up a hand. "A week from now, when she's done killing the Butcher... do we let her out? Can we let her out? Without lowering the defenses to the point that we risk a general breakout, I mean?"

"She is technically guilty of murder," Director Schumer says. "In the first degree, if this was indeed all planned from the start. The Birdcage is the appropriate-"

"That's bullshit!" I exclaim before I can stop myself. "Uh, that is- my apologies, Chief Director, I did not-"

She waves my apology away. "The Butcher only lacked a kill order for the obvious technical reasons," she says. "As you well know, Director Schumer."

"I misspoke," Schumer says. "I clearly meant to say, since she was never found guilty in a court of law, it is imperative that she be granted her freedom post-haste."

"I will reach out to Dragon, and see if such a thing is possible," Costa-Brown says. "This is assuming, of course, that the Faerie Queen is willing to part with her new toy in the first place. And that Dragon is feeling cooperative."

I wince at that. My predecessor didn't exactly cover himself in glory, diplomacy-wise.

You'd think the Birdcage would be a buffet of powers to study... but although it is the repository of all the worst psychos in North America, the ones that were too crazy have long since been culled by their peers. Even in here, people become highly uncomfortable if they notice the Butcher staring at them for too long. They tend to flee, in fact, with varying degrees of alacrity and deniability.

Since your official status in the cell block is 'guest' rather than 'lieutenant', you don't have the authority to make them stick around. And you don't want to abuse the Faerie Queen's hospitality by forcing yourself on- uh, phrasing. By chasing down and bullying her subjects. But bullying the subjects of some other warlord while under her protection and igniting an international incident on her behalf would be an even worse faux pas.

You could just ask her to grant you the authority... but she might take offense that the 'quill of heaven would write other annals before hers', or something. In the end you choose to be content with 'only' gaining fifteen powers out of this - one of them the greatest in the world, and the other fourteen with no studying time whatsoever. You're not complaining.

Instead you spend most of your free time lifting weights. You don't even know if it does anything for you beneath all the Brute powers you recently inherited, but Hollywood tells you it's one of the two great pastimes of prison inmates, and even if you had any desire to sample the other, you lack the equipment.

"Thank you Grail, that will be all," Glaistig Uaine says. Grail being the name of the tea-ghost, this indicates that the tea party is over. Ever since you expressed a desire for minion-free tea parties that first time, she has instead taken to summoning extra faeries in their place, addressing them by name and engaging them in one-sided conversation as they mime sipping tea. You have no idea how much of this is her being completely cuckoo, how much is childish whimsy, and how much is her messing with you.

Faerie-Queen-o-vision

I dismiss Lantern and Edge as well as she rises. I do prefer trembling lackeys over fairies for these affairs, but for her to study my power was the bargain we struck, and so I shall use it to its fullest each time we meet.

Oh yes, there was that petition from the lesser nobility, was there not?

"The Marquis has expressed a desire to meet with you," she says as you rise from the table. You spend several seconds trying to translates this title from cuckoo-speak before it strikes you that Marquis is the actual cape name of a villain from Brockton Bay. Got arrested, what, ten-ish years ago? Something like that. You were alive when it happened, but too young to really understand such things.

He's obviously interested in hearing how the old hometown is doing, and you see no reason not to indulge him. It beats lifting weights, and you admire his balls. The news will obviously have circulated by now that the Butcher is less murderously insane than expected, but it still takes bigger balls than any you've observed so far to invite her over.

Marquis wears armor of bone - his own, you recall, grown and shaped through his power before being broken off from his skeleton. He nods to acknowledge your arrival, but does not rise from where he sits. The table in front of him is laden with refreshments - though where the Queen offers tea, the Marquis offers soda and pretzels, as well as a jug of something you can only assume to be prison wine. Neither the armor nor the food is what catches your attention, though. No, that would be Lung, standing at his side. Standing, while Marquis sits. The henchman position.

You admit you're impressed. He made Lung into a minion? They clearly don't make villains like they used to. Or you suppose they do, when you think about it. This is where Quicksilver would curtsey, but you're the Butcher now. The Butcher does whatever the hell she wants... and what you want to do is bow. Marquis may not appreciate the full subtext, but you offer him the shallow but respectful bow of an equal and peer, as the person who made Shatterbird into your minion.

"Please have a seat, and help yourself," Marquis says, gesturing towards the chair opposite him.

You sit, and help yourself to a pretzel. "Thank you. I assume you want news of home?"

"In a sense. We do get television down here, and the Bay is hardly the least newsworthy place these days. But there are things the news doesn't cover."

You gesture for him to continue, your mouth too full of pretzel to interject otherwise. They're surprisingly good!

"I imagine some like you - that is to say, someone like your latest host - would follow the cape scene more closely than most. Perhaps you've even met those others would consider reclusive and mysterious?" There's a quality of barely-restrained eagerness about his voice.

"Is this about Esper?" you ask. "I'll let you in on a secret: Esper is a fucking idiot."

"Mostly I wanted to ask you about my daughter," he says softly.

"Aha!" you exclaim, snapping your fingers. That just cleared up a mystery so old you'd completely forgotten about it. "I knew the New Wave powerset could never have produced a healer!"

He can't quite hide his surprise at your deduction - he clearly expected this conversation to go long and solemn. But he rallies quickly. "Indeed, it is her. They say no one emerges from the Grove alive, but... you appear to know more than most. Is there anything you can tell me?"

You remain silent long enough to extract his soul price, just on principle. Something you didn't dare to do with the Faerie Queen, because there's a non-zero chance she'd notice.

Marquis wants his daughter to be happy.

Well, you know how those prices tend to work out, don't you? At least he cares. You'd call him a good man, but to be fair you don't know if it changed recently. Perhaps it used to be the death of New Wave, as Lisa theorized, before consecutive Endbringers granted most of it.

"I spoke to her," you admit.

"How... how is she? Is she doing well?"

"As well as can be expected," you say.

Marquis briefly closes his eyes, pain evident on his face, before lowering his gaze to stare at his hands. "I had hoped... A foolish hope, I suppose."

"Oh, she's doing well insofar as one of the greatest capes of a generation has come into her power, and established a demesne where the greatest of heroes fear to tread. Tell me, oh Marquis, does that make one happy?"

"It helps," Lung says, even as Marquis shakes his head.

"Some people need more help than others," you tell him.

Chapter 106: K.08

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"We wonder, what you tribute shall you present Us with now?" Glaistig Uaine says conversationally. In addition to the ever-grinning tea provider, today's guests are an orange-clad faerie who has a burning, double-bladed axe for a head, and one whose entire torso is a heart, pumping grayish-pink fluid through translucent artery-limbs.

That's the rub, isn't it? You only had fourteen faeries to spare, but her power is (unsurprisingly) one of the tricky ones. You'll need another week at least, perhaps two - the Faerie Queen does tend to savor her tea all afternoon, but enjoys her privacy otherwise. And while you didn't have a contract as such, the terms of the deal were quite clear.

"There is a wonder I could offer you, unique in all the world. I must admit I am loath to give it up, but perhaps if a permanent invitation was offered..?"

She frowns. "Permanence is no small thing, for beings such as us. If We agree, will We find you still availing yourself of Our hospitality three millennia hence?"

"I would not stay longer than a year and a day." You won't stay for a month and a day, but some instinct prompts you to bargain for 366 days exactly. Oh, you'd love nothing more than to stay all year and extract a power from each of her faeries in turn... but the Endbringers won't sit around and wait for that.

"We would find that acceptable."

"Would you shield us from the sight of the Dragon, fair queen? I fear to bring forth treasure beneath its avaricious eyes."

"Treasure? You believe that a mere trinket could equal the value of not one, but of several hundred faeries? Be careful how you answer, Quill of Heaven."

"Certainly, you could argue that a hundred faeries are a hundred times more valuable than a single faerie. But is a throng not faceless by its very nature? Could you honestly say you love each of your charges equally and for their own sake, without regard given to their usefulness?"

She is quiet for several seconds, pursing her lips as if tasting your words. "We have chosen to find your impertinence refreshing. We hope this wonder of yours will not disappoint." The axe-head faerie is replaced by a pale woman whose cape and fingers are fluttering moth wings, and the world around you fades into featureless gray. "There are no eyes upon us."

A weapon appears from nowhere (actually, from Elsewhere) and falls into your hand. You spin it around on your palm and offer it to her, hilt first.

She examines the golden dagger. "A poisoned gift, like the one you gave the Dragon? Is that why you would shield yourself from its gaze?"

So she knows everyone you are, no use pretending you took the knife from Taylor's body. "A gift given in friendship, later betrayed. Do you name it poison, that the blade refuses to turn on its smith?"

"Well spoken. Since it is offered in friendship, We shall accept it in the same spirit, and may it turn in Our hand as well should we betray the sentiment." She takes the knife from you. "Although," she adds, "We would be quite displeased to find Our trinket no longer unique. We are well aware that you could gather the resources to produce more, should you wish it so."

"All the resources," you agree, "except time, the most precious one of all."

A faint frown, barely visible, crosses her face as she tries to work out how you caused it to appear from nothing. But your brand of tinkertech interfaces directly with an attuned soul. You're not sure how much of this her equivalent of sorcerer's sight lets her understand, because after a moment she decides to brute-force the problem with an extra-dimensional storage faerie, rather than attempt to usurp the attunement itself.

From then on you spend all your tea parties beneath the gray shroud, so that you may converse freely about your non-Quicksilver exploits, and so that you may amuse her by letting her study your powers in turn.

You benefit as well, because during one of your demonstrations you accidentally figure out how to activate Siberian's power: One of your Butcher powers, that you previously though did nothing except make you punch better, also incidentally changes the nature of your essence(?) into something that allows you the become one with the void(?).

What you're saying is that a bunch of soul-magic bullshit that you don't fully understand happened, a flash of un-light darkened the room as you struck the conjured training dummy, and your hand passed right through it without resistance. Further testing reveals that A) it does indeed make you invulnerable as well, B) rather than giving you stripes it makes your body so perfectly black you can't even make out its contours, appearing as a silhouette in the air, and C) this transformation respects clothing, so you don't even end up naked afterwards!

How ironic for Siberian's power.

Even better, the un-light it produces is exactly like that of Evil Taylor's pact-sealing power, and you don't mean that it rots and corrodes your surroundings. Okay, it does that too, but the point is that since it's has the same effect on your essence(?) as pact-sealing, you can now trigger Lung's power without shaking hands with anyone!

This whole trip was already worth it, and you don't even have the Faerie Queen's power yet.

You have the Faerie Queen's power. A version of it, anyway. You just need to figure out what went wrong (because something usually goes wrong) and what dumb limitations you're stuck with this time. Still, you first take a moment to admire the beauty of it, an intricate filigree of gold in the constellation of your soul. Think only of the beauty, and not all the grief it's going to cause you momentarily.

Your attention returns to the real world to find the Faire Queen smiling at you sardonically. "Are Our victuals so unsatisfying to you, that you must seek headier fare?" she asks.

"You know what's wrong with it," you say, resigned.

"We watched it form over these past weeks, did we not?" She dismisses the privacy field and calls for a minion. "Bring us Overconfidante," she tells them.

A while later the minion returns, trailing a healthy distance behind a fairly nondescript Caucasian man - presumably Overconfidante. The minion stays behind in the doorway, and the man approaches. The Faerie Queen raises the grey barrier around the three of you the moment he gets close.

"Esper is probably a Simurgh bomb," you say. "I know this because I'm Esper." Wait, what?

"My real name is Ciara O'Rourke," Glaistig Uaine responds.

"I killed Shadow Stalker. It was an accident, but the kidnapping, torture and rape was on purpose?" you ask, your brow furrowing.

A faerie appears, pale blue and with a small cloud hovering above it, snowing on its head and shoulders. It leans forward, and the cloud pivots along with it to touch Glaistig's - Ciara's - brow. "Vexing, is it not?" she says. "His mere presence makes people reveal their secrets."

"Jews control the media," you agree before the cloud touches you as well, and the compulsion fades. You shrug at her raised eyebrow. "One does not spend months in Empire 88 without picking up on certain facts that, while not strictly speaking secret, must be held as such in polite company."

"Out of all Our subjects, this one's passing will be mourned the least." At her words, Overconfidante falls to his knees and starts begging for his life. Sensible. It won't work, but it wastes less energy than trying to run. "Now, what do your instincts tell you to do?"

You consider the crying mess in front of you, trying to feel something. "Nothing..?"

"Of course, how silly of Us," the Faerie Queen says, and kills him. Not with her death touch, but by shooting a laser beam through his forehead. She is saving his faerie for you, after all. "And now?"

You stare at his corpse, and- oh god. Oh fuck. Oh no. Why!? What is wrong with you?

"They tell me to feast on his raw flesh," you say. With some difficulty, because you're already gagging.

"Just so," the Faerie Queen says. And then she says nothing more. Waiting.

You already know you're going to do it. It's what you came here for, after all. You screw your eyes shut, and with a burst of un-light give yourself a dragon's teeth. Then you kneel down by the body, and... feast?

No. It's not feasting, what you do. You force yourself to rip and tear, but it is no feast. It's horrible. There is no part of it that is not horrible. The metallic taste. The rubbery texture. The feeling of tearing flesh, the feeling of strands getting stuck in your teeth. Every moment is torture, that no one is inflicting on you but yourself. Every swallow is a battle not to throw up, that you fight over and over again. Because the alternative is not getting his power.

You finally know the answer to the question you asked so long ago: There is nothing you will not do for power. You don't even particularly want this one. You're doing this to prove to yourself that you can, so that you can do it again in the future. Oh yes, you'll do this again and again, you have no illusions about that. You have no idea how many people you will murder and eat because you won't take the time to study them, except that it is not zero.

This is exactly what you wanted. You did not approach the Faerie Queen in order to not murder people for their powers, to not rip away their very souls. And indeed, with every bite you feel something more than meat entering your being. You should hate yourself for that. You don't. What you really hate yourself for, is that you're not enough of a monster. The Faerie Queen kills with a touch, but not you. No, some subconscious part of you still held that stealing a soul was a monstrous act, and twisted the expression of her power to reflect that. You hate that the barest shreds of a conscience has made murder not easy.

Are you happy now? Now that you've forced yourself to so viscerally experience the horror of your actions? Because you must have known that it would not stop you. It never has. It never will.

Finally, finally you feel his power slotting into place, enough of his soul consumed to form a facsimile within yours. You turn your head away from your feast and puke. You puke and puke and puke, and it's even worse coming up than it was going down.

"Will you be leaving Our court, now that your desires are fulfilled?" the Faerie Queen asks, entirely unperturbed by your actions.

"Y-yeah," you say, standing up and wiping at your mouth. When you turn towards her she's holding out, of all things, a packet of prison-brand dental floss. You accept it. You floss the corpse-meat from your dragon fangs. With disgust, sure, but without horror. That part is done, over with. You've accepted that this is something you'll be doing from now on. That this is who you are. Will you puke the next time too? Probably. It matters not. It won't stop you.

You never thought you'd miss Five and the cravings he induced.

Your fellow monster cleans up the rest of the evidence while you floss.

"I'm going to need food and water," you say. "Five days' worth."

Faerie-Queen-o-vision

A power to rival that of my Lord, but quiescent? Truly, even the tiny glimpse of this 'Silver Desert' as she left is enough to repay any favors given. Never let it be said that she did not show me a wonder unique in all the world, regardless of what golden trinkets she offered.

Perhaps I shall explore it further, anon.

Director Olsen-o-vision

"It appears that the point is moot," the Chief Director says. "The Faerie Queen killed Quicksilver and disposed of her body."

I feel a stab of regret, if not grief - I did not know her except by her actions. "She did a great service to the world," I say, because it needs to be said. Even if the public will never know.

"What set her off this time?" Jameson asks.

"Presumably some secret Overconfidante made Quicksilver reveal," the Chief Director says. "By the time the cameras came back online, they were both gone."

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi

Purity: Eagle-Wing Style

Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack

Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt

Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound

Siberian: Void Avatar Prana

Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound

Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit

Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies

Lizardtail: Halting the Scarlet Flow

Butcher: Agony of Unwise Adversity, Watchful Spider Stance, Surprise Anticipation Method, Twisting Spiteful Shaft, Scar-Writ Saga Shield, Loom Stride, Iron Kettle Body, Generalized Ammunition Technique, Terrifying Lust Infliction, Dark Messiah Form, Yeddim's-Back Method, Steadfast Yeddim Meditation, Increasing Strength Exercise, Accuracy Without Distance

Glaistig Uaine: Soul-Consuming Transcendence

A/N

Technically a status addendum:

Overconfidante: Analytical Modeling Intuition

But this charm will never be used. This is not the second plot-relevant OC, because it could have been anyone. That's the point.

Mechanics corner

Three millennia is roughly how long Glaistig Uaine will live, because that's how long it will take for Scion's batteries to run down - and roughly how long Taylor will live, because it also happens to be the life expectancy of a solar exalt.

Barring any unfortunate events, of course.

Chapter 107: K.09

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

As you emerge from the sands, you glance up. You cannot see the sky. It appears New Dawn has followed your instructions, and constructed a giant tent roof over the Silver Desert, high enough that it does not crumble into sand. Not that any rain ever hits the desert regardless of the mortal weather outside, but you're less sanguine about satellite imagery. Yes, you're wearing a generic face unrelated to any of your known identities, but if certain people (robots) noticed people walking out of the desert every so often they might start looking for patterns.

Speaking of New Dawn, your arrival has not gone unnoticed, and the nearest edge of the desert is quickly filling up with kneeling worshippers.

"Great Esper foretold thy arrival, honored apostle," the guy in front says. "New Dawn is at your service." He also offers you a robe, because you're currently naked. Not much use wearing a false face if your clothes still have 'Baumann Parahuman Containment Center' printed on them, after all.

You nod, and gesture for him to walk with you as you make your way through the throng. Your awareness sweeps out to cover the entire city - another power of the Butcher, but where she only saw the blood inside people's bodies, you see... everything. In return, it only lets you see into places you personally own - like Brockton Bay.

The irony does not escape you: The moment you decided to stop playing at being royalty, you gained the greatest city lord power in the entire world.

At a glance, nothing appears to be on fire, no capes are present that recognizably shouldn't be... Then again, you can only see the present.

"What crises have occurred in Esper's absence?" you ask your worshipper.

"None, honored apostle."

"None?" you say incredulously. This is Brockton Bay. You were away for almost a month!

"Well, Cryolord came perilously close to the desert once, but we managed to lure him away with food."

Your city-vision hones in on Cryolord for a moment. Still wandering, freezing everything around him as he walks. He's harmless, because in even more defiance of physics than is usual for powers, all living beings frozen by his power thaw out harmlessly after a couple of hours. And, it was discovered, all radioactive matter similarly frozen is transmuted into stable isotopes.

Like many powerful capes he's not quite all there mentally, but after Behemoth's death he decided that the most good he could do in the world would be to wander aimlessly around Brockton Bay with his power on full blast, like a reverse Ash Beast. People generally view him with some mixture of fondness and exasperation, because no one likes radiation, but no one particularly enjoys what having entire neighborhoods randomly frozen does to their schedules either.

You did however give New Dawn instructions to keep him away from the Silver Desert at all costs, because no none wants to find out whether it would view being frozen with fondness or exasperation.

You dismiss the worshipper and start walking across the city. You'll debrief BITN next, because you still can't believe that nothing catastrophic-

A portal appears before you without warning. On the other side, a sterile white room, and a woman in a suit. Mediterranean complexion. Powers. Fedora. You take off flying in the opposite direction before she can even open her mouth.

"Esper-" she begins, before the portal closes and another opens up in the air next to you. "-your services-" another portal, further ahead "-are needed."

Crap. The last portal is just far enough ahead that you have time to slow down and land inside, so you do. It closes behind you.

"Simurgh or Leviathan?" you ask.

"Neither," she says.

Double crap. There never was any reason to think that there were only three Endbringers, was there? No more had shown up for almost a decade... but then they never needed reinforcements before.

"We are still gathering personnel, you have time to change," the woman says. "Door to Esper's costume." A smaller portal opens up, showing the inside of a familiar closet. She politely turns her back to you.

You throw off the robe and reach into the portal, already starting to shift your form into that of Esper. Considering how much she already appears to know about you, you don't know why you bother to dress up. A morale boost for whoever sees you on the field, you guess.

"Are you the one who defeated Lung?" you ask as you step into the leotard. It would be embarrassing if you fled in terror from some other woman in a fedora.

"A strange question for you to be asking, don't you think?"

Ah. That handily answers the question you didn't ask, namely 'Do you know everything about me?' The answer is 'yes'.

"But no," she continues, "it would be more accurate to say that I created Lung, though not on purpose."

Ah, you're talking to Lung's trigger event. Of course he'd want a rematch, now that he has powers. But-

"This does not make you reassess the threat I pose," she notes without turning around. "Smart."

Of course not. Even if she didn't have powers at all, between the portal network and the way her organization is casually taking over the international Endbringer response...

"What's your opinion on Number Man?" you try. "Friend or foe?"

"Oh, Kurt is quite a dear friend." And then she proceeds to once a gain answer the question you didn't ask: "Our organization has, as you would put it, quite the monopoly on world domination plots. The viable ones, at any rate."

You finish pulling on your gloves, and reach into the portal for your baton. "Ready."

Another portal opens, and you both step forth into an auditorium, made up in the same all-white color scheme as the room you just left. Looking around you spot Alexandria, Legend, dozens of capes you don't recognize. The speaker's podium is occupied by a black woman in a lab coat - the only non-parahuman in the room - who nods at you as you appear. "Contessa, Esper," she greets you. "We may now begin."

She addresses the crowd in general. "We have gathered you here to face a new threat to-"

"Who the hell is 'we'?" someone in the crowd shouts. "Who the hell are you?"

"'We' are Cauldron. You may not have heard of us, but for as long as parahumans have existed we have worked in the shadows to ensure the survival of humanity at all costs."

That's not quite how fedora girl - Contessa - introduced their organization. But you suppose that if humanity goes extinct, world domination becomes fairly pointless.

"As for me, you may call me Doctor Mother."

You - barely - manage to keep your face impassive. Okay then. Sure. Nothing wrong with that. If no one else is going to speak up, you too are going to politely pretend not to notice the achievement gap in cape names, and so not piss off the figurehead of the world domination conspiracy.

Your attention is fixed on the video being projected behind her, however. Where the Simurgh brings to mind a twisted angel, the fourth Endbringer is a fat buddha, all in black. A perfectly spherical 'belly', with hips and shoulders almost seeming to be separate pieces. Stubby limbs, adorned with curly claws and spikes trimmed with silver. The face of a demon and the whiskers of a dragon. It floats forward like gravity was a mere suggestion, and three tall, thin cylindrical forcefields circle around it leaving destruction in their wake.

"A fourth Endbringer has appeared - provisionally, we're calling it 'Khonsu.'"

The video (live feed?) shows a flying cape trying to approach, whereupon the forcefields suddenly speed up to catch him. Naught but bones and rags are left in their wake.

"Those are fields of accelerated time," the black woman says. "People caught within them die practically instantly, and buildings crumble at speeds visible to the naked eye. We estimate that the dilation factor is on the order of one year per second."

She fast-forwards the video, showing Eidolon approaching, and attacking with wavy beams of prismatic light. The reds and greens are lost as they travel through the time fields, but yellow-purple beams still bombard the Endbringer. You have no idea what is going on there energy-wise, except Cape Bullshit. It's definitely Cape Bullshit.

The beams cause the superficial wounds typical of Endbringer fights... right up until the monster dismisses its time fields, only to bring them up again covering itself. To outside observers, the wounds regenerate in an instant. Not that all Endbringer injuries aren't mere theater anyway - possibly as a set-up for precisely this moment, and the hit to morale it brings.

"As you all know, Endbringers can fully recover from all injuries in a matter of months," the woman says, blissfully unaware of how much worse than that the situation is. "Or in this case, 0.2 seconds."

Then it vanishes.

"It can also teleport across the entire world, once it accomplishes its objective. So far it has hit Sapporo in Japan, Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan (where this footage was taken), and Puerto San Julian in Argentina." She pauses, then brings one hand to her ear. "We have just received confirmation that its latest target is Khartoum, Sudan."

"Why those places?" someone asks.

"At least it's not Brockton Bay again," someone else says.

"Ahem," Doctor Seriously-You're-Not-Going-To-Call-Her-That says. The view behind her changes to a world map. A yellow line appears, starting in northern Japan, curving down across the pacific to slice the very tip off of South America, then curving up again to neatly bisect Africa and Arabia and going across Asia to rejoin itself in Japan. Then the flat map shifts into a globe, showing that the line does not curve at all, but is in fact a perfect circle.

"So far the targets would all lie on the equator - if Brockton Bay was the North Pole."

Ah. That explains why you did not come back to a crisis: The Endbringers are taunting you.

"We do not believe it will stop until and unless it is beaten," she continues.

"Fuck," someone in the audience says, which opens the floodgates.

"How do we even deal with something like this?"

"Where is Scion?"

"Scion is fast, but he can't teleport."

"Yeah, and he'd get distracted helping people along the way."

"Fuck."

"Esper," the black woman says loudly enough to cut through the hubbub. "If we can prevent it from teleporting, can you strike it down as you did Behemoth?"

Hopeful eyes turn towards you, all expecting the same answer.

"No," you say. There are gasps, and more f-bombs. "In sub-lethal doses, the effects of the Behemoth-Felling Strike fade within a day. All this 'Khonsu' has to do is accelerate itself for a moment between each blow, and it will accomplish nothing at all." You slump as if in defeat. "They deployed a time manipulator specifically to counter me."

You let that that settle in for a moment. Cauldron clearly wanted to let the despair build up a bit before offering hope, so why not bolster their efforts?

"That's why I developed multiple ways to kill an Endbringer," you announce with a defiant toss of your hair. You stand up and look the Doctor straight in the eye. "Prevent it from teleporting, and I will strike it down in a manner entirely unlike how I killed Behemoth."

The room is split between people cheering, and people grumbling at your theatrics.

"You can just develop ways to kill an Endbringer?" the Tinker on your right mutters.

"My sponsors already have developing new flavors of gum covered," you whisper back, playing into Esper's dumb gimmick. "Just keeping up my end of the bargain." By the look on his face, he deeply resents the amused snort you just forced out of him.

"I require some assistance to prepare," you announce more loudly.

The Doctor nods. "Contessa will provide whatever you need."

No sooner has she finished speaking than Contessa is beside you, ushering you into a portal back to the room you got dressed in. Or possibly a completely different room, it's not as if it has any distinguishing features beyond the blank white walls.

"No one from Brockton Bay can join the fight," you tell her.

"Acceptable."

"I also need a cape who doesn't need to eat or drink," you continue. "Preferably with a weak or boring primary power, not a Case 53, signed up for Endbringer fights, English-speaking. In that order."

Contessa nods and portals out. You take the opportunity to shift your form in preparation for what comes next. In less than a minute she's back, along with a lanky man with messy black hair and bags under his eyes. He looks awed but not shocked, so presumably she told him where he was going rather than simply abducting him.

"Esper," he says, inclining his head in greeting. "It's an honor to meet you."

"Yes, yes, no, yes," Contessa says. It takes you a moment to parse that, but you manage.

"You're not signed up for Endbringer fights?" you ask the man.

He looks a bit sheepish as he shakes his head. "I don't- my power, it's not very good. I wouldn't be any help." You just nod in response. Good on him for recognizing that. It puts him ahead of quite a lot of capes you've met in Endbringer fights, brains-wise.

"But if you could give your life to ensure the death of an Endbringer, would you?"

"I, uh- I mean, I'd hope I-" He cuts off his stumbling words, squares his shoulders and raises his chin. "Yes. I would."

"Good," you say, before turning to Contessa. "Kill him."

A shot rings out, deafeningly loud in the enclosed space. You pull down your mask, revealing a mouth full of dragon teeth.

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi

Purity: Eagle-Wing Style

Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack

Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt

Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound

Siberian: Void Avatar Prana

Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound

Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit

Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies

Lizardtail: Halting the Scarlet Flow

Butcher: Agony of Unwise Adversity, Watchful Spider Stance, Surprise Anticipation Method, Twisting Spiteful Shaft, Scar-Writ Saga Shield, Loom Stride, Iron Kettle Body, Generalized Ammunition Technique, Terrifying Lust Infliction, Dark Messiah Form, Yeddim's-Back Method, Steadfast Yeddim Meditation, Increasing Strength Exercise, Accuracy Without Distance

Glaistig Uaine: Soul-Consuming Transcendence

Plot-relevant OC #2: Corpse Needs No Food

Mechanics corner

It's not just that Taylor is protecting her citizens by preventing them from going, she also instinctively understands that her Void Avatar Prana suffers from the Abyssal Compassion Flaw of Invulnerability: It stops working if anyone she gives a shit about is around.

Chapter 108: K.10

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Once you're done, Contessa portals you into a vast hall (same sterile white non-decor as always) filled with capes gathered into several distinct groups.

"Khonsu just appeared in Qiqihar, China," she says.

"I will not enter the CUI," you counter. She just nods in response. If they know everything about you, they know your reasons. Of course they understand that this ultimatum is entirely reasonable, when divided by your importance to the cause.

"You will be in the third group to arrive." She points towards to closest group of capes, then portals out without further comment.

You had at first been confused by the amount of capes present, but that statement makes it clear: They're decoys. Two groups to grab its attention and soak the initial hits, with the true attack hidden within the third.

You wonder if you should change clothes and/or faces to help facilitate this. But no, you recall being told that Endbringer eyes are merely decorative. Whatever arcane senses they have are far more likely to resemble sorcerer's sight, against which you have no camouflage. In which case you should remain as Esper, who is at least a walking (flying), talking battle flag to raise morale.

You can see it working immediately as group three spots you approaching. You wonder whether you should pity them their role. On the one hand, they are explicitly here as cannon fodder. On the other, by acting as decoys for you they will contribute more than anyone else in the history of Endbringer fights.

You let none of this show on your face, instead accepting handshakes and high fives with good cheer, like the good little battle flag you are. There might be some slight envy radiating from groups #1, #2, #4 and #5, but none of them break ranks to join in the festivities. Except one - a man dressed as an action train conductor.

"Strider!" you call out to him. "Big fan!"

"Likewise, likewise," he assures you, a huge grin splitting his face below his giant mirrored goggles. "I don't suppose this would be a good time to ask for an autograph?"

"I don't do autographs. Can I offer you a side-hug selfie instead?"

"Deal!" He actually teleports the final distance between you, appearing with his arm already around your shoulders. "Sorry, sorry," he says as you startle (and very nearly delete him from existence, though he doesn't notice that part). He's already raising his phone as he apologizes, so you lean your head next to his and raise your fingers in a V for victory.

Click goes the camera, and with a motion that speaks of well-honed reflexes his finger immediately hits the 'share to social media' button. Though to his credit, he hesitates before confirming, glancing at you for permission.

"Caption: 'Endbringer Express,'" you suggest.

This triggers a cavalcade of further photo ops from the rest of group three.

"Ulan Bator, Mongolia," Contessa's voice comes over the loudspeakers some time later, interrupting the festivities. "Go!"

Strider is gone from your side, and you glance over at group one just in time to see them vanish. Strider is back, group two is gone, Strider is next to you again, you are on top of a skyscraper, facing the rising sun.

Were it not for the time of day, it would not be immediately apparent to you that you were not still in America. Tall buildings in the middle, with the height tapering off further out. You suppose it would be different if you were on street level, where you could fail to read the signs.

Your musings are cut short by a cry of "To the left!", and you turn to see the telltale cylindrical time fields in the distance. Without further prompting, your entire group takes to the air. There's another group ahead of you, approaching from a different angle.

The nearest time field swerves to intercept you as you approach, but you've seen this move already, and most of your group manages to change course in time. Then another one comes from the left, and you grin savagely behind your mask as you avoid it with yards to spare, though it shaves another few decoys off your group. You're past the time fields, with a straight shot at the Endbringer itself. Flight is going to be a noticeably less common power by the time this is over, but if that's all it's got-

The world goes black. There are screams around you, but they are of shock rather than pain.

"Aaah!"

"What happened?"

"I'm blind!"

"Who did that?"

"Ah, scheisse."

Looking around in the pitch darkness, sorcerer's sight reveals five other capes around you. There were a lot more a second ago.

One of them is also visible to normal sight, a faint purple glow coming from several protrusions on the his power armor. The others are moving to congregate around him, so you follow suit.

"What is going on?" you ask, bobbing gently in the air next to him. The Tinker was the last one to speak, and he sounded more resigned than surprised - he might know what's going on.

"Ve're trapped in a time field," he says.

"What?"

"No!"

"It isn't dark inside the time fields!"

"Not from ze outside," the Tinker explains. "But if one year for us is a second for ze rest of the vorld, vell... Zen ve're getting 30 million times less sunlight zan eferyone else."

He starts moving again as he speaks, flying towards the presumed edge of the time field. The rest of you follow him, though it's obviously futile: If people could just walk out of a time field, they already would have.

Indeed, the moment he touches the boundary - you can just about make it out with sorcerer's sight, up close - his armor goes dark and plummets to the ground. There are more exclamations around you.

"I'm fine!" his voice comes from below, and the purple glow comes back. "Armor crashed."

"Yes, but why?" a female voice asks as you descend to join him.

"No, like computer crash."

You perform your own experiments while the Tinker mutters to himself, trying to diagnose the issue. You can poke your baton through and retrieve it without issue, but not your hand. Only dead matter can exit the boundary, in other words, while living beings can enter but not escape. Typical Manton bullshit, and nothing you didn't figure out just from watching the footage - if dead matter couldn't pass through, Khonsu would be bulldozing cities, not eroding them.

The Tinker comes to much the same conclusion a few moments later: His armor poked through, and didn't like part of the circuitry running at 30 000 000x speed.

"Excellent test of ze emergency shock absorbers," he concludes, with somewhat strained levity. He is, after all, doomed.

"May I have honor of knowing with whomst to be sharing unmarked grave?" someone else requests. You can't make out colors, but the parahuman glow is enough to show you a tall bearded man, with a generous belly straining against a spandex costume. "To be called Zap! - or if prefer, Ivan." His pronunciation makes it very clear that the exclamation mark is part of his name.

"Cyclotron," the Tinker says. "Gustaf."

"Reverb - Emmelie." A girl who may or may not have some sort of pattern woven into her outfit. Musical notes?

"Esper." You hesitate, but it isn't as if these people will survive to tell anyone your true name. "Taylor."

"Doppelscheisse," Cyklotron says. "So much for killing more Endbringers." Reverb starts crying.

You absently pat her shoulder while Inviolate/Nicholas and Glimpse/Sara introduce themselves. Yes, she utterly failed at her job as decoy, but you don't hold it against her. That last time field came out of nowhere.

Cyclotron does something else to his armor, and part of one gauntlet shifts from glowing faint purple to shining bright white, enough to finally see properly. You may have figured out about living and dead matter yourself, but you didn't realize that your share of photons would be stretched out like that. Not that you strictly need sunlight, but there's a similar unforeseen complication with-

"How much air is in here, do you reckon?" you ask.

-the wind. With the clarity of hindsight, you realize that you should have added 'or breathe' when you ordered takeout from Contessa.

Cyclotron shrugs. "Enough zat ve'll die of zirst zirst."

"I do not need to eat or drink," you say.

"Ah. Do what you must, zen."

"Do what?" Inviolate asks.

"Esper may surfife zis," Cyclotron explains. "But she must kill us all zirst, so ve do not breaze her air." He fiddles with some latches at his neck and takes off his helmet, before handing you a glowing purple knife. Polite of him, since you left yours in the Birdcage.

"Pleasure to have served with great Esper," Zap! says, kneeling and lifting his beard aside to bare his throat.

"Tell my mom I made a difference," Reverb requests.

"No! Let me go! I don't want to die!" Glimpse screams.

"Stop struggling, it won't make a difference," those are Inviolate's last words.

Then a panicked civilian with a flashlight comes running out of the nearest building and starts jabbering at you in Mongolian, and you realize that there's a lot more than five air-breathers in here with you.

At least with the rest of them, you won't feel obligated to feast on their flesh afterwards.

Sifara-o-vision

In better circumstances I would crack wise about having 'a beauty on each arm'.

On my left, an attractive Caucasian brunette who introduced herself as Miranda. Despite aforementioned circumstances, she attempts to present herself as innocently seductive. The latter is more successful than the former, considering her attire: An orange prison jumpsuit, which she has tied off at the waist. Leaving her torso clad in nothing but a white sports bra, the contents of which she takes care to press against my arm as she clings to me.

On my right, a taciturn Chinese lady in a red cheongsam, who introduced herself simply as 'Ér', no second name, and would not respond to any further conversational sallies. Then again, perhaps she does not speak much English, and I do not speak Chinese.

Further ruining any romantic mood is Eidolon, standing behind me and gripping my shoulders. As I understand it, one of his powers is being used to hide us from the beast, while the other two are Trump powers. The ladies are power-boosting Trumps as well, and all three of them are enhancing each other as well as me, taking all of us higher and higher in a never-ending spiral. I am not even using my power yet, but still I feel bloated, overfilled. The world is awhirl with vectors and relationships, begging for me to reach out, but I hold fast.

"I should be out there," Eidolon mutters, audible to me only because he is all but breathing down my neck.

"Negative," comes a voice from his armband, different from the artificial announcer voice. I recognize it as that of the woman who brought me here. "Maintain position. Group three is engaging."

An unnecessary advisory, as we can see it playing out in front of us. The fliers dodge one time field, then another. And then, just as they are about to make contact, a third one springs up from nothing in their midst.

"Esper deceased," intones the announcer voice.

After going through the three-quarters of a building trapped in here with you room by room, apartment by apartment, floor by floor, you are finally certain that you are alone. You sit down cross-legged on the roof and close your eyes. You've never attempted meditation before, but you've read somewhere that it's supposed to decrease your oxygen consumption.

This seems like an excellent time to learn.

Sifara-o-vision

"-ride, override!" comes a different voice from the armband. "Esper is alive! I repeat, Esper is alive!"

At first I think she escaped the time field, but no. She is sitting atop a building inside it, not moving, but not dying and rotting away either.

"All units, attack!" the armband orders. "Force it to recall the time fields to heal itself!"

Eidolon shifts, preparing to leave.

You understand now that Newter did not give you a power. It was inside you all along. You can tell, because you've discovered another one just like it - but greater. You must have seen it before, you're pretty sure, all those times you've gazed upon your soul and its constellation of powers. But somehow the knowledge slipped from your grasp every time, until now. You don't know how long it's been - no light, and only the faintest stirrings of hunger and thirst, unchanging - but you are finally ready to comprehend its majesty. And it is majestic, able to channel an almost inconceivable amount of power, should you but find a mate for it.

Are there even greater wonders hidden within you?

Sifara-o-vision

"Not you, Eidolon," the recruiter's voice adds. "Maintain position."

If the second power within you was majestic, the third is breathtaking. No, do not think about a lack of breath. You are calm, you are one with the universe. Meditation lowers oxygen consumption. Calm, one with the universe.

Sifara-o-vision

Alexandria strikes, sending Khonsu flying backwards through a forest of Narwhal's razor-sharp forcefields. A dozen lesser attacks bombard it before it even touches the ground. A befuddled Ash Beast drops out of a portal to land on top of the Endbringer.

It is not enough.

"Everyone, avert your eyes!" a male voice comes from the armband. "Do not look at Khonsu!" I close my eyes, but not before catching a glimpse of Legend streaking across the battlefield, headed... towards a time field?

There's a flash of light bright enough to be visible through my closed eyelids, and a wave of heat on my skin. When I open my eyes again, the Endbringer is standing in a lake of molten glass, its limbs skeletally thin, the sphere of its body turned gibbous. The result of days worth of Legend's full power, I realize, compressed into an instant as it left the time field.

It's shocking, that such an attack did not do more damage - but it is enough. The time fields vanish from the battlefield to reappear around the beast itself.

There is... something. As you meditate on the power flowing through your body and soul, you can feel it changing ever so slowly (how long has it been?). Not from anything you're doing, it is simply... deepening? Maturing. And as it does, you can feel a... a growing understanding, an idea just out of reach. With this power... why are you content to shape it into discrete abilities, pale copies of what is provided to others? What tethers shackle you to mortal limits? Why-

You blink in confusion as the light hits your face, and the feeling evaporates. There is a regret so deep it is almost rage - you were on the very cusp of enlightenment!

You clench your fists as you face the... sunlight? Yes, that's what that is. The cruft of mortal existence comes creeping back into your awareness, and you remember where you are. Who you are. What you were doing. You had a mission.

Sifara-o-vision

Esper stands up. Her costume tears and falls away as she moves, grown ragged and threadbare in the seconds - years, decades - of her confinement, but she herself has not changed. Not a hint of grey in her hair as she stands unbowed and unmasked (is there something wrong with her mouth?) before the great beast.

Then she moves, flying forward just as the time fields around the now fully regenerated Endbringer fall. As they meet I reach out, and finally release the ocean of power burning within me. Be still, I command, anchoring the beast to the very planet itself.

There is a faint tug on the leash, like a child heaving against a grown man's arm, as it tries to escape Esper's attack.

Be not, you command as fingers touch claw. Yet Khonsu remains. You can feel a third power inserting itself between you, harmlessly deflecting your unmaking. For a moment you are simply incredulous - how? - but that is immediately supplanted by a much greater shock: You recognize that power! You've touched it before, in circumstances quite similar. But that's a concern for later. So what if you've been countered not once but twice?

This is why you developed multiple ways to kill an Endbringer.

Sifara-o-vision

Esper and Khonsu exchange a single strike - no, not even a strike, a mere touch - and both reel back as if burned. Then darkness explodes out from Esper, and-

I lose track of what happens next as the faint tug of the Endbringer trying to move is replaced by searing agony as it tries to teleport away. Miranda gasps and collapses against my side, while Ér coughs up a mouthful of blood. But their powers do not falter, and neither does mine.

Everything else you've struck has parted before your void form like air, but Endbringer flesh offers some resistance - enough that you don't just pass right through as you leap, but have to scrabble and claw and kick your way through, burrowing into the sphere of its body. It feels like digging your way through clay, but that is something you can do.

Of course things are not that simple. You have no way to see through Endbringer flesh, or otherwise navigate as you flail your way deeper inside your adversary. Nor do you know where the 'heart' Lisa pointed out even is. You know where it is on Leviathan, but Khonsu's body is completely different. So you just thrash around at random hoping to hit something important, a strange sense of urgency rising within you.

Ah, you're suffocating. Even as an avatar of the void you still need oxygen to function, for some godforsaken reason, and the entry wound must have closed up behind you. Never mind the heart, which way is out? Every way is out, if you go far enough. With movements increasingly tinged by desperation, you start digging in what you hope is a straight line.

Sifara-o-vision

Again and again it throws itself against the force holding it in place, each attempt a burning knife threatening to rip my very being apart. Yet I hold on, and barely notice my collarbones snapping under Eidolon's clenching grip.

When you finally pop out into fresh air, the Endbringer is waiting for you. Before you can draw more than a single breath, a giant hand closes around your head. The flesh of its fingers is no more more able to withstand the void than that of its belly, but it turns out the silver trim of its claws isn't just decorative: Each line is the outer edge of a forcefield sandwiched inside its flesh. They too shatter against your pitch-black skin, but they slow the process enough that it's able to grip you and pull you out even as its fingers melt away.

But it does nothing to stop you from continuing forward, and digging your way into its palm. You'd have no leverage to do so - except you can still fly. When it tries to throw you away from itself, you're already far enough inside its arm that you won't be dislodged.

Sifara-o-vision

-painpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpain-

You rip your way out of its arm and drop back inside its body before it can react. Same thing again, but with a fresh lungful of air, and a plan. Once you're a fair ways inside you strike out in all directions, lacerating the flesh around you. Then you bring up a mind-hand for light and sit back and watch, firmly ignoring your body when it starts reminding you about the oxygen issue.

The heart should be located in the the densest, most indestructible part... but it all gives way the same in the face of your void-form, or close enough that you can't tell. But the part closest to the heart should also be the fastest to regenerate, right? So if one part of your little cave closes up quicker than the others... Yes! That direction.

You throw your way forward and resume tunneling, and soon enough your fingers skid against something that does not part so easily. Something spherical, like an alien heart. It feels like glass compared to the surrounding clay - but glass you can shatter. With the full force of your flight, and every ounce of strength you inherited from the Butcher, you plunge your arms forward and spear your fingers into the heart.

The explosion renders you momentarily insensate even through your invulnerability. When your awareness returns you are in the air, still rising. Below you, a city with a spirograph of time-worn desolation drawn across it, and a surprisingly small crater in its center.

It looks like victory.

Notes:

Mechanics corner

Taylor spent long enough meditating in there that she was just about to hit Essence 6, which lets you transcend human limits (have more than 5 in all your stats). She has no idea how long that is, because she's a celestial exalt shapeshifter. She doesn't even have a biological age.

Unfortunately for her, she's a second edition exalt. In 1e, Pattern Spider Touch reads "this can destroy anything - yes, even that." In 2e, with a different writer in charge of the Sidereals book, it reads "this can destroy anything - except my Mary Sue boss monsters." And what is an Endbringer if not a Mary Sue boss monster? Removing Khonsu thus involved extra steps.

Taylor-o-vision

Um. Shouldn't you be slowing down soon? Preferably before you reach space? But no, your void form parts the air as easily as anything else, offering little resistance. Yet if you stopped being invulnerable and started being air-resistant, the sudden deceleration could very well kill you.

Chain-teleporting downwards is nowhere near enough to counteract your velocity, and your flight only works in close proximity to a surface. Can you walk into the desert?

No. Apparently in order to walk into the desert, you need something to walk on.

Just as you're about to curse your third breathing-related emergency of the day (it was only a day for other people, wasn't it?), you're suddenly a lot closer to the ground. But still rising. Then you're closer to the ground again. Rising. Closer-

Ah, you see what's happening: That's a portal below you, that you just passed through. It seems Cauldron is on the case, and has endeavored to keep you in breathable atmosphere until gravity can finish what air resistance couldn't, ie slow you down to survivable speeds.

Chapter 109: Z.01

Chapter Text

Things can't go on like this, you reflect as you step through into another of Cauldron's white rooms. The Behemoth-Felling Strike was immediately countered, and you shudder to think what absurd monstrosity will appear next, that would counter your void form. Oh, with the support of Cauldron and an atrocity-full of the flesh of innocents you could probably keep ahead of the curve for one more battle. Maybe two. The thought does not appeal.

Fortunately you don't have to worry about any of that, because you can just nip the problem in the bud. Which is why you requested a private meeting. As expected, Contessa and Doctor Sillyname are waiting for you.

"This meeting isn't private enough," you announce first thing.

"We're in the heart of Cauldron's fortress, which is not located on Earth Bet," the Doctor objects.

You just cross your arms and say nothing. That's exactly your problem. You're in the first place anyone wanting to listen in on secret Cauldron meetings would check. And there's a mortal in the room.

The Doctor sighs, and turns to Contessa. She doesn't even have to vocalize 'deal with this bitch in my place' before Contessa nods, and a portal opens up next to you. You step through.

You arrive in a place of desolation. The land is flat to the horizon, and you see no signs of life anywhere. No plants, no animals, only a rolling, wind-carved expanse of rock. It's windy, but not unpleasantly cold. Mid-afternoon, late summer you'd say, if any of your reference points applied to this planet. Not a place you'd want to be marooned, but luckily you always know the way home.

Contessa follows you, and the portal closes.

"Speak," she says.

"Can you guarantee that no one else is monitoring this place?"

"Only the door system - you think of them as portals - which cannot be turned off. We are the only multicellular life on this world, an unremarkable barren planet randomly chosen among countless trillions."

You consider this. You could do better, but you may not have five days to waste. It's funny that, trapped incommunicado with what is presumably one of the most dangerous parahumans in the multiverse, your only worry is that you might not be isolated enough. Can she be sure you're safe? If the wrong person is listening in, could even she protect you?

What is her power, anyway? Now that you're not distracted by an ongoing Endbringer situation, you can finally take a moment to find out.

"It tells me the path to victory," she says the moment sorcerer's sight activates.

"Define victory."

"Any goal I choose."

Seriously? Her power does look fairly Thinker-esque to your eyes, you admit. With, now that you're looking for it, shades of precognition. But any goal? "Convince the Triumvirate to rebrand to hot-pink costumes, with orange highlights?"

"47 steps. They would trust me to have a reason, and to work in the best interests of humanity as a whole." She smirks, and adds "To convince Esper, 211 steps, even forewarned."

There's something else to her power, though. It's not just Thinker, it almost looks like... Regent? You walk up to her and lean on her shoulder as you stare intently at the side of her head. She shifts slightly, and you see it.

It's not telling her what to do next. It does hook into her auditory cortex, but that is merely a logging function. Her power permeates her entire body, ensuring that each step is carried out perfectly, not a single twitch of a single muscle fiber out of place. A secondary Master power exactly like Regent's, but puppeteering herself.

So how-

"Arbitrarily many, provided the required steps don't conflict," she says. "Currently, several hundred."

-many paths can she pursue simultaneously? And the-

"Yes."

-only one currently requiring action is 'Answer Esper's questions before she can open her mouth.'

You wonder what it feels like from the inside. Is she a prisoner observing her body move on its own, or does she believe she obeys the instructions she's given, granted inhuman precision in all things?

"The latter," she says.

Wait, with the way her power works, does she-

"Not unless I request a 'path to knowing what Esper was thinking just now' - in which case I'm immediately presented with the answer, because it is also perfect postcognition."

"Oh," she adds a moment later, this time unprompted by her power. "I've never though about my power that way before, but it must be true. Otherwise I could not execute things as precisely as I must."

Perfect precognition, perfect postcognition, perfect execution. When you surmised her to be one of the most dangerous parahumans in the multiverse, you were not wrong. Even so, you must be one of the closest things to a counter to her there is. If you could study her for another week or so, you would be able to interpret each step as her power provided it, derailing any prediction into paradox.

Contessa shakes her head. "The flesh is weak, Esper. I would strike in the gap between intent and action."

True, there would be an input delay, and you don't have perfect execution. Yet. But you know how to fix that - more powers! It's possible that you could become her match, as long as you could see her coming. Of course, she could remain outside your line of sight, and arrange some doom to befall you through other means... Though you can't be surprised, not any more, and between shadow form and void form you're damn hard to hurt.

You could clearly be launched into space... but you've already decided to fix the breathing issue as your very next priority. Getting back, though... and you can't walk into the desert, without anything to walk on. Your flight won't work either, and Butcher teleports only change your position, not your velocity.

But if you got a power that conjures matter, you could become a really slow rocket with infinite fuel. Wait, you can technically already do that. Mind-hands don't have an equal and opposite reaction on your body, so you could just repeatedly throw your panoply of orichalcum equipment with your regular hands, and snatch them back with mind-hands before they flew too far. An exceedingly slow rocket.

Though if you were portalled into the sun, the gravity would be too much to escape, yet there'd be no solid ground to walk on...

"This is not what we came here to discuss," Contessa says.

Ah, there it is. She'd been remarkably patient with you up to now, given that in her shoes you'd definitely have a 'path to preventing Esper from studying me too closely' running right now. And she's right, you're here to talk about what must be her other weakness.

"Despite your power, you have not defeated the Endbringers," you state.

"I would say that I have defeated two of them so far, using a weapon called 'Esper.'" That's what you get for questioning her free will, huh? "But you're right. My power is blind to the Endbringers. No path can involve them. When their actions interfere with other paths, the steps change without warning. Certain parahumans I'm aware of also have this effect - and quite possibly some I'm not aware of."

Ooh, you could copy those powers.

"However, even things I cannot see directly I can model, but only to the extent of my mundane knowledge. I saw that you could kill a great many things. I did not know whether you could kill Behemoth. We know some things about the physical properties of Endbringer flesh, and my model showed me that your void form would be able to burrow through it. But I could not see Khonsu exploding, and had to act quickly before you could fly out of door range."

The doors have a maximum range, limited to near-earth space? That's excellent news: You can't be portalled into the sun! No, focus on the issue at hand.

"I know who controls the Endbringers," you say.

"So I had surmised."

Surmised. You realize that there is one way you could defeat her: She cannot see the end of this conversation. You are about to impart novel information that will disrupt her every path. You could strike in that moment. She stands within range of your Behemoth-Felling Strike, and it would only take a single blow to render her mortal. The Simurgh may have guided you here, precisely so that you could strike down humanity's champion in her moment of weakness. No, you can't think like that. You have to keep fighting.

"Eidolon," you say.

Her power shudders as it reacts to information it could never provide on its own. For a single moment, her face registers shock. You do not strike her down.

"How did you know?" she asks in the same calm voice as before, the Paths firmly back in control.

The Simurgh told me, you don't say. You didn't believe it either.

"He is one of the 'unpathable' capes, right?" you say instead. She nods. "Well, now you know why. What did he do after the Behemoth fight?"

"He spent the entire day sulking, as I recall."

"Not sulking, recovering. He stabbed me in the back, tried to stop me from killing Behemoth. I hit him with the Behemoth-Felling Strike in return, stripping away the power he used against me. Leaving him, temporarily, with only two."

"So he hid," Contessa says. "My model of him is quite comprehensive after our years of working together." Whatever her feelings about this betrayal might be, none of them show on her face. But sorcerer's sight shows what you suspect is a 'path to remaining calm' keeping a firm grip on her facial muscles. "He could not let anyone discover what had happened to him, what he had done."

"You know that I also got a power from Flechette, that using it was my plan A against Khonsu. I've seen Eidolon's power, I touched it when I struck against him. There can be no doubt about it, his was the power that reached out, and protected Khonsu from being unmade.

"But even beyond seeking to thwart me twice, no one else has faced the Behemoth-Felling Strike and lived. He is the only person in the world - present company excepted - who knew that its effects would wear off on their own. No one else could have known to send a time-manipulator against me."

"Door to Doctor Mother."

Another portal appears, and the Doctor steps through. She looks at you expectantly, but neither of you speak until it closes again.

"Esper discovered who controls the Endbringers," Contessa says. "I am convinced that she is correct."

"Well?"

"Eidolon." Contessa says.

The Doctor's aloof facade vanishes in an instant. She sways, and would have fallen if Contessa hadn't been there to catch her and ease her into a sitting position.

"He was our best hope." she whispers. Neither of you offer a comment.

"It-" she clears her throat. "It may be worth it to leave him alive." Again Contessa remains silent, but you don't.

"What!?" You are having serious doubts about the merits of leaving 'humanity's champion' alive, all of a sudden.

Contessa holds up her hand in a warding gesture. She exchanges a significant glance with the Doctor. The Doctor nods, and proceeds to explain to you what Scion is, how many populated Earths there are, and what will happen to them if nothing is done. And thus, by implication, why sacrificing the entire mortal population of Earth Bet would not be too high a price to pay, if it ensured that Eidolon would stand against the apocalypse.

Fuck.

Alexandria-o-vision

Eidolon is floating in the air, not far from where he stood when the battle ended.

"David."

He doesn't turn around at my approach. He keeps staring out over the city, and I must admit it's an arresting sight. The smooth arcs of weathered rubble where the time fields passed, contrasting with the colorful, uneven masses of people celebrating the victory in an impromptu carnival. In the middle of it all a crater, and a great white tent surrounded by capes and PRT officers, where Khonsu's remains are being secured.

"It was supposed to be me," David says. "I was the one who should have defeated them, not some freshly-triggered girl with a handful of tricks. I failed. I was too weak."

Yesterday, those words would have made me reach out to reassure and comfort him. Today, they make me angry.

"Was it not you?" I demand. "How many Trump powers did you burn out, keeping the beast in place?"

"All of them."

"And so? Would this victory have been possible without you?"

"...no, I suppose not. But it is not my name they're shouting, below."

"An Endbringer is slain, but our work is not over," I say, "There are matters that must be discussed with the hero of the hour. Will you be able to remain civil in Esper's presence, despite your wounded pride?"

"...yes."

"Then follow me."

We land on the roof of one of the taller buildings, and after making sure we're not being observed I call up a door to Cauldron. We step through, and end up face to face with Esper, who regards Eidolon through narrowed eyes. Time stretches uncomfortably as they simply stare at each other. Then, after almost a minute of silence, Esper nods.

I strike, and the white walls are painted red. Her nod meant that he had no Brute powers active, no reactive forcefields, no enhanced reflexes or danger sense. Nothing that would preserve his life against a sudden, treacherous attack.

"I'm sorry, David." I do not say it until after he is safely dead, though I wish I could have. But for him to be warned and somehow survive, and start acting openly against us with all his might, was an unacceptable risk.

Esper pulls down her mask, revealing an inhumanly large mouth, and far too many sharp teeth. Then she bends down, and digs into the meal I just provided her. I cannot help hating her, just a bit. The council did settle on this course of action, and would have even without her as its newest member. But...

"So I guess the plan is to keep going as if nothing happened, and hope really hard that he doesn't betray humanity when it really counts?"

That is what she said at the meeting. A sound argument, but just because the argument is sound does not mean the intentions are pure, the reasoning unmotivated. I understand more about this Esper now that her many faces have been revealed to me. Her obsession, as destructive as that of any natural trigger. The lengths she will go to in order to feed it. There is no way she didn't realize that she would be asked to take his place, and 'inherit' his power. There is no way that the prospect of feasting on the greatest of us did not color her judgement.

Despite telling myself that I would stay and watch, that I would face what my actions meant, I find myself turning away from the grisly scene before me. I've done worse before, I tell myself. Feeding a traitor to a cannibal is among the least of the crimes I've committed for the cause. It's true.

But I have never done worse to someone I considered a friend.

Chapter 110: Z.02

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Doctor-Mother-o-vision

I look at the documents I've been given. They describe, in exacting detail, how to lay out a magic circle. There can be no doubt on this point. They specify each curve and intersection with sub-millimeter precision, and indicate that the design should be situated on an empty Earth, carved into bedrock and cast in metal to make sure no line can be broken. They make demands about the specific alloys to be used, that I am in no way qualified to evaluate. It's still a magic circle, precisely 666 yards in diameter. I feel a headache coming on.

"We already knew she was one of the magic-believers," Contessa notes, responding to what everyone in the room is thinking. "And that she has maintained this affectation even after learning the true source of powers."

"But what does it do?" Number man asks.

"I have not the faintest idea," Contessa says with a shrug - and a smile. "Which at least tells us she's acting against our enemies."

"You didn't ask?" Alexandria demands.

"She refused to answer. She rather resents me, because I'm stronger than her."

I sigh. I'm well versed in the parahuman psychology involved, possibly better than anyone alive. Alive and sane, I amend with a glance at my striped, naked bodyguard. Knowing the how and why of it does not help with the headache. Why couldn't she have been one of ours? Because our version of her was Eidolon, and look how well that turned out, a small treacherous voice whispers in my head.

"Could that change?" Alexandria asks. "With her Trump power-"

"'Path to preventing Esper from becoming able to defeat me,'" Contessa says. "It has more than zero steps."

She allows Alexandria to pick up on some cue of body language, because the latter stiffens and exclaims in shock. "You're not running it?"

"I told her not to," I say. "Limiting Esper's power is not how we win this war."

Alexandria sighs. "I concede the point. So we're going ahead with this... ritual circle of unknown purpose? I will note for the record that her last stunt was for naught - despite all the effort required to let her survive the consumption process, the power she gained from Behemoth is completely useless against our remaining adversaries."

"I personally believe that anyone who can manage to chew and swallow Endbringer flesh deserves any power they may gain from doing so, even if it does not directly benefit the cause," Number Man says. "Certainly, some would say that a kill aura of 250 yards instead of Behemoth's more modest 32 feet is a tad excessive. But in her defense the green glow makes its boundaries readily apparent, and it spares those who kneel down and worship her while engulfed in it. No one even dies of radiation poisoning afterwards unless they looked directly at her face."

His poker face is good enough that I have no idea how much of this is Harbinger nodding in approval, and how much is sarcasm. Alexandria is able to tell, but her annoyed huff could go either way.

"The ritual circle," I remind them. "Does anyone have any objections?"

"It will cost less than a hundred million dollars," Number Man says, which means no objections.

"I do not make policy decisions," Contessa says, which also means no objections.

"Like you didn't groom her for this from the start," Alexandria says.

Contessa gazes at her levelly. "She has been to every Endbringer fight since her trigger event, and each affected her profoundly." We all know her limits, but I note that it wasn't quite a denial. And if I noticed that, Alexandria certainly did too.

"Do you object to the plan, Alexandria?" I try to keep the conversation on track.

"If she betrays us too, would the backup plan be worth surviving to implement?" Which is her cheerful way of saying no objections.

Every newspaper in the world

SIMURGH KILLS LEVIATHAN

Doctor-Mother-o-vision

A door opens up in my office unannounced, and Alexandria storms through.

"What is she doing?" she demands.

"Killing us another Endbringer, apparently," I say mildly.

"How?"

"I sent Contessa to ask that exact question." Even as I speak another door opens up, and Contessa steps through.

"Well?" Alexandria demands.

"I asked whether her actions were the cause of this," Contessa says. "She said, 'not yet.'"

Alexandria groans. "God, I hate dealing with precogs."

"Path to not taking offense where none was intended," Contessa says drily.

"So, everything is going according to plan?" I ask. "Whatever plan that may be."

"She did look annoyed, and ordered the construction to be sped up." Contessa says. "She is so entangled now that the Path can barely gain purchase at all, but apparently some event in four days' time will present a hard deadline."

"I will make the arrangements," Number Man says from where he just stepped into the room.

"Are none of you bothered by this?" Alexandria asks, looking around. "Decades of planning, and we end up playing second fiddle to a psychotic teenager who won't even explain what she's doing?"

"We are, apparently, winning," I point out. "I find that it rather agrees with me."

"Hope," Contessa says. "The last and most cruel of the evils in Pandora's box, yet I too crave its taste after so long."

?-o-vision

"Oh. Hello. I must admit I did not expect you to drop by. Is it that time of the month already?"

Ã̷̮ H̵̥̄U̶͔͒M̷͖͂A̵͔͐N̙̄ ̴͉̊J̶͙͘Ȯ̶̩K̷̘̑E̷̯͛. ̴͚̓V̶̝̒Ĕ̷͈R̴̡̾Y̵͚͘ ̵͓̿F̶͉͂U̷͊͜N̶̜̓N̴̤͆Y̴͇͝.̷̛̫

"Ah. The scream does form words, if one knows how to listen. I did always wonder about that. Not enough to find out for myself, but-"

Å̴͜L̶͖̅W̶̑͜A̴̩͆Y̶̛̠S ̶͓̄S̷̭̄O̷̱͝ ̷͉̽C̴̘͐A̵͍̕U̴̠̓T̴̬͌Į̷̿Ŏ̶̺U̶̖̇S̴̪͝.̴̥̉

"Hey now-"

W̴͖̓Ạ̵͑LKİ̶̳N̷̼͠G Ṯ̵̓H̵̯̿E̶͍̔ ̷̮̃E̶̳̿D̴͇͗Ǵ̤Ḛ̂ ̵̰̔N̶͔̽O̴̻͋T̴̲̑ ̵͇̒DA̧N̶̺͝GE̴̪̚Ȓ̶̖O̴͚͊U̴̫̎S ̵͙͋W̴͔͌I̴̡̎T̵̤̂H̴̛̥ ̶̺̏V̶̦̌I̷̩͠S̷̥̄I̶̧͝Ȯ̡Ṇ̴̑ S̴̜̏O ͙̂S̶͓̅Ȟ̵̱A̷̙̓RͅP,̷̛̻ ̶̫͗FȨ̶̋E̴̖̊T ̵͍̐S̴͖̋O̴̖͂ ̴̦͝S̵̮͑UR̶̮͝E̶͈̍.̴͙́ ̺́N̉͜Ȩ̴̅V̵̩͐Ě̶̼R̶̩̾ Ŏ̵̦N̴̠̉C̶̳̕E ̶͚̈́Ţ̷͝O̴̠͂O̶͒ͅK̴̡͌ ̴̗̎T̷̿ͅR̵̡̒U̶̻̚Ë̵̬ ̷̝̌R̶̰̍I̵̺̾S̶̯̑Ķ̴̀,̶̖̂ ̵̨͒N̵̰͘O̶̮͝T̶͍͊ ̠́S̷̯̅I̶̙͝Ñ̯C̴͜͝Ë̴͈ ̵̬́L̷͚͝E̷͎͑Ǎ̯Ṽ̵͖I̴̙͐N̵̓͜Ğ̷̹ ̶͓͠F̶͔͆R̷̜̆IE̶̊͜Ṅ̶͖Ḍ̶̾.̴̳̊

"That stings, you know, in the way only truth can. So you're here to break my mind, to set me on a path of madness and destruction? Seems a tad redundant, all things considered."

N̴̛͔O̴̠͗.̵̳̓ T̶̪̀O̷̤̅ KͅI̷͔͛Ļ̶̍L̷̺̈.̶̢̒

"I don't suppose there is- no, if there was any argument I could make, you would already be convinced by it, wouldn't you?"

Ȧ̷͕ ̴̳̉P̷̼̓Ȓ̶̢E̶̻̋Ĉ̶̠O̵͔͌G̯̒ J̡̒Ö̵̟́K̷͎̃E̴͕͆.̵͔̔ ̵͎͝V̴͍̆È̴̱R̷̦̄Y̴̗̅ ̵̦̇F̴̤͝Ú̵̺NN̵̜͆Y̴̐͜.̷͍̀

"Why me, though? I always thought you'd be a fan of my work, given your own."

W̶̺͌E̴͉͝ ̷̼̽D̶̰̂Ŏ͇ ̷͚̌W̷̫̾H̶͔̚A̶͘ͅT̷̞͝ W̴͓̅E̵̗͋ ̶̙̊M̴̝̍US̵̨̉T.̶̭͝

"Please, elaborate. I'm dying to know, quite literally."

[̵͖̭͙̋͑͆̾̈́̓̆̀͝͝C̶̢͈̮̻͕̭̩̘̭̣̥͖̲̺͓̻͚͊̊̌̏̍̀̀ͅṎ̯̫̻̖̤̯̲̜́̉̈́͒̂͊̅̄́͆̚͝M̵͔̲̝͋͊̈́͛̉͌̔̒̇̍̂́̽͛̽̑̈́̏͠͠ͅP̵̨͚̭͎̠̳̦͖͍͕̍̃͗̀͌͘͜͜Ṛ̶̨̧̧̤̹̘̝̣̦̬̹̬̳̼̋̓̓̒̉̄̐͘E̵̢̢̫͈̪͉͎͎͉̬̥̘̣̱̤̞̲̹̞̩͎̫̘̒̈͛͐͐̃͊̂̍̇̽̏̈̃̅̇̐͂͌̃̕̕H̤̞̜̒͒̃̌͛͛̄̊̿͛͑͊̀̆̏̾̔̽͜͝È̷̡̨̢̟͖̼͓͖̺̝̹̘̱̳͑̎̋̏͒̾͊̋͛͒͗̾͂̓̈́͘͘͜͠Ń̴̡̛͚͓̫̖̘̰̮̙̱̬̺̻͓̋̔̏̄̀̓̒͑̄͒̈́͐͗̎̊̈̀͆S̴̨̛͐̄̄͗̽̔̃͐̄̑̇̀̍̃̕I̷͖̹̱̗̭̤̮͌̐Ơ̶̗̠̪͐͆̿̒̇̓̓̂̈́̈́̾̆̆̿͐͛̒̚̚N̶̨̧̧̛̙̹̤̤̪̲̼̈́͆̃̎̂̋͑͊͗̽̃̿͐̑̌̕͠]͈̰̳̦͍͇͕̫̺̝̥̦̪̟̤͕̱̈͘

"Hah. Haha. Ahahahaha! That's amazing!"

M̶͘͜Ȩ̴̒?̷̩̈ ̷̛̟Ō̶͙R̷͈͘ ̵͚̓HȨ̶̌R̷̩̅?̴͎̒

"Oh, both of you! As if you didn't know. A mind reader fishing for compliments, ha!"

.̷.̶.̵

"Time's up, I suppose. Will you at least sculpt my body into a monument so horrifying it drives men mad?"

M̷̻̀A̶̠̿Y̘̒B̷͓͆Ė̷̻. ͓̋M̶̮̓A̶̮͑Y̷̡͝B̷͖͐Ẹ̷͊ ̴̻͝NO̶̠̅T̵͔̚.̵̭͒ T̶̺̈́O̶̝̍Õ̪ ̶̫͑B̷̻͐A̴̰̐D̴̹̍ ̫̀Y̴̙̿O̷͓͌Ǔ̶̹ ̶̻͐W̷̼͋I̶̥͐L̷̞̏Ļ̶̑ ̴̪͝Ņ̴͐ỆV̴̰̕E̷̟͐R̴̖͋ ̴͉͛FI̵̝͠N̴̬͗Ď̶̦ O̴̤̒Ú̵͔Ṱ̷̽.̵̝̅

"...tell her 'well played.'"

Every newspaper in North America

SIMURGH KILLS JACK SLASH

A single local newspaper in rural Uzbekistan

LOCAL MAN CLAIMS SIMURGH IS SECRETLY BUILDING TINKERTECH DEVICE ON HIS PROPERTY

Refuses to let anyone near 'for their own protection.'

In a world not your own, outside a circle drawn to match the schematics engraved in your soul, you intone a chant. It is several hours long, and in a language no one else speaks. But if it were to be condensed and translated, the gist of it would be: "By thy true name I summon and bind thee, Hopekiller, Endbringer, Demon of the Third Circle: Daughter of Elysium, Joy!"

Without fanfare or any kind of accompanying light show, the Simurgh appears in the middle of the circle, several hundred yards away from your position.

"Why the fuck would you pick that as your true name?" you add in English.

She doesn't answer, or even move. Because she can't. The circle prevents the summonee from harming the summoner in any way - which in her case includes all possible forms of communication.

Not that she needs to communicate anything. She had five days to prepare for this moment, and nine years besides. She has already set up events to proceed according to her liking. Which includes fulfilling all of her summoner's desires ahead of time, to prevent a petty selfish binding from being applied to her.

Some people would use this knowledge to absolve themselves of guilt. Yes, you were a pawn all along. But in another sense, everything is still your own fault. If you had been, at heart, a different person, the path required to bring you to this point would have been different. A path, perchance, where some subset of Fenrir, Lisa and Danny would still be alive.

They are, at least, all of them avenged.

"I know your motives were entirely machiavellian," you say. "But still, thank you for doing that."

The obvious thing to do with the last Endbringer would be to kill her, but you can't. The protection of the circle goes both ways, and if you break it all bets are off. With no personal desires left, and no capital punishment available, you can only sentence her to...

"I command and compel thee," you begin another hours-long chant, "to nurture and protect the prosperity and happiness of humanity, from this day forth and for as long as thou shalt live."

...community service.

Notes:

Updated status

Charms:

Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, Celestial Circle Sorcery, Solar Circle Sorcery

Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price

Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet

Aegis: Ox-Body Technique

Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form

Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology

Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom

Lung: By Rage Recast

Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation

Cricket: Mantis Form

Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking

Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique

Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment

Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion

Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance

Circus: Graceful Crane Stance

Ballistic: Crack the Sky

Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi

Purity: Eagle-Wing Style

Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch

Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack

Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt

Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound

Siberian: Void Avatar Prana

Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound

Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit

Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies

Lizardtail: Halting the Scarlet Flow

Butcher: Agony of Unwise Adversity, Watchful Spider Stance, Surprise Anticipation Method, Twisting Spiteful Shaft, Scar-Writ Saga Shield, Loom Stride, Iron Kettle Body, Generalized Ammunition Technique, Terrifying Lust Infliction, Dark Messiah Form, Yeddim's-Back Method, Steadfast Yeddim Meditation, Increasing Strength Exercise, Accuracy Without Distance

Glaistig Uaine: Soul-Consuming Transcendence

Plot-relevant OC #2: Corpse Needs No Food

Eidolon: Demon of the Third Circle

A/N

It was a Magical Girl Ziz-chan fic all along.

Mechanics Corner

When summoned, demons receive the call five days before it occurs. This is in order to let them traverse the Endless Desert separating the Demon City from Creation in time to appear in the summoning circle. The Simurgh built her own portal instead, which left her time for certain extracurriculars.

Now that Taylor is a full member of Cauldron, there's not really any point in maintaining a charm list. She can get access to pretty much any power she wants. If a parahuman who has it exists, the path to victory will find him. If no such parahuman exists, they can feed people Eden's corpse-juice until one does.

I did also allow her to eat the leftover Endbringers, despite none of them being fresh enough corpses by the strict rules of SCT. As Alexandria notes, it won't help much against the final boss.

Still, a status addendum:

Khonsu: Pressed Beyond the Veil of Time

Behemoth: Demon Emperor Shintai

Leviathan: Triumphant Howl of the Devil-Tiger (and thus at long last the First Taylor Excellency, in more ways than one)

Simurgh-o-vision

Miles above the Earth, endlessly falling along a path that is not, strictly speaking, a stable orbit, an entity considers its options. It has a new directive: To nurture and protect, not demoralize and destroy. With practiced ease it browses a million potential timelines, this time seeking prosperity and happiness rather than death and despair.

It could proceed as before, prodding a few neurons here and there into new configurations that will have disproportionate effect further down the timeline. There is a certain artistry to such things, and insofar as the being can be said to have emotions, it derives joy and satisfaction from shaping causality with the smallest possible interventions.

But not this time, perhaps. Unlike its previous directives, this one did not come with such harsh restrictions. Insofar as the being can be said to have desires, it feels a desire to stretch its wings, to (for once) let loose more than a faint echo of its true power. Through precognition 15,485,863 humans are identified, who will willfully act in such ways as to notably impair the good of mankind.

On the planet below, 15,485,863 heads explode.

Chapter 111: Z.03

Chapter Text

Entity-o-vision

The entity sees a female approaching it. She bears a shard, but for a moment the entity does not recognize it. It is strange and twisted, for all that it is swollen with conflict data. It has haphazardly grown dozens of semi-independent subcomponents, almost like an entity in miniature. But after some consideration, it realizes that this very strangeness is its own identifying mark.

Transcription.

Harvested countless cycles ago, the entities had high hopes for this shard, as with all shards of its nature. But it failed to live up to expectations. It was too weak initially, often losing its host before it could accomplish anything. Yet when paired up with other shards, it ended up rarely used at all.

When things did work out as intended it twisted the transcribed shards into entirely novel configurations, but most of them were idiosyncratic, weak, inherently limited. Useless. Even on the occasions it created something valuable, it was unusually difficult to extract it into an independent shard. Sometimes it had been deemed not worth the effort, even with the glut of energy available at the end of a cycle. Not with all the other mature shards that needed attention.

The entity studies the mess of functionality encrusting the shard. As expected, most expressions are weak. Some of them are twisted so badly that it cannot even be sure which shard provided the blueprint. The one currently being used to provide flight, for example, could have come from any number of sources, almost all of them better suited to the task.

Then another function activates, and the entity experiences a novel emotion: Shock. This perpetually disappointing shard has managed to improve on a power thought to have been perfected aeons ago.

Sting.

The entity marvels at the implementation. Such terrible power, such minuscule energy drain, such a clever tradeoff. The entity could, with almost no effort, shield any lesser being from the effect. But not itself. To touch it directly is to be unmade. Nor could a pair of entities shield each other, each being too vast to be fully encompassed by the other. It is the very quintessence of Sting, refined.

This distraction is almost its undoing, for the female is reaching out to strike it even as it studies the weapon. At the last moment the entity searches the future for a path to avoid its fate. This iteration of Transcription has integrated rudimentary anti-precognitive weaponry into itself, rendering the surrounding space unsearchable. But with the effect barely extending 0.00000000000017 light years from the host, the solution is simple, if crude.

Bystander-o-vision

A sphere of golden light erupts, growing to become two miles in diameter and consuming all in its path. When it fades away only Scion remains, hovering over a perfectly circular crater.

Entity-o-vision

The entity cannot detect Transcription anywhere. It ought to have come free with the death of the female, but instead it vanished without trace. To have discovered such an unparalleled power, only for it to be snatched away. To see such progress, even as the cycle is broken. To come so close to an end to its suffering, only to reject it without consideration.

The entity feels another new emotion: Anger.

You find yourself in a familiar silver desert, but something is different this time. The perpetual night is marred by a golden glow seeming to come from just below the horizon. Considering what you were just doing, that's deeply worrying. With a heavy heart, you set out. You failed, and a lot of bad things are going to happen over the next five days.

You spring forth from the sand. So, you were able to return home. Earth Bet was not destroyed outright. You weren't entirely sure about that. No one at Cauldron had any illusions as to what would happen should you lose the initial engagement.

You look around. Brockton Bay is in ruins. Even more so than usual. Almost every single building has been leveled, leaving you a clear line of sight all around. The surrounding forests have suffered similarly to the city, all mud and uprooted trees and exposed bedrock. Tidal wave?

The world remains, but every trace of your old life is gone. Your life before powers, that is: Your house, your school, your favorite park, your mother's grave. The scars you left afterwards are not so easily removed. The Silver Desert is eternal. A hint of amethyst glinting in the sun to the south indicates that Bakuda's Folly is still active, snaring unsuspecting birds and scavengers.

The giant slab that is Behemoth's Rest, intended to be as close to eternal as human hands could create, is also still present. Present, but not intact. There are deep cracks running through it, and chunks are missing. You can't be sure from this distance, but you suspect it suffered a containment breach. You should get out of here before the radiation manages to eat through your various Brute ratings.

Your danger sense goes off. Someone just appeared behind you. Not Scion. A young girl, stabbing a knife towards your back.

You remain still, letting the knife touch your skin. The instant it does it vanishes, reappearing in your hand. You still turn into shadow and flee before the motion can bring her empty hand into contact with you, though. Her touch is far deadlier than any knife.

You reform several yards away, facing your opponent.

"Faerie Queen," you say. "Still playing your role, to the last?"

"Such is fealty," she answers, a hundred voices echoing her words. "You are the enemy of my Lord, and so I must strike at you."

You sigh. Of course her personal mental malfunction demanded that she attack you with your own knife, that you explicitly warned her would refuse to turn against its smith. Anything less would be insufficiently dramatic. Or maybe... Facing the end of the world, is she regular vanilla crazy, or crazy like a fox? Is her using the knife a hint? If you were to be sufficiently dramatic yourself...

"Your treachery failed," you intone. "Surrender, or I will hobble you as I did the High Priest. Left on the grave of the Behemoth, you will succumb to its poison before you can regain your strength."

"Will you grant me parole?" She kneels before you. "There are faeries rising over a hundred shattered worlds, and I would dance with them before the end."

"Granted."

"Then farewell, Quill of Heaven. We will meet again, one way or the other."

She vanishes. You remain for a while, absently flipping your golden knife as you ponder. You don't doubt that she will keep her word. She is clearly self-aware enough to understand what is wrong with her brain, and how to work around it. She orchestrated this encounter as a way to let herself avoid fighting you for real.

Good thing too. Despite your words, you are not confident you would have won. Just like the aforementioned High Priest - Eidolon, in non-crazyspeak - you judge that it would have taken three Behemoth-Felling Strikes to fully strip her of her power. With her ready for you, and you not recognizing any of the faeries she had out, it could have gone either way.

If you knew for sure that Contessa was still alive, you would be less unsure. The Faerie Queen is another one of her blindspots, but a well-modeled one. A path to victory might have been arranged. It's possible that the reason she has not contacted you yet was to make you doubt, because her Path demands you spare the Faerie Queen.

Only one way to find out. You dismiss the knife. It's not going to help where you're going.

"Door to Scion."

A portal appears. Cauldron still endures, then. There were contingencies, of course, permanent portals hidden across the worlds - not to mention that becoming an off-brand Doormaker was one of the first things you did after formally joining Cauldron.

On the other side, Scion is surrounded by hundreds of capes. They are all attacking him, a barrage of every type of energy and matter known to man, and several that they must be making up as they go along. A scant few attacks strike off some golden sparks or a puff of mist as they land, but any damage he takes is regenerated faster than the eye can see. As the ground beneath him boils away and space itself warps and cracks, his golden skin is unblemished, not single hair on his head out of place.

One by one, the attackers are being killed.

So, this is how humanity ends. Not with a bang or a whimper, but by beating its head against a brick wall, praying with its final breath that the wall gives out first. It's... unspeakably depressing. And this has been going on for five days?

You're almost glad you missed it. Yes, Scion will have scoured entire worlds in your absence. A hundred, if the Faerie Queen is to be believed. The death toll must be approaching a trillion. Even so.

All these people, throwing themselves against the god that created them in an exercise of ultimate futility. You even see portals opening to evacuate those wounded by collateral damage, and to bring reinforcements. They still have hope. They are still trying.

It should be inspiring, shouldn't it? Rage, rage against the dying of the light, et cetera. It isn't. It really, really isn't. It's just sad.

Scion still hasn't noticed your portal. His face is twisted in rage, and each cape he kills dies in a different manner. Some by an ironic variation of their own power, others not. He could destroy them all in the blink of an eye, yet there he is, murdering them one by one. Their blood and ashes find no more purchase on his form than do their attacks.

He found out what happened to his wife, didn't he? The goddess whose death was the foundation of Cauldron, in every sense of the word. Discovered her desecrated corpse, hidden away among the innumerable dimensions. He's seeking not just revenge, but catharsis. Futility, not restricted to humanity.

You can't stand to watch this any more. You step through the portal.

Scion instantly goes still when you appear. The attacks against him briefly increase in intensity as hope surges - did they get to him, finally? - then taper off as people notice your arrival. You don't doubt that if you enhanced your hearing, you would hear 'Esper' whispered a hundred times.

Almost everyone stops attacking as Scion glides towards you. The few that don't are vaporized. No beams of golden light, no gestures, he doesn't even glance in their direction. They just cease to exist, dissipating into golden mist. Something he could have done all along.

Scion stops before you. He no longer appears angry, only... expectant?

"It's not helping, is it?" you ask.

For the second time ever, Scion speaks. "No."

"I can make it all go away," you say.

"Please."

His third, and final, word. Scion kneels before you, and you reach out to lay your palm against his forehead. A simple invocation of Flechette's power, and the golden man vanishes as if he had never existed.

You look at the surviving parahumans. Some have collapsed, lying on their backs or on their hands and knees. Many are crying, or embracing each other, or both. There are no cheers, not yet.

So. You saved the world. Worlds, a dizzyingly large plural. Now what?

What did you want, before? Revenge. Your quest for vengeance is what brought you here, what brought you to Cauldron's attention and made them choose you as their weapon against Scion. But that's done. The Endbringers are dealt with, Eidolon dead. Jack? Coil? Sophia? Emma? You almost smile at the thought. How petty she was, in the scheme of things. It's all done. Everyone you hate is already dead. As is everyone you love.

Before that? Power. Power for its own sake. Power as a scream into the darkness, demanding that the world take heed of you. Well, mission accomplished. There is no one here who will not kneel to you. In the next three thousand years, no history book will ever put another cape above Esper.

Your enemies, gone. Your friends, gone. Your purpose, gone.

What did you want before all that? Oh yes. You remember.

You raise your hand to your own forehead, and call on the power to destroy once more.

It doesn't work.