[disclaimer - Wildbow owns Worm, I don't own Worm]
BANG!
I woke to the sound of gunshots in the distance, shivering slightly on hard, rough ground, rocks jabbing my partially exposed back. Yes, I probably should have done something to acknowledge the fucking gunshots, but you know, I had just woken up somewhere that distinctly wasn't my bed, or in fact anywhere near my place as far as I could tell, and I was kind of panicking and terrified, and consequently froze in place in the alley I found myself in, unable to think properly at all, at least for a couple minutes. I only jolted into some semblance of action when I heard more fucking gunshots, louder than they were before, and legged it away from them in a blind panic, running through decrepit alleyways which stank of urban decay and broken spirits.
As the gunshots vanished into the distance behind me, I slowed to a halt and finally took some time to look around and analyse my situation. The first thing I noticed was that my body was wrong, wrong, wrong. I had no breasts, I was sweating way too much, and my skin was rough and uncomfortable and I squirmed. Fuck. Whatever had brought me here had completely erased any of my transition and I was already feeling the mental and physical effects, the distinct dysphorias of various body parts and the effect of testosterone on my brain swirling into the dreaded depths of depressive hopelessness. I wanted to scream, to cry, and curl up on the floor and sleep forever, but my instinctive repressive response to outward emotional reactions was kicking in and thank fuck for that because I heard a racket just around the corner, and just about had time to hide behind a dumpster before I saw several people, in red and black and with Nazi tattoos.
They were facing away for now, but I didn't take the chance and as quietly as possible shuffled further back behind a dumpster, so there was no way for them to see me just by walking down the street. Staring at the dumpster (not like I had much else to look at right at that moment), I noticed a bit of graffiti, two 8's interlocked in black, with a red outline around it.
Well that smells fashy and also I really fucking hate Nazis, I thought to myself. By this point I was having suspicions on what was going on. Red and black clothes colours, Nazi symbols, graffiti'd 88s? That sounded suspiciously like the Empire 88 gang from Worm. In which case, oh shit.
It was then I noticed the 5 charges, ready and waiting in my mind's eye. Just looking at them I could feel the conceptual bullshit involved in them, the most pure concept of "tinker" jammed into malleable things for me to play with, and I was instantly distracted from the Nazis by shiny new bullshit conceptual powers because that's how my brain works with new things. I was going to do so much with this, the munchkin potential of these powers was practically infinite. Despite the depressive state I was in I was nearly overrun with giddy excitement, almost cackling with the sheer potential capabilities for everyone everywhere, running through possibilities of what I could do with these in my head, just for a bit.
While the Nazis walked past the dumpster, I twisted one of the charges into a specialisation I knew I needed to survive, in case my instinctive understanding was wrong and they were locked down. I pulled on the charge with the concept of hormones, and the charge shifted to the side in my mind's eye, with a purple haze covering it, and I felt a rush of blueprints and understanding as to the nature of hormones in life of all forms, some local to earth and some so alien it was impossible to describe. It felt limited, though. Under-powered, barely usable for any complex task without significant effort and with a clear cap on technological capability that I just knew was barely a sliver of the true potential of hormone related technology.
Then I tried the part of the powers that would make me the most bullshit tinker to exist in Worm (if I was in Worm, I still hadn't confirmed that yet), and pulled the concept of hormones out of the purple charge, feeling the understanding of potent technologies slip away, as the charge returned to a plain, glowing white. I peeked out from behind the dumpster, and the Nazis finally walked around the corner at the other end of the alleyway. Testing could come later, I needed information and shelter first. I was hesitant to leave though, the thought of anyone seeing my body like this made me wince, let alone the obvious danger of asking anyone to actually use my pronouns in a city with enough Nazis that being dumped randomly in it had them be the people I first saw. Right now I had no meaningful way to defend myself at all other than legging it as fast as I can, and I'm not particularly physically fit.
It took several minutes, but I managed to convince myself to start walking down the alleyway, in the opposite direction from which the Nazis went to. Presumably they were going somewhere, and places with large collections of Nazis were places I wasn't remotely interested in going to. So, with some trepidation I began looking for some form of location indicator, pacing down more of the decaying alleyways and avoiding the larger streets where I would be seen. Eventually, after more wandering and near-misses with running into Nazis, I found a junction with road signs pointing to various places. Two of them confirmed my worst suspicions - the one pointing forward, to a region with more modern buildings, labelled "Brockton Bay Commercial District", and the one pointing leftward, to "Downtown [PRT Headquarters]".
This meant I was in Worm, or something sufficiently similar that it had Brockton Bay as a city, which meant I had a number of different threats to think about, even though I was barely functional right now, without companions, and harbouring more dangerous information than even Cauldron could manage. What an absolute shitshow, not even starting on the more low-level threats like the Empire and Coil, both of whom would be willing to kill me (or in Coil's case, have me drugged in a cell underground as a just-as-unpleasant alternative). Even thinking about this made me want to scream in frustration, but hey, the first part of solving a problem is recognising there is one right? And having totally bullshit tinker powers at least partially made up for it and provided a potent solution to the issue if I could just get somewhere to bootstrap myself enough for self defense.
Unfortunately, the discreetness I'd managed to maintain so far collapsed, as while I was poking my head out of an alley looking at the road sign and contemplating how deep in shit I currently was, apparently a Wards patrol (of Clockblocker and who I presumed was Gallant) had snuck up behind me rather quietly. Presumably, Gallant had sensed my intense depression, dysphoria, anxiety, isolation, and fear (all of which I was desperately trying to repress to get a handle on my situation and not have a complete breakdown right at the worst possible time). When I heard them, I physically jumped around, let out a small "eep", and nearly ran away but my freeze response apparently won out and I just sort of stared at them, mind racing about what the fuck I was meant to do if they talked to me. Which of course they did because I totally needed attention on me right now. Gallant (or who I presumed was Gallant) was the first to speak.
"Are you OK Mr..."
...and somehow my mood became even worse at the sudden (if expected) misgendering, and I saw Gallant flinch (which provided more evidence of him reading my emotional state and, in fact, being Gallant), and I replied - with the hope that at least the Wards wouldn't be bigoted dicks on this shithole planet -
"it's Mx., and I'm Zychi, and I'm not really OK but I doubt there's much anyone can do about it right now heh"
- and Clockblocker's masked eyes raised for a second before seeming to recognise what I meant and gave me a mild nod. Gallant looked like he'd made some kind of revelation (i guessed he perhaps had never seen what colour gender dysphoria corresponded to before or something), then winced at the second thing. I shuffled awkwardly, head jerking around everywhere but where the Wards' eyes were, as my initial freeze response was wearing off.
"Well, if you see any Nazis or other cape-led gang fights please give the PRT a call on this number," - Gallant handed me a small card with the PRT and Protectorate numbers on them - "and we should deal with them. We actually came through here because someone called in a fight between Hookwolf and Skidmark earlier. Did you see anything?"
I shook my head and told them I'd only been here a few minutes, but about an hour ago I heard a gunfight.
"Well, you do look extremely tense. If something traumatic happened to you you can give us a call, yeah", Clockblocker stated, not unkindly, though I guessed he was offering a hint in case I was a fresh trigger, given Gallant's subvocalisation into the communicator that probably wasn't as discreet as he thought. I guess my mental state was sufficiently fucked up for that to be a logical conclusion, huh.
I mumbled a positive response and the Wards left me to my thoughts again. The sun was apparently beginning to set at this point (I seemed to have woken in the evening), and I knew I needed shelter soon of some kind. Being outside in Brockton Bay at night was not the sort of activity that appealed to me in the slightest.
[end of chapter - nya~]