Chapter 2 - Markus I
If my lips existed right now, they would be pulled into a smile of pure delight. For almost thirty years I had been on Earth Bet and finally I had the power that was promised to me. The feeling of finally being one of the powerful… I couldn't describe it. Nothing compared to it, not even when I held my son for the first time.
The night lit up as Lung roared in pain, a wall of fire surrounding him as he stumbled back. He had grown 4 feet in seconds, new arms covered in silver scales and brutal looking claws practically bursting out of his stumps, his draconic face split into four elongated flaps filled with sharp teeth. The sight should have been frightening to me, was frightening to me just two minutes ago when I thought my life was truly over without ever getting this power. Now, it just elicited a slight feeling of amusement.
What was a dragon before a Black Hole?
The power to become one of the most destructive phenomena in the universe was a heady sensation, like I could crush the world around me with just a single thought. And I almost did, the temptation almost too much to resist.
The knowledge that I had the potential to trigger was always in the back of my mind and it had informed almost everything I did. In my second youth people around me thought I had a death wish when I did all those extreme sports and suicidal stunts, back when I still thought I could somehow cheat the system with enough adrenaline.
I knew better now, I knew the truth now. I probably had known the truth since I had gotten my cancer diagnosis almost two years ago and still didn't trigger.
The night was now bright as day in Brockton Bay as Lungs new arms came down on me, a plume of almost white flames preceding every single one of his movements. My current round shape was large enough that the still growing gang leader had no chance of missing me.
The truth was that I had to stop believing I could ever become powerful, I had to truly accept that I was destined to be an ant, puppeteered to be two lines in a novel millions of words long. Destined to be crushed and saved at the whims of those more powerful than me. I had to stop believing in the one thing that drove my second life and… I had to give into despair.
Those moments when I turned around and stared my assured death in the face, the knowledge that even if I escaped somehow, that the cancer would kill me before I could recover from my wounds, those moments would be with me for the rest of eternity.
Playing around with Lung suddenly didn't appeal to me anymore.
A single thought and I opened a valve in my mind. The world was plunged back into darkness as all the fire Lungs power was producing was sucked beyond my event horizon. I could only enjoy the dragon's face of bewilderment for a single second before he followed his flames, never to be seen again.
Dennis I
Dennis had hated meetings for as long as he had been part of the Wards, a group of teenage heroes under the Protectorate. Even before Director Piggy made him take all those PR remedial lessons just because he wanted to choose his own name instead of being fucking 'TickTockboy'. He chuckled, Clockblocker was one of his better spur of the moment ideas, fitting perfectly with his powers of freezing anything he touched in time. Soon he would have to figure out another way to tweak his boss's nose, well, after she had gotten over the last time he had trolled his own forum threads. He wasn't suicidal.
"Shh!" Gallant softly shushed him, the knight-like helmet of his fellow Ward giving him a judgmental look. He probably saw the mischievous mood Dennis was currently in and wanted to rain on his parade, Dean was a party pooper like that. Surprisingly, having a friend that could sense emotions wasn't actually useful, like at all.
"Yeah, shut up creep." Of course Sophia didn't miss the opportunity to pile on. She had been especially on edge the last couple weeks, snapping at the other Wards even worse than usual and for the littlest things too. Shame that she was such a bitch, Dennis would have asked her out otherwise. Well, to be honest he still would have if he wasn't 100 percent sure she would tear him a new one in response.
Dennis could only shrug at the heroes-in-training and, now that the other two Wards currently on duty had chimed in on his slight breach of protocol, he once again tuned into some bureaucrats' massively dry lecture about a change in console protocol. They usually had a couple of these briefings a month, mostly minor stuff that could have honestly been handled via email, and was the main use of the Ward exclusive conference room; the oval desk and chairs seeing less action than any other room in the brig. It was probably some idiots idea of training them for serious Protectorate meetings later on but Dennis couldn't see how torturing them with boredom now would make the same torture later on less painful.
Then, right at the moment the lecture finally finished, the door to the conference room opened and Armsmaster marched in, Miss Militia in tow. The both of them were their official babysitters though Miss Militia was their by far more frequent one. Armsmaster was usually too busy with his Tinker tech and planning Protectorate operations in the city to answer any of their questions or dole out advice. Not that Dennis was particularly interested in asking him anything, he was halfway convinced that the Protectorate leader had replaced his brain with a computer at some point and couldn't feel human emotions anymore.
"Shadowstalker, Gallant, follow Miss Militia to the training room, Clockblocker, stay here." Armsmaster didn't even acknowledge the bureaucrat, his tone even more clipped than usual as his blue, power armored frame moved to the front of the room with uncannily smooth steps.
Dean and Dennis himself sat up in surprise at that pronouncement. "Wouldn't it be better if I stayed?" "I didn't do it." They looked at each other in surprise, Dennis confused as to why his friend wanted to see him get punished for something he couldn't remember. He did appreciate the effort though.
"I won't repeat myself." Armsmaster just barreled over whatever Dean's argument was and Miss Militia was waving at Dennis' friend to join Sophia next to her. Even though Dennis couldn't see through Shadowstalker's full face mask, he was sure she was smugly staring at him by the way her chin was tilted up just a smidge. He hated how he found it kind of cute.
"Dennis, if you ever need to talk, my door is always open." Miss Militia distracted him from staring at Sophias backside as she left the room, her eyes pulled into a worried expression, her mouth hidden by an american flag bandana. Dennis blinked in confusion. He must have really screwed something up if even she thought he was screwed.
"Thanks Miss M but I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding, I haven't pranked anyone in… two weeks." He reassured his supervisor, a slight grin on his face even if he knew she wouldn't be able to see it behind his helmet. "But I will keep the offer in mind."
"...Good." The superheroine once more visibly grimaced before turning to the side to let the obviously nervous Gallant by. His friend was glancing at Miss Militia and whatever his power had told him had him looking back at Dennis and Armsmaster with enough force that Dennis was worried he had broken his neck.
"See you later." Dennis waved his friend off as Miss Militia closed the door behind her and he turned his attention back to Armsmaster. Dean seriously worried too much over the smallest things. Hopefully his reaming out wouldn't take too long, he wanted to be back home early today, his mom still wasn't back to her normal self…
"Clockblocker, I want you to watch this video." Armsmaster stabbed through his thoughts with ruthless efficiency as the large TV at the front of the room turned on without the hero visibly doing anything. In Dennis's opinion he just stood there like he had crapped himself. "We got a report of a new…"
"Wait, wait, you aren't punishing me?" Dennis interrupted, mainly just to be annoying. He barely managed to suppress a chuckle as Armsmaster visibly held himself back from grinding his teeth at being cut off. He could almost see the beard hairs of his goatee bristle.
"...As I was saying." The hero stoically continued after a moment, ignoring his charge's question. "We got a report of a new trigger and the Director received a warning from Watchdog Thinkers immediately afterwards. While I am not at liberty to disclose the exact wording, Director Piggot believes that you have some insight in this situation." That Armsmaster himself didn't share that opinion was obvious from the way he started to frown even more severely.
"Soo, you just want me to watch a video of what? Of the public trigger of some poor guy or girl?" Dennis crossed his arms, his amusement thoroughly ruined and suddenly more uncomfortable with the situation than if he had just been punished for something he hadn't done.
If it was someone else watching his own trigger event… He wouldn't want that, he wouldn't want anyone else to see him at his lowest point. The nurses and the doctor were more than enough and if he had the opportunity to erase their memories, and his own for that matter, he would take it in a heartbeat.
"Yes." Of course Armsmaster didn't care, the tightening of his jaw muscles showing his annoyance. "It was very public, witnessed by at least twenty five civilians in person and three surveillance cameras. As… distasteful as it is, there aren't any privacy issues you have to concern yourself with."
Or maybe this was Piggys punishment instead, forcing him to listen to and interact with Armsmaster. But no, he doubted it, the Director was about as subtle as a sledge hammer. If she doled out punishment she wanted her victim to know that it was a punishment.
Dennis breathed out, the reflexive emotional tightness at thinking about his own Trigger Event slowly loosening. "Fine, what exactly should I give my opinion on? I'm not exactly an expert on anything, really."
"Watch the video and tell me if something stands out to you." Armsmaster almost sighed as the grainy night vision surveillance video played on the monitor hung on the wall of the conference room.
It was filmed with a fisheye lens from the first story, angled downwards so about two thirds of the two lane street and the entrance of a hospital building were in the shot at the same time. There was a black timer on the top left which ticked on as the footage played. Dennis' first thought was that somebody should contact a landscaping company about that dead patch of grass on either side of the double doors, it was not very inviting. Two out of ten as far as hospitals went.
That's when he noticed the blurred out spot in the middle of the road. Dennis squinted his eyes and leaned forward. "There is something censored there."
"That was me." His superior answered with a clipped tone, telling Dennis to drop it.
"Okay, then I don't know what I'm supp…" Dennis complained but before he could even finish the sentence, a man slowly stumbled out of the blur. The video quality wasn't the best so he could only make out that he was holding his stomach and there was a… blade handle poking out of his ribs, and, and he knew those pants. The logo on the right pant leg unmistakably stood out even in the subpar resolution.
Those pants he had seen many times in person, just hanging over that one useless chair every adult bedroom seemed to have. The pair of pants his mother playfully complained about more than once when she found them in the white clothes hamper. He had even worn them himself a couple of times when he was little, wanting to be more like the owner of those stupid fucking pants.
"Fuck." His stomach fell deeper than it had in a long time. "That's my dad."
AN: Imagine you get a deal with a ROB, it tells you you can get powers immediately but they aren't earth shakingly powerful or you can opt in for a natural trigger and get a really fuck off powerful power. You of course choose the second option because you aren't a wimp. Then spend thirty years unsuccessfully trying to trigger and on the side you have a son, who triggers really easy (in your mind) plus it turns out he is a canon character, what are the odds of that.
How would you feel?